'Dota 2' Spring Cleaning Update Arrives With A Slew Of Improvements
The "Dota 2" Spring Cleaning update has now arrived, bringing with it a slew new updates, quality of life improvements, and community management features. Game designer Icefrog also tweeted that the update will be the first of a patch cycle where patches will be released every two months rather than a few times a year.
Among the biggest changes comes to matchmaking where Valve hopes to improve the player experience by using language options as a major factor in matchmaking. Toxic players will also receive harsher penalties with bans of up to six months for players who rack up excessive reports.
The "Dota 2" player profile also received a major facelift with a more interactive interface allowing players to feature unique designed cosmetic sets for their favorite heroes. Players will also be able to show off their top heroes, trophies, and recent games in a more intuitive view.
A number of gameplay changes have also been added including teleport color coding, improved buyback notifications, visible tower damage, as well as gameplay changelog notifications in drafting. The minimap also received an update and now displays neutral creep camp difficulties along with their locations.
The biggest item changes include Battlefury whose efficiency made it a prime item to buy for cores. As such, the bonus Creep damage is reduced by 10% and no longer works on illusions. Soul Ring and Spirit Vessel recipes receive price increases making life a bit harder for support players while Meteor Hammer saw its cool-down dramatically reduced from 40 seconds to 28 seconds making a perfect pick for utility heroes like Nyx and Batrider.
As for heroes, no major changes were added in the patch although meta heroes such as Lycan, Medusa, Omniknight and Tusk received balance updates to make them a little less popular in pro and pub matches. That being said, this is just the first of many updates set to arrive over the course of six months, thanks to the new patch cycle.
"Dota 2" is currently available for the PC via Steam.
