Once again I watched the dev stream (once again with permission) so once again you don't have to!

UPDATE: DO NOT QUOTE THIS POST. IT WILL GIVE YOU A RICH POST RENDERING ERROR. DO NOT QUOTE THIS POST.

Hey guys, it's ya boi, GoodBoyKaru here, back again with another dev stream summary. @Fibijean's caught up in life right now & on a DBD break, so once again I'm taking on theirr role. Once again, I have permission. And once again, this was completed at 11:38am for me, so expect some edits in the coming days where I fix grammatical issues, add some more links, or sneakily delete things without anyone noticing >:)

This stream was from 3rd December 2020.

Disclaimer

The following contains official information, unofficially worded. Unless it's in quotation marks ("like this") please do not look too far into the wording of a particular question. That would be my bad in getting something lost in translation, not the bad of the developers. Thanks! Please note I will try my best to stay as true as possible to all information said on-stream, however, and apply more context where needed, or just add in my own opinion or jokes which will be in italics.

If you want to find the stream yourself, you can do so here:

A YouTube video has been found! The stream begins at 00:21:15

Featured

Featured on this stream were:

not_Queen (Lead Community Manager), @not_Queen

Ethan (Game Designer), @Almo

McLean (Gameplay Programmer), @McLean

not_Queen's cat & McLean's dog

Opening messages

• Since December 1st, Chapter 18 (A Binding Of Kin) has been released, bringing The Twins and Elodie Rakoto into the realm.
• A "higher than normal" number of issues are present with the new content. The team are working to fix these issues, and will be released in hotfixes ASAP. Please bear in mind BHVR, as a company, gives employees lots of breaks over Christmas and so during the Christmas period weekly hotfixes are unlikely.
• Everyone who logs into the game today will recieve 300,000 bloodpoints as compensation. Thank you for putting up with these issues. These will be available for a week.
• Hit validation was re-enabled this week!
• ...then disabled 6 hours later. This was due to a serious issue with The Oni. This should be re-enabled by the next update (the next bugfix patch). Anyone who wants to check out just what exactly hit validation is can do so here.
• The DBD Event Calander is currently going on! Log in to recieve bloodpoints, charms, shards, cosmetics, and more. For a daily reminder from Dwelf follow DBD on twitter here.

QNA

The one you've been waiting for (the one you've been waiting for). The mystery, the one who changed history; that's right it's the QNA section!

Questions were collected from the forums as well as on Twitter; if you want a question answered, look out for the next time they say they're open, because you'll never get an answer if it's never asked.

@TDZ_Luke - Can we see the results of the Bloodlust experiment?

There ain't a fancy graph to show for this but one thing was found in the numbers; there was a 1-2% difference in kill rates. However the week before the experiment was the one with an abnormally high kill rate, the bloodlust experiment was incredibly similar in terms of kill rates to other weekends. If anyone has any fan-theories on this, feel free to contact McLean. Right now their current one is that it was a free-weekend.

@AGM - Are there any steps being taken to reduce the grind?

They're aware the grind in this game is pretty "nuts". It's not as bad as when it shipped, nor when there were only 2 perks per bloodweb, but they're aware there's still more work to be done. They're doing smaller things, like changing perk tiers to be consistent across the board, but in terms of a major change there are some ideas but nothing imminent, and no ideas can be given yet. Don't expect anything in the next 6-9 months.

@gfed - Will Decisive Strike be getting a rework or a change?

Oh boy is this a hotly debated topic. Oh boy.

"It's definitely a contentious perk." (McLean)

For anyone not aware, like those who haven't been around for a while, Decisive Strike (DS) has undergone quite a few changes in the past. For example, when it first released in patch 1.2.1 it used to have a stun duration of 3/4/5 seconds (similar to current DS), but was active from the start of the match. The first time the killer picked you up, you could use DS and hit a skillcheck no matter when in the trial. Later, other requirements were added, such as needing to be the obsession or wiggle to x percentage, or the stun duration was nerfed (in patch 1.3.0 the stun duration was changed from 3/4/5 to 3/3.5/4, depending on the perk level), before it's rework in patch 2.6.0.

