Deadlock is promoting its downfall.

A

askrajpr

New member
After playing for over 300 hours, a simple update has transformed one of my favorite games into just another title among many.
While we are in Beta, an environment meant for "testing" and "finding errors," the game's direction has become concerning.

Positive Aspects:​

  • Active Balance Efforts: The developers are actively seeking to balance the game, which is commendable.
  • Frequent Micro-Patches: Short-term fixes are being implemented through micro-patches, addressing necessary adjustments promptly.
  • Build Customization: The ability to create and save your builds for future use, along with the option to test them in the Sandbox, adds depth and flexibility.
  • Gradual MOBA Shift: The game is slowly shifting towards the MOBA experience they promise, promoting objective acquisition and its functionality, which is actually quite good.
  • Performance Improvements: In my experience, the game's performance has been improving. I used to lose many FPS during teamfights, but now at least it remains stable, thanks to the content preloading system when initializing the game.
However, there are several negative aspects that could jeopardize the game’s future if not addressed promptly.

Problem Areas:​

  1. Queue Merging: The decision to merge ranked and normal queues has negatively impacted the game experience. This change, especially on my server (SA), has been problematic for many, leading to several friends uninstalling the game.
  2. Matchmaking MMR: The current system's MMR matchmaking is unclear. It is hard to determine if you are progressing because the merging of normal and ranked games makes it feel irrelevant. Winning or losing does not seem to effectively reflect points gained or lost.
  3. Transparency in Ban System: There is a lack of transparency in the ban system. While the current player base is meant to test the game, issues like cheating, griefing, and toxicity are highly prevalent. Bans seem random, with no clear logic behind the selections. There are harsher penalties for quitting a game than for trolling, insulting, threatening, or cheating. It makes no sense. So far, I have encountered at least 20 cheaters; I have their profile names saved in an Excel sheet, and they continue to play (who cheats in a Beta, anyway? XD).
  4. Server Toxicity(Server Specific): Placing Brazilians and Spanish speakers on the same server has exacerbated the problem. This has resulted in diminished competitiveness and integrity. It is disheartening to test the game when disparity in skill levels and active griefing are rampant within the first 5-10 minutes of a match.

Suggested Solutions:​

  • Rollback Ranked Queue Changes: Reverting the queue system would help restore the game's competitive nature and integrity.
  • Clear Matchmaking MMR: Implementing a system similar to the Elo rating system (used in chess and other recognized titles) with a badge and number format would provide clearer feedback on progress.
  • Improved Transparency in Ban System: Regular updates on ban waves would help the community feel that cheating and toxic behaviors are being addressed. Even periodic announcements can create a perception of active management.
  • Separate Servers: Establishing separate servers for SA and BR players would mitigate the daily toxicity that currently affects the gaming experience.
I still hope the game can progress positively, but at this point, I am less motivated to continue with the current product. I may return in the future if the developers make adjustments that improve the community and game management. Until then, another potentially great game risks being ruined by a lack of foresight and proper decision-making from its creators.
 
Matchmaking doesn't make sense anyway for a game this early. It was only added to give people a way to play with other people roughly at their skill level rather than having totally random teams. It's not designed to be like a battle pass or season rank.

My only complaint with the matchmaking is that it seems to have a flaw of putting one extremely high rank player on a team of low-level players, and then balancing that against a team of mid-level players. Sure the over-all MMR is the same, but the team with the unbalanced skill-level will not have fun playing, and the balanced team will feel like they're stomping (which often doesn't feel fun).
 
fkmmarr said:
Matchmaking doesn't make sense anyway for a game this early. It was only added to give people a way to play with other people roughly at their skill level rather than having totally random teams. It's not designed to be like a battle pass or season rank.

My only complaint with the matchmaking is that it seems to have a flaw of putting one extremely high rank player on a team of low-level players, and then balancing that against a team of mid-level players. Sure the over-all MMR is the same, but the team with the unbalanced skill-level will not have fun playing, and the balanced team will feel like they're stomping (which often doesn't feel fun).
Click to expand...


You're somewhat agreeing with me, but considering it's a developing game, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have it separated into two queues. This would also help improve the MatchMaking algorithm.

However, as I mentioned, I've spent several hours playing this game, and I don't consider myself a "casual player" or someone who's just starting out. Therefore, it doesn't make sense in a game where, whether you like it or not, besides "finding errors," you also seek to have fun. You depend on your teammates, and having someone who is just beginning and has no notion of basic mechanics is tedious. It ends up leading to what you mentioned in the second part of your comment.
If you want to rank and test your level, it's assumed you'll have some knowledge, or at least your mindset is focused on that. The current single queue promotes people "trying" the game, and if they don't like it, they stay at base, grief, or just leave... Why? Because of the level disparity.

