Would you say DBD is casual friendly?
I recently tried getting a friend into this game and they played it for a few weeks before uninstalling. They said earning points is too slow (even though I told them the grind was worse before, but they often get tunneled out despite my best attempts to bodyblock) and they can't play killer because they get extreme motion sickness from the first person POV. I told them the game might be more enjoyable if they learned to loop a bit but they said this game isn't "casual" enough for them even though I feel like it's still pretty casual in the end aside from the pip/grades system, and regardless of how some players like to sweat like their lives depend on it.
I'm curious to hear some opinions though: do you think DBD is casual and what makes it casual or uncasual for you guys?
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I think there is too much content to learn and the progression and monetisation is too demanding. It's not the kind of game where you can invite someone to play and they'll get the hang of it quickly, it will probably take them multiple months and hundreds of hours of playtime to get to the level of an intermediate player. That is, if they decide they like the game enough to spend money on it AND have lots of time to play it.
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No.
Not at all.
Taking the grind out of the equation, I've got maybe 1,000 hours spread over survivor and killer and I still feel like I've only recently got 'intermediate' on killer and am still an awful survivor.
It's a game you'll need hundreds of hours before you'll find your feet.
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The grind was absolutely not worse before. That's what BHVR pretends, I don't know if they really believe that it's true or are just delusional.
In fact the update made it significantly worse:
- for new players, need to grind characters to lvl 50 to unlock their perks now, whereas before you needed only the teachable at lvl 30. Considering that the first 15 bloodweb levels are almost free, that's a 2x increase in cost. Before you needed ~20 hours to get a basic build now you need more like ~40 hours.
- huge indirect nerf to BP offering drops now as you only get trash for the first 20-30 levels of the bloodweb, then you get some decent stuff and by the time you can finally sotckpile something then you have to prestige again. Same applies to items btw. It has become so bad that even long time players are running out of good items/addons while before most of us had 100+ of them. Now you see streamers run perks like residual manifest just to get a flashlight.
- As killer, the best and easiest perks are now mostly pay2win (Eruption, Deadlock and CoB specifically). BBQ does no longer give BPs. The BP incentives compensate partially for this but they depend on luck while BBQ was consistent and healthy for the game.
Regarding your original question: I've introduced this game to 3 different players and none of them played it for more than 10-20 hours (mostly due to the grind, but also a few very bad games).
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No, it was worse. Way worse.
- You needed BBQ on killer for starters, which was on a licensed killer.
- Sure. But once that teachable is unlocked, it's there for everyone. Previously, you had to then go and unlock it on anyone you wanted it for. So if I wanted Dead Hard, but didn't want to play David it was a schlep.
- The BP offerings are as good as they've always been. I think I also see a lot more cakes/puddings than I did before.
- Eh...Deadlock is not what I'd call a 'best' perk. CoB is a fine perk, but that more comes down to better perks being nerfed. Eruption is...Eruption. It's a solo stomper, but will often do nothing in an SWF match. And...you don't need to chase the meta, because the meta is always changing. Surge is a decent regression perk and comes baseline.
Yes, there is a grind that is a bit much for newer players, but it's better than it was.
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But a new player doesn't care about having dead hard on all their characters. They want to have it on 1 character, the one that they play, so that they can make a basic 4-perk build on this character asap. But to get this build now will be 2x more expensive because they have to go to lvl 50. Only 100+ hour players are going to care that they get Dead Hard on multiple characters.
The BP offerings drop way less than before, as said, I used to have stockpiles of them and now I'm running out of them (Not that I care now, but new players most likely do). Just pay attention to bloody party streamers the next time you prestige, you can pass a full prestige without getting a single one. Don't know about cake but I assume it's no different. That's because in the previous update we had the large lvl 50 bloodwebs with a lot of choice, so we could pick whatever items we were interested in. But now the first 30 levels have way less nodes and don't give us this choice. So maybe you get just as much stuff now, but it's more useless stuff than before.
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I've always played DBD casually, so I think yes. I find the grind much better now. It was a primary issue of mine prior to the overhaul, but I do still acknowledge it can be overwhelming for new players. I think it comes down to mindset. To me, it's a game with a learning curve and I don't expect to be an expert or get great results immediately.
