Community Discussion: Grind
Hey, everyone. I wanted to ask the community what their thoughts are on the topic of grind in DBD. It's no secret that the grind is real in this game, whether it's to get enough shards for a skin you want or leveling up characters for perks and builds. The issue that may come of this is that, as more characters and cosmetics are added into the game, the grind gets more and more unrealistic. Especially with the RNG nature of the bloodweb, you can dump bloodpoints into a character and not have the perk you want show up for quite a while.
The amount of bloodpoints and shards earned made a lot of sense when the game first came out or when shards were first introduced. A fair amount of grind is understandable. It pushes people to play the game more and encourages some to bypass the grind by purchasing items so the devs can make a profit. But as more characters and cosmetics are added, is the grind becoming too much? Should bloodpoint numbers be adjusted to compensate? Should Blood Hunts be more frequent? Should it be simpler to get the perks you actually want? Or is it fine the way it is?
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I love the game and play often so I don't mind as it is but, I would be very against an increase.
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I think they need to do something. It is a lot. Lots of discussions around what they should do and Idk what the best ootion is, but SOMETHING needs to give. I cant imagine trying to pick tge game up for the first time today
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The grind imo became too much with the stranger things dlc. 9 new perks and the only ones I see people use are Surge and Inner strength. If you unlocked all their teachables that's 7 new perks appearing in your bloodweb you don't want. I would prefer if there were more bloodhunts, but allowing people to pick and choose what perks they want would lead low diversity and variety. The moment a new killer or survivor is released people who have 1 million bp +dailys +challenges saved up would level up meta builds and that wouldn't be fair to everyone else. I wish they would address how grindy the game is, especially if you use shards on cosmetics and buying new characters, but I haven't seen them talk about it.
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Increasing the bloodpoint gain would also increase the amount of powerful stuff like ebony moris that appear in each match. The grind is mainly found in the perks, so decreasing the grind for perks would be a very fast and fairly easy way to reduce the grind without affecting prestige or the item economy. This could be done by removing perk teirs and changing the level of the bloodwebs with perks in them. Keeping in mind that new players will have only 14 perks to unlock, it is important (especially in the dev's eyes) to have new players unlock perks the entire time up to level 50.
My idea is this:
Perk ranks are removed, so once you unlock a perk, you basically get the rank 3 version immediately.
From level 1-40, you get one perk every 5 levels. This means you will have 8 universal perks by level 40.
From level 41-44, you get one perk every 2 levels. This means you will have 10 perks by level 44.
From level 45-49, you get one perk every level. This will give you 14 perks by the time you complete level 49.
At level 50 onwards, you get to unlock two perks every level, similar to how our current system works. This makes unlocking all the perks much faster.
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I think the rate at which you gain items and add-ons is fairly balanced, and I don't think the cosmetic grind is a problem either, since it doesn't impede on the gameplay in any way and it's there as an alternative to paying real money for things, so it's perfectly reasonable for players to have to put in a lot of work to make up for that.
I do think the perk grind is too much, though, since the amount of time it takes to be able to play the game with all its content available is frankly ridiculous. For what it's worth, though, the grind has been confirmed to be on "The List" of things they plan to address at some stage (though what form that will take, I have no idea).
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Every new chapter adds roughly 5-7 levels of level 50 bloodweb (assuming you rush two perks every 50 web anyway) depending on what order you're given the perks (aka if you get level 3 of two perks before level 1 of the last you're going to need more webs to get the perks.) There's 72 killer perks as of Pyramid Head, and 80 survivor perks. That's 213 perk levels (216 - the three you get for free as your "unique" perks level 1) for killers and 237 for survivors.
You get one perk per level until level 40.
You then can get 2 perks after that.
That means at level 50 you have 3 + 40 + 20 = 63 perk levels in total by level 50.
So killers need to grind (216 - 63)/2 = 76.5 level 50 bloodwebs to get all perks at tier 3, and survivors need to grind (240-63)/2 = 88.5 level 50 bloodwebs to get all perks at tier 3.
As a result, I definitely feel there should be a faster way to get all perks to tier 3, as the current system is getting absurd with how LONG it can take to get all the perks.
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The grind is better than it’s ever been. This game is intended to be “grindy.” In fact, every year Call of Duty has a “grindier” game than this one is. The point is that people are expecting to get everything they want without the willingness to commit the extensive time to it.
