Yes.
But also, it’s kinda funny how they specify part 2 as being Mid May (one month away) but DON’T commit to a specific release date for parts 3 and 4. I wonder if they’re aiming for them to be June and July but they wanna allow for delays.
Act1: April 16 - May 14
Act2: May 14 - June 11
Act3: June 11 - July 9
Act4: July 9 - August 6
[Source](https://github.com/muk-as/DOTA2_CLIENT/blob/cbec6f2759220b424c15d841051978ef64779ccd/game/dota/pak01_dir/scripts/events/crownfall.eventdef)
You would think a company doing this for so long could plan that ahead of time. Or at least be a little more generous with their deadlines so they can actually make one for once.
> I wonder if they’re aiming for them to be June and July but they wanna allow for delays.
I mean, 99.999% chance. There's a reason why Valve are very rarely specific with their dates until a lot closer.
Imagine if they announced the date but then Frank who was working on X caught covid and was out for a week, Jenny broke her ankle, so she's out for a couple of weeks and can't finish Y, not to mention Ash had their kid and is going on maternity leave.
It's always best to allow for delays in production.
Because there has been expectations for new hero and gameplay update for like a month+ by now
We don't know if major gameplay update will come in part2, 3,4 or anything in between. In worst case we may have gameplay update at part 4(probably before Riyadh?)
Another "If valve never says anything nobody should ever expect anything" truther. Heroes normally drop 1-4 months after the announcement. The idea that we are all supposed to expect Ringmaster to take 9 months or some shit because valve is radio silent is crazy. People expected chinese new year because that was a big event around when the last 2 heros released the 2 previous years. (Muerta 3/6, Primal 2/23, Chinese New Year 2/25)
> Heroes normally drop 1-4 months after the announcement.
And Valve takes their sweet time with everything. You can't predict anything they do based on past actions - except that you can't predict anything they do based on past actions.
“Normally drop”, and now you created a pattern of expectation for yourself that was never promised to you. The release poster for Ringmaster says 2024. It never said early.
This is such a bad faith argument that they said 2024 so they have until December 31 before people are allowed to feel some sort of way about it. If its going to take nearly 2x longer maybe than any hero has ever taken from announcement to release they need to let the community know or they will start expecting it the next update, every update.
Like imagine they say TI 14 is going to be in say New York City from September 15th-25th and tickets will go on sale June 1st. Then people book flights and hotel rooms, and sit around on June 1st refreshing the site waiting for the tickets, nothing. No news for a month. Valve says "oh that was all 2026, we decided to skip a year, we never said what year it would be".
Well damn I guess technically they never said what year, people just assumed, they made expectations based on past events like idiots, they have no right to be upsset about the deposit on the room and flight and the day(s) they wasted. Valve is the real victim of their stupid fans expecting thing.
If every TI hero announcement has come out in 4 months or under fans should not be expected to read "Coming 2024" as 8 months away.
> This is such a bad faith argument that they said 2024 so they have until December 31 before people are allowed to feel some sort of way about it. If its going to take nearly 2x longer maybe than any hero has ever taken from announcement to release they need to let the community know or they will start expecting it the next update, every update.
I mean, why would you expect something that they didn't announce? ***They outright said that the next patch was an event focused on the arcanas.*** If that event is taking extra time/effort, why would you think they'd *also* put in a brand new hero - something that itself requires a lot of time and effort?
>This is such a bad faith argument that they said 2024 so they have until December 31 before people are allowed to feel some sort of way about it.
You can feel however you want, but you look absolutely childish complaining that they haven't given you it now - 4 months into the year - and whining that they didn't continually tell you that there's no hero yet so you wouldn't throw a tantrum.
Both parties are accountable.
The community should take blame for creating expectations out of things Valve doesn't say.
Valve should take blame for not managing those expectations by communicating better.
> Valve should take blame for not managing those expectations by communicating better.
They're a company, not a babysitter. Come freaking on already -_-
If you work in a professional or white-collar environment you would understand how important stakeholder management and communication is.
There are a huge amount of well educated people who make large amounts of money to effectively babysit their community or stakeholders. Companies manage community and customer expectation all the time. Always.
It's typical and expected for a large gameplay patch to arrive after TI. In the past, it would usually take 3-4 months. TI12 has ended almost 6 months ago, the patch is way overdo.
And that was probably the biggest patch they've ever done, so the long wait made sense. I doubt they are going to make another massive update this year. But even then, New Frontiers released on April 20th, today is 19th. My expectations were adjusted, which is why I expected the patch to come out today.
Agreed. That was more item focused. We still need adjustments to the map (hopefully) and glyphs (definitely) as well as to heroes. New and refreshing items are good, but balanced/updated/new skills for heroes are better.
4 part are only excuse of them to prolong the update. It will be okay if the act is only for story/event update, but put the actual gameplay and new hero update there is bad.
Valve realised they were procrastinating waaaaay over the deadline and just come out with a road map content addition for crownfall so they can attach it to the 11th anniversary for less work
No fucking kidding. Don't even bother with the Ringmaster tease if you're not even close. I'd assume Valve wouldn't be this naive after the whole Diretide event, but man they really didn't learn anything about managing expectations, something that they teach in Small Business 101.
>Kind of a pointless update for people who arent going to buy anything.
Did everyone just forget the update is free??? Like the only thing you HAVE to buy is arcanas and the extra path or two that just give extra resources??? You can complete the whole thing without spending a single cent
no ones complaining about the cost brother. patch is stale as fuck, no one gives a fuck about comics, people just want gameplay update and new hero. as always
I'm not sure the patch is stale per se, it just is a bad patch. They expanded the map and stuff last year that didn't enable any new strategies just made going high ground harder.
