We reduced the grind!! (except we kinda didn't) Part 2 Bloodpoint Boogaloo
Howdy folks, it's your favourite angry DBD nerd here to be annoyed a second time. I made a post after the "grind reduction" was first announced, where I did some math to determine that the grind reduction seemed to be in name only:
@KnotEnthusiast said:
So BHVR has announced their new reworked perk and BP system, claiming that at long last they have cut down on the grind. How wonderful! But I do have one question: who has it cut down the grind for? Cuz from what I can tell, most players will actually suffer from this new system, as long as you're striving to have complete builds. An example:
Lets say I'm John Q Newplayer, and I just installed DBD. I really like anime, want to flex that I know what the word "kanabo" means, and would like the katana I bought at my local strip mall to feel like it was worth the purchase, so I want to pick up Oni! But I want to have the option to play any way I want, so I want all of the perks on him. How hard will it be for me to do that?
Well under the old perk system, it was a heck of a feat. I had to get every killer, level up to level 40 on each one. Then take my boi Oni, and just keep leveling him until I had all perks. With the current system, that means I have to buy every perk 3 times to get the max level. Since there are 97 perks including the generics, I need to buy 291 perks. But! After level 40, I can get two perks per bloodweb, doubling my progress. So after 39 levels I have 42 perks (you get your 3 t1 perks for free), which means I have 249 to go, which I can do in 125 bloodwebs. So my final level count to unlock all of this is:
40 levels on each of the 28 killers, which is 1120. Add the 39 and 125, and you get 1284 levels. Dang, that's a grind! Now lets see how much the new system reduces it!
Now, teachables are gone, and everything is dictated by prestige. Heck yeah! So if I want all perks on my boi Oni, all I have to do is get P3 on every killer, then get the 15 levels to unlock Oni's 4 perk slots, and I'm in business. Math is pretty easy on this one, just get every single killer to P3 level 1, which is essentially level 150. So 28*150+15 equals...
4215. Thats....a lot. Way way more than 1284.
"But KnotEnthusiast!", I hear you cry, "When you get all perks on one killer, you get them on everyone!" And that is true! But all you have to do to get all perks on every killer is the 126 bloodwebs (because you got them all to level 40 for the teachable, but buying the 2 teachables cost you two perks). So if you keep doing that, then you can get all perks on 23 killers before you even get close to the same number of levels as getting all perks in the new system:
1284+126*23 = 4182 levels.
But hey, at least that's something, right? While it might be worse at first, after 24 killers you're making profit! And there's also an argument to be made that the bloodwebs from levels 1-30 are significantly less expensive than those at 50 up, reducing the effect a good bit. But there's one issue:
BBQ AND CHILI'S BONUS IS GONE.
Because of the "reduced" grind, the BP bonus from BBQ is gone. So if you were someone who ran the perk frequently (IE, literally everyone), then congrats, your BP gain has effectively halved. So all of the levels required in the new system are essentially doubled, making the total even more ridiculous. Not to mention that addons, items and offerings now essentially double in price for the same reason.
Another example: a vet player with all perks unlocked, when a new killer comes out. If you want their teachables on another killer, then you need to level them up 150 times. Whereas beforehand, it was 40 times, then whatever killer you wanted their teachables on either 5 or 6 times depending on entity RNG. So again, worse case scenario you can get the new perks on 18 killers (40+6*18 = 108) before you start reducing the grind at all, not factoring in the BBQ bonus loss.
I hope I'm missing something, because honestly this new system with the loss of the BBQ/WGLF bonus feels worse than the prior system. Plus you can no longer level one killer/survivor completely then use them to grind, you have to do everyone at once.
TL;DR: The "grind" has barely improved if at all based on the perk rework, and if you factor in the loss of BBQ or WGLF, then it has actually gotten worse.
