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Developer Update | January 2021
A new year is upon us, and we’re ready to kick it off in a big way. Welcome to our January Developer Update, a series of blogposts delving into upcoming changes making their way to Dead by Daylight. If you prefer to watch the update instead, check out our first ever Dev Tapes here:
The Clown: Gameplay Update
Kicking things off, The Clown is receiving some changes in the upcoming Mid-Chapter.
Our resident funny man has been cooking something up. Introducing the Afterpiece Antidote: This new throwable bottle shatters and releases a delayed yellow gas. Once the gas activates, anyone who steps in the gas receives a 10% movement speed bonus. Like your Tonic, this effect lingers for a few seconds after leaving the gas. You can swap between Tonics and Antidotes by tapping the Active Ability button at any time.
‘Antidote’ isn’t just a name! They will also cure any negative effects from the Afterpiece Tonic, so you’ll want to be careful where you throw them. They may make you faster, but a poorly thrown bottle will make the Survivor faster as well. Or you may want to lure a Survivor to an area with no pallets remaining with a juicy Antidote. But remember: If the two gases collide, they will neutralize each other and disappear.
We also recognize that every second counts. That’s why we’ve reduced the time taken to reload your bottles to 3 seconds (down from 5). Reloading will give you four bottles in any combination; you do not need to reload Tonics and Antidotes separately.
Last but not least, we’ve done a pass on The Clown’s add-ons. There’s some interesting new combinations in there that we’re curious to see what you can do with!
HUD Update
Out with the old, in with the new: We’ve all got some fond memories of the in-game HUD, but after four years of additions, we felt that it was time to rebuild it from the ground up. Seeing is believing here, so here’s a couple examples of what you can expect:
The first thing you’ll probably notice is the new layout. We aimed to keep things clean and familiar to long time players while updating the HUD. But that’s not all, the new HUD comes with a few tricks up its sleeves.
Character Portraits
No longer will you stare blankly at the generic figures in the corner trying to figure out which one is Meg and which one is Dwight-- you’ll now see the face of the Survivor next to their name.
Hook Counter & Progress
Next to each Survivor’s portrait, you’ll find a hook counter. This will help you remember who’s been hooked, who hasn’t, and who can’t afford to be hooked again. Killers will also see a meter showing their hook progress to give them an idea of how well they are doing.
UI Scale Options
Are you squinting at a tiny screen across the room, trying to make out what that text says? Or are you a minimalist who wants the HUD to take up as little space as possible? Either way, we have you covered: You’ll find new options to increase or decrease the size of the HUD in the Options menu.
And to any streamers out there, don’t worry, we didn’t forget about you. We made sure to leave a space for you to put your camera without covering up any important HUD elements.
Survivor Locomotion Animation Update
Keeping with the theme of updating what’s old, we have revisited Survivor animations. As the game moves towards a more realistic direction, we felt it was only fitting to switch to more realistic and fluid animations.
We have made a conscious effort to not change movement itself: Your inputs— as well as your character’s speed, turn rates, and acceleration—have not changed. While the actual movement for Survivors has not changed, new animations can make it feel different to control. We’ll be keeping a close eye out for feedback to make sure we find a compromise between making things look better while also keeping the feeling right.
Matchmaking Rating & Rank Rewards
Starting with some good news: Matchmaking ratings are returning in the near future. We have been hard at work tweaking the system since our test last year and we are preparing to re-enable skill based matchmaking for another test soon. For more information on matchmaking ratings, click here: https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/173606
But that’s not all; once we are happy with matchmaking ratings and turn the system on for good, we’ll be introducing rank rewards. Since ranks will no longer be used for matchmaking, they will instead be repurposed to reward dedicated players. Each month, everyone will be given Bloodpoints based on the highest rank they’ve reached and then be reset to rank 20.
The rewards are:
You’ll earn rewards for both Killer and Survivor separately. For example, if you reach rank 1 on both roles, you’ll receive a total of 500,000 Bloodpoints.
Please note: These changes will not be available immediately alongside the 4.5.0 update. This system will require further testing before it is fully enabled.
Graphics Update
In case you missed the reveal, the next realms due for a graphics update are the Gideon Meat Plant and the Crotus Prenn Asylum! Here’s a sneak peek at what’s to come:
Miscellaneous
Finally, let’s round of this Developer Update with a package of small quality of life and balance changes.
