Deadlock isn’t even out. It’s a closed alpha. You can only play the game if you have a key. The game has had zero advertisements. I do agree though I’d like to see more content for deadlock. Deadlocks time will come.
I agree. I tell my friends this all the time. They expect huge content and fleshed out ranked and all types of crazy shit. The game isnt even in beta yet lmao
cope, deadlock is released, its a multiplayer game globally hosted 24/7 for anyone to play for free the reality is that deadlock is for moba nerds only like dota and league players. the gameplay is complicated and unwatchable as a spectator, matches are like half an hour long
@@DolanAndGoobyFTW a released game doesn't have balance changes that flip the entire meta every week. the game is obviously unfinished. no part of deadlock meets the criteria for a released game besides being playable, which it's been stated is an open beta. if you think mobas are for nerds, then just admit you're regarded and move on.
similar games, similar states of development, the only difference is the company behind the games. Valve is notorious for dropping bangers... just really slowly, and I guess if your anal match type despite mostly being a lane push or contest a spot
Well, the game still needs to be finished, it needs to add: - Good ranked system - good matchmaking system - cosmetics - progression for heroes - finish lore & story - an actually good anti cheat - textures for heroes and map (whole game) - redesigned heroes (i heard every hero is getting a redesign and a lot of them are still designs from Neon Prime) - more heroes (22 right now --> 40?) - jungle camp variety - finished map, more interesting objectives around map - community support/workshop/servers (if they add this the game will be immortal) - finish mid boss design (attack, redesign, textures) - add more items - good tutorial - more gamemodes (it doesn't even have to be a MOBA mode like ARAM or even PVP, it could be something like wave defense against monsters along with the economy system of gaining money and then buying items to get stronger as well which i think will really appeal to the casual players) - trailer + cinematics - advertisement - a good ui
I really wouldn't worry about this stuff. Almost everything mentioned I'm certain valve already know and are working towards. The game in it's current state is a play test and the feedback received has been extremely positive. The fact that the game blew up in this unpolished state is a testament to how good the core game is and it's potential. Surely getting that right is a lot harder and more important at this stage than creating progression and micro transactions to hold player retention.
Comparing a complete game like marvel rivals to deadlock makes no sense… Deadlock literally in testing, all the doom and gloom videos might force them to close testing to the public.
marvel rivals is no where near a complete game that's for sure. I have seen wild optimization updates and like 3 characters dropped in/before season 0 they just focused on monetization. atop that they are reworking the entire way the battle pass will work.
I have genuinely considered dropping the game, I used to love going onto ranked after a couple warm up casual matches, playing for the allotted time on ranked and then going back to just chilling on casual. now its just a horrible sweat feast every game where you are constantly having to carry your team while the entire enemy team is frame perfect on every possible detail in deadlock. it is depressing. I miss the separated game styles and whenever someone deserves a report I complain in the report box about it after the report details. edit: I am also sick of fighting Warden, Wraith, Haze, Vindicta, and Bebop guarantied every match, with the last open slot being 1 of the 17 characters left over.
You are weren't supposed to play full time deadlock anyway. Hence the player count drop because there isn't any content. Those who want to "test" the game may play it, others might just come back to check it out when it's completed.
Lack of players has caused long queuing times so people are feeling down, but it’s natural. They’ll return to a split queue from ranked and unranked, update a lot of the models, flesh the map out, release more characters, and then launch on front page of steam and I think it will catch steam again.
Deadlock is a pre-dev build, no advertisements, no real showings of the game outside word of mouth. Rivals is fully released with a full live-service plan behind it. Let them cook it, the best games take time.
You start by discounting the “it’s an alpha” reason. But your entire argument boils down to the game being unfinished… of course it’s unfinished. It’s in a closed alpha.
There is no advertising. It is still invite only. They arn't paying streamers to play it. Everyone I talk to still hasn't even heard of the game. Comparing this to marvel rivals is ridiculous seeing as they had a public release with advertising and streamers playing it for Ads. The game is fine and will only get bigger.
I don't think Valve looks at this the same way. They have a history of having 'weird' player retention behavior. Look at CS and its iterations and its player numbers. It took years for CSGO to *really* take off for instance. Then it spent an insane amount of time very slowly growing. Not saying that can/will happen with Deadlock, just that they might not worry about these things in the same way most other companies will :p I hope the best for DL even though I'm currently not actively playing it either. I plan on revisiting it further down the line. Perhaps at launch, perhaps sooner. Depends on its development.
The reason why people regurgitate “it’s in alpha” , “there’s not any advertising” , “don’t worry about the playercount dipping” is because they’re all completely reasonable arguments, and are rather obvious IMO. At this moment, Deadlock is a game in deep testing - as is shown by the constant balance changes and lack of content. Now is the time for Valve to test and perfect their game, for new content creators to persevere and claim their niche within the game’s community, and for the best players to get ahead of those who will arrive once the game is ready for its 1.0 launch. I do agree that the onboarding could be better, and that there are aspects of the game that are unintuitive, but neither of these points really cause any worry for me. The game will be fine.
