I knew it was possible! Just been practising a little bit but I love how much potential she has with some more time

I feel like that's the only reason she gets flack. We have boring characters - McG just talks about building guns and not feeling bad about it. Abrams is tome this, tome that. They both had more interesting voice lines added later that put them in the deadlock universe, and Violet will have too. If she got high on some ixian drugs, went to some spirit arts college and so on, there wouldn't be as much criticism of her character I'd wager. Right now she just says things you could hear in our universe and people blew it out of proportion like she's the anti christ of writing. She's still very interesting gameplay wise and the lore will catch up. Though I am sad she mentions a therapist because that gives implications of how the Deadlock universe treats mental illness so we probably won't have nurse harrow defending lobotomy and electroshock therapy or something

This happened for me back in old gods too. I ended up waiting an entire week to play the game again because I was just sick of it. Whenever we're in a new heroes update, the rate at which people quit games goes up exponentially until it's just aggravating for me to get a game. I'm REALLY getting so goddamn tired of people doing this because it is RUINING new hero periods of the game for me. On average I have to play like 4 or 5 games before I get the new hero unless I have a token. With a token? Sometimes instant, sometimes a game or two. And then when I FINALLY get my hero, bam, someone disconnects early. You know what I do when I don't get the hero I want? I play it out. I try to have fun anyway. And then I've worked up to getting the token so I can increase my chances. AND THEN SOMEONE DOES THIS SHIT TO ME ANYWAY.

There's a chance that in either the game I was going to get Danny, or Violet, someone just failed to connect because they had network issues, god knows I have had some weird lag as well sometimes, but I feel like that's the least likely event here. The trend is that people leave before the game even loads in because I or someone else got on the hero they wanted. Maybe, if they're pressing the abandon button in the menu, there could be an increased penalty? Maybe if they do this, they get blocked from selecting any of the new heroes! Or maybe we just give them matchmaking bans faster than usual abandons. Maybe I'm being too harsh or ridiculous but I'm being absurd out of frustration.

Regardless, I think people who intentionally do this, deliberately leaving games where they didn't get the new hero they wanted, are bad for the health of the game in general, ruining it for the people who play legit and actually care about the game, and I doubt anyone would mind if there was a system put in place to make sure the game can tell when you're doing this shit. Of course, there's a chance a poorly implemented system could catch people who disconnect accidentally, but I digress.

So since Violet just came out, I read her story and listened to her voice lines, played around with her abilities etc. the whole shebang. I do agree with the main consensus that Violet is pretty basic compared to everyone else, now do I think this is necessarily a bad thing? No, but I think the main thing that Violet suffers from isn't her story, its her lack of expression. Which is ironic for an artist funny enough.

She has a really big disconnect with her lore, voice lines and abilities an I think it all falls on the whole magic paint thing. Like we're told that she got a full scholarship to art school and has had her work in the MOMA upstart gallery, but we aren't told exactly why? Is it because of her skill or was it the fact her artwork was magical, and how come we don't get some characters talking about it? I mean considering MOMA is a named location; clearly it has renown. So there would be certain people talking about it. Whether negative or positive is to be determined.

Then there's the fact we get no info on how or why she has this magical paint. Now obviously there are characters who we don't know how they got their abilities, but the problem with Violet is that her magical paint isn't even mentioned. Like we don't know much about where Paige got her powers but at least its mentioned that she's a bibliomancer and we can still assume that she learned from her parents. With Violet we don't even get a single mention of her magic paint. No description of her work, the reaction of the people, or even a signature/notable piece. The only thing we get is in the Billy interaction where she painted Hamsters doing whatever, but that felt lacking in identity.

Speaking of Paige btw, the last bit is going to use Paige as a comparison. Violet's abilities have no identity and when I say that I don't mean mechanically or gameplay wise, but I mean visually. Take a look at Paige's abilities. She uses dragons, sword in the stone, the knights of the round table in her magic. Tales of heroes, fairly tales, good slaying evil. Her abilities show us who she is. A person who believes in the good and magic of the world, who fonds over the ideas of knights in shining armor and heroes winning over evil.

Now take a look at Violet's abilities. 1st is simple brushstrokes; makes sense but there's nothing to make them feel like we're supposed to be VIOLET painting. 2nd is that she rides stroke of paint; again, makes sense but there's no... hutzpah, pizzaz! 3rd is she paints her opponent, stuns them then gets a little stat buff; interesting mechanically but any artist character could have that. Then finally her Ult, which... I'm going to be honest, looks like something Kelvin would've had cause it looks like the aurora borealis.