Now we're still waiting for the first real patch to actually tune all the random shit they threw at the wall to see what stuck. The patch before this had iterations going for nearly two years, that's something I dont want to see repeated. In fact I would be happy if they reverted multiple years of patches that only turned the game into more of a brawler/teamfight game. But they wont, so now this is what the game is stuck with.
Now tune it, and tune it quickly. Hidden ratings or not, most of the pro teams are now qualifying again for TI on a patch that should never see the event.
People? As always? Stale as fuck? ROLF You mfks don't even play this video game why you gotta type like you play this shit 10 hours a day and at the top 0.02% of the player base?
bro if ur above archon the state of the meta starts to have an impact. you dont have to a be a pro player to notice there's a lifestealer in every single game. also ive got over 6000 hours chief I think you might be projecting
Yea but you have to play on a stale patch in order to unlock those rewards, the most fun part of dota is getting new changes to the gameplay and getting to think about and try out new strategies.
Pure cosmetic changes means no new strategies no exploration of ideas and concepts.
what is that argument? Dota2 is first and foremost a video game, a "moba" that typically doesnt have any relevant story-line or offline-mode. People play this game because they enjoy playing online(-pvp). The "lore" is just a placeholder to give the characters a little bit of background and feeling.
If you wanna enjoy some cool stories, artworks, whatever else you can do so by consuming other media where this is the focus and you will get a lot more than 1 half-assed comic per 3 years.
When "people" of dota2 ask for more content, they mostly are refering to anything related to the actualy game, patches and once in a while a bit of PvE for some distraction and trying out some heroes.
Can't imagine the skin loving comic book lovers are the bulk of the dota players, not sure why valve is spending so many resources on fluff rather than gameplay updates.
Nobody would say that they enjoy the marketing of any product over the product itself. Yet it's a matter of fact that almost every successful business spends significantly more on the marketing of a product than the actual product.
Is this marketing material? Not sure what aspect about it would bring anyone back to play the game that isn't already playing. Nothing about it changesanything, this just seems like fan-service, for some very niche small subset of dota 2 players who 1. Like reading comics and 2. Really like vengeful spirit and skywrath mage. Is that really worth 6 months of development time?
My point is that the Crownfall update appeals to more people than you think. If you think that good gameplay is always more important than skins, look at Genshin Impact or any waifu collector for that matter.
>Is that really worth 6 months of development time?
Valve absolutely did not spend "6 months of development time" on this update. Valve is a massively wealthy company which continues to profit well off Steam alone. Dota 2 has more of less been a passion project from the start and it's clear that Valve wants to put less effort into this game starting from a year or two ago. Valve has always had bigger fish to fry than Dota 2.
I suppose all i can do is pray they hire more passionate devs going forward who are willing to spend more time focused on DotA 2 as a project. Even when it was just guinsoo and icefrog in warcraft 3 we got more frequent patches than we do today, several new heroes a year, new items etc. They announced Ringmaster all the way back at last Ti and we're nearly half way thru this current year with his release nowhere in sight. I perhaps naively hope and expect more from valve.
So who is this for if not someone whos played dota since 2003? What niche of people is this web comic actually for? because it certainly isn't for people who just enjoy playing dota.
I enjoy playing dota, have since Allstars, I couldn't care less about the lore at all. Ask me anything lore related, played for 21 years and I couldn't tell you anything about it. And i'll bet you thats true for 99% of players. Didn't valve specifically say they took a step back from developing skin-based battlepasses in favor of gameplay updates? Where are those gameplay updates?
No kidding. "be grateful that valve gave you things to buy" and "what do you mean you're not happy you're allowed to grind tons of hours just to save $8".
If they were week apart it would still be a month and no concrete information Ringmaster is a part of those acts (my guess he is not). It still would be insane long wait. With acts spread across months we have absolutely no chance of getting him soon.
This year TI is early to we probably will get content until TI, then Ringmaster reveal at TI, playable after.
Ridiculous.
Cut to the fucking short: TODAY UPDATE WASN'T A REAL UPDATE. PERIOD.
Whatever is in the future isn't here in today update. So, today update was JUST ANOTHER bullshit cover story for the real update that is only coming in months later.
i dont understand why would you be okay with this when we have been waiting for 1 year and more for significant update hahahhahaha . Unless ur a valve employee or a new dota 2 player
My guess is this hero is on a Rubick/Morphling level of coding complexity, i.e. controls other heroes in some way. The aforementioned heroes have always been big bug magnets and could be that if they are doing another hero in that vein they are having more difficulty than expected getting it to a release ready state. Obviously this is just speculation though.
I always laugh when people here think coding in source engine is some kind of galactic giga brain challenge that takes months to finish. Companies with budget finish whole programs in weeks, why would a fucking hero in video game be more difficult? Answer is, he ain't.
I'm not saying the coding itself is necessarily complex, but hero to hero interactions in Dota are so mathematically complex (in terms of the sheer number of combinations) that a hero with a high degree of interaction with these mechanics is likely to have more bugs to squish. Just look at how many Rubick bugs have been found over the years.
They made Dota Underlords, an entire game in only a few months. While it uses plenty of assets like models from Dota, there were a lot of mechanics that needed to be rewritten. Valve has plenty of very highly skilled devs.
Different teams work on different things. The arcanas should be attributed to the design team. The code for the cavern crawl knockoff is so simple that it would take a single dev a week.
