What's the fate of the other unrelease hero lab heroes?

[mirr]

Hello dear deadlock community and amazing deadlock devs.

I really hope the other hero lab heroes are not canceled since their gameplay ideas are very creative and the characters are super likeable. A great example of a heroes that should 100% get released is Fathom, Raven and Wrecker. Ofc their kits need a little bit of changes but I think they are very interesting and likeable characters. Do not abandon them to rot and never get released. We love them all.

 

[Dead Man Dan]

as some dolt who knows nothing I tend to agree with the opinion a couple people have - that Raven has to be undergoing some big changes to separate him from Mina who he will forever live in the shadow of solely because of the umbrella. Wreckers voice lines give me hope that he will be interesting but it only took one game of the invisible jet plane making the game unplayable for me to want him back in the oven, Fathom, uh, his kit seems good for new players but there's no way its sticking around, the grappling hook was fun as hell but the frontal cleave felt cancerous.

I dont play techies much but I liked his impact in dota, regardless of the form it took, so trapper is a big thumbs up on principle of being interesting and full of clippable moment abilities. Ult needs a rework.

I really want to see Priest and his background, if he's a Baxter Society member who has it out for Shiv because he knows hes turning into a monster or something, that was looked over by Grey Talon, or a member of the Friends of Humanity who has yet to see a playable representative yet I believe

 

[mirr]

Priest I think will get released, the only one im worried about being fully ignored and not released is trapper. I also have high hopes for fathom since his lore is pretty good, related to viscous. It would be fun to see viscous voice lines that are actually more "serious" or that viscous actually dislikes one person and how viscous would act. Wreckers voice lines are just too funny and good not to be released. Raven looks almost finished to me but stupid mina HAD to have an umbrella, i bet if she didnt have one we would have raven already.

 

[Aer]

Was Cadence a Heroes Lab character or someone from Neon Prime? If so, what are her chances of making it into Deadlock?

It looks like they already have a fully developed kit for her as shown here—just not her model that'd probably be based on what she looks like from Ivy's visual novel.

 

[Rainbow]

Hello dear deadlock community and amazing deadlock devs.

I really hope the other hero lab heroes are not canceled since their gameplay ideas are very creative and the characters are super likeable. A great example of a heroes that should 100% get released is Fathom, Raven and Wrecker. Ofc their kits need a little bit of changes but I think they are very interesting and likeable characters. Do not abandon them to rot and never get released. We love them all.

According to Valve, "As a note, while developing this new set of heroes, we paused work on hero labs. In the future, we may revisit some of the hero labs heroes as we understand there are some elements of them that players like" (Six New Heroes Update Log). It is possible that some or all of the heroes come back in some shape or another. The major problem with the Hero Labs heroes is that they require gargantuan amounts of work, both visual and mechanical - all of their abilities (or in the case of Raven, a lack OF abilities) are missing things and while the base ideas work, they could use a rework.

TLDR It's possible they'll come back but when is only something Valve can tell us.

 

[Rainbow]

Was Cadence a Heroes Lab character or someone from Neon Prime? If so, what are her chances of making it into Deadlock?

It looks like they already have a fully developed kit for her as shown here—just not her model that'd probably be based on what she looks like from Ivy's visual novel.

View attachment 61375View attachment 61376

Cadence was never in Hero Labs. She existed during Neon Prime, but let me tell you that what she has right now is basically unusable. She "exists" but she'd need a new everything except for appearance and lore.

 

[impozilla]

Was Cadence a Heroes Lab character or someone from Neon Prime? If so, what are her chances of making it into Deadlock?

It looks like they already have a fully developed kit for her as shown here—just not her model that'd probably be based on what she looks like from Ivy's visual novel.

View attachment 61375View attachment 61376

While not fully confirmed, She was originally a planned Neon Prime character that was brought over when the project changed to Deadlock. She has a new design as you've posted here. Which was from Ivy's Visual Novel.

