What is the direction of DBD?

smol_nezuko · November 27

This will be a rather lenghty post, so I'll try to break it down into multiple parts: Intro, Concerns, Technical, Financial and Social Dilemmas.

Intro

For context, I first started playing back in 2017 for about 2 years, then took a break until August this year.

The first thought was that the core gameplay remained the same, but there were a lot of QoL improvements compared to last time I played. I was excited to see this, because this meant the game had been getting more traction (and most indie projects don’t survive for this long without financial backing).

That was my first impression. Until I got the chance to actually experience the game on my own, coupled with watching many content creators.

Note: I am no game designer/expert, so what I’ll be saying is strictly personal opinion. However I do feel like I have a reasonable common sense.

So here goes.

Concerns

I fear for the game’s future, and judging by community feedback, many of us share the same thought.

With every patch, 10 bugs get fixed and somehow another 30 appear. For instance, this patch Bubba and Billy’s chainsaws are completely silent (I thought my headset broke and had to turn the volume up a significant amount, only to be reassured by Elodie’s opera-like scream when hooked that the general volume was fine, only the chainsaw was silent).

I'm genuinely curious and intrigued at the same time - do the devs really not notice this issue?

My guess is that they probably do, but are faced with executive decissions from Upper Management wanting them to pump more and more content, to sell more DLCs, skins etc. It might be all about the money in the end. After all, this is normal practice in a privately held company.

However, it is becoming more and more evident that as time goes on, band-aid fixes can only go so far.

Technical Dilemma

I couldn't verify this information, but supposedly one of the core technical issues DBD has is its poorly structured code on which it runs. A solid infrastructure might just not be there to help.

The technical term would be "legacy software" (if we can even call it that) and its lack of scalability.

If we keep treating the symptoms and not the underlying issue, I’m not sure how much or even if the game will be salvageable anymore.

Financial Dilemma

After some research, seems like BHVR is still the primary stakeholder, with Haveli Investments, NetEase Games, Gaea Mobile, and Desjardins Capital being secondary financial ones.

This means that BHVR should still be at the decisionmaking wheel, with other stakeholders only suggesting possible directions.

Even if this wasn't the case and we supposed DBD was actually ran by the financial backers of BHVR, do the numbers not add up?

At its current state, every patch generates more and more bugs that get backlash from the community. This means that resources (executive and employee time + money) need to be spent on fixing these issues short-term ==> New Content roadmap is delayed ==> more money is delayed.

I wonder, is it really a worse decision to press pause for a second, fix what it is to be fixed and then move on?

This is just wishful thinking, I know. Legacy updgrades don't happen overnight. And for a project as massive as DBD, probably a year would be an optimistic deadline.

Still, there has to be a middle ground - keep on updating the game, reduce the amount of new content we pump out and start rewriting the code from scratch in the background. We lose money in the short term but consolidate DBD' future.

This would probably be similar to what happened to CS:GO.

Social Dilemma

Part of the reasons one works at a given company are:

material ones (money, benefits, location etc.)
social ones (how well you get along with your team)
the purpose/meaning of your work (how it is met by your customers and how you relate to it yourself)

In an ideal workplace, all of those would be ticked off. But, alas such a place doesn't exist yet.

"What the heck is this dude going with this and what does this have to do with DBD?" you might be wondering.

Please, try and picture yourself in the following situation. As an employee, you try your hardest, you do whatever it is in your power to do the work you're (hopefully) passionate about. And then, every single patch, what you hear is mainly complaints and negative feedback (or straight up frustrations and bad language) from the community.

How would this make you feel?

Supposing all the other factors (pay, work conditions and other benefits) are accounted for, I'd assume the negative community feedback would be just a small inconvenience.

But that may not be the case - after all, no company is perfect.

So I am wondering - how long can the staff keep up?

Final Thoughts & Questions

I'm sure these decisions are even more complex that what I'm imagining here and the devs relly have a ton on their plate. This post is not meant to bash them in any way - they are doing a titanic work in the background that we can't even begin to comprehend.

Still, my fears remain.

Behaviour, I'm sure you understand the delicate position you're in and you know what can be done to fix this.

So my final question to you is this:

What is holding you back?

My most educated guess would be the actual cost of updating the legacy code + the lost opportunity cost from not creating new content.

What are your thoughts?

Until which point are you willing to keep playing the game and what is your dealbreaker?

Mine is to have a miserable experience most of my games, from the gameplay and balancing POV (I don’t care too much about toxic players). Thaankfully, I'm not there yet.

crogers271 · November 27

https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/461195/what-is-the-direction-of-dbd

I'm genuinely curious and intrigued at the same time - do the devs really not notice this issue?

My guess is that they probably do, but are faced with executive decissions from Upper Management wanting them to pump more and more content, to sell more DLCs, skins etc.