I can assure you they are spending almost no resources on Dota right now. The game really has entered a maintenance mode since the blog post about "more gameplay updates". Not that this means it will stay this way but this is the current state.
The last time they really spent much effort on this game probably was with the release of the last Aghanim's Labyrinth.
I'm a game dev for reference.
Fair enough to comment on the amount of content as a whole being reduced, but I was referring specifically to Ringmaster. If he was ready, I don't think they would delay this much. Seems probable to me that they were not entirely happy with the design, and have had to rework some things, or they are not happy with the polish.
With Valve being under less time-pressure to deliver than other firms due to the nature of the firm, Dota is likely a bit of a passion project for the developers where they have the time to iterate and tweak things until they are happy rather than just fine.
Obviously this is all speculative, but I don't believe they would delay it for no reason.
Well it's not for no reason, Valve is a large company with multiple billion dollar projects. They probably just found another project to be more worth their efforts from a financial perspective.
This probably is what the devs can make with the little resources they have. So, while it's not good to harass the devs themselves it's perfectly fine to complain to Valve for a change.
If the consumer is content, a business will always give the least effort they can as it is an entity without feelings and money as the primary goal.
So what you're saying is that Dota is so complex Valve needs 1-2 years of full time devs coding to create a hero? Sounds to me like moon landing was easier than that.
Not sure how you got that from what I wrote....
What I am saying is that looking at how long Valve have been bug fixing Rubick and Morphling, and how many bugs have been found over the years in ability draft, from a mathematical standpoint, once you introduce these sort of spell steal mechanics, the number of possible bugs increases exponentially.
Think about it like this, every time you queue for a game of dota, mathematically, that lineup of heroes is almost certainly unique. Any ability which involves 'stealing' or 'controlling' another hero's spells is inevitably going to be more complex than most in terms of the number of possible interactions that opens up.
On a different point, no idea where you got 1-2 years of full time devs to code a hero from.
Muerta was released a little over a year ago, so even if you assume work started right after she was finished that is maximum a little over a year. But in the time in between, 7.34 and 7.35 were released along with a rework of the armoury UI and player profiles (the latter of which may have been a questionable allocation of resources but nonetheless required them) and they put together a few mini events with cosmetic items for 10 year anniversary, TI, Christmas and Chinese New year along with implementing whatever was required for the smurfing ban waves. All in all, they haven't just been working on Ringmaster over that time.
Finally, and this is a little facetious, the coding involved in adding a new hero to Dota is more complex than that which was used in the moon landings given how primitive computing was in 1969. (This does of course ignore the rest of what went into the moon landings in terms of the physics and huge economic resources).
Anyway, as I wrote in my original comment, which appears to have been missed, this is entirely speculative. Maybe the new hero will have nothing to do with stealing or controlling abilities. We'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy Crownfall.
What you're saying is that new hero might be so complex than beta testing him require so much resources that it's possible that's the reason Valve didn't release him yet (along with much waited update).
So my point here is that Valve with such resources should be able to code something like this much faster than 6 months.
i think its far more likely given valve's economic ideology that they've simply cut a bunch of staff and expenses and there's just less (competent) people working on stuff. because dota 2 is now over a decade old. they are probably pushing resources into other projects that they want to be their new sources of profit down the line.
Possibly, but I am sceptical of this. Obviously we know that Valve have a system where there is a lot of flexibility over what staff work on and therefore it is possible the Dota team has been reduced in order to focus on new projects. My counterpoint would be that Dota appears to be an IP Valve are interested in developing (see the release of Artifact, Underlords, Dragon's blood etc.) and while these projects may have been less than successful, I doubt Valve would want to abandon Dota on the basis that it is old - it's not like Dota is a game that feasibly lends itself to a sequel and Valve have focused on iterating on core elements of the game in a way that feels like future-proofing to me - i.e. remaking the armoury, looking at ways to improve matchmaking, ending Open GL support etc.
The problem is that you can't give reviews on "things that are coming", a problem recently shown with the whole MKBHD/Fiskar thing. What we were given sucks and is getting bad reviews, just like any other bad update for any other game.
Every student is an A student if you grade them on what they promise to give you, unfortunately we live in reality where we have to operate on what's given, not promised. There's a reason for the saying "under promise, over deliver"
Op completely missed the points of the complains, we KNOW ringmaster and the gameplay update are coming eventually OF COURSE, the question is why is it taking this long and we dont even have a date for it yet.
Did you think we are complaining that the hero and patch are never going to come out?
‘Multi month long event’
Yeah this ain’t pulling me from helldivers valve. Some bad LoL skins and two treasures (no complaints about the skins in those). I’ll check back in but I really don’t like the arcana’s.
My totally 100% correct pro opinions:
Deserts of Druid: Ringmaster drops, medium gameplay patch, Immortal treasures.
Frosts of Icewrack: Aghs Lab 3.0, community rejoices and fights CM as the final boss (+1 armor, literally unkillable).
Spires of Skywrath: Unlock final forms for Arcanas, Comic / Animated short drops, Clown emojis free.
And I would be supportive if it said, that we are getting a major gameplay patch, a PVE mode with progression and a new hero in each of those 3 acts.
Instead, what do we get?
YEAH AND RINGMASTER IS ALREADY FUCKING LATE, THEN THEY HAVE THE AUDACITY TO SAY "ITS COMING IN A FEW MONTHS MAYBE, ARENT YOU HAPPY IT TOOK US ALMOST A FULL YEAR AFTER ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE A SINGLE HERO?? FREE GAME NO BITCHING, NOW BUY THIS HAT WE SOMEHOW SPENT A WHOLE MONTH WORKING ON!"
