Who here actually prefers the Withering Blight event over the Hallowed Blight?
I'm coming out and saying it, the Withering Blight is absolute garbage in comparison to the Hallowed Blight. On its own, for those who never played the Hallowed blight it might still be a grand time, but in comparison in sorely lags behind in multiple categories when set side by side with its predecessor. (Vote in the poll below)
Foreword
(I realize this thread became way too long about halfway through, so I'm putting a TL;DR at the bottom for those who don't want to read my terribly long rant)
I'm not mad at the devs, they reacted and responded accordingly to the feedback that the community (for the most part) gave from the event last year.
However, it's important to keep in mind that sometimes, the feedback the community gives, is absolute #########.
The faults people point out in last years event, were over-exaggerated and not actually all that bad
I get that it kinda sucked the first few days when there were a decent chunk of survivors just killing themselves to maximize serum gain, but once you stopped taking the game seriously and just had fun with the event it really wasn't all that bad if at all. As a killer you basically get free points, free pips nobody as a killer should be complaining because it's not like this was everybody and it's not like it was every match either so you still got to play relatively normal games as killer.
As a survivor, all you had to do was switch your build to something much more self-serving to keep yourself alive. I was running the previous incarnation of Left Behind which granted increased generator repair speeds when everyone else was dead, and without a hatch closing mechanic in place at the time all I had to do was repair one or two generators to get the hatch to appear when I was the last one standing. With self-care to make sure I could take a hit, these were pretty easy victories too.
But people got so goddamn uptight because they what, couldn't continue the same monotonous routine of repairing generators like they do literally all times for the rest of the year??? The game is fun don't get me wrong, but these events are here for a reason, to switch things up every once in awhile, keep that blood pumping.
There was no change for the event this year
NOW we basically don't even have an event. Gameplay is absolutely normal, nothing has changed, even the aesthetic of the event is about on par with some of the most boring events we've had like the summer BBQ, or the earlier lunar new year events. At least for the Moonrise event we had an interesting capture the flag type of deal going on where survivors were essentially playing their best to survive with a lantern.
The atmosphere for the event had been completely stripped away
There's nothing to look forward to, there's no vial being slowly filled with serum as I milk the oozing amber substance from the visceral cankers. The cankers added so much more than just a second objective, they added atmosphere. Something that most definitely the Withering blight lacks, without the visceral cankers scattered growing throughout the maps I can hardly tell an event is going on in the first place. We have tiny pumpkins on top of generators and on the ground next to the hook, nothing spurting, nothing oozing, no gross factor nothing. Even the main menu / lobby looks and feels barren, a few pumpkins with the sad husk of what used to be these pumping, pulsing, visceral cankers. Even the music seems toned down, I can hardly hear it at all much less so now that we have unique themes that play when certain killers are selected like the Clown, Legion, Demogorgon, Myers, etc. I can more than confidently say that the halloween menu's from the past two years were better even all the way back to 2017 for those who can remember All Hallows Eve before the Hallowed Blight came into being.
The diary entries left people with a reason to come back each day, and created a well written and interesting story which provided new revelations regarding lore
The new diary entries that were released once every single day during the Hallowed Blight were also genius, interspersed with the landmarks that were the animatics it gave something to look forward to each and every single day. I get that now we have the archives which by themselves are great, an amazing new step in telling the story of DBD but the story from the book "The Hunger" just wasn't up to par like last year it was just filled with how confusing the character felt each time and that was it. No purpose, no "obsessively deciphering Vigo's journal." to discover the horrifying properties of the "putrid nectar - the thick fluid I saw oozing from the trees.". The animatic this year was great, seeing what I can only interpret as the void where all the hopeless souls of past survivors in the chaos of the realm of the entity was amazing. But one good animatic does not an event make.
The cosmetics this year just don't hold a candle to last years
Even the cosmetics this year, I can still appreciate them and the effort put into them and how cool they look, but honestly I liked last years cosmetics better, comparing each one back and forth if they were sold as DLC packs you know for sure the former would sell better. The only one I really liked from this year was the Clown, but it sucks because my appreciation for the cosmetic is halted by the fact that the Clown, ngl, is kind of a terrible killer who needs a rework, an update, a tweak, something, anything. Aside from the Clown it was also great that they were finally able to revisit and renegotiate terms with the license holder for Halloween to get new cosmetics for Michael Myers and Laurie Strode.