Also, you have access to the shrine which allows a select amount of perks that can be purchased (up to 4 every week). I remember before I had everything maxed out I would save my shards for the perks I really wanted, I believe it was even more difficult to get them before the shrine rework.
That being said, if you want to P3 max out every survivor, that’s a different story. However, that is even optional and not needed.
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The problem is it at this point takes objectively more BP to get all perks at P0 than it does to get a P1-50, and probably isn't too far behind P2-50 (I'm not mathing that out like I did the perk grind though as that'd have too many rarity-based points of variability). Seeing as the 50 bloodwebs are the largest, and it takes 76.5 level 50 webs for killers and 88.5 level 50 webs for survivors to get all perks T3, 100 non-level 50 webs would ultimately be cheaper than doing that (though at some point you'd need to grind the almost 100 webs to get the rest of the perks)
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I'd say lower the cost of bloodpoints for everything by about 1000. This would reduce the grind by about 25%. That's a massive amount.
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Edit: for some reason the forums posted my response before it was complete.
Yes although that maybe true, if the grind is really that much of an issue, start with the perks you care about most and reach those specific survivors to the perks unlockable level. Pnce you make them teachables, apply them to the survivors you’re more inclined to play as. Remember you don’t have to max out all your survivors as they are just reskins.
For killers, I started with the ones I thought were more useful, grinded them to the level of unlcokables I wanted and taught them to the killers I was more likely to use.
If you want to continue putting bloodpoints into those characters than you’re free to do so, but you must realize there are more efficient ways to get what you need from the grind.
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As a new player I can say that the perk grind is the biggest barrier to entry. I'm already behind the curve in terms of game knowledge and mechanics, but then I also have to play so many different characters with base perks. And while they might be viable, they certainly aren't optimized. This wouldn't be a huge deal except that I don't see any kind of end in sight to where I get to play the game on the same playing field as most people.
Obviously, this is more of an issue with the more perk-dependent killer role, which I unfortunately prefer. I rarely feel underpowered or uncompetitive as a survivor even playing raw at level one.
I'm not new to games and don't mind a grind, but at least as killer it feels like without quicker access to "teachables" it's an incredibly uphill battle just to be competitive at all in a phase where I am also supposed to be learning how to play.
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See the comment below yours for why I disagree with that logic.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. I started the game shortly after Hag came out and was met with people with all perks when I was completely new to the game. It felt daunting, and as someone who bought the game initially to play killer, I was in the same boat. I can't even imagine how bad it is for you currently just joining now. All I can really say is it does get better - and the upside to it is playing without the meta perks helps you to not rely on them, which actually does make you a better player, even if you get curbstomped a good few times getting there.
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The math they did shows how truly outrageous the perk grind is. I still stand by removing tiers.
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That’s fine if you disagree, it’s a two way street. As a new player, yeah it’s a tough grind, but I don’t think players realize they don’t need every perk in the game, you can have good perks without making out a bloodweb.
If you want to be highly competitive in this game, then yes, expect to work for the builds and perks you want on multiple characters.
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What if there were two different blood webs, one for perks and one for items. Maybe simple as that 🤷♂️
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I'd be all for that since I don't bring items almost ever and add ons are a rare treat.
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I think part of the problem is this notion that this is a "highly competitive" game. It's 4v1 balanced to where the team of four is supposed to win if they don't royally screw up multiple times. The killer is there to make it fun and punish the mistakes. If the killer was meant to have an equal chance at winning the game they wouldn't have things like looping or being able to run so many second chance survivor perks. Plus you can party up with whatever rank you want - I mean, there's no point in pretending like this is some sort of e-sport. It's just a fun game.
So what's the point of the grind? Usually a game's got DLC and microtransactions, OR a heavy grind, and you choose which path you want to follow. This game has both, for no discernable reason, with the choice of "pay to win PLUS a grind" or "grind PLUS a grind."
I don't see any harm in opening up all the teachables at rank 1 to everybody from the start - for the DLC you own. Keep the slow shrine drip for the rest, and grind the bloodweb for higher perk ranks. Not sure what the point of the current system is.
