I don't think you guys truly understand what the current state of the game is...
So I've been monitoring the state of the game and I see so may people in denial on how bad it truly has become for both sides. Survivors having their hand held and only facing the same few killers and killers rarely "winning" games. While I do see win streaks I notice that its on genuinely lower MMR lobbies. I've seen this same issue on other games and with the lack of opportunity for player growth due to it being a major turn away this will cause more issues than actually be helpful in the long haul. Its not too late to save DbD but its nearing it. I myself who has played both sides equally at this point also find the game not as enjoyable as it was a year if not a year and a half ago.
Let's talk about the problems:
Survivors first:
Hand is essentially held and usually makes the games far too easy that is forcing people to pick survivor more than killer.
Its a very linear gameplay that is genuinely boring to newer players
The current perks and kits makes games way to fast to be enjoyable
Has a huge favor advantage over killer players or hybrid players like myself
Killer issues:
Underpowered heavily, something that a lot of people who are survivor mains will deny because when they play killer which has a much lower mmr says its easy but doesn't understand that the mmr is separate for both roles
Dev Disadvantage, This is nothing new and has been a problem which has to have the devs be publicly humiliated to understand the problem.
Horrible perk conditions
Heavily mistreated despite being responsible for 50% of the games functions.
These are just the major issues for individual sides. Both sides also have the who meta issue which bhvr should have a similar system like Warframe's rivens where if a riven is used so much it's stats get nerfed via disposition without changing the function. Also the time people were using the same weapon they heavily nerfed its use. This was to create more diversity in loadouts which is something that should be aimed for. Metas make the game stale and no longer fun which lowers player interaction and time investment heavily. If you want a game that has stuck to the repetitiveness look at RuneScape's mistake. All the players are aging without much growth. Only people that actually still play have been around since 2006-2009 to this day and is slowly losing players. Most numbers on there are alts and bots. DbD is going the same route and unless something is done soon DbD can lose a large number of interest which makes the playerbase shrink further and further down.
Also for dedicated content creators of DbD you will also soon notice a huge shift in the ammount of people watching and for how long. Analytics don't lie. Other games in history have felt this and one currently feeling this. Minecraft 1.9 had pretty much a huge drop in players and content creators for that game lost 80-95% of their viewers for years and as of right now Sea of thieves content creators are facing this same route. Unless something negative is said about SoT it isn't going to get much engagement anymore due to it being no longer relatable. Which the same thing is being done for DbD.
Don't get me wrong I want this game to thrive but its current route is only going to aim towards destruction. The devs don't understand it because they don't play the game and when they do it always leads to humaliation which shouldn't be a requirement to happen. I'm making this post in hopes that both the community and devs understand that mistakes shouldn't be repeated and should look at how other games fail and succeeded compared to this situation and learn from it. I don't want to see this game die but the way its going it's heading there.
Because as of right now its starting to face its decline more than ever. So please both sides understand I'm simply trying to help and hope you read this whole thing. There are many more issues but it's not going to be pretty if it continues going this route.
Edit: Think you guys misunderstood what im trying to say, im saying that the growth surge right now of mostly returning players aren't going to stay if the game is staying in its current path, the complaints are from those who are returning and new. Metas and the same killers are creating a staleness and other than me recommending a focused diversity of gameplay styles and killers and trying to keep this boost. I want to see the growth heavily, we missed the chance with the walking dead fandom growth heavily because of what happen on stream and again the main complaints on both sides are above. So please leave a suggestion on what you want changed and understand the state of the game. Otherwise it will be lost or worse.
Comments
By what metric is the game “starting to face its decline more than ever?”
Can we stop talking about survivors handholding when killers get their handheld just as much if not more? They put red mist, screaming, and killer instinct on Jason because they didn't think killer players would be good enough to use his power without handholding. They're nerfing elusive because god forbid a killer have to use his eyes instead of relying on the bright orange marks on the ground. Elusive is really exposing how many killer players use scratch marks as a crutch.
take a look at the gain, loss, and peak players + disatifactoon While the peak is up heavily the gain isn't as opportunistic and taking a look at community trends there is less interest. The anniversary event also has shown to have a less players staying than previous years. Where it would be hours of gameplay per person ended up with maybe an hr or less. That's what had it genuinely worrying. While it is a short term success its facing a similar trend. Thats the heads up. Aka right now is a great time to fully win players back.
again as someone that played both sides saying killers having a crutch meanwhile survivors have so many new perks built-in and tons of passives that give them a major advantage shows the hypocrisy thats the play base has. I noticed this on both sides but survivors have more.
