http://dbd.game/killswitch
I do not like how this game has been getting more and more strict in player expression
I know this is a very hot take but I am not fond at all with how BHVR has been forcing a game that's not even tournament to be streamlined and rules abiding. They have been balancing this game so much that it completely kills the little things that made DBD fun - like you're being corralled to play only a certain way. Like how it's impossible to grab someone trying to unhook or how you can't do a 4% without having a requirement or how Hex totem just lights up with an aura for you to see, Items were much more useful but now you get a rare one and you just go meh. There's a lot more but I honestly couldn't list everything without me opening this game again - I don't want that I lost the passion. I just feel like I have more fond memories of this game at it's worst than it's best? currently.
I just feel like gone were the days when I used to do multiple builds years ago. I know it's easy to point out how broken the four meta perks of apocalypse was but ignoring that it also had a lot of build variety and enjoyment compared to dozens of perks added by today. Was those builds super strong? Sure but I don't think it matters when the game doesn't even have an ELO system and both sides had their own strong builds anyway. The community has been either whining about inconveniences or they're self deprecating martyrs for their roles that accepts every change because it's the good for everyone lol.
I honestly preferred playing this game 2-3 or more years ago. Yeah it was unbalanced but it was my unbalanced game. If new players are enjoying it's current state then it's fine I'm just an old dbd man ranting about the good old days ignoring the bad things out of nostalgia haha. I don't even play this game anymore so my opinion shouldn't matter.
Comments
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Honestly I agree and was thinking of making a post similar. DBD isn't the same game it was 2-3 years ago sadly. If you remember there was a time when survivor ques would last 10-30 mins cause no one wanted to play killer it was a miserable time. Now it takes awhile to get killer ques cause everyone wants to play killer. It doesn't feel too well that a lot of the recent and upcoming updates are kinda like a "######### you, you're going to play this game so we have more accurate stats. Granted a lot of the changes are good some feel forced. I want DBD to be a good game but at the same time I feel like a lot of people might leave and realize how burnt out of DBD they truly are.
Even some games are advertently stressful now with all the slugging for the 4k and is going to be a lot more slugging with the new mori change. At this point I'm concerned where the game might go
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I also miss earlier days of DbD, and not just for these changes, but also for a much smaller killer roster, where powers were way simpler and you could get a feel for them quickly. Yes, there was a LOT of abusable builds, but it worked for both sides, and the perk variety was good enough the even silly builds could come out on top. There was typically a lot more variety because nothing had been nerfed to the ground yet, and thus allowed for mpre unique playstyles.
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Yeah, the insane number of killers and powers and all to keep track of is something that I find as well and that I get the impression not all that many people have on their radar as a cause for matches not being enjoyable as surv. There are certain popular killers that you see often enough to actually get a hang of. - But most others? Nah, how am I supposed to develop a feeling for a killer when I seem them once every other month? (might actually be a reason why I liked the first two or three iterations of 2v8 so much as well; got rolled? All good, try to do sth else when you're in that situation next game; because chances are you'll see the same killer again)
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I miss the 2019-2022 DBD days. That was like their sweet spot for me. Never had a problem playing either side. Now I dread playing sometimes, or I'll get excited because I watched a fun DBD video and now I have the itch to play. Then play a round or two and just go "ugh" and stop playing. It seems like after the dead hard update it just all went downhill from there. When I played killer back then I knew to wait out or try to fake dead hard. It was fun to do! Or telling Siri to set timer for 60 seconds… I mean… I never did that. Now gens go off left and right and everyone has built in second chances.
This game is just one big hand holding. Don't get me wrong, some things (some) needed an update but a lot of the updates have ruined this game, at least for me.
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I do appreciate there's a lot of fun times to look back on then, but the reality is games can't be casual forever. The average skill of the playerbase improves over time, the playerbase develops the ability to identify & exploit specific tactics (Looping is an amazing case of players essentially developing the game themselves by finding these strategies) and people running fun/weak stuff will always feel the temptation to equip more meta things. Casual multiplayer craziness is really fun, but it has no longevity- Balance is a fun preservative.
I'm certainly nostalgic for those wilder days as well, but I think all that nostalgia would vanish if I saw 4 generators insta-repaired with Brand New Parts again.
On the bright side, I actually think DbD has actually kept more of its casual spirit than most other PvP games. I still run into a lot of goofy situations, and it's incredible that still happens 9 years in.
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Nostalgia is helluva drug
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That is absolutely my biggest “gripe” about survivor gameplay. Many times the quality of survivors is discussed, about how they’ve gone down over the years. (This is a debatable opinion, but still) But the survivor role has more and more expected from them with every single new killer, and 3 new perks.
I think people dismiss the knowledge required to be competent at survivor role way too easily. There are 39 different killers, with different counters with no way to practice. You have no control over how often you face a killer. It is trial by fire every time. To acknowledge that knowledge demand but also expect high quality survivor skills feels unrealistic.I’ve advocated for custom killer bots for a long time now, so that survivors have an equivalent way to practice in the same way killers can currently practice against survivor bots.
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People just want to have fun playing the game.