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I have two newer friends to the game who have both been interested in the gameplay, but lost interest when they found out how extensive the grind was matched with queue times. Playing survivor and not using WGLF, you'll average around 20k bps per game. Considering the average queue time for survivor can vary from 1-10 minutes, this means that it takes around 30 minutes to an hour to have enough bps for one level 50 bloodweb. I personally believe that they either need to change WGLF to something like BBQ, or ease the overall grind of the game once again.
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The way I see the grind is that isn't isn't all that bad.
Grinding for perks can be hell if you want and ONLY want a single build. But if you open yourself to use what you got and attempt to break out of meta. Then the perk grind isn't all bad and can be a good thing as it gives you options you'd otherwise never think you had. Plus having a perk grind builds your core gameplay skills. And building those is never a bad thing.
Grinding for cosmetics. Shards at first are not easy to earn. But as you level devotion they flood in. NO where near fast enough to kit out multiple people, but you should be able to get what you want in a timely manner. If I can get the 2K shards to dump for blood points through the shrine, then it shouldn't be hard to save up for some nice fashion over 1-2 weeks of off/on gameplay. Again, you aren't gonna get full outfits. But should be able to get a part here or there to make a look of your own. And I find mix/matching parts to be MUCH better overall as it can really be of look of your own.
Grinding for Killers/Survivors. I never bothered with this and chose to support the devs by paying for what people I wanted to play as. So far I have bought all DLCs with cash outside of Headcase, Charity Case, and Ash himself. It's my opinion the devs earned the money and so I gave what I could afford over the years. Needless to say I don't have any say in the grind for people when I never ground for them.
Overall. DbD's grind is only as bad as you make it out to be. If you only want a certain thing, then the grind is going to be pure hell. But if you are more open to options, then there almost isn't a grind at all as you will be earning new stuff constantly while you play. And if only takes raw gameplay as well unlike many other games that need you to farm certain resources to certain unlocks. That quickly makes gameplay a chore as you can't really do anything but farm those exact things to get what you want.
DbD though, just play the game. Play it any way you want, using anything you can, or as any role you choose. Sooner or later you'll get where you're going. Or if you want, pop a bit of cash for what you want now.
DbD is only $20 base before going on sale. That $20 gets you a good bit to start with and has vastly more potential gameplay compared to some other games who charge the full $60. If you spent an extra $20-$40 to match those other games, you'd instantly unlock just about everything you could ever want outside of perks.
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Idc at this point since I have all perks on all of my characters. They should make it easier for new people though
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I kinda get what you're going for here... but picture this.
New player, ends up really liking Wraith.
Now... lets say he eventually ranks Wraith up to level 40. He gets 8 general killer perks.
Let's say this guy gets really unlucky and is given the following perks in this order. Monstrous Shrine, Insidious, Distressing, Iron Grasp, Unrelenting, Deerstalker, Thrill of the Hunt, and finally Spies from the Shadows.
This new player has leveled a killer all the way to 40 and has... 1 decent perk with Spies from the Shadows? All because Wraith's teachables are terrible and so are the vast majority of the killer base perks. Now this extreme of an example is unlikely, but in your new system, you could easily end up with a level 10 or 15 brand new Wraith with ZERO good perks. That is not good. Not even a little bit. At least with the current system they have a reasonable shot at getting tier 1 Sloppy or Noed by then which is huge. The new killer experience is already not very good... let's not make it worse.
It'd probably be better to just make it so Bloodweb 41-49 have 4 perks total on them and let you grab 2 and then 50+ give you 6 and let you grab 3. With similar improvements to the bloodwebs below that. Like give players 2 options earlier. Give them the here's 3 perks, pick 2 earlier that is the current 41-49 webs. Etc. You don't need every perk maxed out but you do need some particular ones maxed out and in the current system, it is overly difficult to find what you're after.
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I used to think BHVR was one of the most consumer friendly companies I've ever seen work on a game. It just used to be the game, the DLC's, and some cheap cosmetic pack bundles if you cared. Come the inclusion of the in-game store, I really wish more people gave open backlash cuz now we're stuck dealing with a pretty ######### hand, and a dumb pseudo battlepass, and an bloat in skins. It's not as bad as other games in some ways, but there's some things that baffle me.
