Skeleton Crew Confirmed: Dota 2 has unnoficially gone into Maintenance Mode

[AIR]

Hello there, Little Timmy! How are you doing today?

Why don't you have a sit, so we can take a jolly good time to talk about the reality of the game, shall we?

The International Grand Finals happened on the 29th of October, and unlike all previous years in DOTA 2 history, we took almost a month (21th of November) to release a MINOR balance patch to deal with some OUTRAGEOUS balance issues after the event. We worked hard, the whole month, to "fix" 5 items (6 if you are generous and consider the Aura of one item affecting it's upgraded version). We also made some changes to 29 of our mighty heroes - mostly were some desperate needed changes you have been all waiting for. The changes were so big that we had to release TWO Patch Notes: one to fix some clown mistakes, and another in the hopes that - acting like clowns - we could decieve you into thinking everything is alright! So why don't we get a third patch note that actually hit that sweet demographic of players, you know, the ages between 24-35?

Don't you be fooled now: we spent a lot of money and time reviewing and writing those patch notes to sound fun and merry, but allow me to break it down for you in plain english, as if you were not deluded fanboys reading a League of Legends patch!

Let's embark on this adventure together!

---

In Between The Lines: A Brand New Dota 2 Adventure

(Oh yes, we using Formatting Help for this one, children)

Welcome, welcome all, to the Clown School! We hinted that in the worst hero presentation of all time, haven't we? We all know The International was underwhelming, with overpriced tickets and no content in-game. Afterall, who cares for True Sight when we got a brand new Half-Life (documentary) that ends with mighty Gaben having the last line, like a true boss he is? Who needs All-Star matches? Who gives a flying duck to the production value or prize pool or even stupid, unbalanced games with broken heroes and every game having at least five hands of midas with a super duper boring high ground defense? Those things don't bring money to our piggy, giggity bank, and you player, you don't really care since you have a lot of things to do like complain about anyway: an abusive and automated report system that has been poorly tunned that has even Professional Commentators, like Purge, openly farming Behavior Score on Twitch? Or how about our player base decreasing steadly, making matchmaking worse day by day, split across multiple game modes and Arcade (that we don't really care about to begin with, since we are sticking into the Mod Creators because they are trying to make money on Patreon and don't wanna cut us in!)... but worry not, we fixed that for you years ago by hiding the In-Game stats for active players! We still got Steam Charts for those die-hard scarecrows to gawk about - even thou those numbers represents open clients and not people actually playing... but have a glorious tasty of the delicious Copium Brew.

Remember when we criticized Blizzard for adding a hidden clause in Warcraft 3 Reforged that made them owners of any mod? Those were some good times. We got "Custom Game Tickets" instead. This way, we don't allow the Mod Creators to monetize freely in our garbage servers. But at least, we do allow them to monetize in a way that it gets so confused WE GOTTA MEME THE PATCH NOTES WITH CAPSLOCK SO YOU FORGET WHAT THE POINT WAS TO BEGIN WITH AND ENDING THE PARAGRAPH IN A JOKE MAKES YOU "HAHA" AND "HEHE" INSTEAD OF FACING REALITY!.

---

Game Changes

As you all know, we have been working hard to increase the front page of our in-game store so it's easier for you to spend money. Now you have Stickers and can mess around your player profile. That is right: we officially added 2010 features to our game. Nobody asked, but you are welcome! Let's all glimmer our profiles with some RTZ stickers, boyz!!! HYPE!

Since we all got you addicted and in denial due to Sunk-Cost fallacy, after decades of gambling lootbox, we know deep down all you want is to spend money and even thou we didn't add a compendium, we put some krappa together and sold to you anyway. We recycled voice lines even in our music during The International: hecky-do, we even recycled Artifact Theme song! But you are a bunch of clowns, so you don't mind. WE DON'T EITHER!

VOICE-LINES AND STICKERS FOR EVERYONE!

Item Changes

Eternal Shroud has been buffed, mostly because we had to fill empty space. No one uses the item anyway, so I mean, why not?

We nerfed Hand of Midas a bit, because even we got tired of having it every single match. I mean, it's not gonna change a lot since there were no changes in EXP or GOLD, but at least we can say we tried, right? STICKERS AND VOICELINES!

Heart of Tarrasque now costs 100 more gold and gives 5 less STR. Still, Heart and Blademail are gonna be a thing still because you know, it already took a month to do it, and as we said on the other patches, we really want to take a winter break since Gaben Clauss fired most of the elves...

Oh, yeah, we also buffed Vladmir's Aura by 1 armor, because this would count as two itens in the changes and reduced the cooldown on Pavise because it took little effort and we had to increase the patch notes size. STICKERS AND VOICELINES!

