Valve unveils its DOTA 2 Battle Pass / Plus Assistant for $3.99** a month

[ItsMitch]

Source: Valve - http://www.dota2.com/plus 

Valve's blog statement

Quote

 

Today’s update unveils Dota Plus, a new monthly subscription service designed to help you get the most out of every match you play.

Dota Plus is an evolution of the Battle Pass. In the past we released two types of Battle Passes, ones that revolved around the Majors, and one around The International. As a result of the recent introduction of the Pro Circuit, we’ve replaced the Majors Battle Passes with a new type of service that doesn’t depend on a specific start and end date, and one that we can continually add features and content to over time.

This reimagining of the Majors Battle Pass will be an ongoing, uninterrupted service filled with features that provide both progression and opportunities for improvement. Hero Leveling offers you a way to make progress every match while earning Shards, a new currency that can be used to unlock rewards. Test your skills by completing hundreds of new Challenges of varying difficulties. Use the Plus Assistant to help you make build decisions by utilizing real-time item and ability suggestions. These suggestions are based on data gathered from millions of recent games at each skill bracket, ensuring your builds stay current in the ever-evolving meta. Better understand your playstyle by using new graphs and analysis tools both during the match and after it’s finished.

This update also includes the return of the Battle Cup. All Dota Plus members will have free weekly access to play in the weekend tournaments, while non-members can still purchase tickets for $0.99 to participate.

Everything Dota Plus has to offer is available now for $3.99 per month. Receive a discount if you sign up for a six- or twelve-month subscription. Want to gift Dota Plus to a friend? You can purchase gift memberships that will remain active for a fixed number of months.

 

 

 

Valve has just announced it's new Battle pass / Plus Assistant after months of speculation, it comes with fully fleshed out features like Hero Progression, Plus Assistant and the Plus Perks

Pricing is going to be $3.99 Per Month or you can sign up for 6 months and save 6% or 12 months and save 12%

Features of this pass

 

HERO-SPECIFIC CHALLENGES

Every hero now has a pool of tailored challenges—including those that focus on a hero’s specific mechanics—that allow you to sharpen and prove your skills and playstyle. Each challenge offers three levels of difficulty with more XP awarded for more stars attained, letting you push your level progression and explore your mastery of each hero at the same time.

HERO CHAT WHEEL

Take control of your hero's voice with the new Hero Chat Wheel, which lets you choose phrases your hero can say in allied or all chat. Each hero's initial phrases unlock after your first game as that hero, with more phrases available as you increase your hero badge tier.

WEEKLY REWARD

Each week presents the opportunity to earn 1,000 extra shards for your rewards stash—just win three games before the weekly timer refreshes.

PLUS REWARDS

In addition to relics, you can use your shards to choose rewards from a stock of new Plus-exclusive items, as well as select legacy item sets for some of the most popular heroes.

 

Plus Assistant

Plus Assistant provides you with an actual AI assistant to help you when you play the game, from build orders to hero recommendations to even item recommendations.

A WORLD OF KNOWLEDGE AT YOUR COMMAND

The collective knowledge of the Dota community is vast, and every day, in millions of games played around the world, it grows. Now, with the help of Plus Assistant, that global repository of Dota knowhow can be brought to bear on every single game you play.

Plus Assistant offers real-time item and ability suggestions—generated from data gathered across millions of recent games at each skill bracket—to keep you up-to-date on the latest trends. Whether you need advice on which hero best fits a draft, or aren't sure what to build after securing that coveted Blink Dagger, Plus Assistant is in your corner.

 

Even more, perks include: 

 

tl;dr, a fuck load of new content, glhf

[Streetguru]

33 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

 

So basically valve found a way to milk gullible players for money? Thinking the reason they aren't getting better is some missing suggestions at the start of a game?

Seems kind of pointless, and that people will be constantly trying to do the challenges, potentially screwing up their team in the process. Don't know why they aren't disabled in ranked.

[ItsMitch]

6 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

So basically valve found a way to milk gullible players for money? Thinking the reason they aren't getting better is some missing suggestions at the start of a game?

Seems kind of pointless, and that people will be constantly trying to do the challenges, potentially screwing up their team in the process. Don't know why they aren't disabled in ranked.

Eh, new features are fairly decent, especially when it helps contribute towards TI8

Also they "milked" their players last year and got a few million out of them from the Battle Pass and the Compendiums and it netted a nice 10+ million to TL for winning it all. 

[Blackie Sheen]

13 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

So basically valve found a way to milk gullible players for money? Thinking the reason they aren't getting better is some missing suggestions at the start of a game?

Seems kind of pointless, and that people will be constantly trying to do the challenges, potentially screwing up their team in the process. Don't know why they aren't disabled in ranked.

