Merry Frostivus - honest feedback
Valve,
you hit the ball out of the park w/ the patch & quality of life update part.
when it comes to the "event/celebration" its unfortunately an own goal.
the reason why none pve game mode events are bad IMO is because 1) you get to play something chill w/ people from all brackets / invite friends that stopped playing 2) it keeps the pubs clean - what I mean by that the games are full of people that dont actually wanna play - and just want a hat/chest. and get overly frustrated, specially when they realize they wont be able to get from santa what they want.
Its like that every event, games turn into torture. I take breaks multiple times a year to play other games w/ friends that dont play dota. every other major game has a battlpass w/ purchase option for that reason. people want to own and collect - every bp i can think off is like 10.-, and either can be finished by playing or buying your way to the desireable items. if you throw 50 bucks at it and play you ll have everything offered .
another element that is missing: the first time you log in...theres nothing there for you. you cant even spend money to receive something w/o going down the gamba route - which a battlepass did offer, instant progress.
now the frostivus lootbox... is just the most predatory out there. I understand you dont run a charity, but no bad luck protection, the few new sets worth getting are locked behind old reskinned bundles nobody wants that create a +$200.- barrier. long story short you just dont get anything close to a fair value and basically everything worth getting is out of reach. If we take the same 50.- bucks from the previous example...i can tell you where you sittting...on couple tier 2 items (which still are undesirable reskins) or 1 tier 3 item at best. so either you throw another 200 bucks at it or you cut your loss at this point... doesnt feel festive at all and thats my problem. little timmy just wants some nice things
"if you a broke boy just say so" - I m from one of the richest countries in the wold and had 1k lvls on every bp since playing dota... this deal is just bad and misses the mark of being a celebration. I have no idea how other regions afford throwing the money required to get "there" at it. and even if you get "it" do you actually feel it was worth or angry that you wasted that much money?
at least change it to keys being purchasable w/ shards... (reckoning), ideally consider a way to earn keys by winning X amount of games/work it into the emote/spray reward tree.
The Behaviour Score Reward was hilarious and cool - unfortunately receving a 0.03 item from 2016 for 12k bscore doesnt spread neither love or the feel of appreciation. Maybe a exclusive "good boy" gaben voiceline, maybe a bundle w/ 3 chest and 3 keys...anything other basically would have encouraged the community to behave their best, or at least think about it all of next year.
tldr: awesome patch, quality of life, ui - the event part misses the mark bc the celebration, reward element is just not there. and the lootbox is overly predatory. everything worth is locked behind old reskinned sets that create a insane paywall.
happy holidays and thx for your efforts.