Any ideas on how to make the game less horrific for beginners?
Trying to introduce a friend to dbd. And even running as a 4 man swf with 3 experienced players every game we played tonight was a hatch game, because one weak link survivor kills a team stone dead.
So anyone have ideas to mitigate this? After 10 years and an insane glut of killer and perk mechanics to learn, I'm honestly surprised that the game retains any new players whatsoever at this point.
I know we have a tutorial overhaul coming. But we could do with a way to make the game less punishing for new players. My friend has literally been hard tunneled in every game they've played once the killer has realised they suck at chase. Aside from one where we got them to hide from the outset and escape through a hatch offering in main.
The game is so anti new player and that is very unhealthy for a game.
Edit:brainwave, kate denson should be a free character, window of opportunity is without doubt the best perk for new players. Shouldn't be pay walled.
Comments
I think most new players only killer players nowadays, survivor too high learning curve, and only gains power in SWF after thousands of hours and need perfect coordination.
Lots of new players play killer because either they want to play someone like Jason or they don't have friends to play with, the "too high learning curve" has nothing to do with this, killers do require probably as much and on some killers even more skill then on survivor side so there's a lot to learn on both sides.
The only helpful advice I can think of is to watch survivor streamers and check out their youtube videos. See how they loop and what perks they use. Mish is one of the best. There's also Ayrun and Hens.
Idk new killer players have it easy for 2/3 weeks. While they are in baby mmr they'll just roflstomp other noobs.
Even when they hit higher mmr, tunneling and proxy camping hooks will secure kills often enough to make playing killer tolerable.
My post is aimed more at the plight of new survivor players. They have it roughest.
Is his profile anon? So killers can't identify the weak link instantly because of your mmr when you play together he gets hard opponents that are fine for you, maybe try to have him play by himself and in a VC guide him, also get him windows of opportunity and make him not use it at some point.
Also he should try to play some killer to become better at survivors so he understands the objective and what killers often do and maybe this would make him think what the killer would do when he plays survivor.
This is the side effect of a game like this having MMR, even if DBD has very questionable MMR, if you're not new to the game and you play with decent players and there's three of you and one new player, they're going to be playing in higher MMR. the reverse of this is true as well, if you play with three newer players (I play with my nephew and his friends sometimes) you're going to get more routinely worse killers. Basically DBD has, at this point, become a relatively competitive game for better or worse and in mid level MMR you're going to run into people who have game knowledge. IMO it has crossed the threshold into the "MOBA" type of game territory where it not only takes a LOT of time to acquire enough game knowledge to play consistently decently but also has the drawback of the fact that you aren't playing against someone on equal terms.
There is a lot to learn on both sides but at base, (obviously) killers are faster, stronger, and are the ones doing the killing so a new killer will most likely have a much better time than a new survivor, I don't know that it's even possible to make it any different. Also, if you pick up the game and have been playing one killer, depending on the killer there's definitely a lot to learn about them and their power / what perks work best, ETC. but A new survivor has to learn about a LOT more than that, all of the different killer powers, how to run loops effeciently (as obviously if they aren't running loops efficiently even against a bad killer they are getting caught), How to play into certain game situations VS different kinds of killers, what situations their aura are being read in, Fast/Medium/Slow Vaults, etc… these are all (By design) situations that survivors are the underdog in, by nature the game is more brutal for survivors, if it wasn't then it wouldn't be an Asymmetrical game. also note that when you start this game you don't have the benefit of most perks and will be very limited against killers, especially if they are playing with friends like in OPs example.
Nah we play on xbox and anon mode isn't available on there. And yeah guess we could get them to play on their own but it wouldn't be that much fun. Honestly a brand new survivor player isn't going to notice the difference between a 40 hour killer and and 10,000 hour twitch streamer super sweat killer.