I dont see it the way you do at all. Having different suggestions based on the selection of builds by a vast amount of player can lead the player to understand better why one would select an item over another and become able to make their own item selection. 

 

I dont see what is the problem with having side objectives that might satisfy the player in terms of fun and also give them a hint on how to improve. 

 

Also, disabling these features in ranked would mean that most people playing thr gane as they usually do would not have access to these features. 

 

Also, the average dota player is fairly low ranked with about a 3.5 k average in the old ranking system and only play for fun. 

 

I do know that some of the former battle passes had some ridiculous challenges thadt would disrupt a teams synergy but most of them were fine in this regard. 

 

Bottom line, I really dont see why you perceive this implementation with such disgust

 

[Trixanity]

I wonder if the assistant is based on top or average player choices? Or if it's based on the AI that learned to play DotA? I mean where does it get its dataset from? It would be pretty cool if it was based on the machine learning used to beat DotA players that has been expanded to aid players in a variety areas. It may help some get started. Sometimes these games can have a very high barrier of entry (including toxic communities) that discourages new players before they get good enough to have a decent experience.

 

I don't have a horse in this race though so what do I know?

[Streetguru]

26 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

Eh, new features are fairly decent, especially when it helps contribute towards TI8

The actual battlepass gave you some potential MMR improving features, and a good number of cosmetics.

 

 

11 minutes ago, Blackie Sheen said:

Bottom line, I really dont see why you perceive this implementation with such disgust

 

It just seems to me that the low ranked players will buy into it thinking it will make them better at dota.
 

 

[ItsMitch]

2 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

I wonder if the assistant is based on top or average player choices? Or if it's based on the AI that learned to play DotA? I mean where does it get its dataset from?

It gathers it from the database of played matches history. So I'm assuming it's using some kind of AI to help the players pick, I don't believe it's Open AI. 

Quote

 

The collective knowledge of the Dota community is vast, and every day, in millions of games played around the world, it grows. Now, with the help of Plus Assistant, that global repository of Dota knowhow can be brought to bear on every single game you play.

 

 

[aezakmi]

yeah anything to avoid fixing the mm that matches you with 1k mmr players in a ranked game

[suicidalfranco]

i'd grab it just for the challenges and AI if i still was into mobas

[Eduard the weeb]

happy they didn't make DOTA 2 itself pay to play tho

[xAcid9]

1 hour ago, SC2Mitch said:

It gathers it from the database of played matches history. So I'm assuming it's using some kind of AI to help the players pick, I don't believe it's Open AI. 

So basically in-game Dotabuff feature. 

[ItsMitch]

13 minutes ago, xAcid9 said:

So basically in-game Dotabuff feature. 

It's essentially put Dotabuff outta business

[Taja]

1 hour ago, Blackie Sheen said:

I dont see it the way you do at all. Having different suggestions based on the selection of builds by a vast amount of player can lead the player to understand better why one would select an item over another and become able to make their own item selection. 

 

I dont see what is the problem with having side objectives that might satisfy the player in terms of fun and also give them a hint on how to improve. 

 

Also, disabling these features in ranked would mean that most people playing thr gane as they usually do would not have access to these features. 

 

Also, the average dota player is fairly low ranked with about a 3.5 k average in the old ranking system and only play for fun. 

 

I do know that some of the former battle passes had some ridiculous challenges thadt would disrupt a teams synergy but most of them were fine in this regard. 

 

Bottom line, I really dont see why you perceive this implementation with such disgust

 

The average dota player is less than 3k. I was 4k and used to think that was "average-good" but actually most players are really bad. I do believe this can be useful for a HUGE amount of players, and for more experienced players it wont affect the game at all.

Overall I think it is positive.

[Blackie Sheen]

1 hour ago, Taja said:

The average dota player is less than 3k. I was 4k and used to think that was "average-good" but actually most players are really bad. I do believe this can be useful for a HUGE amount of players, and for more experienced players it wont affect the game at all.

Overall I think it is positive.

Just like you, I do think it is a positive move and 3.99 $ per month is a respectable amount for all the functionnality it boasts

[SpaceGhostC2C]

3 hours ago, Eduard the weeb said:

happy they didn't make DOTA 2 itself pay to play tho

Sounds more like pay to win, with all the leveling and in-game assistant. But maybe I just don't understand how this game works  

[ravenshrike]

23 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Sounds more like pay to win, with all the leveling and in-game assistant. But maybe I just don't understand how this game works  

DOTA levels are literally just bragging rights IIRC. They have no real in-game function.

 

https://www.pcgamer.com/dota-2-update-introduces-dota-levels/

[RuffRuffmcgruff]

ye but LoL is much better than DOTA /s