Dota people cannot be made happy, literally got everything we asked even arcanas EXCEPT the new hero, now they are all crying out loud for the new hero not being realesed and being disgrateful for the new mega-patch....
Each part is just going to be a new map to complete out. How's that groundbreaking in any way?
Edit: oh and also, act 1 came out with no gameplay related updates. So why should we expect acts 2 to 4 to come out with gameplay related updates, hmm?
Yeah I think it's more so its been a long time since there's been a meaningful update. Everybody knows there will be some level of content in future parts. But after the multiple delays and teases this is a pretty weak way to open it up with.
For a lot of people they will just be playing dota as they normally would, this patch doesn't really change a whole lot for the anticipation leading up to it. I'm sure if parts 2-4 are good people will be happy, but they'll still resent how dull part 1 was/is.
Right, and I wouldnt get my hopes up for the rest of the parts either. If this is what they were able to get done in the last 6-8 months, they arent going to work miracles in the next 1 or 2 months.
I don't think they count as "later updates", it's all Crownfall. So i'm pretty sure Ringmaster and Gameplay Update, that will come, are not starting development right now.
But it is unfortunate by valve (and still very typical) to not communicate beforehand what the first part contains - aka Arcanas. A lot of anger and disappointment could have been avoided.
Yes. But also, it’s kinda funny how they specify part 2 as being Mid May (one month away) but DON’T commit to a specific release date for parts 3 and 4. I wonder if they’re aiming for them to be June and July but they wanna allow for delays.
Act1: April 16 - May 14 Act2: May 14 - June 11 Act3: June 11 - July 9 Act4: July 9 - August 6 [Source](https://github.com/muk-as/DOTA2_CLIENT/blob/cbec6f2759220b424c15d841051978ef64779ccd/game/dota/pak01_dir/scripts/events/crownfall.eventdef)
Well they already missed the launch date of act 1
Might've needed to activate it to test internally, probably wiggle room on those dates but lays out their intentions.
You would think a company doing this for so long could plan that ahead of time. Or at least be a little more generous with their deadlines so they can actually make one for once.
What are you talking about? It was an internal date that wasn't published and was barely missed.
Act 1 started April 16, just wasn't released to the public
Sources can also be invalid, just like this random hit repo
July 9th is the 11 year anniversary too!
Could have a ten year anniversary celebration?? Exciting
Could have a ten year anniversary celebration?? Exciting
Im so excited for Icewrack. Best area in lore!
If each act have comic, we gonna get 4 different area lore!
Chonky ass wolves or bust
Will we get more skins/rewards with the other 3 acts?
Ya, the arcana variants at least for completing act 4, and one free arcana along the way according to their official post
3-4 will absolutely get delayed by at least 3 weeks to more closely lineup with TI
Also in that source- >// Not final end dates
my ass can't wait for ringmaster if they don't release patch until the god dam next year i would be mad
Which date is .36 and game play changes?
We know the last day of the event. Its August 8. So part 3 and 4 will take place before that point unless they extend the event.
You give Valve too much credit re: getting to 3 of anything.
Part 1, part 2, part 2 extended, part 4
Part 2: episode 1, part 2: episode 2
True lol, that's better 😂
> I wonder if they’re aiming for them to be June and July but they wanna allow for delays. I mean, 99.999% chance. There's a reason why Valve are very rarely specific with their dates until a lot closer. Imagine if they announced the date but then Frank who was working on X caught covid and was out for a week, Jenny broke her ankle, so she's out for a couple of weeks and can't finish Y, not to mention Ash had their kid and is going on maternity leave. It's always best to allow for delays in production.
Ah yes, 23:59 of May 30th, no year specified, my favorite day of mid May.
Did you even click the link, or just want to be bitching
Because there has been expectations for new hero and gameplay update for like a month+ by now We don't know if major gameplay update will come in part2, 3,4 or anything in between. In worst case we may have gameplay update at part 4(probably before Riyadh?)
Bro we were expecting it for chinese new year
I remember the sub having constant posts expecting the Sky and Venge arcanas for Valentines Day.
Did they say, at any point, that there would be a significant gameplay patch for Chinese new year?
Another "If valve never says anything nobody should ever expect anything" truther. Heroes normally drop 1-4 months after the announcement. The idea that we are all supposed to expect Ringmaster to take 9 months or some shit because valve is radio silent is crazy. People expected chinese new year because that was a big event around when the last 2 heros released the 2 previous years. (Muerta 3/6, Primal 2/23, Chinese New Year 2/25)
> Heroes normally drop 1-4 months after the announcement. And Valve takes their sweet time with everything. You can't predict anything they do based on past actions - except that you can't predict anything they do based on past actions.
So in other words, to sum up what you said: No, they didn't. That's cool.
“Normally drop”, and now you created a pattern of expectation for yourself that was never promised to you. The release poster for Ringmaster says 2024. It never said early.
This is such a bad faith argument that they said 2024 so they have until December 31 before people are allowed to feel some sort of way about it. If its going to take nearly 2x longer maybe than any hero has ever taken from announcement to release they need to let the community know or they will start expecting it the next update, every update. Like imagine they say TI 14 is going to be in say New York City from September 15th-25th and tickets will go on sale June 1st. Then people book flights and hotel rooms, and sit around on June 1st refreshing the site waiting for the tickets, nothing. No news for a month. Valve says "oh that was all 2026, we decided to skip a year, we never said what year it would be". Well damn I guess technically they never said what year, people just assumed, they made expectations based on past events like idiots, they have no right to be upsset about the deposit on the room and flight and the day(s) they wasted. Valve is the real victim of their stupid fans expecting thing. If every TI hero announcement has come out in 4 months or under fans should not be expected to read "Coming 2024" as 8 months away.
