Are players against complexity?

I think people just don't want the game to be too complex, yes. This is why sometimes, simple but weak characters are popular. Just look at how accessible Killers like Legion, Ghostface, Myers are. Now compare this to Killers like Blight, Pinhead, Sadako, Freddy, Dredge. These characters require more return on investment. Also, see how strong Singularity is, but notice he's also a rare pick. He's a very complex Killer, and requires time to learn.

The general gist seems to be, the more complex the Killer is, the more powerful people want them to be.

EDIT: A doublepost because something glitched.

Yeah, when you've been playing the game consistently for years, you have been afforded the luxury of learning in bite sized pieces as content is added. New and/or inconsistent players don't have that, they just face a wall of information to process.

Hell, I've been averaging 2-3 hours a day for going on six years and I don't feel like studying like Otz's apprentice, most days I just want to queue up and play some low effort matches. If I came to DBD now instead of 2019, I'd probably get a couple hundred hours and then say f- it and quit.

I'd go so far as to say I consider the threshold for a beginner in this game to be about 1K hours. That's insane. Just about every other game I've ever played (save some fighting games), I've mastered at half or less than that. And it's not a skill thing; take the Soulsborne games for example, those game require a lot more skill than DBD, but I became exceedingly good at them far, far less time than I have played DBD.

That's because in addition to being an imbalanced game not designed with clear parameters, DBD's goalposts keep getting moved. Memorized all the perks? Good news! We're gonna totally change like 30 of them. Memorized the maps? Guess what, we've overhauled them all. That's well enough for people who play the game constantly, but for people who don't, that sort of thing is a big deal, demoralizing, and a deterrent to play.

Of course the developing problem for BHVR is going to be that old vets aren't what is going to keep the game alive, we're going to drop off eventually. Attrition and burnout are real things. It's going to be new players who stick around, and keeping new players coming in. And if they make the game increasingly inaccessible, that's a recipe for disaster.

In addition to a more robust tutorial, I would (and this would make a lot of veterans moan, whinge and wail) cull a lot of the existing content (perks, items, etc. that have essentially become clutter) and cut back on the amount of new content coming in (not characters, but perks). You can keep the game fresh without just loading the game up with and overwhelming amount of junk content.

This game being challenging is what kept me engaged and kept me on the hamster wheel. Once I stop learning that's when I get disinterested.

I love obsessing over something so I've never really been bothered by the gargantuan skill/knowledge floor

Instead of 10% it used to just say slightly/moderately/tremendously...and some killers tremendously would be the same % as another killers moderately. I do not miss that!

Survivors have all but admitted they don't want variety. They want 30+ variations of Blight, Billy, or whatever dash-focused killer is currently considered "fun." This should have been obvious when every single killer that does anything else had been nerfed into the ground repeatedly.

Part of the problem is that a lot of the 'complex' mechanics have different levels of complexity for each side and some of them turn the game into more of a single player game.

Take Pinhead's box. As Pinhead there is nothing you have to do for it - its just there and you get free value if survivors don't know how to play against it (which in soloq is always going to at least be a little issue of uncertainty for who is going). There is a complexity for one side, nothing for the other (though at higher levels the Pinhead can begin to suss out where the box is, meaning he can actually improve to a degree with the survivors).

Or take Xeno's turrets (they've come up a bit recently). If the survivors don't know what they are doing, the turrets are actually going to waste them time, but if the survivors do know and coordinate setup the Xeno can't really do anything about it.

In these scenarios the complexity is not shared equally by both sides. It's a burden put on the survivors by the chosen killer which, if the survivors know how to overcome, give them the advantage against the killer. The secondary objectives and their spawns just are, there's no way a Xeno player can ever learn how to improve turret spawns are anything like that.

One side (survivors, generally) has the burden to overcome, which is frustrating, and when they do overcome the other side (killers, generally) feel powerless, which is also frustrating.

On top of this, the burden is continually growing for new players.

On the other hand, take Pinhead's chains. They aren't complex, but both sides are involved. Killer tries to hit with them, survivor tries to dodge. It's a mind game that gives both sides agency.

Same I just cannot get past the clunkiness and unresponsiveness of Singularity with a controller.

Personally, I don’t think people necessarily dislike complexity, I think the issue is more about how well that complexity is explained. BHVR has introduced several new game modes this year, each requiring players to adapt to new expecations and strategies. Both survivor and killer players have participated in these modes, so I don’t agree that one “side” is lazy or unwilling to learn.

Take Nurse, for example. Debatably most everyone (regardless of which “side” they’re on) agrees she is extremely powerful, and in skilled hands, she can be almost impossible to beat. Does this mean that players who choose not to dedicate themselves to mastering Nurse are lazy or unwilling to learn? Of course not. People choose to play what they enjoy, and there’s more to a game than just striving to be the absolute best, and not everyone has the time or the desire to dedicate that kind of energy to this specific character. The same logic applies to survivors. Survivors could become looping gods or masters of every killers counterplay, but that requirement of time is far greater for survivors than killers, simply because of the vast amount of kiler perks, add-ons, and powers, in comparison to survivor perks alone.

A killer can practice against the most complex survivor strategies in custom bot matches. Survivors on the other hand have no equivalent tool to practice against specific killers or killer perks. Add to that the frequent changes to perks, updated killer mechanics, and general balancing updates, and it becomes even harder for survivors to keep up.

MMR also complicates things. You could win 20 matches against a Wesker and have your MMR skyrocket, but if your next match is your very first against an Artist, youll still face that killer at a high skill level despite being a beginner against her. This creates a situation where survivors not only need an immense amount of knowledge across All killers but also the skill to execute that knowledge, and statistically most often with a mute, uncoordinated team in a game designed around collective punishment.

Complexity isn’t inherently bad, but it should be acknowledged that with higher complexity comes a higher demand for knowledge and skill to effectively be used successfully as a counter. That demand grows with every new killer added to the game, and it can get difficult to keep up especially when survivors have no effective way to practice counterplay outside of random matches or custom games with friends. Over time, this leads to a knowledge and skill gap that can feel overwhelming for survivors.

The goal shouldn't be to remove the need to learn— it should be to ensure all players have a fair shot at doing so.

I'd say it's more that most people work full-time, have social lives, kids and sports, etc, and gaming might only be something they play casually a couple hours here and there. And not everyone exclusively plays DBD either, so divide that time between 2+ games and yeah, some people aren't interested in complexity or don't have the energy for it. The killers i enjoy playing are Chucky, Demo, Wraith, and to a milder extent Xeno. So safe to say i have no desire for complexity. And some people may not have the time or don't care enough to watch content creators to learn more. Which is also fine. Content creators shouldn't be a requisite to playing a game. I play Phasmophobia yet find it boring watching streamers play it, so I don't.