As already leaked, the game is a 6v6 third-person hero-based shooter. Heroes include magicians, robots, creatures, humans, and more. There are currently 19 different heroes, each with different abilities and playstyles that you’d come to expect from a MOBA including ranged, healers, tanks, assassins, etc.

Players have described the game to me as being very similar to DOTA in terms of its gameplay loop and mechanics. This includes killing enemies and creeps to get the in-game currency of “souls,” which allows you to buy items to make your hero stronger. According to sources, both creeps and enemies will spawn a soul upon death, which floats up and away when they die.

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[–] farngis_mcgiles@sh.itjust.works 25 points 5 months ago (2 children)

considering valve abandoned the last two games they made (artifact and dota underlords) I don't see this going any better

[–] simple@lemm.ee 20 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Well, artifact was dead from the start and underlords was more of a spinoff chasing a fad. What we know about Deadlock is that they're putting a lot of resources into it, and it sounds like it would be really popular with the MOBA crowd.

[–] Defaced@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

There were many factors that went into the failure of artifact, gameplay was not one of them and is still solid to this day. The biggest problem was the monetization, and not really the monetization itself, but the timing of monetization. Hearthstone conditioned people to want free cards and earn free rewards by playing the game, artifact was a digital representation of a physical card game where you could literally build decks for like $10 and enjoy it, the allure of free low quality shit will always overshadow high quality paid content and it's just fucking sad. Now look at hearthstone, a shit husk of a game it once was.

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Pouring resources does not equate quality, there's no new idea here. They try a overwatch like game when their IP contains the most successful hero shooter out there.

really popular with the MOBA crowd

They tend to play non shooter mobas, you know, like dota. Why try to compete with your own ip?

It reeks of poor design choice, jus like artifact, and no amount of money will fix that.

[–] gaylord_fartmaster@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I keep seeing everyone comparing this to overwatch, how is this like overwatch at all? Just because you pick a character and they have unique abilities?

I've been playing dota for over a decade and couldn't get into any other moba I've ever tried, but I think this sounds like it could be fun and I'd give it a chance at least.

Edit: I take that back, I've played exactly one other game I'd classify as a moba extensively, and it was Monday Night Combat, which was really similar to this concept. Super Monday Night Combat killed it and sucked though.

[–] farngis_mcgiles@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

monday night combat was dope

[–] gaylord_fartmaster@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

I loved that game. If Valve wants to take a crack at making Super Monday Night Combat but done well I'm here for it, and I think they could pull it off.

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 1 points 5 months ago

Ok you've got me with Monday night combat, I hope to be proven wrong tbh, it's a sliver of hope and I won't join the bandwagon.

[–] Lmaydev@programming.dev 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

We know very little about it at this point. It doesn't reek of anything, seems like you're just making assumptions based on very little information.

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 2 points 5 months ago

The idea is not very exciting. I'm hoping to be proved wrong, I really am.

[–] Lmaydev@programming.dev 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Apparently valve doesn't really assign teams to certain projects. People can work on what projects they like and things organically get people behind them if they are looking good or interesting.

This means games that do get completed are often really good and ones that weren't looking good fizzle out.

It's an interesting approach for sure. I think it makes sense rather than steaming ahead with a bad game. On the flip side what could be an interesting product may die out.

It's happened several times to half life 3 apparently.

[–] cottonmon@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

They had to suspend that policy for HL: Alyx though.

[–] Defaced@lemmy.world 20 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I feel like I'm the only one excited for this game. Every post about it is getting shit on for absolutely stupid reasons. We have 4 low res screenshots and no videos of gameplay with a few details on the gameplay loop. This is what icefrog was working on for years when he stopped working on DotA 2, the man damn near created the entire moba genre, he's taking liberties with the gameplay and incorporating overwatch gameplay with moba mechanics that sounds like it's handled in a more meaningful way instead of just copy/paste mechanics from other mobas and move the camera to 3rd person like smite. As someone who's older and loves mobas but struggles to keep up with the pace of them, this game sounds like it will be right up my alley and for the record I love the art style, fuck me right?

[–] mangosloth@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

I don't mean any offense, but if you're saying traditional mobas are too fast paced for you, how do you expect to keep up in a moba style arena shooter? I've got tons of experience in both Dota and overwatch and without a doubt, overwatch is so much more taxing. As I get older, I've had to stray away from shooters altogether because I simply can't operate fast enough, yet I still have no issues with the most hectic Dota teamfights. It doesn't seem to be in the same ballpark to me

[–] Daze@kbin.social 2 points 5 months ago

I'm right here with you, friend! I'm pumped as hell for a new Valve team game, and I didn't know Icefrog was behind this. Guaranteed gold, so let's let the man cook

[–] deus@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Nah, I'm excited as well. It's not really my kind of game but I can't complain about getting something new from Valve.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

This is how Artifact happened.

[–] Shawdow194@kbin.social 16 points 5 months ago (2 children)

As a non MOBA game player I'm a little disappointed

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Because this might mean abandoning dota? Or because you're just not all that into what you're seeing?

This sounds to me like it's going to be more like overwatch than like dota, so I expect that's really what they're trying to compete with.

[–] Shawdow194@kbin.social 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Just personally they arent my type of game. Single player games are my forte

I think so too on the Overwatch DOTA hybrid, it makes sense they are making MOBA/Royale style games since that's what's popular (esp internationally) and what makes money. But again, not my genre.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Ah, I see now that you said "as a non moba player". I missed that. I thought you meant that for someone who likes MOBAs, it was disappointing, so I was curious as to why.

But yeah, I don't like them either, so it's disappointing to me too. Too many heroes for me, give me a multiplayer game with character customization or 5 classes, but not 100 heroes, that drives me nuts.

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip -4 points 5 months ago (3 children)

The screenshots on it look so bad, too. It's very generic looking. Uncharacteristic for Valve.

[–] Muscar@discuss.online 7 points 5 months ago

You should take anything from the screenshots, and that should be obvious. It's in early alpha, nothing is finished. It's weird how anyone could not understand any of this.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 5 months ago

Remember when HL2 leaked?

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 2 points 5 months ago

I mean, I still remember when TF2 was going to be a generic war game and they were showing it off hella early in development.

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 5 months ago

My issue with games like LoL is that they start making changes and adding so many new heroes to it, that eventually, unless you're playing it several times a week, you fall way behind on gameplay. I never like taking a couple months off to play some other things and then feeling completely swamped on new content or having to recognize 150 different heroes.

[–] Covenant@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 months ago

After reading this it's just like Smite.