Developer Update April 2021 Discussion - Nightmare / Huntress / Demo / Twins & Perk Changes
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/241887
We’re back with another Developer Update, a series of posts going over the biggest changes coming to Dead by Daylight. This time around, we’ll cover a long list of Killer, perk, and quality of life updates that’ll appear in the upcoming Player Test Build (PTB).
KILLER UPDATES
THE NIGHTMARE
For some time, The Nightmare has stood out from the crowd with a particularly high kill rate, averaging roughly 3 kills per match. With that in mind, we’ve made some slight tweaks to bring him closer in line with the rest of the roster.
We’ve decreased his movement speed while placing a snare to 4.0m/s (previously no speed change) and reduced the maximum number of placed snares from 8 to 5. Likewise, the maximum number of dream pallets has been reduced from 10 to 7.
A handful of add-ons have also received changes. Add-ons which previously reduced action speeds now make various actions louder (repairing generators, grunts of pain, and footsteps). Black Box also has a brand-new effect: When an exit gate is opened, it is blocked for sleeping Survivors for the next 10 seconds.
Alarm clocks have also received some tweaks to make their effects clearer and more rewarding. Using an alarm clock will now make you fully immune to sleep— including sleep caused by a Killer hit — for 30 seconds. This effect is now shown on the HUD by turning your sleep timer yellow and having it tick down.
With these changes, we hope to promote more strategic use of his Dream Traps rather than placing them constantly during a chase, as well as encouraging Survivors to seek out and use alarm clocks. We’ll monitor his performance closely and adjust where necessary going forward.
THE DEMOGORGON
Our focus for The Demogorgon is to give it more mobility with its portals. We’ve made the following changes to base portals:
- Increased speed while in a portal
- Reduced cooldown after exiting a portal
- Increased Undetectable length after exiting a portal
On top of these changes, we have done a complete pass on The Demogorgon’s add-ons to make some of the lesser used ones more appealing.
THE HUNTRESS
Don’t panic: We have not changed The Huntress’ base kit. We have, however, done a pass on her add-ons to bring them up to modern standards. Yes, this included the infamous Iridescent Head.
THE TWINS
Last but not least, we have a small set of tweaks for The Twins.
- Increased cooldown after successfully downing a Survivor with Victor from 3 to 5 seconds
- Camera control is now immediately restored when taking control of Charlotte
- Silencing Cloth: Increased Undetectable duration to 20 seconds upon taking control of Charlotte
- Iridescent Pendant: Increased Exposed duration to 30 seconds when a Survivor crushes an idle Victor
PERK UPDATES
SMALL GAME
It has come to our attention that some of you really hate small piles of bones. To aid you in your totem destroying mission, we’ve made some long-requested changes to Small Game:
- Small Game now shows the number of remaining totems as tokens on the perk
- The detection range decreases by 5° for each totem cleansed
- Small Game no longer detects Killer traps
These changes improve Small Game’s ability to track and cleanse totems while also removing the antiquated part that only applies to specific Killers with traps.
LUCKY BREAK
Lucky Break now hides scratch marks in addition to blood pools to help you lose the Killer. To compensate, the total duration of has been reduced to 70/80/90 seconds.
SOUL GUARD
A small change here: Soul Guard now has a cooldown of 30 seconds after activating.
Realistically, this won’t affect the vast majority of cases. This change is purely to prevent stacking healing speeds and Soul Guard from getting out of hand.
OPEN HANDED
Take two for Open Handed: We’ve slotted this update back in for the upcoming PTB.
Open Handed now has an increased effect (8/12/16 meters), but no longer stacks with itself. This makes the perk more appealing on its own without needing to stack it with other Survivors in the match.
ZANSHIN TACTICS
A very straightforward change: Zanshin Tactics is now permanently active and also has a larger range.
BORROWED TIME
To remove some confusing intricacies with how Borrowed Time interacts with some Killers and the Oblivious status effect, we have removed the terror radius condition from the perk. To compensate, we have reduced the duration of the Endurance effect to 8/10/12 seconds.
OBJECT OF OBSESSION
This PTB also features the newly reworked Object of Obsession: Any time your aura is revealed to the Killer, their aura is revealed to you and gain a 2/4/6% bonus to healing, repairing, a cleansing speed. If you are the obsession, your aura is revealed to the Killer for 3 seconds every 30 seconds.
This new version has a few benefits:
- Being able to track the Killer
- Being able to deduce which aura reading perks the Killer is using when Object of Obsession activates
- Being able to attract the Killer and then sneak away before they can get there
With these changes, we hope to make Object of Obsession a more fun and interactive perk for both sides.
