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- Gorgon the Wonder Cow

how do we know if the game is getting more balanced?

The fact is that the draft pool is among the most diverse its ever been

by definition if more heroes are going undrafted then the heroes who are left will be played more often.

Over the last two years the draft pool has gradually expanded Over the last two years the draft pool has gradually expanded

This change is coming largely at the expense of Tier 2 heroes rather than exclusively Tier 1 heroes.

Right now, drafts are less composed of very popular heroes and more composed of many less popular heroes than in the past.

Almost 75% of draft positions are taken by heroes who are only played in fewer than 25% of games; this is an all time high.

The closer this number is to 0, the more evenly distributed drafts are; for the number of games played, the line marked .05 serves as the 1000 mark. The closer this number is to 0, the more evenly distributed drafts are; for the number of games played, the line marked .05 serves as the 1000 mark.

the fewer games played, the more draft stagnation there appears to be.

However, the overall trend over the years as Valve has patched and subpatched is toward pick diversity

The current patch is on course to be the the most balanced gamepatch in Dota 2 history

Tweet me any responses or suggestions you have @thewondercow.

Despite complaints about Juggernaut (who has an impressive but far from record-setting 55.1% winrate) and Vengeful Spirit, the Dota 2 draft pool is more balanced today than ever in the past. This week as well as gathering together the movers and shakers in the hero pool, I've also put together some data below to explain why our draft pool is the best its ever been.This is, of course, in addition to the numerous already mentioned accolades my predicted heroes achieved. Any hero I predicted to grow is marked with a pair of glasses.Of course, in the runup to a major tournament bracket like DAC, I feel compelled to add a qualifier: metashifts tend to happen very quickly when teams from different regions play large amounts of games together, when new tier 1 players or team compositions play a lot at one time, or during high-stakes tournaments where creative drafting and effective reactions are key components. Two weeks is a long time during a period like this.The 6.83 hero pool is more diverse than everNow we come to what I wanted to talk about two weeks ago when 6.83 so rudely and fittingly interrupted me: balance updates and how they've impacted metagame. Specifically,I recently read a blog in which the author asserted that the viable draft pool was getting smaller, not bigger, and he used some pretty questionable data analysis to back his assertions up.; here's how we know.The following series of charts cover the pick rate, ban rate, and combined pick and back rate of every pro game of Dota 2 since December 2012. What it looks at is which percentage of total draft opportunities are held by heroes who have different priority levels. For example, if every game of a month had the exact same draft, then Tier 1 heroes would be 100% while Tier 2 and Tier 3 heroes would be 0%.A Tier 1 pick or ban is basically a hero who is so good that one team will almost always build a strategy around him or her.A Tier 2 hero is good enough that it would be prioritized by about one out of four teamsA Tier 3 hero is somewhere between "situationally strong" (up to 1:8 drafts will include him/her) and "drafted once."Because undrafted heroes by definition take 0% of total draft opportunities (of which there are 10 per game, or 20 per game for pick and ban), they are not directly represented. However, when more heroes go undrafted, it is typically but not always an indication that Tier 1 and Tier 2 heroes are being drafted much more. After all,Understanding the graphIf the red line is quite high, it means a few heroes are being extremely heavily prioritized while if the yellow line is quite high it means that lots of heroes are being more or less equally prioritized. The orange line indicates how many picks are repeated frequently without being dominating--if orange is quite high, it typically means that there is large draft diversity but also many heroes who are not being drafted at all.So what does it all mean?As you can see, there have been some ups and downs (and an especially predictable spike of tier 1 bans after TI4 this last year), but the overall trend is that more and more draft positions are being taken by tier 3 heroes. In order for this to be true, there needs to be less focus on the "powerful" or "imbalanced" heroset. This trend basically means that the pool of heroes considered equally viable is rising and is at an all-time high.What this indicates is that there are some heroes still considered overpowered by the pro community, but that the rest of the draft pool is becoming more equally viable. That being said, tier 1 picks are lower than they've been in the past and draft diversity is on the climb.Currently, only 5% of drafted heroes come from a pool of heroes who are played in 75% or more of games (much lower than 2013 where it was over 20%).Nearly every hero is being considered situationally viable by pro teams.I’m going to employ an economic coefficient called the Gini Index in the next section. This is the same measurement typically used to determine how evenly wealth is distributed in a population. For our purposes, we're going to imagine that being drafted is like getting a paycheck, and we'll measure how evenly distributed the wealth of Dota is between eligible heroes over time.Basically, the closer this number is to 0, the more evenly distributed drafts are; the closer to 1 this number is, the less evenly distributed (in favor of a few very popular heroes) drafts are. A one means only five heroes are ever played and a zero is every hero is played the exact same amount.The nice thing about this measurement is that it is adjusted for number of heroes available in the pool month to month and indicates how many games were played each month; this incorporates many of the aspects of drafting which are often swept under the rug in these discussions.A couple of notes:When there are fewer games played, there are fewer opportunities for lesser-drafted heroes to make an appearance. There are also usually fewer teams/regions playing, meaning that drafts will stagnate based on a few prolific teams' preferences rather than a larger sampling.Nearly every year there are two big spikes of draft stagnation: one around The International, when no other tournaments are played and successful teams tend to play more games with the same heroes, and one around December when there is a lull between the fall and winter tournaments.. When comparing periods with a similar number of pro games, more recent draft numbers are always more diverse (even the particularly stagnant post TI4 stages) than comparable times in the past. Many would argue that this diversity is key to the soul of Dota 2 and its sustainability as a spectator game.I cite three major reasons why we're seeing this trend (and have been throughout Dota history):Valve has been working hard to continue to balance the game not just in terms of hero abilities and stats, but also in terms of the game mechanics to make sure that heroes with specific roles of stages of activity aren't underwhelming simply because their basic function is unnecessary.More games means more heroes drafted, and it also means more opportunity for diversity. The growth Dota 2 has seen has made it much easier for teams to experiment with new drafting methods, and also expedites the process of discovering counters to seemingly powerful heroes.Inter-regional competition happens more often and in bursts, allowing for independent metas to grow but also regularly interact. This creates occassional X-men like hyper-fast evolutions during the overlaps. Often when we see too much stagnation (such as the period just after The International 4), it is partially because inter-regional contact is minimal to nonexistent.All the signs point to a healthy metagame for diversity, which breeds strategic ingenuity.when you look at hero winrates alongside draft diversity. So, good job, Valve.I took note of many of your suggestions from the first installment of the metagame fortnight and will continue to do so, and I appreciate all the feedback!This article was written byGorgon the Wonder Cow, joinDOTA's Elder writer.Gorgon is an analyst and freelance caster for joinDOTA, CEVO, and anywhere needing a fast tongue with top insight. He is jD's resident "new patch" guy, and has a weekly segment on Defense of the Patience podcast.Location: Ann Arbor, MIFollow him on @TheWonderCow.*edit: corrected a typo resulting in Axe's pick rate being listed as the same as his pick growth.