"The game is dying!" my brother in patron, the game is in alpha the fact that it had 100,000 players is an anomaly. Some people end up in their own bubbles and don't really understand things outside of it. Great vid, thanks for pointing this out!
A lot of people forget the games in alpha. There's genuine comments that go "The game is so buggy" or "The game looks unfinished." it boggles my mind. One of my favourite intellectual statements is "The Hero Lab characters are so janky and reuse assets."
@@sora.7973 There are 2 or 3 posts daily in the subreddit about how matchmaking feels "So much worse than it did last patch, what happened?!?" And somehow, they think it's a popular opinion that matchmaking is terrible, because they always get 50 or 60 people who updoot their shit and agree with them, and I'm like "THAT'S 0.01% OF THE PEOPLE IN THE SUB".
Ikr, people expect a game that isn't even out to have millions of players. We live in an EA world now, even the consumers only care about the numbers the game does.
all the people who wanted to play already got invite. Do you expect that there are millions of users who want to play but can't get invite lmao. Game is dead, it will never be dota 3 and who knows if it will ever go public (it already did in fact but just didn't become successful. That happens)
@@Ansonex3 Honestly don't see this displacing league or dota because the 3rd person aspect is a big divide that occurs. Smite at Hi-Rez had this issue as well where a certain part of the Leage/Dota moba community didn't want to make the change to 3rd person. But I could see this game blowing Smite 2 out of the water and pulling in a larger audience that likes 3rd person shooters and character shooters, potentially stealing players from games like Overwatch 2 as well if its balance and character designs are good enough
I think ranked being solo is hurting player count a bit but, again, this is by design. My friend group’s time is now split between solo ranked and other games, and some of them weren’t happy with their rank and took a break from the game. We’re excited to eventually play duo or more ranked but it would skew SO much data if there were group queues already. TLDR; some people play with friends and the game is (by design) discouraging groups to get the best data, which is by far the most productive thing to do in a play test!
real tldr of this comment: my friend group only wants to play in a group and every other deadlock player must be thinking like we do, thus everyone quit the game because there was only soloq ranked. see the problem yet?
@@YigitSonmezerSolo player using whataboutism against a group potentially 6 times their own contribution to the population. Maybe it's worth a mention?
It never stops being funny to me that every time a game drops, people post the "declining numbers on Steam", as if any game ever stays at launch day player count for more than the initial 24 hours. I've been playing less Deadlock lately - it's not 'cause the game sucks, it's cause I was curious about some things, I checked it out, and now I have other things I'm curious about. In the future, when things in Deadlock change, I'll be curious again, and on and on forever. That's what modern gaming is.
I completely agree, when Valve decides to release the game I’m sure they’ll flood the Steam front page with it and everyone will go “oh yeah… that was a fun game!”
I’ve made the same points on Reddit. We are literally blessed to even have the player count and maintenance the game has had in ALPHA. The game does not need to be the top trending game on twitch right now at all
I LOVE deadlock and put in a few hundred hours very quickly but lately I have found it hard to keep up with the volatile economy and character changes as a casual. That's the main reason I play less now, but its of course good that the alpha is constantly evolving to improve the end product. It's just right now you gotta adapt your playstyle and builds every other week or else you feel like you're playing "wrong". I'm sure when full release comes around the game will be bigger than it ever has been and will keep a thriving player base so long as valve maintains support.
I completely agree! For me, Deadlock is really all I've played over the past couple of months and its still been difficult to keep up with what they're changing unless I sift through the patch notes myself. Can hardly imagine what it's like when its not even the 1st game on your list at the moment.
@@Ansonex3 To be fair it much more easier to do a comeback unlike dota. Countless games where our patron almost destroyed, other team got cocky at died and vice versa
i was in a game where i played bebop and a dynamo in my team used singularity and when i grabbed him all the enemies where pulled with him into the base guardians
I’ve been itching to hit a combo like that but still hoping😂 you can drop a bomb on them too then which is awesome timing. Thanks for another comment @Wh4tarethings :D
I would argue that valve needs to collect data from people that left, not the people that stayed. Having less players is a bad thing, no matter how you spin it.
Haven't been playing a lot due to time constraints, but what I often notice is when i have an atrocious lane and look at my teammates souls to see if i'm not too much of an embarrassment I turn out to have the most souls on the team. Usually followed by a quick stomp as the enemy groups and chokes the map
I feel this way a lot as well. I also wonder though how an eternus player is able to carry themselves out of a situation like that and what I should be doing to do the same. Super easy to blame teammates and I do it often but it’ll kill your desire to actually get better if you let it.
This simply isn't true, there is also a noob queue that keeps players who don't have five wins yet in the same queue. I'm actually making a video on why the matchmaking is actually fine, it'll be out tonight or tomorrow.
I think Deadlock has the potential to be an outstanding game and it's really alot of fun. People will be mad with balance, matchmaking etc, but I imagine that is the least of Valves concerns right now, they're most likely focusing on new heroes, UI, main features and flow of the game and they're using the closed test to sort that out. Valve have so much damn data, they own the main PC gaming platform, they know how to make good matchmaking and balance. It will just be a case of waiting until we are closer to release before I imagine they will actually start working on it properly. Now they just want people to play the game so they can test the main loop, the balance patches are likely just putting temporary bandages on the game while they focus on other main features.
I agree with everything you said except that they know how to make a matchmaking system. I have faith it will get better but my days in counter strike tell me I will be headed back to faceit before long, but I hope I’m wrong!
@@Ansonex3 I completely get where you're coming from, but I imagine they've learned from their mistakes by now, especially given the investment they're making and the competition they have. With CS, they don't have competition, they are the monopoly, however with Deadlock they have to make an outstanding game to even compete with the greats, so I imagine they'll try really hard with this one. And when Valve really tries, thats when you get the 11/10 games.
Very fair! I never really thought about CS being a monopoly but I guess it is! Love that point about having to compete. Thanks so much for the comment 😃
When I started playing ranked everyone used mics all teammates have really been invested in the game, now I'm in high archon and so much people just don't talk or I just get some russians
@@realpostto Thats what i told my friends as well "guys, its insane, everyone is talking and nice teamplay" but few weeks later in high ranks, nobody is talking :D
Gotta remember people, it is a playtest.. one where the playercount of 100,000 was already ridiculous from the getgo. It's not really all that easy to even get access to the game. Still, if anything, it's a GREAT sign for things to come for this game's future when it finally comes out of alpha and for those who are still sticking around with the game will definitely be happy to have lived with this game's development and let's make sure we keep giving Valve the valuable feedback they need to progress a very strong start to another great Valve title. Also do remember folks, a sizable chunk of people who aren't playing anymore are technically banned for either cheating or for overwhelmingly toxic behavior, and they definitely deserve to stay gone to keep the playtest clean.
the only decline in "matchmaking quality" ive noticed is sometimes one team just gets stacked with 3 1 man army characters and the exact 3 supports they need to make their gameplan work, while the other team gets 6 junglers and its just like okay theres nothing the 6 junglers can do about that. The heroes themselves are actually surprisingly balanced, but the hero selection just sometimes gives one team 9 CC abilities and the other team has like, 0.5 of a CC.
Honestly i dropped it because of how potentially sweaty this game will require you to be, i just cannot imagine myself grinding this shit, the game needs more skill floor restrictions. Every match theres a sweat soul that requires you to slide shoot, melee dash cancel, jungle by the second, deliver urn and do exactly what the most optimal play is, it feels worse to play than Dota, i am not looking forward to what type of community this game will breed. Also the final ancient push event is a pure cp_dustbowl final stage nerve wreck
Honestly the game is just super complex, and as a noob FEELS horrid to play. I finally got a key a few days ago, and I've just been getting bent over and annihilated. I can't even tell what I'm doing wrong and no matter the build (I'm using community builds) I do I just seem to do no damage and pop like a baloon. I notice half the heroes are OP but then I see online that they aren't so they must just attract higher skill players or smth. I'll probably set the game aside until they can match me with other ppl at my skill level.
Check out my other videos if you haven’t! I see your point though. I had a MOBA veteran guiding me through the game and even still it took like 3 games of me saving up for tier 4 items the whole time before I went “oh I get it” and it’s uphill from there. Not sure if I would’ve kept playing if I didn’t have that guiding hand through my first few games.
But that's Kind of what mobas from valve are about. Just look at dota. If you are by yourself and nobody is teaching you, you won't have any fun playing until you figure out how things work. And for alot of people, me included, this journey of getting better is what keeps them hooked.
I agree that teams of 6 against pubs would pollute the data. Similarly, they are creating polluted data when they put a team of zero initiators/squishies against Abrams, Shiv, M&K, dynamo, Kelvin and a carry. I have had a frighteningly large % of games ruined because of draft imbalance.
You still have to pollute the data with those matchups to determine if a draft system is truly needed, though. As for that ruining games, that's entirely a skill issue. Every team comp and hero has their strengths and weaknesses, you simply have to play to those.