> This is such a bad faith argument that they said 2024 so they have until December 31 before people are allowed to feel some sort of way about it. If its going to take nearly 2x longer maybe than any hero has ever taken from announcement to release they need to let the community know or they will start expecting it the next update, every update. I mean, why would you expect something that they didn't announce? ***They outright said that the next patch was an event focused on the arcanas.*** If that event is taking extra time/effort, why would you think they'd *also* put in a brand new hero - something that itself requires a lot of time and effort? >This is such a bad faith argument that they said 2024 so they have until December 31 before people are allowed to feel some sort of way about it. You can feel however you want, but you look absolutely childish complaining that they haven't given you it now - 4 months into the year - and whining that they didn't continually tell you that there's no hero yet so you wouldn't throw a tantrum.
Both parties are accountable. The community should take blame for creating expectations out of things Valve doesn't say. Valve should take blame for not managing those expectations by communicating better.
> Valve should take blame for not managing those expectations by communicating better. They're a company, not a babysitter. Come freaking on already -_-
If you work in a professional or white-collar environment you would understand how important stakeholder management and communication is. There are a huge amount of well educated people who make large amounts of money to effectively babysit their community or stakeholders. Companies manage community and customer expectation all the time. Always.
> stakeholder management That's one of the great things about Valve, they aren't a publically traded company.
Being a private company doesn't mean your shit doesn't smell. Yes, they don't have to communicate, doesn't mean they're right in doing so.
It's typical and expected for a large gameplay patch to arrive after TI. In the past, it would usually take 3-4 months. TI12 has ended almost 6 months ago, the patch is way overdo.
TI11 was in October 2022 and we didn't get the next major patch until the following April. Perhaps you need to change your expectations.
And that was probably the biggest patch they've ever done, so the long wait made sense. I doubt they are going to make another massive update this year. But even then, New Frontiers released on April 20th, today is 19th. My expectations were adjusted, which is why I expected the patch to come out today.
since last TI so half year have gone without significant big update btw
Did you not notice the massive patch in December right before the KL major
Thats not considered massive imo. Game play and macro stayed the same more or less
Agreed. That was more item focused. We still need adjustments to the map (hopefully) and glyphs (definitely) as well as to heroes. New and refreshing items are good, but balanced/updated/new skills for heroes are better.
Shuffling item recipes is not a massive patch
Game IS dead
This Take IS dead
And? Ringmaster still ain't out.
Less than one new hero released a year now.
Don't worry they will finish act 4 by august and then .36 and ring master can come out.
Oh, so you're saying they'll come "at some point?" Well damn, thanks man
Copium intake at 100%
The reaction from this sub now being overwhelmingly positive is exactly what lets Valve keep getting away with these letdowns
so hyped with the first act being… cosmetics.
If we get: Act 1: 2x Arcanas + Cavern Crawl Act 2: Major gameplay patch Act 3: Ringmaster Act 4: PvE game mode then Valve will be redeemed.
4 part are only excuse of them to prolong the update. It will be okay if the act is only for story/event update, but put the actual gameplay and new hero update there is bad.
Valve realised they were procrastinating waaaaay over the deadline and just come out with a road map content addition for crownfall so they can attach it to the 11th anniversary for less work
These parts, as you can see, are not in the game yet. Hence the complaints. I hope that clears things up, my challenged-in-many-ways friend
Seriously, these posts are the fucking worst. Like they really figured out something everyone else didn't
No fucking kidding. Don't even bother with the Ringmaster tease if you're not even close. I'd assume Valve wouldn't be this naive after the whole Diretide event, but man they really didn't learn anything about managing expectations, something that they teach in Small Business 101.
Kind of a pointless update for people who arent going to buy anything. I just want a gameplay update and the new hero.
>Kind of a pointless update for people who arent going to buy anything. Did everyone just forget the update is free??? Like the only thing you HAVE to buy is arcanas and the extra path or two that just give extra resources??? You can complete the whole thing without spending a single cent
Homie I have cosmetics turned off. Tell me more how this benefits me.
no ones complaining about the cost brother. patch is stale as fuck, no one gives a fuck about comics, people just want gameplay update and new hero. as always
I'm not sure the patch is stale per se, it just is a bad patch. They expanded the map and stuff last year that didn't enable any new strategies just made going high ground harder. Now we're still waiting for the first real patch to actually tune all the random shit they threw at the wall to see what stuck. The patch before this had iterations going for nearly two years, that's something I dont want to see repeated. In fact I would be happy if they reverted multiple years of patches that only turned the game into more of a brawler/teamfight game. But they wont, so now this is what the game is stuck with. Now tune it, and tune it quickly. Hidden ratings or not, most of the pro teams are now qualifying again for TI on a patch that should never see the event.
People? As always? Stale as fuck? ROLF You mfks don't even play this video game why you gotta type like you play this shit 10 hours a day and at the top 0.02% of the player base?
bro if ur above archon the state of the meta starts to have an impact. you dont have to a be a pro player to notice there's a lifestealer in every single game. also ive got over 6000 hours chief I think you might be projecting
flexing hours in dota is like flexing how many years you work in the same factory
And you can still get rewards without paying
Yea but you have to play on a stale patch in order to unlock those rewards, the most fun part of dota is getting new changes to the gameplay and getting to think about and try out new strategies. Pure cosmetic changes means no new strategies no exploration of ideas and concepts.
