Clues on How To Solve Dota2 a Community Problem: Leaving
Tl;dr version: skip to "How to Improve a Community by solving it's Leaver Problem", Section: "What then, is a Possible Solution?"
Zeromumble is awesome ;)

The Situation, as it is.
Righto! So, we are currently in October, some two odd months after the International left us all packing from our respective games of HoN, DotA 1, or LoL. Since then, the most exciting thing to have happened to us has been the lifting of the NDA, letting us collectively out a sigh of relief and begin gushing over new content day after day after day; you get the point. However, the issue at hand is that from what we've seen so far, there are a majority of things that need to be addressed before we can even try an open beta: The optimization of the matchmaking system, Regional divisions, perhaps the implementation of ladder play, how to create a viable social system, the much awaited implementation of the coaching system, and so on and so forth.

The Important Issues at Hand
However, the thing is that these are not the things that we, as a fan community, can effectively improve upon without having played the beta itself. From looking at the things posted before me, I can tell that there is an overwhelming demand to fix several things that have drawn the ire of the community for promoting elitism and bickering amongst players: bad players playing amongst good players, verbal abuse or racial taunts, and of course, leavers.

Two of these things are best left up to Valve's engineers and extensive feedback from Dota2's current beta community: the issue of optimizing a matchmaking system to separate the skilled players from those not yet ready for competitive play and the censoring of slurs and verbal taunts.

For the issue of verbal abuse, first we must recognize that this has not been the first game Valve has made that is infamous for a community of players that actively goad each other over their keyboards and mics - Counterstrike and TF2 being prime examples. I would argue that, according to recent unfortunate events concerning an irked middle-aged man tracking down an unfortunate teenager who happened to have done one humiliation too many, the Dota2 community's issues with explicit language are far more tame than with other games. That is not to say that verbal abuse is appropriate - just that I'm sure that while a censoring system would be appreciated, it would hardly do anything to stop angered gamers from expressing their disappointment with their fellow gamers.

On the issue of matchmaking, we must recognize that there have been several attempts at creating a ladder play style for Dota-type games, and that they have had varying success and separating the good players from the bad. Of these, HoN's PSR system comes to mind as the most successful of the group, but even then there have been issues with bad players at all ranks of play except for the highest tier of competitive play, which unfortunately was plagued with such long wait times that "smurf" accounts, or low leveled accounts with highly skilled players on them, began terrorizing the lower brackets. While I'm sure there may be a player or two out there with ingenious ideas of how to optimize this system, without sufficient data it would be rather pointless for us to armchair theorize on how to optimize the skill profiling system for millions of players. It would be best to leave it to Valve's engineers.

So then, this leaves only one problem to solve: leaving. And there is a solution to this so simple and clear that it has amazed me to think that it has not been implemented yet. Perhaps now it will; and now:

How to Improve a Community by solving it's Leaver Problem.

Ah yes. The issue that CAN be solved by mere armchair theorists like you or I (Valve people reading this not included). The leaver problem. To summarize the causes and effects leavers can have on a game, here are a few examples:

Examples of Leavers and Their Negative Impact on Games

Example 1
Player 1 and his team Players 1 - 5 are playing against Players 6 - 10. However, Player 1 has some urgent business to attend to or his internet connection has been terminated by an errant housecat, Maru, or by some force of nature passing by his ISP's service center. He becomes a "leaver". His team, after having waited in vain for him to reconnect, is severely demoralized at the realization that they are playing against uneven odds and concede the game. They are left feeling irked that their enjoyable game and investment of time has been wasted.

Cause: Unfortunate, unavoidable circumstances
Effect: Minor to Immense ire of Players 2 - 5, depending on time invested and impact of the outcome of the game upon their user statistics. Minor - Moderate Resentment develops.

Example 2
Players 1 - 5 have been having an enjoyable game with Players 6 - 10, but after a turning point, Player 3 has fallen deeply behind and is the focus of Players 6 & 7 for an being an easy target. Players 1, 2, 4, and 5 become quickly irritated with Player 3's game play and verbally taunt him. Player 3, angry with his teammate's lack of support of him in a rough period of play, leaves the game. The game is 4 v 5 again, and Player's 1, 2, 4, and 5 are so upset that Player 3 has so negatively impacted their game that they also leave.

Cause: Poor play leading to the angry exit of a player
Effect: Players 1 - 5 are all equally angered with the outcome and moderate to heavy resentment develops. There is a possibility that several players will confront Player 3 after the game and an argument will ensue.

Example 3
Player 4 is playing a hero that requires a high skill ceiling, and having had previous success, Player 4 is highly confident that he will play well and perhaps "carry" the team to victory in the late gaming phase, provided he does not fall behind or meets certain goals, such as farming enough gold for vital items or having "ganked" enough enemy heroes to have created a large level advantage. Player 4 pronounces as such to his teammates, acting in a somewhat brash manner. Player 5 is playing a hero with a relatively low skill ceiling; however, Player 5 is slumping in his play or has little experience with the hero. He proceeds to "feed" by giving up free kills to the other team or making crucial and obvious mistakes. Consequently, Player 4 is unable to carry as effectively as he would have hoped and even been ganked a couple of times. The ire of Players 1 - 3 at Players 4 & 5 for not having met their expectations, and the anger of Player 4 at Player 5 is immense. Player 4 leaves the game, and Player 5 quickly follows. The match quickly goes to Players 6 - 10.

