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DBD isn't very new player friendly in my opinion
So at its current state, DBD isn't very new player friendly. Most of the perks that make the game tolerable require excessive grinding. This is especially the case for the killer. So maybe offer a pack to help new people get started, that or add a bots mode like mobile, I dunno but I feel like this game could be much more populated if it was more new player friendly.
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My brother would love to play this game but he finds the new player experience absolutely horrible. He gets turned off by the grind and teachable perks and tells me to let him know when the game is more tolerable. It's been a year since and still not a single improvement has been made.
But hey we don't need that game health chapter the team is big enough for both just look how smooth Ps4 is running right now 🙃
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I definitely agree.
- Maybe give new players a double blood point boost for their first 20 games.
- Let them unlock one teachable from a character that they have unlocked for both killer and survivor
- Let them get one unlicensed DLC right when they purchase
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This game is a grind fest that the reason i never swich from ps4 to pc i dont like this game enpugh to pay the game a second time and im not 100% sure they put a cross progression
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Pfft, what gives you that idea? The lack of any sort of tutorial beyond "here's how to move, here's how to do gens?" The fact that you need to buy or massively grind anything beyond the base killers/survivors, which is a ton of DLC packs? The fact that after you buy those packs you have to grind each of those characters to level 30 to start unlocking their teachables, and all the way to 40 to get all 3?
The fact that perks are distributed randomly even after you unlock them?
The fact that perks have tiers for some godforsaken reason, so you have to randomly earn them 3 times to get to their actual usage?
The fact that a ton of the perks have a bunch of status effects literally not explained in the game, requiring you to go to the wiki?
The fact that all matches are ranked, so you're "in it" from the start?
The fact that the only way to practice is to force a friend to sit in your game since there's no practice mode for solo?
The fact that it's a team-based online co-op game where your only method of communication is two generic emotes?
The fact that the ranking system is annoying and often confusing even for veterans, forcing you to actually play worse to rank up? (Gotta go on longer chases, killer! Don't just down someone super quick, silly!)
Nah man, you're crazy. The game is super friendly for new players.
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I don't recommend this game to my friends due to the grind, and the pay wall. The only reason I have what I have is due to that massive sale last year that coincided with my tax returns, and I splurged. Outside that, the grind is just too much. My brother was curious, but after seeing some of my matches, and explaining what is required to get what my build were, he declined.
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That's why when the new survey comes out I always say that I didn't and won't recommend DBD to anyone I know. Even those I know stopped playing, they played just for fun in SWF with me (we were noobs then). And now I am forever alone solo Q player 😅
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I always felt new accounts should start with 1,000,000 BP. That should get you to about level 40 and three unlockable.
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I know I wouldn't recommend DbD to anyone. BHVR's behavior, the grind, the community.. its all bad.
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The new player grind may not be the best, but it’s definitely better than many other games out there.
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It's amazing so many new players stick with the game, to be honest.
I play with friends on a regular basis, and some of them barely know what half the status effects do, let alone perks. And don't get me started on killer powers.
The game is in dire need of a proper tutorial. One that shows all of the basics (it doesn't even cover totems, which have been in the game for almost 4 years), including status effects and all killer powers (playing as and against the killer).
The UI needs an update to show what these perks that pop up on the side of the screen actually do - if a killer with Thanataphobia, for example, hits a survivor and the perk name pops up, the survivor has no idea what it does, unless they've read the perk's description in a custom game or the Nurse's character info page. Have an option to show text that explains what the perk is doing - "-5% repair/sabotage speed" under the Thana icon, for example.
Also, starting out as a new player sucks because you'll only have access to one perk slot and one of three teachable perks per character, until you've earned some bloodpoints. Suffer through barely knowing what you're doing, with limited options, in order to potentially unlock perks/items/addons to help you do better? This is awful design. If I were less patient, I'd have given up after a few matches and never played the game again, because I'd have a horrible time trying to figure things out. And don't get me started on the RNG that goes into unlocking perks and everything...
Then there's the inconsistency throughout the game - some maps have better graphics than others due to the way the devs are implementing the updates, some killers have unique music and others don't, text is inconsistently written across the board, slightly/moderately/considerably can mean wildly different amounts, and so on.
DBD is next to impossible to recommend to new players, unless they play with experienced friends (which would put the new players at a disadvantage due to matchmaking) or have watched a ton of gameplay via streams and videos. It is not "pick up and play" at all.
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ermm new players all suck and are trying to figure out the game soooo no, it is quite friendly to new players, you are talking about players who already have quite some hours in the game.
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Friend; Hey should I get Dead by Daylight?
