Dota 2 adds 'Least Played' mode

Now that Dota 2 is up to a whopping 96 characters, it's a fair bet that a good proportion of them are something of a mystery to most of its 3 million players. To help introduce you to a few more, without the fear of being stomped by people playing their best heroes, Valve added a new mode in yesterday's weekly patch that forces everyone to choose one of their least-played Doters.

'Least Played Mode' disables each player's top 20 heroes with the most wins so they have to pick a character they don't play very often, or at least are not very good at. "Having an even playing field for everyone in the match will hopefully encourage players to break out of their comfort zone and try new heroes," Valve said in a blog post.

The patch also brought goodies including bug fixes and bots for Warlock and Drow Ranger. It adds a lot to the Dota 2 Steam Workshop tools too. Industrious community creators can now make couriers and wards, and items for Centaur Warrunner, Batrider, Mirana, Keeper of the Light, Shadow Demon, and Slark, with a shot at getting them into the game.

Dota 2 is still technically in closed beta, though it's a pretty large-scale one as Valve also revealed yesterday that it sees "over 3 million unique players every month." If you know someone in the beta, they probably have a spare invite or two, or you can buy an early access package which includes loads of cosmetic items for the free-to-play game.