http://dbd.game/killswitch
How do i keep new players playing?
For whatever reason two friends tried DBD again. They played around 100 hours two years ago, but got frustrated and quit.
We are not doing well and im worried they will stop quickly again. I try to take aggro, but then the killer leaves and downs them pretty fast. Shoulder the burden gives them some time, but bc of the fast downs the gens are quite slow.
Do you have any tips?
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"got frustrated and quit" as any reasonable person would do?
the living garbage developers literally buffed myers to vault vaults in 0.2s in tier 2, and 0.1s in tier 1, pick up bodies insanely faster, break pallets insanely faster, etc, etc, etc, without even needing perks to do so.
they made him disgustingly, insanely overpowered, just so that unskilled children would buy him to have pay to win victories.
same thing with anime kid.
they've made an insane amount of killers overpowered now, and will leave them that way.
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stealth…. practice moving around not being seen. works wonders for me. eventually they will learn to do gens without being seen which is pretty handy for soloq when people decide to do challenges instead of gens. Another tip is spend time playing killer, learning how their power works and what people do to avoid hits. Its also handy playing killer to learn map layouts as you dont have to worry about the pressure of being chased and taken out of the match early. People that play exclusively 1 role often struggle.
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this game relies entirely on new players. you're meant to get burned out and quit. this revolving door cycle seems to be how the developers want things to be.
my entire cohort is gone.(I started after twins and before trickster)
only way I can see people sticking is if you get a decent custom lobby scene but all my friends refused to do customs because no bloodpoints so they'd rather get upset and quit
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I think the matchmaker is placing you against killers of your mmr level not their newb level. So, sadly, if you dont swf with a completely new friend, then it might be better for them for a bit.
This game is just not new player friendly. It’s mechanics and gameplay is very unique and there is a lot to learn and unlock.
I think they need to address the elephant in the room at some point. That being horrible progression and horrible matchmaking.
A 200 hr player should not play with a 2000 hr player bar extreme scenarios. Simple as this. There’re lots of knowledge and perk checks that a 200 hr player will simply not pass and it’s not related to mechanical skill or talent.
i think you should invite your friends to play during the 2v8 time. No perks, no tunneling etc, fast queue times, it’s the best environment to learn or casually play the game.6 -
Basically nothing.
The buddy i played with during Anniversary quit quickly after.
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I do customs with you. I love customs :D
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This kind of game is really unforgiving for new players. There best chances might be too lean into hard stealth and do gens until they're comfortable enough for chases.
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Get them to try the other side i guess, the more they learn on how the killers work, the easier it is to last in a chase with them. And each killer has their own mmr so they should have an easier time for a little while. Theyd also learn more from the survivors they find hard to catch. This game is kinda learned through monkey see monkey do until youve seen it all.
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maybe I'll take you up on that sometime. I go in giving 100% but at the end of the day the killer role is a dungeon master to me. they are meant to set the mood for everybody. I happily lose if we all had fun
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Custom games or 2v8 are the only really casual friendly options the game has, customs giving some form of progression would do wonders for introducing new people to the game as a community, allowing them to gain the bare minimum/learn about the game in a more fun environment without needing to tackle balance.
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I don't think any tips will help. Either they enjoy the game enough to stay or they don't and it's a hard game to get into even if you do like it. DBD for years now has felt like a game that actively rejects you as you try to play and most people feel that early on.
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Don't think you can. New players are thrown directly in the deep end these days and it's either sink or swim
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Myers isnt even that hard, you hold w and chain tiles and predrop if you feel like he has enough to hit you.
Though i agree, they made a variety of killers just piss easy and extremely hard to counter.
Singu's emps are useless and takes more effort to counter than his ability to reuse his ability, not possible to do if he has 2 cams on a area.
Knight's are able to spam any guard on anyone 24/7 with close to no counterplay when caught in a guard while in chase.
Kaneki, blight and nurse still are the most powerful killer with close to little to no counterplay. (Or they take 50hrs to master while survivors need 1 or 2k of hours of experince)
Spirit has an addon combo that does the tracking for you. (Which atleast exists because of accessability issue, but the same havent been done for survs)
And they keep releasing unviable survivor perks while releasing overtuned killers.