The number one concern isnt adding Heroes, the concern is making sure the gameplay is good enough for a full release. Comparing this game to Marvel Rivals is stupid, even calling this game a live service isnt accurate. There is no monetization, there is hardly any content. Its a play test, barely even a game, in fact its around 35% of a completed game. What I predict will happen is we will be able to play the game for the next couple months, the game will be unplayable for a very long time 8 months to 1 1/2 years maybe and then it releases with probably 40-50 Heroes, finished art, clear objectives, hopefully a better map and some monetization, advertising, it'll be fully free to play. Im not worried about Deadlock.
It is a live service, the game is out, playerbale for anyone (yes u need a key which takes two seconds) and receives biweekly updates how is that not live service lel
Your ideas are good, it's just the framing of them in this video that is way off the mark. I know (ex)players like yourself absolutely hate it when people remind you that this is a game in alpha playtesting because it feels like a dismissal of your complaints, but it is also literally reality. You have to live in reality, not this fantasy land dreamworld where it makes sense to unfavourably compare a playtest to a fully released game. Because in reality, that does not make sense. By all means quit the game and wait for further progress to be made before returning (I've been playing less too), but pretending the game is in a crisis or getting concerned about its future is just so wildly off base that it's actually embarassing to see how much traction it has got online. Modern gamers seem to live in this constant state of overreaction to literally everything and have no grounding in reality.
It's certainly not casual friendly, but frankly neither was LoL, however they've made huge strides in the last 10+ years to shore that up, gamer sentiment has also changed a lot. My biggest personal gripe is how much matches can drag on, I hope they make some changes so they wrap up faster.
I’ve created 3 alt accounts just to be able to play whoever and have fun. Every time I get back to my rank, I just get bored and hop off. There’s not much to do and the lower player base really makes the game harder to want to play.
90% of the complaints about this game are brainless people who think that Valve has no idea what they are doing, and assume that the alpha doesn't mean alpha
I get a lot of your points but man am I disagreeing about adding more heroes. We have what? Like 20ish heros ATM? Now lets assume you need about 50-75 matches per hero to "get a proper feel for it" and become "good" with the hero. Thats now about 1000-1500 matches. Adding too many heroes will scare away players. Rarely in the history of "adding "more" to a game" i felt like it was a good choice. I have several friends that even say they cant be bothered to get into deadlock right now as there are too many heroes and too many items. While im a nolife gamer myself I feel like people underestimate the time it takes a casual ish (lets say 1 match a day) gamer to get trough the basics. Assuming you just wanna play every hero once or twice to get a feeling for it and learn how to potentially counter it, thats now roughly a 4-6 weeks time investment to a casual player. I personally lever tried LoL (even tho interested) due to the sheer amount of heros I'd have to learn to even start properly
The matchmaking is what made me quit. Towards the end I had games with people that said it was their 5th or 6th game ever on my team, while I have 250+ hours in the game. I get that it's difficult to match up even teams of 6v6 with so few players, but it has just been torturously bad the last month or so.
Yeah this games needs a casual/ shorter gamemode cuz playing always 40 mins is frustrating and annoying if u lose in the beginning or get snowballed, More game modes, maps, heroes and full release i see this game shining honestly (xmas skin impletmentation was fun only valve to do it this way)
Im currently hard stuck in Alchemist, and let me say that the match making experience is god awful right now. Late night games I do fine and tend to win a lot (idk why, it just happens to be that way) and ill get up to like Alch 4. But when I play games during the day, I end up losing 4 matches in a row regardless of my performance in laning, mid, late, etc. It feels like I cant escape this hell now because regardless of how much practice I put in, and how many new strats I try, I always lose. And I know I'm decent at the game now!!! I love this game for what it is, like you said, but it's just so frustrating getting into a game and having it be a total wash because the enemy haze was goated or because shiv kept getting fed etc etc. I hope valve makes some changes to the ranked system, and matchmaking in general, but until then im taking a break from the game just like most of the player base.
yes deadlock is out. Wait no, its alpha. No, its closed alpha. No, its early beta. No, its closed playtest. No, its early access invite. No, its early alpha. Get your facts straight
@@haich34 The facts are straightforward-everything I said is objectively true. In my opinion, 'out' means the game is playable and downloadable by the general population. It's not even being advertised yet. So, what's your definition of 'out,' ?
I haven't played as much because its frankly too much to follow what seems like thousands of bi-monthly changes. I came to the decision that I was just going to pop in occasionally until it fully comes out. There's simply too much to follow on a week to week basis. Also you're right, the game needs at minimum 26 heroes so you can ban 2 heroes and have 2 full sets of 12 characters. Im fairly confident they can pull it off
Heroes of the Storm in Alpha had a lot more viewers on Twitch back in the days, and even though it had more concurrent players and viewers, it died. I think Valve has to keep giving players more reason to keep the player base engaged. The game is also too hardcore and repetitive to appeal to masses.