I'd gladly go back to 2020 dbd when moris were more powerful, there was no base kit borrowed time, the HUD didn't show survivor actions, etc. if that meant I wasn't going up against blight, nurse, blight, wesker, kaneki, huntress, blight, knight, skull merchant running the most broken builds on the planet, (1950 blight win streak btw) and proxy camping, running back to hook, and slugging weren't in every match.
There is beauty in simplicity. The fact that dbd has bloated its roster and systems to the point where it is bursting at every crack of course would make people yearn for the game that was more simple. Like other people said, you used to be able to see a killer power and understand it very quickly in a match. Now I have to sit down and read PARAGRAPHS that describe only a FRACTION of what the killer power does. Why don't they explain everything? Did you know that m1ing as Ghostface resets the stalk meter? Well you didn't find that out by reading his power, I know that for a fact, because it isn't written anywhere. If you're going to complicate things, explain them, but if not, people will want simplicity.
The obvious "gotcha" response to that is "well if you're not having fun with the game, then don't play." Sure, but let's not pretend that it's the people who've changed. The dbd everyone used to love does not exist. It has been sacrificed, and this hollow fortnite clone has taken its place. Tomes? Gone. Lore? Screw it. Original characters? Nobody cares. All I ever see now are people begging for the next resident evil dlc, and asking when the other 100 outfits Jill has throughout the series will be added to the game. DLC tourism both saved (Halloween DLC) and destroyed (Resident Evil) the identity of this game.
If you are happy with dbd as it is now, that's your prerogative. But dismissing criticism because, checks notes, nostalgia? A time when dbd actually felt like it had a soul and the majority of people WANTED to play it? Okay lol
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I actually don't think the average skill has improved if it did it was done artificially and not organically. There's been a lot of hardcoded in buffs like Free aura read on hex you couldn't find, Game telling you what is happening via hud or the built in borrowed time. I think what kept this game alive wasn't the balance and more so the licensed characters that routinely kept getting updated into the game every 3-6 months.
Yeah 4 BnP was wild but I wasn't really fond of the items getting nerfed to the ground haha. I was using chest builds for years prior to that and when the item reworked happened I really see no point in using that build ever again. I think recently they also touched haste builds too? A incredibly niche build was poofed.
True although I can't say the same for the community took a nose dive when it came to it. There's a lot of balancing discussions going on what's fair and unfair. Not that it's inherently wrong but it feels like it's been overzealous in scrutinizing mechanics.
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I miss chest builds being viable when keys were better but otherwise I'm torn.
On one hand you literally can't afford to run goofy build anymore and the meta feels more forced on people but on the other you don't feel like you get flat out screwed as much by things like NOED or Dead Hard.
I suppose it comes down to preference. Do you like the low lows and high highs of old DBD or do you want a more evened out experience of current DBD? My worry about present DBD is it probably is more fair overall but I wonder if that makes it get stale quicker despite the growing roster?
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As someone who's been playing dbd for almost 8 years (day 1 console drop) i can say dbd is not in a good state now a days it's a struggle to play the game as survivor between 38 killers you gotta learn how to deal with the constant nerf to survivor perks or the rework of the perks and the constant map reworks have killed my enjoyment of the game to where i just get on with a friend or two just to mess around. I miss old dbd where some of the perks where stupidly busted like old ds and dh 😂 or the old injured build of spine chill and resilience combo and the old maps that had some infinites 😂 like old mcmillan maps 😂 or the double pallets loops 😂 yes some of the changes I've agreed with like the for the people buckle up change it was frustrating as killer to deal with it but other changes left me scratching my my head like bring bt in as basic kit or basic mori change and i know this been beaten to death but mmr and the reworked rank system i miss depiping and deranking because it felt like if you want to get to rank 1 you had to be smart and learn the mechanics of the game to sit at that rank and the flashlight change was so not needed like blinding wraith out of clocking nurse when she was mid blink or artist crows yes i know some killer would disagree with me on it but it what it is and just the constant nerf to survivor add ons or items and the hatch change i miss the stand offs with killers 😂 but what can i say that's not been said a million times by many others people who play survivor killers got it way to easy now a days and that coming form someone who plays killers if bhvr would actually listen to the community as a whole and not just the big time fog whisper and content creators this game would act still be fun but nope use hard core players don't get listened to and get told to pretty much to deal with it 😂
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I continue to be mystified by all the complaining from folks that "never play the game anymore". I am having more fun than ever with this game and have never seen it in a better state than the one it is currently in.
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Honestly, I would prefer they start just start doing 1 perk for character release. We have perk bloat.
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That is an interesting point, my friend, and I may add a little something:
It comes down to preference… to a certain extent. Because if you prefer the highs and lows (mostly highs though) of Old DBD… well, tough luck, you're stuck with the modern game until BHVR decides to release a classic modifier, if they decide to do so.
Personally, I think the early 2019 DBD before Freddy's rework was the peak of Dead by Daylight, I wouldn't hesitate to return to it if I could. Problem is, I can't. No one can.
