From my experience with free-to-play games, the player base usually consists of players more willing to speak through text chat rather than using voice chat. Free-to-play games also trained players to use text chat since many of the popular free titles didn't feature any in-game voice communication.
With that in mind, Dota 2 see its fair share of text communication. With text communication you will also find players more willing to trash talk and curse as their identity remains concealed behind a sentence of letters.
When looking for root causes to a player quitting a Dota 2 matches, Valve stumbled upon the realization that player quitting comes from negative communication, not the outcome of a match. Rather than just taking action on assumptions, Valve aimed to collect data that appropriately reflected the roots causes.
In a recent blog post, the Dota team expressed their desire to keep free player speech, but also recognized the problems associated with it. Some players just can't accurately express their thoughts leading to negative communication experiences, which ultimately results in a player quitting.
The Dota 2 team only wants players to quit if they dislike the game, not because of toxic chat. And to apply bans properly, much like the Overwatch update in Counter Strike: Global Offensive, they look patterns, not just reports from a single game.
Their data showed that muting doesn't help once the interaction occurs and more often than not, players don't even know how to mute or if the feature even exists. It doesn't solve the problem in the end or help players, it only pushes it aside.
"…offensive players can be rehabilitated and that they manage to modify their communication so that they don’t cause negative interactions."
The Dota team eventually saw a drop in the percentage of player reported for communication bans and noticed that previously banned players improved their behaviour. For some better understanding, the Dota team provided some statistics on the improvement.
- 35% drop in negative communication interactions since the new ban system
- Less than a 1% ban of active players in the last month
- 60% of previously banned players change their behaviour and don't receive further punishment
- Total reports of player down 30%
