If you misbehave in DotA 2, Valve has a new ban ceiling which will effectively ban you for the life of the game. It's not messing around, with the worst cheaters and toxic players now banned for as long as 20 years, getting rid of them for good -- unless they want to start up a new Steam account with a new phone number to get back in to the game.
Valve recently updated its ban practices as part of a larger overhaul of its matchmaking system. It now uses a more analytical approach to bans and suspensions, giving a behaviour score to individual players based on how they behave in game, how their fellow players report or praise them, and how Valve itself perceives them if it has to investigate their actions more closely.
Players who have been ranked as the most exceptionally toxic have been caught out in the recent ban wave and Valve has pledged to repeat the practice periodically to effectively sweep the most distasteful elements in the DotA 2 community under the rug and out of the main player base for good.
"Users that reach this low level of behavior in the game are too big of a tax on the rest of the community," Valve says, "and are not wanted."
As PCGamesN points out, this move has been well received by the wider community, most praising Valve's attempt to rid the game of its worst elements. Some have complained, but they are almost always those who have been banned, so few seem concerned about them.
More bans are coming down the pipe too, as Valve has pledged to continually improve its algorithm to search out the worst offenders. If you aren't a very nice DotA 2 player and want to continue playing, it's time to clean up your act.
