A bit sad their next game is on hiatus, but I’m happy for them. I assume they’ll be working on Deadlock since it’s sort of similar to Risk of Rain 2.
I have a strong feeling they’ll be working on Deadlock given their experience with third person hero shooters with crazy items that change your build.
Which is a shame because Deadlock is destined for the land of toxicity most other MOBAs exist in unless they do something meaningful to change the game’s design.
I’ve got a solution!
Just refuse to play those games and go dig rocks and stones instead!
Deadlock is destined for the land of toxicity
I don’t think we should assume this right away. TF2 isn’t really all that toxic (that I am aware of). Valve tends to attract less toxic people in general. OW2 however, hoo boy… that game is agonizing to play. People will not hesitate to insult you.
I play both overwatch and counter strike. While overwatch does a great job of making sure I don’t see slurs most of the time, the community is toxic af. I can’t go a single game without someone saying “tank diff, DPS diff, support diff” and whatever else directed insult they got.
Counterstrike on the other hand, surprisingly wholesome. Many games players will say good try after you fail and be pretty supportive. Sometimes you get assholes who just say slurs cause they can of course but that’s like, once or twice a month. Overwatch is literally every god damn match minus the slur part.
TF2 isn’t designed to be as competitive as deadlock. It’s a goofy game that’s mostly just designed for fun. (Competitive TF2 does exist and I am a fan of it but it’s not really officially supported in any meaningful way.)
Deadlock on the other hand is designed to be a very competitive MOBA where individual decisions will greatly change a games outcomes. I would look at DOTA as a better comparison than TF2.
I think we oughta wait for the game to at least leave the alpha, where huge changes happen from night to day, before concluding how toxic the game and mechanics will be
Totally, my comment is with regards to the current state of the game and so far they’ve fallen into the same pitfalls as other MOBAs.
Personally, allowing the team to vote to concede and to get rid of increasing respawn timers would help a lot in getting rid of the biggest causes of frustration noted so far however these were comments about DOTA2 and sadly Valve never implemented them there either.
My experience playing it so far has been pretty overwhelmingly positive. No one really cares who wins, it’s more fun to just make cool plays and do well individually.
That’s just new competitive games in general though. The best time to play a pvp game is the first month when there isn’t a clear meta yet and everyone’s having a good time.
It also helps that there isn’t a competitive mode yet. Until recently it didn’t even track your stats in a visible way. Also, people can only get in by being invited, so you have to have had at least one person who has vouched for you in some way, which probably selects against the most toxic personalities.
Snowballing
30/40min games where you’re unable to concede when loss is clear early on (causing other team mates to become stressed and rude). Games can sometimes be decided in 5 minutes yet there can potentially another half hour to go before you have a chance to requeue with different team mates.
One team mate’s mistake early on can lead to the opposing team snowballing and the rest of the team becomes toxic due to the first point.
The respawn timer increasing in length penalises the team further for being behind the enemy team, and the downtime as someone is waiting to spawn gives them time to type and be toxic. By mid-game, I’ve seen some players spend as much time waiting to respawn than they did playing.
Losing begets losing.
Macro and Meta
The volume of items leads there to be objectively better builds (and meta after each patch as items stats are changed) leads expectations on all team mates to follow that meta and know which build to play otherwise they get raged on.
Map awareness is more important that aiming and it takes the whole team to remain aware of the map for success.
The lack of transparency as to why a person is losing to another (item selection, ability upgrades etc) irritates players into feeling cheated.
Competitive
As a competitive game, players are trying to prove themselves yet, as a team game, individual performance can’t make up for a weak team thus rage. Competition drives emotion.
Note: I played Deadlock for about 15 to 20 matches but all the typical MOBA issues emerged within a couple of games, I’ve already bounced off of it.
I haven’t enjoyed any other mobas, but I’ve put ~100 hours in to this one. The comeback mechanics seem fine enough, I’ve had a few games that have come back from a ~30k soul difference.
