Cakes, and a fundamental misunderstanding of player metrics and incentives.
I just saw a ScottJund video about the whole cake situation, and it highlights the massive disconnect that BHVR
has between it's creators and the playerbase. Scott plays this game like it's his job (because it is) and has
well over 10,000 hours in this game. His playtime represents the top 0.1% of the playerbase in playtime. He has
over a dozen P100s, and on his main killers more addons than he could ever spend.
The Scotts of DBD do not care about cakes, either because their inventory is so packed it doesn't make a
difference, or they still have thousands of cakes from anniversaries past, either way, they do not need them.
WE, on the other hand, do. WE are the 99%, most of us have 2,000 hours or less, and maybe ONE P100. We depend
on anni cakes as a lifeline to get through the drought following these events, to get us through the times where
we get a string of miserable games.
If your concern is players 'completing the grind' or the 'bloodpoint economy' being negatively impacted by an
abundance of cakes, you are mistaken. A large supply of cakes DO NOT reduce incentive to play the game, for many
of us, it's one of the biggest reasons we play outside of events. For many of us, the cakes are the ONLY REASON
we play during the anniversary at all. Some of us however, have a different problem.
I LOVE shopping. When I get near the bloodpoint cap, I look forward to the bloodweb shopping spree. It's like a
mini-game to me, and I enjoy looking at a bloodweb and deciding how to tackle it to get the most of what I want
from it. Maybe I'm the weirdo here, but that part is also FUN to me.
What's even more fun is when, for a limited
time, once a year, my shopping sprees also become a slot machine. The RNG of seeing 3-4 BIG SHINY CAKES in the
bloodweb that grant BIG MANLY BLOODPOINTS excites the caveman part of my brain, it's addicting and makes me
want to get more bloodpoints and pull that slot machine handle again while I can. However since you not only
slashed cake rates but ALSO removed the RNG aspect, you took that away from me.
I won't lie to you. I WILL play this event, and get as many cakes as my grubby little hands can grab, and when
the event ends, I intend to use those cakes and keep playing. However, if I walk away with a pathetically small
pile of cakes and run out shortly after the event, I will have nothing to keep me going. I'll get a string of
bad games and say "######### this" and I'll go play something else. I'll be back, of course, but it won't be until
the next bloodpoint event. It won't be for months.
You fundamentally misunderstand how anni cakes affect your players' incentives to keep playing in between events,
and especially through times where the game feels miserable. Not only that, but taking them away like this makes
the casual and new players feel like you're being spiteful towards us. This WILL drive players away, NOT retain
them.
To those of you coming in here planning to scream "LEAVE THE BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY ALONE, YOU SHOULD BE ON YOUR
KNEES THANKING THEM YOU EVEN GET ANY CAKES OR HAVE AN EVENT" look, I get it. YOU don't care about the cakes, but
WE do. If the game is so fun, and BHVR is so infalliable, why are you here on the forums, talking down to people
in a condescending tone and SHAMING THEM for criticizing BHVR over a questionable decision, instead of playing the
event? What is your problem, exactly? And before you smugly reply "I don't have a problem :)" while you chuckle
dryly behind your keyboard, yes you do. You have an attitude problem and a loyalty bias, and are unwilling to
admit it.
BHVR, the event is still young, there's still time to fix this and save a most special 10th anniversary. I won't
even get started on the event itself, and the complaints both sides have about that. Sometimes you try something
new and it doesn't work. It happens to all of us, but don't take away our cakes. Please!
EDIT: I don't know why the post is formatted like that. Apologies. Trying to fix it.
Comments
well said just wish bhvr actually cared instead of just pretending to care and taking us for granted. The speak during the anniversary stream how it is all about us the players and yet this is how they treat us.
All i can say is i hope they listen to the flood of feedback they've been getting about the cakes, and decide to act upon it. I've seen a few things have lots of negative feedback and then be completely ignored and left as is ( examples: Richter's face, Rick & Daryl's placeholder screams/grunts, Dustin a d Robin's incorrect heights in game etc) but not to this extent where the entire community is flooding the forums and all social media with their negative feedback about the cakes. Yet still no answers. Can only hope to wait and see if some new patch comes in like the one they just did. And if it doesn't.. well theres no reason to get hyped up for year 11 as by then we will know it'll just get worse.
Really well spoken. I must say it was a stark contrast to my angry post about the cake nerfs, but you genuinely said what needed to be said on behalf of us players who really cares about the cake grind.
I was discussing on a Discord channel about the very same thing, and to be frank, the cake grind has always made me come back to the game, even after longer breaks, because the cake hoarding made playing worth it.
Here is what I said there:
I really used to look forward to the anniversary events every year.
Despite how bad of a state the game was in at the time, I always came back and spent a lot of hours grinding cakes.
This year, I have not had the desire to do so, because it will cost too much time to get remotely close to previous year's amounts.
I agree that a certain satisfaction of acquisition was taken away with the loss of the cakes. It's always a nice little feeling to click on a special item in the bloodweb. This level of stingyness during a much-hyped 10 year anniversary makes it even more gloomy. I have multiple p100s and I usually play enough that, if I focus on one character, it's not hard for me to get another, but the cakes were kinda the last straw for me when there are already so many things I'm unhappy with about this game right now.