And so what? Killers get plenty of handholding as well. Killer instinct literally exists because BHVR doesn't think killer players are smart enough to play killer without help. Realistically doing Pinheads box or Houndmasters dog sniffing you should be the only killer instinct in the game, but we all know that's not the case in practice.
Again I'm trying to say that the meta, staleness, and the lack of diversity in killers/perks are going to make the current growth opportunity only go downhill from here. Right now the community + BHVR has this one major chance to keep all these returning players.
what kind of a statement is this, both sides have this with items addons and powers addons too thats the point of them.
I see you in all these posts talking about the stuff killers have and never acknowledging what survivors get and I can never tell if it's genuine or if you're just ragebaiting.
In the care you aren't ragebaiting I will engage with you this one time but I do think most of your replies are just ragebait. Scratch marks are a part of the game from the VERY BEGINNING. It's not like these were added into the game after killers boohoo'd constantly. They are a part of the game that adds extra skill expression into the game on the survivor side and helps killers locate survivors throughout the game. Playing the game with 0 scratch marks would make 95%-98% of all matches end in a 3-4 out because you are unable to track a survivor. Saying scratch marks are a crutch for killers is like saying the red stain is a crutch for survivors.
Elusive is a horribly overpowered status effect and needs to be given out sparingly and as a reward. This goes for Endurance as well. These status effects are insanely and game changingly overpowered to the point that if you give them out for free, see Cross Examination, they completely change the way a game plays out. It's not about Killers being unable to use their eyeballs or being bad at the game. It's about a survivor running a loop with multiple walls or running a main building or getting an indoor map and being able to just disappear for completely free without having to put in any effort. The perks plays itself and gives insane value for literally doing what you would normally do during the game. Perks that give value you this way shouldn't also give you the second strongest status effect in the game.
The reason Jason has red mist, killer instinct, and makes you scream is because you literally have nothing else to tell you where somebody is during his power. You get no sound queues and you can't see anything. If his power didn't have some form of tracking in it then it would be useless. You would wander the map in power with your head cutoff and survivors could just sit lockers the whole time or stand edge map and you'd never find anybody.
A lot of your issues it seems come from having to learn proper counterplay and attain a higher skill level in the game. All of these things are added and given to killers to make survivors learn and get better at the game. If you go into each match with the mindset of "How I can I improve and get better?" you would figure out that these "crutches" can be used in your favor. Every match I play I go into with the expectation of losing and I try to improve my skill level every time. I try to figure out the proper check spots. I try to hug objects as close as possible. I try to mind game the killer. I purposefully go into each match with the intention of increasing my skill. This is why I also watch lots of really good players at the game. Watch people like Hens and Ayrun has made me a significantly better survivor player. Watching really good killer players has made me better at understanding macro play and small techs that make chase easier.
Survivors constantly get new perks that punish the killer for interacting with the basic mechanics of the game. Hooking activates countless perks in the game with a negligible upside. Survivors have gotten base kit BT added to them and they increased the time limit of it as well. The only people that complain this way about killers are people that never actually attempt to understand the other side. They never actually attempt to get to a decently high MMR on killer and experience these things used to their full potential. It's survivor mains that hop into a killer match once or twice a month to finish out some quests, or hop onto killer during an event to get their BP and get the rewards. I urge you to spend a week playing a killer you enjoy and think is fun and get to a high MMR and see how many crutches killers have to help them win matches.
I still have no idea what you’re talking about. What do you mean the “gain isn’t as opportunistic?” Of course they could always have more players. Does the fact that they don’t have literally every person on earth playing mean that the game isn’t more popular and successful than it has ever been? The current average over the past 30 days is higher than it has ever been, by a pretty decent margin. I am struggling to understand how you are somehow interpreting this as a failure on BHVR’s part.
its exposing how a core game mechanic that the game was built and designed around is a crutch?
Then pallets are a crutch for you.
what a ridiculous thing to say. The forced tribalism is really old.
killer instinct is not on every killer and is on less than half of killers. its how the powers work. which by the way, killers are supposed to have powers and tools, there is no game if you want killers to have no hunting tools lol.