Developer Update | August 2025
The 9.2.0 Update arrives next week, so let’s check out the notable gameplay changes you can expect from this Public Test Build. Plus, stay tuned for next week's PTB Patch Notes where we’ll share the precise values that are changing for each of the topics below!
Read on for all the details:
NEW FEATURES
- If a Survivor is left in the Dying State for a total of 90 seconds during a match, they gain the ability to pick themselves up after fully recovering.
- Added the option to enable or disable this mechanic in Custom Games.
- Note: Perks that enable you to recover from the Dying State - like Boon: Exponential - will continue to function as before, without needing to meet this requirement.
- Gradually increases crawling speed for Survivors who are left in the Dying State.
- Added the ability for Survivors to recover while crawling. Recovery now occurs passively with no need to hold a button.
- Updated several Survivor and Killer perks to account for these changes.
Passive recovery while crawling
Pick yourself up if you’ve been in the Dying State for 90 seconds
DEV NOTE: When it comes to slugging, we know it can be frustrating if you're on the receiving end of it too often or for too long, but we also know that sometimes it's the smart move. This updated system acknowledges this, allowing the Killer to slug occasionally when they feel like it's the right call, but will eventually kick in and swing in the Survivor's favour if slugging is used excessively.
A big part of this is also about making the experience of being slugged more pleasant (as much as being slugged can be, at least). The recovery changes and crawling speed will give you a bit more agency when downed so you aren't just holding a button and waiting for someone to come save you.
- When a Survivor is hooked, their hook status is hidden from the Killer. When they’re unhooked, there is no notification and their hook status isn’t revealed immediately.
- This is disabled once all generators are completed.
- Unhooked Survivors gain the following effects for a limited time:
- Haste, Endurance, and Elusive (see below) status effects.
- No collision with other players (both Killer and Survivor).
- Immunity to Killer Instinct and sees the Killer’s aura nearby.
- These effects are lost when the affected Survivor perform a Conspicuous Action.
- All these effects (except Haste and Endurance) are disabled once all generators are completed.
- Added a unique effect to the Killer hook state UI that indicates the last Survivor they hooked.
- After completing a “unique hook” (the same Survivor is not hooked consecutively), Killers get the following benefits:
- Bonus damage for the next generator kick.
- Temporary Haste status effect.
- Temporarily reveals Survivors (think basekit BBQ & Chili) that have less or equal hook states to the hooked Survivor.
- These effects are slightly lessened for The Blight, The Dark Lord, The Ghoul, The Hillbilly, and The Nurse.
- These effects are disabled once all generators are completed.
- Added new effects that disincentivize tunneling:
- If a Survivor dies before 6 total hook states, all remaining Survivors gain a repair speed bonus for the rest of the Trial.
- If the Survivor that was last hooked is Sacrificed or Killed, generators cannot be regressed or blocked.
- Added the option to enable or disable these new mechanics in Custom Games.
- Updated several Survivor and Killer perks to account for these changes.
DEV NOTE: It’s no secret that tunneling can be seen as an efficient way to play for Killers. While this can be true, it’s also true that the results of this can be frustrating for Survivors, leading to Trials ending too quickly for some, while leaving others to fend for themselves in a match that is now much more difficult.
The intention here is for both roles to feel the benefits and incentives that come from spreading hook states. On the one end, Survivors have better opportunities to evade and reset after unhooks, while also limiting those tough situations where losing a Survivor too quickly causes things to go south quickly and snowball. On the other end, Killers are able to apply more map pressure to push back against efficient teams, covering ground post-hook and strengthening gen regression.
- Added a new status effect that silences grunts of pain and suppresses Survivor aura, pools of blood, and scratch marks.
DEV NOTE: To start, we’ll be using this new status effect as part of the tunnelling reduction update, but plan to integrate this into relevant existing perks down the road to make their descriptions more streamlined. Arguably the easiest way to look at this is a Survivor version of Undetectable, in that when it’s active, you know you’re in stealth mode.
- Updated “The Tomes” menu to feature new Tomes and accompanying lore alongside each Chapter release.
- New lore is unlocked each week within the active Tome.
DEV NOTE: Ever since we reworked the Tome, we’ve seen how much you’ve yearned for more lore. We’re happy to share that beginning with 9.2.0, lore is back! While previously, lore was tied to challenges, we want all players to have a chance to immerse themselves in these stories, so we’ve shifted to a weekly unlock, not linked to any quest completion.
KILLER UPDATES
- Replaced “Evil Within” with two modes that can be toggled with a button press:
- Stalker Mode: 4.2m/s movement speed, Undetectable, and can stalk Survivors.
- Pursuer Mode: 4.6m/s movement speed, 24m Terror Radius, increased vault speed, bonuses to lunge range, break speed, and stun recovery, and cannot stalk Survivors.
- Once the stalk meter is full, Evil Incarnate mode can be triggered at will, granting the following effects for a limited time (note: Survivors no longer become Exposed):
- 4.6m/s movement speed, 40m Terror Radius and an increased vault speed.
- Unlocks Slaughtering Strike ability:
- Hold the power button to charge this ability, reducing movement speed.
- Press the attack button while charging to quickly lunge forward, adjusting your angle as you move. The length of the lunge depends on charge time.
- If a Survivor enters the Killer’s attack range while lunging, they are knocked into the Dying State.
- This ability can also be used to destroy pallets.
- Unlocks the ability to grab and kill or perform a regular Mori on Survivors who would die the next time they are hooked.
- Adjusted some of the mechanics of stalking:
- Removed the limited pool of stalk points per Survivor.
- Reduced stalk range to 32m and removed distance modifier.
- Moving while stalking has increased movement speed but incurs a reduced stalk rate.
- Reworked his add-ons.
Slaughtering Strike in action
DEV NOTE: By moving away from linear “Evil Within” tiers, we wanted to give players more tools they can use to adapt to each Trial’s unique situations, while keeping the core of what makes him “The Shape”.
Slaughtering Strike makes for a high-threat offensive attack, offering up an insta-down opportunity with an extended lunge that's particularly effective in loops and for ripping through pallets quickly.
