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The DbD Playerbase Seems To Be Shrinking At An Alarming Rate...I Wonder Why.
Now, the only data we have available is Steamcharts, which shows DbD at a low right now, when compared to the gigantic growth the game saw last year.
Despite the surge of players from March through June, we are now back to basically the same pre-surge number as March last year.
I have to wonder...why?
I'm still having a lot of fun. The last few new killers have been decent, a lot of nice little changes have been made. Compared to when I started (late 2020 if I recall correctly) it feels significantly better - but this game appears to, at the very least, be stagnating.
Maybe it's because the quarantine measures have started to relax and people are going outside again?
Is it that the 'surge' players just didn't stick around, or went back to/found other games?
Or maybe the game is sort of peaking, and will maintain similar numbers from hereon out - a big spike in the summer, then a steady falloff back to where we are now.
Going to be interesting to see what happens this anniversary event.
Comments
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Hackers, atrocious balancing at high levels for vets, stale meta perks that are just a complete and utter chore to play against at this point. Dead Hard mostly imo.
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This is the last chapter Ill ever get. It's not even the game anymore. it's the players for me. you get the same player style over and over if you're playing survivor or killer. MMR dose nothing to help anything.
You get the killers that only care about the 4 K and to hell with everyone else. Or you get a survivor team and I do emphasize team. who just want to treat a killer like a joke no matter what and they play like they're all going to die for real if they loose. the poor games far outweigh the good ones at this point no matter when or what side you play.
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I feel you.
I guess I've started sort of finding my own fun in the game. I rotate from killer to killer, try to learn survivor, play weirdo addons and perks and just try to enjoy myself.
I do completely agree that the worst thing about DbD is the playerbase. I've heard 'this community deserves a better game' before, but DbD is the first time in a long time where I've gone 'this game deserves a better community'.
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MMR
Oh and recently the hackers.
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If the numbers are dropping across the board, I think it would be a combination of things.
The new player experience is really bad and the game probably struggles to retain new players. There's a significant financial investment just to unlock the privilege of grinding the perks. And the grind is obscene. On top of that, SBMM was supposed to provide better matchmaking for newer players, and it's definitely not doing that.
There's no way for a returning player to catch up. If I took any substantial amount of time off from the game, I don't think I would ever come back. There would be too much to grind. Taking a year off puts someone 4 DLCs worth of grind behind. That's 4 characters on each side to unlock teachables on, and then those teachables need to be learned on any other characters. You don't get any BP bonus for coming back after time off. That's a weird one.
Third point is related to the first two, and I know I keep harping on it, but the grind is terrible. The bloodweb itself is an absolute slog. Getting 2 million BP for rank rewards is almost a punishment because then I have to sit there for 10+ minutes mindlessly clicking on a bloodweb. Not only that, but we're forced to spend BP on stuff we don't want and we'll never use in our games. What game does that? It's asinine. This whole progression system needed to be scrapped years ago.
The current meta is really bad. People say they don't want DbD to be competitive, but most of the things people complain about are the blatantly non-competitive RNG and casual elements. People (rightfully) want a solution to facecamping, stacked slowdowns, lack of engagement meta for survivors, etc. It's not clear what this game's balance target audience is. You have a mix of fun perks for a casual environment and more competitive perks for a serious environment, but every player gets thrown into the same queue and often nobody is happy about it.
Last point: I get the overall feeling that the game doesn't really respect my time as a player. The grind is one thing, but there are many other things that make me feel this way. There are a lot of maps that render certain killers near useless i.e. Blight and Lerys/RPD. I get teammates with 1/10th of my hours in solo queue who proceed to throw the game within minutes. A killer like Bubba can down me and simply stand in front of me on the hook. I have a full-time job and a limited amount of time to play games. While I love this game and want it to succeed, I've found myself asking if this is really a worthwhile way to spend an hour or two of my evening. Why even load up the game for a round or two of Blight if I'm going to get an indoor map or get teammates who bought the game yesterday?
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yeah the hackers are bad too.
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MMR, balancing, terrible servers, hackers. All of which the devs take their sweet time doing anything about. God forbid you call them out on it, or else they'll pull their normal 'we've done a pretty good job so far' and 'soon' act.
So, the number one reason in my book? The devs.
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Hackers, I understand.
I don't think it's MMR.
