Has anybody else noticed that Viscous seems overtly childish in the new voice lines?
I'm not sure if it's the direction that the voice actor has been given, the lack of sound edits that the older lines had (from what I've heard, the current lines aren't yet finished edit-wise), the writing or all of it as a whole.
Viscous's writing direction has shifted from the friendly yet determined emissary of The Deep, willing to put the goal of defeating The Adversary before everything else. (e. g. him saying that The Djinn's problems are less serious than The Deep's.)... To a second grader. It's a fun line, one of many the update added, but it often feels like an outlier in an otherwise solid character.
Viscous is an emissary, a political figure of the Deep with a message and ambition first, and a goo ball that studies the customs of the surface, second, not a baby.
One of his better new lines is his convo with The Lash™ when Viscous asks why does The Lash™ want people to cheer for him if he thinks everyone sucks so much and The Lash™ ain’t ready to unpack all that before the ritual.
I think the main problem is his new voicelines are pitched too high.
He has new dialogue with Venator that's completely serious and all about his goal of stopping the Adversary. OP just chose one joke kill line in the game full of joke kill lines, spoken by the character that routinely makes jokes that don't land, and decided the whole character is flanderized. It simply is just the recording issue with the high pitch.
Lines like this, and his conversations with Haze are why I really don’t like Viscous being characterised as a child, he’s just a guy in a silly suit who mostly wants to be taken seriously, and goo(f)s off sometimes
In combination with the pitch and the voice is planly different the voice actor was confirmed on forum by valve that the voice direction was off.
The conversations he has is clear that he is intelligent and enjoys learning about individualism of the peole of the new world he is in as he's basically a alien coming the deep.
one conversation with infernus confirms he literally enjoys people watching.
Sort of tangentially related, but I miss when the Patrons chuckled while saying the "Viscious brings aid to our allies... and endless torment to our enemies! (chuckling while saying the second part)" something like that.
They removed the Patrons chuckling and it makes me really sad.
I think that got removed from it he old gods new blood update unfortunately, the old patrons will always hold a place in my heart even if the new ones are objectively better in some regards
you could have a full teamfight, wipe the enemy, take mid and then run the urn before Amber Hand finished saying OUUUURRRR YELLLLOOWWWWW WAAALLKKKKEEER ISSSS UUUUUNDERRR AATTTACCKK
I think yoshi? confirmed there were some issues with the recording and the character direction as well as Yuri being a busy voice actor they werent able to adjust and fix that mistake before release?
I can't be mad at Yuri Lowenthal, the amount of active projects he's apart of that all have him do different voices is a lot.
He's Viscous, he's Spider-Man in Insomniac, he's Spider-Man in Marvel Rivals (who has a different performance/voice than in Insomniac), he's Dainsleif in Genshin Impact, probably a few more I'm missing
He's had more or less the same amount of screen time every year as he did in inazuma and 1.X but the plot surrounding him and khaenri'ah are more and more relevant to the point where they're starting to be the focus of the main archon quests.
Viscous may seem childish but you gotta remember that he is a sentient sea anemone. Drifter might genuinely be the first vampire he has ever met, combined with the fact that since he has no blood, to him the fact that something staining and red isn’t paint ain’t super obvious from the get-go.
Imagine being a crab and seeing a platypus first time. Sure, you've seen beavers, ducks, otters and poisonous things familiar to its silhouette before; but what the fuck you should have as first impression on that monstrosity?
Or he ran into rem and was like is that blood and rems like looks like finger paint and he's like uh I guess but then he meets drifter and uh oh and uh uh violet is there too and she is more of an acrylic girl but then viscous has trouble with this concept because a water soluble paint wouldn't jive with him but then it becomes water proof? and wait what are fingers to a boneless, bloodless, gooaphyte.AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa aAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa
I mean wasn't he always pretty childish in his demeanor? He was always naive calling random people his friends and whatnot but has deeper goals with the ritual that characters like haze and seven respect in their convos. I was hoping we would get more exploration of the deep with new convos but yea it seems they haven't really expanded on it yet.
the idea with him imo should be that he is alien, not childish, he doesnt understand land dweller culture or convention, so he will call everyone friends, but he wont be completely naive about the life he encounters
He has a lot of remarks about how he will beat the shit out of people with his punch and give them concussions. He's willing to kill for his ideals, much like the rest of the cast. Nobody here is under any illusions of the bad things they are doing to get what they want (except Rem).
