New Bloom returns to Dota 2, bringing some pay-to-win controversy with it

The New Bloom Festival has returned to Dota 2 again this year, bringing with it a whole bunch of new items including a new Arcana item set, a new hero… and just a dash of controversy.

Winter Wyvern is the latest hero to join Dota 2‘s roster, and features an appropriately icy set of abilities. The Frost Avalanche is the new Arcana set and belongs to Crystal Maiden. It brings a full custom set of animations, spell effects and animations. The set also includes a large chunk of Ability Points for use in the Year Beast Brawl game mode.

Year Beast Brawl is a new mode for Dota 2 that appears a few times randomly throughout each day. It features the regular Dota 2 map with the addition of a Year Beast which spawns for each team every 5 minutes. Teams can then spend their Ability Points to upgrade their beast in various ways to try and give them an advantage against the other team. Ability Points can be purchased directly from the store or earned through wins in regular games if a teammate has the Crystal Maiden Arcana.

This has caused a flurry of controversy amongst some who believe this makes the game type pay-to-win. Users who invest in more Ability Points certainly get a stronger head start early in the New Bloom event but with persistence other players can catch up. Points can be earned in other ways too, although at a much slower rate.

Ultimately, Year Beast Brawl does not affect the matchmaking rating of players and the item sets earned through wins will undoubtedly be available in the store so the impact of its pay to win nature is negligible. However, it still is unquestionably a pay to win game mode.

Full details on Winter Wyvern, Frost Avalanche and the changelog of the new update can be found here.

What do you think? Will you be playing Year Beast Brawl or has the pay to win nature frightened you off? Let us know in the comments below.