DBD is very unfriendly to new players.
The game is fun and all but I know friends that refuse to try the game because of a multitude of problems getting into. The first problem is the grind when you start out as a new player getting teachables takes a loooong time for them and getting perks can be very challenging when you are new at the game. The next problem is that most of the killer roster is locked for you if you are new at the game you already bought the game and you will have to spend more money on DLCS then you actually spent on the game to get caught up. This is also a problem because some good killer perks that someone might want cost money. You could say that well you can buy most killers and survivors with shards but then the problem is that it will take an absurd amount of game time to just get a killer/survivor. Honestly I could list more and more reasons of how unfriendly the game can be to a new player.
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this game is 1000% not a new player friendly at all
Something should be done (yet again) about the way perks/add-ons are acquired
Maybe just put up direct bloodpoint costs, go into a screen... and buy what you want/need
Also.. remove perk tiers, they should all simply be tier 3 from the start without having to go through 1mil+ bloodpoints in random webs trying to fish for a random perk just to have a viable loadout (issue on most M1 killers having mandatory perks to even play them effectively beyond rank 15)
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Yeah, it's pretty damn rough.
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@Vampy I've suggested that in the past, only to get the vets rolling in proclaiming how the grind is the only reason to keep playing.
Well, If that's the case, then DBD has some fundamental design flaws.
Point of the matter is that not a single member of my family or friends will play DBD. They tried the free weekend at one point, saw the asinine grind, and walked away. It wasn't even the DLCs, the costs didn't bother them. It was the Perk grind on top of the grind also being RNG.
They looked at the New Player Experience they would have, and walked away to other games. Hell, I keep an eye on the game, but I uninstalled and stopped playing. The number one primary reason? The grind was just stupid. I'd rather just play Paladins, where I can experiment with my builds on any Champion right out of the gate, or even Overwatch, where I also don't need to grind on top of just focusing on improving my skills.
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A grind that goes on forever seems pointless and only hurts people trying to get into the game. As a "vet" I could care less once I get what I want I just leave my Blood points capped at 1mil because I never use items/add-ons. But for a new player the grind just keeps growing and as someone who was around for Legacy it's honestly getting as bad as that maybe even worse.
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most online games are pretty unfriendly to newer players but yeah the grind is quite enormous
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They do need to get rid of perk tiers. Doing that would cut around 5 million bloodpoints from the grind for players who aim to get Prestige Tier 3 on all characters.
It would also make balancing and creating perks easier for the devs by not having to take into account 3 versions of each perk.
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If you play a game online, it's gonna be unforgiving to new players.
This goes for pretty much every single online game I've ever played.
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Typically yes but dbd is the harshest one I’ve seen.
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@GrootDude yes, outside of MMO's this is the grindiest I've seen
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What makes the grind in DbD even more silly is unlike most other GaaS games you can't buy your way through the grind. Players can only buy perks through the Shrine and only by using shards. Which can not be bought with real money. So Behaviour isn't even making any money off of the grind. In fact because it scares away new players they are losing money from it.
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I honestly wish the full game would switch to the mobile version's progression. It's not perfect but it's certainly an improvement.
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Well, the game already have the sharads in-game that wich are "hard to obtain" (the game only requires you to play in order to win them, not like other games where you need to purchase a game pass) but most of online games have no shards at all. The game is not pay to win. I know it can be funnier if you have more characters but you already have 6 playable survivors and 5 playable killers (In PC), wich is more than most of online games and honestly it takes a lot of time to dominate all killers (specially nurse). The game has also a tutorial where you can win BP wich it hasn't when I started to play. For the teachable perks you already have the Shrine of Secrets.
In summary, I don't think those are unfriendly to new players, the two unfriendly things that I see is:
people at rank 20 who have four tier three perks (some teachable for another survivor, let's say they are playing with Meg and have a Laurie Strode Perk level 3 and a Claudette Morel level 3 perk), wich means that those players are not new at all.
Or let's talk about the new matchmaking with can put a 16 level against a level 20 killer with zero experience and just two level 1 perks, he can't do much about it. I mean yes, the new matchmaking finds easier matches but those things makes harder for a new player to play and like the game.
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Honestly, it's a $20 mobile game. If you aren't a whale, you're going to be at an overt disadvantage.
