http://dbd.game/killswitch
This Event Is Driving Survivors Away – Is That Really What We Want for DBD?
I don’t usually post, but this event has pushed me to say something. I finally got some friends to come back to Dead by Daylight, and after over 50 games, they’re done. Not one escape through the gates — only two hatches. And now they say they're never touching the game again.
Why? Because nearly every match was non-stop tunneling and slugging — at five gens. Where’s the fun in that? Events are supposed to be a time to enjoy the game, earn bloodpoints, and try goofy builds or new ideas — not a sweatfest where killers act like it’s comp play.
I get it — killers want wins too. But if the only way to win is by removing people from the game instantly, you’re not giving anyone a chance to play. There is no skill in tunneling or slugging, I don’t care what anyone says. If people bring you whatever you ask for dinner every night, are you a good cook? No. No skills. Survivors gen rush because they have to — it’s the only way to maybe avoid being tunneled out before you’ve even touched a gen yourself. Then killers complain about gen rushing like it’s unfair, but it’s a direct response to how brutal the matches have become.
And honestly? It’s wild that after 9 years, this is still what Dead by Daylight looks like.
BHVR — how have you had nearly a decade with this game and the core problems are still exactly the same?
Tunneling. Slugging. Unfun events. Game-breaking bugs. Cheaters running around untouched. Survivor gameplay feels like an afterthought, and that’s exactly how a lot of us feel — forgotten. Left behind. Disposable.
This event just confirms it. There’s no incentive to try new builds or play for fun. Survivors are punished for everything. Meanwhile, killers are allowed to play like it's a 2v8 and are even rewarded for it. If survivors quit, who’s left to play against? Bots?
This game thrives on a healthy balance between killer and survivor. But it’s not balanced when your best bet of escaping is hiding long enough to maybe hatch out, and your friends uninstall the game two days into the event because they literally can’t enjoy a single match.
You need to decide what game you want DBD to be. Because if this is the direction — one where events are miserable, balance is ignored, and survivors are treated like cannon fodder — there won’t be a game left to balance. People are walking away. Fast.
FNAF brought in more players, yes, but what happens when they get tired of playing the same game over and over and going against bots because the devs at BHVR don’t care?
If you care about this community at all, start acting like it.
Comments
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I don’t really like the event on either side, it I will agree that it feels a bit too killer-sided. I just do my event achievements and then go back to normal mode.
I get that certain people are frustrated about the event or the game in general, but at the same time, BHVR must being doing something right because the game is still hitting 100K+ player count peaks on Steam in the past few days. There are obviously plenty of survivor players who are enjoying it enough to keep up those numbers.-7 -
One of the only reasons why they’ve hit over 100k was because they brought in FNAF. They hit their highest mark this year because of FNAF. They always get higher player counts when they introduce a new licensed killer.
25 -
I don't understand these posts. Just don't play the event. It's that simple. I have went from 70/30 killer main to 95%survivor main simply due to the crazy amount of BP I can farm. Between the instant Qs, the 1.5x mult, and all the offerings I'm getting 200k BP on a bad game, and games are only lasting about 10 minutes on avg as survivor. I don't feel like having the devs take time and focus to balance a 20 day event over new content, or base game balance is a good way of keeping the game going. If the event balance bothers people, they can just play norms.
-12 -
Yea, this anniversary event is very lack-luster compared to last year. It's like they aren't putting any time into this event this year since it's the last year for the twisted masq. Pretty disappointing. They should have done a big blow out instead.
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But that's exactly it, is there aren't enough survivor players, killer queue times are up at almost 10 minutes at every point of the day. We're seeing 30% drop in players on a weekend compared to when the event launched on Thursday, and killer queue times prove it. What's insane is how BHVR aren't capitalizing on the immense interest people have in the game. On youtube and twitch and tiktok the game is bringing in hundreds of thousands of views, yet those people aren't playing the game. You can basically not play with your friends without being a killer mains punching bag. There are so many games out currently, better games, better live service games that are releasing new and fun things constantly. A new survivor is 3 new perks, a new killer is an entire new character into the game that killer players get to experience because it is directly different from what we have in game currently. Where is the gameplay changes for survivors? Why is the system exactly the same all these years later when obviously its gotten stale years ago.
I can't see how BHVR is doing anything correct except profiting off licenses that they frankly don't deserve with how they treat the majority of players.
14 -
If you don’t understand these posts then maybe you shouldn’t comment on them? But you’re so right, nobody can have an opposing opinion on anything in the game and if they do—they shouldn’t play the game. The devs have had YEARS to rework this event, but that’s ok. They can’t even balance out the normal game—for the most part.