This games to hardcore for the average person including myself. Adding a different mode isn't gonna fix the problem either. People don't wanna hear they should go play the weenie hut jr mode. People are craving a game like deadlock. But they don't want all the extra hard things that come with a moba. Once someone figures out that recipe it will be a huge success. Imagine a game like marvel rivals or overwatch with moba mechanics but keeping it easier for casual audiences. That game will BLOW UP.
Ive lost 27 games out of 32. The match making was great until early November and it just became brutal. Prior to the peeceived changes i was at a straight 50% W/L rate.
Just an anecdote, most gamer friends I talk to don’t even know what deadlock is. We’re in a bubble of deadlock gamers but the general public still has no idea what it is.
Does it suck that it's not retaining the players from its peak high? Sure. Is it expected to? Not in its current state. It's an alpha as everyone says, and the fact it even climbed to 170k players is probably not what Valve expected, and they don't expect to keep all those players, especially with only 20 or so heroes released, making a lot of matches feel samey. MOBAs tend to need at least 40-50 characters to launch with (LoL launched with 40 champions), and Dota 2 had the benefit of launching with the hero pool from original Dota so it was able to start with 100 or so heroes. We're still years out before a proper beta is even considered, and that can change the game a lot by then. I can understand being wary of Valve's practices considering they shuttered Artifact and Underlords so soon, but Deadlock has so much potential and passion behind it from the Valve developers that we can trust Valve knows what it is doing.
Think you have fair takes. Fortnite was in "early access" even tho it was doing it's seasons and live service stuff. Tho Valve is very different, so let's see what the devs can come up with I would also like to see some more casual play modes. I'm kind of burning myself out because the game is so difficult
One thing that I think is desperately missing is a surrender. But I do think it is very intentionally missing to gather statistics on how games develop. I think closing out the game takes way too much time currently. Respawn times should max out at 40 seconds. You reach 70 seconds currently in the most casual games, which is awful. Worrying about retention is fair, but you have to see that Marvel Rival just draws a lot of this player base too currently. I agree though that this game is very sweaty by default, but so is LoL, and that game is huge still. Worrying about the number of champions is a little unwarranted though. Clearly they know and they have already a couple new ones in the queue. Personally I think when they release the game they should not have more than the current roster and then release new characters on a monthly cycle.
You also have to realize that in the current state if they released with all the current beta charcters and alapped on a battlepass or some kind of monetization that it would be a lame game. Being part of the playtest voicing your opinion is more important so that changes can be made
IMO the 2 biggest issues are lack of Heroes on the roster (and all of the things we're missing because of it) and so much focus on rapid balance adjustments that they're missing the bigger picture. They are HYPER focused on balancing items and current heroes, which is absolutely the most important thing to get right in a game like this, but they spend so much time balancing the current things that they run the risk of putting all their eggs in one basket, and having that balance destroyed when they release a couple heroes that contradict the hyper-tuned balance. Better to get a bigger roster so they can wrap their heads around ALL of the balance issues, not just what the game current has. As far as matchmaking goes, bad games are to be expected in a game with 12 person lobbies and a dwindling worldwide playerbase. I'm High Phantom - Low Ascendant, but almost ALWAYS get put into games where the average rank is Archon. It's essentially Me and 1 other higher ranked player in the lobby vs anything from Emissary or higher. It makes games feel absolutely terrible. Either I have to HARD carry the entire team, or we're entirely screwed.
Hero Lab shows that they are still making new characters & the fact they release and take away items shows it not all balancing. That's what you see, not what's going on. It's easier to have a small collection of characters to build off of and balance rather then throwing 30 + characters into a game and figuring out what all needs to happen
I think they have figured this one out. December as a whole has been slow in term of changes and the only large release was the Christmas visual one. I think the game is in a fine balance state at the moment and they should just start 1) adding the hero labs heroes to the main cast and 2) add more to hero labs.
the lower the player count the worse it spirals down because the pool of players gets lower and with it being competitive the games are not balanced as there isn't enough people in the pool
Its a closed alpha man, let em cook. Id rather have a well polished game rather than player retention in the end. Look at Activision and them trying so hard to "retain players" just let em make a good game and the player base will be there.
...buddy, pall, fella, sir, man, bro... the game isn't even out yet proper! And if you think it is, no live service game has characters changing their entire identity. Yamato is gonna get completely reworked and also, the game has a load of place holder assets. This is a valve game, be happy that you can actually play test it because this game is gonna basically re release in about 3-4 years once the game is fully ready to release. There will be cosmetics, there will be stuff for player retention, there will be the things that you can expect from a valve title, its just gonna take some time. They are not trying to be the next hero shooter or the next huge live service game, they are just trying to make a game they love and that they hope people will love. That is valve, they put all the time the game will need to become the perfect game they invision. The reason (i think) they released it early is to get feedback on balance and what to make the gameplay to make it more fun. They could have not done this and they would have acually saved money (since they need to run servers and that costs money) if they just kept working but they just want player feedback and just want to make this as fun for us. They first make a fun game and only then they think about how to monitize it. If you need examples, look at other valve games.
deadlock's time will come.. jesus. please be patient. this is valve we're talking about. they will do everything they can to bring this game to light once it gets closer to release
marvel rivals is a SUPER mainstream game as a Disney franchise with tons of free advertising from their other media. Deadlock has not had any real advertising and it's a huge anomaly that we even get to play it in this early of a development stage. I'm gonna be honest, any criticism of this game atm doesn't make much sense to me. A lot of the core systems of the game are still WIP, and you rarely ever play games that are still in that state. The fact that the game is this attention-grabbing and fun already is an amazing sign and we have absolutely no reason to worry rn.