Honestly, them quitting is probably for the best, this game cant be saved.
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Stealth is gutted and aura perks/tracking got buffed so this is just a thrower suggestion.
They cant loop because that would take so much to learn while killers learn how to use power, tunnel, slug and zone with 50hr max.
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teaching them how to play the best they can is the best way to keep them engaged. The game has absolutely no tutorials, so learning certain killers remains really hard for majority of survivor players, leading to killrates being as high as they are atm. get them to watch videos on how to play certain tiles, or perk breakdowns and best uses, that's what gets them excited when they realize this game is pretty easy to play once you've learned what needs to be learned.
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Get them to watch this 11 hour Otz video on every Killer so they can get an idea of the right counter play. Then get them to watch the 10 hour sequel!
Obviously I'm being a little facetious here. I know Otz has published shorter beginner focused videos, too.
The point I'm making is that DBD is not at all a friendly welcome to new comers (or even lapsed returning players). There's a crazy amount to learn before you even begin to feel like you've started to understand how to play. It took me a while to figure out that DBD is designed around giving the Killer free rein to be as ruthless as they please. There's almost nothing you can do to help your friends Survive a Killer's attention if they're so dead set on eliminating them.
The way I see it, there are two ways to enjoy this game. Firstly, be ultra casual. Never care about winning at all. Take nothing seriously or personally. I had the most amount of fun when I first started playing and had zero expectations beyond hoping for a good scare or two. It was only later on when I stopped feeling the fear that frustrations started to bite.
Or secondly, be a total sweat and go all in and learn everything that you can. Become super obsessed and dedicated to improving. It takes a certain kind of stubborn personality to persevere with this game if you really want to take things more "seriously".
I bet it's the players that fall between these two extremes who eventually hit a wall they just can't push past (this is where I think I am). Maybe your friends will be reminded that DBD just isn't for them. It's definitely not a game for everybody and that's OK. I'm not even sure it's a game for me anymore and I'm 1000 hours into the weeds.
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For killer players, there is custom lobby with bots to practice.
Survivors should have custom lobby with killer bots with customize-able difficulty added. There's literally no reason why killer bots haven't been introduced for people to practice against so far.
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I feel like the following should happen for this to improve:
The upcomming MMR rework should take new players into consideration and maybe make the newbie pool go on for longer. So they can learn.
Extensive rework of the entire tutorial, and inclusion of complete power explanations. If they are too lazy to write everything out, they can just make it so the dbd wiki is a part of the game and can be quickly opened.
Rework or buff some of the general perks, half of them are worthless. If not for Stranger Things (formerly), Hellraiser and Halloween leaving the game, we would have no base gen regression perks, or antitunnel.
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Honestly, I dont think it can be done. I would currently not recommend the game to a friend. I play with one friend and while we do keep playing, the times where we got frustrated and ended earlier or did not play an evening increased. And we both have thousands of hours, so we are used to DBD.
And I think that this is exclusively the Survivor experience. Because Survivor is the role most new players who start playing with friends will first encounter, simply because it is the only role which allows friends to play together outside of 2v8. And there are three things which make playing as a new Survivor insufferable:
- Killer behavior
- Killer variety
- Killer quantity
Killer behavior - we all know it, Killers tunnel. And Killers tunnel the weaklink. And Killers tunnel when it is not even needed. So a new player will have a lot of really, really quick games, where they wont really achieve anything and get barely any points. Which also slows down Progression to a point where it feels like old DBD where you not even got half a level after a game or so. And if that is happening, the fun really decreases. But as we all know, this is the gameplay BHVR wants.
Killer variety - I can only speak for myself and my games, but I barely see Killers other than A-Tier or S-Tier Killers. The issue here is that those are hard to beat and also hard to learn as a new player. E.g. I can imagine that a new player is really overwhelmed when facing Dracula, since he has 3 powers. A few months ago I also faced Killers like Bubba or Huntress (in fact, she was the Killer I played against the most at some point), but this is gone. And I think the explanation for that is Ghoul - because while there are people who want to win and gravitate to S-Tier Killers, there are also people who just want an easy game and want to play a simpler Killer. And I feel that this spot is now taken by Ghoul, who is not only simple to play and grants easy games without much thinking (similar to someone like Wraith), but is very strong and also frustrating to play against. So while I had a good mix a few months ago with some really strong Killers in between, nowadays it is only strong Killers, because the simple, weaker ones where replaced by Ghoul.