Me; No
Friend; But you're playing all the time? Don't you like it?
Me; No
Friend; Then why do you play it
Me; *cries*
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The grind is insane, you have people who stream the game with thousands of hours in playtime who still haven't maxed out.
They did say on stream though a while ago that Grind is intentional to get players to continue to play, So take from that what you will.
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Same thing with Warframe, one of the devs (kinda sadly) stated he still has faith people will play something in the game....for fun.
And the other dev kinda cynically stated: "that ship has long sailed".
Killing Floor had leveling, but you mostly played it because it was just fun, KF2 is another collector/grindfest.
Left 4 Dead had zero unlocks, it was purely played because it was fun.
That new very populair Phasmophobia (im quite a fan myself) has leveling yeah, but that I feel is more for the dev to figure out a realistic progressing system, right now its just about playing the game really, just the fun of it.
But it is quite and interesting question, how many people would play if they just had everything they wanted already, all cosmetics they cared about, rift was done etc.
Lets not forget the playerbase mostly dropped for a bit at the end of the previous rift because the grind was unreal and extremely unfun, so many I feel were just burned out for that time, but what if we ignore that aspect and purely look at hte idea of players playing just because its fun.
idk interesting question.
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I don't know if you're trolling or if you're actually being serious
Let's look at this so called 'new friendly' game shall we?
Ahem, @Xbob42 provided a good list above of why this game is horrible for newer players so if you don't mind Bob, I'm borrowing your list:
- Perks are distributed randomly even after you unlock them
- Perks have 3 tiers, so you have to randomly earn them 3 times to get to their actual usage
- A ton of the perks have a bunch of status effects literally not explained in the game, requiring you to find information somewhere else (the wiki)
- All matches are ranked, so you're placed with more experienced players from the get go
- The only way to practice is to force a friend to sit in your game since there's no practice mode for solo (there is the tutorial but that doesn't teach you how perks function in game or how to practice looping against certain killers)
- It's a team-based online co-op game with no in game voice chat, the only methods of communication are pointing and motioning someone to come towards you.
- The ranking system is complicated and confusing for newer players, rank 20's against rank 8's or 2's, some have even made threads on this forum saying they were dissatisfied with this game because of the poor matchmaking.
Therefore, I fail to see how this game is friendly to newer players...
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Meh, it being less bad doesn't make it better IMO. This guy committed a genocide of several thousands of innocent people, this one only killed a few dozen innocent people, so the later guy is a good guy.
Bad is bad, no matter the degree.
I only started the game at the Pyramid head chapter and I'm not done grinding yet, I was lucky enough to start the game with the advices of experienced player who told me who to up first and what to unlock. So yeah, i got the meta perk, I bought the leatherface chapter on day one for killers, didn't bother with DS and OoO so no Halloween chapter, but I barely have half of the survivor's unlocked and even less of the killers.
The more SVV and killer they release, the higher the blood point gain should be, it should still take longer each time they introduce something new, but not exponentially.
New player should always have it easier than veteran, that's the point of having veteran giving feedback to improve the game ^^
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I do think updating the tutorial would also help with this, although it explains the basics, there's still a lot more to learn that would help with the new player experience...a lot of us forget this I guess because we've been playing for such a long time now.
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Guess the first confusion sets in regarding what someone defines as a "new player"
When people speak of problems with the "new player experience" I would think the problems are with how the menu's work and the tutorial, getting started if you will.
Talking about perks and what to run is way beyond that point, new players imo are thosethat literally play the game for the first time and maybe the first 20 matches or so, the absolute basics of moving around etc.
Now as for your list:
- Perks are distributed randomly even after you unlock them
Perks dont matter, heck I think it would do a LOT of players good to play the game without any perks for a month or so.
- Perks have 3 tiers, so you have to randomly earn them 3 times to get to their actual usage
Yes....and?
- A ton of the perks have a bunch of status effects literally not explained in the game, requiring you to find information somewhere else (the wiki)
See now we are talking, yes you need the wiki for some stuff, I would dare anyone to play Warframe without the wiki but that is not an excuse, I agree that info should be ingame, maybe expand the tutorial with extra info tutorials.
- All matches are ranked, so you're placed with more experienced players from the get go
Or less? I mean matches being ranked has little to do with the matchmaking just not working correctly and that is an issue for new and old players alike, rank 20s should be matched with rank 20s, which for the most part I find they are so not really that big an issue.
- The only way to practice is to force a friend to sit in your game since there's no practice mode for solo (there is the tutorial but that doesn't teach you how perks function in game or how to practice looping against certain killers)
Ermm you practice by...literally just playing the game...just play and you will start to understand how it works, like literally any game out there.
