I feel like BHVR are not rewarding getting good at DBD
Sorry if I come across as more negative then I usually am but this is something that’s been on my mind for a few weeks now. With the recent “Pallet QOL” change that made over half of the maps a endless train of pallets, I feel like BHVR are not rewarding players for actually learning how to play, not only that, but they’re encouraging players to not bother learning at all.
What do I mean by this? Well let’s start with a analogy, you are a new player in, let’s say, Monster Hunter, you boot up Wilds or World or maybe even Gen Ultimate if you’re a hipster, given a sword, shown a big monster, and told to kill it. You will probably fail your first time because you have no idea what you are doing, but, as you practice, you start to see patterns, learn attack hitboxes, figure out the best way to get damage out of your weapon, so on and so on, and the game rewards that with giving you the means to improve your gear so you can go out and kill bigger stuff for better gear. This is obviously a oversimplification but the point is that you are encouraged to get good by the game in order to progress and, well, have more fun.
Let’s compare that to DBD, you are a new player, you either pick Survivor, get thrust into a random lobby and probably die, or pick Killer, get thrust into a random lobby, and probably lose. Over time you slowly get better until you win your first match, and the game rewards you with…basically nothing, you get some extra Bloodpoints, you get some pips for more Bloodpoints on the 13th, and you get some points on a invisible MMR system so your next game is harder, that’s it.
Obviously this isn’t the entire story, because getting good at a character you like is its own reward, but that’s where a issue lies, the majority of Survivor gameplay has basically zero skill ceiling, Chases are the only part of Survivor where you as a player are able to consistently express your own skill and improve at that skill, everything else is just holding down a button, and while Killer has more avenues to express Skill since Chases are what you do 70% of the time as well, everything else is macro skill you build up over time, and while macro skill is criminally under appreciated, it’s under appreciated because it’s not immediately obvious, chases are where most of the skill lies…and that’s also where I think BHVR are actively rewarding not bothering with learning how DBD actually works.
Let’s look at the last 3 Killer releases for example, Springtrap, Kaneki, and Krasue. Springtrap is very simple, he throws a axe, grabs people if the axe is embedded in them, and has a teleport that is basically just point and click. This is fine and completely understandable since FNAF drew in a lot of eyes and giving new players a simple to play killer with a surprising amount of mechanical depth if you want to really master him is perfectly acceptable, but Springtrap is still very simple to play, you can pick him up and get good results pretty quickly, and really don’t need to go beyond that if you don’t want to.
Kaneki was by far the most braindead killer in the game on release, and even after the nerfs he’s really easy. He has a pretty high skill ceiling, but, unlike someone like Blight, Nurse, Wesker, Singularity, etc, he has a skill floor so low it’s practically digging into the earth, you can get good results with Kaneki on your first game just by virtue of how free most of his kit is.
And then there’s Krasue, perfectly fine on the PTB, over buffed for no reason on live, and then brought back down to a reasonable state in 2 subsequent patches. Even now a lot of her kit is very easy, her spit doesn’t slow her down so spamming it is free, wall shots have homing so you don’t even need to be precise half the time, her head form’s dash is the freest dash in the game, giving you good speed and making her pretty hard to see with no requirements other then some charge and holding down a button. I like Krasue a lot but even I can’t deny that her skill floor is very low, you can get good results with her from your first game.
and don’t think I only have those three in my crosshairs, Nurse with Flannel, Lethal, and I’m All Ears is so free she practically plays herself, Blight with Double Speed and a full loadout of Chase perks is so braindead he practically plays himself, even older things that aren’t in the game anymore like the old gen lock meta, release SM, Ultimate Weapon/DMS, etc etc, all of these have two things in common, they were/are effective, and they’re easy.
And Survivor has similar problems, Windows of Opportunity, old MFT, old Dead Hard, old DS, Exhaustion perks to a degree, Resurgence just letting you reset for free practically instantly, and now over half the maps in the game let you get away with pre dropping every pallet you see because you have so goddamn many to work with on most maps now. Last I checked BHVR removed pallets from most maps because they were so safe, and now they just undid all of that in one update for reasons I can only even begin to guess.
This is, to me at least, a problem, part of the cause is new players having no actually good in-game tutorial, but another part is BHVR making more and more choices and balancing decisions like this. Why was Kaneki released in the state that he was? Because a new easy high-tier killer will let new killer players win and feel good. Why was Krasue overbuffed from PTB? Because a new easy high-tier Killer with let new killer players win and feel good, why was over half the maps in the game given like 20 extra pallets? Partly because some maps were genuinely in desperate need of more resources but also because it lets new survivors be reckless with resources and still win, I can go on and on and on, but all of these examples lead to one last question, why the hell should I or anybody bother learning how to get good at DBD when the game itself has actively been encouraging people to not bother for the last couple of months? Personal enjoyment? I can get that in practically any other game and actually be rewarded for my time and effort, DBD doesn’t even give you a way to track your wins in game outside of the stat tracker on their website, this is not the game to go to if being rewarded for getting good is something you’re interested in.
I’m not saying the game has to be like Dark Souls or Darkest Dungeon where you either get good or quit, but rewarding the lowest common denominator this hard and this frequently is not how you should balance a game. I’m not asking for a competitive system let’s get that straight, but I would like to actually have a reason to learn how to get good at what I play beyond personal satisfaction
Am I venting over nothing? Am I wrong for thinking like this? Probably, it’s just how I feel atm
G’night
Comments
Precisely what I've been doing for 4 years already. Not being bothered at all and just enjoying the game.