The game is in a very critical state right now
I just woke up and ideas of how to fix dead by daylight were flowing into my head, the usual morning procedure.
First of all, I doubt that any of these changes would ever be considered by the devs and some of them are massively impacting changes that destroy entire systems that have been built up, which already makes them unlikely to be added.
I think the game needs substantial changes to fix long existing and ever recurring issues. without them the game's future looks very dim, imo.
There are countless issues in this game, but to me it always boils down to the base game. The game at it's root is just incredibly outdated and stale. It's so bad, it is almost unplayable that way. You need certain perks to make the game playable, which is absurd to me. I might be making it sound worse than it actually is, since I'm mostly just referring to Decisive Strike and Borrowed Time ( or Camping and Tunneling) here, but they are game changing mechanics that make or break the game. Now, many people seem to get to the conclusion that Tunneling can be strategic or even necessary, and I would agree! Tunneling can be VERY smart and strategic, but that doesn't change how detrimental it is to the fun of the game. Again, some might also say, that tunneling isn't as bad as people make it out to be, because it's only really bad if you are playing bad as survivor and let yourself get caught easily again. But in my opinion, tunneling can be very much out of your control where your individual skill doesn't really matter anymore.
One recent example of that, which I experienced personally was against The Pig:
The game starts off by me running into a crouching pig which immediately got me hit and after some time got me on my first hook with a trap of my head. Well things like that happen and its really just unlucky, but the real fun began after my unhook. A gen has already been finished by one of my teammates, which could have been prevented, but since I'm playing solo, I'm at the mercy of my teammates here. The timer begins and I'm off to my first box, which happens to be the wrong one and I'm off to the next. Then The Pig happens to see my flashing head cosmetic and starts chasing me, eventually she did actually leave me again and I tried my luck on the next jigsaw box, but she came back and interrupted and slugged me on the ground in front of the jigsaw box. By that time my timer was paused on about half way, which is not very good considering I had only been able to search 1/4 boxes. A teammate finally picks me up again and I'm now faced with a detrimental dilemma of either searching the jigsaw box right in front of me or running off injured to the next box. Since I was already mildly annoyed by how the match turned out I started searching the box in front of me. ( At this point I would be curious to see what you think would have been my best option, assuming you're even reading my post this far. I personally don't think my choice would have mattered in the slightest, if The Pig wants you dead, you're dead.) She naturally comes back to my location and Interrupts me once again slugging me on the ground in the same area. Now I'm in the same position as before BUT worse, since the timer is now over half way. To conclude this story real quick, it wasn't the right box either and she slugged me again, which lead to my death, crawling out of the exit gate area, initiating my inevitable assimilation.
( This story was based on true events, re-told from memory )
The reason I brought this specific example up is, because it highlights a few key things I want to get into more detail now.
#1. Death is part of the survivor experience.
The killer lost the match, but so did I, according to the SBMM. I think it's fine that way if you have the regular interaction of two players and you happen to lose and died, but the dynamic or rather the lack of dynamic in these specific cases is very bad. And do you know why things like that are even possible? Because you can die. The only reason Camping and Tunneling exist is, because you are in a Stationary position and you can die early, that's about it. I think that's one of the things that would need to change in order to definitively address these things. I don't know about you, but dying is only "fun" or acceptable if many things are aligning correctly, e.g. the interaction between you and the killer seemed fair and engaging, so dying feels like a fair loss. The game overall felt fair and you just died as a consequential late-game event. But dying to a Facecamper or being tunneled off the hook without DS / BT involves almost no interaction whatsoever. You're just dead, spent most of your time on a hook rather than in chase, let alone repairing generators. I think it boils down to hook states and dying in general. Since killing is the killer's primary goal, camping and tunneling only make sense and are logical strategies.
My solution to this inconvenience would be to change how hooks work in the game. In my idea of hook states, hooks are not stationary and would work more like The executioner's cages of atonement ( NOT the same, just as a comparison). Picture this: You hook a survivor normally, but now instead of having the survivor just sit there fully exposed to the killer, you enter an animation that moves you away from the killer. Somewhere on the map, the survivor appears as a ghost like figure!! Leaving no scratch marks or any sort of tracking for the killer, practically invisible! After some time period, like 5-10 seconds, the survivor re-appears, making a noticeable gasp for air which can be heard by the killer, if he is in the near vicinity. How sick would that be? Basically the survivor gets a chance to re-position themselves somewhere on the map and therefore shouldn't be able to be camped or Tunneled of the hook anymore, since the hook would only serve as a means to add one hook state to the survivor and initiate that ghost phase sequence. Obviously it needs a lot of fine tuning and I didn't even go much into detail here, so it's not perfect, but better than what we currently are working with (Theoretically). One thing that I want to add though is, the interaction of other survivors coming in for the rescue of that one hooked teammate is what creates pressure, and is therefore crucial to killer gameplay. It's mainly the stationary part is what I'm trying to fix here.
