On the evening of May 11, a post was published on reddit in which the user indicated that the trainer of the squad Alliance by Dota 2 Peter ppd Daguerre communicated with the players during the match against Brame as part of the second season of DPC 2023 for Europe. This publication caused a heated discussion in the community and led to a revision of the tournament rules. Cybersport.ru tells what happened.
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How it all started
A post on reddit was noticed by a support OG n0tail, who saw in the actions of Alliance a direct violation of the tournament rules, since previously communication with the coach or any other outsider during the match was prohibited. Sundstein negatively assessed the actions of the Alliance players, comparing them with the use of macros, and even called opponents cheaters.
“I was never allowed to communicate with a coach while playing Dota. Zero respect for people who cheat. It was the same when they used macros and said that “this is not against the rules” and “I still need to know when to use them.” LOL “.
A few hours after the post was posted on reddit esports analyst Ben Noxville Steenuizen reported that at least three sources said the rules for using coach assistance in matches were changed by Valve prior to the start of season two. According to him, the league organizers notified the teams about this by e-mail. This information was confirmed on reddit by a representative. No bounty hunter… OG missed the message, so it didn’t know about the change in the rules.
After that, n0tail changed its rhetoric, but chided Alliance for not informing other teams about the new rules.
“Secret, Nigma, Liquid are teams, the honesty and decency of which I could confirm with a bet of my right hand, we know the rules of the game, respect them and value them. And there are many others on this list who are looking for clarity and responsibility.
I don’t blame Alliance for checking the ESL rules and following them. Although I believe that she could have acted differently and acted in the same way as the rest of the teams, as we usually do. But these things are happening.
This is IMPORTANT news. We need communication. “
Kerry Alliance reacted to this tweet. Nikolay Nikobaby Nikolov:
“You call us weaklings and cheaters, even though you haven’t read the rules yourself. You are one example of how one of the “greatest” Dota players should behave. “
N0tail replied that the team should have warned the other season participants:
“And imagine that next time the letter will arrive in the wrong place by mistake, but it says:“ During matches, you can drive up to a hundred people into discord ”. I’m still convinced that the normal behavior in this situation would be to contact other teams and ask: “Hey, guys, will you play six now too?” I’m still sure you knew that no one else plays like that. ”
Rules are not for everyone
It turned out that the rule concerning coaches was changed only in the CIS and Europe. Moreover, as it turns out later, it was an initiative of ESL and DreamHack, which, moreover, did not inform Valve about this. Tournament regulations in other regions remained exactly the same as in the first season. This was announced by the director Fnatic Eric ReiNNNN Chorus and confirmed tournament operator in charge of Southeast Asia, PGL.
“PGL has just confirmed that the rules remain the same for DPC 2023 for Southeast Asia. Coaches cannot communicate with the team during the game and can only interact with the players during the draft and break. “
This news confused the community and professional players even more:
“So, hypothetically, all qualifications have different rules … This is absurd, we need an official explanation on this topic.”
“It turns out that in Europe we can play six on six, but in Southeast Asia – five on five. What’s happening?”
In the CIS, several clubs also confirmed that they knew about the change in the rules from the start of the second season. However, neither Virtus.pronor Team Spirit did not use this option and resort to the help of mentors during matches.
“Yes, we received a notification about the change in the rules, but did not quite understand if it was possible to communicate during the game. I was more interested in whether it was possible to watch the game in real time, and not on the broadcast on Twitch. This time, they were allowed to watch the game through the stream in Discord from the player, which is good, since it was very inconvenient to listen to the communication, and the moment itself was seen only five minutes later on the stream.
As for the help from the coach during the game, I, of course, also thought about it, but I’m not sure if this is a good idea, since the team has already built communication, and this can only do harm. Of course, it can play a plus, but the game has never been such that the coach communicates during the game with the team. And even though it is permitted by the rules, the thought still hovers in the air that this is wrong, and besides, it will only make the team worse at LAN tournaments. “
“We knew about the changes in advance, but we still adhere to the position that a coach is not needed for our squad now. Perhaps this will change in the future. In any case, it is interesting for us to observe the experience of the teams that introduce the coach into in-game communication. “
Other teams also paid attention to emails from DPC organizers. For example, support Level UP Nikola LeBronDota Popovich stated that his roster also knew about the coaching innovation from the very start of the second season.
“Before the start of the DPC, we received a letter about a new rule related to coaches. We clarified this with the DreamLeague administrators, and they again confirmed that the coach can be with us in the voice channel. It’s funny that the multimillionaire companies missed this information. “
Community reaction
Most of the community agreed that in this case the problem is not in OG, who carelessly follows the mail, and not in Alliance, which did not tell other teams about the rule, but in the organizers of the tournament, who could not convey information to the entire community.
The CEO of OG, for example, noted that such global changes cannot be carried out so secretly, moreover, without including them in the main list of rules:
“Information about this change was emailed to managers, but the point itself was not included in the rules book that was sent to club owners. And the rule had many open interpretations. They are [участники Alliance] interpreted it as “well, we can take advantage of this.”
For the avoidance of confusion: This was not an email with the headline “Changing the Future of Dota 2: Introducing the Sixth Man into the Game”, it was ONE paragraph in an email to managers. In no case should such large-scale changes be introduced in such a way! “
A similar opinion was expressed by a former participant. CR4ZY Curtis Aui_2000 Ling…
“The Alliance that followed the rules and used the coach in the game should not be criticized, but the said rule seems terrible both from the point of view of concept and from the point of view of implementation. Permitting the coaches to play is a huge change that needs to be communicated without just a line in an email. “
Former coach Vega squadron Muriel Kips Huisman sided with Alliance and advised disgruntled clubs to look elsewhere for the problem.
