Deadlock Has A "Problem"

[@Ansonex3]

Do you think the player count drop is concerning or will they all come back when the game releases? Disagree with me? Let’s discuss!

[@_recognize_2164]

Nah, such a leap online was due to the fact that many big streamers went to play the game after the announcement and the hamsters started playing. then, due to the lack of a life service, the dudes began to whine that patches are shit, heroes are unbalanced, new heroes are reuse assets and so on. It's clear that when the game comes out, it will have +-60 heroes (I don't remember where I heard it), a lot of content, novels, some kind of battlepass, etc. Then people will come back to enjoy the new game from Valve.

[@migi847]

What valve does is, they make the game focusing on the Pro scene, so if your a pro team or at that level and you paly with a team, games good. but if your a average pub palyer. there are a few here's that are op and a=hard to deal with and it makes the experience not fun and annoying. So unless u paly these hereos or they are in your team the game becomes a boar. for example, during laning Grey warden is up in there air 80% of the time and he does absurd damage, for a average pub experience its horrible. or a well timed haze ulti just ruins the game. In the end just like Dota2, the game can have 125 hereos but about 30 heroes will be op and vailbe in pubs. also tehre are alot of cheaters,

[@Ansonex3]

Oh my Lord so many comments!!! Thank you all so much for the discussion!! I promise I will get back to everyone throughout the day at work while I get the chance but it may take a minute. You guys are the best!!!

[@BiBiPolarBear]

"The game is dying!" my brother in patron, the game is in alpha the fact that it had 100,000 players is an anomaly. Some people end up in their own bubbles and don't really understand things outside of it. Great vid, thanks for pointing this out!

[@Ansonex3]

“My brother in patron” made me lol😂 Thanks so much for watching and the comment polar bear 😃

[@sora.7973]

A lot of people forget the games in alpha. There's genuine comments that go "The game is so buggy" or "The game looks unfinished." it boggles my mind. One of my favourite intellectual statements is "The Hero Lab characters are so janky and reuse assets."

[@DeadlockSkinsApp]

​@@sora.7973 Whaaaatt Hero Labs characters arent perfect??? Valve what doink /s

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

My favorite are the people who whinge over matchmaking. Like, _how do you think matchmaking _*_is made???_*

[@bballer3712]

I think ranked being solo is hurting player count a bit but, again, this is by design. My friend group’s time is now split between solo ranked and other games, and some of them weren’t happy with their rank and took a break from the game. We’re excited to eventually play duo or more ranked but it would skew SO much data if there were group queues already. TLDR; most people play with friends and the game is (by design) discouraging groups to get the best data, which is by far the most productive thing to do in a play test!

[@Ansonex3]

I’m also super excited for group ranked can’t wait to employ some strats with my buddies

[@ducasse8473]

Yeah I think alot of people who left are just people with very poor judgement on how they should spend their time gaming.

[@soap6264]

yess its such a pain to play it but forced to solo q

[@YigitSonmezer]

real tldr of this comment: my friend group only wants to play in a group and every other deadlock player must be thinking like we do, thus everyone quit the game because there was only soloq ranked. see the problem yet?

[@LeMicronaut]

​@@YigitSonmezerSolo player using whataboutism against a group potentially 6 times their own contribution to the population. Maybe it's worth a mention?

[@jackmcloughlin7520]

Im a game design student and yeah data is king. Most people who are playing now will play again at full release because fomo

[@Ansonex3]

I completely agree, when Valve decides to release the game I’m sure they’ll flood the Steam front page with it and everyone will go “oh yeah… that was a fun game!”

[@bigidiot5881]

It never stops being funny to me that every time a game drops, people post the "declining numbers on Steam", as if any game ever stays at launch day player count for more than the initial 24 hours. I've been playing less Deadlock lately - it's not 'cause the game sucks, it's cause I was curious about some things, I checked it out, and now I have other things I'm curious about. In the future, when things in Deadlock change, I'll be curious again, and on and on forever. That's what modern gaming is.

