Causes and solutions for the perk grind in Dead by Daylight

Alright, I am gonna lay this out in one place, so I can copy and paste this entire thing every day if I have to. You're in for a long read.

The single biggest problem with Dead by Daylight is the amount of grind that currently exists in the game. Here are the issues, and what can be done about them.

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1) New players are intimidated by what it takes to even play the game at a reasonably enjoyable level. Everything is a giant commitment, and it is nearly impossible to casually understand or engage with the perk system.

When I bring someone new into the game -- and this has happened many times, resulting in anecdotes that I'm sure many other veteran players have similar versions of -- the grind to even get a modest stable of strong, competitive perks is immediately off-putting. Even if we're limiting ourselves to, say, the current absolute meta survivor perks, it goes like this: "OK, first level David to 35 for Dead Hard, then level Meg to 40 for Adrenaline, then level Laurie to 40 for Decisive Strike, and level Bill to 35 for Borrowed Time."

That's 150 levels of commitment just for *a chance* that those teachable perks will turn up in Bloodwebs for whoever the newbie wants to main. And I don't care what combination of perks or survivors you throw at them -- Self-Care + Bond + Urban Evasion or whatever -- it's always going to result in a LOT of leveling just to experience the "real" game.

For killers, the situation is even worse, because everything I said is true, but different on a killer-to-killer basis. Imagine you're a new player. Are you going to enjoy playing, say, Michael Myers, because he looks cool and you like Halloween? Well, better get Barbecue & Chili first, plus he really needs Monitor & Abuse, plus hey Hex: Ruin and/or Pop Goes the Weasel are mandatory depending on how you feel, and you could maybe mercifully round it out with Whispers or Sloppy Butcher or whatever. You can't even get a grip on whether you would enjoy playing a single character under "real" circumstances unless -- and until -- you deeply commit to them, and to unlocking and acquiring the teachable perks that show you what actually playing that character with a real build is like.

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2) The process of acquiring all the perks on a reasonable stable of "main" characters takes way too many in-game hours.

I know this is very anecdotal, but here's what informs my perspective on this: Since starting the game on November 3, 2018, I have clocked 1152 hours, according to Steam. I am going to assume like 20% of those hours have consisted of me waiting in lobbies or absent-mindedly leaving the game on in the background (which I do sometimes), so let's say I have ~922 in-game hours over the course of 11 months.

Six of my 17 my killers are level 50, as well as one single survivor. I have unlocked 40 of 57 teachable survivor perks, and 47 of 51 teachable killer perks. I have all available survivor perks at tier 3 on a single main (Claudette), and all available killer perks at tier 3 on two mains (Spirit and Nightmare -- the latter was only just finished after committing substantial time during the most recent double Bloodpoint weekend). I plan to hit this milestone with a third killer as well. I have never prestiged any character (and I never will, because it is a waste of time, effort, and Bloodpoints). I am at Devotion 2, level 52.

It is, to my thinking, beyond unreasonable that someone -- anyone -- could spend nearly a full year playing this game, and NOT have every perk unlocked and available on far more characters than this. If I spent a full year across this many hours playing World of Warcraft, or Final Fantasy XIV, or Rainbow Six: Siege, or any number of game-as-service products that I could name here, I suspect my progress unlocking relevant options would far and away would be greater than what I've done in Dead by Daylight.

You could argue that I haven't been efficient with my Bloodpoint spending; this is probably true. I spend with far more efficiency and focus than I used to, but that wasn't always true, and a lot of players don't want to put up with the hassle of having to do a bunch of research on the best way to spend their in-game currency.

In any case, that's my personal anecdote. The actual facts are this: It takes approximately 1.1 million Bloodpoints to take a single character from level 1 to a "finished" level 40 state, where you have unlocked all of their teachable perks. Taking all 19 current survivors and all 17 current killers to that point would take 39.6 million Bloodpoints (20.9 million and 18.7 million, respectively).

Let's say you are being REALLY efficient and doing it that way before you do anymore work on your "mains." Your baby Dwight is level 40, and has 41 of 213 total perk ranks (3 ranks per perk across 71 survivor perks). You've now got to go through about 87 more Bloodwebs to get everything (and it's only that low because of the recent Bloodweb change). Let's say that's an average of about 52,000 Bloodpoints per web; we're looking at approximately 4.5 million Bloodpoints there. That's about 25 million Bloodpoints just to top off one single survivor. Granted, the bulk of the "Setup" work is done at that point (since you've unlocked all survivor teachables), but that's quite an investment.

