Developer Update | Year 7 Roadmap Additions
It’s hard to believe that it’s already been 8 months since our last Anniversary Broadcast, yet January somehow managed to sneak up on us. During that broadcast, we shared a roadmap detailing some of the features we would introduce over the following year, many of which have already become a reality. Our next anniversary is still several months away, so today, we’re happy to announce even more exciting additions to our Year 7 Roadmap!
But first, a look back at the roadmap itself.
Kicking things off in July, we released one of the largest updates to date. This update rebalanced around 40 perks and completely overhauled the game’s progression system. Further progression and balance changes would be made throughout the year. Matchmaking Incentives were also introduced to help alleviate long queue times and provide a new avenue to earn Bloodpoints.
In September, an early preview of the Finishing Mori system was tested on the Public Test Build (PTB). This new mechanic brought trials to a gruesome end, allowing Killers to finish off the final Survivor with style. We collected plenty of feedback throughout this test, and the team is hard at work implementing it.
December, meanwhile, brought Bots in Custom Matches, letting you practice in a no-stakes setting to your heart’s content. Not to be forgotten, we also introduced the much-requested Team Based Ratings to the matchmaking system thanks to your feedback.
Before we knew it, January was upon us. The wiggle system was officially taken out of beta and fully implemented with some tweaks. We also improved the queuing experience, allowing you to browse various menus while waiting for a match. Archive challenges could now be tracked during a match, letting you know when you’ve completed your selected challenge(s). And with that… we’d reached the end of the roadmap, leaving us free to work on exciting new things. The January update also featured the much-anticipated Survivor Activity HUD, something that was not originally on the roadmap.
But the question is, what’s next? As always, we’ll share our plans for the next year during our anniversary, but there’s still a few months before then, so let’s dig into a few more exciting features you can expect in the coming months.
Bloodweb Improvements
If you went back in time one year and told people that “too many Bloodpoints” would be an issue, nobody would have believed you. Yet here we are. With the various improvements made to progression over the past year, many of you have found yourself with a surplus of Bloodpoints and not enough time to spend them, making the spending process a bit of an inconvenience.
Within the next few months, we’ll be making improvements to the Bloodweb to make it easier and faster to spend your Bloodpoints than ever before.
Survivor Bot Loadouts
Survivor bots received a very warm welcome when they debuted late last year. Though the Survivor Bots are robots, we’re sure their cold mechanical hearts were touched. Since then, an average of 70,000 bot matches have been played each day. This feature made it easy to jump in and try out the new content in the Forged in Fog Chapter when it released, a time where Killer queue times tend to be longer as everyone flocks to try out the newest addition to the roster.
The first version of Bots in Custom Matches was fairly simple, but we’ll be expanding on the feature shortly with loadouts, allowing you to introduce more variety in the Survivor bots you face. Please note that not all perks will be available to bots: Some perks will ultimately be too complicated for them to use effectively, and we’d hate to make them too smart and be the cause of the robot uprising.
Map Repeat Prevention
Variety is the spice of life and Dead by Daylight is no exception. With so many maps in the game, it can feel a little underwhelming when The Entity decides to send you to the Groaning Storehouse for the sixth time today. Even if it’s your favourite map, eventually you’ll want a breath of fresh air.
Soon, we’ll introduce a new mechanic which guarantees that you won’t be sent to the same map twice in a row. The odds of being sent to the same map will also be decreased (yet still possible) for the next few matches.
Visual Terror Radius
This past year, we’ve been working hard to make Dead by Daylight more accessible to a wider audience. For those who are deaf or hard of hearing, the terror radius can be difficult or even impossible to keep track of despite being a crucial part of the game.
To remedy this, we’ll be introducing new accessibility options which, when enabled, will provide a visual representation of terror radius.
Visual Update
The Realm Beyond continues! We’re in the process of visually updating one of our older realms. By now, you probably know what to expect, so we’ll save the teasers for when this update is a little closer. That said, there aren’t many realms left to update, so you’ve got a pretty good chance of guessing which one it is.
Perk Updates
We’ve put a lot of focus on general improvements and quality of life features as of late, but we’re pleased to say that perk balancing is going to pick back up shortly. Like before, we’re hoping to include a small package of perk changes with each Mid-Chapter Update going forward. We’ll share more details as these perk changes are closer to release, but since we know what you’re about to ask, yes, one of the perks we’re looking into do rhyme with Shmeruption.
Limited Time Cosmetics
For recent events, some of the more festive and spooky outfits we’ve debuted have only appeared for a limited time before returning to the vault, taking some holiday themed cosmetics from past years with them. We never had an opportunity to announce these cosmetics, so we’d like to take a moment to discuss how they will work moving forward.
As the game has grown, hundreds of outfits have been added to the store. Where one outfit used to be a major addition, these days it is just one of many to choose from. By vaulting these holiday themed cosmetics, we hope to simplify the store and make these seasonal offerings more meaningful when they return each year. (Do not fear: We guarantee they will return!)
We know many of you don’t want to miss your opportunity to get these outfits, so we want to clarify how these limited time cosmetics will work. New limited time cosmetics will be available for purchase with Auric Cells. When the event period ends, these outfits will be vaulted (removed from the store) until they return the following year. The next time they return, they will be available with both Auric Cells and Iridescent Shards (excluding licensed characters).
For the sake of transparency, here is a complete list of all the seasonal collections to date which will be available for a limited time. We hope this list gives you a better idea of what to expect and allows you to plan around it.
