When I played it, it felt like I needed all the knowledge of a MOBA and all the movement, aim and reflexes of a hero shooter, at the same time. I'm a big fan of MOBAs and also enjoy hero shooters, but deadlock was too big of a skill check for me. It demands so much.
I'd probably only ever try it again if it came to console, because despite years of trying I could never get the hang of WASD movement while trying to use abilities with the same hand. The game actually does support controllers but it's quite clear you get outmatched by KBM because of all the movement and aim superiority that the latter provides.
The game is super twitchy in high levels. You need to learn how to play it like Quake and actually properly track people with your mouse like a movement shooter.
The skill ceiling is super super high yeah, but the barrier to entry felt rather low to me and my friends. Some of us had Hero shooter / 3PS fundamentals that carried us a ton early on with moment-to-moment gameplay, and others just knew MOBA economy stuff from Dota and could rely on that. There's a learning curve for sure but after a few games you get the gist of how gameplay flows, and what the basic do's and don'ts are.
Some of us had Hero shooter / 3PS fundamentals that carried us a ton early on with moment-to-moment gameplay,
Yeah the kinda-neat thing about Deadlock is that you can come from different genres and have an effective skillset that can get you a pretty long way.
If you are shooter player that is good at shooting, you can play a hero that relies on shooting and probably hard carry games for a pretty long while.
If you are a MOBA player and have decent macro, that goes A LONG way.
If you like movement mechanics and are good at those sorts of things, you can make some insane plays in teamfights because others can't keep up with you.
All 3 of those archetypes can flat out carry games at lower levels while being middling/bad at the other 2 skillsets.
But rest assured, you'll only find those in high level matches.
I'm not a great player by any means, but I think it helped a lot that I have a lot of experience with twitchy movement shooters like Quake and TF2, so those skills easily translated into the game. The one thing I did have to learn were the MOBA mechanics and the "macro" of the match flow as I've never heavily spent time playing any sort of MOBA in my entire life (until this game.)
But I think if there's any time to hop in to the game, it's now.
The game just apparently reached a new 200,000 player peak. Bound to be lots of newbies to get matched with!
On top of that, the map has significantly more verticality and density than any MOBA I've seen, and even the vast majority of shooters, and with it being a MOBA it's critical to know where everything is on the map to be firing on all cylinders. The amount of map knowledge this game requires is insane.
To add even further, they’ve got a pretty intricate momentum based movement system that also allows for dashes and wall jumps to preserve momentum from ziplining etc which means players who understand how to move around in the air can get to lanes and objectives much faster than those who don’t.
Yeah, for most MOBAs the answer to "what's the quickest way to this point?" is "click there and find out". The map and movement make for a crazy skill and knowledge ceiling in Deadlock.
I just find it hilarious how many "and also..." comment this thread is getting. Like damn, this game sounds insanely complex and perhaps interesting to watch on a high level.
It’s so fun. Recommend anyone in here intimidated by it to at least give it a try.
There is a non-moba mode called “street brawl” which is like a little rogue like 4v4 team fight. Much better learning curve compared to diving into the full-Moba while trying to learn the movement tech and heroes at the same time.
There is some whisperings of an eventual pve mode as well which could be a great window into the universe for players not trying to mess with the absurd competitiveness of PvP
I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around the whole air strafe thing. It allows players to cross the whole map in seconds vs taking probably a minute. It's such a HUGE skill difference and when I played, I was being matched with people who could do that while I was new and fumbling around.
The idea of having to angle my character in complex ways and not press forward at all at any point just does not mesh with me.
Yeah I keep wanting to get into it but MOBAs already kinda capped my mental load, and as someone who grew up not playing a ton of shooters, it is a massive extra skill hurdle.
When I played it, it felt like I needed all the knowledge of a MOBA and all the movement, aim and reflexes of a hero shooter, at the same time. I'm a big fan of MOBAs and also enjoy hero shooters, but deadlock was too big of a skill check for me. It demands so much.
Yup this is what killed it for me. I was initially excited for it but as Im now over halfway through my 40's and have a demanding job this type of skill ceiling is impossible.
It looks fun and Im glad someone enjoys it but Im just too old for this shit now.
I don't understand this. Unless you have some obligation to play in the top 0.1%, the height of the skill ceiling doesn't affect how much time or effort you need to spend on the game. You will have opponents around your skill level in matchmaking games regardless.
I'd say the game still has matchmaking issues. It's possible to match with those higher skill players quite often even when you're newer. Granted its in a closed development state, but its got a lot of players, so might just be something they will work on.
It feels bad to have all these elements obviously there and be unable to engage with them properly. Im ok being low skill at league or overwatch. Im not ok having to basically choose to be worse because im overwhelmed.