You see what I mean though right? Violet's abilities, lore, and interactions barely have much to do with her main gimmick and that's magic paint. Now listen, I'm not saying we need her to be jam packed with lore and secrets, she's allowed to be simple but the mere fact is the main problem with Violet is that she has no individual identity. Why did her art earn her a scholarship? Why was it a notable art show? What makes her work HERS!

Van Gogh illustrated his pain using the beauty of the world, Bob Ross showed how calming and welcoming art can be, Junji ito takes the simple and makes cosmically terrifying! What makes Violet's art special and why is she unable to see that through her fear of not leaving a mark on the world.

anyone else been trying to do this?

Ok, so Violet came out, and the discussions on DL subreddits is as expected, a shitstorm; the people are divided as hell. But with this post, I wanted to just say why I find Violet appealing, especially her 'mundanity'.

After listening to her voice lines and her interactions and giving her backstory a look, I eventually warmed up to her as a character. Don't get me wrong, you can find her boring. I am not going to tell you what to think of her, but to me, her mundanity is one of the reasons I like her, and she feels fresh thus far.

In this game, every character seems to be generally fine with the entire situation at hand, participating in the battle to the death to try and summon an eldritch god to grant them their wish. I don't think there are a lot of characters that seem to be nervous or unwell from everything that is going on, unlike Violet.

Violet is clearly new, she is no fighter and doesn't seem to enjoy killing, brutalising or risking her life, and to a degree, I dig that. She feels normal in a good way, she feels like an average person who, while she has had exposure to magic, only now gets to meet this many insane and weird people.

Her interactions, backstory and character feel more grounded in a good way. In the world of gods and powerful supernatural entities, she is a uni student who is just trying to be noticed and not forgotten, even if it means participating in a death battle ritual.

Of course, there is also the fact that she does drugs and is horny for a lot of characters, which honestly, I also think fits her and goes well along with how 'normal' she feels.

Again, if you find her boring, I am not trying to convince you that she isn't in your eyes, I am just expressing and sharing what I think of her and maybe finding other people with similar thoughts.

TL;DR; I find the fact that she is more mundane and normal an interesting part of her character, especially when compared to a lot of other characters that are clearly way more prepared for the ritual than she is.

Yeah there's a bunch of these but i just really have to give the skinny because everyone on either "side" of this is really weird for some reason.

1. Her kit is conceptually cool, more than a little overtuned like her three doing that much damage for something you dont need to aim. Needs her numbers all toned down and such.

2. She *is* the most boring, worst characterized character in the *entire* roster.

-Not because she is an "average joe".

-Not because she is chinese.

-Not because she's a woman

-Not because she's "conventionally attractive".

She lacks interesting characterization.

And either conflicting, or unrealized character traits and aspects.

She stands out because this game has been REALLY good so far about characterization and the idea of "inference".

We dont know why she has her powers. Thats weird. You may say "we dont know how solomon, lash, paige, billy has their powers".

Not immediate specifics, no, but there is enough characterization to make inferences, to where there is no dissonance in believing they can do things, or making theories.

Seven's convos with Solomon allude to Solomon being a very powerful wizard, enough to where Seven realizes and believes Solomon isnt living to his potential, he's a foil to Seven in this way.

His magic may be chess based purely because he loves the game.

Lash's "powers" are quite literally just extreme skill. He's pulling himself around with grappling hooks, doing big physical feats because his character is that he has an ego, but CAN back it up.

Paige is a bibliomancer, and now the map has a literal college of bibliomancy.

Billy MAY have something going on with that whole magic goat-head thing.

The most we get is she has living ink, but how and why?

Nothing in her convos alludes to why she can do what she can do, and then that further leads to issues of why she's doing the ritual, and why she lacks fault.

Meaning

The roster in Deadlock is great because people can be assholes, some know eachother, some dont.

Some like eachother, some fucking despise eachother.

But they're here to get a wish and stuff.

Her wish is...unclear.

Something about recognition.

Okay.

She can do paint magic is that so common as to not be recognized?

Shes in paid-for-already college or shes a starving artist?

She's a Luna Snow.

Not because she's an asian woman but because she's lacking in fault, and dramatics.

She puked before the ritual?

Okay...And she painted a mural of hamsters. Cool.

Wholesome chungus. Wow. Fun.

Please.

Stick a stinky dart in her mouth, make her more genuinely neurotic and weird.

Give her some bags under her eyes.

Get her out of college.

