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The game and community are really unwelcoming to newer players
At time of writing I'm currently sitting around 250 hours of play time. To some of you I'm probably still a baby. I'm at a point where I feel comfortable with the game. I know maps at a glance, I can loop decently. I know all the killers and their powers. I'm familiar with the meta perks.
And I will say with completely sincerity that the hassle it took to get this far and how awful most of this community is towards newcomers that I would never recommend this game to somebody who has never played it.
The biggest failure of this game on the purely technical side in my opinion is the lack of communication. There's so much information that new players will have to learn and its hidden behind menus or just not at all.
My first ever game against real players was vs a Sadako and I had no idea how she killed me with no hooks. I took Google to learn how she works only to be met by a wiki apparently written by aliens. If you don't know how something works then figuring out how is a painful process.
Why doesn't the post game screen contain a summary of the killers powers in layman's terms and some basic tips on how to deal with it? I don't imagine it'd be hard to implement the post game screen is pretty useless anyways unless you like getting flamed.
And thats only the power. Add in all the perks and addons and its pretty overwhelming for a new player. It should never have been deemed acceptable for the game to communicate gameplay alterations this poorly.
Wikis and youtube guides should be a compliment to the game, not an outright replacement for the game.
The other big issue is just how toxic this community is towards newer players. From post game chat, to Twitter, to reddit, to twitch, to youtube, to here. There seems to be this general concensus that if you can't loop a killer for an entire gen your opinion doesn't matter. People mostly talk about the game in terms of what the best players do. And if you aren't that your perspective is dismissed.
You get called "awful" for being new and told meaningless advice such as "do better in chase" and they act like they gave you some godsend instructions. In reality all that was said was "you're bad get good." That really resonates with struggling players.
And that isn't even going into all the camping and tunneling that results in boring gameplay experiences. If I was still new getting tunneled out every match, went to complain about how I wasn't having fun, and people replied "you're bad, go watch youtube guides" I'd probably refund my purchase.
The experience and opinions of new players do matter. Because the game will always need new players to keep replacing those who take breaks or leave. And if their games are all frustrating and boring while the community responds with condemnation then they're probably not going to stay. Because I didn't stay.
I quit the game after my first couple hours. It sucked. And the people playing it were outright hostile towards me for not magically having 2000 hours. Ultimately what brought me back was a very enthusiastic friend, and I don't imagine every new player will have one.
And this will be what kills the game off in my opinion. The stagnation and rot from an unwelcoming experience that keeps new players from coming back for more.
Comments
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I don't expect you to be perfect. However, if you want to beat someone, you need to have something better than them, or at least something you can't lose to. This is common sense in the world of games, past and present.
I'm not an expert on the international side of things, but at least in Japan there is a detailed wiki and a number of videos for beginners, including a clip showing over 20 different mind games on the LT wall.
I think the learning environment is good. It's a little complicated, but at least it's easier than historical strategy games.
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It can be new user unfriendly. I feel like there should be a tab in the killer menu next to each killer with a brief tutorial. It doesn't have to be a video or gameplay, but even just photos with a run down on what to do. I think people forget how overwhelming it can be for survivors just starting out - there's currently over 30 killers to learn to play against.
As for people being nasty, unfortunately that's an internet wide issue. People feel brave when sitting behind a screen in the safety of their home. I'd avoid endgame chat and keep your profile private. Twitter... is a cesspool tbh. This forum though I find is fine, but maybe I'm bias lol
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I agree that the game needs some adjustments for newer players. Mainly, the progression system (it's better than it used to be but it still takes forever) and the tutorials. The tutorials don't really explain different mechanics in enough detail and they also don't tell you how the game is typically played. There is nothing about looping in there, they don't tell you to watch out for the killer's perks, if you can and you only go against Trapper with no explanation to anything other than "Don't step into bear trap. You can disarm bear trap."
For killers this is not quite so bad because the killer role is a bit more intuitive. When you start playing it's just: "Find survivor, run after survivor, down and hook survivor, repeat." Survivors on the other hand will be more inclined to try and hide every time they hear the TR, which slows them down greatly, position themselves near the edge of the map as to not get found, which puts them at a disadvantage, if the killer does find them and just run instead of actually trying to loop, to the point where they will drop pallets when the killer isn't anywhere near them. They also won't know how to play around all the different killer powers yet.
