The Problem With The New Rift System
To let you know where I'm coming from, let me start by saying what my connection to this rift cycle has been as a player.
Specifically, that I haven't really been engaging much. Important IRL stuff, bad internet, other things to play- I've only really been able to log on for a handful of matches every three or four days or so, with my most concentrated playtime being for the 2v8 duration (half of which was spent on the PTB, so no rift fragment gain).
Despite this, I've almost maxed out the rift completely and I'm well past the point where I've unlocked all the unique cosmetics. I know a lot of people say this system is more grindy and user-unfriendly than the previous one, incentivising FOMO and daily play, but flatly, I cannot see how that could possibly be correct.
Being able to work on multiple quests at once alone is enough that I can log on, bang out a bunch of quests in a short duration, and gain considerable progress on the rift. Add onto that dailies, milestones, and various event quests, and it only gets better- point blank, the amount of time you have to actually spend repeatedly playing matches to gain progress is noticeably lower than before.
However. I do also have a suspicion I understand why people come to the conclusion that this is a grindy, play-every-day, FOMO-reliant anti-consumer system, and it's because what I just described basically only applies while you have weekly quests left to do.
Don't get me wrong- that isn't a problem because progression is slower or grindier than before overall, but because finishing your weekly quests kinda leaves you not making progress until the next batch after they weakened milestone quests in this context. While you aren't being pushed to play every day if you want to finish the rift - you're really just being pushed to do that OR wait until the next batch of weeklies/event quests - it doesn't really feel very good to know you're basically not making any meaningful progress in the times you're actually able/in the mood to sit down and play, even if that only happens once or twice. Weeklies stick around, so you're still probably going to have something to do, and there's been plenty of event quest categories too, plus dailies.
Thankfully, I think this is pretty easy to fix from multiple directions. All you need is something to meaningfully progress when you're out of weeklies, even if they're slower overall than the weeklies themselves. The simplest way of fixing this would just be to make milestones tick up faster- they don't even need to give more rewards than they currently do, just not be quite as grindy.
Other good ways of doing this would be to bolster the Chapter Quest concept, expand it to more quests that last longer + maybe give multiple sets of characters at once, that kind of thing. It'd also be pretty doable to add in some extra themed quest drops, just small batches for doing actions related to something thematic- a bunch of healing quests for survivors, for example, or stealth related quests for killers. Maybe add in some quests for running universal/base character perks for variety without penalising people who don't own optional characters.
These are all optional and would just be an improvement beyond equalisation. All that's really needed for this problem is to improve milestone quests.
In short, the system isn't grindier than the old one but it does create lulls of progress that don't feel very good, after milestones were adjusted. It'd be nice to see that addressed so players can make consistent progress without relying on weeklies specifically between bouts of event quests.
Also rename them back to Rituals pls.
Comments
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The biggest issue with the most recent rift is that somebody who can log in for 10-20 minutes each day makes SIGNIFICANTLY more rift progress than somebody who plays for 6 hours straight on a Saturday night. (Assuming all weekly quests are done in both cases). That feels disrespectful of the player's time. It IS more grindy if you only have 1/2 days a week to play, even if you devote the same hours. By a wide margin. You have to play 18-20 games to equal missing 1 day of dailies.
All that said, l absolutely agree with your fixes, as progression outside of dailies is the main offender. Fixing milestones is the easiest way of making long play sessions more rewarding, but in that case I think they would need to have nearly infinite tiers so you don't run out.
And BIG BIG agree on changing the name back to rituals. It just adds to the vibe, and in a horror game, vibes matter!!
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It only seems grindy comparing two current scenarios, but if you think about either player in the old rift system, they're both benefiting from a much less grindy system.
If you play one six-hour session on Saturday or whatever ratio of hours over the weekend now, it's much less grindy than doing the same thing before, that's my point.
I do agree you get more progress playing daily. I don't necessarily mind that - online games need a regular flow of players logging in - but I do think the alternative could stand to be a lot better than it currently is.
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I haven't done the math, and if you have I would love to see it because I would love to know if I'm just an outlier.
But considering the rift fragments you get from just playing a match have been almost halved, I dont see how it's less grindy, even with the easier quests. I haven't changed my playtime/style, and I always used to be able to complete the rift by finishing all the survivor quests plus a couple killer, with time to spare.
Maybe that was because of more fragment frenzies, events, or phase of the moon, but this rift was waaaay more stacked in favor of daily play than previous rifts. I played for 4 hours yesterday and not counting the dailies, I barely made it one additional tier. Thats more grindy than it has ever been, even before this new system. You are right that the quests themselves are less grindy, but theres not enough of them to make up the difference.But I think I'm just getting lost in the weeds haha. We agree on the solution for sure, any additional quests could solve this problem easy. Whether they be milestones, event, chapter, or even just a guaranteed fragment frenzy for a week.
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I do really think that nerfing the Milestones was the thing that made this rift so awful.
They give you half of the reward for double the work. That is the main problem, they should be either rewarding and grindy or easy and unrewarding.