Hero Changes

As a company with a lot of STICKERS, we decided to use it as duct tape and fix our game on a budget. Even thou all Internationals before had an immediate patch right after, this time we had to take a long month to do so because you know, Maintenance Mode. Since we have to cut costs, let me save some text and give a TL:DR:

Ancient Apparition: Was strong, we made it weaker.
Bristleback: Was strong, we made it weaker.
Chaos Knight: Was strong, we made it weaker.
Dark Willow: Was strong, we made it weaker.
Tinker, I mean, Dazzle: Was strong, we made it weaker.
Drow Ranger: We don't care, no one plays it.
Earth Spirit: We don't care, no one plays it.
Enigma: We don't care, no one plays it.
Grimstroke: Was strong, we made it weaker.
Gyrocopter: We don't care, no one plays it.
Juggernaut: We don't care, no one plays it.
Kunkka: Was strong, we made it weaker.
Leshrac: We don't care, no one plays it.
Lion: We don't care, no one plays it.
Lycan: We don't care, no one plays it.
Marci: We don't care, no one plays it.
Necrophos: Was strong, we made it weaker.
Primal Beast: Was strong, we made it weaker.
Shadow Shaman: We don't care, no one plays it.
Spectre: Was strong, we made it weaker.
Spirit Breaker: Was strong, we made it weaker.
Timbersaw: We don't care, no one plays it.
Tiny: We don't care, no one plays it.
Treant Protector: Was strong, we made it weaker.
Weaver: Was strong, we made it weaker.
Winter Wyvern: We don't care, no one plays it.
Witch Doctor: We don't care, no one plays it. But we made it weaker and fixed something we said we fixed previous patch. Sorry, it's meant to cut costs. Too much text already.
Wraith King: Was strong, we made it weaker.

Yeah, it took us a whole month to fix those things. Some copium people will say "that is a step in the right direction", and for us that is enough. It only took a month, and we had to put a lot of effort on the excuses why we did not had any events but wait: STICKERS AND VOICELINES - this is the next point and I'm getting ahead of myself.

Gaben Clowns and the Skeleton Crew

After nearly a year of coordination and production, the multi-week, arena-sized monster that is The International 2023 has come to an exciting close. Filler, empty introduction.

We've locked up Climate Pledge Arena, we've all seen enough of Spirit Breaker, and we've just shipped Gameplay Update 7.34e. Time for the Dota team to settle down for a long winter's nap, and... Joke about the game being in a horrible state when it comes to balance, and try to come up with a silly excuse for the delay

But hark! What's that sound in the festive distance? No, that jingling of sleigh bells you hear isn't early onset tinnitus. It's the magical year-end event we call Frostivus — looming large on the December calendar, and arriving with a sack stuffed to bursting with new features, new cosmetics, and some surprises. Basically, a cute fur way to say "we did not had a halloween event, and the event, maybe, will arrive late December, after Xmas

"...and the Arcanas?" little Timmy asks hopefully, holding up his tiny Dickensian gruel bowl. Phew, this is awkward. No, Timmy, not yet. All cards on the table, the event surrounding the Arcanas this year has gained a few more moving parts than we initially planned. Enough that we haven't finished everything yet, and won't this year, but we're looking forward to releasing it in the next few months. And that's not even getting into all the other updates we've got planned, like... Delayed, and instead of threating customer like people, they act like clowns because, you know, thats what we are for Valve. Empty promises two paragraphs in a row just to avoid saying "No Arcanas in 2023"

Hark again! We almost said too much. Suffice it to say, with TI2023 safely in the books, we've got a ton of stuff our Frostivus elves are furiously polishing to get ready for the new year.

Until then: Merry Imminent Frostivus, everyone! Said too much by not saying anything at all. If you break down the text, 90% is filler garbage, like a kid that missed on his homework try to fill the pages with nonsense. Basically, nothing will come this year.

And that's all, folks. See you, and the Devs, on Season of Discovery (the new release of World of Warcraft Classic that they will sure be playing instead of working on Dota).

[Petrizz Sebastien]

Taweret lähetti viestin:

Petriko Sebastiano lähetti viestin:

And so nowadays you can be the nicest and best player in your team, if your 4stack mates want to report you then you can just sit and enjoy the result.

and how you can be sure how the stack reporting work? i remember that in old system the dota employe comfirmed that premade reports count as just 1 report. if that was true my behaviour would descrease for playing with 4 man stacks because these people always are egoistic they ignore you and are toxic.

