Newcomer. Just bought the game. Will I have fun?

toxic yes. killer underpowered nerfed was strong now butchered. freddy strong apparently. i havent touched the game in a good while. i no longer play killer due to frustrations and the lack of imbalance. do yourself a favour. refund. thats my opinion. try but dont let yourself go over 2 hours. the game just gets or becomes stale. as survivor look around you at all times listen for the terror radius but also beware of no terror radius due to the perk monitor and abuse .... killer try to get a hit as soon as you can but if your being looped constantly round a shack or pallet leave go find another target .... no hatches are rng. billy would be your go too for a bp farming machine. but be prepared for swfs on coms thats what breaks the balance plus all the perks giving so much information. being new expect to be gen rushed up the wazoo. if you have no experience at all. i used to play dbd for dailys as killer. i dont even do that any more .... says it all lol. killer is NOT the power role. survivor is. you will see in time

this community is very toxic and the debates are often pretty heated.

at the state this game is, I'm not sure how much you're gonna enjoy it, sure the game is unbalanced, but for newcomers this wouldn't be a problem, since you would normally face newcomers too. One of the biggest issues the game is facing right now is matchmaking, you can easily be matched with people with thousands of hours, then you will most likely get bullied (it happens often, as I said, toxic community) and maybe demoralize.

The survey says... https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/123473/would-you-recommend-dbd-in-its-current-state-to-a-friend/p1

Honestly I'd say you should give it a go. The game is incredibly fun when you first start, it's tense, scary, and you don't have a clue what you're doing. As you rank up it becomes less of a horror and more of an action game, but its still fun nonetheless.

I'd recommend trying to find some friends, also new, to play with. The game is so much better when played with people you can mess around with, because it just takes the stress off of playing.

If you don't like it from the start, you have about 2 hours before you can no longer refund it.

You'll never know if you don't try, though.

The gameplay is fun, as long as you don't expect things to be perfectly balanced. As the game currently stands, sometimes you will get screwed over by RNG, or matched with players who are way better than you are, and you need to be able to shake it off and not let it ruin your day.

There are two main problems with high ranks: the first is that it's too easy to get there, especially for survivors, so there's a huge skill discrepancy that there shouldn't be. The second problem is that, as easy as it is to get there, a lot of people at high ranks are serious tryhards who leave no room for goofing off or having fun (which is fine, but not everyone enjoys playing like that, or playing with other people who play like that).

The hatch spawns in a random location every time (a lot more random than the generators, incidentally).

Beyond that, there are a few things you should be aware of as a new player:

• The grind is indeed hefty. You need to be okay with using the resources you've got and not necessarily having access to the strongest builds right off the bat, because it will take you a long time to get ahold of all the meta perks, especially if you're only playing a couple of games a day.
• The learning curve is steep, especially for survivors. It will probably take you a couple of hundred hours to become decent at the game. My brother has 250 hours, and I would say he has just reached acceptable (read: non-potato) levels of skill as a survivor, and is decent at some killers.
• Start with whichever role you feel more comfortable with, but you should be aware that you will have a harder time starting off as survivor. All killers have higher kill rates at low ranks, because killers tend to dominate when neither the killer nor the survivors know what they're doing. So if you do choose to start with survivor, remember that it will feel really hard at first, but it only gets easier from there.

As for tips, I would refer you to the Guides section here on the forums. There are guides there for new survivors, new killers, tips on how to play specific killers, and a lot more. You can also find a lot of new player tutorials on YouTube (though some, admittedly, are better than others).

If you can phase out the toxic people in this community, you'll enjoy it. The rest of us are pretty cool to talk to and run trials with.

DLC isn't necessary, though it will enhance the experience. Most of the DLC content you can get by grinding in-game anyway, the only exception being licensed characters. But there are no particular perks that are so powerful that you need them to do well, and three of what are generally considered to be the top 5-6 killers in the game are free with the base game (Nurse, Hillbilly and Huntress - although it's worth noting that Nurse in particular is not at all new player-friendly).

