r/DeadlockTheGame • u/Axis251 • Feb 24 '26

Discussion A tweet that has me thinking.

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I don’t know if Riot can copy what valve has created with Deadlock. The atmosphere and setting so what I think makes deadlock so enjoyable. Yes the gameplay is amazing and the moba aspects are great but I just don’t think riot will even try to copy valve and make a deadlock clone. What is all y’all’s thoughts.

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226

u/_NotMitetechno_ Feb 24 '26

I don't think riot would make a deadlock clone unless they could massively simplify it and garuntee profit - even then I don't think it would happen. I think rn valve is probably the only studio on earth that could make deadlock, not in terms of actual ability but purely in the sense that deadlock is an insanely risky game and valve has humungous runaway with steam that enables it to take huge risks - not to mention having lower staff numbers than most.

Deadlock has a horrific barrier to entry in terms of onboarding new players and hero shooters are oversaturated and highly competitive - both of these kind of combine to an very risky product (add to f2p as well - you'd struggle to make money out of the gate).

56

u/shierrak Feb 25 '26

people on this subreddit overrate how hard this game is.. Ive never touched a moba in my life and getting into this game wasn't that hard at all

33

u/Hunkyy Feb 25 '26

But redditors also has this weird idea in their head where all new players have seemingly never even touched a computer in their lives so the game must be completely impossible to play for them.

27

u/Dick_Pain Feb 25 '26

I think people confuse skill ceiling with barrier of entry.

lol, Dota 2, and Deadlock have low barriers of entry. I would argue that Dota 2 and Deadlock have more so of it.

Skill ceiling, is a different beast. Like I love mobas (Dota 2 and HoTS mostly) and can wrap around the itemization and farming patterns. But mobility I struggle with.

I feel like deadlock is in a sweet spot for casual enjoyers of hero shooters that want more complexity than rivals or overwatch.

36

u/lightfalcon11620 Feb 25 '26

How in the world does lol and dota have a low barrier of entry?

2

u/Dick_Pain Feb 25 '26

Barrier of entry. Anybody with experience has a bias of “wel what about blah blah blah?” Which is taking it way further than an entry level player will touch in their first 30 min.

Click creeps, last hit, get strong, win game.

Denies, pulls, disjoints, orb walk, stacking, tower aggro, creep aggro, THOSE are for skill ceiling and discovered later. Really the ceiling is much more than that.

Everybody is confusing mastery with entry level “this button attacks” it’s very fast to go from no experience, to playing the game.

14

u/lightfalcon11620 Feb 25 '26

Yes, barrier of entry. For example, nowhere in the game (for league specifically) does it tell you about the jungle role’s existence; it’s always double top in the tutorial or against AI. You have to either watch a guide or have a friend tell you about it, which I think is a huge problem and barrier to entry

-1

u/Dick_Pain Feb 25 '26

Would you say that it prevents a user from having an enjoyable entry to the game against other users of equal skill and knowledge?

Yeah jungle role exists, it’s important enough, but again if everyone is in the same footing (newbie vs newbie) it doesn’t limit it.

Your experience is a bias because you think a new user needs to know all those things.

7

u/Plebsmeister7 Victor Feb 25 '26

With your logic if you start a game it is an easy barrier of entry.

You have literally no idea what you are talking about.

19

u/yinyang107 McGinnis Feb 25 '26

lol, Dota 2, and Deadlock have low barriers of entry.

Absolutely not. The burden of knowledge is immense, never mind the mechanical skill.

-3

u/skyturnedred Paige Feb 25 '26

It's a hero shooter first, moba second. It takes a while to learn all the intricacies, but it's not that difficult to get started.

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u/Dick_Pain Feb 25 '26

Barrier of entry. Anybody with experience has a bias of “wel what about blah blah blah?” Which is taking it way further than an entry level player will touch in their first 30 min.

Click creeps, last hit, get strong, win game.

