Is Dbd a "pay to win" game? My answer is...
Yes, yes it is. And here's why I think so...
In terms of a perks: If you pay - you brought a new characters and you already can play with them. You prestige them to lvl 3 and you have all of their perks on all characters. Thats it.
If you don't pay - you don't have a new characters to play as, you have to grind a lot of shards (and thats a lot of time) to be prepared for these perks to popup in the shrine, you basically have no idea when they popup, it could be a week, could be a month, could be several months... Overall you're spending a lot more time to at least have the new characters perks. Tho you still can obtain every perk in the game without spending any money, you'll just have to spend more time on it.
In terms of a characters (Survivors are not really a big thing about it, they're just skins): If you pay - you have a new character to play, this character may become your main, you can do much better with this character than original ones, you may have a better expirience or win more games with a "paid" character or even have more fun with (this is the exact reason, why I think it's pay to win).
If you don't pay - well... You have to pick from OG ones, they can be less interesting to you, you may find them less efficient (they may not catch your "eye"), and basically - your game expirience is almost halfed, since there is a lot of licenced characters.
"Characters (killers) are not cosmetics, and if player have to pay for them to play, player will consider it as a pay to win"
Why I think it's a bad feature for exactly Dbd - you already have to spend money to download this game (no matter how much). Usually, any online game that you have to buy before play have every character unlocked, or you have to spend in game currency to unlock them (even free to play games). In such games the only stuff that you have to pay for is cosmetics and Battle Pass, which have nothing to do with your game gameplaywise.
Unfortunately in Dead by daylight, if you really like a Pyramid head or Piggy, or Wesker, (or whatever licenced character) and you brought the game only because of those killers, you have to pay additional money to buy them, and you have to pay EVEN MORE money, if you want a cosmetics on them. With which I just can't agree is right, but...
Understandable facts:
- They're a licenced characters from others franchise. (If you know how it works, you'll understand)
- Behaviour like any other game company needs money to make their game better for us.
- They may receive less money because of a current situation in the world.
Personally, I don't think that in "pay to play" game there have to be a characters or other gameplay stuff that you can obtain only through real money, aside from cosmetics.
Tho I'm not a greedy person, and still will buy stuff or characters, if I really like them. xD
Comments
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It's kinda is, otherwise you have to grind it so hard that even asian gamers would be shocked.
Back in a days I didn't pay much attention to DbD, bought few DLC, another few was gifted. And I remember that I constanly hunted perks in Shrine. In the end I bought all DLCs and that's it.
Unlike many other games where constant investment of money will only bring you cosmetics and not affect gameplay, it is like other many games where you are really handicapped without it.
It would be fine, if you can't play certain characters, but their perks is a problem.
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Nurse is the best killer in the game.
If you would only care about winning, you have the best power base game. Then you just have to get good.
Now, when it comes to perks, sure, it would be grindy a lot but you can still unlock these perks in the end anyway.
I would say this, if you play the best killer in the game and you are good at it you don't have to super rely on your perks by this point since your power can allready destroy even good teams of Survivors.
By the time you would become really good with Nurse, you probably allready own some good perks for her. Also there are some great Basic perks like Sloppy or NOED that helps early a lot.
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Tbh, I was waiting for this comment.=)
Now look. I have a friend, who knows that the nurse and blight are the strongest killers in the game, but he just don't like them nor how they look, nor their gameplay. He just can't learn how to play them, and he don't really want to, but he likes Pyramid head, and he's doing much better with him.
When he plays Pyramid head, he almost 4k in every match, but when he plays nurse, he can't even 2k. For him, a paid character is much better than OG one.
Pay to win? For me, it's a clear pay to win case.
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For the most part, no. The vast majority of content is available without paying, and you can be viable with combinations of free-only content on either side.
