Without being rude... the creator isnt always right.
I get people are lead developers or head of X department but that doesnt automatically make you right.
Now I dont want to be rude or claim I know it all but there are so many people of your player base who have soooooo many hours in this game, we are talking 9k hours odd and play at the highest level.
So when you have people like that why dont you use their views and input? It shocks me that you wont listen to people who live off your game and know all its ins and outs.
I know you do listen to the community about some things but theres alot of impactful things you go your own way on, a common one being the Kills & escapes being SBMM.
Not complaining, just feel getting a team of your players to be inside feedback is a good idea. They would do it for free, end of the day we all want a game to be perfect
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The flipside of that argument is that having a thorough understanding of how the game is doesn't automatically translate to knowing best on how it should be changed going forward.
People who play the game for a living don't have any inherent insight into the realities of game development on the managerial, technical, social, or resource level, they're pretty good for theorycrafting or identifying objective flaws (IE, bugs, or truly broken designs) but they have absolutely zero inherent value when it comes to larger things like the best way to implement a better matchmaking system.
What BHVR should be doing is taking their input into account and giving it a little more weight in some scenarios, namely things like feedback on high level balance and any edge case bugs that they'd struggle to catch due to playing the live version of the game less, but not listen to them on everything- which is what I understand they already do.
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Well that's what I'm saying, they should have a team and work with people like it. Other games do actually work and talk to the higher and more committed players to make an overall more satisfactory game.
Remember people want things to be fun, balanced and overall a pleasing experience no matter what it is.
Behaviour do quite alot right, sadly they look at stats alone for the most part and like you said these people obviously play the game far more and will have a way better understanding how things would work in a live version of the game.
When the devs and community have clear communication and are working together it often results in a better game for everyone. More sales, happy community etc. Etc.
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Yeah i agree with this.
I know people who have droven a car for more then 45 years. If my car breaks down i'm still going to see a mechanic rather then them.
I agree with op that lead designers and stuff aren't always right but i think they are overestimating a bit how right the 9000+ hour people would be.
The absolute best way would be ofcourse that they both work together with good communication but we can't even come to an agreement among ourself and the devs also don't see eye to eye with everything so i wouldn't get my hopes up
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And how exactly is what they're 'already doing' working out for them again? Lets see, declining population on a monthly basis...comment sections on all of their social media posts making the same point about SBMM, Discord game-discussion and the Forums having thousands of messages all talking about SBMM being bad. This is bad logic and historically this leads to compromised results in multiple sectors of society such as gaming, sports, fashion, music, tech etc. Why would anybody be that arrogant to believe that their title alone makes them above guidance or input from people without that title?
Just because somebody holds a certain title it doesn't make them the best person on planet Earth to handle a task or the most knowledgeable person in the room for every single little thing. Should there be a correlation between comptetence and experience? Sure, but that's not what always happens in reality. You can't possibly believe that a developer knows better about every single aspect of implementing systems than every single player in the world that makes thousands/millions playing these same games when plenty of players are used by other developers in other studios to make sure their systems are good.
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to tell somebody they plugged something in the wrong slot. Their system self-admittedly doesn't work properly (Despite what Patrick just said the other day, they've already contradicted themselves multiple times on the same topic) so perhaps they actually do need to listen to these players more. Does that mean the players know how to code and handle back-end for them by themselves? No, but I guarantee you listening to these players on this subject would 100% make the player base happier and the SBMM better received by the community because they're the ones that have purchased and mastered the product. I'll take the advice of somebody that has eaten a dish 5,000 times before I take the advice from the person who cooked it 5,000 times but only tried it themselves 10 times
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They seem to rely alot on stats saying something is fine while ignoring the player base going "this isn't fun, it's encouraging unfun gameplay."
It'd be like a chef giving you something that has all the nutrition you need but ignoring people when they say "this doesn't taste good, it needs more flavor."
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It's also worth noting that development and design teams change over time. The people in charge now are not necessarily the people who were in charge 7 years ago and aren't necessarily the people who will be in charge 7 years hence.
It's perfectly fine to criticize the current team's goals and objectives, especially when they're a considerable departure from the formula that made the game popular in the first place.
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I agree that both should be communicating. To further on your example of a car being driven for 45 years. Yes the mechanic knows how it actually works but the owner is the one who is actually driving it. You can replace every part with something brand new but you will have no idea how it performs until you actually use it. The person who is driving said car day after day knows when something is out of place.
In BHVRs case I don't think they listen to their players at all. I get the impression the balance team assumes they know whats best. Despite several patches that absolutely broke the game and we warned them ahead of time what would happen. Yet they did it anyway.