Rinse and repeat for every single individual killer you want to play competitively. I'm sure you can do the math.

Granted, the Shrine of Secrets can ease the burden a little bit. And you might take the position that it's questionable whether "unlock all ranks of all perks on your main" is even a realistic milestone. I think it is, and I think this is excessive. Even if you're just looking for Barbecue & Chili 3 on that one character, this all has the potential to be unnecessarily painful and laborious.

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Why is it this way?

Part of the problem is the simple fact that the scope of the game got away from the developers. It launched with something like 23 survivor perks and 20 killer perks; now there are 71 and 63, respectively, and those are gonna keep growing at a minimum of like +9 per side per year.

The fact each character must be leveled to 40 in order to unlock their teachable perks, plus the fact that all Bloodwebs are totally RNG-reliant, PLUS the fact that every perk has three ranks, combines for a reality that is viciously player-unfriendly. The September 2019 Bloodweb change (adding more perks to level 40+ webs) is a very nice quality of life upgrade, but it still doesn't get to the heart of the problem, which boils down to the game (and, by extension, the developer) not respecting your time.

This is a bit of hearsay because I don't have a direct source to quote, but I have heard it suggested that Behaviour is against substantially changing this because they fear players leaving the game if they have "nothing to do." My only real response to this is: Man up and have faith in your game. If what you fear really is the case, there's something deeper wrong with it, and you should be obligated to address that problem. You know why people should want to play your game? Because they're having fun. Not because the grind takes hundreds and hundreds of hours. Otherwise, this is just a predatory mobile game in disguise.

With that out of the way...

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What can be done to fix this?

Well, lots of stuff -- with an eye toward prioritizing player choice, convenience, and long-term happiness over everything else. Consider any or all of the following, in different combinations:

Maybe perks could be separated from the Bloodweb, and bought a la carte. Make them cost more Bloodpoints, for the convenience of getting exactly what we want, on the character that we want. We still need the Bloodwebs for items, add-ons, and offerings.

Maybe unlocking a teachable perk just automatically gives every character, current and future, tier 1 of that perk. Wouldn't that just be a nice quality of life upgrade?

Maybe perks could be consolidated into a single rank each. As-is, having three tiers to each perk is kind of a garbage non-choice. It would just make things faster and easier all around if everything were single-rank. Perks would probably also be less painful to balance, and this might even open new avenues for perk design if Behaviour didn't have to come up with a three-rank variable for everything.

Maybe teachables could come at lower level thresholds. Levels 30, 35, and 40 are huge commitments. Maybe reduce these to 10, 15, and 20? Why not? What would be the harm?

Maybe every perk could be made always available in the Shrine of Secrets. If I could just buy what I wanted with Iridescent Shards, I would be really happy. I saw someone suggest recently that all perks could always just be on the Shrine for 4,000 shards each, and every Tuesday the four perks that are "on sale" for 2,000 shards rotate. This would be really helpful, and it would give you a concrete goalpost to chase while leveling.

Maybe just give everyone more Bloodpoints across the board. Ever notice how happy everyone is for double Bloodpoint events? Why not just make that the normal amount?

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Whew, alright, that's quite enough. Thanks for reading, if you made it this far.

If you don't agree with the basic premise of this, I don't much care to argue, because you are not going to change my mind. I really think this is a big problem in terms of scaring new players away, and prompting burnout and unhappiness among veterans.

Also, preemptive retort for all the WELL DO YOU JUST EXPECT EVERYTHING HANDED TO YOU ON A SILVER PLATTER Kool-aid drinkers: It's a video game, an entertainment product intended to be fun above all else. I think the situation I am describing goes well above and beyond any reasonable threshold of any "working for my stuff" argument that you can realistically mount. I've been playing the game for a year, for crying out loud. I've paid whatever "dues" your gatekeeping rear-end can throw at me. This grind is very excessive.

I really want Behaviour (paging @Peanits I guess!) to come in, really really read this, and have a real discussion about it. I want to know if they believe it is a problem, and why or why not. If they don't agree with solving it, I want them to be able to tell us why, in concrete terms that amount to more than a two-sentence sound bite. I do not have high hopes that this will happen, and I assume that this post will be ignored. Please, someone, prove me wrong.