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
I'm making a sarcastic joke
Yeah, this echo chamber is big.
But there have not been any patches where only Survivors got something and Killers got nothing. Including Survivor-only DLCs.
ironically, we are also pointing out how the us vs them mentality is incorrect. we are on the same side here
you're still doing it. You can't agree and then immediately go back to the "but survivors got this and killers" JUST STOP. Its not productive.
Sorry that I would be happy to get some content. :)
And that is bad?
Did I say it was bad?
You aren't talking about content, you are talking about buffs/nerfs.
Buffing some of the really terrible Survivor-Perks would be a thing. And also content, because they might be worth using. And I think it would be fair in a Patch where Killers not only get a new character (including 3 Perks), but also receive Buffs for another Killer, have a better time on two Realms AND get a Nerf of a popular Survivor Perk.
But yeah, how can I even think that?
I guess I will come back to you in January when the new Survivor drops in the Midchapter and Killers will get some content as well.
MFT sounds like a fantastic Anti-tunneling perk now if you combine it with OTR and any Exhaustion perk.
People should be thrilled considering tunneling is supposedly a problem for many.
I would just like to know if Garden of Joy is going to get a size reduction too or just some layout changes
If they're removing some clutter and adjusting loops, the map will look pretty empty if they don't adjust the size too (considering it's pretty big anyway)
No?
Sorry then
thank you! and you have fun playing as the bot without your hand-holding broken perk.
Everything else is great news.
MFT got the Ruin treatment though. For how situational it is now, it deserves to be 5%.
Why should you be REWARDED FOR DOING NOTHING? The perk balance is fair but I'd argue remove the speed increase altogether.
Try me, I will run MfT / Desperate Measures / Lucky Break / Leader, and no Legion Main can stop me! MWUHAHAHAHA!
Quotation for the game being balanced around 40-second chases?
I really am not a fan of dumbing down the game that much. It ignores a world of gameplay. The game can end in an instant without even involving much actual chaseplay. There are countless matches every day where chases last more than 40 seconds, and killers still end up killing everyone. It is asinine to try and "balance killers for 40-second chases", let alone balance the game around that. Not that I actually think it is even possible to achieve that with any reliability, no two chases are ever the same, I didn't literally mean Trickster chases may now always last exactly 30s, my point was more so to say skill might play even less of a role than it doesn't already now, with Trickster chases.
What I was doing does not really constitute complaining. I was speaking to possibilities, stating concerns, and did point out myself that this will have to be seen in action. Trickster is already a killer not many people enjoy playing as or against, because the spamming hampers skill expression on both sides. But yes, there are also nerfs here, what with the increased amount of knives to lacerate and the lack of gradually increasing throw rate. Just how strong the new Main Event will be is also hard to gauge without seeing it in action. I just can't see it not be stronger than the current Main Event, which was rare to have an impact (which, granted, was an issue).
And you just keep going. You are assuming that the next update will be "survivor sided" but "also killers will get things too" again stop with that mentality.
Been a while since one of my threads got closed.
Cool.
Dev said it once in a stream so i don't have a record of it, but it was stated at one point that is the goal which in theory means if every chase lasted 40 seconds on average, you would, on average, get a 2k, 2e. And if you do the math around the objectives and what each survivor is doing at any point in the game, 40 second chases checks out for a draw.
Man, you must be joking. The next Midchapter will only feature a Survivor. This is what I wrote. Dont twist what I write.
I will ignore you from now on.
Right, and then you continued that statement with "and killers will get some content as well" making an assumption that, when killer only chapters are released, only killers get changes, but when survivor only chapters are released both do, again implying some kind of imbalance of patches and changes there. Again pursuing this "us vs them" mentality.
You did read it has no exhaustion condition now right? I'd say the fact you can take your normal exhaustion perk and have the extra cushion of MFT on top, that still makes it perfectly viable, especially combined with DH or OTR.