MMR is something that feels like a forum/streamer thing - as it definitely means that veteran players are going to have a somewhat ossified meta and be playing against opponents less varied than they are used to, which places pressure on them to play sweaty. But...that's high MMR in every game, and under ranks - while the vets and the pros had a blast, it also meant that newer or more intermediate players got destroyed.
Right now, Matchmaking Failed errors aside, I'm finding that the general quality of my matches has improved substantially. Before SBMM, I'd say maybe 1/3 of my games felt decently matched. Now it's...maybe 3/5? Not perfect, but certainly better.
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MMR and BOONS. i'd say those 2 are the biggest reasons. Hackers might be one too but i don't think its as much of an issue compared to those 2.
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This is a fair post.
I totally agree about the grind. It's one of the few things that makes this game a tough sell to my friends - not just the upfront money investment to unlock the 'must have' perks, but the insane grind. Hell, I'm almost 600 hours deep - at least 500 of those on the killer role - and I still haven't unlocked everything I want on every killer I want.
The meta...I hear you. On one side - facecamping is a problem, and one BHVR need to fix with haste. I've been trying to get better at survivor, and once you get out of what I'm guessing is the lower MMRs, you'll go from a camping Bubba to a camping Myers to a camping Bubba to a camping Huntress to a camping Wraith. It's not every game, but it's so frequent and so little fun to play against, even if you win. But I understand that 'fixing' camping in a way that doesn't completely break the game is quite difficult.
On the other side, you've got CoH (a truly terrible idea), the 'fixed' Dead Hard which may be one of the most frustrating things to play against in the game and wonky map balance.
It's...tough.
I don't think anyone, least of all the devs, expected the game to explode in popularity to the extent that it's almost a cultural touchstone in certain parts of the internet. It feels like it was made on spaghetti code and held together with tape - and short of a complete teardown job, all the devs can really do is add more tape.
I will say that the game now is substantially less buggy than it was a year ago.
Hackers...yeah. But that's another 'what can you really do?' issue. Even top shelf Esport games have cheaters. Making cheat/hack programs/techniques is so profitable and so sophisticated that, if you're willing to pay $100 bucks a month, you can probably afford a fairly robust hacking suite for any game you want that isn't almost entirely server side.
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Boon totems made/make me stop playing. They need a cool down or change where you can't keep booning the same totem over and over. (Or give killers the option to snuff or destroy)
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Welcome back, been a while since I've seen one of your posts.
SBMM turned a lot of people off, Boons annoyed quite a lot of people, recent Killers haven't been exactly good and there's been nothing new really added.
Elden Ring just got released, so maybe that's also why the numbers are pretty low
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I couldn't have said any of this better myself. This is exactly how I feel. Especially the final point. There is zero reward for being a long time player of this game and zero incentive for a new player to stick around. One of my friends got the game recently and simply trying to explain everything he would need to get perkwise, and how to get it, felt overly complicated and would require so much playtime from him that if I were in his shoes I would run, not walk, far far away.
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I mean personally, for me, I got 1k hours on the game and I'm not half bad. I'm definitely not your atypical red rank 1 player, but I enjoyed the game. But honestly, it's gotten old. They keep pushing out more content, but nothing in the game has really changed at all since I started. It's just the same old thing. This is fine for most games, but when you're playing a game where the goal of the survivors is to hold left click on gens for prolonged periods of time, it gets boring.
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If we want to be extremely accurate. It's not really MMR as much as the idea that kills/escapes is all that matters and the poor balancing at higher mmr turning the game into a really stale mess.
It's simpler to say MMR, but it's more the symptoms of the problem rather than being the direct issue. The only reason why people remember the game being better before MMR is because old matchmaking was more random than putting people of equal skill together. It was easy for someone with a ton of hours to go on high win streaks, because often they weren't getting matched of people at their own skill level.
But there's also the issue of the devs adding MMR than ignoring the complaints of players who aren't enjoying mmr games due how the most efficient way to play is not engaging. Killers can't afford to commit to chases survivors so they either resort to tunneling/camping or play killers who practically ignore loops. This leads to survivors complaining how unfun the game is and in return they rush gens out so they can move onto the next game and killers complain the game is unfun because they have no time to do much. You have both sides playing aggressively to complete their objective as quickly as possible and no one is really enjoying themselves anymore.
