Cross-post from Steam. Frustrated about the direction this game has gone since release.
TL;DR: DbD used to be scary but has consistently been updated to "improve meta," the indirect result of which has been a diminishment of the game's horror themes. As a result, every new update has been a direct downgrade in terms of both aesthetic and general game-play. No one seems to know how to fix this and honestly at this point, I don't believe a fix is actually possible.
When DbD was released, it was a very dark game; not just thematically, but visually as well. The darkness of the game along with the originally very narrow field of view of its three killers contributed heavily to a stealth-based meta. This style of game-play, along with the dark atmosphere, was much more intense and thematically in line with the game's horror aesthetic. Today, however, we can see that the game has devolved into a brightly-lit , goofy, "run in circles" simulator where perks as well as a substantially larger quantity of pallets have been added in order to enforce competitiveness at the cost of theme and atmosphere. Hiding is still possible, of course, but with the enormous FoV that killers currently have, along with the fact that most maps take place in brightly lit environments, stealth has taken a back-seat to looping in terms of usefulness; the game's horror aesthetic suffers immensely for this.
Endurance and the perks which enable it have additionally created and enforced the idea that getting hit by a killer is often not a big deal, further removing the game from its horror roots.
The addition of 'survive with friends' wasn't inherently bad. Many people had requested the feature and it was honestly cool that the developers listened to the players. However, as the game was not initially built for SWF, many of the perks had to be re-balanced in order compensate for the occasional usage of voice communications; this re-balance has still not reached a point resembling satisfactory. Combined with skill-based-matchmaking, SWF makes it inevitable that you will reach a point, especially as killer, where the game simply is not fun. The primary game-play loop, similarly to the game's perks, was not designed to be engaged with VC and to this day, four players with voice communications have an immense leg up on every killer solely by utilizing these two functions in conjunction. This issue unfortunately combines with the former two and compounds the issue of Dead by Daylight's loss of identity.
As the game has continued and new characters have been added, a number have found it harder to fit in to the cast when compared to others. Trickster, Skull Merchant, and the Singularity, for example, are far from the typical person would describe as "horror."
Finally, the addition of charms is cute. Cute is not scary. A fair quantity of character skins fall into this category as well and I'm wondering at this point if the developers have simply given up on the idea of this being a horror game.
Dead by Daylight has been on this downward slope for a long time and, unfortunately, the largest amount of damage was done so early-on that a reversion to the original "meta" for lack of a better term would essentially require the creation of an entirely new game in addition to the deletion of the current one; obviously this will not happen.
...I guess "press [F] to pay respects." The game is still fun sometimes but even with (and sometimes due to) these mountains of added content, DbD is a frustrating and hollowed-out shadow of its former self.
Comments
The default killer FoV is 87 and has been 87 basically the entire time so that hasn't really changed and doesn't really change unless you use specific perks.
DBD isn't running on the exact same engine as when it released anymore and the game being as dark as it was in general wasn't good. Same with the fog and moonlight offerings, they were by and large more disruptive than thematic on top of coming with a rather severe resource penalty on lower end hardware. The brighter maps and cleaner graphics make engaging with the game less terrible and removed certain "competitive" elements such as everyone just playing Claudette wearing the bloodstained plaid and hiding endlessly because the graphics made it impossible to see her on most maps available at the time.
The abandonment of stealth as being the main focus for survivor gameplay is wholly due to how we as players started to approach the game and what could be done to optimize gameplay. This is also something that isn't entirely consistent across the board as different regions approach the game differently, but the bulk of players tend to prefer chase oriented gameplay over much slower immersive gameplay. The game is ultimately a pvp game and thus needed to be designed in ways to encourage player interaction and currently chases are the only real type of interactivity between both sides. If you want more immersive gameplay trends then you need to lobby for wholly different ways to play DBD.
Cosmetic items don't diminish the horror of the game or horror as a concept. Cute things can be scary, colorful can be scary, but most importantly a game doesn't last as long as this one has without having a steady way path to monetization when it comes to live service games. For as much as people complain about it the cosmetic items work. They would not make them if players didn't want them and didn't buy them. There are plenty of on brand horror themed items as there are just cute things.
Trickster, Skull Merchant, and Singularity are what a typical person would describe as horror because the horror genre is multifaceted. Horror is also expressed differently based on which cultural lens you are viewing it through. Trickster and Skull Merchant are serial killers which translates across culture, but they differ in their additional elements. Skull Merchant is wrapped in the aesthetic of Brazilian horror manga, now you can argue whether it misses the mark or not, but that seems to be what they were shooting for. Trickster is very much a play on the horror themed K-drama which approaches slasher type killers differently than western horror does. Singularity is Sci-Fi body horror where technology runs rampant and flesh gets used in all the wrong ways by being seeking perfection of form.
As much as I dislike what SWF has done to the game over time we can't keep saying that this wasn't what they intended because they've said on this forum in other threads that it was always something they intended to be in the game, but just couldn't get it in right at the time they shipped the game. So whether we like or not it seems to be stated intent.
I agree with you on the expansive growth of perks featuring endurance.