For new players specifically, survivor is infinitely harder. It isn't about skill, both sides need a lot of skill to play well, but on the survivor side way more knowledge is needed. On killer the only things you need to learn about survivors are what perks to look out for, while on survivor you need to do the same with killer perks, but also all of their unique addons and powers. That's why a lot of the time, especially with more complex or not very straightforward killers, new killer players can easily stomp new survivor players in most matches for quite a while.
As for the solution, for new survivors who don't have friends to play with, it would be extremely helpful if 1. more addons and perks appeared in the upper right, revealing themselves to players, 2. these addons and perks were revealed to all players, and 3. they show up in the tab menu so that survivors can take the time to read perks and addons they don't understand. This would be a massive help to new players so they don't have to wait until after they've already been destroyed by something they don't understand to actually learn what was going on, and it would also help even out solo queue and SWFs.
As for trying to help a friend in a SWF so that they don't get tunneled every game, while I don't have anybody I play with that is new to the game, I do have a couple who are pretty bad at survivor. I'd suggest trying to get them to unlock DS as soon as possible (and also Windows or Five Moves Ahead to help them find resources, along with Lithe since it's simple to use), and run perks like Shoulder, WGLF, Background Player (with a flashlight), Babysitter, BT, and Reassurance. Usually since I'm the most experienced in my friend group so I'm the only one who can afford to run such a build, I just run Shoulder, WGLF, Background, and either Reassurance or DS so I myself don't get tunneled, but with 3 experienced players you should be able to run at least one of each.
Have you tried teaching them pre running and basic looping? That helped my new player buddy a TON and now he's better than the average survivor teammates we get while he only has 30 hours.
If all else fails just have em run to yellow, predrop, and hold W it works against 80% of the roster.
I did run a few customs with them to try and show them the basics. But they are struggling to pick it up. honestly survivor role has so much stuff you need to be aware of, it's basically impossible to teach someone even a fraction of what they need to know unless you take several hours of training.
I just wish there was a way to make dbd accessible to new players without doing some of of custom lobby training boot camp for hours
Maybe try playing custom matches to teach him how to play with your current swf and your another friend as killer who will support the beginner basically.
Bhvr does need to add an actual tutorial to the game, ig I do agree that survivor is harder to start as.
Yeah as i said in my previous comment. Did that, had an experienced mate on hand to heal and demostrate stuff in chase. But yh dbd really isn't accessible for players with less than several hundred hours. It honestly surprises me that anyone bothers to keep it up when starting dbd as a surv player.
That's simply because they've nerfed survivors over and over for like 10 years and power creep killers into oblivion.
No - the only players who feel this way are players who only play survivor side. If you would try playing killer side as well, you would realize that the balance really hasn’t changed that much.
Largely I think its the hope of the setting, if you like Classic Slasher horror there's no other game but DBD… F13 had the copyright dispute and TCM / Evil Dead / VHS / Ghost Busters / ETC were short lived and I would argue lacked longevity from the outset in the way DBD has because there are so many IPs in DBD
It’s been a long time since I’ve been a brand new player, but I agree that this game is absolutely miserable for new players.
I’ll start by saying that there are some people who have been playing for a long time that only play one side who will always complain about how “unfair” the game is. My comments are not aimed at these players.
As someone who has played both sides since I started, here is my honest opinion. Killer side is very easy for new players as long as you are matched against inexperienced survivors. Once you start getting matched against survivor who know what they are doing, the game becomes much more difficult.
Survivor side is extremely overwhelming for new players. When I started playing, I had a group of friends that played with me, but they all quit pretty quickly because of how difficult it is to learn all the different perks and how to counter all the different killer powers. So I can sympathize with players who feel like survivor side is difficult to learn. But I stuck with it, practiced a lot, watched a lot of YouTube videos to learn how to play survivor better, and I actually got better. I didn’t blame game balance and I didn’t blame BHVR for somehow intentionally screwing over survivor players.
