The grind sucks for new players.
I know it's been said before, but I gotta say it. I'm fairly new to the game, I'm a killer main, I'm trying to git gud... but there are so many teachables I need to unlock from niche killers if I want to compete.
I know the survivors have to do it too, and I'm sure it sucks just as much for them, I'm just complaining because I opened up my roster and I still have so many killers that are under level 10. It costs so much BP just to get all their perk slots open, let alone all the way up to get their teachables unlocked.
The ranking system also sucks in this regard because it's shared among all killers, so my level 1 Legion goes against the same survivors as my level 35 Doctor. Not only is it frustrating to get stomped while learning a new killer who has no gear by advanced survivors with full kits, that guarantees a poor score which nets fewer blood points which further prolongs the scrub life slog.
There's no real point and I have no unique insights here, it just sucks. Thanks for letting me vent. I've heard there's something in the works about BP bonuses or a bloodweb rework, I look forward to it.
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the upcoming chapter should make it easier for everyone
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I mean, they'll reduce the grind with the upcoming patch. Do you know that?
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BP gains will stay the same. But higher level blood webs will give up to 4 perks instead of 2, and you'll have odds of buying 2 perks per blood web instead of 1.
Early on, level 1-30, nothing really changes. But for 30+, maybe 40+, the grind for perks you want should be reduced by roughly 40-60%. Still gotta play the game though to earn the BP though, you'll just earn perks faster.
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The grind is so awful that I actually avoided buying the Ghostface for the simple reason that I knew I'd never grind him far enough to actually be able to enjoy using him. If this grind reduction isn't all they're hyping it up to be you can be sure that will happen with the new DLCs as well.
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The grind for new players is 100% unchanged with the new patch. Trying to unlock teachables on 30+ characters isn't lessened at all by adding a handful of extra perks at high levels.
It ONLY affects people trying to collect perks on single characters, which is usually people at P3L50.
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Instant gratification.
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What's wrong with the grind?
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Slightly less artificially delayed gratification. I've already bought all the killers and done the grind to unlock some of the most important teachables, so it's not that I'm opposed to making a commitment.
Well, it's long and hard and it's left me sore.
But seriously, my main complaint is the amount of time I have to spend investing in characters that I don't like just to improve the ones I do like. We're talking millions of BP and dozens of hours, at the very least, spent grinding Clown for PGTW, Legion for Discordance, Spirit for Spirit Fury, Nurse for Nurse's Calling...
I don't like or want to play any of those killers. I don't want to be forced to play this game several hours a day, every day, just to kit out one or two decent killers in under a month. At least not when I'm forced to only play ranked matches. That's a long time spent getting rolled by SWF teams with full kits while I struggle with mechanics I don't enjoy on killers with crappy perks and add-ons.
It's just not fun. And that's a shame, because this game can be a lot of fun.
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It's terrible and now we're getting three new characters to level up while limited by the 1 million bp cap. That's just stupid.
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Not really true, unlock BBQ for killers and WGLF for survivors and it takes a huge bite out of the grind, being able to get these perks easier and more consistently reduces the grind.
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You can always try just not playing the meta. If you're that new, you're not at red ranks, so it's not like you have to run meta perks just to have a fighting chance.
If it's any comfort to you, it used to be worse. Back in the day the grind was much longer (that's why legacy skins are a thing), perk slots were unlocked at higher levels, and no one started with any perks by default.
My advice would be to chill out a bit and just play the killer you're interested in playing. You don't have to grind for meta level teachables right away. Every killer has at least one unique perk that's not terrible, and you can pad it out with some decent universal perks like NOED, Iron Grasp, Sloppy Butcher, Bitter Murmur, or Whispers. Once you have your favourite killer at a decently high level, you can keep playing them, so you're still enjoying yourself, but use the points you earn to level other killers for teachables.
Also Barbecue helps, of course, so if you have Cannibal, prioritise that.
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You can still level up those killers without actually playing them. I agree, the grind can be a little too much in this game, but it isn't the worst I've seen, I guess they just wanna keep their players, but they should do something for the new players as well.
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I was there man. After about 2 months I invested in leatherface. BBQ cuts the time in half. I also began to love playing bubba as he is my favorite horror movie killer. Anyways I played bubba with BBQ and used the points to level up other killers until I got BBQ t3 on that killer and then I would switch and earn more points to get better perks on that killer. I did that for all 16 killers some prestiged too. I’ve only been playing since a year but took about 3-4 months off. I also have most survivors at 50 and every perk max on my main survivor.
