Dear Dead By Daylight, (change suggestions and new chapter idea)

Hello Mate,

I want to keep this brief, but that probably isn't going to happen. I see you've put a lot of your time and imagination into this document, and I've had a flick through it. Considering it's 57 pages long I doubt there are going to be many others doing that, but your approach to the subject kind of reminded me of myself, so I thought I'd give you a response.

I'm not going to address specific points, because there are 57 pages of them, but as an amateur game designer myself (mostly with board games), I have a couple of things to tell you about your overall approach to the subject.

You propose a lot of changes in this document, and it is unclear to me from reading it why you believe these changes to be necessary. I'm not saying that they are unnecessary, but, for example, what made you decide that a new scratch mark system was necessary? Many would say it is completely unnecessary and overhauling it would potentially kill the game, and so it is very difficult to give constructive feedback when we don't know what issue you are trying to address by overhauling it.

The second is that the number one mantra of game design is playtest. You would be surprised how many seemingly good ideas turn out to be just plain bad (and vice versa) after they are playtested, I've run into this myself many times. Every single idea you have put forward has to be tested before it can really be validated as useful, and 57 pages of ideas is a lot of playtesting. I understand that part of the reason you might have created such a long document was because it was gratifying to do so, but in terms of practicality, the Cannibal entry alone would require at least seven different iterations of playtesting in order to implement, and even then, as I mentioned above, it isn't even very clear why we would choose your changes to implement, as your reasoning for the changes isn't stated at all.

You seem to be quite passionate about the subject of balance and game design, and so if you'd like I could recommend you some books to deepen your knowledge on the subject (I would recommend them in this post but it would be on the border of breaking forum rules and I do not want to risk that).

I think that my feedback is best summed up in your opening chapter "Rules of Balance". This section doesn't actually mention anything about balance at all, and instead focuses on what is known as "Game Feel", an entirely different subject. Ideally, you would want this section to include

• The rules of the game (which can be harder than it sounds to pinpoint)
• The tools which players have at their disposal
• The limits of what these tools should be able to reasonably accomplish
• And optionally, things which inhibit these tools from acting within their boundaries

To elaborate a little, I am going to take pallets as an example of a tool. You could identify three types of pallets, defined by their limits and accomplishments:

• Pallets wherein survivors can use windows and walls in conjunction with the pallet to extend the time before they have to drop it. Accomplishes the main killer/survivor chase interaction. (Mindgame)
• Pallets where here is little space for the survivor to obstruct the killer short of a direct stun. Allows the survivor to feel like they have a fighting chance, whilst giving the killer the opportunity to end the chase quickly (Unsafe)
• Pallets where the killer can not score a hit at all and has to break the pallet to proceed. Allows a limited amount of guaranteed safety and potentially minimum chase length overall (Safe)

Then you can identify factors which inhibit these tools from acting within their boundaries:

• Strong pallets which spawn close to one another can create areas which are potentially stronger than anticipated.
• An abundance of safe pallets can feel stale for both sides as there is little interaction between players
• A bad ratio of the pallet types can leave the game feeling biased to one side
• etc. etc.

Once this is all done, you can then propose solutions for each individual factor. This way you can isolate and amend issues with the game in a way which is logical and achieves a select purpose. For every change made you must also consider:

• How does this change affect other systems in the game?

And then verify that the affects of that change won't create further problems.

If DBD could be used as an example, it's clear that even when you think you have a new addition worked out and completely tested/well implemented, there will always be something you didn't consider which will break your game, it's just part of the trade.

So I left you a long response in regards to your list of changes. It probably isn't exactly what you wanted to hear, but trying to discuss the details of a 57 page document on a public forum has its challenges. I don't mean to insult you or put you down or anything, I can see that you've put a lot of effort into the document and I think thats a great thing, I often make very similar documents, and so I suppose you just reminded me of myself somewhat, and I wanted to reply.

I hope my feedback is of use to you somewhat, I'd be very happy to hear what you think, and I would be down for further discussion of your ideas if you presented them on an single-idea basis (for example: hag changes only), but as it stands I wouldn't really be able to start with the amount of ideas you've presented.

Take care and I hope you are able to take something away from my feedback :)

I have read through your entire document and I felt you deserved a response.

Your work ethic and commitment is commendable. Not many people would put that much effort in. However, the overarching issue is that it is completely untested. Not only untested, but will never be tested.

I appreciate the thought you put into this, it is AMAZING. I would love it if some of your changes happened, but realistically, they will not.

You're welcome mate :)

That last one. Point blank hatchets are hard to hit, consume a hatchet and aren't even a foolproof combo.

Huntress is a 110% Killer with time wasting built into her kit and has the largest effective Terror Radius with the lullaby. So she should be the best at ending chases quickly in the entire game by far.

Would it be possible to enable comments on the document?

Cannibal: I like it all, pretty much. Award winning chili being .05 seconds faster than the regular chili addon makes it indistinguishably better, so something needs changing there. I don't understand the allure of noise reduction addons. Either he's in your terror radius and you need to be careful, or he's not and it doesn't matter. Potato sack needs to grant +100% bloodpoints in the Deviousness category instead.

