'This game is going to easily—and I mean easily—take over': Major streamers, early fans, and esports players share their Deadlock hype after Valve opens the floodgates

The new mix of moba and fps elements is handled really well. You've got to be good at shooting and building your character over time, which leaves a shitload of space for interesting gameplay. Positioning, planning, adapting, experimenting, it's all here and the game is early beta. There were puzzle games before Portal, and there were shooters before this game. Deadlock is extremely well made like portal so far, and I'm excited to see where it goes.

The game does what its trying to do excellently, and knowing Valve it'll continue to improve until release. If you like MOBAs and you like good shooter mechanics, you'll most likely enjoy this game.

It's just a moba but ~~first~~ 3rd person, it's no TF2 that's for sure...

I thought it was third person?
- True, i was zooming in so often I forgot it was 3rd person 😅
Yeah, I mean where's all the hats?
- I mean pre-hat TF2...
Oh, an FPS, groundbreaking. Hard pass.
- I'd be keen on it if it was just an action/shooter and wasn't a moba 😅
  Maybe we're just not the target audience?
- Because something is an FPS it can't be groundbreaking? FPS is an incredibly wide genre, something being an FPS does not mean it cant be doing new incredible things.
  Not that I'm saying this game is groundbreaking, it isn't, but it is a really excellent fusion of two of the most popular genres in the world.
  
  an FPS it can’t be groundbreaking?
  Not that I’m saying this game is groundbreaking
  What is your point? If you don't like people's opinions about their personal video game preferences, you're not obligated to comment aimlessly.
  
  My point was that a game being from a common genre has nothing to do with its ability to innovate. Not sure where I implied that I was obligated to reply to you. I disagreed with your sentiment, so I shared my own opinion. It's fine if you feel my comment was aimless, but I disagree.
  
  The Miranda Priestly reference means that I personally don't find it interesting regardless of it being innovative. But I don't appreciate that you're compulsively disagreeing with me on a personal preference, lecturing me on the obvious, and contradicting yourself in the middle of it.

It's still very much a MOBA. If you were hoping for parts of that that are boring to be more exciting, they're not. If you were hoping for parts that were difficult to learn to be easier to learn, they're not. I personally have a hard time believing that, long-term, this will appeal to anyone that Dota doesn't already appeal to.

I disagree. The perception of how the game is set up changes the more you play. At first you think it's 75% MOBA and 25% shooter - mostly a MOBA. But the more you play the more you realise that that 25% shooter part is disproportionately important.
Deadlock adds an entire layer of complexity and skill on top of the MOBA: three-dimensional movement, mouse control, crosshair placement... The amount of movement tech alone is wild, and will be insanely important for high calibre play. It will appeal to an entirely different type of player.
- If you say so. When I played it, it was still the laning phase for arguably too long and last hits to get anything done. It was still a fairly complicated item shop and an extensive list of characters that I need to understand before I get into a match in order to make any worthwhile decisions. It's basically guaranteed that the list of items and characters will get longer as time goes on, which only makes it more daunting to jump into and try to catch up with. As someone who bounced off of MOBAs for a lot of these reasons, it's not solving any problems for me. And the shooting component of it feels fine, but I'll go back and play an actual shooter where it feels better.
  
  I mean, yes. It's a MOBA by Icefrog - it's going to have complexity. Deadlock isn't trying to appeal to players who are tangentially interested in MOBAs but find them daunting and complex. They are gunning for players who find the top-down view boring and slow and want the fluid, fast-paced action of a movement based shooter. It's essentially combining the high skill ceiling of two genres that already each has incredibly high skill ceilings - and that alone I think is going to appeal to a lot of people.
  
  They are gunning for players who find the top-down view boring and slow and want the fluid, fast-paced action of a movement based shooter.
  It felt to me like they were just making another MOBA that's going to appeal to people who already play MOBAs, and I'm not sure how many people were dying to get into a MOBA but just couldn't get into the top-down view or scratch that itch by playing Smite, but I guess we'll find out soon enough when this game is out of early access by comparing player counts across this and Dota 2.
  
  I don't think it's people that can't get into MOBAs, it's people that enjoy good movement and shooting mechanics, while also enjoying MOBA mechanics, which a lot of people fall into. I can also say for certain that SMITE will not scratch the itch of people who want good movement and shooting similar to a traditional shooter.
  
  As someone with thousands of hours across Dota 1&2 I will say the moment to moment gameplay in Deadlock is completely different. It scratches a TF2-type itch, in addition to MOBA gameplay. I think what you're right about is that the target audience might be smaller, in that you need to be good at both MOBAs and shooters to be good at this game. But from what I've seen of the big streamers adopting it, learning the MOBA parts to a point of "good enough" won't take that long.
  In fact, counterintuitively I think it's the MOBA playes migrating over who will struggle. Aim and movement is extremely crucial, and if you can't aim you will suck at Deadlock regardless of how many Dota tourneys you've won.
  
  I was definitely not getting a TF2-type itch scratched, but I can only speak for myself.

Overhyped, I played about 30 hours and it's just a boring lane phase that you either win or lose within 5mins. There's no coming back from losing a lane. Then it's a boring mid game where you either enjoy pushing other lanes after winning yours or just get stomped if you lost it. Late is just a mess. There's no strategy, map gameplay is mediocre, champion gameplay is okay but less interesting than other MOBAs with less skills and plays involved. And again, if you have a bad first 5 minutes of the game and fall behind farm then just go play another game cause it's just gets even more boring.

if you have a bad first 5 minutes of the game and fall behind farm then just go play another game cause it’s just gets even more boring.
I thought that was basically the genre definition of MOBA.
- It is, but the snowballing is higher in this game. You back once during early lane and there goes your first turret.
  
