DBD Social Experiments for the PTB
What are they for?
This post is about using the PTB to test Unofficial states of the game and see if they bring fun and more dynamic play-styles to the game. By unofficial is that such a PTB built should not be expected to be put into the next or future patch, but more that they help us gather information and allows us to more freely experiment with certain ideas.
Create your own Built!
As I will show a few possible builds myself, this thread also serves the purpose as a collection of EVERYONE's ideas for such Social Experiment PTB builds.
By titling your comment in the following manner:
We'll quickly be able to see that your comment is it's own Public Test Build and not a response to another!
As for my examples:
The Dynamic Chase Build
This build is about creating more dynamic chasing scenario's meaning that it's less about looping and more about escaping, while keeping a healthy relationship between the 2.
1: Scratchmarks disappear after about 0-3 seconds.
2: About 100-60% of the Pallets are removed from the map. (On maps where hiding is harder, there could be a higher pallet spawn rate in comparison to others if testing proved to be enjoyable)
(If the build proves to be positive, perks related to scratchmarks and pallets should be adjusted, but for the sakes of the test built should be ignored)
The Memoir Test Build
This build is about creating less dependancy on teammates and preventing the escalation in extreme outcomes: 4 survivors survive or all 4 die.
1: Generators take 100 seconds to complete.
2: For every survivor that dies:
-Survivors get +10-30% generator repair speed.
-Generators regress 50% slower per death; 100% regression > 50% regression > 25% regression: 12.5% regression.
-Survivors can heal-themselves up from the dying state, taking 40 seconds in total.
-Survivors automatically have self-care equipped.
(If the build proves to be positive, perks related to the dying state, self-care et al will be adjusted, but for the sakes of the test built should be ignored)
The Closing the GAP between SOLO and SWF build
This build tries to close the gap between solo's and SWF's that result form their access to communication.
1: All Solo's have Bond with an infinite range equipped.
2: Survivors can chat in the pre-match lobby, hidden to killers.
3: Survivors can see the perks and items+add-ons of survivors in the pre-match lobby.
(If the build proves to be positive, perks related to aura reading by survivors on survivors and blindness perks should be adjusted, but for the sakes of the test built should be ignored)
End note
Let me know what you guys think about the idea of such social experiment Test Builds and some of the examples named above.
I'm also curious towards your ideas and if you have your own version of a PTB test build with a theme behind it, let me know down below and make sure to use the Markdown title so it's easier to find if the Thread gets long!
Thanks for reading (:
Comments
-
THIS is what we really need. Testing complete different stuff and going full in with changes. Why? It's just a PTB, we test this one week. After that, even if it's trash we still gained new knowledge about what works and what not.2
-
How about you just let me enjoy solo Survivor as it is now? :P
0 -
I would prefer a lot more “tests” be put on the PTB, because as of right now it’s mostly for ironing out bugs.
There haven’t been any major attempts to close the gap between SWF and Solo, nor has there been any tests for it.
They talked about having Kindred for all Survivors, but they have yet to let us test it.0 -
@PigNRun said:
How about you just let me enjoy solo Survivor as it is now? :PAs this is a response to the "THE CLOSING THE GAP BETWEEN SOLO AND SWF BUILD" build;
The "THE CLOSING THE GAP BETWEEN SOLO AND SWF BUILD", is highly experimental. A lot of players have let us know that they really love immersive blind gameplay:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/34144/public-poll-all-seeing-vs-blindness/p1
Even though there are examples of Solo's really enjoying such interactivity with their teammates:
Such a build may not go through and that isn't the worst thing, tbh, because we can solve the SWF issue through rank as well;
(Chapter2, Section 2: An introduction to ELO, of:)
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/41674/why-everything-you-believe-about-rank-in-dbd-is-wrong/p1Although that wouldn't make it more"fun" (neither worse) necessarily, but it would make it balanced nonetheless.
The "THE DYNAMIC CHASE BUILD" build is also experimental, but a little bit less, as your ability to escape chases is also fun for the survivor and less looping and more juke-type of mindgames can also be fun for the killer.
The "THE MEMOIR TEST BUILD" is what I'd consider very NON experimental and they might as well put it in an Official PTB patch. Only the exact variables I'm unsure of.