I feel like because the game is so polished people forget it’s an semi closed alpha with 0 marketing. Like I just got invited and started playing because I thought I didn’t even know the game was in playable state, I didn’t know anyone can join, I didn’t really know this gsme existed it inwouldnt have heavily researched mobas. Like once this comes out and actually gets some publicity it’s gonna be well off. And yes I’m aware player base was very high for some time but that’s just not normal for a pre release gsme in alpha so take that as the anomaly and not the declining players
I think the update of the soul sharing is a big problem. It introduced an element you can't control. You gain more souls as a team by splitting each lane. So if you hyper farm solo like you could before your team will fall behind in souls. If the enemy team just slightly plays better together, basically just splitting the farm, they gain a huge advantage. It requires big mirco management, which mostly only works in 6 stacks. It feels like you always waste so much farm by just solo killing a wave. You can't control your teammates to soak some of the souls. I won my games previously on McGinnis with split pushing, but now I feel like I get punished for doing so, since I am falling behind in farm.
I had to remind a ranked teammate that I probably got matched into a game that was much higher skill than I am since the game is in alpha and I was still in placements. There were ritualist players in the game and I don't have a history of playing mobas. I told him straight up that I was probably initiate since I still had a lot to learn. Man just responded with, "YOU'RE THROWING! I'LL REPORT YOU!" This guy kept saying there's been enough time since release for me not to be dogshit and I had to tell him it hasn't been released and I only recently stopped getting crashes after a few months of crashing on match start. The rest of the team agreed with me saying the games in alpha and it's not a big deal that matchmaking failed. Also, I was right about my skill disparity, I'm right on the edge between initiate and seeker. At least I can learn and improve now that I'm not being hunted by 3 ritualist players all the way to spawn.
So sorry you had that experience ☹️ Like you said now you can start working from the ground up! Make sure to tune into Deathy on UA-cam. I’ve got some great beginner videos as well but he’s the king of educational deadlock. You’ll get better quick!
@@Ansonex3 Good to know, thank you. Honestly think the other guy in the situation was having a much more miserable time than I was. He probably just needed to take a break from the game for a bit.
I love it still. I have noticed matchmaking has fallen off and it took me like ten minutes just to get into a match -- but oh man is this game already so good that I am not mad at all at this stage. It's free. It looks great already and will improve steadily. The player base will return. There will probably be like 10 more heroes on launch day. Lots of fun stuff to come!
Completely agree Shiny! I wonder how many heroes they will wind up with, I thought the number they had was already a lot but then I learned about other games in the genre.
Same here! That was what made me need to take a break. The game that was the final straw for me was this game where we had 3 people in our lane right from the get go and we got killed so many times and my teammates that were 2v1 couldn’t do anything at all. We just kept getting killed over and over because they had a vindicta who was shooting and sniping from range then bebop kept hooking us and then after we’d get hooked ivy would stun us in her vines. I was getting so goddamn mad! I had been getting burnt out anyway but that game made me have to take a break. I overall really enjoy the game though and will definitely come back
There's a console command to hide the replay hud if you want to just make the replay look a lil more minimalist... it's a small thing but it can clean up the UI a bit for videos recordings
Im a little late to the discussion but I used to play a couple games where the matchmaking was all over the place as well. And like you said it becomes a case where you have to babysit your lowest rank players while the enemies hunt them down repeatedly like a pack of wild hyenas. Deadlock is very much a game where if you have one person dying on cooldown it can have ripple effects through the whole game. If your solo laner is dying on cooldown delivering urns become more dangerous. A duo lane might become a 3v2 lane and that can cascade the gamestate as well. If someone in the duo lanes dies on cooldown well thats just a 1v2, and once they're ahead they can help other lanes quite easily. Its such a rough time recently. The result is that players just become o frustrated playing so they stop, and while deadlock probably isnt going to run into a shortage of players anytime soon, its clear that they need to collect this matchmaking data pretty quickly and implement changes.
Thanks for the comment! They dropped a pretty significant patch yesterday for matchmaking which looks to help the issues we mentioned, which is awesome!
this is just my anecdote but i actually love deadlock a lot, I think part of it might be that its coming around to be winter/end of fall which is when people are ramping up for Midterms and college stuff? I'd think a lot of the player base is in those younger range (I am, thats my reason for not playing as often as I want to) but certainly a part of it lays in the like "Super big hype when everyone gets in!" and then the players who actually like deadlock get filtered out etc and we're left with the real playerbase
you can again play with 5 people, i thinkk they reverted it a week ago. and it doesn't matter if there is a huge skill gap. atleast me and my friends have been playing 5 stacks
@@koutsh69Yeah they did, but you aren't allowed to queue together if you are partying with multiple high ranks/mmr. In my experience, our friend group we can't queue together with more than 3 ascendants. And our one eternus friend literally cannot queue with more than two people
@@Sai-wu5ps thats interesting and weird, in my friend group we have ranks from phantom to the lowest one and we have had no issues gaming with 5 stacks or other combos
I also play with friends in a wide skill range and we also got blocked from playing 5 stacks, but haven’t tried in a week or so would be very happy if that’s been reverted!
The new game vibe + friend invite only really hyped the game up. The updates are too frequent to likely keep the casual lock in and it's everyone knows its in alpha/beta so you instinctually know another change is going to happen right around the corner.
I don’t necessarily think they’re too frequent, I think it’s necessary for a game this openly in playtest to have frequent balance/dev updates. Completely agree that makes you wary about learning things though.
Clever way to get people to click. The player base is fine, it’s in alpha, and they’re actually doing a lot of updates and changes often enough. That it’s attracting new players, as well keep those who enjoy the game around.
Im more than happy with my Deadlock fix. Got some rough edges but was fun! I tried it and definetly will try it again when it fully releases or has more betas or somesuch.
I find that I keep being tempted to remind people that it's an invite-only alpha test and that they don't need to yell at their 2/8 teammate about how they shouldn't have queued as Abrams because they were somehow mystically supposed to know that they wanted to play Abrams or that there would be a bad lane matchup. I guess the entire community needs to be reminded that it's in invite-only alpha every now and then. As far as the game itself, I think that it's pretty smart of Valve to lean into the MOBA genre from a different angle, especially bringing in the kind of "hero shooter" type of mechanics that have been very popular when done well. I think it will feel more accessible to non-MOBA players, and so far they've been able to keep the complexity of builds and strategies that traditional MOBAs have. I've enjoyed trying out all the characters and playstyles.
I think you hit the nail on the head of why this game got 170k people playing an invite only playtest at once. This game is going to be massive for the points you just mentioned. Killer comment! Thanks so much 😃
That’s just how most mobas are, as you get higher elo games aren’t going to last 40 Minutes as good players are going to be able to take advantage of mistakes and better capitalize off of them and be able to end matches faster, a game lasting longer than 40 minutes should be incredibly rare.
I feel like the increase in stomps is just players getting better. At least in higher elos. People are learning how to push leads harder and punish mistakes. Lots of high elo league games also tend to get stomped in around 20 minutes because leads are pushed hards
sure the matchmaking has been rough lately, but at the same time I feel like that data is important to see exactly what they should be looking to do when the game does eventually release. because if the game is as successful as it's postured to be then these sorts of imbalanced matches WILL happen and it's important for them to try and figure out a way for them to still make those FUN, because above all else, that's what games are for, is to have FUN and they know that! look at low rank matches of dota, if those guys weren't having fun there wouldn't be 700k daily players
The declining player count is probably why they've been keeping this game as a "closed" alpha. It's obvious that this game's got some good sauce cooking, but the friction from alpha gameplay like bugs, balance, performance, etc start adding up once the honeymoon phase is over. You can see it with how they've tweaked the core gameplay (like the soul sharing and the map) over the past few months that they're trying to find a good balance at making this game fun at a casual level while still being competitive. This game really falls apart when you're stuck in a 45 stalemate because neither team is good enough to close the match, and that's probably why the latest patches have made matches snowball hard.
I either have games where I or my teammates get destroyed, or I (have never tried anyone else on my team) absolutely carry with 50k souls within 20 minutes winning 3v6s and such. This never happened before the timer change / lane phase change
Completely agree with you bazz, I think they are actually driving away/not servicing the people who treat the game like a finished product. Also, I saw you’ve replied to a ton of comments. Thanks for keeping the discussion going 😃
deadlock isn't dying, it's literally and unfinished product, it doesn't have any form of progression outside of solo que ranked, it doesn't have an anticheat system and its a valve game meaning the game is flooded with cheaters, it has barely any heroes which is important because in a moba the heroes are the content. it doesn't have a robust enough competative scene to interest many serious players and finally the game is just extremely unattractive to a casual audience since the heroes aren't pretty and the macro play is boring. many of these things are symptoms of unfinished game. people will eventually come back.