MISCELLANEOUS BALANCE
TOOLBOXES
The chance to receive a skill check while using a toolbox has been increased. This change makes toolboxes feel more interactive while they’re in use and is totally not because the lead designer had a skill check challenge and got unlucky three matches in a row.
HATCHES
Another small tweak: We have decreased the time the hatch remains open after a key is used from 30 seconds to 10 seconds. Like before, if the hatch closes naturally (is not kicked shut), the End Game Collapse will not start.
Please note that this is not the final change keys will be receiving. We’ll share more info on the future of keys as soon as we can.
HUD UPDATE
For the 4.7.0 PTB, we have made some more changes to the HUD; this time focusing on the visibility of Killer powers on the Survivor portraits. In this update, we have made improvements to:
- The Doctor’s Madness effect (also made it easier to differentiate between different levels of Madness)
- The Nightmare’s Dream World effect & sleep timer
- The Plague’s Infection meter
- Stalk meters & Ghost Face’s mark
Additionally, we’ve also adjusted the Survivor portraits so they no longer obstruct the bottom of power indicators.
STRUGGLE UPDATE
In an ongoing effort to improve accessibility, we have changed the way struggling works starting in the PTB. Rather than needing to mash a button, Survivors in their second hook stage will now receive occasional skill checks. The success zones are fairly large as we’re not looking to make struggling more difficult/deadly at this time.
Missing one of these skill checks will remove a chunk of your struggle meter. If you do not attempt to hit two consecutive skill checks, you will be immediately sacrificed. As you receive skill checks, your struggle meter will gradually decrease at the same rate as before.
Our goal with this change is to make struggling more accessible to players with repetitive strain injuries while keeping struggling as an interactive mechanic.
GRAPHICAL UPDATE: COLDWIND FARM
I was going to put a funny intro here, but it was too corny.
In case you missed it, the next realm slated for a graphical update is the Coldwind Farm! Check out some concept art from the upcoming rework.
On that note, we’ve reached the end of this Developer Update. All of the changes mentioned above will be available for testing in this week’s Player Test Build, starting April 13th. We look forward to reading your feedback once you’ve had a chance to try them out!
Comments
Will huntress have her own chase music and menu theme now that her addons have been changed
Devil's advocate: Rotten Pumpkin now lets you destroy portals that are now useless due to all nearby gens being done.
seriosuly?! i just bought the nightmare on elm street dlc and now youre nerfing half of it?
"Happy mapwide shrieking noises"
That totally crack me up xD
Wouldn't be better to just make a mechanic in which Demo itself can destroy it's portals that are no longer useful?
and it makes you destroy portals whenever you use them.
On second thought you, it allows demo to go away from "portal network" playstyle and roam the map more freely and just have 5 portals set where he needs and use a spare portal to access this network from anywhere you want.
It might be interesting.
It came out over three years ago dude.
So wait with the borrowed time change, it used to get you 10 seconds max of endurance so now its buffed there and in the fact it happens every time?
That...is interesting.
For a meme addon, it does add an interesting play style option for him.
It's one of the better meme addons as it's not a straight downgrade for pity bloodpoints.
We knew for some time that Freddy was getting nerfed.
Every Totem, as the Tokens represent how many totems are left on the map so it goes down every time a totem is cleansed by any survivor.
Also, are we getting new TR music for the Killers? Demo and Twins already have their own music, but will Huntress get an update to her TR? Will Freddy, with his license?
Borrowed Time change:
The thing with this change is, it promotes bad gameplay with unsafe unhooks behind the killers back and hook farming. That already was the case before the change but it will not make it better. Basically you can unhook everytime, without consequences. So strap on BT and shut off your head while unhooking. Its also a nerf for stealth killers, which already arent in a good spot. I dont like the concept of strong perks having no counter play at all, giving a free hit every time.
Shttps://twitter.com/DeadByBHVR/status/1381663329165410308?s=20 seems i stand corrected....but we will see.
i know but its still kinda frustrating
Yeah, it basically means you don't have to be afraid of wasting a portal to teleport, so you can play like freddy with an exception you teleport to portals instead of gens.
im surprised that out of all killers it was him
I'm actually very curious to see the effectiveness of such a tactic.
well just remember every time you had to waste portal to get to another/you had to lose portal/objective because you didn't want to waste a portal, every time you had a useless portal and think how different would things turn out if it wasn't your concern.
The only downside would be that you'd basically have to play -1 portal if you want access to them from any point on the map.
They explained why he was nerfed.
Freddy was annoying and was overperforming by a huge margin. He deserved a nerf.
