DOTA 2 fans finally got some respite after Valve confirmed the permanent banning of more than 40,000 accounts due to their association with exploits in the game.
The bans are just the latest part of Valve’s long-overdue cleanup effort to rid DOTA 2 of several ongoing backend issues, saying:
Today, we permanently banned over 40,000 accounts that were using third-party software to cheat in Dota over the last few weeks. This software was able to access information used internally by the Dota client that wasn’t visible during normal gameplay, giving the cheater an unfair advantage. While fixing the underlying issues that made these cheats possible was a priority, we have also decided to remove these bad actors from the active Dota playerbase.
Basically, what Valve did was set a trap that isolated accounts using third-party cheat software. Valve used the information it gathered to ban with “extremely high confidence that every ban was well-deserved” any account that triggered the alarms.
Valve didn’t name the specific exploit it addressed, but it was likely referring to a vision hack that used the unique properties of the Ultimate skill of the DOTA 2 hero, Slark. “Shadow Dance” is a multi-pronged ability granting Slark multiple perks. One is that the hero regenerates health whenever he’s outside of the enemy vision. Hackers used this to their advantage to get a visual cue so that cheaters would know when an enemy is close by.
DOTA 2, along with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, has been Valve’s bread and better for the past decade. The survival of both games now hinges on how well Valve can take care of the current and ongoing issues, among others.
For what it’s worth, Valve has promised that this ban wave is just the beginning. Fingers crossed, Valve has hired someone to help the much-meme’d Janitor clean up the mess.
Valve is reportedly working on a new VR headset and a DOTA 2 spin-off as well as new Steam Decks.
