Deadlock was only officially announced a few weeks ago, but we’re already seeing cheaters start to pop up in lobbies. The players are clearly using aim bots (it’s painfully obvious), but what others can’t quite understand is why anyone would want to cheat in an invite-only alpha test.
A video has appeared over the last few days showing the first cheaters that I and many other players have seen in Deadlock. There are two cheaters seen here who may be playing together as they are in the same lane, and the odds of finding two cheaters in Deadlock playing side by side is too much of a coincidence.
One is playing as Infernus, and the other is Vindicta, and from the get-go, it’s clear that they are aim-botting. Infernus initially makes some pretty impressive shots against the candle minions (creeps). But when they finally pick a fight with the rival heroes, specifically Seven, you can see the crosshair snapping onto both of them. Then, when the camera turns to Vindicta, you can see the player not only snap onto the enemy team but somehow curve their bullets so they can hit enemies hiding behind walls.
“So you were saying just right off the back, [Infernus] is going like all out,” the player who recorded this video says to his friend. “Oh my gosh! He started shooting through the wall first thing. Oh my gosh. And yet, somehow, we were still winning this… Deadlock has cheaters already—that’s cool. Very blatant ones too, very blatant, do not care at all.”
You may have to shoot things in Deadlock, but that doesn’t make it a strictly FPS game. Just because you can lock-on to players to kill them easily doesn’t mean you know how to level up your abilities, pick the best items, or even have a good strategy for playing in a MOBA (although it will help a lot). The Vindicta seen in the video above hadn’t even gotten around to upgrading their ultimate yet, as they were clearly too preoccupied.
Some players are already placing a lot of onus on their ranking within Deadlock, so it makes sense that people would turn to cheating. While there are no official ways to work out your MMR, as Valve is still working on improving this, there are third-party websites that have been figuring this out for players. Although the biggest website has just been restricted by Valve so it’s currently not a lot of help.
But even so, cheating in a game that is still an alpha is sad: “What a sad existence must one have to cheat in a public alpha test?” one player says. “There aren’t even any stakes right now, no leaderboards, no ranks, etc.” Others have tried to stress how important it is to report cheaters as, hopefully, it’ll end in them getting hardware banned, and while you can circumvent this, it’ll hopefully work as a disincentive.
Other players, those who have been a part of the TF2 or CS2 community for some time, have taken one look at these new cheaters in Deadlock and started forewarning others about the tragedies that befell both communities once cheaters got out of control: “Just like Counter Strike, they will plague every match for eternity, and Valve will do nothing.” Calm down Nostradamus.