A perspective of someone who started playing 5 years ago
I've always restrained from making a post here because it's pretty useless anyway, but with 5 years of DBD experience and a good overview of what has changed in the past and how I felt about the game back in 2017 and now, I still wanna bring out some thoughts that accumulated over the years. ( Also expect a bit of ranting. 😅 )
So let's begin: The game feels worse / brings out a lot of whining every patch, but why? Because it's actually getting worse. The game is probably in the most unfun state ever, caused by terrible choices made over the last years and the obvious greed that Bhvr doesn't even want to hide. Instead of really doing something themselves, they just listen to random whining people on the internet, so the core player base doesn't die, throw more new unneeded paid content at us, so the casual player (the majority, let's face it) is "happy" (OMG LOOK MYERS IS IN THE GAME, HE MUST BE FUN TO PLAY!! 🤡) and tell us bad excuses, when valid points are made "Haha, yo mad? Just play another game". Bruh...
Anyway, I had the following points way too long on my heart, and I just wanna know how the community thinks about them, so let's begin:
- Perks: Let's start with this one, and it might be an unpopular opinion, but there are just too many of them. Bhvr wasn't able to balance only a few perks a few years ago, and they won't be able to do it with the hundreds of perks these days. There are just too many gameplay factors that need to be taken into account, so a few single perks will always be at an advantage and thus are meta. So instead of adding a ton of these every patch, how about removing the ones no one uses anyway? How about only one new perk per new killer and survivor? It would also reduce the grind and make the game more accessible to new players, but Bhvr likes to patch out symptoms and not the cause of issues. (new prestige patch * cough*)
- Killer Add-Ons and Survivor items: A quite common theme back in the days with the killer role and these days with survivor as well, is that playing without bringing items or good add-ons has a higher chance of dooming your upcoming round to become a disaster and you having zero fun. An optional feature (optional because items aren't persistent like perks) to the game should either only have a balancing factor (you get a buff for a debuff) or not a major factor at all. Also, from a balancing standpoint you have to design the core gameplay around the strongest of them (else they are op), but this also means that playing as either surv or killer you HAVE to bring these strongest items in every round, else you're going to have a high chance of an unfun round / fast loss. Additionally, I want to level my characters for Perks and not waste a high amount of BP just so my games are fun....
- The core game design: It's just flawed and unbalanced, period. But instead of fixing that, Bhvr had the genius idea of just adding a heck ton of stuff to "maybe rebalance the game" over the years. What you ended up getting, and excuse my English here, is a big clusterfuck of things that just don't work out together. For example, over the years we hand many new killers that were made to fix one specific game issue, but it never really worked out because that specific killer fails on another level somewhere else. Let's look at the pig here: It has its traps, so survivors are slowed in doing gens, but this ability terribly fails if she never catches anyone or little amount of people. Her crouching ability, which was added, so Survivors are more scared, is extremely useless because you don't see anything, and she's just not a threat, because, unlike Ghost face, she can't randomly one hit ya. Last but not least, her launch attack: It was made, to fix loops but is just too easy avoidable, which makes her a bad killer for looping, and thus we're back at the first point - You'll never catch anyone, so your ability is useless anyway. → Let's sum up: We have a killer with a bunch of abilities to fix core gameplay (and it terribly failed) but instead of maybe shifting the killer ability into the core gameplay itself, we need new content (a weak killer) for the cash grab... 🤑🙄 - Now what ends up happening is that some killers fix some broken core mechanic, but leave out something else, making it so you HAVE to abuse that niche as Survivor, which ends up being no fun, because you can't play the game normally anymore... (E.g taking Victor hostage...) Plus, if you mess up early on either side, the game is already lost for you anyway and this is why things like Noed, Strike, Lightborn or Deadhard came into existence in the first place... (This was known 5 years ago btw, but no one cared to this day... ) I actually had a bunch of ideas over the years to fix these problems, like survivors having to refuel gens before doing them ( requires survivors to walk around - e.g. no Saw traps needed + a simple fix to genrush and also a fun new gameplay mechanic - imagine 🤯) or like pyramid head has it, instead of having to find a hook (maybe getting blocked and flash lighted into oblivion, survs are automatically hooked the farthest away from you with a barrier that prevents the killer in a 1m radius around the hooked/caged survivor. (No easy camping and tunneling + no need for weird borrowed time patches (maybe even a removal of the perk possible in general + as a surv can heal safely, before being chased again - imagine as well 🤯) ... Next up: One hit abilities and instaheals shouldn't be a thing ever: They are reminiscent from a time, where the game was designed around stealth, having to fear the killer and being "scared" of them, but the game took a different way and these days they just feel unfair and make it really frustrating to play. (also, they bring in the issue from point 2)
- Map design: This has actually been addressed over the years, but there are a lot of problems still. Certain maps are just not fun to play as either side for years now: Suffocation Pit -> Extremely annoying looping structures and half split map layout, Rotten Fields -> nothing to loop in the middle and just annoying for chases as well (easy undeserved hits and lose of track), Azarovs Resting Place -> A trillion pallets and the half split map layout / terrible mobility... Then also random weird hit boxes and objects in loops ( like the roots on Eyrie of Crows and the shack Garden of Joy - srsly #########??) Playing Bubba on these maps is just pain, because it's object's hit boxes are totally NOT designed in a way, you'd intuitively understand. Also, some maps just don't work out with certain killers (Hag on Midwich...Ugh)
- Killer abilities: Already mentioned this in 3, but they should be more concise and not to fix the core gameplay. (Piggy being a prime example, but other killers like Clown as well) It just creates more balancing hell and people whining around. Also reevaluate some abilities: Why is the nurse still meta after many years and nerfs? Because her ability is just game breaking for a game that lives from loops and movement tactics.