What's really nice is the secondary effect actually makes sense to the perk now, the deep wound speed boost is actually relevant to the endurance effect.
This change pushes it to become a skill players anti tunnel perk, as well as an anti-slug perk.
You could even run it with We're Gonna Live Forever for laughs recreating a fast recovery version of Buckle Up... even though its no longer the borken meta redefining perk it was before, it is a perk that has interesting build synergies we can happily use for fun.
Don´t give them ideas...
MfT won´t move from the top most used perks list. Still top tier. Since now you can combo it with other exhaustion perks.
I haven't heard of any such statement from the devs, and it would be curious, since it really is painfully reductive. I mean, even just thinking of having those 40-second chases on the same survivor would leave the game in a 3v1 scenario 2-3 minutes into a match, which completely changes the math. And the math on this is very unreliable to begin with, since again, there's a world of gameplay elements and scenarios that simple math doesn't account for that determine how matches unfold. Oni can in theory down everyone within the span of seconds, how would "balance math" account for this, which is just one example of countless other such. Not to mention that all of the attempts I've ever seen to math out the balance of this game have ignored tons of things, such as map traversal time, time to find gens, even very obvious things such as time to unhook and heal. And of course they have ignored these things, because they are impossible to mathematically quantify in principle.
...Anyway, I will wait and see on Trickster. For the record, I don't believe this will make him too strong overall, for that he simply lacks macrogame prowess. Just that it doesn't really solve the issue many players are having with this killer, and could indeed even exacerbate it. Personally I think a more interesting and engaging approach to Trickster would be to make it so that laceration regresses much more quickly and continually, but giving Trickster something to compensate, such as base ricochet and trajectory indicators for the knives. This would make it much more of a back-and-forth between the players.
Can also pair it with something like DH to activate it.
DH is still a gamble, only now you'll be losing out on two perks when your ping decides to hiccup.
Only way I can see it being reliable is with OTR and you purposefully don't touch anything for 60s after getting unhooked with the intention of baiting it.
I don't think it's an awful mechanic to tie it to Deep Wound, but it's a little underwhelming as it stands.
True, but before ppl weren't using it since it would turn off your MFT. Now that MFT isn't an exhaustion perk, you can pair it with anything. MFT+ sprint burst isn't a joke. I was just mentioning DH since it gives you more situations to proc deep wounds than bodyblocking after getting unhooked or something. It's kinda like how Nemesis helps prop up PWYF. Sure, you can get PWYF value from finding your obsession... but Nemesis makes it easier to get that value.
The map changes sound good.
MFT got gutted but that what the majority wanted for the most part.
Trickster buff sound good but maybe a bit overkill.
Overall pretty good changes health wise.
All the gen perks did sadly
Please. bitching and moaning from surivivors has resulted in so many killer perks and add-ons getting screwed. and the xenomorph nerfs
Deathslinger has good anti loop. The 3 % won't bother him as much. It mostly hurts M1 Killers, so yeah.. Legion is kinda f'ed.
I just noticed something - the add-on "lucky blade" needs to be changed. Right now it's effect is increases by 0.3. If they don't change it will be better than the new waiting for you watch. Lucky blade is uncommon waiting for you watch is rare, so yeah.
So DH for the higher mmr players and OtR for everyone else. MfT is still as effective on all mmr ratings. If not stronger.The idea of 'as effective' or especially 'if not stronger' is absurd. Nerf MFT if you want, but this a massive nerf.
MfT now works while being exhausted...Please, take a moment to let that sink in.This doesn't make sense.
MFT never prevented exhaustion perks. You could get in a chase with a killer, get hit, have MFT, pull of a DH, no longer have MFT.
Now it's get in a chase, get hit, pull of a DH, now you have MFT.