This might be a little too hard of a nerf but we'll see.
ive seen way more posts complaining about spirit and nurse but ok. the thing that annoys me about this nerf is that freddys only ability that actually helps him during chases is now not even as useful
OoO is going to be annoying.
Alright. Things I will comment on are things I take issue with, and presumably, I am fine with the rest.
I do not like the Lucky Break change. I was hoping to see it become more like a simple, permanent to your character like Iron Will is. Or, at the very least, changed so that the perk refreshes whenever you're fully healed. 70 seconds of no scratch marks or blood trails is just too gimmicky and is easily countered by not tunneling down that one survivor.
I nominate you to become a developer for a day and make this change happen.
that is what the developer promote in survivor gameplay. Press E to outplay. free unhooking, free god pallets, free wins. I mean remember, Borrow time was invented to be a perk to counter camping, specifically facecamping like Leatherface. Instead what the gets used for is hook bombing and rushing generators vs killers that have natural defensive gameplay style in locking down areas like Hag. Thanks for buffing the most braindead survivor perk of all the time.
Boring and unispiring, previous mid chapter was MUCH better and full of content
I was afraid of what I was going to read, and I was right...
Small Game will only be used by forum killers who will now also respond "use Small Game". I'll sum up, now all solo survivors have to play Small Game and Kindred (and DS, of course!). It is obligatory, otherwise you do not have the right to criticize the game. What fatigue... Basekit or nothing.
Toolboxes... Ah yes, it was very important to increase (again?) the chance to receive a skill check, to make them more "interactive". If there was a problem with toolboxes, this was it. I love skill checks, I even have an Android application to continue doing them, even when I'm in the toilet. Skill checks is my passion. You should consider adding some to totems and chests to make them even more interactive.
There would be a lot to say, but it's useless anyway, like PTBs. I continue to watch the evolution of this game, but definitely, I risk continuing to look elsewhere, more and more.
Otherwise, thank you to the graphics team, it's very beautiful. Just a small note: the atmosphere of the map seems a little too... warm, maybe? But why not.
I'm saying it: people will still DC when being instadowned with Iridescent Hatchet
That's a joke right, last mid chapter had a terrible hud which was barely manageable, and other bugs
My own comments and predictions as follows
Iri Head - Reasonable nerf that should of been done years ago.
Borrowed Time - The shortened Endurance timer in exchange for the proximity setting is reasonable. The few killers who could get around it were edge cases anyway. My only concern is it's EGC power will frustrate some players - my first thought is that I know I'm going to personally be more motivated to remove somebody from the game in situations where I might of let them go so I don't get stuck dealing with it in EGC just to prevent this situation when I otherwise would of just played around my terror radius to counter it. But again, an edge case. So likely not going to affect most of us.
Farm map reworks look a bit bright for my taste - I liked how gloomy they used to look. But, it may look different on my rig so I'm willing to give it a chance.
Am I the only one rolling my eyes that they are nerfing pallet Freddy? So much for a higher skill cap for Freddy, this is just a base nerf across the board with no additional skill factor on the killer players part. Also, perhaps I'm just being salty but why the hell aren't they doing anything for trash killer perks? This and last time it was only a single killer perk that got a super minor and pointless "buff" while the survivor side gets 5+. Bruh I'm so glad I quit this game, I forgot how utterly annoying it can be watching them fumble every patch cycle.
They did say Freddy was bound for a nerf sooner than later.
When the Devs say
more fun and interactive
Be afraid, be very afraid.
Maybe, if I actually see soul guard being used.
Lucky Break and Demo still need changes. For the rest of the things this is a really good update I'm very happy with!!
"Also, poor Freddy mains. Ouch, this gotta hurt."
It does. It is not the end of the world, but it does hurt.
I feel it's warranted though, it sucks to have your favourite character changed but out of everyone I think Freddy & Spirit deserve it the most in all honesty, I hope you're still able to play him and enjoy him after the patch.
Thank you, and I assure you that I will. It is impossible to make quit Freddy, there is a reason why he has been my main ever since I first started playing DBD (2018). However, out of every single change only one of them was good.
And I don't think he needed a nerf. Spirit? Maybe. But not Freddy. The only he needs is an option to revert his power back to its original version, which is something that we didn't get.
I can't believe there is no mention of fixing Huntress hitboxes?! "Don’t panic: We have not changed The Huntress’ base kit". Well, her basekit was beyond broken Devs. Play against her if you don't believe me. Impossible to dodge the hatchets.