That said, it knows exactly what its doing when it takes content that is hard meta and locks it to paid only DLCs. Eruption and Call of Brine are a current example, BBQ and DS were previous ones. BBQ was notoriously only in the shrine of secrets a handful of times ever, and was likely an extremely high number of sales for leatherface. It wasn't an accident, which is the kind of situation that causes the P2W discussion to come up. It technically isn't as it is not required to be viable to compete in general, but it sure as hell is mandatory in the sense that tools that make other characters (or even perks via synergy) viable. This ebbs and flows on both the survivor and killer side with each rebalance but again, its not an accident.
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It’s pay to play. Which… well is obvious -/ it’s not free to play?
you can easily win with base game characters and perks and you can easily lose with bought characters and perks.
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Not all dbd players buys characters just for perks. They simply wants to play this character, because they think this character is stronger for them.
In my post I don't really consider a perks like a "p2w" aspect: "Tho you still can obtain every perk in the game without spending any money, you'll just have to spend more time on it."
But if you want to play a character, you have to pay real money, and there is where a "problem" appears, or you can tell... "Pay to win aspect"
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Here the important part about my post=) :
"In terms of a characters (Survivors are not really a big thing about it, they're just skins): If you pay - you have a new character to play, this character may become your main, you can do much better with this character than original ones, you may have a better expirience or win more games with a "paid" character or even have more fun with (this is the exact reason, why I think it's pay to win)."
It's a clear pay to win case.=)
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It's pay to play character you like
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I would completely disagree with the pay to win aspect, as someone has already mentioned, the strongest killer in the game is free...and there's no denying the fact that she's the strongest.
What you're talking about is wanting to play the other characters, because you or your friend are better with them - that doesn't make something pay to win as you can still "win" without those characters. Playing the game unlocks more things, you can unlock characters/perks with shards etc as well as some cosmetics - this of course encourages gameplay, but it's definitely not about paying.
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You are describing a pay to play scenario as there is still no guaranteed win scenario and it’s very much subjective as is.
if you look at it in an objective way, you got Nurse and Blight as the killers with the highest potential. Followed by Spirit and maybe Huntress. All of them are free to get.
with your logic EVERY game that offers characters to buy is pay2win…
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I disagree, "nurse and blight are strongest killers" have nothing to do with me or my friend doing better with other killers, like PH or Wesker, as I mentioned. If he's better with Wesker or PH than Nurse, what he can think of...? "If I want to do better in matches, I have to pay money for a better character." That is a pretty valid point tho.
Well, tbh, for me it's any game where you can buy stuff only for money, and this stuff is affecting your gameplay, I consider as a pay to win game.=)
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No it's not about "like the character", it's about "Doing better with paid character".
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Well then your definition may fit DbD. Though, especially for a game that’s not even free to play to begin with this is hardly a negative aspect.
and the general definition of pay to win is not the same as your personal one.
DbD never advertised that all their characters play the same or are free so.. why even make this thread, what are you trying to achieve with this?
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I don't think that was the point Mandy.
He's talking about the perks, some are behind paywalls, or you can alternatively grind for shards (which can take forever). Alternatively, you can hope for them to appear in the shrine, but odds are not all too great — there are so many perks in the game that you're likely better off grinding instead. It would just be a nice bonus if you get it on the shrine.
This isn't to say the game hasn't improved because it definitely improved since the beginning. Props to that. Just that some perks are strong / meta and players can't immediately obtain them within a decent amount of play time.
We don't expect someone new to have everything unlocked in the span of a week, just the perks they want. Guess it has to be that way so you all can make money, which isn't a bad thing like the community makes it out to be. No shame. You all have to make money to continue making DBD content, but ask yourself this:
Would it hurt to make perks more obtainable?
You can argue the grind change helped, but it also backfired because I had most perks unlocked through the shrine. Which got locked to tier one post change, and to add — shrine costs are even more expensive. I remember I could buy a perk for 2,000 shards and I could get the teir 3 version on the web with just a few bloodpoints. Now it's what? Doubled? That's crazy...