Except mobile games tend to have single-player modes...
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@Jesya Depends on the MMO. City of Heroes wasn't bad. Current WoW is very forgiving to new players. They can quest, which no longer takes all that long, or just dungeon hop, and be at the latest expansion in no time. Once in the latest expansion, catch-up mechanics get them into needed gear very fast (which they launched about four months into the expansion and have been updating since).
Dead by Daylight, though, is on the level of old-school MMOs. And there's a reason they aren't like that any more.
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Aw You also a wow player?
I come from time to time back. Currently I playing again. The 2 new zones looking nice. But I need to say, if you 6-7+ months away from wow and you coming back, then you feeling sometimes overwhelmed by all the changes in particularly the gameplay.
Of course you don't feel the same way, when you just play the game without break times between. Then updates can't come fast enough^^.
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Grind is huge, most good perks are DLC-perks (relating to killer-perks), and no way to train or improve ur skill except playing matches.
Would be fine to do something bout the, imho, stupid grind, especially for killers, as every killer has it s own power. Survivors feel like husks, have every survivor at rank 40 cause of the teachables, mained Jake, thats it.
Add the possibility to start KYF alone, to check out the different maps, try running loops, chainsaw aorund or try blinking.
Would make this game much friendlier for beginners, just my 2 cents.
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Then they should better make a new category, because the name KYF implies something different, but that shouldn't be a problem.
Maybe they could also link to tutorial videos from streamers, if they teach new layers in those videos nothing toxic. That could also be a signal to some streamers that have encourage players to toxic playstyles in the past, because the ones who haven't do that in the past, get then because of the linked tutorial videos more traffic^^.
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I think New Players should be given 100k bloodpoints to start out with, then they can level up the Survivor/Killer that they want to start with a couple times so they don’t just start their first match with 1 perk and no items/add-ons.
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I feel that this is what makes SWF so important to the game. To properly get into the game, having friends who already know how to play, can give advice and carry you when you're failing horribly is almost essential at the start.
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Got a few friends to try the game during double bloodpoint event. Nobody stayed with the game after explaining you would need to grind millions of bp on several survivors just to have 1 surv with most of the good perks.
And how you'd need to grind billions to play killers.
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Yup, none of my friends stayed beyond free weekend because of this idiotic grind, you cant really start to play the game because shrines give you calm spirit and autodidact each week while bbq happens to be there once a year and i have never seen ruin and WGLF out there. All of this happens when you need over 1 million bp to get the unlockables on one character while if you are new you propably wont gain more than 10k per game waiting minutes for rank 20 game. This is absurd and will lead to the death of the game.
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You're right. And even more, stuff you can buy with shards become more and more rare
So on the one hand you have to play the game a crazy amount of time AND/OR youve to spent a lot of money to be able to play the perks and killer you want.
and the tutorials are crap
the hints are crap
They know how red ranks play the game and want to play the game and that's not sTeAltHy. And they refuse teaching you things like Moonwalking, how different trials work, how pallets and windows spawn. They dont tell you anything because everything is a secret you have to find the dark.Maybe thats cool for new playersor casuals but not for the regulars or veterans.
but yea youre right sir.
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I absolutely agree with the OP.
I told the devs in multiple posts that the grind and new user experience is horrible.
If we experience a long queue time due to a lack of survivor players we need to raise the incentive to play and lower the entry level.
Right now the are finally even out the BP gain for both sides, but as every killer can tell you, even 25-30k is hardly enough to meaningful level up or main a high level of viability on red ranks.
The reason why we only see Nurse, Billy and Spirit and rad ranks is, the other killers often need specific perks, add-on and even offerings to be competitive.
Rework the blood web as highest priority and get rid of the useless tier levels of all the perks.
That would reduce the grind.
It still baffles me how you can prestige a character without even getting all it's native perks at tier 3.
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It sounds to me like your friends complaints are "why can't i get all the dlc for free when everyone has had to pay for them" & "Why do i have to work to unlock stuff and not just start off with the best of everything".
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Maybe if they increased the shards you get from ranking up your experience levels, would reduce the grind as well. Then you can buy more perks from the shrine each week. It now takes 7 levels from level 50 to 100 to get 1 perk in the shrine for 2000 shards. That's too much imo.
