DOTA 2 is getting its biggest update since coming out of beta today. Dubbed "First Blood" the update contains gameplay, UI, graphical, and several other enhancements - including an offline mode for LAN play. The free update also nerfs a few abilities which were "abused" during the recent world championships.
Captain's Draft is one of the new modes designed for versus play which gives teams some strategy while picking characters from a pool of 24. Each team takes turns banning two of the available heroes from the match while picking and counter-picking to compose their lineup. GlaDOS has also been added to the game as an announcer thanks to the "Portal Pack." The pack will set you back $18 but it's on sale for $14.39. Included in it are the GlaDOS voice set, Portal UI skin, and Aperture Science Wardcores.
For all players the UI has gotten an overhaul adding in an improved armory with built in filtering.
LAN play and the host of other improvements will be a welcome addition for co-op players, now folks should be able to practice and play the game just about anywhere.
Here's the full list of changes.
GAMEPLAYUI
- Neutral creeps now properly use cast times and animations
- Upgraded Items can always be disassembled within 10 seconds of the combine (same rules as sell back)
- Item purchases can be made at the secret shop if the courier is at that location without selecting the courier
- Enabled Medusa in Captain's Mode
- Outworld Devourer: Fixed Astral Imprisonment not restoring the right amount of mana after the debuff is removed
- Timbersaw: Fixed Timberchain not being interrupted by stuns
- Pudge: Meat Hook now pulls the target to the initial hook position regardless of where Pudge is
- Fixed being able to instantly toggle Armlet on and off
- Spirit Breaker: Fixed Greater Bash not applying further knockback on units that were already getting knocked back
- Spirit Breaker: Fixed knockback distance being too low
- Clockwerk: Fixed Power Cogs night vision being too large
- Lone Druid: Fixed Level 1/2 Spirit Bear having 1800 day vision instead of 1400
- Fixed Shadow Blade revealing only when the attack hit the target rather than when it was launched
COMMUNITY
- Control groups are now saved to the cloud, per hero, and will persist across games and disconnects. They are saved per hero
- Added profile privacy option to prevent viewing of Steam/DOTA profiles
- Added a button to choose to be captain in a Captains Mode or Captains Draft game
- Alt-left clicking on an enemy icon in the top bar will send a chat message that the hero is missing
- Limit the frequency we show map pings from muted players
- Added Double Tap Self Cast Timeout, controllable with the dota_ability_self_cast_timeout convar
- Darkened disabled heroes in Captain's Mode and Captain's Draft
- Added three new matchmaking language preference options: Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese
- Spectator health bars in the top bar are now red for the Dire
- Added a button to add friends inside the game
- Fixed spectator health bars in the top bar drawing over buyback and ultimate status
- Enemy health bars are now red in the HUD when querying them
- Fixed checkerboard flash on html panels
- Renamed backpack to armory
- Previewing couriers from the store or the armory opens a single preview window to display both versions of the courier
- Taunts are previewable in the armory
- Fixed many items not being previewable
- Buff icons draw above the portrait frame to avoid being covered by custom HUD materials
- Equipping a player slot item ( HUD, Ward, Courier ) from the armory now makes the player slots appear in the loadout panel
- Fixed various buff tooltips ( Mekansm, Armlet, Urn, Ghost Scepter, Ethereal Blade, Veil, Buckler, Assault Cuirass )
- Cleaned up some extra UI elements present in Dragon Scale HUD 4x3 aspect ratio
- Fixed the taunt key not working if an action item ( like Coal ) was equipped
- Fixed alt-pinging dropped recipes not printing the correct item name in chat
- When a courier you ordered to the secret shop enters the shop radius, the shop sound is played even if the courier is not selected
- Fixed a case where buying an item at the secret shop with a full inventory and while surrounded by trees could leave one component on the ground
ECONOMY
- Beginning soon, users will be suspended from Dota 2 for 30 days when external tools attached to Dota 2 are detected by the Valve Anti-Cheat system