Understanding his kit has changed quite a lot, we’ve done a pass on nearly all his add-ons, reworking many of them to offer more unique effects. In particular for those who prefer his old playstyle, Fragrant Tuft of Hair will change Evil Incarnate to function like old Myers, offering an Exposed effect and no Slaughtering Strike. Stay tuned for patch notes for the full details on these changes!
- Increased activation time of the Afterpiece Antidote.
- Increased how long the Afterpiece Tonic’s Hindered effect lingers after leaving smoke.
DEV NOTE: We’ve heard your feedback that The Clown’s easier-to-activate Haste can make instigating and maintaining chases less interactive for Survivors. That, coupled with nerfs to his purple bottles has pushed players towards this frustrating tactic. To make both bottles feel like viable options without being too oppressive, we’ve adjusted the values of their most impactful qualities to strike a balance between pre-9.1.0 values and Live values.
- Increased the additional time added to Weakened when injured by a UVX projectile.
- Increased movement speed recovery after teleporting.
- Increased camera vertical range.
- Adjusted several add-ons.
Increased vertical camera range in action
DEV NOTE: The Unknown is largely considered to be fun to play as and against, and we want to preserve that while adapting to the current state of gameplay. We’ve buffed the UVX slightly, while also taking what we learned from The Animatronic to allow for orbitals, improving UVX aiming and making for even more fun gameplay.
It’s also likely no surprise that Blurry Photo is the most used add-on for the Unknown, given the importance of speed recovery. To help create an opportunity for more add-on experimentation, we’ve converted a portion of this add-on into a basekit buff, while also doing a pass on other add-ons that are due for some adjustments.
- Vampire Form:
- Slightly reduced Hellfire cooldown.
- Increased total Hellfire pillars by 1.
- Reduced Hellfire charge movement speed.
- Slightly increased slowdown time after casting Hellfire.
- Wolf Form:
- Increased Pounce Attack charge time.
- Increased Scent Orb spawn time.
- Bat Form:
- Increased movement friction to make flying easier to control.
- Adjusted his add-ons.
DEV NOTE: Vampire Form is slightly less oppressive in short loops where movement slowdown had less of an impact, and toning down Wolf Form’s mobility, which has been outclassing some dash Killers. On the flip side, you’ll find Bat Form easier to control in tighter spaces and can use Hellfire slightly more frequently and reach further with it.
- When grabbing a Survivor on the other side of a vault with Kagune Leap, the Survivor is released at the start of The Ghoul’s vault instead of at the end.
DEV NOTE: It’s no secret that it’s been a common pain point for Survivors to be locked in place when hit with a Kagune Leap Grab-Attack across a vault. Survivors shouldn’t have to wait for The Ghoul to finish their vault before being able to move again, so we’ve removed this tech.
- Hooking a Survivor now spawns more blood orbs.
DEV NOTE: We understand that with the changes we’re making to address slugging, this will impact The Oni slightly, so we want to mitigate this. By turning hooked Survivors into a greater source of power gauge build-up, The Oni is rewarded with more quickly snowballing power by hooking.
- Updated various perks.
DEV NOTE: In addition to the general perk balance updates you can expect each release, we've also made a number of adjustments to account for the new systems coming to DbD this update, specifically relating to slugging and tunneling.
Stay tuned on Wednesday, September 3 for the PTB Live Balance preview on Discord, where we'll dig into the details of these perk changes, and then follow that up with patch notes, where you can find the nitty-gritty numbers.
Until next time...
The Dead by Daylight Team
Comments
I really wish that everyone's escape rates were attached to their forums account.
Because I really just don't understand how you can tell everyone that DS is "basically impossible" to weaponize. I really want to know the context.
I've got a whole thread about this, but the TL;DR would be this:
"Weaponising" DS is 100% trying to bait the killer into picking you up, and you cannot force the killer to do that. Any time someone talks about weaponising DS as thought it gives guaranteed value, they're talking about bodyblocking, not DS.
Not that relevant to the rest of the post, mind you, my points still stand regardless of how you feel about that specific take.
Low Tiers spend so much time in chase and moving across the map that you MUST slug if people are waiting for the stun save. Question for you: Does the self-pickup still work if a healthy teammate is standing nearby forcing a killer to slug or lose their hook? IDK, the dev's didn't mention it in their post. Kind of important, if you ask me. The recovery thing would be fine in moderation, but the Killer should have a built in counter to teammates enabling slugs because they want saves.
The anti-tunnel stuff is questionable. Blocking off gens permanently at 6 hooks which is the equivalent of 2-3 gens done (assuming 2 hooks per gen pop for a non-tunneler)? Are they really saying that if you sac someone before 3 gens are done, it's gonna permanently shut-off surge/thrilling tremors/ruin and prevent kicking? That's insane. If it were 4 hooks I'd understand. There is no possible way that you can sac someone at 4 hooks without tunneling, so this would be much more clear and cookie-cutter, meaning that non-tunnelers wouldn't get punished.
Killer isn't dead, but this update kick's people who are already down if it stays as is. The tunneling/anti-slug doesn't account for situations where penalties could be applied to falsely identified instances of "toxic" tunneling/slugging such as the mentioned mid-game sacrifice and slugging to ensure safe-pick later.
But they're not going to see those issues if tunneling and slugging remain as prevalent as they are currently.
They have tried buffing Killers before, which led to more tunneling and slugging and inflating killrates.
Dredge - Why teleport to random lockers when you can just tunnel and slug?
Trapper/Hag - Why set traps when you can just tunnel and slug?
Dracula - Why bother using bat form when you can just tunnel and slug in vampire or wolf form?
Now that these strategies are being nerfed, people will have to try to use the Killer's powers effectively. Some are more difficult than others, yes, but these difficulties will become clearer once we start playing with the new mechanics.
Who knows about Twins; they will likely be buffed or reworked to compensate for these new mechanics. BHVR will have to see how it plays out, and then they can decide how to adjust the Twins.
You can't weaponize DS because it requires the killer to activate it. If they don't press spacebar, you're slugged and the killer comes out ahead.
We can only hope brother.
Hey i wanted to ask , whats the idea behind this update? Cause it look like it came from somebody that never played this game before. Killing is really hard, why make it more miserable?