In 2.6.0 came the first version of DS as we know it today- a 3 second stun, active for 40/50/60 seconds after an unhook. Later, in patch 2.6.3, it was buffed to 5 seconds, where it has remained until today, patch 4.4.0.

This perk, despite it's many changes, is far from perfect. It's still frequently discussed among the devs, and do want to do something about the more abusive side to it, for example survivors who use it as 60 seconds of invincibility, or killers who view it as purely anti-tunnel and then get hit when they're not tunneling. Nothing has been, and likely will be, decided on for the future though, as of present.

@ReverseVelocity - Are there any other killers that will be getting changes soon?

YES! It's time to party guys! First mentioned was clown, who's gonna be getting the next rework (despite nothing about the rework not the ETA being announced just yet). For anyone who doesn't know, you can go into DBD and check clown's add-ons; Ether 5 VOL% has a surprise for you.

The Huntress will be recieving an add-on pass soon, as she's now the only killer in the game who doesn't have the standard 4-5-5-4-2 split.

"Notably she's only got one iridescent- we'll take care of that."

2 releases after this one (update 4.6.0 I believe) they'll take a look at the Twins, like they did with Pyramid Head in the 4.3.0 mid-chapter and The Blight in this one. For anyone who hasn't seen yet, take a look at his add-ons. The new Soul Chemical is apparently great fun. This doesn't guarantee any changes, however perks, kit, add-ons, and power may be adjusted based upon the statistics and general community consensus.

Demogorgon will "probably" be getting an update next! Next meaning after the Clown. It won't be a major update, but will be a fine-tuning pass and probably an add-on pass too. Rat liver base-kit maybe?

There are also a couple of tweaks coming to the Wraith soon. "True Invisibility" was mentioned on the stream, but nothing detailed. They'll let us simmer on this for a bit.

That's a lot and I'm very excited.

@APoipleTurtle - Are there any plans to add more features to custom games?

Custom games are cool but only a small portion of the playerbase actually uses them, so they don't want to add too many features to them as not many people will use them. But they are open to this, and in other parts of the Design team they're thinking up different ways to improve these and make the experience better. It's not super high on the priority list but they're aware we want something more to come out of it.

@FogBringer - Will killers who didn't recieve a map at launch due to the graphical update (like the Twins or the Blight) get one at a later date?

Unfortuantely no, there are no plans to add new maps for previously released characters.

@Kebek - Will there be more changes to the Twins other than the changes announced?

As usual, they'll re-visit the twins during the next chapter release. They want a couple months of data to allow for people to get used to their power & how they work before making any drastic decisions. Remember everyone saying Pyramid Head would be really weak upon arrival? Haha me too.

@OniWantsYourMacaroni - Will we ever see at least a fix for some FPS drops?

Firstly, not_Queen loves your name!

Secondly, this question specifically mentioned FPS drops when things like status effects appear, or when items are looted from a chest.

There is a fix for the performance drop when looting an item from a chest! This should've been out in 4.4.0, and if not then expect it in an upcoming hotfix. The devs are constantly looking into these and trying to fix them, for the record. They're aware that on certain platforms there's a very noticable stutter when status effects appear for the first time. So yes! This issue, as well as a couple others, are pretty high on the priority list.

@TheRealHansGruber11 - Why hasn't the meta been changed more?

So, this is a fairly complex issue, so this was read out from a prepared answer. As such I'll try and transcribe it below the best I can.