And the last minute chapter quests and DbD day quests just seem very much like BHVR trying to salvage this situation. Not that they are bad.
I would like it tok if BHVR gave us batches of quests that would take a bit longer, and I would be VERY glad if we got Glyphs back for instance.
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Had to buy the last two tiers so I hit t100
I hate this new system, the old one was good, could catch up my late in a weekend
So I learned my lesson, i'll play everyday to get the dailies
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I play the game every weekend since blight came out and this is the first rift I've ever not completed.
It's focused on the daily thing. I am not giving this game an hour of my time every single day. It's not happening. It's ridiculous and anti consumer to expect it.
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I miss the Tomes. They encouraged my friend and I to play together.
Since the Tomes were replaced with the Quest system, my friend and I barely play together. Or at all, really. The Quest system is just not fun. These are daily chores that are required for grinding a battlepass that BHVR puts less and less effort into. The more they screw up the actual gameplay with their changes, the more needy the grind becomes to prevent their players from taking an extended break.
BHVR doesn't want casual players who play a couple long sessions on the weekend. They want players who log in every day and make their player numbers look good. So here we have the trap for casuals: the Rift. Hardcore players either don't care about the Rift or they'll earn it without thinking about it. This thing is predatory towards casual players. Log in daily and do your chores. It doesn't matter that players aren't having fun, that they're feeling frustrated and burned out, and that the Rift rewards aren't even worth the effort they demand.
The damn Rift Pass quest rewards also require players complete every single weekly Rift Pass quest for that final reward. Every single one. The Tomes used to let players choose a path to reach the end, and those weren't time limited.
This forced participation FOMO garbage is really ticking me off. Really. These aren't accidents, these aren't bugs, these are choices. Deliberate choices made for very apparent reasons. And it's not for the good of the playerbase, it's not for players to have fun. These design choices create short term positive outcomes for DbD while alienating and driving away the actual players over time. BHVR is wringing casuals out like damp towels for every last drop they can get. This isn't a free-to-play game, at least most of us are paying customers, and yet BHVR is trying to force casuals to play DbD likes it's their job. That's backwards. We gave them money and now they want excessive amounts of our time every day plus more money plus they don't actually fix the problems with their game. (I play on console, PS4 and Switch, so in terms of how I feel about how my monetary support of their game has benefited me, I'm enraged. Console optimization never and now Switch is cut off from cross-play for large amounts of time.)
tldr: BHVR sees casual players who play on the weekends as an opportunity. BHVR is using a needy grind to hook those casuals into daily chores that boost DbD's daily player number stats. It's causing frustration and burn out. It's miserable. Players deserve better, and BHVR doesn't deserve the support of their players with this sort of FOMO grind design. We've given them time and money, and they give us an ever more demanding grind with rewards that keep decreasing in quality.
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Lol, now there are no milestones at all.
So that solves it I guess?
We also got more weeks of Weeklies.
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My entire point is that this isn't true. You don't have the log in and do dailies to finish the Rift, because the other changes made to the system mean you're going to be making more progress in fewer games as long as you have weeklies to do, exempting event quests from the equation.
The issue isn't that there's a hefty grind that promotes FOMO, log-in-every-day kinds of attitudes. The problem is that the system currently creates lulls where it feels very grindy because milestones are the only real connective tissue between the release of weekly and/or event quests and they tick up quite slowly.
That doesn't actually encourage only logging in daily. You certainly can do that, and it's quite effective if you do, but you could also just wait until the next batch of quests and get significant progress over your play session that way.It's a problem of feel that pops up here. It feels bad to stop making noticeable progress because you finished your weekly quests and you know it'll be a genuine grind to make progress, which means you at least might feel inclined to stop playing and wait until the next batch- that happened to me multiple times over the course of this rift, at least.
Again, this system is less grindy than the old one. Instead of one set of quests (two during events) that you can only progress one at a time, you have multiple sets that can all be progressed and even completed at once. There's no way that shakes out other than you needing to spend less in-game time to achieve more progression while you have quests available.
The old system did also have this problem to a degree, but it didn't feel quite as pronounced because it took longer to run out of quests… because it took longer to gain that progress.
I did lay all of this out already, it's the main crux of my post.
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The first Quest system had milestones that helped with the Rift grind. The second one, the milestones were nerfed to give fewer rewards while the goals increased so the people who finished them too quickly the first time now wouldn't complete them week one. When that happened, BHVR increased the amount of rewards Daily Quests gave, moving a large part of the grind to completing the dailies.
milestones are the only real connective tissue between the release of weekly and/or event quests and they tick up quite slowly
Right now, there are no Milestone Quests at all.
this system is less grindy than the old one.
My post isn't necessarily about being more or less grindy. It's about the grind requiring a rather specific path and not giving players options. BHVR keeps narrowing the focus. The first Quest system allowed players to split their attention between milestones, dailies, and weeklies (I'm not forgetting events, but I'm not including events in the list because those are not scheduled/structured in a way that allows players to rely on them) to complete the Rift. With the second iteration of the Quest system, the Milestone contributions to Rift progress were shifted to Daily Quests. With this third iteration (we're on the third one, right? I think we are), there are no Milestones at all.