100% agree, since it's still Alpha testing. The biggest gripe I do have is the match making of the game now from the past 10 games me and friends played it's either we stomp them or we get stomped. I do think some of the latest changes do allow a game to snowball more from small mistakes but that data can also be of use to valve. The rest I do think is just hype dying out a bit which is natural to happen until it's released
They released a new patch yesterday with tons of matchmaking changes + reversed some of the changes that made the deathballing so frequent! You might find it a better experience now 😃
Not to be cliche but i wasnt expecting such a small subscriber count when i scrolled down after watching this, good quality video and voiceover, keep it up big dog i like what im seeing. Great points too. 😁
Deadlock was never meant to be a complete game. It's just a data collecting program that runs like a game to collect data for future game making. If something is free then you are always the product.
Game isn't making money at the moment, so a reduction in player count is actually healthier than having more for the longevity of the game! They are paying out of pocket for servers and other infrastructure, and believe me it's not cheap.
I cannot imagine the amount of money Valve has dumped into deadlock when you take servers into account. Goes to show how much faith they have in the game doing well. I do as well.
This happens to literally every single game idk why ppl still don't understand. Even games like "The Finals" had a crazy player drop but it has a healthy consistent player count now. so what it's not as popular as the current cod.
I think once we get some shorts and that comic and some real promotional material and marketing from valve it will draw a lot of the casual base in. The characters in alpha alone were enough to make me fall in love with the game.
I want to get this game. I just can't have access nor have money to pay for it, or at least, I cannot find it and I haven't looked at its accessibility.
Add me on steam! You just need a steam friend to invite you, since it’s technically still in a closed playtest stage. My Steam name is Ansonex and the profile picture is the same as on UA-cam. Add me and I’ll invite you!
It’s free you just need to get invited by a friend. Go to the community page and find someone who’s offering keys. Only do it through friend request otherwise it’s a scam
@@esavage8855 Okay... I'll try to do that. I still feel like it would be disrespectful to go around looking for someone, ask to be their friend, all just to have a game that is locked behind the main purpose of having a random person within a friend group give everyone else a shot at reviewing an early access game. It just feels scummy, and like I'm cheating the system, so I'll just try my best to be as genuinely friendly as possible.
@@StoryTeller796 in some ways it is cheating the system but it’s not a very well kept secret and tons of people are doing it. If you want I could add and invite you. I just don’t have access to my computer so it would be a bit before you’d get the invite to the game
Don’t feel scummy at all! There are whole reddit threads just about getting invites. Trust me, Valve and all of us want you playing! Valve for your precious match data but us just so you can have fun!
The matchmaking is so atrocious. we usually queue as a 3 or 4-man and without fail, our randoms have so many more deaths. Happened in all 4 games we played today. It's absolutely brutal. Can we at least get ranked group queue?
I feel this in my bones. Party queue ranked is what me and my buddies are itching for as well. Thanks for the support (and the great dynamo vid on ur channel, has helped me a bunch this week)!
Good video. I, too, noticed that queing becomes longer and longer each day until I noticed the drop in players via SteamDB. Valve always knows what they are soing, so in Valve we trust.
In causal I constantly get 3-4 people who will have a kill participation of 6-8 while me and another person will literally do everything while they barely even farm. There's no reason for every single game to have 4 players with 12+ kills while the other 8 do nothing but feed and waste all the farm.
Keep in mind a lot of other games are fighting for attention atm, even Dota 2, valves other flagship moba just released Crownfall act 4 and I haven't touched deadlock since that drop because Dota is just what I want to play rn. I def want to go back to deadlock but at the moment I want to complete dota's current event.
I took a 1-2 months long break and now i just cant get into it anymore. My biggest problem is the matchmaking rn because the System didnt actually change my MMR which means im still playing against very good players. But since i havent played for this long the whole game has evolved, as well as the player making it very hard for me to have a enjoyable match :c
i think they should add group matchmaking, playing with friends will be definitely better than with random guys and you can't even do basic tactics with them
I m one of those player that stop playing for 2 weeks now 1. Bad matchmaking 2. Cheaters 3. Weird hero balances But I will definitely play again once they release the game, now.. it just feels like I'm wasting time. Not even enjoying it.
are you NA? everytime i seem to queue NA i find cheaters, but EU never and its not the best matchmaking, but hey it works and wym weird hero balancing? for instance the yamato ult change, they are testing to see what will work best for that such thing, i think theyve been pretty good at hero changes, and i am usually questioning to myself why would they ever when i read the patch notes
@@Skrillz No cheaters on EU? Must be a dream. I have a russian cheater literally every game. Some are more obvious, some are less. The closet cheating is the fucking worst for phantom hardstucks like me. They're not good enough to face Eternus players even with cheats so they are just ruining lobbies 2 ranks below.
That’s fair, and the hero balance is a very good reason as well, every patch there is a new dominant hero, but I think they do good to curb it quickly. That said I do actually love that fluidity, but mainly because I’m again able to write it off as part of the playtest experience.
alot of people i know dont play it because of the constant changes and not being able to play ranked earlier in the day but i think it will all be fixed soon or when the game actually drops
Exactly, if you’re not super invested in the game already there’s not much reason to stay and learn patch by patch, those players would rather just load up when balance is more stable
4:29 We have the Ivy Bebop death star. Ivy Ult can lift Bebop to the sky for ulting, no majestic leap is required. And the Qoran bomber cuz we found out Abrams and Ivy ult stacks on impact.
@@Ansonex3 that game had thriving esport scene over weekend too and valve even announced 1 mill dollar prize pool for artifact and we know what happened with that game too. never keep too much expectation of valve with its game dev scene. its just how they manage their devs... devs over there are free to pursue whatever project they want to do. so they keep moving around from one project to another and never have a dedicated team. also valve dont rely on game making for money and its nothing compared to what they make off steam. except for that vr game they made recently they dont have good recent track record of game dev nor interested in marketing to grab new players for some reason.
I've invited several of my friends, and they aren't getting the invites. When I first got in, it was 100% of the people I sent invited to got in, and now it doesn't seem to be that way. I have 3 buddies who got interested in it, and have been invited by several people, and they still haven't gotten an invite.
They probably didnt check their email. I had a friend who couldn't find the invite I sent him, then double checked his email and found my invite and two others.
I love you for making this video, I’ve seen to many hate on a alpha game! We are play testers and when the game does release all your problem will Be atleast some what fixed
about the matchmaking, for the past 2 days, ive been getting very intense close to 1 hour matches and been having a great time regardless of whether i win or lose. whereas only about a week ago games would go for around 25 minutes where one team stomped the other. well, i did post this comment exactly a week after this video was posted. Deadlock is fun as shit. I would be really sad if this game fails. It's too good to fail.
Awesome to hear you’ve had better matches, I have as well 😃 I completely agree. I think this game is going to be massive. Not earth shattering but certainly a PC gaming mainstay upon release for the years after.
The drop in players isn't even that catastrophic. Two months after the peak it's got around 35% of the daily concurrent players left. Compare to something like The finals, which after 2 months had 20% of peak numbers left, or even Spectre Divide, which after 2 months only had around 3% of peak numbers (ouch). Also if you look at the finals, in the end it stabilized without further decline at 6% of the release peak. (And all of this glances over the fact that deadlock will probably break it's august record when it releases)
I wouldn’t be so focused on the player count. I like the game and want to play more, but I have been waiting for the alpha/beta to finish before going all in. Many other players are probably doing the same as well. Once the game officially releases to the masses, then the player count numbers will really start mattering.
Well said. Im having fun more when the dev making some change that break my mind each time, I've came from dota 2, and that game is out of wack in a good way when it come to gameplay mechanic and new feature that we thought "that's cool, LMAO more complicated, oh that's new, and .etc". What live service game for me is that they keep making new gameplay that fun and engaging without borderline broken or boring mechanic. and the dev behind deadlock they know wtf they doing, even though some heroes lab kinda scuffed atm, but we can see their creativity in action, and that's what I called fun. I've always think 2 or 3 month after any game release it will filter some players, either they enjoy the game or not, since that's kinda average time to learn new things, either you endup like it or not you will see the good and the bad about it.
The game is still in alpha and to have 40k consistent players is great. A lot of myself bounced off the game because it was too complicated for them but the others that fell in love easily put in over 100 hours. People get bored of the same game all the time, a lot of my group is playing BO6 now. Once deadlock gets more of a progression system I think people will return.
They keep making shit changes. The game was at its most fun a few months back exactly at the patch where they changed the map from circle to square. Perfectly fun games.
man i love videos like this i love being negative and openly showing the decline of a closed alpha lets make sure the game is viewed as it's dying guys!!! I can't wait for everyone to form their opinion around a video like this and then they'll DEFINITELY try it once it's out after seeing mass videos like this!!! Surely the mass amount of gamers don't follow trends and others opinions now!! Cheers. it's super smart to do this!!!! I love negativity I thrive in talking about "the fall" of things I "once enjoyed" !!!! It's Badass dude. Keep it up lol
I’m curious, did you watch the whole video or make your comment after the intro? I feel like even in the intro I was pretty clear I disagree with the people who are saying Deadlock are in deep shit because of the playerbase decline. Very interested in what you think I was being negative about, because I think I was generally pretty positive in this video, unless pointing out the fact that the player count is lower than 2 months ago is being negative.