Skins (cosmetics) are a different department

BHVR abolished crunch time, their employees get to go home. They however have not changed the intensity of their schedule, so if something can't be fixed by the time it needs to be released (and with the consoles things have to be released on time), then its going out broken.

I couldn't verify this information, but supposedly one of the core technical issues DBD has is its poorly structured code on which it runs. A solid infrastructure might just not be there to help.

My understanding: The game wasn't built with the anticipation of going this long (or even being a successful game), it started more as a passion project that clicked, which makes adding new features more difficult than if they had been planned from the beginning.

After some research, seems like BHVR is still the primary stakeholder, with Haveli Investments, NetEase Games, Gaea Mobile, and Desjardins Capital being secondary financial ones.

Those other companies are partial owners of BHVR, to my understanding it is still ultimately controlled by Remi Racine.

Still, there has to be a middle ground - keep on updating the game, reduce the amount of new content we pump out and start rewriting the code from scratch in the background. We lose money in the short term but consolidate DBD' future.

With how this Quality of Life has gone, I highly doubt anything similar will ever be tried again.

Even if DbD started to bleed players today, it would still be a highly profitable game for years to come.

As an employee, you try your hardest, you do whatever it is in your power to do the work you're (hopefully) passionate about. And then, every single patch, what you hear is mainly complaints and negative feedback (or straight up frustrations and bad language) from the community.

Only about 25% of BHVR's (it's been awhile since I've seen numbers released) employees work on DbD, their primary business model is being hired to assist with other companies games.

Of that 25%, many have jobs that are not directly tied to things like patches, so I doubt it would impact them.

It's also not new, nor that unique in the video gaming world, and BHVR does get complimented as being one of the better video game companies to work for (see the above about no crunch time).

Until which point are you willing to keep playing the game and what is your dealbreaker?

I uninstalled. Felt lied to about the whole Quality of Life push and that this year has been a huge step backwards (while I think prior years had seen improvement). I'll probably come back for something like the next 2v8, any new modes, or if they actually make significant improvements.

Usually though, people just drift away from a game. It's the little things that add up over time.

Willish · November 27

I play both killer and survivor and I've taken breaks in the past that ranged from a month or two to about a year. I started playing again maybe 3 months ago and I started my latest break on Tuesday evening.

I feel like the responsibility for my personal break this time is the decision-makers at Behaviour. I don't know if they've lost their passion for the game or they're going through something in their personal life, but this isn't how to run a game.I wish them well and hope whatever they're going though is temporary, but I think they should probably step aside for the sake of the game.

They talked so much about why they wanted to reduce tunneling, yet completely failed their tunneling system (twice), nerfed anti tunneling perks and reduced how many pallets survivors had before the pallet density update, making tunneling easier than before. You don't say one thing and then give the community the opposite.

When it comes to new killers and survivor perks, I feel like they've completely run out of ideas. We're getting the same thing or a mashup of two or more things we already have. It feels really lazy and sloppy. The creativity and imagination has gone.

Ping abuse and bugs are probably my biggest issue with the game right now, along with the lack of direction, end results, and a total lack of creativity. I wish the studio well and look forward to coming back when things get better. I'll still be making my voice heard in the forums, cause I genuinely love DBD when it's at its best.

smol_nezuko · November 28

https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4032979#Comment_4032979

Thanks for the very precise and insightful responses. I totally understand your decidion to leave the game. In fact, sometimes I just play it for the grind (eg: prestige characters to unlock the perks on everyone; do achievements, tome quests). I feel like having a goal, something to strive for is what is keeping me here.

smol_nezuko · November 28

Honestly I completely agree with you. Perk creativity is gone. 3 perks per survivor is too much. Making it 2 would lessen the pressure to come up with ideas from thin air. But this decision would have retroactive impact over all other hundreds of existent perks. And I guess this would also mean code-modification which would be problematic.

It indeed feels like their passion has gone and now all they do is just “automatism” if that makes sene. “Let’s just get this through with already” is the general energy I get from them.

If indeed only 25% of employees work on DbD and their main business model is to outsource talent, then losing the game long term wouldn’t such a big blow to them financially. It would be a shame for the so passionate community though.

Rokku_Rorru · November 28

The direction is for the devs to bug and release is much unpolished slop as possible all the while letting them pile up to the point they cant fix any of them.

Anniehere · November 28

I think the layoff probably affected something behind the scenes (could be financially as well), and they didn't anticipate or consider the long term issues. I think licensed chapters are what is keeping the game afloat, but they're at risk if the state of the game remains the same with delays, since a number of chapters are still in the works. Personally, I'm not excited about the next two chapters, as I'm rooting for more RE content. In general, there's no good reason to play right now until a healthy patch is released like they originally planned.