A little TL:DR history, feel free to skip the next two paragraphs.
Dota 2 is my main hobby, bordering on obsession, these days and I have begun to embrace the game as a sort of monitoring experiment for my personal state of mind. Being that the game relies heavily on teamwork, coordination and communication, proper play is not something that can be performed adequately from a poor headspace. A while back I challenged myself to climb the MMR rankings ladder and while the attempt would be viewed as unsuccessful on the surface I discovered a lot about how I personally deal with pressure and the idea of “work”. It was 30+ days of grinding games to do little more than tread water.
Interestingly, once I stopped my personal challenge, took a break and then returned to playing I shot up 1000 MMR points in only a month of playing. Each and every game was fun and while I interacted with my teammates in a brief, command-style communication approach I mostly treated the 9 other players on the map like computer AI characters. Obviously, success is a fun experience but I do note that I stayed quite positive even during my losing games over this stretch, again barely acknowledging that I was playing with any other humans.
The past week has been an interesting one. My normally calm demeanor in game is entirely gone and I find myself not only playing poorly but taking everything out on my team. The experience has been so bizarre because I am witnessing myself be harsh to people for no reason from an almost third person perspective. I keep asking myself, mid tirade, why I am being so aggressive and until now I didn’t have an answer. After a night of negatively impacting my team mates at an exceptional level I found that my chat privileges had been utterly revoked.
That’s right, I was completely muted from voice and text communication in game with my peers. At first I was confused since I had never really put much stock in the in-game reporting system. I used it fairly regularly in hopes that maybe, at the very least, Valve’s matchmaking system would take pity and not throw me in with people I had previously felt the need to report for being toxic personalities. Yet, here I was, muzzled. For the space of 24 hours I was no longer allowed to interact with anyone in game except by using the chat wheel and my 3 key-bound phrases “Help, Careful and Get Back!”. I could also ping the map a limited number of times to indicate objectives.
After the initial shock at actually being muted wore off I decided it seemed like an interesting challenge to overcome. Over the 24-hour period I played 4 more games, winning two and losing two. It should be noted that the chat wheel only allows you to say things like “Relax, you’re doing fine,” “Nice!” and “Affirmative” which meant I could only encourage teamwork. A strange thing began to happen during my period of enforced silence. I suddenly began to enjoy the game again. While I was at times frustrated with the decisions my teammates made I could no longer voice this to them in any form. I began to notice that my only option was to accept them and play accordingly. Shortly after something bad would happen I would move on and the game would continue. I found that even lopsided games became less lopsided when I couldn’t express how badly we were losing. In fact, both games that I won were ones that seemed all but lost before mounting late comebacks.
Probably my favorite part of the experience was observing my team interacting with each other without having any input. Things would go poorly and the flaming would start. Listening to this happen behind the now soundproof window of my computer was the ultimate objective experiment. If you’ve ever been the sober person at a party the experience could not have been more similar. Watching your friends get progressively louder and stupider as the drinks are downed can make you reflect on your own drunken escapades in a different light.
Player A would get angry at Player B for dying and Player B would escalate by being defensive. Sometimes player C would take one of the sides and escalate further. Where I normally might have played the role of Player D...ickhead and interjected by with further criticism or the only slightly less inflammatory “shut the fuck up and play the game,” I now could only offer silence as I witnessed both their play and arguments get substantially stupider. I was the eye of the hurricane now without any other available options and it suited me just fine. Even if I made a mistake there was nothing I could do but accept and move forward without response.
In hindsight I can say that some frustrating aspects of my personal life must have begun to use Dota as an outlet. Somewhere along the way I had lost almost all enjoyment of the game itself and relied entirely on whether I won or lost to lighten my mood or darken it. The descent into madness, pun only half intended, was a subtle one as I must have continued to tell myself I was enjoying playing Dota. After this experience however, I am not only motivated to directly address the underlying frustrations but I have a newfound respect for the power of quiet focus and positivity.
Thanks for reading.