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I do have BBQ and it does help, to the point of being near-mandatory. I found it early on Myers, for example, but not on Plague. The difference between them, regarding both performance in-game and progress through the bloodweb, is stark.
True... the only problem is that, for newer players, we might not have the reserve of add-ons required to enable that. My highest killer is Doctor at level 35 (which I got solely to unlock M&A for Myers), with BBQ/Distressing I can bring in around 50-60k BPs per game if I do well. But I usually need to use add-ons to do that well, and if I'm spending all my BPs on other killers' bloodwebs, then I'm not restocking my add-ons.
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Which, if you're doing what most new players do, collecting teachable perks before moving onto the next character, will not be affected by the bloodweb change at all, since they only need to level up to 40.
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Yep, this was the advice that was given by the streamers I follow. Focus on getting all the big, game-defining perks first.
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When I only started I was actually a bit shocked from the amount of grind required to get what you want. My friends advised me to start with Claudette because of self heal but it was the worst idea tbh. I got her to lvl 40. It took so long in the beginning. I stopped playing the game even lol. But 2 months ago I came back and researched what I need by myself. I got now to lvl 40 meg, David and bill, neglecting nea, Jake and Dwight. Soon will prestige Laurie for the third time.
From killers I play as Myers and ghost face only. And I only got nurses calling perk and I'm good.
If you have a lot of time to play (6-8h) you can do 40 levels per day normally.
It's a bit sad that we can only save 1m blood points before new chapter. I really like the upcoming dlc and plan to get it. 3 characters means that I will get only one to unlock all teachables. And probably it will be Nancy.
Good luck on your grind
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Sadly, the changes won't increase BP gain overall just let high level players more easily get the perks they want without leveling a character up 100+ times.
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Could just do what I do and use whatever killer your already comfortable with to each BPs and lvl up a new killer to an acceptable lvl before using it. That way you at least have some perks and addons while learning the new skillset.
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This is crap advice for new players. "Spend money to get perk X" This game shouldn't be "Pay to Enjoy" but it seems to be now.
And don't say "But the shrine". Perks like BBQ show up once a year and it was just there so it it will be a while before we see it again,
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Yeah, the grind is just as bad for everyone. The difference is, were not "new players" because we stuck with it.
New players ALWAYS have to grind harder. Because they're new. It's an easy thing to understand.
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Twice, this year I believe.
And you dont need "meta" perks to have fun or do well. But if you feel you need a boost, it's like 5 bucks for bubba. Hag us free for ps4 (and I'd assume xbox), which covers bbq and ruin. The two big dogs.
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Well a higher BP gain is no good, since you already get plenty of addons in each bloodweb. Increasing BP gain will just mean that people will be able to pretty much always only use ultra rare and very rare addons. It's the perk grind that's so bad, and that is finally getting improved.
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Its not too bad if you play a few hours a day.
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It's $5 and a little time. Buying Leatherface is not play to win give me a break.
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Getting to 40 doesn't take hardly any time, bunch of crybabies in this thread. Yeah the game takes a lot of time to get a lot of things unlocked and all p3, but it takes very little time to get a killer or survivor geared up to be in good shape for matches. Exceptionally little time.
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Maybe for people who have time to game all day, but people with busy schedules are limited with their time and it DOES take a while and an investment to level up killers to a reasonable level of use.
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Yeah I'm self employed and am the hardest working person I've ever met (probably) and my stress level is through the roof, what's that got to do with anything? Should every new account start with a level 50 killer and survivor and they've got all perks unlocked? If you're SOOOOOOO busy that you don't have time to play the game then go play fortnite. The grind to get a decent playable killer or survivor on this game is not bad at all.
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I’m sorry that you’re so stressed but the grind is not very accessible to new players at all, and that’s a fact.
I admit survivor is much more forgiving with a weaker loadout since survivors can manage just fine with no perks at all, or even just self care. But killers NEED access to perks to even keep up with survivors on a similar or greater level than they are - and that definitely takes time. Even for someone who wants to play survivor and experiment with perks of their choice, that also takes a lot of time.
People a) want to play dbd and b) they DO have time to play - but the time it takes to have a desirable build in dbd is egregiously long and unfair for new players.
