Valve have announced that they will be making some changes to DOTA 2’s MMR, for those of you who aren’t up to scratch with MOBA terminology, or just think acronym MMR is a vaccine then here is a quick crash course on what MMR is.
MMR or Matchmaking Rating is a value that is set in MOBAs that determines the skill level of each player. This value is particularly used in Matchmaking and winning matches will increase players MMR. Basically it’s a good way of matching players who are relatively on the same skill level meaning that you should get an even match up every time you jump into matchmaking online.
So what’s changing? The biggest change announced is that players will now have to register a unique phone number in order to jump into ranked matches. This change has been added by Valve in order to reduce the number of players who have been using multiple accounts in ranked matches. Valve stated that multiple accounts have “a negative matchmaking experience at all skill brackets.”. Ideally, this change will make a noticeable difference in players making multiple accounts in order to climb the ranks and achieve DOTA 2 world domination, as well as making players focus more on their primary DOTA 2 accounts. The aim of this will be to try an eliminate ‘smurf’ accounts, new accounts created by experienced DOTA 2 players who bring that experience against new players, often destroying their opposition.
This is a mandatory change that will take effect on the 4th of May, so if you are not best pleased with the change we suggest cramming in as many ranked matches now before the change takes effect.
The inclusion of registering a new phone number for matchmaking is not a new idea for Valve. They implemented the same change to CS:GO’s Prime matchmaking, which has had a positive effect so far, as matchmaking’s quality in CS GO is at an all time high. It’s worth noting however that CS:GO still offers regular ranked play without phone registration. A option that will simply not be available in DOTA 2 after the 4th of May 2017.
It is also worth noting that players are able to remove a phone number from their DOTA 2 account, doing so however will render that phone number completely inactive for 3 months meaning you will not be able to use it on any other DOTA 2 account for that period. Valve stated that this is to prevent users from removing their phone number and then immediately adding it to another account. On top of this Valve have also confirmed that they will not be allowing phone numbers from online services to be registered, meaning numbers from services such as Google Voice will more than likely not be valid.
You can check out the blog post from Valve here. It is not all doom and gloom however as there have been other changes added, such as ranked solo queue, party changes and new and improved handling of undesirable behaviors in matchmaking.