If you like the Old DBD, and many people do, there isn't much you can really do about it. I don't think an effort was ever done to preserve some of its aspects or, at least, allow custom games to replicate the old game. You're stuck with videos, screenshots and memory, which leads to valid arguments and points being dismissed as "nostalgia", even when you remember it very clearly and have a deep understanding of how things used to be.
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i support this.
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I miss the chaos and wildness of DBD from like 2021 and before the most. Imo we've efficiented out most of the fun.
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I'd gladly go back to 2020 dbd when moris were more powerful, there was no base kit borrowed time, the HUD didn't show survivor actions, etc. if that meant I wasn't going up against blight, nurse, blight, wesker, kaneki, huntress, blight, knight, skull merchant running the most broken builds on the planet, (1950 blight win streak btw) and proxy camping, running back to hook, and slugging weren't in every match.
See the thing is, people had the exact same complaint of constantly going against Nurse and Spirit back then, who were even stronger, Billy was also up there until he got nerfed, and then he was replaced with Blight shortly after. Build diversity in the higher ranks were almost non existent since the more gimmicky perks you have nowadays were even worst than they are now. Slugging was also very much prevalent since the only real way to combat it was Unbreakable, and you couldnt tell if someone just decided to give up and not recover until you ran up to them. People killing themselves on hooks and DCs were even more prevalent than they are now because there was no penalty of doing so other than losing pips, which no one gave a ######### about since BP rewards werent a thing yet. Not to mention cheaters were also a much bigger issue back then.
Power simplicity is something that I can agree with, how ever for a game to stay alive it does need new ways to keep old players and more complex powers mean it takes longer to learn. This is a problem that every live service game that adds new characters regularly suffers from and I cant think of a solution for it.
I do have problems with modern day DbD dont get me wrong, the last midchapter is probably the worst thing theyve ever done to this game and that's something Ill stick by for the rest of time. That being said, DbD's soul is its community, and the game headed in its direction (for the most part) as a direct response from us. A LOT of the things we asked for back then are now in the game, but even then... its still doesnt feel the same, it doesnt have that same spark.
I do still remember those times (especially 2018) fondly as I probably enjoyed the game the most at that point, even if my PC was a literal dorito that could only run the game at 20fps (15 if it was Doctor lol) but thats because the players and community were so much different back then. If I could go back in time to relive those moments I would, but would I want to go back to 2018/2020 DbD with the modern day mindset? Absolutely not.
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Nurse and spirit are a tier of their own and shouldn't be used as an accurate representation of the killers released in that era. Try pig, clown, plague, ghostface. Those are all more accurate representations of killers released then. Build diversity is a moot point because we've added 100+ perks, yet only the same top 20 get run on either side. I'd rather there only be 5 unique builds for both sides rather than there being the illusion of more than 5 like we have now.
I don't know where people get this idea that games need to "change it up" in order to retain their players. They really don't, especially if it's an asymmetrical game like dbd. If your game loop is good, people will play it. "Live service" is a fancy way of saying DLC is the primary revenue stream. You don't need DLC to enjoy a game for what it is. A game like Skyrim is going on 14 years old, and it has comparable player numbers to dbd. If you need the game to change in order to like it, you didn't like the game in the first place.
DbD's soul is the community yes, yet the original community has been sidelined for the DLC tourists. I understand that direction from a business perspective, but that further shows my point that dbd's soul was sold to the fortnite gods.
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Im not using Nurse and Spirit as an example of killers released in that era, Im using them as an example as people were complaining back then. "All you see are the same killers! Nurse, Spirit, Blight!". Nothing has changed in that regard.
Skyrim is also not a good example at all and only gets about half the players DbD gets nowadays. I also dont know a single person who plays the base game, they usually mod the crap out of the game to keep things fresh.
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People will always complain. My point was those two in particular were probably the only two killers back then whose complaints were actually valid based on the lack of counterplay.
I just looked at the current player count for skyrim special edition, and its sitting at 35k. Is 35k (on steam only) a bad player count for a 14 year old game in your opinion? I would expect a 14 year old game to only get a fraction of players compared to the game that's about to have its anniversary while simultaneously dropping the most hyped crossover in the genre (fnaf). And no, once people settle on a mod list after ironing it out for multiple days, they usually stick to it, or make very small changes. But still, modding is sold as a base part of the game, aka it is a feature of it. You wouldn't call skyrim live service because it supports mods. It simply has a system that allows players more authority over their gaming experience. Most mod lists are engine and graphic overhauls anyway.
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If I could go back in time to relive those moments I would, but would I want to go back to 2018/2020 DbD with the modern day mindset? Absolutely not.
Not up for the challenge, friend?
I certainly am, if given the chance. Anything for Old Freddy.
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So then are you saying your own complaints of going against, and I quote: "blight, nurse, blight, wesker, kaneki, huntress, blight, knight, skull merchant running the most broken builds". You named 7 killers here? When before not only was it 2 killers, but they far stronger than the ones listed here??? What is your point here???
Also I never said the playercount is bad for how old the game is. You just mentioned how their numbers are comparable when they really arent. This is using steam charts for both games from the past year:
Dead by Daylight:
Skyrim:
Also mods are in fact a big selling point of the game, but you also have the option to switch things up at will to keep things fresh which is exactly why the game has lasted this long. DbD keeps in longevity purely because of its constant updates. Had the game stayed the same as back then, I can guarantee you we wouldnt be having this conversation.
