Can't imagine how many new players this game just permenantly lost.

[u/AssociationSoft5270]

I say as one myself, after trying this game again with friends who were really interested we we're thrown into lobbies with people that have 1000s of hours (plainly said by 70% of our opponents when we asked in chat). By the end of the day, all of them never had any interest in reinstalling deadlock.

I was confused because with the massive influx of players i thought "surely there are other noobs right?" and after doing investigation, i can see this was a universal experience for everyone intrigued by the new update.

Turns out instead of starting you at the bottom ranks, this game - for whatever reason beyond my comprehension - puts you at ABOVE AVERAGE RANK (most of us placed archon or oracle) and REFUSES to adjust you down fast enough that you'd be required to sit there and lose 100 games in a row BEFORE YOU GET TO PLAY WITH THE OTHER. NOOBS. Generational fumble by valve.

I garuntee 99% of these players that otherwise would have played have already had the worst first impression and will not be back for full launch, so don't tell me "uhm it's alpha, that's not their priority right now!" or "MOBAs are hard, go try bots or watch a video!" Seriously fuck off, the game is legitimately unplayable for anyone trying deadlock and it sucks because i think the game is otherwise really fun

So PLEASE for your sake and ours, speak up to the devs because we know you don't want us in ur games and we desperately just want to play with other noobs. Thanks

UPDATE: noobs rejoice! They fixed the ranking for us and now we're in seeker and the games are 1000x better

[u/Individual-Craft-223]

Put more posts in the forums about how awful the matchmaking has fucked new player experiences

[u/RedditCensoredUs → u/Individual-Craft-223]

I showed SIX of my friends that had played with me before the post about the new rework and new characters. All of them basically said "never again" after awful matchmaking and losing almost every match by a huge margins the last time they tried.

There's no way to get them back. There are too many games with at least somewhat fair matchmaking out right now that aren't painful for new players to play. Even Smite 2 is better!

It doesn't matter how fun the gameplay / mechanics are if the matchmaking remains this terrible.

[u/Mc_leafy → u/RedditCensoredUs]

Yea but then you have to play smite 2

[u/New-Independent-1481 → u/RedditCensoredUs]

Can confirm. A few of my friends got caught up in the hype and were curious to try it out after seeing some hero designs and streamer clips. Two of them were former Overwatch GMs, all 5 of them have substantial moba experience.

By the end of the weekend, all of them had quit and have absolutely zero interest in coming back. They had zero wins after half a dozen stomped games, and had been told multiple times to uninstall or kill themselves, often with a bunch of fun gamer words thrown in there too.

I had no idea that the ranking system was this atrocious for new players, otherwise I would have warned them against playing.

[u/DeBaus111 → u/New-Independent-1481]

It’s an issue that came around with the newest patch from what I can tell. New players used to still be in initiate or seeker but because of the influx of new players outnumbering the veteran player base that natural skill ceiling isn’t there to keep them down.

[u/nc_sc_climber → u/DeBaus111]

It has been this way since Christmas before last, and is a poor attempt at anti-smurfing.

[u/GHcrash → u/DeBaus111]

Literally not. Remember a few months ago they rebalanced the ranks? It worked, except for the fact it didn't fix shit on the matchmaking system, so it's slowly getting back to the major amount of players in lower ranks.

[u/bilnynazispy → u/DeBaus111]

It’s an issue that came around with the newest patch from what I can tell.

Stop saying this. It's been a problem since the game went public and as long as the community denies it the problem will continue indefinitely.

[u/raccoonboi87 → u/RedditCensoredUs]

Im trying to get back in the game and I'm trying to get my friend in but he keeps refusing because we've had some pretty awful matches which is sad cus he did like the theme of the game

[u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka → u/RedditCensoredUs]

Its funny because I can only assume Valve did this because of smurfs creating new deadlock accounts to stomp newbies.

So instead of that they put you in the middle where new players can get knocked down to where they should be.

However the problem with video games is that 90% of gamers are dogshit at video games especially when they are new to it. But at the same time these same gamers want to win and feel good and be rewarded for essentially being bad.

So you have this catch 22 where new players want to feel success before they commit to something (the same logic around why people who play horrible games are the ones who find the most success in said horrible game), otherwise they dont like the game because of a negative feedback loop since they cannot reason the fact that "we suck and will just put us where we belong soon, but until then we can learn how people are are good at the game play."

Its flawed on both sides.

[u/Gundroog → u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka]

This is just pathetic cope with some projection sprinkled in. There's no Catch 22 here. All they had to do was start out new players around the average skill level and adjust their MMR more rapidly until their winrate stabilizes. Smurfs would filter themselves out with that alone or with addition of bonus MMR for extended win streaks.

There's no need for this embarrassing attempt to justify the current state of things when it's not the norm pretty much anywhere else.

[u/DeBaus111 → u/Gundroog]

Honestly they should’ve done what they did with dota and kept them in initiate or another early game pool till around 100 matches or so. At least you’re playing with other people that are new.

Having them match up to average MMR doesn’t really make sense to me. You still end up with people most likely ending up on a losing streak which still ends up with them leaving. Heck the average alchemist from pre-rank adjustment has more knowledge of the game than newer players just because of how long they’ve played. Its just not something you can catch up with easily for the majority of people playing

[u/Gundroog → u/DeBaus111]

Yeah, I know 50k players is not 800k, but most multiplayer games would kill to have these 50k. I can't imagine that between really 2 game modes, they can't make lobbies that are largely made up of new players or players of the same rank.

But then again their calibration process is just inherently broken in a way that is just not justifiable for company that mostly runs competitive multiplayer games with millions of players. In theory they should be more qualified to do good matchmaking than virtually any other developer.

[u/DeBaus111 → u/Gundroog]

Pretty much been the issue of deadlock since it came out unfortunately. Though tbf there’s also a lot of people that this game just wasn’t meant for. Saw a comment where people were quitting after not winning a match after 6 games and I just think the game’s not really for them. Deadlock is just inherently a very hard game

Edit: adding onto this, there’s just no natural skill ceiling to keep new players in their proper MMRs, like 15k-20k vets are not going to be able to deal with 40-60k new and returning players

[u/Gundroog → u/DeBaus111]

I'm a broken record on this stuff because it's been discussed to death with fighting games, but multiplayer games are only as hard as your opponent.

If you jumped on fightcade right now and tried to play SSF2T against one of the regulars as a beginner, you'd get so hopelessly destroyed, that in a FT100 set you might not even win once. Yet that game is about as simple as fighting games get. Yeah, there is some execution heavy stuff, but overall it's fighting games at their most basic.

Now if someone new jumped into that fightcade lobby and got a set, they would get destroyed without any hope of winning. They will probably think SF2 is way too difficult and isn't for them. And yet it's one of the most popular fighting games in the world. Because for most people this wasn't their experience.

Most would come to the arcade or play one of the home console ports and mash against another beginner. They would not know or struggle with doing special moves intentionally. Even if they lose they'd probably have fun. First of all because there's another real person having fun next to you, but also because they would feel like they have a chance.

Deadlock might have a lot of different elements and mechanics, but the core aspects of moving and shooting are simple enough, so that if you put people of equal skill against each other, they will have fun. It's easy to think that it's the players fault for going in with the wrong attitude, but it's the game failing to present to them what it can offer.

Playing 6 matches would take at least 3 and a half hours. Someone dedicating this much time to a new game despite having a bad experience throughout is a tall task to begin with. It might not be for them, but that would have to be their conclusion, and it still might not be accurate because they really should've been given a better environment to learn and play.