- Survivor side: It's just boring - let's face it. Sitting on a gen for 90 seconds, having to perfectly loop a killer or waiting on a camped hook sucks. Bring in some new gameplay that is not killer or season pass dependent! Since it's expected that you die with a probability of 66% it's also an insolence, how little points you gain compared to killer. Wow I can get 10K BP per category now... Well, DOESN'T MATTER, when I DON'T get ANY in the first place... 😩
- Killer side: Even after the patch, it's a common thing to see: "Pling, Pling, Pling" and you're left with 2 gens... Why? Because earlier gens are expected to be made faster, as you need time to initially interact with survs, and remember it's 4v1 - the killer can only ever focus 1 survivor the other 3 are doing gens (ideally). Do survivors need to go to anything before being able to do their primary goal? No? Surpirse!! 🤯 What could we do: Some requirement before doing a gen? That would be too easy, right... Instead, we get a trillion annoying perks like dead man's switch and scourge hooks...
Concluding: In my opinion, DbD gameplay needs some "loosening" - Meaning its gameplay needs to be stretched/given more time, instead of having a ton of crap (perks, addons, items) which is needed to have "fun" in the short amount of time when gens need to be rushed because survs are being tunneled (or vice versa) and the late game with camping and tea bagging. Eliminating tunneling and gen rushing with new BASE game mechanics would free the way for more relaxed gameplay and less toxicity in the community. We need fewer perks, items and abilities, and those that would stay with better balancing around a new improved core gameplay, which works on its own as well. The down of a survivor should never be instantly, but needs to be a definite hook for a killer. BPs need to be reevaluated, and map design improved for gameplay. Generally, it needs to be more fun to "achieve" something during gameplay and not having to gen rush or getting gen rushed.
What do you guys think?
Cheers.
Comments
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I didn't see a single solution reading through all of that. I think it is fine to bring up criticism but at least give something to work with. All I got was stop making money and remove content from the game. Yes, some issues you bring up are valid but share some ideas for improving the game. Just from reading your post, you seem miserable with the game. If it has held your attention this long, it must be doing something right.
I think variety is good for the game. I think that what they are doing with the patches is a great direction. They've promised more updates like this in the future, and I am eager to see the direction they take.
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I would love some sort of permanent secondary objective, ie like finding a fuel canister to refuel the gens and maybe there are only three cans per map, but they can be used 3 times each. They would take up an item slot, could be dropped at the gens and would help stretch the game a bit. But fiddling with this kind of stuff is always tough, as people are somewhat used to their gameplay loop on one hand, but don't want to play "gen repairing simulator" for 1:20min a pop. If something like refueling were to be implemented we should reduce the gen repair times back to 80s, obviously. And the gens farther away from survivors spawns or at the killers spawn could also start the match fueled, this would lead to interesting tactical decisions: go over there and risk bumping into the killer early, or search for fuel?
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Really, it's the developers who need to come up with a solution. He's just pointing them out.
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If they stop buffing camping/tunneling every patch it could be fun, the best strat is still tunneling someone out early and facecamp is even stronger against solo groups now, you're forced to play killer and make your own imaginary rules if you want to avoid these boring strats
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I brought up some ideas in my post, and it's also not my job to give nurse, for example, a completely new base ability. And as a software engineer, I'm not a creative person anyway. I also don't think Bhvr shouldn't stop making money, but it's a bit sad to see the whole game going downhill over the years, when at the same time the owning company puts barely differing items in an in game store and even wants real money for that. You really see where the priorities are at. The game has been holding my attention for so long, because its gameplay felt unique when I first played it, and still does to this day. Also, the alternatives out there aren't so great after all...
And yeah, variety is great, but they are shoveling their own grave with the game, as it's becoming more and more of a optimization hell and more players getting upset and leaving the game because of that.
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Yup, tunneling is never addressed by any update directly, because it's an issue with the core game and not a single killer. Bringing in perks like BBQ n Chilly only made tunneling less lucrative, but didn't erase it, really.
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