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Gods no....the Grind is still immense, even with tweaks to it recently. Plus with how matchmaking can be, newer players can get matched against decent to great Survivors shortly and get demotivated if they lose too much, too often.
The tutorial is ok....but the game really doesn't teach newer players the real meat & potatoes of playing match of DBD. Knowing how to looping/run killers, when to rescue and heal, when to spread out Gens to avoid a 3 Gen situation.l etc. Then for Killers it can be harder with learning to chase, when to break off chases, pressure gens, how to utilize all the different Killers and their unique abilities. It can be a lot to take in. All of this isn't even taking into consideration Perks and how best to start unlocking them AND how many are indeed, locked behind DLC with a small chance to appear on the Shrine, which requires a huge time commitment to have the Shards to get Perks off of there.
Not to mention having to suggest people watch video guides or matches of DBD players is probably off-putting and requires a fair bit of commitment to a VERY grind game. Either the new player LOVES Horror Mobies and can get behind all the IPs BHVR has here, they like the gameplay enough, have friends that they can play with to alleviate the passage of time & grind. OR they're gonna drop the game after a short while because they keep being stuck with few Perks and options for their character and see the huge mountain of grind to even have the options to trinker with playstyles & strategies.
Heck, I'm a veteran player, having joined when Clown was just added and around the old Summer BBQ Event, who's played for years and unlocked plenty of Perks & characters. I took about a year, almost 2 year break and coming back, there is SO much catch-up for me to do...I can't imagine starting out brand new right now.
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dbd WAS a casual game... now it's just a bully simulator for people that are new to this game
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I think the big thing you're missing is the, what was it? 25% cost reduction to individual bloodweb nodes? A friend of mine recently got back in the game and she played Pinhead yesterday evening, and in not too many matches she'd managed to prestige him once. That immediately makes all his perks available on all killers, which is a huge improvement for how quickly she can put those perks into play. No longer do you need to go through 30+ additional bloodwebs, waiting for the right lvl1 perks to spawn in, they're just always there.
The grind improvement is the best thing about DBD's changes over the last year or so.
As for the topic's question: No, it is not a casual game at all. 6.1 raised the skill floor across the board. You need to know more, have more, and play better, on both sides.
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the grind was absolutely worse before, BHVR is telling you that because it is true.
- you don't get every teachable at 30, you only got one, meaning to get all 3 perks (which is what hitting level 50 gives you now), you had to hit level 40. Additionally, prestiging your character instantly shares all 3 perks to every single character you own. Before, you would unlock it as a "teachable" perk, which meant maybe, if you wished upon a star, you might find it in other characters' bloodwebs - but who knows, maybe it's the last perk you will literally ever see. Not to mention, you actually have to, you know, level up and get it, so even if you have maximum luck, you had to go through multiple bloodwebs to actually get the perks, whereas now it is simply added to your inventory. A new character comes out and I can prestige them that day, and they'll have literally every perk in the game tier 3 before they're even prestiged. Tremendous improvement, not to mention you can actually prestige without deleting a character's entire inventory now, lmao
- BP offerings are in fact most of what I see in the first 20 - 30 levels of the bloodweb, along with random brown and yellow offerings you can just blow past, because now, EVERYTHING in the bloodweb costs much less, and you get more points from matches. Higher BP caps, higher BP gains, matchmaking incentive, etc. Hitting level 50 is now easier and quicker than it ever has been.
- BBQ is from a licensed character you have to pay for, too, you know. There are plenty of really good perks you can get without licensed characters, such as Jolt, Pain Resonance, Discordance, every hex in the game besides Plaything, spirit fury/enduring/hubris/brutal strength, etc.
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I tried to invite new players but they couldn't assimilate quickly so one of them quited for good and another said he will might return to it later. He rather play VHS everyday despite low winrate and horrible queue times.
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Is DBD new player friendly? No. Is DBD relatively easy to play compared to other PvP games? I would say yes. I think people overestimate the skill necessary to win in this game. Compared to games like League of Legends or Rainbow Six Siege, DBD is a cake walk after you put in even a moderate amount of time.
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Not at all !
You really need to strap your ass to your chair until you're good enough to have fun, especially as survivor.
I wouldn't say the grind is too much now, I think it's reasonable, but it's not when starting out because you die a lot more.
