On The Subject of Events

INTRODUCTION

Hey, how ya doin?

This post is made by yours truly: Bored Shroomboomboom

Now with this post I wanted to talk about Events in Dead by Daylight, I want to highlight some of the good things the devs do/did with past events and highlight the negatives. So that hopefully (lol this wont change anything) we can get better events in future

So lets look at some of the large events of the past that are the communities favorites:

Howling Grounds

Scorching Summer BBQ

Hallowed Blight

Moonrise

Now, why exactly were these events so loved?

- They brought an interesting mechanic that slightly alters the way the game is played

- They brought new lobbies, aesthetics and themes to suit the event and make it that much more memorable

- And most importantly, they had cosmetics you were able to earn if you played enough of the event

So what mAkes these so important?

Because not only is it a fun addition, but its smart as well. People are attracted to progress bars, they like to see how well theyre doing and how far theyve reached in something. Especially if said thing has a limited time to be achieved, people dont want to be left out so theyre gonna try to reach 100% on what ever the goal is.

Howling Grounds and Scorching Summer BBQ are perfect examples of something that I cant imagine takes too much effort but is executed very well. All they did was simply add special event hooks, generators, and an offering which not only gave you more bloodpoints but also helped progress in the event. And people were more likely to use said offering because of the extra points. The Summer BBQ was a slight step up with adding a brand new theme and having 1 generator and hook spawn by default, for the rare occasion that nobody brought an offering.

(For those who werent there, both these events had the exact same objective and were obtained the same way. You (or your team) had to repair 80 event generators for the survivor cosmetic, and you had to hook 40 survivors on event hooks to get the killer cosmetic. For each offering that was played an additional hook and generator would spawn)

This was just a taste how ever of the next 2 major events we would receive

(skip the next part if you know the 2 events already

THE HALLOWED BLIGHT

The Hallowed Blight was the perfect event, it featured a new lobby, (The 3rd ever unique lobby to be featured) a new theme, lore, brought back the All Hallows Eve Lunchbox and Will O' Wisp amazing cosmetics that you were able to earn for free and a fun new mechanic for both killers and survivors; The Vial.

For those who were unfortunate enough to not be able to participate in this event, players had a vial at the top right of their screen, and they needed to fill that vial up to receive 1 Putrid Serum. And you needed 10 Putrid Serum to be able to purchase 1 piece of one of the Blighted Cosmetics. "But how did you fill the Vial!?"

Well Im glad you asked! 1 Visceral Canker and Hook would spawn on the map by default and more depending on how many Pustula Petals (offering) were in play. Survivors were able to harvest the Nectar from these cankers to start filling their vial, each canker only had a limited amount of serum, only having about 1.33 bars worth (A Vial had 3 bars, as a survivor if you filled up to a bar you would keep that serum, no matter what. How ever if you died, any serum left over from that bar would be gone). Killers simply needed to hook survivors on event hooks, one hook would give them half a bar (6 hooks for 1 Full Vial).

During the event we also got log entries every day from a mysterious character that was experimenting with the serum. There were also a few cutscenes shown. This character would later become a playable character, The Blight. (You can actually revisit these entries and cutscenes in the Compendium. Tome V, Unleashed)

In my opinion, The Hallowed Blight was the best event this game has ever had, and you can imagine my disappointment with its successesors, The Withering Blight and The Eternal Blight.

MOONRISE

Moonrise was also a very good event, while not featuring as much as The Hallowed Blight, it made up for being able to obtain 3 whole cosmetic sets for free (with a lot of grinding that is)

During Moonrise, players were able to obtain Golden Coins. Your first Golden Coin was obtained by getting 100 event points and for each subsequent coin you added an additional 100 points. (So if youre working towards your 6th coin, you needed 600 points) Golden Coins were used to purchase one piece of any set from the Moonrise Collection. But how did you obtain said points?

2 Lunar Vessels would spawn on the map by default, and an additional one would appear with every Red Envelope offering played. (Maximum of 7)

Survivors needed to grab a Lunar Vessel and escape with it, doing so would grant them 25 points towards their next Golden Coin this came with a challenge how ever, since if ever theyre hooked they lose the Vessel, and it would spawn back onto another pedestal. Another problem arose, as the killers objective is to destroy these Lunar Vessels. How ever they could only do so if a survivor is hooked, as the Vessels would then become Corrupted. Destroying a Corrupted Vessel would grant the killer 4 points towards their next golden coin.

If you were unlucky enough as both killer or survivor and not be able to obtain or destroy a Vessel there was another very simple way to obtain points. As a survivor for every generator completed you would receive 4 points, and as killer for every hook you got 3 points.

As said before, while not featuring as much as the previous major event it still had its own personality and brought a fun new game mechanic.

Unfortunately Moonrise, released in the beginning of 2019, was the last event of its kind.

recent events

Nowadays the events we have are VERY lacking compared to what we had. Theyre simply just all reskins of each other, simply being a new offering that gives bonus BP and a new event item. I have a feeling the devs just simply dont understand what made past events so well received. They heard we want cosmetics, and we got Crowns, the problem with Crowns is they dont feel rewarding to obtain in the slightest. You dont have any sense of progress or accomplishment, its also as if its handed to you.

The good and the bad of the 5th anniversary event

The good

Community Challenges

Grind reduction (in the form of Cakes)

Free Cosmetics

Event Items

The Event Shrine

THE BAD

No special main menu

No special theme

Nothing gameplay altering

Nothing to incentivise the player to keep going (everything was basically handed to you)

Codes (seriously devs just drop these, no one likes them)

While Anniversary events were never anything too big, this is something the devs stated would be 1 of 2 Major events of the year, and this has me REALLY worried for whats to come in October.

for the upcoming halloweN event...

Dont just make it a basic copy and paste of last one with a community challenge sprinkled on top, The Eternal Blight and Withering Blight was VERY disappointing, and I cant repeat myself enough times. GIVE SOMETHING THE PLAYERS TO GRIND FOR! AND VISUALIZE IT! MAKE IT CLEAR TO THE PLAYER HOW MUCH PROGRESS THEY HAVE! MAKE THE COSMETICS APPEALING, CROWNS ARE COOL N ALL BUT THEYRE STUCK ON THE DEFAULT HEAD MAKING IT REALLY DIFFICULT TO PAIR THEM UP WITH ANYTHING! AND THEY WERE WAY TOO EASY TO OBTAIN!

FOR OTHER SMALLER EVENTS

Things like Winter Solstice need to make a return, to keep the christmas spirit in everyone and to bring the community together, these dont need to be huge, maybe a community challenge at most and some extra BP (In the form of a blood hunt, offering or any other way in game, not codes)

CONCLUSION

Events are something thats supposed to bring the community together and celebrate, and lately thats kind of been forgotten. The devs arent the only ones to blame, we as a community as well. But they are also supposed to be something special, something memorable, something unique. Hell they can even disguise an event as a test for an upcoming feature they would like to implement, I dont think any one would complain about that.

I know this was a brick to read and to those who stuck around, thank you. I know this isnt going to change anything but hey, a bored boy can dream.