Valve released a large balance patch 7.32 for Dota 2 on the night of August 24. Stream Charts has decided to find out how this update affected the activity of Dota 2 streamers and viewers on Twitch.
Patch 7.32 is a large balance update for Dota 2, which was announced by Valve several months ago. In this update the developers changed the characteristics of many items and heroes' abilities, redesigned the formula of gaining experience, and added the character Primal Beast in Captains Mode.
Patch 7.32 will most likely be the last before the The International 11 regional qualifiers, which start in September. Before the tournament itself, Valve will probably release a few minor updates to fine-tune the balance before the world championship starts.
Viewer and Streamer Activity on Twitch
In the past week, the Dota 2 section on Twitch has had two big spikes, according to Streams Charts. The first one was connected with the start of ESL One Malaysia 2022, and the second one with the release of the patch 7.32. Based on the previous days, the usual daytime online of the section was about 50K-55K viewers, and the nighttime was ranging from 15K to 30K ACV. After the start of the tournament in Malaysia, these numbers went up: during the daytime on August 23 the online section was up to 130K Average Viewers, and during the night of August 23-24 it was around 65K (higher than the usual daytime rate before the start of the tournament). The second jump in viewership was on the night of August 24, immediately after the patch 7.32 was released. By 6 a.m. the online number was 117K, and by noon it had risen to between 165K and 170K. In other words, the online viewers number of the tournament with the patch was 35K-40K higher than that of the tournament.
If we do not stick to the patch release, but look at the dynamics of the section from a distance, we can see the following changes. First, the increase in the Average Viewers number in the Dota 2 section on Twitch — in August it is to 80.1K people (at the time of publication), which so far is the best result in 2022. In comparison, the previous highest result was recorded in May (65.8K).
The average number of active Dota 2 channels on the platform is gradually increasing. In January and February, their number exceeded a thousand, but then dropped sharply to 800. Presumably, this happened due to the start of the war in Ukraine and the temporary inactivity of Ukrainian streamers. Since March the number of channels has been gradually increasing from month to month and in August it reached 900 channels.
Player Activity in Dota 2
The release of patch 7.32 at first glance did not have much impact on the number of active players in Dota 2, but there was a definite jump. According to steamcharts.com, on August 24, the day the patch was released, the game's online peak was 704K players. In August we also recorded higher numbers — for example, on August 14 (711K) and August 21 (705K). It is important to note that all these peaks were on Sunday, a day off. The patch was released on Wednesday, and it is reasonable to compare player activity with other days in the middle of the week. For example, on Wednesday, August 10, the peak online in the game was 557K players, and on Wednesday, August 17, online reached 652K players. To sum up, the patch did increase the peak online in Dota 2 by several tens of thousands of players.