Overall, I'm not mad, just disappointed. Halloween should be the best most interesting time of the year for Dead by Daylight and the devs totally dropped the ball caving into the demands of the community and taking away the one feature that made the whole event unique, and distinct.
TL;DR
-The community sometimes gives bad feedback leading the devs to make bad choices like getting rid of the visceral canker.
-The visceral canker added so much more than just a secondary objective, it provided atmosphere for the event, really letting you know that something was off in the realm of the entity. Taking this key and crucial feature away from the event took away the one thing that made it unique, distinctive, and fun.
-The removal of the only change in gameplay (the visceral cankers) left the community with nothing but normal gameplay, which we can already experience most 80% of the 365 days of the year. Events are meant to shake things up and change things slightly, along with the last years Hallowed Blight, the Moonrise event was also a perfect example of how the devs were able to accomplish this.
-The Menu is so much less festive in comparison to last years hallowed blight, and the year prior's All Hallows Eve. All there is left are a few pumpkins and the sad husk of what used to be a pumping, pulsing, creepy visceral canker. Even the music seems to be toned down in the menu especially in the killer character selection screen where we see more and more killers have unique themes applied to them when selected (The Clown, The Legion, The Shape, The Demogorgon, etc.) the spooky event theme should always take priority during an event
-The Diary Entries released every single day from last year gave something to look forward to, and a reason to play each and every single day. It gave you enough information but left you with something new to leave you in suspense the same way a TV show keeps you coming for another episode.
Who here actually prefers the Withering Blight event over the Hallowed Blight? 65 votes
59 votes
3 votes
3 votes
Comments
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The Hallowed Blight was better
Longest scroll I've ever had to do. I was starting to wonder if there was even going to BE a poll! ^.^''
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The Hallowed Blight was better
Yeah, I got pretty heated while writing, had a lot more to talk about than even I realized. For good reason too, I think it came out to about two pages ngl
Wish there was a way to put the poll on the top instead of on the bottom, but at least they have the feature at all. Steam doesn't have it
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The Hallowed Blight was better
This event was pretty bad imo
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Can't say for sure
They both sucked IMO.
Hallowed Blight had it's creepy ambience and being an actual event going for it, but at least I could actually play regular games this Halloween where people didn't throw the game to collect plant juices.
I'm glad we got the awesome skins tho.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
I’ve said it before elsewhere and I’ll say it again here: This is, in my opinion, the worst event they’ve done to date.
Don’t get me wrong, last year’s event wasn’t great by any means either. The fact that survivors were competing with each other for serum kinda ruined most games as there were very few, if any, generators done. People would suicide first hook if they filled or didn’t get any serum just to speed things up, also the fact it forced you to play both sides to benefit from it wasn’t a smart idea (though they did change this due to queue times as killer being awful). That, however, felt like an event. It had its own additional lore, the cosmetics were much better last year, Everything about the visuals were better last year too.
This “event” meanwhile is the most shoddy event in any game I’ve played. Ever. Not only does it feel like less of an event due to the visuals not being as interesting, but the cosmetics aren’t great, never mind the giant red flag of them being released to the store for auric cells two weeks in advance, serum is attached to something completely unrelated to the event itself, not even counting that it’s attached to the rift of all things which in my opinion is literally the worst thing that they could have done. I know this is (possibly was, haven’t played since 3.3.2 came out) an issue on PS4, not sure about elsewhere, but the petals may as well do nothing. You don’t even get the points for event gens or hooks I’m fairly sure. I could at least say last year that it was sometimes fun and was an interesting concept that could have been reworked.
TL;DR - I genuinely feel like they didn’t even try this time around. I feel like this is the one time where I can say “0/10, literally unplayable” unironically.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
The Hallowed Blight actually felt like an event. The special hooks and gens were animated, the grounds were littered with cankers that made the realm feel more alive and unique. A new objective to do other than just generators with the chance of winning some great looking cosmetics.
The Hallowed Blight, for all it's flaws, was a genuinely fun and exciting event to participate in.
The Withering Blight introduced players with a Battlepass System, a list of challenges that can be done in a single day if you're lucky, and one of the worst (and I mean the worst) integrations of special event currency collecting I've seen in ages.
