Artist Tome Challenges are just the worst experience in a long time.

The way the Artist is designed (not too entertaining) means her power is most often used for area denial…

Try to get rid of this mindset and it will be much easier. I did it all at first try without even remembering about these challenges, because all of them are basicly usual Artist gameplay.

I pretty much just started playing the artist and I don't understand what you're saying about her in the slightest. These challenges are very easy and pretty much exactly how your highest MMR players are going to play her. In fact, I've had a lot more success using her ability in chases rather than as area denial, as most good survivors will temporarily hop off of a generator right as you send the birds out.

I'm not assuming (and I don't think anyone else is) that because you're having a bad time with her that you're playing her wrong—we're trying to say that your struggle to complete the challenges that most Artist players will get just by playing her normally highlights that you aren't playing her well. Whether or not you like her is entirely dependent on how you like to play as killer, not your skill with a particular killer. And no, being good at a different mechanically obtuse killer does not mean you'll inherently be good at the Artist. It's like saying Nurse mains are going to be inherently good at any killer because Nurse is hard to master—she has entirely different playstyle!

I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that I love the specific killer/survivor challenges, because I don't. I actually really dislike being forced to play someone I don't want to play and especially so when I don't have decent perks on that character, however it isn't because the challenges themselves are difficult. It's just annoying being forced to play something you don't want to play in the first place.

Additionally, the point about her pick rate is fairly moot. The killers with the highest pick rates are almost entirely the free killers, ones from specific IPs, the ultra-strong ones (like Blight), or something in-between (like Nurse and Mastermind). She isn't a free killer, she's quite challenging to learn but easier to play against (with beginners), and even when you do learn her she isn't an insane killer like Nurse or Blight—she's just good.

Feedback is important and it's fine to have opinions, but just saying "the killer isn't fun to play in a way that it isn't designed to be played in" isn't really going to be valuable feedback. In my opinion and in basically every other person's opinion on this thread, you can't fairly assess the killer if you aren't playing them correctly. And really, if you aren't completing the challenges, you aren't playing her how she's designed to be played, no matter whatever MMR you think you are. I think if you ask most experienced DBD players, they'll say the Artist is actually in one of the best places rn. Not too strong, not too weak, decent skill progression, not totally unfair to play against, balanced addons, etc.

I suggest you watch an experienced Artist player play her and try to get some sort of aura reading perks on her. I like watching Otzdarva with new killers because he formats his videos well and is good at killer in general, but there are others who are experts at her specifically that might be even better to watch. I particularly like Barbecue and Chili, I'm All Ears, Lethal Pursuer, and Gearhead for a full aura build, but I'm also not an expert Artist player. I will say though that those perks will make the challenges MUCH easier. Learning how to predict survivor movements when you can't see them completely is incredibly important on her and delaying shooting the birds until the right moment can be really useful.

And, my best suggestion: don't do a specific killer challenge if you don't want to play or properly learn a new killer. I don't think I've ever seen a character specific challenge on the tomes that forces you to play a character in order to complete the tome. They have multiple routes, so just play the killer(s) you enjoy and do the challenges that aren't specific and call it a day.

You're right, I did misunderstand the purpose of you mentioning singularity, so I apologize. To be honest, it's totally possible that the Artist just doesn't mesh well with your playstyle which leads to her being unfun, whereas Singularity meshes better so you learned him faster and it's more fun. Both killers suffer from the same issue of having relatively high skill ceilings, not being free, not belonging to an IP, and not being top-tier killers, so both have low pick rates.

No pickrate is actually worthwhile to look at, it shows you what Killer your players want to play as. its pretty important.

I agree and disagree. If the numbers are too uneven (a little bit of unevenness is fine), obviously you want to take a look at the killer and where it's at. However, there's much more to the picture than just pick rate. It's a combination of pick rate, kill rate, and community opinions. The Artist may have lower pick rate, however she has a pretty good kill rate and overall the community likes her. Once again, you can chalk up her low pick rate to all of the things I mentioned before.

The solution to bringing up her pick rate isn't to make her stronger, as she's already in a really good spot. It also isn't to make her a killer without a high skill ceiling, as having killers like that is really important for diversity and for the game's longevity. Having killers that people actually need to practice in order to excel at is very rewarding for older players. And yes, the game needs to make the game still fun and interesting for old players too. The solution (imo) to balancing the pick rates further is to lower the pick rate of other killers by nerfing them or increasing the skill needed to use them (specifically very high pick rate killers like Mastermind).