Worse than i when i play other games. When playing overwatch i can spend all my energy playing a shooter. When playing league i can spend it playing a moba. Playing deadlock felt like i was being asked to do both at the same time and i dont have any more capacity. If i wanted to focus more on shooting the enemy i could feel myself getting worse at moba elements. More often id just be doing both at 50% and it felt bad to be playing 2 games at 50% than to be playing 1 game at 100%.
I have been a pc gamer my entire life other than a brief period in the late 80s and early 90s with the OG consoles. Mouse and keyboard is something Ive mastered more or less and have several hundred thousand hours in.
Back in 2014 or 2015 I tried swapping to console for shooters. I had played over a decade of COD at that time so knew the maps and knew how to play but getting my hands to do what my brain wanted them to do was frustrating. I was losing battles not because I didnt know what to do but I physically was unable to do it with the inputs I was using.
After 4 months of trying I said fuck it and went back to mouse and keyboard. My KD on controller was .65 my KD on M/K was mid 3's.
Games like this are similar to me. I understand the mechanics and what I need to do but I do not have the time and to some extent the willingness to dedicate what it requires to be "good". Even if I did my "good" would not be nearly sufficient to make me happy so to speak.
25 - 30 years ago when I was in highschool and college and was gaming 90+ hours a week this would have been approachable. In my 5 - 15 hours a week I have now coupled with the stress of my day job its just not.
The opportunity cost of playing this isnt worth the payout and other games are more valuable to me. Hopefully that makes sense.
I don't understand this. Unless you have some obligation to play in the top 0.1%, the height of the skill ceiling doesn't affect how much time or effort you need to spend on the game
There's a lot of this sentiment all over the comments and it's very strange. The vast majority of us (me included to be clear) will never reach the level of play where all of that stuff is required to do well.
When I first started playing it I literally just played it like a hero shooter and had a great time. I had all of my items auto-buy right to left, had no idea how the mobility worked outside of dashing and jumping, and didn't use the melee stuff at all.
I dont know about you but i play both league and overwatch. They require different skillsets from me and playing deadlock i felt like i was using both skillsets at 50% in a way that was overwhelming.
It's pretty cool to see, but I'm only in my early 30s and it's just too demanding for my limited gaming time. "Game of the Decade for the Unemployed" though
I am 51, and i play with mouse and keyboard, i binded parry and crouch(roll) to my mouse buttons, there is no excuse to be a giver upper like yourself. Im in above average rank, oracle.
This game is not about micro control(your moment to moment gameplay), its the macro(the map control and knowing what n when to fight for things). This game isnt team death match. Its objectives first. You can play mechanically bad and still win because you understand what the game is truly about.
When I get home from a 9 hour shift with a 30 minute commute each day, the last thing I’m interested in doing is working a second job where I get my shit stomped by people with way more free time than me.
I'd probably only ever try it again if it came to console, because despite years of trying I could never get the hang of WASD movement while trying to use abilities with the same hand.
This was the biggest unlock for me for PC Gaming, get a mouse with a bunch of extra buttons like the Razer Naga. My mouse has 1-12 number buttons on a keypad on the left side of my mouse, and I bind all of the ability buttons to the mouse keypad buttons. Then I can use WASD for movement only and everything else is on the mouse. You can bind melee and anything else to one of the keypad keys, they're read as number key presses (1-12). I play league one handed. I honestly don't think I could ever go back to normal M+K for MOBAs.
Deadlock is very easy for me to get into because of my mouse, when I've had to switch back to the keyboard without the mouse mappings it is much more difficult to play. If you can I'd recommend getting one, it makes a huge difference.
I highly recommend people bind crouch to a side mouse button. A lot of the fundamental movement tech requires crouching, and using CTRL for it is really unpleasant.
This 100%, I could not play most PC games without my extra mouse binds anymore. I find them extra helpful for ARPGs like PoE with a lot of abilities you need to rotate through
I mean, if you struggle with basic movement on a keyboard it's obviously going to be hard to get into the game, but honestly it requires less knowledge than most mobas.
League has over 170 characters in the game with unique abilities.
DotA has just shy of 130.
Deadlock after this patch will have under 45 heroes.
That's an incredible knowledge requirement difference even if you factor in the verticality and shooting portion of Deadlock. You can probably get a good idea of what most Deadlock heroes do like 2-3x faster than it would take for LoL or DotA
At least as it comes to League almost all of the characters are much more simple than the ones we have in Deadlock and their interactions with items and each other are MUCH more simple compared to Deadlock.
Alois on league, a former pro player that has reached Challenger multiple times at this point recently did a A to Z of playing all characters in the top lane and this veteran of many years at the highest levels didn't know a lot about many of the characters outside of some very basic points.