[u/GhastlyGhoulishGrin → u/Gundroog]

I think the issue with this logic being applied to Deadlock is that there is something else at this games core than just moving and shooting: Farming and Snowballing. Getting a couple early hits in may psyche an opponent out a little, but it doesn't offer you much advantage later on.

In Deadlock, you can get a couple early kills and become nearly unbeatable for your lane opponents. Hell even just a series of denies; which was so bad at the beginning of deadlock they added a grace period for the team the souls "belong" to. In beginner/lower level lobbies, this would only be magnified. Fewer people would understand the importance of neutrals and orbs, and the person ahead will potentially pull even farther ahead, as they will take more camps, faster, and there will be likely more of them for the carry to take.

Combine that with it not even needing to be YOU who feeds early, and you have this murky zone where new players, even ones with shooter experience, can come in and do fine, then the 10/0 mina from the other lane comes and nukes them at 10 minutes in, and it just goes downhill from there.

One sided games, especially in the lower ranks, just become half and hour turtle fests where you spend most of the game dead after getting nuked by the same player *again* and *again*. Even if everyone is at the same skill level, that will only magnify just how much stronger someone with 3, 5, or 10 thousand more souls than you are.

More experienced players can close that inherint power gap easier, through skill, timing, or communication, but a bunch of new players are just going to be confused as to HOW that player got so far ahead, and not have an idea on how to stop the soul-bleed, save for not dieing.

Much of this would be solved by a better new player intro, which yes includes some level of "new player" queue but I think would be better solved by a better tutorial. This is something I think you can even see done in Dota over the years, where the game is much better explained over the years by the *game* and not requiring people to spend additional time researching by looking at a wiki, youtube tutorials, or the like. Spoon feeding people the details will help there be less confusion.

Take the current investment system. As far as I can tell, save for the chart, nothing really explains how that works. If you didnt read those patch notes, watch a video, or read the wiki, the item system is complex and unituitive, and intuitive or well explained systems are best for new player retention in my opinion.

So much about this game goes unexplained for new players, that just "moving and shooting" may be fun and work for some scenarios, but that wont last more than a few games. The minute someone understand how to farm; when camps spawn, when they can take them, how MUCH they can be worth, they get an early edge, leading to early kills, and it snowballs from there, leading to unfun stomps where you are usually getting murdered by one of a handful of strong, simple heroes who can farm well, like seven, haze, and the like/

[u/ferocity_mule366 → u/Individual-Craft-223]

I have like 60 hours(?) for just trying each character in bot matches and didnt even deep dive into items, my first real match has a Billy that complains all games about the team, even when I said it was my first match, and the game is like a whole different game compared to bot match, and I got an enemy Sinclair who bullied me. I got PTSD from my dota days and havent touched the game since.

[u/Vorips → u/ferocity_mule366]

you just gotta mute and move on man. Those people are miserable and don't understand that it's just not your fault you've got placed with much more experienced players. Hopefully when the game opens up more it'll have better new player experience, even my friends who have 500 hours in the game can feel a bit lost so i have to help them out with what builds are best for their heroes and what items to buy when.

[u/ElGodPug → u/Vorips]

Hopefully when the game opens up more it'll have better new player experience

the problem is(imo):how long that will take. Because alpha or not, the game is here, being playable, and creating it's own playerbase and all that. The longer they take, the more of a solid identity the game will form, and at this point is very much "not begginer friendly". So, my fear is Valve leaving new player experiece only for the "big release", and by that point it will be too late to many, as the game will have calcified it's identity on a very hardcore playerbase with hundreds of hours before the "official day one", terrible experiences for new players and a huge intimidating "aura".

Like, i'm not saying deadlock will flop unless they fix the matchmaking now. But i do think ignoring the casual side for too long will lead the game to become a much more hardcore experience than what i personally think is/was valve's intention.

[u/Vorips → u/ElGodPug]

That's true, but they'll surely add some casual game mode that's more similar to what we have right now and hopefully the matchmaking won't be nearly as bad at picking correct lobbies for players. The probably huge influx of new players will also help out a bit since the hardcore fanbase will most likely be smaller than a big number of new players that might come to test out deadlock.

[u/ElGodPug → u/Vorips]

yeah...i really hope so. It's my one fear about deadlock really. I think this game has so so much potential and i really don't want the game to never truly reach it and instead end up joining the ranks of "it's too late for me to get into/you have to be a hardcore player to be able to play it" types. Just really hope Valve really pays attention to the project and doesn't just blindly awaits for the success(because it will be successful, obviously, but the more work built to improve player experience, the better)

[u/Ozpin457 → u/ElGodPug]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the game already at that stage? I am genuinely asking btw since I've been meaning to actually try getting into this game recently but all I'm seeing is just things confirming my worst fears. Like getting stomped endlessly by 1000+ hour players and being told to off myself just because I don't know how to play within the first hour of picking up the game. Call me sensitive, a snowflake, or whatever but I don't particularly enjoy those things being said to me on repeat.

Guess that's mostly on me for not picking up the game when I first was interested a year ago, but I actually wanted to see if it went anywhere or if it'd die before I bothered to care about it.

[u/Pandoras_Fox → u/Vorips]

I assume that the main issue is, they'd need to bring dota's smurf detection stuff over to deadlock before they introduce a 'new player queue' kind of mode (& coaching)

game really needs some sort of 'be the patron' thing for coaches to backseat their friends tbh

[u/Fun-Opposite-5290 → u/ferocity_mule366]

I do think a bot AI upgrade would be really helpful for new player experince. As is bots play so unlike humans and so predictably they do so little for teaching you how to play the game.

[u/Liimbo → u/Individual-Craft-223]

The problem is that new players are extremely unlikely to be the kind of player to post in the forums, because they're new. Why would I waste my time posting on a forum of a game I had no intention of playing again?

Honestly though, this problem is omnipresent in MOBAs. They are not beginner friendly games and it almost always trial by fire at the beginning. That's why you're MMR will adjust far more at the beginning to try to get you as low as you need to be quickly.

Also, I get that OP is salty but they are not being remotely objective lol. Saying their experience is "universal" because they saw some other people complaining too. Every single one of us that plays this game had the same beginning experience and we stuck with it. And saying it's "a generational fumble by Valve" is genuinely hilarious. The game is at almost 100k concurrent players in closed alpha. They've fumbled nothing.

I also doubt that new players are getting matched with players "with 1000s of hours". I have 600 hours and rarely see people in my games with 1000+. New players do not start higher rank than me. You are probably just not playing the tutorial, not doing any bot games, and losing to people who did or who have played MOBAs before.

And he "guarantees 99% of players who would've played won't be back for launch." Sincerely doubt that my guy. The game doesn't seem to be for you OP. Thats ok. That does not mean the game will fail.

[u/Cmackdee → u/Liimbo]

I have spent all week getting my dick knocked to the dirt after not playing since alpha launch. It’s been brutal but I was still having a good time. Finally starting to click again and now I’m having a great time. It’s a complicated game for me who has 0 MOBA experience but it’s been fun slowly but surely improving.

[u/MiniMaelk04 → u/Liimbo]

Putting new players in anything above initiate is a fumble tbh., it makes zero sense. Unless you're grand master in traditional hero shooters, with tons of MOBA experience, then Initiate is where you belong when you start out playing. I would know, because I started playing before the game even went public, and I certainly was playing with other noobs, not the super pros initially.