@ no ❤️ I just don’t like UA-cam videos who talk about the decline of any game. I confidently think if we had less of them we’d have more games because nowadays people feel guilty over playing a dead game. I trust your opinion and I’m sure you weren’t fearmongering your idea you had for the video.
Thanks so much for the kind discussion fuzzycarpet. Sorry the video didn’t resonate with you, but regardless we’re both hoping for the success of Deadlock. Thanks so much for the comment regardless. Hope there is some other stuff on the channel you enjoy ❤️
I have been playing Deadlock for 4-6 hours/ dat from September to October and had 2.1k nekoscore (SEA) before I quit I stopped when I realized the game is still being patched and the stuff I practiced (timings/ heros/ builds) won't be useful because its gonna get changed next patch anyways. The fact that ranked is soloqueue only also make me not want to play the game. Before ranked got launched I pretty much found 3-4 people who know what they are doing and I plan to push to high elo with them, but when ranked came out they pretty much stopped playing and I just don't feel the same fun after playing ranked for 2 weeks. Would probably come back after the game actually launched and be in a more stable state, for now Im focusing on IRL stuff so when it launches I can dive into it for a while
Love this mindset! No point in stressing yourself out to get as good as possible right now because everything and anything can change. Unless you're concerned about your rank there's no reason to be itching to learn every little timing. You'll just wear yourself out.
I had back to back matches with an enemy player on 3 to 4x the souls of our highest player, running around playing COD or basically one tapping you with a basic ability. Meanwhile I have players with 0 kills and like 1/10 of even my souls...
I feel ya Sam. The amount of times I join a team fight and turn around 3 seconds later and realize that my team took that as a chance to run is too damn high!
Part of the reason why i put the game down for now is because there isn't a large enough player base at the moment (not enough low rank players). I just cant really compete because I struggle to grasp advanced movement. the game has a entertaining but extremely high skill ceiling making it hard to approach as a new player who is generally unskilled at shooters and high movement games.
That’s very fair, there are tons of great creators online for learning new skills. I’ve got a couple tips videos, and “Deathy” or “Schizug” are some of my favorite educational creators. I learn a lot from them!!!
@@Ansonex3 I think its more of a speed issue, compared to most MOBAs which are slow to moderate pace, the addition of high speed 3 dimensional movement makes the game a bit unapproachable, which may cause some issues in the future. Similar to how fighting games become a bit niche because of tight inputs. this could be solved with a character that has a longer engagement range and opening up some parts of the map so there arn't so many ways to weave out of vision. As the game stands currently there arn't alot of playstyles outside of the relatively close range scrappy fights. Vindicta and Talon are 'close' but they still have to engage with the close range playstyle until they are built, lane phase being so important and pressing particularly hard on low skill players weakness. When the player base gets bigger with full launch if it can hold more numbers the distribution of skill and tightening of match making will make less stomps at more skill levels. I feel completely unable to have anything but a negative impact early on games because of my weakness with movement and aiming, there really arn't characters or options that work into that because they'd just be too strong in a skilled player's hand. The game may just not be for me to play.
The "Player Count DEAD GAME" is a cancer on video games. The simple fact is that the drama of saying a game is dead pushes people to stop playing, which actually kills games. When it comes to people complaining about matchmaking - devs change MM in the backend constantly and without saying anything - but we MUST attribute cause and effect to a number going down -_-
The hype crowd comes and goes, I think these definitely are the extremely short attention span gamers who would chase unlocks, etc. I think you are right about that. They need a carrot. They also happen to be the easiest to farm. Ive found the game much more challenging since October
i think this player count drop is pretty normal without major content drops or other adhd attention grabbers. only games with steady players bases are ancient games like siege, cod titles, fortnite, and mobas/mmos. this game will develop a strong, probably mildly exclusionary player base when it ages and comes to launch, like the other mobas.
I really loved deadlock, I still really enjoy it. But deadlock got me into dota 2 and now Im very addicted to dota. I will definitely play deadlock again when its closer to release, but I do want the game to stabilize more since the metas and balance are very volatile and I have to constantly keep up with it.
I think that’s fair. I wonder how many real moba people deadlock will bring over given the massive differences (control scheme being the biggest I can think of) they have.
That is why I play only ranked. Games are much better balanced, but still sometimes you will have a game where one team smashes other one. Yesterday I played a game where they had almost double souls and their weakesd player had like 3k souls lead to our strongest player. It is not fun to play when you are in match like this no matter if you are on winning or loosing side.
You can easily make your own fun in casual games. It can be as simple as using a troll build, to using no build, or just running down obj. Throw at least a *little* gas into the creative engine.
"The game is dying!" my brother in patron, the game is in alpha the fact that it had 100,000 players is an anomaly.
Some people end up in their own bubbles and don't really understand things outside of it. Great vid, thanks for pointing this out!
“My brother in patron” made me lol😂
Thanks so much for watching and the comment polar bear 😃
A lot of people forget the games in alpha. There's genuine comments that go "The game is so buggy" or "The game looks unfinished." it boggles my mind.
One of my favourite intellectual statements is "The Hero Lab characters are so janky and reuse assets."
@@sora.7973 Whaaaatt Hero Labs characters arent perfect??? Valve what doink /s
My favorite are the people who whinge over matchmaking.
Like, _how do you think matchmaking _*_is made???_*
@@sora.7973 There are 2 or 3 posts daily in the subreddit about how matchmaking feels "So much worse than it did last patch, what happened?!?"
And somehow, they think it's a popular opinion that matchmaking is terrible, because they always get 50 or 60 people who updoot their shit and agree with them, and I'm like "THAT'S 0.01% OF THE PEOPLE IN THE SUB".
I think any team running an INVITE ONLY game in alpha with40K daily players would be very very happy lol
Ikr, people expect a game that isn't even out to have millions of players.
We live in an EA world now, even the consumers only care about the numbers the game does.
Invite only and word of mouth advertising lol.
Thanks for watching Josh 😃
I do wonder what the goal for Valve is with deadlock. Overtake Dota/League or make their own new thing? Thats ambitious either way
all the people who wanted to play already got invite. Do you expect that there are millions of users who want to play but can't get invite lmao. Game is dead, it will never be dota 3 and who knows if it will ever go public (it already did in fact but just didn't become successful. That happens)
@@Ansonex3 Honestly don't see this displacing league or dota because the 3rd person aspect is a big divide that occurs. Smite at Hi-Rez had this issue as well where a certain part of the Leage/Dota moba community didn't want to make the change to 3rd person. But I could see this game blowing Smite 2 out of the water and pulling in a larger audience that likes 3rd person shooters and character shooters, potentially stealing players from games like Overwatch 2 as well if its balance and character designs are good enough
I think ranked being solo is hurting player count a bit but, again, this is by design. My friend group’s time is now split between solo ranked and other games, and some of them weren’t happy with their rank and took a break from the game. We’re excited to eventually play duo or more ranked but it would skew SO much data if there were group queues already. TLDR; some people play with friends and the game is (by design) discouraging groups to get the best data, which is by far the most productive thing to do in a play test!
I’m also super excited for group ranked can’t wait to employ some strats with my buddies
Yeah I think alot of people who left are just people with very poor judgement on how they should spend their time gaming.
yess its such a pain to play it but forced to solo q
real tldr of this comment: my friend group only wants to play in a group and every other deadlock player must be thinking like we do, thus everyone quit the game because there was only soloq ranked.
see the problem yet?
@@YigitSonmezerSolo player using whataboutism against a group potentially 6 times their own contribution to the population. Maybe it's worth a mention?
It never stops being funny to me that every time a game drops, people post the "declining numbers on Steam", as if any game ever stays at launch day player count for more than the initial 24 hours. I've been playing less Deadlock lately - it's not 'cause the game sucks, it's cause I was curious about some things, I checked it out, and now I have other things I'm curious about. In the future, when things in Deadlock change, I'll be curious again, and on and on forever. That's what modern gaming is.
No! You're not allowed!!
*_YOU HAVE TO BLINDLY FOLLOW ONE GAME AT A TIME!!!_*
Exactly!
Im a game design student and yeah data is king. Most people who are playing now will play again at full release because fomo
I completely agree, when Valve decides to release the game I’m sure they’ll flood the Steam front page with it and everyone will go “oh yeah… that was a fun game!”