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Bhvr has only managed to strike gold with a very short list of design and character choices. Those few times shows that they did good, but recently. They're not showing any initiative anymore and that's what bothers me the most.
Let's talk about the grind for example, they just gave a short "yeah we're thinking about doing something as a bandaid fix. But we're not removing the most heavily requested feature that would reduce the grind immensely because reasons"
They do these ridiculous ideas and expect them to work, I know nothing about game design myself. I'd love to, but you're right. I don't know too much, but I can say the same about Bhvr, it's like they're afraid of success and wish to avoid as many things as they can to help themselves.
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So, first of all, "title" is fully irrelevant. I never used that word, the concept of a title never came up in my argument, and so I'm going to ignore it. It's not about what title you hold, it's about what actual inherent insight you have, those are two very different things.
Second, I never said anything about ignoring them, and I never implied no individual high-level player would know what they're talking about. I'm saying that there's no inherent reason to assume that someone who plays this game for a living knows more about the specifics of, to use this example again even though this is a generalised topic, implementing a matchmaking system than someone who has only played a handful of games but has good insight- and especially no reason to assume they'd know better than people with experience in actual game development.
Not just this dev team, to be clear, but experience with game design in general.
There is absolutely no special trait that people who play this game for a living actually have for this. They're good at analysing what's in place right now, might have some good insight on what's broken, and are excellent at providing feedback for the higher levels of play to complement the kind of feedback you'd get from forums and other social media since that's more likely to be low- or if not actively of the lowest tier, certainly lower than a streamer.
And, finally, the most important part: I never said that what they're doing is working out. I'm saying that they're already doing what they should be regarding listening to various people. Clearly, the problem comes from somewhere else, because they clearly already have the web of feedback they'd need.
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Not saying it's entirely down to this, but I do feel some conduct themselves when making a concern in a completely child-like manner, full of insults and abuse. If I were someone reading that feedback, I'd ignore all of those people. Also, things said by the devs are used completely out of context against them - the Civilization argument being a prime example.
A reassessment of how each side communicates with each other would be a good start. The devs do make errors, as does every single person on here in their lives, and likewise having someone call another out on that error and belittling them is just not intelligent.
Nothing wrong with people being critical (I certainly disagree with their idea of skill!), but do it in a way which doesn't come across like it's being spoken by a 5 year old.
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Well, without meaning to sound rude, some of the popular streamers also put out some pretty bad ideas so I'm not too surprised they don't get implemented. Generally speaking being an excellent player doesn't necessarily make you an excellent game designer. There are a ton of technical considerations that players don't deal with or have any particular knowledge of which make a lot of the ideas that float around the forums impractical or counterproductive. Not to mention there isn't even actual consensus on a bunch of ideas that pop up among forum posters and streamers. Compare Tru3ta1ent's suggestions to Otz or Scott Jund or OhTofu for example and you get some wildly different opinions between them on certain aspects of the game. Basically being an expert at playing the game doesn't mean you're an expert at designing or programming the game.
As far as matchmaking goes, there's a common misconception that mismatches occur mainly because "the MMR is inaccurate", when what's actually happening is the MMR is probably pretty accurate but the matchmaking system is having to fill available slots with next-available players to keep people from having to wait too long for a close match up. Note that this issue is going to impact high MMR, prolific players more than it does average MMR players who will typically have a lot more people in the playerbase close to them to pick from at any given moment. But since high MMR prolific streamers and forum posters have the loudest megaphones their issues with the system get amplified over what could be a more or less normal experience for the bulk of players who don't stream and don't post.
Finally you're assuming the Behaviour doesn't gather feedback from the forums or streamers and doesn't read the posts, which isn't true. Just because they don't agree with something doesn't mean they didn't listen to it or solicit feedback. And they do make changes that have been requested such as revamping keys and moris and addressing the Nurse's bugs this last patch and toning down Circle of Healing and revamping Legion, etc. Just because changes take a while and they don't give release dates for things that are still being looked at or worked out doesn't mean they aren't working on things that have been talked about.
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Yea this is the "logic" they apply most of the times sadly. That and the wrong idea of "balance" the game around low SBMM players, old grey ranks, which completely ruins the experience for high SBMM.
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That too is another problem. 95% of the people making suggestions are cry babies who just want their side to be stronger. It's really hard to filter between the children and the people putting forth actual ideas that could improve the game.
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Well this is why they would be a special selection. Hell they could hold a massive question sheet they would review.