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I agree that the game is not friendly to new players, but not for the reasons listed by the OP. Well, perhaps the grind part.
1. I started playing a year ago and have built up to where I have all the killers, and all their teachable perks. Yes, it is a huge grind, but it was not the discouraging part.
2. BHVR is in the business to make money. If they just give e away the product, then they'll have to go to a pay monthly system and that will kill the game.
3. I've convinced 15 people to try the game out and all of them had nearly identical feedback. They all said the amount of time to unlock perks was daunting, but doable. But when you add in the fact that you have to face experienced killers/survivors who intentionally derank, it becomes torture. Most also felt the killer role was way too dominant as newer players and they are basically volunteering to be griefed by a camping LF. Many of them mentioned the absurd amount of campers and tunnelers at the rank 18 to 20 level and how it makes it really hard to learn how to play the game correctly.
Unfortunately, I've failed to convince any to stick with it. They feel the game is amazing in concept, but horribly managed as it stifles new players too much.
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Maybe some kind of "Training Grounds" or so, simply nothin other than KYF, but being able to start it alone.
The idea with the videos is quite good, probs.
Actually, i play DBD every day, having 2k hours.
I´ve managed to get full-perk with my main survivor, Jake.
Killer-sided, i have all perks for Trapper, Billy, Nurse, Michael, Hag, Clown, Spirit and Legion. Huntress, Doc, Bubba and Palgue are P3 Lvl 50, but i dont have all perks. Wraith, Freddy, Ghostface and the Pig are still Lvl 50, not even prestiged.
Sux, with 2k hours .... And this is the problem, that keeps my friends away. When they ask me to show a match playin a special killer, and u have to answer, u dont have the perks u´ll need, after this huge amount of time i played.
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Dude we don't need any more balance around baby survivors and killers. This is what lead to Freddy getting nerfed in a week. You have to tough it out like everyone else had to.
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Yee.. I agree this game hates new players.
Who would want to play when you gotta put in over 50 hours just to get a couple of perks... which won't really be any good anyways.
Play killer.. They get nailed by trolling SWF groups who ######### all over them..
Play Survivor... They get vets who farm the ######### out of them, they might get some points, or they get newish killers who camp and tunnel the crap out of them, simply cause they don't know any better.
The grind is a joke... The new player zone means nothing since.. There isn't enough new players playing.. and the rank resets help the troll players stay at the bottom.
Match Making is what it is, cause their isn't enough players who are new whom they can play against.
They didn't even move the rule over about taking the average rank when matching SWF. So if you were pairing up with a rank 20 player and having them make the lobby, you'd be getting matched with 15 and below. Basically targeting the new player base.
Nothing is gonna happen with the grind, cause they are already putting in two more grinds to cover over the mess that is the bloodpoint grind. Hoping people won't notice it as bad since they will have the "feeling" of progression. But those new grinds don't do anything with helping you progress in the actual game. They are still at the spit balling stage of the grind reduction... So that is a good year away.
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@KaoMinerva did you read the post? This is about the grind so please read the post before commenting.
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Two things.
1) Unlock ALL the perk slots from level 1.
2) Remove levels from all perks - all perks are acquired at thier current level 3.
That'll let people slot what they have right away and reduce the grind for all the perks by 2/3rds
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My comments stand dude. Grind it out like everyone else had to UNTIL they fix it.
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The biggest issue my new friends have when first starting out is that almost every single killer hard tunnels until they down someone, then they face/hard camp that person until they die. The killer then does this until the game is over. For new players they can't possibly have fun vs this and it ruins any kind of experience for them. Most of my friends have never come back because of experiences like this.
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By that logic should we have the bloodwebs from when legacy was a thing back? After all those players had to power through it so we should too.
If we keep requesting they lessen the grind then they’re more likely to do so.
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Neither is Rainbow Six Siege or Overwatch, just play for better and worse, you decide whether you wanna keep playing or not.
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It never was new play friendly but with each dlc the grind must look more and more daunting to them.
The problem is you don't get much chance to play around with many chars once you realise what the grind is all about and you end up making one on either side to play and level up others until you get the perks you want on them.
