Steven R. November 6, 2020
Surprise, surprise. A massive Dota 2 event has arrived, and fans are not happy with it.
Diretide 2020 is currently underway and Dota 2 players are saying that there are just too many items and too few ways to obtain them. The sheer number of rewards is so great, it would require a Dota 2 player to dedicate hundreds of hours to playing just to earn all of the skins for the event.
According to one Reddit user, players would need to grind five hours per day, every day, from the start of the event until its end date in order to earn all the unlockable rewards offered by Diretide 2020. This does not take into account the rewards that are blocked behind a paywall, meaning that the full catalog of Diretide 2020 skins would require even more time and a decent chunk of cash as well.
This issue has split Dota 2 fans down the middle, with many complaining that completing Diretide 2020 is essentially a full-time job while others respond that nobody actually needs to be a completionist in a game like Dota 2. This taps into a larger discussion that has popped up across other free-to-play titles.
Diretide and other Halloween events upset gamers in Dota 2 and beyond
Free-to-play games often put a significant focus on hosting annual limited-time events in order to introduce new game modes and skins that can drive microtransactions. The trouble is that as these games attract a broader audience, some players have the expectation of being able to unlock everything with a bit of time and effort.
Alongside Dota 2, Apex Legends has drummed up similar controversy with its Fight or Fright event. Apex fans have found reason to complain about almost every event and over many conceivable methods of selling skins.
Though some are griping about the different costs of earning rewards in Diretide, the event has still been generally well-received by fans. The quality of the skins alongside the aesthetically unique limited-time game mode has resulted in a bump in Dota 2’s player count, the first such increase in months.