Look better, feel better — the latest Dota 2 Summer update isn’t about getting a beach bod, but making the game’s experience more enjoyable in a variety of ways.
Valve is implementing a new armory system for those who want a clearer way to view their cosmetics — or buy more. A new behavior score system is also in place, with more severe restrictions placed on toxic players. Plus, more graphic updates are incoming to make the MOBA, going on 13 years, look better than ever.
Dota 2 summer update: New cosmetics, reports system, and graphic upgrades
New cosmetics to celebrate summer comes with a new armory system
The armory is now sorted by heroes, letting you easily discover all the item sets the hero has, instead of just displaying the cosmetics you own. This means you can mix, match, and demo items to your liking — and if you take a liking to any of them, can purchase to add to your collection.
The interface has also been cleaned up. Duplicates now take up the same slot instead of repeating in your armory, and you can now highlight specific items and even sort them by market value, if you are looking to buy or sell.
This armory update comes with new cosmetics — a Summer Collector’s Cache featuring complete sets for 16 heroes, including rare sets for Anti-Mage’s Wei Persona, Marci, and Snapfire.
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You can be too toxic to pause the game, according to Dota 2’s latest behavior score update
Credit: Valve
Valve has completely revamped how player behavior works in this game. Commends now give an in-game benefit — commending players you like mean they are more likely to appear in your game, whether as an ally or opponent. A new dislike button will do the opposite, giving you some measure of control over your future teammates.
What if players are more than unpleasant to play with — they are just outright toxic? The new reporting system now consists of six different categories: Toxic Chat, Toxic Voice, Smurfing, Griefing, Cheating and Role Abuse.
You can report these players at any time, instead of it being soft-locked to specific time periods. Report limits have also been removed, letting you truly let loose on toxicity.
These will also provide near-immediate feedback — reported chats will be “analyzed in real-time,” and offending players will immediately lose their voice and text chat privileges.
Players who successfully report others will get a notification about specific bad actors, instead of a generic action has been taken message that has been the norm for years.
Behavior score has now been separated into separate behavior and communication scores, with their caps raised to 12,000, now allow specific privileges to be locked. You’ll need at least 3,000 behavior score to even play ranked, and 5,000 to pause in-game, for example.
Dota 2’s graphic updates is a blast to the past
Credit: Valve | Left before, right after improved particle lighting
Dota 2’s graphics are getting another update pass, including particle lighting, shadows, and tone mapping.
Lighting has been generally improved, and new sources of lights like tower attacks will now look vibrant on heroes. Clouds now cast shadows again, and sun shadows are now higher resolution. A new tone map increases contrast in darker regions.
Overall, the game definitely looks better, regaining higher-contrast, saturated look Dota had before the move to Source 2.
You can read the whole update here on the official Dota 2 website.
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