Playing this game casually means even if you're trying you might not actually get better at the game because you don't play often enough to learn from your mistakes.
Right now I only have time to play maybe once a week (always chuckle at people saying they've "been on break from the game for a week", that's just my normal experience lol) and I really feel the lack of progress from no practice.
DbD is super discouraging when starting out, especially as survivor (since killer is easier on low mmr), so I understand your friend might prefer another game that's better suited to playing casually.
As it stands, DbD is beginner hostile and not a great game to start casually.
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meh, not really. there is a lot to learn in the game.
dont get me wrong, i dont think its hard to learn- its just that almost everything in this game is muscle memory, so itll take a while to get it down.
also the amount of perks/offerings/items/powers is a LOT to learn as well.
not to mention, the grind too. it might be a little better now but its still terrible.
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Regarding your point 1, you will still have to go through your main character's bloodweb now, because the prestige unlocks the perk only at tier 1, so you need to level it up to tier 3. So it's barely a difference. It's also extremely rare that you care about getting more than 1 perk on a character, I actually can't even think of a single one that has 2 good perks that synergize well (maybe Onryo?).
Even with the reduced BP costs, the math is still massively in favor of the old system.
Take an example, say a new player wants to make a basic build with 2 character perks + 2 regular perks. Say for example they want Sprint Burst + Self-care + Kindred + Resilience, which is decent.
After the tutorials, they already sit at 100k. Getting to lvl 35 with the old system costed around ~800k. So they need to spend 700k leveling up Meg to lvl 35, then they switch to Claudette. They still need to level up Claudette around lvl 30 to get the full build, so another 700k. Total: 1.4 Million.
Those however are BPs from the old system, since then the BP caps have also been increased from 32k to 40k, so let's apply a 1.25x "inflation factor". Total: 1.6 Million
With the new system, you need 1.4 Million to prestige to lvl 50. Then lvl 30, so 2.1 Million total. If you know how to cut bloodwebs, it's less, but a new player doesn't know that.
So before you needed 1.6 Million to get a basic build, now you need 2.1 Million. That's a 25% increase in the playtime. And not just that but at this point the old player can switch to a new survivor and have their 2 teachables ready soon. While with the new system they need to continue lvling up Claudette to lvl 50.
It's a lot of assumptions but I'd say empirically 25% sounds right. I had friends grinding before and after the update, and the one after felt significantly worse.
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Pinhead has three good perks, and all of them are some flavour of slowdown if you want to stack them.
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I've tried multiple times to get friends into DbD but its always the same nonsense. They do the tutorial, then get tunnelled out of a few games and never play again.
8 have played DBD in the past 2 weeks, 5 of which likely played for 1 game session. 37 other friends haven't touched the game.
I logged in to DBD and I have 0 friends in game. Introduced 2 friends to DBD in June 2022, they both last played on the 23rd of July 2022 lol. I'd love to hear from new players what made them stick to the game.
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Started playing during the anniversary last year, as a group with other friends, one of which had played a few games and abandoned back in 2019.
Out of the 4 of us, only I and that friend keep playing regularly (but not often due to university and other pastimes).
What made me stick with the game was my friend, and insane luck to have most of my first experiences be very positive (meeting nice players and making friends on the game).
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When I started playing a few years ago, I was switching games with a couple friends. We had one guy who had played DBD for a while and was willing to play with us to get started.
It was really helpful to have a veteran player when I first started out. Having no clue what any of the perks were or what was happening was kind of overwhelming. I think we annoyed the veteran sometimes with how bad we were.
I feel like it's gotten less casual since MMR was introduced. I'm not entirely convinced it's all matchmaking either, it's more like the player base heard 'rated games' and everything except winning stopped mattering.
I used to be able to just play the game, and most games were just fun even if I didn't survive. It was a gg, and into the next round. Now the 'fun' games are harder to find, and I think that's because 'winning' play styles are generally less fun to go against.
I much prefer having fun, losing games to boring or sweaty wins. I'm not sure there's any going back tho. I miss the feel of DBD as more of a chill 'party game'.
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I really liked the way Pinhead's power seemed.