This discussion was responded to by @Peanits :
@Peanits said:
There's one huge point you're missing with the new system: Once you've prestiged for the first time, a character's teachables are instantly unlocked at tier 1 and tiers 2 & 3 can be found in the bloodweb.
So in this hypothetical scenario where you're starting from scratch and only care about getting all perks on your Oni, you actually don't need to prestige all the others three times. You can prestige once with them and go right back to leveling up your Oni (even giving his Tier 3 perks to every other Killer in the process).
So the numbers would actually look like this:
27 * 50 = 1350 (levels to P1 all other Killers)
(84 * 2) + 39 = 207 (perk tiers to be found on your Oni)
40 of the bloodwebs will be between levels 40-50 and feature two perks.
So all in all, you'd need: 1350 + 207 - 40 = 1517 levels, the majority of which are smaller levels and not full sized level 50 ones, to get all the perks on your Oni.
And should you ever decide that Oni's not your cup of tea anymore and start working on your other Killers, you've only done an extra 57 Bloodwebs, so you haven't wasted a ton of time. The numbers very quickly start to turn in your favor after the first Killer.
Who said that the fact that you could get all killers to P1 and then level accordingly in the most efficient way possible would result in substantial BP gains as you leveled up more and more killers. So I've been thinking about that, and because I am a total nerd and dislike losing my sweet sweet BBQ bonus, I figured I'd actually calculate that value.
So! We can start by explaining what the most efficient way of getting all perks on every killer, then calculate the number of levels required, then compare them to the current method. I'm also going to ignore inherent inefficiencies in starting out leveling, such as that before you unlock any teachables in the new method, a small number of levels will be wasted on bloodwebs that have no perks, as you will not have enough perk levels to fill every bloodweb up to 50. I also will assume you get the RNG that results in the most favourable amount of bloodwebs possible, and no perks get eaten. I'll also be calculating for killer, because there are fewer and therefore less work.
Most efficient level up method in the new system:
Much like the most efficient method in the current build, the best way to get all perks starts with getting all teachables on every killer. So, every killer goes up to level 50, then prestiged. But once we hit this point, then things get a bit more complicated:
Between P1 and P3, there exist 100 levels that will unlock 120 perk tiers. However, as you P3 more and more killers, the number of perks you have to buy to complete a killer drops, as you unlock more teachables by P2 and P3ing. So to get the most optimal leveling system, you have to find the balance between leveling up killers to P3 to remove their tiers from later bloodwebs, but not so many that you're wasting BP that didn't need to be spent. So, being a good nerd, I did what I had to do:
I MADE A SPREADSHEET.
BPmaths.xlsx
Using this spreadsheet, I found that P3ing either 14 or 13 killers resulted in the least BP used, at roughly 3458 levels used. Notably less than the current 4182, but nowhere near the magical 75% reduction that the devs keep touting, and not even close enough to warrant the loss of BP bonuses on perks. This also isn't counting the new 50k BP fee to prestige, which is basically just an extra level that provides no perks to your total. I'd love to have my maths proven wrong, so if anyone sees a mistake, let me know.
TL:DR: I made a spreadsheet to find that the grind has reduced 18%, from 4182 levels required to 3458, not the magical 75%. According to Peanits, this should have been the most BP saved, but I'm still hard pressed to see how this new system required that BBQ and WGLF needed to be nerfed. This feels like the BP grind is simply going to get much worse, and urge the devs to make their BP bonuses base kit.
Comments
You really went above and beyond, well done. I'm somehow not surprised by the results.
Holy ######### man hahahahaha well done my nerd, I tip my hat to ya. That is impressive. Also I also want to hear from the devs now. Cause it seems they lied about the 75% 🤨
They did. It's nowhere near that close, and it doesn't help a majority of players. Mainly just those that already have everything. It's a fake fix.
