How can we make dead by daylight a horror game again?
How can we make this game scary? And puts you on the edge of your seat?
In my opinion I first want to start by making the background a little darker kinda like that one bug where everything is dark but you have a spotlight on your character. Maybe add some screen effects where when you're being chased by a bigger killer (oni, demogorgon etc) the ground shakes a little. Leave suggestions in the comments!
Comments
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Yes it would be nice to have more horror elements.
- dark, night time setting for main menu and lobby
- bring back the red light bulb for the basement
- increase the darkness a little bit
- add more pig trees/creepy environment stuff
- add unsettling sound effects to the environment
- set Mt. Ormond at night time like in the concept art
- set the saloon at night with a blood moon
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jump scares...
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It'd need a complete rework.
For Survivors:
Shift the gameplay emphasis from fast paced to more of a slowburn.
Instead of just holding M1 at gens, search the map for Objective parts to assemble them. With the assembly being near instaneous, but requiring your total focus (no looking around).
Make Survivors much slower. So traversal of the map is strategic and tense, rather than as simple as just running there.
Add a [BAD WORD] ton more ambience. We'd need ambient music, animals besides the crows, dripping water, whistling wind, creaking doors, the Léry's treatment for every map.
Killer's only have a Terror Radius while they are actively chasing someone. Make Survivors strain to hear footsteps or breathing over the sounds of the environment, so that when the door slams in the wind they jump because it could have been the Killer.
Change up hiding spots and make them less penalizing. Instead of red lockers everywhere make them unique to maps and immersive. A hiding spot shouldn't obviously be recognized as a hiding spot. And when found don't put the Survivor into an instant grab. Make the Killer throw them out so the chase can begin. And while hiding in a hiding spot the Survivor's camera is 1st person and they are able to hear the Killer's SFX at a much greater volume.
Simultaneously, make hiding in the random geometry of the map impossible. A Survivor who tries to crouch in a bush should be almost instantly detectable if the Killer is nearby.
Encourage Survivors to be sneaky with hiding spots. Not just crouch in corners.
Make items much more useful but also more costly to acquire and hard to find. Don't hold M1 at a bright yellow box for 12 seconds. Unlock a door in the basement after finding a key in the game environment and then take the item before the Killer finds you.
Give specific Survivors multiple unique things only they can do. Maybe there's overlap with the effects of these abilities, but how they are done is unique to each Survivor.
Dead Survivors become part of the environment. Instead of vanishing on a hook, their corpse hangs there. Their Moried bodies are posed in hiding spots or on props in the environment (someone's face through a monitor in Léry's, a Survivor chained to a chain on the Game, impaled on a broken bamboo shoot on Yamaoka, etc.)
For Killers:
Shift the Killer game objective from killing/pipping/emblems to 'scares' and 'brutality'.
Basically you'd be awarded for looking and acting like a slasher movie antagonist and given nothing for blundering around like a goofball, regardless of how effective either strategy is.
Instead of needing to kill/slow gens by any means possible, make Killers act their part.
For scares; Jumpscare Survivors. Creepily stare at them without them noticing. Cut them off during a chase instead of just running them down. Get seen by a Survivor but sneak away from where they saw you and surprise them elsewhere. Let a Survivor escape chase and then round a corner to down them when they let their guard down.
For brutality; be relentless and intimidating. Break pallets immediately. Be on the other side of a loop while a Survivor throws a pallet. Hit them through pallets. Smash through walls. Don't visibly just give up a chase or ignore an obvious Survivor.
Killer's would also need to be much slower too, but to balance this, given the ability to teleport between certain areas of the map on a brief cooldown. To allow every Killer mobility and to keep Survivors from ever feeling at ease without making them omnipresent nor totally unavoidable.
A Killer shouldn't always be in a chase, but they should always be a threat.
For both sides:
Give Killers a 3rd person POV and bring Survivor's cameras to an over-the-shoulder perspective. Putting the camera closer to the Survivor should make things more claustrophobic and engage the player in what is happening to them.
Remove perks/make perks weaker.
They should be optional little things that spice up game play. Not required or stronger than anything a vanilla Survivor could do.
More than 4 versus 1 and only two hook states. Have 6 or 8 Survivors, but make them more killable. Maybe have more than 1 Killer to balance this out?
Environmental Moris. With BOTH sides awarded points for when they occur.
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Basically make it into a combo of DbD and F13 that's much more cinematic in nature. It'd need to be a totally different game to be scary for longer than a week after whatever changes are made.
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If you want it to be scary, put more power into the killers. Unless the killer sneaks up on me I'm not afraid cause I know I can loop them provided I run in the right direction.
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was this ever been scary in the first place? no, everybody was just not good enough to understand that survivors were (and are) the power role, so there's no reason to be scared.
also, with nowadays troll skins they're releasing it's impossible for someone to be scared.
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You just described F13 almost perfectly
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I mean, I think I made a few notably different suggestions but yeah, basically.
Don't get me wrong, F13 isn't exactly a horror masterpiece, but current DbD has more in common mechanically with a team based shooter than it does a survival horror experience IMO.
If DbD wanted to shift to more of a horror experience it could stand to take a look at F13.
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I feel like one of the good way to make it creepier would be to add this Last year: The nightmare or Friday the 13th vibe with different objectives or smaller objectives on different maps.
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Yeah I never said it was a bad thing, F13 is definitely better horror-wise than DbD
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Buff killers
change enviorement, more fog, more creepy props
Nerf survivors
disable swf
make killers darker
soo many things
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Making survivors first person like the killer would be pretty scary.. at least for me.
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Sorry, I wasn't sure. I've met a lot of people who get really heated up about F13.
Honestly, more 'challenge' perks like No Mither in general would be fun. And first person would be horrifying against Michael, Wraith, or Ghostface.
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