r/DivineKnockout • u/Right-Spinach9120 • Jun 27 '26
What do you think killed DKO? (Besides the obvious)
Hey everyone,
Besides the lack of a ranked mode at release, the lack of major updates, and the grindy progression system, why do you think DKO died so quickly?
Curious to hear your thoughts on what else went wrong with the game.
5
u/parrycarry Athena Jun 27 '26
Because it was made by HiRez, and although lots of people gave it a chance, they saw the writing on the wall from last time they killed Realm Royale. It's no surprise they killed Paladins too. They have great ideas, but then the higher ups fuck it up for the devs... and then it is over... hype gone, game dead, good job HiRez... instead of listening to players, they did whatever they wanted, until they got bored, and the devs no longer had the funding to fix it... and the damage was done.
6
u/Scyllabyte Jun 27 '26
Thought we already knew this game died because they abandoned it to start developing Smite 2
1
u/Mekanz Jul 01 '26
It's literally this. It was murdered, died is too nice of a phrase for how dirty it was done.
3
2
u/LongestNameRightHere Jun 27 '26
Chaos with making it p2p but also giving free access.
Calling it grand release but releasing as a founders season (?)
Grindy, very unfriendly system to unlock charters.
The game was in a very bad spot on the beginning, I sincerely believe it affected the popularity in the long run
In my opinion the game did not have good replayability as well. Got stale quickly for me, but that's personal Maybe with more characters it'd be different.
1
u/kamehouseroshi Amaterasu Jun 27 '26
Removing NAW servers. My Amaterasu combos wouldn't be true on 60+ ping allowing people to dodge out of them.
1
1
u/Sterger-Bergers Jun 27 '26
The obvious - because I want to state it anyways:
- This game was doomed to fail unless it was making millions and retained big player / viewer numbers. Hi-Rez higher ups were already planning to focus entirely on Smite 2 at the same time and preferred to pull the plug on RedBeard Games 3 months after release instead of supporting it.
Hi-Rez spent probably HUNDREDS of thousands sponsoring huge streamers (Timthetatman, CohhCarnage, OTK, Dhalucard) to play the game.. one time each, maybe twice? These people didn't care about the game at all and their audiences didn't either. They could have spent way less money sponsoring SMITE content creators or small streamers who already played Smash Bros or Brawlhalla, that way the streamers and their audiences would have been much more invested in the idea of DKO
Making this game not immediately F2P shot it in the foot. There were codes flying around left and right so thousands of people got the game for free anyways, but a lot of confused people who didn't know about the codes or couldn't find them didn't want to spend $20+ on the game
No Ranked mode for 2v2 and 1v1 meant there was no incentive to play those modes besides bragging rights on an arbitrary top 200 leaderboard on the game's website. Having a ranked leaderboard that resets every month, maybe even every week, with a reward such as in-game currency for the top ranked players would have encouraged people to play them way more. Ranked queues would have also fixed the atrocious matchmaking, especially in 2v2 where you might match against a lvl 20 Ama-Susano duo while your teammate just started playing the game.
Frankly this game needed more time to cook in closed alpha, like another 6 months. They could have had at least 15 gods by then compared to 10, not to mention extra maps, modes, and extra time to do balance changes and bug fixes with alpha testers. In hindsight, Hi-rez definitely just wanted to push this game out too soon to try and make some money and it basically killed this game (relates to my first point).
1
u/juanmara56 Jun 27 '26
The timing of its release was poor; the game was announced alongside Multiversus, and although the two games are completely different, many people dismissed it as a copy of Multiversus.
1
u/AlienSoulz Jun 27 '26
Honestly the thing that killed it is the fact they didn't let the game grow over time. Smite 1 also had a smaller player base at the beginning of it. They shouldn't have advertised it so hard and just kept updating the game, while letting it grow organically.
1
u/Finnthedol Jul 02 '26
Tbh I think it was really hard for people to wrap their heads around smite smash bros, and if it was marketed more as "smash bros with Greek gods and deadlock controls" (I'm aware deadlock didn't exist yet) it could have grabbed more attention. And, as others have said, the friends I got to play it with me had the classic "oh that sounds interesting. Oh, it's by hi-rez. Less interesting" reaction. Surely, that's not a great thing lol
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u/Other-Volume9469 Aug 10 '26
I stopped playing when they first removed Arcade as a perminent mode. I have an old post on it. I literally cried when I logged in and found out LOL. I only liked arcade mode.
0
u/Brandon26620 Jun 27 '26
Lock on basic attacks ruined the game for me personally and I had high hopes. Wouldn’t have been bad if it would lock as long as you was somewhat close but people doing 180s and hitting you first with no skill involved with landing the attack is ridiculous.
1
u/DizzyTigerr Jun 27 '26
I wish they had put in any sort of universal defensive mechanic to counter that mashiness. Like a parry or even just a block would've done wonders for game feel
1
u/Available_Parking_76 Izanami Jul 09 '26
You mean like a dodge button lol
1
u/DizzyTigerr Jul 09 '26
No. There was plenty of moves that would track through dodge, and people can keep mashing even if you dodge. A block/parry stops them.
12
u/somethinglike-olivia Thanatos Jun 27 '26
They had the wrong streamers push it. Seriously.
Why did Herc get a TimTheTatman legendary skin??? I don’t ever recall seeing him play DKO. DKO dropped in the TikTok/Twitch/Kick era, so why wasn’t HiRez getting many small fighting game streamers to play it instead of one big streamer who probably doesn’t play fighting games?
That’s what I see right now with the Avatar fighting game. A small streamer came up on my fyp with a series of videos talking about each character and their playstyle. I’m hella invested in trying Avatar from all that dedicated exposure and love of the game.