DBD is not scary, and not because we play so much of it
I think that dbd should be scary even after 100 hours, people make the argument that when you watch a horror movie 20 times its not gunna be scary anymore which is true, but dbd is not a fixed experience where the same thing will happen over and over again.
The problem is that the general gameplay feels safe once you understand it. As a survivor you have many "second chances" whether it be perks or hooks or even just healing. Examples:
- If the killer finds you and hits you, you can still run away and either escape and heal somewhere or be chased for awhile until you get hit again which leads into number 2
- You have a total of 3 times you need to be hooked if you are rescued before your hook timer runs out.
- There are many perks in the game that can save your life that are not complicated (Dead Hard, BT, DS, Etc.)
Before I say more I am not saying that this gameplay loop is bad in anyway, but rather am saying that it does not support the playstyle of a "scary" game.
There are many things that could be changed to make the game scary but I would not know where to start.
Do you agree or disagree? Seems to me that dbd needs to sells their horror slasher title a little better what do you think?
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What Dead by Daylight not scary, its frustrating. And the wrong type of it. Its not like a game where I fail something and retry it, being more motivated to complete it. Dead by Daylight just sucks out any motivation you have for playing the game. There's literally no game out there that increased my heart rate by pressing Ready as Killer.
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One of the big kickers when it comes to dulling down the scare factor, is things that make the killer scary, insta downs, jump scares, good stealth or ability to shutdown player's attempts to evade them, get complained about more than anything else.
When I play survivor, I like facing the killers than can pop out of nowhere, shut down loops quickly and generally make me sweat it makes the game scary.
The principle argument about these things are they are boring to play against or there is no counter play.
People don't seem to want scary, they want generic... and any horror survival scenario will suffer in the scare factor as a result.
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I completely agree.
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They should allow for a 'nightmare mode' or something. regular gameplay, but no music (except chasemusic, maybe), no red stain, no TR at all. Killers are scaled down to 'human' size (if human). other perks work as usual, heartbeat is combined with spinechill.
smaller speedboost when hit, scratchmarks lasting longer, automatic bloodhound and all ears.
Survivors get skillchecks to keep quiet when injured and not moving (so no iron will/calm spirit)
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Play Alien: Isolation or Until Dawn for 100 hours and tell me that they are still scary.
It really is just exposure. That's all. The themes are there, this is a horror game, but as with literally everything scary we adapt to it, because "Scary" and "Unfamiliar" are the same thing in human minds.
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I think the biggest problem with this game is the hook mechanic. Giving survivors limited lives limits the power level of the killer.
Imagine this killer roster in a game where survivors werent eliminated by a bubba staring at you on a hook for 2 minutes.
What if instead of fixed objectives there were scoring events for both sides. Like killer would have to kill as many as they could in ~10 minutes. Each kill adding a point to the tally. Survivors would have to work together to repair gens, find some objects, cleanse totems, sabotage hooks which would be changed since hooking isnt the main killer objective.
Moris wouldnt be auto dc. Camping wouldnt exist. Tunneling would be harder since random respawn points.
Maybe the tension of knowing you are about to lose would go away, but the ability to be jump scared could go up. You could remove heartbeats. And redstains.
I dont know. I just think killers need to be more powerful but in terms of the game itself now they really cant be.
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You're not scared... Until your team doesn't know it's a Hag and you find out by springing her traps.
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A decent part of the problem is that Killers have to be very efficient to win which makes them rather predictable. So... if someone else gets into a chase, Killers rarely break chase and go looking for another target, so you know that you are *probably* safe until your friend gets downed and hooked. Depending on how well your friend does, that could easily be 30+ seconds where the scary thing is busy and therefore not scary.
The last time I felt scared in Dead by Daylight as a survivor was against a Scrached Mirror Myers on Lerys. Why? Well because Scratched Mirror Myers two main strengths is his stealth and information but is worse in a prolonged chase than other Killers. That makes him much less predictable. If he slashes someone... is he going to keep chasing them? Or can he see me and is heading right for me? I don't have any idea and don't have any way to find out. That means I have to constantly be on alert and watching for him... which puts me on edge.
