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Learning curves and player retention
I have accumulated well over 1k hours at this point while the friends I started playing with little over half a year ago have anything between 50 and 500 hours. We got together to play a little a while back (after the update), never seriously, always for the laughs and most definitely with a lot more deaths than escapes. That's how it's always been and it was still fun. Well, except for those last get togethers. Since then they have pretty much stopped playing - and DBD is not even in the list anymore when we wonder what we should play together. I wondered why that is. So here goes:
The survivor learning curve was already steep - there were so many maps and tiles and killers and perks already it was quite overwhelming taking it all in at once - and with the kast update it has gotten even steeper. The survivor players who know the least about the game mechanics and have the least game knowledge are punished the most for it. While the killer players who just start out as killer have a very gentle (dare I say nearly non-existent) learning curve for quite a long while.
What does this lead to? Very happy beginner killers and very unhappy beginner survivors. The killer keeps playing for now - it's all fun after all. The survivor stops playing - either altogether or switches to killer. (One friend started post update and while they put up with survivor in swf I can tell just by their laughs and general attitude killer is fun, while survivor is draining.) Some beginner survivors stick the onslaught of losses out. They rarely have a fun time but something compels them to stick it out, push through. To "git gut". Eventually they usually do get good. Sufficiently good, anyhow. Though, it looks like that takes at least 500hrs. Smh I think not many people feel like investing 500+ hours into a game to actually enjoy the game.
Now what does that lead to? Pretty good veteran survivors who know the ins and outs of all maps and killers/perks when it comes to their preferred playstyle - and who are at least somewhat decent at the rest. (Contrary to popular belief not everyone needs to be a god looper who runs the killer for three gens.) - And rather frustrated veteran killers because no matter how short a swing cooldown is or how much gen regression there is: if you can't hit a survivor it doesn't mean anything. And for most killers there is only so much they can do outside of following a survivor to try and land a hit.
The tables have turned completely.
What does that lead to? Veteran killers who are more likely to leave because they don't have as much fun as they used to have. And veteran survivors who are happy to take whatever killers they get (ironically that's probably killers less skilled than them most of the time because of a lack of veteran killers), cause safe for being face camped by an insta down killer, it couldn't get worse than that time when they just started out.
It's really just my impression. But if even half of it hits somewhat close to the truth I guess that's not really a good thing. Scaring one half of the player base off in the beginning - and the other half later on.
What do you think?
Comments
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I think your impressions are quite correct, at least for the beginner side, which is the one I would know.
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Sounds about right lol, I've made a similar thread from a beginner's perspective. And this hits the nail on the head, i have an awful time playing survivor, and don't have access to a full complement of perks yet and wont for a while. Solo queue feels almost unplayable, may last game had a prestige 3 nurse with a full set of hex totems from 4 different characters. So clearly the mmr is kinda messed up, they must have played hundreds of hours to get that build. Meanwhile I've played barely two weeks. no chance, 3 survivors mori'd one dc'd on their third hook. Pretty rubbish game where i felt i couldn't do much, as nurse could hit me with blinks attacks 3 times out of 5. And that's a pretty consistent experience, i occasionally get lucky and end up against a newby killer but still often ends up with 3 deaths. Had maybe 2 games where 3-4 survivors got away. Its just not fun
My killer games have mostly been walkovers, and I've got to the point where I've seen swf teams with supertoxic loopers who can just loop me constantly and go from one pallet to another, crouch spamming and flicking torches. Against players like that i either tunnel the weaker links to actually get points or get no kills trying to catch the looper. It's a shame becuase the game is really cool, and I've had some really fun games, but it's difficult to tolerate so many boring/onesided games all the time.
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I think they should make another rainbow flag charm so everyone feels included.
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Yes a lot of beginners stick to killer, imagine trying to learn the game in current solo Q and dying 9/10 games, then playing some killer games and winning without even trying, I mean if you can hold W and left click you can pretty much beat average solo Q teams atm, it's bad
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I also agree with this. I'm not sure what to even suggest honestly. In my opinion , Dead by Daylight has always been rough for new players (killers or survivors). There's a number of reasons for this, lack of perks, initial struggles with getting bullied, I remember getting obvious smurf groups when I first started playing killer and the insidious bubbas as survivor. A lot of those bad things motivated me to get better, but I also don't think that those were the fun parts of DBD and I hate to see it be an even larger issue now, then it was when I was new.
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I don't think there's anything new about it.. when I started playing I remember thinking killer was super easy, until I started going against good survivors. I didn't even know 360s were a thing.. I remeber having no idea why I just couldn't hit some people.. lol
And survivor solo queue has always been rough for beginners... you get 4 people that have no idea how to loop or work together and of course you'll get stomped..
What I think changed is solo queue is rough now even for intermediate survivors... I think we need some kind of buff, even if it's just the often suggested "action icons" (not sure what to call them), to show what people are doing.. if they are in chase, going for the save, etc... Even a ping system would be nice.
Other than that not sure what could be done. Ideally improved matchmaking... beginners should never me matched with experienced players..
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The killer meta has become stale from a survivor standpoint. It's not worth playing for fun anymore. It's either the same anti-loop or tryhard killers who would probably tunnel you to death, and you only see the weak or old killers in the lower ranks that are quite good but not strong enough for high MMR, and for the record, it's more fun to verse against a good Onryo and still lose than to play against another nurse and try my hardest to win.
TLDR; Nobody wants to play against another nurse or blight anymore; we want to buff cool killers like Billy, Onryo, and Ghostface.
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beginner survivors basically face a huge cliff wall of a learning curve considering the amount of maps and perks they have to learn, and it absolutely results in horrible player retention. Killer might be easier at first, but playing killer at a mid-to-high skill level is some of the most emotionally and psychologically stressful experiences I've ever had. I always remember one steam review that was like "this game fixed my sleep schedule because I'd play at 9pm, get mad, and go to bed"
I think that's part of why survivor mains and killer mains are so toxic to each other. The game itself has beat them down and taken a lot of their time, and people who don't play both roles end up taking their frustrations out on each other. And the cycle perpetuates because there's a chance every new killer or every new survivor in a match is going to be as rude and annoying as the last one.
I think this game needs to be a lot more welcoming to brand new players or else the health of the game is going to suffer. The grind reduction was great for veteran players, but I fail to see how it's actually going to be beneficial for brand new players.
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