Honestly this community is one of the most tame groups of people and everyone takes them way out of proportion. What this community defines as "toxic" is people clicking flashlights or t-bagging. Because God forbid a player repeatedly pushed a button in your face. The nerve of that guy, he's so toxic right?! How dare he?! As far as actual toxicity goes there isn't much but it still happens (offensive terms and slurs etc) it's WAYY better than League, DotA, CS etc.

As for having fun? It depends. The first few hours of survivor are pretty fun since you're scared and nobody knows what they're doing, leading to more frantic games. Once you become experienced with the game you'll either love it or hate it and there's no in-between. I can't with good conscience recommend someone play this game unless they're willing to invest time and money into it (because the most important killer perks are locked behind paywalls, and actually grinding for teachables and perks has now reached a point of absurdity. The bloodrush that's going on right now helps with it a bit though)

The community CAN be toxic, but then again, any community can have it's toxic elements.

I've certainly had some fun games, but there have also been miserable ones. Then again, you'll get that in any multiplayer game. It is largely dependent on the killer/survivor team, though.

High tiers can be repetitive, if you let them. Mid-tiers are usually best since there is some room for error and fiddling around, but people have also generally established something of a playstyle.

The grind is pretty real, but it's not WoW or Destiny levels. You can occasionally play and still get plenty of what you need, and there are perks to also help with that.

Generators, totems and hatch are all semi-random. There are only a set number of spots that they can spawn.

Good characters to pick up are 3 of the original ones: Dwight, Meg and Claudette. Dwight and Claudette are more of a priority, since Dwight had great teamwork perks, such as Prove Thyself (which also gets you more Bloodpoints) and Bond and Claudette has healing perks.

David King from the (should still be) free DLC Lullaby for the Dark can also be helpful since he has a decent farming perk, and a decent Exhaustion perk.

Survivor gameplay: Holding M1 almost the whole game. Too boring to be fun. Also, camped to death is not fun too.

Killer gameplay: Gens are done before you can do anything. Lots of toxic survivors out there to bully you (especially with this matchmaking).

If you're starting and don't like grinds then you might not like it.

If you play survivor it's kinda OK..... Ish. Chose David King, you will have dead hard and we're going to live forever, wich can give up to 100% more bloodpoints, and get other perks you want in the shrine. But survivor is still enjoyable without add ons or all perks.

If you want to play killer thought... Forget it. Yes, you can get leather face and get barbecue and chilli wich can also grant you up to 100% more blood points, but so many killers, the add ons, the different perks to not only unlock but to find in the other killers bloodweb. It's just overwhelming!

Decisive isn't likely to do a new player much good, though, considering most of them can't hit skill checks for love or money.

Welcome.

-Higher tiers are more "tryhard" or "sweaty" than lower tiers but it really depends on whether you like to try harder or just mess around and not take the game seriously.

-The game isn't too balanced. Some days it will feel really imbalanced if you're frustrated but most games you have a chance at winning if you're good enough.

-You don't need to grind a ton to get skilled at the game as long as you're dedicated, but the perks you need to unlock do require a bit of grind. I'm not pro or anything but I play anywhere from a bunch of games in a day, to maybe a few games every few days, and I still hold my own at decently high ranks.

-Hatches can spawn practically anywhere in a map, except on higher elevations I believe (like 2nd stories of houses and whatnot). One exception being up on a hill that spawns in multiple maps.

-For killer and survivor, I have common advice. Not too much specifically for either. Most important thing to remember in my opinion is to just treat it as a learning experience. I believe I have 1k hours and I still treat it like a learning experience, because there's always going to be new little tricks and techniques you can find out. Also, since you're just learning things, have fun with it. Not every game is going to be perfect and there's going to be toxic people that want to ruin your fun. Just don't let them.

One more thing. If you don't feel like dealing with toxicity like I usually don't, then just do what I do and say GG if you want at the end game screen, and leave immediately. Hope you enjoy your time playing. :)