I can appreciate the work that the developers put into trying to balance things in the existing state of the game; it’s an insanely difficult (and often thankless) job, and I don’t envy them for the decisions they have to make. I really like that lore is coming back, and the Ghoul and Oni changes look pretty good as well!
With that said, I really, truly do not care for the extra anti-tunneling/anti-slugging changes. We don’t need even more mechanics that serve to hold Survivors’ hands from beginning to end and kneecap Killers for trying to win. Before you ask, yes, I play both roles about equally. I’m not a sweaty Survivor main, but I’m also not a Killer fanatic either; both sides have aspects that I (usually) enjoy when I play the game.
Regardless of what role I’m playing, I don’t like slugging or camping. I know that sometimes it’s borderline necessary from a strategic perspective, but it still isn’t fun. Even so, if these proposed anti-tunnel changes make it out of the PTB, it will kill whatever interest I still had in the Survivor role.
When I started playing DBD in 2020, I loved how tense matches could get even when my teammates were doing well. Actions felt like they had real consequences, and the Killer felt like a constant threat that should be avoided, rather than a minor annoyance who showed up periodically to chase you before eating yet another second-chance mechanic. These days survivors already have too many second chances; they do not need more. And Entity forbid we get rid of one of the few mechanics that encourage altruism (picking up teammates when they’re down).
Apologies for the long post; I just saw the proposed changes come across my in-game inbox last night and I thought I should say something, for whatever it’s worth. As a Survivor player, I really do not want more protection and handholding. It ruins the tension and the challenge of the game, and the role just feels boring as a result.
The killer is usually at a net loss, if they hit a survivor multiple times, then leave them slugged on the ground. It also ignores the fact that it's still an overall better action to pick up the survivor and risk the DS.
At least it is at my skill level, and considering my escape rate, I'm figuring I have to be at high MMR.
This would be far too punishing to solo players. People on comms would likely intentionally stay away from a slugged friend if they think they can keep the killer away and have them pick themselves. And I don't think a pause would work. 90 seconds is already really long. Maybe if they lowered that time.
The timer doesn't reset event after a hook?….
These changes…all of them applies only for SoloQ, right? Are you guys even played against a SWF?
Finally you tune changes depending on killer but why SoloQ and SWF hadn't this difference too?
If you could humor us with a common scenario: The unhook happens nearby and the killer sees two survivors healing under hook. Killer goes for the unhooker to be "nice" and the injured tries blocking. Killer hits injured and continues to chase the unhooker, but the dummy keeps trying to get in their way. Hit two, their down.
First what is stopping the killer from continuing to chase the unhooker? The killer had effectively kept two (2, dos, duo) of 4 off of gens and now has one effectively off gens again until they get up which requires another survivor, perks for usually 1 time use, or to be effectively neutralized for 90 cumulative seconds if the changes go through. How is the killer losing out here?
Second what is forcing the killer to pick up the slug? As killer they chose what they do. DS can't force them to get picked up. A supposed high MMR killer would know when the survivor wants to use DS and chooses when it's more beneficial to eat it or not. It's a choice, not a force.
DS does not need to go off in order for it to hurt the killer player. An unhooked survivor can aggressively bodyblock, take the down and now the killer's options are significantly worse. Slugging the DS means potentially letting them get picked up and complete tempo loss. Picking them up means eating the DS, losing you the chase and a complete tempo loss.
This is what players mean by "using DS aggressively". You bodyblock with the threat of DS to force killer into lose/lose situations. Whether killers picks up or not, the survivors win in tempo.
>"killer"
>look inside
>punished for killing
People do try to use the killer powers efficiently. The thing is that the game is too competitive and mistakes are heavily punished. Tunelling and slugging are strategies that help mitigate the effects of these mistakes, so that not everything is lost when you chase someone for a bit more than advisable in order not to loose pressure. Plus, the examples you give are...curious.
For Dredge, not tping to lockers would mean giving up any semblance of pressure you could get. His strength is the fact of his presence across the map, giving up that is basically and invitation to get genrushed. And even then he sometimes does not have it because of RNG.
Hag and Trapper would be condemned to remain as regular M1 killers with no power. They give up the chance to have map control, thus opening the door to excessively long chases and thus getting genrushed. Boring playstyles and outdated mechanics that encourage camping, not tunelling.
Refusing to use bat form as Dracula is renouncing to some valuable mobility, thus giving up pressure.
The killer roster overall is simply not ready. And they should be ready for this first before they get nerfed so hard and they limit the resources they have. A nerf is not the way. The facts are there. And they indicate that there is sufficient evidence of the issues preventing killers from being able to keep up with a change like this. Breaking the killer role to a point where only Ghoul, Nurse and Blight are playable, especially when some of us paid to play as characters like Springtrap or Leatherface and are denied the chance of our matches lasting for a bit and being fun, even the chance to get some kills for challenges...is not the way.
Killer anxiety is very real, and this will also only worsen it. Either you perform excellently or you get destroyed. These changes elliminate the middle ground. Killer role was pressuring already, and now it seems it's getting worse.
This is a 1v4. The 1 should be the power role. It is the intended way for the game. But what I see here is that strength being taken from the 1 and given to the 4. Killer role was already harder since FNAF release, now it's even more demanding with these changes.
So yeah, it's not the time. Prepare the killers first so that they can withstand such a change without the need of nurse, blight and ghoul. And then will it really be time to implement these things. They intend to build on a broken base. And if the base shatters under the weight of what's above, everything is doomed to fall down and crumble.
It's almost always beneficial to pick up the survivor and risk the DS, considering the pick rate of DS isn't high enough to respect it. And currently, it's much better to eat a DS and continue chasing someone, than it is to waste time trying to find a new target.
And if you don't actually think anti-tunneling perks can we weaponized, then it should be completely fine if BHVR deactivated them if the survivor purposely bodyblocked the killer.
