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Valve announces no more Dota 2 Battle Passes

In an unexpected turn of events, Valve has chosen to end its quiet on the Dota 2 development cycle. With the Bali Major and The International 2023 approaching, the Dota development team has announced a total change in strategy.

The traditional battle pass, which has been a mainstay of the Dota 2 experience, is being phased out in favour of a new framework. In a post marking the 10-year anniversary of Dota 2’s official debut, Valve pondered on the game’s past, present, and future, and revealed some surprising news that deviated from the industry tradition of Battle Passes.

Valve claimed in the past that “most Dota players never buy a Battle Pass and never get any rewards from it,” but every Dota 2 player gets to experiment with game improvements. With this in mind, the game’s creator has opted to shift the emphasis to stuff that everyone can enjoy.

“By liberating Dota’s update and content cycle from the Battle Pass’s timing and structural constraints, we can return to making content in the way we know best: by coming up with fun ideas of all scales and shapes and exploring them with you,” – Valve

Following a brief history of their Compendiums and events, the piece reflected on how the Battle Pass season has become a “tremendously exciting time in Dota, but it leaves the rest of the year feeling barren in comparison.”

Valve then says that this year, they experimented with investing more resources into new content that would normally go into the Battle Pass. As a result, the contentious and enormous 7.33 New Frontiers update modified the game as well as a prior minigame for the new hero, Muerta. According to the article, this information could not have been included if they had concentrated their efforts on the Battle Pass.

Valve has employed content drops to celebrate all things Dota and engage the worldwide player population since the release of The International Interactive Compendium in 2013, which subsequently developed into the TI Battle Pass. The battle pass, on the other hand, began to eclipse previously prominent material in past releases, consuming minigames, item sets, cosmetics, voice lines, game modes, essential functionality changes, and more.

As a result, the “Battle Pass Season” became the most anticipated period of the year, bringing hundreds of thousands of new and existing Dota players, while other upgrades seemed a little light in contrast. The intense focus on TI has been both a benefit and a burden; although it produces a lot of attention, smaller events, especially Dota Pro Circuit Majors, necessarily get less. Valve should be able to smooth out the prize pool differential, allowing players to earn a livelihood through the DPC rather than only hoping for a ticket to TI.

Dota 2 was officially released on July 9, 2013, after being in beta since 2010, and spending nearly three years in pre-release. Valve has indicated that a celebration is planned on the anniversary, however the update will be released after that date. Instead, Dota 2’s birthday update is anticipated to arrive later this summer, probably in late July or early August.

The 2023 Battle Pass will not be available for TI12, but Valve aims to deliver a TI-themed update in September. This update will honour the competitors, publicise the event, and allow players to donate to the prize fund. However, it will not include as many cosmetics as in previous years and will not be referred to as a battle pass, indicating Valve’s break from the past and their focus on the game’s health.

Priyadarshan G

Priyadarshan G

priyadarshan

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