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

No! You're not allowed!! *_YOU HAVE TO BLINDLY FOLLOW ONE GAME AT A TIME!!!_*

[@zrqah]

I’ve made the same points on Reddit. We are literally blessed to even have the player count and maintenance the game has had in ALPHA. The game does not need to be the top trending game on twitch right now at all

[@DeadlockSkinsApp]

Player numbers gonna rise for sure when Valve does an early access or full release. And ofc when we get some skins 🤩 there's a crazy community around custom skin mods now too

[@joshbryan81]

I think any team running an INVITE ONLY game in alpha with40K daily players would be very very happy lol

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

Ikr, people expect a game that isn't even out to have millions of players. We live in an EA world now, even the consumers only care about the numbers the game does.

[@commandoxbox3604]

When I started playing ranked everyone used mics all teammates have really been invested in the game, now I'm in high archon and so much people just don't talk or I just get some russians

[@CGEE_Music]

I think Deadlock has the potential to be an outstanding game and it's really alot of fun. People will be mad with balance, matchmaking etc, but I imagine that is the least of Valves concerns right now, they're most likely focusing on new heroes, UI, main features and flow of the game and they're using the closed test to sort that out. Valve have so much damn data, they own the main PC gaming platform, they know how to make good matchmaking and balance. It will just be a case of waiting until we are closer to release before I imagine they will actually start working on it properly. Now they just want people to play the game so they can test the main loop, the balance patches are likely just putting temporary bandages on the game while they focus on other main features.

[@basbrouwer9660]

Haven't been playing a lot due to time constraints, but what I often notice is when i have an atrocious lane and look at my teammates souls to see if i'm not too much of an embarrassment I turn out to have the most souls on the team. Usually followed by a quick stomp as the enemy groups and chokes the map

[@NoobPlayMC]

I feel like because the game is so polished people forget it’s an semi closed alpha with 0 marketing. Like I just got invited and started playing because I thought I didn’t even know the game was in playable state, I didn’t know anyone can join, I didn’t really know this gsme existed it inwouldnt have heavily researched mobas. Like once this comes out and actually gets some publicity it’s gonna be well off. And yes I’m aware player base was very high for some time but that’s just not normal for a pre release gsme in alpha so take that as the anomaly and not the declining players

[@tanakathecowboy]

it was never ready. Deadlock was an interesting concept to try out but people crowned it the next big game. It was just a quick hit before big games release this december. It might be a decent game down the line but not yet.

[@legendfox2000]

the main issue is the matchmaking. everygame i play has a player that hasnt clocked in at least 5 hours to understand the basics

[@Wh4tarethings]

i was in a game where i played bebop and a dynamo in my team used singularity and when i grabbed him all the enemies where pulled with him into the base guardians

[@Ansonex3]

I’ve been itching to hit a combo like that but still hoping😂 you can drop a bomb on them too then which is awesome timing. Thanks for another comment @Wh4tarethings :D

[@kaminachos5129]

It works if Mo and Krill are ulting someone too, you can grab mo and pull them and their victim over to you

[@Emilgod]

tbh i really hope they keep the solo only ranked, the advantage you get from duoing/grouping is borderline abuse

[@Thiquid]

sure the matchmaking has been rough lately, but at the same time I feel like that data is important to see exactly what they should be looking to do when the game does eventually release. because if the game is as successful as it's postured to be then these sorts of imbalanced matches WILL happen and it's important for them to try and figure out a way for them to still make those FUN, because above all else, that's what games are for, is to have FUN and they know that! look at low rank matches of dota, if those guys weren't having fun there wouldn't be 700k daily players

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

It's like they just want to whine about matchmaking, and not have it "fixed" in any way.

[@perfectlystyled]

I think once we get some shorts and that comic and some real promotional material and marketing from valve it will draw a lot of the casual base in. The characters in alpha alone were enough to make me fall in love with the game.

[@canyouread]

I actually quite like the game lengths now, 30 min feels right. As long as the soul count is relatively close before the big swing, I'm having fun.

[@Champuru2]

fearmongering at its worst.

[@v0nman]

About 2 weeks ago had 3 games in a row where the matchmaking was so abysmal I just haven't touched it since.