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A classic mode to revisit old mechanics I would 100% be down, but to just go back to that for a bit... Im sorry but it wouldnt be nearly as good as youd think. We can see this with Overwatch Classic. Theyve done several itterations of this and while it wasnt a 1/1 recreation it was still pretty damn close, and it kinda gets old pretty quick.
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For me it would be perfect, friend.
I played all of the OW Classic events and they were, by far, the most fun I had with Overwatch since they made the change from the original game to OW 2.
The only scenario where it wouldn't be as good as I think, my friend, is if Old Freddy was not available. Then it wouldn't be fun, I agree.
But if he was? Ha, I wouldn't even think of playing anything else.
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I miss the older days' spirit. I do not miss the older days' more exploitable strengths and builds and perks and Killer powers. I definitely do not miss infinites, DH for Distance, the hatch spawning for everyone to escape through, or no actual protection for Survivors being BMed. Killers still tunnelled and face camped and slugged; DS made you untouchable then and flashlights were a nightmare. The Old Days were not all sun and roses.
The problem is BHVR did not create this mess. We did. The community did. Whenever they fixed anything, we developed sweatier and sweatier strats. 3Gen meta happened and Survs learned hyperefficiency. So Killers compensated with even more tunnelling, slugging, and camping. Then MFT meta happened so everyone learned to do those things on the strongest possible Killers. Then that got nerfed, then everyone just continued to genrush and slug-tunnel-camp even harder over and over, now BHVR has to play the catchup game because none of us can simply calm the actual heck down for five seconds and chill when we see the other side struggle hard. There is no sportsmanship left in DBD anymore, it's dead. And we killed it.
It's us. We are the problem.
Edit: You can downvote me because the truth hurts all you want. The facts are WE decided to make this community become what it is. WE made toxicity, WE made up terms for things that the Devs put in the game, WE are the ones who complain when changes WE ASKED FOR don't do exactly what WE want, and WE are the ones griefing each other. BHVR did NOT make the game have toxic players in it.
Post edited by LockerLurk on-3 -
When people begged for changes, these are the results. How edgy this might sound to you but you reap what you sow. This phrase holds true even in today's geopolitics.
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Your whole first paragraph doesn't make sense to me, sorry.
Look between december and march on your screenshots. DbD only peaks during big events and DLC releases. Without the DLC tourists stopping by for a month, skyrim has identical player numbers. Skyrim actually BEAT dbd in numbers in January. Guess who is staying in between the licensed DLC drops? That's right, the people that actually CARE about dbd as a game and not as a tourist attraction. So no, you're just wrong.
Mods are a big selling point, but they cost nothing. They are completely player driven. They are a base part of the game when you buy it the first time. You also conveniently ignored my point that people who mod skyrim don't do it at the rate that DbD releases updates. Once you have your mod list it does not really change. Saying you can mod your game doesn't mean you change it at a similar cadence to a live service game.
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I am looking at the stats, but imo an average playercount gives a much better picture than peak player count. Its also worth mentioning that this is steam alone, which I believe is smaller than both Xbox and PS. I cant imagine Skyrim has that big of a playerbase on either of these platforms due to the inability to mod it.
Terms of the modding frequency, maybe you dont change things up but I have several friends who do switch things up frequently as they have sort of phases every few months. Your experience doesnt represent everybody elses
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I'm not talking about my experience only, and likewise for your anecdote. Just because you have a small handful of friends who aren't satisfied with their mod lists and need rapid change doesn't mean that's an accurate representation of the majority of players.
You also can mod skyrim on xbox and playstation.
January still stands for your average month metric, but I still don't know what you're trying to prove. Do you know how many games would give anything for 20k players after 1 year? "Oh but it's not one to one exact." I said comparable numbers not the same.
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yknow what ok you win 🏆
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I'm not trying to win anything, I'm just trying to have an honest discussion. If you don't want that, then sure, let's agree to disagree.
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This. More isnt better. Been saying this for years. We don't need new killers and survivors and more perks every 3 months.
Dude my issue with DBD now, and it took awhile to figure this out is the games pacing and convoluted content being crammed down our throats.
The Pacing is awful. Match after match the killer is on someone within 10 seconds, and said survivor is downed within 30 seconds. Right off the rip your playing defensively trying to prevent teammates from dying. And depending on how the killer plays and which killer it is the game tends to snowball quick bc the killers just go right back to the hook via proxy camping/tunneling and down and kill the survivor fast turning it into a 3v1 within the first few minutes of the match.
I see this so often. The first hook you get it's basically game over for the player if the killer feels like being dirty.
And once it's a 3v1 depending on the map it just feels... pointless.
You used to be able to breathe. Crouch around some, be a little stealthy and didn't feel so rushed all the time. It used to be scary. I understand gen rushing from the killers pov and the argument for said dirty tactics but man the pacing blows.
And now with so many killers with unique abilities and so many perks every time they attempt a balance change for either side it weakens or kills perks rendering them useless to the point we have an over abundance of niche useless perks for both sides giving the illusion of variety of perk builds.