The thing that makes this game so difficult for both sides to learn now is the massive mountain of content that is in the game now. Even for me, someone who has played this game for years, it’s a challenge to keep up with. I completely understand how this must feel for new players that have to learn 40-+ killers, hundreds of perks on both sides. It’s just way too much. If I was just starting to play this game now, I would have immediately given up as well.
I don't think either of you are entirely right or wrong. Over the decade of DBD's lifespan, the general trend up until the last couple years has been survivor power going down, but it's important to recognize that that's because survivors were just too strong in the beginning. If talking about the last couple years, yeah, the balance probably hasn't changed a ton, I think this mentality of survivors being nerfed into oblivion is emerging more right now because the upcoming update favors killer players with massive nerfs to multiple survivor meta perks, and I think issues such as hard tunneling have become more prominent since anti-tunnel perks got nerfed
You are making him play with 3 experienced survivors of course you 4 will queue with an experienced killer. If you want to teach him to play, play custom games and explain the game.
Many of us learned to play this without MMR and with Hex: Ruin regressing gens fast af, Spirit pink no sound add-on etc and we are still here. He will be ok if he likes the game don't worry too much.
Also in slasher movies usually 1 or none escape the place so you're playing the perfect situation, enjoy.
Like i said earlier to a newbie survivor there isn't much difference between an experienced and a newbie killer. The chase still lasts maybe 20 secs max. Also like i said earlier we did start them off with customs. The issue is you can't just keep doing customs with someone until they are competent at chase, that would take weeks or months.
It's a catch 22, not much point in getting them into the game if we then refuse to play with them, or if having them play with us just tanks all of our matches because one weak link kills a team every time. I wouldn't really describe that as a "perfect situation". Killrate is targeted at 60% but new players have nothing like a 40%escape rate. This isn't a horror movie, it's a game, repeatedly losing with little to no chance to win is not many ppls idea of fun. Also very bad for new player retention. Which the game sorely needs.
I got my friend into the game around sadako's release. And we never really had a full swf just duo, so they would mostly stick with me and it was an extra challenge for me to keep them alive as this was the experience:
Infact that exact thing happened so many times i made this picture^ out of Ochido's funny dbd videos 'thumbnails'.
Eventually they got past all the tunneling and stuff and stuck with the game somehow, though they never switch their build which is unbreakable, left behind, bottony knowledge, and kindred. Perhaps being in a full swf pressures the killer further into finding the weak link. I know i've felt that way when 3 people are hard to catch and u know whos easiest but i also save them for last as their friends usualy throw themselves at the killer to protect them, and then i can pretend to chase them around till they find the hatch
That pic is so on point 🤣
It didn't help my mate put on object of obsession for the first two matches 🙃 they didn't realise what it did, I didn't clock it until they mentioned they could see the killer's aura 🤣
This is how I would make this game more beginner friendly
2. At the end of the tutorial or in the in game guide section, give basic free builds based on what perks they have
3. Add killer bots to custom games
I got tqo friends into dbd. So i as experienced survivor played with two beginner and one poor random.
What i learned: every players improves differently. While one of them plays decent after some hundred hours, the other cant look behind and sometimes runs away from pallets.
Helpful perks:
Alert: i underestimated how much new players struggle to identify where the killer comes from. And where the map border is.
I also play a combo of OOO and We see you to make me a target, call out the killer (hard to do with new players) and broadcast him every 2min for 15 seconds. And of course: call out every aura perk and explain it.
Lithe: SB gets wasted too much. Lithe is simple and extends the chase.
Windows: its also really good to understand the map layout.
De ja vu: they find gens, do them faster and you can ask for the three gen. (So they feel useful)
Protecting: using Shoulder and other protection works probably better in your 3man. For me it didnt feel worth it to taking hits (they never made it far) and they always forgot taking a down under a pallet bc they were in chase-panic-mode. Flashlight + WGLF had some success.
Taking aggro: sometimes works and makes it easy, but most killer switch and search for a weak link. Taking an easier down and having full anti-tunnel works better, but not always.
