Dead By Daylight Needs More Functional Items
Behavior has been making balance adjustments, but many core survivor items remain stagnant. Instead of focusing purely on perk balance, Dead By Daylight should revitalize survivor items and add-ons to give them actual purpose. DBD's focus on perk balance has led to stagnation in item mechanics, making gameplay feel more repetitive. Without meaningful item updates, burnout becomes more inevitable as matches play out the same way.
Here are three key areas that deserve attention:
- Smoke Grenades: A Much-Needed Chase Mechanic
Survivors currently have no real evasion tools beyond looping and hoping map RNG is favorable. If DBD wants to be a chase-oriented game, then survivors should have more strategic escape options instead of relying on pallets and windows.
- Smoke Grenades (New Item): Survivors can carry up to (1/2) smoke grenade(s) per match, allowing them to briefly obscure line of sight when deployed. This would force killers to track movement more carefully, rather than just brute-forcing chases.
- Balance Adjustments – The grenades wouldn’t be a free escape; they’d last only a few seconds and require proper timing to be effective. This would reward skillful use, instead of just being another throwaway item like firecrackers.
To balance the effect, smoke grenade(s) would last only 3-4 seconds, with killers able to see faint movement trails within the smoke at close range -- preventing it from being a guaranteed escape.
Killers have numerous tracking perks and abilities that make survivor movement predictable. Adding smoke grenades wouldn't make escapes free -- it would introduce a skill-based tool that rewards smart timing and positioning. Most importantly, this new item would inject more chaos and evasive tactics into the game as fog has been removed and has not made its return.
- Useless Add-ons -- Retire or Rework Them
Many item add-ons serve no real purpose, and survivors rarely pick them outside of meme builds. One glaring example is "Instructions" for toolboxes, which removes skill checks but does nothing else.
- Retire Pointless Add-ons -- Add-ons like "Instructions" should either be removed or reworked to have an actual function.
- Revamp Items Further -- Behavior adjusted medkits, but other survivor items still need balancing to match the game's current mechanics. If some add-ons are never used, they should be reworked or replaced with something actually useful.
Instructions isn't the only weak add-on — flashlight beam intensity modifiers, certain map add-ons, and barely impactful medkit boosters should either be removed or given actual functionality.
- Maps Should Do More Than Track Generators & Totems
Maps are one of the most underutilized survivor items, mainly because they only track stationary objects. Expanding map utility would give survivors more reason to pick them, especially in solo queue. These are my ideas on how to revitalize the map item and only one can be a basekit feature.
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- Tracking Killer Scratch Marks -- Maps could have the ability to briefly reveal killer sprint trails, showing where the killer has been going. This would help survivors predict movement patterns and make more informed decisions during stealth and chase scenarios.
Maps have long been one of DBD's most underwhelming items, overshadowed by toolboxes, medkits, and flashlights due to their limited utility. By making killer scratch mark tracking basekit, maps would finally serve a purpose beyond objective navigation, allowing survivors to predict killer movement without relying solely on sound cues (especially for hearing impaired players). This mechanic would be far weaker than the Blood Amber key add-on, as it wouldn't provide full aura reading, but rather a brief glimpse at killer scratchmark pathing -- forcing survivors to interpret movement patterns rather than getting direct vision.
Integrating this mechanic into maps would also encourage item diversity, shifting survivor gameplay away from the same medkit-toolbox-flashlight meta. With DBD becoming increasingly chase-oriented, giving survivors a tool to make informed repositioning choices would be a natural evolution. Maps would no longer be niche items used only for finding gens and totems -- they’d become real-time tracking tools, rewarding strategic play without making chases unfair. If Behavior is truly committed to making gameplay more engaging, this would be a logical, balanced addition that injects fresh mechanics without disrupting the existing balance.
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2. Solo Queue Aura Reading Enhancing Team Coordination:
One of the biggest struggles in DBD is the disconnect between solo survivors, especially when it comes to healing and support mechanics. Unlike SWF (Survive With Friends) groups, solo players don’t have constant communication, making it harder to know when a teammate needs help or is nearby for a heal.
By integrating temporary aura reading for injured teammates/noninjured teammates (whichever is more preferable for Behavior to take route wise), maps could finally bridge the gap for solo players, offering real-time support insights that don’t rely on perks.
How It Works:
- Survivors using a map would gain brief visibility of nearby injured teammates, allowing them to locate allies who need healing without aimlessly running around.