Radical changes that would ruin your fun as Solo survivor would never go through (:
0 -
I agree and from the last PTB the devs stated to do that with the SC and legion change... next one I hope they put more out there... you never know what might spark the community (in a good way)... ptb how I look at it is the devs safe zone so they can test whatever the community wants0
-
@AlwaysInAGoodShape said:
(Chapter2, Section 2: An introduction to ELO, of:)Tip: If your comment needs multiple chapters and sections like it's a legal document or a book, it's way too long. Shortening them might get people to actually read them.
1 -
Tip: If your comment needs multiple chapters and sections like it's a legal document or a book, it's way too long. Shortening them might get people to actually read them.
Do you mean my comment above or the linked post?
My comment above only link 1 subject of the whole post and doesn't need the whole post and isn't even mandatory for understanding my comment. It's just available if he/she wants to know HOW we can actually use rank to solve SWF balance-wise, rather then just stating we could.
EDIT: If you also meant the multiple links like the Poll, that it just me providing evidence for what I say. What can be bad about that?
0 -
@AlwaysInAGoodShape said:
Do you mean my comment above or the linked post?My comment above only link 1 subject of the whole post and doesn't need the whole post and isn't even mandatory for understanding my comment. It's just available if he/she wants to know HOW we can actually use rank to solve SWF balance-wise, rather then just stating we could.
I mean your comments in general. Your OPs sometimes go on longer than some walkthroughs, and you keep quoting/linking to them again and again at every chance you get, but the fact is, very few people - if any - are reading such long texts.
1 -
If I get you correctly here, your comment is not about the linking, but against it being too long?
Here's what I think is too long: Having to invest too much time on reading something I don't know the exact subject of. Which is why walls of white text are so uninteresting.
For this reason my "long" post is split up in chapters and sections (and even subject), of which all could've been a separate post.
But I prefer separate posts relating 1 subject being coherently put together better rather than having things scattered around in separate post on the same subject, all needing a smaller (often similar) introduction and as a result rereading things.
(Since such a collection of subjects cover a bigger topic more widely, they almost always add to a smaller post as a link, as such smaller posts as a result often try to be less coherent paragraphs of such a mega-post.)If someone isn't interested in understanding the full picture of systemic and underlying problems regarding the game and prefer recent drama, then I guess my posts are just not for them generally.
0 -
@AlwaysInAGoodShape said:
@OrionIf I get you correctly here, your comment is not about the linking, but against it being too long?
Here's what I think is too long: Having to invest too much time on reading something I don't know the exact subject of. Which is why walls of white text are so uninteresting.
For this reason my "long" post is split up in chapters and sections (and even subject), of which all could've been a separate post.
But I prefer separate posts relating 1 subject being coherently put together better rather than having things scattered around in separate post on the same subject, all needing a smaller (often similar) introduction and as a result rereading things.
(Since such a collection of subjects cover a bigger topic more widely, they almost always add to a smaller post as a link, as such smaller posts as a result often try to be less coherent paragraphs of such a mega-post.)If someone isn't interested in understanding the full picture of systemic and underlying problems regarding the game and prefer recent drama, then I guess my posts are just not for them generally.
The main issue is their length, yes, but the fact that you keep linking to them tells me you're not getting the message - nobody's reading them (at least not completely) because when you need to refer to "chapter X, section Y, paragraph Z" of a forum post to talk about it, nobody's going to put in the effort to even read it. It could also be argued that constantly posting links to your own threads is a form of spam.
The problem is that even those for whom the posts are intended can't be bothered to read that much text. I, for one, want to understand your PoV on what the underlying problems are, and even I just zone out after a while.
If your goal is just to type out your thoughts, then keep doing what you're doing. However, if your goal is to have people engage in a meaningful discussion on those subjects, then your posts need to be shorter and to the point. In other words, your posts need to be tailored to the audience, as opposed to the audience being tailored to your posts. The former is how you get meaningful debate. The latter is how you create echo chambers.