I don’t like hearing the word “potential” because it just sounds like a lazy excuse to explain why you don’t want people criticizing something. Violet could POTENTIALLY be interesting, but right now she’s weak in the writing department. I’m not good at judging characters kits so I’m not gonna address that, and so far the only thing carrying her is her design for me. I like art characters whether they be writers, painters, etc. and that was what drew me to hoping Violet would be as interesting as the other characters. But she just isn’t, trust me I spent the whole day listening to both sides and unfortunately the critics just made the most sense to me (no i’m not counting the idiotic racists and sexists as critics) I’m just going to be hoping they bring in something interesting for her and don’t leave her being one of the least interesting characters in deadlock.

Ist there any Logic on the probabilities of gettig the new Hero? Or is just completly random?

This was shittily made in ms paint because I've been voting for Harrow since Rat King dropped and I want to express my frustration

Saw someone else suggest her living paint would be addictive maybe and that's why she's in the ritual, to get more, I suggest: The living paint takes part of her soul for every time she uses it, thus, putting her "heart and soul" into it.

Badum-ching, but no actually that is my concept for her, adding onto this concept, make it so the reason she's so kinda... sluggish and spacey, almost unbothered is the part of her soul being taken actually... SHOWS in her behaviour sometimes, she's kind of half asleep because 50% of her is art the other 50% is doing ritual things.

I think that'd be a neat backstory or smth, might be too edgy I'm not really sure but like, its cool

please be civil and remember this is only my opinion and is completely subjective

gameplay/kit

a few tweaks : means their kit is good as it is but it needs a few balance changes

soft rework : the idea of the kit is good, but 1 or 2 abilities needs to be redone, or replaced

hard rework : 3 or all the abilities need to be redone, or replaced

delete : this is a joke, and its basically just another hard rework

models

needs a few tweaks : model is great just needs polish

soft rework : the idea and base is good, but it just needs more work,

hard rework : the idea is good but the base is awful, needs significent work,

whole model gotta go : the model misrepresents the idea of the character, and needs to be completely replaced

We need even more villains, like cult leaders, politicians, and definitely a Friends of Humanity character, and maybe even someone who is Fairfax competitor that has a grudge with Mcginnis! and at the end of it all a spy!

I wish we had a "spy" hero, who can infiltrate the enemy team and give us coms about where they are and when are they pushing or if they have reached the midboss and using his/her kit to sabotage them.

Like for real, I think it will solve a lot of the lore issues and would be more relatable than “great art”.

From what I see, it seems like she’s contempt with losing if it means she can paint something great and that kinda irks me when some of the cast are there cause they have no other options.

Obviously there’s been a lot of discourse around Violet lately, and as someone who was initially on the fence about her but has mostly come around, I think a lot of it is unfair. I think her visual design is really nice, her kit is super cool and unique, I even think her voice and powers are cool even though people seem to hate the former and are confused by the latter (we’ve lost the plot if we’re arguing over how she got her powers, we could ask that question for like half the cast.)

Her personality is the one part I’m kind of mixed on and can understand the source of some of the criticism. I genuinely like what’s there, I really enjoy her presentation of someone who is talented but hasn’t been given that chance to prove her abilities and be recognised. When people complain about her being bland, though, I can understand where they’re coming from. I really think Violet could benefit from being either more eccentric, or more passionate, or both. Right now, she’s an artist that isn’t particularly weird or emotional. I find myself comparing her to Jhin and Hwei, the former of which is a super memorable personality and the latter who is overflowing with emotion that feeds into his art. Violet doesn’t have that, and she sometimes kinda seems to be in it for the fame, money and to prove her parents wrong more than anything.

This is a valid path you can take for a character, of course, but I don’t feel like it’s the one they actually intended to go down and it’s not one that I think does the character her maximum justice. Violet is a cool character! I want to know more about her art and her relationship to it, I want to see her struggle with her own lack of success beyond just saying “imposter syndrome”. I want to know more about how she views the world and her unique perspective on it, and I’m kinda sad we don’t get more of that. Maybe it’s characterisation for her to be presenting as kind ‘too cool’ out of fear of seeming like a poser? Idk.

This might be a me problem but I’m not even really sure what type of art she specialises in. She is ironically a character whose flaws would be resolved if I could go to a gallery and see her art, but for obvious reasons we can’t do this. I’m kinda losing the thread a bit here but ultimately Violet is like almost there when it comes to being an all-timer character for me, and I’ll still like and play her, but she falls just short at the finish line of being something truly amazing. I love all the (positive) Violet memes and fanart people are making and it makes me feel like we were so close, but now people with hate in their heart are unfairly dunking on her.

