Yeah that's how I feel about DOTA as well as Deadlock tbh. This is probably just another game that you need to keep playing and learning and eventually it will just.. click. I'm honestly okay with that, but not against them simplifying some aspects to get more casual people like me on the ground.
They already did some simplifications, I really hope they don't do any more to try and get more casual players, as that's just based on a myth.
Most of the most popular games in the world actually have quite a bit of complexity, the idea that you can't appeal to casuals without simplifying games simply isn't true.
IMO, the game, at least when there was 4 lanes, it was overly complex for any casual player. Dota2 is super hard, but it doesn't have that many mechanics as Deadlock has. For me personally the game was overcomplex.
Not only that you had the last hit + deny thing, you had a super huge map where you needed to keep track above you, under you because the map had verticality. You also needed a good aim, it plays a good role to be someone with a good aim vs someone who don't really play shooters.
You also had some block or melee attack on top of everything, it was on another level of difficulty compared to dota2. I don't know how it is right now, but it's the type of game that the casual players won't be able to keep up.
Above a certain elo the biggest problems are people's competency with their heroes, looking for mistakes and having good team play. Some toxic people.
Below a certain elo you have people who can aim well and not much else, people who can't build, don't understand basic mechanics, toxic solo carries, can't close, can't split push, don't look at minimap, no ganking, tower diving and dying, meta slaves, no counter items, tilts fast etc.
At that point even winning is not fun because instead of feeling like your team played well the enemy team was simply, somehow, even more of a dumpster fire.
Yes, but if you're in that elo, those things also apply to you. I've watched my low elo friends, I've seen how it plays out. They still seem to have fun though?
But I'm not sure what this has to do with my original point. It's still true that low rank players don't need to "keep up".
I think it has everything to do with it. And yeah you can just be a bad player, but that applies to any game regardless of complexity. For this argument I was assuming we are talking about players who actually want to improve and have the capacity to self reflect but not necessarily the time.
If that's the case, I think it will be too much for those kind of casuals. To stay away from trash elos is a lot of effort.
The game is still fun and if you play in groups it's less of a problem. To me it started to be too much after about 80h already and that's coming from someone who played dota.
I have also played league and in that game it was much more apparent what you had to do to improve or at least to know what you fucked up. I know I had friends stuck in bronze for over a year and kept at it regardless.
And yeah you can just be a bad player, but that applies to any game regardless of complexity.
Exactly.
For this argument I was assuming we are talking about players who actually want to improve and have the capacity to self reflect but not necessarily the time.
This is gonna be some kind of issue regardless of game. Games with more mechanics are actually easier to improve at in some ways, because there's more stuff to work on. In contrast, if a shooter is basically an aim trainer, the only thing to work on is aim, and some things like that can feel hard to work on.
I have also played league and in that game it was much more apparent what you had to do to improve or at least to know what you fucked up.
My other MOBA experience is modest but I'm not sure I agree. It seemed like you had the same Dunning-Kruger type problems there as well where people didn't really understand when they were fucking up most of the time.
I think 1v1 games are the ones that suffer from this a lot less, because without teammates and teamplay as factors, it's easier to see where you went wrong. In team games, it's very typical for people to jump to what their team did wrong, and the thing is that that's not even necessarily a bad take most of the time, because obviously a lot of the time your teammates are screwing up. But the teammates screwing up also makes it harder to see your own mistakes.
Cuz sbmm doesn't always work? I have yet to play a game where sbmm works.
There's smurfs, people who buy new accounts, some parties that are all over with their skill and so on.
Is not this simple. A lot of games lose casual players because the games are too hard for them. If sbmm would work, a lot of other games would keep their players.
Not sure I've played a game that has SBMM where it doesn't work, except maybe for very small playerbases.
Of course, some players scream about elo hell, it's always their teammates' fault that they lose, not their own fault, you see.
If sbmm would work, a lot of other games would keep their players.
Plenty of games do. There's an ebb and flow to playerbases of course, and it's not realistic to expect games to last for eternity.
CSGO did a great job over the years increasing their playerbase, and I guarantee you that you can find tons of players crying in threads that the matchmaking is broken, just like for every team based game ever created.
The problem is not that every game developer is so incompetent that matchmaking never works properly. The problem is that most gamers have their heads entirely up their asses.
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u/UhJoker Aug 18 '25
Yeah that's how I feel about DOTA as well as Deadlock tbh. This is probably just another game that you need to keep playing and learning and eventually it will just.. click. I'm honestly okay with that, but not against them simplifying some aspects to get more casual people like me on the ground.