It's still a good thing Iri-Head is finally nerfed. That's a celebration :) But the nerf isn't enough. The main issues with Freddy and Huntress are the gigantic and uncounterable hitboxes. Freddy wasn't nerfed enough, a killer shouldn't teleport directly to an objective using unfair perks like Tinkerer and BBQ. That's just broken. So the borrowed time change was actually good but why is the time being nerfed so much? A compensation for killers again? A compensation wasn't done with DS when it was slaughtered. Lucky Break also nerfed for compensation. Soul Guard nerfed. OOO nerfed too of course. ZANSHIN TACTICS killer perk buffed. Demo being buffed. Way too killer biased in every update.
Probably because it's more of a technical thing than something related to her kit.
There is nothing wrong with Freddy's hitboxes. My babe is a smol boi, so his lunge looks weird. But it is actually the same as everyone else's and this was confirmed by the devs.
I was mostly referring to Huntress. Freddy being slowed down when he sets those puddles is still something I wanted :) Is it enough? Probably not. lol
Yes, it is more than enough. The reduced movement speed is a good change, I cannot argue with that. The rest? Extremely unnecessary.
Yes, and not only that, any killer power, perk, or addon that gives you some form of Oblivious is now invalid and worthless with respect to BT. This is a giant buff for BT and nerf to every Oblivious element of the game, and it is frankly pathetic balancing. Probably going to invest my time in Home Sweet Home now, I'm tired of this garbage.
Freddy - glad to see his slow down add ons are being changed, hopefully no more matches that go on way too long. He was a super easy 4k, he's the one I'd put on any time the "kill x survivors" challenges popped up because he was quickest/easiest to get that challenge done.
Huntress - wish they put in distance requirement but atleast now limit her to one hatchet.
Demo - not sure how much this really improves him.
Twins - really wish they'd address the camping with Twins. Also wish they'd make it so survivors would receive points for being in chase with Victor.
BT - wicked happy it's not based on terror radius.
Small Game - Happy for totem counter, disappointed it's connected to perk. Guess this rules out totem counter being "future addition" to HUD as a reason for the changes we had.
HUD - Still needs improvements after this.
Farm maps - look pretty but also looks like yet another map that nerfs Trappers power.
So first off I have some complaints:
They should have made rat liver base kit with Demogorgon. He's not so strong that it would be an unfair buff; and it would give him the FREEDOM to use other addons.
Like, even that new whistle as good as it is....I would still use Rat Liver over it; that would just be the second addon I take if I could. I might not even take that because for a purple addon it's still not very good...You still have better brown and yellow addons than you do that purple you've shown....I'll have to see the others.
The Lucky Break buff was a bit much possibly; that is (maybe) a little over powered even if it is only for the start of the match (Have to see it in practice). They may need to make it increase your sounds of pain, or make it so your sounds of pain cannot be silenced rather for it's duration, to prevent it's use with iron will for that time. Even then we'll see, I need to see what it's like in practice first it might not be as bad as I suspect it could be; but it's worth keeping an eye on because it lasts for a long time and on some maps that could mean you just lose any chase if a survivor has it, and if 4 people do it's a real problem.
With Freddy honestly these nerfs are okay for the most part but he isn't as strong as other killers you are not nerfing....Why? Because his kill rate is too high because he is too easy? Then why not raise his skill ceiling instead of nerfing him for everyone to be even worse than killers you are not nerfing? I don't understand that logic at all... I would rather his potential be kept the same but his skill ceiling be raised so he had to think more about using his power, this would have lowered his kill rate across the board except with people putting the actual effort to be good into him. (Also they nerfed his pallets like....######### lol....)
Huntress's move speed iri addon is boring and lame; I mean why on earth would you care about your move speed if you don't have a power? Neat addon if it wasn't an iri I guess.....
It still looks like there might be a bit too much obnoxious corn on the Coldwind maps; have to see it in testing but at least it's brighter I guess =/ Maybe they put some effort into actually doing something new and gave it animations or something finally; or is that wishful thinking from devs that can't animate half the killer's heads?
With all that out of the way; everything else other than what I said, I really like a lot. It sounds like I hate it but I really don't, there are more good changes than bad changes here, but I can only hope at least some of the problems I mentioned above are addressed, even if it's just a couple (Primarily with Demogorgon, I mean that would not be a hard problem to solve, and for the love of god don't solve it by just nerfing rat liver)
The nerf on the traps don't bother me too much since his antiloop was never his strongest point to begin with. I am concerned with his slowdown addons (which IMO were his best) and the invulnerability to sleep with the alarm clock. I would be okay with the alarm pausing the sleep timer, but not being able to put to sleep even with a attack will hurt him a lot.
Any word on Trickster's knives not increasing the chaser emblem being fixed?