Dbd is near and dear to me. It has a special place in my heart. But things are rough for solo q survivor. It just isn't very fun quick jumping into matches like it used to be.
There's hardly and chasing anymore with the constant map changes, unsafe pallets all over the place. This game just needs a change of pace. We need to bring back focusing on chasing and cat and mouse tactics instead of map teleporting powers and Aura revealing perks and addons all over the place lol
Idk.
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There are 2 parts to this
BHVR releasing Anti-Loop Killers back to back
And adding in Killers/Survivors playstyles given at the time
So it was unavoidable to have it turn to this
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Plus nerfing tiles in general to be more 50-50ish. I mean I get it from a balanced point but losing a continuous coin flip because the killer refuse to destroy the pallet is kinda eh lol
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I'll jump in. I agree with most of what Shroompy said, but will add on my own:
Let's go back to the original claim
I don't know where people get this idea that games need to "change it up" in order to retain their players. They really don't, especially if it's an asymmetrical game like dbd. If your game loop is good, people will play it. "Live service" is a fancy way of saying DLC is the primary revenue stream. You don't need DLC to enjoy a game for what it is. A game like Skyrim is going on 14 years old, and it has comparable player numbers to dbd. If you need the game to change in order to like it, you didn't like the game in the first place.A couple of issues:
1: At its height, Skyrim had 287,411 players on Steam. The release of the special edition saw a height of 69,777 players.
Simply put, Skyrim has only retained a fraction of their players. If DbD stopped 'changing it up', they would retain some players certainly, but not nearly the amount that currently play the game.
2: The games are radically different genres. Different genres have different lifespans. As an example, X-Com 2 released the same year as DbD and right now ~5k people are playing it. Does that make it a bad game? No, X-Com 2 was awesome, worth multiple plays, but not something to play consistently for years.
3: DbD hasn't just retained their players by changing it up, they grown over the years.
4: Even people who are clamoring for an older version usually want a version somewhere along the line (i.e. not the OG) - such as claiming 2019, or 2020, or 2021 was the best year. Basically everyone wants some of what BHVR changed up, just not everything.
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There are multiple issues with your post.
First, your assertion that because dbd has changed it up they've "retained" players is wrong. Looking on steam charts, dbd has not had a lasting standing increase in average monthly player count (that hasn't lasted more than a month for DLC releases) since the start of the pandemic back in 2020. For the "change it up" theory to be correct, dbd's average monthly player count would have seen a steady increase due to the amount of DLC releases. This means one or two things: 1) the players who join for DLC do not stay after the first month, and 2) the players that have joined from new DLCs are joining at a rate proportional to the players leaving because dbd just isn't the game it used to be. Either way, that's not "growing."
Second, I don't disagree with your point about different games having different lifespans, but is your assumption working on the fact that you think people should be playing the same game every single day? Is your argument based on the fact that the only way for dbd to retain players that play 4 hours a day, 7 days a week, is to constantly cater to those players as opposed to the average player? My point about skyrim is that it has not had a content update in almost 12 years, yet is still sees numbers comparable to dbd, showing that you don't need a constant stream of DLC updates to have good player numbers.
Third, like I said, dbd has not had any significant growth since 2020.
Fourth, that's correct, but around 2019/2020 is the point in which the majority of people agree would be an ideal middle ground to return to - before dbd starting going majorly downhill.
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Changes overall are ok. Keeps the game alive and fresh.
But i really don´t like the changes they do noone ever asked for or wanted. And they never go back on these.
New UI is still worse than the old one. Colour change is not good. Renaming to "quests" and the whole system is so average. And all the aura reading…
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Even people who are clamoring for an older version usually want a version somewhere along the line (i.e. not the OG) - such as claiming 2019, or 2020, or 2021 was the best year.
A couple years ago, 2019 DBD was generally agreed by the community here to be the best DBD had ever been.
Sure, not every single Forum member agreed with this, but there was a general idea that it was a good time to be playing the game.
Personally, I agree only if it is before Freddy's rework. Anything after that isn't worth it. DBD isn't worth it without him.
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Modern DBD is still unbalanced btw so the game is both unbalanced and unfun.
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A few responses:
First, your assertion that because dbd has changed it up they've "retained" players is wrong. Looking on steam charts, dbd has not had a lasting standing increase in average monthly player count (that hasn't lasted more than a month for DLC releases) since the start of the pandemic back in 2020.This confuses retention and growth.
Retention - we have no idea how many players are being retained vs players leaving and being replaced, but the player count numbers having remaining in a stable 30k to 40k range for the last five years.
Growth - The numbers have trickled slightly upwards over that time, which I'll cover a little more later.
Second, I don't disagree with your point about different games having different lifespans, but is your assumption working on the fact that you think people should be playing the same game every single day?What?
We're talking about overall player numbers. I literally have no idea where you're going here.
Third, like I said, dbd has not had any significant growth since 2020.'Significant' is incredibly subjective. Games almost always lose players over their lifespans, games that are growing at all are an extreme minority. I'm sure there are a few other examples, but games running on ~10 year old engines that have any level of player growth are all live service or MMO style games. The fact that DbD is experiencing growth at any level is rather remarkable.