Either way, there are other killers that 100% need looked at first. Skull Merchant is still in a rough state because of all of the hatred towards her, Trapper is still absolutely weak compared to a lot of killers, Nightmare is rarely picked AND is incredibly weak, etc. The Artist is a very well liked killer in her current state, so despite your feelings as a newer player, I don't think she's likely to be changed anytime soon.

I also don't think its worth it to ask the most experienced DBD players about anything, bHVR does not make the game for the 1%. You will lose accessibility, enjoyment of casual players and retention.

This is a weird one. DBD is, to my knowledge, majority experienced players. It isn't quite as mainstream as a lot of games like Valorant or Fortnite, so there are fewer casual gamers. It also gets compared to League of Legends (LOL) a lot due to (rather unfortunate) similarities of being very anti-beginner due to having so much stuff in it that's mostly paywalled and having a very toxic community. That once again leads to fewer casual gamers. The other issue with this one is that DBD has forced what many games call 'Ranked'. Unless it's an event, you are forced to matchmake within a specific SBMM. This makes the game always competitive. DBD does try to balance around the player base as a whole, but there's only so much they can do when they have high skill ceiling killers, perks, etc.

Again, with a high skill ceiling killer, they're more likely to balance her around high skill players, since that's where she'll see the most utilization. It's quite common for games to have slightly different metas depending on what skill level you're at, so if you're at a lower level then of course she's likely going to feel weak or bad.

Its incredibly bad when the best bHVR can do for its new Killer players playing a Killer. Oh go watch a youtube video about it.

I mean, BHVR does add the killer challenges and the descriptions of the abilities to the game for a reason. But, once again, similarly to LOL, there's only so much you can learn through the game if you want to play at a competitive level. Or you can just spend an extra couple dozen hours trying to learn the techs for yourself, but you didn't really seem to want to do that. And honestly, I said a "couple dozen" but depending on the skill level you're trying to reach, where you're starting, how well you mesh with the killer's playstyle, that can be upwards of 100 hours just to get decent.

Again—high skill ceiling killer on a live service game means that you need to play a lot to get good. Or you can watch a video or two and shave that way down. The videos are made by the community to help, but you don't NEED them. This is normal in just about every live service game with multiple characters. Rainbow Six Siege, Mortal Kombat, etc. If you're new to these types of live service games, this is literally just how they are, so maybe they aren't for you. Or maybe less technical ones like Fortnite are more your style, which is totally okay.

Chances are they change the Killer and make it better for me, which is what we all want.

I mean, that's what you want. Chances are they won't change the killer unless the kill rates drop and the community starts hating her. And even then, it'll likely take months because BHVR is very slow with changing issues. But, again, most people generally like her. She's in a good state right now, I promise you. As a survivor main she's fun to play against and as an Artist/Skull Merchant main when I play killer, she's fun to play as. I also have some friends who fully main killer and love playing her too.

What is a reasonable amount of time to do this?

A reasonable amount of time to attempt a challenge on a new killer is like 3 games max, and that's only if you really want to do it. If you already don't like how the killer feels, maybe give it one or two games. Even boot up a custom game and play with bots (focus on learning, not necessarily winning since you don't win or lose anything in customs) if you want to just figure out how the ability works. It's VERY useful because the bots are very predictable so you can figure out how the ability works separately, then learn how to predict actual players in public matches. 4 hours is way too much time to dedicate to a killer you aren't enjoying, isn't something you want to get good at in the long run, and is difficult.

I personally avoid all killer/survivor specific challenges unless I own and like the character, so you can also just not do any of them.

If you're talking about experimenting to get decent with her… As much time as you're willing to put in. When Spirit first came out (who is arguably an even higher skill ceiling killer, but also stronger) I tried for AGES to get good at her. I'm talking 40+ hours. Her style of gameplay really just didn't mesh with how I liked to play though, so eventually I gave up, despite her being super cool looking (that's the only reason I play killers LOL). I'm sure if I put in even more hours I could've gotten better, but I just wasn't enjoying it.

Only spending 1 hour on a killer is fine too. If you don't like it, realize it's too high skill level for you or that you won't progress fast enough to enjoy it, then move on. Level them up for perks if you want, but don't sweat it too much. Unless you spent real money, then you might be a little more inclined to practice.

Either way bHVR will have stats on this, showing how many times people attempted this with no progress.

I highly doubt that's important enough for them to track, especially when complaints are minimal. Stats are only tracked if the company values them. Balancing the game, fixing bugs/exploits, and adding new content is a lot more important than some avoidable challenges.