The good news is I'm finally playing other games.
You're right, but BHVR doesn't care, and won't care unless they see the player count go down. Since no one seems to care enough to actually stop playing, BHVR isn't going to fix this.
If you do care enough to get this fixed, then you need to uninstall the game.
I'm not at all motivated by BP. With all the recent giveaways, I'm 6 million above the cap and it will probably stay that way for quite a while. I'm only spending BP to earn the cakes so I can find event stuff on the map a little easier.
But it's very clear that a big chunk of the player base clearly is. I don't know why BHVR are giving players less reason to play their video game and I also don't know why BP earning is still capped as it is. It was nice of them to up the cap a little, but it's still way too low because even with a moderate, casual amount of playing you'll hit the limit pretty quickly (if you don't spend it, anyway). It's not like you can buy anything decent or totally busted with BP on the Survivor side anymore (aside form BNP, I guess) and it can't be used to buy cosmetics. Even at 1000 hours, I've hoarded so many items by this point that I'll never be able to use them all. All they're really doing here is making the grind worse for the new players.
So what are we doing limiting players from earning a (imo, nearly worthless) in-game currency? I don't get it.
I'm personally finding it hard to play more than a couple of hours right now. The event is a radioactive mess I won't touch with a 10-foot pole, and I feel like I'm wasting my time grinding cakes. It might actually be time for a new game.
We can still easily earn on average more than 3 cakes per match as survivor and more than 5 cakes per match as killer, so it's really not that bad. It's just not the 10+ cakes per match they somehow gave us during the 8th anniversary. It's just that now if you spend a single Saturday playing DbD you'll still come away with a decent amount of cakes and not a lifetime supply.
It wouldn't be so bad if the event were actually fun to play, then more people would be playing than taking to places like this forum to complain about everything.
Hopefully they give us a Blood Rush or Feast to help.
I have always voiced how content creators should not be considered the voice of reason for the game because their scope of reality is entirely different. This is their job, and they get paid from the game and supported by the game. They are the same as any influencer, it’s not their job to relate to the average player it’s to sell something to the average player. And I must admit it was a nice change of pace for Scott to actually admit he didn’t notice the cakes because it doesn’t matter to him the way it matters to everyone else. A shame people can’t see that this applies to more than just cakes.
Either way, great post. Here’s hoping next event I won’t be so lacking.
Very well said. I concur. I feel like there is a missed opportunity here to reference that famous Marie Antoinette quote. In the interim, I am just going to refer to this “error” as “Cakegate.”
It amazes me the amount of killers and survivors are in the game, yet BP incentives have been declining over the years. Am I wrong in thinking a substantial portion of the player base has every killer and survivor? Do you know how long it would take us to P100 everyone? Even if it’s HALF the roster, that’s a lot of BP needed. Incentives should not be decreasing- they should be INCREASING. We need more Blood Feasts. Bring back perks that used to award BP. Hell, put it on the least used perks. Territorial Imperative and Red Herring could use an incentive.
I made a suggestion once (which I'll make again):
If someone in a lobby has no offering, we should be able to donate one to them.
I'd rather give one of my 10million cakes to someone else (so we can ALL get more BP) than to hoard a stack I'll literally never use up.
That's very generous, but this change still feels like a kick to the nuts to those of use who haven't played since the beginning. I don't see how this change benefits the game in the least. It really does feel like spite and bitterness on behalf of BHVR. I said I'l play the event anyway and get what cakes I could, but I feel so demoralized I haven't booted up the game all day, and I'm not sure I will tomorrow either.
can we please get more cakes 🥺 I’ll clean the house, and cut the grass. 👉👈
Why would they activate a Blood Rush or Blood Hunt if they won't give out cakes at the usual rate? Just give out cakes at the normal, expected anniversary rate - problem solved.
For me at least, cakes are the whole point of the anniversary. This is especially true on years like this where every other announcement is just something else to buy or for things so far out they might as well be part of next year's anniversary announcements. Being stingy with the cakes has really dampened my joy over the whole event.
I'm certainly not going to be going into the 11th anniversary caring about much of anything because we know what to expect now.
I’ll say it once again - there’s no reason for BHVR do do anything differently. You are all still playing the game and spending money on it. Nothing is going to change unless players actually leave the game because of their supposed dissatisfaction.
Haven't played all day. The more I think about it, the less I want to.
Most other anniversary events have been accompanied by at least a Blood Rush. But whatever, we shouldn't expect that either.
I Because gasp they have done Blood Rushes during every anniversary ever?!? Name one they haven't
Why? Did I say they didn't somewhere? Are you confused about something? You sound confused - is there something I can help you with?
They've handed out nice amounts of cakes in the past too but it seems they can't be bothered to do that this time around. What makes you think they'd be bothered to run a bloodpoint boosting event? Tradition? You mean like the tradition of not being stingy with the cakes? That tradition? Yeah, that seems to matter huh?
behaviour doesnt understand their players, they made super xmen survivors, gave killers a poison and called it a day as if killers would be lining up for the event
Sure is quiet on the BHVR front. Balrog is usually very active, I wonder if they told him to ignore us. For the record, Balrog, I don't blame you or any of the CMs for this. I guess we can't have nice things.