My point about skyrim is that it has not had a content update in almost 12 years, yet is still sees numbers comparable to dbd, showing that you don't need a constant stream of DLC updates to have good player numbers.Skyrim is one of the biggest, most successful games of all time. Just 'be a Skyrim' is not practical advice.
It also ignores the larger point I made that Skyrim, like the vast majority of games, has seen its players numbers significantly decline over time without those updates. Skyrim has retained approximately about 10% of its player base compared to its height, but its height was about 10 times the size of DbD's current average.
Fourth, that's correct, but around 2019/2020 is the point in which the majority of people agree would be an ideal middle ground to return to - before dbd starting going majorly downhill.Majority seems subjective. Every time posts like this come up there are many people I see replying in the comments that the game is in a generally better state than its ever been.
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I would expect for someone who is lecturing me on "subjective" points to not retort with subjective points of their own, and wrong data to boot.
Your first contradiction is that you say dbd's numbers have remained stable, but then the next paragraph you say they have had growth. Those are mutually exclusive. You cannot have stable numbers and also growth. Stable means no change. It's one or the other. Second: June 2020, dbd had 40k players. May 2025, dbd has 42k players, while the previous 7 months had values in the low 30s. How can you with a straight face say that that's growth? It's not growth. That 2k difference is DLC tourists oscillating the player numbers by a couple thousand before they leave. Sure, significant is a subjective word, but I'd assume that significant meant any number above 5%, which dbd's numbers are not.
You are completely missing the point of my skyrim example. I never said that a game's player count wouldn't naturally fall off after its release, my point was that if you have a good gameplay loop, you will retain players, extra props to skyrim for having numbers comparable to dbd while being a 14 year old game and being a single player experience. Skyrim's original success is irrelevant. For a game that has existed for 4 console generations, 30k-40k players after almost 14 years is a miracle. Just because skyrim was the most successful game in 2011 doesn't mean that translates to it having a very active player base 14 years later.
Your last sentence is a flat out denial of the community sentiment. Ask anyone on the forums who played before the pandemic. They'll tell you 99 out of 100 times 2019-2020 was peak dbd. You can have a personal disagreement with that, but that's how the majority feels.
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Majority seems subjective
Like I said, there was a general idea. Obviously there will always be disagreements, but what @Valuetown said is absolutely correct.
I wanted to find some threads as examples, but the search feature here is pretty bad. Here is a little one I've found:
Worth reading it, I'd say. You can see both a general idea and differing opinions.
Ask anyone on the forums who played before the pandemic. They'll tell you 99 out of 100 times 2019-2020 was peak dbd.
As a 2018 player myself, I confirm this.
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Worth reading it, I'd say. You can see both a general idea and differing opinions.But the differing opinions is kind of the key issue.
I'm not denying that some players preferred a prior version of the game. But there are a few core problems with the argument
1: If that version of the game had just been the static version for the last 4 to 6 years (wherever you are drawing the line), would the players have stayed? I find that argument to be almost impossible, the player count would have inevitably dropped.
2: What level of the enjoyment is not from the game design, but how people played (i.e. the game feeling new and fresh)? The level of efficiency, of techs, doesn't seem to have been as common back then. Inevitably that would have changed over time as well, and likely more quickly without the game changing up.
Like I enjoyed the game the most when I first really got into it, 2022, but that's because it was still new and fresh.
3: These threads tend to be self selecting. I usually ignore threads like this because jumping in and saying 'guys, I played the game a few times back then, and I hated the game' (which is true, I played the game around release, and then a little more around 2019, and both times didn't see what people saw in it and gave up on it pretty quickly). But even within those threads you have differing opinions, making the argument that there is a clear majority self defeating.
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I would expect for someone who is lecturing me on "subjective" points to not retort with subjective points of their own, and wrong data to boot.I'm saying that the claim that the majority of the community feels a certain way is a subjective claim.
It's obviously subjective given that it is a personal impression unless you had a survey of the community members (even then how would we define the community and how well does it represent the overall player base)?
Your first contradiction is that you say dbd's numbers have remained stable, but then the next paragraph you say they have had growth. Those are mutually exclusive. You cannot have stable numbers and also growth. Stable means no change. It's one or the other. Second: June 2020, dbd had 40k players. May 2025, dbd has 42k players, while the previous 7 months had values in the low 30s. How can you with a straight face say that that's growth? It's not growthIt's where you're choosing to pick your starting value.
June 2016, 11k players on average. Beyond a shadow of a doubt DbD has grown since then.
June 2020 is right in the heart of the pandemic. You talk about 'tourist players', but what about the pandemic players? DbD's numbers are at the same point without the same pool of available players. Given that people have less time to play, but their player numbers are around the same level, the logical conclusion is they've added more players than they lost to make up for the less available hours.
But your original argument was -
I don't know where people get this idea that games need to "change it up" in order to retain their players.Even if you want to discard the growth over the games first four to five years, they've definitely kept the player numbers.
