What are the glaring issues of DBD? A list from a new player
So I am a new player who started playing 1.5 months ago, I have maxed 3 survivors and have 2 killers on lvl 40. And I thought I post my feedback because it may be different as to what the veterans think. Maybe some of these things are wrong because I lack the experience but here it is:
Positive:
* Core gameplay loop is great - no, it's godlike. That's why the game is so much fun!
* Playing different killers is fun
* Playing as a survivor is fun
* Lots of meta things to do: Leveling up, customization, different loadouts, trying items, dailies and the "battle pass"-progression
* Progression is fast - but the more survivors and killers are introduced the more tedious it is to unlock the meta stuff for new players. Shrine of Secret could help, but since it's random - it doesn't 99% of the time. Also even though I have maxed 2 survivors I am only able to buy 1Perk in terms of currency... It's faster to just unlock them yourself than getting the currency for the shrine.
While it looks like only 4 points, the core gameplay loop is this game's biggest pro argument. I come back to play it over and over again. It's just fun and it just works!
Negative:
* Game looks dated: The game currently looks like a game from 2005. Even the "updated visuals" I saw on youtube still look like a game from 2015. There is no excuse to have a game look like this when there is stuff like "quixels" which enables single digit developer teams to make a game look awesome.
* No graphic settings - is this a mobile game?
* Can't set multiple keys for the same action
* Survivors are all the same: While killers have their unique ability, survivors only have their perks - which at some point are sharable.
* Survivors are not all the same: They have different heights but the camera is always the same position. That makes playing large survivors a disadvantage. A small survivor blocks 50% vision of the screen (from bottom upwards) while large ones up to 80%(!!!)
* Matchmaking sucks. Why do killers with 4 perks and lots of unlocked shared perks play against players with only 1-2 perks? Also the other way round? Do the devs really think even if you are rank 1 killer, that you can win with a lvl 3 killer with no perks unlocked against max level survivors?
* The whole "unlocking perks"-mechanic is bad game design: The more characters the longer it takes to unlock the perks you want/need. New players have a better time not unlocking shared perks at 30,35,40 unless they are meta perks. This in combination with the ######### matchmaking makes people either play the characters they want and lose ranks or keep playing with other characters while just leveling up the characters they actually want to play. Veterans don't even see the issue because they have amassed so much BP that they can always just unlock everything for new characters. The game literally punishes you when playing a none-max level character
* SWF survivors are unbalanced. Right now there is such a big difference if you play against a premade squad or a none- premade squad. Is the game balanced around premades or non-premades, devs? Since everyone nowadays can use voice chat, the game should just implement it and then balance the game around it. Or introduce a passive bonus for killers for every premade survivor in the game. The game difficulty / balancing becomes so different depending if you play swf or not - it even defeats the purpose of some perks.
* Skill checks are boring after you got the hang out of them. Why is there only one way of doing skill checks? There are lots of good ideas that can easily be stolen from other games e.g. Warframes hacking/mining minigames: https://youtu.be/zktXo78t8bc?t=58, https://youtu.be/zktXo78t8bc?t=255, https://youtu.be/E512egkHYso?t=173 or Bioshock's hacking
* Perk meta is boring. There should be more nerfs and buffs to spice things up. You are seeing the same perks over and over again.
* Only one game mode, when there could be a lot more. There even is already a system in place to increase the odds of which map will be played - the same system could be used for different game modes.
All in all this game screams wasted potential and it seems the devs had a lucky coincidence with the core game play loop because every other game design decision seems bad or could be done better.
Comments
Good reflections, definitely agree with a lot of points, though others I think are a bit shortsighted.
Survivors are all the same: this is a complaint I've seen around before, saying that survivors should have unique skills or bonuses depending on their character. The problem with that is that it then creates a meta around which survivors are good and bad, which would remove even more variety from the game. If you give survivors unique skills, then one will always be objectively better than other, and that survivor is all you will see. There's already a well known trope of survivors picking dark-clothed blendettes for the visibility advantage, imagine if there were survivors that were just straight up better than others.
Matchmaking sucks, this is definitely true. But as for basing your matchmaking on the progress on a certain killer rather than ranking, that I heavily disagree with. DBD has fundamental skills that separate good killers from bad, and same for survivors. A rank 2 killer with 0 perks would still absolutely smash a rank 10 survivor with a full build, because they have skills to outmatch the rank 10, even without any perk bonuses.
The more perks you have, the longer it takes to get the ones you want: that's kinda the point. It sucks for new players, I certainly agree, but I'd much prefer that to the alternative where you can just pick perks to buy. Every character would just have the same 8 perks.
SWF is unbalanced: hooo boy this is a big one. The collective hate-boner this forum has for SWF is legendary, despite the fact that SWF isn't that powerful. Is it an advantage? Sure. But a group of mediocre players communicating will still be mediocre players, just ones that are slightly more efficient. Blaming SWF for losses just prevents players from learning from their mistakes.
Skillchecks are supposed to be boring. Holding M1 on a gen isn't the reason people play the game, it's just the barrier to winning. Skillchecks can't be too involved because the player has to be focused on the map around them, in order to not get pulled off gens. Skillchecks are the perfect balance of something you don't need to focus on, but are still rewarding for those that can do them well.
At the end of the day, not implementing huge changes that may or may not be successful doesn't make the game's potential wasted. Just means that the devs know what is successful and stick to it. There are problems, sure, but it's hard to argue "wasted potential" when this game is as popular as it is.