http://dbd.game/killswitch
Are Offerings Becoming Useless in Dead by Daylight?
Over the years, certain offerings in Dead by Daylight have lost their impact -- or outright become redundant due to game updates. Many of these changes have made previously useful offerings feel like wasted slots. As I explain here:
- Fog Offerings: Once used to manipulate map visibility, these no longer stack and have minimal effect, making them an outdated mechanic that serves little gameplay purpose. With the absence of the fog outright, you could argue that these offerings should be retired.
- Hook Spacing Offerings - Petrified Oak/Mouldy Oak: These offerings no longer stack, meaning killers and survivors can't meaningfully alter hook distribution anymore. This limits strategic hook manipulation and reduces their usefulness, warranting another offering to be retired or tweaked.
- Map Offerings / Sac Ward: With a *flat 20% chance* instead of heavy influence over map selection, these offerings are much weaker than before. Since players can't strongly dictate where they play, Sacrificial Wards (which block maps) have also lost effectiveness.
- Shroud Offerings (Shroud of Union & Separation): The upcoming update that makes survivors spawn closer by default makes these even *more redundant*. Separation should favor survivors, and Union should favor killers -- but they tend to work in reverse and soon won’t even be necessary, causing another offering to be even more useless. Shroud of Union should be retired and Shroud of Separation should be swapped to the survivor side. If not this change, retire both.
At this point, many of these offerings are just taking up unnecessary space in the Bloodweb. Players rarely pick them, and those that do quickly realize their impact is negligible. If offerings can’t stack, influence matches meaningfully, or serve a unique function, why keep them around?
With offerings losing stackability, control, and direct impact, do they even have a place in Dead by Daylight anymore? Should Behavior remove them entirely or rework them to be relevant again?
Comments
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Losing stackability
I have a great idea for the changes to these offerings you mention.
Let Victims see each other's selected offerings in the pre-game lobby.
(Hell, Victims should be able to see each other's selected perks, too, to prevent overlap of non-stacking perks, but one thing at a time here.)
If Victims could see each other's offerings in the pre-game lobby, it means they could better coordinate offerings, so 2-3 don't bring Petrified Oak, but instead one brings fog, another oak, while the third and fourth bring a different map offering each (just a scenario off the top of my head).
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Yes, I agree that survivors should be able to see each other's perk loadouts. However, Behavior has said that they do not see it on their foreplan to implement at this time.
For offerings, the same issue applies — they don't stack anymore, which means their impact needs to be strong individually. Right now, many offering add-ons feel like filler, making them functionally useless in most matches.
For offerings add-ons to actually matter, they should introduce meaningful effects, rather than just small incremental changes that barely affect gameplay, which warrants reworks or outright retiring. They clutter the bloodweb and Behavior needs to rework or retire them outright.
Edit: since offerings no longer stack, it's a stronger case that they need to be reworked (stronger individual effects) or retired (reducing bloodweb clutter). Right now, many of them serve no meaningful purpose other than arbitrarily making people buy them and not use them.
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Most of these should be adressed sooner rather than later.
Fog offerings are pretty redundant on most maps (with some like Eyrie being an outlier funnily enough), since the fog changes. I feel like their effects should be amplified by a bit, or be allowed to stack to a certain point.
The Oak offerings are pretty useless, mainly the killer ones since hooks are everywhere. Petrified Oak can be effective in certain maps and when stacked, but by itself it's pretty bad. I just thought of an extra effect they could have, that being increasing/decreasing the time needed for a broken hook to respawn.
Map offerings losing their power is a good thing. I don't want them to be outright removed tho.
Shrouds should get a rework, I agree.
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Yeah, I understand the Shroud of Binding being a survivor offering as Behavior's ideal at the beginning was a hide and seek game.
However, the game has evolved and many higher experienced players know to space out and do separate gens. Making Shroud of Separation a survivor offering — especially with the changes to survivor spawns would be a smarter alternative.
This gives survivors a point of counterplay. Lethal Pursuer is one of the most used perks, and with the spawn change, it will become even stronger. Making a counterplay Shroud of Separation more valuable.
It could be a fixed point of distance too. This ensures survivors spawn at a reasonable fixed distance, rather than being placed on the four edges of the map, which often leads to unfair chases right at the start.
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I didn‘t know that fog offerings don‘t stack. How am I supposed to know that?! After googleing it says they only stack until you reach the value of the purple offering. Why can‘t I get more fog!?
The oak offerings are stacking according to what I read on google. My problem with oak offerings always was not the minor effect (even tho they could do more), but that some maps have fixed hook spawns, which are not affected by the offering at all. Raccoon city for example has so many non moveable hooks, which makes bringing the offering pointless.
Yeah map offerings can just get deleted. What is the point of having a 20% higher chance. Does that even do anything?
Shroud offerings I‘m certain will change next update. They will probably just reverse the effects. Instead of spawning you next to your teammates they will spawn you alone.
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I've read and heard from others that these do not stack anymore.
It used to have the line that it stacks, but Behavior removed the line. A few months ago, my full SWF used multiple fog offerings, but the in-game visuals remain unchanged -- suggesting the stacking effect was entirely removed.
Unless Behavior explicitly confirms otherwise, the logical conclusion is that stacking has been removed, just like with fog offerings.
That's why I argue that they need to be reworked or retired, they do not alter the game at all as it once did. It's why many survivors and killers typically use bloodpoint offerings, hatch offerings, or map offerings as these all directly alter the game in some capacity.
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I feel like the following changes to Shrouds would be great:
Shroud of Separation:
- Now an Ultra Rare (or Visceral if you want to go with the "new" name) Survivor offering
Shroud of Binding/Union:
- Removed, as they will be basekit.
(New Very Rare Killer offering) Stitched Shroud:
- Spawns all 4 survivors in the Main Building, if there is one.
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I agree with you that fog/ oak offerings should do a lot more. I‘d just prefer buffing them over removing them.
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They will probably make one shroud spawn only you not next to your teammates and the purple one will separate all teammates from one and another.
I for my part want one that spawns me close to the killer.
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Nice, I like that change! I think it would definitely help with the Shroud offerings to keep them in the game. Vigo's Shroud can be the same, but I wonder about the distance from the killer. -- again, it can be a fixed distance.
@Langweilig , either way they need to be stronger individually, which is my main point.
They're filler content that we're forced to get and will continue to sit in people's inventory unused. They should have stronger individual effects and directly say in the description that they do not stack anymore. There are still killer players who think the hook stacking still exists, which is not true. Behavior needs to re-edit the descriptions for these offerings and offer more clarity to users on these offerings. - like A_T_E stated, another change would be to allow us to see each other's loadouts and offerings would suffice - but editing the descriptions offers both survivors and killers to know they do not stack any longer.
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