It also need a more impactful of story and lore presentation i love dota2 but compare to league the story presentation of league is much better while dota2 is just mehh...
Allowing players to play for such a long period like this was a huge mistake by the developers. This game will never do well, even after the official release, because people have already tried it, and the hype has been completely lost. btw this game is too hard to learn as well. the reason people still playing it is because it's Value's game, person who really love the game, or just hardcore competitive who think they can take advantage of other new players once it's official release. but obviously, this game is going to fail.
Tbh, on the "only people who love valve or play moba's keep playing this" and the "its too hard to learn" i have to disagree. I at first was put off by the game. Never played moba's and never put any time on my own into valve games except portal and portal 2 with 1 playthrough. Friend got me to try the game and at first, it was indeed confusing but after a few games of just playing it, i started to understand. My friend game 0 help and just said to play the game how i want to and eventually i understood. Now i do look online for some more details but understanding what i have to do and how to play the game really feels simalar to how it is done with tf2. You just have to play it a few games and you will understand.
DeadLock Biggest Strength is also is its biggest weakness , it is a Hero shooter game within a MOBA . And MOBA is sooooo boring and too complex for the casual.
Marval rivals hasn't even been out for a month? Deadlock was also able to hold over 100k players for more a month. If we are comparing both games at 1 month in, they are identical. Braindead points before the 1-minute mark. 🤔
Marvel Rivals is not comparable. man that game is a pure overwatch reskin, so cringe. i think more characters are welcome but only to an extent, most friends of mine never gave lol a chance because the learning curve sucks because of so many. Matchmaking must be adjusted. I would LOVE all random or all same hero modes
@thegoofstacio7913 nah like really fully blown single player. Build upon the lore, the story, it makes it interesting. Why are these players fighting? Believe it or not I think it can be important for a game
the game is dead, and it never stood a chance. the game tries to appeal to two different player bases. the moba folks and the dm/mechanical focused players. you choose one, not both when developing a game.
This is such a dumbass take. Other games have no news after the limited alpha test of over a year. There's no need for player retention when the game is pretty much barebones. Rivals is a full game, Deadlock is not even beta. Wtf is this mindset? You're just milking the f game for content.
I don’t think people realize that Valve is one of the best companies at learning from their mistakes. Knowing Valve, this game is probably 2 years away from launch. The company has some of the best psychologist and economist working on their games. Every competitive valve title is still very healthy to this day. Unfortunately, they are known for taking their sweet time with their work. This game got a lot of attention for it being so bare bones, and when it gets fully released, people are going to come back because they remembered how fun the game was. The game needs to focus on improving the core gameplay before focusing on player retention
Deadlock isn’t even out. It’s a closed alpha. You can only play the game if you have a key. The game has had zero advertisements. I do agree though I’d like to see more content for deadlock. Deadlocks time will come.
You don’t need a key to play it anymore it came out already to the public lol
I agree. I tell my friends this all the time. They expect huge content and fleshed out ranked and all types of crazy shit. The game isnt even in beta yet lmao
cope, deadlock is released, its a multiplayer game globally hosted 24/7 for anyone to play for free
the reality is that deadlock is for moba nerds only like dota and league players. the gameplay is complicated and unwatchable as a spectator, matches are like half an hour long
@@DolanAndGoobyFTW a released game doesn't have balance changes that flip the entire meta every week. the game is obviously unfinished. no part of deadlock meets the criteria for a released game besides being playable, which it's been stated is an open beta. if you think mobas are for nerds, then just admit you're regarded and move on.
@@DolanAndGoobyFTW half an hour is short for a competitive game
Comparing rivals and a play test is kinda crazy.
Madness really 😂
similar games, similar states of development, the only difference is the company behind the games. Valve is notorious for dropping bangers... just really slowly, and I guess if your anal match type despite mostly being a lane push or contest a spot
I only mentioned Rivals to compare the player retention. Like I said, they're different games, and they are at different stages of development.
@@eskiegamingRivals haven't been officialy out for a month ? Dude
@@eskiegaming Now look at Marvel Rivals OPEN BETA numbers and compare them to Deadlock CLOSED ALPHA numbers.
Well, the game still needs to be finished, it needs to add:
- Good ranked system
- good matchmaking system
- cosmetics
- progression for heroes
- finish lore & story
- an actually good anti cheat
- textures for heroes and map (whole game)
- redesigned heroes (i heard every hero is getting a redesign and a lot of them are still designs from Neon Prime)
- more heroes (22 right now --> 40?)
