DOTA 3?
The changes in gameplay are the hardest for the critics to accept.
Firstly, Talent Trees.
Sure, people will phase the hate out and will eventually love all the good stuff that the Talent Trees add.
Who won’t love to have +100 damage to Magic Missile, or to remove the mana cost for Reincarnation, or having +150 gold per minute?
But for old school lovers, transferring from Dota of old to Dota 2 was already a hard concept, so imagine their reactions with Talent Trees.
The Talent Trees will add another whole level and dimension to the game, so we will see a lot more planning and strategizing, especially in the pros. Hence, in a way, having them is a nice way to keep the game fresh and evolving.
BACKPACK
Heroes now have backpacks, where they can store up to three items for future use. Items inside the backpack are inactive and won’t even give passive effects. Once taken out of the bag, the item will need a 6-second timeout before the player can use it, or for it to take effect.
Like with the Talent Trees, Backpacks add a dimension to the game, and will significantly affect late-game decisions, especially if all heroes have already maxed out their six-item inventories but still have gold for more items. Heroes can now wear their assault weapons when going on the attack and switch on their armors when retreating, though they will need six seconds to take effect.
MAP CHANGES
The Map got significantly reworked in Patch 7, and the revisions might do more harm than good though only time will tell how players will adapt to the new map structures.
One of the biggest changes in the map is that Roshan will no longer be in the Dire’s jungle area, but will be in the middle of the top half of the river.
Sure, it does a lot in terms of map symmetry, but the fact that Roshan is nearer to the Dire base made sense and added a lot of authenticity to the Dota backstory.
It made more sense to have Roshan’s lava-filled, doomy-and-gloomy cave situated near or inside the forest of of evil and darkness, than having it in the middle of a river like a last-minute addition. If they had made it a mountain, it’d be easier to understand.
What’s next, a second Roshan in the bottom half of the river? What is this, LoL?
SHRINES
Also introduced in this update are the Shrines, or mini-wells placed in the jungle that can be used as TP points and can be activated for a regeneration buff, similar to what the wells at the base provide.
The Shrines become vulnerable after Tier 2 towers fall for respective teams, and can only be activated once every five minutes, so it would not change the “jungling” game much, though with another haven in the game, this will certainly lengthen some matches.
JUNGLING
Speaking of Jungling, the farming game got tweaked in this update, with more camps (which feature new Ancients) and a remodeled forest.
The Primary Jungle for each side now has six camps, with one Ancient camp, two hard camps, two medium camps and one small camp while the Secondary Jungle each has three camps, with one ancient, one hard and one medium camp.
Warding strategy need to be improved and new juke spots need to be discovered, though that will come naturally as players work through the new patch.
DOTA FEELS
Like we said earlier, the criticisms root from the volume of changes that the new patch brought, and not from the changes themselves.
Players will eventually like the new challenges and the ever-increasing learning curve that Dota 2 offers, so they will keep coming back.
Let us know what your heart tells you about the new patch in the comments!
