November Dev Update!
Developer Update | November 2023 - BHVR
Developer Update | November 2023
By PeanitsLast Updated: 2:55 pm
The end of the year is almost upon us, but we’ve still got news to share. In this Developer Update, we’ll cover some of the new features and balance changes making their way to the game in our next update, including a new customization option, a sizeable update to an existing Killer, and gameplay passes for two Realms.
Player Cards
A new customization option has arrived! Player Cards are decorative banners and badges which appear in the top right corner of various menus. Your Player Card will also be featured in the post-match scoreboard so other players can see them as well.
Banners and badges can be mixed and matched as you please, and higher rarity ones will be more detailed with some even being animated. Like other cosmetics, you’ll be able to be earn them in various ways, such as events, the Rift, through login rewards or promocodes, and so on.
With this update, we’ve also cleaned up the menus and moved your player level and grades to a new Player Profile screen, accessible by clicking on your badge.
A small selection of Player Card options will be available starting with this update, but you can expect to see a wider range of choices appearing over time.
The Trickster
When he’s not working on his next album, he’s following his other passion: Throwing a boatload of knives at Survivors. In this update, we’re aiming to address points of frustration for both sides. For Killers, many feel like The Trickster doesn’t quite stack up to the other ranged options. For Survivors, dodging Blades could feel inconsequential since so few would injure you, making it feel unavoidable. We’ll be making a series of balance and quality of life changes to our resident rapid fire ranged Killer.
Rapid Fire
The Trickster’s fast-paced attacks are what set him apart from other ranged Killers, so we wanted to focus on this rapid fire ‘machine gun’ gameplay for this update. We asked ourselves: What’s better than throwing a bunch of knives? Answer: Throwing even more knives.
The Trickster now throws 4 Blades per second (was 3 Blades per second) by default, and his throw rate no longer increases with each Blade thrown.
To keep this feeling fair for Survivors, we have also increased the laceration meter to 8 hits (was 6), as well as decreased the time before it decays to 10 seconds (was 15). This means that the laceration meter will fill at the same rate as before, but successfully dodging Blades will be a little more rewarding.
Lastly, recoil when rapidly throwing Blades can be tricky to deal with, particularly for those playing with a controller. Therefore, we have removed recoil entirely.
This will make your Blades easier to control, making them more skill dependent. The downside: You won’t be able to blame the recoil for that Blade you missed.
Fast Paced
To compliment his quicker throws, we have also reviewed The Trickster’s movement speed. The Trickster now moves at 4.6m/s by default (was 4.4m/s). This puts him on par with other fast Killers, and as a result, The Trickster’s Terror Radius has been increased to 32m (was 24m).
This will not only help him close the gap during a chase, but also spend less time traversing the map looking for his next target.
Combined, these changes will leave The Trickster feeling much more agile and fast paced.
Main Event
Main Event allows you to throw even more Blades even faster. However, this required you to hit quite a few Blades to activate first, taking several chases to charge up. This made it feel fairly rare for the Killer, but also made it a little frustrating if you happened to be the unlucky Survivor to be caught when it was finally activated. As a result, we are making the following changes:
- Main Event now requires 6 Blades to charge (was 30).
- Main Event’s duration has been reduced to 5 seconds (was 10).
These changes will make Main Event available much more often but require the Killer to use it strategically to take advantage of it.
Add-ons
Lastly, we have reviewed the effects of a handful of his Add-ons:
- Memento Blades: New Effect – Decreases time between Blade throws by 5%.
- Inferno Wires: Increases duration of Main Event by 40% (was 25%).
- Ji-Woon’s Autograph: New Effect - Decreases the number of Blades required to charge Main Event by 1.
- Tequila Moonrock: Increases duration of Main Event by 60% (was 50%).
- Fizz-Spin Soda: New Effect - Decreases the number of Blades required to reach Main Event by 2.
- Waiting for You Watch: Increases the duration of Main Event by 0.25 seconds for each Blade hit while it is active (was 0.4 seconds).
- Iridescent Photocard: New Effect - For each consecutive Blade hit, gain a stackable 1% Haste effect, up to a maximum of 7%. This bonus is lost when missing a Blade or putting a Survivor into the dying state.
Made For This
Even a small speed boost can make a big difference in the right hands, making some Survivors very difficult to catch. Since Made For This would activate as soon as a Survivor became injured, this Perk would often be unavoidable. To make this fairer and create opportunities for Killers to play around it, we have added an additional condition to the Haste effect.
After healing another Survivor, gain the Endurance Status Effect for 6/8/10 seconds (unchanged). While you are affected by Deep Wounds, you run 3% faster. Since this is much more situational, this effect now applies while Exhausted as well.
