Deadlock players learn that they can pause the game for the entire lobby, and some use it for evil purposes

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. You’re about 40 minutes into a Dota 2 ranked game, the opposing techies are plotting to stall for as long as possible, and some comedy genius decides to pause the game to drag things out a bit. few a little longer. Bad manners? Probably, but they’ll laugh their heads off until low priority matchmaking, I’m sure!

Those who have invested thousands of hours in Valve’s previous MOBA probably won’t notice the novelty of this feature, but its repetition in Deadlock has players committing heinous psychological warfare for fun, as can be heard from this streamer, who took a mid-match breather to play a bit:

psp uses the pause function to play some IRL slots mid game, truly a Valve game pic.twitter.com/pHUyJ7fxFO26 August 2024

To be fair, limited breaks are good for a bona fide game. They allow players to pause the clock if a party member’s internet connection is momentarily lost, or give everyone a second to grab a drink and catch their breath if a match is dragging particularly long. It’s the kind of contingency plan you want to have in a competitive MOBA, because matches can spiral out of control very quickly if the teams are unevenly matched. I remember my longest Dota 2 match lasting over an hour and a half (I was the techie player back then, sorry) and while the pause feature didn’t help things go any faster, it did mean we weren’t glued to our keyboards the whole time.

Deadlock isn’t exactly a traditional MOBA, but it does have that team-based competitive spirit, so it’s no surprise to see recurring breaks here. But for those new to Valve’s suite of competitive-friendly features, this is practically a new toy.

What I’ve learned from various streams is that when anyone hears about a pause mechanic and gets upset about it, they don’t have anything other than mischief in mind. Deadlock players have eagerly tested the limits of this mechanic to see how inconvenient it can be. Currently, the meta is to chain pause right at the start of a game (or right before it ends) to cause the most annoyance possible.

whose idea was it to add a pause function to deadlock, LMFAO pic.twitter.com/RTiP32Pmby26 August 2024

Here you can see how the Twitch streamer ohnePixel immediately bursts into laughter and declares a “mental war” on the opposing team as soon as the possible applications of this function become clear.

If all of this seems too intrusive, don’t worry—abuse of the feature can be reported in-game after a match, which to my knowledge has never been an option in Dota (unless you count the option to report intentional abuse of abilities in general). Players on Reddit pointed out that insidious use of the feature is about as common as you’d expect, which may also lead to legitimate breaks being taken less seriously. Users continue to debate the mechanic’s value and whether or not its current implementation is a positive overall.

no matter, the standstill is actually the highlight pic.twitter.com/494p9gTsWw25 August 2024

“Anyone can resume the pause, so I think you need to chain multiple ones together when someone crashes because the other team will try to resume the pause,” wrote Reddit user psyfi66. “But I think you should only get a single pause per game per player. Since the game is a bit unstable (which is to be expected in Early Access), I think the pause feature is important.”

Still, it’s a bitter pill to swallow for those not coming from Dota 2, and one can argue that toxic pauses have a greater impact in a fast-paced shooter.

“Even if your friend loses connection or crashes, five seconds is not enough to get back. If it was more seconds, people would abuse it even more and it would be even more frustrating, so I don’t see the point in it in its current state,” said Reddit user marniconuke. “Imagine if you could do this in games like CS:GO or Valorant. Right when a team is attacking the base, you can completely throw them off. It was explained to me that Dota players follow some kind of etiquette regarding this, but since this game is new, there is no respect.”

Whether Valve will tweak things to curb toxicity or wait to see if deadlock players use the feature more honorably once the thrill of the new wears off remains to be seen, but if Dota’s long run is any indication, pauses are likely here to stay. If nothing else, it’ll be a good laugh (and not at all frustrating, I’m not at all frustrated by this so don’t ask).

a deadlock is literally what happens when you let Valve combine Overwatch and Dota because what the hell does that mean, ANYONE IN THE LOBBY CAN QUIT THE GAME MID-GAME pic.twitter.com/6Q1anYslif26 August 2024

topicnews · August 28, 2024

Deadlock players learn that they can pause the game for the entire lobby, and some use it for evil purposes

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topicnews · August 28, 2024

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