Dev Update April 2025

Finally on the haste/hindered change. Haste has always been a slippery slope. A survivor should not be as fast as a killer same as a killer should not be so fast there's nothing you can reasonable do. Hindered being pretty much the same.

oooooh ok lol I don't know why I figured that meant you had to preform the rekindle action on 5 totems at the same time. (obviously impossible) Man do I feel silly. Thank you th3

You only see your own Perks. And yes, they really should implement a way to see other Survivors Perks, when not in lobby then at least ingame.

Pentimento is a good change. Totems are a side objective after all and side objectives should not be punished like this. 30% Slowdown for just one Totem was way too much.

Unhook Spam… No, there should not be a possibility to unhook yourself. This would mean that you can unhook yourself even if you are not griefed, but for example camped. IMO the Unhook Spam prevention is fine as proposed, even against a camping Killer you dont need 3 Unhook Fakes to get an Unhook, Grabs are not a thing anymore and it is really only used to grief at this point.

They also said they will buff Haste- and Hindered Perks, overall it is more healthy to do it that way.

It's not lost on us that unhooking can be used by Survivors to grief others

But it's apparently been lost on you that the vast majority of unhook spam was vigilantism done against real griefers.

Good changes overall, although I would have preferred removing stacking in all areas. Make us choose a single perk for each purpose so you can balanced around a common target.

You’re massively overestimating pentimento. Sure the number was high, maybe a bit too high, but finding it wasn’t hard and if your whole team isn’t paying attention on where it distroys the totem, then it is honestly deserved to suffer the penalty. Totems aren’t hard to find and pentimento isn’t used much in lower levels either since most people don’t own it there. By the time players actually use it, everyone should have understood how the perk works.

I don’t have a problem with dying through unhooking someone if it is MY CHOICE. In so many situations it is not practical to unhook someone straight up instead of trying to get into a more advantageous position. With this feature you can no longer try to do that if the killer interrupts you multiple times, which takes away a lot of player agency.

Can you tell me how I can see where one of my SoloQ-Teammates just cleansed a Dull Totem? So I deserve to suffer a 30% decrease in Repair Speed because I am matched with Teammates who a) think it is a good idea to cleanse Dull Totems (it is not) and b) dont bother to cleanse it?

Pentimento is a really bad designed Perk because it hurts Solos more than it does SWFs and it punishes doing Side Objectives way too severe. (And it is already a big advantage for the Killer if Survivors waste their time on side objectives)

Agree

Everything looks good aside maybe the Pentimento changes and Haste/Hindered stacking removal, but I will have to see the numbers to make my opinion.

punishes Side Objectives way too severe.

But without it having a good effect no one would ever bother doing it and that’s probably what will happen with those changes.

I forgot about the part of randoms cleansing dull totems, because why would you do that. On the other hand we shouldn’t nerf perks for the sole reason of people being dumb.

Mandy said next Hotfix will have some changes for the Ghoul that brings him more in line with other killers. I guess they want to see what we think after these changes and depending on this feedback, do more changes.

I can see why they didn’t publish any numbers in this post - they probably gutted a bunch of stuff and are averse to receiving any feedback on it. It’s really not that hard to contextualize numbers, I think people reading these sorts of things know what 5%, 10%, etc mean in DBD when referring to different aspects of the game. Based on the state of other things I don’t think a PTB in itself will be substantial enough to change their minds about anything.

Sad to hear about the type of changes being made to Pentimento. Getting more than 2 lit pretty much requires that youre running a dedicated build (like plaything n such) or that a player is running around focusing every dull totem (generally rare imo).

As for Haste/Hindered changes and the “Quest” system (terrible title for goals in DBD btw, call it Compulsions or something), it seems that the game experience is going to become progressively more standardized, and I don’t know if that is a good thing or not. It removes flavor and that’s really primarily what this game has going for it imo. You worry me, BHVR. Hoping for the best tho

Seeing Dark Theory get indirectly nerfed because of this change sucks since I consider it the funnest boon.