For the old system it's true, but in this one it's weird (maybe they've fixed it now)
When you get in your behavior recap, there's a list of people who get "punished" from your report. We tried with friends, 3 or 4 stack with random, sometimes just 1 game after we all get the same player on our list. Deserved or not. Maybe that was only "luck" idk

[Showit]

Lmao you kill me with the last part, bc I will be doing the same thing

[ʍolɟ ǝɥʇ ǝsɹǝʌǝɹ]

Valve would not give credit for an idea, the opposite seems to be true. They may actually avoid using good ideas until the source of the idea is washed away enough that they feel safe implementing them. The example I have is how wards in creep camps was changed. The idea bounced around in forums for almost a year. I don't think they want to admit how much you have contributed if you are indeed telling the truth.

[AIR]

ʍolɟ ǝɥʇ ǝsɹǝʌǝɹ lähetti viestin:

Valve would not give credit for an idea, the opposite seems to be true. They may actually avoid using good ideas until the source of the idea is washed away enough that they feel safe implementing them. The example I have is how wards in creep camps was changed. The idea bounced around in forums for almost a year. I don't think they want to admit how much you have contributed if you are indeed telling the truth.

Sometimes it just take time for them to notice, that is what I rather believe. Stacking camps was considered an abuse, same goes for pulling creeps to change the wave equilibrium. Those anon heroes did a great job, and that is just fine. Even if they took "my idea", it was still on the developers to create all shards, for all heroes, implement and develop on them. All I did was provide feedback and as I mentioned, I don't really mind the credit - my issue was just that I would like to have my ticket history for some time, not to gloat or show off, but to see how my writing progressed. And that is fine. If I wanted to "secure rights", it would be on me to publish in a blog or something like that.

I think the same goes for the ward situation: people complained for a long time about not being able to deward a camp blocked by a griefer, so they ended up listening and finally added the option.

One thing that I've been asking for a while now it's a Creative Writing contest, you know. I'm not saying I would win for sure, but damn, I can write a story better than that Anti-Mage / Wind Ranger manga, lol. The only creative contest we have right now is the Short Film, but for the last couple years large companies have been dropping a lot of money and winning with stunning animations: don't get me wrong, the last winner "PA PERSONA NARUTO SMV" was garbage in my opinion. But, well, it won the vote because people love the animation. It's really hard to compete with production value like that, and I feel bad for the small guys trying to make creative videos just to get destroyed by a 20 people crew with professional audio, graphics and animation. It's not that "people are stepping up" in their creativity, they are just having bigger budgets because of the prize money. Same goes for cosplay, and pretty much everything else in life.

[Sagitta Luminis]

Cybertrump 2077 lähetti viestin:

Sagitta Luminis lähetti viestin:

omg what a nice post
its fun but sad at the same time, and it fact u said here, look like dont care anymore about us the players

Thanks. I have a bad habit of keeping adding on and on to the posts in the responses, but I spoke about that specifically in one of the responses I wrote: in short, Valve doesn't need to care for the players, or if they products do well or not, because they are just a side project of Steam now. Any company that fails hard so many times in a row (Dragon's Blood, Underlords, Artifact) would be bankrupt and without any investors by now. But they just keep going and making projects that lose money, such as Alyx, because it is all about Gabe Newell money and experimentation.

For me what is disgusting about this is that they still monetize the worst way possible - FOMO and GAMBLING. If they don't care about revenue, they should at least care about Ethics.

but i think in dota franchise its only artfact who failed, while underlord still payed by many player, its even copied by mobile game, and dragon blood is good show. i think they just stupid do delete BP or arcana in this game, because thats where they got all the money, we even dont care if they milk us like a cow as long as its good set / skin. its even more painful when like half a year ago they said there will be more update than before that focusing on gameplay, and make BP feature exclusive to scatter around many event in a year, but we all we got is nothing, and im sure this frostivus (if its not another lie) will release end of december to end of january, and finally introducing new hero in early february... we literally wait for 1 year for this, sad but funny lol

[AIR]

Sagitta Luminis lähetti viestin:

Cybertrump 2077 lähetti viestin:

Thanks. I have a bad habit of keeping adding on and on to the posts in the responses, but I spoke about that specifically in one of the responses I wrote: in short, Valve doesn't need to care for the players, or if they products do well or not, because they are just a side project of Steam now. Any company that fails hard so many times in a row (Dragon's Blood, Underlords, Artifact) would be bankrupt and without any investors by now. But they just keep going and making projects that lose money, such as Alyx, because it is all about Gabe Newell money and experimentation.

