The Dota 2 deities are displeased with us, friends, but they have at least given us some new modes in the latest update.
A couple of stretch goal rewards have been released, with 1v1 Practice Mode now letting you play 1v1 mid-only against total stranger on the internet (and, happily, it lets you concede with a “gg”). There are also apparently some new analysis tools for Favourite Hero Challenge, but I’m buggered if I can find them.
Team Matchmaking has been reworked, too; it’s now a part of Ranked Matchmaking so there’s a much bigger pool of potential players for both teams and full parties. If you have a full party and you’re all members of the same team, you now have the opportunity to play using that team’s identity. To allow you to better coordinate with friends, teams can now support a roster of up to seven players, so you can even make those rubbish friends you hate playing with feel like part of a team! Although the MMR will be recalibrated whenever the team makeup changes.
Lots of things have occurred as s a result of this. The MMR for all existing teams has been cleared, team matchmaking now has the same game modes/abandonment rules/participation requirements as ranked matchmaking, and – while teams may be matched up with other teams, when searching for a game – they may now also come up against parties of five that aren’t using the team identity.
However, as mentioned, the Dota 2 deities are displeased. Right now, matchmaking and the like is down for “maintenance”, which is a surefire sign that someone forgot their blood sacrifice.
