After 6 years, why can't we have a practice mode?
I get that we're talking about different dev teams here, but why can the mobile version of your game have such a feature whereas the main game can not? Playing a killer that you haven't played before against a SWF full of the strongest meta perks doesn't exactly make for a great gaming experience. Must we always be thrown into the deep end of the pool? Why can't we at least select bots within a custom match?
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The explanation given in the QnA was fairly reasonable- it'd be a constantly ongoing effort, since the survivor bots would have to know how to react to every killer power + perk + addon, and would have to know how to use every survivor item + potentially perk. The killer bot would have to know how to use every killer power in the game, and would have to know how to react to certain survivor perks too.
I would like to see it, but I understand why it'd take some time and would be shelved as low priority for a bit.
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I feel like the custom matches are good for practice. learning the new maps and playing with friends to practice and doesn't effect online game rank. I do this with every new map so I don't get lost and look like a dummy online with others.
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but. Mobile version has it
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I can't speak to the quality of the mobile version.
Though, aren't they different teams? My understanding is that the mobile version doesn't have any actively new content, they just translate killers, survivors, etc from the full game. So, that team probably has the time to develop a basic practice mode, and the regular team doesn't.
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Personally id rather have a training course rather then a bot match like they have in overwatch
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Yes. Knowledge transfer. I think nobody needs Team Oracle SWF bots a like. You cannot predict that bot will loop you somewhere around where you would try to slap nemesis.
I think 4 babies as from tutorial would be sufficient and people are creative enough to find the way to learn m2 the way they want
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Its called trial by fire.
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The answer given in the Q&A was definitely disappointing. Even regardless of the fact that mobile DbD (apparently) does have a bot mode with all killers available, what players are asking about more than actual training matches is just a training mode. That is, the ability to load into any map as any killer or survivor, on your own. Bots wouldn't even have to be there, or if they were, they wouldn't have to be coded to actually play well. Let them all die to RBTs, it's not like people go into training modes to "practice" overall match flow, for that they should just go into actual matches anyway, bots will never come close to that experience. They go into training modes to learn the basics of the maps and mechanics and perhaps some fundamental principles.
It would be a trivial thing to allow players to load into custom matches offline on their own, giving them the opportunity to become familiar with and even study in detail the various maps, abilities, certain mechanics, add-ons, offerings and perks. Why is this not a thing yet? I think it's possible they dodge this question because the main reason is that they don't want players to be sitting in offline modes rather than queueing.
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Literally all they need to do is make it so that people can load into KYF without requiring a second player, and put a block on all the player number determinations (match being over because no survivors) and.... thats literally it. players can leave by using the leave game option.
Learning new killers, how addons affect their powers, etc is awful in its current state, especially since said addons get used up in normal matches. Survivors can benefit from it as well by learning tiles better as well as routing/looping efficiency.
The thing that annoys so many people is that we almost already have it, you're just forced to have another person join you in order to access it.
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It was definitely interesting watching Justin say that while bots weren't off the table, it's definitely on the edge of said table. But then literally in the very next question concerning bots replacing players that disconnect, Patrick mentions how great it is to practice against bots.
It feels like so many requested features just keep getting scrapped. Every question that was asked in the stream were questions that were voted on/chosen by the players, and yet 99% of the questions either didn't receive a clear answer, or were confirmed to be scrapped altogether. They say that they listen to their community, but these Q&A seem to suggest otherwise.
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That was even less than a non-answer by them. Sure, one can argue that bots can never replace humans, and that the actual online game mode should be strictly human multiplayer, and I agree with that insofar that I've found it absurd whenever I saw someone suggest to use bots to fill lobbies to help with queue times. But in this case we are talking about disconnected players once matches have already started, so literally the absence of a human. In that case, the bot is not "replacing" a human player, it's just filling a void. And sure, while I agree that a bot can even be sort of a detriment for survivors, such as for the example they used of giving the killer easy hooks and in turn Weasel/Resonance procs, ultimately if they are coded to at least actually repair gens like the tutorial bots are, they will definitely be less of a detriment than being a player short entirely, and this is especially true because even if they are easy hooks, they're not free hooks - the bot could literally be AFK, the killer still has to spend time going through the motions of going to them, downing them, picking them up, carrying and hooking them.
I personally don't care terribly much about bot practice matches or having them fill in for disconnected players, but yeah, a practice mode where you can just load into a custom match on your own is something even I as a very experienced player would want and spend a fair bit of time in. ...But that's also one of the reasons why I assume this is not a thing yet - it would take players out of the queue pools. Probably not a huge issue, not least because it would presumably do so roughly equally for both roles, and as such not affect queue ratios and therefore queue times much, but yeah, this could very well be one reason why they don't even bother.