1 -
@AlwaysInAGoodShape I love your posts and the passion you put in them. There are times though it seems it would be quicker to read War and Peace than some of your posts. You go into such great detail, which is amazing, but at times it does feel like information overload. Don't get me wrong, I read all of them, but as my ex wife says, I am a very strange person.
As for the subject of this post, while I play on console, I think this concept of custom PTB events/testing would be a great addition. It would allow trying a new, interesting, and sometimes controversial changes or concepts for a week or so to see if they have any validity with an actual play ground, instead of the small in house QA team.
1 -
@AlwaysInAGoodShape The Memoir Build should not reward survivors for a killed survivor. A killed survivor should be what it is now...a loss of another person.0
-
There are so many things I wish I could test to see if it could work but we don't control the PTBs. If they gave us a way to create our own test builds that would be cool, I don't know how they would manage it though.
1 -
Well, here is the dilemma:
In DBD (or basically anywhere), there is such a thing as a "debate". A debate has a topic, a debate can be started, a debate can progress and a debate can be settled.
In DBD there are a lot of debates:
The Hatch Debate
The Safe-Zone Debate (Related to open gates)
The Killer-VS survivor debate (branching into "This perk is OP" debates)
The Solo SWF gap debate, etc.
Allowing for Skill Debate/Unintended mechanics Debate (Which are in opposition of each other, but not inherently)
The Flashlight debate
The Rank debate (With children like the DC-debate, et al)
The Camp/Tunnel Debate
The immersion Debate
etc. etc.Now to take the Solo SWF gap debate. I remember making a post about a stealth feature telling you when your teammates are in a chase. I argued that in order to have an objective measure for survivor-power, we'd have to close the gap between Solo's and SWF's, as it's impossible to have 1 objective strength for killers (if they were equally balanced) matching against 2 different heights of strength of survivors.
Now in this debate, thesuicidefox frequently repeated that he didn't like increased communication. I reminded him that by ignoring it, you wouldn't close the gap and that he didn't come up with arguments why not solving the gap and having more blindness/immersion would be better than the other way around and why he had a "base-game bias".
But to check the point for myself, I made a poll asking for the votes between blindness(immersion) and increased communication (aura reading) and as evidence proved, the majority ruled in thesuicidefox's favour in the manner which people find the game most enjoyable.
This told me that the debate is settled: The Solo-VS-SWF gap cannot be solved through such communication methods that hinder immersion and have to be solved through different methods.
This brought me to the idea to solve it through the ranking system, by creating solving what I call (the non-competitive-axis,(meaning that if 1 represents a win and 0 represents a loss, the game can end in more than 1 win, as if an object can rotate in more then 1 direction at the same time, which should and is impossible)
while adding an ELO that incalculates the disproportional win-rate of SWF's to make their win similarly proporionally underwarding to that disproportion.
Now to me, the Solo-VS-SWF debate has moved forward, and undeniably against my post about the Stealth Feature, but I built on this progression.
This is mainly the purpose of the mega posts. They aren't really a "posts". They are the full formulation of a debate to the max degree it has developed.
I think I've made over 30+ posts now, and I've only linked about 3 posts more then 1, and those exact posts are mega posts that formulate a debate. (Typically I include 1 chapter with a possible solution, and this solution too confronted with the collective rebuttals and complains that I have found around a topic before creating it.
So the question is; how do you move forward in a debate, if instead of us creating a highly developed futuristic society (through linking non-rebutted posts), most of us don't keep track of our progression and keep reinventing the wheel instead?
What if an idea persists the criticism of 50 people? Alright, let's try a 100. Now what about a 1000? Such a system doesn't exit on forums typically. Instead posts become history.
Now what if you write a post in which you give a rebuttal of a systemic misunderstanding, like the Death-Efficiency problem, in which is shown why in order to rework the hatch, you must first understand why the hatch exit (to tackle death-efficiency), which could completely change what you believe is the purpose of the hatch. If the hatch is there to solve an otherwise impossible win, then it has to be a free escape! If the hatch is just another cool way to escape but has difficult conditions, then perhaps death-efficiency should be solved! With that in mind the only issue left with the hatch is the safe-zone/checkmate effect (Hatch standoff).