I do think it's always be best to have someone who played both sides 50/50
Remember this isnt so they have the final say but to be in actual contact
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I really think it would be nice if the game kept track of how many hours you put into survivor or killer. A lot of suggestions can be shot down by bias.
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Great analogy. Take my upvote!
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Just seems like you're playing semantics for the sake of disregarding what I said while at the same time agreeing with me. Why are you acting like just because you didn't spell out the word title that you weren't directly talking about peoples' titles???? You said word for word
People who play the game for a living don't have any inherent insight into the realities of game development on the managerial, technical, social, or resource level
There is absolutely no special trait that people who play this game for a living actually have for this
Translation: Player = Zero value when it comes to insight on the backend & Developer = Insight and credentials in the backend. You're literally saying that there's no reason to assume they have that level of insight which is irrelevant because one doesn't need to assume anything when people have entire catalogs of work that are public. These aren't people with a reputable name but no face to the name, these are people with entire bodies of work that are public on both Youtube and Twitch. Yes, they actually do have insight into the backend...If they didn't then why would people get removed from the Fog Whisperers program for providing objective feedback? Its because they disagree with the feedback but acknowledge that it holds weight...If it didn't hold weight it would just be disregarded
I'm not saying they know everything or they know better, but I'm saying that titles or jobs don't mean everything in life when it comes to insight or experience. You're acting as if a regular person can't possibly take a better picture than a professional photographer or help the professional choose better angles and edit the images better afterwards...It happens every single day lol. Based off your logic, If ScottJund shares an idea, well there's no way to verify the validity or viability of the idea because he has zero special traits with this category.. yet if the same exact idea gets spoken word for word from a game developer then its now valid and viable..... What is the difference between the two people saying the same exact thing? Their title or role.
Clearly they're not already doing what you said they're already doing because if they were then this thread wouldn't exist because SBMM wouldn't exist in its current form to begin with. Hearing with your ears and reading with your eyes is completely different than actually listening or reading. They aren't actually listening, they're just hearing what people say and not applying it because they're using the same logic that you are. 'They're not the ones sitting in these chairs therefore they don't know enough to help us with these issues'
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Fun fact :
The devs of Dead by Daylight did not create the genre. Asymetric gameplay like this has been going on for decades, going back to the mod community in many different games. The devs here at DBD simply copied the idea and put a horror twist on it.
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I don't see devs being any worse than us honestly. I think no one is right or wrong in the end.
But considering the amount of one sided stuff I see from the community I would rather devs make decisions than the community itself. They take some of the suggestions and not all of them which is probably better.
I don't agree with devs on a lot, but I disagree with the community even more.
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...What? Let me try and figure out where the misunderstanding came from here.
Okay, so, let's use that Scott Jund idea. If Scott Jund shares an idea, my point is, that idea is not inherently more valuable than the ideas of any given forum user.
He does not have any special trait or credentials for ideas about how to move forward with the game. What he does have is a better understanding of how the game is right now, a higher amount of skill while actually playing, and more insight into how balance decisions affect the higher tier of MMR once they're implemented.
I think the core misunderstanding is that I'm not drawing a comparison between "streamers" and "developers", I'm drawing a comparison between "streamers" and "everyone else". When I said that there's no reason to assume a streamer knows better than someone with game dev experience, that was an example to highlight that "game dev" is a category with relevance, and "streamer" is a category without relevance.
It's also not about specific ideas. Specific ideas can be good or bad regardless of who they come from- the point is that streamers' ideas and insights aren't automatically better than anyone else's. Streamers can have dumb ideas too- let's use Scott as an example again, though it does feel slightly mean; some of the ideas in his Patch 7.0.0 video were pretty damn bad, and his rework videos have been extremely hit or miss. That's not a slam on Scott, I like his stuff just fine, it's to highlight that he's just some dude with a lot of experience in a mostly unrelated area to what is being discussed here.
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To me the issue isn't that the developers are "wrong" it's just that they clearly have different priorities. Many players are fixated on the here and now, what problems are relevant and talked about right now whereas I imagine development teams have internal roadmaps and plans on how they want any given year or quarter-year to play out and what they want changed in that timeframe.
This also applies to new content being prioritised as BHVR has made it quite clear they are sticking to their content schedules no matter what. I mean it is a business at the end of the day right?
One of the biggest gripes I have is the time it takes for major issues to be resolved or addressed. (And also the language and behaviour of the people who then end up addressing an issue). Some people call it laziness, others call it incompetence - personally I chalk it down to difference of priorities and maybe a pinch of ignorance if i'm feeling pessimistic.