I think that's your personal idea and not the idea the game has put forward so far. From the start he's been pretty childish. I don't know how else to interpret someone who doesn't know certain, more complex words like "apotheosis", is quick to announce friendship, doesn't understand complex emotions beyond happy, sad or mad, and goes "Wee!" unironically.
He literally has a convo that literally just asks to wear Holliday's hat, much like Rem's convos about hats lol.
to me that can also be interpreted as an interest in human culture... I don’t know, childishness is adjacent in appearance to someone immersing themselves in a culture they know nothing about like a literal fish out of water, but what it actually is in practice is quite different
You're right. I'm rolling my eyes at these comments. I know Viscous has a couple lines where he's serious and not a happy go lucky guy, but 90% of his lines are extremely childish.
I think this is once again, people trying to make Viscous into something he isn't. I've constantly seen people in this sub who imagine that Viscous must actually be this "ignorant monster," archetype (as in, he's horrifying and dangerous, but also aloof and naive about it), when that isn't the case (Hell, there's someone in this very thread using his old model with the black helmet as proof? that Viscous was actually supposed to be creepy). He's almost as childish as Rem. He has a serious mission, but he is not serious.
Like people are trying to say this about the guy who goes "Weeee!!!" and tells anyone with any type of issue whether it be physical or mental, that the cube will help them lol.
All of these people waxing that Viscous is actually some serious character; read most of these and tell me with a straight face that he's not childish most of the time:
Maybe some of these were added this update, but he goes up to Abrams and just says "You're blue!" like a child would lol. Like it reminds me of when kids see a person who's a different race than them and goes "You're black/white!"
Yeah I feel like I'm taking crazy pills lol. Viscous has literally always been like this. This is the guy that shouts "goo ball!" and half his conversations can be summed up with "Hello! I'm made of goo!". His dialogue has always been silly, naive and childish with odd moments of self-awareness. I don't see how his new dialogue with Venator or Lash is any more childish or flanderized than the old dialogue with Seven or Abrams for example.
It's literally a confirmed recording error making his voice higher pitched than usual sending people into psychosis and making them read into it for the first time lol
Speaking of his convos, I forgot one of my favorites that has been in the game since the beginning (or at least since Viscous was added) and really drives home how childlike Viscous is.
He asks Seven what "he does" and Seven replies "Strive for apotheosis" and Viscous just responds "That's a big word" and "what does it mean?" lol.
He does have a convo with Seven that's serious, but the other two are both comedic and play on Viscous' childlike attributes and naivete. So people focus on the few voicelines here or there where he talks about The Adversary and The Deep, and ignores the more common moments where he's treated like an infant.
Even in some of the serious convos he's still very immature. He'll talk about revenge with Holliday, but it's played far more like he's a child ignorant of what revenge and strong emotions are and it makes Holliday reflect on herself (or more accurately, she just tells him there's nothing she can do about her feelings). So it's a serious conversation, but it's Viscous asking simple questions and giving simple answers to complex issues.
And the new dialogue has serious convos about the Adversary and the Deep too! Look at his dialogue with Venator. Literally nothing has changed except the pitch error and people are acting like they completely flanderized the character with one joke line as if he didn't have tons already. It's like they're forgetting this is additional dialogue, not a replacement.
yeah I feel like a lot of people are just imposing their own ideal of Viscous onto a Viscous who is not that
like, in one of his convos with Geist he genuinely displays a more childish view of friendship than actual-child Rem, and you can't say that's flanderisation because that convo is one of his oldest ones!
This is so true, it’s not even the first time during deadlock development that viscous specifically has suffered these little flanderizations (I know that it’s only been 2 years and they own the character but we can all agree that they are slowly shifting viscous from a surprisingly smart but naive character to just a dumb 3rd grader)
I mean Viscous was still pretty childish before this update. Look at his interactions with Geist. Not to mention Viscous has never been depicted as smart just that he has bigger goals than what you'd expect of someone who acts like he does.