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I heard the answer they gave and i was really dissapointed.
Even 15 years ago, there were AI Bots in custom maps of DOTA. I was playing without internet (15 years ago mobile internet was really expensive) and i had to chose how many AI bots i want to be with me or opponents and the scale of difficulty (Easy, Medium, Expert).
So 15 years later i can't believe that they can't add a SOLO game mode with AI Bots that you just have to choose their difficulty and experiment perks and tactics in the battle. It would be a good addiction and we will avoid the whole toxic matter in DBD.
I wish they will add this feature in the future.
Post edited by MyPagio on4 -
I love how every potential addition or Qol become suddenly impossible in DBD, even if it's very basic or default features on other games.
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Being able to add bots has been a mechanic in video games for decades now, especially in multiplayer games. Seeing BHVR talk about how hard and how much time it would take is such a non-answer that I'm tired of hearing it. They themselves have said that adding bots continues to be a highly requested feature, so why continue to ignore it? The core game for DBD hasn't changed in 6 years. You're still doing the same thing you always have. It's like a first person shooter only having deathmatch. How you can't find the time to create new game modes and add practice modes I'll never understand.
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They just don’t want to invest the time / money. It’s a pretty basic feature that comes as standard with most multiplayer games, but what can ya do.
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I don’t have a problem at all with this. I’d rather have the devs spend their resources on things that improve the core game itself. Building a well-functioning practice mode and the AI needed for it would take a ton of time and effort, and it wouldn’t result in a lot more people playing the game so thus not bringing in additional revenue
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BHVR has a long track record of ignoring highly requested features (bots being one of them). DBD is their only game, and the fact that literally nothing about the game has changed in 6 years' time is staggering. Being able to play both with and against bots is a feature that has been commonplace with multiplayer games for decades, and saying that you don't want to implement such a feature because it takes too much work is such a non-answer. There's literally no reason good enough to not allow players to practice without needing additional players to practice with. I shouldn't have to sweat my ass off when I'm simply learning. At the very least you can let me hop into a custom match solo.
They need to interject new blood and new ideas into the game. DLC isn't enough to keep players around, and the recent Steam charts prove that.
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So long as they prioritize DLC every 3 months, there will never be anything substantial added to the game to help improve not only QOL improvements, but also it's longevity.
On Steam DBD has been steadily losing players since October. I play on PlayStation, and I too have zero incentive in wanting play anymore. I hate playing as killer because I hate sweating my ass off, which sucks because I find playing killer more fun. Personally I would love nothing more than to play the Artist who I haven't played with yet, but doing so means I have to go up against a team (possibly a SWF) with a full meta perk loadout when all I'm doing is learning. Testing out killer powers against simple bots like what can be found in the tutorial would help so much with that. Of course it's not going to prepare me for playing against real people, but it can help me to be better prepared. But for some reason BHVR doesn't want to invest any time into doing that despite bots continuing to be a highly requested feature, as it's constantly brought up in every Q&A.
I really have no faith left anymore in expecting any significant QOL improvements with this game. It takes a lot of strength just to muster up a single match a week these days.
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Honestly I just stopped being so invested in the future of the game and now I just take it for what it is, flaws and all. The devs are set in their ways, there’s nothing we can really say to help them see sense and athough it’s always good to try, we have to accept they think they know what’s best and most feedback will be discounted.
DBD does have much potential and is a special game to me, but it’s held back by a team of people who won’t even give us loadouts after 5+ years, despite over 190 perks. That’s mental!
Everything is “too much work” and is “really difficult” to implement. Even trivial stuff. It’s a video game! Of course it takes work to develope features. How did it come into existence in the first place? It’s like a car manufacturer lamenting that they have to spend time and resources to fit their cars with wheels 😂
Yea, you’ll go insane if you stay invested in this game. It sucks for sure but that’s why you have to just laugh at the absurdity and wait for an alternative.
I will say though, credit where it’s due. DBD is unique and without BHVR we would not have it, regardless of any misgivings, they deserve acknowledgment for that. They’ve also done some great work on licences and that can’t be taken for granted. But yea. Absolute nightmare mate.
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I agree that when this game fires on all cylinders it's an absolute blast to play! There is indeed something special about DBD that keeps players coming back. But when you refuse to listen to your player base year after year, it's going to affect the game in a big way.