Clown: I don't really understand this change. How are survivors going to stay in the gas long enough for the tier system to matter? My guess is that they aren't. They'll recover fairly quickly and fairly easily. Needs either some other additional changes, better explained mechanics/reasoning, or a completely different concept.

Demogorgon: Needs to either be able to place portals in slightly smaller areas, or have quiet footsteps, or both. That's all, but you're right that he's mostly in a good place.

Ghostface: The Fakers idea is probably a bust. Might cause a second of caution from the survivor, but they will be about as confusing as an illusionary Doctor. A killer standing still near no one else is a dead giveaway, and if Ghostfaces started doing that to "blend in," they'd get punished by gen rushing. I like the idea of the total rework, though! Even the addons seem good!

Hag: I'm sorry you find her so annoying to go against, but I don't share the sentiment. I don't think she necessitates Urban Evasion either. I'm staunchly against her traps being more obvious without serious buffs to compensate. People running and tripping all her traps when she picks up a survivor or is in a chase with another survivor is already an abundant counterplay and very real problem for the Hag. Maybe if you came up with something specific, I'd like it.

Hillbilly: I personally like the change. It's a relatively minor nerf that shouldn't bother most hillbillies. I think reducing his movement speed to 110% is probably a little too much, and this is coming from someone who hates going against Billy. Maybe after chainsawing, his movement speed is reduced to 110% for as much time as they traveled with their chainsaw, unless they burn-out or bump into an object.

Huntress: I think you got your words mixed up here, and the idea is mostly lost as a result. I'd take another look and make sure this section is comprehensible.

Legion: Loving the idea behind the Recruitment power. I'm going to suggest some changes: When the Legion kicks a generator, breaks a pallet, checks a locker, or hits a survivor, any survivors in your terror radius gain a rage token unless they are in a locker. The rage tokens are visible to survivors, and cannot be gotten rid of for 10 seconds after gaining one. Fast vaulting or throwing a pallet gets rid of one rage token. The pallet breaking after 5 seconds occurs whenever a survivor with a rage token throws or vaults a pallet in a chase. Rather than the mirror idea, survivors can also get rid of rage tokens by hiding in a locker to calm down. For every 5 seconds spent in a locker, lose one rage token. Whenever a survivor with at least one rage token begins healing or repairing, their icon begins to shake until they stop. When this happens, the Legion can press the secondary power button to play his cassette player, causing any survivors with shaking icons to have their next skill check instantly fail and their icon to stop shaking for 15 seconds, spending one rage token on any affected survivors. Any survivor with 3 rage tokens is Exposed and wears an illusory Legion masks until they lose a rage token. I'd keep your change to locker reveals and feral frenzy.

I may come back and continue my critique later.

Fair enough on the Clown. I'm not great with him anyway, so I can't judge high level play well enough. Btw, I also dream of coming up with a document that the community mostly approves of and handing it to the devs to make their lives easier and improve the game. Though it's only a dream, I like dreaming and think it can be important. Continuing from where I left off.

I like the additional adjustments you made to the Legion. My only thought is that now there isn't sufficient incentive to get rid of rage tokens except for the survivors who prioritize stealth above all else. Maybe fear of failing skill checks is enough, but I'm not certain. Here are my rough suggestions for addon changes considering where you have him now. Smiley Face Pin: Slightly increase time for survivors to lose rage tokens in a locker (+.5 seconds), with the other tiers to be +1 second and +1.5 seconds. Broken Chainlink/Broken Mop: Increase the time before healing/repairing can progress immediately after a failed skill check due to you snapping your fingers (+1 second and +2 seconds). Fingerless Gloves: The Legion becomes obsessed with one survivor. When your obsession stops healing/repairing after you snapped your fingers on them, they will still fail the next skill check they encounter. Bent Hairpin: When survivors fail a skill check due to you snapping your fingers, they receive a regression penalty of 5%.

Huntress (take 2): I would find this change acceptable, but it would effectively neutralize Huntress pallet mind games, which is a no go. The only thing I hate about her is her omnidirectional humming that still sounds like it's coming from a particular direction even though it isn't. I'm honestly not sure exactly what to change about her, or how, although she is certainly very annoying to play against for me and others I've spoken with. Those who get close to her skill cap are nigh unstoppable.

Nightmare: Overall, I like this change. I think having his full cooldown when he cancels his teleportation is unnecessarily brutal. I also think his laugh being heard from 40 meters away and being directional gives too much information to survivors. I also don't understand why you want to switch the places of blood snares and dream pallets?

Oni: Not sure how much the charge changes are needed. I do find the idea of wider scratch mark areas while in Blood Fury to be pretty genius, but I'm not sure he needs a direct nerf without an accompanying buff of some kind. Haven't played as him enough to be good yet, so can't give a detailed and worthwhile critique. It's not uncommon for me to get wrecked by him, but I can't play him well at all yet either. I think he destroys bad survivors and gets destroyed by highly competent and knowledgeable ones, but that's just my take. What he needs most is to have his passive power gain addons changed.