He isn’t necessarily dumb, he is just alien to the surface and it’s culture
He is very childish and naive but even then he is as a basic understanding of morals and ethics (we can see that he knows lady Geist is a bad person from his kill dialogue)
Wasn't trying to say I thought he was dumb. Just that his goal of stopping Adversary and how he sees it as a threat to everyone not just The Deep is more than you'd expect of a character that is so naive and childish.
Literally not true
The conversations he has is clear that he is intelligent and enjoys learning about individualism of the people of the new world he is in as he's basically a alien coming the deep him asking about people are such a way is how you learn new information.
Just because he has questions doesn't mean he's stupid like a child the new direction leans into him being stupid like a child
When Viscous first came out he had a noticeable contrast between silly personality and creepy/alien visuals (mainly due to the old portrait with glowing eyes behind a black helmet). In the next few months there was a lot of fan redesigns picturing him as a scuba diver skeleton controlled by goo, which neatly encapsulated his character at the time.
Its so disappointing that Valve's art direction completely removed his creepiness and turned him into a wholesome chungus without much depth. Thank god they seemingly abandoned the idea of making him a "tourist" from the leaked redesign but he still got flanderized and it hurts me on a personal level
Exactly, I still miss the first viscous design so much.
There was a comic with viscous and ivy where in it there was a skeleton inside viscous’s body with the skull showing in the black head part and that seriously stuck out to me even after all these years
I'm sure they'll figure it out either way, just having a hard time deciding what he should be and everything around him feels super placeholder (even voicelines) as a result
Tourist Viscous could work as a fun summer skin but totally not as the baseline because it contradicts his already established character too much. He simply doesnt have enough awareness nor need to dress up like that.
Of course, we can come up with lots of reasons like "well, the first person he saw when he reached the surface was a tourist so he just decided to copy their look". The problem is that this design wouldnt be relevant to the character. Viscous is someone completely alien, he is something strange from the depths of the ocean and has risen to fight for his people and save the world. How would the tourist design even attempt to reflect any of that? At this point just completely rewrite the character but i really dont think that trading all of those interesting traits for Twoflower 2.0 is a good idea.
Warden kinda suffers from the same issue. In lore he is a descendant from a long line of alchemist who protected humanity from evil for centuries. He is an alchemist, a powerful warrior, a one-man army, the only one who is able to resist Patrons' mind reading and he trained since birth to stop them. How does he look in game? Like a damn british cop with no magical features except for a caged purple hand on his belt.
The difference between Warden and Viscous though is that we are 99% sure that the former will eventually get his badass redesign he deserves while the latter might get downgraded even further due to flanderization
This exact same thing happened with Puck from Dota 2. A 1000 year old dragon creature still in its larva stage; it spoke eloquently, was well-travelled, and delivered lines with child-like uncertainty or non-native speaker on their 8th language. But when Puck got new voice lines for Dota Underlords they were written more childish than childlike, going from being well-spoken to juvenile dialogue about playing games and making friends.
A comparison of Puck talking to the same character in Dota 2 and Dota Underlords:
Dota 2: Were you a bud of the Undertree? We could be no better companions.
Dota Underlords: Treant, can we be friends!
I find it way stranger this is happening in Deadlock though. The tonal shift in Dota Underlords can kinda be chalked down to new writers unfamiliar with the characters in Dota 2 and missed the mark a few times, but surely the writers for Deadlock made these characters from the ground up, and would know them inside and out?
Tbh more than that, he speaks a lot slower. In his older lines he speaks at a normal cadence and his newer lines, he takes far longer to deliver his lines, which makes him sound uh... Dumber.
i think it's just the voice direction not the line itself, the voice recordings have already been confirmed to be messed up in direction and mixing wise so they'll fix it at some point
For the same reason he references playing cards and asking people to wear their hats. Because he is, and always has been, a silly fun-loving guy that is learning how to live in human society for the first time and is full of curiosity. I don't think it's unlikely for him to check out what finger painting is, it's one of the first fun things you discover to do as a child. Like half the voicelines the hero has is about silly simple ways of having fun.