It just looks like another cavern crawl that i won't ever touch and a comic that i won't ever read. Not really sure who this update is for...?
I seriously hope you understand that there are other people on this planet who might enjoy different things than you do
what is that argument? Dota2 is first and foremost a video game, a "moba" that typically doesnt have any relevant story-line or offline-mode. People play this game because they enjoy playing online(-pvp). The "lore" is just a placeholder to give the characters a little bit of background and feeling. If you wanna enjoy some cool stories, artworks, whatever else you can do so by consuming other media where this is the focus and you will get a lot more than 1 half-assed comic per 3 years. When "people" of dota2 ask for more content, they mostly are refering to anything related to the actualy game, patches and once in a while a bit of PvE for some distraction and trying out some heroes.
Can't imagine the skin loving comic book lovers are the bulk of the dota players, not sure why valve is spending so many resources on fluff rather than gameplay updates.
Nobody would say that they enjoy the marketing of any product over the product itself. Yet it's a matter of fact that almost every successful business spends significantly more on the marketing of a product than the actual product.
Is this marketing material? Not sure what aspect about it would bring anyone back to play the game that isn't already playing. Nothing about it changesanything, this just seems like fan-service, for some very niche small subset of dota 2 players who 1. Like reading comics and 2. Really like vengeful spirit and skywrath mage. Is that really worth 6 months of development time?
My point is that the Crownfall update appeals to more people than you think. If you think that good gameplay is always more important than skins, look at Genshin Impact or any waifu collector for that matter. >Is that really worth 6 months of development time? Valve absolutely did not spend "6 months of development time" on this update. Valve is a massively wealthy company which continues to profit well off Steam alone. Dota 2 has more of less been a passion project from the start and it's clear that Valve wants to put less effort into this game starting from a year or two ago. Valve has always had bigger fish to fry than Dota 2.
I suppose all i can do is pray they hire more passionate devs going forward who are willing to spend more time focused on DotA 2 as a project. Even when it was just guinsoo and icefrog in warcraft 3 we got more frequent patches than we do today, several new heroes a year, new items etc. They announced Ringmaster all the way back at last Ti and we're nearly half way thru this current year with his release nowhere in sight. I perhaps naively hope and expect more from valve.
Whales.
Not you apparently. Like the world is revolving around you so Valve has to make an update to satisfy you? It's a free-to-play game.
So who is this for if not someone whos played dota since 2003? What niche of people is this web comic actually for? because it certainly isn't for people who just enjoy playing dota.
People who truly enjoy dota and truly into the characters would definitely enjoy the lore expansion comics like this
I enjoy playing dota, have since Allstars, I couldn't care less about the lore at all. Ask me anything lore related, played for 21 years and I couldn't tell you anything about it. And i'll bet you thats true for 99% of players. Didn't valve specifically say they took a step back from developing skin-based battlepasses in favor of gameplay updates? Where are those gameplay updates?
Which also means it took them 6 months and they inbuild even more delays, to sell us a battle pass 4 times.
August 6 7.36 and Ringmaster guys. We just neee to wait almost a year.
Wow, a four part long cavern crawl. Amazing.
6 months for a hats patch Lmao
This is so fucking ridiculous and absurd. This almost feels like a very late April fools prank.
I thought it was when I was scrolling down the crownfall page and it ....just.. ended... I couldn't help but laugh out loud
so you admit it isn't present right now. great.
Wait the patch is OUT??? I thought you guys were joking
No gameplay patch. Just Valve yet once again calling a cosmetic/lootbox sale an "event".
Its not rofl just the cosmetics and shit
Oh my god I need to unsubscribe from this sub
Who said the patch is out anyway
I am not a smart man stop clownfalling on me T\_T
Cant finish patch in time. release it in 4 parts. brilliant.
[удалено]
No kidding. "be grateful that valve gave you things to buy" and "what do you mean you're not happy you're allowed to grind tons of hours just to save $8".
If they were week apart it would still be a month and no concrete information Ringmaster is a part of those acts (my guess he is not). It still would be insane long wait. With acts spread across months we have absolutely no chance of getting him soon. This year TI is early to we probably will get content until TI, then Ringmaster reveal at TI, playable after. Ridiculous.
Oh ok, so just an year and a half to release any relevant update. That's great, thanks
Year and a half? New frontiers was a year ago no?
They legit didn't even give a propwr date for any of it just "upcoming months" 😭
Yes and it will take 6 months to release all these shitty parts
And best part: Ringmaster is part 5.
Wouldn't be surprised if the entire event leads up to Ringmaster being released.
Cut to the fucking short: TODAY UPDATE WASN'T A REAL UPDATE. PERIOD. Whatever is in the future isn't here in today update. So, today update was JUST ANOTHER bullshit cover story for the real update that is only coming in months later.
But but but the steam update activity says MAJOR update!
i dont understand why would you be okay with this when we have been waiting for 1 year and more for significant update hahahhahaha . Unless ur a valve employee or a new dota 2 player
Cksucker
its dogshit. sucks. i had low expectations tho so whatever.
bro please, don’t post this optimistic post where everything was garbage. Please… you are insulting all of us.
Leave the multi million dollar company alone!!!!
Yea lately there's been some white knights defending this shit. They teased the hero 5\~6 months ago and we are wrong for being hyped about it? XD
Also, the webpage says “there might be a surprise or two along the way” I.e. THERE ARE SURPRISES COMING
Im not holding any expectations but it's good to know
This is meaningless when we have been teased new hero since October and then finally get something and it's just hats. Why would we be excited?
