The main version of Dota 2 has received a small new update, I wasn’t originally going to be doing a blog post for this patch but I have had a lot of emails asking about the changes made.
Front End Changes
The main focus of this small patch was to quickly address a couple of issues with the new UI updates that arrived last week.
UI Updates
Valve continues to read feedback on the new dashboard/hero selection screen and implement changes.
The New Dashboard
For users running on a 16:9 ratio (1920×1080 etc) the dashboard has been rescaled with the mini profile, chat and friends list (now three columns wide) taking up more room.
Updated 16:9 Dashboard:
Old 16:9 Dashboard:
The God tier ratio (16:10) has yet to receive this update.Â
The New Hero Selection System
Updates have been made to the new hero selection system.
The selection screen has now been enlarged to cover the entire screen space, in doing so grid mode now has the relevant team boxes showing the hero choices of either team:
When typing on the turntable screen to quickly jump to a hero’s card, the letters entered will now be displayed on the HUD:
When playing a mode like Single Draft or Random Draft the unavailable cards are now hidden from view when using the grid mode and it will also use the alternative grid layout, ticking the “Show All Heroes” box will make it display them in the normally category layout.
For those of you wanting to tweak the layout/scale of the grid mode, I have put together a list of some commands that should help you:
http://dev.dota2.com/showthread.php?t=37039&page=7&p=225521&viewfull=1#post225521
Back End Changes
There were some updates to the unreleased in game store/loadout selection UI in the last patch that I didn’t cover (so I might as well do it now).
Unreleased In Game Store
The hero loadout screen has already been updated to incorporate the new card based selection system.
Store Page
The store has not been implemented in the UI since the Economy files have been in a Scaleform format. I believe that the Dota 2 store will be completely web based and ran through the Dota 2 website.
Backpack Page
The backpack is pretty much unchanged from when we last saw it and hasn’t been resized yet for the new dashboard.
Loadout Page
The loadout screen has been in progress for the past few months now, being built directly into the new hero selection system.
Selecting a card will open up the loadout selection menu, allowing you to swap out specific cosmetic items for that hero. As well as adjusting the “All Heroes” items, such as custom announcers, couriers etc.
Hot swappable beards > *.
Selecting a loadout slot will open a backpack style grid which will most likely be populated with items relevant to that category and hero.
Predictions For The Next Hero
Prediction remains the same from last week’s content analysis post.
http://www.cyborgmatt.com/2012/05/dota-2-23rd-may/#predictions-for-the-next-hero