Also struggling artist with a full ride feels a bit weird but that’s literally one line of her bio so w/e

I might be out in left field but I felt like a lot of intonations on certain words during violet's conversations are similar to D.mon's on overwatch, am I just completely wrong?

For those unaware, Yoshi shared a bunch of concept arts for Yamatos remodel around 2 years ago.

I think it looks cool as fuck and I am really hoping that this is still the plan for her. I do wonder why is it taking so long tho. I was fully expecting the remodels coming this update, but instead we got new characters.

So I guess that the next big update will be the one finally, maybe? Also I am wondering if they will be reworking character kits with the remodels.

People should be allowed to criticize new characters if they don't like them.
Whenever something poorly-thought is added to the game, I often hear people say "but this is a playtest provide feedback!". But I never see those bastards actually providing negative feedback on what isn't working.
I've seen these echo-chambers ruin games too many times and I hate seeing one being created yet again.

As for what rattled the community today. I've looked into Violet voice lines and kit and what do I like about her: 1) she's someone who's afraid of the ritual for once 2) because of how tame she is, she generates hilarious conversations when talking with someone actually dangerous (Seven, Rat King, Haze) 3) her kit is cool and isn't too busy.

But everything else? Hoooly shit here we go again. There's a lot that can be said about what is wrong with Violet, but in short: she does not belong in here. You can make excuses about how DL's universe is different from ours, so a magical-artist-gooner-pothead-selfinsert is, in fact, a fitting addition for the roster. But here's the thing that many of you won't want to hear: a good artist must know how to show a restrain (I mean Valve). Because when you don't, it start eroding the setting bit by bit. And at some point, as you keep adding shit like this, the unique game that you've created just does not exist anymore.
I'm going to be honest, I don't even perceive Deadlock as "Mystical AU New York of 1940's" anymore, I open the game and see modern world with modern people, but with different architecture and a magic (tbh environment artists at Valve are carrying this alone).

I'd say, Six New Heroes were perfect. It was a 100% bullseye in terms of writing, visual design and gameplay for heroes. The Old Gods New Blood was already over the top, but still within reason. And then with City Never Sleeps we finally crossed the bullshit line. And I don't mean only writing\visuals. Can we have more heroes that are played like Mina or Venator? You know, heroes that have a role and do one thing with their kit, instead of gazillion bullcrap condition mobility dot damage buff on every single fucking spell of theirs?

When i used to play Paige I would be able to see the outlines of my teammates, and sometimes enemies that are revealed, when I would line up my ultimate from across the map. This info helped me to see the direction they were running and easier see their health when lining up my ult. I dont know what update it was but now when I try to line up my ult from far away, my teammates show up as a little circle of their character portraits. I dont know if there is a toggle button that I am missing but I definitely do not like the change.

As the title says. I don't believe she's necessarily bland or boring, but they need to expand on all the elements of her to actually grow the setting like they do with other characters and suddenly the issue of people thinking she's bland will vanish.

She attends art school. Okay, we know from Paige and the map update bibliomancy is an educational pursuit, but are her magic paints also normal? Can every art student do this? Is the only reason she can use it in combat because she's a prodigy or could anyone smear a quick line and it works? Is this incredibly expensive and rare or is it some homemade DIY probably-toxic chemical she's mixed together? If it isn't unique, how long has this been around? What else have other artists done with it that she might be worried of dying a failure despite being able to effect the real world with it?

She attends rallies alongside Billy against the FoH, telling him to bring his bat and to try not get arrested. Is she worried about getting arrested? Is she a non-violent protester or does she use her arts? Does she not because she's worried about getting deported only having immigrated to NYC a few years ago or because of a personal choice believing violence isn't the answer, since she doesn't seem as extreme as Billy? What are they protesting against? Are these counter-protests to racist rallies or vocal disagreement with government support of the FoH that is being met with violence from the FoH? Are the police cracking down harsher on the non-FoH rallies and arresting them more?

She has a very firm belief of earning fame, not being given it, but is grounded in what she thinks she's capable of and how the art scene works. We can tell from her lines that she's extremely scared of the ritual, but she's okay with killing six people and bringing in an eldritch god for the opportunity to hold an exhibition? Kelvin offers to let her do the cover for his books, is that not exactly what her backstory and her conversation with Viscous says she wants, to meet the right person at the right time to kickstart a career by bringing her work into the spotlight?

She does drugs. Just regular drugs? No Ixian shit? Nothing magical?