Maybe putting more thought into events that celebrate their loyal players (whom also try and recruit new players) and longevity of the game isn’t the best idea. Thank you so much for showing me the light and freeing me from all of my dumb opinions on this game/event. You’re so smart.13 -
It's almost always a bad idea to introduce your friends to the game. I specifically tell people not to play. In a perfect world, I'd love to enjoy the game with my friends. But I know from my own experience that it's not a great experience and frankly predatory mechanics are what keep a lot of people sticking around. I'd rather the people I love not get as sucked into it as I have.
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As I stated, “I finally got some friends to come back to Dead By Daylight”. They are not new to the game.
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https://steamdb.info/app/381210/charts/
The event has been wildly successful.
What are you basing your statements on?
-16 -
did you read everything on this post? FNAF is the reason why more people started playing. It has nothing to do with this event.
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honestly, 2v8 feels more like a "real" game than 1v4 does. because in 2v8 momentum never really just stops. you never really feel the effects of camping/tunneling. often at least a few people escape and a few people die. its fast paced. far more saves happen. far more chases happen. generators speed is quick so you don't feel like you're just wasting your life sitting there doing nothing. and hilarious things tend to happen in 2v8 that would never happen in 1v4 just due to there being so many people/killers. 1v4 used to be so much fun and feel actually pretty accessible to new players. but now they've streamlined the game so hard towards high level play that its sucked a lot of the soul and life out of the game. i used to play WAY more killer back when killer was actually difficult because it's genuinely not fun when half your games are literally just free wins because the matchmaking decided that me, a player who has played 15,000 matches of DBD, should be matched with new players.
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Oh, missed that part. I've done the same and they always leave too lmao
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Im just mainly disapointed in the penalty for being p100 now having the most expensive cakes
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I couldn’t agree more! They should keep 2v8 in the game all the time. You should be able to pick between 2v8 or 1v4. Only problem is we’d need more players playing.
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No worries haha and yeah they end up leaving and don’t play for another year or so. It just sucks cause then I’m playing solo queue or having to play different games, just to play a game with my friends.
-1 -
No worries haha and yeah they end up leaving and don’t play for another year or so. It just sucks cause then I’m playing solo queue or having to play different games, just to play a game with my friends.
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In my region the event queue for killers is DOUBLE the normal queue. It's just a horrible event and miserable to play on the survivor side. I dropped the event queue entirely after doing my challenges. Slightly more bloodpoints is not worth the headache.
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That to me is just sad! This is an event celebrating 9+ years of this game being up and running—thanks to the loyal players. Yet, here we are, having to result in us not playing the event. It’s just all around sad.
8 -
This event is driving killers away, too. Something's changed, and my matches for the last week or so have been absolutely bonkers. Gens are flying way too fast
-3 -
The killer was released two weeks ago.
All time player high was 3 days ago...and that's just from Steam.
Whether they're new players or veterans, more people are showing up to this event than ever before.
Peak for today alone was over 100k concurrent on Steam alone.
That's millions of players across all platforms, most likely.
People are clearly logging in to play at record numbers.
It will probably go down during the week, per usual.
-11 -
That’s unfortunate! I will say that it is because of the killers who are constantly slugging, tunneling and bleeding. For the most part, survivors are trying to have fun. Yes, there are survivors who are toxic, but a lot of us just want to have fun. I go in the game knowing I probably won’t win. Doesn’t mean I don’t try my best. If I go in 10 games and 9/10 games I’m being tunneled or slugged at 5 gens, I’m gonna start bringing in gen builds to give myself a shot. Just sucks that it’s like that. I wish I had a solution so that survivors and killers can just have fun in game and not have to sweat every second just to give themselves a chance.
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This happens every-time a new licensed killer comes to DBD though. Some people have no clue what DBD is, so within that two weeks, people may be hearing about it or finding out that FNAF has joined DBD and are trying it out. If you never played a game before and that game has an event, it would not entice you to play that game. This event didn’t just bring in all these new players out of nowhere. Am I saying this event has nothing to do with older DBD players coming back to play? No. Just that FNAF is the main reason why there are more players. It has a huge fan base. That’s like if they brought in a new Taylor Swift skin for Fortnite. Swifties would play the game immediately without ever wanting to play it before, simply because you can play as Taylor.
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That still means the event has been the most successful one so far.
Either way you spin it, it's broken all previous records.
-5 -
It's like this in regular matches too because Killer Mains think being toxic is healthy for the game and BHVR is doing nothing about it. The game, in general, just isn't fun anymore on Survivor.
2 -
I'm sure the events will get better in the future, right now their main focus is operation health. Which the community basically demanded so I do believe other things are suffering a little more because of that, but we’re getting what we wanted so there’s that. I like the idea, it does feel a bit too killer sided. I’m not sure if it’s because of the event conditions, new content drop, or because of the patch so I’ll not speak on why. It can just be a growing pain as the community adjusts.