For me what is disgusting about this is that they still monetize the worst way possible - FOMO and GAMBLING. If they don't care about revenue, they should at least care about Ethics.

but i think in dota franchise its only artfact who failed, while underlord still payed by many player, its even copied by mobile game, and dragon blood is good show. i think they just stupid do delete BP or arcana in this game, because thats where they got all the money, we even dont care if they milk us like a cow as long as its good set / skin. its even more painful when like half a year ago they said there will be more update than before that focusing on gameplay, and make BP feature exclusive to scatter around many event in a year, but we all we got is nothing, and im sure this frostivus (if its not another lie) will release end of december to end of january, and finally introducing new hero in early february... we literally wait for 1 year for this, sad but funny lol

Artifact didn't just failed: it made empty promises before the launch and actually did not bother to refund money for a lot of people that paid for it. I got my refund, because I had to go and request it. But a lot of people did not know they could get one, and the money never got back.

I have to disagree with you on Underlords. If you check the Forum and the Discussion Boards, people are starving for new content - the game even had a Battle Pass model and abandoned it. After the whole "AutoChess Mania" went away because people got tired of it, Valve gave up but, mostly, they gave up after Riot TFT flopped aswell.

Multiple arcanas are coming soon, with the frostivus event. It will just take longer than ever, and probably only arrive late December. They promised multiple events across the year but, well, they promises a lot of things and they don't deliver it.

Here is what I believe it happens: things got delayed over and over to a point that they choose to make one single event instead of following what they promised. I think this new event will arrive late december, and will last long enough that the new hero will drop right at the end of the event, as if it was planned all along. It's all improvisation, just like a Clown performing in a show - which sure fits the theme.

Valve mistake is one and only: not having a decent plan, a road map. Just look at the previous years - some years we got one arcana, some years we got two arcanas, some year the arcana was on shop, some others it wasn't. I still have 120 "Blue Tears" from recycled items in my inventory - those are never going away, it was a system implement in a Fall Major many years ago, but they dumped the idea and here we are. We are approaching the end of the year, but Steam Charts show that the number of concurrent players is dropping, when it is exactly the opposite that should be happening.

I wrote in another post that I really believe Valve should keep the PVE and PVP events available, all year long. It doesn't take that much effort, really, considering how much effort they put into creating the events and the filters. Dota doesn't have a casual mode anymore: Turbo is infested with people farming behavior score with a sick attitude - new players should be welcome there, but because of things like "Guild Challenge", people get mad when they lose Turbo because they did not went to play turbo for fun, they went on turbo to farm Guild Quests. Guilds in Dota are an awful system, and the quests only add to the in-game toxicity. It's sad, but it's true.

And I'm sorry, but I have to disagree on Dragon's Blood too: the first season is actually fine. But the second season was so bad that there were tweets from the writer and the crew begging people to Watch it on netflix, hinting that a third season would only happy if viewership increased. It was cringe. I'm sure the third season was always in development and this was just a way to make people watch and share on social media, but the writing is just bad.

There is something called "The Hero's Journey", it's a concept developed by Joseph Campbell: he observed a lot of common factors between storytelling, across all cultures, and laid a "map" on how to write a story that will, step by step, make a narration that is considered acceptable by most people. Another writer, named Christoper Vogler, went further ahead and chewed Campbell concept into a cheap "Tutorial" on how to write stories that, even if they end up being mediocre, they still "have a context". Both expanded on Aristotle's Poetics, which is an awful hard text to begin with, but that was basically where we got the model of writing stories with "Begining, Middle and End". The thing is, specially with Vogler's book, it became standard in the US writer's guild, that is why most "blockbusters" usually follow the same flow. It's too much to get into right now, but Dragon's Blood basically follows this concept, poorly, without being innovative at any point, and was completely transfigured to fit into this model. It's just garbage, specially if you are a fan of Dota - it's like the first Final Fantasy movie (Spirits Within was the original title, it was not meant to be called final fantasy at all, but Squaresoft wanted so bad it was called Final Fantasy for PR reasons) that isn't final fantasy at all. Then you get Advent Children, a movie that was based on Final Fantasy VII, and it was much more relatable to fans, and the story wasn't actually bad considering how much effort they put to make it about the game. Final Fantasy (Spirits Within) is just another example of a generic story strutcture that was branded after an IP just to get money out of fans. It's not a bad movie by itself, it's just an awful Final Fantasy movie. The only reason Final Fantasy Spirits Within is acceptable is because it really step up the level of CGI animation from that time - it still holds water today. And you can say the same thing about Dragon's Blood: it has amazing art, soundtrack and animation because it had an immense budget. But the story is total garbage.

[StubbornSpirit]

made me laugh, good one.

I bet they hired a new female marketing manager, freshly out of somewhere to write these emberassing patch notes and updates.

