It’s been a tough year for Dota 2 fans, who were forced to curb their enthusiasm as most of the major content releases they were waiting for were delayed or scrapped altogether, causing the player base to split into two camps.
The whole saga started when Valve released the battle pass replacement that turned out to be an empty Compendium. Without skins or active gameplay events to draw players to Dota 2, TI 2023’s prize pool failed to break any records and shrunk to early 2010 levels.
Though the pro scene drew the short end of the stick, there was light at the end of the tunnel for casual Dota 2 fans. Valve repeatedly assured fans of bigger content releases after TI 2023. It’s been one month since the Aegis of Champions found a new home, and Valve delayed the Arcana event, offering up Frostivus celebrations instead.
The highly anticipated Arcana event getting further pushed back was the final straw for most fans, and players started heavily criticizing the 7.34e patch, as the changes were laughable at best. Considering the developer initially promised the lack of TI content would mean more quality updates for Dota 2 players, the present reality couldn’t be further away from what fans imagined. Not only was the battle pass replacement disrespectful to Dota 2 players, but Valve continues to rub salt in their wounds with their inability to ship worthy content.
However, it isn’t all doom and gloom in Dota 2 land. Some players have been finding comfort that Valve has been communicating through the process. While the latest patch could have more impact if it was followed up with 10 or 20 more patches of its size, the history shows that Valve simply decides to abandon ship at some point and cause Dota 2 players to get stuck playing the same meta for more than six months.
While the miniscule 7.34 update disappointed many players, causing them to take their frustration to forums and social media, most will return to hopefully waiting for a bigger patch in a few days. The cycle of disappointment may or may not reset based on Valve’s release schedules, but if the Arcana events get delayed until the second quarter of 2024, we’d better get the most epic Frostivus event of all time.