It’s odd that a sea anemone who knows what blood is, who explicitly tells Mina she can’t drink his blood (because he has no blood), and who in a conversation with drifter remarks that drinking blood must make it hard to make friends, would confuse blood on drifter with finger paint. Would denizens of the deep even know what finger paint is??
I mean not to dispute the rest of the statement but considering Violet is in the cast now, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for him to know about if he’s had conversations with her maybe.
To be fair, Viscous might be more focused on the 'stained' part. Hand stains can come from anything, but the color red is relatively rare to see as one, with the most common things being paint stains and blood. Viscous has probably seen a kid, or an artist, with red on their hands more than he's seen someone with hands caked in it like Drifter.
As far as I can tell, while he hasn't been on the surface long, he's had some experiences already that give him a limited understanding of human knowledge. He's associating 'hands stained red' with a more common occurance before beginning to doubt it after he gets a better view.
Drifter hands color is red, he thinks Drifter using paint to color his hand, not Blood. Drifter is the only "human" with red hands, Apollo entire body is red for example, Drifter is not.
yeah i'm really not a fan of the baby boy voice lines. i like that he's not as cynical as everyone else and a bit naive, but before it was about him not being bogged down in typical convention so he could cut through the bullshit. now it's about him being an ignorant baby, and they REALLY hammed up the cutesy voice this time.
Stop looking at the new voicelines in isolation. These are voicelines that are added in addition to existing voicelines, some of these have been written ages ago. They exist within the context of existing dialogue. There's plenty of new lines in the patch that suit the vision of the character that is mentioned in the post, like his new dialogue with Lash and Venator, and there's plenty of old lines that are really childish and silly. There was no shift in direction or characterization. Some of his dialogue is serious and all about his goal of stopping the adversary, some of it is completely unserious and all about his lack of knowledge of customs on the surface. This has always been the case and still is, the new patch kept this up.
If Viscous' interactions with Lash were old and his interactions with Infernus or Geist were added last week, I suspect you'd be making the same complaint.
It genuinely is simply just the recording error that makes his voice so high pitched that it hurts your ears, which is confirmed to be an error and is actively being worked on.
Silly to a certain extent. There comes a point where viscous should know about blood and killing, and blood being on someone. Rather than questioning if blood on someone was finger paint.
Just like there's a difference between season 1 Patrick Star and season 8 Patrick Star in SpongeBob.
he just not used to someone hand's literally turning into red because of blood, his old voicelines calls Abrams as Blue and replied with "i'm socially awkward"
Not actually, i mean it's referenced in the lore text but not in any voicelines and one of the in dev models has him as a tiny Cthulu creature controlling a goo body, so it's not set in stone.
Even in old interactions Viscous has it’s either fully goofy or 2/3 goofy and 1 him saying that the Adversary is a threat to us all.
It’s just wrong filters making him sound different kind of weird than his OG voice lines.
Very much dislike the infantilism they've done to that character. I'm supposed to believe a literal child is worried about the adversary and nearly no other creature on earth even knows it exists?
i wonder if Viscous has a sense of smell, and what properties his vision has. he probably didn`t have bias towards any answer to the question of "what liquid covers his hands?", and didn`t try to answer it for himself.
It's a mixed bag but I feel like it's a similar (slightly higher) levels of flanerization, but more focus on is put on those interactions. Like yeah, I guess the goo boy probably doesn't know what blood looks like.
the other vampire (Mina) doesn't have blood and the red in her hand is fingernail paint, he just wondering why Drifter hands is red, assuming that Vampire only drink blood not actually a psychopath that bath in blood like Drifter is.
One consistent thing about Viscous in my eyes is how utterly clueless he is about life up here, hence the childish seeming behavior. I wouldn't say any new interactions are particularly that much worse than ones before, they just happen with characters who don't really give a chance to acknowledge the cluelessness and instead shrug it away.
Rems new voice and lines also irritate me, hes always been childish but they've infantilized his speaking voice even more with googoogaga shit and I hate it.
YES. Part of the charm behind viscous was that, while his misunderstandings with human language and conventions made him appear naive, he was actually pretty smart underneath all that. It felt like an interesting parallel to how foreigners can often be infantilized for not speaking the local language very well or not understanding certain regional traditions. I haven't really enjoyed him being flanderized into a silly baby idiot character.