The difference, and why it's a massive nerf: you can't DH/OTR before being hooked, so that's 1/3rd of possible hook states where this doesn't apply, you now need to pull off a condition for it to be viable (i.e. a successful DH), and you can't do anything else while having MFT but be chased. You can't jump on gens while in deep wound, if you have OTR you can't do an conspicuous action, you are totally dedicated to seeking out a chase. Not to mention, you have to run some other perk to get realistic value out of it which was never required before.
This isn't even like the DH nerf were by making it rarer as a pick it was easier for survivors to pull off. It's just a flat nerf.
And maybe its justified, but let's not pretend about what it will be.
you were right. they killed the perk. I was expecting them to change the perk to something like you gain 3% haste while being healthy so survivor has to heal to use the perk but looks like they have decided to obliterate the perk.
Trickster changes look like a nerf to throwing mode but omega buff to being an m1 killer especially with iri add-on. I have feeling that throwing mode is going to be buffed 6-7 to injure and iri add-on will change to something like gain 7% haste for 15 seconds with no drawback on missing. that is my first impression on patch notes.
the best thing about upcoming update is they are finally weakened the most broken survivor map ever. garden of joy. With it, they finally going to weaken mother dwelling is which insane that such huge map exists in first place... along side having infinities. good riddance. I am excited for the map changes.
Calm Spirit already penalises you, so no need for an activation requirement. The other 2, sure. Lethal Pursuer and Corrupt are another 2 with no requirements so chuck them in too I guess.
I have no issue with them addressing MFT. I'm aware of how tracking perks work. Was talking about BHVR seemingly addressing activation requirements.
Disappointed. On the one hand, it's not a big loss, on the other it hurts to have the only non-exhaustion perk that isn't a boon nerfed to the point of uselessness. Now, everyone's going to go back to their exhaustion perks and people are going to blame their losses on those instead.
Damn, they really going after mid perks with the nerf bat. Good thing I only use Sprint Burst.
Bye MfT!!!!!!!!!! 🤗
Seems sad. Like the fist attempt at destroying eruption until people said it's overkill.
Whats up with killing perks so bad it just adds to perk bloat instead of balancing them? Is balancing really so difficult instead of just nerfing? They do this to both sides.
Well, I won't be spending any more money and I've lots and lots of it. Again, a balance would suffice but making this just another perk to add bloat to the selection is a hard pass for me.
I don't even use it, but this is just sad to see. Smh.
Also so pleased to see Blight's add ons are still the same ^_______^
Are female vaults fixed or are we still cool with giving killer gimp free hits on messed up vaulting?
Nice work.
I see a lot of people say this, but you're the most recent so I'll ask you - can you actually name any perk they've nerfed so badly it's 'killed' them recently?
For me, recently would be any time after 6.1.0, if that helps narrow it down. I see people say this, but I can't think of any examples myself.
Since/after 6.1.0, and strictly limited to perks that have been changed with significant usage impact: Thana, Eruption, Call of Brine, Reassurance and Scavenger (compared to PTB), prove thyself, circle of healing, and the second dead hard nerf. Depending on what you consider 'significant usage drop' you might also consider stealth changes to repressed alliance and blast mine in the list.
If you're including the perks that changed in 6.1.0 then you can add ruin, tinkerer, pop, first dead hard nerf, iron will, calm spirit, botany knowledge, and DS.
Some of these came back into popularity later, because of meta changes or were buffed back, but there was a drastic change in usage rates at the time these were nerfed.
Well, to be clear, I don't really care about pickrate, I care about strength. So, most of the perks on your list there definitely don't qualify; Eruption and Circle of Healing, for instance, are still extremely good perks regardless of how many people actually run them.
For the rest, I'll cop to forgetting about Scavenger and Thana (I honestly forgot that Thana got changed after 6.1.0 to begin with), but the rest I don't think it's fair to say were killed. Prove wasn't good to begin with, Reassurance joins Eruption and CoH as extremely strong, Dead Hard is still decent, and CoB... I suppose you could count that as a perk that was 'killed' if you're really strict, but it's not like it's useless, just outclassed.