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This game is one of the FURTHEST away from a casual friendly game I've played in the last 10 years tbh. The door to entry is pretty steep for Survivor and Killer... Seeing how much unorganized stuff there is in this game is like looking up at a tilted skyscraper.. Ya it looks pretty big and stupendous, but its foundation is and has been flawed from the get go and new people feel that "jank" when they first try the game. DBD could be more beginner friendly, but in order for that to happen the developers really need to let go of some of this older trash that has been in the game since its inception.
For example, the horrendous Killer FOV needs to go. This should be an option in settings and not a GAME PLAY HINDRANCE... I have had so many buds try this game out and of course they gravitate to the Killers, but the 1st question they always ask me is, "Why is the Field of View so damn zoomed in?" I don't even know how to respond most of the time, because I have no clue why its like that.. When they made the game, they thought that was good... Well they are wrong.. By today's standards the FOV for Killer in this game is complete garbage in terms of pure accessibility.
Starting as a Survivor is a miserable experience as well, due to this games COMPLETE LACK of a decent in-game tutorial. The one we currently have is still TRASH compared to what it should and could be. If the right resources went to the right places instead of constantly hashing out rushed content every 3 months, the game might see some actual "player base" gains and then not lose them within that next month. With the trajectory that this game is currently on, I honestly can't see it being more popular than it already is even say 10 years from now.
After you delve in for even a few games, you realize how stale and utterly lifeless the mechanics, player base, and game itself actually is. The Survivors are all skins of one another, so nothing to praise there and many of the Killers have HUGE game play flaws that make them feel clunky as all hell. The game is still suffering many bugs that have existed since it was first made.. Oh and cheaters... just ruin the experience for everyone, and there are more cheaters in this damn game than any OTHER GAME I have played in a LONG LONG LONG time..
I honestly wish that this game belonged to a different studio.. I would love to see what an actual TRIPLE A company would do to make the game play feel better on both sides and not have the community be at each others throats constantly. I believe its possible, just not for BHVR unfortunately. It's like having a kid then coming to that realization as they get older that they'll never be the type of person you hoped they'd be.
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No it's not casual...
1) To many things that are needed to learn...
1A) Maps... Loops, Totems and Gens
1B) Perks (both Survivor and Killer)
1C) Killer's powers and addons
1D) Items and addons
1E) Situational awareness
2) Toxicity... someone's always got something to say or do
3) Less rewards... less BP and spending a lot of time spending them
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DBD would be casual friendly if all the perks were unlocked straight from the start. This is however not the case and it takes forever to get them. Sure, looping takes some skill but that is about it. I don't think a completely new player would do badly in that situation after a couple of games.
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I really think having Survivors be unique would take a lot of that unnecessary complexity away. I mean like having Dwight be the only person that can have either Prove Thyself or Leader, Claudette being the "Healer" with Botany Knowledge/Empathy, and even Mikaela with stuff like CoH... I really feel like that's the way they should've taken the Survivor side of the game.. The way it is now is just so sloppy. Having Survivors be somewhat unique would add some structure to the game.. Would make for a much more interesting experience if they treated the Survivors how the characters are treated in something like Rainbow 6. Where there can't be 4 Dwights on the same team with the same outfits/perks, etc.
Imo,that type of stuff doesn't really add anything meaningful to the experience besides "Lol! We are wearing the same clothes with same perks, lol..."
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I'd say it's somewhat beginner friendly. Theres a lot to unlock and learn, but the core gameplay loop is pretty simple to get a hang of.
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To be honest it gets less casual friendly each time they add in 6 new perks and a new killer power regardless because a new/casual player will have a harder time absorbing this information compared to someone who plays frequently.
When I started there were 7? killers with unique powers and maybe 100 perks per side.
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Again, as people have said, playing the game is casual...it's sticking with it and becoming a long-term player and the game retaining those new, casual players that's the problem.
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On a scale to 1-10 I would put dbd at a 6.5-7 in terms of difficulty to learn. League would probably be a 8.5.
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In terms of its basic, surface level mechanics, DbD is a pretty simple game, and the technical skill required is minimal. So on that point, it's new player friendly.
However, where it gets really unfriendly for new players is in the lack of balance, extreme inconsistency between maps (which requires learning the nuances of all the different maps), epically inconsistent matchmaking, and of course that it is a game that isn't technically pay to win, but is effectively pay to win.
