http://dbd.game/killswitch
Dbd NEEDS to make new/casual players happy to survive long term
This is because dead by daylight is not the kind of game where the average player is going to be some 5k hour pro who plays the game like they're a comp player. The average (read MOST) newer and casual players are what many people in the fandom would call "bad players." People who don't play the game in the smartest way humanly possible. There's really two main reasons for this: 1. DBD, as opposed to some other online games, it's not as much a serious, die hard comp kind of game, there's no crazy ranked mode. A lot of people play this game for funsies after a hard day at work or whatever. Some people are never going to be serious about this game and play it like its serious. And its fine if some people think of it that way. Everybody is not going to agree on that point. And 2. Most people don't have either the time or the desire to put tons of hours (and money) into understanding each and every facet of this game and getting all of the best dharacters and perks. See point 1.
And that's okay. Just because I want to make the best choices humanly possible doesn't mean the people I play with have invested the same time and energy I have. I feel like a lot of people on here are so caught up in keeping dbd exactly the way it is, that they forget that being able to keep new players is vital to keeping a game like dbd alive. After all, let's be honest here, a lot of the "die hard" players will eventually wander away from the game after a while. Some are already stepping away for a bit. There needs to be a steady influx of players in order to keep dbd alive.
And, unfortunately, that does require a hard look at the game and how it can be adjusted to keep new and casual players happy. And no, simply saying "just get good at the game" is not a reliable anwser. As advice to a new or casual player, it's about as helpful as a pie to the face.
Comments
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Yeah, but the new players aren´t going to stay new forever, eventually they´re going to realize that the game is a frustrating, sweaty, umbalanced mess and either they´ll endure it in hopes that the devs get their sh1t together or they´ll drop the game.
And that realization is basically what this post is.
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I keep saying this but no one wants to hear it. I want the game balanced around regular, casual, majority players. But many people in the forum, maybe most, aren't those players. They've been around for years and have tons of hours, and they think the game should revolve around them, the dedicated old timers. So we have a game with a crap tutorial, pretty much zero guidance for new players, too many perks, a bunch of killler with different abilities and add-ons , an absolute info overload that is super unfriendly to new players, and matchmaking that will put them with a p100 Blight, and very few people fighting to change these things. The matchmaking is probably the one thing just about everyone agrees on. Otherwise, we in-fight about niche and specific problems that the casual players aren't even thinking about if they're just playing the game and not looking at any of the outside media. There aren't many people fighting for the new and inexperienced players the game needs in order to sustain itself.
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Well, i agree that Bhvr shouldn't balance the game around the top best players - which i mean, comp level - but i heavily disagree they should balance the game around the newer ones either. Balance should reward experienced players in mastery of the game with some resonable comeback chances for both sides.
Balancing around newer players means even more Killers like Ghoul or the live release of Krasue; it handicaps killer like Dredge or Sadako because they are "too strong" against newer players: also means survivor perks like MFT, the first Boon totems and the current Sprint + Vigil meta or busted stuff like Syringes and BNP.
Bhvr should really offer ways to newer players to improve with better tutorials, and a MUCH BETTER MATCHMAKING. Its absurd that a 100 hours player can be matched with a 9k hour killer or vice-versa (considering none of them are smurf accounts, of course).
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New players shouldn't expect to pick up the game and immediately be good at it either. It's a multiplayer pvp game. People really need to remember this.
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Imagine investing 2000 hours in a game and being beaten by a 100 hours player?
People forget that a big chunk of this game money comes from people who plays it regularly and spent money on skins and newer characters.
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It's not even that. If investing time into learning the game doesn't actually make you better at the game, then people won't put their time into the game. Doesn't matter if they are casual, new, or veterans.
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The biggest proof that you are wrong: DbD itself. Being one of the less noob-friendly games out there by design, it has survived with a stable playerbase for 9 years.
One of the others biggest proofs that you are wrong: World of Warcraft. The game started losing players by the million the moment they started to cater to those that "played it for funsies after a hard day at work or whatever" instead of those that spent their time learning the game and grinding.
Should the game be more accessible to new players? Totally. Should the game focus on the casual players that don't want or can't put in the time needed to gain the knowledge and skill required to be good in a PvP game? Absolutely not.
