Chinese griefers ask YaphetS up to $3,000 for a normal Dota 2 pub experience

What the intentional feeders do for free on the western Dota 2 servers, in China the practice became a whole new profession and it’s close to getting to a sort of organized crime entity that hunts down popular streamers and high MMR players.

Bu “YaphetS” Yanjun, made a lengthy report on his Weibo account, providing not only the story of intentional feeding raised at a professional rank in China, but he also produced screenshots from a chat group where account boosters ask him for approximately $3,000 (CNY 20,000) to let him play a normal pub game. According to YaphetS, on the past month he dropped from the top 100 on leaderboards to top 400, and it all happened because he is hunted in the pub matches by intentional feeders, “actors” as he calls them.

Translated below, is YaphetS’s Weibo post

“I’m not a “Justice Bringer”, I’m only an ordinary player who loves this game and wants to bring back purity to the Chinese pubs.

The first time I realized there are lots of “actors” in pubs was when I owned 2 accounts ranked in the top 100.  At that time lots of people had already told me about the existence of “actors”, but I didn’t believe it. Because I knew nobody would admit that they lost because they are not skilled enough, it’s easier to find an excuse.

It turns out I was wrong.

About a week ago I received a “warning”, saying that I can get a top 10 rank as long as I pay them. I turned them down without even thinking about that, because that would ruin this game and even if I make it to the top 10 by paying them, I don’t really belong to that skill bracket. After turning them down, I still thought if I’m skilled enough, I would eventually climb my way up in the leaderboard. After all, it’s impossible to have actors in all my games, right? Well, it turns out I’m not skilled enough, and my mentality would indeed get affected after losing a couple of games because of “actors”. Currently both my accounts are at rank ~400

There are just TOO MANY actors.

I heard that some high profile players have already surrendered and paid them. Just now when I was streaming, there was an actor who intentionally threw my game.

I’m done.

I’ll not surrender even if I keep finding actors that ruin my game, never.”

YaphetS has also provided a couple of screenshots of conversation taking place in a chat group where these Chinese pubs “actors” directly ask him for a monthly fee.

20K RMB a month, that’s not a lot.
Let’s do 200K a month, Pis is a pretty high-profile streamer after all.

YYF is online, anyone wants to have some fun?
Anyways if you get matched with YYF, DM me.
People around 6400 MMR might start queueing, where is everyone?

MMR 5500 Actor wanted, carry our client to win or throw if you are on the other team. Client is a 6000 MMR support player.
MMR 5500 actor wanted, we need 3 net wins.
MMR 6500 actor wanted, 100 RMB per game with instant payment.

If we can make us famous, there will be more people willing to pay.

We need to make them lose the confidence to play ranked. If they want to play, pay us first, then the money will keep coming.

What are you talking about?
As long as Pis doesn’t pay us
We won’t let him go.
In the future, if you want to play ranked.
You need to pay
Understood?

High MMR pub games stopped being fun for a long time. The Dota 2 professional players are constantly harassed, regardless of the region and it seems that the more their stream or the more successful they are in the competitive scene, the more they get targeted by people with low morale conduit. The times when fans were there to support them and encourage them in their professional careers shifted to a state where star players have to constantly deal with hatred and actions that can easily be classified as online crimes.

• Read: The Pros and Trolls of Dota 2

Back in January 2019, David “MoonMeander” Tan and Brian “BananaSlamJamma” Canavan explained in detail the horrific pub experience on the NA servers. High profile players and TI winners were pushed to the limit of their patience in European pubs this year and triggered mistakes that in the end got them punished while those who intentionally ruin the games face no consequences.

In the aftermath of the recent Ceb drama, Valve decided to work with the players towards a solution to prevent toxicity in public matches, however, the discussion with the game developer will take place in August, during the annual player’s meeting with Valve at The International.