Killer quantity - simple: On the occasion a new player does not encounter the same 5-6 really strong Killers, they will face a Killer they dont know and dont see regular enough to remember them or understand them. This is nothing which can be really fixed by any means, this just happens when you have over 40 Killers in the game. I am pretty sure that people nowadays can play 1000 hours in DBD and dont encounter all Killers up to this point. This also adds to the frustration - if you encounter a different Killer which might be weaker and more beatable for a newish player, you just dont know what they do. And after that one game, you might not encounter them again for weeks, which makes learning against those weaker Killers impossible.
Those points obviously dont really apply to new Killer players. Because they can choose which Killer they want to play, so if they decide to stick to one Killer, they obviously will get better over time. And if they decide to split their attention on multiple Killers, this will take longer. But as Killer you have more control over the Killer gameplay you will see. (And I am still of the strong opinion that new players are mostly Survivor players who get the game recommended from a friend and do their first games together… MAYBE outside of Chapters like FNAF, where a huge fandom attracts new players)
On top of what I have written, there are also the amount of bugs and jank you encounter in DBD. As a seasoned player, you expect it and you can laugh about it. E.g. I recently pallet-saved myself against a Wesker. Dropped a Pallet, got sucked back into his grabbed and smashed against the Pallet I just dropped, ending up on his shoulder. Then he got the stun and I saved myself with that. It was cool and funny, but as a new player jank like this would be very irritating. And when it comes to Bugs, you are like "Oh? A Bug? In DBD?!" when you encounter one, because you are used to it as a experienced player. But again, a new player will find Bugs more annoying. Because in the end, how polished a game feels is a huge aspect if you want to play it and while DBD has LOTS of content, it does not feel polished at all.
And you also have to remember that people are just not playing at all and then start to play DBD. Because they played different games before and if they dont enjoy DBD, they go back to whatever they played before, because they are not in the Asym Horror rabbithole like most of us here on the Forums are.
And I am honest, if I would be a new DBD player today, I would probably feel like I would be wasting my time when playing this game.
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But hey, survivors are being handheld im i rite? 😂.
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period
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21 hours of homework 😭 off to DBD school with the lot of them
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I'm really struggling to keep my friends on the game too
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You can't really do much, DBD is one of least noob friendly games.
You need a lot of knowledge, it's very grindy and also expensive if you consider amount of DLCs we have….My sister tried to play DBD, but I told her it's bad idea. It's not like I could play with her without creating new account (like hell I would want to play from start). We have played 4 games and kinda bad for her to deal with killers who have thousands of hours.
What can work, is basically suggest them a build that will make the game easiest as possible. Issue is it needs few DLCs. Most noob friendly build on survivors would be something like Overcome, Self-care, Botany, Windows of Opportunity.
New players don't like to stay injured and Self-care alone is bad, Overcome lets you have good chase even if you don't know how to loop, WoO at least gives them chance to loop and follow yellow…
What you need to teach new players asap is power of hold W and prerun. That will let them have decently long chases without any effort.0 -
This game is extremely new-player-unfriendly because there are thousands upon thousands of killer powers, killer/survivor perks, items, add-ons and combinations thereof and it’s way too overwhelming for all but the most devoted of players. Everyone that I used to play with quit pretty quickly because the amount of content was too overwhelming. Not much BHVR can do about that now unless they are willing to cut at least half of the content out of the game, which definitely ain’t gonna happen.
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Offer to go into customs with them to practice some 1v1's or whatever else is necessary (like FL and pallet saves for example). Dont force it onto them though.
Dont limit them to whatever perks they want to bring, you can give suggestions but overall just let them experiment. If they ask you if something is good or not, dont just say "yes or no", but rather give them a quick explanation as to why something isnt that good.