- jungle camp variety
- finished map, more interesting objectives around map
- community support/workshop/servers (if they add this the game will be immortal)
- finish mid boss design (attack, redesign, textures)
- add more items
- good tutorial
- more gamemodes (it doesn't even have to be a MOBA mode like ARAM or even PVP, it could be something like wave defense against monsters along with the economy system of gaining money and then buying items to get stronger as well which i think will really appeal to the casual players)
- trailer + cinematics
- advertisement
- a good ui
I really wouldn't worry about this stuff. Almost everything mentioned I'm certain valve already know and are working towards. The game in it's current state is a play test and the feedback received has been extremely positive.
The fact that the game blew up in this unpolished state is a testament to how good the core game is and it's potential. Surely getting that right is a lot harder and more important at this stage than creating progression and micro transactions to hold player retention.
It’s a closed alpha. It’s not an issue. The matchmaking, yes. It is an issue. I wouldn’t worry about it otherwise.
Comparing a complete game like marvel rivals to deadlock makes no sense… Deadlock literally in testing, all the doom and gloom videos might force them to close testing to the public.
marvel rivals is no where near a complete game that's for sure. I have seen wild optimization updates and like 3 characters dropped in/before season 0 they just focused on monetization. atop that they are reworking the entire way the battle pass will work.
I have genuinely considered dropping the game, I used to love going onto ranked after a couple warm up casual matches, playing for the allotted time on ranked and then going back to just chilling on casual. now its just a horrible sweat feast every game where you are constantly having to carry your team while the entire enemy team is frame perfect on every possible detail in deadlock. it is depressing. I miss the separated game styles and whenever someone deserves a report I complain in the report box about it after the report details.
edit: I am also sick of fighting Warden, Wraith, Haze, Vindicta, and Bebop guarantied every match, with the last open slot being 1 of the 17 characters left over.
Just play games you like. Leave Deadlock behind.
you should give up i did and now im happy
You are weren't supposed to play full time deadlock anyway. Hence the player count drop because there isn't any content. Those who want to "test" the game may play it, others might just come back to check it out when it's completed.
Why are so many people being doomers abt this game? Its super early development and also its a valve game... why is everyone worried?
Lack of players has caused long queuing times so people are feeling down, but it’s natural.
They’ll return to a split queue from ranked and unranked, update a lot of the models, flesh the map out, release more characters, and then launch on front page of steam and I think it will catch steam again.
I definitely don't want to come off as doomer. I mentioned in the video that I'm still optimistic. I have faith Valve can make Deadlock a success.
Deadlock is a pre-dev build, no advertisements, no real showings of the game outside word of mouth. Rivals is fully released with a full live-service plan behind it.
Let them cook it, the best games take time.
You start by discounting the “it’s an alpha” reason. But your entire argument boils down to the game being unfinished… of course it’s unfinished. It’s in a closed alpha.
True it's an extremely unfinished game with a plummeting player count. A recipe for success 🤡
There is no advertising. It is still invite only. They arn't paying streamers to play it. Everyone I talk to still hasn't even heard of the game. Comparing this to marvel rivals is ridiculous seeing as they had a public release with advertising and streamers playing it for Ads. The game is fine and will only get bigger.
Yep, when a closed alpha game is one of the most played games on steam I think the game will do just fine with real advertising.
it’s an alpha lmao
I don't think Valve looks at this the same way. They have a history of having 'weird' player retention behavior. Look at CS and its iterations and its player numbers. It took years for CSGO to *really* take off for instance. Then it spent an insane amount of time very slowly growing. Not saying that can/will happen with Deadlock, just that they might not worry about these things in the same way most other companies will :p I hope the best for DL even though I'm currently not actively playing it either. I plan on revisiting it further down the line. Perhaps at launch, perhaps sooner. Depends on its development.
The reason why people regurgitate “it’s in alpha” , “there’s not any advertising” , “don’t worry about the playercount dipping” is because they’re all completely reasonable arguments, and are rather obvious IMO. At this moment, Deadlock is a game in deep testing - as is shown by the constant balance changes and lack of content. Now is the time for Valve to test and perfect their game, for new content creators to persevere and claim their niche within the game’s community, and for the best players to get ahead of those who will arrive once the game is ready for its 1.0 launch.
I do agree that the onboarding could be better, and that there are aspects of the game that are unintuitive, but neither of these points really cause any worry for me. The game will be fine.
The number one concern isnt adding Heroes, the concern is making sure the gameplay is good enough for a full release. Comparing this game to Marvel Rivals is stupid, even calling this game a live service isnt accurate. There is no monetization, there is hardly any content. Its a play test, barely even a game, in fact its around 35% of a completed game. What I predict will happen is we will be able to play the game for the next couple months, the game will be unplayable for a very long time 8 months to 1 1/2 years maybe and then it releases with probably 40-50 Heroes, finished art, clear objectives, hopefully a better map and some monetization, advertising, it'll be fully free to play. Im not worried about Deadlock.