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Well said. The bad teammates I get to go against great killers frustrate me the most. I’m tired of it. I can’t carry 3 ######### potatoes against a Plaything/Pentimento Pinhead/Artist. Then they want to DC or kill themselves on hook because “it’s too hard.”
why are you even playing this game, then?? Please take this ######### off of Gamepass. Their previous game played is either Fortnite or Roblox. Every ######### time.
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I don’t think it’s boons like other people say since most of the player base is survivor. I say people don’t like sweaty games, people are I school now, and other games have released. Remember most people treat this game as a party game not competitive
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Also worth bringing up that the steamchart is, as it says, steam only.
It's generally believed consoles make up the majority of DBDs current playerbase, given the amount of consoles + gamepass and such.
It also doesn't include Windows/Epic which would def only be a small portion I'm sure but still worth considering.
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MMR
Boons
Cheaters
Dead Hard
Very few worthy killers
Games of meta builds after meta after meta after meta ...
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Then why are some accounts private, have a dbd name or are lvl 0?
This gaem is the only one where i made messages friends only.
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That would shock me given how many crossplay lobbies I get into. Then again, I guess a lot of those might be Xbox Game Pass users.
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+ horrible grind
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- this game has no purpose - everyone can be iri but its only grade, not your skill
- community is heard only if there is huge issue with something. rest is completely ignores
- hacking issue is big recently on both sides. its impossible to tell bevause most player use them "wisely"
- matchmaking is complete disaster. at higher mmr you get bunch of troll, toxic players who dc in middle of the game because they start with pig trap at the beginning for example
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Lack of innovation really. Ringu isn’t awful but just boring imo
Also spaghetti code/bugs. Wake up is literally crashing killers games atm
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Hackers+Bad balance+a dev team that repeatedly goes on the record stating they don't care about your concerns and have no plans to address them. Why stick around when the devs do entire Q&A's just to tell you your concerns will never be addressed and in fact they may do the exact opposite? The devs plug their ears to the serious issues the game has (like hackers) and continue to push things much of the playerbase dislikes. And they have given no indication that they will change course. If anything, it feels like they have heard people want them to change course and have defiantly said "No!" The community is also a big issue. The devs do nothing to discourage bad behavior and even seem to think it's an important aspect of the game. There's a serious issue when your games toxicity is so bad that it is a physical hazard (strobing flashlight clickers against photo sensitive players.) Theories on the games player loss being something outside the games hands is also pretty false. If the player drop was tied to various changes like new games being released, pandemic restrictions going away, work from home ending, the holidays etc etc, then you should see the same sort of drop pretty much every where else. But when I checked a month ago, DBD's drop was very much not the norm. If the reasoning is that all the players from the RE dlc left, then the issue becomes "Why does the game have a literal 0% retention rate for new players?) a -50% drop in like 6 months is unlikely to be caused entirely by some outside factor.
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I could say 1 to 4 ratio is the biggest problem, one killer leaving hurts as much as four survivors leaving.
I'm not sure if it's dying anyway, it could rerise upon anniversary or something.
Post edited by fulltonon on1 -
Pretty much everything is lowering the playerbase. MMR, Balance, Community, Devs, there are so many problems right now, most of which is fixable.
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"Why is the game struggling with player retention when the matchmaking system based off of intrinsically flawed values punishes people who play too much"
Wonder why there's a retention issue.
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Yesterday i wanted to test killer queue around 20(eu) time and usually takes few seconds, i was like, mhh let's see today with the release of a chapter should be longer, nope, i got instant lobby 😂, back in the days when a chapter drop day 1 was almost impossible to play as killer or at least u had to wait a lot of time.
Also steamchart barely made to 50k when some months ago was the average of players, now we need a dlc to reach those numbers.
As sad as it is I'm happy they are losing playerbase, when i see the streams on twitch i ask myself "are these really the people that work on the game? Smh"
The right game in the wrong hands.
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I'm still not convinced what the real issues behind the decline are but i guess it's save to say now that MMR was an own goal.
I'm also sure that boons are only a minor issue and not the reason half of the playerbase left. I know a lot of survivors who quitted or rarely play anymore. I guess the missing incentives for being good and the bad matchmaking are the main reasons.
Perks like Boons and Dead Hard are annoying but they're only the symptoms of the MMR matchmaking, basically showing what's wrong with the game at higher levels and how badly balanced it is if everyone is playing for pure efficiency. We had bad perks like old DS or old Undying before but games were still more fun because you could play without being in an absolute competitive mode.