With this change, the Killer can potentially prevent Made For This’ speed boost from activating entirely by avoiding inflicting Deep Wounds on that Survivor. This also ties both of Made For This’ effects together, granting a way to gain Deep Wounds in order to make use of the Haste effect.
Garden of Joy
Joy for some, at least. We have gathered and reviewed feedback for the Garden of Joy map, and in this update, we’ll be making a series of changes to improve gameplay.
First, we turned our attention to the windows of the large house. Previously there were several strong windows which granted Survivors plenty of distance each time they were vaulted, making some chases drag on. We have reviewed the layouts of these windows & breakable walls to make chases in this building fairer.
Second, we have rebalanced several pallet loops to bring them closer to the sweet spot where they are both useful to Survivors and have the potential for Killers to play around them. We have also cleaned up certain loops and removed some small objects which players might bump into by mistake.
Lastly, we have made a few art changes throughout the map to both improve visibility of objects which block your path and introduce small pieces of lore throughout the environment.
Red Forest
The Red Forest is home to both Mother’s Dwelling and the Temple of Purgation. We have similarly reviewed feedback for both maps and are making a series of changes to improve gameplay on them as well.
First and foremost, size: These two maps are some of the largest in the game. This can cause some gameplay issues, costing the Killer a lot of time to cross from one end to the other in search of Survivors. We are reducing the size of both maps to bring them more in line with the rest of the Realms.
Second, we’ve reviewed various pallets loops and reduced the amount of vegetation surrounding them, making it easier to identify loops at a glance.
With that, we’ve reached the end of this Developer Update. Everything mentioned in this post will be available to try in the Public Test Build, planned to start November 8, with the update going live on all platforms in the weeks following. We look forward to hearing what you think!
Until next time…
The Dead by Daylight team
(the official windows twitter account has liked my drawings of birbs I am losing my mind)
Comments
- Big map
- No deadzones
- Main building
Pick 2.
Omggggg I can't wait
MfT is now an anti tunneling perk basically. Or an anti legion & that guy that shoots perk
Is MfT the only perk changed? Nothing for UW for example? Or other perk changes/updates?
i just dont get it. Its basicly another way to make money. You got skins, ranks, prestiges, charms like how much more do you need to show the world what kind of state your character is in? So pointless
Their whole power revolves around deep wound. So they are the only killer that is not allowed to use their power at all if they want to play around survivors with MTF.
Dead zones is a mistake, just spread the gens. Killers with no map control will still have no map control. So its pointless. Main buildingg should be the heart of the map, in other words, it shouold have the most action. rework it. Big maps are needed so killers with map control have a different playstyle and survivors have a better time overall
If survivors stay in Deep Wounds just to have MFT boost against you, then they aren't doing gens. Legion in no way is forced to chase survivors immediately after deep wounding them.
Amazing, a company looking for more ways to make profit with customization options, unreal 🤯
As long as it's nothing that affects gameplay granting certain paid advanatges, it's perfectly ok and for all I care they can start selling porttraits, basement decorations and new animations. Free market provides
After Sadako, Skull Merchant, Trapper and Trickster, the question is:
When is Freddys Turn to shine?
Charlotte/Victor say "HI" as well.
The Deep Wounds screen is a handicap in itself for a measly 3%. If they were going for such a requirement I would have hoped it would be on par with Soul Guard in comparison where keeping a status effect at least feels rewarding.
MFT will now only be used by skilled players to prolong the chase after using their Dead Hard. Seems like a fair change to me, but I still think that there shouldn't be any perk that affect movement speed.
This kills MFT. You cannot control being put into Deep Wound, against most killers you basically never will. DH and OTR only activate after being unhooked, so at most two times per match, so even that leaves MFT way too situational to provide enough value to be worthwhile. Especially considering that the killer might well not chase you through OTR and that DH is far from guaranteed to work out. I'm glad MFT is being changed, but as has happened so often with perk adjustments, it is getting removed completely from the pool of popular perks, instead of adjusting it in a way where it will still be valuable enough to see common use. Reducing the speed boost to 2% and the Endurance duration to 5 seconds would have been one simple way to do that, I think.
I think with this Deep Wound change, MFT should grant a 5% Haste effect. That way it would turn into an actual deterrent to hit survivors right after they have been unhooked, and a tunnelling deterrent if OTR is in play.