Anyway, this is just one of the aspects I believe should be modified. As I said, there are other aspects that should also be considered. I'm not criticizing gameplay aspects or the game itself (like mechanics, balance, etc... as I said before, they are on the right track). I’m pointing out some possible recommendations on how they should be handling the "social" aspects of the game, which need to be managed as soon as possible in a better way to create a far better gaming environment.

A poor experience could discourage players from returning, potentially leading to a decline in the user base, which is already starting to happen.
 
askrajpr said:
You're somewhat agreeing with me, but considering it's a developing game, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have it separated into two queues. This would also help improve the MatchMaking algorithm.

However, as I mentioned, I've spent several hours playing this game, and I don't consider myself a "casual player" or someone who's just starting out. Therefore, it doesn't make sense in a game where, whether you like it or not, besides "finding errors," you also seek to have fun. You depend on your teammates, and having someone who is just beginning and has no notion of basic mechanics is tedious. It ends up leading to what you mentioned in the second part of your comment.
If you want to rank and test your level, it's assumed you'll have some knowledge, or at least your mindset is focused on that. The current single queue promotes people "trying" the game, and if they don't like it, they stay at base, grief, or just leave... Why? Because of the level disparity.

Anyway, this is just one of the aspects I believe should be modified. As I said, there are other aspects that should also be considered. I'm not criticizing gameplay aspects or the game itself (like mechanics, balance, etc... as I said before, they are on the right track). I’m pointing out some possible recommendations on how they should be handling the "social" aspects of the game, which need to be managed as soon as possible in a better way to create a far better gaming environment.

A poor experience could discourage players from returning, potentially leading to a decline in the user base, which is already starting to happen.
Click to expand...
The game is open to be played for testing purposes. This includes bad matchmaking, which they will try to fix gradually. It's a delusional take to believe just splitting the queues will fix all their issues; there were just as many people complaining about it. It's a delicate issue that they'll do their best to solve over time.

As the game is also a testing grounds, the game constantly go through changes over time. You aren't meant to be competitive in a game where there's constantly bugs going on, along with maps and mechanics changing every patch. You're here as a playtester; test out the features, give your feedback.

At this point, you just don't understand what a developing game is about. You can come back when the game is released. I'm sure it'll have a ranked queue at this point. You talk about "promoting its downfall" man it isn't even out yet. That's like insane amounts of cope.
 
BoomingWarrior5789 said:
There is no point to ranked queue. Both matchmaking systems work the exact same. Why should there be a superior and inferior queue? All games are a;ready "ranked" so who cares.
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Because people tryhard on whatever they perceive as the "ranked" queue, and with a single queue there's no place for the tryhards like myself and casual players to both enjoy themselves
 
I've had a lot of free time in the last few weeks and have played ~60 games since the merge and the matchmaking and gameplay experience has improved drastically for me.
I've played duo/trio/6stack with 6stack being the most problematic, but still very playable.
What OP is mentioning might be server or rank specific, but in my and my friends' eyes a potential rollback of the changes, splitting the remaining active population even further, would be a terrible decision.
The one thing people seem to not realize is that there is a concurrent player count to think about - especially for servers with an already lower active population.
I'd love to be able to see how much ranks change each game, though, so seeing some points go up or down would be great for my dopamine starved brain.
 
Want to specifically speak to this point you made:
  • Separate Servers: Establishing separate servers for SA and BR players would mitigate the daily toxicity that currently affects the gaming experience.

Separating servers only splinters a relatively small player base, speaking specifically to the idea of an SA and BR server right now. Now in a broad sense, the same applies to all servers where you only stand to have more imbalanced matches as a result the more you fragment user base while the game is in an alpha state. Once the overall player base gets high enough and the game is actually officially out then you can start to create more partitioned servers, but for now, this will likely go against the grain of you having higher quality matches. It's a small pool of players across all skill levels, and most will not be queuing at the same time.

It's a silly example and analogy. If I tell you to name 10 people out of 25 who were born in the month of December, that might not even be possible, but if I ask you to do the same task, but it's with a pool of 200 people, well that's way more likely to happen and be easier.
 
i don't think the mod team likes to ban cheaters, since i think they are cheaters in a different way haha. they should for sure split up ques, if they really want to have a ranked mode (idk if they should have it, but if there is this much of a demand they should definitely do it.)
 
Purezz said:
I've had a lot of free time in the last few weeks and have played ~60 games since the merge and the matchmaking and gameplay experience has improved drastically for me.
I've played duo/trio/6stack with 6stack being the most problematic, but still very playable.
What OP is mentioning might be server or rank specific, but in my and my friends' eyes a potential rollback of the changes, splitting the remaining active population even further, would be a terrible decision.
The one thing people seem to not realize is that there is a concurrent player count to think about - especially for servers with an already lower active population.
I'd love to be able to see how much ranks change each game, though, so seeing some points go up or down would be great for my dopamine starved brain.
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Last week I played solo only, and it is a polar opposite of what you describe. Given that I am in quite low elo (dropped Ritualist->Arcanist 4) I have mixed matches with first-time players and smurfs looking for easy games. This results in some horrible coin-toss games (even wins feel meh). Add to it a common problem of players leaving games and you can see how bad it can get. It is really frustrating right now.

