Cap: “The Dota 2 interface is literally the best of any game out there.”

SVG: I think the main goal was simply to get rid of that inflation at the top. It’s kind of like a soft seasonal reset. That’s how I see it. I don’t think their goal was to kick people out of high-tier lobbies or anything like that. It seems to me that, in the end, you’ll get pretty much the same game, to be honest. I think they just narrowed the MMR range, which probably makes it easier for the algorithm to find players and match them up, right?

Because, as I see it, one of the big problems is that these players with 15,000–17,000 MMR—it’s unclear what value they actually add to the system. It doesn’t really matter. So they needed to be brought back down a bit. Maybe this will give people more opportunities to recalibrate a bit or just add a sense of a new season. I think that’s cool. To be honest, I don’t play ranked matches that often anymore. My days of playing at high MMR are behind me. I find it too stressful. People there annoy me more. I think it’s the worst way to play Dota 2.

I think over the last year or two, Dota 2 has been increasingly focused on 5v5 gameplay rather than solo queue. If you look at any of the changes they’ve introduced over the last three or four years, how many of them were aimed at solo play? I’d say very few. That’s probably the last thing they’ve focused on. Most of it has been content-related: bug fixes, cosmetic items, “The Fallen Crown.” None of that has anything to do with ranked matchmaking.

As far as we know, the ranked matchmaking algorithm hasn’t changed at all in six or seven years. Maybe that’s not actually the case, but it seems like there haven’t been any changes. I get the feeling that they just don’t care. And maybe that’s for the best. I don’t think there’s any way to really improve it significantly enough to noticeably change players’ daily experience in Dota 2. So, to hell with it. They’d be better off working on other things and making the game more interesting.

Cap: I’ll give Valve credit—and plenty of it. I think the Dota 2 interface is literally the best of any game out there. The number of settings you can customize, the amount of stats you have access to—it’s insane. I don’t really understand why they put so much effort into it, but it’s pretty cool that they just keep developing it, developing it, and developing it—and it seems like there’s no end in sight. Now we have even more post-game stats. There’s a new stat for damage absorbed by the team. There’s a stat for damage dealt, and to be honest, I don’t understand what that is. Is it something like an Ion Shell?

SVG: I don’t know, man. All I know is that with every patch, this thing gets more and more complicated. I don’t even want to open the settings tab anymore. It scares me. It’s like some kind of biblical anthology.

Cap: You just sit there and think, “What the hell, why are there so many tabs here?”

SVG: It’s overwhelming. I swear, somewhere at Valve there’s a guy with ten PhDs whose life’s goal is to create the greatest settings and user interface in history. He’s just been working on this thing for 10 years. And I tip my hat to him. This guy is a true soldier; he gets the job done. He’s way ahead of everyone else. I don’t know, maybe he has a personal connection with Gabe, and every year he goes out to his yacht, and Gabe asks, “So, how’s the interface coming along?” And he replies, “Everything’s great, boss, I’m still working on it.” It’s some kind of 20-year project. I don’t know what’s going on at all, but this thing has gotten out of control, and it’s both terrible and impressive. Someone needs to help this guy. Someone needs to step in.

Cap: I think that might actually be why he ended up at Valve in the first place. You know how there are all these health and fitness apps and stuff like that? You have a watch that tracks various body metrics and all that. I think this is the culmination of all that. It’s the ultimate way to turn life into a set of statistics. At some point, Valve will just turn around and start selling this monster, and you’ll have absolutely every possible statistic and metric of your entire life laid out before you on a colorful tablet.

Cap: What changes stood out to you the most? What do you think will really impact the meta at The International?

SVG: This is yet another e-patch—a minor update with a bunch of small changes. And, to be honest, most likely none of them individually will make much of a difference. The meta will probably shift due to a chain reaction: for example, a certain hero became 5% weaker, so his counterpicks became 5% stronger, and because those heroes became stronger, it affects other heroes as well. It seems to me that the main thing to expect is simply a change in the hero pool. I think that’s what will be the most noticeable effect.

Cap: I’m not sure, but you have to admit, they definitely nerfed Snapfire a bit, right? That was the biggest nerf. Yeah, they nerfed her Mortimer Kisses.

SVG: I think she’ll most likely disappear from the meta. And I’m a little sad about that, because I think she’s a fun hero. Maybe Necrophos, too. They nerfed him a bit. But then again, I think Necrophos is the kind of hero you don’t necessarily have to nerf directly to make him weaker. It’s enough to just slightly buff his counters. He’s very dependent on matchups. So, maybe something like that will affect the meta as well. There were also some interesting changes involving ultimate cooldown reductions. For example, Ancient Apparition received a 10-second reduction to his ultimate cooldown starting at level one, and for this hero, that’s a pretty significant change. When the cooldown on the ultimate is reduced for these niche heroes who have a strong impact in team fights, it really propels them into the meta. We saw this with Warlock; we saw it with Lion. I think half the reason Lion became a viable hero in the first place is that Finger of Death now has a cooldown at level one that’s a full 60 seconds shorter than before. It was one of the most outdated cooldowns in history. If you play Lion, you know what I’m talking about. Before, you’d use Finger of Death and think, “Well, guys, see you in three minutes.” But now you can actually build up a decent number of stacks. So these cooldown changes have a big impact on the game, especially for heroes who rely heavily on their ultimates, like Ancient Apparition. I found that pretty interesting.