It is a live service, the game is out, playerbale for anyone (yes u need a key which takes two seconds) and receives biweekly updates how is that not live service lel
horrible take
Your ideas are good, it's just the framing of them in this video that is way off the mark. I know (ex)players like yourself absolutely hate it when people remind you that this is a game in alpha playtesting because it feels like a dismissal of your complaints, but it is also literally reality. You have to live in reality, not this fantasy land dreamworld where it makes sense to unfavourably compare a playtest to a fully released game. Because in reality, that does not make sense. By all means quit the game and wait for further progress to be made before returning (I've been playing less too), but pretending the game is in a crisis or getting concerned about its future is just so wildly off base that it's actually embarassing to see how much traction it has got online. Modern gamers seem to live in this constant state of overreaction to literally everything and have no grounding in reality.
It's certainly not casual friendly, but frankly neither was LoL, however they've made huge strides in the last 10+ years to shore that up, gamer sentiment has also changed a lot. My biggest personal gripe is how much matches can drag on, I hope they make some changes so they wrap up faster.
I’ve created 3 alt accounts just to be able to play whoever and have fun. Every time I get back to my rank, I just get bored and hop off. There’s not much to do and the lower player base really makes the game harder to want to play.
90% of the complaints about this game are brainless people who think that Valve has no idea what they are doing, and assume that the alpha doesn't mean alpha
Agree! And unfortunately people go by what’s popular instead of what’s good too often.
I get a lot of your points but man am I disagreeing about adding more heroes.
We have what? Like 20ish heros ATM?
Now lets assume you need about 50-75 matches per hero to "get a proper feel for it" and become "good" with the hero.
Thats now about 1000-1500 matches.
Adding too many heroes will scare away players. Rarely in the history of "adding "more" to a game" i felt like it was a good choice.
I have several friends that even say they cant be bothered to get into deadlock right now as there are too many heroes and too many items.
While im a nolife gamer myself I feel like people underestimate the time it takes a casual ish (lets say 1 match a day) gamer to get trough the basics.
Assuming you just wanna play every hero once or twice to get a feeling for it and learn how to potentially counter it, thats now roughly a 4-6 weeks time investment to a casual player.
I personally lever tried LoL (even tho interested) due to the sheer amount of heros I'd have to learn to even start properly
The matchmaking is what made me quit. Towards the end I had games with people that said it was their 5th or 6th game ever on my team, while I have 250+ hours in the game. I get that it's difficult to match up even teams of 6v6 with so few players, but it has just been torturously bad the last month or so.
Whatever direction Valve is gonna take Deadlock is up for them to decide, for now I am looking forward to your Marvel Rivals content!
Yeah this games needs a casual/ shorter gamemode cuz playing always 40 mins is frustrating and annoying if u lose in the beginning or get snowballed,
More game modes, maps, heroes and full release i see this game shining honestly (xmas skin impletmentation was fun only valve to do it this way)
Im currently hard stuck in Alchemist, and let me say that the match making experience is god awful right now. Late night games I do fine and tend to win a lot (idk why, it just happens to be that way) and ill get up to like Alch 4. But when I play games during the day, I end up losing 4 matches in a row regardless of my performance in laning, mid, late, etc. It feels like I cant escape this hell now because regardless of how much practice I put in, and how many new strats I try, I always lose. And I know I'm decent at the game now!!!
I love this game for what it is, like you said, but it's just so frustrating getting into a game and having it be a total wash because the enemy haze was goated or because shiv kept getting fed etc etc.
I hope valve makes some changes to the ranked system, and matchmaking in general, but until then im taking a break from the game just like most of the player base.
I think compairing Deadlock to Marvel Rivals is kinda off. Rivals launched like a couple weeks ago while Deadlock has been out for a few months.
Deadlock isn’t even out. It’s a closed alpha. You can only play the game if you have a key.
yes deadlock is out. Wait no, its alpha. No, its closed alpha. No, its early beta. No, its closed playtest. No, its early access invite. No, its early alpha.
Get your facts straight
@@haich34 The facts are straightforward-everything I said is objectively true. In my opinion, 'out' means the game is playable and downloadable by the general population. It's not even being advertised yet. So, what's your definition of 'out,' ?
@@X_MANGO__When people say a game is out, they mean it's been officially released. Beta tests, early access, etc don't count
@@awhryan that's exactly what I'm saying.
I haven't played as much because its frankly too much to follow what seems like thousands of bi-monthly changes. I came to the decision that I was just going to pop in occasionally until it fully comes out. There's simply too much to follow on a week to week basis. Also you're right, the game needs at minimum 26 heroes so you can ban 2 heroes and have 2 full sets of 12 characters. Im fairly confident they can pull it off
Heroes of the Storm in Alpha had a lot more viewers on Twitch back in the days, and even though it had more concurrent players and viewers, it died. I think Valve has to keep giving players more reason to keep the player base engaged. The game is also too hardcore and repetitive to appeal to masses.