This applies to pretty much any game really. Limit the info dump as much as possible and let them experience things for the first time. Not only will it generate a few laughs at first but it also teaches them one thing at a time which is a lot less overwhelming.
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i had a suspicion of what would happen in this thread but i thought i would wait to confirm it…. its interesting that the very few posts that offer actual constructive advice gets downvoted but most posts seem to be a long the lines of "nothing" and "there is no way to keep new players playing" which offers no real advice whatsoever and they get upvoted lol. Just an observation that i find interesting.
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this is what I don’t understand. They have made it quite impossible for any new survivor unless they start with an SWF. Even then they are going to be tunneled out first. I get that these plagues could be a regional problem but if you fix it for one region that has the problem others won’t be affected because the issue isn’t there. I also don’t understand why they keep listening to the loud streamers. Without the game these people would not get to be playing. Being the devs even admitted the number reason why survivors uninstall is because tunneling and camping. You can’t keep newbies if this continues.
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in all honesty I would have them play killer. Not to necessarily win but to more or less observe while playing. They will learn loops and then they can see what perks they had on. I know it’s extremely time consuming but in all honesty it’s how you learn loops and pallets. What perks work and what ones don’t. I did for about 6 months and bounced back and forth. You do learn from other survivors just needing to follow them more or less. Also a litttle hint tell them to listen to ques and dodge a second after you hear it, it usually works.
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Reduce the frustration at all cost.
Make them play differents characters, perks and maps.
Show them at the game is far most deep and complex.
Show them gameplay of good players.
Make them play killers.
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- Recommend your friends to play the killer role. When you start playing DBD it's MUCH easier and at the same time they'll learn the logic of loops.
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Yeah get them to play Killer. Let them experience the community of teabags, ggez, you suck, mad 'cause bad, and uninstall newb before they spend any more money on the game.
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Play 2v8 where they have a better chance at staying alive longer and there's a smaller killer roster for them to learn.
Play customs until they're comfortable.
100 hours doing anything else is a long time, but in DBD it's really not much. Have you checked in with your friends to make sure they like the gameplay loop and want to put in more time to get better? If they don't find the gameplay fun I don't think there is much you can do to make them want to stick around.
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A general tip when trying to get friends into PVP games with a matchmaking system:
If you can, create a second, new account yourself. Making them play in a group with your usual account will set them up against opponents far out of their league.
I speak from experience, having played with a challenger account in league of legends. Even in normal queue we got matched against diamond opponents while having one or two people on our team that played like wood tier.
No idea how accurate this is for dbd at this point but it might be a contributing factor in their experience, getting set up against killer far more skilled than them. Or dbd is shitting the bad as usual and this won't matter at all.😅
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One thing that would hold me back from returning is that after 2 years i would be short of 8 DLCs with 3 perks in each, thats 24 perks (for both sides) that they are short of, and with the older perks getting killed off and forgotten, they need those perks to be in the game.
And this is why the pay to win is bad for DBD, because your friends needs a huge investment to get back into the game, that they left out of frustration. (i would not make that investment if i left for those reasons)
If you REALLY want them back, you can offer to buy them the missing dlc if the come back.
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The only time I've seen new players wanna stay and play more is 2v8 it's casual and simple it's chaotic and fun for Survivors players compared to 1v4 they also don't have to worry about tunneling and camping in 2v8.
The sooner we keep working on 2v8 adding new killers, new maps, new Classes and more the casual player base will want to stay and enjoy the game.
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I tried to get my partner to play but instantly found the game at first glance favoured the killer and it was almost like MMR didn’t exist… as he would go against people with thousands of hours. Which I thought was pretty unfair to him. So he doesn’t play anymore, But after 7 years I guess I just hate myself to keep playing lol.
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the only solution is completely rework matchmaking system with visual ranks in rank mode where very low ranks will verse very low rankers, also rank should have restriction on the level played, so people with high rank should not be matched with low rank players in a lobby, but there would be the option for casual lobbies as we have now, also strict mmr system where games are more balanced, and new players could play against each other until they get better and climb the ranks and join their friends, or make a new gamemode in dbd like friday the 13th, a giant map with lots of people playing it with multiple escape routes vs 3 killers. could be really good and fun experience.
