When Valve released the Battle Pass for this year's The International, many fans complained for different reasons. Many claimed that this year's Dota 2 Battle Pass is underwhelming compared to the ones before it, with unexciting rewards that do not do justice to the amount of time you'd spend playing to earn them. Others complained about how the battle pass progression is very grindy and slow, earning very little rewards regardless of how much time you sink into playing Dota 2. Finally, there are those who complained about how the Battle Pass' schedule actually lowers Valve's contribution to this year's The International, as the Battle Pass will continue making sales past The International Finals, but there's no indication that Valve will continue contributing to The International's Prize Pool with the Battle Pass sales.

There are many problems pointed out by fans for the Dota Battle Pass, but at least Valve is addressing one of the issues.

In an update on the Dota 2 Blog, Valve said that they are reworking how players can earn Battle Pass Points for this year's Battle Pass. Valve claims to have compared this year's earnable battle pass points to the previous years and claims that in general, players should still earn the same amount of Battle Pass points. However, this year's median points earned are actually lower. Their findings state that casual players will earn less this year while hardcore players' earnings will essentially remain the same. So, to fix this, Valve implemented a couple of fixes:

  • Weekly Bonus Feature – Players will now earn 200 Battle Points per win and 100 Battle Points per loss for up to 2,000 Battle Points per week (equivalent to two levels). Awards earned from turbo games are halved.
  • Weekly Quest Update – For non Bonus weeks, rewards are re-scaled from 500/1000/1500 at 4/9/15 Stars to 1000/1000/1000 at 2/8/15 Stars. For Bonus weeks, the Battle Chest is now available at 2 Stars instead of 3 Stars.

According to Valve, this should help more casual players to earn more free levels without having to grind for more. At a cursory glance, this is true, but it doesn't address the issue of this year's rewards being very stingy. While players will definitely end up earning more Battle Pass Levels, the Battle Pass itself has many levels that don't have any tied rewards.