But compare that to Oni. Oni is one very large, loud, angry killer. I frequently know roughly where he is all game and can guess with a fair amount of accuracy what he's going to be up to. I don't have to wonder if, when, or where danger is coming from which makes Oni... just not scary for me. Probably going to die to him, but that alone doesn't make him scary.
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I don't know. Certain killers (Hag, Nurse, Pig, Wraith) have amazing jumpscare potential.
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dbd can never be scary no matter what they do, once you've seen every killer and their power the game is no longer scary, its basic psychology that this is an effect called exposure therapy and its used to treat people with anxiety disorders or severe phobias its not possible to make this game scary
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Can confirm that Try To Fall Asleep made me ######### myself first time I played it. Playthrough #7 wasn't scary.
(though when night 4 releases I might actually die inside).
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Depends on what a person finds frightening I guess. I think they can't make it too frightening or much more stressful while keeping the wide marketability.
This sounds like a video game version of the ol Slasher vs Thriller debate. Argue on friends.
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Jokes on you my first match was against a pig when her DLC was just out and the game had scarier graphics, had to change my pants
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That would be fantastic. I'd never be able to play it as a survivor, but I'd be down to slash. ^_^ Heck, just getting rid of the red stain and eliminating TR until you're in a chase would do wonders. Have to do away with gen grabs though or give survivors a different objective (Survive x minutes, grab an item to open an instant gate and locate said gate, ect.) and reduce killer speed otherwise it becomes too much of a power fantasy.
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It is exposure. My prime example for this is Amnesia: The Dark Descent, which is an amazing and scary Horrorgame. But once you have played it enough (the Main Story or Custom Stories), you only really try to glitch out the monsters.
Once you play DBD for a long time, it is not scary anymore. Part of it is also because you play against another human. Ingame, it might be a Killer, but outside of the game, there is just another person sitting on their PC or Console.
And honestly, I think that all "Make DBD scarier again"-Threads are just "Nerf Survivor"-Threads.
But one step in the right direction would be to make the Maps darker again, DBD feels like it is played in Daylight sometimes. But suddenly Killers dont want the game to be scarier anymore...
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removing the terror radius and removing the red stain would make the game much scarier. It would have to be jump scares because everything else people would get desensitized to. Just overall removing survivors' ability to gain information from the match would be much scarier and anxiety promoting. I get a jumpscare on those rare occasions when i spring a hag trap or a stealth killer is able to sneak up on me.
But this game is not designed to be scary, it's designed to be frustrating, as pointed out by Cote. So instead of working on the fear spectrum, which would increase anxiety, the game works on the anger spectrum, increasing frustration.
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Or give gen-grabs their own struggle/wiggle event. like, that the killer needs to knock the survivor down first before they can take them to the hook.
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I like the struggle event idea, us killers have to mash a button while they try and wiggle or vice versa, we win and can carry, they win and we're stunned and they get a speed boost and temporarily leave no scratch marks...let's do this thing! =D =P
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It's scary for me
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Idk im totally scared by dbd. "Is this a swf?" "Oh no....they brought a key" "oh gooood they can loop?" "Fml im redrank again?!?!??! Nooo"
And my favorites "oh god....is it ds?"
"Fk that survivor is gonna flashlight me..." "am i gonna get pallet stun for the save?"
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The idea that everything needs counterplay is what has ruined this game the most.
People want it so that no matter what the killer is doing there's always a chance to outplay them in that moment and come away unscathed. Survivors who run to the killer and then complain that something doesn't have counterplay.
It makes for a bunch of boring, underpowered killers where you have to sweat to make progress, and then you have that progress stolen away by an abundance if second chance perks.
Sometimes the counterplay needs to be "run away before it's too late."