The Withering Blight has no atmosphere, the trials still feel the goddamn same. The hooks and gens don't even animate. They just glues a couple of extra models to the existing hooks and gens. Even the title screen felt very mute. Remember when you open up DBD during the Hallowed Blight, you would hear and see the oozing cankers as the menus start to appear? That set the mood far greater than just a couple of goddamn pumpkin heads.
I would go back to that mess anyday rather than play this "event"
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The Hallowed Blight was better
I'd just like to say that I agree with almost everything you said.
The only thing I can think to say in defense of this year's event is that I suspect that the fact that this year's event is just a "sad, empty husk" of last year's might be the entire point, from a lore perspective. Hallowed Blight was all about that pumping serum; Withered Blight is all about the collapse and decay of all that. Which isn't really backed up by anything, it's just an idea I had based on the graphical style you're describing and the name of the event itself.
Having said that, I firmly believe that there were ways they could have gotten that across, in the visuals and in the lore, that made this event seem thematically and mechanically complete in its own right, rather than something that was cobbled together at the last minute with a few pumpkins and some reused assets. They might have been trying to do something different from last year, but the execution was too sloppy to make it meaningful or memorable in any way and it just came across rushed and halfhearted.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
You can make something thematically appropriate and still fun.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
That's exactly what I'm saying.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
*forgive me as I am tired.*
Rereading it yeah that is exactly what you're saying.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
Lol, all good mate.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
I was very annoyed with people complaining that survivors were getting their serum and letting themselves die, but it was a small minority..
Survivors are doing the exact same thing now when somebody when they realise they can't open all three chests.
Devs: Don't let the vocal minority sway your views.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
The way to fix the Hallowed Blight was simple in my opinion. Increase the number of baseline visceral cankers to four and cankers per offering to two, increase extraction speed slightly, and allow survivors to acquire 1-2 extra vials of serum. If a survivor dies on hook, he or she would lose a whole vial of serum. Incentivizes survivors to stay alive while not totally screwing them over if they do die. Killers also could benefits from extra vials and a significant boost to the amount gained from hooking -- getting my vials as Killer was a hell of a lot more tedious than as Survivor.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
I love how this was written because it just echoes some of my internal thoughts that I wasn't able to convey as easily "the grounds were littered with cankers that made the realm feel more alive and unique" gives me chills remembering how excited I was before, and during the Hallowed Blight last year. It just adds to my disappointment that there's not a single part of me that feels the same way about the withering blight
I agree that it wasn't that big of an issue, rather it was just blown up out of proportion which has happened multiple times in the past (Freddy originally was "(too) good", then nerfed into oblivion due to a knee jerk reaction, until he was finally buffed two years later which required an entire overhaul / rework to get him where is, all because of some ######### feedback). (really? The censor for dead by daylight is straight up "Bad Word"? I prefer the hearts from Steam) (Edit 2: The censor went away after I edited the first time, don't ban me for a bug)
People letting themselves die wasn't honestly that big of an issue in the grand scheme of things, and besides what eventually happened was those people eventually lost their pips and de-ranked while I kept moving up the ranks meaning I wouldn't be playing with them at all far enough into the event I stopped seeing it happening because I was playing with real G's who both played the event and the game.
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The last Halloween event was wayyyyy better, but we can't have nice things due to so many people complaining about it.
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The Withering Blight is better
Nobody ever did gens and most everyone just suicided on the hook to go to the next game. Que times were awful throughout part of it.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
And now killers are AFKing with Wraith to get Rift XP.
It's the same but for Killers. I even saw someone with a macro swinging the killer around just so the survivors can still gain Bloodpoints while he is farming XP.
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The Withering Blight is better
I haven’t seen that yet
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The Hallowed Blight was better
I think that they should have added husks of the plants around the maps. Something to show that it happened, lore wise.
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Can't say for sure
Only reason I like Hallowed Blight better is because I’m not a complainer and I just like the skins better
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Can't say for sure
And oops meant to click hallowed blight not cant say
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The Hallowed Blight was better
They had the right idea with last year's event. I don't blame the devs at all for not predicting how some players would just take the opportunity to farm the heck out of it. Its our fault last year's event was a farm fest. Not theirs. I remember a killer telling me that chasing me was the closest thing he had to a real match last year because I tried my best to collect serums AND escape. I had a blast doing so as well. This year's event hardly feels like much of an event. Thank the entity for the archives. Please lets not farm the hell out of that too so that we end up losing that. Remember we have agency too. If we want nice fun things, then play as intended. It's way more fun than looking for loopholes and turning a game into a chore. At least that's the way I look at it. I suppose if looking for loopholes and farming is how you get your kicks then have at it.
