Deadlock is still in the early stages of development, so some players are already able to play the game however they want without any penalty – but the latest update should prevent this.
Valve is developing a new shooter, part of the Heroes series if you haven’t heard, but it’s still in beta, which means Deadlock hasn’t quite ironed out all the kinks yet. However, when it comes to things like players abandoning matches for no reason, there’s no system in place to curb this behavior. As part of the game’s September update, this has now changed, with some penalties taking effect in certain situations. For example, players who exhibit bad behavior or frequently abandon games can now be placed in the secondary queue where they are less likely to find a match.
Manage cookie settings
If they want to get out of this low-priority queue, they have to play a few rounds before getting back into a normal match. On top of this, players may now also be completely unable to matchmaking, voice and text chat, pause, or report abuse from other players. It’s important for online gaming to have penalties in place to stop bad-behaving players from doing things that cause other grief, as shooters aren’t always known for their friendly and welcoming communities.
This latest change also brings some big general changes, one of the biggest being that matchmaking will be available 24/7 (previously it was limited to certain hours). There were also some substantial changes to the minimap, but they were quickly restored after some player feedback.
One thing Valve still needs to address is the cheating issue, but it’s still early days so presumably this will be addressed in time.