"We got two things. Number 1: we aren't trying to make every new perk 'the best'. This causes power creep, and then all of the newer perks become the must-haves and all of the older ones fall into disuse- we, don't really want to do that. DLCs shouldn't be a must-have if you wish to stay competitive, they should be something that you want if you want to add that variety to what you have available. We'd rather give people more options and ways to play and let them decide if they're worth switching builds for. Number 2: we do change meta perks, on a somewhat regular basis. Let's say- Hex: Ruin, the countless exhaustion changes, Mettle Of Man, etc. We don't exactly want to nerf something into the ground just for the sake of shaking up the meta, if the perk itself isn't causing any problems. That said, some people are going to run the same 4 perks every match because that's what works for them, or because they saw a guy that told them it's a really good build. It'd be great if they do decide to switch it up, but if that's the way they enjoy the game, we don't really want to tell them 'no' either. We've got- uh- Ruin and Undying is supposedly 'everywhere'. It's true that it's fairly common, but it's not as pervasive as just Ruin was before the update. (This was mid-chapter 3.5.0 in January). But, the Ruin change is already fairly well established, and Undying is only 3 months old, so we're- at the moment- investigating the synergy between those two perks, and how common they're used together in matches, which at the moment is slowly climbing, so we may need to look at Undying at some point in the future but, it's not a high priority thing yet as it doesn't seem to be affecting a large proportion of our games."

Whew that was a mouthful. To summarise: They don't want to make every new perk the best, because power creep and it turns DBD pretty p2w because it'd be buy the new things or fall behind. They do change meta perks on a fairly regular basis too- the ruin change, exhaustion changes, DS, MOM, etc. They don't want to nerf a perk into the ground if it isn't causing any problems just for the sake of a meta shakeup.

By the way, if anyone wants to get this really cool and cute charm:

Just use the code ENTITYSLITTLEHELPER in the DBD store (the in-game one, obviously). This is valid until December 31st.

@bnork - Are there plans on making the Rift easier to max out?

They are looking into some other methods for earning progression towards the Rift, yes. Nothing yet concerete enough to announce today without getting into trouble but yes, they're on it.

@Clockso - Any update on fixing Blight's POV?

Yes. There's an internal version in testing right now with a raised and pulled back camera. It's really good but not 100% ready yet and they can't announce an ETA yet but it will be sooner rather than later. It's almost there!

I might be able to play this guy without throwing up now! :D

As said in the previous QNA stream (which you can find a link to here shameless self promo), it's not as simple as just raising the camera. First person animations must be changed on a fundamental level.

The reason this wasn't done first despite being high-priority was because of the Twins. Due to needing 2 characters to animate, the animation team had to go above and beyond for the last couple months (and honestly they did a pretty good job so far) but with their release it has now been un-bottlenecked. There are a few animations that need to be cleaned up with Twins (like Victor holding the survivor hostage in a locker, for example. Not so fun when the roles are flipped, huh?) but yes it's coming!

@Mooks I think you'll like the answer to the above question.

@MasterGrit - Will map RNG be improved?

This was specifically about deadzones.

The devs will be implementing a formula similar to the Springwood level design rework, where each loop is assigned a value, a total value exists on the map, and it randomly generates tiles based upon the value. Using the old systems, the number of pallets is mostly determined on the tiles that spawn. The newer systems have more consistency across the entire map, which should hopefully help reduce deadzones. To be clear, this is not part of the graphical update, it's part of a gameplay update, and will not be attached to a visual update to any particular map.

@Senpavo - Will licensed characters be part of the character model updates?

Rejoice for the answer is yes! Gone shall be the days of Laurie Stroodle having hair like noodles, and Myers' walking animation looking like he's Naomi Smalls performing Legs. They'll be getting the same treatment as all others. Because they're licensed, they will have to double check it all with the relevant IP holders to be sure but yes, they will not be left out.

Misehirk - When can we expect Victor's animation for lockers?

There is no exact date unfortunately but yes it is coming soon:tm: in one of the up and coming hotfix patches.

@PassarinoT - When can we expect to see new maps again?

Soon™.

That's literally what they said. They even said "Trademark".

@joeh66 - Will there be a stats tracker?

I feel like I could just copy/paste my answer from last time but here we go.