Its not like there is any negatives, nothing is taken from you when you do poorly, you can only gain.
- It's a team-based online co-op game with no in game voice chat, the only methods of communication are pointing and motioning someone to come towards you.
Yes...and? that is literally just how the game is designed, what does that have to do with a new or old player experience? and its only co-op for one side and even that is debatable.
- The ranking system is complicated and confusing for newer players, rank 20's against rank 8's or 2's, some have even made threads on this forum saying they were dissatisfied with this game because of the poor matchmaking.
As said earlier yeah, the match making is atm wack, hence the MMR system is coming which will hopefully fix things but again that is an issue for new and old.
Someone being number 1 being better then someone being number 2 is not that hard a concept the grasp, the problem comes more in the communication when people speak of "low ranks" and "high ranks" hence the prefered way to reference it is with the colour, red ranks etc.
Again, something to pick up on but not beyond the average gamer I may hope.
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Not to mention that the tutorial is off to the side and has a really small button. I didn't even realize there even was a tutorial after 100 hours.
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You are funny, indirectly incentivizing SWF groups at lower ranks.
I know that's not your goal, as well as you know nothing of how imbalanced this game is, an how much killers suffer. Trust me though, keep playing and I think you won't recommend that as much as you think you want to right now.
Although as for everything else, as in giving BP boosts just for existing in a new account I still don't like, because then smurfing will become more common, plus it wouldn't really matter as most of the perks you need are from Killers that you have to buy.
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Grinding, AND paying for DLC!
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I am a new player, I have had the game for three days, and I still consider myself a new player. I have reached rank 13 (killer) and am often playing against much higher rated opponents; at least half have one or more rank 5 or higher. Whilst I have acquired a large portion of the required knowledge and am capable of doing so myself, I am definitely still very green. I don't even know what powers half of the killers in the game do.
There are so many perks that frequently I find myself confused as to what has occurred. I read through many perks. The shear quantity and specific nature of the perks, as well as the random jargon which is unexplained and requires a wiki codex to solve, led me to just try things. I found it rather frustrating that even when I went to content creators that the recommendations were often not accessible to me. None of this, however, has stunted my progress. That being said, it's a lot to ask of a new player; assuming you want to not just buy the game but actually retain them as well.
Overall, my experience was moderately unpleasant. My experience with starting many games is moderately unpleasant. I find that many of the best games have steep learning curves and large payoffs or a gradual learning curve and a lesser payoff. I do not consider this game a great game for many reasons, although, this game still has me hooked. I feel that the learning curve is steep and I'm concerned that it's not worth the effort. It feels good to have learned something but I don't know what I've achieved. The games are incredibly inconsistent and I have no reference for how well I actually am doing. I can't tell if I am just squashing a bunch of noobs or getting squashed by noobs. Are killer rankings equivalent to survivor rankings? I feel like there should be some kind of leaderboard or something to help distinguish the different ranks other than some arbitrary number and color. Also what constitutes a win seems to be more to do with account progression than actually playing objectively. For example, I use Billy and often when I have a good game I get bad results, despite fully objectively winning the match.
List of things that would have made me less likely to consider quitting day 1-3
Have all starting killers/survivors start with there base perks (your first matches will be against people with a bunch of perks)
Get rid of the level requirement for number of perks
Have in-game definitions or at least a link to the wiki
More in game prompts (toggleable from settings but default on)
Specify the rank of the survivors/killer before the start of the game(important for loadout decisions)
For lower rank survivors not grouped with higher ranked survivors reveal the killer before the match and give description of abilities(maybe perks too) I understand the potential smurf problem but the lower ranked people need the help and it would make for more competitive matches for those higher ranked.
Define the ranks, even if it is only flavor text, I don't know if I should care about making rank 13 or not but if it came with a decent title I might feel like it even if it wasn't actually that badass.
Leaderboard at least for those at the upperend of the ranks because there can be major skill differences at the higher level that just won't be represented by a 20 ranks system. Also, it would give some reference to the skill level of certain players you see in vods or the content creators and such that many people learn from.
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I hear ya. Just started playing about a week ago. I have met a few nice people but the wait times to play as killer are INSANE. 20 minutes? I have to say I am glad I haven't been around and waited until this was on GamePass because I would be FURIOUS if I had bought this game and it was in this current state. I am a rank 20 killer and have been matched up with level 10-12 survivors. Then, if someone quits in the lobby the entire waiting process starts afain. It's bad.. Like, can't even play bad.
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A while ago, like a LONG while ago, i recommended this game to a few friends. First game he played trapper. Got hit with DS Unbreakable. Refunded it on steam
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