Dota 2

I came back to Dota 2 after not playing since 2018, and I honestly can't believe how far the game has fallen. The current report and punishment system is absurd. Players can report you simply because they don't like the way you played, the hero you picked, a decision you made, or because they need someone to blame for losing. In a competitive game, disagreements and mistakes are inevitable, yet the system gives other players far too much influence over whether you are allowed to continue playing. I'm convinced that even professional Champions League-level players could join regular matchmaking and still get reported by random teammates who think they know better. After 1,500+ hours, I also see absolutely no reason to spend money on Dota anymore. Why buy expensive skins or support the game financially when a few angry players can report you and you can end up unable to play? You can literally have hundreds of euros worth of cosmetics on an account and still have your evening ruined because some random kids decided they didn't like how you played. Dota used to be a game I could recommend. In its current state, I can't.

The game rewards low skill players by a poorly thoughout report system that enables mass reporting with poor oversight. If a low skill player has a high behaviour score, they are allowed to judge any skill level of a match and subsequently apply their degree of understanding to their judgment. If 3 players dogpile on their best player and mass report them, it damages their account reputation even if they never utterered a word. The resulting impact is regressive match making, a rapidly worstening gameplay experience and 0 feedback or evidence provided for the arbitrarily assigned punishment. There are few competitive games out there these days, of this nature, what a shame to be so thoughless and wreckless in how you structure - punish and reward players. The core game itself is exellent, the conduct system and assessment of player skill is an utter disaster.

I mostly played the arcade but Valve decided to pull the plug on the arcade by removing dedicated servers

The most toxic game ever so far in human history. Try at your own peril. The bad matches and experience will outnumber the few good, fun experiences you have. Just totally not worth the mental toll and frustration. You will not be happy playing this game. Only the trolls and toxic people will enjoy. I gave it so much time, time i could have spent doing something else but enough is enough, Took me this long to finally uninstall and delete this game. Don't make the same mistake. Learn from my mistake.