They'd love to have this and technically there's already a bunch of stats being tracked. The issue stems from creating the correct UI and way to actually view these stats; it'd require a lot of BTS work to get it up to an acceptable standard so right now it's more of a 'that'd be nice to have' thing and less of a high-priority thing.

For clarification, this was the answer for last time. The issue of retrospect also still stands.

@JoByDaylight - Which map or realm is next to be reworked?

Please say asylumn please say asylumn please say asylumn please say-

Teasers and WIPs are posted to their socials, usually Twitter. Nothing is allowed to be said yet though, so you'll have to keep an eye out.

Don't worry, though; these are usually posted to the forums within 3 seconds of going live.

@Dabihwow - Can we get a teaser for the upcoming changes to Clown?

Yes. Yes you may.

In fact, knock yourself out. Pun not intended.

@TheClownIsKing hype moment right here.

LET IT BE CLEAR, THIS WAS A WORK IN PROGRESS. NOTHING IN THE VIDEO IS FINAL. NOTHING IN THE VIDEO IS GUARANTEED. EVERYTHING IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE. LET ME, AND THE DEVELOPERS, STRESS THIS POINT. THANK YOU.

Aight back to our regularly scheduled programming.

@Freddy96 - Any plans to rework offerings?

No, not all of them. But they'll look into which offerings are used the most (they know which ones need changing before anyone says moris, and the current most common ones are bloodpoint offerings for some very obvious reasons) and which ones are used the least, and revisting all offerings as a set in the future. The offering system will be getting a rework in the future but they're not going to look at all of them.

@Knoop_Dogg - Any plans for a solo queue buff?

Oh I hope so.

What they're not interested in is different gamerules depending on if you're solo or not, for example gens taking x seconds longer. That's off the table, no, goobye, so long, farewell, kaputt, tschüss, Eichhörnchen. It'll be a lot more subtle things. Something that can be used for this is matchmaking, but one design philosophy they've been trying to follow is that anything they can do to reduce the gap between SWF/Solo, especially information, they will do. For example, Demogorgon's map-wide sound notifications or that any survivor sealing a portal has the aura of that portal revealed.

@SnakeSound222 - Will trophies ever eventually transfer from PS4 to PS5?

Due to technical limitations, this doesn't work yet. It can't be ruled out for good but at the moment it's a no, because they're unable to. But at least you get to do skilled huntress twice, what a bonus!

@A_Can_Of_Air - Are there any plans for advanced tutorials for survivors and killers?

The tutorial is currently being discussed in-house. DBD on the surface is a simple game, but gets a lot more complex in execution, so it's a balancing act between trying not to overwhelm people with information that they don't need to know upon starting out, and making it too simple. They can't say if it'll be an advanced tutorial, but they are planning on improving the current one. I don't think, during the survivor one, you even see a pallet.

@Mooks - Is a community contest for an original killer power possible like with skins?

This is incredibly unlikely, because killers are conceptualised over a year before they're released. They'd probably have to remove suggestions for plans they already had, and there are only 4 killer powers made each year but a ton of outfits, so it's significantly easier to design a community skin than a community power.

Furthermore, they don't want to commit too much to a killer power because from the beginning to the end, the power changes a lot, and if a fan-created power is chosen to built it's unlikely it'll come out the same as what was originally invisioned.

"We don't like to say never, but..."

You saw the backlash from the community Claudette + NSS skins, imagine that but with a power... Yikes.

@wisdomwielder - Many new perks are just better versions of old perks- are you going to revist some of these older ones?

Examples given include Oppression V PGTW, Surge V Overcharge, and Undying V TOTH.

It's another prepared answer so get ready folks!