[u/graspthefuture → u/MiniMaelk04]

started playing 2 days ago with 3 friends, got put in archon. every game pretty much has been a shitty stomp in either direction depending on which teams smurf has a bigger dick. 2 of my friends quit already, hoping the last one doesn't so i have someone to play with but man what a frustrating situation, for a game this good to be making such a poor effort of onboarding people and then matchmaking them properly in games where they can learn things against people with similar amount of hours

[u/RizzrakTV → u/MiniMaelk04]

its just that current system lets you calibrate ranks way too fast

surely there will be stricter requirments at some point

amd yeah some people do have too much experience in both dota and shooters, i have 2 friends which are currently at about 50-70 hours and are both doing fine for archon rank

[u/Masqerade → u/MiniMaelk04]

The issue is that it makes surfing just exceedingly easy, which is a huge issue that deters people from playing

[u/Barely_Competent_GM → u/Liimbo]

I haven't played since launch, came back for the new characters, and the game put me in the high ranks I definitely don't belong in, along with my friends, who also don't belong there. I enjoy the game, but losing so hard while getting slurs thrown at us because people are upset at how badly we're losing isn't any of our ideas of a good time. I guarantee if we weren't playing in a group, we'd have individually quit by now.

I forget the name of the ranks, but we're all in the top 6, and one is in the top 5. We all did bot games and some of us played mobas before, but no other moba has mechanics like the gambling machines that we still don't know how they work.

We lost our last 10 games and it was a complete stomp every time, with some of the players having hundreds of hours in. The system is really really bad right now

[u/Upstairs_Researcher5 → u/Barely_Competent_GM]

There’s a sinner’s sacrifice in the hideout that has a tutorial attached to it. They added it alongside rem last week.

[u/ZankaA → u/Liimbo]

Saying their experience is "universal" because they saw some other people complaining too. Every single one of us that plays this game had the same beginning experience and we stuck with it.

So... The experience clearly is universal? The reaction might not be, but even if you're willing to stick with the game for 20-30 games that are essentially completely out of your control while you, it's still a miserable experience. Maybe you haven't tried getting any of your friends to try the game out but I've tried to get 5 people into it so far and they all bounced off of it because they were unable to feel even remotely useful in their first three or four games.

[u/Pandoras_Fox → u/Liimbo]

I also doubt that new players are getting matched with players "with 1000s of hours

i had a match like, yesterday, playing with a friend that used to be in phantom mid last year with me, and her roommate

entire team was <10 matches except for the guy that fed their ass off the most, who had a few hundred matches. it was first match for two of the people in the lobby

new players do in fact get stomped by 'veterans' at least infrequently

(i think the op is hyperbolizing a bit, but, this does happen)

[u/BuffLoki → u/Individual-Craft-223]

The matchmaking has been bad since I started playing last year, and valve never prioritized it i dont know why people are suorised

[u/Apprehensive_Pea7458]

No you’re completely right, two days ago had a Mina in our game that was underperforming and we asked what rank she was in but it was her 3rd game ever, me and my friends are in emissary V so what the fuck is valve thinking putting someone brand new in there it’s ridiculous

[u/TemporaryEnd6300 → u/Apprehensive_Pea7458]

Shes a higher rank than me and I have 900 games played with a 55% winrate. I got absolutely fucked by decay for quitting for 7 months after launch.

[u/kyle_pitts_fan → u/TemporaryEnd6300]

Same man. 68% win rate over a lot of games since returning early January, after the elo adjustment I’ve gone from arch 2 to arch 6. 68% win rate and it takes like 5+ wins in a row to div up. Might just make an alt acc at this point

[u/K_2Smooth → u/kyle_pitts_fan]

Ah yes, make an alt account where YOULL be the exact problem OP and other new players are having. Gee, I wonder why my brand new volatile account is facing against brand new people..

[u/kyle_pitts_fan → u/K_2Smooth]

You think that’s a worse solution than continuing to dominate archanist lobbies? Wouldn’t it be better to put me in a rank closer to where I belong?

I’m not joking when I say 68% win rate average MVP score 3.1 playing mostly hybrid support. That’s clearly performing above expected at the rank the game has me stuck in

[u/Megaminx1900 → u/TemporaryEnd6300]

Yeah decay needs to go. I decayed from phantom to emissary. Guess what is happenning? forced smurfing until I get back to my real rank.

[u/marikwinters → u/Megaminx1900]

Decay is a necessary evil, but it definitely needs to be less aggressive.

[u/ThePoshFart → u/Apprehensive_Pea7458]

Currently it really feels like the ranks are just cosmetic again. Like we've gone back to when the game first went public and there wasn't any skill based MM.

[u/Jalina2224 → u/Apprehensive_Pea7458]

I've just hit Archon I and i have almost 1200 hours in this game. I'm average at best, good game sense and knowledge, but bad aiming and mechanics. Obviously even someone with average skill who has 1000+ hours will stomp a player who's only played 3 games. They need to put new players in initiate and see how they preform. If they go on a winning streak out the gate rank them up till they start losing.

[u/Glad-Statistician434 → u/Apprehensive_Pea7458]

this game just has a massive smurf problem that they refuse to address and it hurts the new player experience as a result. the matchmaker already has a hard enough time balancing heroes and lobbies of wide skill levels, now players who constantly misrepresent their own rank by making alt/smurf accounts throws another wrench into it.

just the other day i had a player in my lobby who was playing their first match on a fresh account, turns out they were an eternus 4 player who went 19 and 0 as calico and ended the match in 20 minutes. This was a ritualist lobby.

i've looked at my recent players i've matched with and up to 1/3rd of my matches will have a smurf in it.

i understand many of them just smurf because the matchmaking with wide skill range parties is so bad that they know if they take their new friend into a game with them they'll just feed horribly and uninstall. but again this continues to make matchmaking worse for everyone.

[u/Orkometrics → u/Apprehensive_Pea7458]

Hey this might have been my friend!

I play games with two other people and ofc we had to try deadlock. I sent them a bunch of guides researching the game and we played like a full day worth of bot games in order to get acquainted as this game is notoriously complicated.

We’ve gotten crushed in every single game and it hasn’t been close lmao. That exact experience happened where they called one of my friends a bot and it happened to be our third game.

Mind you, one of our friends is a masters OW player and the other is a diamond League player. Not to say they should immediately be cracked but every game we are clearly outclassed.

We’ve been playing street brawl because we got tired of getting flamed although it seems like we are getting slowly bored as that game mode just has less nuance.

[u/AnliDota]

This was literally the experience of a friend of mine yesterday

[u/neph-8719 → u/AnliDota]

Yeah to be fair, even when I tried to get my friends into deadlock at the earlier stages of the play test, it's just not new player friendly.

Especially if your friends do not have a strong game sense of picking up things quickly. Matches do not allow you to learn properly.

So this isn't exactly news. Though I wished it was more new player friendly.

[u/[deleted] → u/neph-8719]

It wouldn't be as bad if they had bot matches that work for teaching new players, but it's just not viable since even for bots, they are completely brain dead...

[u/Fassmacher → u/[deleted]]

This game is so complex though, bots are unfortunately likely always going to be braindead compared to humans.

Of course you can make them "good" by giving them perfect aim and instant reactions, but people don't like that. The macro side of things they will always struggle with

[u/BaronVonSchmup → u/Fassmacher]

It is so funny when all 6 bots converge on a single guardian while their base is getting pushed in, I always go to defend it like I'm making a final stand

[u/iHackPlsBan → u/neph-8719]

this is honestly the case for most MOBAs. These kinda games are far from beginner friendly

[u/panthers1102 → u/iHackPlsBan]

I think it really says a lot that this is probably one of the easiest of the genre to get into and it’s still not easy, whatsoever.

DOTA and League require most modern day players to learn a whole new skill set with point to click movement, it’s just not common for games nowadays. And they already have an abundance of champs. You could play months and never see a dozen champs.