- Survivors using a map would enhance team awareness, allowing survivors to know who is nearby for potential cooperation in gens, heals, or unhooking strategies.
- The effect would function on a short timer, preventing it from being too powerful while still helping solo players make better coordination decisions.
- This mechanic mirrors Blood Moon event mechanics, but in a balanced form for regular gameplay, ensuring it’s useful without being too strong.
Why It’s Important for Solo Queue Survivors:
- Solo players struggle with healing coordination, often missing opportunities to help teammates just because they don’t know where they are.
- SWF survivors have comms, making information way easier, but solo survivors are left guessing -- this feature helps level the playing field.
- It wouldn’t provide full aura visibility, only temporary scans, making it balanced yet effective for quick decision-making.
Why It Doesn’t Break the Game:
- Unlike perks like Empathy, which show injured survivors globally or Bond, which showed all survivors in a radius -- this effect would be limited to map users and would only show teammates within a certain radius on a small scan timer.
- It doesn’t give permanent aura reading, meaning survivors still need to make strategic decisions about when and where to use the map.
- It encourages item variety, rather than forcing every survivor to rely on medkits or perks to handle healing situations.
If Behavior wants to prioritize healing coordination, injured survivor tracking would be more useful. If the goal is team awareness, tracking nearby non-injured survivors would be the better choice.
Instead of being active at all times, the scan could activate for 5 seconds upon map use, allowing survivors to see injured teammates within a small radius before it fades.
Adding this mechanic to maps would finally give solo players more control over teamwork, making healing less frustrating without requiring perk-dependent solutions.
Why These Changes Matter
Survivor gameplay has become predictable because item selection lacks variety beyond medkits, toolboxes, and flashlights. By introducing smoke grenades, reworking add-ons, and expanding map mechanics, DBD could finally feel fresh again without breaking balance.Survivor items have become stagnant, with some even losing their original functionality, like flashlights no longer lightburning Wraith or disrupting Artist's birds. To keep gameplay fresh and prevent burnout, DBD needs more viable options beyond medkits and toolboxes. Introducing smoke grenades, killer scratch mark tracking on maps, or solo queue aura reading would encourage diverse item choices while reinforcing chase-focused mechanics. Survivors should have more strategic tools, not just recycled adjustments that don’t evolve the game.
Behavior already experimented with smoke grenades in multiple game modes and BloodSense mechanics, proving that advanced survivor tracking tools aren't an unreasonable addition.
Expanding item functionality would not only improve survivor strategy but encourage more diverse builds, moving DBD from the stale medkit-toolbox-flashlight meta. Survivors need more viable items, not just small nerfs and buffs that don’t add strategic depth. If DBD wants to stay engaging, Behavior should focus on revitalizing outdated mechanics, instead of just tweaking numbers in patches.
Comments
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I agree that items and their add-ons in general need an update, and that things like Maps need a buff.
I would start by evening the playing field between Maps and make them track the same things, then add some new add-ons to create more options.
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Maps should have default glass bead attached
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Smoke bombs sound fun
Maps should have a fold out animation and provide default crystal bead to other survivors just around you.
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Yeah, smoke bombs would be fun to play with! They're more situational I find in 2v8, but I'd love to see them in the regular gamemode like they were for Haunted By Daylight!
Edit: I do think they should be an item! We need more items in the game and I'd hate for it to be slapped on like a perk.
@SoGo , I think the main problem with maps is the overlap with tracking with keys! I don't know how I'd change keys, but due to the fact that keys track things often collide with maps as a whole.
I feel like maps need another factor to make people use them more, hence my suggestions. I am open to viewpoints on those things, I'm not dead set on them but I do feel like the soloq portion would help with soloq, especially as most of the playerbase is that. I'd use the map with my healing builds as I mostly play soloq on my end. 🥲
We've all seen the grievances of soloq and I think either of them would be great to have. I liked the BloodSense maps because it would prevent me from accidentally sandbagging someone in chase or find other survivors to heal and I'll be sad once I use them up for sure.
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Yeah, the overlap between Maps and Keys is a problem. I'd make it so Maps can track Objects only (aside the Bloodsense Map tracking injured survivors) and leave player auras to Keys.
I would like to add some very unique add-ons to Maps, that would allow them to create a second objective with a reward (for example, I would adore an add-on that creates a Glyph once all gens are done, and the one who has the map can interact with it, gaining about 40 Iri Shards). This would further distinguish them from Maps.
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Hm, it's interesting but I think that it just needs a little oomph to make survivors have to think about using them.