TL;DR Perks are a bit too hard to obtain, feels like you have to either dump a ton of time into the game or pay some cash (not a lot) to speed the process up to save on shards / time. You all are improving, just some minor things to iron out!
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The paid DLC aren't the only way to 'win', and I wouldn't even say they're the easiest way to win, despite it meaning you spend less time 'grinding' for perks, because the base game characters and generic perks are enough to deal with nearly every scenario.
As well as Nurse being the de facto most effective killer in the game, you also have Wraith as a starter killer, who is very effective, especially for those starting out. Billy also excels at map traversal which is a win-or-lose factor, and then Blight and Spirit are also up there as free-with-a-grind options.
Conversely, if buying a 'good' paid DLC killer is paying to win, does that mean that buying Sadako is 'paying to lose'?
Rather, paid DLC are like expansion packs that give you more options to play with.
Take Destiny 2 for example. A paid expansion pack unlocks a fourth energy class tree, Stasis, to add to your base classes of Void, Arc and Solar. Stasis is pretty strong, but it doesn't mean that Void, Arc and Solar are weak, because they each have their uses like any class system, which still functions like a rock-paper-scissors paradigm. (admittedly Stasis did used to be very OP, in which case it could have been argued to be PTW, but it's balanced now)
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That's not what pay to win means...
With that logic i could say i do way better with Trapper then with Pyramid head, which then clearly proves that this game is in fact not pay to win
Pay to win means that a person who has no dlc has no chance to perform as well as a person who does have them. Which straight up isn't the case.
Strongest options for characters are available by base or unlockble, same for perks
There is not enough difference between a player who has all the options and one who doesn't. Not enough to be paid to win. Both can perform at the highest level roughly equally
If DbD would be a pay to win game then any game that has dlc is a pay to win game and pay to win means absolutely nothing
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The topic is about specific characters though, not perks.
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yeah? like it kinda is. you get the strongest killer at base, so you dont need to pay or grind for that
but lets say you want to run corrupt, call of brine, eruption, pain res (a classic meta build) - you need to buy plague and artist for 9000 shards each, so lets say thats 2 weeks of playing a couple hours a day (i think thats pretty generous), and you need to either spend $7.20 (aud since idk other prices) for sadako and another $7.20 for nemo OR get super lucky with the shrine, but realistically that can be months to years of waiting
so if youre a free to play, you can get most things free, but by refusing to spend money you are missing out on strong and fun killers and relying on stupidly unreliable rng to get some of the strongest perks in the game, and itll likely take multiple months to grind for the content you can get free, when you can just skip out on a few meals for the week and get it all instantly
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Well, it's just basically me and my friend were having a conversation at work about dbd like:
"Pyramid head is the best killer for me, I'm always 4k with him"
"You should try better killers at this point"
"I tried, and It wasn't working"
And then I just come up with thought... "Does this mean this game is pay to win?"
In pay2win projects, there is nothing good about it tho. These types of games usually end up really bad... And I think it should not happen to dbd by any means, but the ammount of licenced characters are worring me...
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The OP does bring up perks, though... and I would still disagree that the game is PTW from that angle. A ton of survivor meta perks are available from the start - Dead Hard, Adrenaline, Sprint Burst, Unbreakable, Borrowed Time, Prove Thyself.
With killer, it's a bit less so, but you still start out with Sloppy, Jolt, Tinkerer, Nurse's Calling, and NOED. More than that, I also don't consider any characters that can be bought with shards to be behind a paywall. I have all the characters, and the only original DLC I purchased was Demise of the Faithful. So for perks like Pain Resonance, Corrupt Intervention, Off the Record, Circle of Healing... they're not paywalled. Getting all of them is a daunting task, but ID'ing which one you want most and beelining for that character isn't prohibitive at all.
Yes, they're not all available from the start, but that's true of most games. You unlock stuff as time goes on. As for having to pay to access licensed characters - no, it's not ideal, but they can't make that stuff free without bleeding money. I'd rather have a BHVR that stays fiscally afloat than a game that's a free for all but crashes and burns within six months.