This section really needs a complete overhaul. The community however is not so bad. It's the internet, so you have some people that are complete jerks but for the most part, this community is pretty decent with lots of people that are actually willing to give you advice, if you ask them. Try that in CoD or whatever and your chances of getting yelled at in 5 different languages and learning new things about your family history are way higher.
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Used to be you could look at any killer on the in-game shop and get a description of their power so you can get a rough idea of what everyone did, but the shop menu has been reworked now and I'm not sure where to find that feature anymore if it's even still there.
This game needs a compendium. Something that lists every killer power and add-on, survivor item and add-on, perks, and basic gameplay features like generators and totems and pallets. Loading screen tips aren't good enough anymore.
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Focusing on the area of how newer players are treated by people who have been playing for a while, I can say - even as someone who has been playing this a few years - it's increasingly frustrating to read posts talking about "n00bs" and players who do not know what they are doing. Both the terminology and attitudes towards beginners are often (but not always) negative.
Often I wonder whether those who say those derogatory comments are the problem themselves, considering they seem to "lose" more often than not. Regardless, players need to be much more conscientious and willing to help others more often. The attitudes of the playerbase largely impact the game itself, so more experienced individuals need to do better.
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You can get some entertainment from variwety fo characters if you are willing to spend 20-40 extra bucks, but if you get only the bare bones, you are definitely quite limited.
Still a great game tho.
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I tried getting someone into DBD a week ago and they got brutally removed from every match because they didn’t know the fundamentals of looping. And the killer was good enough that even me with thousand of hours went down in chase very quickly. Not to mention it being a curve Billy being an insta down killer is very frustrating for new player as half the chase doesn’t exist essentially. They haven’t given up on the game but it was honestly embarrassing trying to convince them to still enjoy the game after something like that.
I’ll never forget the very first time I played DBD and immediately quit after 2 games because it was insanely hard. Not to mention the tutorial was awful as well. I only tried the game again after watching content creators being good and thinking if they can do it than so can I. Very brutal game for new people and that imo is probably why it will never be super huge like Fortnite.
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Yeah... as someone who gets pretty obsessive about things I really like and stared reading everything I can about it... I didn't find it too hard to learn... there's a lot of content out there for DBD that you can view for pretty much amy question you have...
However its unreasonable to ask this of your average player. A killer breakdown would be useful, maybe tie it to the archives into the lore, where there's all the information known thus far about each killer, collaborated from the accounts of other survivors... almost like a scrap book of little notes and quips, with then a description of each killers powers.
Could actually get quite neat in how this information is made available to players.
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I actually had a great time when I first started playing. I’m not much of a horror fan and yet, somehow, some streamers video made its way into my YouTube feed and after watching a few I purchased the game. He made it look like a hide and seek cat and mouse game. I remember how terrified I was playing, my heart rate going through the roof and the adrenaline coursing through my veins every time I played for that first week. I even remember one instance of thinking Trapper couldn’t see me hiding in a bush on old Lery’s only to come back and make me nearly soil my pants.
I would have appreciated a good tutorial on the ins and outs of looping, better descriptions of perks and how they apply to actual gameplay and better explanations on Killer powers and how to counter them, but when thinking back on it, if I’d known everything from the beginning, I don’t think I’d have the same, addicting feeling I got when I first started.
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The biggest failure of this game on the purely technical side in my opinion is the lack of communication. There's so much information that new players will have to learn and its hidden behind menus or just not at all.Yeah, this is something experienced players forget. Coming into the game at this point as survivor there are so many possible killers to learn to face. Experienced players are around when each killer is introduced and learn them well during that time.
People broadly agree the game needs more and better tutorials. The concept I think is that once upon a time everyone was getting the joy of not being sure what was going on and it was part of the game's appeal. Those days are long since past. To the best of my knowledge an updated tutorial isn't on their radar, I have no idea why.