I mean I believe Viscous is quite literally days if not weeks old. He was a psychic sea anemone that got sentience from the maelstorm and somehow formed a protoplasmic body. Being psychic he probably only knew about things under water.
In his current form he pretty much is a child. It's a whole new world for a scientient sea invertebrate. We dont know what he knows, but he knows the difference between healing and murder ("cubes are for healing, balls are for murder!"). He also very quickly just wants to make friends. He is an innocent sea creature trying to do his best to save his home, and has a childlike innocence about it. He hasn't been corrupted by greed, violence or pride yet so he doesnt truly understand why Mina, Drifter, and Lady Geist would make bad friends
As for how he knows what finger painting is, maybe there was a preschool near the body of water he came from. We don't know what he did when he got on land
A human child is not a believable interpretation for any animal except, maybe a domestic dog. Most animals live in a world where anything can and will kill them at the slightest provocation and don't have room to be carefree.
Has anyone felt like they've done kinda similarly to some other characters at times? It feels like there was an additional character dialogue writer by the time old gods new blood came out. Either that or a different direction.
Which, to be fair given all the dialogue added, would make sense if things weren't as laser focused on character dialogue refinement as it was at the beginning. The more people you have on a team the more it can be a lil more wobbly
Ok its not just me. Viscous’s new lines seemed pretty odd to me. There’s some like his convo with Venator about the Adversary that are nice but the example you gave stood out to me too
While we are at it, has anyone noticed the newer voice lines sound a bit different from the older ones? Like it sounds like either the lines were located in a different location or valve misplaced their viscous preset but he sounds a bit higher pitched this time around. That and the delivery on all the lines sounds like he is drunk, dragging out his words
I don't see the problem with the line? Viscous knows blood, Viscous knows what Vampire does, Viscous doesn't understand why Drifter hands were red - since other Vampire (Mina) doesnt have her hand colored red and anyone whose had weird color most likely has the color for entire body (Calling Abrams blue for example)
I interpreted it as Viscous killed Drifter and realizing it was Blood, his assumption is that he paints his hand red for fun - not because discolorization due to uncountable murders.
Viscous is socially awkward and Drifter actively avoid viscous so Viscous simply cannot examine his hand closer.
I figured the crux of his character was that he is just really socially unaware, as that would match with how his abilities often disrupt teammates accidentally.
Yeah, the devs already said there was a problem with the recording session and they plan to do it again. So we will get the old voice at some point. Soon™
i'm really happy this community has such a grasp for things like narrative voice and stuff i'm happy seeing all sorts of talented people here of different strides
I recognize it too, and I also recognize Rem. However, unlike viscous, Rem's I feel fits the character being a toddler a lot more. (Shines really well in the interaction with calico about what she does for work). The new viscous lines is just seeing him as "haha silly goo man sees world as sunshine and rainbows." rather than his character being naive but far from innocent.
They fixed the voice filter on some lines but the delivery is slower than his older ones by a noticeable margin. Idk if they’re making him dopier on purpose he definitely sounds more like a child than a curious tourist now
Honestly a lot of the new dialogue from this patch ain't up to snuff with the old stuff. It just has a far less memorable and unique tone that I'd come to associate with deadlock.
Drifter for instance is way more overtly murderous and aggressive in what start out as friendly interactions that he has been before- in a way that I feel makes him less scary, actually. For instance, when Bebop offers him a place to stay Drifter of course accepts with open arms, playing the poor vagabond that he is perceived as so he can murder him and Ms. Shelly later upon being invited in.
He now has a similar interaction with Billy where he's about to be invited somewhere to stay and just... Tells him to fuck off? Idk, his previous behavior feels so much more fitting and off-putting than him just being an evil dick. His interaction with Seven also makes no sense- "I used to be like you. Wear the lace, say the pretty words-" Drifter he's dressed in a dirty prison uniform and YOU ALSO say pretty words still. The line makes it sound like Seven pretends to be high society and play along with social expectations in pursuit of power which he so overtly does not.
I think it's an effect of just pumping out so much dialogue at once- but it's a real shame, cause these subtle and incredibly effective writing notes that existed before feel very lacking in this new batch.