Post edited by ZechsMQ on0 -
The Hallowed Blight was better
They patched that out so that the earning was universal and not split for both sides, which largely fixed the issue at least for me on my end.
So really, if we're talking about learning from past mistakes had the devs just put the exact same event in but what they learned from last year (maybe include higher stakes like you get double the vials for surviving if you fill it up completely) it would have been better this year. It just seems really weird to me to point to a mistake that was hotfixed mid event and say that, that made it terrible because for half or more than that of the event, that had been patched out.
And again, it really wasn't "everyone" suiciding and it really wasn't "nobody working on gens" this is most definitely a gross exaggeration. Did it happen? Yes it did, I saw it myself, but did it happen anywhere nearly enough that it ruined the event which in itself was well made especially outside of gameplay? No. And were there strategies and precautions you could have taken as a survivor to secure your own escape?? Yes there were, I personally ran Left Behind for most the entirety of the event and it was kind of cool to actually have a use for a perk that is typically so situational. I remember threads being created by other survivors telling people who didn't want to suffer as much from the hands of farming players just run perks like Left Behind and Self Care, so I know for a fact I'm not the only one who did this.
This is a fantastic idea that I never thought of. The devs didn't even have to make the visceral cankers interactable at all they could have just reused the asset to show that the Entity was undergoing the "yearly purge" mentioned through what was deciphered from Vigo's journal, which caused the entity to be "infested with blight" which triggered "[visceral] cankers [to] bloom into 'Pustulas', a type of flower that spurts putrid nectar"
They could have even added new animations to these reused assets to actually seep or discharge the amber colored liquid, to make up for the fact that we couldn't milk them ourselves. Hell if they wanted they could use that same animation on the trees in the maps to create what was described in Benedict Bakers journal, really putting "the thick fluid I saw oozing from the trees" on display for survivors to actually see in game.
Post edited by Seiko300 on2 -
I already had a poll for this quesstion.
Not actually comparing the two blight events, but asking if people like alternative objectives. I also dislike events that just bring "special extra bp gens" and "special extra bp hooks", since that doesn't feel like an event.
Maybe consider voting here:
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The Hallowed Blight was better
I loved yanking flowers
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The Hallowed Blight was better
I agree with most of the points here. Hallowed Blight was far better as an event. That said, in terms of cosmetics, this year's are miles better.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
I voted "yes I do enjoy alternate "distracting" (secondary) objectives".
While I do believe both questions fall into the same conversation, I do think our polls start that conversation in two different places. Yours was much more general, regarding events in general, whereas mine was very much focused and specific on two (very important) out of the many events Dead By Daylight has had to celebrate the winter solstice, the Lunar New Year, seasons like summer and fall, etc.
Which is entirely intentional, I (alongside many others) am very disappointed in this specific event, which is arguably supposed to be the biggest, most festive, fun event of the entire year. I am purposefully tackling the Blight events so that the devs are aware they really dropped the ball this year, meant as constructive criticism, so they can be more adequately prepared for next year to not make the same mistakes. Mistakes which I particularly made sure to mention precisely so that the devs know exactly what it is people want out of an event, and where you were tackling gameplay, I was tackling every aspect of what makes an event.
For Halloween specifically:
-People want the menu / lobby to be decorative, it's been done before and it's been done very well, twice now Dead By Daylight has put out thematically perfect decorations for Halloween and it makes no sense that the dev team should be putting out anything less than what they are capable of
-People want music which pairs well with the decorated lobby, music which is consistent, and overrides the music of other characters like The Clown, Legion, etc. (With a special exclusion for licensed characters like Michael Myers who have a license agreement to abide by). Tracks have already been created and published for halloween from previous events, and keeping these themes playing throughout the duration of the event adds significance to the time of the year
-People want an event which provides a unique experience separate from the normal gameplay that we see for most 80% of the year, as well as independent from the other events that we see scattered throughout the year. While there is nothing necessarily wrong with the classic "complete re-skinned generators and hooks to earn points" event, it violates the first part of what people want to see. While it's fine for smaller events like the Summer BBQ event, it isn't different enough to really change up the pace of the game all that much, something that people look for in these events, especially for a a particularly special time of the year like halloween. The Moonrise event executed this perfectly, requiring survivors to pick up lanterns spread throughout the maps and survive with them, and killers to destroy said lanterns. It was distinct enough to make the lunar new year event for the year to stand out on its own.