"The perks mentioned have different triggers and functions, so I don't really agree that the new perks are just better versions of old perks. Oppression makes several gens regress, while Pop adds lots of regression to a damage generator event. So Oppression is saving you the trouble of having to run around damaging several generators to start them regressing, while Pop is giving you a single reduction in a generator's progress where you are. Surge makes several gens in an area lose progress and start regressing, but Overcharge booby-traps a single gen for when the survivor hits it. So those, again, are quite seperate functions. Undying makes destroyed hexe totems shift position, which kinda protects your totem, but TOTH makes it longer to cleanse any totems, including dull totems. So even if you just run TOTH and nothing else TOTH will protect NOED, for example, while Undying will protect them but it's not protecting them for a function, it helps you keep them for the vision. I think what's going on is we're working on creating perks that are in different spaces, even though they may seem on the surface to have similar functions they occupy different niches and both trigger what kind of function they give you, like Oppression saving travel time as opposed to Pop giving you a chunk of lost progress. So I'm not sure I agree with that assessment."

Okay, Almo, please send me your script in advance next time so I can do this bit easier I beg of you.

@FilledPizza - Will Lerys, Saloon, and Midwich be graphically updated?

Uh- yeah- they're not currently planning to update them in the same push as the rest and are mostly focusing on older realms to make sure they're bringing them more up-to-date. That's the main priority.

@A_Can_Of_Air - Will we see more unique killer powers in the future, like an AI?

Hi again lol, how you doing?

They can't say yes or no because they haven't announced the next killer yet but the example given of an AI is particularly tricky because you have to make sure there's still something for the killer to do, but the AI has to be strong enough to not be blamed when a game goes south. They love to try new things, and are pretty sure there will be more, but they can't really comment on it yet.

@jotaro - Any balance changes for Freddy in the future?

"Yes, indeed."

All you Freddy haters rejoice, for there is an update for Freddy currently in the works. No specific details can be dropped yet but yes, he's being worked on. Him chilling at the top of the stats board has genuinely got their attention. Stay tuned.

@Wehmut - Can we expect some new outfits for The Pig?

They can't say 'expect' because that suggests there's definitely something being made, but it happened in the past so it of course could happen again.

@Justalittlepeeck - Is there anything planned for Demogorgon?

Yes. An add-on pass, a fine-tuning pass through some numbers, but it won't be huge. He'll be next after Clown.

@v4lor - Any news on hit-validation?

To be fair, this question was picked last week and all questions are answered in advance to ensure there's no confusion amongst the devs, but yes. It's coming back once they fix the issues with Oni, hopefully in the next hotfix patch. Going by previous trends this should be next Tuesday but nothing has been officially confirmed.

@JHondo - Can you do something about Badham map rates?

Turns out Badham maps were accidentally increased, this should have been fixed after the bloodlust test. You're not crazy.

@jotaro - Can we get cross-progression between different platforms?

Again it feels like I could just copy/paste a previous answer.

No confirmation on if it's possible or not, and the devs don't want to say "yes" to get your hopes up only to have them crushed. But, they are aware that it's a highly requested feature and so will continue working to get it into existence if possible due to having to have to work on it on a per-platform basis. It's also not only a dev call to make, with other parties needing to agree too. So far only Steam and Stadia, with Switch on the way.

@bm33 - Will consoles ever be involved in more testing?

Unfortunately this is unlikely. With the PTB, there's a lot of leeway since it's being hosted on Steam. Including consoles in the loop would slow the process down substantially, and shorten the time to fix issues between PTB and live. That's why only Steam is used- the turnaround is just quicker. Consoles are still used in any and all live testing they do (like the bloodlust experiment), and sometimes things can be tested on a certain platform/region, like the MMR system, but it's very unlikely that consoles will be added to the general testing ground.

@zombitehdeath - Is KBM support coming to XB/PS?

It's not planned at the moment. It's more work than you'd think, given the way the game works on consoles. It's never a 'no' but it's very low priority.

@SweetTerror - Will there be an update to fix the UI on PS5/XBsX and XBsS?

Yes, there is a fix coming for the UI problems.

Partiially (Twitter) - Is there a chance of colorublind accessibility options being added in the near future?

