The 2022 Dota 2 Battle Pass should be a time of celebration for the biggest esports tournament of the year. Instead, it feels mostly like a dud.
It’s already September—just one month before The International 11 is due to start—and there seems to be a conspicuous lack of hype about the Dota 2 Battle Pass.
The community, especially, has been up in arms about the latest Battle Pass, including its seemingly unfinished state, and the reduction of rewards for a higher price.
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What’s missing from the 2022 Dota 2 Battle Pass?
Compared to the last TI battle pass in 2020, there’s one less Arcana, no terrain, and a missing Immortal III chest.
Plus, the Battle Passes have increased pricing for their levels, and shifted the levels needed for rewards further back. So now, it’s harder to get to those levels—and there are also fewer ways to get there.
Conspicuously, Valve removed two big ways to receive free levels. Wagering as a system is no longer available, as well as the diggable Portals that gave a few levels depending on chance.
Even for massive whales, not having a physical Baby Roshan for Battle Pass owners who reach level 2,000 will be a blow to collectors.
Worse still, this is the first time when the Battle Pass will be released in two parts. That means that anybody buying the BP upon release will only immediately get access to one Arcana out of the five exclusive cosmetics—Faceless Void’s Claszian Apostasy.
Dota 2 streamer Wehsing “SingSing” Yuen even called it a “beta Battle Pass,” and elected to skip the purchase.
It shows in the funding pattern for the Battle Pass, it’s the slowest-growing one since 2018. Both the 2019 and 2022 versions shot past US$10 million less than four days, according to the Dota 2 Prize Pool Tracker. The latest one, however, is still yet to cross the big 10 mark after almost five days on the market.
Plus, we still have no idea where the funding for Part 2 of the Battle Pass is going. Valve promised that Part 1 will be the same as usual: 25 percent of the proceeds going towards the TI11 prize pool.
But no such promise was made for the second part—and it’s worrying that instead of helping to fund the DPC, Valve might simply take all the profits for themselves.
Will Part 2 fix the problems?
We already know some new cosmetics will be “coming soon” or promised for Part 2. Valve also promised a new Diretide event after the end of TI11, and a reward exchanged called the Candyworks, with a conspicuous “and more.”
Before you get your hopes up, it seems unlikely that the initial marketing doesn’t fully promise everything that is to come. It’s possible that more content will be released later—but these should be all the cosmetics we see.
A small bonus is that the base level one Battle Pass should be slightly cheaper for most players, since regional pricing has been introduced. It’s a buy-in that can still get you in the spirit for TI11, especially if you are willing to grind the quests and levels—but don’t expect to reach any Persona or Arcana.
At the end of the day, Battle Passes should be about the fun, and you shouldn’t need money for that.
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