Is tmi hurting match length?
Firstly I am not talking about voice comms/swf. I am trying to bring attention & referring to the overflow of hud information. I can't help but feel as if valuable moments of confusion are lost during a match. Hud notifications grant us near immediate knowledge of what is affecting us and how to remedy it. Every hex and lingering status become known and focused upon once implemented. While it is important to know something has been applied, I have to wonder if the specifics are necessary. Based on what is happening when the effect is applied gives a good indication on its own. While I know many may not agree with this and I can respect that opinion, think long-term down the road when we finally get a balance between survive with friends solo and killer. Those intense moments of confusion where the team itself is trying to figure out what's wrong and how to solve it could add valuable time to the match lengths without the need for additional secondary objectives . Give us icons that covers multiple effects instead of individual ones, as this puts everyone one the same field regardless of communication. Momentary lose of direction is a subtle but strong effect. That's my thoughts anyway.
What concerns or opinion do you have in regards to the inflow of info and where should Dev's draw the line?
What concerns or opinion do you have in regards to the inflow of info and where should Dev's draw the line?
Comments
Give us an example.
dying light, thanathopia, coulorphobia, sloppy butcher
Each of these give an icon and by doing so tell you the source. The minimal time is wasted in trying to fix the status because you know why.
Now picture a senerio where the knowledge gain is absent:
First 1/2 of the match goes well enough with focus on the obsession, killer running distressing so he was easy to avoid. Killer finally gets a hit but you slip away. Healing is in red, tr pounding, do you take the time to leave tr or heal anyways. During which time he kills off his first target.
A snowball senerio I know, but one where the survivors must take time to discern which effect is active and how to minimalize their suffering.
i don't know if it would take up enough time to make a difference, but i do like the idea of status debuffs being more vague( or not at all in Lullaby's case, at least until you get tokens), instead of having the exact perk icon telling you whats causing it.
I think past Rank 10, it is fair to hide all status indications aside from NOED.
However, there is a plethora of game mechanics that are not explored or elaborated on in-game. I can see that people can get frustrated from a lack of guidance. It is reasonable to expect players to be able to recognize challenges they've faced before, but the game needs to do a better job at introducing them.
It's more of a nuisance than a penalty, in my opinion.
But obviously we need rank rewards to encourage people to climb (including portraits that make people feel special), and public season records to shame derankers.
nuisance, penalty, whatever you want to call it... we have people deranking as it is, this seems like it would just give them another reason to do so.
also, if the survival rate is already below 50% a change like this is only going to drop that rate lower(and I know, I know, the stats were supposedly skewed, blah, blah, blah... I'm working with what I'm given.)
not to mention this change would only increase the gap between SWF and solo, which is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing.
The Cursed Status Effect needs to go, except for people in ranks 16 & lower.
As a new player you have no idea at all what all those things mean, they pop up at your screen and your ... mhm ok I will just continue as before?....
Unless they play in SWF, but thats a different story of course.
I think if you removed all the HUD info, it will make for a better horror experience. However, I also think that the hide and seek element of that will get boring pretty quick.. and by pretty quick I mean about a few dozen hours. It might be good for a hardcore, separate mode, but if you want to appeal to people who want more than just a hide and seek, you need something that allows them to feel like they have some awareness to make the game more engaging.
Example;
lullaby hex would not show up on side screen once tokens stack, the player would have to notice that response time is getting shorter and be called away from gens.
Healing bar is red while in the tr and injured, is it thanatophobia or colorphobia
Not my intention if that's how it sounds, I may just be bad at converting thought to script. My concern and questioning is how much wasted time is removed by telling players exactly what is wrong. The central idea behind my alternative senerio is that all players are informed that something has activated without providing a straight line to the fix or counter. The red bar when progress is affected is great, everyone knows something is interfering. Showing which perk/status is active is not, it comes across as not a player counter to its effectiveness but a indirect limitation on time gain. The player is not spending time to discern which action would be most beneficial as the answer is just handed to them.
While this is all just speculation without a way to test it, this may be a way to draw out some hidden time without the need for gen tweaks.
with that said, I do agree that having all of that information readily available DOES take away from some of the tension and fear of the game... but as I can hardly ever survive a round as survivor as it is, last thing I want is that to get even harder.
(and while I'm sure I will likely get a "git gud" response from someone, I'm only rank 13 and I'm usually the main one going for unhooks, getting gens AND totems AND usually the last one alive... but still every round today has been a loss. admittedly the only round I could have escaped from I died thanks to my own altruism and his NOED)
I agree completely that something like this would need to be exstensivly test and further balance made for solos. I am thinking that by making that info more directionless it would actually raise solo closer to swf. Voice chat will always hold a stronger advantage for teamwork, but by limiting what can be conveyed accurately we create more windows for time. A swf who may be injured in the TR is less capable of voicing a killer strategy and load out.
" I'm hurt, the Killer is nearby and progress is in the red." It's a little more difficult to pick a part compared to
"he's got thanataphobia, colorphobia and sloppy butcher."
While this does heavily veer towards survivors, I am having trouble thinking of any Survivor perks/info that prompt for the Killer outside of visual effects. For the most part survivors tend to have a pretty well-hidden loadout. Best example I can come up with is no mither. Remove the indicator at the start of a match so it only becomes visible once the killer has actually engaged with the Survivor and gained visual confirmation.
There's no reason for any of this happen, even what the OP has said.
I'm all for lack of knowledge, confusion, and having to predict things instead. But the status ailments are not the place to create such environment.
Huntress Lullaby is excluded because it's also been recognized to the devs that its alert to when you are cursed is inaccurate (it shows up before tokens)
Sooo, what would getting rid of the status effect do? I'm still gonna be aware there's a curse y'know til i hear the BOOOFFFFF
Survivors should know when they are being effected by a perk, the Killer does too. (Just my opinion)
The reason is to not have the risk-reward Perks not have the reward part 90% of the time.
But... you know they'll still know regardless right?
Like, you have to go to a generator to be known of Ruin... which means regardless of a symbol or not, you'll know it's there?
Again, Huntress Lullaby is excluded.
There's no sense (TO ME) to your reasoning
They'll still know regardless.
So there's no need for them.
This in turn allows potential against those few that don't know. (There's always gonna be some.)
You know, taking advantage of them lacking information or being misinformed, which is a big factor in any PvP game.
Check
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/32855/1-giant-thing-that-holds-back-stealthy-gameplay-and-how-to-solve-it#latest
We've had a whole debate on whether we should add more or less info to the survivors-side and covered whether the game should go into the blindness direction or into the Equal-To-SWF direction when it comes to information given by the game.
We are currently in the middle and this too is a problem.
It's an unnecessary change, even more of a reason not to touch it.
It will have no impact on gamplay. Therefore, worthless time changing so.
The idea isn't to hide everything all game, but to extend a momentary pause while they come to the conclusion. Some things will be recognized right away especially unique effects; ruin for instance. Its an effect which is easily spotted and counter known. But with effects that overlap its that lack of visual and meta knowledge which adds tension to the killers pressence resulting in cautious or foolish pacing. This is by no means a fix all suggestion, it an inquiry as to how much time is game time is lost with informational hand holding.
Honestly I would have no issue if I was proven 100% wrong as we all get an answer.
With regards to exposed status, yes it makes it terrifying. Imo the balance isn't in the notice given but the fact it can be observed , avoided, prevented and/or removed.