SPOILER WARNING
Halloween:
Tricks and Treats
Midnight Grove
Halloween 2021
Future Halloween Collections
Winter:
Ugly Sweater Collection
Deck the Trials
Bone Chill
Holiday Horror
Winter Tales
Cozy Break
Future holiday collections
Lunar New Year:
Lurking Stripes
Gilded Stampede
Scarlet Swarm
Moonrise
Moonlight Burrow
Future LNY collections
These new additions to the roadmap will be releasing as part of multiple updates over the next few months. As is tradition, we’ll go into more details regarding each one when they’re closer to release. Before we sign off, we want to take a moment to thank you for diligently providing feedback over this past year. You have helped shape these additions to our Year 7 Roadmap, and will no doubt impact the plans for years to come.
Until next time…
The Dead by Daylight team
Comments
No, the Resident Evil x LNY Collection is not time gated. Thank you Capcom.
If it's good enough, I can see everyone using it for a competitive edge, because a good visual cue could make it even easier to pinpoint the Killer's direction and distance.
The feedback from the finisher mori system was mostly universal dislike. Why are more resources being dumped into this?
Only good way to handle it would be getting the mori without an offering if you get the last Survivor. :T
I'd like to offer some feedback on the visual terror radius. At the moment, that feature is rolled into Spinechill. One problem that the visual terror radius on SC provides more information than hearing the terror radius does. With hearing the terror radius, you know the killer is near, but it's hard to determine if he's getting closer or further unless there is a decent distance change. In other words, it's hard to hear when he's one meter closer or one meter farther, or if the killer has suddenly broken off chase. With the visual terror radius on spinechill, you can tell PERFECTLY just how far or close the killer is. You can tell in a chase the MOMENT you gain distance on the killer, or the MOMENT the killer gives up and goes off in another direction without even having to look behind you to keep tabs on where the killer is. This is information HEARING the TR does NOT give.
To address this, I would suggest that the visual terror radius instead gets filled in segments. Instead of pixel perfect increase or decrease information, have the visual TR get broken up into segments that fill. Let's imagine it's like spinchill's perk icon. Instead of a perfect pixel clock format, it's a box that's broken up into 8 "slices" of a pie. As the killer gets closer, more slices of the pie light up in a clockwise manner. As he gets further, less slices are lit. This will simulate what players would typically hear....that the killer is getting closer or farther in general but without the ability to get perfect information of exactly how close or far. Now you won't know the exact nanosecond when a killer gives up on chase or if you're gaining distance unless you're looking at him. With this in place, both normal and hearing impaired players would be on equal ground information-wise.
If the visual TR goes into affect like how spinechill does currently, then all that will happen is that everyone including regular hearing people will enable the visual aid because it provides MORE information than would be gained with just hearing a TR.
You can rest easy, we absolutely do not plan to reduce BP gains (or slow progression in any way). We're only looking to make them easier to spend.
The visual TR is very cool, but how will it interact with killers like Huntress and Freddy who are balanced around a small TR with a large and obvious lullaby?
Currently the only killers with a lullaby are Huntress, Freddy, Twins, Trickster, Onryo. With some of the easily missable lullabies like Onryo I can see arguments for why it shouldn't be shown visually (God knows that Onryo doesn't need more nerfs to non-condemn playstyles) but there should definitely be at least a case by case for showing a killers lullaby visually if they're clearly balanced around it.
Really really happy to see this - these upcoming QoL improvements are going to be a huge help. Most excited for the easier BP spending and no map duplication - but overall some really exciting changes in here. Great job, BHVR.
There will be more information coming in due course and like pretty much everything players will get the opportunity to test and give feedbacks in PTB's.
and so what if they do? It's for accessibility which no one gets to gatekeep.
Finally Eruption will be no more
Then it shouldn't be left as an optional accessibility choice, should be enabled by default, and then balanced around.
I'm just saying, it is possible that an accessibility option could provide a competitive edge without harming gameplay some other way, so it's worth baring in mind that it might have to stop being an option.
Agreed we should also enable colour blind filters by default and balance the game around those too /s
It's accessibility, it's only active when you could hear a heartbeat but for those who are hard of hearing, who cares if people who can hear also use it, it doesn't change anything.
Why should it be enabled by default? I am hearing just fine, I dont want something popping up when I am in the Terror Radius.
And from what I read, it sounds more like something which pops up when you are in TR, but you have to locate the Killer yourself - same with the audible Terror Radius. You are just trying to find a point why an accessibility-feature might be bad, while it should have been implemented long ago already.
Seriously, I'm not saying it's bad, I'm saying it might be more precise and easier to read than the audio cue. Depending on exactly how this is implemented, that would de facto mean the accessibility option is an advantage even to those with good hearing.
And if you put something in the game that gets far more widespread use for its power than for its accessibility reasons, then you might as well just make it baseline and work around that.
Like, imagine if 50% of high-MMR players started using that. Has DbD's best player base secretly had really bad hearing the entire time, or is it an advantage? If it's an advantage, just integrate it into the default experience.
They are going to nerf them into the ground so that they aren’t used at all. Look at BHVR’s history. The only exception to that is Dead hard, which is still an unfair perk.
They said they'll make chances to get the same map several times in a row lower. Pretty sure offerings are safe here and will work as usual.
Just hoping CoB and OC don’t get thrown into the nerf train.
I wish they wouldn't 💔
PLEASE MAKE THE BLOODWEB SILENT/SUBTLE/OPTION TO MUTE INDIVIDUALLY. PLEASE. PLEASE. QUIET BLOODWEB. PLEASE. FAST IS IMPORTANT BUT QUIET IS TOO.
Why do devs always try to make FOMO a thing? Its the digital age, stores don't 'run out' of space. Just leave all the selections in the store available, period. jeez.
I have been with this game since the very start - I am deaf/Hard of Hearing. It is about time an option was made to help people like myself who cannot hear the terror radius...or the skillcheck warnings...or the groaning of downed survivors to be able to pick them up... Very excited to see how this will turn out!
Thank you!