Trickster may become even more obnoxiously oppressive in chase. At 4.6m/s, without any recoil and a faster base rate of throwing knives as well as much more consistently available, short bursts of Main Event, I think downing people in 30 seconds will be trivial for any decent player and barely scale with survivor skill. But this remains to be seen in action. As will the map changes. I'm glad some of the visual clutter is supposedly being addressed in Red Forest, and that Garden is finally being nerfed. I hope they won't overdo it however, the Coldwind reworks have left various of its maps/spawns in too rough a place I find. Even more so now that harvesters are in the most useless iteration they've ever been.
about damn time. bye bye mft
That is an impressive level of destruction of MFT.
This perk got an even harsher nerf than MoM. I expected it to be situational, but Jesus, it's actually useless.
Yes please, I just wanna play my favorite survivor again without getting lobby dodged and harrassed
Exquisite!
Mostly good changes but survivors haven’t gotten anything from this. I would’ve liked to see a nerf to UW but oh well.
Pretty good update IMO. The map changes are sorely needed.
MFT is the 2nd most popular perk in the entire game.
Meanwhile, UW has already gotten weaker twice, and it’s STILL not in the top 3 for killer tracking perks. Even though we have so many people claiming “UW makes other tracking perks obsolete”, we STILL have at least 3 other killer tracking perks that are more popular than UW.
Agreed, I rarely used it to begin with but now? never. With everything else this is gonna be a miserable patch for survivors.
Interesting. A whole page about the Trickster and yet, everyone only speaks about MfT.
Which now perfectly stacks with DH. Securing its place on the top mmr. While the not so skilled survivors get the short end of the stick.
Not every patch needs to give survivors stuff.
MFT has been out longer than UW. I have no doubt UW is steadily rising to top 3. My last 10 survivor games had UW. I think it's effects are fine but since BHVR are looking at making more activation requirements I'm sure it'll eventually require more than just opening a locker.
I mean, not really, legion already has to deal with MFT anyway.
Anyone who says that is wrong, because both of those perks are fine.
While this is true, they could have thrown Survivors a Bone in this Patch.
Survivors in this Patch only get Nerfs while Killers only get Buffs (including the Map Changes). AND this is a Killer-only Chapter, so there is not even anything new for Survivors in this Chapter.
I am the last person who would say that both sides should receive Buffs and Nerfs equally, but there is really nothing in this Patch for Survivors aside from Nerfs.
More hand holding by the devs to whiny entitled killer mains.
Have fun playing with bots!
Hence why the perk changes to "Shift the meta" aren't actually going to do anything because the fundamental game has remained the same. Without tons of gen defense, gens go too fast for any killer that isn't nurse to deal with, thus everyone just stacks the best 3-4 gen defense perks and calls it a day. Similarly, on the survivor side, the goal is to rush gens as fast as possible while maximizing the amount of time it takes the killer do things. Thus survivors will generally take 3-4 chase oriented perks or 3-4 perks that allow them to rush gens or a combination of both. Hoping that they can run a killer for the first chase while the other 3 survivors finish up 3 gens and thus the snowball one way or the other begins.
Both sides basically build around snowballing as hard as possible leading to the most matches being relatively boring. The only thing that is going to shake up the meta is to completely change the fundamental game such that these strategies are less effective or handled differently.
I.E. something like, perk classes, where instead of stack 4 gen slowdown perks, for example, you can only take 1. Then rebalance the game around the perks within these classes being relatively balanced with each other. So killers would have say:
The problem there is there are many perks that do multiple things so that would need to be changed. But in general this is the type of thing that would actually change the meta. Or maybe like an "uber" 5th perk slot and they make a set of new perks that fundamentally change the game significantly for both sides and each side can take one of these "uber" perks.
I don't actually know honestly, but the point is that in order to actually change the meta, fundamental changes need to happen rather than just individual perk changes.
If BHVR is looking at making more activation requirements, then they should absolutely look at Windows of Opportunity and Calm Spirit. Because, you know, they have zero activation requirements, and have 100% uptime the entire game.
Distortion also has zero activation requirements, and Distortion being able to regain tokens means that against many killer builds, it can still have a 100% uptime rate.
Or bodyblockers off hook. Bodyblock to protect rescuer, then speed off with the haste.
How did it get weaker twice ? Because it got bugfixed?
Heh I have to agree tbh, I'm ok with nerfs but WHOLE patch is focused 100% on nerfing survivors, nerfing MFT, nerfing garden of joy/ red forest, insane movement speed buff to trickster (very bad idea)
I mean can you look a bit at other side too ? if haste is unfair I think blight and new skull merchant need urgent nerfs too, some add ons are extremely broken on multiple killers, wake up pls stop the one sided updates
I agree, it will be interesting to see Survivors play in a way that forces deep wounds.