I’ve made the same points on Reddit. We are literally blessed to even have the player count and maintenance the game has had in ALPHA. The game does not need to be the top trending game on twitch right now at all
Thank you, it feels like I’m taking crazy pills on the deadlock sub sometimes but I guess that’s just reddit in general
I LOVE deadlock and put in a few hundred hours very quickly but lately I have found it hard to keep up with the volatile economy and character changes as a casual. That's the main reason I play less now, but its of course good that the alpha is constantly evolving to improve the end product. It's just right now you gotta adapt your playstyle and builds every other week or else you feel like you're playing "wrong". I'm sure when full release comes around the game will be bigger than it ever has been and will keep a thriving player base so long as valve maintains support.
I completely agree! For me, Deadlock is really all I've played over the past couple of months and its still been difficult to keep up with what they're changing unless I sift through the patch notes myself. Can hardly imagine what it's like when its not even the 1st game on your list at the moment.
I actually quite like the game lengths now, 30 min feels right. As long as the soul count is relatively close before the big swing, I'm having fun.
I like the lengths as well when it’s a well balanced game and not a blowout one way or the other
@@Ansonex3 To be fair it much more easier to do a comeback unlike dota. Countless games where our patron almost destroyed, other team got cocky at died and vice versa
I love that about the game!
i was in a game where i played bebop and a dynamo in my team used singularity and when i grabbed him all the enemies where pulled with him into the base guardians
I’ve been itching to hit a combo like that but still hoping😂 you can drop a bomb on them too then which is awesome timing.
Thanks for another comment @Wh4tarethings :D
It works if Mo and Krill are ulting someone too, you can grab mo and pull them and their victim over to you
Fucking hysterical, Bebop is the funniest character in the game
@@kaminachos5129yes, that is possible. and the best part? it works with rescue beam too, so you dont really need a bebop to be able to do it
I would argue that valve needs to collect data from people that left, not the people that stayed. Having less players is a bad thing, no matter how you spin it.
Haven't been playing a lot due to time constraints, but what I often notice is when i have an atrocious lane and look at my teammates souls to see if i'm not too much of an embarrassment I turn out to have the most souls on the team. Usually followed by a quick stomp as the enemy groups and chokes the map
I feel this way a lot as well. I also wonder though how an eternus player is able to carry themselves out of a situation like that and what I should be doing to do the same.
Super easy to blame teammates and I do it often but it’ll kill your desire to actually get better if you let it.
the main issue is the matchmaking. everygame i play has a player that hasnt clocked in at least 5 hours to understand the basics
Or they havent clocked out of work and need to disappear or go afk for the whole match
This simply isn't true, there is also a noob queue that keeps players who don't have five wins yet in the same queue.
I'm actually making a video on why the matchmaking is actually fine, it'll be out tonight or tomorrow.
And to clarify, I don't mean that what you get from the matchmaking is always good, just that be matchmaking algorithm itself is likely totally fine
I haven't played in about a week, because my last 3 games had overt hackers. It's getting more common, and unfun.
You don't have a high enough mmr then probably
I think Deadlock has the potential to be an outstanding game and it's really alot of fun.
People will be mad with balance, matchmaking etc, but I imagine that is the least of Valves concerns right now, they're most likely focusing on new heroes, UI, main features and flow of the game and they're using the closed test to sort that out.
Valve have so much damn data, they own the main PC gaming platform, they know how to make good matchmaking and balance. It will just be a case of waiting until we are closer to release before I imagine they will actually start working on it properly. Now they just want people to play the game so they can test the main loop, the balance patches are likely just putting temporary bandages on the game while they focus on other main features.
I agree with everything you said except that they know how to make a matchmaking system. I have faith it will get better but my days in counter strike tell me I will be headed back to faceit before long, but I hope I’m wrong!
@@Ansonex3 I completely get where you're coming from, but I imagine they've learned from their mistakes by now, especially given the investment they're making and the competition they have.
With CS, they don't have competition, they are the monopoly, however with Deadlock they have to make an outstanding game to even compete with the greats, so I imagine they'll try really hard with this one.
And when Valve really tries, thats when you get the 11/10 games.
Very fair! I never really thought about CS being a monopoly but I guess it is! Love that point about having to compete. Thanks so much for the comment 😃
When I started playing ranked everyone used mics all teammates have really been invested in the game, now I'm in high archon and so much people just don't talk or I just get some russians
yeah, the no mic teams really be tanking the ranks
@@realpostto Thats what i told my friends as well "guys, its insane, everyone is talking and nice teamplay" but few weeks later in high ranks, nobody is talking :D
I’ve also noticed comms have fallen off in ranked, everyone was very communicative at the start but not anymore.
Gotta remember people, it is a playtest.. one where the playercount of 100,000 was already ridiculous from the getgo. It's not really all that easy to even get access to the game. Still, if anything, it's a GREAT sign for things to come for this game's future when it finally comes out of alpha and for those who are still sticking around with the game will definitely be happy to have lived with this game's development and let's make sure we keep giving Valve the valuable feedback they need to progress a very strong start to another great Valve title.
Also do remember folks, a sizable chunk of people who aren't playing anymore are technically banned for either cheating or for overwhelmingly toxic behavior, and they definitely deserve to stay gone to keep the playtest clean.
Retweet!
game feel like turbo dota now
the only decline in "matchmaking quality" ive noticed is sometimes one team just gets stacked with 3 1 man army characters and the exact 3 supports they need to make their gameplan work, while the other team gets 6 junglers and its just like okay theres nothing the 6 junglers can do about that. The heroes themselves are actually surprisingly balanced, but the hero selection just sometimes gives one team 9 CC abilities and the other team has like, 0.5 of a CC.
Yeah it would be really awesome to see a draft feature implemented for competitive.
Honestly i dropped it because of how potentially sweaty this game will require you to be, i just cannot imagine myself grinding this shit, the game needs more skill floor restrictions.
Every match theres a sweat soul that requires you to slide shoot, melee dash cancel, jungle by the second, deliver urn and do exactly what the most optimal play is, it feels worse to play than Dota, i am not looking forward to what type of community this game will breed.
Also the final ancient push event is a pure cp_dustbowl final stage nerve wreck
This is exactly what I’m talking about. The game makes me fuckin tired
@@takeiteasy6346 Yes, 2-3 games and im tired, very high demands on skill, reaction, even dota is more relaxing game compared to this
tbh i really hope they keep the solo only ranked, the advantage you get from duoing/grouping is borderline abuse
Lol thats fair! I would be surprised if it stays solo only though. Maybe a separate solo queue is needed?
Honestly the game is just super complex, and as a noob FEELS horrid to play. I finally got a key a few days ago, and I've just been getting bent over and annihilated. I can't even tell what I'm doing wrong and no matter the build (I'm using community builds) I do I just seem to do no damage and pop like a baloon. I notice half the heroes are OP but then I see online that they aren't so they must just attract higher skill players or smth. I'll probably set the game aside until they can match me with other ppl at my skill level.
Check out my other videos if you haven’t!
I see your point though. I had a MOBA veteran guiding me through the game and even still it took like 3 games of me saving up for tier 4 items the whole time before I went “oh I get it” and it’s uphill from there. Not sure if I would’ve kept playing if I didn’t have that guiding hand through my first few games.
Totally agree I understand it too and it’s just a lot of work to play
But that's Kind of what mobas from valve are about. Just look at dota. If you are by yourself and nobody is teaching you, you won't have any fun playing until you figure out how things work. And for alot of people, me included, this journey of getting better is what keeps them hooked.
I agree that teams of 6 against pubs would pollute the data. Similarly, they are creating polluted data when they put a team of zero initiators/squishies against Abrams, Shiv, M&K, dynamo, Kelvin and a carry. I have had a frighteningly large % of games ruined because of draft imbalance.
You still have to pollute the data with those matchups to determine if a draft system is truly needed, though.
As for that ruining games, that's entirely a skill issue. Every team comp and hero has their strengths and weaknesses, you simply have to play to those.
You make a good point! I hope to see a draft hero selection system in the future, that would be super cool!
Subbed! Thanks, for the quality breakdown on player count.
Thank you so much Shisno 😃
I feel like because the game is so polished people forget it’s an semi closed alpha with 0 marketing. Like I just got invited and started playing because I thought I didn’t even know the game was in playable state, I didn’t know anyone can join, I didn’t really know this gsme existed it inwouldnt have heavily researched mobas. Like once this comes out and actually gets some publicity it’s gonna be well off. And yes I’m aware player base was very high for some time but that’s just not normal for a pre release gsme in alpha so take that as the anomaly and not the declining players
Completely agree!!!
I think the update of the soul sharing is a big problem. It introduced an element you can't control. You gain more souls as a team by splitting each lane.
So if you hyper farm solo like you could before your team will fall behind in souls. If the enemy team just slightly plays better together, basically just splitting the farm, they gain a huge advantage. It requires big mirco management, which mostly only works in 6 stacks.
It feels like you always waste so much farm by just solo killing a wave. You can't control your teammates to soak some of the souls.
I won my games previously on McGinnis with split pushing, but now I feel like I get punished for doing so, since I am falling behind in farm.