Seriously? That’s more or less what I meant with the anti-tunnel thing, but damn. You get a kill before the 6th hook and then what? Survivors get a gen boost for the rest of the game and I can’t even do anything about it (gen block)? And what if I don’t even have 6 hooks, but a survivor throws and dies? I just get screwed over, just because. Another thing is that survivors will intentionally go down so the team can do gens faster. And that 6-hook rule is stupid because it eliminates optimal killer gameplay. Optimal play is: you hook one surv, then the next surv, then go back to the first one. That’s not tunneling. But weak and whiny survs will still call it tunneling. For a win condition, you can’t allow a situation where you have 6 hooks and 0 kills. When there are 2 gens left, there should already be 1 kill. When a surv is on hook, it’s worth going back if you don’t have another target or if the one you’re chasing is too good. If the team is strong, it’s better to eliminate the weakest member first. Now the game is really survivor-sided and killer profits are way too small. Anti-slug is kinda okay, but still painful. I never really played adepts, and after this update I won’t either—it’ll be impossible. When 2 are left, you down 1, chase the other, and now that one just escapes and gg. If you play Sadako with Mori for power—basically correct gameplay—you still get punished! Really? Simple question: what’s even the point of killer in this game? Just add a killer bot and let survivors play against it. Then there won’t be tunneling, gen regression, camping, slugging, or anything at all. Great idea, right?
Meyers—I’m honestly not convinced. I think he was the first licensed character added to DBD. It fits his lore and all. I’m a fan of the old-school DBD. But giving him a dash like Chucky? Not a good idea... I’m a killer main myself, but I play both sides. I used to laugh at kids arguing “the game is killer/surv sided!!!” But now? Now it’s really survivor-sided, yet survivors will still cry that killers even exist in this game. We’ll see how it looks in practice and what the MMR changes bring, but if it’s like it looks on paper—DBD is done for me, I’m moving to Valorant. Shame, because it’s the only multiplayer game I’ve been playing for years. And somehow this update came right after I bought 2 characters, lol. Now I regret it. I regret spending so much money on a game that was already a mess and a failure, and is now becoming an even bigger mess and failure.
Hey, so if Killers are going to be put into a position where survivors are no longer incentivized to stay put while in dying state, and picking up survivors as soon as the coast is clear enough to do so is basically mandatory, can we maybe get a basekit change to make that a bit easier? It seems like a no brainer to build something like Deerstalker into the base kit in this situation.
I am really hoping that these changes are well thought out, we'll see next week, but I'd like to cover two things that seem to have been overlooked.
First, survivors quite often wear the exact same outfit. Remembering which Dwight you hooked is no problem when there is one, but when there are four and they all are wearing the exact same thing, you are going to have a difficult time.
So, you need to put the hook states that the survivors see into the killer HUD. It needs to happen if you want to stop accidental tunneling.
In addition to that, removing the notification of the unhook from the killer point of view is a bad idea, in my opinion. Killers need that information for a multitude of reasons, but more importantly you aren't going to be able to hide it from anyone using it to tunnel. All they will need to do is wait for an unhook ability to trigger, and your prevention system is worthless. Think Devour Hope, Make Your Choice, Scourge Hook: Floods of Rage.
Finally, turning Myers into a rush killer is just wrong. It might be a bit late now, since you didn't include the player base in the design at all, but I think that you need to get your team together and come up with something that isn't slopped together from other already existing powers. I main Myers, and Demogorgon's lunge is NOT an even okay rework. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if you were already recording voice lines for him.
The slugging thing is fine if they just remove 50% of the total progress for the self pick up progress rates if the killer hooks them. Problem (possibly) solved, or another solution would be 50% of the current progress would be something I would consider testing how that shakes down, I'd say try this one first.
Even the anti tunnel stuff (minus the hard slap on the n*ts for a kill >6 hooks, that needs to absolutely go), I am actually in favour of. HOWEVER, I think with this new direction. Killers need to have their objectives go from kills being their victory condition, to a X hook value depending on your rank. With kills (and of course escapes) simply bringing a game to an end and moris being the icing on a well hooked cake.
Example: Bronze is 4 hooks, Silver is 6, Gold is 8, Iri is 10 (example numbers, though mostly to give a bit of wiggle room in each respective rank pool as the old emblem system was far too strict once you got higher up). BUT bvhr also, if they do this, NEEDS to communicate it in game and possibly social media that this is now how killers win and is their new victory condition going forward. Clear, concise and easy to understand in tutorials or popups. Get X number of hooks to win in order to remove the arguing over how killers win/play their games.
I say this because, if things go through as is. Killers are damned if they do, damned if they don't. If they go for kills, they can be punished for doing it too well. Or if the survivors (accidentally or purposefully, doesn't matter here) weaponize incompetence and throw themselves at them or are go nexters. Meaning the killer has to play bad on purpose to not get punished. If they go for unique hooks (12 of course being what bhvr and survivors want us to do) we are actively going against our objective/win condition. The incentive needs to be married with our objective. Otherwise, it doesn't matter what the reward is (unless it ridiculously broken). It will not be sought out if it goes against how we win.
But in that scenario the killer has a targets location…like "in their vision" location with the unhooker. The killer is not hunting down a new target, their just continuing to chase that one.
Personally we'd be ok with that if there was a guaranteed way for the code to tell intention. Ain't no code we know of that can differentiate between malicious and just plain dumb.
I hope that the player base goes down a lot by doing this. This update is trash. There are ways to target Slugging and Tunneling without going to this extreme.
The code wouldn't need to be 100% perfect.
Just look at all the changes in this upcoming patch. BHVR obviously didn't care about making sure the killer never got unfairly punished.
It's absolutely ridiculous that the AFK crows were nerfed so badly that I've literally never seen a survivor with 3 crows since the nerfs…… but people are expecting these upcoming changes to be powerful and impactful. Why the double standard?
Honestly, bit flabbergasted by these proposed changes. It doesn't feel like you guys have a great idea for how players typically play your game at all. As is, these changes feel more like they outright disable these strategies rather than discouraging them, which would be the healthiest way to go about it. Not gonna talk about the specific killer balance changes as they seem fine. Here's what I like about the game-wide changes:
- Elusive. Great status effect, and a big help to discouraging tunneling without punishing killers. I am worried that the "for a limited time" will be longer than the current duration of haste and endurance though, as I think it should be the same length (if not then maybe let elusive last like 5 seconds longer than the basekit haste and endurance effects. Nothing too crazy).
- No collision with other players when unhooked. This probably should've been in the game ages ago so glad it's here.
