I fear for the future of Dead by Daylight
I'm not saying this game is dying. It's been almost 7 years and continuing, but I fear that with the current meta and the previous chapters released, it has cut down the health of this game dramatically. I don't think this new Anniversary chapter will cover the damage that has been caused in the past. It will not heal or put a bandage on it. My friends that I used to play Dead by Daylight with all quit after they overnerfed perks for survivors and killers, the chapters Forged in Fog and Tools of Torment, reworked/new maps and then when they nerfed healing, they were all gone playing Elden Ring, Fifa, zelda on switch or doing something else.
We used to play multiple games every day in a row and have a ton of fun. Pure silliness and jesters. All that crumbled down because of balancing decisions. Killers mostly just hook camping. Survivors is brute forcing generators and making a mistake will cost us so we have to play efficient as possible. I really wish this game had the old meta back with Pop or hex ruin + undying now it's nothing but gen blocking and camp the first survivor to death. The game used to be so interactive and enjoyable. Where did it all go?
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Both sides complaining and leading to drastic nerfs, Devs not fixing things in a mannner that needs to be fixed and overall not great balancing with killers or surv.
Still don't understand why there hasnt been an add on pass yet for the weakest killers in the game.
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I'm honestly having the least amount of fun I've had since the introduction of the SBMM system where you just couldnt lose as survivor. Now its on the other end of the scale and im just as miserable. I pick it up, play a couple, someone gets forced out at 3 or 4 gens and the game is over. Rinse and repeat for the next 10 games, get mad and stop playing for a week.
Whole game is decided in the first 90 seconds of the trial. If two people dont spawn on gens then first chase doesnt last long enough for people to recover. While it may be cognitive bias as I can only speak for myself, I'm just not having fun like I used to.
Game feels clunky and stunted, skill expression is at an all time low.
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I think the more the game gets balanced and overpowered things get stripped out the more the actual bare bones of the game get exposed, and those bare bones are just "do generators as fast as possible" which in turn leads killers to the logical conclusion "do whatever it takes to get kills as fast as possible".
it's clear the game's basic dynamic is no longer good enough by itself, we need more depth, more objectives, more time in matches so games are less explosive and more drawn out.
Personally I found the game much better when the average match lasted about 15 minutes, now I'm lucky if it lasts more than 5.
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But all the bugfixes that lead to more bugs getting introduced are so cool! It's almost like you can discover new bugs and report them so that BHVR can simply ignore them - exactly like the Wesker bugs!
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The game is fundamentally flawed at its' most basic level, without fluff like ruin, pop, decisive, eruption, and dead hard, everyone's focus is on the core gameplay, which is:
- Do gens asap,
- try to protect someone from getting tunneled,
- try to 3E,
- repeat.
Or for Killers:
- Try to down someone asap,
- if first chase takes too long, tunnel,
- get one survivor out and then try to get a 2K to tie.
The games issues can of course be solved, but it'll take a long time if Behavior churns out content at the this pace. New game modes, official modding support, and better game optimization would go a long way in keeping the game going.
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The future is here. DbD was close to perfect in 2019, however there is this trend to continue adding content without any concern for balance.
There's just so many changes that are baffling to me and it's almost like BHVR doesn't understand their own game. Like do any devs enjoy playing Solo Q survivor, or even play it at all?
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I'm gonna break a lance in favour of the devs and say that many of the changes that were introduced that caused this situation were specifically requested by the players.
A lot of people cannot distinguish between an overpowered thing and an annoying thing and that made the devs listen to the wrong (but very loud and widespread) opinions and absolutely obliterate things that were fine but were only annoying, meaning the only things viable now are things that are 100% oriented to efficency and that always makes games depressing to play.
The current state of DBD is exactly what people were asking for, but the people that asked for this don't like it either because they didn't think of the consequences of such changes.
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This is probably because of the dev team cycling out. Average rate of employment for game devs is like 2-3 years, after which everyone usually leaves to go do something else, gets fired/let go for whatever reason hit the company dartboard that day. Hell in the reddit AMA it was mentioned somewhere they just got a bunch of new hires which is usually precipitated by a lot of old timers leaving. The entire AMA just sounded like "we're feeling like we're finally getting to really understand the game" which should take like 6 months, not 7 years, so I'm guessing the dev department is borderline brand new across the board.
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Based on the reddit AMA I'd guess most of the devs have been working there less than a year and the old devs all got sacked/let go or moved on to other things, industry cycles dev teams out like every 2-3 years whether intentional or not.
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Killers mostly just hook camping. Survivors is brute forcing generators and making a mistake will cost us so we have to play efficient as possible.
I don't know. Sure sounds like the past 7 years to me.
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7 years is a good run. I feel like they don't know what to do with the game anymore. Should just put it to bed.
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Short of an effective DBD 2 I don't see them solving the parent issues with the game and some of those issues are just part of the normal thing that happens when a game lasts as long as this one. it's on pace to match Payday 2 in terms of content produced and years of being an active game. Them adding a shop and battlepass has completely destroyed any chance for supporting mods as now there is far too much recurrent user spending to be potentially lost if mod restrictions were lessened. The game is probably as optimized as it is going to get in terms of performance unless they do a second engine update which I don't even think is a possible route for them now. At least they are working on getting new modes, but we'll have to see how that shakes out in practice.
A lot of the core design limitations and technical issues could be addressed with a sequel, but it's a massive risk and starting fresh means decided whether to try and support both or put the current game down and bury next to Naughty Bear and Deathgarden.
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Pretty sure the devs have said before that they never expected to get this long out of the game, so every year is probably a bonus in their eyes. Probably worth mentioning that they're getting a movie soon, they have a comic book series starting, they have interest from celebs like Nicolas Cage, and they're branching out more with merchandising. All of that will generate interest in the game. I'm not concerned at this stage.
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I started playing the game 2 years ago so my view is slightly different from some of you veterans.
What I see is the following:
1) SoloQ has great matches but a lot of camping and tunnelling killers. I'm fine with being sacrificed as long as the matches are long and exciting. Face camping can completely ruin the experience that is very different from when I started.
2) Playing as a killer is tough. And survivors play way too fast and hard. Sometimes I just want to have fun and enjoy some chases but survivors either do the gens very fast or they start bullying / teasing. Matches alternate between SWF and a group of people with at least 1 if not 2 rookies. The other day I used Bubba and did two hooks in the basement - I immediately left and allowed those downstairs to be saved but my next victim DC-ed immediately. I feel like matches alternate between these two extremes - long and challenging matches are a rarity. It is either very easy due to DC / sacrifice on hook or very difficult.
3) Toxicity. It is at an all times height. Close the chat? No, I'm interested in saying GG in case there was a good match even if my team of survivors is done. People blame each other for everything: if you win as a killer you are "noob" if you made one wrong skill check during the match you are "noob". Do we have statistical data on the average age of players? I wonder.
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