Yeah it feels like everyone deathballs the second you strike 10 minutes these past couple weeks
8:57 that shop wall jump was crazy. Never knew you could get out like that
That’s the wall jump tech I believe it is..
Super useful how I go in and out 85% of the time!
@@Ansonex3same
You got talent man. Can't wait to see what you become in 5 years :). Ill be there
You’re the man boot 😃
I had to remind a ranked teammate that I probably got matched into a game that was much higher skill than I am since the game is in alpha and I was still in placements. There were ritualist players in the game and I don't have a history of playing mobas. I told him straight up that I was probably initiate since I still had a lot to learn. Man just responded with, "YOU'RE THROWING! I'LL REPORT YOU!" This guy kept saying there's been enough time since release for me not to be dogshit and I had to tell him it hasn't been released and I only recently stopped getting crashes after a few months of crashing on match start. The rest of the team agreed with me saying the games in alpha and it's not a big deal that matchmaking failed. Also, I was right about my skill disparity, I'm right on the edge between initiate and seeker. At least I can learn and improve now that I'm not being hunted by 3 ritualist players all the way to spawn.
So sorry you had that experience ☹️
Like you said now you can start working from the ground up! Make sure to tune into Deathy on UA-cam. I’ve got some great beginner videos as well but he’s the king of educational deadlock. You’ll get better quick!
@@Ansonex3 Good to know, thank you. Honestly think the other guy in the situation was having a much more miserable time than I was. He probably just needed to take a break from the game for a bit.
I love it still. I have noticed matchmaking has fallen off and it took me like ten minutes just to get into a match -- but oh man is this game already so good that I am not mad at all at this stage.
It's free. It looks great already and will improve steadily. The player base will return. There will probably be like 10 more heroes on launch day.
Lots of fun stuff to come!
Completely agree Shiny! I wonder how many heroes they will wind up with, I thought the number they had was already a lot but then I learned about other games in the genre.
About 2 weeks ago had 3 games in a row where the matchmaking was so abysmal I just haven't touched it since.
Same here! That was what made me need to take a break. The game that was the final straw for me was this game where we had 3 people in our lane right from the get go and we got killed so many times and my teammates that were 2v1 couldn’t do anything at all. We just kept getting killed over and over because they had a vindicta who was shooting and sniping from range then bebop kept hooking us and then after we’d get hooked ivy would stun us in her vines. I was getting so goddamn mad! I had been getting burnt out anyway but that game made me have to take a break. I overall really enjoy the game though and will definitely come back
There's a console command to hide the replay hud if you want to just make the replay look a lil more minimalist... it's a small thing but it can clean up the UI a bit for videos recordings
do you happen to know the name of the command?
@@koffi_duck I believe it's this - citadel_hide_replay_hud true
That will hide just the replay HUD but keep the regular HUD
@@koffi_duck sup Koffi! I think I recognize your name from commenting on my vids :)
That’ll be super useful! Thank you so much!!
@@bavinngamesappreciated, and hell yeah, glad seeing you around these parts!
Im a little late to the discussion but I used to play a couple games where the matchmaking was all over the place as well. And like you said it becomes a case where you have to babysit your lowest rank players while the enemies hunt them down repeatedly like a pack of wild hyenas. Deadlock is very much a game where if you have one person dying on cooldown it can have ripple effects through the whole game. If your solo laner is dying on cooldown delivering urns become more dangerous. A duo lane might become a 3v2 lane and that can cascade the gamestate as well. If someone in the duo lanes dies on cooldown well thats just a 1v2, and once they're ahead they can help other lanes quite easily. Its such a rough time recently. The result is that players just become o frustrated playing so they stop, and while deadlock probably isnt going to run into a shortage of players anytime soon, its clear that they need to collect this matchmaking data pretty quickly and implement changes.
Thanks for the comment! They dropped a pretty significant patch yesterday for matchmaking which looks to help the issues we mentioned, which is awesome!
this is just my anecdote but i actually love deadlock a lot, I think part of it might be that its coming around to be winter/end of fall which is when people are ramping up for Midterms and college stuff? I'd think a lot of the player base is in those younger range (I am, thats my reason for not playing as often as I want to)
but certainly a part of it lays in the like "Super big hype when everyone gets in!" and then the players who actually like deadlock get filtered out etc and we're left with the real playerbase
Good points, Oliver! I totally think school/other obligations that start in the fall could be a part of it.
I stoped playing with my friends after Valve doesn't allow party of 5 to queue. The problem is we only have 5 people. Really sad tbh
you can again play with 5 people, i thinkk they reverted it a week ago. and it doesn't matter if there is a huge skill gap. atleast me and my friends have been playing 5 stacks
@@koutsh69Yeah they did, but you aren't allowed to queue together if you are partying with multiple high ranks/mmr.
In my experience, our friend group we can't queue together with more than 3 ascendants. And our one eternus friend literally cannot queue with more than two people
@@Sai-wu5ps thats interesting and weird, in my friend group we have ranks from phantom to the lowest one and we have had no issues gaming with 5 stacks or other combos
This is the first I've heard this issue. I play with friends of widely varied skill levels.
I also play with friends in a wide skill range and we also got blocked from playing 5 stacks, but haven’t tried in a week or so would be very happy if that’s been reverted!
The new game vibe + friend invite only really hyped the game up.
The updates are too frequent to likely keep the casual lock in and it's everyone knows its in alpha/beta so you instinctually know another change is going to happen right around the corner.
I don’t necessarily think they’re too frequent, I think it’s necessary for a game this openly in playtest to have frequent balance/dev updates.
Completely agree that makes you wary about learning things though.
Clever way to get people to click. The player base is fine, it’s in alpha, and they’re actually doing a lot of updates and changes often enough. That it’s attracting new players, as well keep those who enjoy the game around.
Deadlock hasn't a problem... Players just went back to dota because of Act IV... After the Act IV ends, we are going back to Deadlock.
Im more than happy with my Deadlock fix. Got some rough edges but was fun! I tried it and definetly will try it again when it fully releases or has more betas or somesuch.
I think the full release launch is going to be huge
I find that I keep being tempted to remind people that it's an invite-only alpha test and that they don't need to yell at their 2/8 teammate about how they shouldn't have queued as Abrams because they were somehow mystically supposed to know that they wanted to play Abrams or that there would be a bad lane matchup. I guess the entire community needs to be reminded that it's in invite-only alpha every now and then.
As far as the game itself, I think that it's pretty smart of Valve to lean into the MOBA genre from a different angle, especially bringing in the kind of "hero shooter" type of mechanics that have been very popular when done well. I think it will feel more accessible to non-MOBA players, and so far they've been able to keep the complexity of builds and strategies that traditional MOBAs have. I've enjoyed trying out all the characters and playstyles.
I think you hit the nail on the head of why this game got 170k people playing an invite only playtest at once.
This game is going to be massive for the points you just mentioned. Killer comment! Thanks so much 😃
With years of moba and fps experience I just think to myself "man, these devs have ALOT of balancing work ahead of them"
I think they’re on the right track though! There’s still the OP hero/item of the week but they do a good job of identifying and curbing it.
That’s just how most mobas are, as you get higher elo games aren’t going to last 40 Minutes as good players are going to be able to take advantage of mistakes and better capitalize off of them and be able to end matches faster, a game lasting longer than 40 minutes should be incredibly rare.
I feel like the increase in stomps is just players getting better. At least in higher elos. People are learning how to push leads harder and punish mistakes. Lots of high elo league games also tend to get stomped in around 20 minutes because leads are pushed hards
great video brotha, was surprised to see you only had 400 subs
Thanks so much Logan 😃 really appreciate it
sure the matchmaking has been rough lately, but at the same time I feel like that data is important to see exactly what they should be looking to do when the game does eventually release. because if the game is as successful as it's postured to be then these sorts of imbalanced matches WILL happen and it's important for them to try and figure out a way for them to still make those FUN, because above all else, that's what games are for, is to have FUN and they know that! look at low rank matches of dota, if those guys weren't having fun there wouldn't be 700k daily players
It's like they just want to whine about matchmaking, and not have it "fixed" in any way.
That's fair, and I think it will come in due time, but like you mentioned there will always be stomps in any competitive game
The declining player count is probably why they've been keeping this game as a "closed" alpha. It's obvious that this game's got some good sauce cooking, but the friction from alpha gameplay like bugs, balance, performance, etc start adding up once the honeymoon phase is over. You can see it with how they've tweaked the core gameplay (like the soul sharing and the map) over the past few months that they're trying to find a good balance at making this game fun at a casual level while still being competitive.
This game really falls apart when you're stuck in a 45 stalemate because neither team is good enough to close the match, and that's probably why the latest patches have made matches snowball hard.
I don't think valve is sending out invites anymore. My friends invited me over a month ago and I still haven't gotten access to the game.