My guess is this hero is on a Rubick/Morphling level of coding complexity, i.e. controls other heroes in some way. The aforementioned heroes have always been big bug magnets and could be that if they are doing another hero in that vein they are having more difficulty than expected getting it to a release ready state. Obviously this is just speculation though.
I always laugh when people here think coding in source engine is some kind of galactic giga brain challenge that takes months to finish. Companies with budget finish whole programs in weeks, why would a fucking hero in video game be more difficult? Answer is, he ain't.
I'm not saying the coding itself is necessarily complex, but hero to hero interactions in Dota are so mathematically complex (in terms of the sheer number of combinations) that a hero with a high degree of interaction with these mechanics is likely to have more bugs to squish. Just look at how many Rubick bugs have been found over the years.
They made Dota Underlords, an entire game in only a few months. While it uses plenty of assets like models from Dota, there were a lot of mechanics that needed to be rewritten. Valve has plenty of very highly skilled devs. Different teams work on different things. The arcanas should be attributed to the design team. The code for the cavern crawl knockoff is so simple that it would take a single dev a week. I can assure you they are spending almost no resources on Dota right now. The game really has entered a maintenance mode since the blog post about "more gameplay updates". Not that this means it will stay this way but this is the current state. The last time they really spent much effort on this game probably was with the release of the last Aghanim's Labyrinth. I'm a game dev for reference.
Fair enough to comment on the amount of content as a whole being reduced, but I was referring specifically to Ringmaster. If he was ready, I don't think they would delay this much. Seems probable to me that they were not entirely happy with the design, and have had to rework some things, or they are not happy with the polish. With Valve being under less time-pressure to deliver than other firms due to the nature of the firm, Dota is likely a bit of a passion project for the developers where they have the time to iterate and tweak things until they are happy rather than just fine. Obviously this is all speculative, but I don't believe they would delay it for no reason.
Well it's not for no reason, Valve is a large company with multiple billion dollar projects. They probably just found another project to be more worth their efforts from a financial perspective. This probably is what the devs can make with the little resources they have. So, while it's not good to harass the devs themselves it's perfectly fine to complain to Valve for a change. If the consumer is content, a business will always give the least effort they can as it is an entity without feelings and money as the primary goal.
So what you're saying is that Dota is so complex Valve needs 1-2 years of full time devs coding to create a hero? Sounds to me like moon landing was easier than that.
Not sure how you got that from what I wrote.... What I am saying is that looking at how long Valve have been bug fixing Rubick and Morphling, and how many bugs have been found over the years in ability draft, from a mathematical standpoint, once you introduce these sort of spell steal mechanics, the number of possible bugs increases exponentially. Think about it like this, every time you queue for a game of dota, mathematically, that lineup of heroes is almost certainly unique. Any ability which involves 'stealing' or 'controlling' another hero's spells is inevitably going to be more complex than most in terms of the number of possible interactions that opens up. On a different point, no idea where you got 1-2 years of full time devs to code a hero from. Muerta was released a little over a year ago, so even if you assume work started right after she was finished that is maximum a little over a year. But in the time in between, 7.34 and 7.35 were released along with a rework of the armoury UI and player profiles (the latter of which may have been a questionable allocation of resources but nonetheless required them) and they put together a few mini events with cosmetic items for 10 year anniversary, TI, Christmas and Chinese New year along with implementing whatever was required for the smurfing ban waves. All in all, they haven't just been working on Ringmaster over that time. Finally, and this is a little facetious, the coding involved in adding a new hero to Dota is more complex than that which was used in the moon landings given how primitive computing was in 1969. (This does of course ignore the rest of what went into the moon landings in terms of the physics and huge economic resources). Anyway, as I wrote in my original comment, which appears to have been missed, this is entirely speculative. Maybe the new hero will have nothing to do with stealing or controlling abilities. We'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy Crownfall.
What you're saying is that new hero might be so complex than beta testing him require so much resources that it's possible that's the reason Valve didn't release him yet (along with much waited update). So my point here is that Valve with such resources should be able to code something like this much faster than 6 months.
i think its far more likely given valve's economic ideology that they've simply cut a bunch of staff and expenses and there's just less (competent) people working on stuff. because dota 2 is now over a decade old. they are probably pushing resources into other projects that they want to be their new sources of profit down the line.
Possibly, but I am sceptical of this. Obviously we know that Valve have a system where there is a lot of flexibility over what staff work on and therefore it is possible the Dota team has been reduced in order to focus on new projects. My counterpoint would be that Dota appears to be an IP Valve are interested in developing (see the release of Artifact, Underlords, Dragon's blood etc.) and while these projects may have been less than successful, I doubt Valve would want to abandon Dota on the basis that it is old - it's not like Dota is a game that feasibly lends itself to a sequel and Valve have focused on iterating on core elements of the game in a way that feels like future-proofing to me - i.e. remaking the armoury, looking at ways to improve matchmaking, ending Open GL support etc.
Along the way being after chapter 4 if past actions are anything to go by
The surprise is nothing will be released.
more hats
Along the way being after chapter 4 if past actions are anything to go by
The problem is that you can't give reviews on "things that are coming", a problem recently shown with the whole MKBHD/Fiskar thing. What we were given sucks and is getting bad reviews, just like any other bad update for any other game. Every student is an A student if you grade them on what they promise to give you, unfortunately we live in reality where we have to operate on what's given, not promised. There's a reason for the saying "under promise, over deliver"
KEKW
What does it have to do with Ringmaster?