This games to hardcore for the average person including myself. Adding a different mode isn't gonna fix the problem either. People don't wanna hear they should go play the weenie hut jr mode. People are craving a game like deadlock. But they don't want all the extra hard things that come with a moba. Once someone figures out that recipe it will be a huge success. Imagine a game like marvel rivals or overwatch with moba mechanics but keeping it easier for casual audiences. That game will BLOW UP.
Ive lost 27 games out of 32. The match making was great until early November and it just became brutal. Prior to the peeceived changes i was at a straight 50% W/L rate.
Just an anecdote, most gamer friends I talk to don’t even know what deadlock is. We’re in a bubble of deadlock gamers but the general public still has no idea what it is.
Dont worry once I get back to my set up ill start playing
Does it suck that it's not retaining the players from its peak high? Sure. Is it expected to? Not in its current state. It's an alpha as everyone says, and the fact it even climbed to 170k players is probably not what Valve expected, and they don't expect to keep all those players, especially with only 20 or so heroes released, making a lot of matches feel samey. MOBAs tend to need at least 40-50 characters to launch with (LoL launched with 40 champions), and Dota 2 had the benefit of launching with the hero pool from original Dota so it was able to start with 100 or so heroes.
We're still years out before a proper beta is even considered, and that can change the game a lot by then. I can understand being wary of Valve's practices considering they shuttered Artifact and Underlords so soon, but Deadlock has so much potential and passion behind it from the Valve developers that we can trust Valve knows what it is doing.
The players who played it should come back and play when it fully comes out, cool game just broken and unfinished
It died because the devs only listen to pros
Think you have fair takes. Fortnite was in "early access" even tho it was doing it's seasons and live service stuff. Tho Valve is very different, so let's see what the devs can come up with
I would also like to see some more casual play modes. I'm kind of burning myself out because the game is so difficult
One thing that I think is desperately missing is a surrender. But I do think it is very intentionally missing to gather statistics on how games develop.
I think closing out the game takes way too much time currently. Respawn times should max out at 40 seconds. You reach 70 seconds currently in the most casual games, which is awful.
Worrying about retention is fair, but you have to see that Marvel Rival just draws a lot of this player base too currently. I agree though that this game is very sweaty by default, but so is LoL, and that game is huge still.
Worrying about the number of champions is a little unwarranted though. Clearly they know and they have already a couple new ones in the queue. Personally I think when they release the game they should not have more than the current roster and then release new characters on a monthly cycle.
You also have to realize that in the current state if they released with all the current beta charcters and alapped on a battlepass or some kind of monetization that it would be a lame game. Being part of the playtest voicing your opinion is more important so that changes can be made
IMO the 2 biggest issues are lack of Heroes on the roster (and all of the things we're missing because of it) and so much focus on rapid balance adjustments that they're missing the bigger picture.
They are HYPER focused on balancing items and current heroes, which is absolutely the most important thing to get right in a game like this, but they spend so much time balancing the current things that they run the risk of putting all their eggs in one basket, and having that balance destroyed when they release a couple heroes that contradict the hyper-tuned balance. Better to get a bigger roster so they can wrap their heads around ALL of the balance issues, not just what the game current has.
As far as matchmaking goes, bad games are to be expected in a game with 12 person lobbies and a dwindling worldwide playerbase. I'm High Phantom - Low Ascendant, but almost ALWAYS get put into games where the average rank is Archon. It's essentially Me and 1 other higher ranked player in the lobby vs anything from Emissary or higher. It makes games feel absolutely terrible. Either I have to HARD carry the entire team, or we're entirely screwed.
Hero Lab shows that they are still making new characters & the fact they release and take away items shows it not all balancing. That's what you see, not what's going on. It's easier to have a small collection of characters to build off of and balance rather then throwing 30 + characters into a game and figuring out what all needs to happen
I think they have figured this one out. December as a whole has been slow in term of changes and the only large release was the Christmas visual one. I think the game is in a fine balance state at the moment and they should just start 1) adding the hero labs heroes to the main cast and 2) add more to hero labs.
the lower the player count the worse it spirals down because the pool of players gets lower and with it being competitive the games are not balanced as there isn't enough people in the pool
Its a closed alpha man, let em cook. Id rather have a well polished game rather than player retention in the end. Look at Activision and them trying so hard to "retain players" just let em make a good game and the player base will be there.
...buddy, pall, fella, sir, man, bro... the game isn't even out yet proper!
And if you think it is, no live service game has characters changing their entire identity. Yamato is gonna get completely reworked and also, the game has a load of place holder assets.
This is a valve game, be happy that you can actually play test it because this game is gonna basically re release in about 3-4 years once the game is fully ready to release.
There will be cosmetics, there will be stuff for player retention, there will be the things that you can expect from a valve title, its just gonna take some time.
They are not trying to be the next hero shooter or the next huge live service game, they are just trying to make a game they love and that they hope people will love. That is valve, they put all the time the game will need to become the perfect game they invision.
The reason (i think) they released it early is to get feedback on balance and what to make the gameplay to make it more fun. They could have not done this and they would have acually saved money (since they need to run servers and that costs money) if they just kept working but they just want player feedback and just want to make this as fun for us.