However, she never made it into Hero Labs. The ability to select her via console commands was removed. Alongside other characters from Neon Prime, like Thumper, The Boss, Kali, Gunslinger, etc.

Honestly I love the new design and a Jazz/Music themed hero would be very cool for the setting and world.

 

[Spektrum]

Justice for Slork.

 

[gibnewitems]

I've played Hero Labs quite a lot during it's run. I think a far more realistic scenario is all the remaining hero labs concepts getting cannibalized and the few things that work getting recycled into new heroes.

Pretty much everyone remaining in hero labs require a full-on gameplay rework, something that just cannot be said about any of the heroes within the main game. Raven specifically has two unique """finished""" abilities. The work required to bring them to just a passable state like the 4 released earlier this year would be a herculean task. At that point, you're practically just making a new hero, but with the added bonus of pissing off the few hyper fixated eastern european children who are attached to these janky kitbashes.

I think a big part of why Valve gave up on hero labs is this interesting dilemma. They could either make cool, interesting, fun to play concepts like Doorman, or they could put the same effort into making Wrecker somewhat playable. One generates a ton of hype, even from people who are just casually aware of Deadlock. The other doesn't generate anywhere near the amount of hype or new player interest, but gets a ton of 9 year olds to screech and scream about "volvo money grubby gamba company ruined wrecker revert rewooooork (((((((((((".

Actually, we don't have to imagine it. It's already happened to Calico. She plays nothing like her hero labs counterpart. I knew a ton of people were pissed when that dropped into live servers. Didn't help that she was also busted as hell.

TLDR Bringing any of the hero labs heroes to passable standards requires far more effort than a new hero release with nowhere near the same hype that a new hero release would entail. It makes far more sense for Valve to just scrap them and start over from the beginning.

 

[Rainbow]

I agree on them requiring A LOT of work, but whether or not they'd have hype is different. Mind you most of the Hero Labs cast were using models that could barely count as placeholders in the case of everyone except Trapper and Raven. Visuals could bring in a lot of hype, more than you think.

I think we've already seen what kits they have geeting recycled into new heroes, Paige resembles Trapper on a surface level. Both have abilities focused on area denial and both have an ultimate revolving around summoning things that go in a straight line.

 

[Twisted Egg]

I honestly hope they add back slork. I got to play him in a custom match before the update and I loved his kit but then he got removed the next day

 

[Rainbow]

I think Fathom works on a surface level but he has a lot of balancing woes and he's very broken in terms of bugs. His ultimate's active doesn't hit people (lmao) anymore and his Reefdweller Harpoon has a lot of jank. That said outside of Trapper he has the most cohesive kit. If only they played more around the idea of Fathom being stronger when he's harpooned as opposed to making him weaker (the slow duration...). Making his Breach deal more damage if he's harpooned would work well, or maybe making it so you fall faster too? Wrecker and Raven require mountains of work to make their abilities work (OR ADD ABILITIES).

 

[thezartzu]

I just hope Trapper gets released at some point.

 

[impozilla]

They can totally re-use Raven's model, name and story and give him a new kit, without much worry. Like they did with Calico. The other three are fan favourites, especially Slork.

Seeing that Slork has lines from the Doorman and the other 5 new heroes, makes me think we'll see him eventually.

 

[creeper]

#ReaddSlork

 

[Rainbow]

I think they can re-use the other character's lore and names and by god do I want that. Trapper is really funny to me, Wrecker has really cool lore and Slork is well, slork.

 

[Reinme]

I think that they removed the Hero Labs heroes in order to focus on their development using the feedback from the closed test server.
The heroes in Hero Lab have almost stopped receiving development in recent times, and with the closed test server, it will be easier for the developers to work on these heroes. The recent new heroes have raised the quality bar for hero releases by two levels, and the heroes from Hero Labs just fade away in the background of the new heroes (Hello Sinclair model and his textureless rabbit).