- Increased length of forgiveness threshold to reset the severity of communication bans to 3 weeks
TECHNICAL
- The quality of the item drops you are eligible for is now tied to your Dota profile level. You can see your current drop level in your profile page
- A quick-search bar has been added to the armory
- Filters can now be created for the armory. These filters are stored in the Steam Cloud so that every machine you use will know your armory filter settings
- An armory page now contains 60 items instead of 64. Armory sizes have been increased upwards slightly to account for this adjustment
- Many items have been removed from the store. These can now be sold and bought on the Steam Community Market! Workshop contributors will receive a share of each resale of their items. The items that have been removed are not immortal: they may return to the store in future sales or events, or they may appear in the drop list from time to time
- The item drop list has been greatly pared down and will now change over time. As new items are introduced old items will be removed (and will be accessible on the Steam Community Market). This should help keep the item drop list interesting over time
- Entropic Shield and Entropic Axe are now a part of the Entropic set
VISUAL
- Fixed an issue where players could end up in a continuous loop of "received uncompressed update from server"
- Added UI texture streaming to reduce memory usage
- Fixed a startup crash with corrupt customization files
- Fixed a case where the game would return with a black screen after alt-tab
AUDIO
- Updated Phantom Assassin's head
- New Centaur Conquerer War Stomp
- New Satyr Tormentor blast
- Minor tweaks to Wildwing Ripper Tornado
- New Satyr Banisher projectile
- Fixed visuals on Satyr Banisher purge
- Improved Vhoul's spear throw effect
- Fixed LOD1 on Ol' Chopper Pudge hook
- updated cloth settings and skinning Crystal Maiden, Invoker, Lina, and Rubick
- Fixed several bugs with portrait particles relating to death and dormancy for visibility in the portrait and kill cam
- Fixed Io death effects
- Moved all of Chaos Knight's particles onto individual items, such as the mount, helmet, and others, as well as support for local attachments, so that new items can support different positions based on new mounts of helms
- Revamped Doom's weapon effect to better support community items
- Fixed a bug where models that failed to combine would get double effects in the preview panel
- Fixed Spirit Breakers missing effects
- Moved Spirit Breaker's effects into individual items to better support community items
HERO BUILDS
- Add sound to Radiance debuff (only audible to target player)
- Fix last hit sound for Alchemist and Lone Druid ults
LOCAL PLAY
- Added a language filter to the in-game UI when selecting a hero build. Build authors will need to republish hero builds and choose a language when publishing in order for builds to be filterable by language
- Fixed slow hero build loading times for users with a large number of subscribed or previously used hero builds
CAPTAINS DRAFT
- Local servers allows players on the same physical network to connect to a locally hosted game
- By selecting "Create Local Lobby", the leader of the lobby will become the host for a match by running a local server
- Players can see Local lobbies available on their physical network by going to "FIND A LOBBY" and selecting the "LOCAL LOBBIES" tab
- Local Lobbies follow the same rules as Private Lobbies.
- Upon completion of the Local game, the replay will be stored on the lobby leader's computer in replays/<match-id>.dem
WORKSHOP
- This game mode randomly selects 8 str, 8 agi, and 8 int heroes that both teams can choose from
- Each team's captain bans 2 heroes (1/1/1/1) out of that list
- Each team's captain selects 5 heroes (1/2/2/2/2/1) out of the remaining list
- There is a 150 second total time pool for each team to complete all of their bans and selections
MAC/LINUX
- Added Abaddon to the Workshop submission tools and website requirements
- [Mac] Fixed problems with sounds cutting out or not playing for the first few minutes of a game
- [Mac] Made the Dock icon bounce when a game is ready
- [Mac] Play a ready sound when game is not focused and matchmaking has found a game
- Make "Sound while alt-tab" setting work
- Added a fix for missing lip sync in hero portraits
- Fix corrupted GUI after changing video settings
- Hero Library videos now play on Linux
Source: Dota2.com