So what do you do when you read multiple "Hatch-Rework" posts, when you quickly find that they are all the same misunderstanding; not knowing that the hatch is supposed to be a nearly free escape as a result?
When people post reworks about the rank-issue and do not understand that the survivors and killer are 1 team, that the core issue is not "The amount you need for a pip/double pip should just be increased!".
If people are allowed to keep reinventing the wheel, then why should I not keep showing them how to make a cart out of it? Should I instead rephrase is (which summarises a huge chuck of forum arguments), or just copy paste the section linked?
They re-start the debate and I keep linking step 2 (and 3,4,5,6,7).In cases where people are ready to move to step 3, which i remember someone in the Death-Efficiency Problem post did by posting his own paragraph about how slugging and unhooking was too problematic in the same way your inability to heal yourself is, and could've been perfectly included into my post.
Since then I've continued building on his idea about making slugging part of the base kit, while providing the high-rank killers with alternative and more healthy solutions for expressing their skills, but barely anyone is ready for that debate.That is my dilemma.
Of course, if people perceive me linking my comments as shameless self-promotion (I promise I don't get paid for views), or me wanting to shove my own version of the game down their throat, then that effect is undeniable and bad.
My long posts are very un personal and I have no particular desire of having "my own cool perk creation" in the game.
I collect every frustration that appears with any part of the game and deem it valid, but I check whether their response to that frustration actually addresses the cause of it:In my Section in the Death-Efficiency Problem post for example, I covered how both factions believe the other to be OP is part of the extreme outcomes produced by Death-Efficiency curve together with an unequal learning curve between survivors and killers, but instead we keep getting the primitive debates about "X are OP". When I repeat this it's not out of self-ish reasons. It's just to move the debate forward, and I am happy that you used my terminology (Death-Efficiency) in 1 of your post, because that helps and forced people to understand something/rebut idea behind it and you just summarised a page of text to just 1 word, meaning the debate goes faster than ever.
Do we have trouble explaining why rank in DBD is not a rank, yet we can't call it a grind purely because some people can't reach it?; The non-competitive-axis causes this. Conversation over, in just 1 word.
So how do we solve rank? a competitive axis with elo system and rank domain. Problem solved.
"X is OP" > "Git Gut" > Both are wrong. There is an "unequal learning curve" that has to be solved. Convo over.
That ^ is how quickly we can eliminate entire threads that are stuck at the wheel and restart already rebutted conversations.
And since definitions of words that we specifically use to describe precise DBD-related problems, like tunneling, if not understood also need to be referenced.If I guess people view linking that negatively then I guess I could lessen it or stop, but my "Topic" posts will always be long, because their purpose is to terminate as many posts as possible that build on reused misunderstandings, and I can confidently call them misunderstandings up until someone has rebutted mine.
TL;DR: We don't have a gladiator system so we keep reinventing the wheel, which is why I do the things I do. The dilemma is that I don't see an alternative.
1 -
@XavierBoah17 said:
@AlwaysInAGoodShape The Memoir Build should not reward survivors for a killed survivor. A killed survivor should be what it is now...a loss of another person.It doesn't have to. Only when the Death-Efficiency curve is bent upwards and surpasses the efficiency at the highest normal efficiency at any survivor count, do survivors benefit from losing a teammate;
y = 3 survivors working on a generator (100%, thus max 133% with 4))
X = amount of dead survivors.
Everything would have to surpass the 1st dot in height.I believe the death of a teammate should make things harder. But what I don't believe is that the first kill should consistently spiral into the death of all.
This is what I mean by misconceptions.
1 -
its a really good idea but, to put some major changes in the ptb they must do it, and major changes takes a lot of time and they waste work and time on some potencial changes instead optimisation of frame rate and the graphic engine.
This could be a possibility when they get a large enough team to work on that.0 -
@BlackReaper said:
its a really good idea but, to put some major changes in the ptb they must do it, and major changes takes a lot of time and they waste work and time on some potencial changes instead optimisation of frame rate and the graphic engine.
This could be a possibility when they get a large enough team to work on that.Something comes at the cost of something else, basic economics, yep.
But when they do, I hope they get coders, excelling at mathematics (:
1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USzQikC8juk