Cause: The failure of Players 4 & 5 to effectively deliver to their teammates expectations - in truth, neither of these had to happen at the same time, and only one would have caused the same effects as if both had failed to reach expectations.
Effects: Players 1 - 3 extremely irritated; there is a possibility they may concede the game and leave even before Players 4 & 5 leave. Players 4 & 5 will bear a heavy grudge and refuse to play with each other again, in most circumstances.

Example 4
The most extreme and sadly, the most often occurring example of leaving happens when two Players or more, in this case 6 & 7, join a game together expecting to play well. They request to be paired together, as they are friends and expect to have better teamwork with each other than the rest. However they do not reach their own or their teammates expectations and, irked with the rest of their teammates more than themselves, leave the game. Players 8 - 10 are extremely irked by the pair and will have to concede the game since the situation has turned into an extremely unfavorable 3 v 5.

Cause: Friends playing together turned wrong.
Effects: In most cases, these friends quite confidently advertise their synergy before the game and when they leave under these circumstances they draw extreme ire for having boasted high expectations and having blamed the rest of their team more than themselves for the loss.
In the case they DO blame themselves, an undesirable situation develops where two friends in real life become irritated with each other and carry that irritation out to their next game with them or that irritation becomes the cause of their falling out.

What then, is a Possible Solution?

Finally the heart of this post. I apologize for the long read; otherwise, my tl;dr notice has caught your eye and you will have been pleased to have avoided reading what you already knew.

How do you solve the ire of a community at a leaver? In the esports genre, there has been no real solution thus far, perhaps because we have only just reached a turning point of influence and popularity. HoN, LoL, and DotA 1 has had some success in implementing a profiling system tracking the number of games left and assigning "Verified Leaver" statuses to repeat offenders. However, while these preventive measures have introduced a penalty for players who leave, what it does not do is alleviate the irk of the people left behind nor does it stop the influence leavers have on games. Preventing the leaver isn't enough to help the community. There has to be a dressing applied to the wound to stop it from bleeding and getting infected.

So here's the clear and simple solution to leavers: Just substitute someone else in.

It is that simple. If you think about it, regular team sports all over the world operate in a fashion similar to that of Dota-genre games: a group of players come together and opt to play against another group. When an athlete for a real sport is injured, it is akin to having "left" the game and influences the game as such. However, what happens then? Someone will be substituted in of course. The person will take on the role of the "leaver", and while results will vary depending on the substitute, the broader effect is that the game is no longer compromised by the disadvantage of uneven numbers.

Just imagine. You're in a game with a bunch of other players, playing an enjoyable game, when Maru chews through the Ethernet cable connecting your teammate's computer to his modem. Mayhem ensues for a second while he stands frozen in time, but within minutes, seconds even, his hero moves again. Only this time, it's not the same player as before, but struggling together, you somehow prevail over the other team because the crucial element this substitute provided, whether it was burst damage, supportive heals, or simply just a big green bar of hp to divvy up the damage. In the case that all goes well, you'll have long forgotten the fact that there even was a leaver to begin with, and go on to your next game feeling quite exuberant and pleased with yourself.

Of course there will be issues on how this can be implemented. Of the top of my mind, there are several ways this can work:

    Make it an option on the matchmaking system to opt in as a substitute, with out-of-game benefits such as currency that can be exchanged for, oh I don't know....hats? or achievements maybe leading to currency for hats?
    This will allow for not only a successful substitution, but also shorter queuing times
    Allow a coach to substitute in for a player who has definitively left and clicked the option to cancel reconnection. This allows not only for someone experienced with the game to join in, but it also gives a reliable substitute that can switch in seconds after the leaver has left.
    Of course, to stop exploitation of this type of substitution, a grace period of 15 seconds or so before the coach is allowed to be subbed in must be implemented where his spectator privileges must be revoked. Also, a grace period of 5 - 10 in which all items would be allowed to be sold back for full or three-quarters value would be prudent in encouraging players to sub in for leavers more often.
    Letting a spectator to join in - with the grace period of removing all spectator vision benefits of course. Perhaps in light of the fact that the coach has been influencing the leaver since the beginning of the game, the grace period of item sellbacks should be limited to only spectators and opt-ins from matchmaking.


As you can see, the gist of the idea is easy to understand, and perhaps easy to implement as well. As a Dota2 stream watcher, it has been saddening at times to see that the beta has been influenced heavily by players leaving frequently and the demoralizing and angering effects it has on their teammates - the matchmaking takes too long and there are too few players on the beta for leaving to be allowed to have as much influence as it does. I sincerely hope that this Substitution or Pinch-Player system can do something to alleviate the influence a leaver can have on the fun of the game and the health of the community.