Removing tiers still would've been better
Yes, on top of that bbq and wglf BP bonus was removed!!!😭 They should've made it base kit, instead of us having to rely on role bonuses, i'll never see survivor bonus, since I play at night, and there's always more survivors at night!!😭
The thing you're ignoring is that DBD is an old ass game and the vast vast majority of players have been playing for a while. There aren't very many brand new players in 2022. So yeah, starting from zero might only be an 18% reduction, but for the overwhelming majority of players who've already put in some work on the grid, it's a massive reduction and almost makes unlocking everything an attainable goal.
I do agree though that the 50k prestige fee is a little silly.
You're also ignoring the context of the 75% reduction. The 75% was going from playing 4 hours a day to an hour a day to unlock everything in a patch.
I just checked the PTB, and thanks to the grind changes my level 1, freshly bought Haddie now has 7 pages of perks.
Explain to me how this isn't huge for me.
Thank you so much for doing the math on this!
The last time I tried to argue how this won't be a reduction, I died fighting alone on that hill.
Yeah but those are the very people you want to reduce the grind for. Those that are already invested are more likely to put up with the status quo. Ideally you should reduce it for both, but yeah especially now with the '50k' before you can do anything AND losing huge blood webs and higher item rarity. Lolololololol.
They've increased the grind. Losing BBQ and WGLF is a 100% or lets say 50% loss of bloodpoints on average for only an 18% less grind which only matters at the very end. I think most rational people agree that sure perks shouldn't be attached to bloodpoint gain but there's no way in hell this magic 75% number is anything other then fairy tales and looking through rose coloured glasses that distort the image to whatever you want.
Who wants to bet that 75% will become the new meme to make fun of things they do. 'Oh but don't worry guys it's 75% less pain in magical Christmas land'.
They didn't say it's a 75% reduction to the entire grind. They said it's a 75% reduction in the time it takes to unlock everything on everyone when a new chapter comes out. The math checks out.
It's not as relevant now but I still only have tier 3 BBQ on a couple killers. Now, if there's a perk I want on everyone, it's really easy to set that goal and actually see progress towards it.
Sadly most peoples' attitudes seem to be 'it's better for me, so it doesn't matter that it's worse for a huge number of other players'
The grind is still insane no matter what and it's a issue. Now it's a force grind to get all the perks since I have to p3 over 50 characters, but hey they took away the blood point gain from perks an nerf the shrine of secrets, hurray.
Thats true. Most people are selfish and don´t think of the others.
The apathy of many people in the community and hell the world makes me very sad at times. 'It doesn't effect me so why should I care' is going to cause so many problems.
The math says it'll be a reduction.
If you pop up magically banned, I wouldn't be surprised. You won't get a legit rebuttal to this.
18% reduction on top of 50% BP gain reduction, effectively 1.6x grind?
The grinding reduction will be barely noticeable for new players and worse for players who only use one character.
A guy who just bought the game will have to at least prestige 1 every characters if he want all perks and then obtaining the consecutive tiers in the bloodweb, prestigin 3 every character is a chore and more grindy for a new player.
A guy who only use The Trapper for example and used to level the other killers to lvl 40 only for unlocking the tier 1 perks in his bloodweb now have to level the future killers to level 50 for obtaining the tier 1 perks of the new killers, 10 level more and without BBQ bonus, so, more grind.
Yeah the grind is bad, I mean I know the “75% grind reduction” was referring to the perks. But I feel the grind in this game is too much, and this coming from someone with multiple P3s, and bunch of hours in game. I understand most games have a grind to leveling up characters and it’s an optional goal but yeah. When they first announced a grind reduction, this isn’t what I had in mind.