[@jongreenepwns]

I agree that teams of 6 against pubs would pollute the data. Similarly, they are creating polluted data when they put a team of zero initiators/squishies against Abrams, Shiv, M&K, dynamo, Kelvin and a carry. I have had a frighteningly large % of games ruined because of draft imbalance.

[@BoredShortz]

Not to be cliche but i wasnt expecting such a small subscriber count when i scrolled down after watching this, good quality video and voiceover, keep it up big dog i like what im seeing. Great points too. 😁

[@valdemarjohansen2872]

you're putting a lot of faith in the company that stands behind Artifact :)

[@crowsader9943]

deadlock isn't dying, it's literally and unfinished product, it doesn't have any form of progression outside of solo que ranked, it doesn't have an anticheat system and its a valve game meaning the game is flooded with cheaters, it has barely any heroes which is important because in a moba the heroes are the content. it doesn't have a robust enough competative scene to interest many serious players and finally the game is just extremely unattractive to a casual audience since the heroes aren't pretty and the macro play is boring. many of these things are symptoms of unfished game. people will eventually come back.

[@rayszadude2940]

I stoped playing with my friends after Valve doesn't allow party of 5 to queue. The problem is we only have 5 people. Really sad tbh

[@koutsh69]

you can again play with 5 people, i thinkk they reverted it a week ago. and it doesn't matter if there is a huge skill gap. atleast me and my friends have been playing 5 stacks

[@Sai-wu5ps]

​​​@@koutsh69Yeah they did, but you aren't allowed to queue together if you are partying with multiple high ranks/mmr. In my experience, our friend group we can't queue together with more than 3 ascendants. And our one eternus friend literally cannot queue with more than two people

[@koutsh69]

@@Sai-wu5ps thats interesting and weird, in my friend group we have ranks from phantom to the lowest one and we have had no issues gaming with 5 stacks or other combos

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

This is the first I've heard this issue. I play with friends of widely varied skill levels.

[@Shivvorz]

I have been playing Deadlock for 4-6 hours/ dat from September to October and had 2.1k nekoscore (SEA) before I quit I stopped when I realized the game is still being patched and the stuff I practiced (timings/ heros/ builds) won't be useful because its gonna get changed next patch anyways. The fact that ranked is soloqueue only also make me not want to play the game. Before ranked got launched I pretty much found 3-4 people who know what they are doing and I plan to push to high elo with them, but when ranked came out they pretty much stopped playing and I just don't feel the same fun after playing ranked for 2 weeks. Would probably come back after the game actually launched and be in a more stable state, for now Im focusing on IRL stuff so when it launches I can dive into it for a while

[@BEkov-kd8cf]

I really loved deadlock, I still really enjoy it. But deadlock got me into dota 2 and now Im very addicted to dota. I will definitely play deadlock again when its closer to release, but I do want the game to stabilize more since the metas and balance are very volatile and I have to constantly keep up with it.

[@StroalOutdoors]

I've invited several of my friends, and they aren't getting the invites. When I first got in, it was 100% of the people I sent invited to got in, and now it doesn't seem to be that way. I have 3 buddies who got interested in it, and have been invited by several people, and they still haven't gotten an invite.

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

They probably didnt check their email. I had a friend who couldn't find the invite I sent him, then double checked his email and found my invite and two others.

[@darthvladi]

Deadlock hasn't a problem... Players just went back to dota because of Act IV... After the Act IV ends, we are going back to Deadlock.

[@ArmeeDex]

I m one of those player that stop playing for 2 weeks now 1. Bad matchmaking 2. Cheaters 3. Weird hero balances But I will definitely play again once they release the game, now.. it just feels like I'm wasting time. Not even enjoying it.

[@Skrillz]

are you NA? everytime i seem to queue NA i find cheaters, but EU never and its not the best matchmaking, but hey it works and wym weird hero balancing? for instance the yamato ult change, they are testing to see what will work best for that such thing, i think theyve been pretty good at hero changes, and i am usually questioning to myself why would they ever when i read the patch notes

[@Thunderstyle7]

@@Skrillz No cheaters on EU? Must be a dream. I have a russian cheater literally every game. Some are more obvious, some are less. The closet cheating is the fucking worst for phantom hardstucks like me. They're not good enough to face Eternus players even with cheats so they are just ruining lobbies 2 ranks below.