Mostly, the grind for shards is ridiculous compared to the prices of anything in the store, and you can't buy everything with playtime. Honestly, I'm okay with some cosmetics being pay walled since I guess they need to earn their moneys back somehow. But come on man, $10 for a cosmetic for one character?? And there's a lot of these. And worst of all, people support it, so they're not changing these anytime soon. That's ludicrous to me. And I hate hearing people defend BHVR on something like that by saying stuff like "Yeah well, ever play a multiplayer game before?". My point is BHVR didn't used to be like that, I thought they could be different from other companies. So speak with your wallet. And I really hope all these rumors of Legendary skins pricing at $20-$25 isn't true. That's just gonna be a personal nail in the coffin for me with BHVR and supporting them over skins anymore.
If there's one thing I can congratulate them on, it's the bloodweb. Bloodweb progression, is probably the most genius progression loop I've ever seen in a video game. And I actually have very little problems with it, besides Prestige reward still only being a cosmetic. It felt perfect when I first started playing because there wasn't really a connotation of being withheld from the "meta" perks, or something, like most people feel now. The most there was, was really wanting BBQ, DS, and Unbreakable/BT. Otherwise, it was just naturally progressing through the game, getting teachables as I learned of them, etc. It didn't feel like a pay to win E-sport like people seem to make it out to be quite yet.
Also if any devs are listening, please make Devotion do something already. Seriously, what's the problem. Respect your players playtime. It's just a number, when it could at the least be a very small permanent increase in shard/BP gain. Or like 200 free Auric cells. I dunno, ANYTHING.
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You don't have to buy any cosmetics or anything in the pseudo-battlepass. I don't see the problem.
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Yeah, sorry, but I meant to say that after level 25 or so, you'd get to choose between two perks, just like you do now.
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It's actually the opposite, again from a new player's perspective. I get ONE build and that's it, for a really long time. Most are plenty viable, but not nearly as effective as the optimized builds I have to play against. Occasionally a perk will pop up that I'll see and say "oh hey this might be fun combined with that Trapper perk but oh I never play Trapper so I guess I won't be trying that." Out-of-meta curiosity, for me, demands a ton of investment, just to see in one game that it doesn't work as well as I thought it might.
So instead I'm stuck either playing killers I don't like to chase the meta or I am just hobbling along with suboptimal builds that I know could be better or more interesting.
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Like I said, it's really not as bad as other games in some areas. I just give it a lot of ######### sometimes, because it's still so off putting to me, that DBD of all games has a battlepass. It just really doesn't need it and it feels so oddly forced, but at least it's optional/not pulling teeth. It's not really the point of my post, just glazed over it. Before anyone says cosmetics are entirely optional too so there's no need to complain; Technically yes, but you'd be lying if you said cosmetics weren't inevitably a goal to look forward to later in DBD play loop.
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I can see you haven’t been around long enough that the devs don’t balance over “highly competitive.” In fact, most of the game’s balance is around Green and Yellow ranks. To help you better understand what the intentions of this game are (which is not to be highly competitive) I will put this in the words of the devs: “the goal is 2 kills to 2 escapes”
Whether you agree with this notion or not is beyond the facts.
With that being said, I respect your opinion. However, I stand by the grind and don’t believe it’s any worse than many games out there, nor do I believe that all perks are necessary to grind in the first place. The grind is only as big as the player makes it.
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More people need to understand this. I feel as people just look at the game and see a massive grind that they feel they have to go through. That is not the case at all. Well said though 👏
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If it's not terribly competitive (and I have no issue with 2 kills to 2 escapes) then what's the point of the grind? For example - I'm a rank 8 killer who loves playing Pig. I can do literally nothing against a decent genrush swf without any other way to slow things down. I have to play Hag and/or Trapper to 40 just so I can get bullied while I hope their teachables show up in my bloodweb? Why?
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it gives me something to do
honestly, i dont necessarily dislike it... unless we're talking about the grind for the last few rift levels. that one sucks. like, 12 games for 1 level? for 10 or more levels? with a timelimit? ugh...
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I've written way too much about this in the past, so I'll try to keep this short.
DBD's perk grind is an absolute repellent for new players. I suspect that the game's mercurial peak player numbers over the years are partially a testament to this, and anecdotally I have had several friends stop playing quickly because it's an enormous Sisyphean climb. I mostly think DBD's progression system is pretty healthy with the exception of how perks are unlocked.