I remember this emojie ♥♥♥♥ update news, not long ago. Man, that was cringe, throwing down their own hard earned reputation as a serious game, dev and company with this kindergarten ♥♥♥♥.

[Absche]

Cybertrump 2077 lähetti viestin:

Sagitta Luminis lähetti viestin:

but i think in dota franchise its only artfact who failed, while underlord still payed by many player, its even copied by mobile game, and dragon blood is good show. i think they just stupid do delete BP or arcana in this game, because thats where they got all the money, we even dont care if they milk us like a cow as long as its good set / skin. its even more painful when like half a year ago they said there will be more update than before that focusing on gameplay, and make BP feature exclusive to scatter around many event in a year, but we all we got is nothing, and im sure this frostivus (if its not another lie) will release end of december to end of january, and finally introducing new hero in early february... we literally wait for 1 year for this, sad but funny lol

Artifact didn't just failed: it made empty promises before the launch and actually did not bother to refund money for a lot of people that paid for it. I got my refund, because I had to go and request it. But a lot of people did not know they could get one, and the money never got back.

I have to disagree with you on Underlords. If you check the Forum and the Discussion Boards, people are starving for new content - the game even had a Battle Pass model and abandoned it. After the whole "AutoChess Mania" went away because people got tired of it, Valve gave up but, mostly, they gave up after Riot TFT flopped aswell.

Multiple arcanas are coming soon, with the frostivus event. It will just take longer than ever, and probably only arrive late December. They promised multiple events across the year but, well, they promises a lot of things and they don't deliver it.

Here is what I believe it happens: things got delayed over and over to a point that they choose to make one single event instead of following what they promised. I think this new event will arrive late december, and will last long enough that the new hero will drop right at the end of the event, as if it was planned all along. It's all improvisation, just like a Clown performing in a show - which sure fits the theme.

Valve mistake is one and only: not having a decent plan, a road map. Just look at the previous years - some years we got one arcana, some years we got two arcanas, some year the arcana was on shop, some others it wasn't. I still have 120 "Blue Tears" from recycled items in my inventory - those are never going away, it was a system implement in a Fall Major many years ago, but they dumped the idea and here we are. We are approaching the end of the year, but Steam Charts show that the number of concurrent players is dropping, when it is exactly the opposite that should be happening.

I wrote in another post that I really believe Valve should keep the PVE and PVP events available, all year long. It doesn't take that much effort, really, considering how much effort they put into creating the events and the filters. Dota doesn't have a casual mode anymore: Turbo is infested with people farming behavior score with a sick attitude - new players should be welcome there, but because of things like "Guild Challenge", people get mad when they lose Turbo because they did not went to play turbo for fun, they went on turbo to farm Guild Quests. Guilds in Dota are an awful system, and the quests only add to the in-game toxicity. It's sad, but it's true.

And I'm sorry, but I have to disagree on Dragon's Blood too: the first season is actually fine. But the second season was so bad that there were tweets from the writer and the crew begging people to Watch it on netflix, hinting that a third season would only happy if viewership increased. It was cringe. I'm sure the third season was always in development and this was just a way to make people watch and share on social media, but the writing is just bad.

There is something called "The Hero's Journey", it's a concept developed by Joseph Campbell: he observed a lot of common factors between storytelling, across all cultures, and laid a "map" on how to write a story that will, step by step, make a narration that is considered acceptable by most people. Another writer, named Christoper Vogler, went further ahead and chewed Campbell concept into a cheap "Tutorial" on how to write stories that, even if they end up being mediocre, they still "have a context". Both expanded on Aristotle's Poetics, which is an awful hard text to begin with, but that was basically where we got the model of writing stories with "Begining, Middle and End". The thing is, specially with Vogler's book, it became standard in the US writer's guild, that is why most "blockbusters" usually follow the same flow. It's too much to get into right now, but Dragon's Blood basically follows this concept, poorly, without being innovative at any point, and was completely transfigured to fit into this model. It's just garbage, specially if you are a fan of Dota - it's like the first Final Fantasy movie (Spirits Within was the original title, it was not meant to be called final fantasy at all, but Squaresoft wanted so bad it was called Final Fantasy for PR reasons) that isn't final fantasy at all. Then you get Advent Children, a movie that was based on Final Fantasy VII, and it was much more relatable to fans, and the story wasn't actually bad considering how much effort they put to make it about the game. Final Fantasy (Spirits Within) is just another example of a generic story strutcture that was branded after an IP just to get money out of fans. It's not a bad movie by itself, it's just an awful Final Fantasy movie. The only reason Final Fantasy Spirits Within is acceptable is because it really step up the level of CGI animation from that time - it still holds water today. And you can say the same thing about Dragon's Blood: it has amazing art, soundtrack and animation because it had an immense budget. But the story is total garbage.