Pig: On that note, what the Pig really needs is addon changes. After that, I think the degree to which she relies on RNG needs to be tapered back. Not more lethal reverse bear traps, but ones that more consistently slow survivors down. Even simple changes could probably do: The first jigsaw box you search takes longer to search, and the time for each jigsaw box after that gets faster the more of them you search. The jigsaw box aura idea is a good one, though.

Plague: At first I wanted to make some changes to your changes, but the more I thought about it the more I liked your proposal as is.

Shape: I agree with the changes you made and the reasons you made them, but this suggestion is just nerfs to Myers, who doesn't need to be nerfed overall. I think a small base improvement to his stalk rate and tier 3 duration would be all that's needed.

Spirit: Survivors being able to move through her husk is a good idea. It encourages boldness. The same can be said for making survivor grunts omnidirectional and distorted while phase walking further than 4 meters from a survivor. It encourages the survivor to make early mind-game plays that the Spirit can punish if she predicts. Making her slightly see-through is a terrible idea. Her mind-game potential is the best thing about her from an interactive gameplay perspective, and taking that away from her would make her lame.

Trapper: I like the spirit of the changes, but I feel the times for the Broken and Hindered penalty are far too long. I'd change it to 40 seconds if they free themselves and 20 seconds if someone else saves them.

Wraith: Yes, yes, yes, with the following changes: His distortion effect is active even when he is standing still, and the Bone Clapper delays the sound of having become invisible by 3 seconds. Your suggested change would need to bring it up into VR or even UR territory, I would think.

PHEW! Killer section done! Will look into the other sections on another day!

I main hillbilly and play both killer and survivor at rank 1.

I understand how dumb it is for a hillbilly to turn around the map and do laps and be able to snipe, but it is just a meme. What this is, is called drifting and even with max steering add ons you cannot drift enough to down a survivor at range as they can just juke it unless they make a mistake. To down with a drift under every circumstance it requires the survivor to mess up to be able to get downed.

Hillbilly is good at 3 things, back revs, curving and map pressure.

Back revs: this is when a survivor is close to the killer and now cannot evade a chainsaw if it starts sprinting towards them as there is not enough distance to dodge like a drift. This though is not easy as survivors have objects to circle like trees and mindgames or jukes to use such as 360 or run in a straight line to make the hillbilly not focus then 360. The hillbilly, if good enough, using pure skill can technically never miss but due to every survivor playing differently and people naturally making mistakes you will never get to a point where you don't miss. This is fair as the survivor can outplay the killer making what would have been a m1 for a different killer be just a miss, which greatly extends chase time, but is still in the killers favour.

Curving: for the first second of chainsaw sprint the hillbilly can turn with normal camera control. Using this you can start sprint before going round corners which will give the extra speed boost needed to down and then turn the corner whixh eill result in a down at most loops if the survivor does not drop pallets. Though the survivor can just run away from the loop the second the chainsaw starts or run away once they see the killer will land the hit which will result in the curve doing nothing but miss. But no survivor should leave loops early so thats not a problem for point 1 and you can still down the survivor in point 2 with increased movement speed add ons as they will have less time to react and almost always die. This is fair as it requires extremely high skill by the billy and can still be countered by the survivors skill themselves.

Map pressure: Back revs, curves and his high speed can give him some really good map pressure since he can quickly down and quickly get to the gens. But is this a problem? Yes and no. Technically no as if your all good players and a highly coordinated swf who prove difficult in chase and good at recognising when to give in to map pressure and when not to. This will still make a very difficult match to win for the survivors, but 2 or 1 can escape no matter what if the team is good enough, no matter how good the billy is. This is a problem as the billy cannot win against the best which is clearly unfair. But if even 1 teammate is not good enough that can creat so much map pressure for the billy that he can win no matter what. So yes, the billy can win guaranreed and lose guaranteed depending on the team.

Conclusion: your changes wouldn't improve billys chasing capabilites as drifting is useless and it would completely remove the most important part of his map pressure being that he can zoom across them map. This would make a good enough swf literally almost impossible to even tie against but would make worse players not be guaranteed to lose against a good enough billy.

Billy takes alot of skill to play and can be outplayed by survivers in chase at the all skill levels. So everyone likes him as he is fun to verse and play. But the problem is the best players are always going to win and anything less is always going to lose agianst the best billy. So billy is both op and underpowered, to fix the billy you would have to completely overhaul every mechanic of the game so that there is no guaranteed losses even when your the best you can possibly be. Though of course 1 survivor at the literally highest skill shouldn't beat the killer i'm talking about the team as 1 entity.

Sorry if I don't completely make sense at some points but i'm just trying to say how he is balanced enough for how the game works right now as you can't change him before you completely change the games mechanics and because of that fact we should just accept that the 2nd best killer requires alot of skill and is ver fun to verse due to how yoy can outplay him and be very scared of him making him intense and fun to both play and verse.