The Wraith: True Invisibility
A keen Survivor can see The Wraith while he is cloaked by a faint shimmer. To give him a small boost, we will be changing his cloaked shimmer to only be visible when close by. The Wraith’s shimmer will be:
- Completely invisible beyond 24m
- Somewhat visible between 24m and 16m
- Unchanged when within 16m
The goal of this change is to make it harder for Survivors to keep tabs on The Wraith while he is cloaked while maintaining an opportunity for a Survivor to react if you approach from the open.
The Trapper: Escape Mechanic Update
You’ve stepped in a trap. Now what?
Previously, you would have a 25% chance to escape a trap each attempt. This sounds simple on paper, but four attempts only adds up to roughly a 68% chance to escape. This makes traps pretty unreliable. Survivors could get out their very first try before you have a chance to react, or they could try dozens of times without escaping.
To combat this, we are switching to a flat distribution: Each time a Survivor steps in a trap, it will take them between 1-6 attempts to escape. What does this mean in practice?
- Between 1-3 attempts, the chance to escape is lower than before
- At 4 attempts, the chance to escape is roughly the same as before
- Between 5-6 attempts, the chance to escape is higher than before
(Add-ons which reduce the chance to escape will be updated to increase the possible number of attempts accordingly.)
We hope to keep the exciting “Am I going to escape” / “Am I going to get there in time” moments while reducing the frustrations and making it easier to understand.
Deep Wound Adjustments
Deep Wounds have gone through a few iterations, and the once reasonable 30 second timer now seems a little too generous.
We will be simplifying Deep Wounds: The Deep Wound timer is now 20 seconds long regardless of how it was applied. The Legion’s add-ons that remove Deep Wound time have been adjusted accordingly.
We wanted to add a bit more urgency to Mending while also leaving room for edge cases (such as needing to Snap Out Of Madness III before being able to mend).
Diversion (AKA Pebble)
Diversion has found its way into the hearts of many people in spite of not being particularly powerful. We believe that the world should have more pebbles. With that in mind, we are reducing the time taken to activate Diversion and simplifying its perk tiers to make it more useable at lower levels.
Fixated
Don’t you hate it when you get hit so hard that you forget how to walk slightly faster? Us too. Fixated will now remain active even if you’re injured.
Hex: Undying
We’ve been watching this one closely, and there’s a few things we’d like to address:
- Transferring the same Hex multiple times can get out of hand: Hexes are meant to be strong perks that can be destroyed, and having to destroy the same Hex four times can be a bit much.
- Since tokens aren’t transferred when a Hex changes totems, Undying was unpopular with perks other than Ruin (which does not have any tokens and is immediately at full power).
- Having aura reading on all totems also made it a very powerful tracking perk on top of its other effects, and is a little redundant with Hex: Thrill of the Hunt.
With this in mind, we are making three changes to Hex: Undying:
- Any time a Hex totem is cleansed, it will replace the Hex: Undying totem. Hex: Undying is then deactivated. This ensures that the first totem cleansed is never your other Hex perk.
- Any tokens you’ve already accumulated are now kept when the Hex perk transfers totems. This way you’re not starting from scratch part way through a match.
- Aura reading only applies to dull totems.
We hope this makes Hex perks other than just Ruin more appealing when used with Undying.
Iron Maiden
It could be very difficult to follow up and hit a Survivor within 15 seconds of them exiting a locker, so we are increasing the duration of the Exposed effect to 30 seconds.
Open Handed
Open Handed makes for some interesting builds, but the low values meant that you needed to convince other Survivors to stack it to see any noticeable results. To make this a more appealing choice, we’ll be increasing the aura reading range bonus to 8/12/16m, but limiting you to the effects of one Open Handed at a time to prevent it from getting out of hand.
To that one friend who really didn’t want to run Open Handed but did it anyway because the rest of the group wanted to, you’re welcome.
Second Wind
Another simple one: We’re reducing the time it takes for Second Wind to heal you after being unhooked.
With that, we’ve reached the end of our Developer Update. All of the changes mentioned above will be available for testing in the Player Test Build early next week. We look forward to hearing what you think!
The Dead by Daylight team