I never said that a game's player count wouldn't naturally fall off after its release, my point was that if you have a good gameplay loop, you will retain players, extra props to skyrim for having numbers comparable to dbd while being a 14 year old game and being a single player experience. Skyrim's original success is irrelevant.Skyrim's original success is the most relevant point.
We're discussing player retention. How many players does the game retain without changing it up? To have a discussion of that we need to actually look at the player count at its height and how much it drops off.
That's what retention is. I don't know how you can have discussion about retention without that being the most relevant number.
If you're arguing that literally 100% of the players won't quit the game if it stopped changing it up, well yes, obviously. There's still people who log into Deathgarden (a peak of 11 in the last 24 hours) despite it being dead for quite some time.
For a game that has existed for 4 console generations, 30k-40k players after almost 14 years is a miracle. Just because skyrim was the most successful game in 2011 doesn't mean that translates to it having a very active player base 14 years later.Earlier I tried to do counter examples of games that saw player drops, let me try a two different examples:
World of Warcraft - 21 years, somewhere around 1 million daily players
FF14 - 15 years, somewhere around 400k daily players
Those are games that change things, add things, update things, to keep players invested. And even then, these games are nowhere near their heights. Because, and this is my central disagreement with your original claim, if a game does not change things up over time their player numbers will inevitably, and substantially, drop.
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1: If that version of the game had just been the static version for the last 4 to 6 years (wherever you are drawing the line), would the players have stayed?
I would have, that much I can tell you.
But I think it has less to do with wanting a static game and more of a disagreement with how things change and how the game was handled.
2: What level of the enjoyment is not from the game design, but how people played (i.e. the game feeling new and fresh)?
Well, I cannot speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself: it is the game's design I miss.
To me, it really does not matter if my opponents have a couple of techs memorized. What matters is that I'll have Old Freddy to play and I'll face them with older perks on a older map. What matters, to me in particular, is having the things I liked be available.
3: These threads tend to be self selecting. I usually ignore threads like this because jumping in and saying 'guys, I played the game a few times back then, and I hated the game' (which is true, I played the game around release, and then a little more around 2019, and both times didn't see what people saw in it and gave up on it pretty quickly).
Not sure about this one. We could make a count, but that would take too long.
My only point here is that a general idea that the 2019 DBD was widely praised is something that existed.
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My only point here is that a general idea that the 2019 DBD was widely praised is something that existed.Sure. I think that's a very common thing and is in no way unique to DbD. Take long running series like Call of Duty, its not unusual to find people whose 'best' version of the game was in the past.
And that's not even limited to video games. It's a common joke that musicians will have fans who will insist the earlier stuff was better ('you should have been here in the early days'), or long running shows like SNL fans usually have their 'golden' version of the show.
My only point with all of that, is that change is necessary for entertainment forms to have a chance at thriving. Video games, music, television, either update and change, or decline. Some people, inevitably, won't like the changes (for a variety of possible reasons). It sucks when you're on that side of the equation, but everyone ends up there sooner or later.
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I selected ~June 2020 for multiple reasons. The pandemic was the greatest influx of players dbd has ever had bar none, so it would be fitting for the "post pandemic" numbers to include only "post pandemic" stats, otherwise you are comparing apples to oranges. Secondly, this is the exact time range where I said that dbd was at its peak. I am using it as a point of reference. Thirdly, I am using average monthly player numbers. People who only play once a week or even once a month are factored in. Not to mention, 2020 was dbd's 4 year anniversary. We are now 5 years from that point. Dbd's numbers have been stagnant for 5 years (more than half its lifespan), yet you call that growth. Even if dbd is not retaining old players and brining in new ones to replace them, the delta in player count is still nonexistent. Nobody with a single iota of intellectual honesty can call that "growth," let alone "significant growth."
I'm not arguing that 100% of players will stay playing a game if no changes are made. I am saying that if your core gameplay loop is good, the people that enjoy it enough will stay. DbD is a unique game being asymmetrical. The majority of the players that do end up staying are the players that enjoy the game for its gameplay loop: the chases, the mind games, the game sense macro gameplay. The people that don't end up staying are the people who only come for their favorite DLC franchise. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but for that to be your draw for new players? It feels like we're operating on borrowed time (pun intended). The fact that skyrim has retained its players despite not having an update in 12 years shows that its core loop was beloved by many. 2020 dbd was very similar in that it felt like the best this game has ever felt. It wasn't until 2021 where the survivor movement changed, resident evil was added, 2022 when 6.1.0 dropped and destroyed the overall soul for this game did dbd feel like a husk of its former self. And why was this? Because changes were made for the sake of change. Because changes were made that did not serve the most important thing for both sides equally: the gameplay loop.
You are giving examples of live service MMORPG games, so those examples are already irrelevant. People pay around 15 dollars a month to ACCESS WoW and FFXIV. If I was paying 180 dollars a year to even play a game, yeah I would expect there to be 180 dollars worth of content for me to play.
If games need to change things over time, explain to me how chess has managed to exist for so long? How about soccer and football? How about basketball? All these games have existed with next to ZERO rule changes, and the ones that have changed are done in the name of player safety and not in an attempt to "retain players." That's my core disagreement with your post. A game is a game. You play it for fun. If you have fun with the game, you will play the game. It's really that simple.