While I like grinding and levelling up chars and I simply play for fun that is not the case for everyone especially when some perks are deemed needed by a lot of players to be competative in a match.
The grind does need looked at as it hasn't changed for a very long time. When you can have 2k hours played and not have everything maxed out that is a major issue imo.
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Here's the paradox.
If you appeal to a wider audience in anything, you are demanding less of them in terms of investment, so they are less invested. This can lead to an explosion of interest, but the audience is fickle: they will leave as easily as they arrived. You can see this in various beloved franchises that are being run into the ground lately, though I won't name them.
If you appeal to a niche, with a high bar for entry, they are less likely to look elsewhere once they have met that bar. They have a sunken-cost and an investment in the future success of the game. They will promote the game to people like themselves, the niche grows. The audience grows cystic however; it is actively hostile to newcomers and the game will reflect that, due to ill-sentiment that a beloved franchise is being invaded by people who 'just don't get it', as in the first case.
What many games try to do is have both at the same time: being easy to pick-up but difficult to master, that's the lighting-in-a-bottle they tend to strive for. It might also be an illusion and you can't in fact design a multi-player game that way; it's the player-base itself that provides much of the experience. We've got to want it, by popular consensus.
Regarding the grind, here's one really daft idea: let survivors use any perk that anyone else in the match has unlocked, for that match only. This means the meta-perks are quickly accessible to new players. For the killer-side, encourage new players to alternate between survivor and killer by having them get to use the perks the killer had equipped when they play a killer afterwards.
We still get the rewards of grinding because what we're earning is the certainty that we will have our favourite perks, but now being at the start of the curve no longer lacks footing.
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Not true ESO, Maple Story, WOW, Black Desert, Fortnite, Apex Legends are just a few games that you can literally pick up for the first time and decide if its your type of game and feel even if it isn't your cup of tea you can fairly say that was fair just not for me.
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I'm hoping the archive they are releasing is going to be something like this. Along with releasing more lore, additional BP's for doing the little quests would help alot. But still the grind is too much and something needs fixing on the bloodweb/perk side as well.
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At least we need an improved tutorial. But I know that people on the internet become reluctant to join in when they see the toxicity of the community or the "Unfun" parts of both killer and survivor. (Like iridescent heads, Instaheals, ebony moris, prayer beads, Old DS, Old Mettle of Man, Old Legion, etc)
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I don't think it is a balance between survivor vs killer. It's the learning curve. While some people say survivor is relaxing and easy, they don't stop to think what goes into doing well as survivor which takes more time than many people are willing to give.
Here's a few items:
1) Need to know which gens are priority and when to do them so the killer is less likely to find you working on a gen and to avoid a three gen strat.
2) Need to hit those skills checks, often great skill checks under Ruin and deal with various perks (like Lullaby) and effects that can make that check more difficult, especially against Doctor.
3) Need to identify and be familiar each of over a dozen killers and know their strength, weakness, and power in order to have any effectiveness. What strange mechanic they may have that you need to counteract in order to not die or kill off the rest of the survivors.
4) Need to know how to last longer than 5 seconds in a chase.
5) Need to know how to mind game.
6) Need to know how to loop decently if the killer or map gives you no option to get away.
7) Need to know how to make hook saves without killing yourself or your save, especially basement saves. Number one rule of survivor should be to not get hooked in the basement.
8) When to heal when not to heal, especially while running self care.
9) How to counter bbq/chili along with whatever aura perks the killer is packing.
10) How to deal with tunnelers and campers.
11) Effectively searching for hex totems and dealing with NOED and or devour hope.
12) Develop a sense of what the killer is likely to do in order to counter play them effectively.
13) How to use your tools and add-ons most effectively. Also flashlight saves.
14) Body blocking effectively - when to do it and when not to do it.
15) How to deal with EGC when you are the last survivor. (Go in a corner and wait to die).
16) How to reduce or conceal your scratch marks.
17) Gain familiarity with maps - to know where the gens, pallets, and dead zones generally are in each one.
18) How to avoid leading a killer to other survivors giving them a chance at a snowball. (Stay away from unpopped gens and hooked survivors)
Throw on top of that if they are the one getting camped, tunneled, slugged and otherwise receiving general toxic behavior - I can see why it's a turn off to many new players.