It wouldn't be so bad if each individual character wasn't so ruthlessly siloed -- like if, say, when you unlocked a perk, the game put it in every character's inventory instead of making you roll the dice with an absolutely insane number of bloodwebs. The current prestige system implementation is a big part of this problem, as there would be a lot of room for workable, non-siloed solution if the game wasn't built around nuking your entire inventory on a per-character basis.
The sheer quantity is a big part of what makes a lot of players' eyes glaze over. We're closing in on 70-80 perks per role as of the Silent Hill chapter update, and they somehow still have 3 ranks each, so even if you don't want absolutely positively everything at max, the long view is still really intimidating. Explain to a player what it takes to get some diverse and competitive build options on just a single character on one role, and most of them are going to lose all motivation and curiosity about this game, because it quickly starts to sound like a second job just to get to the fun. Those of you who would counterargue with "You don't need perks to do well," yeah right -- tell that to the brand-new player who immediately starts getting matched with and against red ranks, and see how much benefit of the doubt they give you.
The threshold for unlocking teachables needs to be much lower, considering that we're about to have 42 characters in the game. And, there flat-out needs to be a way to target specific perks, as opposed to churning through 70 bloodwebs before you hit that first rank of Barbecue & Chili. My dream scenario would be to truncate perks into single-ranks, completely divorce the perk economy from bloodwebs, and turn it into an a la carte system (and one that functions across multiple characters and not just one).
Players here who try to defend the current grind have lost all perspective. As I type this, I see the following recent comment from @Speshul_Kitten -- "More people need to understand [that the grind isn't all that bad]. I feel as people just look at the game and see a massive grind that they feel they have to go through. That is not the case at all." You have to be able to step outside of your personal play experience, disregard your current knowledge base about the game, and think about this from the viewpoint of someone who is evaluating whether this game might be worth their time. This kind of grind is going to scare a normal, average person away; they're not going to give it a chance if all the initial warning signs are telling them to stay far away. And even if they do, it's still really bad. We've all just learned to love our captor, to varying degrees.
So much for keeping this short! I'm sure I will definitely have much more to say in this thread. Oh boy. 🙄
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I know that your opinion is 100% against the current grind and believe me I understand. However the way that most people, including yourself, who have complained about the grind is looking at it as a means to no end.
This is exactly what I’m talking about: “tell that to the brand-new player who immediately starts getting matched with and against red ranks”-Perks will not teach skill. In fact, this in my opinion is a poor example of why the grind should be reduced.
You expect too much for someone who just picks up the game. If everyone had access to meta perks or the perks they want, they would not learn the game as it’s meant to be learned which the less competitive perks allow them to do in the first place.
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I joined early enough to not have THAT much catching up to do (just after Hag released) but even with that, it was extremely discouraging when my very first game everyone had red and purple perks while I was running literally nothing (since that's how it worked at the time). If I was just getting into the game now, knowing that people with a thousand hours aren't necessarily running everything they want? No way in hell would I have gotten into the game, and that's a shame since it really is an enjoyable game.
I feel like the argument "it's ok to have this much grind because it's part of the learning experience" is a poor equivalency...having the perks doesn't mean you'll use them effectively, or know what's good inherently. I remember loving unrelenting early on and that's a terrible perk. But giving new players a means to get caught up without spending a ton of hours to get even a good number of options, *even if they're not all the meta options* would be helpful in encouraging people to keep trying.
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Even if your system does that it still doesn't change the fact that it is way easier to end up with no good perks for a very long time as a new killer than the current system. It also doesn't address the fact that until level 20, your system has the player acquiring new perks at the exact same rate as they're getting perk slots, so... you best hope that at least one of your character's teachables are worth something cause you ain't getting rid of it until level 20 at the earliest. Seeing as there are quite a few characters with miserable teachables, that's a problem.
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I get what you mean, but the most basic on-ramp is a disaster. Consider this hypothetical conversation.
- NEW PLAYER: So, I level up characters with BP, and then I unlock perks?
- ME: Yeah, that's how it works, they all have individual levels and individual perk inventories.
- NEW PLAYER: What about this Barbecue perk you told me about? That makes you earn BP faster, right? How do I get that?
- ME: You have to level Cannibal to 35 first.
