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What changes would you make to attract new players?
I would like to play with friends, but most give up after a week because they say the game is too hard.
I don't think the basics of the game are too hard, it is expecting a new player to come onboard and play long enough to get good while wading through all the toxicity and learning all the perks and add-ons.
My ideas would be to give them "training wheels."
Some ideas would be perhaps a cosmetic which shows they are new, like an armband or special skin which would disappear after 50 games of play. Along with the training wheels idea I would increase the skill checks good and great areas and have them slowly shrink as they progress. I would also decrease their struggle meter and increase the killer stun time on a shake free escape; again the struggle meter would increase as they progress. Perhaps one survivor or killer would be given to them with all the perks at level 3 for them to use for the first ten games.
I really would like to see new players try this game and stick around.
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Add a mode like dbd mobile has where you can practice with bots. That would give new players a chance to practice killers and survivors in a less stressful environment, or even just let them explore the maps if they wanted (bots don’t care if you explore)
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TBH, making it so you're able to do something while on Hook/Killed such that even if you "lose", you can still play the game until the Trial is fully complete.
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An offline mode so they can practice the feeling of public matches without having to deal with real players. When they feel like they have a good understanding of a certain killer or certain perks they can try out public matches.
When I first started playing overwatch I played vs ai for a few months before feeling confident enough to try my favorite heroes against real people. Made me play a lot better in public matches than just being thrown into the public pool straight away.
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I honestly surprised. If DbD is too hard then literally every other game is for Gods. When I first came to Dbd biggest problem was perks, and once i grind them it become *easy*.
If anything new players need is starting perks.
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Probably reduce the grind somehow like get rid of tiers. None of my friends want to play because the grind of trying to get the perks they want is offputting to them.
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Reduce the grind, add some sort of practice mode, and reduce the amount of XP it takes to get iridescent shards.
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Survivor has got to be easier. I see people with hundreds of hours dying quickly. Buff maps so it's easier to escape killers. It's impossible for new players. The killer can also track too easily. If the job for killer has been made easy so it needs to be easier for survivor.
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What maps need buffs? A nurse main like you will ignore map obstacles anyway
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Add a training mode where you can play against bots, and also give more advanced tips about the game itself, stuff like make distance, or pressure multiple survivors etc.
Also delete the forums probably lmao
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The first one that pops in my head is shelter woods. Half of the entire map is a deadzone.
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Emmm man.... when i was fresh new potato i escaped on my 2nd game perkless. How is it impossible?
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Okay that’s actually fair. I remember getting 5 t and L walls once on that map
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Practice all Killers against bots, not just Trapper.
Reduce the grind so new players can access their desired builds faster.
A match replay system that at least saves your last played match so you can watch maybe multiple POV's and see where to improve as a player, what your teammates were doing, report griefers more effectively, and best of all gain access to a new easy way to show BHVR cheaters in action so they get properly punished.
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Bot mode with varying difficulty levels.
“Newbie” matchmaking where new players are matched together where possible.
Significantly reduced grind.
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Nuke the grind as much as possible. Best place to start is to finally get rid of perk tiers, as they're a source of both inconsistency in perks (depending on what scales with level, the level can be irrelevant to the function of the perk OR essential) and also the source of seemingly arbitrary cooldowns and other restrictions on perks that shouldn't have them... just to have something to scale.
Better practice options. Just let people populate a custom game with bots, let them use their own loadout (or any loadout they want to try, as everything is unlocked in customs) and let people try stuff out there. Let them select what killer the killer bot plays as well if they're doing that (but with the option to randomize it of course).
That's the big 2 if you ask me, especially the grind. Not even touching on how it can be a continue-or-quit decision moment once people realize what grind they actually have ahead of them.
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I wouldn't.
I'd advise them to play something else.
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Add a real practice mode where you can try all the killers before buying them.
Remove tiers from perks. Remove the bloodpoint cap.
Login rewards everyday: Bloodpoints, shards etc
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* Overhaul the graphics, game looks like a PS3 game. Check out the 4k haddonfield fan made content on YouTube.