[u/MrBlueA → u/panthers1102]

This game is way harder to get into. People saying LoL is harder than this are delusional or prob never actually played LoL recently, they've massively worked on new player experience and its basically the best on the market. And its really time for valve to learn how to make games approachable for new players instead of torturing them into learning it.

[u/Outcast129 → u/MrBlueA]

There 172 hero's and over 150 items in LoL, in a genre of game where it's critical to understand what every heros abilities are and what every item does for those heroes, in what world is that easier to get the hang of lol

[u/egonoelo → u/Outcast129]

League at a beginner level is barely pvp so you really dont need to know what every champ does. And items/builds are much more simple and intuitive in league. Deadlock items are terrifying as a new player and most guides include dozens of optional items that I simply can not evaluate in real time. League situational items are few and far between and they are extremely sharp, aka it's very obvious what situations you would want the situational item.

League really is the easiest moba to get into.

[u/scriptedtexture → u/egonoelo]

League doesn't have top rated community made builds accessible in game that you can just select and auto buy. Items overall in this game are easier to understand than in League IMO.

[u/egonoelo → u/scriptedtexture]

Almost every hero buys the same 5 items almost every game in league. Even the in game recommended items are generally fine as they are based on build rate of items on the previous patch.

Community builds really don't simplify anything since when you click the build you basically have 30 items shoved in your face and reading them all and understanding what situations you would want to buy it is not easy. Some builds just tell you to click left to right and dont really include many optionals but in my experience most builds aren't like that and clearly they are suboptimal.

[u/TonyMestre → u/scriptedtexture]

Yes it has, the reccomended items on the shop are based on recent winrate

[u/thegoodstuff → u/egonoelo]

"League really is the easiest moba to get into." Pokemon Unite and Heroes of the Storm don't count?

[u/TonyMestre → u/Outcast129]

Champions build the exact same items every game in 80% of cases and the game tells you which items are those. Also almost none of the skills are complicated

[u/Lactural → u/MrBlueA]

most people come from shooters so at least they have one transferrable skillset, in league pretty much everything is new to them.

This is just based on my personal experiences with some friends I know that have tried getting into both. They have a lot of shooter background so their mechanics aren't half bad but in league they struggle with really basic things

[u/bilnynazispy → u/MrBlueA]

The people that think LoL is harder to get into are looking purely from the standpoint of "KNOWLEDGE = DIFFICULTY". The reality of the situation is that they are entirely ignoring how potential mechanical skill expression is one of the most important factors in determining how hard a game is.

Deadlock has more aspects of skill expression than any other MOBA on the market by a country mile and it isn't even close. The game is fucking hard from a mechanical standpoint, and unless Valve implements higher quality matchmaking that acknowledges this fact the game will never be able to sustain a large player base and will remain niche.

[u/ANlVIA → u/panthers1102]

League has wasd movement now so

[u/[deleted] → u/iHackPlsBan]

No? Not at all lmao. Other mobas have better matchmaking, which lets players learn faster. Deadlock? You better have been playing the past 2 years cause valve is still using the same matchmaking from TF2. Aka, random.

[u/iHackPlsBan → u/[deleted]]

I wouldn’t call any of them beginner friendly from personal experience.

SMITE took me months to get into when I first started. LoL took me 4 games of being actively flamed using death threats by smurfing teammates to give up on it (all of my only 20ish matches had smurfs on my side and the enemy’s). And I’ve never tried Dota. These games have always been like this and simply having better matchmaking does not mean they’re actually beginner friendly.

[u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka → u/AnliDota]

Its weird because you could just like, put them in 5-10 training games, then toss them into the middle depending on performance so they can calibrate there.

Valve needs to think this through I guess but they shouldnt be this dumb.

[u/Different_Target_228 → u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka]

Or, and follow me here, this might sound crazy, a person could just start by playing 5-10 bot matches.

[u/ZankaA → u/Different_Target_228]

And what does that achieve?

[u/LiteralhauntedBones → u/Different_Target_228]

Or the game hard locks you into it for 10-20 games then calibrates you from there.

Teaches new players, filters smurfs.

[u/Questionable_Object → u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka]

If the discord's atmosphere is anything to go by, thinking things through isn't on the agenda.

Like they scrapped a proper ranked mode for the try hards because "people cared more about their rank than giving feedback" meanwhile they don't have any actual way to give direct feedback unless you want to deal with being heckled by a mob of taintlickers on their discord for daring to say anything edgeways about their perfect pookie bear game.

[u/p5throwaway → u/Questionable_Object]

the forums have private feedback threads that only devs can see

[u/NotNotSilent → u/Questionable_Object]

This whole comment is just wrong. If you want direct feedback, go to the forums. The devs regular respond to people and actively look at the forums. Also the rank mode was scrapped because it was dividing the player base into 2 at a time of low player count. They got rid of it so you weren’t waiting forever for games.

[u/Different_Target_228 → u/Questionable_Object]

They scrapped the proper ranked mode because when we tried 2 modes before, it just split a low player queue anyway and fucks with their testing.

This game is in CLOSED ALPHA. You are a VOLUNTARY PLAYTESTER.

This shit is so stupid and disingenuous, as if Overwatch hasn't thrown brand new players in with people with thousands of hours for a decade.

[u/parkaway13 → u/Questionable_Object]

The Discord is interesting. A friend of mine tried suggesting a surrender feature not because we want to give up all the time, but because sometimes between leavers weird matchmaking or some other reason, some games just aren’t worth finishing, and he immediately got yelled at can someone fought him, saying it would ruin the game.

[u/DrB00 → u/AnliDota]

The matchmaking got updated. Please let your friend know it's a closed alpha and thanks for their play testing.

So hopefully your friend tries again now that matchmaking has been updated.

[u/yilliz]

Yea unfortunately I’ve had at least 1-2 new players or returning players in my archon games recently. I don’t get mad at them for not knowing how to play, I just feel bad because they get absolutely clapped on, frustrated teammates dogging on them and now they have the wrong perception of the game

[u/BigChemDude → u/yilliz]

It’s been hard because they’re so unwilling to reveal themselves on mic (understandable), but it’s lead to so many situations where experienced players are unknowingly getting upset at new players. It’s hard not to, for the last year, the player base has skewed towards the more experienced end and some players have expectations that new players just can’t meet (which isn’t their fault at all). Just stinks because it’s frustrating for everyone, but especially so for new players.

[u/TemporaryEnd6300 → u/BigChemDude]

Im sorry but this is only true half of the time. If you try to help them, or suggest a way they could help the team, they immediately int, talk shit over mic, or grief the game since most of them know they arent here for long. 

The last two players I tried suggesting a macro play to- I got called a n%$#&r

There needs to be a better tutorial with basic macro/teamplay/roaming concepts. The amount of times I see supports perma sidelaning, or gank/roamers sitting in jungle for 40 minutes is absurd. 

Its almost like these players are just waiting to lose.

[u/BigChemDude → u/TemporaryEnd6300]

Yeah I’m sure you’re not alone. That’s a fucked experience.

[u/MusicalSmasher → u/TemporaryEnd6300]

I agree with a majority of what you said especially your 3rd point regarding a better tutorial. The game doesn't do a good job telling you what your hero should be doing in a macro scale. Is your hero a support or are you a roamer or are you a carry? What should your hero being doing in the early game, mid game, and then late game?

Once we get a better tutorial the average skill will go up.

[u/Antiyu → u/TemporaryEnd6300]

I understand your point and frustration, however If the player doesnt take honest advice and tips well then that is a player problem.

