NS Proposed Changes to Speed Up Dota 2 Matches
Former professional player Yaroslav “NS” Kuznetsov spoke on his stream about the length of Dota 2 matches and suggested measures to speed them up.
“We need to do it like in Legion TD, where there’s a cap on the maximum amount of gold every minute”—no, we need to remove the ramp from the high ground and take buybacks out of the game. That’s what we need to do, instead of coming up with some nonsense out of thin air—some gold limits? What the *** [damn]?! Remove buybacks, remove the ramp, and that’s it—play and have fun against the computer.
And it wouldn’t hurt to “turbo” the game a bit, either. By “turbo,” I mean speeding up parts of it. Not exactly like in Turbo, but just to make things move a little faster.
Read also: Seleri noted Chen’s lack of popularity and the length of matches at The International 2026
The International 2026 set a record among tournaments in the series over the past seven years for the number of games lasting over an hour, and on average, its matches nearly reached the 47-minute mark. According to Team Spirit analyst Mark “sikle” Lerman, the developers are aware of the situation and may make changes to the macro game in the next major patch. The current version is 7.41f, released a few weeks after TI.
Commentator John “johnxfire” Fernandez also weighed in on game duration. He noted that macro play hasn’t changed recently, despite shifts in the meta. The caster believes that players should be better rewarded for their performance in the early game and for strong play on the lanes and in the mid-game.
Photo by Helena Kristiansson, Turtle Entertainment.