[@Yujinpllay]

@@Skrillz not true I watch a lot of streamers from EU they encountered cheater every stream but to be fair they play a lot .

[@HugTheSub]

As much as the points you made are valid the fact of the matter is that people did not quit a game after a month or two because they were enjoying it so much. Lack of live service features should be an issue after 100s, 1000s of hours played. Not for a "shiny new toy". Players experiencing their time as "not fun" is the biggest issue that Valve has to overcome before moving forward with the project.

[@slayalastor6397]

40-50k current player playing an unfinished game. So what do you even wanna tell valve ? It’s unfinished! They should let teams stomp matchmaking games ? I am curious

[@HugTheSub]

@@slayalastor6397 A lack of player retention clearly shows that once the hype of trying a new Valve game is over people do not enjoy the underlying game enough to stick with it. The game is consistently bleeding players week to week. Why that is and what can be done is for Valve to figure out. Providing lobbies that were perceived as "fun" by most if not all participants can be the only goal for their match making. Lets not forget that CS2 has been notoriously bad at this in normal ranked play. Valve has had a pretty bad streak and they have to show that they can deliver. If your players leave the game you have a problem because that is the ultimate metric.

[@rauggie9971]

If anything, the exceedingly high player numbers that this game has held for months is a testament to just how much much Valve generally knows what they're doing in terms of core game design. There's no battle pass system of any kind in this game as of right now, so the only thing people have been playing this game for is for the love and enjoyment of the gameplay itself. Valve is also a household name; notorious for being very "stingy" when it comes to making any new ip's (let alone continuing an old one past a 2nd entry). So having an entirely new ip with the name "Valve" behind it was inevitably gonna garner the attention that it had for a while. Now does this game have problems? Of course it does. Is it valid to criticize them under the context that these problems have the potential to carry over to the final product? Certainly. But people making very general comments about player counts dropping in a playtest is like when an artist is in the middle of creating a portrait during it's draft stages, while onlookers say *"this feels incomplete"*. Of course it feels incomplete because *it is*. Even when this game does release, it's bound to have player counts drop at some point after that, because that's just what happens to *any* live service game in existence. It's a constant rise and fall, with some lulls here and there. There are many reasons why a player might put down a game, some of which might not even have anything to do with the game itself (i.e. being forced to deal with irl problems and having to reassess priorities).

[@VipapkStudiosOfficial]

Good video. I, too, noticed that queing becomes longer and longer each day until I noticed the drop in players via SteamDB. Valve always knows what they are soing, so in Valve we trust.

[@cannelle3379]

Honestly, since rankeds have been introduced, the matchmaking has been very hard on me. It's hard to find "fun" games in casual matchmaking.

[@Micz84]

That is why I play only ranked. Games are much better balanced, but still sometimes you will have a game where one team smashes other one. Yesterday I played a game where they had almost double souls and their weakesd player had like 3k souls lead to our strongest player. It is not fun to play when you are in match like this no matter if you are on winning or loosing side.

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

You can easily make your own fun in casual games. It can be as simple as using a troll build, to using no build, or just running down obj. Throw at least a *little* gas into the creative engine.

[@linkinaryan]

I dont know what everyone else, but I have been getting bots in my past few games. It's very annoying. My last game has 3 bots in one match.

[@dragskope1431]

Games ending at like 20min. Bc of the new Economy Change...

[@bigtrenches7371]

5:06 the lambs raw 😂

[@calmsh0t]

no... the party mmr changes made my solo games worse... I now have the sweatiest, tryhardy lobbies every time I play solo and it sucks!

[@zipel]

Waiting ranked to unlock 24/7, not playing casual and cant play in the times they have set I want the degen time 12 am - 7 am type shit

[@Tyretes]

i'm falling behind, i can only play 5 hours once a week and i am now getting suck on playing this.