I’m sorry that you struggled so much that you feel like others should too, but the truth is that the grind needs to be easier on players.
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I think the extent of the issue is something mostly noticed by new players because we haven't had the chance to snowball with our progress yet. I seldom play for more than an hour or two per day, and I don't play every day.
I've unlocked a few teachables, enough to put together a build that doesn't suck entirely, but that still leaves me with most of my killers under level 10. It's not that I'm incapable of putting a killer into a trial that performs at a basic degree of ability, I don't find the game unplayable by any means (minus SWF spam and broken matchmaking with red/purple ranks), but I find that the grind is impeding the fun I can have with all the killers I bought.
Example: I bought Myers because he's cool, I wanted to play him. Everyone good said M&A is his best perk, so before I started pumping BP into Myers I got Doctor up to 35. In the process of grinding Doctor, I rank up a bunch. No sweat, except I probably got handed a few games I didn't earn because noob survivors really seem to struggle against him.
So now I'm in green ranks and survivors are starting to get sweaty, and I'm trotting out level 1, level 5, level 10 killers with one or two starter perks and no add-ons. If I want to try a new killer to learn their toolkit or do some grinding, I can expect to get stomped by some trash-talking SWF group with a full kit of T3 teachables.
The real mistake I made was sinking several hundred thousand BP into Trapper, thinking I might actually like Doctor and end up needing Unnerving Presence for him, but that was before I saw how play changed on ranking up. Doc's a lot less fun when survivors know what they're doing, at least for me, so I feel like I've painted myself into a corner like an old school RPG. Like I put all my points in Stealth and Diplomacy and there's an unavoidable boss fight that will require at least 60 points in Headbutting to get through.
It's not that I can't or won't do the grind, I can and will, it's that my ability to enjoy the game is being hobbled by it. My first focus was just on unlocking perks, because that's what was recommended to me by high-ranked streamers, but I see now that I probably will need a specific killer main to farm BP with.
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Pretty much this.
I've already spent weeks (of my available playtime per day)unlocking BBQ, Ruin, and M&A. I bought every single killer. I read guides and watch streams almost every day to learn more and improve. This isn't a question of my willingness to make a commitment and stick by it, I don't want instant gratification, but the immensity of the grind on first approach is genuinely disheartening. This game is about to pick up a lot of new players, it would be cool to retain them.
Once I get every killer to 15 at least, where I'm able to go, "Hey, I feel like playing a few games of Plague," and it's not a ######### traumatic experience, everything will be fine. And one day I will have all the teachables unlocked, and I'll be able to experiment with meme builds or personal creations to my heart's content...
... but it's going to take a long time to reach that point, where I can start up the game and play without having to worry about how I'm going to maximize BP gain every session in order to make the most of each hour I put into the game.
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What I find that helps me out, is leveling a different character than what I'm playing.
I'm currently leveling the pig(with the extra bp, I'm saving 1m for nancy) but I'm playing the other killers I already leveled up, or survivors that I have levelled up. This gives me more bloodpoints per match than when I played whoever I was leveling. And it doesn't really matter if the add-ons get scarce, because I have a fully levelled character to play as( fully levelled = got the teachables I wanted)
For instance, I was leveling the clown while playing meg, leveling meg while playing legion... so on and so forth
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I can see how that would improve the experience and I will probably end up doing it. I began by focusing solely on unlocking teachables, since that was recommended to me, but I think BBQ is the only one that's truly mandatory for a beginner.
I still think it's counterintuitive and turns off new players by discouraging experimentation and exploration, though. Nowhere in the game's tutorials, or even in any of the streams I follow, have I seen or heard the recommendation of "pick one killer, grind to high level, make that your BP mule".
My reasoning for keeping my killers low level was that it costs more BP to get through each level the bloodweb, I figured if I only leveled killers as I needed to in order to unlock their perks, those perks would appear faster in the webs of the killers I actually wanted to play if they were still low level.
And it worked, I got BBQ and M&A on Myers by level 5, which was awesome. But now he's flailing and useless because half the gens are done before I get out of T1, because I ranked up so much while grinding Doc and Bubba, and I need game-slowing perks from other killers if I want to do more than T3 people at endgame collapse.