- Can see the killer's aura. This is good as it helps the survivor navigate away and really is only gonna help newer survivors as experienced ones will have enough gamesense to generally know where the killer is coming from already. Solid change. Don't give them the immunity to killer instinct though because that's largely killer specific and would only serve to nerf them specifically.
- Improved repair speeds if a survivor dies while under X hook states completed. You guys set it at 6 but personally it should probably be 4. Sometimes survivors are intent on stealthing and you can only consistently find 1-2 people. 4 hook states means you have to spread hooks evenly between 2 survivors to avoid the repair speed punishment and feels like a much more fair requirement. It's much harder to argue that a survivor was tunneled out if the killer kept oscillating between 2 different players.
- Unique hook bonuses. This is a good idea, and especially the part about it affecting different killers to different degrees. But, there's a better solution I'll give below everything else.
Here's what I think should be immediately trashed:
- All the slugging changes. Slugging only really derives the value it does because someone else has to come and pick the slug up while the killer presumably chases someone else. As it is here, the survivors can just keep sitting on gens the entire time because their teammate is going to get back up in 90s. It's a team game and I think that the killer being able to force teamplay is a boon to how the game plays. Given the current wording, it seems like it will be infinite use too after that 90s period has elapsed. I feel that these changes are too extreme given survivors have a solid collection of powerful perks to mitigate slugging already. Unbreakable, Exponential, and Conviction are all solid choices that survivors can choose to alleviate the pressure slugging generates. If we're really dead-set on giving basekit Unbreakable we should limit the usage to once per match and increase the required slug time. I'm completely fine with the general intent of these changes. Attempting to curb the behavior of the very small minority of killers who slug just to bleed people out is a noble goal but these changes are going to impact killers just genuinely playing the game. And the basekit Tenacity should just be gone like c'mon this doesn't need to be here at all.
- Hiding hook status from killer. I think it's fair to delay the loud noise notification, forcing killers to keep an eye on their HUD to know when someone's been unhooked but sometimes the unhook is the only source of information the killer has. This not only feels like an anti-tunnel change that's just going to result in more proxy camping, but it's a change that protects the unhooker who should be a prime target under any normal circumstance. It just feels really convoluted and silly without necessarily accomplishing the intended goal.
- Removing the ability to block or regress gens if a survivor is double-hooked to death. This seems like overkill in the best scenario and outright exploitable in the worse. Let's say the killer double-hooks a survivor and they either kill themselves on hook or their team allows them to die. Does this mean that survivors can benefit by letting one of their teammates go even when the killer wasn't intending to tunnel them out of the game entirely? If so, that's pretty absurd and kinda goes against the team nature of the game outright.
With all that in mind, here's what I propose. The best way to deal with tunneling and slugging isn't to disincentivize it so heavily they're basically phased out, it's to encourage spreading hooks and picking up.
- Broadly buff hook-related perks on the killer side, but make it so they don't function on a double-hook. For instance, take Pop Goes the Weasel. Add some extra regression but now the killer has to hook different players to get the reward. For something like Friends Til the End make the aura reveal significantly longer so it's easier to actually get the expose down. Scourge Hook: Gift of Pain/Weeping Wounds? Tweak the numbers a bit. If you also adjust Scourge Hook RNG you can probably further incentivize hooking. This approach simultaneously encourages hooking instead of slugging and not outright tunneling players. The exception would be Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance which should probably disable itself when a survivor dies. Because it effectively already has the limitation of unique hooks and is arguable the most powerful regression perk in the game this feels fair.
- Massive blood point bonuses for spreading hooks. I know a lot of players aren't going to care about this sorta thing but there are some that will. This is a change free of any balance complications that might further help so why not right?
I know this is a massive chunk of text that most people aren't going to take the time to read but I genuinely think that if you take the aspects from the first section and combine them with the last section you could effectively curb slugging and tunneling for the majority of killers without going so far as to basically remove these strategies for normal players. I'm extremely worried that you guys will implement all the changes here. Like, with very little exaggeration this will kneecap almost every killer except for those with the highest mobility. This patch has a high potential of causing a real killer exodus and putting the game into the same death spiral that VHS found itself in if not course corrected.
I play both survivors and killers, mainly survivors, but this update is simply ridiculous for killes. Just delete killers at this point, make the game 2 teams of survivors fixing gens, who ever finishes first wins. Play a few killer matches dev, the game is a lot more survivor-friendly than you think
While generally skeptical - it's very disappointing to see all these things hitting the game at once.
When you change the recipe to something you love, you experiment with one new thing at a time - if you throw a bunch of changes at your working system at once it is almost impossible to tell WHICH change is causing problems when things go awry.
Each individual aspect introduced in the anti-slug/camp system I personally disagree with in regards to direction, but am optimistically skeptical about when it comes to gameplay. Dead By Daylight doesn't belong to me and isn't mine to direct, but I'm hoping matches get healthier overall because of it.
Overall - when all the changes are taken into account at once - it fills me with a sense of dread and negativity.
Not because of "oh no, muh tunneling!" or "My Slugging! I can't PLAY without my SLUGGING!" meme.jpg
It's because we've seen these things attempted and failed countless times in the past: Objective Based Matchmaking, strict design, etc.
Yes, in a game like Call Of Duty - it's very annoying when 1 guy on the enemy team is super good and wiping the floor with everyone, heck, it's less fun when that person is on YOUR team and you don't get to engage with the gameplay because one or two people on your team are "having all the fun" - but making it so that better performance causes players to perish faster and deal less damage to sneakily MAKE matches feel more "engaging" is a betrayal to the liberty and equal playing field offered by such experiences.
This, in many respects, mirrors that very bad philosophy while also being self exclusive at the same time.
When I read these notes, what I'm understanding is that the designers - understandably so - have an "ideal match" in mind and are aiming to steer players towards that… not by subversive little nudges or passive effects, but by massive overt mechanics that REMOVE GAMEPLAY from Dead By Daylight.
To unbox it a bit more deliberately, let's look at the points one by one.
TL;DR on this one - If Killers and survivors get a ton of buffs and nerfs from being hooked or slugged or hooking or slugging or whatever, the baseline of the game gets muddled.