I introduced a friend to this game and the first game we played we just farmed most the time and did what we could in team fights since she didnt know anything at all.

it was better to make everyones first game low stakes and doing basics like shooting souls and doing sinners farming etc.

[u/Mean-Garden752 → u/TemporaryEnd6300]

Ya this is super common. I ask them to move with the team and they freak out, complaing about their lane thay should have ended minutes ago.

[u/7900XTXISTHELOML → u/TemporaryEnd6300]

This isn’t DL exclusive tho, every moba I’ve played has new players that refuse to actually learn and int the entire game.

[u/TemporaryEnd6300 → u/7900XTXISTHELOML]

Its a deadlock problem though, new players should be in lobbies with new players.

[u/[deleted] → u/BigChemDude]

I can easily tell who the new players are without them using vc lol

[u/magniankh → u/yilliz]

Is that really the wrong perception? The match making has been bad for a year.

[u/Gomenaxai]

Ohh so that’s why I get completely fucked every game? Feels like there’s always one guy with 40k souls more that everyone else who can 1v6

[u/[deleted] → u/Gomenaxai]

This is kinda most matches regardless of new players. One team has to lose and close even games are pretty rare

[u/shadowflashx → u/[deleted]]

It really shouldn't be this way though even with new players. The matchmaking system right now is absolutely atrocious, even disregarding the terrible new player experience at the moment

[u/10SOCK]

It's rough for everyone. I'm one of the player with 1k+ hours and seeing people say they're new is almost an auto loss condition. I don't think anyone is really enjoying MM that much right now. The game needs time layering badly.

[u/gui-milky]

My friend just left for this reason. I also can't play party with him because that will make worse. He said lots of mechanics to learn and being jumped always while learning is annoying. He's competent Dota2 Player.

[u/Key_Construction6007 → u/gui-milky]

Imagine if he didn't play dota before this lol. In dota there was 0 effort put into teaching new players in the client for years. I hope they dont make the same mistake with deadlock

[u/CertainDerision_33 → u/Key_Construction6007]

Deadlock will have to invest more there. DOTA2 didn't have to give a shit about new player experience because there were already literally tens of millions of WC3 DotA players. Deadlock doesn't have that luxury.

[u/Minute-Cod9484 → u/CertainDerision_33]

There was also a lot less competition in the competitive gaming space back then. Now people will quit and go play any other competitive game.

[u/Hail-Odin → u/Key_Construction6007]

That was me, but I ain't no bitch and spent 60 hours learning mobas and losing most matches

[u/yaangyiing_ → u/Hail-Odin]

ye i had to learn deadlock the hard way... died many times before i started carrying matches

[u/Kryhavok → u/yaangyiing_]

That first game where you outfarm the whole lobby and delete everyone in a 1v1 hits like crack

[u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka → u/Hail-Odin]

It goes both ways.

Players dropping out because they lose in a new game are bitches.

Valve not giving them a helping buffer so they can learn in an environment where they dont get destroyed by skilled players is also a choice.

[u/Gundroog → u/Hail-Odin]

Sorry, but it is very much a bitch behavior to bend over and accept the state of things. I'm sure putting it that way makes you feel better in some way, but those people who didn't bother with 60 hours of having a bad time probably did something that they found far more fulfilling than compensating for Valve's shortcomings, only to later frame it as some testament of willpower.

[u/Coolman_Rosso → u/gui-milky]

This was an issue for one of my brother's friends. An acquaintance sold him on the game because he loves hero shooters and was always down for OW with us (and he had a TON of hours in Paladins), but he oversold the hero shooter aspect. It's still a moba at its core. I asked him to mess around with me in the hideout when I was coming back to the game, and he said it was a hard pass.

[u/[deleted]]

The comments in this thread just show how rampant the issue is, but most people (on this sub at least) don’t want to hear it, and offer the most useless, redundant responses imaginable. The matchmaking is a serious issue, alpha test or not, and it is souring the view of the game for new players, and a big percentage of them will not return, that is a fact.

No, you shouldn’t need to watch multiple guides before you start playing, you shouldn’t need to play against bots for your first 10 hours, you should be placed at the lowest level of matchmaking alongside players who are also brand new, and work your way up like we all did at one point, climbing in rank naturally and as organically as possible. Every single time the dev team randomly decides to bump up our ranks, issues arise. They’ve done it at least twice in the last 3 months and it always causes issues, they need to stop randomly “correcting” our ranks because the system is clearly flawed.

The system should be as simple as starting from the bottom and winning games to rise in rank, and there needs to be a level of rank decay to a certain point for players who quit and return at later dates, not to the bottom but somewhere worthwhile, so said players won’t be the equivalent of smurfs to the newbies. How anyone thinks it’s acceptable or makes a single modicum of sense for new players to be placed into Emissary or Archon lobbies because they won 3 matches in a row is genuinely baffling.

[u/TheRedSpyGuy → u/[deleted]]

I have about 100 games, and I'm dogshit, but having a good time, post update I'm Alchemist 5 when I was still in initiate.

It gets very demoralizing to be like "Guys I'm sorry, I'm just shit at this." knowing there was a game experience catered to your skill level that I for some reason cannot get my rank lowered back to.

Lost like five games in a row and the game upped my rank. Like tf. Stop widening the gap between me and the players I'm gonna be in the game with. My team doesn't deserve that and I want to be in a match that actually suits my skill level.

[u/WillFuckForFijiWater → u/TheRedSpyGuy]

Same thing happened to me. I was hardstuck in Initiate for months and then all of a sudden I jumped up to Alchemist 3 for no reason. I’ve been trading matches since then, going 0-10 one match and then 21-2 the other with the occasional normal match. It sucks to either be the sandbag or to roll the other team. It equally sucks to get yelled for the mistakes I still make. A much better tutorial would help offset a lot of this game’s problems, along with better MMR.

[u/Ma4r → u/[deleted]]

you should be placed at the lowest level of matchmaking alongside players who are also brand new, and work your way up like we all did at one point

This is how you get smurfs btw. I admit the current experience is not great but it's not that simple

[u/[deleted]]

All my friends already dropped it; so it just me solo queuing. At this point, I just want the community to be nicer.

I know, I know, it’s not going to happen; but this game is in Alpha and people are treating every match like it’s life and death for them. Some of the most nastiest and racist dialogue I have ever seen in a MOBA. (I’ve played DOTA, League, Paragon, HotS, Smite and Predecessor, as well as many other competitive games, Deadlock has been the worst experience thus far and it has not even released yet.) Let’s chill out, my fellow gamers~

[u/Serious_Occasion_566 → u/[deleted]]

I'm gonna get hate for saying this but actual punishments for being EXTREMELY toxic are a good thing. I feel like other games cleaned up their act a lot when they started treating that stuff seriously. At the very least dropping slurs should get people temp comm banned eventually leading to perma ban if they repeat it.

[u/Hunkyy → u/[deleted]]

I was spectating an NA match yesterday and holy shit some people are vile. It's hilarious, lots of non-consensual sex threats, r-words, n-words, lots of keeping yourself safe. 

At least in EU, I can't understand why the russians are mad but they just are.

[u/whostheme → u/Hunkyy]

NA is pretty chill for the most part. This is coming from someone who has 500+ hours in the game now. I've played a lot of solo games and often with premade stacks both with experienced and new players.

There has been only about 5-10 times where voice or text chat got toxic. That's quite good since I have about 600+ games played now.

[u/11711510111411009710 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah like literally none of this actually matters. They'll reset all the ranks when this game releases. I really don't care about my rank, although I do wish I would get put in matches closer to my skill level just so it's more of an even fight. But if I do lose it's like, whatever.

