The animated series based on Dota 2 is now available on Netflix, expanding elements of the MOBA backstory into eight gritty episodes. Expecting an influx of curious newbies who would be horrified by how hostile Dota is, Valve last night updated Dota’s new player experience to be less completely useless. They added new playable tutorials and a New Player Mode that smoothly introduces players to low stakes games, as well as enhancing bots. In addition, they made smurfing a banable offense, to keep sharks out of the kiddie pool.
For starters, the game’s meager tutorial section is now full of videos and playable scenarios, featuring everything from the basic game to techniques like stacking creep fields and the all-important last-hit. Completing these tasks also offers cosmetic rewards for personalizing wizards, as an incentive that all players can benefit from. I took a look and played some scenarios and yes, this material is useful. I like that everything is guided by the beloved “shit wizard”.
The new player’s new mode is part of the limited mode of the old player’s experience. It has only a small number of game assistants and uses some of Dota’s Turbo Mode settings to speed up matches. Players will also not receive an exit penalty for giving up New Player matches, and a bot will immediately step on the scene to take over their mage’s game. Bots will also take action to complete a match if the match is taking too long. And solo players will never face teams, because teams will be pitted against bots.
Valve says it has also improved bots. And pop-up hints added letting new players know when they’re doing something they might not realize is silly. And it added a simpler and friendlier store interface for new players. And put a Glossary section with written information and statistics on a lot of things. And it has expanded the training system for players who want support. And – your gods! – launched a new website with lots of useful information, including new stylish hero pages. New players will also receive a free two-month trial of Dota Plus, which offers additional advice.
Another change apparently made with newbies in mind, but useful for everyone, is banning smurfs. High-skill players jumping into new accounts to change their matchmaking rating and melt faces have been a problem at Dota. This makes less skilled players unhappy and empties the matchmaking pool at the top end. So smurfing is now a banable offense. Valve said it will mainly focus on accounts created from now on, although it occasionally banishes pre-existing smurf accounts “which are clearly ruining the game”. The game’s reporting tools now allow you to call people to smurfing as well.
See Valve’s announcement for more than anything. It is very impressive and very backward.
This is more than I expected from Valve and, of course, more than many fans did. A group of fans was so eager for Dota to be more receptive to newcomers that it raised $ 30,000 to make an unofficial playable tutorial, which they launched on Tuesday as a mod. I think Valve was quietly doing all of this in the background. Valve at least slid this tutorial into the new tutorial section and said “If we see another similar activity from the community in this space, we will try to add it in the future as well.”
Talking about the future, Valve said it plans to release the 7.29 update on Friday after Major Singapore (which will be on April 9). This will add a new hero and rebalance the game a bit.
Oh, the series. Dota: Dragon’s Blood is on Netflix. Eight episodes, all released now. It’s about the old, boring Dragon Knight, with other mages, including Mirana, Luna, Invoker and Terrorblade. It is animated by Studio Mir, the South Korean studio known for its work on series like Kipo And The Age Of Wonderbeasts and Voltron: Legendary Defender. Kipo was beautiful.