* Rework the survivors and character selection. No more multiple survivors, you have to choose your survivor at the start of the trial. Survivors have an individual built in perk/trait such as boost to gen repair, healing, vaulting etc etc. They are no longer just skins.
* Remove perks like self care and Prove theyself as they will be traits mentioned in the point above.
* Add a story mode or alternative game mode.
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allow me to queue with survivors when we also have a killer
there will be fringe cases where survivors will troll and sandbag to ruin a random player's day but once the people sad enough to do that get banned we'll be left with a case where someone can go "oh i need to do a killer archive lmao see yall in the trial" and we have a good giggle on voice chat about playing against each other
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I'm not new but I'd like solo custom games.
Being able to try new maps, killers etc. Can be hugely helpful.
But let's be honest a single player bot mode would be better with map rotations. Hard to get bots using powers right though
I'd honestly say killer is more disheartening than survivor. Games not for everyone though, very unique and lots to take in
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The option to play against bots.
This needs to be in the game, with the current crap matchmaking and the enormous amount of stuff to learn.
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Add Nemesis
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This is such a strong topic for me... I'd say the absolute best way to get new people to stay is to kill off camping and tunneling strategies. It's a big turn off to me, and I hated dealing with these tactics as a new player. That should not be an acceptable marketing gimmick for a company that wants to see new players join their community.
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That's the point of being a new player. You have to learn. Do you expect the devs to make it easier to escape killers just because you're new? How would a new player learn anything with someone holding their hand? It's already easy enough to escape with a decent team. There is nothing easy about playing killer. I play both and killer is harder to play by a mile for me.
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The grind to unlock perks is the first thing that would have to go, then a better way of teaching new players as there is currently so many perks, addons and powers that it must be extremely confusing whats happening in game without complete knowledge.
All this is moot of course as anyone who pays for this on last gen consoles is going to immediately uninstall when they look to see how long it will take for the performance to be fixed to a reasonable expected level; and they realise people have been asking the same thing for years.
Why would anyone without already being committed, commit to a game that doesn't seem to value its bare minimum expected performance over releasing new content on an unsustainably regular schedule?
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X2 Blood point the first month
Start with 1mil BP
Remove Wraith, Billy,Nurse,Huntress. Remove Meg, Clau, Jake, Nea, David, Bill. Newbies have only Trapper and Dwight. Then give them 80.000 shards and let them free to pick any non licensed characters
Allow 1 players custom match with bot and able to freely use any character with their default perks. So they can pick which characters they want to get for mmr play. This is also QoL for console players who wants to try new killers
Remove perk tier
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None, this game is great at attracting new players, it's current issue is keeping players.
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I would add a new game mode : Draft mode
So, if you pick Survivors, then for Round 1, you get shown 2 random survivors to pick from. You pick one.
In round 2, you are shown 2 random perks, tier 3 purple. You pick one.
This continues until you pick your Survivor, and 4 perks, and addons.
Same for Killer.
It would be a fun mode, where people try new things, and you go into a game where nobody built meta unless they got so lucky that they were given all 4 meta perks to pick from.
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I think licenses work good enough.
Don't expect them adding game modes anytime soon or anything that requires too much effort. Also there is a q time argument so...
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Bhvr's idea of attracting new players for the last 2 years has been simply putting the game on sale for 50% off every time they start to bleed players.
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survivor and killer queue times haven’t been bad for me. But it must be different for a lot of players.
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This game is already pretty new comer friendly. It just has trouble keeping them here. Because the balance is so dog #########.
The best way to reduce the grind is to just lower the BP cost of everything. That's literally it. Browns 1,000 , Yellow 2,000 ETC. That already frees up so much bloodpoints.
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Removing perk tiers would be so helpful to reduce the grind. Getting tired of going through 300 bloodwebs for a certain perk that I want.