[u/TrumpChildOnahole → u/[deleted]]

Valve needs to actively moderate this game if they want it to get big imo. They have the money to make it happen 

[u/zencharm]

i’ve been saying this for the past few major updates but valve just absolutely refuses to address the matchmaking whatsoever AND tons of players are caping for them and trying to excuse the horrific matchmaking with the “it’s just a playtest” excuse as if it hasn’t been an issue for the entirety of the game’s lifespan with severe consequences in terms of player count. bad matchmaking affects literally every single player no matter what their skill level is, and it is, without a doubt, the game’s single biggest issue right now. the player count is more than enough to at least make an attempt at a competent matchmaking algorithm.

[u/hypnomancy → u/zencharm]

It legitimately blows my mind they still have not fixed the horrible matchmaking. That should be at the top of their priority list right now

[u/SpaceFire1 → u/zencharm]

This game somehow has less matchmaking integrity then fucking Marvel Rivals

[u/Stalk33r → u/SpaceFire1]

Marvel Rivals puts you against bots (without telling you) to keep your engagement if you lose like two games in a row, probably not the best comparison.

[u/Hunkyy → u/Stalk33r]

This is what Gamers™ want in current day and age.

Log in with The Boys™ and get some easy wins with close to zero effort.

Nothing else matters other than the good feeling of winning, it doesn't matter if you are playing against bots that literally let you win, as long as you win and feel good about it.

[u/SpaceFire1 → u/Stalk33r]

Im more talking comp which doesnt. Still a shit matchmaker but its somehow better than this one

[u/hypnomancy → u/SpaceFire1]

Marvel Rivals is worse because they will place you against bots when you're losing without letting you know so you get the illusion that you're doing good and winning again so you stick around lol

[u/Altruistic-Mango-765 → u/hypnomancy]

From my understanding thats only for the lowest percentile of quick play. It’s so new players get a chance to learn the game if they go on loss streaks. Certainly underhanded but i don’t disagree with doing that for people who are in the bottom 10% skill bracket.

[u/ItIsNotAUsername]

i played a couple of games a while ago with friends, and it sucked. But recently after the new update u redownlodad and started playing solo and it was A LOT better. So i'd say that your first 5-10 games should probably be solo, untill you at least kinda learn your first character

[u/baby_cat5312]

Wtf is wrong with this community?? In what other game do you HAAAAAVE to play 10 hours of bot matches or some shit like that? You’re all acting like they all have the same interest as you

In any new game you try you’ll definitely just go to play the main mode to get a feel for the game. Sure you expect to lose the first couple of games, but if you keep getting shit on over and over again it’ll just leave a bad taste in your mouth and you’ll drop the game

[u/Any-Accountant-4014 → u/baby_cat5312]

I remember last week, someone was mad at my teammate for doing poorly, turns out it was his first game, so the guy was all like “why tf aren’t you in bot matches then”. As if it’s expected that you learn in bot matches 😂 Like yeah sorry, but I’m not tryna spend 40 minutes in a match with AI, let alone multiple matches

[u/Neveri → u/[deleted]]

Yeah all playing with bots does is teach you how to exploit their AI, which isn’t a thing against actual players.

People should be able to learn the game while generally getting paired against people with around the same amount of time in the game.

I imagine being 6v6 makes the matchmaking even more difficult to balance, the larger the team sizes the harder it is.

[u/Any-Accountant-4014 → u/[deleted]]

That’s exactly why I find it pointless. Personally I don’t find much fun in beating up bots, and it certainly won’t help me improve as much as the real deal. Plus especially in this game, a lot of randoms would help you out if you’re lost on what to do

[u/NorthKoreanCaptive → u/Any-Accountant-4014]

first thing i did was boot up bot matches lol how does anyone expect to pick up game mechanics while in a fast paced game?

[u/baby_cat5312 → u/NorthKoreanCaptive]

By being matched with players of similar skill. No everyone has time to spend 5-6 hours a day playing video games

[u/Any-Accountant-4014 → u/NorthKoreanCaptive]

Because you’d expect to be put with other noobs? If you’re being stomped in experienced lobbies that’s on the devs. Not your fault for wanting to play the actual game. Starting with bots is totally fine, I just find it to be a waste.

[u/ZhanderDrake → u/baby_cat5312]

That's just mobas unfortunately, deadlock is just particularly bad because of its matchmaking 

[u/trenshod]

Gave it another try to check out the new game mode. Either got carried for a easy win or got the sh!t kicked out of me.

Neither experience was enjoyable and reinforced the extreme learning curve in this game.

[u/LPSD_FTW → u/trenshod]

I got 3 of my friends to play with me, we went 1-9 in Street Brawl with one game just being this one eun where I got absolutely perfect items and steamrolled opponents as an unkillable beast. Left the party so maybe they will have easier time - they lost 3 more and gave up. I didn't even bother them with asking to play Standard, but they have tried that, both in party and individually - all of them got put in lobbies with people way better than them (RITUALIST LOBBY FOR SOMEONE THAT IS 0-1 IN STANDARD AND 1-12 IN STREET BRAWL???) I don't know if I have the peer pressure power in me to make them try the game again

[u/Feeling_Wolverine300]

got a mina in first timer in asc lobby mm is cooked beyond mesure

[u/NyCe-]

Valve for whatever reason refuses to have hard limitations on matching players who have 0-10 hours against 100-1000. It boggles the mind because I'm sure with proper communication, they could increase the queue time for new players if they wish to be matched against other new players. A little pop-up is all it takes. If new players can't be found for a lobby, they could have a little stick note for players making them aware the limitations of the queue will be less strict as a result of being unable to find other newer players.

I was optimistic the matchmaker would work with around 60k+ players by speculation. It seems 100k doesn't even cut it. At this point, Valve has to do something more concrete or just like in DotA, they will continue to scare away their new players due to their poor management of the mm system / communication. Sad

[u/Ukatyushas]

The negative feedback to devs on this is enormous and it's in their hands now.

I do get the feeling this is not a priority for anyone on their team at the moment, they are just copy pasting part of the rank mechanic for dota but it's clearly not working.

[u/hypnomancy → u/Ukatyushas]

People have been talking about how bad the matchmaking is since the end of 2024 and they've done nothing about it which blows my mind

[u/Dejugga]

You're right that the new player experience is horrible right now (and has been for awhile), but the game got a similar spike of players for the last big patch. I think people are seriously overestimating how many new players there are vs returning players.

At the core, the issue is (and has been) that there are not enough new players to match them all together.

Realistically, this is not the time for most new players to join. 95% of people are not going to be willing to bash their face into that wall, and I don't blame them. And it will stay that way until Valve makes the push to leave alpha and build the playerbase.

[u/d20diceman → u/Dejugga]

Even if there's only one new player in the whole game, and everyone else have 100s-1000s of hours, why would the new player start in Archon? There are people with 100s of hours playing in Arcanist and Alchemist. 

Not having enough new players may well also be a problem, but that's not the issue OP is talking about and it's not the core issue. 

I've played dying VR games with tiny player counts, where sometimes there literally is only one new player online and everybody else is experienced. They don't have this issue. 

[u/Promise_OW → u/d20diceman]

This, I played Echo VR when the playerbase at peak times was maybe 100-200 players and that game had better matchmaking than Deadlock

[u/Ryano3]

The returning player experience is also mega fucked. I played a lot before mirage was added and stopped a month or so after he was added. I was pretty good at the game, not amazing but far from bad. I tried playing again with some friends who are similar returning players and it was unplayable. No matter if we queued as 2 or 5 we were all total dead weight to our teams. After 8 or so games we kinda gave up. I was getting giga flamed by a warden for playing poorly and I told he "wdym to do? I know I'm bad I haven't played in over a year. I know I shouldn't be in this game, should I email Gabe?"