- NEW PLAYER: But what if I don't like him? I want to level up Doctor, he looks cool.
- ME: You have to level up Cannibal to get Barbecue & Chili.
- NEW PLAYER: OK, well, then I'll have it on Doctor?
- ME: No, then you have to keep leveling Doctor until you get lucky and it pops up in your Bloodweb.
- NEW PLAYER: I have to do this for every perk?
- ME: Yeah.
- NEW PLAYER: What if I play a different character?
- ME: You have to start the process over again with every character.
- NEW PLAYER: What about that Shrine you told me about?
- ME: It could pop up there, but it may be weeks or months. And then you still have to find it in your Bloodweb...
I dunno what kinds of friends you have, but in my experience, a normal adult human being who wants to kick back and enjoy games for a couple hours a day in their off-time is gonna go "No thanks dude, let's just play Overwatch or something else that I can wrap my head around and doesn't sound like such a slog. Why do you like this game so much if that's what it's like??" They don't ever get to the actual fun part, because all this red tape is such an impediment to it.
I know not every game is for every person, but DBD has a severe problem with its new player experience (like, far and beyond just the perk grind), and a healthy population of incoming players is vital to keep the wheels turning on any live service game. This scares them away.
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Again, gameplay balance has no correlation to grind. Skill has no correlation to grind. The sooner that is understood the better off people are in making comparisons.
i do agree with the some of the second part of your statement: “having the perks doesn't mean you'll use them effectively, or know what's good inherently.”
That much makes sense, I just hope people don’t actually believe poor matchmaking is an excuse for an easier grind.
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Also, apropos of nothing, my broader big-picture issue is that the entire Bloodweb system and perk logic feels like it was designed by an engineer, with engineer logic, with no regard to how the end-user would parse it. Same goes for the terminally broken emblem system. It's like they never approached this from the perspective of a normal person, or did any user experience testing around it at all, and they've just somehow decided to run with it for all this time.
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You understand that BBQ and Chili example you gave can be done in the same weekend right?
What I would tell your friend is to be strategic:
1.) They buy the game
2.) your friends likes Doctor, but wants BBQ
3.) Play as Bubba, get to rank 40
4.) BBQ will show up on Doctor in the first 10 bloodwebs.
There you go.
This does dwelve into the topic of being competitive and I don’t want to go off topic. Having your friend go after perks like BBQ assumes that he has a mindset to play at a less casual angle, which introduces a whole different topic.
Having a grind will NOT stop people from playing the game. Look at Call of Duty, a far more massive grind every year than DBD and yet millions of people play everyday.
DBD has also stated in the 4th anniversary stream that more people have been playing DBD than ever, shooting down the theory that people are leaving due to the grind.
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First off, let's be clear that I don't think having a grind is bad. That's not what I want to convey at all. A game like this needs some sort of robust player progression system, or else it feels really anemic. Last Year: The Nightmare demonstrated that quite well when it was pushed out to die with no progression system of any sort.
Also, you're interpreting their comments on the 4th anniversary stream in the most charitable way possible, without looking at the trend line. While it is objectively true that more people are playing Dead by Daylight than ever right now (here's a link to the game's Steamcharts page for context: https://steamcharts.com/app/381210), this is 100% down to the fact that more people are playing ALL games more right now thanks to the social circumstances wrought by COVID-19. Anecdotally, I have heard from friends at other studios that they are seeing the kinds of numbers they normally only ever see during Christmas. This is a) not going to last, and b) way more attributable to outside circumstances than to anything DBD itself is doing.
If you look at that Steamcharts page, and review the MoM history prior to March 2020 (which is when many quarantines went into effect and subsequently juiced the numbers), you'll see that there are huge spikes of peak players that coincide with major content releases, and then the game takes a MASSIVE tumble within the following month or two. This indicates that a lot of new players are trying the game after hearing about a new content drop, and then leave in droves.
Finally, your proposal about asking that kind of efficiency of a new player -- come on! Your defense is "just ask the new player to do a bunch of research and work!" This isn't what any new player wants to hear about a game, and you can't expect a newbie to be laser-focused on efficiency. Again, I implore you to think about it from the perspective of a normal person with limited leisure time, who doesn't want to think super-hard and just wants to make progress as they play, and have access to some good build options, and try out multiple characters.