[@whirlwindtech1583]

I mean yeah a game is gonna have a crazy amount of people because people are trying it out, then only few stick with it. The matchmaking is valid tho

[@howlingwolf644]

Isnt it prefectly normal for a game in early development to lose a lot of players in a short time? I do have to say that lately, match making makes me play less then I want to...

[@Notllamalord]

The balance keeps getting worse. I understand that it’s a beta test but less resilient people take a 600 damage bebop bomb at 4 minutes and uninstall. They struck gold with their character designs but the game is being mishandled IMO. Also yeah the matching making has been stupidly unbalanced, I’m either up against pros or brand new players

[@MentalsProductions]

no, it doesnt have a problem.

[@gachigasm3210]

I think Valve caters too much to the people that treat this game like its a finished product.

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

If you've been on the discord, you'll disagree.

[@bootmanmstz]

The matchmaking is so atrocious. we usually queue as a 3 or 4-man and without fail, our randoms have so many more deaths. Happened in all 4 games we played today. It's absolutely brutal. Can we at least get ranked group queue?

[@tuanlangtu9138]

The reason why player leaving because player keep complain and give dev false advise. Just enjoy the game.

[@Dws974]

I live in and island near south africa, but im french... so i play in general on EU server... but right now i get 10/15min matchmaking queue, to play in singapore/asia or ZA/south africa servers... well... not motivated to play right now...

[@connordodd5040]

I loved the game so much, but toxic teammates drove me out. Most of the community was great, but the higher the elo, the worse it got

[@wekseth4608]

matchmaking been pretty bad ive had to solo carry so many games to get to the point where i occasionally have semi decent teammates

[@adriangerginov6617]

A good video but you missed prolly the biggest turn off for most people . As in most valve games hackers are everywhere and its getting worse by the day , in eternus for example you get 3 day ban for mic shit talk , but having a vendicta with speed/aim/autoparry isnt banable or at least this guy has been hacking for 3 weeks now and i can assure you he has more then 100 reports. Sadly the hacking situation is puttin a lot of people off the game and it can actually destroy a game "reputation" before the game can get off the ground.

[@slayalastor6397]

So they just should shut down the server and don’t allow anyone to play it before they fixing their shit? You know I am baiting you with my question. That’s the reason they invite players in the first place. They wanna fix all problems but they need time. No it’s not an quick fix. It takes probably 1-2 years.

[@spansosupercoach4573]

Do you think there are still pretty huge changes to come even with some of the core mechanics? A few of the things that I feel like wont be recognizeable in the final game: Laning stage - I feel like at the moment it feels very strange and somewhat of a forced part of the game? Especially now with you not actually selecting a lane. I dont know how good/fun of a mechanic just shooting the orbs is and it also has the whole anti latency part of it which makes denying feel like the other person nearly has to make a mistake to be fully on top of it? Right now it feels a bit too much like its the DOTA lane idea ported to a shooter which doesnt quite work out. Mid Boss - I think whatever you get for midbossing will eventually be completely different, could be wrong but the way having faster respawn encourages you to play just feels a bit strange. Urn - Obviously good mechanic for starting fights etc but the actual result seems to quite often be the team thats already ahead just getting it very easily. Also just feels strange that even if you catch the urn carrier on the retrieve spot they can still just return it even while taking damage etc. Last point is just obvious but theres clearly lots and lots of roles and hero types just not implemented in the game yet. Different guns/weapons/forms etc but this will change in time. I hope they lean into the whole parkour/flying/fast movement alot. Really high skill and fun to watch and perform and really unique. I also think it would be cool if similar to DOTA if each ability maybe had 2 ways of branching off when spending your boons? Giving lots of options for counters and just different types of damage etc.

[@lag00n54]

your problems with denying isn't an issue it's just literally have to be better at aiming and positioning, especially if your character has a slower projectile denying isn't like dota either in dota you literally don't gain anything if you get denied in deadlock you lose half and they gain bit more Urn as long as they are cc they or heavy punch they drop it, they are at their most vulnerable when they grab it because they can't use abilities or fire they already fix it via if the team is ahead they have to go through enemy territory and more likely gets jumped rn I don't mind that they are not intending a hero specific role to begin with nor a lane specific role as I personally think they don't want another dota or league where You are forced to play a character to fit that role that is needed literally making a new and different game but hay I could be wrong hopefully they don't go there though :|

[@godlyvex5543]

I actually love lane, it's such a unique thing. No game that I know of combines the last hit struggle with the FPS poke battle.