The Trickster changes are also pretty exciting, I hope to see more of him in my matches. His chase music is so good.
Also, banners and badges?! That’s so freaking cool! Overall I’m super excited for this patch!
Edit: Typos
Ironically in my matches the bots are usually better players than the person who actually dc’d hahaha
I really don´t get the "its a bad patch for survivors" vibe.
MfT now works while being exhausted...
Please, take a moment to let that sink in.
It now works with DH, OtR, and all the perks that cause exhaustion. So as long as someone is able to hit the DH or get hit with OtR, it now is even stronger than before.
So DH for the higher mmr players and OtR for everyone else. MfT is still as effective on all mmr ratings. If not stronger.
Some people like that kind of thing, generally though i'm with you, i don't even buy skins or anything really, just characters and the rift (which i only ever bought the first rift)
It's because BHVR are extremely survivor sided, that's why the devs gave survivors a nerf to one of the most used survivor perks and several of the most survivor sided maps without any compensation 😭
Another survivor perk made absolutely useless due to all the whining. And now that this is gone they can turn their attention to crying until Windows gets nerfed. 🤣🤣🤣
I'm thankful that the unhealthy part of this perk got nerfed.
Hopefully we can have a more fair experience as m1 killers now.
Yes. That still counts as being made weaker twice. People act like the perk has been untouched since the PTB, which is false. BHVR could have easily said UW was working as intended, and kept the perk the same as it was in the PTB, but they made the choice to weaken it twice instead.
Why do maps be this large?
You realize the game is balanced around a full chase lasting around 40 seconds making the game a 2k/2e, right? So saying like: "he'll down people in 30 seconds!" is pretty much around where they want to be. Also, you can't complain about changes like this until we get a chance to test them.
But then every time you use this perk, it will never happen, once you take it off, it will start happening again 😆
And once again BHVR proves us right when we meme about the devs not understanding their own game.
The player cards are nice I guess.
1) Player Card looks interesting. Kinda curious how this will be with anonymous mode. I wish people could see others' cards in the lobby.
2) Trickster changes are massive but main event looks so cheap and worrysome now. Is it really hard to give control when to use it?
3) Made For This change looks okay. The haste effect should never have had easy condition like "injured". I mean it was evident the perk definitely would have gotten nerf. The perk won't be used as much as now but given it has Endurance, I don't think this will be obsolete or dead.
4) Didn't expect GoJ and Mother's Dwelling/Temple of Purgation will all be patched together. I have to see how these map balances are in PTB but I guess new chapter won't include new map?
Overall, I enjoy this Nov developer update and wish future ones were huge like this one.
Despite the fact that i think UW is a terrible perk (yeah you heard me, terrible) that stands to reason that because of that MFT should be dealt with first right? It took them 6 months to do something about MFT and UW hasn't even been out for 3. So even if it was super OP like people claim, it's still in the same realm as MFT in terms of changes.
In regards to it being bad, Lethal pursuer is the best tracking perk in the game, and combined with BBQ or other aura reading is far far better than UW will ever be. UW already has a MASSIVE cooldown of 60 seconds. You use it, then it stays active for 30 seconds, getting you into a chase, but the 30 second cooldown doesn't start until after the first 30 seconds are up. Meaning you get 1 minute between uses. Whereas lethal gets you into the first chase within 10-15 seconds of the match starting, and BBQ gives you constant reading every time you hook someone, whereas UW requires you to go out of your way to find a locker, and then on top of that isn't guaranteed to be up after a hook, and on top of that screams are significantly worse than plain aura reading.
People said the same thing for killers for the last couple of patches. Stop thinking about this as an "us vs them" mentality
This isn't an us vs them mentality. We shouldn't "buff survivors" to compensate for them nerfing a map that is CLEARLY survivor sided. Stop thinking like this, its toxic, and isn't conducive to making the game actually better.
I mean, the "BHVR is survivor-sided"-Argument can be pretty dead after this Patch, which only features stuff for Killer. Not even asking for compensation or anything. Just content.
But I really would have liked to see something for Survivors in this Chapter. Because it is a Killer-only Chapter and there will not even be any content for Survivors (aside from maybe a new Map, but this is for both roles). And considering that there will be no Midchapter in December, Survivors will have to wait for new things until January, when the Midchapter drops with a new Survivor. (And I am pretty sure that this Midchapter does not only include things for Survivors)
Best Survivors can now hope for is a Bugfix that female Vaults are fixed, lol.
Stop with the us vs them mentality, its toxic, unproductive, and doesn't make the game better.