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In my opinion, the whole aura reading thing just removes the horror and spookiness vibe out of the game. In a normal game, if the survivor hooked has kindred, you can see where the killer is heading towards (unless they're a stealth killer but even with those you can get an idea). Whereas if the hooked survivor doesn't have kindred, it leaves you in suspense wondering where the killer might be going too next, could they be heading straight towards you?
The stealth killers can block aura reading, and they can sneak up on you, which brings the scariness and ominous suspense back to the game for me. This is just a subjective view though, I'm not expecting everyone to agree, but it's the stealth killers that bring back the horror vibe for me.
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This breeds toxicity, in a single player game frustration is fine, but in a multiplayer exclusive game frustration only encourages toxic behavior. Bad game design if you ask me.
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My point was that dbd was not a fixed experience there are many different variables in dbd that have potential to scare you, whether it be different killers with different add-ons or different audio design, but my point is that they do it very poorly, dbd was never that scary to begin with. Alien isolation and Until dawn are mostly fixed experience which makes them predictable once you have watched them or played them multiple times but at least they are scary the first time or so you play them.
I have many friends that have gotten dbd in the past 6 months and ALL of which say dbd is not scary with an exception of one of them saying chases are a little scary.
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Dbd is not scary due to the amount of information survivors get. Heartbeat, red stain, audible clues, object, kindred, knowing where someone is hooked, etc.
The two times this game is truly scary, jumpscare meyers, and when a survivor stealth drops a pallet on your head. Both times you have no information and it scares the crap out of you.
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A game that stays scary is subnautica.
Your underwater for almost the entire game.
In the dark areas you can't see what's around you most of the time.
If there's something big nearby you will hear it but won't see it. It's not scripted so it can surprise you each time.
You don't really have weapons so you can't kill it.
This game it's not scary because survivors have too many ways of getting away or getting back up after being caught.
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God I could not agree with this more! So many times I've fired up dead by daylight, and I'll be in the killer menu with my perks ready to go, but then I'll be reminded of all the sweaty, try hard, poor matchmaking matches that I've had as of late, and I'll instead turn off the game and watch other people play it instead. No other game has made me so apprehensive to press the play button. 😕
The simple truth is that unless you have hours upon hours to invest into dead by daylight, it's not worth your time. I only continue to play it because it can be a fun game to play with friends, but playing killer or solo survivor is just terrible. After 4 years the dedicated player base is comprised of mostly people that have been with DBD since the beginning, and in all this time there has never been a proper matchmaking system, which to say after 4 years it's really starting to show, as it's yielding some of the worst matches players have ever experienced.
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I disagree. I have over 4000 hours and there are still moments within the game that scare me.
With that being said, people DO become more desensitized because the gameplay feels very repetitive. This is also why when they bring new maps people who have to learn them are more prone to being scared again.
There is also the fact that DBD isn't a scary experience for people who just got the game. Everyone's first time game experience is different.
I'm not saying you don't have a point, but it isn't as simple as "feeling safe". Just because you have a '2nd chance' perk slotted doesn't guarantee your safety. You still have to know how to play the game. Because by that theory then we would assume that everyone who doesn't have 2nd chance perks or whatnot are always scared. Which is simply not true.
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Don't know how to balance killers without red stain and tr, but if those 2 things would go away, I assume, I would love to play survivor because not knowing where the killer is and that he could be in every second behing me - that would finally something thrilling.
Maybe dbd could make out of it a second game mode. The people who find killers then too op could still play the old dbd and the people who need that little extra, could play the second game mode without tr and so on.
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Well, we actually have 2 examples of killers with no red stain or tr. Wraith and Scratched Mirror Myers.
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I disagree. DBD is not scary because one can play it a ton. When you first get into the game, it has its scares as it's all unknown to the player just like any other scary game. Even when you do know everything you can still get jump scared by a stealth killer or hag/trapper trap.
You could get rid of the terror radius, red stain, all 2nd chance perks and things like that and it still wouldn't be scary because every game would just turn in a Myers style match of watching every corner. Hell, most people do that anyways as you should since killers can sneak up on you with various perks.