That’s strange! I’m sorry to hear you haven’t gotten it. It did come through my email if that helps at all :(
I either have games where I or my teammates get destroyed, or I (have never tried anyone else on my team) absolutely carry with 50k souls within 20 minutes winning 3v6s and such. This never happened before the timer change / lane phase change
I think Valve caters too much to the people that treat this game like its a finished product.
If you've been on the discord, you'll disagree.
Completely agree with you bazz, I think they are actually driving away/not servicing the people who treat the game like a finished product.
Also, I saw you’ve replied to a ton of comments. Thanks for keeping the discussion going 😃
deadlock isn't dying, it's literally and unfinished product, it doesn't have any form of progression outside of solo que ranked, it doesn't have an anticheat system and its a valve game meaning the game is flooded with cheaters, it has barely any heroes which is important because in a moba the heroes are the content. it doesn't have a robust enough competative scene to interest many serious players and finally the game is just extremely unattractive to a casual audience since the heroes aren't pretty and the macro play is boring.
many of these things are symptoms of unfinished game. people will eventually come back.
Yessir! Completely agree
Dev team has been hard at work with many changes and balances. I'm still having fun and enjoying it.
I love every second of it! (Almost)
100% agree, since it's still Alpha testing. The biggest gripe I do have is the match making of the game now from the past 10 games me and friends played it's either we stomp them or we get stomped. I do think some of the latest changes do allow a game to snowball more from small mistakes but that data can also be of use to valve. The rest I do think is just hype dying out a bit which is natural to happen until it's released
They released a new patch yesterday with tons of matchmaking changes + reversed some of the changes that made the deathballing so frequent! You might find it a better experience now 😃
The best Ai systems are being built today, they will have the ultimate partner for there data soon
when the unreleased game with no release date doesn't have a gazillion players :(
Games ending at like 20min. Bc of the new Economy Change...
I would be playing daily, but Im trying to deal with some personal issues so sorry for dropping the player count a bit 😆
The game requires too much input from the user and is exhausting to play. I really liked it but haven’t touched it in weeks
Not to be cliche but i wasnt expecting such a small subscriber count when i scrolled down after watching this, good quality video and voiceover, keep it up big dog i like what im seeing. Great points too. 😁
Thanks so much! Not stopping :D
The reason why player leaving because player keep complain and give dev false advise. Just enjoy the game.
Deadlock was never meant to be a complete game. It's just a data collecting program that runs like a game to collect data for future game making. If something is free then you are always the product.
Game isn't making money at the moment, so a reduction in player count is actually healthier than having more for the longevity of the game! They are paying out of pocket for servers and other infrastructure, and believe me it's not cheap.
I cannot imagine the amount of money Valve has dumped into deadlock when you take servers into account.
Goes to show how much faith they have in the game doing well. I do as well.
This happens to literally every single game idk why ppl still don't understand. Even games like "The Finals" had a crazy player drop but it has a healthy consistent player count now. so what it's not as popular as the current cod.
I think once we get some shorts and that comic and some real promotional material and marketing from valve it will draw a lot of the casual base in. The characters in alpha alone were enough to make me fall in love with the game.
RETWEET!!!
So interested in the lore of this game.
I want to get this game. I just can't have access nor have money to pay for it, or at least, I cannot find it and I haven't looked at its accessibility.
Add me on steam! You just need a steam friend to invite you, since it’s technically still in a closed playtest stage.
My Steam name is Ansonex and the profile picture is the same as on UA-cam. Add me and I’ll invite you!
It’s free you just need to get invited by a friend. Go to the community page and find someone who’s offering keys. Only do it through friend request otherwise it’s a scam
@@esavage8855 Okay... I'll try to do that. I still feel like it would be disrespectful to go around looking for someone, ask to be their friend, all just to have a game that is locked behind the main purpose of having a random person within a friend group give everyone else a shot at reviewing an early access game.
It just feels scummy, and like I'm cheating the system, so I'll just try my best to be as genuinely friendly as possible.
@@StoryTeller796 in some ways it is cheating the system but it’s not a very well kept secret and tons of people are doing it. If you want I could add and invite you. I just don’t have access to my computer so it would be a bit before you’d get the invite to the game
Don’t feel scummy at all! There are whole reddit threads just about getting invites. Trust me, Valve and all of us want you playing! Valve for your precious match data but us just so you can have fun!
The matchmaking is so atrocious. we usually queue as a 3 or 4-man and without fail, our randoms have so many more deaths. Happened in all 4 games we played today. It's absolutely brutal. Can we at least get ranked group queue?
I feel this in my bones. Party queue ranked is what me and my buddies are itching for as well.
Thanks for the support (and the great dynamo vid on ur channel, has helped me a bunch this week)!
Good video. I, too, noticed that queing becomes longer and longer each day until I noticed the drop in players via SteamDB. Valve always knows what they are soing, so in Valve we trust.
I also trust Valve to a fault!
In causal I constantly get 3-4 people who will have a kill participation of 6-8 while me and another person will literally do everything while they barely even farm.
There's no reason for every single game to have 4 players with 12+ kills while the other 8 do nothing but feed and waste all the farm.
How do you know though
Keep in mind a lot of other games are fighting for attention atm, even Dota 2, valves other flagship moba just released Crownfall act 4 and I haven't touched deadlock since that drop because Dota is just what I want to play rn. I def want to go back to deadlock but at the moment I want to complete dota's current event.
I took a 1-2 months long break and now i just cant get into it anymore. My biggest problem is the matchmaking rn because the System didnt actually change my MMR which means im still playing against very good players. But since i havent played for this long the whole game has evolved, as well as the player making it very hard for me to have a enjoyable match :c
i think they should add group matchmaking, playing with friends will be definitely better than with random guys and you can't
even do basic tactics with them
I m one of those player that stop playing for 2 weeks now
1. Bad matchmaking
2. Cheaters
3. Weird hero balances
But I will definitely play again once they release the game, now.. it just feels like I'm wasting time. Not even enjoying it.
are you NA? everytime i seem to queue NA i find cheaters, but EU never and its not the best matchmaking, but hey it works and wym weird hero balancing? for instance the yamato ult change, they are testing to see what will work best for that such thing, i think theyve been pretty good at hero changes, and i am usually questioning to myself why would they ever when i read the patch notes
@@Skrillz No cheaters on EU? Must be a dream. I have a russian cheater literally every game. Some are more obvious, some are less. The closet cheating is the fucking worst for phantom hardstucks like me. They're not good enough to face Eternus players even with cheats so they are just ruining lobbies 2 ranks below.
@@Skrillz not true I watch a lot of streamers from EU they encountered cheater every stream but to be fair they play a lot .
That’s fair, and the hero balance is a very good reason as well, every patch there is a new dominant hero, but I think they do good to curb it quickly.
That said I do actually love that fluidity, but mainly because I’m again able to write it off as part of the playtest experience.
alot of people i know dont play it because of the constant changes and not being able to play ranked earlier in the day but i think it will all be fixed soon or when the game actually drops
Exactly, if you’re not super invested in the game already there’s not much reason to stay and learn patch by patch, those players would rather just load up when balance is more stable
i just wish games were faster. I dont have the lifestyle to be sitting in front of my laptop for 40min-70min without interruptions.
4:29 We have the Ivy Bebop death star. Ivy Ult can lift Bebop to the sky for ulting, no majestic leap is required.
And the Qoran bomber cuz we found out Abrams and Ivy ult stacks on impact.
Unreal strats brother I will be trying to get my team to do this
hope they dont ditch it like underlords. i loved that game and it had similar good player count in early days and they totally ditched it.
I’ll have to look into that, never heard of it before!
@@Ansonex3 that game had thriving esport scene over weekend too and valve even announced 1 mill dollar prize pool for artifact and we know what happened with that game too. never keep too much expectation of valve with its game dev scene. its just how they manage their devs... devs over there are free to pursue whatever project they want to do. so they keep moving around from one project to another and never have a dedicated team. also valve dont rely on game making for money and its nothing compared to what they make off steam. except for that vr game they made recently they dont have good recent track record of game dev nor interested in marketing to grab new players for some reason.
I've invited several of my friends, and they aren't getting the invites. When I first got in, it was 100% of the people I sent invited to got in, and now it doesn't seem to be that way. I have 3 buddies who got interested in it, and have been invited by several people, and they still haven't gotten an invite.
They probably didnt check their email.
I had a friend who couldn't find the invite I sent him, then double checked his email and found my invite and two others.
Just like bazz said make sure to check their emails!
I love you for making this video, I’ve seen to many hate on a alpha game! We are play testers and when the game does release all your problem will
Be atleast some what fixed
I love you for watching this video!! Completely agree, thanks @phonthedon 😃
@
about the matchmaking, for the past 2 days, ive been getting very intense close to 1 hour matches and been having a great time regardless of whether i win or lose. whereas only about a week ago games would go for around 25 minutes where one team stomped the other.
well, i did post this comment exactly a week after this video was posted.
