Crownfall Wishlist

We might be a bit premature with our wishlist, but it’s hard to contain our excitement. This time around we are excited about some unexpected things, though. Last April we got the New Frontiers update that greatly overhauled the map, added a new attribute, introduced new objectives and heavily reworked the core concept of Spell Immunity. Just three months ago we also received a batch of new Items to play with so the gameplay is very far from being stale. Hence our wishlist is going to primarily focus on things unrelated to core game mechanics. We are, of course, talking about events and cosmetics.

More PvE events

You know what the most common problem with Dota PvP events was? They were not Dota. Plain and simple: it is hard to improve on the core 5v5 Dota experience that has it all. Most of the time Dota PvP events were teamfight-overtuned game modes that sacrificed many layers of strategic depth in favour of direct action and it rarely made for a better gameplay experience.

PvE events in Dota have always been a blast, though: going as far back as the original Frostivus with Wraith-Night, continuing to an amazing Siltbreaker campaign in two acts and, for now, culminating in Aghanim’s Labyrinth. They’ve always delivered a fresh take on how Dota and Dota heroes can be enjoyed.

Our personal favourite is Continuum Conundrum, naturally. Combining rogue-like progressions with Dota heroes made for an amazing and fun experience that was worth every minute spent on it. We would love to see it make another return with even more heroes, slightly better balance and maybe even some lore pieces scattered throughout the dungeon.

Support Arcanas

There are currently 22 Arcanas in the game and only ~10 of them are Support Arcanas and that is using the most loose definition of a support hero. At the same time heroes like Lion and Witch Doctor, undeniably Support heroes, have been top5 most played heroes for the last year and probably even longer.

Both of them have a decent amount of cosmetic options, even Immortal ones, but the same can be said about all the core heroes who also have an Arcana on top of many, many, many regular items.

Over the last several years a lot has been done to make support play more interesting and meaningful. We would even argue that in some patches this year support was the most influential role on the team and the one with the highest potential impact on the game’s outcome.

Players want to play support heroes, they are extremely popular, so getting more cosmetics for support heroes also feels like a good business decision. There are rumours of Skywrath Mage and Vengeful Spirit Arcanas and hopefully they are true.

Better personas

We are very much in favour of exploring the idea of Personas, as long as it is not a model update like in the case of Mirana. Both Anti-Mage and Phantom Assassin personas are excellently made cosmetics that don’t strip the heroes of their identity, while providing a very fresh take on the visual design.

We feel like the big reasons some personas work and some don’t is the hero’s identity structure. Dota is a bit weird when it comes to hero names: we have heroes who are primarily known and identified through their title, and we have heroes who are primarily identified by their name like Marci.

Marci is always Marci. It is a character with a very fixed identity and an actual name, rather than title. Mirana is also Mirana. She is a Priestess of the Moon technically, but very few players call her that and her Persona is probably the most disliked Persona in the game because it couldn’t be anything else but Mirana, but with an updated model.

The reason Personas work for Anti-Mage, Crystal Maiden, Phantom Assassin and even Dragon Knight is because these heroes are primarily identified by their title, rather than their name. We know that Anti-Mage is Magina, but in our heads they are Anti-Mage first and foremost, hence it is much easier to accept Wei as Anti-Mage. Similarly, we can accept Asan, not Mortred, as the Phantom Assassin.

We feel like the most interesting personas leverage the title of the hero for a consistent, but unique take on the hero and heroes like Legion Commander and Bounty Hunter could be fun to toy with design-wise, especially considering they have been changed drastically in their Dota 1 to Dota 2 transition.

Closing thoughts

Gameplay-wise Dota’s been a stellar experience for the past year. There are still many things to explore and toy with after the map overhaul and the new items are allowing for some very memey, but surprisingly effective builds. We also got multiple ban waves against smurfs and cheaters, making the game a better place, so Dota the game has been thriving.

Dota the product, however, is in a weird spot. There haven’t been many content updates that really made us excited to spend money or deviate from our regular Dota 2 habits. That’s a very strange complaint, but supporting systems like Battle Passes, Weekly Quests etc. can potentially enhance the experience for the players.

We hope that Valve continues to knock out of the park the core gameplay updates like it did for the last year, but we also hope for some meaningful ways to support the game. What are your thoughts on the matter? Share them in the comment section below!