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This game is just all about killers winning, having fun, and worst of all killers rubbing it in. And BHVR supports it 100%.
I tried playing some games and killers win every single game. It's honestly an embarrassment on gamers to support such a grossly unbalanced mess.
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again, it’s not the event that broke records. It was FNAF being introduced that brought more players to the game.
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The event is the exact same as last year..Literally the same. The only change they made this year was that survivors could have counterplay with remote hooks.
2 -
This event every year is always ass. How is anyone surprised? Lol any event where either side gets extra abilities will feel overwhelmingly oppressive.
I say this every year. Remote hooking? Yeah let's deny survivors the chance at flashlight saves despite the fact you offer event flashlights lol.
Remote pallets break upon impact so meh....
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There is a 0% chance any future events will be better. BHVR has made it clear they don't care about Survivors, and that's shown in literally every event. All future events are going to do is the same crap happening now - Survivors get useless crap to work with while Killers get their hands held.
-3 -
That's why they're releasing Anti-tunnel, anti-camp, anti-slug? And why they've added a bunch of information to the HUD? Survivor has literally never been easier.
-7 -
Oh, you mean those placebo solutions that do nothing to mitigate the issue? Or are you talking about the features they claim are coming but refuse to even talk about that will likely just be placebo BS too? F-off, Survivor has never been worse than it is now. Killers are overpowered, maps are crap, toxic Killer strategies are being encouraged by the developers while Survivors are being punished each patch - you clearly don't play Survivor if you think it's easy now.
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I do play survivor some about 20% of the time. It's easier now than it was when I started, by far.
They'll release a dev blog explaining the new features here in a couple of weeks. Patience is a virtue.
-7 -
Oh, so you barely play Survivor and you want to claim it's easy because the few times you played you had a nice time? F-off. And I've been patient since the game f-ing released, yet the Survivor experience has only gotten worse and worse over time. The crap devs have made it clear they don't really care about the Survivor experience and only want the Killer role to have fun. The fact they need to bribe Survivors will BP is all the proof you need. If you want more proof, look at the first "solutions" they went with:
An anti-camping mechanic that does not work, fills up at a snail's pace when it chooses to work, and turns off after all the gens are done.
An anti-tunneling mechanic that just requires an additional hit and doesn't actually make Killers stop tunneling.
An anti-slugging mechanic that is just a penalty-less give up button.
None of their first solutions even come close to fixing the issue. Oh, but what did BHVR do to mitigate issues Killer Mains were having?
An endgame timer so that Survivors had to rush to the doors - an endgame timer, mind you, that the Killer can forcefully start.
Survivors now spawn together so they can't begin working on multiple generators at once. This one would be fine, but guess what sunshine - Killers can spawn right next to the Survivors.
To stop "gen rushing" they've added multiple perks that make doing generators take twice as long to complete than they already do.
They even have perks that, when paired especially, allow the Killer to basically know where all the Survivors are permanently.
They also added perks that make it to where Survivors can't even leave or open the gate for a ridiculously long time.
Survivors are being punished for simply existing while Killers are having their hands held - nothing you or BHVR say or claim will change reality.
5 -
Absolutely agree, this event has brought out some of the worst sides of the game. Tunneling and slugging are rampant, and Ghoul in particular has shown up in match after match. Whether it’s synergy with the event mechanics or just low-effort power, he seems to be everywhere in my matches right now. Whatever the cause, the fun factor has taken a serious hit… especially for solo survivors.
On top of that, I’ve noticed more killers bringing personal Bloodpoint offerings while all four survivors run event cakes. That’s... not a good look. If I see that in the loading screen, I’ll simply close the game. No tolerance left for that kind of self-serving play, especially during an event designed to reward the whole lobby. Enjoy the next 15-minute queue.
14 -
If you’re looking at the numbers at face value, then yes, records were broken. Did the event break records or did the DBD x FNAF collab? Let’s not take credit away from the popularity of FNAF and BHVRs successful decision to bring FNAF into the game. To say it’s because of the event, is not true. Did the event bring in more players? Of course. Every event does. Are they new players or returning players? Are they FNAF fans who want to play a game that is different but with their favorite game characters? These are questions that are indeed thought about when looking at the facts. Some players only play when there are events. Especially, returning players if there’s a popular new licensed killer AND an event. I think two things can be true at once.
2 -
If you're going to be this ignorantly pessimistic just go play a different game. If I disliked a game as much as you seem to dislike this one I wouldn't still be playing it…
-5 -
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I agree with you. I don’t want to take credit away where credit is due. BHVR listens to fans, sometimes, and they also fixed a lot of things. This event is for the 9 year anniversary. It’s come a long way but at the same time—it really hasn’t. Sometimes the tiniest buffs or nerfs can make or break the balance in this game. There are just some things that they choose to ignore.