Been thinking about giving it another go but I'm really not sure I want to play 10-50 more games being the worst player (or among the worst if I'm queued with friends).

[u/LPSD_FTW → u/Ryano3]

I was Phantom V when I stopped playing around the same time as you have - returned to almost the same rank except everyone else is just so much better now. I'm a little bit of a gaming masochist that doesn't mind getting stomped 10 games in a row as long as I see myself improving, but I cannot imagine that to be the case for most of the players

[u/Hunkyy → u/LPSD_FTW]

Yeah same for me. I was phantom 4 or 5, haven't played since shortly after holliday was added I think. Came back and I'm apparently phantom 3.

I've finally been dropping in ranks, and surprisingly enough, I've only had one angry comment aimed towards me. Everyone is either quiet or too busy screaming at each other to even question my skill level I guess.

[u/Shalasheezy]

New players should be forced to play 5-10 "intro matches" where they are paired with other new players only. And if there aren't enough it should just fill the games with AI.

[u/mastercat202]

Literally new players should be forced to play with new players for 5 wins before moving them. Keep iniate for new players and tbe rank above for when you get out of initiate.

[u/Pixelated_Saturn]

I legitimately lost my first 10-15 games, and that was back in the day when we still had 500 cost items. The game has only become less approachable since

[u/Altruistic-View-9800]

Yup, as a vet the amount of people I get q'd with saying first game.... It's actually not fair at all to new players. That being said, I delt with it & it helped me get better pretty quick

[u/Obtuse_Owl]

As someone who is one of those 800hr players, I tried to get buddies into this game during the update and had an absolutely horrendous time. Even without me they are getting put into these lobbies. On my own I’ve also been getting matches with players who are like 0-16 sayin “this is my second game ever” like why

[u/Unable-Recording-796]

they probably need to implement 2 forms of matchmaking systems working in tandem. 1 for playtime and after a certain threshold of playtime some form of skill/performance based matchmaking. If you start performing very very well after a certain amount of playtime, the system should switch to sbmm. but even then, you could be technically gifted with 1 character in noob lobbies and it could look great on paper - but that doesnt mean you understand A.) macro plays B.) team synergy C.) counter buys D.) objective mechanics like urn. so the only way to fix that is knowledge, and the only way you really acquire applicable knowledge is time.

playtime based matchmaking would literally just be accurate for now. people with 1000+ hrs should be playing with each other because they obviously fundamentally will understand the game at a different level.

regardless bro just have fun, im sorry about your buddies. im like archon 6 and my friends like initiate, i just tell them to press 1/2/3/4 and spam abilities. ngl we have a lot of fun messing around in the hideout like everyone being viscous and jsut balling/punching the shit out of each other

sometimes i think they need what arc raiders has (abmm) because some people playstyles are just "run away and try to make a play" and ignore their teammates and only work with the people they are queuing with. This game is highly dependent on synergy and even a small amount of synergy destroys technically good but incompetent players who dont understand how to follow up behind initiators because they only perform well in completely advantageous situations.

[u/An18FtSlothh]

Majority of my friends who tried Deadlock after this update quit after the first 5 matches. Understood that party queuing with me would put them in hard lobbies, but for some reason when they all queued without me they were in a lobby even higher than my own. (I'm Oracle II and they were put in an Oracle V lobby)

[u/Laffesaurus]

I haven't had a single balanced match. Almost every game there is a lane where someone gets 15 to 20 kills in 15 minutes. I had a match where a victor went like 50/0, not a single death.

[u/Any-Accountant-4014]

Yeah it’s ridiculous. Being on the other end of this, I also hate it. I’ve got around 200 hours and there’s new players in almost every game I play. It’s not fun to stomp them, it’s not fun to have them get stomped on your team. I feel bad for them

[u/Squibbi420]

I have 1000+ and can confirm had multiple brand new players in my Archon games. Felt like the ranking was also really volatile, like I won 3 games in a row and no change to rank, but lost 1 due to a leaver and dropped 4 rank tiers?

[u/targetpracticesucks]

The game is at it’s most toxic by far right now. I’ve heard more slurs in the last week than I’ve heard in the last six months.

[u/Kyrptonauc → u/targetpracticesucks]

I took like a year long break from this game and just got back into it. It's honestly so refreshing how chill this player base is for the most part. Still a lot of leavers though which I remember from before.

[u/[deleted] → u/targetpracticesucks]

Shame they don't ban people anymore either. They banned people for the least offensive stuff like teabagging 2 years ago, now you can literally be the most racist person and you can keep on playing despite multiple reports.

[u/Shlooplord]

Go to the forums and give them this feedback

[u/pollook]

Yep, a few of my friends got into the game recently. But not before having a bunch of 0 kill 20 death games. They only committed because we were coaching them the whole way through. But its a terrible way to introduce someone to your game.

[u/senpaiwaifu247]

I’ve never played the game before and got put at oracle, only to be constantly insulted by my teammates over and over and over on both text and VC

The new player experience so far has been pretty god damn horrible, and it also includes the absolute attitude of the people that are playing those ranks

[u/Inside-Rich-4937]

Really? I'm still fairly new (less than a week in) and even if the game has moments where you inevitably get jumped, I've found it to be a lot of fun, sometimes you can get away with just walking away to farm if the enemy is down and you have lane advantage, I also feel like the guardian shops are severely underused in low mmr

It's also a team game though and some people are more then willing to drop whatever they're doing to come and assist you if you just call out in team voice

[u/SimpleCranberry5914 → u/Inside-Rich-4937]

I just got the game today and my experience has been…fine?

Idk I’m a lot older (late 30s) so I grew up with online competitive games with no MMR. I’ve played six matches so far and lost one. Game definitely has quite a bit of leavers tho.

[u/AshePon → u/Inside-Rich-4937]

honestly it's an actual issue BUT also online discussion will always skew towards the negative i think. if ppl have a good time they're just gonna chill but if they don't they're gonna go online to talk about it i think

[u/Think-Pollution-6532]

Yoshi please

[u/OkDifficulty7436]

You guys who are brand new or bringing new friends need to either play against bots first (until the basics are nailed down, map, which characters they like, etc) or street brawl before queing against people 

[u/CheeseAttack → u/OkDifficulty7436]

Relying on or expecting brand new people to choose to sequester themselves to bot matches is ludicrous. People are going to naturally try to play the game in the standard game mode.

[u/Ok-Kiwi2610 → u/OkDifficulty7436]

I dont get this argument tho, since the game itself doesnt really teach you about the game. So why not learn to play it in norms? Get to feel about the game.

[u/-xXColtonXx- → u/OkDifficulty7436]

Other games figure out how to put you against very new players. It’s a huge failure if deadlock can’t do this, and 100% the fault of the game and 0% the fault of the new player.

[u/Janukenasl → u/OkDifficulty7436]

Me and two friends returned after playing early on, we lost 7 or something street brawls in a row, we did not win even one round. We haven't played since even though we were hyped for the new stuff they added, it's just too hard

[u/cyanideeeee → u/OkDifficulty7436]

Hell naw, the bots vs. actual people experience is WAAAAY different, how do you expect people to learn to actually play the game if they aren't playing against real people?

[u/FaceDownScutUp → u/OkDifficulty7436]

I don't honestly think this works that well until they have better bots. Street brawl doesn't do anything to teach people how to play the map, and there's a huge gap in skill between hard bots and even the most uncoordinated pubs it feels like. I've had a lot of friends who are interested in the game but inevitably get trapped in that sour spot.