All the items in the game have the ability to alter the match.
Medkits allow the user to heal themselves or heal others faster.
Toolboxes obviously take permanent chunks (if used with a Brand New Part) or significant progress on said generator.
Flashlights are using to obscure the killer's view at loops, flashlight saves, and other miscellaneous things.
Keys are used to find the hatch and have wayyyyy too many tracking that warrants maps useless, hence the overlap that is not necessary. If anything, we can say that keys should be for killer tracking (like the Blood Amber) and maps should be for more cooperative playstyles.
As it stands, maps are not usable for experienced players with thousands of hours (like myself) - experienced players know where gen spawns are, they know where totems are, so it needs a secondary effect in play and even take the key add-ons off the key and place them onto the map.
I find it odd that the key item is used for tracking, when we already have a tracking tool such as the map. I hope that they rework the keys into something else entirely in all honesty, it would solve a lot of issues with the map itself.
Edit: I also think Behavior would never allow any item to give us shards, but that's just me taking in consideration that they are a business at the end of the day! I liked the idea regardless.
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I like the smoke grenade idea, but I would reduce duration to 2-3 seconds, even go as low as 1.5 seconds due to the possibility of 4-man SWFs spamming and abusing smoke grenades. Also they would need to be limited to 1 use per player per match, like firecrackers.
It seems they will be reworking maps and keys in future updates so future will tell if the changes are along what you recommend here.
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Just sounds like survivor buffs, I think there is a better way to go about it.
Post edited by ToadMagic on-4 -
I see, yes. I can see the point about them being abuseable by a lot of SWF players if they decide to pick them over the other options. Just a food for thought to improve item variety, rather than the stale meta that we currently have -- but thank you for feedback.
@ToadMagic - so, you are of the opinion that items and add-ons do not need to be overhauled? That maps are fine as they are, even if they're the least used item by far? Even useless add-ons, such as the "Instructions"? Or can you elaborate more instead of an outright blanket statement?
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Honestly, I think the gap between the best and worst items in DBD needs to shrink, BUT:
If maps tracked killer scratch marks, it'd push people into immersive dbd (hiding gameplay), which, let's be honest, is just boring. I don't think it would be strong, but the immersive dbd hiding gameplay that pubs love to use is.. awful to play with and against (again, not because its good, because its boring and makes matches last way longer than they need to).
I do think it'd be pretty cool if maps were made better for coordinating with randos in pubs, though. That'd probably be fine.
Smoke grenades are a hard pass for me, they are okay in 2v8, but in 1v4 it'd feel absolutely terrible to play against. The movement trail idea is neat, but they couldn't make it too easy for the killer to spot, or the item would just be dead on arrival -another useless item you'd never pick over a toolbox. I can't imagine chasing someone for a full minute, about to get the down, then they just pop a smoke grenade and boom, they're at the next loop (or lose you entirely). It would widen the gap between the actual op killers (nurse, blight, drac) and m1 killers/weaker killers even more, because the actual OP killers have the mobility to catch up and get the down (or ignore the next loop entirely) while an M1 or weaker killer may have to sit at the T and L for an extra 30sec trying to mindgame and get the hit they deserved 30 seconds ago.
I think the best items should lose maybe -25% of their strength (toolbox) and most of the other items should be buffed to about the same level. If every item was as strong as the current toolbox, for example, the game would be absolutely agony and misery for killers.
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I suppose, however, the idea is more-so helping with Mindgames hence the map idea.
The map needs something additional to it, otherwise, people will not be inclined to go towards it. I guess for lower hour players (I am not that player) - they could burn their map to prevent themselves from not running into the killer, but for someone to load into a game and bring that type of map to burn it (which burns fast, mind you) is a waste of an item. I was thinking of it more for players with thousands of hours and are typically great loopers - the map would be good to help like the Blood Amber for a key does.
I'm glad you see a benefit to tracking randoms as I see that complained about on the forums quite consistently, so we have leeway here.
The smoke grenade would only last a couple seconds and wouldn't be the full blown AOE that you see in 2v8. The idea is more centered on giving more items, I can't remember the last time the survivor role has been given a whole new item other than small changes like the BloodSense map.
When you advocate for these toolbox changes, are you directing this towards the strongest of toolboxes or an outright fundamental change to all toolboxes? Even with the smoke grenade, if it was tied to 1 grenade -- it would not be as strong as a medkit, toolbox, or a flashlight.
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