The other big issue is just how toxic this community is towards newer players. From post game chat, to Twitter, to reddit, to twitch, to youtube, to here. There seems to be this general concensus that if you can't loop a killer for an entire gen your opinion doesn't matter. People mostly talk about the game in terms of what the best players do. And if you aren't that your perspective is dismissed.I fortunately never had a big problem with post game chat, but otherwise yeah. I only have a couple of years in the game and I try to hold onto my new player memories, but a large part of the community does seem to think that people who want to play the game need to approach it like its homework.
And this will be what kills the game off in my opinion. The stagnation and rot from an unwelcoming experience that keeps new players from coming back for more.This is probably more likely then most 'here is what will kill DbD suggestions'. The game has been unwelcoming though for awhile and it hasn't died yet. I honestly have no idea how it keeps attracting new players, I'm surprised I or anyone makes it past the first few hours, but somehow it does.
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honestly, you’ll die on this hill. The developers are focused on designing the game around Streamers first, then Killer players.
There’s no reason to play this game as a solo queue player and even less as a new player. You’ll just make yourself miserable. It’s flat out unfun. PlayHelldivers II, they have been catering to the casual community. DBD is more like StarCraft 2, it caters to the pro play community.
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It's a painful learning experience for sure. The tutorial barely teaches you even the basic fundamentals of the game. Even less so than when I started just a year ago, since they've added new features like the anti face camp and anti 3 gen. I don't think new players should be subjected to a tediously exhaustive tutorial before they're allowed to play, but it could certainly use some improvements. I do think there is fun to be had in learning and experimenting as you play, however.
I think the reason why I stuck around long enough to improve a little is because I enjoyed being stalked by spooky monsters in the fog or chasing Survivors around as my favourite horror movie icons. I think there has to be some other motivation for playing this game when you first start because the learning curve is brutal and its asymmetrical nature makes it unlike most other video games.
Please BHVR, do a better job of teaching new players about the endurance and deep wound mechanic at the very least. I don't want any more unfortunate newbies collapsing into the dying state when they're matched with my Legion or Deathslinger.
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The Devs are not a good resource for good advice. The era of game guides and print publications have past. It's the era of YT and wikis.
The wiki is a good resource for anything you want to know about the game. Of course a new player won't understand a lot from it because it's not common knowledge. You need to supplement in experience to know what to look for. No in-game doc will provide any different.
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Yeahhhhhh, the game isn't exactly very new-player friendly, but I see that as a problem of both not a lot of things being explained and a pretty volatile community. Granted, I've met a lot of great people in the game, but then you get into these forums and Youtube comments and the Twitter (sweet Lord avoid the Twitter) and you realize that for every friendly player there's a douchebag ready to make up for that.
In terms of the game itself, there's a good few things that even the tutorials don't tell you, but I think there are a couple things coming next Tuesday that'll help out with that (i.e., Killer-specific items getting description boxes). Even then, though, there could still be beginner adjustments.
Ultimately, take some time to be bad at the game. Watch content creators because it genuinely helps, and play both sides. Getting better at survivor will make you a better killer player, and vice versa. And above all else, ignore the pieces of crap in the community.
Whether or not you decide to try the game again, I hope you don't have an experience like you had again.
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Absolutely zero reason for there to not be video demonstrations of how killer powers work in-game. At some point BHVR realized they could outsource the new player onboarding to unpaid employees (content creators), and everyone just kind of accepted it.
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Is the not good enough for people as a guide to the game? I mean, it is basically the offical copendium for the game, no?
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The Wiki doesn't stop people being abusive.
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Well, that's obvious. I was speaking about the game's lack of instructions, which isn't true as the wiki exists.
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I actually realised it when I was trying to introduce a friend to the game the other day. I have nearly 16k hours and during our first time playing together and explaining everything I was like... damn... this must boring as hell for him. There are so many things not-new-player-friendly. Even simple things like perks having so much fodder text, its super confusing. The perk should just say the effect, not 5 lines of lore, the effect is very often badly worded and after that a 2-3 line quote from somewhere. All very confusing
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Everyone's experience is different I've made some really good friends on this game, I've got over 15k hours and still friend new players in my lobbies because I enjoy showing people the ropes and helping them meet others like me so they have a good experience when they play, it's what you make of it and what you put in, I'm not saying your experience is wrong or that people don't have sucky attitudes sometimes, but if you be positive and put positive energy out there it will come back to you, this is a hard game to just jump into when you have people who have been playing for years to get where they are, I recommend to try playing with friends you'll be laughing before you know it at all the stuff that upset you before
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This is how this game is going to get killed. The lack of new players will be its demise and the old players will move on later with their lives.