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*SPOILER ALERT*
Here's another thing:
There is currently 28 killers, 18 killers are free, and 10 pay to play killers, *Spoiler allert* new killer is going to be a licenced one, so we'd probably have 11 ptp killers and 18 free.
And this is what actually worries me. When a company rapidly trying to pull out the money from my pockets, by making a stuff which can affect your gameplay, but only obtainable for real money.
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Or you may not do better with a dlc character than an original. Nurse is free with the game and one of the best killers if you play her a lot for instance. Huntress is pretty popular and also pretty decent, even Wraith does ok.
I think you’re confusing “pay to win” with “pay for variety”. You can definitely do just fine spending no money on the game. Not to mention even if you do want a new character you can unlock a lot of them for free at a rate or about one per month if you play a few matches a night.
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In one word 'Eruption'.
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Yes, I agree with that.
But still in the case of my conversation with my friend, he's right. He has a pretty valid point.
The thing that worries me (I mentioned above), is that Behaviour in 2022 released only 1 free killer (Dredge), and 3! Licensed killers (Sadako, Wesker, Spoiler|Knight)
I really don't mind to spend money on a game that I like, but when the game is just rapidly snowing a "Pay to play" stuff on a players, with intend that this stuff is better than a free, It's going to lead to an pretty unhealthy scenarios. (Remember Blizzard?)
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no
the strongest killers are almost all free to earn, if not given to you straight away in the case of Nurse. Strong perks are in the shrine all the time, and most of the strong survivor perks are from free characters
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that doesnt change the fact that nurse is the strongest killer, and pyramid head is a b tier at best
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"Nurse is a strongest free killer" should not be an excuse for developers to make more and more licensed (pay only) stuff in the game.
I'm absolutely ok with perks and outfits. I'm even ok with killers being obtain only through real money, but don't you see what is happening?
More and more licensed characters are being released, I feel like in the near future we'll have more "Pay to play" stuff in this game, than a free... And it's not ok in a game, which you already have to buy.
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licensed things NEED to cost money. DBD paid for the licenses which likely costa lot, they need to get their money back somehow. i agree that dbd shouldnt cost money anymore, but every game has licensed things that cost money
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I do not think you understand what Pay to Win means.
Pay to Win means you are spending money to gain an unfair advantage over other people (and said advantage can only be obtained by spending money).
What makes DbD not Pay to Win is Nurse and Blight out-performing every other killer at the highest level of play due to them mechanically being the strongest, regardless of your actual skill level, you cannot physically ignore the fact that Nurse and Blight are the strongest killers in the game that anyone can access. Especially when the most of the world records for fastest matches and longest win-streaks have been recorded with Nurse and Blight, which are true displays as to how much stronger they are than anything else.
"Oh but I 4Ked with a licensed killer" is not a valid argument for the game being P2W when I get load into a game of Trapper or Billy and walk out with a 4K as well, I get play a game of PH and walk out with a 0K as well, sometimes I 4K. Just because you do well or poorly with certain killers does not mean something is Pay to Win or Pay to Lose, it just means you are better or worse with certain things. Maybe take the time to learn Nurse or Blight?
The proper term for DBD is not "Pay to Win", but "Pay to Grind Less", everything can be unlocked in time, and DBD is hosting tournaments that let you basically get licensed content for free (or alternatively you can get an access code from Fog Whisperers since they give them out, it's how I got a lot of my DLC content), I unlocked everything on my main over the course of a year and a half, but the only benefit you gain from spending money on DBD is spending less time actually playing the game.
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The reason they keep making licensed killers is because there's a massive demand for them, both from the existing playerbase and the potential playerbase that may join the game from crossover. They should absolutely keep making more licensed killers - it is a win all around.