Yes, it would make all of the perks related to hooks mostly useless on the survivor side, but my point being is, the hook mechanic is faulty and stale, no perks can ever change or help that in a healthy way for the game. That's also something I'd like to talk about next:
#2. Perks have either too much or no impact at all on the game.
I used to enjoy the perk dynamic of having your own personal loadout and being able to mix and match perks together to create interesting builds or strategies, but they don't really work like that. Its really hard to address this topic the right way, because of all the different killer synergies, a useless perk on one killer can be seen as essential for another. But perks are generally useless, with some exceptions though. Specifically survivor perks that are aimed at unhooking or killer perks for slowing the game down, are what strike my eye the most. They seem like band-aids for problems that shouldn't exist in the game in the first place. Think about it this way: "Why does Borrowed time exist?" Should DS or BT really have that much of a say in how the game can be played, especially if it directly impacts player fun? Unbreakable is another example of a perk that ca impact the game heavily. You can literally "win" the game, have all four survivors slugged on the ground and still lose that match. That is insane to me. My general consensus of those perks are: "Perks that are that powerful should either be basekit of they shouldn't exist at all." You can't leave these mechanics up to pure chance of them being present in the match or not.
On the other hand, I think most Killer perks are abysmally useless. The game is just too stale and simple at it's core. The only killer's that can actually benefit from them are the ones that struggle in general. There are really good perks for even the best killer characters though, for sure! But the lower you go in killer roster, the more you can see how these perks become band-aid necessities to some or straight up placebo to others. Again, the many different synergies with killer powers is making it nigh impossible for to come up with a definitive conclusion. I'm just trying to say, that I don't like how perks are changing the outcome of a match and how they apply as generalities to substantially unique synergies.
You will always see perks like the ones we have right now at the top of everyone's meta builds, because they alter the game the most. Which wouldn't be a notable issue, if it wasn't for the fact that they are playing around mechanics that can otherwise turn into literal AFK gameplay and can barely be called gameplay anymore.
Another crucial topic is cheating in dead by daylight:
#3. You gave the game out for free on epic games, at the peak of cheating in your game??????????????????????? That cannot have been a mistake, that was malicious intent.
The last thing I want to talk about here is the Skill Based Match Making:
#4. The game isn't designed nearly enough in a competitive way to justify a competitive system like MMR.
Dead by Daylight is not a competitive game, it never will be and it never should be.
It's important to understand that people will ALWAYS try to be the best at something, no matter the thing. There is a competitive scene for just about every game that exists. It's a matter of how a game is designed, what makes a game be either competitive or more on the casual side. From everything I talked about here, making dead by daylight competitive would be the most impossible feat. Now, I understand that SBMM can't only be used to make a game more competitive, but also just to improve matchmaking and the general player experience. That is true, but the way SBMM is used in this game is terrible. The system is based on rudimentary values that can't reflect player skill in any way, and on top of that, is making the average / above average players not want to "win" their matches anymore, since the higher you climb the ladder, the more unfun the game gets.
SBMM seems so badly implemented into this game, it feels like it was purely a decision made by higher ups in the industry saying "all online PvP games need SBMM, no matter the genre!".
SBMM is bad, but what's even worse is, that nothing is happening about out. From what I've seen, it's always: "The system is working as intended" or "Matches have been significantly more fair since MMR has been introduced."
If that's what their data is showing, then that means fair matches in dead by daylight are unfun and not incentivized. The game doesn't seem to be designed around fairness. Communication among survivor groups has been one of the most talked about complaints in this game. Coming back to the Perk segment for a second, perks that are really useful for solo players can just be replaced with good communication, making more room for more game changing perks. I don't think that's fair design.
The game is in a very critical state right now. The game is over 5 years old and it's future is looking very dim, in my honest opinion. You can agree with everything I said or disagree with it all, no matter the case, I think it's clear as day that this game has been standing on very weak legs and it's only getting worse.
What's gonna happen when they inevitably run out of popular licenses and the new player influx will come to a halt? The current playerbase is already declining. The core game has too many issues, which can't be fixed with new content. They are talking about "Game health" updates, I don't think this game will ever truly die, but they can certainly try.
tl;dr: L Game + ratio + you fell off + soon™
Comments
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Interesting read! I have... a lot of notes. I'll tackle them in the order you laid out your points, for consistency...
1: I agree in broad strokes that facecamping and hard tunnelling off hook are not particularly fun and should be addressed- luckily, the devs seem to be wanting to address both of these, so there is light at the end of the tunnel (pun not intended) there. My notes are that the story you used as evidence of the tunnelling problem didn't... seem to contain any tunnelling, since the killer actively left you alone and went off to presumably go do other things between chasing/downing you, and that I think your suggestion regarding hooks would be better suited in a competitor for Dead By Daylight rather than a change to the game itself.
All games have flaws and limitations that they won't ever overcome, and that's just the reality of it. Maybe that idea would make for a better game than DBD is! But, at least in my opinion, making dramatic fundamental changes to your game like that is something to be done very lightly, and not just because there is a flaw that exists. It could work, with very careful tweaking, but it's extremely far away from necessary and I'd rather see what we have honed a little further - even if it's just doing that first before considering dramatic changes to hooks.