Have I not played the game shortly before ranked had been introduced, and not seen what kind of a gem they are cooking I would have uninstalled already during last weekend.

I don't know if ranked was THE solution, but at least it was a filter for the problematic variables being team games vs solo players, new players being tossed in the deep water, smurfs (ok, was still there but the entry point was harsher as you had to have 50 games).
Consider, the more people feel that matchmaking is bad the more they are incentivized to make a Smurf account just to feel better, and it creates a snowball effect on lower ranks.

In my opinion, if they want a good algorithm for launch, they need to try to keep a decent player pool, or the same issue will reappear, just later.
Or maybe they know all they want, and really could care less about large-scale player data. In that case it is probably cheaper for Valve to have fewer players.
 
Personally feel like they need to merge experimental hero queue too. It's beta testing. Just dont overwhelm yourself by adding 5 at a time. Maybe start with 2 every few weeks and balance accordingly. They also need to do a hero select phase prematch. Team composition is important and even though at first people will probably not care to select wisely...eventually it will catch on and help balance some of these lobbies. Ultimately, I just got bored with it so I stopped playing but also have about 300 hours with it.
 
u never see good ranked is this game. becouse this company garbage.they can make only skins. u can write best rank system here. they will make their own system, becouse they garbage company and need only money. u see this on release.will be cheats every games and trash players in ur team. and garbage company will be make only skin boxes.
 
Mogwai said:
Want to specifically speak to this point you made:
  • Separate Servers: Establishing separate servers for SA and BR players would mitigate the daily toxicity that currently affects the gaming experience.

Separating servers only splinters a relatively small player base, speaking specifically to the idea of an SA and BR server right now. Now in a broad sense, the same applies to all servers where you only stand to have more imbalanced matches as a result the more you fragment user base while the game is in an alpha state. Once the overall player base gets high enough and the game is actually officially out then you can start to create more partitioned servers, but for now, this will likely go against the grain of you having higher quality matches. It's a small pool of players across all skill levels, and most will not be queuing at the same time.

It's a silly example and analogy. If I tell you to name 10 people out of 25 who were born in the month of December, that might not even be possible, but if I ask you to do the same task, but it's with a pool of 200 people, well that's way more likely to happen and be easier.
Click to expand...


I understand your point, and it was one of the major factors I considered before making my post—the cost-benefit balance of having separate servers.

The Brazilian community is large enough (both in terms of population and gamer base) to have its own server, while the rest of LATAM can be "unified" into one without issues. I understand that in the short term, this lack of server distinction might be due to economic reasons. However, if they plan to maintain this setup even after the official launch, it would be complete inexperience on the devs part.
 
I really like the change to ranked and hope it goes live, There really isn't any point to splitting the player base when they are grouped up by personal skill level regardless.

I'd also argue that this game has been very moba like from the start it may have only seemed like it wasn't because a meta had not yet developed.

The focus on objectives used to be much higher but the recent changes that make it easier to unlock flex slots have actually placed less importance on lane objectives and shifted a lot of the ingame strategy to mid boss and urn. Before the changes one person could easily solo whole teams with a farm advantage and wasn't punished so harshly (when dying) by the games general strategy which was pushing as hard as possible everywhere in order to overwhelm the enemy macro, take flex slots and then contain them in their base until they had an overwhelming advantage.

The game still has the strategy but it can be disrupted much more easily with the buffs to mid and urn objectives. Those fed players also can't solo entire teams anymore (because of many item and balance adjustments) so they have to rely on their team to secure objectives and snowball everyone.
 
Last edited:
offsetcyan said:
If a game is in a playable state, people are going to tryhard. Have you met another human being before?
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Again please go play a game that is released. It being playable does not mean the product is finished. The game changes wildly every 2 weeks and your rank from a month ago might have been botched from various sources. Go play League or Overwatch, or wait until the game is properly released. That's all. You are not a player here, you are a tester. You being able to enjoy the game is a "privilege" of being a tester.
 
BossBaragon said:
Again please go play a game that is released. It being playable does not mean the product is finished. The game changes wildly every 2 weeks and your rank from a month ago might have been botched from various sources. Go play League or Overwatch, or wait until the game is properly released. That's all. You are not a player here, you are a tester. You being able to enjoy the game is a "privilege" of being a tester.
Click to expand...
I don't think you understand what everyone else is saying.
 
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