Their playstyle: you wouldnt think so, but most of the time i run full aggro at the killer at the start and bc of corrupt one of my friends was 2 meters ahead of me. You really need to babysit them again and again. Another mistake was sitting on the spawn gen. But its hard to teach stealth. Even now they get found in bad situations and i dont even know why bc i have not the killer pov.
You have to be up for the challenge of playing Survivor. It's literally intended by design for you to die more often then escape.
It's what had kept me playing for 1500 hours.
Now it just feels like a moving goal post, trying to keep up with constant power creep Killer's and Perk nerfs.
You mention "after 10 years" and have a ton of posts, so i suspect that you are very much NOT a new player yourself, i'm assuming in the thousands of hours count? If so then playing with you is probably the worst thing for your friend, as it won't look at their skill level at all when matching with other players, it will look at yours instead. It would be better for them to play alone (or maybe for you to play with them on a fresh account?) rather than try and play with you otherwise they will get matched with people with thousands of hours and will just have a very bad time.
Info perks help a ton. Alert, Empathy, Deja Vu. I swore by Empathy for a long time. Knowing were my injured teammates were let me know where the killer was pretty much constantly. If no one was in chase on the HUD and injured people were sitting peacefully on gens I knew to be more aware.
I have about 1600 hours, tbh the baby lobbies are killer dominated anyway so it doesn't make a huge difference either way. Without basic pathing skills a new survivor will get clapped by any killer player so the experience doesn't really change much for them, chases will last 15-30 seconds max. Plus it's a bit difficult to get someone into a game by getting them to play it and then refusing to play with them.
And that's more why i made the post, because the killer skill level doesn't really matter much, new surv players get the worst of what the game has to offer.
I taught a lot of people DBD, realistically, theres not much you can do to teach them faster, unless they like the game and want to improve themselves, but here are my few cents:
Teach them gen discipline, if not in chase, going for unhook/heal, they should be on a gen. No running around aimlessly, no touching dulls and chests, always crank gens. Deja Vu is a very solid beginner perk since a new player will not know gen spawns across dozens of maps.
Windows/FMA are good teaching wheels perks, they should know that looping is the only way to keep the killer from downing them. Knowing where to path to helps, but of course these perks will not teach how to run a tile, hold checkspots and overall muscle memory and reading killers movements. For this, the FASTEST way to learn is to play 1v1 ladder, since on pubs there will be a lot of matches where you will not be chased as much.
Other than that, you guys should play around keeping your weak link alive. Make them equip DS while you guys bring perks like StB, Babysitter etc so you can deny tunnel out.
This was the build I was running w my 3 man SWF when our 4th was a fresh install. We got some solid results. Feel free to swap exhaustion perks to your liking, but the main idea is ensuring they can survive and patch up their mistakes. This setup covers tunneling, camping, slugging and alike.
I think your friend either needs to be a big horror fan, enjoy the feeling of fear (I know people say DBD isn't scary anymore but it definitely is to a lot of new players, believe me), or be a masochist who enjoys playing very difficult games. If none of those things are there for your friend, I doubt they will be able to stick around long enough to get over the initial steep learning curve. DBD has to be offering you something else that goes beyond the basic gameplay loop to get you hooked, imo. I don't think the beginner experience is all that bad if your enjoyment isn't just coming from the usual dopamine hit of winning some games.
I'm not sure playing with an experienced 3 man is a good thing, tbh. You'll be pulling them out of the baby MMR that they should be in. It might be better for them to just play alone. I don't think it's a great idea for them to be seeking out guides from content creators or trying to teach them everything just yet, either. You'll just overwhelm them and there is joy in discovering things for yourself that they'll be missing out on if you try to teach them everything to quickly. If you do want to play with them, I'd suggest only playing with them as a duo so that you've got more chance of getting chill / less experienced Killers in your lobbies.