Reading back, it sounds almost demanding of the devs, but I do sincerely believe it circles back to that idea: "it makes no sense that the dev team should be putting out anything less than what they are capable of". We've seen what the devs are capable of through previous events which created new and unique secondary objectives in the hallowed blight, and the moonrise event, we've seen them create these wonderful and festive lobbies in the All Hallows Eve, and Winter Solstice events. For a title that is moving on the up and up, introducing grandiose new features and content like the archives and the Stranger Things chapter, these only add to how odd it is to see the devs backpedal like this.
It's really baffled me that no content creators like The King, Paulie Esther, or Hybrid Panda haven't really made a video covering their thoughts on the event. I know Puppers briefly kinda echoed these same thoughts on stream which is also a video on youtube, but he didn't go into too much depth. Just clarifying to people in chat that the event had indeed started and summarizing "it's not really even an event" from what I remember
And on a more personal level, I would like to think that the devs play their own game, and that they want to have their own fun with the final product of what they have created. This creates a new motivation to make it the best that it possibly can be so they can not only be proud of their work, but just like the rest of the playerbase, have a lot of fun actually playing it.
I hope somebody that's part of BHVR sees what I've written, or at least the poll, or even somebody else echoing the same sentiments. For the sake of constructive criticism to bring them and the game up, rather than nonsensical jargon which puts them down, unfortunately a lot of the community writes stuff that could be categorized that way.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
I Agree 100% with you, even though i was one of the survivors who killed themselves after getting nectar at first, after about a week i got bored and went back to normal game play, and got the rest of the serum through normal game play.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
Well, the last year event seemed alive somehow. I am a main surv so yes, people suicided a lot but people were motivated to burn offerings. Not just for the BP but because they were doing something different.
I know, the problems that they had in the PTB, the archives and the rift were a lot so they hadn't the time to do a better event. I am not angry about that, they did a lot of things so they just ran out of time in the end.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
This one doesn't even feel like an event.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
It is no event.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
The real issue I think is that it only stands on par with events like the Howling Grounds and Scorching Summer BBQ event. But even those events had some kind of personality, when generators were completed you had a light up margarita spin on top of it with these slushee machines all of it coming to life as the generator was activated, hooks with grills on their backs which would heat up and sizzle when a survivor was hooked, the infamous summer metal theme song was made for this event. Even with the Howling Grounds event you had Fireworks blast into the sky when a generator was completed, or you hooked a survivor, to celebrate the lunar new year of the dog.
The withering blight had absolutely nothing. Just these static assets of pumpkins and vines set on top of generators or next to hooks. The hooks didn't even spurt and squirt putrid serum like they did last year for the hallowed blight, for Halloween of all times of the year. The singlehandedly most important time of the year for Dead By Daylight and the devs blew it, regardless of whether it was because they got lazy, or they took on more than they could handle, if it was poor decisions, or just unlucky timing and scheduling either way the devs blew it.
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The Hallowed Blight was better
Besides the visuals, the Serum is not obtainable during the Event. You just get the Serum for playing, the Offering does only generate a few more BPs. I mean, I can kinda understand why they put it into the Rift, first of all, players should test out the Rift and furthermore the free Track will not look that empty. And it might also be possible that players wanted more time to get the event currency, maybe this was feedback they got for the last Halloween Event.
However, putting the Serum into the Rift removed the Event Feeling entirely in my opinion. It has nothing to do with Halloween to obtain this Serum and while I am quite close of getting all of it (currently Tier 44, Tier 47 is the last Serum), I know that many players are not that dedicated. They might have a higher Chance of getting the Serum, but they will get the Cosmetics around Christmas... Which is simply wrong.
I highly hope that future Events will not be part of the Rift and that the visual aspect will increase more. But overall, I enjoy the Witherung Blight, but it is no event for me.
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