At that point it would just be jump scares and nothing else and even then you'd get numb to that after a while. All horror is like that and it depends on each person, how quickly said numbness sets in.
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There are jump scares, and the anxiety/excitement of hiding from, or being chased by, killers. However, it's not been truely scary.
I think it says something when the biggest scare is not expecting head-on or a pallet drop. Killers shouldn't be the ones getting scared more :D
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Didn't you open this whole thing by saying DbD is scary for the first 100 hours? Which is it?
And you are genuinely missing the point: Scary stops being scary when you are familiar. What you are asking for is the Devs to magically wipe your memory.
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Yeah those 2 things are the most jumpscare-like things for me in the game, survivors stealthing at pallets and then dropping while i was just chillin' around is so annoying, as is an unexpected head on. But like i said, it's not that kind of spooky-scary, more the annoying "not again!" kind of scary. The game was spooky-scary in the beginning when i didn't know the maps and stuff, i explored everything carefully and got scared as soon as i heard the terror radius... good times!
Ghostface, Tier 1 Myers and Silent Bell-Wraith can still be scary, but since i use Spine Chill all the time they don't really jumpscare me so much anymore.
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You didn't read, I said dbd should be scary AFTER the first 100 hours not only for the first 100.
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I think one of the things that hurts the horror factor is that its rare for a killer to be able to directly kill the Survivors(Outside of Mori's) and the game seems to try to avoid "Gore" or being "Gruesome". Many of the kills that the killers can perform barely even look brutal, and its not helped by the game having very mediocre and goofy looking blood. When I see a guy shove a chainsaw in my characters chest and pull it up, and nothing changes on the character model, not a single thing along with spurts of what looks more like ketchup, I'm not scared or intimidated at all, in fact it almost looks comical. The only kill that looks kind of fine is the Hag Mori, which still suffers from the zero change in character model , but does have such brutality it could be intimidating atleast.
I understand part of the reasoning that likely goes into No Gore or Gruesome kills. It probably saves the devs a ######### ton of time not having to model all that, but it completely ruins the spirit of these kills. This is a horror game, not 5 Nights at Freddy's. Seeing so many iconic killers basically just kill people by slapping them with a wiffle bat ruins the immersion and any real horror.
When I play Pyramid Head and I slam my giant ass knife down on a person, I expect to see some damage, hell I expect to see them cut into 2 pieces, not to see a squirt of Ketchup and no damage at all.
So tldr, Rare to see direct kills, kills look like they were made safe for children to see.
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I do wish they had more intense gore in Dbd but something I dont know what is blocking them from doing so
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I totally get what you're saying, but like you said, watch a scary movie 20 times it isn't scary, and that isn't even close to 100 hours. There's only so much variety one game can have, and I can't think of a single game that's still genuinely scary after 100 hours. But I do still jump if I set off a hag trap or get jumped by a crouching pig, if it happens before I know it's that killer. I know jump scares are cheap scares, but it's still something 700 hours in.
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I agree.
More of the game needs to be run away before its too late.
I find survivors who want to be chased often kill the immersion for me.
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The only thing that scares me in this game is The Trapper. You never know where he put on of those traps.
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Myers and Ghostface still jumpscare me
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I think DBD is very scary...
...if you play killer.
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With it being October i'd like to play a little DBD and be scared but instead i'm thinking "i just don't want the hassle of dealing with nasty messages from people who can't take a win/loss"
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The game needs to become a bit more inventive. My ideas would be;
1. Add another killer that has Hag style jump scares.
2. Add a map or killer mechanic that ensues a total or near total black out, maybe when the killer approaches. Kinda like strobe lighting or power outage.
3. The current maps aren't too scary. Need a few darker ones, perhaps a dark forest or a cave network. Perhaps the maps could use a few more jump scares from the environment too.
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No. It's the exposure thing.
I did already make a thread about why that is the case too.
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