People mad at the Battle Pass aren’t mad about “Expensive hats”. I’m not sure why this is difficult to understand, but it’s indicative of broader problems, and that’s why people aren’t happy.

I'm not sure if Valve pays people to shill for them on this subreddit, but I have seen some mind-numbingly stupid commentary coming from the Valve defense force lately, and I want to point out how dumb it is.

People complaining about the Battle Pass aren't just "mad about hats". The Battle Pass is the way we as a playerbase fund the prize pool for TI. The International's prizepool being so huge every year, with it getting bigger and bigger, is literally DotA's main claim to fame as an E-Sport, and it's why we're relevant. I'm not sure why I have to explain this, I've been playing DotA 2 for over a decade and people have consistently known this the entire time but seem to have forgotten. But this International's Battle Pass coming out with the least amount of actual content in the history of Battle Passes despite Valve having several extra months to polish it is not a good sign for the health of the game, or how willing Valve is to continue updating it.

This is also coming off of the fact that –

• The game has received only 1 actually major patch in the last 2 years

• The only casters who will actually be at TI are the main crew, meaning production value is way lower

• There's a gambling sponsor for some reason this year that's going to pack the TI with gambling ads

• We've already had numerous controversies caused by incompetence on Valve/Tournament organizers' parts leading up to the TI

The Valve white knights are reaching levels of cope that are genuinely dangerous for human consumption. Please stop pretending the outrage is just over hats, you're literally delusional.