BHVR also decreased the amount of Rift Fragments earned from XP when going from the Tomes to Quests. So players are rewarded less for playing. To make good progress, they need active Quests available. The length of the Rift Pass also increased. The Deep Rift went from ending on tier 85 to tier 100.
BHVR keeps narrowing the focus, taking away options. That's what I'm saying with my post. They are forcing players down a specific path. When there were Tomes, we got a lot of progression from playing, especially when there were Rift Fragment Frenzies or XP events. With the first iteration of the Quest system, we at least got a good boost from Milestones. Each change to the Quest system has put more emphasis on Daily Quests and taken away from Milestones.
I used to finish the Rift with a lot of time to spare, usually before level 4 of the Tome even released. That's not how it shakes out, now. I did every single Weekly, and had I not done the majority of the Dailies, I would not have reached the end of the Rift.
Edit: I guess I should clarify, I know our views overlap in some areas. I expand on things I say to try to make sure I'm being clear. I'm trying to write cohesively rather than splitting my post up to address different points individually, and I'm not sure that's turned out better or worse.
you needing to spend less in-game time to achieve more progression while you have quests available.
See, yeah, that's the thing. BHVR is splitting up quests so that at any given time there are fewer available. To force people to spread out their time playing, not because that's what's good for the player, but because that's what's good for BHVR's player number stats. I hope I'm getting that across correctly. The forced spreading out leads to people playing when they don't want to, which leads to burn out. Video games are a past time, not a job, people should be able to play on their own schedules. I preferred the Tomes because I could play when I wanted to, when it was convenient for me. Whether or not it was less time, it was the time I chose.
I meant for this to be clarifying and I think I'm about to go off on a tangent. Sorry, I'm upset at BHVR. I want to play with my friend and I'm stuck in Switch purgatory for at least another week. I really want to rant. Any and all ranting is addressed at them, btw, not you.
Also, BHVR, please prove me wrong. Please. Give us good, long-going and rewarding Milestone Quests so we have something other than weeklies and dailies. Give us more options. Not requirements, options. It's so tiresome to see that once again every single weekly quest is required to unlocked that final Rift Pass quest reward. Are we going to get another "kick 15 gens in one trial" quest? Cause it was super fun waiting in the killer queue just for that.
Edit 2: Oh hey, the Milestone quests are back! I think they're the same as last time, though, with the increased numbers and decreased rewards. For reference, during the first Quest iteration, I completed all of the survivor milestones (I don't remember about killer). During the second Quest iteration, I only completed one milestone, period. Nothing else got even close to 10/10. I don't try for the milestones with these numbers because it's way, way too much work for nearly no reward.
I also finally realized a better way of wording what I was trying to say (I think): I prefer the way I could chunk my time with the Tomes. With the Quest system, players are rewarded most when they spread out their time. With the Tomes, my friend and I could sit down and play for a long chunk of time when it was convenient for us. With any game (but especially DbD), there's ebb and flow. Most play sessions start with a couple warm-up matches, and then you get into the flow of it and are having fun, and then at some point you get tired and it's time to call it quits for the day. Two people can put the same amount of time into the Rift system, but the one who spreads out their time to play daily is rewarded better than someone who chunks their time. Playing daily means I play a couple warm-up matches, and then the dailies are done and so I'm done. There's no chance to get into the flow of it, because if I keep playing but I'm not making progress, well I'm still going to have to turn the game on again the next day for that progress and it'll just mean even quicker burnout. Chunking my time to do the weeklies but ignore the dailies risks not finishing the Rift. From what I can tell, there are people on the forums who tried to play it that way and it didn't work out. It's why I like knowing the math. It's why I don't include event quests; yes, I did all the event quests, but I can't budget them into the calculations when they're an unknown. I need to finish the Rift sooner rather than later, I can't count on uknowns, because things happen (like BHVR changing the Switch update schedule so then Switch is cut off from cross-play and now my friend and I can't help each other finish quests). Yes, I really do expect things to go wrong that could screw me out of finishing the Rift if I cut it too close. I plan around BHVR making things worse rather than better, and it's often a safe bet.
Post edited by TragicSolitude on5 -
I can't believe they came out with a tone called "Reverence" and forgot to make a plague skin for it
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It's more grindy in a way of how much you need to do daily quests.
Permanent quests and long sessions less often are way worse compare to challenge system.
To compansate daily quests of one day you have to play 20 games, which is just insane. That's just result of less fragments per game.
It's slightly less, but I still have no idea when you get 10 fragmentsIf they increase fragments to 10 per game so it matches previous system, then I am fine with it.
While you aren't being pushed to play every day if you want to finish the rift
That's simply not the case, at least not for last rift. I have done every weekly quest, every event quest and even all chapter quests, yet didn't finish the rift. I simply did not play enough days.
I have calculated it for last rift and you had to finish daily quests for 46 days. Otherwise play tons of games to compensate.
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