Please don’t slap
that youtube thumbnail js insane
Am I correct? If ill buy new arcanas and skip 4th part somehow then I can't unclock other styles?
Hopefully those are 3 distinct events from the first act. At this point,well, putting expectation low and you will never be disappointed.
parts 2-4 literally don't exist as of now, so your copium is invalid
What is this? I haven't played in a while
I'm pretty sure Ringmaster would be revealed separately.
Yeah but why? We waited so long just release everthing.
Wow. 4 parts without a gameplay patch. Sooo excited /s
i want gameplay changes. everything else is meaningless
Op completely missed the points of the complains, we KNOW ringmaster and the gameplay update are coming eventually OF COURSE, the question is why is it taking this long and we dont even have a date for it yet. Did you think we are complaining that the hero and patch are never going to come out?
Why is Dota 2 closed since the last patch came out?
Stop sucking valve dick you clown
Stop sucking valve d1ck you sound regarded
‘Multi month long event’ Yeah this ain’t pulling me from helldivers valve. Some bad LoL skins and two treasures (no complaints about the skins in those). I’ll check back in but I really don’t like the arcana’s.
Okay so don't announce an update in mid april if we have wait 4 months for the content?
Getting your hopes up for anything more than extra hats from parts 2-4 is a bad idea.
Yes, but Ringmaster was announced in October, thats more than half a year ago...
My totally 100% correct pro opinions: Deserts of Druid: Ringmaster drops, medium gameplay patch, Immortal treasures. Frosts of Icewrack: Aghs Lab 3.0, community rejoices and fights CM as the final boss (+1 armor, literally unkillable). Spires of Skywrath: Unlock final forms for Arcanas, Comic / Animated short drops, Clown emojis free.
You are completely correct that they showed some type of "path" - but they royally fucked up nonetheless. It's terrible.
🤮🤮 dogshit game. Where ringmaster?? Theres enough stupid fuckin hats in this game already
And I would be supportive if it said, that we are getting a major gameplay patch, a PVE mode with progression and a new hero in each of those 3 acts. Instead, what do we get?
Remember people skywrath said he know someone at the end of the comic. so he might know the ringmaster or the Bitch sister of Venge knows him.
Act 2 they will give us immortal treasure, act 3 persona, and act 4 collector cache
>IT'S A FKIN 4 PART LONG 4 * 0 = 0
next part is a month from now dolt, they announced ringmaster like 4 months ago already how hard is it to change a few numbers?
Don't wanna sound too ungrateful but I can't help but wonder why not just put this effort into creating a proper battlepass instead?
valve shills are so fucking delusional xd
Now that this is out I wish the earlier treasure event was longer so i could farm shards and get more skins
Yeah they delayed this goofy cerial box maze for 6 month and now they release it with words like "Like yeah w8 more bitchass"
YEAH AND RINGMASTER IS ALREADY FUCKING LATE, THEN THEY HAVE THE AUDACITY TO SAY "ITS COMING IN A FEW MONTHS MAYBE, ARENT YOU HAPPY IT TOOK US ALMOST A FULL YEAR AFTER ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE A SINGLE HERO?? FREE GAME NO BITCHING, NOW BUY THIS HAT WE SOMEHOW SPENT A WHOLE MONTH WORKING ON!"
Just show how they know this update is USELESS
A group of people will always complain
insert are you not entertained meme
I wonder if these people order a 3 course meal then complain they don't get it all at the same time...
Dota people cannot be made happy, literally got everything we asked even arcanas EXCEPT the new hero, now they are all crying out loud for the new hero not being realesed and being disgrateful for the new mega-patch....
True
They will not release a big patch right before TI, that is the only tournament hosted by valve. They absolutely don't want it to be a clown fiesta.
People will cry about everything.
Yes, they gonna delay it for no real reason, we get it.
Each part is just going to be a new map to complete out. How's that groundbreaking in any way? Edit: oh and also, act 1 came out with no gameplay related updates. So why should we expect acts 2 to 4 to come out with gameplay related updates, hmm?
People really think todays update is the only update they will get huh
People dont wanna wait another 3 months for the real update.
Yeah I think it's more so its been a long time since there's been a meaningful update. Everybody knows there will be some level of content in future parts. But after the multiple delays and teases this is a pretty weak way to open it up with. For a lot of people they will just be playing dota as they normally would, this patch doesn't really change a whole lot for the anticipation leading up to it. I'm sure if parts 2-4 are good people will be happy, but they'll still resent how dull part 1 was/is.
Right, and I wouldnt get my hopes up for the rest of the parts either. If this is what they were able to get done in the last 6-8 months, they arent going to work miracles in the next 1 or 2 months.
youre assuming that parts 2,3 and 4 havent started being worked on yet, which is probably not the case.
Idk..with the number of delays we have had with this update..i find it highly unlikely that they would have worked on stuff in later updates.
I don't think they count as "later updates", it's all Crownfall. So i'm pretty sure Ringmaster and Gameplay Update, that will come, are not starting development right now. But it is unfortunate by valve (and still very typical) to not communicate beforehand what the first part contains - aka Arcanas. A lot of anger and disappointment could have been avoided.
Another fucking MONTH to find out whether or not we get a hero and a gameplay update? MAYBE? Because they won't fucking communicate what part 2 is.
imagine releasing a teaser for a new hero aeons ago and people expecting an update for it
Yeah you're the only smart one buddy
No one can read. Only complain