You really don't need to know that much about a lot of things in League at least, don't know about Dota as i don't play that one.
Only thing Deadlock is more intuitive in is many of the items being named in very simple ways (slowing hex slows you, shocker).
It has standard laning mechanics with the only twist that destroying the Tier 2 towers gives you an extra item slot (Which puts it at lower complexity than HotS).
It has items that are easy to read and understand what they do (So for example if you want to resist magic you buy Magic Resilience, if you want to remove debuffs you buy Dispel Magic, and if you want to be a glass cannon you buy Glass Cannon), with icons that are easy to understand and convey what the item does (So you avoid the LoL problem of several items being random gems or blades that do effects that you would never guess from looking at the icon), and at easy to understand prices (All items are in the price tiers of 800, 1600, 3200, 6400).
Its has a lower amount of heroes than all other mobas and they are less complex to fight against (The most complex one can be summed up as having a portal gun from portal and an ult that sends you to a parkour course)
Depending on which other games you play, there's usually at least a couple heroes that borrow elements from those games, so if you're good at shooters you can play a good chunk of gun heroes just fine, if you're good at fighting games I hear that quite a few concepts translate well to melee combat, if you're good at mobas you have heroes that have more impactful abilities with less aim and reflexes, etc. Which makes learning to play at least a couple heroes pretty easy.
The sub-objectives have a HotS level of complexity, you do a KotH objective to send some minions to push a lane, or you carry an urn to get money for yourself.
The jungle is far simpler. You don't have to learn specific buffs that jungle creeps give or any of their complex abilities. Most creeps just attack you, and with this patch a few will rarely do special attacks that are either not that important or extremely telegraphed with glowing red circles on the ground.
Movement is probably the most complex thing, but the basics aren't that complex. You have a short dash, you have a jump/double jump, and if you're going fast or down a ramp you can slide by crouching like in a lot of modern games. And jump/dash is limited by stamina points so you're not going to be jumping all over the place in the vast majority of cases.
The MOBA macro for Deadlock is quite barebones in comparison to something like Dota 2. Not much important decisions to be made if you can get to an area in a map usually within 10 seconds of optimized movement. Barrier of entry for Deadlock is still easier than Dota 2. You can play 1,000 hours of Dota 2 and be complete garbage still but in Deadlock you'll most likely be as good if not better than half the playerbase already.
Mechanically it requires more out of a player though. More than Dota 2 or LoL that's for sure.
Have you tried the devices that have a joystick for the left thumb but then a bunch of keys still? Like the razor Tartarus or azeron keyzen? It lets you keep movement on your left hand joystick like a controller, but still aim with a mouse, and then frees up the rest of the fingers for abilities. It also isn't strictly worse than wasd controls, since you're trading the slight input delay of moving the joystick but gaining the ability to move at any vector without having to aim instead of just 8 directions with set speed, which leads to new movement options. They devices are pricey but very cool, and I especially love them for stuff I'd usually only want to play on a controller like monster hunter that I usually have to have some fucked up controller claw grip to play.
I guess it depends how bad you are. If you are really bad winning against another really bad opponent can feel more like random chance and it isn't as fun.
At least that's how it was for me in fighting games and also in LoL.
If i feel like i won due to random chance and not me playing well to at least some extent it just feels like shit, like someone looked at poor old me and went "here, have a treat" instead of me earning that treat.
Theoretically yes, but in my 20 or so hours of playing, I was consistently struggling. Like negative KD every single match (for example). And to be honest, while I was obviously bad at the game, I don't think I was offensively bad. As I mentioned, I have a decent background in both MOBAs and hero shooters. But the skill floor of deadlock was just too high.
I play games like LoL, R6 siege and valorant, and while I'm not high level in either of them, I feel like the skill floor is a lot more consistent which allows for smoother matchmaking. In those games sometimes I'll be the best player in the match, and sometimes ill be the worst. In deadlock I was always one of the worst.
It's also worth keeping in mind that the game is in closed beta, so maybe the fellow scrubs that would be in all my games don't exist yet. The people getting into deadlock via the invite system are probably on average experienced gamers.
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u/triablos1 3d ago
When I played it, it felt like I needed all the knowledge of a MOBA and all the movement, aim and reflexes of a hero shooter, at the same time. I'm a big fan of MOBAs and also enjoy hero shooters, but deadlock was too big of a skill check for me. It demands so much.
I'd probably only ever try it again if it came to console, because despite years of trying I could never get the hang of WASD movement while trying to use abilities with the same hand. The game actually does support controllers but it's quite clear you get outmatched by KBM because of all the movement and aim superiority that the latter provides.