A Newbie's Frustrations
So I'm a relatively new player (started about 3 weeks ago, Iridescent 3 Killer and Gold 2 Survivor if that means anything to you).
I just wanted to share my frustrations with the game, especially the current grind especially to new players who've yet to Prestige as I actually came into DbD about 3 days right before the update to the Prestige and Perk system.
Overall, the update is good for progression, but it seems as though it really only benefited old players and honestly made the game a bit more grindy for new players. What I mean by this is that before the patch went through, I was able to obtain all Perks from 2 killers by about level 40-ish I think? Now the downside was that while I could then unlock the Perks on other killers, I didn't start off with them, I had to unlock them in the Bloodweb then also upgrade them as normal. With the new Perk system, I have to get to level 50 and also Prestige to unlock perks, which unlocks all 3 of a Killer/Survivor's perks for use on all other Killers/Survivors.
In the long term, the new system is much better as it will allow you to eventually unlock all perks from all characters at their maximum level, it will just take awhile. Despite the BP cost of getting to 50 and also to prestige, I believe it also saves BP in the long run as it decreases the amount of BP needed on the Blood Web as these perks are all automatically given to other character as opposed to need to be unlocked. However, this is all in the LONG term. For new players who just want to try out different builds ASAP, I feel it actually slows them down and discourages diversity since it encourages throwing more BP into 1 character before moving on to the next and the grind is honestly pretty bad.
By suggestion to combat this is to increase the BP cap in all categories by an additional 50% and also to increase BP gain by 50%, just so new players don't have to go through the endless Grind. I also suggest merging the old and new systems. Maybe give specifically Prestige some specific cosmetics as a reward, but have teachable perks be moved lower down in the blood web. By this I mean like at level 30, 1 of the teachable perks is automatically learned by all the other characters of the same category, another at level 35, and another at level 40. This way new players can just get to level 40 and move on. This would also apply to prestige 1 and 2 where at level 30, one of the Perks will be automatically be upgraded to level 2 for all killers at prestige 2 and level 3 for prestige 3.
Another thing affecting the game adversely for me and my friends is just frustrating terrible gameplay that isn't punished. I'm mainly talking about Killers who just hook 1 survivor at a time and then literally face camp them or Survivors who do nothing but try to sneak around because they don't want to risk doing Gens, but get out anyways via Hatch or something. Honestly, I believe the solution here lies in the post I made earlier: https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/337716/a-newbs-opinion#latest
Thanks for taking the time to read my post and I do hope my ideas are considered for future iterations of DbD
Comments
Just wanna comment on your suggestion of "I also suggest merging the old and new systems". The old system is technically still there. If you get a character to P1 you unlock the tier 1 version of their perks on everybody. However, what a lot of people don't seem to realize is that, it also unlocks them for bloodwebs. That's right, after that first P1 you will be able to find tier 2 of the perks in bloodwebs and after that tier 3. So if you are the type to only level one character, just P1 everybody else then level up the perks for your favorite character.
I think a change that should happen, that nobody seems to have asked for but I think is necessary, would be to reduce the size of bloodwebs. Before you could level a character to level 40 and stop, since you'd unlock the teachabales anyway. Now you have to level up to 50 and then prestige. Those 10 extra levels are pretty hefty and add up. The solution would be to either change the level point from 50 to 40 or make all bloodwebs smaller so that when you do reach 50 you pretty much unlock just as many nodes as you did before when you only had to stop at 40.
To be honest, with the sheer size DBD has reached in not sure there is a way to reduce the grind for brand new players short of overhauling the entire system from scratch (something I wouldn't be opposed to, myself)
One thought I did have was take the PC base characters (Dwight, Meg, Claudette, Jake, Nea, Bill, Trapper, Wraith, Hillbilly, Nurse, and Huntress) and have them all start P1.
Gives new players the chance to try out different builds ASAP, while still giving plenty to work towards even without additional DLC.
Making all the base characters start at p1 is actually a really good idea
So I actually did know this and did acknowledge it, but when I said merge the old and new system I kind of just meant when the shared perks were learned/gained which was around level 35-40 where you could already get all 3. The reason I wanted this is because in the old system you didn't need to prestige at all to get the perks you wanted unlocked for other characters so you could spend less blood points on a character and once you unlocked all the perks you wanted you could just level up your favorite character rather than having to prestige each character you wanted perks from.