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Today is the day, the big teaming up of Valve and Netflix is out with the DOTA: Dragon's Blood anime series. Since there will be renewed interest in Dota 2 as a game, Valve has also given it a huge upgrade for newer players.

About the Anime that's out now: the fantasy series tells the story of Davion, a renowned Dragon Knight devoted to wiping the scourge from the face of the world. Following encounters with a powerful, ancient eldwurm as well as the noble Princess Mirana on a secret mission of her own, Davion becomes embroiled in events much larger than he could have ever imagined.

With animation from Studio MIR, known for the likes of he Legend of Korra, Voltron: Legendary Defender, and the recently announced The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf. Check out the trailer below:

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Quite exciting, especially if you're an anime and Dota 2 fan like me. The problem is though, the game itself is traditionally quite hostile to new players. Not just because the community can be completely terrible but it never really helped new players enough, often assuming too much. Thankfully, it seems Valve finally decided to do something about this with the brand new Dota 2 upgrade that's out now that completely overhauls the experience for newer players.

One of the ways Valve has adjusted Dota 2 for players is to make the shop system simpler. During a game of Dota 2, you need to regularly buy items from gold gained during the match to boost your character. The problem is, there's so many builds you can do and it genuinely does get overwhelming so now Valve has streamlined the shop experience for new players.

There's also a new quest-like system, where players can earn rewards as they go through the different tiers on it.

There's more than that too. There's a new Glossary to learn about different parts of the game, which Valve say it "breaks down different aspects of Dota into digestible chunks" allowing you to " learn about the basics of heroes and items or towers and creeps, or dig into mechanics ranging from leveling and experience to abilities and status effects" and more.

A new player mode was added to the game too "featuring a small and stable hero pool that will let players learn the basics without encountering new heroes and abilities in each game". Players can leave this mode at any time and be replaced by a bot, so it makes playing and learning a fair amount easier. To help even further, Valve upgraded the bots to deal with various parts of the game better overall.

Even more came with it including a little Wizard that will appear on the screen to give you tips, like running into the enemy side of the map when no enemies are visible which is often a bad idea. There's also a new player chat room that's moderated, a coaching system for players to help others, Valve will now ban "smurf" accounts and will now ban accounts for other game-ruining offences.

Overall, it sounds like an absolutely fantastic update to Dota 2. More is coming though! One of the next updates (7.29) will include a new hero!

Oh and there's even a Basshunter Dota song now too:

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Watch Dragon's Blood exclusively on Netflix.

You can play Dota 2 free on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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6 comments

pb Mar 25, 2021
Nice, I might actually try it then...
BielFPs Mar 25, 2021
I like it how Valve is aiming to make the game more beginner friendly. I remember when I try to play and I didn't understand anything that I was doing (probably because I'm not a MOBA fan)

Sadly to see that Dota 2 lacks what I think are the main factor that made League of Legends the most popular one: Localized voice acting.

This combined with the game "low specs friendly" in my opinion was the factor that makes LoL more popular with girls and "non-gamers" players, and for me who lives in a country with some of the best voice actors in the world, I can see how much this matter.

But I really hope this improves the experience of new players that will come with the Netflix animation, and I might try to play again to see the new tutorial.
Naib Mar 25, 2021
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for newcomers its is good, the reduced heropool and reduced shop makes it a lot easier to pick ... until you grasp.

Coupled with the reporting changed from the last major update (live report for in-game griefing, a separate report post-game for chat abuse) should make this easier

That wizard is annoying as hell, if you didn't turn it off and do not need it


As to the anime, ill be watching this with the kids after school today/tomorrow


Last edited by Naib on 25 March 2021 at 2:42 pm UTC
Julius Mar 25, 2021
Old and busted: Make an Anime to sell more plastic toys.
New and hot: Make an Anime to sell more in-game stuff.
wolfyrion Mar 26, 2021
Well I havent played dota2 but I wanted to start playing with this anime but with an ATI RX 6900XT I was hoping to play Dota2 in stable 144hz but instead I am getting a lot of FPS drops and low fps.

Loading to watch a game or entering a new game can go to 1 FPS and then after a while it may settle to 70FPS.

I cant figure out what causing this since other games are playing just fine.

I have tried also different vulkan drivers but the same thing.
MisterPaytwick Mar 27, 2021
Quoting: wolfyrionWell I havent played dota2 but I wanted to start playing with this anime but with an ATI RX 6900XT I was hoping to play Dota2 in stable 144hz but instead I am getting a lot of FPS drops and low fps.

Loading to watch a game or entering a new game can go to 1 FPS and then after a while it may settle to 70FPS.

I cant figure out what causing this since other games are playing just fine.

I have tried also different vulkan drivers but the same thing.

First, double check if you have the Compute Shaders on (on Vulkan API), which will cause a bunch of FPS drop at first, but overtime *should* help stabilize FPS. Second, Dota is known to be quite CPU heavy and RAM hungry (checking in system that ram is properly set as dual channel for exemple)
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