Valve to change Battle Pass concept for The International 12

Valve has released a post dedicated to the Battle Pass for The International 12. In it, the company talked about the change in priorities and the new concept of updates.

Dota 2 developers emphasize the fact that the BP was popular due to the vast amount of different content, which the company has made throughout the year. Thus, the time before its announcement seemed "feeling barren by comparsion."

The Compendium grew in scope over the years, and ultimately transformed into the Battle Pass, acquiring a reward line and spawning a wide variety of content. Features that earlier in Dota's history might have been fun themed updates, minigames and item sets, arcanas and voice lines, gradually got swallowed by the Battle Pass — new game modes, new functionality, new cosmetics, anything that could fit.

The nature of the Battle Pass is such that it could grow to encompass just about any content we produce for Dota over the year. And, over the last few years, it did — Battle Pass season has grown to be a tremendously exciting time in Dota, but it leaves the rest of the year feeling barren by comparison.

Valve wants to avoid the situation when there's only one key moment during the year. In other words, the company plans to release different content throughout the year, not only ahead of The International.

Last year, we started to ask ourselves whether Dota was well-served by having this single focal point around which all content delivery was designed. Each step we had taken made sense when considered independently: any single piece of content would be more valuable when bundled as part of the Battle Pass, so we bundled more and more. This led to a momentous content drop every year, but it also greatly limited our ability to do things that were exciting and valuable for players but didn't fit into the Battle Pass reward line.

Valve understands the importance of updates for The International and has talked about tentative plans for future TI12. They are working on new features and content, as before there will be cosmetic items released, but there will also be updates for regular players.

There will be an update for The International 12 in September, but there won't be a major focus on cosmetic items. The new Battle Pass concept will still provide an opportunity to increase the prize pool for TI12.

As Cyberscore previously reported, Valve released patch 7.33d, where it weakened universal heroes, Octarine Core and Vanguard.