On Steam the all-time high amount of players was well over 100,000, today it's roughly 40,000. They lost over half of their player base, and yet they're still sticking to their guns and refusing to implement highly requested features, including fighting with their community over such nonsense like SBMM. Watching Patrick compare an asymmetrical 4v1 game to a team-based game like hockey was absurd. Not only do killers and survivors not share the same objectives, but the Killer is all on their own. Asymmetrical games are so far removed from team-based games like hockey that I don't know what he was thinking making that comparison.
Honestly, at this point it feels like the devs just want this game to crash and burn so that they can move on to other things. I've never seen a dev team like BHVR complain so consistently about how hard it would be to implement so many QOL things that are just commonplace in other games.
I want to continue playing this game, but as a solo player it just isn't any fun. These days I watch streamers play the game because I myself don't want to go through 20 matches like they do before I come across that one good match that makes DBD shine. I don't have the time or the energy for that. When I get home at the end of a long work day, I want to sit down with a game that helps to take my mind off things and entertain me, and sweating my ass off while I'm trying to learn a new killer doesn't exactly do that.
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I also quitted. I play solo, i love killer but killers are really unplayable these days. There are only for experts.
I also watch streamers and hold back. I don't want to play anymore i hated it.
It's not killer friendly and as you mentioned, i was with my 10 lvl killer against 50 lvl survivors with full perks unlocked.
It was a massacre and i din't even have one hook in 5 games.
Unfortunately that's the truth. I hope you all have fun.
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Soz mate I didn’t see this. Very well said and you echo thoughts exactly.
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You can play KYF if losing bothers you so much. Ask in the forums, i'm sure you'll find someone to test stuff with
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I dont even need bots, i just want to be able to queue in a match alone to practice snipes and curving
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Literally all they need to do is allow you to enter a KYF alone. That would allow you to test killer powers (i.e. Nurse blinks, Huntress hatchets). Learning some of these things in a live game often results in survivors bullying the hell out of you so much that you can't actually learn anything. This would also allow survivors and killers to study the maps and practice running loops. This would be good for everyone in the game, killers and survivors. You don't need bots. Some of us don't have any friends that play dbd, and we don't want to have to go find some random to practice with. Just allow us to go into KYF with one player. It's already in the game, and I don't see a downside.
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Nurse is balanced because you're supposed to be scared off of playing her due to the humiliation, embarrasment and bullying you'resupposed to face.
If anyone could just practice her without anxiety or stage fright, that would be unacceptable and not fair.
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LOL! Ok. Well, that's super condescending and not helpful to the conversation. Thanks.
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Survivor bots do not need to be given much more programming to face off against different killers - they just need to be basic in approach. Sure, you can use an if/then line of code to make a survivor drink from a fountain if they are fully infected from the plague, and have already been hooked once. That's not much code at all. Other than this, all you really need is for bots to repair gens, cleans hex totems, heal allies, and generally run away from killers. They do not have to be THAT strong. They don't even need to use active ability perks. Having ANY survivor at all is better than a DC - the Killer will have to chase them and kill them, yes, but the killer gets the satisfaction of eliminating a survivor and they have to take time to kill them - which frees up time for other survivor players.
Likewise, you may say that playing against an M1 hillbilly is boring - but having a Hillbilly that only M1s and is a relatively easy mark is a lot more interesting than a killer that DCs and sends you back to Que with a handful of points.
There may be logistical concerns, but they have the AI packets and they could make an injector to take over once someone disconnects.
Seriously, this technology has been around since 2009. There aren't any excuses.
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The devs can’t even manage load-outs despite over 190 perks. A practice mode just isn’t going to happen unfortunately. Standard features that other games take for granted are “too difficult and complicated” to implement unfortunately.
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Indeed. You only need dumb bots. No need special programming. Just their starting perks just to be able to test the killers skills.
if you want to take it further, i have wrote in another post that you can add difficulties on bots. From the menu you can choose 1-4 survivor bots and next to them their difficulty (easy, medium, hard). Many games have this option, games that also have a solo story and mode. I don't understand what is so difficult to add. DOTA, CS etc had maps with bots 15-20 years ago. I don't believe a game that is only 5-6 years old, can't have this option.
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You're right in that there is absolutely no reason why you can't hop into a custom match by yourself. That being said, they talked in the Q&A how hard it would be to program survivor bots to work against different killers, but the truth is they can be simple bots like what can be found in the tutorial. Bots don't have to mirror an actual match against real people. They exist for practice reasons, and practice reasons alone. But like you said if they're not going to do that, then allow us to hop into a custom match on our own. There's no reason good enough why that still isn't a thing 6 years later.
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Exactly. Bots do not need to reflect what it's like to play in a real match. They exist solely for practicing purposes only. Personally I don't understand why a bot can't hop in when a player disconnects. I agree with Patrick that multiplayer games should be focused around the human player, but when a human player disconnects you no longer have that human player element, so having a bot hop in would be better than having nothing at all.