[@p0ison1vy]

i'm kinda bored of the heroe, none have a lasting wow-factor IMO. I just tune in for Hero Labs.

[@maze7873]

I dont believe people are leaving because the game doesnt have any live service features yet. its mostly because of the matchmaking the game just aint that fun anymore and thats why most of my friends and some other people have left it

[@sakatagintoki2835]

The game hasn't even released brother. The fact that it had that many players was insane. Once it releases the player count will rise. Valve has yet to even advertise the game.

[@xSpeakerYT]

Can't really leave a game that doesn't exist.

[@cloke3076]

Matchmaking is not basically exist, so there aren’t much reason to play. Only if want to play deadlock specifically.

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

Why are people so weird about the player count of a game that is still in testing phases, *_that has yet to have any marketing._* I see a video like this probably once a week. If you don't want to play, don't play, but I don't get this preaching that the game is failing.

[@laughinsniper2189]

Closed alpha and "it's dying" dumb take.

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

People don't like new things, ig.

[@Leit0]

Put. Team and duo. Ranked. Dont make the same mistake as apex and others.

[@migi847]

Its cus It started to feel like Dota 2.

[@roadmann6803]

For me it's queue times

[@gvulture1277]

Games not out yet downvote this video please this slop is infesting youtube so heavily

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

Videos like this are like once a week, and IMMEDIATELY after patches.

[@JustMNY]

the cheat epidemic right now is just toooooooooo annoying

[@Thunderstyle7]

Amen.

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

I have had a single cheater in over 300hrs. They weren't even under the ground, so we just shit on them.

[@BenFoster-cx4em]

smurfing is killing the game too. again streamers with 10 alt accounts stomping new players. streamers are toxic and kill games.

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

What person has time for 10 alts?

[@glogaarr2800]

get more subbies pls

[@sg785]

i play deadlock almost daily, i love this game, but I think most of what was said is just copium. the main source for me to confirm the copium is dota 2 player graphs. we are in alpha? says who? I see everybody screams that the game is in alpha but I don't see anymore nothing massive to drop, just regular patches with hero rebalance. even new heroes are now not being added quick. the core of the game is obviously already been developed and this is the game loop of the game that we have. and this is crucial, because if you will take a look at dota graphs in the early stages, when it was unplayable, it's player count never dropped. all of battlepasses and cosmetics they are for money not player count, the game loop itself seems not to interest most of the people for a long time. I agree that solo ranked is bad and the fact that solo ranked updates once a week is awful for player count as well, but it shouldn't result in a drop like that, when game continues to lose players, not gaining... I do love this game, I do want it to be the next big thing, I do want it to take both dota and overwatch spot, but in order to do this something massive should appear in the game, which may appear, may not appear, we don't know. all we know is that current player count is only dropping steadily for 3 months since nda lift and all of this while the game seems to currently focus on refining it's balance and not on adding chunks of new content. magic release date will not change anything, we can only hope for some big (maybe not one in a time but a set of a small ones) gameplay loop changes to better keep old players and attract new ones. What I heard from my friends and also a little bit online - players are getting bored and this is bad and no mantra about the game being in alfa will fix that

[@sakatagintoki2835]

A big problem I see many people complain about is that the game looks ugly and the character designs are bad but Valve already said the game will get a graphical overhaul. And once they add duo/team ranked queues and improves the matchmaking player count should start going up. And valve hasn't even started advertising the game yet. Advertise the game and get the pro scene going and the game will have a stable player count.

