The game isn't scary at all.

Note: I'm not here just for a discussion, but I also want to suggest some things, which I admit, will take some precious time and resources to implement, and will also change the game very drastically, you could call it a different game if you will, so I'm not writing this with the expectations that they'll actually do something about it, I just want to send the right message, which is: For a game that calls itself a horror one, it's just not scary at all.

This is just my opinion, but after 5-10 matches when you first start playing the game, it just turns into a glorified hide and seek with objectives for the survivor team and a scary guy running around trying to catch you, the same scary guy that also doesn't become so scary anymore after a few matches against him, and I get it, just like a horror movie, the more you watch it, or play it in this case, the less creepy it becomes every time you do it, but it doesn't have to be like this.

Now, I'm not here to complain without giving some suggestions too, but keep in mind that these suggestions are very unlikely to be taken in consideration since it basically changes the whole game, and from the point of view of BHVR, this will cost a lot of time and resources, not as much as getting another licensed character for example, and they might not even share my excitement for these changes at all, not alone want to sink the resources in them, but I believe the ideas behind them should be taken in consideration. This is basically my view of the "perfect" dead by daylight experience and I don't expect anything more than some opinions from other users.

To make a so called horror game feel more like an actually horror game, immersion is everything, without it the game will be so arcade-like that the players would actually try to develop gameplay strategies that wouldn't make sense in an actual horror setting, like getting in the killers face to body block a hook or to protect a survivor while they reach the exit gates, but oh wait, that's already happening.

First of all reworking the map tone will be a great start, improve the fog and make it denser, change the lighting, lessen the visibility maybe, and change the overall atmosphere, force the survivors to rely more on the terror radius than on seeing the killer from 80 meters away, what I have in mind it's something very similar to the opening cinematic when booting up the game. That's why Ghostface and Myers are considered the scariest to face against, while they may not be the most powerful, you will never have a good idea where they're coming from, are they watching you right now or on the other side of the map? You'll never know, and that paranoia is enough for someone to look around mindlessly for a killer that might not even be there, not just run away from a generator once they hear the heartbeat, and come again 20 seconds later once it quietens down.

Another good start might be to limit the knowledge that the survivors have, instead of seeing them all at the campfire and seeing who they are or what items they bring (the killers can still see the survivors and what they bring) it would be cool and immersive to have a surprise every time you get in a trial, and you'll only get that information on your HUD only when you meet up with them, before that all of your teammates are anonymous, limiting the aura reading capabilities of survivors will also be a good idea for this change.

The survivors also shouldn't know each other's health states until they actually meet up and see what their condition is, not telepathically knowing already, for example you see your friend get injured? You will have that information for the rest of the game or until you meet up with them and see what condition they're in, because you might go around looking for a medkit to help them, but when you come back they may already be dead, you will never know for sure unless you see them again, or even better, you may not even see one of your survivor teammates for the whole game, until you find their lifeless body sitting in a puddle of blood. Something like this can be used for the killer as well, if survivors don't have access to that precious information, maybe the killer shouldn't know either if a survivor is healed up or still injured/dying on the ground.

This will also help with the repetitiveness of the game, every match feels the same, spawn in, get on a gen, heal a teammate because you magically know they need help, maybe get hooked and escape or die, which depends entirely on the killer. Every killer should be terrifying and instead of changing a bunch of stats, I feel like immersion might be the key to the balancing of each character, This sort of unpredictability that I mentioned before will help a lot with the immersion too, and hopefully will terrify the survivors from going right in front of the killer to body block a hook as I said before, no one in their right mind would do that if it was real life, you would look more after yourself than the other guy.

Now I'm sure I'm asking for too much, I'm asking for huge changes actually, but if the devs actually want to make the game more scary and immersive, the suggestions above will be a great start, but that is debatable of course, someone might have better feedback than mine which may or may not be easier to implement in the game.

Here's another idea from another commenter: Let's make this it's entire game mode, separated from the trials game mode that the entity "hosts", just let the killers go wild and kill everything that moves, no hooks or anything like that, I'm thinking something in the likes of Friday the 13th the game, but with larger maps and no generators especially dedicated to that game mode alone, that way the players that prefer the original are happy and the game will deserve it's "horror" title as well, to be honest if you remove the killers who are basically the only scary part about the gameplay, it's not a horror game anymore.

Conclusion: Immersion and realism is everything in a horror game, are you going to follow a serial killer with a flashlight and 360 them until they lose sight of you like some Looney Toons cartoon or are the survivors scared to even get a glimpse of the killer from behind the trees?

Some problems with these suggestions:

• Separating the community into two parts, the one that prefer the original mode and the one that prefer the new game mode more will lead to longer queue times, especially if the number is imbalanced and 75% like the original more as an example, while the rest may like the other game mode more, the original game mode will still get slower queue times while the other part of the game will barely get matches at all, but I guess that problem already exists with the killer and the survivors mains.
• Not being able to see the health states of the survivors will be crippling for solo queue players, while overpowered for SWF players if the killer cannot see them either, an idea would be to disable SWF for this game mode, which would also make it even more scarier but I don't think the community would appreciate that.
• The amount of time and resources required for something like this to happen will lower the chances of it actually happening, but instead of it's entire game mode they could still keep some of the ideas like the HUD not updating by magic, and tweak them a bit to keep the original idea for the trials there.

So what would you prefer? A game that actually feels like the opening cinematic when you first boot up the game, a killer that has the advantage, overpowering the survivors and is actually scary? Or do you prefer the current state of the game where 4 megs are butt dancing the killer every chance they get?

If you have your own ideas or improvements for my current suggestions please leave them in the comment section, like I said I expect nothing other than the opinions of others.

Edit: I edited a lot of the thread, but the same idea is still there