What do you do?
Normally, you're not worried about DS or anything, so you hook this person again. They die instantly - it is their punishment for not playing smarter. Even though you lost the scratch marks of the Savior, you have increased pressure and head towards the other generators. You are unlucky and don't find survivors, but do find a Generator 4/5ths of the way done - you kick it and get it regressing. One generator pops. You go and start chase with the survivor that completed this generator - you eventually win, but that original generator that was regressing gets popped right as you hook this survivor. You hook the survivor and get to the final generator that you left - it's almost completed, that earlier regression you made on the 4/5ths one gave you the seconds needed to be here. The two survivors sacrifice their health states and team up to complete the generator. They're skilled in chase and use a couple of opportunities to get away. You dedicate on one, by the time you get them down - a survivor is saved from hook, and they are both healed. You venture to patrol the exit gates, it opens. One is chased out, but the other snuck by for an unhook. The healthy survivor takes a hit while the other finds the hatch while you patrol gates. GGs. WP GL HF Next. 3e/1k
ALTERNATIVELY - The second you hit that survivor that was just unhooked at the start of these events, you decide not to kill them. You follow the scratch marks and see that a survivor was nearby, waiting to steal the generator. Because they were caught by surprise you manage to get them down quickly. You go to hook them. The two other survivors that were repairing leave their generators to perform an emergency rescue operation. You fake out returning to the slugged death-hook survivor and double back to catch an altruistic would-be savior and start chasing them. This scramble to save friends turns into a daisy chain of slugging, hooking, health exchanges, and chasing where survivors manage to just barely scrape by. It takes a lot of back and fourth and the Killer has to break away to kick generators and keep them regressing because they are so close to completion. Survivors keep dipping by and stopping the regression which turns things into a cat and mouse. The regressing generator with 80% is finished, the 4/5ths one is contested but is also finished, and they eventually get the final one. 2 survivors are sacrificed to the entity during this and that original survivor that was on death hook barely makes an escape with their friend. GGs. WP GL HF Next. 2e/2k
NOW - this is a lose lose situation. If you pick up the survivor and hook them, all of the generators stop regressing and cannot be kicked. Mess around and find that 4/5 generator - cannot kick it and it doesn't regress. The gen over there pops. Mid chase the original generator which stopped regressing because of your sacrifice pops. The 4/5ths generator pops too BEFORE you end the chase. Frustrated and annoyed that you couldn't kick the generators because of the hook. You camp the survivor through the end game and the other ones leave while frustrated. Snore. Get Gud. 2e/2k.
IF you chose to SLUG the survivor and leave them - it's no gamble anymore. They crawl away and auto recover very quickly and are either picked up in a safe location or are left on the ground while everyone else does their thing. Maybe if you go find the other survivor with the scratch marks that hook can potentially give you the information and regression needed to pull through - but why would you gamble? MAYBE it's worth it, MAYBE that potential 2k can turn into a 4k because of all the buffs you might get - but no matter what… at the end you're not going to remember the feeling you had chaining downs together or pressuring survivors or the fact you had this Laurie Strode dead on hook and at your feet - but she made it out. No. You're going to remember that gut realization that Dead By Daylight is a video game and you are in a a lose-lose situation. If you leave the Laurie on the ground, you are punished. If you hook her again, you are punished. You are not a bad person and did not make a critical game breaking mistake or choose to play in a mean or disruptive manner, but you are screwed - because the Laurie instantly went to the generator and dedicated, and now you have to pay for their mistakes.
Humans are very interesting machines - particular emotions resonate deeper with them than others. Joy and desire are stronger than grief and pain, fear and disgust override peace and contentedness, rapport conquers distrust, and betrayal reigns strongest of all…
When people feel betrayed by a friend, by a brand, by a product, by an idea they often don't forget that emotional response, even at the cost of other emotions and reasons.
Players are going to remember that feeling staring down at a dying survivor more than anything else. No matter how much content, skins, laughs, and engagement that is provided - that subconscious kneejerk frustration they will feel when they must choose between 'tunneling' or 'slugging' will likely prove to be disastrous for the game's health at large.
Players are not going to remember when this system saves them nearly as well as they will remember when it betrays them.
The anti-slug system and the anti-tunnel system counteract one another and have a VERY VERY VERY high chance of disrupting normal, honest, good natured matches.
The anti-regression system was already a bit tough. It certainly accomplished its goal of culling the sheer volume of overlapping regression events in the game to prevent Killer players from adding minutes of in-game time to the match (instead of balancing regression perks properly) but the amount of good natured and well meaning players that the system disrupts is notably low. While I do see regression blockers kick in during normal games from time to time, the overwhelming majority of the time it is not a massive issue, perhaps a minor annoyance. It is sad, understandably, that 1-2% of the time in my normal matches the mechanic gets in the way and disrupts a match.
I have a very, very, very bad feeling that these systems are too blatant, too intentional, and too pervasive to be ignored in common non-toxic matches. The direction of taking Dead By Daylight into an "Objective Based Balance" to try and make every match "The Ideal Match" is something that hurts my heart and makes me fear that the game will become increasingly drab, dull, and predictable as time goes on.
I'm hopefully optimistic and am looking forward to how these changes will effect gameplay. If we see a lot less malicious killer gameplay and don't feel the effects harm the authenticity and flow of normal games, it will be a wonderful addition to the game.
I still feel, in my gut, that this may be a very critical change in direction that may take something that's important to my heart into a place I could never follow it into.
This whole update is just bullshit. The whole point of the game is that the killer’s job is to take out all the survivors, but instead they keep making things easier for survivors - who already have it easy. And what if you run into a toxic team? Then the game completely loses its point. Honestly, I hope people stop playing, maybe then the devs will finally realize what kind of crap they’re pushing into the game
A year ago I almost got banned because I said that what we would be better with NPC killers. It feels like that the goal is having a killer just trying to be a worthless mockery for the survivors while they hold a button.
News flash: the only minimal depth your game has are killers. You are murdering everything that made you successful. Guess you are focused on failing.
Just by accepting that you can remove these bs in private matches you are accepting these updates are game breaking. Really, remove the win or lose. Just reward everyone and make everyone quit within a month. When you don’t care to get or need to get better, the game gets boring fast. My god. Never seen a company trying to kill their game so bad.