I like „my developers“ not only having a road map and following that guideline but also communicating and discussing it with their community.

I recommend to have a look on the „waterline“ episodes published by wargaming for World of Warships. And they provide test servers for feed-back from the community for every step they take. E.g. they introduced two complete new classes of units, aircraft carriers and submarines, all in feed-back loops with their community. Visions and how to communicate and execute them. So much effort taken e.g. extending the maps to 3D-underwater representations…

Imagine Valve planning on a underground, tunnel system for their map, completely new hero classes with distinct features etc. Can you imagine? Not really, isn‘t it?

That‘s one reason why Dota2 is not my favorite game.

[StubbornSpirit]

Absche lähetti viestin:

Cybertrump 2077 lähetti viestin:

Artifact didn't just failed: it made empty promises before the launch and actually did not bother to refund money for a lot of people that paid for it. I got my refund, because I had to go and request it. But a lot of people did not know they could get one, and the money never got back.

I have to disagree with you on Underlords. If you check the Forum and the Discussion Boards, people are starving for new content - the game even had a Battle Pass model and abandoned it. After the whole "AutoChess Mania" went away because people got tired of it, Valve gave up but, mostly, they gave up after Riot TFT flopped aswell.

Multiple arcanas are coming soon, with the frostivus event. It will just take longer than ever, and probably only arrive late December. They promised multiple events across the year but, well, they promises a lot of things and they don't deliver it.

Here is what I believe it happens: things got delayed over and over to a point that they choose to make one single event instead of following what they promised. I think this new event will arrive late december, and will last long enough that the new hero will drop right at the end of the event, as if it was planned all along. It's all improvisation, just like a Clown performing in a show - which sure fits the theme.

Valve mistake is one and only: not having a decent plan, a road map. Just look at the previous years - some years we got one arcana, some years we got two arcanas, some year the arcana was on shop, some others it wasn't. I still have 120 "Blue Tears" from recycled items in my inventory - those are never going away, it was a system implement in a Fall Major many years ago, but they dumped the idea and here we are. We are approaching the end of the year, but Steam Charts show that the number of concurrent players is dropping, when it is exactly the opposite that should be happening.

I wrote in another post that I really believe Valve should keep the PVE and PVP events available, all year long. It doesn't take that much effort, really, considering how much effort they put into creating the events and the filters. Dota doesn't have a casual mode anymore: Turbo is infested with people farming behavior score with a sick attitude - new players should be welcome there, but because of things like "Guild Challenge", people get mad when they lose Turbo because they did not went to play turbo for fun, they went on turbo to farm Guild Quests. Guilds in Dota are an awful system, and the quests only add to the in-game toxicity. It's sad, but it's true.

And I'm sorry, but I have to disagree on Dragon's Blood too: the first season is actually fine. But the second season was so bad that there were tweets from the writer and the crew begging people to Watch it on netflix, hinting that a third season would only happy if viewership increased. It was cringe. I'm sure the third season was always in development and this was just a way to make people watch and share on social media, but the writing is just bad.

There is something called "The Hero's Journey", it's a concept developed by Joseph Campbell: he observed a lot of common factors between storytelling, across all cultures, and laid a "map" on how to write a story that will, step by step, make a narration that is considered acceptable by most people. Another writer, named Christoper Vogler, went further ahead and chewed Campbell concept into a cheap "Tutorial" on how to write stories that, even if they end up being mediocre, they still "have a context". Both expanded on Aristotle's Poetics, which is an awful hard text to begin with, but that was basically where we got the model of writing stories with "Begining, Middle and End". The thing is, specially with Vogler's book, it became standard in the US writer's guild, that is why most "blockbusters" usually follow the same flow. It's too much to get into right now, but Dragon's Blood basically follows this concept, poorly, without being innovative at any point, and was completely transfigured to fit into this model. It's just garbage, specially if you are a fan of Dota - it's like the first Final Fantasy movie (Spirits Within was the original title, it was not meant to be called final fantasy at all, but Squaresoft wanted so bad it was called Final Fantasy for PR reasons) that isn't final fantasy at all. Then you get Advent Children, a movie that was based on Final Fantasy VII, and it was much more relatable to fans, and the story wasn't actually bad considering how much effort they put to make it about the game. Final Fantasy (Spirits Within) is just another example of a generic story strutcture that was branded after an IP just to get money out of fans. It's not a bad movie by itself, it's just an awful Final Fantasy movie. The only reason Final Fantasy Spirits Within is acceptable is because it really step up the level of CGI animation from that time - it still holds water today. And you can say the same thing about Dragon's Blood: it has amazing art, soundtrack and animation because it had an immense budget. But the story is total garbage.

