Increasing the Difficulty

During college, I spent around 2,000 hours playing DOTA 2.

If you’re unfamiliar with the game… there’s no concise way to explain it. Maybe go watch the finals of the last major competition to get an idea.

The gist is that it’s one of the most complex multiplayer games online, and is one of the biggest competitive esports in the world. Developing even a basic competency in the game requires knowing the ins and outs of 115 different characters. Compare that to the 6 in chess, or the 1 in FortNite.

DOTA 2 was always uniquely addicting to me. The community around it and having friends to play with was part of that obsession, but a bigger part was the way the game challenges you.

In DOTA, you have an “MMR,” a “matchmaking rating” that determines who you’re paired with and against. It’s a rough way to quantify your skill relative to everyone else playing DOTA so that you’re always in a well balanced game.

Because of how robust their MMR system has gotten, you’ll rarely play a game where you completely stomp the other team or get completely stomped. Almost every game is an intense, focused, test of your abilities, where you can only win by being a bit better than you were the day before.

Compare that to any game where you choose a difficulty level (Easy, Normal Hard, etc.). A…