My 'I'll see you all in the fog' post

crogers271

I was originally going to wait to post this until the forums were closer to ending, but as it looks like there might be a slow/fast exodus before that, so here goes. I'll probably post two or three more times over the next month in more directed feedback to BHVR, but it would feel strange not to say goodbye to people I've been talking to for years, even if that will continue with some in other places.

My history with DbD is a little different than others. I played it a couple of times before 2022, didn't really care for it, was looking at it in 2022 because VLDL (New Zealand comedy group) was going to do some sketches on it, and found myself really enjoying it. It's always been a love/hate relationship, on one hand the game gives a type of excitement I haven't felt in 40 years of gaming, on the other it also has some of the most boring, worst games I've ever played. Since the failures of the quality of life initiative I've played the game a lot less, usually just focusing on when special game modes are out.

I originally didn't think I'd stick around for long, so my first set of posts were much more opinion based as I tracked my general vibe with the game as I hit various hour marks. Looking back at them I had this gem at 500 hours:
"I feel like BHVR really cares about the game, more so than a lot of companies. They also do seem to try and listen to the community."

I was a sweet, innocent person once upon a time. I'll get back to that in a moment.

As I got more and more into the game I started to take a different approach than just general 'how it feels'. For background, in the late 90s/early 2000s (which I realize was before some people here were born) I was involved in quite a few forums for games that were going into a sequel (off the top of my head, Combat Mission, Ground Control, Master of Orion - though some of those were extremely niche so even if you are my age you might not have heard of them). Back then, I generally tried not to be a downer to other people's ideas.

All of those games eventually had sequel(s), some were massive failures, but when they were met with backlash a frequent, and mostly true if selective, response was 'we did exactly what the community asked of us.'

I kind of had that in mind with my approach to DbD - the community also has to be involved in discussing whether ideas actually work. There's subjective things that are hard to weigh in on - how dark should the atmosphere be, how long should a trial last, etc. But there's a difference between having a desire for something, and how can such a desire logically can be achieved. That might be why I have 3.7k comments and only 29 (now 30) started threads.

A good example is the rather constant 60% kill rate arguments. If someone thinks that makes the best game or fits the theme, okay. I kind of disagree on the extent, but its a completely subjective 'game feel' question. However, if someone thinks that 60% is needed to make a balanced game between survivors and killers (oh, the math arguments), that's objectively wrong.

Or a recent example - an MMR system that is more 'skill' based. We all want the best MMR system possible (well, some people wants emblems, which is a different approach to it), but whether that can actually be achieved via tracking more variables, or if its even the issue (i.e. matchmaking timer) is a totally different question. I might be proven right over the next few months that the change was, at best, a waste of BHVR's time.

Honorable mentions to: survivors will intentionally three gen themselves, MFT nerf is a buff, 4vs16 perks.

Anyway, this is a long way around to say, if I came into your thread and argued against your idea, its because I want DbD to be the best game it can be.

Which brings me back to my quote of BHVR caring and my worries about a lack of a forum. It's not that I don't think BHVR cares, but some of the decisions they make are very 'how did you get here'? For the longest time I thought it impossible that BHVR was just lucky and/or just licenses, and I still think it has to be more to it then that, but its a very hard position to maintain. When you look at perk designs like Invocations (especially the original PTB version), or for a more recent example the original "buff" to Repressed Alliance, it really lent weight to the idea that the people making the decisions weren't actually thinking things through. Or more broadly you can see the difference between how they dealt with the community over things like a gen kick limit vs. anti-tunnel (and why one worked and one didn't), not to mention explaining some changes like they lifted the reasoning from a small group of CCs.

Basically, I hope BHVR has some way to have robust discussion around new ideas that actually hammer out the merits and problems of ideas, because they don't seem to have that internally lately (group think?), Discord et al certainly aren't good grounds for it, and the fog whisperers, yeah none of us even know what goes on with that (which is its own problem, I've never understood how BHVR expects to get good feedback while players are so in the dark about so many issues).

Anyway, its been fun everyone. Whether we agreed, disagreed, or both may the fog treat you kindly. During my time I found that the forum actually has a character limit on how long I could make a comment, I doubt I'll ever be able to give my response to the Team Fortress balance around high MMR video, tried my hand at giving BHVR PR advice, I got to make a Jonathan Swift reference over the Exit Survey (absurd times), and generally believed, at least for most of the time I was here, that we actually could make the game better via discussion.