That's kinda why I ask. I keep seeing people say that, but there haven't really been any instances of perks being nuked outside of Thana and arguably Scavenger if you count PTB changes. Most of those perks are either still good, or weren't actually good to begin with in the case of Prove specifically. (Still weird it got nerfed, that change still doesn't make sense to me. Must be a rare case of nerfing solely based on feedback.)
It's the same with MFT, too. That one did get weakened more than some on this list, based on this dev update, but it's hardly looking to be useless. Just requires a little thought now instead of being passive and slapped into any build.
I mean, for prove specifically it feels very revisionist at this point. I've always been of the opinion that the repair speed wasn't ever an issue, but that's not at all the common opinion. The entire reason that perk was even nerfed at all was due to outcry that 'gens are too fast' and 'prove is op'.
And as far as pick rate goes, if it drops from top 10 (>12%) to under 3% usage rate, as with circle, then it feels very cherry picked to say it wasn't 'killed'.
If you're using a subjective 'it can be good in very specific circumstances' then everyone's going to just have a different opinion and there's nearly no point in discussing it. By that metric, Thana is still good on plague and legion, and can't be considered killed either, which seems, frankly, like a ridiculous take.
Pick rate is really the only metric we can use here, since 'win rate with this perk' isn't really available and doesn't even paint a full picture even if we had official stats to go by.
Even Thana sees quite a bit of use and with Legion can be a good perk.
With Prove, I wish they had just taken the bloodpoint bonus off and then evaluated how many people were still using it before any changes. Not that the 5% change makes a huge difference, but just silly to change both at the same time.
That said, I feel like MFT has taken a pretty severe nerf, maybe on the level of CoB (which isn't a bad information perk for a teleporting killer, but otherwise was wrecked), but we'll see if it actually stays with the current design post PTB and how people play around it.
Well, yes. You've stumbled across my point.
You can't fairly say these perks were killed, and that BHVR love to just nuke perks into uselessness instead of balancing them, because they don't do that. The perks that people cite are usually pretty good still, and perfectly viable. They're not by any reasonable definition nuked into uselessness, at best that's an unprovable opinion.
It's worth mentioning that the conversations had with this rhetoric are not about pickrate, at most pickrate is used as a proxy meaure. They are about strength, that is the language used and that's why I kinda bristle at them. I wanted to hear out the evidence before committing to that position, though, hence my asking first.
New maps is still new content for survivors though. And we don’t even know if they will be killer sided yet. After all, Borgo became even more survivor sided in its PTB rework before they adjusted it. Unlikely, but we can’t really make assumptions yet and say that it’s “nothing new for survivors” when it’s still something new, just because it’s not broken anymore.
And half the reason for the Trickster changes were to make him less annoying to play against as survivor.
Of course I would’ve preferred survivors receive something such as some old perks getting some buffs, but after how much survivor has gotten these past few patches I think one patch with nothing new is fine.
Maybe we can all be happy for a bit and not support more us VS them?
Player cards are for everyone.
Made for this was unhealthy for the game overall.
Garden of joy was extremely unbalanced.
Red forest shrinking was overdue since the graphical rework. They even said, that this was coming.
Nobody asked for Trickster and I still won't play him after the changes.
Heard nothing about a new killer so far.
It's like having g two children and BHVR is the parent. You always need to please both or someone is going to cry. Soumds dumb? That's because it is.
This thread *is* generally positive, and is focused on hopeful patches that could improve the game. I'd like to see more of this on the forums.
There have absolutely been similar posts when the shoe is on the other foot that are in vastly different light. When the Eruption nerf came out there were dozens of posts absolutely slamming the devs for being biased and 'giving killers nothing while catering to crybaby survivors'. We need less of that crap.
I think the forums can handle one, single post that has gone several pages without throwing shade at the developers a single time. Maybe I'm wrong about that tho.
The tone of this post is insanely calm compared to literally anything else that usually stays on the front page for more than an hour.