My personal gripes with DBD at the moment
Since it's apparently the season of Complaining about things, I decided to air out a few of my grievances with DBD currently, I've also decided to rank them based on a 1-5 scale, 1 being problems pretty much only I have a issue with, and 5 being things most people will agree is a problem
Problem 1: Lack of Non-Humanoid Characters (1)
I use Characters specifically, not just killers, I want more non-humanoids, not just "not human", but completely animalistic or eldritch, currently we only have Demo, Dredge, and Xenomorph for this category, Xeno being the only one of the three to walk on all fours, I get why, killers and survivors need to follow a general formula in order to ease the work needed for animations, survivors especially since they're just skins (Trust me, we'll get to that), but at the same time, just once, I want a killer and survivor that completely breaks that mould, give me Malzeno, The Scrin, The Broodmother from Grounded, The Shambler from Darkest Dungeon, Blue and The Indoraptor from Jurassic Park, ######### I'll take something I am completely unfamiliar with or wholly original, just give me a pair of characters that do not follow the human template in the slightest and I will be completely satisfied
Problem 2: Lack of General Perks (4)
This was brought up in the AMA by Otz, and just like Otz, I am not satisfied with BHVR's response to it, Here's a list of the so-called "General Perks" we currently have
For Killer: We have Sloppy Butcher, NOED, Whispers, Bitter Murmur, Spies From The Shadows, Monstrous Shrine, Thrill Of The Hunt, Distressing, Insidious, Shattered Hope, Deerstalker, Unrelenting, and Iron Grasp
For Survivor: We have We'll make it, Small Game, Resilience, Hope, Lightweight, No One Left Behind, Deja Vu, Dark Sense, Kindred, Plunderers Instinct, Slippery Meat, Spine Chill, This Is Not Happening, and Premonition
That brings the General Perk list up to 27, Want to know how many perks are in DBD currently? 246, just under 11% of all perks in the game are available to you from the get-go, a number that only decreases with every single chapter that releases, and while these perks are (mostly) not bad, they're either outclassed by paid perks (Dark Sense, Whispers, Bitter Murmur, Spies), niche (Plunderers, Thrill, Whispers, Distressing, Shattered Hope, Deerstalker, Monstrous,), new player crutches you will inevitably outgrow (This is Not Happening, NOED) Or some combination of the three, I don't think any of these perks are altogether worthless or without a use, but it as to be said, 89% of all perks are either locked behind a grind for Bloodpoints, a grind for Iri shards or just locked behind a paywall outright, or and when said 89% includes things like Ultimate Weapon, Sprint Burst, Lithe, Pain Res, etc, it's not exactly difficult to see why the new player experience for DBD is rough, I'm numb to it given that I have just shy of 2000 hours, but it has to be said, new players are important as well and should be able to build a semi-effective perk loadout from the get go after a few matches, not after 20 hours of BP grinding and a few YT tutorials on which survivors are worth levelling first, speaking of which
Problem 3: The New Player Experience is rough (5)
If you do the DBD in-game tutorials, you will quickly realise one thing, they do not teach a new player so much as a damn thing that's actually useful, they teach you the bare minimum to actually play and that is it, the Bot match also only teaches you how to play Trapper, the single weakest and one of the least used killers in the entire game, the tutorials also do not teach you about looping, mind-games, the benefits of splitting up, etc. hell it doesn't even teach you about something as basic as staggers after a fall, a new player is expected to learn all of this on their own, which, in case it wasn't clear, is a lot, especially when they have to learn how to play or play against all of the different killers, learning how to play against Demo's a lot different then learning how to play against Xeno, or against Chucky, or Artist, etc. Now, I'm fine with this, I have over 450 hours across both Darkest Dungeon games, I am fine with a steep learning curve, however, many people are not, combine this steep learning curve with the fact that you have to grind to get literally anything resembling a useful set of perks, and you begin to realise that the new player experience highkey sucks
Problem 4: Blackwater Swamp (3)
I hate this entire shitstain of a Realm, I hate how it looks, I hate how it plays, I hate how I cannot find anybody because I only ever seem to go up against survivors wearing nothing but brown and green meaning that I cannot find anybody before all of the gens magically pop, I hate how the loops are either absurdly safe or literally just a tree, I hate how almost every killer I have fun playing as gets railed due to not being able to see ######### or hitting a random twig and getting stuck on it, I hate, hate, hate, HATE this place, please rework it for the love of god
On the subject of maps though
Problem 5: Map Design (5)
Self-Explanatory really, ask any semi-competent player what the biggest balancing issue is with DBD and they will unquestionably say it's the maps, some are either plagued by a terrible layout that incentives boring strategies (Azarovs Resting Place being a 3-gen hell) bad placement of generators which leads to absurdly safe 3-gens (Lerys and Dead Dawg), absurd safe main buildings that any competent survivor will immediately run to because the rest of the map sucks (Disturbed Ward), a, frankly, unholy amount of pallets which leads to a extremely boring "Run to pallet, drop instantly, repeat for 10 minutes" playstyle (The Game), or, in the case of all of the Badham maps, all of the problems ######### combined, it's not exactly fun loading into a match and immediately needing to go "Welp, I'm not having fun" and mentally check out
If you are curious, here's how I would rank the maps based on my general experience
Problem 6: Map Offerings (3)
Delete these stupid things from the game please, seriously, I am more then happy to give up the 1 in a million Jumpscare Myers with a Lerys offering matches if it means never having to deal with a bully squad with a GOJ or Badham offering ever again, there is not a single benefit that these offerings provide that isn't trounced by the negatives, they're not fun to deal with, they almost never lead to a fun match, either delete them outright or make them prevent that map from spawning, it'd make them feel far less awful to play against
Problem 7: Customisation (2)
Crazy that I say this, I know, given that we just got player cards, but I feel like we could use some more, maybe a fourth cosmetic slot for backpacks and other accessories? I'd like to not have to stare at a backpack if I don't want to, plus BHVR would have a excuse to add more cosmetics, which means more money, seems like a win-win to me
So yeah, that's my complaints with DBD atm, some minor, some major, some personal, some broad
Feel free to air out your grievances or disagree with me in the comments, I'm looking forward to reading them
G'night