2: Harkening back to #1, it is at least a good sign that the developers seem to agree both that perks like BT are too necessary not to be basekit, and that a lot of solo perks can be replaced with SWF communication. I do think you're a little too liberal in what perks you consider to be necessary (DS is nice but not necessary, also both DS and BT are anti-tunnel perks, not anti-camping perks? Minor point though), and there is always going to be room for solo information perks because not everyone can play with friends on comms, but in the broad strokes you're right that the current meta is as entrenched as it is because some perks just alter the game far too much.
I do think a better fix is to make those perks less necessary by altering base gameplay rather than just removing them, or even rather than just nerfing them, but I'm not quite sure if you agree with that or not- bit unclear.
3: So, literally and not as a gotcha- how on earth would they benefit from maliciously making cheating worse? What possible motive could they have to even want to? I don't want to be mean, but this is an extremely silly thing to say.
4: I have a lot to say about this one, so I'm gonna break it up into a couple of subcategories here...
4a: An MMR system is not inherently competitive, and the fact that DBD's system takes a pretty broad and loose view of skill brackets would hint to me that it's not trying to be a competitive one. I suspect that, to use Overwatch as an example arbitrarily, people hear "MMR" and they think of the ranked mode, without realising that Quick Play uses MMR too. It's just a tool to sort players in a matchmaking queue, there's nothing inherently competitive about it- even party games don't want to match people of wildly different skill levels together.
4b: I'm not sure why you think it's some arbitrary executive decision- people complained incessantly about how bad the emblem system was for matchmaking, and rightly so- it was genuinely unfit for purpose. What would you assume the devs would replace it with other than a standard, normal matchmaking system?
4c: If all you see is "working as intended" or "more fair matches", then as gently as I can, that's kind of on you? In the most recent QnA stream, the devs very publicly admitted the part of the MMR system that doesn't work and have said that they're working on a fix to it. You're right that the implementation of the MMR system has been very flawed, and that it currently doesn't work- but that's because of the matchmaking portion prioritising speed over accuracy, not because a system like this never could work. The part that I really want to hone in on here though is that it's not been radio silent and there has been indication that it's being improved. Whether you believe that or not is up to you, but the one thing you can't claim is that they haven't said anything about it.
4d: If "fair" matches (though based on what I've explained I'd call it more "equal skill matches", something like that) are unfun and undesirable, that's not a point against the MMR system- that problem doesn't go away simply because you get to stomp on some newbies every other match. It's a problem with the core balance of the game, and it is a problem, but it's not fixed by changing the matchmaking system.
In conclusion... I don't think I do agree that the game's on weak legs and that it's been getting worse. The game's actually been improving over the past year or so, even if it stumbles a little here and there.
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Hey, thanks for reading my post and writing such an extensive reply! That made my day.
I think you seem to understand what I'm trying to say here generally, but my choice of words and specific examples might have made my points a little unclear.
#1. First of all I wouldn't say getting facecamped "is not particular fun", it's not fun at all, it's borderline not even gameplay. As I said at the very beginning of my post, I don't think that any of my suggestion would ever be considered by the devs. They are just meant as a way of sharing how I feel the game is lacking in these aspects and how I think this game can be improved on. My hook state suggestion is something I came up with on the spot as I was writing the post, not even remotely fleshed out, but one way I think could solve those issues. You're totally right, such dramatic changes should only ever be introduced lightly and very carefully, but I think such dramatic changes are necessary for the health of the game.
Also the story I was telling was more about the concept of having death be part of the survivor experience, more than an example of Tunneling.
#2. I'm pretty much aligned with what you have said here, so nothing much to add there.
#3. Here I was just basically saying, cheaters are something that I shouldn't even have to mention. It's a huge problem in my opinion, and that one example of giving the game out for free on the EGS is just a hilariously funny mistake to me. I don't think there was malicious intent here, but it's just strangely counterproductive.
#4. About the SBMM, I did acknowledge how it doesn't only make a game potentially more competitive, but can also be used to improve matchmaking in general, just like you said they do in overwatch. SBMM =/= ranked mode, but it definitely didn't improve on the matchmaking experience. Also when I was saying how I feel the SBMM system must have been some decision from higher up, I just can't imagine why they implemented it so poorly and against all feedback, if it wasn't some kind of forced-on project. I do remember that it was requested by a lot of people, but they could have just said:"No, that's not gonna work well with our game." I mean, I really don't want to start a conspiracy theory about this, it's not that big of a deal.
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"In conclusion... I don't think I do agree that the game's on weak legs and that it's been getting worse. The game's actually been improving over the past year or so, even if it stumbles a little here and there."
One comment on your conclusion here:
I agree with you, that the game has improved a lot since it's release, but lately not so much. In other words you could say, the game has had it's peak, and find it hard to disagree with that. The direction the game is moving in is very bad, in my opinion.
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