Honestly, if rank were based on killer rather than account, this would be much less of an issue for me. I could play one of my garbage killers in the scrub ranks and take my time learning my way around them rather than being forced to compete with sweaty tryhards, getting no BP and depipping after 3 out of every 4 matches.
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This is why I think it's silly that they're only changing the later bloodweb levels. They should at the very least start dropping double perks immediately in the bloodweb as well. New players take upwards to a year to get anything done if they want to play more than one or two characters with all perks. (I know from experience.) It's especially bad for killers because at least with survivors you only really need to level one once you get the teachables (which take way too long to get btw. I've been playing for way too long to have only just gotten all the teachables this year)
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New patch is changing the grind up to make it easier
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Well, it's making old player grind easier. Not really helping new players which is the focus
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Unlocking all the unteachables actually makes the grind for what you really want unlocked way harder. I messed up and did this, got all killers to 50, now when I prestige one unusually don't even get BBQ level 1 by the time I get it back up to 50. There are ways to maximize how quicky bps are gained you just gotta be smart about it
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Oh, so there are multiple ways to severely mess up the grind without realizing it until it's too late. The account-based grind that cannot be restarted by any means. Cool, cool.
So far I've only unlocked three teachables -- BBQ, Ruin, and M&A. I'll make a list of all the ones I want to unlock and stick only to those. Thanks for the tip.
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this game overall is super newbie unfriendly, sadly you just have to push through like we all did
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The grind is the game's biggest problem. It needs to be cut by like 70%. I shouldn't be able to put 1,000 hours into the game and still have perks to unlock on half the characters, with only ONE single killer currently topped out. It's arbitrary and stupid that the grind is this bad.
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And I will/am, but I think it's worth examining if this aspect of the game's design actually benefits anyone. I'm cool with there being a grind, it's expected, but the one we have now is huge, complex, and somewhat opaque.
I enjoy this game because it's unique. There just aren't that many asymmetric PvP games out there, let alone asymmetric survival horror PvP games. I think that's awesome, but it's also a niche market. Every player this game retains will improve its overall health, but as you pointed out this game doesn't really welcome new players.
There are plenty of games with long grinds in them that I enjoy. The Borderlands series has an insane grind but I keep coming back to it because the fundamental gameplay loop is always there. If I want to play a sniper, I play a sniper. Whether he's level 10 or 50, he's a sniper and I improve him by sniping.
In DbD, I bought a stealth killer (Myers). In order to make him more stealthy (Monitor and Abuse), something recommended by every experienced player and streamer, I had to invest 35 levels in anti-stealth killer (Doctor).
In order to save BP, I needed to do this before I started leveling Myers. So this was my journey to playing Myers:
- Buy Myers in store, get excited, look up builds
- See M&A is necessary for maxing his stealth
- Don't play Myers, play 35 levels of Doctor instead
- BBQ and M&A by level 5, feel like a boss who planned things out well
- Get stomped because level 5 vs survivors with full T3 loadouts and purple add-ons
- Lose 3 ranks in 2 days of play while getting trash talked by SWF
That's just not fun. It's a lot of time spent wrangling bureaucratic systems that have nothing to do with actual gameplay, but have multiple ways of punishing gameplay if handled poorly.
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This, 100%. It's baffling to me that so many players want to defend this, and argue that it's somehow beneficial and/or acceptable for everyone to have to suffer through what you're describing. It's harmful to the game, and drives away new players.
There are tons of potential solutions.
1) Perks are UNLOCKED, period, and available to use on everyone once the teachable has been learned.
2) Uncouple perks from the Bloodweb, and introduce an a la carte perk shop where we can select and buy whatever we want for BP.
3) Eliminate multiple perk ranks. Just have one rank for each perk.
But this will probably never materially improve, because Behaviour is super stuck on their grindy Bloodweb system, and somehow believes that this level of oppressive grind is necessary for player retention.
(Cue @Peanits coming in and saying that changes of this magnitude would cause players to run out of stuff to do. I really think Behaviour needs to think of major ways to make the grind less of a horrific brick wall for newbies in particular, but this is apparently not on the table.)
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@Rydog The fact that anyone would have to come in and claim that it would cause players to run out of things to do just speaks volumes to a weak core game design, then.
I played Overwatch since Beta and never ran out of things to do. Why? Because I was constantly looking to improve on certain characters while learning others. I only left Overwatch recently because of RoleQ and the fact that I'm burned out and done with shooters.