Lots and lots of settings will be reviewed in 2021 and evaluating different features to add/remove. However right now there's not enough of an actual plan to say if it'll be in the 'near future', or to commit to a specific feature in general.

Paladin_Goo (Twitter) - Can we disable exhaustion perks for a weekend?

Rip my Head On :(

They wouldn't need to disable exhaustion for this. They can go into the data and look at a games with exhaustion perks and games without exhaustion perks, and see if there's a substantial difference in the stats. This couldn't be done with bloodlust, because bloodlust is in every single game.

I agree with not_Queen here, "You're gonna pry Head On from my cold, dead hands."

LuminiousDBD (Twitter) - Yall got more of them S T A T S?

Yes, they actually do.

And I wish this was a bad joke. But it isn't. And it makes me sad.

Interestingly, though, the number of tbags per match decreases in red ranks.

TheKingTwitch (Twitter) - Any update on key/mori changes? And any ETA you can give us?

The answer to the first is yes, and the answer to the second is no.

That's all that was said lol.

Fleshtown (Twitter) - When will we see an LGBTQ+ character in DBD?

In recent interviews, they've addressed this. They're committed. It's coming. For BHVR, representation is important, and they want to make sure they do it right when they do it. They don't want to make a token character, they don't want to wave the diversity flag, they want a genuine LGBTQ+ character in there who feels like an actual person who isn't definied only by their sexuality/gender.

Also a note from the Creative Director- this will always have taken place in the past. There's no time for romance in the Entity's realm. RIP Kingfield.

Also shout out to chat for being really negative about this whole question, particularly this one individual who thought that someone being gay would completely ruin DBD.

And shout out to this guy too. You know who you are.

SourMelonSodaa (Twitter) - Will we get Dwight in a maid dress?

They don't know, maybe they will, maybe they won't.

Multiple people - Are there plans to adjust Emblems?

Yeah, in the long-term there's a plan to adjust Emblems, and a switch over to MMR would probably need these to change. In the short-term, it's worth noting the Devout Emblem is currently bugged, possibly only on the Twins. Know that it's not you and they're on this bug.

Genzo - Have you considered making AFK crows appear above survivors who don't touch generators for a certain amount of time?

In principle, this would be nice to help prevent hostage games, but how much time is okay? It'd either be too lenient and serve no purpose, or too harsh and punishing. It could be abused; would you tap a gen to reset the timer, or would you have to work on it for a certian amount of time? If it's tap, it solves nothing, if it's working for a certain amount of time it takes games where the killer is snowballing very quickly and makes them even harder to win. It's not that it's necesarily an incorrect feature, it's just that it's much more complex than this. Therefore the short answer is a no.

@taysey49 - What was the most challenging part about designing the Twins' power?

The Twins have a very unique power letting them be in 2 places at once, which creates a hell of a lot of issues. For example, you can't block the basement stairs as a regular killer but both twins side by side can. Normally you can't block the unhook prompt due to multi-directional hooks but the Twins can split up and completely block it from appearing, making them even better at camping that Bubba and old Pyramid Head (when he could see cages). A lot of the work had to go into ensuring the power couldn't be abused in situations like that.

THIS CONCLUDLES THE QNA SECTION FOR 3RD DECEMBER, 2020. THE REMAINDER OF THE STREAM WAS A SUMMARY OF THE ANNOUNCEMENTS.

Announcements summary

• Chapter 18 has been out since December 1st, 2020. The Twins and Elodie were both added into DBD.
• There are many issues with this patch, moreso than usual. These are being fixed in follow-up patches, coming ASAP. They're aware and they're working on it. In the meantime, log-in within a week to recieve 300k bloodpoints as compensation. They want to thank you for dealing with them during this time.
• Hit validation was enabled and disabled due to an issue with the Oni. This will be re-enabled (again) during the next bugfix patch to release.
• Advent calender is underway; remember to log in every day in December and even a bit after for the prizes.

This concludes the Developer QNA From Home, from 3rd December 2020. Stay safe everyone. Stan Elodie.