Frostivus is not very nice this year.
Credit: Valve
After a year of incredible content with the Crownfall saga, that was one of the best Dota 2 events ever, the new Frostivus event feels somewhat disappointing and makes my games more annoying than before the update.
The Frostivus event entered Dota 2 a few days ago, which brought a very welcome ban wave for smurfs and MMR abusers. It also brought with it some of the usual Christmas festivities, including new cosmetic sets, a sale, and the Christmas items you can use in the game, such as snowballs and fireworks.
It’s that last part, combined with a new system that lets you create cool cosmetics for free, that makes Dota bit annoying for me now. Now that the year is coming to an end, I finally have some time to grind Dota and recover the 600+ MMR I lost over the past four months when my playing time was limited. However, it seems like many teammates are more focused on earning the resources needed to craft these cosmetic items than on helping me get my BMR back.
On paper, the system seems like a good idea. Perform some basic actions in the game to earn the resources needed to get free cosmetics. However, some of the actions that yield these crafting resources are not part of the typical gameplay loop Dota. For example, using a new channeled ability steals a festive hat from an enemy that gives you resources, throwing a penguin to the ground and chasing it gives you resources, and throwing a snowball at an enemy before hitting it kills you get resources.
This has meant that in most of the games I’ve played in recent days, before the horn sounds, my team is just chasing penguins. As someone who loves running towards the enemy and getting first blood, this has led to many broken battles with one or two players missing while hunting penguins. As the game progresses, I’ve seen players become more interested in getting a hat or throwing a snowball than securing a kill.
I’m sure players at the highest levels are good enough to accomplish these things without impacting the game, but at my level it seems to be negatively impacting my enjoyment. Dota games. It’s a small thing, but I don’t really see the need for these actions to provide you with anything useful. Keep these skills cosmetic only, and release the crafting resources through in-game actions like healing, damage, kills, and assists, all of which amount to something.
It feels harsh to complain about a free event that hands out some pretty cool cosmetics, especially afterward how good Crownfall has beenbut when it affects the core game, it becomes somewhat annoying. Hopefully the Dota 2 team continues with the Crownfall style events that have no direct impact on the main game, and leave these types of events in the past.