Seven is so pure of purpose you gotta respect him for that alone.
I also love his interactions with Rem where he tells Rem to stay away from the OSIC as they will not have Rem’s best interest in mind - give’s seven a ton of depth.
why not? adds a bit of of personality and nuance to him being a sociopath. He reminds me of a Hannibal kind of villain, he’s sophisticated and in touch with the “fine arts” as it were
Seven feels pretty in character still, especially as he was already quite petty anyways, that's the more funny aspect of his character. As for Rem, lines such as the conversation with Mirage about his parents still show he has an understanding of his own situation and the nature of it in a more serious manner, I'd say.
I like the new lines for Seven myself, but I feel, like with Viscous, the delivery's a bit off. New Blood and before's lines had a low, menacing register to it. He was still petty and liked fucking with people as long as it didn't hinder his goals, but the tone carried a threat to it. Now he just feels like he's yelling all of his thoughts at people, small or big.
New viscous is way more spongebob is the way I put it.
Also, i'm mixed on Sevens new lines. They're funny but Seven giving a fuck about Fashion feels super random and the devs were like "Whats the most random sassiest shit we can have him say, oh I know. Have him roast Minas sewing."
I feel like Seven would talk way more shit to her about her being rich but still a fucking nobody
Well, Seven is a hater through and through so I can imagine the scenario might not be he's actively into fashion, more so he hates a lot of people and is definitely the type of person to research their interests incase they talk, in which case he can be like "That thing you like? You suck at it." He would absolutely spend 3 hours researching something solely because he discovered someone he hates is very passionate about it.
No reason other than out of spite, which is very in character. If he did care about fashion, that also doesn't seem out of character. He's a megalomaniac, it makes sense that he would care about his appearance. Being interested in fashion would feel less gay and sassy and more so "I think incredibly highly of myself, so I take great pride in how I dress because it's below me to dress like a bum." except now he doesn't have much of a choice, but I get that he'd still keep up with it, if only to occupy himself occasionally. Criminals can have hobbies too.
I don't think what you described is that in character. Seven knows thing but he also isn't going to go out of way to learn things that are irrelevant to his goals. I'm not saying he wouldn't be into fashion but I find it hard to believe he would have the time nor space to even see her collection nor be well versed in it.
Like he's been on the run, and living in the tunnels, among other places. And MnK dont like him so I can't imagine they'd really help him out
It'd be different if he was insulting the clothes she was wearing at THAT moment. Or with another character. But he's referring to catalogues
MnK already have interactions where it is implied they've helped Seven before and are willing to do it again IIRC.
Also, it could be just an interest he had from before becoming like that, in which case keeping up with the newspaper isn't more than like a couple minutes of his life? We home around about him being there in person but it is much more likely he just read the news.
I think it's within character if you look at it from a spite perspective. If he hates Mina, Seven is absolutely someone who will find a way to research something for 4 hours just for the sake of being a dick.
And with him being into fashion, I never said he frequents paris fashion show. I'm just saying that with how much of an egomaniacal jerk he is, he thinks so highly of himself that I don't think it's illogical that he would dress nicely. If you think you're the best your attire would reflect that, and he doesn't need to be enormously into fashion and the industry to know know to be fashionable. He really can't do that at the moment but the knowledge wouldn't disappear.
I mean, is Rem not literally a child? I think we're just seeing more of his personality rather than the limited lines we had before. And, to the point, kids are rude as hell. They don't know better, but they are, they ask rude questions without thinking and say mean things because they just say what comes to mind
Rem's perfectly in-character for what he's supposed to be (and is still shown to understand he's in a unique and weird situation with a handful of conversations as well)
I think it's more that it's alien as hell and because of that Viscous isn't aware of most anything with the regular world. Viscous is pretty much a suit containing a goo right? It's not like goo resembles anything that most people would recognize and a dimension where (instead of the just weird nobility and devil like appearance of the Ixians) everything is more like a deep underwater world would NOT look like anything we're accustomed to. Hell iirc iron based blood doesn't work down there so red wouldn't even be Viscous's idea of what blood looks like.
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u/Screwjab Vyper 12d ago
an otherwise solid character…