yeah they reduced the perk grind I guess but we still need loads of bp to even get to lvl 50. I honestly feel like the x2 bp events should be base. With how many killers and survivors their are it’s not that unreasonable. At least a 1.5. This new grind reduction is fantastic for the people who have played for years and already have p3 everything. For new and just casual players it’s just eh
You've got BHVR'ed
The new system is ultimately disappointing. A few points
It's an interesting case, as in a vacuum that one scenario is a decent savings: the old system required you to get the new killer to level 40, then unlock their perks on other killers, which would take 5 bloodwebs assuming good RNG:
1 1 0
2 1 1
2 2 2
3 3 2
3 3 3
then getting all perks on the new killer, which is 125 levels, for a final total of 305 (5*28+40+125)
The new system, at its most efficient, is the same as the all perks one: Level new killer to 51, then get their perks P3 on the other killers, which takes only 4 bloodwebs:
2 2 1
3 2 2
3 3 2
3 3 3
Because when there are only 2 perks left, you can only get one, which requires 2 bloodwebs (though all of this is assuming you're between levels 40 and 50, the number of levels required doubles if you're not, but they're arguably cheaper levels). So the new system totals to 162, or a little over half. Still not 75%, but still quite a bit of savings.
An interesting aspect is that, in order to do this with the next killer that comes out, you either have to P3 the prior killer to not have to worry about it, which adds 100 levels flat, or keep the prior killer at P1 and buy their T2 and 3 on the new killer. This actually isn't a problem for 2 killers after the original one left at P1, as you'll unlock all perk tiers of the P1 killers in the time it takes to get to P1 on the new one: 60 perk tiers between 1 and 50, with 39 tiers of non-teachables to unlock, and 6 tiers of their own perks. This leaves 15 perk tiers unused on the road to P1, which on the second and third killer would be used to buy the 6 tiers of all non-P3'd killers. But from there on out, you start having to invest more in the new killer to unlock everything. 3 extra levels on the forth killer, 9 on the fifth, 15 on the sixth, etc.
Does this matter at all?
Not even slightly. If you write out the Sigma calculations for the amount of levels required for both the old system with the ever increasing number of teachables jacking up the level requirements and the new system with this level increase every time, you compare:
Σ(9.5n+267) from 1 to 23
to
Σ(10n+191) from 5 to 23 + 686
where N is the number of new killers added past 28. This converges at some value around 310 new killers, but at any point past 23 you're just leveling new killers to p3 under the new system so the value never increases.
I don't know why I did this. Someone help me.
Bumping this cause I wanna see BHVR respond to this. so not 75%, that was a lie if your maths is right.
On top of that, you have to P3 to get the most viable perk tier, adding a 50k BP fee to prestige and getting rid of the BP bonus on perks.
with that 75% being the justification.
seriously what the hell behaviour and @Peanits
If you use BBQ every game like I did, it unfortunately is not.
lower every item price by 2k
brown - 1k bp
yellow - 2k bp
green- 3k bp
purple-4k bp
pink - 5k bp
ez and the most important thing is that according to dbdleaks they can simply change bloodweb prices on their side without updating the game
Is it? You tell me if it’s helpful for you. Because if it is, then it works
Thanks a lot for your hard work, thats much appreciated. Still, I think the new system is vastly superior to the old. In the old you had very little control over what you actually got and the few characters that I prestiged were quite the gambles. When I P3ed my Pyramid Head I had comparable builds during P0-P2 .. but P3 was an absolute slog and I only got my favorite perks back once I hit P3+10.
With the old system you only needed to reach lvl 40 with a character that you didn't want to invest too much into, but now with the new system you actually get a lot of control over your perk loadouts, just getting a character with important perks will unlock these for everyone else and this feels so much more meaningful then just unlocking them on other characters bloodwebs.
Also, while I am as much on the fence as everyone else about the needless 50k bloodpoint tax to prestige, now prestiging doesn't come with the big bad disadvantage of old, ie you dont lose EVERYTHING! Before the decision to prestige a character wasn't taken lightly and usually involved a marathon of using all the good add-ons, survivor puddings/escape cakes and other consumables. Heck, I always wanted to prestige my Ace because he is a cool guy, but from his native perks he got sooooo many purple and iridescent items that I would have never prestiged him.
Everyone thinks I'm nuts too. I've tried to tell them the grind reduction is nowhere near the 75% claimed.