How is the killer at a net loss from one hit, when the survivor using DS has to not help the team at all until they can make the bodyblock, and then gets slugged? That's a useless survivor that isn't touching a gen, and it can stretch to a full minute.
This is fire (except the myers changes)!
So, according to you, survivors would be better off if intentional bodyblocking deactivated anti-tunnel perks, because survivors are making terrible mistakes when they try to weaponize anti-tunnel perks? And therefore, survivors would be better off if BHVR prevented them from trying to weaponize the anti-tunnel perks?
If a Surv can only last 20 seconds in gameplay that's a skill issue so severe that it's insane you would want such a low skill level to be catered to. I CAN get kills without tunneling and slugging too, but that's not every time and if you played any significant amount of Killer you would know that.
A Devotion 3 P3 Trickster and Pig tells me that you haven't played nearly enough Killer to understand what playing Killer in any significant way entails. Brother, your Trickster build has No Way Out, Spies, Ultimate Weapon, and Insidious. Not only does Trickster not at all have any use for Insidious, but this entire build had zero synergy at all and would get you ran over in any mid to high MMR gameplay. This is not to dog on you, but to tell you from someone who is experienced in the game on the Killer side that it is glaringly obvious that you do not have the time in Killer to be able to accurately make any kind of comments about it.
If you could isolate exactly and only intentional bodyblocks, sure.
You do realize that the inequality is going to increase due to survivors being able to counter against low tier killers with ease, right?
Did I said I love being tunneled? I said it's not hurting the solo-players much. And sometimes it feels really good5 if you can loop the killer for 5 generators,even no able to escape. The players hurted most by tunneling is team players who are really bad at playing, cuz all they do is get hooked and waiting their freinds to die as well. And really? You really wants to do generater all the time? I don't like to pay so much money for a QTE simulater. The machenism that you can take one more stab in 10s allow you to go to the pallet zone already.
By the way, here is my killers' page table. I didn't bought any new killers after 2018 I think. And I only play Micheal when I get tired of human. The docter is rised for the perk, it fits Tier 2 Micheal well.
You said soloq players don't care about tunneling and slugging which is absurd. Why would playing solo make me want to lay on the ground for minutes at a time? If anything, you have better protections from these things in a party because teammates might try to help you, where soloqers often won't.
You also make it sound like the goal of the match is to die as fast as possible so you can go to another match, where you can again die as fast as possible. The goal is to win by escaping fyi.
People act like this will fully ruin the game.
Maybe yes if some points of new changes dont get resolved like self sabo surv, 6 hook states needs to be reached minimum to confirm kill.
But overall its so obvious they want survivors to have no collision, elusive just to escape far away so killer cant track them and kill them so fast like they are doing rn.
When i play survivor there are games where i get tunnelled like that i didnt even tbag or use flashlight i run toolbox build myself and off meta perks
The doomsdaying has been wild to behold. Most of this is going to have such a minimal impact, especially once it's all nerfed.
I get hard tunneled all the time and I also bring non meta perks, focus on gens, and don't BM. It's much easier to target the objective-based players than the ones with chase builds. I think they're trying to address that with this. Too many killers are getting easy wins by targeting players weaker at chase but who get the objective done.
Some people were calling it for some time. These changes would come and the inmense majority of the killer roster would simply not be ready for them.
Tunnelling and slugging were not the sickness. They are symptoms. A consequence, not the cause. The cause is that most killers can't keep up. The fact that Blight, nurse and Ghoul are the most used killers is also a symptom of this as well.
They attempt to nullify these symptoms, but the sickness remains because what we need is individual updates for almost every killer in order to allow them to keep up. And then will it be time to incorporate some truly game-changing features.
I do believe they heard the community too much though. Posts complaining of tunnelling and slugging are recurrent, thus making them the focus of the discussion and encouraging acting against them when in fact these strategies are not the problem, but the result of a problem.
But consider the other end of the deal. A killer cannot waste time on a long chase because then they will be punished. Pressure will deplete. A survivor back in the lobby is then required for pressure. The competitivity in the game has ensured things are how they are right now. Killers except for the fearsome 3 simply cannot withstand it without the need to resort to these strategies.
Buff each and every killer, make them be updated and able to keep up. Solve the overreliance on RNG for Dredge. Update trapper. Give stealth killers some chase power. Rework skull merchant. Rework twins. Tweak xeno. Things like that. I assure you once killers can keep, up tunelling and slugging will naturally fade because they won't be as necessary. And then, if you want to put a final nail on the coffin to ensure any reminiscence is gone, add these changes.
I agree many need buffs. That, or there should be basekit changes to some and not others to even things out, like how high mobility killers are getting some exclusions from the new buffs.
But I disagree that tunneling and slugging are the only way. You have plenty of people in the forum saying they don't use those tactics, myself included. If I lose to better players then I lose. It's only people obsessed with stats and 4ks that seem to be worried about this.
What I don't like is losing to worse players, and that happens to me a lot as surv but not as killer.
The only thing that worries me if these changes fully go live without any changes (which wont simply due to history of what happened to fog vials so fast)
Simply because the game has to be made in a way that at higher mmr killers can be on a equal footing rather than survivors having more power just due to being so highly cordinated knowing map tiles and such stacking perks now.
So i like that these changes are going to help survivors againts weaker mmr killers that simply rely on tunnel and slug if one or more survs sabotage u shouldnt really get punished for playing well and they didnt.
So thats what i love as it happens to me too so we are in same boat there.
What worries is mainly my killer matches at higher mmr which will have to get some noticable changes due to how Otz reacted and hens etc.
Highly likely that some of the values will be tuned, perks adjusted.
In theory if Pop, bbq, haste are all three decent values and not tiny, this by itself is generally a big bonus againts swfs in a scenario you do spread hooks there will be more at stake here where they will need to be playing strategically and the person going for save will need to hide in locker wasting time there instead repairing etc.
Keeping on distorting my original meaning can't help you, as I have already mentioned the situation you can loop the killer for 5 generators. Also, crying for more babysitting can't save your experience as well, especially these mechanism that allows you to become a "invisible" man only extend the garbage time you squating around, in another way, almost the same experience as get slugged.
