Maybe we need a playable single-player roguelike game before the official release.

[1538390085]

Hello, I am a player from the Chinese community. Please allow me to use ChatGPT for translation to communicate with you. I am very passionate about Deadlock. In the Chinese community, there is concern that the game is currently too complex, which leads to new players being killed repeatedly before they have a chance to get familiar with the mechanics. I myself once charged up a melee attack to kill a new player who had no idea how to defend. I completed five kills in total, but it didn’t bring me any joy. He stood there for a while and then left the game. I think he probably won’t come back to play again.
New players aren't receiving any positive feedback. Currently, the game's online player count is steadily declining. Before the official release, perhaps we need a single-player or multiplayer roguelike mode, similar to Dota 2 or Risk of Rain (since most of the developers from Hopoo Games have also joined the development of Deadlock). This would allow players to experience the game while also uncovering the story behind Deadlock and addressing the challenge of understanding the game mechanics, which is often the hardest part for newcomers. This might be difficult to achieve—Overwatch, for example, struggled with this for a long time—but I still look forward to receiving feedback from the developers and community staff. I hope that my favorite game of this year can reach and be enjoyed by more players.：）

 

[1538390085]

There is also another voice in the Chinese community that feels the game is too difficult. (However, as a player with over 300 hours of experience, I personally believe that removing mechanisms like counter-play would be a shame.) A single match takes around 40 minutes, requiring extreme focus on all the information that appears on the screen, including: souls, the map, skill cooldowns, ammo count, stamina, etc. This can make a match feel very exhausting, and after playing a full game, you end up feeling quite drained. Having a roguelike mode would provide some breathing space after the intense focus required in the main game.

 

[nì from italy]

I think it's all due to experience.
Even Dota 2 and League are very hard to learn, you just need to put it all to practice.

Just saying, I'm an artist and everytime I hear people saying they want to become artists too but they don't have the skill and put the blame on the craft but not themselves. That's just ridicolous, you need to learn to craft something as you need to learn to play the game.

Though, having a roguelike PVE experience in-game would sound very cool and funny to play.

 

[HerrBoogie]

This isn't really the right (sub)forum for this. But...

Please keep in mind that this game is still in early development.

When a game developer wants to have the biggest user base and draw in as many people as possible and in order to get big revenues, they have to make it as accessible as possible.
Valve doesn't need to do this. Valve is privately owned and has no greedy shareholders to appease and sits on their own mountain of cash. Therefor they don't have to make a profit on a game in order to survive. It took me a while to get into the game as well, having played mainly tf2 (and a couple of years overwatch 1) since 2007. Because it's from Valve and it's a shooter, i put in some effort. But if it wasn't for my friends jumping in, i would've stopped way faster as I have no feeling with games like dota2 and other moba's. This game (for now) has a pretty steep learning curve and I assume the playerbase right now is of a higher average level then when the game will be fully released and available.

I assume it'll be better when more diverse players get access to it and more orientation games need to be played before you get your actual ranking/mmr. But it'll always have the added complexity of a moba. And doing a quick game limits you to playing vs bots. It now requires you to be more dedicated, reserve time and be willing to put in the hours before you get something out of it.

I expect Valve to promote this with huge prizes like the dota2 international, pushing pro-gamers and streamers to support this and perhaps even have it being picked up for esports broadcasts. There are so many tactics and the game can go back and forth so quickly, that's with some experienced commentators, this is also exciting to watch. It's imo perfect for esports. Therefor I don't see Valve having much incentive to make it easier to adopt and having the biggest playerbase.
Although, I'd like to see them make it more accessible like you're basically asking. There is a sub-forum that will allow you to post ideas. If you have any tips/ideas to improve the accessibility, you can post them there.
But I also want them to flesh out the story and the backstory of the characters. I want to see a story, the universe.
What will make me quit instantly, is a gamepass in combination with free to play.