The black banquet. The good, The bad, and what should be changed next year.
So the black banquet event has been out for a week now and its not that great. Massively favouring one side has been a occurring issue with this event but giving ine side 20 different things then the other one things is a bit silly. This event is also missing alot of amazing features the community loved from the masquerade event. Im gonna share my feed back stating the goods of the event, the bad of the event, and what I would lile to see in next year's black banquet.
The good:
.Almost every non licensed map has a new area on the map to celebrate the anniversary.
.Decorations around the map is perfect for the event.
.The lobby background is good.
.The anniversary archives delves into its lore, being good for those who follow their story.
.Interactive in the sense that survivors has to take food to the dining tables to activate global event.
The bad:
.The anniversary cakes arnt as common in the blood web as of previous years.
.Killer gets one thing while survivor gets a total of 25 different unique stuff in game.
.Less free content than previous years.
.Survivors gets global event but killer doesn’t??????
.Boring for both sides.
.Feels very stale since the global event and abilities gained from morsels are the same for that match, compared to previous anniversary event where the global event and abilities are random.
.Gameplay loop is the same.
.No extra blood points when hooking survivors on anniversary hooks / completing anniversary gens.
.Fun mid game events such as party chests, party totems, etc gone.
.Event items gained from event currecny can all be unlocked day one, meaning that there isnt really a grind so why play.
.The advertised event was misleading compared to gameplay.
.The event starting weeks after the dbd birthday doesnt really make sense.
.Basically everything the community loved about the masqurade is gone.
.The anniversary cakes cost more since they are no longer common rarity.
.Most of the event effects including poison are boring an uninteractive.
.Anniversary items only found in bloodweb, no longer in game
.Missing gameplay elements the community loved from the masquerade
As you can see from this, there is only little amount of good stuff with the event. They smashed it with the aesthetics and would love the aesthetics to be developed into more next year but the game play os just very unbalanced, boring and missing soo much stuff.
What would I change to make the black banquet a success? Below I changed how the event works. Main course amd global effect now cycles through different effects rather than it being the same all the time. I reworked the poison to actually have some sort of set up and interactivity. I brought back old aspects that the community loves. Added new aspects to make the game play feel more chaotic but also fitting with the celebrational themed. And more. I feel like these changes gives both survivors and killers alot to do each trial while staying with the same structures (main course amd global effects being 2-5 gens and dessert being 1 generator to endgame).
I also want to talk about some other aspects of yhe event that needs to be changes / worked on, with the first one being the anniversary cakes. We all love the extra blood points the cakes give but we can all agree that compared to previous years, the cakes are a bit too expensive and not as common. So with that said, cakes should return back to common rarity. This would allow the anniversary cakes to be much cheaper (2000 blood points) while also making them much more common due to them being common rarity, allowing players to stack up heavily on anniversary cakes!
Another thing I want to talk about is their cosmetics. Now there's a trend that each year we get less and less cosmetics which is off putting for players. With the free anniversary rift pass, I believe we should have 5 killer weapons (rather then three), 5 survivor masks (rather than three), three badges (one animated), three banners (one animated), a charm, and 2 outfits. Along side this, I would make the grind for the free cosmetics higher. Ive played the event on Tuesday only and unlocked every free cosmetics (minus the dwight and trapper outfits that are locked behind their own weekly challenges) which makes it not really worth playing the event. The store cosmetics are fun but I think having anniversary themed outfits for licensed characters (like you did with masquerade) would get soo many players excited.
Another thing I have noticed is that anniversary items are no longer found in chests. I dont know if this is a bug but you can only get anniversary items from the blood web. I personally think they should return to chests (and even gurantee them in party chests that was stated in the screen shot above). I think it would also be cool to add more anniversary themed items for example, anniversary themed fog vile and the fog is a yellow / orange colour to fit the theme.
Lastly, I want to talk about game modes. Some games brings back old game modes for a day snd rotate between other previous game modes. I believe doing something like this would bring alot of variety during the event period and would even bring more players to the game. Imagine day 1 has a anniversary themed 2 vs 8 then day 2 is anniversary themed chaos shuffle (all with the abilties, effects, desserts,etc) it would be soo much fun. Obviously this isnt needed just a fun little idea that I think would be cool.