I am sad they will nerf the farming perks.
same, i disagree with peanits reasoning, especially when we are having to P3 everyone and paying to Prestige
True, but desirable add-ons and offerings will be much harder to come by, based on receiving fewer BP from perks
You gain some, you lose some. But I really appreciate that your teachables now are actually a meaningful investment and don't just clutter up your Bloodweb. In the PTB I could open up any of my less played lvl 40 killers and already got a lot of the perks I love unlocked. This is huge.
Thanks for doing the math. They could've just removed perk tiers or made BBQ/WGLF bonus base-kit. Or even reduce the cost of everything in the bloodweb by 1k. Any of those would've been better. These changes feel stingy.
I hate to sneak in again and ruin all your hard work (huge kudos for going through the effort of putting together the spreadsheet!), but there's another big oversight here: Prestiging resets you to level 1, meaning you get the super tiny levels again. The overall bloodpoints required ends up being ~75% lower, not the number of levels. You spend way more BP per level on the old system by repeating the huge level 50 bloodwebs.
True
You need to calculate this again using perk levels instead of just simply levels.
For reference:
291 total Killer perk levels
1st Killer P1 - 62 perk levels
2nd Killer P1 - 65 perk levels
3rd Killer P1 - 68 perk levels
28th Killer P1 - 143 perk levels
Now go back and reset all Killers from 1-27 and give them 143 perk levels.
You are saving 1218 perk levels simply by getting Prestige 1 on each Killer.
Now think about this if you wanted all perks on all Killers in the old system but left them at Level 50 (because you lose perks on Prestige)
Those 1218 perks you just saved in the new system -- Guess what they each cost 25k in the old system at level 50.
Thats 30,450,000 bloodpoints.
Your math isn't right.
doesn't this mean that in order to get iridiscent add-ons the grind will actually be more now, though?
Thats...literally exactly what I did. The whole point of the spreadsheet is determining the balance point from where the required levels to get all perks including teachables from prior P3 killers drops under the number of levels required to get that killer to P3 to unlock their perks for subsequent killers. That's why the number of killers leveled to P3 isn't 28, but 13, and every killer thereafter has their level requirement step down incrementally. From then on out, the BP you save by unlocking via bloodweb exceeds that of unlocking via P3. This is also why you get to all perks in only 56 levels past P1 on the most optimal level: you've already earned all of the rest via prestiging. All of this is laid out in the full spreadsheet I attached.
If you're gonna say my math is wrong, at least actually look at the spreadsheet, I even labeled it ;_;
You don’t lose them though when you prestige any iridescent addons will stay
But that's got its own problems. The huge level 50 bloodwebs have tons of goodies in them, where the early webs are mostly low-level clutter and you don't start regularly seeing high-level items until maybe level 25. It's fine for some killers like Demo, Ghostface, or Hag, but typically, most killers and all survivors don't want an abundance of browns and yellows. You figure there's lots of reagents, shrouds, bloodpoint single category modifiers, and basement/hatch offerings in that area, and those are all very unwanted items.
The perk grind's been improved, but addon/item sustainability has gone way down with this. I can't really see this as good for anyone who already had most or all of their perks unlocked. Adding in the loss of bloodpoint-booster perks and the flat cost for forced prestige and the new prestige system isn't really looking as promising as I thought it would be.
it doesn't matter, because I never prestiged any character and didn't intend to do it anyway, but now you NEED to prestige in order to proceed to the next bloodweb - or am I missing something?
I was waiting for the Peanits rebuttal to come in. Boom. Worth the wait.
The grind is a part of the money-making strategy that modern online multiplayers use. It keeps players playing. Having the grind behind paywalls earns them more money in the end. BHVR cannot drastically reduce the grind in a straight-forward sense because their board of directors probably wouldnt allow it.
