All you smurfs and Dota trolls, watch out.
A new patch for Dota 2 will require players to link a phone number to their accounts to participate in ranked matches, to prevent users from creating multiple accounts, also known as “smurfing”.
“Smurfing” is usually done by veteran players pretending to be beginners, or finding a way around the game’s low-priority matchmaking due to bad behavior. The new patch will take effect on May 4.
Of course, Valve knows that the process isn’t perfect. According to Valve:
“Our goal is to add just enough friction to this process that the number of players doing this will be noticeably reduced.”
Although unranked play won’t require a phone number to be matched with another player, players using their phone number-linked accounts will “have a positive effect” on Ranked and Unranked Matchmaking, according to Valve.
Thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments!
