Changes to Dota 2's high-ranking spectator rights spark controversy

Recently, Valve quietly made a major adjustment to "Dota 2". Although it did not involve the game mechanism itself, it was enough to shake the entire high-segment ecosystem.

This change is mainly aimed at the "Immortal Draft" system. The core content is to restrict the disclosure of game information of high MMR players, which has triggered extensive discussions among the player community and third-party developers.

According to the update, the participation threshold of Immortal Draft has been raised from 6500 MMR to 8500 MMR, limiting the mode to the top 0.5% of the world's top players. At the same time, all games above 8500 MMR will no longer appear in the public battle records, and the access rights to the recordings are limited to the participants themselves.

In addition, high-ranking players need to register an official and unchangeable username and cannot form a team for ladder ranking. This move undoubtedly hits third-party platforms that rely on public data, such as the famous data website Dota2ProTracker.

Valve has not released any official explanation for this change. However, there are many speculations within the community, and the current reasons include: high-end tactics are quickly understood, leading to the rigidity of the game version; the rampant phenomenon of match-fixing, proxy play, and mutual win-win; professional players' inappropriate behavior in public games; and abuse of small accounts.

In addition, some people worry that this move may destroy the entire Dota 2 professional ecosystem. High MMR game data has always been crucial for the analysis of hero win rates, equipment trends, tactical evolution, etc. Third-party platforms and analysts rely on this data to track and provide feedback on game balance.

The information blockade means that the data gap between mainstream players and professional analysts will become increasingly wide. As for how this change will affect the interaction between professional players, analysts and the general audience in the long run, it remains to be seen.