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Speaking as someone who started playing this game only a few months ago... the Survivor On Ramp is actually pretty good. A lot of the starting survivors have a pretty solid set of teachable perks and the Survivor general perks are also pretty good. Like seriously... Kindred, Spine Chill, Resilience, and Plunderers are all solid and even Déjà Vu is invaluable to a new player who doesn't know the maps yet and can't find Generators. Will you be running meta builds on your survivors right out the gate? Well no, but you can pretty easily run a decent build on most survivors with minimal investment. Also the Survivor BP grinding perk is available on a free Survivor and the base survivor perks synergize with it.
Killer though... hoooo boy. That's a whole other ball of wax. A Killer having a set of bad teachables is significantly worse than a survivor with bad teachables because that's not (almost) the only reason to use a different killer because powers exist. Then to add on to that, Killer base set has like... one fantastic perk (Noed), 2 good perks (Sloppy, Whispers), 2 Ok perks (Bitter and Spies) and... then a whole lot of stuff that's either bad or super niche. To add to that, the killer base set has nearly no synergy and what little synergy exists isn't worth it.
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The first thing i'd want them to change is the Shrine of Secrets.
I'd prefer 4 Perks per role.
But also related to the grind, i still believe the BP reward for buying Perks you already unlocked the Teachable for is very low.
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Yeah, killer is sooooooooooooo much worse than survivors, especially since they are all very different.
Charitably, you can put together a pretty good build just by, like, leveling Dwight. You'll have Bond, Prove Thyself, Kindred, and Spine Chill which is not bad. I guess that's... something.
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I think all of that would help a great deal.
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That Dwight build is better than most killers can do to be honest. And, a lot of the other free Survivors can do that too.
Bill with BT, Kindred, then 2 of We'll make It/Spine Chill/Unbreakable is pretty solid.
Nea can make a fairly sensible build out of Balanced, Street Wise, Plunderers, and Spine Chill.
Jake can get a decent build out of Spine Chill, Resilience, Iron Will, and Kindred/Calm Spirit/something.
Claudette's build of Kindred, Botany Knowledge, Spine Chill, and Empathy/Self Care also is not a bad starting build.
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That Bill build is what I'm running in red ranks right now, can confirm it's really solid.
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Just to satisfy my curiosity, which of the 3 perks I mentioned for the last 2 slots are you running?
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We'll Make It and UB. I generally don't run Spine Chill, though I do swap WMI sometimes, may give it a try.
(For reference, I don't use teachables on survivors because I hate that they're skins if you do. Which is why that build is what I run)
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That's the thing, though, the grind doesn't teach a new player how to play the game at all, it just puts a wall up in front of being able to learn the game well.
I started a few weeks ago. Loved the killer role. Played Pig for a while and got the hang of the mechanics. Started running into issues with some things and did my research (through both the internet and the game itself) - oh, I could use such and such perk. In a normal game (say CoD for example, a competitive game with similar optimization locked behind a grind) I would continue to play and level up Pig and learn her finer details while making progress towards that perk. In DbD I have to start from absolute scratch with a new killer and a new set of perks, with a new set of finer intricacies and details, unless I want to donate all the BP from my Pig games to another killer (and thereby sacrifice items/add-ons which are generally critical to killer performance). Not to mention that if I do move to a new killer - oh, the rank is my overall killer rank not individual so no breaks there. I won't be matched with other potatoes figuring out a new survivor with no perks, I'll be matched with my level 8 Pig opponents.
It doesn't teach me the game, it actively hinders my progress in learning the game. So, why? Wouldn't it be better to unlock all killer perks from the get-go and then prioritize your bloodweb grinding for the 3rd levels as you learn which perks you like best? Wouldn't that also help balance the game in that developers could see that oh yeah, everybody runs BBQ instead of everybody who can runs BBQ?
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I suspect that your experience is similar to a lot of other players. The difference is that we never hear from them, because they stop playing.
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Leveling and resetting characters to this extent is actually a huge draw for me...
It's like an MMO grind you get hooked in the constant cycle of earning perks for new characters.
Cutting it too much would make me want to quit because I'd hit the end and feel like I need to move on. I have new characters maxed usually the week after they release AS IS...
Imo the time it takes to max a rift within 70 days should be the baseline for how much the devs expect people to play/progress.
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