They first make a fun game and only then they think about how to monitize it. If you need examples, look at other valve games.
deadlock's time will come.. jesus. please be patient. this is valve we're talking about. they will do everything they can to bring this game to light once it gets closer to release
This is valve were taking about they could keep deadlock alive from tournaments alone lol
As long aa they don't go the way of overwatch
marvel rivals is a SUPER mainstream game as a Disney franchise with tons of free advertising from their other media. Deadlock has not had any real advertising and it's a huge anomaly that we even get to play it in this early of a development stage.
I'm gonna be honest, any criticism of this game atm doesn't make much sense to me. A lot of the core systems of the game are still WIP, and you rarely ever play games that are still in that state. The fact that the game is this attention-grabbing and fun already is an amazing sign and we have absolutely no reason to worry rn.
Early access 😊😊😊
Not fair to compair to a Marvel game where most people will play because of the Marvel branding
It also need a more impactful of story and lore presentation i love dota2 but compare to league the story presentation of league is much better while dota2 is just mehh...
Allowing players to play for such a long period like this was a huge mistake by the developers. This game will never do well, even after the official release, because people have already tried it, and the hype has been completely lost. btw this game is too hard to learn as well. the reason people still playing it is because it's Value's game, person who really love the game, or just hardcore competitive who think they can take advantage of other new players once it's official release. but obviously, this game is going to fail.
Decent point, but they will have developed a core player base during this, and on release it will gain new players.
Tbh, on the "only people who love valve or play moba's keep playing this" and the "its too hard to learn" i have to disagree.
I at first was put off by the game. Never played moba's and never put any time on my own into valve games except portal and portal 2 with 1 playthrough.
Friend got me to try the game and at first, it was indeed confusing but after a few games of just playing it, i started to understand.
My friend game 0 help and just said to play the game how i want to and eventually i understood. Now i do look online for some more details but understanding what i have to do and how to play the game really feels simalar to how it is done with tf2.
You just have to play it a few games and you will understand.
DeadLock Biggest Strength is also is its biggest weakness , it is a Hero shooter game within a MOBA . And MOBA is sooooo boring and too complex for the casual.
Matches are taking 10x longer to find. A few of my friends stopped playing because the updates are too jarring.
We need tradable hats. Problem solved
Marval rivals hasn't even been out for a month? Deadlock was also able to hold over 100k players for more a month. If we are comparing both games at 1 month in, they are identical. Braindead points before the 1-minute mark. 🤔
dead game move on folks
Also we need to bot tf2 again so they stop being corny ass against new game releases
"Game is missing a bunch of features!" says another youtuber talking about an unfinished, unreleased game
The number of Deadlock videos is falling off very quickly, basically in line with the absolutely crashing player numbers.
Marvel Rivals is not comparable. man that game is a pure overwatch reskin, so cringe. i think more characters are welcome but only to an extent, most friends of mine never gave lol a chance because the learning curve sucks because of so many. Matchmaking must be adjusted. I would LOVE all random or all same hero modes
Pretty stupid to be concerned.
We aren't players. We're voluntary pre-alpha testers.
they should make a single player mode for it
vs bots already in the game (?
@thegoofstacio7913 nah like really fully blown single player. Build upon the lore, the story, it makes it interesting. Why are these players fighting? Believe it or not I think it can be important for a game
@@spydrmndread the lore and youll find out. Every character has a reason to fight and "complete the ritual"
the game is dead, and it never stood a chance. the game tries to appeal to two different player bases. the moba folks and the dm/mechanical focused players. you choose one, not both when developing a game.
Never cook again
@@ivang3678 my wife says the same thing to me
TRASH GAME Cannot wait to get everyone I know to downvote the shit out of this game, as if it's not the general consensus
are you living under a rock the game has 500 players. everyone's playing marvel rivald
If you don't think a game can fail before it is released you are delusional and naive.
This is such a dumbass take. Other games have no news after the limited alpha test of over a year. There's no need for player retention when the game is pretty much barebones. Rivals is a full game, Deadlock is not even beta. Wtf is this mindset? You're just milking the f game for content.
I've got 500 hours in deadlock.. game is boring now... lol really?...
Rage bait video
I don’t think people realize that Valve is one of the best companies at learning from their mistakes. Knowing Valve, this game is probably 2 years away from launch. The company has some of the best psychologist and economist working on their games. Every competitive valve title is still very healthy to this day. Unfortunately, they are known for taking their sweet time with their work. This game got a lot of attention for it being so bare bones, and when it gets fully released, people are going to come back because they remembered how fun the game was. The game needs to focus on improving the core gameplay before focusing on player retention
tf2 won
deadlock lost
dead game RIP
So sick of videos like this.
"I'm concerned"
"Game is dead"
"Game is dying"
"Game is bad"
Grow up. 🙄
trash take
it needs to double down on its noir aesthetics. It needs some atmosphere and cosmetics.
its still in in dev stage its not even in alpha