I played Paladins for years. Why? Because I didn't have to grind to unlock the cards to do my Champion builds after the OB64 fiasco was reversed and fixed. I can experiment with any build on any character right out of the gate. What kept me engaged? Learning new Champions, getting better with my main Champions, and experimenting with builds, some serious and some meme builds. Again, I only left Paladins due to shooter genre burnout. Not because I ran out of things to do.
A grind to "keep people playing" is just a blatant Band-Aid for weak core design, especially in a PvP game.
What is the engagement factor in DbD for me? Learning killers, improving with killers, experimenting with Perk builds on Killer and Survivor. Or, at least I can maybe experiment one of these days once I sleep through the absolutely asinine grind and RNG.
What keeps driving me away from DbD, which is the reason why I've never played it consistently in the 16 months I've owned it? The asinine grind coupled with the bloodweb RNG. Hell, three family members are major Stranger Things fans. They saw the announcement for the DLC out in the wilds of the internet and were interested in buying DbD and the DLC. I explained the grind for new players to them and how the upcoming "changes" do nothing for new players.
They decided not to buy.
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Unless they make it so you can guarantee which two perks you get, I worry it won't be as helpful as one would hope.
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I only have a few teachables and it's still a PITA on killers I haven't already leveled up.
Me: *hoping and praying for BBQ*
The Entity: Bruh, lemme tell you about IRON GRASP and DISTRESSING
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Yup, long grind + RNG will do a lot of people in.
To be honest, I can handle the bloodweb itself. If I could get everything I need for a killer just by playing that killer and going through their web, it wouldn't be as bad.
The fact that there is an entire RNG bloodweb for every character is a bit daunting, but still not that bad until the teachable system comes in and you have to go through that individual blood web multiple times just for one well-geared killer.
This is compounded by the fact that progression is tied to character but rank is tied to account. If I play any other game with a leveling system, my level 1 characters don't start at the same difficulty as my level 35 characters. That would be insane.
So it's not just that it's a long grind, it's a sprawling network of tangentially related grinds which a player has to navigate for themselves and, if they don't get it right on the first try, they'll be punished for it down the road. This is the kind of stuff I would expect from a decades-old RPG like Morrowind, not a PvP game in 2019.
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Peace out and good riddance
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@Xboned Precisely. And as some others have already stated here and elsewhere, the upcoming change is okay for existing players and some Vets, but will do nothing for New Player Retention.
@joker7997 All well and good. But DbD's largest problem is that after every free weekend and 50% sale, the player numbers (at least on PC where they can be tracked) jump up, and then plummet back down to normal after the weekend ends, or within a few weeks after the 50% sale and new players don't stay.
It's not long-term healthy for the game to have such a poor New Player Retention. Vets are not going to be playing forever, and new players joining, playing, and paying are needed to eventually replace them. When new players aren't retained over and over again, there is a longevity problem.
Right now, DbD is only three years old with absolutely no viable competition in the field. But its success, due in large part to that lack of competition, is already drawing attention to the genre. I wager that within 2-3 years, something is going to come along that isn't completely mishandled like F13, Last Year, and Hide or Die, and then DbD will begin to suffer for its poor new player retention.
And I'm not convinced that Behavior will be able to adapt to the situation. Dead by Daylight seems to have been more "lightning in a bottle" for them than anything else. They've already tried to capture it again with Deathgarden, tried twice in fact, and failed both times.
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I have been playing dbd since August of last year when it came on ps plus, quite regularly, and here’s a couple things to note:
- Jane is my only p3 maxed out character.
- I have only prestiged Jane, Ash, Michael, and Plague - all tier 1.
- As far as killers go, it’s only NOW that I’ve been able to get MOST of my killers to 50. I STILL have to do Clown, Legion, and Leatherface.
- Levels 40-50 literally take over half a million (500k) bp to complete.
- Even level 40 killers are not guaranteed to be fully enjoyable and playable due to perk rng.
The grind is neither fun nor satisfactory.
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One of my main issues is currently if you aren't using a blood point perk your going to have a bad time. Then you got rng. I HAVE WENT THROUGH 353 BLOOD WEBS AND NOT A SINGLE GODDAMN SIGN OF PGTW HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE... But the perk thing should be fixed with the blood web change I hope. But it still doesn't fix new player probles.
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