As it stands, all of the strongest killers in the game are original - Nurse, Huntress, Blight, Artist, Spirit, Hag, Plague, Oni. Tons of different playstyles are contained in that spread. This is not an issue.
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In other games that I've seen, licensed stuff are only skins or outfits, no practical in gameplay. DBD is literally the first game, when I see a licensed stuff being used in a practical way.
Let's see... I played very long ago 2014 or even less - Archage, WOT (World of tanks) and MMO (I completely forgot the name pardon me)...
In Archage you have to pay real money to be able to craft armor and weapons.
In WOT you have to pay real money to obtain some tanks and different types of bullets, which you can't otherwise.
And in MMO (I forgot the name), you have pay real money to buy armor and weapon sets from the in game store, and they were not just cosmetics.
Do I really don't know what "Pay to win" means? Ehh.... Not to mention the Blizzards.
I agree, it keeps the game at the highest population, but why so many in the last year? I'll repeat 3 licensed and only 1 free character in 2022.
Why don't they make 1 licensed and 1 free character one after another? It will not be so forcefull imo.
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You know that subjective opinions like "I dont like how a Killer looks" does not make a game pay2win? And even if someone does not like the gameplay, this does not make the Killers any less stronger.
I dont like the gameplay of Nurse so much, I play her, but she gets boring pretty quickly since you dont feel like you are outplaying Survivors (unlike many M1-Killers or a Killer like Billy). Yet I cannot say that she is not the strongest Killer.
And well, she is so strong that you dont have to pay any money to win with her. You also dont need any Perks of licensed Characters.
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You're assuming the next killer (probably a Knight) isn't going to be available for shards. That may or may not be true but we don't know either way yet.
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OP does mention perks, that's what I focused on specifically in the thread. As for characters, I don't think they are pay to win as the devs specifically balance them around 60% to be fair across the board (correct me if I'm wrong).
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this is where you are 100% wrong, your friend or any other DBD player is not entitled to a win, pay 2 win means you can only win with paid characters or that you have some super extreme advantage, this is not the case as every killer is just different, yes some are weaker than others but objectively original killers are actually better/stronger and they are all free.
The base DBD game gives you killers that you can play as soon as you start and the others that can be obtained for free if played enough. It's not DBD's fault your friend is not good with free killers, so maybe get better?
And they cannot give licensed characters for free. They also reduced the grind, I mean DBD has A LOT of issues, but this is not one of them.
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What licensed characters? Wesker? Wesker is the newest killer and his pick/rate and kill rate is high simply due to that fact + he is
fun to play and people like him. Before him we got 2 free killers with Artist actually not only being top among 5 stronger killers possibly but also she brought 1 absolutely game-changing killer meta perk to the game and then we got Sadako, Pinhead and Nemesis, all of them are objectively just not good as top tier killers. It's actually kinda funny how Behaviour is making the killers you have to pay for B tier at best in most cases while their original killers with strong perks that can be obtained for free are in the A-S tier category
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Pay to win? No, not at all. As a survivor you can escape with 0 perks providing you have a half decent team and RNG is on your side.
Pay for an advantage? Absolutely.
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*Spoiler alert*
the next killer may very well be free (more likely actually based on the teaser) and the devs have stated they don’t want to release more licensed characters than original ones.
also, considering everything the licensed killers aren’t even that expensive if you want one (and not all at once).
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I wouldn't necessarily say it's play to win.
I would say all perks should be available in-game though, licensed or not.
As for killers, the licensed ones aren't best in game anyways. As for the original ones...well..they are also not so great too.
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Yes, the prices are really low, no matter how much I'll rumble about the game being pay to win, the prices are fairly low, and thats a really good thing.
*SPOILER ALERT* xD
As for new killer, we all know that this is a colab with For Honor. All the time if it's a colab with other franchises, it's going to be a licensed chapter, which is only obtainable for real money, sadge. And we just got passed a Wesker with Ada and Rebecca.