I've brought this up before, but the moment when I began to realize what I got myself into when I was watching an Otz video a few years back and he said not to be hard on yourself and to expect you won't start to get good until about 1K hours (now 3K hours in, I'd agree with him).
It's kind of a crazy thing that a game that is so technically simple takes so long to master, but that's a result of the unevenness of the game.
So my answer to the question would be new players will be fine unless they want to win consistently. Or won't be thrown off by running into random buzzsaws without warning (due to poor MMR). And have a thick skin toward toxic jackasses, and patience for learning the wide variety of different codes of player conduct people seem to have.
On second thought, maybe they should just stay away.
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Well, between how many perks there are and how many of them are actually used... There's a bit of a gap there...
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A problem that only makes it worse because look at all the perks that are used and how scattered across the game they are. What, you want to play someone else? Nah, go level these specific people.
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Agreed. I would say it would be a good thing to have every perk unlocked straight from the start. Not a fan of unlocking "skill".
Another thing in that same line is that I would suggest is that inventories for non-character specific items are shared between all characters and items that can be used by both killers and survivors are shared between all of them. I think it is stupid that when I have for example an BP add-on on 1 character that I cannot use it on another.
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Maybe an unpopular take, but I think the steady stream of DLC has actually messed up the game and is the reason new players can't fully get into it and stick around anymore.
I started in 2019, around the Stranger Things chapter, and it was hard to get into then, but a fun kind of hard. There was a lot less to contend with, being that there were significantly less killers and perks overall. Now, there are so many variables at play, I can't imagine anything about the game would be fun to get into for a new player - particularly solo survivors.
Imagine being a new survivor and being tunneled out because you can't loop (or don't even know what looping is!) match after match after match. Or imagine being a new killer and gens fly because you haven't learned how to track survivors yet, let alone downing and hooking them. Most people aren't going to want to continuously face that kind of hopeless feeling.
At some point, you just feel like you've wasted time and money, and cut your losses.
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The game has gotten far too big/complicated for casual players. It’s completely overwhelming for anyone who wants to play occasionally and not have to learn all the maps, all the loops, all the survivor juke techniques, all the killer powers, all the counters to killer powers, etc.
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I don't think it's casual friendly because it's quite stressful when you're not playing optimally, as mistakes are very costly. As a killer, if you waste a little too much time on a chase you'll probably see gens fly. If you don't know how to run tiles and mindgame, you will waste a lot of time in chases and end up having to break multiple chases in order to protect gens, which can be frustrating as hell.
As a survivor, if you don't know how to loop very well, you will fall way too fast in chase for you to enjoy it. If your teammates are more skilled than you, the killer is likely to notice you're the weak link and eliminate you first, possibly via tunneling.
To make things easier for you, there are second chance perks for survivors and gen regression perks for killers, but that just means you are pushed to get and use the best perks in order to have more fun in the game.
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No and mostly has to do with the match making and solo queue.
Survivors should be prevented against going against Killers with an kill rate over 1.
Killers who have 3-4 kills per match should be given longer queue times as to prevent them from the overwhelming and oppressive play styles (4 gen popping perks, etc).
this game was way more active and less obnoxious until spirit came out... that midchapter in july of 2018 with exhaustion really should have been the end of the fake nonsense.
instead, they doubled down on bo0st1ng rank 20 KiLLaH MaiNz and then introduced this bizarre MMR. The only person I know with LEGIT legacy (p1 Meg) quit a month after MMR was introduced. He comes back for like 2 matches every now and then and just leaves cuz of how ridiculous this game is.
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looping is much harder than chasing.
if a killer looses a chase, that's on them.
run into a tin can as a survivor for .05 seconds? YOU LOST THE LOOP LOL!
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Longer queue times for Killers, brilliant!!! Exactly what the health of the game needs...sitting in queue times longer!
/sarcasm
I needed a good chuckle, thanks.
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I really hope you're trolling.
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Nope. New player installs the game and is immediately matched with a 10k hour killer or 20k hour SWF. They proceed to get destroyed and never want to play again. It's especially bad on the survivor side because the killer will notice the low prestige levels, default cosmetics, low hours, etc and immediately hard tunnel the new player out. I still don't understand why killers get to see so much before the game even begins. It just lets people dodge until they get an extreme mismatch like this. It's compounded by the fact that new players have no second chance perks to keep themselves alive.
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