We announced Dota Labs a couple months ago, and since then we've continued to iterate quietly on the features in it as we get feedback and data. "Quietly" is fine, but sometimes it can be useful to be a bit louder so today we're turning up the volume a little:
We're happy to announce the first promotion of a Dota Labs option out of Labs and into the game itself: high-visibility hero health bars, under Options -> Interface.
Over the last weeks (and today), we've shipped a variety of updates to the other features, including additional controls for the overlay map, new data in the pre-match analytics, and the ability to treat targeting modifier keys as toggles rather than holds.
Lastly, because we've gotten so many useful submissions from the Feedback button built into the Crownfall map, we've added one to the Dota Labs UI as well.
As always, please continue to tell us which parts of the still in-development Labs features you like and which you think need improvement.
Collector's Cache Voting Begins
Our community of artists have also been hard at work. Hundreds of item sets have been lovingly crafted, lovingly polished, and lovingly uploaded to the Workshop, and now it's up to you, the Dota community, to lovingly vote on which ones you'd like to see in the next Collector's Cache!
In the spirit of Dota Labs experimentation, this time voting is open to everyone. From the dashboard, simply click the Collector's Cache Voting button and then upvote or downvote the sets you're the most passionate about. Voting runs from now until May 21st, with the most popular sets getting released as part of a future Crownfall update.
Grenade kills no longer display the "in-air" killfeed icon.
Fixed several cases where clicking on the buy menu or scoreboard would cause the game to stop taking keyboard input.
Fixed too many usercommands being processed when skipping forward in demos. This reduces the skip time by as much as 80%.
Added console output that may be helpful for advanced users to diagnose performance problems. When a very long frame occurs, a brief profile of the frame is printed. At the end of a match, a summary is printed.
Today's update includes a bunch of quality-of-life improvements that touch upon every part of the game, from maps to UI to gameplay. A few highlights are below, but check out the release notes to see what's new!
Lefties rejoice! Players can now redeploy their weapons, swapping between the left and right hand. You can set your preferred handedness in the settings menu and then switch hands temporarily mid-round with a key press (H on US Keyboards by default).
The buy menu has a few new tricks. To help you decide whether to buy or save, the top right of the buy menu now features the minimum amount of money you're guaranteed to have next round (thanks Kadomos). And at the bottom you'll find the new 'Dropped Weapons' panel, where you can see (and directly pick up) any weapons that you or teammates have dropped in the buy zone.
There are several more HUD/UI changes in today's update. For those of you who have memorized a library of grenade line-ups, a line-up reticle will appear shortly after you pull the pin (you can even customize the delay for each grenade type). And if you've had trouble navigating through smoke, set a Radar Map Alternate Zoom and add a Toggle Radar Zoom key binding, which will let you switch between zoom levels during a round.
We've updated the Active Duty map pool (for both Premier and competitions), removing Overpass and bringing back Dust II. And there are changes to many other maps, including significant changes to Inferno.
Jump right into a match and see what's new, or practice with your friends--practice matches and workshop maps can now be launched with members of your party.
Added "Switch Viewmodel Left/Right Hand" key binding (default: US keyboard letter H) to switch hands temporarily during gameplay
Viewmodel position setting and left/right hand state are now networked and visible to first-person spectators.
Deprecated "Couch" viewmodel position setting
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Added "Radar Map Alternate Zoom" setting and "Toggle Radar Zoom" key binding to toggle between zoom levels during gameplay
Added a radar icon for the local player when free cam spectating
Added a grenade line-up reticle that appears shortly after pulling the pin. The timing can be configured for each grenade type independently
Changed weapon Swap text (when pointing at a dropped weapon) to always show the gameplay name of the weapon instead of any customized name it might have.
Added a kill feed icon for "in-air" kills
Added the scoreboard to the ESC menu
Added an icon to indicate bots on the scoreboard
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Added a "Dropped Weapons" panel, which shows (and allows the direct pickup of) weapons that have been dropped by teammates that are standing in the buy zone
Added the minimum amount of money that a player is guaranteed to have in the next round to the buy menu title bar. (thanks, Kadomos)
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Increased Zeus movement speed and adjusted the attack cone
Increased Zeus kill reward from $0 to $100 ($50 in Casual)
Increased CZ75-Auto kill reward from $100 to $300 ($150 in Casual)
Reduced XM1014 kill reward from $900 to $600 ($300 in Casual)
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Lighting adjustments in Inspect background maps
Added Wear Category to the info tooltip in the Inspect screen
Added gameplay name in panels that used to only show customized name. E.g., Inspect screen, inventory tile
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Replaced Overpass with Dust 2 in the Active Duty Group, current competition map pool, and Premier matchmaking
Baggage
Opened roll-up doors at spawns
Updated models for some conveyors
Solidified stairs
Various bug fixes
Inferno:
Removed overhanging building at top mid
Removed overhangs at bottom of banana
Various map tweaks to improve player collision and readability
Over the last few days since Crownfall's release we've addressed the following issues:
Fixed the match history Dota Plus rank change column sometimes displaying zero change for matches where a Ranked Double Down token was used. (The correct rank change was recorded on the server, this was just a display issue.)
Fixed Crownfall Ranked Double Down tokens beyond the first not being correctly granted. Missing tokens have been granted to all affected accounts.
Fixed voice chat indicators not appearing for some players.
Fixed the in-game Ranked Double Down button not appearing for some players.
Fixed a bug allowing Shadow Demon to level up his ultimate outside of the correct level points.
Fixed the Demo Hero mode Target Dummy being unintentionally killable.
Fixed a bug in the combat log that caused an additional tower killed message to be printed along with tower deny messages.
Fixed a bug in the combat log that caused barracks kills by creeps being attributed to a player.
Fixed a bug in the combat log that incorrectly showed no gold being given to all players when barracks were killed by creeps.
Fixed models shown in loadout or pregame screens not always using the highest quality rendering options.
Fixed missing visual effects for heroes with the Aviana's Feather neutral item.
Fixed the Crownfall Snake Charmer encounter to also grant credit when you play two Turbo games.
Fixed the Crownfall Snake Charmer encounter not greeting players the first time you open it.
Fixed some minor visual issues with the Drow Ranger The Finer Points taunt.