Edit: So we have to prepare our money again, right after we brought Project W.
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For some players they are the best. Or at least better, than original.
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In theory, the only things you have to pay for are the game itself and the licensed DLC characters, Survivors and Killers alike, and I believe that's part of whatever arrangements BHVR has with the license holders. Everything else can be ground out and purchased with Shards. Those grinds are crazy and the Shrine is random on top of that, so I'd call it less "pay to win" and more "cost of convenience" of having characters/perks more readily available.
Post edited by Zeidoktor on0 -
Pay to win? By definition, no.
Pay to reduce grind? Sure.
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Fair point
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But then this stirs the question. Should Nurse be nerfed, what would then happen? The next free killers after nurse are far behind other paid ones in a tier list.
Does this mean Nurse should forever stay the strongest just for the sake of the game not being p2w?
Even if something is unlockable through grind, it's still P2W. I'll give Clash Royale as an example, since the game is notoriously known for its P2W mechanics. People who didn't pay could get to higher arenas, but you'd need to play for sooo long, to unlock stronger characters. Someone who paid got them right off the bat, quickly winning their way to high arenas. F2P players could unlock the op characters too, but it would take so long it was basically impossible to win for the first many hours.
Considering many meta perks / good perks are locked behind a paywall, it's p2w. Yeah, I can still get Superior Anatomy without buying RE PW, but, I could as well have to wait 3 years for it. Should it become meta sometime, I would be unable to get it without money.
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If you're choosing to not use the strongest option available despite it being free, that's not the devs fault. It's not really pay to win.
You can play nurse with sloppy, NOED, jolt, and bitter murmur to have a fantastic build. It will improve a little with progression too, giving you star struck, NWO, corrupt, overcharge, and pain resonance as potential unlocks.
Sure some of the best perks in the game right now are tied to paid only characters, like Eruption, Call of Brine, and Deadlock, but those are far from required to make a meta build.
Corrupt, NWO, Pain Res, + 1 free choice of NOED/overcharge is easily one of the best builds you can equip that is only improved slightly by the inclusion of the other perks.
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I mean survivors get a bunch of strong perks from free characters while killers get fewer but they do get access to -the- strongest killer in the game for free so it's not that bad.
Yes, if you want -the- strongest meta perks then you'll need to pay or wait for them on the Shrine but again, Nurse doesn't need busted perks to slay.
Some strong free perks:
Surv: Sprint Burst, Dead Hard, Unbreakable, Prove Thyself, Adrenaline, Bond, Lithe (if on console), not to mention the universal perks like Kindred, Inner Healing, Spine Chill, Resilience, We'll Make It.
Killers: A Nurse's Calling, Tinkerer, and the universal perks like Jolt, Sloppy Butcher, NOED, Fearmonger.
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if you have to pay to get the meta perks is pay to win, is undeniable the game being pay to win. Eruption get nemesis, deadlock get Pinhead, Call of Brine? get sadako every single strong perk that is also meta right now are pay to get no shards or anything just pay to get them. thats literally pay to win. And those perks carry thats also the reason why it is pay to win.
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Guys.=) I really appreciate you time you've spent to write, and all the advices... But I'm not talking about perks. xD
I'm talking about exactly the characters.
For anyone who's saying that "Nurse is the strongest free killer, thats why it's not P2W" - it's not an excuse, as harsh as it may sound.=)
Tbh, I was quite surprised to read Mandy's comment so calmly saying that "Nurse is the strongest free killer", I wanted to ask... Aint that a balancing issue? So the nurse is being the strongest killer is an official excuse to say this game is not p2w even if they have practical characters for real money only?
I'd really love to see what she's gonna say, when they release a licensed character which will be stronger than a Nurse.
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We don’t know if it’s a licensed For Honor chapter. Actually I don’t really think it is. (and rumours don’t suggest it to be either)
but there have been 2 and even 3 licensed/money only DLCs after one another. In the end though, originals will stay on top..
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