Deadlock is fun as shit. I would be really sad if this game fails. It's too good to fail.
Awesome to hear you’ve had better matches, I have as well 😃
I completely agree. I think this game is going to be massive. Not earth shattering but certainly a PC gaming mainstay upon release for the years after.
As someone from gamedev, I clicked on the video just to say exactly that:D
Hahaha happy an industry insider agrees!😂
Thanks for the comment 😃
The drop in players isn't even that catastrophic. Two months after the peak it's got around 35% of the daily concurrent players left. Compare to something like The finals, which after 2 months had 20% of peak numbers left, or even Spectre Divide, which after 2 months only had around 3% of peak numbers (ouch). Also if you look at the finals, in the end it stabilized without further decline at 6% of the release peak. (And all of this glances over the fact that deadlock will probably break it's august record when it releases)
Love this comment, thanks for taking the time to crunch some numbers to show how it stacks up to some of its peers.
I wouldn’t be so focused on the player count. I like the game and want to play more, but I have been waiting for the alpha/beta to finish before going all in. Many other players are probably doing the same as well.
Once the game officially releases to the masses, then the player count numbers will really start mattering.
Completely agree!
Well said.
Im having fun more when the dev making some change that break my mind each time, I've came from dota 2, and that game is out of wack in a good way when it come to gameplay mechanic and new feature that we thought "that's cool, LMAO more complicated, oh that's new, and .etc".
What live service game for me is that they keep making new gameplay that fun and engaging without borderline broken or boring mechanic. and the dev behind deadlock they know wtf they doing, even though some heroes lab kinda scuffed atm, but we can see their creativity in action, and that's what I called fun.
I've always think 2 or 3 month after any game release it will filter some players, either they enjoy the game or not, since that's kinda average time to learn new things, either you endup like it or not you will see the good and the bad about it.
5:06 the lambs raw 😂
hahahahaha happy it made someone laugh xD
The game is still in alpha and to have 40k consistent players is great. A lot of myself bounced off the game because it was too complicated for them but the others that fell in love easily put in over 100 hours. People get bored of the same game all the time, a lot of my group is playing BO6 now. Once deadlock gets more of a progression system I think people will return.
Completely agree! Thats the type of point the world’s cooliest guy makes.
@ lmaoo mistakes were made as a kid
Games in alpha. Has a small hero pool. Dev focus is on developing the game.
Yeah this isn’t a problem it’s normal.
fearmongering at its worst.
They keep making shit changes.
The game was at its most fun a few months back exactly at the patch where they changed the map from circle to square.
Perfectly fun games.
man i love videos like this i love being negative and openly showing the decline of a closed alpha
lets make sure the game is viewed as it's dying guys!!!
I can't wait for everyone to form their opinion around a video like this and then they'll DEFINITELY try it once it's out after seeing mass videos like this!!! Surely the mass amount of gamers don't follow trends and others opinions now!! Cheers. it's super smart to do this!!!! I love negativity I thrive in talking about "the fall" of things I "once enjoyed" !!!! It's Badass dude. Keep it up lol
I’m curious, did you watch the whole video or make your comment after the intro? I feel like even in the intro I was pretty clear I disagree with the people who are saying Deadlock are in deep shit because of the playerbase decline.
Very interested in what you think I was being negative about, because I think I was generally pretty positive in this video, unless pointing out the fact that the player count is lower than 2 months ago is being negative.
@ no ❤️ I just don’t like UA-cam videos who talk about the decline of any game. I confidently think if we had less of them we’d have more games because nowadays people feel guilty over playing a dead game.
I trust your opinion and I’m sure you weren’t fearmongering your idea you had for the video.
Thanks so much for the kind discussion fuzzycarpet. Sorry the video didn’t resonate with you, but regardless we’re both hoping for the success of Deadlock.
Thanks so much for the comment regardless. Hope there is some other stuff on the channel you enjoy ❤️
I have been playing Deadlock for 4-6 hours/ dat from September to October and had 2.1k nekoscore (SEA) before I quit
I stopped when I realized the game is still being patched and the stuff I practiced (timings/ heros/ builds) won't be useful because its gonna get changed next patch anyways.
The fact that ranked is soloqueue only also make me not want to play the game. Before ranked got launched I pretty much found 3-4 people who know what they are doing and I plan to push to high elo with them, but when ranked came out they pretty much stopped playing and I just don't feel the same fun after playing ranked for 2 weeks.
Would probably come back after the game actually launched and be in a more stable state, for now Im focusing on IRL stuff so when it launches I can dive into it for a while
Love this mindset! No point in stressing yourself out to get as good as possible right now because everything and anything can change. Unless you're concerned about your rank there's no reason to be itching to learn every little timing. You'll just wear yourself out.
After ranked was introduced, the matchmaking got way worse. Hope they fix it.
Interesting, I find my ranked matches are much higher quality!
Patch yes patch no the game runs or stops running on my computer, so I decided to wait for it to be finished and optimized.
I've noticed a couple of my buddies have had issues as well, a recent patch definitely introduced a stutter or two, even some people in VC mention it.
no, it doesnt have a problem.
I had back to back matches with an enemy player on 3 to 4x the souls of our highest player, running around playing COD or basically one tapping you with a basic ability. Meanwhile I have players with 0 kills and like 1/10 of even my souls...
I feel ya Sam. The amount of times I join a team fight and turn around 3 seconds later and realize that my team took that as a chance to run is too damn high!
Part of the reason why i put the game down for now is because there isn't a large enough player base at the moment (not enough low rank players). I just cant really compete because I struggle to grasp advanced movement. the game has a entertaining but extremely high skill ceiling making it hard to approach as a new player who is generally unskilled at shooters and high movement games.
That’s very fair, there are tons of great creators online for learning new skills. I’ve got a couple tips videos, and “Deathy” or “Schizug” are some of my favorite educational creators. I learn a lot from them!!!
@@Ansonex3 I think its more of a speed issue, compared to most MOBAs which are slow to moderate pace, the addition of high speed 3 dimensional movement makes the game a bit unapproachable, which may cause some issues in the future. Similar to how fighting games become a bit niche because of tight inputs. this could be solved with a character that has a longer engagement range and opening up some parts of the map so there arn't so many ways to weave out of vision. As the game stands currently there arn't alot of playstyles outside of the relatively close range scrappy fights. Vindicta and Talon are 'close' but they still have to engage with the close range playstyle until they are built, lane phase being so important and pressing particularly hard on low skill players weakness. When the player base gets bigger with full launch if it can hold more numbers the distribution of skill and tightening of match making will make less stomps at more skill levels. I feel completely unable to have anything but a negative impact early on games because of my weakness with movement and aiming, there really arn't characters or options that work into that because they'd just be too strong in a skilled player's hand.
The game may just not be for me to play.
Those are valid points, Rueian. I hope the game wins you back over in the future 🙂
Thanks so much for commenting!!
The "Player Count DEAD GAME" is a cancer on video games. The simple fact is that the drama of saying a game is dead pushes people to stop playing, which actually kills games.
When it comes to people complaining about matchmaking - devs change MM in the backend constantly and without saying anything - but we MUST attribute cause and effect to a number going down -_-
The hype crowd comes and goes, I think these definitely are the extremely short attention span gamers who would chase unlocks, etc. I think you are right about that. They need a carrot. They also happen to be the easiest to farm. Ive found the game much more challenging since October
Haha I’ve also noticed people in general are much better now. Even low ELOs use active items!
I mean yeah a game is gonna have a crazy amount of people because people are trying it out, then only few stick with it. The matchmaking is valid tho
i think this player count drop is pretty normal without major content drops or other adhd attention grabbers. only games with steady players bases are ancient games like siege, cod titles, fortnite, and mobas/mmos. this game will develop a strong, probably mildly exclusionary player base when it ages and comes to launch, like the other mobas.
Completely agree!
I really loved deadlock, I still really enjoy it. But deadlock got me into dota 2 and now Im very addicted to dota. I will definitely play deadlock again when its closer to release, but I do want the game to stabilize more since the metas and balance are very volatile and I have to constantly keep up with it.
I think that’s fair. I wonder how many real moba people deadlock will bring over given the massive differences (control scheme being the biggest I can think of) they have.
Honestly, since rankeds have been introduced, the matchmaking has been very hard on me. It's hard to find "fun" games in casual matchmaking.
That is why I play only ranked. Games are much better balanced, but still sometimes you will have a game where one team smashes other one. Yesterday I played a game where they had almost double souls and their weakesd player had like 3k souls lead to our strongest player. It is not fun to play when you are in match like this no matter if you are on winning or loosing side.
You can easily make your own fun in casual games.
It can be as simple as using a troll build, to using no build, or just running down obj.
Throw at least a *little* gas into the creative engine.
Very fair I agree with @Micz84 that ranked is generally a better experience.
Got my sub -Mr.dayquan might have encountered you
Thank you!