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Thing is what 10 yeals old game is friendly for new players?
Especialy if that game is quite specific from other games like some shooter games like csgo,pubg where the core is all the same just "point and click" move and cover but this isnt case in DBD. To your advice its just best what they can do and if they wont be matched against killers with too much experience and good game sence hiding can help them last longer.
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Yeah 2v8 is better for casual gameplay its not that hardcore must win mentality and is more forgiving especialy now if the same mechanic as herbs were will be introduced into it.
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I could name a few games that are kind to newer players, despite being over 10 years old. You just have to do some research around the game communitites.
PVE/Co-op games are prime examples of those, and as someone who has played the multiplayers of both Mass Effect 3 (2012) and Dragon Age Inquisition (2014), I can wholeheartedly say that those games are beginner-friendly, thanks to the communities.
7 Days to Die (2013) is another game that is fairly beginner-friendly.When it comes to PVP on the other hand, those games are never beginner-friendly.
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Golly, what parts didn't they like? /s
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Thats the thing PVE isnt that bad to come in even if its old game because people play togeather vs ai enemies but PVP thats different level especialy if its asymetrical horror game than its hard to jump into it when its 10 years old and majority of people playing it have 1k or more hours and years of experience and knowledge.
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Trust me, this is the case for most games that has been around for this long, or even longer.
Asymms are not exclusive to this problem. MOBA's, shooters and other games with PVP activity is the same way. SBMM might as well be non-existent.2 -
Dont worry they never had every perk. They have almost no paid dlc and not even all shards-character.
They use Windows, Lithe, Deja Vu, Alert, Adrenaline etc. Which perks would you get?
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I started this game when it was well-established and already pretty unapproachable for new players. I stuck around because I only played killer. It took awhile to switch to survivor, and I viewed it as the role that was meant to lose, which made it easier to do so. Just not dying first was an accomplishment then. As time went on, I got better, I made friends, and I no longer have that view. But a gentle progression was needed to keep me playing.
Fast forward to now, where I occasionally play a round or two with my partner. If they jump on alone and I observe, I see the typical and baffling new player antics: everyone ducking and creeping about—even when there is zero danger—and killers who are legally blind. This is fine for the baby leagues. It's even. I can give a couple lazy instructions here and there and it'll be an escape. Then we play a couple rounds together, and I carry them to a higher lobby with matches more like my own, and even with me on constant babysitter duty, I cannot keep them alive. We are both dead every match, me usually first because I tried to defend them, and them after because they're helpless alone against a decent killer.
The worst way to be introduced to this game is by SWFing with established players. You'll be in over your head immediately. People need to go against or play with people at the same level of cluelessness as them or the game is a wash. People should probably start in solo to learn survivor so the matchmaking doesn't ruin the experience.
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Well, that works, but sounds boring always to use the same perks. I like to experiment with perk combos and finding new builds that work for me.
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Totally agree. My story is much the same; I started as a killer main for almost 1K hours, moved into surv viewing it as a role where losing was almost a given. Now I have only really played solo queue and though I have gotten a lot better, I do still believe that the intent is that death is supposed to be probable, even if it isn't a given.
And remember, coming to surv having played a lot of killer puts you at a huge advantage over a brand new player.
I think new player retention is an issue for a number of reasons:
1. SBMM doesn't work. New players in both roles often go right into the meat grinder, and that has to feel bad.2. As a surv, you're not supposed to win most of your games regardless. People don't like losing.
3. Some people start out in SWF with friends, and discover life outside of SWF is a lot harder
4. It doesn't take long to realize just how much content there is, how much of it is necessary to succeed, and how much of it is paywalled
5. A lot of killer players choose a killer they like, only to discover as they get better that their chosen killer kinda sucks and isn't viable. Also a bad feeling
6. The comprehensive, global imbalance that is baked into the game's DNA.
I suppose the question that should be asked isn't "how do I keep my friends playing DbD?" but "Do I want to do that to them?"
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