“There should be no complaints about Alliance. The rule was invented by ESL. He was not noticed by employees of other teams. So you can direct your anger towards those in charge. “
RuHub commentators Vladimir Maelstorm Kuzminov and Ivan Lazar ‘Lazarev also sided with the Alliance.
Interestingly, did the Aliks manage to cling to and accurately play in the endings of the games because of the coach? It is quite possible. As for honesty, then personally, in my opinion, all claims are groundless.
– Maelstorm (@MaelstormOne) May 12, 2023
“It is wrong to shout that those who follow the rules, albeit recently changed, are cheaters! If you break the rules, you are a cheater! If you can quickly adapt to the changed conditions – well done! “
Squad manager Natus Vincere on Dota 2 Sergey AnahRoniX Bykovsky noticed that over the ten years of Dota 2 existence, the developers have not been able to create a clear communication channel with teams that would help to avoid such situations.
Omitting all the hype with the rules, the search for the right and the wrong, we can say one thing: for 10 years there has not yet been created a simple and understandable channel for everyone from the publisher of the game to the esports team, which would guarantee the flow of information and exclude curious moments. 1/2
– Sergey Bykovskiy (@AnahRonixXx) May 12, 2023
And finally, in order to exclude such situations, you need to create one “information board” for all teams, and understand who writes there and who is responsible for it. Then infa from the publisher will reach the teams without intermediaries and errors.
– Sergey Bykovskiy (@AnahRonixXx) May 12, 2023
Many users and professional players did not like the very idea of the possible integration of a coach into the gameplay. According to the offlaner OG Sebastian Ceb Debs, such an approach would remove some of the responsibilities from esportsmen, which looks like an extremely dubious prospect.
“Let’s imagine what it means to have a coach in the game. This person will oversee many things for the players. He will help them monitor the situation on the map while they are focused on the game. He will ensure that communication remains effective and clear, repeating or emphasizing important information. He will monitor the team’s mood during the game. Obviously, he will also help the team strategically. I still believe that these are the things that the players themselves have to watch out for, because at the end of the day, that’s the nature of Dota 2. If you change that, then most of what makes a great player great will be taken away. Personally, I think that if this happens, then this is the saddest thing that has happened to Dota 2 in recent years. ”
The analyst also adheres to this position. Kirill Sunlight Kachinsky:
Oh, and the coaching drama. In general, this is too imbalanced a topic, to have a coach who monitors the smallest details on the map, what to do, etc. The fact that the alliance was abused and found a loophole is a twofold situation. Well, if I am, I’m ready to be a coach))) LFT
– Sunlight (@Sunlightdota) May 12, 2023
Of course, it was not without jokes and memes. Maincast Announcer Roman CaspeRRR Lepekhin helped users figure out this convoluted case with just two tweets.
I got it right. The case has been solved. Don’t thank. https://t.co/EaqNFnZmLG
– Roman Lepokhin (@Casperenush) May 12, 2023
Alliance manager Maria Gunina revealed to the community a secret about the specifics of her work.
What a community manager should be able to do: carry water What a manager really should be able to do: read
– Marie Gunina (@gunina_ok) May 12, 2023
Official Twitter Team Secret humorously approached the announcement of the team bundles, crossed out the Alliance logo on the image and urged the community to support “honest” teams.
The Dota 2 Supporters Clubs are finally here! Time to support your local honest hard-working teams ?? https://t.co/maaDR5xbiP pic.twitter.com/73zMiJRi5c
– Team Secret (@teamsecret) May 11, 2023
“It’s time to support honest teams”
If Alliance quickly stopped criticizing, after learning that the team acted according to the regulations, then quite a lot of negativity poured out on n0tail, especially on Twitter and on reddit. Gamers even came up with a new nickname for Sundstein, hinting that OG does not check mail – n0mail.
The idea was supported by a former Alliance player Henrik AdmiralBulldog Anberg:
N0mail
– Henrik Ahnberg (@AdmiralBulldog) May 12, 2023
True, after a couple of hours Anberg defended n0tail, criticizing his haters:
“N0tail is one of the nicest guys, but after one bad incident, he was immediately hit by a wave of negativity on the Internet. People just love to watch others burn. It’s sad. Laughed while reading some of the comments on reddit. “
And here is the commentator Vitalia v1lat Volochaya this drama with the coaches did not impress:
“This drama turned out to be boring. Bring a new one. “
What is the bottom line?
At 14:30 Moscow time, less than a day after the publication of the first post on reddit, the DPC organizers in Europe and the CIS released updated rules. They say that now the teams will again not be able to resort to the help of mentors during the match. It will be possible to communicate with the coach only until the end of the draft stage and between maps. The statement also said that TO apologizes to the teams for changing the rules between seasons. In addition, the organizers emphasized that Alliance and any other teams that used the coaches’ help did not break the rules. ESL and DreamHack cited the fact that such a system is inconsistent with Valve’s position on the role of coaches as a reason for the removal of this rule. However, there have been no official comments from Valve itself at the moment.
Despite the fact that Alliance was not the only team that knew about the new rules, and acted within the framework of the regulations, Sundstein did not apologize to the team’s players for accusations of cheating. However, n0tail laughed it off on Twitter, writing that he agreed to change the nickname to n0mail.
