DotA is a record-breaking game not only because of its fantastic concept and stunning popularity. Even those who use a computer just to rest a cup of coffee on a CD-ROM drive disk holder have heard of it. Of course, this is the coolest game in terms of ratings, and this is mainly because it was being constantly developed in the days of Aeon of Strife and a lot of work went into developing characters and the gameplay mechanism. If you remember, we recently published an article (link) about the birth of Aeon of Strife, which has in the days of its conception gone through a huge amount of updates. Renewing and investing in a product is key. Now that Dota is mega-popular, will developers stop putting heart and soul into updates like Eul did? And how successful is DotA now?
Along with a number of other impressive features, the final prize at The International was $10,931,105 in 2014, $18,429,613 in 2015, $20,770,460 in 2016, $24,787,916 in 2017, and $ 25,532,177 in 2018. We are waiting for the next turn, which will, judging by what came before, will be of huge magnitude for several reasons, but also in the sense that the prize only increases every year.
You only need to win this tournament once and then never deny yourself anything else. Although it is possible that Hawaii, emerald waters of tropical seas, fantastic women and Ferrari Diablo, bought with this money, still will not be of any interest to hardcore players – after all, DotA gets only better with constant updates, bug-fixes, new content, and so on. The main thing is to keep up with the times and provide an interesting service. We are sure that one of the most important conditions for the popularity of the game is constant updates that will hold the interest of the audience and will not let them get bored. At least it should be that way.
Just look at this animated graph of the game’s popularity rating over the past year – and you will see the crowds feverishly seething in the background, trying to catch up with the winner, the winner (in our case, CS) struggling, trying to break away from the crowd and keep up with the Legend, and the Legend just calmly keeps ahead of everyone. Then, however, the Battlegrounds takes the lead, but Dota is starting to close the distance.
Perhaps due to the fact that Number 1 gave up the 1st spot eventually, the creators began to think about changing something and released update 7.20 in November 2018, getting rid of the concept of bonus heroes and including a set of features that, for example, greatly reduced armor, but increased the health of the towers and made the reward system for killing heroes easier and reworking what damage they had on different types of armor. For example: “The type of damage of Splash Attack in Black Dragon is changed from magic to physical, and Vampirism abilities and Spell Amplification no longer affect Splash damage” . In general, it seems that there were a lot of changes, but it is difficult to say that they radically changed something, except maybe for ultra-pro-players. You really need to be a professional to be shocked by the fact that “Shrines are now restored by 2% of health and mana per second more (because the values no longer multiply by the amount of intelligence)”.
In 2019 Dota 2 resolutely entrenched itself in a position at the top, snatching it from Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, and in February it had 965,000 players, which is 24,000 more than PUBG. PCGameSN reports:
“Dota’s growing popularity is probably due to the quiet success of Dota Auto Chess. Custom game mode now covers more than 5.2 million subscribers and the maximum number of simultaneously playing gamers – more than 140,000 people.
This figure means that the game will enter the top five most popular games Steam. CS: GO, PUBG and Dota 2 itself are all winners, but the increase in demand for Dota Auto Chess is likely to continue this month. If this happens, it can help Dota 2 return to its million mark for the first time in more than two years for the first time in more than two years. ”
Yes, you say, but big tournaments Dota2 ahead! So updates should be good. Maybe something amazing will be added. For example, as in the good old Dandy, the air force SUDDENLY arrives and all enemies are incinerated a second before the defeat. But this button can only be used once. We’re joking, of course, but still not without hope. Let’s read the new updates and check if this is so.
So what will we see? The end of Midas, maybe? Changes in the rank system; interesting, but not large-scale changes concerning the heroes. Here is a couple of comments :
● OlegBlackKingBar yesterday at 14:18 -1
“Two numbers less there, two numbers more there. This is the content of the next scam, ahahaha …”
● vBulakov
“Explain for dummies what has changed”
● pickupthegod
“Still looking at how each patch of storm is upped, but he was in the garbage heap and he still is in the garbage heap.“
● LanMio yesterday at 14:07 0
|”Awesome Midas gets shafted, already minus 40 gold. Why is it like that? Every time he is remembered he is immediately cut.”
Abaddon, which was not so popular before, began to get rather dramatically improved indicators in many ways – Curse of Avenus increased from 4 to 4.5 and the speed of movement increased from 305 to 325. Lina has become much stronger physically. And so on. These are most interesting changes, but mostly they are rather cosmetic. Sometimes those skills are changed that are not often used or are not the main strength of the character. Cybersport.ru:
“Many other heroes were also strengthened, but, in my opinion, not very significantly. For example, Windranger was reduced on Shackleshot and slightly increased the damage from Focus Fire, but quite often, the first spell on VR does not get developed up to level 7, and they take the ultra later, so these changes are not so significant. Or, for example, Broodmother saw increased both agility gain and talent to increase it, but the whole strength of this hero lies in the spiders, and as long as they do not increase, then Broodmother herself will not become a frequent guest on the pro scene. Such changes can be seen a lot in any patch, and they are rather of a preparatory nature. ”
In conclusion, we can say that it seems that the latest updates were made as if on purpose so as not to change the situation drastically. The new update package should not add much to the game – these changes create more beauty than effectivity.
