Deadlock, despite still being an Early Development Build, runs pretty decently. Additionally, mostly due to how much it borrows directly from Dota 2, it also boasts a relatively featured-rich settings screen.
Some of these options can be confusing, though, especially if you’re not familiar with the terms being used. This article will explain the most important settings to tweak in order to achieve maximum performance, a must for any competitive shooter.
Unless you are too used to using a lower resolution with stretched aspect ratio or with black bars, run the game at your native resolution. You’ll get a bigger FOV, which is essential in a game as chaotic as Deadlock.
Rendering API is something you’ll have to test for yourself. For certain people, Vulkan yields better results while for others, like me, it comes with a lot of problems and little to no performance increases.
Even though the game doesn’t warn you of this, the API change will not apply until you restart Deadlock. We recommend heading into Sandbox Mode or into a Private Game with bots, run around with one of the APIs turned on, changing it, restarting the game, doing the same route, and seeing your results.
Moving onto the meat of the settings page, we start with the upscaling technology. FRS2 is the correct choice here, and it is the tool you’ll use if you can’t run the game at high enough frame rates in your native resolution.
We do not recommend going below Quality if you’re playing the game at 1080p. If FSR2 Quality and our recommended settings isn’t enough to land you enough FPS, just play the game in windowed mode on an even lower resolution. The visual degradation and the inconsistencies with lower scaling modes in FSR2 are just not worth it.
Sharpness is personal preference, most people prefer something between 33 and 66%, but try it out for yourself.
Both Ambient Occlusion options should be off (Screen Space AO and Distance Field AO), and so should Motion Blur, obviously. You want as much clarity as possible. Shadow Quality has little visual impact when it comes to competitive settings, so keep it to low.
If you’ve got the rig to handle it, keep Texture Quality to High, otherwise just leave it at the highest setting you possibly can, as it gives the game a sharper look.
All post processing effects that are a toggle underneath Texture Quality should be turned off. Although MBOIT is meant to improve performance, it is still a work in progress feature, and we want as little volatility and inconsistency as possible.
Toggling Zoom and Inverting Mouse are obviously personal preference, but this really isn’t the game to work well with toggled zoom, in our opinion. You want to have as big of an FOV as possible at all times, so you should keep your zoom-in time to a minimum.
If you’re too used to toggling zoom, stick to it, but if you’re good either way, we recommend getting used to holding zoom instead.
Mouse Sensitivity is up to you of course, go into a private game with bots and test it out until you can consistently burst the soul bubbles that float out of the creeps when they die. Once you’re comfortable with it, all you need is practice.
We recommend leaving both vertical scaling and zoom ratio to 1.00, keeping your aiming as consistent as possible. Crosshair settings are obviously subjective, so use whatever you like.
The default keybinds are mostly fine, with the exception of the Item binds. Z, X, C, V are not very natural binds, especially in a WASD game. You’ll always be forced to either move one of your WASD fingers or your thumb off your space bar, which isn’t ideal.
If you have enough buttons in your mouse, stick as many item keybinds there as possible. You’ll rarely use more than two active, so don’t sweat it if you can’t go over that. Leaving C as an option is fine too, as most of us have the muscle memory of pressing that from games that use it as Crouching.
Lastly, the game uses Space bar as the default “Cancel Ability” bind, and that can get extremely confusing, especially with vertical abilities. If you find yourself running into issues with this, as I did, change it to a keybind that you won’t press as often, but one that will still be accessible. T is a good option, for example.
As a final tip, both items and abilities can be Instant Cast, Confirm Cast, or Quick Cast. This will be a familiar option if you come from MOBAs, but one that might seem confusing if you’re mainly a shooter player.
Deadlock comes with its unique “Ability Default”, which automatically changes this setting based on which ability you’re using. Instant Cast means that the ability comes out as soon as you press it. For example, Kelvin’s grenade won’t show you the AOE its gonna hit, it will be thrown as soon as you press the button.
Confirm Cast is the exact opposite. You need to press the ability button, it will show its range or AOE indicator, and the ability will only come out once you press your fire button (MOUSE1 by default).
Finally, we have Quick Cast. This is our recommended setting for most, if not all abilities and items. The ability or item will be used once you release the key, which allows you to hold it if you want to check the range or AOE, or if you want to have more control over it.
It takes a bit getting used to, but it really is the best of both worlds. Confirm Cast requires an extra button press, which can cost you precious time, and Instant Cast can make certain abilities and items a nightmare to use.
If you can’t make any of these settings work for multiple heroes, you can always toggle the Hero Specific Hotkeys at the top left of the screen, and change these on a per-hero basis.
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