It has "safe" values because of its potential to stack with other perks (and working for other survivors), so I hope the devs consider making it on par with other haste perks if they decide to roll with this change onto the live servers.

Kinda true. The new Questsystem is a huge W as well as all the changes for new players.

I am really disappointed that we don't get the map offering nerf. Currently, I really enjoy the Blood Moon event because the chances are really low for map offerings and I actually can use my cakes and BPS but after the event? I'm forced to use hands again. I was also hoping for some killer tweaks since many of them still need some - e.g. Plague and Pinhead are still on the list.

The change to Houndmaster seems not be a change but a bug fix (depending on what numers we get) because the current vault speed is faster than intended. Maybe they just fix the bug and call it a day. More BP is nice but she still needs a lot of bug fixes and I hope she will get them with this chapter.

The nerf to pentimento can be good (now it applies on healing and repair at the same time - we need to see the numbers to see how good it will be) but it's an overall nerf to hex builds in general without giving them some needed buffs to make them more reliable.

But overall there's like no incentive to play killer on this ptb. There will be new survivor perks but there's no matchmaking so i doubt anyone will be using them effectively.

It's the opposite from what we had/have with Tokyo Ghoul. I like it that the developers want to make both sides happy with new content but that splitted content has some issues.

I don't see a world where the devs say they're adjusting some perks based on no longer being able to stack them and Dark Theory isn't on the list, personally. I have to imagine it's one of the perks they're buffing to compensate for this change.

Glad they’re finally addressing haste perks. They’ve been bandaid perks for both sides for ages. Both sides feel pressured into bringing them to have a chance and they usually account for 50-100% of the perks on any given build.

I’m sure they’ll balance stacking other less important things like gen regression and 2nd chance perks eventually.

Wow, how completely unsurprising that our complaints are lost in the void of the forums. No changes to the Ghoul and no Changes to the Bloodmoon event….

And the crowd. . . . rolls their eyes in disappointment. Who could've seen that coming. . .

In other news though, I have a neutral opinion about the Haste/Hinder Stack change. I'm of the opinion that haste SHOULD stack but Hinder SHOULD NOT. But, honestly, it's also a good change since more perks can be balanced around a flat buff rather than a Killer moving at like +50% their Normal speed for running a speed build (Which is outright unfair.)

Pentimentio getting nerfed is also a good thing as contrary to popular belief, It's a perk I see VERY often being ran with other perks like Blood Favor, Haunted Grounds, Undying & Face the Darkness to ensure that they can get their Pentimento stacks.

Though, I'm inclined to agree with others that once survivors figure out Pentimento is in play, it's only a matter of time till it can no longer get its stacks since Survivors won't touch dull totems and will only cleanse the lit totems. (I'm one of those Survivors that tend not to touch Dull Totems till they glow, SPECIFICALLY because of Pentimento lol.)

All other changes are okay, i guess but I'd be lying to say if I wasn't disappointed by the lack of response or addressing to the state DBD is in right now.

I’m aware of that I was being sarcastic.

Nobody feels pressured to bring haste perks. And haste perks do not actually account for 50-100% of any given build like slowdown or second chance perks which feel required against competent SWF and Killers.

The UI changes for Quests and Lore are all great! Haste and Hindered might end up feeling a little boring, but it's been a controversial topic for awhile so it makes sense there wouldn't be a consensus. It's good we're getting more broad scale changes, even if some might not be the most agreeable.

The quest system and archive changes aren't interesting to me as they don't really affect my enjoyment of the game much at all. And the actual gameplay things you have to do in trials to complete challenges seemingly aren't changing much at all, or at best shifting more to a "you will complete most of them inadvertently without even really trying to" paradigm that while arguably nice obviously makes them even less interesting. While I will say that the "all challenges can be done at any time" change is a bit concerning because one could reasonably see it lead to players instead of playing in earnest just trying to cram as many challenge completions into a single trial as possible, I suppose that would also lead to those players completing their challenges in fewer rounds and thus going back to playing normally more quickly.