I hate to complicate things for you but your calculations aren’t taking into account that the cost of a bloodpoint level changes over time as your level increases. The first 20 levels are significantly cheaper than the last 20 levels because the size and rarity of nodes both increase as level increases. Your spreadsheet though seems to be assuming that all levels are equal cost.
I think to actually get a sense of the cost of the true optimal path you need to take into account how many levels you need to go from level 1 to level N based on the assumption you made of getting one perk increase per level.
Also, as an aside, as a practical matter you don’t need to get all perks to level 3 for them to be useful. There are quite a lot of perks that level 1 or level 2 are fine (e.g. I doubt anybody cares about the differences between Devour Hope 1, 2 of 3 or NOED 1, 2 or 3.) So honestly there’s probably characters you simply don’t even need to bother Prestiging past Prestige 1 if you don’t care about getting all three of their perks leveled up on all your characters.
Plus there are perks that you might not even consider using on certain killers and don’t care if you unlock higher levels of them. Like if you play as Plague, do you really care if you have Coulrophobia unlocked on her?
*sniff sniff*
What's that I smell?
ANOTHER SPREADSHEET.
This time I mapped out the levels required to be spent of my optimal pattern, the 14 P3 then effective leveling after, and quantified the number of levels in each tier. I then hopped on over to an older Zubat VOD, and calculated the average cost of a bloodweb in each tier from when he was leveling his Dredge for the first time. This was from P0, so the BP costs were as low as possible due to the rarity increase from later prestiges not kicking in yet. I then quantified each tier in terms of a percentage of a "full" tier, a 50+ bloodweb. But I also added the cost of prestiging each killer under the new system, as it conveniently came out to just about what a 50+ tier bloodweb cost.
And still, after alllllllll of that, the percent savings still doesn't even eclipse 50%. In the best case leveling scenario, which literally required an engineer 2 hours of spreadsheeting to figure out, and even with the advantage of the average cost for each bloodweb tier being from P0 where it will be cheaper, it still doesn't hit 50%. Still doesn't justify the loss of my Chili.
Spreadsheets don't lie, @Peanits. Make the BP bonus basekit, or the spreadsheets will be disappointed.
Can we please get someone from BHVR to comment on how higher-rarity add-ons/items/offerings will be much more difficult to grind as a result of this new system?
That may be true, but if someone has already unlocked all perks at tier 3, some people WANT the level 50 bloodwebs in order to have better access to rarer add-ons. Yet we're forced to pay a prestige tax and then go back to tiny bloodwebs that will barely have anything rare or higher. And considering that different killers' most desirable add-on differ in rarity depending on the killer, this makes it really unfair for some killers whose most desirable add-ons are rare and above.
There is zero reason why the token mechanic of BBQ and WGLF is not a base-game mechanic. Both of these encourage players to play in ways that make the game more fun for everyone involved. Both give players alternate game-goals beyond "kill/escape." Both help reduce the BP grind for New Players, just starting the game and Old Vets who are trying to get every perk on every character.
They put a Hook Counter in the game, for goodness sake (and even make the killer version completely useless for no good reason). Bake in BBQ and WGLF. They objectively make the game better.
For the record, this is how low the early levels have to be to get to the 75% value:
This is with every level below 50 having a price of 10k BP, or 2 browns and a yellow. So unless there are some radical bloodweb changes coming that weren't in the patch notes, I have a hard time believing the 75% figure.
It’s a great grind reduction for long time players. For example right now I have all my killers P3/50 except Dredge, and all perks on all killers except Dredge (I’ve barely played killer since he came out).
Now when a new killer comes out, that killer will get tier 3 perks from all the other killers right away. Then I just spend BP to unlock that killers perks on everyone else.
And even on survivors, there are lots of survivors who have all perks but I haven’t P3’d them. From what I understand, because they have all perks, they’ll hit P3 or higher and then all their perks are unlocked on new survivors as well.
The problem is it does nothing for new players or people who haven’t invested a lot. The grind for these people is still insane.