Let's be honest, you said you want to escape and win, I think the killer have the exact idea just like you. You people should not deny their desire to win, and just ask for strengthening the human. These "promotion" significantly increased the difficulty for the killers, but give them no motivation to change the target. So these false stpes can only result into a more toxic kiilling strategy. And, the confrontation between the killer and surviver factions.
Think about it, the whole game is actually about the generators. The underlying logic of killer is clear: stop doing generators! It's the current machenism that the killer can only stop the generator throngh disabling the surviver, that is, tunnelling and slugging. One stop a player from machine forever, and one disabled their abilidy to generate. Killers can't benefit from multiple hooking directly, hooking itslf is non-sense untill the third one. The easiest way to stop them from tunneling and slugging is to benefit from hooking itself. Do you always meet killers bringing Scourge hooktrying to tunnel or slag someone at the very beginning? (the perk controls the generator, I don't know how it's named in English) Really rare right? They benefit more from the act of hook. So the idea is clear, if a killer can control the machine from kicking the machine or hooking the survivors (eg: those who get hooked has a debuff in doing generators, but the protection perk is activated more powerfully in phase 2 survivors), the killer will change the target automaticlly. Maybe slugging is still a choice for killers with high maneuverability, cuz you can never deny the risk of moving surviver and time it waste to hook a man. But you shall also confess the fact that most killer will chose to hook instead of slug if hooking itslf is beneficial, since the 4-down itslf is really risky, especially when we got so much powerful perks relating to knock down.
Look at the current version of DBD, if you can only play killer, what will you do? Low return + long time-cost in kicking machine, so patrolling machine itself is a waste of time if you don't find a survier. No more than 8 kick in a generator, so you may abandon the kick-related skills, cuz it may act really bad in the key machine. Hook around can't stop surviver from machines, but the death hook can get a player done once and for ever. What will you choose? If the production group reinforce the difficulty in hunting but give no benefit in hooking, but give no award in head hooks, I think they will only reinforce the tunnel/slug strategy.
PS: You should apologize for your irresponsible speculation that I am discuising myslf as a surviver main.
The problem is that basekit changes will make the strong killers even stronger. Each killer is its own world and requires a more individual treatment so that weaker ones become stronger while not making the strong killers be busted.
Then we have that tunnelling and slugging indeed can be the only ways in many scenarios. These are the safest ways of making a comeback, but even then it's risky to do. On top of that add that sometimes MMR decides to pair you with survivors that are much more better than you when you are killer. The game is unforgiving, it pushes you to camp, tunnel and slug at higher MMR if you are not using blight, nurse or ghoul if you want a shot at getting kills because the other killers either lack mobility or are easily countered. Add also the fact that some...many survivor perks trigger when hooked. Why would someone want to empower their rival?
The problem is that SWFs are sooo coordinated that they will find a bypass for thiese things. They always do. The moment someone goes down, the survivors will go into a locker or hide behind a gen to prevent their auras from being seen. Because now they know you can see them, and they don't have to speculate. The pop will for sure be 10% or less, knowing BHVR. The fact they hid the numbers is a bit…concerning to say the least. And haste will surely be around 5%, which weaker killers won't be able to use. Pig with 5% haste is not a big deal. Nurse with it is. And the pop won't do much if the gen is far unless the killer is one with high mobility. The bonus now becomes a useless feature since it has counter. And every value you can get out of the BBQ and aura reading, basekit or with perks, after hooking has the potential to be negated or drastically reduced.
I hear you about those 3 basekit perks not being enough.
Believe me i main myers with vanity at 4.6ms and i still feel slow and cant traverse the map.
Most likely basekit corrupt will be added i made a post about it give it an upvote too.
The only thing i can think of this being worked around with is if after each gen is completed its allowed to confirm kill as well so if the gens are popping so should kills in theory.
Gen = kill
Kill = gen
They are both main objectives for each side.
They for sure must allow 4 hook states instead 6, its also allowed to kill while game is progressing aka gens progressing too it refreshes hook cycles for debuffs.
Im fairly certain they wont see light of day SOME of these changes while with others i think its great, i think 4k slug = win should be fully killed but 2k 3k smart slugs should be the play here and community should voice it once the PTB releases.
Generally about BBQ, if they do all hide which is fully downside to them when killers can just run DMS, Pain Res (i run just pain res) the gens will just get blocked and killer can just rotate there and know a general location where they could be.
This will be really good and i dont think bhvr will allow any wiggling room for swfs to figure out abusing strats for very long
Survivor perks and low tiers should be changed too. Wouldn't you prefer low tiers to be strong enough to have a chance of getting a 3-4k with skill expression instead of only a 0-1k without skill expression?
Why should that stop improvements to gameplay? Why should improving the core of the game be held hostage because low tier killers exist? Should we not add improvements to basekit killer because S tiers exist and it affects them more? If so, we need to revert a bunch of basekit improvements killers have received.
But again - this is just people missing the point of my post. Add corrupt basekit if they have to, add some form of gen control basekit if they have to with these changes, I don't care, so long as it's done in an interactive and interesting way. Improving the game health and making the gameplay less frustrating for a lot of people is more important than keeping stuff the same just because 'well it's always existed' or 'well what about (x) killer' or 'well just bring this perk'.
These PTB changes are definitely going to need tweaks, I haven't said otherwise, but it is the right direction for the gameplay of DBD because only catering and designing for (x) tiers or 'high MMR survivors' is asinine and ridiculous.
if you're playing a weak killer you need to go into every game understanding that your killer is weak and that you have to expect a worse result than a higher tier killer, and that any change to the game that benefits survivor in any meaningful way will make weaker killers worse. dont ask BHVR to hold the game back for everyone else because YOU chose to play or main a killer YOU know is weak, reorient your expectations. (the same is true for higher tier killers like jarky is saying). if you care so much about winning then dont play a killer thats bad at winning, and if youre playing weak killers because theyre more fun then understand youre playing for fun and NOT results
(also im not saying weaker killers dont deserve buffs, they should absolutely be brought more in line with stronger killers whenever BHVR have the opportunity to work on them)