The lobby perk preview and pre-equipped loadouts thing is quite the non-feature for anyone but the newest of new players and it's funny that it among a bunch of other such changes is being highlighted so much in this "quality of life initiative". Or that it was being "A/B tested" for 2+ years. Yeah sure improving the new player experience is great and all, but those players are not reading these notes or excited about this entire ordeal altogether. I mean, they aren't even playing the game yet… For long-time players that have been looking for a plethora of tangible QOL improvements for ages and were excited when this "operation health" thing was finally announced on the other hand, these changes and the importance that is being ascribed to them is more of an insult.

The unhook spam prevention is a bit of an awkward bandaid for which there would have been a decidedly more elegant solution that would have also improved the game beyond preventing abuse: instead of making it so survivors cannot attempt to unhook someone more than 3 times (which I guarantee there are instances of in which the player is not griefing), they could have simply given the hooked survivor the ability to deny unhook attempts, just like they can deny heals. This would not only prevent cases of abuse, it would also bestow upon the player on hook a degree of agency in cases where they deem it more beneficial to remain hooked (e. g. when the killer is around, when they have just transitioned into struggle stage, when they have perks like Deliverance or Wicked, if AFC is active, hell, if the other players are trolling or working with the killer and they just want to leave the match).

The extended skill check safety net is neat, but for this too I think there exists a more elegant solution: the skill check should simply continue to play out if the survivor lets go of the respective interaction during the check, allowing/requiring them to still complete it. Just like with Overcharge. This would ensure survivors would never randomly miss a skill check, but without the possibility of "abusing" this where instead of having to complete skill checks they would simply let go.

The slightly decreased vault speed on Houndmaster is a moderate but appropriate adjustment. Just what that entails will have to be seen in action though of course. I think a more interesting change could be to more substantially decrease the vault speed on the first pounce, but increase it on the second pounce. This would lead to players having to work with the redirect much more proactively, both prior to and after vaulting.

The Haste and Hindered stacking change seems like one of those uncalled-for adjustments made with "consistency" in mind that is however removed from the gameplay reality. Future perks and powers notwithstanding, there is nothing whatsoever in the game now in terms of stacked Haste and Hindered effects that is truly problematic. In fact, most of the Haste or Hindered effects are only remotely interesting or potent enough to consider precisely if you do stack them, and even then most of them still end up being more so "for-fun" than something people abuse to get a competitive edge. Blood Pact, Power Of Two, Dark Theory? Game Afoot, Unbound, Batteries Included, Furtive Chase? These are all objectively pretty terrible perks that nobody in their right mind is seriously using to begin with, and if they did it was mostly only ever to stack with other such effects for a wholly unreliable and impractical but at times funny result. I sure hope they will at least tangibly buff all of the affected perks to make up for this. (Play With Your Food on the other hand could do with a nerf, or rather a rework. It's the only actually problematic Haste perk, and the problem is not that it stacks with others.) Rapid Brutality doesn't need the Bloodlust removal, Unbound doesn't need the timer, Game Afoot doesn't need the Obsession condition, Knock Out should also proc if the pallet is destroyed before the survivors leaves its range, Power Of Two could have a much-increased linger timer, Dark Theory could be 5%, and so on and so forth.

The Pentimento nerf is unfortunate. It is a really good perk but not too good, and it is also one of the major drivers behind making builds with multiple Hex perks viable. And it lives and dies with the impact that having 1 rekindled totem up has, which I suspect will be much-decreased with this change. Rekindling 2 or let alone more totems and much less keeping them standing is not realistic or practical, and so if what I assume turns out true and the first totem will only make for a marginal debuff of 10% or so, that's lights-out for the perk. At the very very least, they should make it so that this debuff increases with every further rekindled totem regardless of whether the previous one(s) have been cleansed. Oh, and make Dominance protect them.