Denies, pulls, disjoints, orb walk, stacking, tower aggro, creep aggro, THOSE are for skill ceiling and discovered later. Really the ceiling is much more than that.

Everybody is confusing mastery with entry level “this button attacks” it’s very fast to go from no experience, to playing the game.

1

u/DotA627b Mo & Krill Feb 25 '26

Dota 2

Dota 2 has an insane barrier of entry in comparison to LoL, why be assed with turn speeds, creep camp timings for supports (vs. LoL's GP10 items dedicated towards supports) and denials when a competitor exists that's way more casual and anime friendly?

1

u/Kryptiid Victor Feb 25 '26

This game clicked for me very easily even though it was alsoy first moba, but I played a ton of loot based games ( borderlands, diablo, etc) so I think that's why. But I wouldn't say it is beginner friendly at all. I've been trying to get my friends to enjoy it like I do but none have yet and they all say they have no idea what to do or why they're doing bad to begin with. They feed in lane and quit within 15 minutes. There's so much going on all at once that I don't blame them for not wanting to waste 20 hours on a game to begin to get a grasp on the basics of macro and rotations and wave pressure and the movement and learning what your character does and why you got one shot by the enemy calico moving at mach 10 from the other side of the map. There's a lot to learn about the game to be able to have any kind of impact in your matches, which is why most people say theres a high barrier of entry. Its a moba and a hero shooter and a movement shooter all day at the same time with the complexity of each genre. If you are lacking in any of those then it all becomes overwhelming.

0

u/fizzile Apollo Feb 25 '26

That's because everybody is new right now.

37

u/IVDAMKE_ Feb 24 '26

Yep, considering how many other games Riot spins up then shuts down because theyve not met expectations id be surprised if they tried to tackle a deadlock style game.

19

u/_NotMitetechno_ Feb 25 '26

Not saying riot is well ran behind the scenes, but that's kind of the point we're at with the industry right now. Most investor capital has dried up because of the economy, the market recorrecting and a lot of well invested games/studios flopping. So unless a game can make money straight away everyone just cuts their losses, the live service market is really difficult because everything is competing for the same attention.

Epic are probably in a similarish position because of their engine but I don't think they're interested in this style of game either. Just too risky for a company to produce unless it's basically a passion project with limitless funds (or very small in scale).

8

u/koomerz Shiv Feb 25 '26

Epic aims to maintain their position by playing it safe because investors run things to an extent, valve doesn't have that issue at all

8

u/Jealous-Finance Feb 25 '26

When Epic release their annual financial report in the past, it showed that, Fortnite actually made 90% of Epic's revenue. Their engine revenue was tiny compare to it.

3

u/TudasNicht Feb 25 '26

Valve literally stopped more games than Riot, where does that make sense.

1

u/012_Dice Lash Feb 25 '26

that just means valve have a capacity to keep pushing out more and more new ideas even with all the shutdowns

1

u/IVDAMKE_ Feb 25 '26

??? outside of artifact what?

5

u/PM_ME_DRAGON_GlRLS Vindicta Feb 25 '26

ive had friends bounce off deadlock despite being moba/movement shooter players because its learning curve is just THAT steep and it has so much going on

although usually for those cases it really doesn't help when they try to queue up for their first match and immediately get shitstomped in lane and can't do anything for the rest of the match because it's their first game and the game doesn't have a real onboarding process

3

u/KxPbmjLI Feb 25 '26

You must have missed the news then cause Riot IS working on their own deadlock, it was leaked or announced back when the original beta was popping off.

They even went as far as to tell all the streamers they got power over to NOT mention deadlock in any way on their streams cause they're so insecure and intimidated by the competition

2

u/falconmtg Feb 25 '26

There was nothing like that? Rito is/was working on many games (if they haven't axed them all already) but moba shooter is super unlikely to be one of them.

2

u/grazi13 Feb 25 '26

I think it's very possible to see a Riot 3rd person shooter Moba. Deadlock but much simpler items, a movement system that is more generous and forgiving, maybe 5v5 with traditional roles.