Dota 2’s spooky halloween patch has launched, bringing with it an official custom game called Haunted Colosseum. In it the two teams must push down a single lane, capturing locations as they go. Whoever has more generates victory points, with the number owned increasing the point rate. The map is also stocked with traps to be activated, and every 1000 points you score will spawn powerful neutral creeps for the enemy team to try to even things up. Whoever hits the 5,000 mark first wins.
Here’s some more great Dota 2 custom games.
Confused? Here’s a trailer to help out:
The control point nature brings to mind TF2’s cp_well and cp_granary maps, while the spawning monsters, weird map interactions and general reconstruction of the MOBA formula is a bit like Heroes of the Storm’s multi-map format. The mode does still have items though. I haven’t had a shot yet, but it looks rather fun, and seems like a faster, weirder version of Dota. I’ve generally liked Valve’s custom modes in the past, especially Ability Draft, even when they’ve proved a little less than excellent like Year Beast.
The same patch brings a redesign of the custom maps tab to try to incentivise more discovery and get people playing games as fast as possible. This is something Blizzard have long struggled with in the SC2 Arcade, so I doubt it will be the last time Valve move some things around.
There’s also some balance adjustments, solely dedicated to nerfing Doom, with Brood Mother’s spiderling buddies getting some splash. While they’ve had a 4% damage reduction, Doom’s Aghs-enhanced ultimate has been nerfed and his Scorched Earth also tweaked. The changes won’t come into effect until after the current Nanyang Championships are finished. The patch is clearly designed to provide a meta-shakeup in time for the Frankfurt Major at the start of November.
You can read the full notes over on Steam, which also include some quality of life improvements to Custom Game-making and various bug fixes. Valve also summarised Haunted Colosseum on the Dota 2 site.