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I think a thing I noticed when I started learning survivors(first year was only killer pretty much) was how uninformative survivor content creators are. A ton of killer players will describe every thing they do and why, a ton of content creators for killer main one killer and that's their shtick which they can be very informative about. On the flip side none of the bigger survivor content creators are consistently informative and even if they are calling out what they are doing they don't say their reasoning much.
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I'm sorry you've had such an unfortunate experience. The game is pretty awful with welcoming new players, and especially those that struggle. I'm sorry that even in posting this, you're getting replies telling you that you didn't do enough research, or that you're simply not good. I don't think these people understand that they're literally proving your point about the community being unwelcoming. I've said this in the past; I don't think the community is toxic but it is judgemental. It lacks empathy. People always talk about playing the game however you want regardless of what other people think and then wonder why everyone is angry at eachother and miserable lol. It's not all bad. But I'm sorry if your feelings felt invalidated. You have every right to feel how you feel. All I can say is that it's not all bad.
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I think everybody has HAD a bad experience in the game; but I'd disagree that the community is toxic. I find true horror fans to be so friendly and inclusive; but not all gamers. it's easy to follow confirmation bias on any extreme/side. Surround yourself with the company and vibes you seek.
the "nuance" of the game the game only scales larger and larger with each character and their addition of new perks. So lots of reading is required and new players are inevitably going to encounter something new. Can hopefully be exciting in addition to the confusion
Things arent explained well but in perspective they're the most descriptive theyve been in the games history So just be vocal about what youd like to see improved upon; but also idk what games you're playing that hand-feed you counter play; and additionally killers are supposed to be functional threats not avoidable dangers. So it often just comes down to doing your best with what you have to work with: map, perks, loops, resources, placement, pressure. Dozens of rabbit holes to dive into of things you can better and each of those things go into rounding out your performance and skill in a match. Same with playing as a killer, that familiarity highly benefits awareness for counterplay.
Game has a foundation of an unbalanced indie party game so the truth this game has lasted so long is a miracle and we love to see and experience miracles.
I hear and feel your complaints. Dont force yourself to play this game because that's not worth anything. As a primarily solo player I play mostly killer because solo queue is often a brutal experience. I focus on fun, exploration and new things and imo if you dont play this game with any intention, whether it's for fun, wins or improvement and bettering your mechanics you'll likely quickly hit a wall of some form.
Hope this was a good mix of everything.
Take care everyone!
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not really, for a new player it can be confusing
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Many people want to believe that this game is casual play, but the number of perks, killers, items, add-ons, and maps tells us that this is not reality. We should have abandoned the illusion and understood that this game was difficult from the beginning and that most people would learn it by dying.And if that's unfair to new players, then we need to throw out most of the current game design, such as only adding one perk per survivor or killer purchase.This will mean existing players will get bored, but that can't be helped.
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Compendium and guides are very different things.
Imagine you are a new player and you open that up. Where do you start? It lists what is in the game, but not really anything to start playing.
As the OP said, it also wouldn't be very fun. Hit a killer, get demolished by them, open the wiki, check how they work, back to the game, new killer, open the wiki…repeat that again and again. It's not really fun and trying to read it all ahead of time wouldn't make much sense.
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It's pretty weird to load into an older, complex game and expect to be competent at it in a couple of hours. I tried fortnite for the first time the other day and got demolished all evening. Better at it today after looking up what all the stuff does. Probably never gonna play it again but I gave it a shot.
It'd be like playing overwatch and expecting to automatically be good and know all the hero interactions. It's just not happening. The game either hooks you and you're interested or it doesn't and you're not. Not everything is for everyone.
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I have always found it strange that bHVR has a super useful system for giving players info during loading screen. But instead of putting advice from their most knowledgeable players, the advice and directions are very arbitrary.