I like „my developers“ not only having a road map and following that guideline but also communicating and discussing it with their community.

I recommend to have a look on the „waterline“ episodes published by wargaming for World of Warships. And they provide test servers for feed-back from the community for every step they take. E.g. they introduced two complete new classes of units, aircraft carriers and submarines, all in feed-back loops with their community. Visions and how to communicate and execute them. So much effort taken e.g. extending the maps to 3D-underwater representations…

Imagine Valve planning on a underground, tunnel system for their map, completely new hero classes with distinct features etc. Can you imagine? Not really, isn‘t it?

That‘s one reason why Dota2 is not my favorite game.

One of the reasons why indie game devs are so successfully these times in contrast to AAA devs

[ʍolɟ ǝɥʇ ǝsɹǝʌǝɹ]

StubbornSpirit lähetti viestin:

Absche lähetti viestin:

I like „my developers“ not only having a road map and following that guideline but also communicating and discussing it with their community.

I recommend to have a look on the „waterline“ episodes published by wargaming for World of Warships. And they provide test servers for feed-back from the community for every step they take. E.g. they introduced two complete new classes of units, aircraft carriers and submarines, all in feed-back loops with their community. Visions and how to communicate and execute them. So much effort taken e.g. extending the maps to 3D-underwater representations…

Imagine Valve planning on a underground, tunnel system for their map, completely new hero classes with distinct features etc. Can you imagine? Not really, isn‘t it?

That‘s one reason why Dota2 is not my favorite game.

One of the reasons why indie game devs are so successfully these times in contrast to AAA devs

I think that is just survival bias. You hear about AAA failures, but you don't hear about Indie failures.

[Sagitta Luminis]

Cybertrump 2077 lähetti viestin:

Sagitta Luminis lähetti viestin:

but i think in dota franchise its only artfact who failed, while underlord still payed by many player, its even copied by mobile game, and dragon blood is good show. i think they just stupid do delete BP or arcana in this game, because thats where they got all the money, we even dont care if they milk us like a cow as long as its good set / skin. its even more painful when like half a year ago they said there will be more update than before that focusing on gameplay, and make BP feature exclusive to scatter around many event in a year, but we all we got is nothing, and im sure this frostivus (if its not another lie) will release end of december to end of january, and finally introducing new hero in early february... we literally wait for 1 year for this, sad but funny lol

Artifact didn't just failed: it made empty promises before the launch and actually did not bother to refund money for a lot of people that paid for it. I got my refund, because I had to go and request it. But a lot of people did not know they could get one, and the money never got back.

I have to disagree with you on Underlords. If you check the Forum and the Discussion Boards, people are starving for new content - the game even had a Battle Pass model and abandoned it. After the whole "AutoChess Mania" went away because people got tired of it, Valve gave up but, mostly, they gave up after Riot TFT flopped aswell.

Multiple arcanas are coming soon, with the frostivus event. It will just take longer than ever, and probably only arrive late December. They promised multiple events across the year but, well, they promises a lot of things and they don't deliver it.

Here is what I believe it happens: things got delayed over and over to a point that they choose to make one single event instead of following what they promised. I think this new event will arrive late december, and will last long enough that the new hero will drop right at the end of the event, as if it was planned all along. It's all improvisation, just like a Clown performing in a show - which sure fits the theme.

Valve mistake is one and only: not having a decent plan, a road map. Just look at the previous years - some years we got one arcana, some years we got two arcanas, some year the arcana was on shop, some others it wasn't. I still have 120 "Blue Tears" from recycled items in my inventory - those are never going away, it was a system implement in a Fall Major many years ago, but they dumped the idea and here we are. We are approaching the end of the year, but Steam Charts show that the number of concurrent players is dropping, when it is exactly the opposite that should be happening.

I wrote in another post that I really believe Valve should keep the PVE and PVP events available, all year long. It doesn't take that much effort, really, considering how much effort they put into creating the events and the filters. Dota doesn't have a casual mode anymore: Turbo is infested with people farming behavior score with a sick attitude - new players should be welcome there, but because of things like "Guild Challenge", people get mad when they lose Turbo because they did not went to play turbo for fun, they went on turbo to farm Guild Quests. Guilds in Dota are an awful system, and the quests only add to the in-game toxicity. It's sad, but it's true.

And I'm sorry, but I have to disagree on Dragon's Blood too: the first season is actually fine. But the second season was so bad that there were tweets from the writer and the crew begging people to Watch it on netflix, hinting that a third season would only happy if viewership increased. It was cringe. I'm sure the third season was always in development and this was just a way to make people watch and share on social media, but the writing is just bad.