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Because it's too much like hard work in comparison to making a pretty costume and selling it for twice the price of a DLC.
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I'll say this, regardless how one may feel about BHVR as a whole, their art department always puts out amazing work! I just wish we could say that about the rest of the game.
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Also we don't forget the "play another game, play civilization" thing that devs adviced in a live stream...
Like "we don't give a damn about you players. We don't care and we don't listen you. If you don't like our game, quit..."
So insulting to their players....
I'm so frustrating about it...
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I feel like at the very least killers should have a Practice Mode.
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i wish we could just play KYF solo, so we can learn maps and loops
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It's just too hard to program bots. It's just too hard to let you practice alone in an empty lobby.
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Even if the bots had god awful AI, being able to take a new item, killer, add on, etc into a real map and get a feel for it would be better than what we have now, which is absolutley nothing. Just have the survivors ruhave a few basic preset AI commands, like "run from killer" or "do gens" so I can hop into an offline mode and test the timing of killer powers or see how big of a difference a certain perk makes. I don't need exact replicas of my teammates to be able to have a training mode worth some value.
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adding new killers to the training mode shouldn't be that difficult, the problem is BHVR wants to code competitive AI survivors and that takes a lot of time, but that's not what killers want. Killers just want basic bots that run away and loop, those bots are already in the game (Trapper Training mode).
sadly the new training mode would be just for killers because it is easier to implement.
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I agree that the cosmetics look great but I mean anybody who can justify paying for a cosmetic that is more expensive than an actual dlc really needs to evaluate themselves. I'm talking specifically about the 'legendary' outfits etc.
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The best part about that whole segment was Not_Queens reaction to when he said play something else.
Great bit of pr there!
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Agreed.
The most aggravating fact is that this is tech that's been around for so long. Injecting a rudimentary AI into the match on a player DC is not the most challenging thing - as it has been done since the mid-2000's
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That contradiction is definitely an interesting point.
Maybe this whole, "we-are-not-going-to-have-bots-that-can-counterplay-pigs-reverse-bear-traps" could act as a litmus test for killer concepts.
If a killer concept is too difficult to develop bot behavior to counter play a certain killer power, maybe the killer power is too complicated/convoluted in the first place (I mean not in general, but for BHVR to develop and maintain/bugfix in the future).
Food for thought
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What I and many others find confusing is that DBD mobile already has bot implementation for both killers and survivors with varying difficulty, and yet BHVR wants me to believe that they can't implement (at the very least) a rudimentary AI system into the main game, when a free mobile game already has it? Not only that, but you can still earn a small amount of blood points and experience within those bot matches. For 6 years straight the community have been asking for bots in the main game, and for 6 years straight BHVR refuses to do anything about it.
Another great example of refusing to listen to the community would be the grind. They mentioned in the Q&A that they won't remove perk tiers because they have something else planned to reduce the grind. They mentioned that they don't want to remove perk tiers because they'll just keep adding more perks with every new killer and survivor so what's the point? Do you have any idea just how many years of new perks it would take for DBD to be given in order for the grind to be comparable to where it is now if perk tiers were removed? Most likely a decade, and I don't see DBD being around that long And why did it have to take year after year of constant complaints before something was going to be done about the grind?
Simply put, BHVR is going to continue to do what they want to do regardless how many players they continue to lose. They've already lost over half of their player base on Steam, and clearly they could care less about doing what's necessary to win those players back.
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Go go kill your friends with 1 person, practice mode activated
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not even a practice mode but just custom game bots.
I'd like to be able to have a funny game without the need to sweat and engage in the never ending negativity that makes up the DBD player base.
Even if the bots are crap it will still be more enjoyable than a lot of the PVP experience.
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It will take almost the same time to implement something for mobile than for PC, talking about coding it. So the whole "the mobile team is different" is a bad excuse for their lazyness, they can do it on PC or console yet they don't want to do it. If you have two teams and one of them is doing a better job than the other when both of them has the same struggles, if not more challenges from the mobile version, since there are stuff that they need to redo again because it won't work like on PC, like the button to look back... then yes, I'd call the other team incompetent or lazy... basically the PC team says "it's a lot of work and effort so we can't really do it" when the actual explanation is "I will be paid anyway and the people will keep playing so why bothering about it?"
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This is to continue my previous comment. Many people who are playing this game are half deaf or fully deaf yet they keep playing. Couldn't the DBD PC and consoles team add the heartbeat that you see in the mobile version of the game? They can, but they won't.
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