Thank you for you time and I hope this feedback and everyone else's feedback helps to bring a more enjoyable event when next year comes around :)
Comments
For anyone who may struggle to read everything in the screen shot, here it is listed here:
The main course:
The main cause occurs when there 2 or more generators left. During this, killer and survivors can go to the dining cart and collect a one of the four morsels being the stuffed totters, creamy pasta, smokey camember, and smokey ribs. The stuffed totters will grant a dash forward effect when eaten by the killer or survivor. The creamy pasta will grant the killer or survivor increase vault speeds (15%) and reveal all nearby pallets and windows (within 24 meters) for 12 seconds when eaten. The baked camembert gives survivors the invulnerable status effect for 4 seconds, while killer gets 50% unstackable stun reduction for 4 seconds after use. The smokey ribs reveals every aura on the map for 10 seconds when eaten by the killer or survivor. Only one main course can be held at a time. If a killer or survivor has a main course in ther inventory when main course ends, it instantly dissapears.
Global effect:
Global effects occur when a banquet table has 3 main courses added to it. While a global effect is in place, no main courses can be placed on the banquet table (prevent the global effect from ending early). The global effect can be activated during the main course duration. Global effects lasts for 60 seconds each, unless aid otherwise.There are a total of 8 global effects that can occur, which cycles between a different one when one global effect has ended. These global effects are party time, main course for all, heal you expose you, peekaboo, wait where, gateways, Tryked, and basement party. Party time causes every totem and chest to become party themed. party totems grants killers and survivors 10% haste for 10 seconds and 2000 blood points when consumed. Party chests allows survivors to instantly open a chest and grant an anniversary themed item plus 1500 blood points, while for killers they can poison the chest and grant 1500 blood points. These chests stay poisoned until the global effect ends and will inflict any survivor who touches it poison for 30 seconds. Party time effect ends when all party totems and chests has been collected, or when the effect duration ends. Main course for all grants everyone a main course meal. Heal you expose you heals any injured survivor but inflicts everyone with the expose status effect for 60 seconds. Peekaboo reveals every objective and persons aura to everyone for 30 seconds, rather than the usual 60 seconds. Wait where grants survivors hidden scratch marks and grunts of pain sounds silenced, while killer gains undetectable and 8% haste. Gateways will spawn 6 portals across the map until the global effect ends (60 seconds). Tryked will randomly spawn the killer terror radius on survivors within the global effect time while killers will see a random noise notification where a survivor is not at. Basement party causes basement to be a safe area (survivors cant be injured/ downed, killers cant be stunned / blinded), spawns 5 limited time party chests, 5 limited time party totems, and a bunch of cake that can be eaten for 2500 blood points each.
Dessert:
Desert starts when there is one generator left and stays activated for the remainder of the trial. There are a total of 5 desserts being the coconut scream pie, the terrormisue, screeching cooler, frightful flan, and toothy torte. The coconut scream pie causes survivors within the killer (32 meters) to scream and reveal their aura for 3 seconds while for survivor it reveals the killer aura for 5 seconds. The terrormissue grants survivors and killers 7% unstackable haste for 15 seconds when eaten. The screeching cobler increases your blood point gain for the remainder of the trial by 8% up to a stackable 40% when eaten. Frightful flan grants killer and survivors poison trap effect. After eating the flan, for the next 30 seconds, the killer can attatch it to a generator, upright pallet or window, while the survivor can attatch it to a downed pallet, a hook or a window. Killers don’t get affected by their own poison, and survivor doesnt get affected by their own poison. The killer or survuvir who interacts with a poison object becomes poisoned for 20 seconds. Poison stays on objects for 45 seconds before disapearing. Toothy torte allows survivors to repair a broken pallet within 20 seconds of eating the torte, while killers will be able to destroy an upright pallet (or a downed pallet instantly) for 20 seconds after eating. Note only one pallet can be rebuilt / destroyed with this effect.