There is something called "The Hero's Journey", it's a concept developed by Joseph Campbell: he observed a lot of common factors between storytelling, across all cultures, and laid a "map" on how to write a story that will, step by step, make a narration that is considered acceptable by most people. Another writer, named Christoper Vogler, went further ahead and chewed Campbell concept into a cheap "Tutorial" on how to write stories that, even if they end up being mediocre, they still "have a context". Both expanded on Aristotle's Poetics, which is an awful hard text to begin with, but that was basically where we got the model of writing stories with "Begining, Middle and End". The thing is, specially with Vogler's book, it became standard in the US writer's guild, that is why most "blockbusters" usually follow the same flow. It's too much to get into right now, but Dragon's Blood basically follows this concept, poorly, without being innovative at any point, and was completely transfigured to fit into this model. It's just garbage, specially if you are a fan of Dota - it's like the first Final Fantasy movie (Spirits Within was the original title, it was not meant to be called final fantasy at all, but Squaresoft wanted so bad it was called Final Fantasy for PR reasons) that isn't final fantasy at all. Then you get Advent Children, a movie that was based on Final Fantasy VII, and it was much more relatable to fans, and the story wasn't actually bad considering how much effort they put to make it about the game. Final Fantasy (Spirits Within) is just another example of a generic story strutcture that was branded after an IP just to get money out of fans. It's not a bad movie by itself, it's just an awful Final Fantasy movie. The only reason Final Fantasy Spirits Within is acceptable is because it really step up the level of CGI animation from that time - it still holds water today. And you can say the same thing about Dragon's Blood: it has amazing art, soundtrack and animation because it had an immense budget. But the story is total garbage.

idk then, i didnt play those games, i only heard from some friend, but its true that underlord and dota chess is copied by cheap moba mobile game.
As for dragon blood for me the story is fine, i only little dissapointed when they change mirana appereance, but not dk, because dk wear the helm all the time in-game so i dont mind at how they made him look like... but still i still mad and dont accept it that litearrly half a year we got nothing new, even TI didnt do ♥♥♥♥ to pub player like us since theres no event or cosmetic

[AIR]

About the Patch Notes

Valve has always been somewhat casual in the patch notes, placing a joke here and there. This patch note, on the other hand, is a joke by itself: it took a patch note to announce that there would be a patch note and then the update was close to nothing. It made me think of Chimpanzees Smiling: they don't do it because they are happy or to show their teeth as a form of intimidation... they smile as a form of subservience.

About the Indie companies

It's like reverse the flow said, you don't see much news about Indie companies failing - but now days, it's like CohhCarnage said "What is indie, anyway? Some games have independent developers, but it turns out they got bought mid development by big publishers that streamline the process and add all the budget, like what happened to Dave the Diver".

I don't believe Valve to be a AAA studio. I think Valve is actually a AAAA studio, for the reason they don't have to worry at all with budget or constrains that any companies do have. I wrote about it before, but working at Valve is probably the most chill job in the world: your projects can fail and no one cares because Steam (Gabe Newell Money) will ALWAYS back up. Just think about Alyx: Guys, lets make a VR game for our device so we can show off what VR can do. Only a fraction of the community will get to play it, we will actually lose money with the production but who cares: we will get to have fun while playing and that is what matters. Valve isn't a development studio anymore, they are just a brand: if they want, they can cancel all games they have and nothing would happen. They can start selling Snake Oil and no matter how much money they lose, that won't matter. I mean, they already sold Snake Oil (Artifact) and no one cared.

About World of Warships

Companies that need their customers and care for their games are worried about the communities because, unless it is a NFT scam game made to "cash and dash", they can and will lose money, that is one of the reasons they care about feedback. Valve is not a game developer anymore, just a Tech Demo company for Steam Store.

Unrelated note

I've read somewhere that the new update will change lootboxes so that we get to select the treasure instead of gambling it. I've been suggesting that for ages and ages, if they actually do that - removing the gambling - it would be awesome. We are starving for content for a long time now, let's hope this new treasure system to be true, and that we actually get a fun Event and Arcanas / Treasure this year. It's been a long time.

Covid

I got it a couple days ago, and I might go away for some time. Peace out, keep on having fun and I will try to come back to the forum soon. Have fun, guys.

[ʍolɟ ǝɥʇ ǝsɹǝʌǝɹ]

It's been 3 weeks. How much time does imminent imply

[AFFILIATE: Pantone]

up bc this guy is cool

[AerSilver ♞]

Do people really care about stickers? seems like a forced attempt to implement a feature from CSGO. the only one I have and value is Slacks as Crystal Maiden because it's funny