If I was director for a second, I would start a program for filling the loading screen with the most useful instructions for Killer counter play for Survivors. I would ask the bHVR statistians, "which Killer has the highest Killrate for lower mmr" and start there.
Also @Unimatrix00
Is the Site Dead by Daylight Wiki not good enough for people as a guide to the game? I mean, it is basically the offical copendium for the game, no?Actually this is an issue I have complained to the wiki editors about many times myself, they do not actually give constructive advice on that website. They only state the facts about Killer. I personally believe they should, but they don't. They dont want to deal with the momentous task of keeping up knowledge and are perfectly fine letting video creators deal with that.
We as community has to realize that the wiki does not help new people much, it only gives them facts.
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Why doesn't the post game screen contain a summary of the killers powers in layman's terms and some basic tips on how to deal with it? I don't imagine it'd be hard to implement the post game screen is pretty useless anyways unless you like getting flamed.
And thats only the power. Add in all the perks and addons and its pretty overwhelming for a new player. It should never have been deemed acceptable for the game to communicate gameplay alterations this poorly.
you can hover over the icons on the post game screen, to get descriptions to pop up, including for the killer power. it doesn't go into every detail but it does try to describe the complicated mess in a simple way.
whenever you play against a killer for the first few times, there's a tip on the loading screen that says who you're playing against and a basic tip. nothing too complex, stuff like "disarm the trapper's traps" or "collect and put away tapes for sadako". you can use the loading time to look up and see what the killer your going against does.
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it sucks but there's a lot to this game, there's a lot of information and it's hard to ride the gap between too overwhelming and too little.
just know that with 2000+ hours there's still stuff I can't be bothered to remember and need to look up, because there's just too much going on.
just take it as it comes, piece by piece
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I really feel they need to invest in a modest single player campaign to give new players more of a resource for learning in their own time.
As it stands you get handful of super basic tutorials plus a few bot games as/against trapper. For a game this mechanically indepth that's just not enough, it's barely more than the equivalent of "use the right joystick to turn the camera".
Yes there are custom games, but this isn't an option for survivors, and any new player wants to be earning BP as soon as possible.
There should be something along the lines of:
The Trials of the [Trapper] [Wraith] [Hillbilly] [Huntress] [Nurse] [Doctor]
In which you can play as/against each of these, on their home maps, for as many games as you like, and earn base level BP (so no offerings or event/role bonuses). Of course this means developing AI protocols for each of these killers.
While this wouldn't teach you things like Sadako's condemned, it would give you a much better grasp of 'the basics' plus an appreciation for how killers work differently, so that you're not overwhelmed when you do encounter a new killer like Sadako.
Post edited by Seraphor on1 -
A wiki is first and foremost a place for information: stats, facts, trivial knowledge, etc. It is not a game guide, there is a reason those exist alongside wikis for most games out there. The two fulfill different functions.
I wholly agree with the wiki editors in that they prefer to just list factual information and keep that up-to-date, which is already a momentous task by itself, rather than also give gameplay tips and instructions that can quickly become outdated or that different people have different opinions about.
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I think the wiki crew should be welcoming Killer experts in to create pages of Strategy.
- People come to wikis for help.
- People go to wikipedia for facts.
dbd wiki is not a wikipedia, because if it was people would not look at it for help.
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I'm sorry, but no, a wiki isn't a game guide, it's a game encyclopedia. If people look to it for gameplay guides, they're looking in the wrong place and that mistakes is solely on them.
You may believe the two to be the same, but they are by definition two different things and you're trying to call an apple an orange.
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Unfortunately for your argument it is a common association. I myself have used many guides found on wikis.
Besides we should not deny people the help they seek when they come to the wiki.
Therefore… the Wiki should contain strategy information. Simple as.
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Common (mis)associations do not validate it. It's nice that you found guides on wikis before, but that's not where those should have been. The absence of guides on the wiki is also not denying people anything, that's a disingenuous shift of blame there.
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Hard disagree to that. Also you are misinterpreting my point, im not shifting blame. Its an entirely new set of blame.
Because they turn away people who come looking for information, expecially when other wikis are more accommodating.Post edited by Emeal on0