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I installed DBD through Xbox game pass just to see what a new killer would face. First 4 games were bully squads with all meta perks and best items with best addons. 4 dead hards, circle if healing, iron will, DS, at least 2 brand new parts etc. They were a chore for me and I consider myself a very skilled player. I can only imagine trying to even get one hook against these teams as a new player. If I played against that as a new player I'd either switch to survivor or insta uninstall.
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I wanna see stats other than steam players, I think DBD is up there on xbox.
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Between this forum and Steam forums, I've had conversations with over a hundred people that quit due to MMR.
Myself, it's why I quit playing. The matches were almost instantly absolute sweat fests. MMR changed the game, especially for killers. There used to be a few sweaty matches mixed with laid back fun matches. MMR laid waste to those laid back matches. It is a poor way to measure skill and matchmaking.
Added to game balance (looking at you BCOH) and hacker increases and the game is unbearable.
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To boil it down, there are 2 reasons:
- killers not enjoying the current game speed. Where it's common to lose 2-3 gens around the first hook. Thus playing less and less.
- survivors not enjoying the queues. Where it's common to spend more time in the lobby than the actual match.
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My profile is public and everyone can send me a message. Idk i can’t give u an answer on that one
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And new players not sticking around because of the awful grind, among other things.
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And because they get rofl stomped by experienced players.
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My experience has been somewhat different. I started right when killers had their matchmaking protections removed (likely due to insane queue times as survivor) and maybe 2/3 of my games as a very new player was against red/purple rankers, people infinitely better than me or people smurfing. Smurfing was so easy that even some FWs did it openly to get 'more fun games'.
It was miserable. Absolutely awful.
Now, as what I'd guess is a high-intermediate player (at least on killer), barring the current MMR issues (seriously, maybe 40% of my queue attempts end in a 'Matchmaking Failed, Timeout created' error) I'd say that 3/5 of my games are at least somewhat evenly matched. 1/5 are against people much better than me, 1/5 are against people much worse than me. It's not perfect, but it's...better.
The thing about MMR - it makes the game better for the majority of players (who are new-intermediate at best) while making things perhaps a little rougher on the veterans, as they'll be more likely to face other veterans. If you keep stomping, in time you'll have to play sweaty to keep winning and eventually to maintain a 50% kill rate. That's...just the nature of the beast.
Before MMR - well, those epic 100+ win streaks came at the expense of a lot of frustrated survivors.
Hackers..yep.
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What do you mean? I thought MMR was working great and preventing that.
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I'm so sick of doomposting like this.
46k CURRENT PLAYERS AS OF THIS MOMENT PER STEAMCHARTS
THIS TIME LAST YEAR, DBD WAS AT 35k
Yes, there was a drop off after the ALL TIME HIGH after the Resident Evil Chapter. EVERYONE knew that would happen. New players would flock to check the game out. Some stayed while some long time players left. This is not uncommon in games such as this. Every game as a service model has peaks and valleys. Look at PUBG for a prime example. By no means is DBD "losing players at an alarming rate". As I stated IN A SIMILAR THREAD YESTERDAY, if there was a 15% drop in player base compared to this time last year, sure I would raise an eyebrow but, numbers don't lie. Now I fully expect to see the same thing happen numberwise come join this year. I'll even put money on it.
God damn I hate these forums do much. This community is something else I swear.
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If your friend thinks this game is complicate and didnt want to learn maybe he didnt like it.
I mean if you like the game you dont mind to learn slowly,look videos etc..
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MMR 😬
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I started playing on 2018, the repetitive gameplay is finally getting to me
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It's not a doompost, at all.
It's just a trend I'm observing. Currently we are having a spike due to a new DLC dropping, but the last 6 months have been in the red - the longest 'falloff' period in DbD's history. Clearly something is going on.
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Exactly, with how high Resident Evil pushed up the game's numbers, it was bound to drop off eventually.
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You're forgetting that there's always a steep drop of players afterwards once the shiny new thing has run it's course.
Artist Release couldn't even increase the playerbase, people were still dropping off.
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When an account is private, the level is always shown as 0
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MMR.
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It is a piece of crap on last gen, and honestly I feel bad any time I play with friends who are on it lol. I don't think it's as extreme as it was back when Nemesis released though. Games completely fine on current gen, though.
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Couldn't be because the game is in such a s*it health state and BHVR ignores their own playerbase and what they've been asking for years.
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