Also no from my POV having a lot of hours and experience in the game doesn't make you an expert or authority on balance. I have a lot of hours in the game and have had many ideas on how I think it'd be improved but my ideas are from my scope of the game and are shaped from my experiences.
Content creators are no more an authority on DBD's balance than any normal player and that's how it should be.
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Sadly, the stats they're showing demonstrates that they have no idea how statistics actually work nor how they should be used.
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Not sure how the topic got skewed. The OP did not mention content creators. They suggested listening to the player base, they did not specify solely content creators. And while players certainly can't be relied on for unbiased suggestions on all matters (perk balancing and such comes to mind), things like a skill based matchmaking system actually taking skill into consideration seems like something the devs should take seriously.
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The creator IS always right.
It's THEIR creation.
You can attack it if you want. But most forms of created content are done willfully, and on purpose.
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Thing is, the more I have learned about SBMM, Kills and Escapes HAVE to be the go-to point. Hooks would create a bloat, chase alone would create a bloat. In both cases, you could have players skyrocketing to 120000 MMR within 1 year. MMR kinda becomes meaningless if there is a bloat.
However, that doesnt mean there cant be any nuance added to SBMM. My personal suggestion is having a chase-based MMR between survivors. Having the survivors compete between how the MMR of the match is being spread. If you chase the longest, you get the most MMR/lose the least. If you chase the shortest, you lose the most/gain the least. That way, a 3-man escape could have the 1 person dead on hook gain the most MMR because they looped for 5 gens, while a 1-man escape could have the 1 person escaping lose the most MMR because they hid all game.
If you want to convince developers of something, you gotta show you've got some knowledge about the developing side of the game in the first place. Like they said in the QnA: "It's easy to say "remove perk tiers", its very hard to actually do". So instead you can suggest "repurpose perk tiers to relate to map size". That wouldnt really mash up too badly with bloodwebs(it kiiiinda does, but you could recode to give the player BP for those lingering t2 and t3 versions of perks), it would make perks balancable on each mapsize(small, medium, large) by just adjusting tiny numbers, meaning maps in general dont really need to be feared by certain killers, because you know the perks are adjusted towards them.
The biggest personal issue I have with the team(s) behind BHVR, is that there isnt really that much feedback. If you reported a hacker, you dont know if that hacker got banned, making it feel like they did not do anything at all, while they could have banned 100% of the hackers you've send through. There isnt much feedback on things they made public earlier, like looking into adding an early game thing, but never confirming that they stopped looking into it. Honestly, I dont really see any early game happening for DBD, I rather see something happening between the 5th gen being finished and the exit gate opening, if you run No Way Out often, you very easily get addicted to it because it adds a very interactive stage between the final gen and the gates being opened. So adding something to spice up that time-period and extending it, especially if gens went flying, would be great.
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All of this could be mitigated if the devs were just open and honest for once. Communication has always been their biggest weakness and this Q&A really showcased it. Behavior needs to realize that the onus is on them to earn the trust of the community, not the other way around. People are cynical about Behavior's promises because they've seen what happens when Behavior promises a feature or a change. It either never materializes or if it does, its rarely in a form that people asked for. Once or twice is fine, nobody is perfect and people need to make mistakes in order to learn from them. But when someone keeps making the same damn mistakes over and over again you start to question that person's competence at what they're doing. Behavior is in no position to ask for patience from anybody in the community until they take meaningful, decisive, quick action to earn the community's trust back.
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This is a misnomer.
A more accurate description would be a person driving a car for 45 years giving you input on how to design a race track.
The race track is the gameplay, The engine and parts under the car are the game code itself.
^ Nobody here has ever just offered BHVR a buncha code and said "here ya go this is what the game should be."
But we have been the ones in their ear going "Hey that 45 degree on turn 2 needs a wider angle, someone is going to get seriously hurt."
"Hey, when I shift to 3rd I'm gonna need a way tighter ratio on 4th cause right now the current gear ratio is trash and slow."
^ All we as players can do is demand a better working vehicle and better race tracks, in your scenario we've been driving for 45 years, we're not going to fix your car from the ground up, but we know our damn cars and what they should feel like.
In the same instance, people with 9000 hours know their damn games and how things should feel, whats too fast, whats too slow, whats overpowered whats underpowered etc. Being on the pit crew isn't the same as being the driver, but ultimately you need to listen to the driver because at the end of the day, the only reason any of this is happening is to get people behind the wheel of dead by daylight if you catch my drift....
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