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Adding a Market to dispose of things you don't want for BP and the ability to exchange 4 brown addons, items and offerings to 1 yellow and so on and so forth... if they do the same things (like BP offerings)
Giving us an unranked mode might be good for newer players as well as those whom aren't competitive
Or just putting them into a "new player" queue
Also putting some of the perks (especially non teachables) into training modes would help
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I would make every Tier 1 perk immediately available.
This would cut the grind down by a third, and remove the barrier preventing new survivors from accessing much needed perks such as Technician, Bite the Bullet, Visionary, and Windows of Opportunity (on top of crucial perks like Kindred, Decisve Strike, and Borrowed Time)
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Id add in a built in audio communication setup maybe by proximity
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Giving Killers different Mori Animations to buy with shards or auric cells so we dont see the same one over and over. It would bring variety to each one
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it worked for me, and I'm happy I started playing. :)
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My friends when they tried the game weren't invested into learning what perks do. They just wanted to start the game and have equal power as leveled players. And they also were disgusted by outdated graphics for some reason.
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I actually unironically agree with this. The game is very killer sided at low mmr, extremely. I think Kindred and Windows of Opportunity (while in chase) should be base kit. I also think they should add a warning noise when someone's hook stage is getting close. All of that wouldn't even be enough, quite frankly, but I would be concerned about buffing survivors too excessively for the sake of new players. Just basic information would go a long way in solo queue.
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Less grind, that is main issue imo and reason why most of my friends stopped playing this game.
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DBD is one of the least noob friendly games I have ever played...
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Practice mode with bots and the killers/survivors/perks that you already own. Not just Dwight and Trapper, but every character you currently own, and every map that is available to play in.
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Show killer info on loading screen, so that they know what killer they are facing, how the killer works, how to counter the killer. There are too many killers in this game, it can be overwhelming for new players.
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I think a good first step would be a change to the matchmaking system that matches players with < 20 hours with other player with < 50 hours.
New players as survivors should get matched with new players as Killers. A bit longer waiting time should be okay here. Playing with a more experienced friend comes in at their own risc.
Still low MMR and new players face a very killer sided game. This changes later on sure, when survivors get to dictate the pace of the game and the Killer becomes a more equal opponent. However as a new player with no idea how to loop and how to abuse certain tiles and no knowledge about maps this is pretty bad.
A simple bandaid woud be to give all survivors an infinite supply of brown medkits and green maps. This would encourage players to use this items as they no longer view them as rare and limited. The ability to heal yourself makes it much easier for a new player because you now no longer need communication to get another chance during a chase.
Also I would change the "Perk slot system" for survivors: You start the game with 1 changeable perk. The other 3 perks are locked in: Kindred, Déjà Vu and We'll Make It. Those perks provide information and you can only change them after you reach level 10, 15 and 20 on your chracter. With Kindred going last.
New survivor should not have less perks than the other survivors. They need perks as training wheels.
Same for Killers by the way but with "Bitter Murmur", "Whispers" and "Unrelenting".
New Killers als need information and miss a lot of attacks...
Practice mode would be greatly appreciated by a lot of players not just new players. Just going on a map and trying what curves I can cut with Hillbilly and trying to flick and curve around would help me so much. Sure I can get a friend to play this with me but it would be utterly pointless for them when I just need a practice dummy.
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Making Killer the power role
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The grind. When I started I almost quit because I genuinely hated playing and wasn't sure if I wanted to sink time into getting better perks. Only stayed because my friends at that time refused to play anything else. This was years ago so I can't imagine how daunting the grind is now
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Killer is the power role in lower ranks
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I always have my iPad/phone on hand for just this type of situation and am usually watching vids on you tube on how to play better,I seem to have been watching quite a few recently so you can gauge yourself whether there useful or not.
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Attracting new players is easy. Just dangle a license killer they love in front of them.
"Retaining" players on the other hand. Thats the real challenge.
- The learning curve is too steep
- The community is toxic
- The mm is terrible
- So is game balance
- The grind has become too much. Seriously bhvr, remove perk tiers and rework the bloodweb
- Once you get into the game you soon discover you need to buy a lot of dlc to get the right perks to be able to compete at high mmr
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