Valve disables broken Dota 2 hero after exploitable server crash bug plagues game

Valve is forced to disable Lone Druid after Dota2 Players have discovered a nasty bug involving a neutral item interaction that can crash matches almost at will. The hero remains inaccessible until developers find a fix for the druid and his spirit bear companion.

The bug gained momentum in the run-up to last weekend, with Dota2 The devs eventually pulled the plug on Lone Druid in a small update on August 10th. Lone Druid will not be available to select in any mode, as the bug stems from an interaction between the hero and his spirit bear. After transferring an active neutral item from the bear to the hero and back, any command subsequently sent to the bear would crash the server, ending the game for everyone.

Whether it was teleporting the bear to Lone Druid’s location, selling an item from the bear in a shop, or using an active item on an ally or enemy, the server would crash and kick everyone to the main menu. Lone Druid players could essentially hijack a game when they were losing, or accidentally break the server by doing something that would otherwise be considered normal in Dota.

Lone Druid received a Facet update two weeks ago in Patch 7.37 that addresses player inventory and item limits, but fans have proven that Facet selection plays no role in this. The bug can recur regardless of this choice.

It is one of the many Dota2 bugs that were fixed after the 7.37 release, but unlike some of those glitches, the Lone Druid bug was about as gamebreaking as it gets. There has been a sharp increase in the number of deadly bugs or exploits in Dota recently; notably the Meepo exploit in July, which allowed players to duplicate neutral items, was quickly fixed, but this did not result in Valve disabling the hero from the queue.

If DotaAs the devs ramp up the complexity of the game, there are tons of interactions that players will encounter – some of which may not have been properly tested before arriving on the client. With The International still a few weeks away, it’s hoped that Valve can iron out any kinks like the Lone Druid bug before the biggest celebration in Dota begins.