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If dbd has been alive for 9 yers it is not because of casuals, casuals come and go, they pmay for two weeks when a nee license chapter is released and then go back to other games. The people dbd thrives of are whales that buy every new skin and are playing this 4+ hours daily. Casuals will buy chapters regardless and that is a big influx of money, however a player that will spend on chapters+skins+the rift is much more valuable to keep than one who will just spend his money every 3 months.
Also, all other asymetrical games went with this approach, and while their issues were varied, bhvr as incompetent as they can be understood something that those other game stufios could not: a game evolves, you cannot keep it casual when all the content around it is optimizing builds, how to dominate as killer/survivor, tierlists, winstreaks, etc ... Bhvr have been very keen on not going full comp because that would kill the game, but they know one of the big reason it is still alive its because their playerbase takes the game more seriously that what they intended for, and they have adapted to it.
TCM, VHS and Last year as many issues as they had, were boring, because there was not a competitive mindset, you pmayed for a week and there was no skill to refine, it got boring fast, and if there was the devs neutered or changed it because the game had to keep being casual.
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Couldn't agree more, but sadly it's not the casual players that BHVR are listening to right now. It's the ultra competitive types that want DBD to be an e-sport that have the biggest say. I've pretty much given up arguing for the casual / new player experience at this point. Nobody at BHVR is listening. DBD will never grow beyond its hardcore player base because very few new players would be willing to put up with the cheap tactics and strategies that veteran players love so much.
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A heavily rewarding Ranked Gamemode would help so the casuals can stay playing the casual gamemode while the sweats can sweat elsewhere for greater gains. It wont stop sweats in casual but 1 or 2 sweat games out of 10 wont be a big deal. Heck do what r6 siege did and have a unranked mode too for those who want to sweat with no rank or mmr on the line.
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I dont think DBD can survive just off newbies playing it. I think the biggest money they get comes from regulars who either got good at the game, are trying to get good, just dont care. I would assume these are the guys who buy skins, new chapters, and the battle pass constantly. And frankly the game is kind of balanced around the majority. At the high level many of the killers can't win. There are some broken perk combinations which only good SWFs really abuse. If they were balancing for the high level then I think they have failed in that aspect.
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TBH, VHS had the highest skill ceilling i've seen in an assym game, ever (and i've played many of them). The issues with VHS were that it landed on the other end of the road: its was too much competitive, every match was far more stressfull than any DBD match, specially as monster. And this lead to an absurd imbalance of players, were Teens (survivor) queues reached 40 to 50+ min and almost no new players sticked to the game because they got stomped non-stop by veterans and had almost no real room to learn.
The Tragedy of VHS should really give a lesson to all other assym games.
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As far as I know, and as you mentioned, what caused the long queue times wasn't the skill ceiling but the literal balance of the game, as the monster was at a total disadvantage, so people just stopped playing that role. That's what led to the game's death, not it being "too competitive".
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Monster wasn't at complete disadvantage but it was too hard to get a grasp on it. No one wanted to play monster, and without any new players arriving, the game died.
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But it is because of casuals and new players. They literally keep the game afloat. Imagine the whales and hardcore and regular players are a boat. The casuals and new players are the water. Some of the water drains but it rains (free weekends, events, drawn in by friends, etc etc) and keeps the water at a certain level. Now suddenly drought is kicking in, and water is leaving and not being replaced at a steady level anymore. The boat is scraping the sea bed, and sure, the whales can keep buying skins but their wait times are suddenly longer, theyre playing against the same people because the pool is smaller, MMR is barely working as a result because the system is stretched thin, and less sales of the game and DLCs (since whales can only buy these things once, new players are necessary) mean company cutbacks and less quality products. Whales won't carry a game in that state for long. I'm sure there were whales/dedicated players in other asymm games that have since closed, but they can't carry a game on their own.
You're also assuming whales stick around forever, and don't find other interests or other games along the line. If whales keep the game alive then they need to be replaced too. If the game is in a bad state then that won't happen.
And i acknowledge that analogies aren't my strong point at all, and this probably sounds harsh, but every game has it's fodder. When that's no longer around, the regulars suffer. We can't keep eating each other.
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That's not even true. Monster was basically a moving target for the teens in the so-called "ambush meta", which made nobody want to play monster, which resulted in the game not having enough players. At that point, any new player would be welcomed by 1 hour queues and / or playing against 4 veteran teens hiding in corners and killing you all the time.
It didn't die because the monster role was too hard or because the game was too competitive. In fact, if the devs listened to those "sweaty players" that complained about the ambush meta and solved it in time, maybe the game would be live right now.
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