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I agree with this entirely. With so many perks and the tutorial not providing enough about game situations and game mechanics at the very least give them enough bloodpoints to use their 3 teachable perks on characters. Even if you reward ZERO bloodpoints but have every character able to use their 3 base perks.
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@Talmeer I am, but not steadily like you think. This expansion, for example, I took a seven month break and just hopped back on last week for 8.2 because I had some time. Due to the catch-up mechanics, I got my main and alts geared again very quickly via World Quest rewards and Heroic Dungeons.
That's what I mean about the grind in WoW not being bad nowadays. The only grind that sucks is the reputation grinds to unlock Pathfinder for flying.
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The new player experience is aggressively awful and it's a shame it continues to go unaddressed. There's a reason this game has been so slow to grow despite how fun it is.
The grind is insane and pointless for this style of game. I've said this a few times, but there's no point to a grind in this style of game where the progression is horizontal and not vertical. We aren't grinding to gain more power. We're just grinding to gain different power and different power interactions. That's stupid. We don't play less when we have the perks we want. We just use them.
I think they need to take a long look at how they approach balance. I'm not convinced that you can balance in broad strokes in a ranked asymmetrical pvp game. What works in terms of balance at red ranks will be daunting for a new player, and what appears balanced for a new player will be a joke at red ranks. This is the cause of many frustrations we see now. Most killers seem balanced around green ranks, overpowered at new yellow ranks, and are seen as jokes or memes at red ranks.
Related to point 2: there should be tutorials for each individual killer that explains and demonstrates how their powers work. This will allow for stronger killers to be released. This rework of Freddy will be weak because it is so easy to wake up. It is so easy to wake up because new players would be frustrated if it was difficult. A tutorial specifically for Freddy and waking up would allow for a better designed Freddy.
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Siege is a great example of doing it right, actually. Before the Outbreak patch if you bought a character you would still have to grind out attachments for all of their individual weapons. Compared to DBD the attachment/operator grind was a walk in the park but Ubi still realized that it was an unnecessary deterrent to getting new people into the game. So in the Outbreak patch they made all attachments and the base game's 20 characters free.
Overnight the new player experience went from starting with 2 or 4 (it's been a while) ops and no attachments to 20 ops with tons of different options. And new players could buy characters and immediately, ya know, play them. You still have to learn how to play them effectively but you never feel like you're at a disadvantage simply because tool x, y or z is missing from your kit.
I easily got lots of people into Siege after this and over half of them are still playing. Letting new players just play the damn game: it works!
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This isn't about balance, this is about the grind as well as how if you want some perks you have to buy certain killers or play the game for an insane amount of time for a new player. Especially for the killer side we all know how dependent some killers are on perks. As someone who was around for Legacy the grind is probably getting worse than the Legacy blood webs.
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@Pompous_Clown Precisely!
@KillermainBTWm8 And it's a primary reason their numbers aren't declining or increasing, but merely holding steady, as per Peanits in another thread. All those recent Steam sales, not just the Summer sale. The free weekend. The numbers spiked for those times, then settled right back down again into the "holding steady" numbers. That means they did not retain the new players. Gee, I wonder why.
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The start is unfair because of ranking. On free weekends I end up with 4 rank 20's in a game in green ranked killer. I let one of them hatch because I could tell they were new and when I saw all their ranks at the end the highest rank was 18. It was a 4 man, 2 claude, David and nea who had tool boxes and flashlights; I was using my items for prestige so I ran a mori expecting to be out classes by a 4 man swf. I said sorry and they were cool but I felt bad.
My friends stopped playing because a large amount of killers in their ranks tunnel and camp and it's just not fun for them which I understand. A lot has to be done to take out the things we call toxic and the dev's call strategy. Camping and tunneling, mori swf, run Franklin's for every flashlight. Vets are salty and always prepare for the worst in the game which doesnt welcome new players.
Sorry for the guys I mori'd.
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@Nea_Death_Experience Unfortunately, three, going on four, years into the game's lifespan, the ship has likely sailed on Behavior making those adjustments with any meaningful results.
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So what you're basically saying is that Dead By Daylight is not getting any new players in the current state of the game. Darn.
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