[@sg785]

@@sakatagintoki2835 if we will take into account that current development and distribution is almost 1 to 1 to early dota 2 (which was in this state of "closed" beta for 3 years right untill international 3 and then was a magic "release" with one simple update message on devblog) minus the hype after NDA nobody that says "alfa" "data" and stuff still can't explain why game still losing players after the hype is long gone. In my opinion and opinion only, we should see a steady small player income which can and inevitably will be fueled by pro scene and refined matchmaking. On the countrary the steady and slow descent of the player count suggests that currently is something might not be okay.

[@D3adCl0wn]

DotA2 already had a huge following beforehand so its metrics are warranted. Deadlock however is new and gated through invites. It also doesn't have to be the next big thing, if anything it'll have a niche audience no different to TF2.

[@sg785]

@@D3adCl0wn true that it was easier to grow for dota, my concern is not the player count, my concern is the trend not the value. it's been 3 month since nda hype, game still losing player count, and everybody that says "alfa" or "data" just can't explain why this should change and game should steadily go up, since the MVP, the main gameplay loop, is already established no balance patch will fix it, the rules of the game must somehow transform. Dota is the closest thing that we see because it had absolutely the same distribution system - it didn't have drops in players. I would totally shut up if from 180k after nda the game dropped 100k in a span of 2 month and then +1-2k a week player count. What we have is absolutely steady drop with a single 50k online max at the weekend evening and dropping from week to week. 3d of november - 70k 10th november - 60k, 17th - 50k. so 10k in week stop playing and no growth whatsoever when the initial hype is all gone? And yes the first big tournaments, the refinments of ranked will help, but the game must attract players without it because its fun, it does not for aome reason. people only say that they get bored after 50hrs. I will agree with the author and optimistic playest if this week or in the following weeks the game will start showing some small growth. At the aame time I am not sure it will happen since we seen that there are no huge changes for quite some time. Me personally I feel like the core game is already here and this is what we get. And about TF2 - it is now niche, on its release, when it was relevant, it was big, really big

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

The game isnt even on version 1.0 a thing _that is visible everytime you log in_ in the bottom left corner. 1.0 means "Release Build." Some people call that vanilla, some call it basic.

[@BenFoster-cx4em]

no, they are not. they are testing how toxic they can make the matchmaking before players quit.

[@BenFoster-cx4em]

after getting banned from reporting matchmaking issues, I stopped playing that game. They don't care about feedback. I don't care about playing their game.

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

Banned for reporting is not real. Stop cappin.

[@himayamata]

Is that why there are a lot of bots in the game now? Wow

[@godlyvex5543]

I don't think there are many bots? I don't think I have seen any in normal games.

[@himayamata]

@@godlyvex5543 I've seen plenty. They just walk around in spawn and get stuck there.

[@godlyvex5543]

@@himayamata Bots don't get stuck in spawn. Are you sure someone didn't disconnect or something?

[@himayamata]

@@godlyvex5543 They are not disconnected. They still move around but get stuck at the corner of the map. When I was Bebop, I tried to grab them to unstuck them. They still move around, fight, and use their abilities "randomly".

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

​@@himayamataThat still sounds like a disconnect, chief

[@Phraxcis]

game gets boring vsing the same groups of 1k hours unemplyed stacks (obtained before mass invites were released) when you have a job and opbligations

[@BenFoster-cx4em]

another thing is openly racist streamers on twitch talking shit about Russians the whole time. Very offputting. Why would anyone want to play a game that has open racists in it?

[@godlyvex5543]

Russians being toxic in online games isn't that racist, it's a culture thing. The issue isn't that they speak another language, it's easy to get along with korean or spanish speaking players. The issue is that they cheat way more often and have bad sportsmanship a lot of the time. Has nothing to do with the geopolitics going on right now, russians have had bad sportsmanship in online games for many years.

[@voXYoung]

If there was anything wrong about it then sure, but that's not the case. I'm surprised russian players aren't banned from steam in general, but I guess they'll VPN their way in anyway and keep ruining any enjoyment from a game for othet players

[@GlobCoder]

russian is not a race, what are you talking about

[@godlyvex5543]

my comment got deleted, but I'll paraphrase. It's a culture issue. They're generally very rude and they cheat more often. I'm always going to start out assuming the best of someone, even if they have an accent, but if they start acting unsportsmanlike, I would not be surprised.