  NGL losing your guardian the first time you back is a skill issue. Maybe if the entire enemy team rotated to your lane. It usually takes at least 2 retreats to lose your guardian. More if you're playing with your lane teammate correctly and using your speed boost at the right times.
Sounds like skill issue to be honest - if you farm well and deny you don't fall far behind even if you eat dirt during the laning phase. Even if you get absolutely stomped and denied, there are still a lot of chances for you to return into the game by catching waves and pushing them out and jungling.
I'm kinda mid-to-high MMR right now (to the point where I can't really play together with friends as we get always separated), and I've had so many games where I went 0/5 in the laning phase with a soul deficit, then ended up jungling/pushing waves/jumping on enemies if they were alone and then suddenly being top or close to top in souls on my team.
- Sounds like skill issue to be honest
  Seeing this crop up as a semi-frequent response before the game is even out yet isn’t really selling me on it. I definitely see myself as skill-challenged, so it sounds like I won’t like the game much and anyone I end up playing with probably wouldn’t like me much either.
  
  That's a totally fair assessment and is true of any competitive game, really. It's my largest personal reservation about the game also, currently: will I ever be good enough at the game to enjoy it properly? The jury is still out on it for me, frankly. I haven't played a fast paced shooter in a long time and I've never been an aiming master. I'm also getting on in age. We'll see how I feel after a few weeks, whether I feel like I'm improving or not.
I was initially feeling more like you are, but after playing more and watching some streamers play my opinion is slowly changing.
Let's remember that it's an alpha. I agree that snowballing is a problem right now, but I don't think we can expect perfect balance from an early development build. Comeback mechanics are there, but they're maybe not quite powerful enough. They also typically rely on team play and coordination, which is hard to find in low MMR lobbies.
I think the biggest issue right now in terms of snowballing and balance are the flex slots. If you're ever trying to defend a siege when playing from behind you can easily end up with like 12,000 souls as you're successfully defending, but being literally unable to spend them due to having no flex slots.
Definitively not, this is something that tends to occur at low skill levels in MOBAs, but gets better at higher levels as people figure out how to actually play the strategic layer
I've lost plenty of lanes but came back in the midgame, there's a lot to do throughout the game, early, middle, and late. It's also about your team being able to adapt to the circumstances and execute the correct strategy at the right time taking into account the situation for your team
And people struggling to do this is just a natural part of a competitive game, really. And sure, snowballing is a thing, but so are comebacks.

extremely hyped up. it's made by Valve, and lead by the legendary Icefrog, and it feels just like his previous game - Dota 2, just in shooter arena.

"It feels just like one of the biggest and longer lasting videogame ever crafted by mankind: overhyped."
K
- Dota 2 feels like it is more in the "small player base but among those each plays thousands of hours" group of games than in the one that has wide appeal.
  
  It's arguably the game that brought e-sports into a new era. Unless you think League would have ever been a thing without dota being invented.
  
  Watching and playing a game, much like a sport, are two very different things. Many sports that are very popular to watch also don't have wide appeal in terms of people actually doing it themselves instead of just watching.
  
  Yes but baseball is bigger than polo no matter how you look at it.
  
  Huh? League is bigger than dota 2. By like a lot. Because League has much more mass appeal than dota. And that was their point, it has a dedicated but niche fanbase.
  
  My previous point is that League, DOTA 2 and Dota All-Stars (which is where Icefrog comes from, and not from DOTA 2 as the guy maybe believe) are basically the same thing and they all stem from his legacy.
  So saying this game is "basically DOTA 2" is, well, a much bigger deal than he seem to realyze.
  My point about baseball and polo, was about his distinguishing between the number of watchers and the number of players, which is not relevant because MOBAs are huge no matter how you look at them (like baseball in comparison to polo).
  
  MOBAs are tiny, it is a genre that has maybe 3-4 successful games since it was invented 20 years or so ago. Sure, each of those games was moderately successful but compared to other genres that have had hundreds of successful games in the same time frame it is just not very appealing to large numbers of players. It is, however, very appealing to the players it appeals to, which is quite different.
  
  https://escharts.com/top-games?order=peak

I have prior MOBA experience and played Deadlock for around 50 hours already, and it's a good game IMO. Of course, it's not perfect and I do have a couple issues with it but it kinda deserves the hype.

Game is super fun to watch on Twitch. I'm hoping more of my content creators pick it up and play it. I'll support it

I've been watching some streams and it seems good. A couple friends who have played are into it. There's definitely a good portion of hype from it being Valve though.

In the article there's a testimony from someone who doesn't normally like shooters being into this game. That actually kind of speaks to me, but I'm convinced that's because the general public still doesn't have access to the game yet. Once people start getting crazy competitive on this, it won't be fun anymore.
- That's the true true.

I personally didn't care for it. I invited a few friends and after a couple of days, they couldn't get into it either.

It's far too early to tell. It's in early development yet. People getting invites and expecting a fully complete, polished game have unrealistic expectations.

I have 30h in the game now. It's worth the hype.

In my opinion it is hyped up. It is okay but not bigger than the Beatles.