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First of all, I'd really appreciate it if you dropped the aggressive, condescending tone.
Secondly, they say they're working on it.
-6 -
4 pro survs with comms that are like 10% of the players are mega strong vs non A tier killers só this event is fair
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Developers say they're working on crap all the time, doesn't make it true, nor does it mean it'll be meaningful. Given BHVR's track record, the odds of their "solutions" actually working or being meaningful are very, very, very low.
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I'm pessimistic because I like the game and want it to be good. The problem is that BHVR and players like you think the game is fine just because Killers are having fun. You can deny and claim I'm ignorant, you can ignore the problems the game has - but that's the number one killer of every game. Ignoring the problems doesn't make them go away and the only way to get it through the thick skulls of bad developers is to be pessimistic.
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I did ten matches, got tunneled and slugged in all of them, and then went back to regular mode. All I want to do is open chests, play with party totems, accept invitations, and be silly. Meanwhile, the killers are some of the consistently sweatiest I've ever seen. I might do some chill games where I'm not a total dick as killer, but as survivor I'll do the quests and that's it, which sucks, cause it'd be nice to enjoy it.
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I don’t believe that one bit. This obviously is just a difference in perspectives between the two of us, and there can be a lot that factors into that, and nuance. Personally, I have good faith. Are all events fair? No. To say we have got nothing cool though and everything is useless is just something I hard disagree with.
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What are some of the things you feel/think they are choosing to ignore, if you don’t mind me asking? I want to understand where you’re coming from.
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I disagree entirely. The number one killer of games is devs listening to the vocal minority that hate the state of the game and they end up ruining the game for the people who actually enjoy the game. With record breaking numbers it's difficult to believe the majority of players hate playing the game. It's simply people's hyperbole mixed with new players coming in and deciding they don't the game. Retail World of Warcraft is an excellent example of this. Is there problems that the game needs to fix the game? Yes, of course 100%. But complaining and saying the game will never be good again is not only not helpful, it's actually detrimental to the game. You act like fixing the game is a simple fix but the fact is it is an enormously complex problem. The power discrepancy between killers like Nurse and blight compared to Trapper and Hag is so big that any blanket nerfs to killers in general would decimate the low tier killers while barely hindering the higher tiers. I never said the game is perfect, or "just fine because killers are having fun". I'm not telling you to ignore the problems, I'm telling you to quit acting like it can't possibly get better, or move on to a new game.
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Lets be completely real, you get significantly less BP playing survivor anyway. Shutting your brain off and 8 hooking as any killer gets you an easy 250k-300k per match. Meanwhile 90% of survivor games are with a tunneling or tryharding piece of work so you have no chance to begin with. A full survivor game nets less than 150k on average, there is just no reason to play this role whatsoever, the game are miserable, AND you don't get rewarded for it.
-1 -
Yeah of course! I can go on about the event and the remote hooking, same old event every year, etc. but I’ll tell you why I think they ignore us. Which could also be some things you feel need change that have been ignored, I’m not sure. I feel like BHVR keeps ignoring a lot of the issues us survivors (even some killers) have been bringing up for years. Things like tunneling, camping, and how miserable solo queue can be just don’t seem to get the attention they deserve. Survivors have been asking for real solutions or systems to help with these problems, but BHVR either brushes them off or gives band-aid fixes that don’t really solve anything long-term.
At the same time, killers keep getting perks that feel super oppressive to play against. Stuff like Scourge: Pain Resonance gives free gen regression, Deadlock stalls progress constantly, and Nowhere to Hide or Ultimate Weapon basically remove stealth or safe plays altogether. Add Call of Brine, Overcharge, and NOED on top, and it starts to feel like survivors are punished just for trying to play the game normally.
Solo queue is a huge part of the problem too. There's no way to coordinate, no team info, and if one teammate messes up or gives up, it’s basically over. Survivors end up getting the short end of the stick, while BHVR doesn’t seem to prioritize making solo play more viable or balanced.
That said, I get the killer side too—playing against really strong SWFs or top-tier survivors can be rough, and it’s not like killers have it easy every match. But the bigger issue to me is just how often survivor feedback gets ignored or downplayed, even when it’s about core parts of the game that clearly need attention.
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oh okay thank you for answering. If I may ask another question, if you were King/Queen/Whatever in between for a day, how would you solve these issues? What do you think the best way to go about it would be, only asking as you’re dissatisfied with what they have attempted/implemented. So like what would you do? This isn’t a set up for a jab or a gotcha moment. Just curiosity.
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