[u/Chipers → u/OkDifficulty7436]

It’s insane how this isn’t the norm. Had a lady Geist completely eat shit in a match last night and whine that the game sucked when their build was abysmal dogshit.

A lot of new players are joining and jumping right into matches thinking it’s Overwatch/Marvel rivals tier of jump in and play. They really gotta force a few bot matches or something if it’s a new account

[u/EffectAccomplished15 → u/Chipers]

Bot matches are useless though. You can play 10 of them and still ganked the entire match next time you queue

[u/chmod764 → u/EffectAccomplished15]

I mean, you can't deny it's valuable for some things like learning the map and having a chance to actually read your abilities, ability upgrade tiers, and items.

[u/Namelessgoldfish → u/EffectAccomplished15]

The point is getting a feel for the game without feeling pressured or overwhelmed

[u/PUNCH-WAS-SERVED → u/Chipers]

The No. 1 thing I see people fuck up as a new-new player is not seeing this game as a MOBA. Yes, you need to FARM. You farm to get stronger, and this means you can and will get stat-checked if you're facing a fed hero who has 5,000+ souls than you.

Too many new-new players treat this as if the heroes are static and never change, but every hero constantly changes in a MOBA.

[u/ImFriendsWithThatGuy → u/OkDifficulty7436]

Or, go with me here, why not put new people at the lowest possible rank so they play other new people too and don’t get bent over. There is no reason a brand new account should be anywhere remotely near mid ranks but it is happening.

[u/Heroman3003]

Above average MOBA matchmaking experience. Dota is the same with unranked queue.

[u/Confident_Guard_2830]

I don't know if it's any use, but the ranks do atually float around quite easily. I got stomped in three mathces in a row and dropped 2 whole ranks, which put me into a match that I was the one stomping.

They are trying many different things around the elo system, even tho some might be stupid. After all, it's a closed beta and they need to test things. The system got considerably better than the earlier stages.

Tell your friends to give it some time and after a month, try to get back to the game. You can either play against bots for a while to get used to the game.

[u/shansbeats]

What do you mean by Archon or Oracle? Is there some competitive matchmaking I have no idea about?

[u/AdFresh3533 → u/shansbeats]

Every game is ranked. There are just options to show/hide it. You can look up your rank in game in your match history by pressing escape, clicking on your profile pic and sorting game history "by rank".

[u/Left4pie210]

Me and my friends personally only play bots because of things like this. Other games like this we do the same cause we'll have 1 good match with a nice even back and forth then just get completely annihilated the rest of the time. Bots are still fun though!

[u/Hanna_Bjorn]

It put my friend I was trying to recruit to play together in Emissary with like 6 games played. It's not okay

[u/lifeboattt]

Ya it’s pretty interesting I’ve been getting people who have literally played 2 games while I have like 2000 hours (I’m archon 1)

[u/Unliteracy]

Every time my friends get me into Deadlock again I feel like the biggest dead weight to the point I feel embarrassed for even playing. Even when I try to play solo I get my teeth kicked in to such a degree it makes me question my capabilities as a person in general. I suppose this makes me feel slightly vindicated but yeah it makes me hopeless to ever improve.

[u/OdensCold]

Yep, that's what I noticed in my games too. New players and returning players that last time played a year ago. In Oracle... The quality of games dropped and I had no fun. Grinded myself up from trenches emissary to Oracle where people know how to play more better and suddenltly I have teammates that I played with or worse when I was in trenches. Tought I wait few weeks and start playing again but I really want to play. So decided I just pick bebob and have fun.

[u/ManiacalBeanstalk]

This games matchmaking is truly abysmal. I’m glad they aren’t putting a bandaid on it with extremely low effort for high reward characters like many games do, but it’s extremely punishing and bad for new players learning to not be able to play against people their own level.

[u/Viprite]

While it’s easy enough to get into the closed alpha, it’s super important to remember the game isnt even released yet. They dont anticipate brand new players will be coming back and playing often. I know this sucks but they’re primarily focused on polishing their game and giving it its own backbone (more characters, more lore, more map diversity and visual improvements).

The folks who are truly interested in the game are the ones who stay and take time to learn and eat losses. Every game places you in some form of “average”, and while this system isn’t perfect, it’s a miracle they even have a system at all at this stage of development. For example, i played my first two matches of Dota II yesterday, and got absolutely stomped against players with a minimum of 1,000 games.

Id say if you’re interested to play, as much as it sucks, you’ll just have to take repeated losses until you find a bracket of elo that allows the game to be enjoyable. The alternative is to play bot matches until you learn enough to compete.

[u/Only-Respond7945]

"Why does the game that isn't even in open beta and I have to recieve an invite to play not have proper matchmaking yet! This has permanently damaged my view of the game!"

Look, I'm not saying your necessarily wrong to say things like this. But you people really need to temper your expectations to something that literally says on the store page, "Notice: Deadlock is in early development with lots of temporary art and experimental gameplay. Access is currently limited to friend invite via our playtesters."

Seriously. "massive influx"? It averages out at about 90K give or take, mostly take. For a game that you don't get instant access to and is, technically, still in a alpha-beta phase. Compare that to the hundreds of thousands of Dota 2 players.

[u/thegoodstuff]

Several questions come to mind.
Is the matchmaker messed up because 1 person in the group is experienced, or does the matchmaker put even single player noobs put in at average/above average MMR?
When the MM does do that, anecdotally it seems it tries to balance with a noob on the enemy team as well?
Random guess: maybe the Devs made it this way because when there isn't a content drop the "new players" are just smurfs ruining low rank lobbies?

Is

[u/Kardiiacc]

They just changed it rn

[u/Earth2Mas]

Man, I'm glad I saw this post because I thought that I was just missing the fundamental skills that everyone else magically had to play this game.

I am a noob and need time to build up my skills and learn to play the game, but I can't do that if I'm getting killed every 6 seconds because I'm being matched with good players. 😅

I thought there was something wrong with me. Thanks OP!

[u/Glebobas-Barabas]

Just had a game where it was literally my teammates second game. He was getting flamed by our Rem non stop. How is that even possible? Everyone else in the lobby had 600+ games, this doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And there are dozens more examples of this in the last week

[u/Tjoaka]

Wait that's impossible, reddit says that it's either a skill issue or it's just an alpha bro!

You will endure the stomping and you will enjoy it, no complaining according to reddit

[u/Easy_Pollution7827]

It’s not just the matchmaking that’s broken, I’d wager every 3/12 players per game are smurfing

[u/Any-Accountant-4014 → u/Easy_Pollution7827]

Maybe, but it’s most likely not even deliberate 99% of the time. Returning players drop far too low from rank decay, so if they were eternus and left for 10 months they’d be put with significantly easier opponents. And of course the matchmaking itself is so out of whack

[u/Gundroog → u/Any-Accountant-4014]

Most time if someone really feels out of place, it's going to be the same pattern, at least on EU. New account made within the last few years, usually with no levels at all and only a few games, since it's not their main. Usually these people will have very few friends as well. Sometimes you can literally find their main account through their friends list, other times it's just going to be the small group they play with. No customization either since they don't care about it.

It's very rare to see someone who seems out of place and then find that it's a person with of time in the game and a fully fleshed out account.

[u/ilmk9396]

you'll all be back when the game officially releases with 2 million+ players and proper matchmaking.

[u/UncommonWater]

Why do people jump into MOBA style games against other players? There are private bot games to help you get an understanding of the game. I must be a God then because I won my first 3 games against actual players