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Unfortunately this happens with all games as they mature and become more refined with more and more changes to streamline the experience.
I think any of us who have been playing for more than 5 years are all familiar with how janky and unfair old DBD was, yet it had a lot of soul and character that years of refining have taken out of the game. It is technically a far superior product now, though also a more processed and soulless experience too.
I honestly don't know how you fix that, I guess it is just a consequence of progress
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I selected ~June 2020 for multiple reasons. The pandemic was the greatest influx of players dbd has ever had bar none, so it would be fitting for the "post pandemic" numbers to include only "post pandemic" stats, otherwise you are comparing apples to oranges. Secondly, this is the exact time range where I said that dbd was at its peak. I am using it as a point of reference. Thirdly, I am using average monthly player numbers. People who only play once a week or even once a month are factored in. Not to mention, 2020 was dbd's 4 year anniversary. We are now 5 years from that point. Dbd's numbers have been stagnant for 5 years (more than half its lifespan), yet you call that growth. Even if dbd is not retaining old players and brining in new ones to replace them, the delta in player count is still nonexistent. Nobody with a single iota of intellectual honesty can call that "growth," let alone "significant growth."My original statement was a single sentence
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3: DbD hasn't just retained their players by changing it up, they grown over the years.You're really trying to focus on this growth argument. I really should try and redirect this to the point about retention, which is where my initial disagreement with you is, but I'm a sucker so I'll go in.
A game of DbD's lifespan, any player growth is impressive because the player counts should be decreasing. Comparing 2020 to 2024, 10 of the 12 months of 2024 had more than 2020. The fact that numbers are even marginally higher is amazing.
Going through your points
1: Comparing pandemic numbers is an awful idea. There were more players available.
2: And GeneralIV has the peak at 2019. The OP has the peak at 2 to 3 years ago. why is 2020 the peak? It certainly isn't the peak player count.
3: I've never used anything but average monthly numbers, I don't know why you keep bringing this up.
I'm not arguing that 100% of players will stay playing a game if no changes are made. I am saying that if your core gameplay loop is good, the people that enjoy it enough will stay.To what degree? How do you measure this? Of course some players will stick around, even unsuccessful games have some players stick around.
DbD is a unique game being asymmetrical. The majority of the players that do end up staying are the players that enjoy the game for its gameplay loop: the chases, the mind games, the game sense macro gameplay. The people that don't end up staying are the people who only come for their favorite DLC franchise.I think the asymmetrical nature causes the opposite to be true. Things like the Overbrine meta took a little while to really set in. Asymmetrical is inherently harder to balance, if things aren't changed up players will overtime figure out the min/max path.
I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but for that to be your draw for new players? It feels like we're operating on borrowed time (pun intended).Everything is operating on borrowed time. Even Skyrim will eventually die out. People get bored, new games appear, its just the way things are.
If this was the end of 2023 / 2024 I'd be more likely to go for the argument that the game was in trouble because player counts did seem on the noticeable decline, but counts rallied after that.
You are giving examples of live service MMORPG games, so those examples are already irrelevant. People pay around 15 dollars a month to ACCESS WoW and FFXIV.You throw out Skyrim as an example even though it is a very different genre, I'm trying to give you examples of games with ongoing charges, inevitably those games are going to have some type of monetization. What's your standard for games that we can use as examples?
If games need to change things over time, explain to me how chess has managed to exist for so long? How about soccer and football? How about basketball? All these games have existed with next to ZERO rule changes, and the ones that have changed are done in the name of player safety and not in an attempt to "retain players." That's my core disagreement with your post.Because they are totally different things. But to get into some of the obvious differences
1: It takes a lot longer to burn out on sports. Most people don't have the opportunity to play a sport with near the same level of frequency as they do a video game. For those who do burn out is not at all surprising.
I'm far from a chess expert, but Bobby Fischer developed Random Chess out of frustration with how stagnant chess could become.
2: Sports are more complex than video games as they incorporate a physical element into the game that creates its own variety without a rule change.
3: For next to zero rule changes, it depends on your frequency. The NBA didn't have a three point line until the 79-80 season, in the NFL a player on the offense and defense now gets to have the mic helmet, not to mention they kick extra points from a different distance (and I'm old enough to remember when two point trys were a college thing). The major sports leagues have rule changes that they discuss every year.
On top of that, in terms of professional sports, they change up how they present games, how they market them, how they try to attract fans. This is in addition to having enforced scarcity with off season or, in the NFL's case, limiting their games to a few days a week.
A game is a game. You play it for fun. If you have fun with the game, you will play the game. It's really that simple.And if someone burns out on a game, they'll stop playing it. And human beings will eventually get bored with just about any activity no matter how good it initially is without variety.
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Some people, inevitably, won't like the changes (for a variety of possible reasons). It sucks when you're on that side of the equation, but everyone ends up there sooner or later.
Wish I could leave this side of the equation and return to a point where I actually like and agree with the direction the game is heading. Haven't been there since 2019, and it gets exhausting after a while.
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