I personally think the looping play style that content creators go in for is not a good one to follow for complete beginners. They are almost always better off staying below the radar and playing stealthy.
I’ve recently got a friend back into the game not too long ago. Honestly I told her to expect to die. Alot. I explained the intended survival rate, the fact there’s almost 50 different killers with different playstyles and counters, and that the amount of knowledge required to be decent is like learning a new language. After sortve setting her up to realize the way the game is, I showed her the tomes and basically explained the game is more fun if surviving isn’t your goal, but completing challenges is. Focus on the Bloodweb, getting all free characters to 3 to unlock perks, look at the different cosmetics you can work towards etc. then overtime the more you play, the more you learn, the better you get. It’s just a very slow grind, and it is intentionally unfair. It’s a fun game to want to be good at. But you won’t be good for a very, very, long time.
That being said, she usually can do about 2 matches before she gets really frustrated or disappointed and then hops off lol. But explaining the mindset you have to have for survivor helped ease her in for sure.
i generally just think the tutorial needs a HUGE rework. its useless right now
Let them run heavy stealth builds exclusivly on survivor. Oh and let them play killer.
heavy stealth was nerfed quite a bit though both through direct perk nerfs and the extreme increase in aura reading over the years so its kind of just wasting perk slots unless they have enough game knowledge to know when they are hidden IMO
The biggest thing any newbie needs to understand is distortion. And ofc a vet player needs to take chase a lot.
The problem is Distortion got gutted badly for pure stealth, it requires the weakest link to actually be chased directly in order to void any more than one aura read which is unreasonable when there are tons of killers running consistent aura reads. once the new player ends up on hook its likely a tunnel out
Yeah distortion used to be a good shout, but now it's really not helpful for new players trying to avoid chase. I find it's good to have an experienced player running it because they can call out aura read perks and add ons, super useful info for new players.
All solid advice, man i really need shoulder the burden to come up on the shrine. That would be super handy to have trying to keep the new players alive.
Thats why good players need to take agression. It's not a guarantee, but even if the two uses if distortion are not sufficient you can opt for fart clouds if the killer is far away.
Yeah that's also a great option to let two people run it, a newbie and a vet.
It came in the shrine like last year ish iirc so you got 4-5 more years till it shows up again. I saw lethal pursuer in year 5 and just recently saw it again a few months back.
which makes Distortion really not a great stealth perk anymore… hence why they shouldn't be using it. also, Smoke Bombs are horrible. the only routine use that i get from them is to obscure ranged killers vision briefly, almost never are decent killers thrown off by them.
Perhaps it would be helpful to introduce a beginner mode. This could include easy‑to‑play killers equipped with the four most beginner‑friendly or commonly used meta perks — and the same for survivors. These perks shouldn’t require unlocking. Additionally, each character could have a short bio explaining their four perks. For both survivors and killers, the game could also provide a brief explanation of their core mechanics. Something simple that helps new players avoid feeling overwhelmed and gives them a clear understanding: “Ah, that’s how I’m supposed to play this.”
wouldn't work, its just free wins for people who are very good already going into a mode with a greatly diminished amount of things to worry about, and It wouldn't remain populated enough for purely beginners if it was locked after X amount of hours or after X amount of plays
And they block aura reading. To quickly shroud your aura from BBQ they're great.
they also make a gigantic "i am over here" bubble around you… just get in a locker
That's one of the greatest pics regarding DbD that I have ever seen. Well done!😅
Topicwise I want to "quote" an imaginary patch note of something that could help:
Jokes aside, a good solution would be to play custom rounds to show them as much stuff one can show in a stressless environment before running straight into a public game. Ideally you can even play custom matches with 4 other people/friends to mimic "real" games for the first sessions. Maybe also start very chilled in those custom 1v4s as killer. Stop in certain situations and explain to them what is even happening at that point.
And also no joke, start with basic stuff like skill checks on gens and heals. I can remember how I missed everything like an absolute potato when I started playing.