Top Asymmetrical Horror “Dead by Daylight” Facing Backlash and Boycott Movement #DeadbyBoycott
Five years after its initial release, Behavior Interactive’s asymmetrical horror game Dead by Daylight has grown to a size of around 90,000 players. Since the game’s collaboration with Capcom and the release of the Resident Evil DLC on June 15th, the player base has gained over 7,000 new players — a 17% growth from the previous month.
Dead by Daylight is at the top of the charts for asymmetrical horror; the release of the Resident Evil chapter solidified that, however, without any real competition in the market, the developers have no incentive to fix the game’s glaring issues. There is no other game where you could be chasing Ash Williams through the streets of Haddonfield as Freddy Kreugar or be chased by Leatherface as Steve Harrington through Midwich Elementary School; it’s a horror lover’s paradise.
The basis of the game is one player will play the role of a killer who must hunt down and sacrifice the four survivor players to “The Entity” by placing them on sacrificial meat hooks scattered throughout the map. The killer and the survivors are permitted to use up to four perks which can enhance their gameplay or benefit them in other ways. Each character has three unique perks which, after a certain amount of levelling, may be taught to other characters.
Behavior Interactive releases four new DLC chapters per year; one every three months. Before the chapter is released on live servers, a “Player Test Build” (PTB) is available for PC players. What this is supposed to be is a time when the developers listen to feedback on their new characters and changes; what they should keep and what they should change, as well as catching any bugs early.
The DLC released this year were: Descend Beyond (September 8th, 2020 — Survivor Felix Richter and Killer Talbot “The Blight” Grimes), A Binding of Kin (December 1st 2020 — Survivor Élodie Rakoto and Killer Charlotte and Victor “The Twins” Deshayes), All-Kill (March 30th 2021 — Survivor Yun-Jin Lee and Killer Ji-Woon “The Trickster” Hak), and of course, their biggest crossover yet, Resident Evil (June 15th 2021 — Survivors Jill Valentine and Leon S. Kennedy and Killer The Nemesis, as well as the Raccoon City Police Department as a playable map)
The only chapter of these four considered acceptable by the community is the Descend Beyond chapter, however the playable killer was released with an unnaturally low field of view which caused players to be unable to see over most obstacles. Nine months after its release, just after the release of the All-Kill DLC, his field of view was altered to that of every other character. To this day, his power has many issues that make him difficult and unfun to play.
When the All-Kill chapter was released on the PTB servers, players were very disappointed with the new playable killer and his abilities. Extensive feedback was given with the unanimous opinion that the killer needed to be more powerful. No changes were made and the killer was released exactly as he was on the test servers. 15 days later, he was slightly changed to be more powerful, but is still considered to be one of the weakest options.
Not only this, but when it was released, a fundamental mechanic of the game was accidentally changed, causing extreme instances of desynchronization between players and the number of survivor players dropping dramatically.
The “All-Kill” chapter is now remembered better for its desynchronization issues and fixes to The Blight and one of the original 2016 killers, The Wraith, than it is for its playable characters.
The next chapter was A Binding of Kin, one of the biggest messes in Dead by Daylight’s history. The chapter was released to live servers with more issues than it had on the test servers. This included everything from visual bugs in the menu to characters becoming stuck in the floor and being unable to move.
One of the unique teachable perks that came with this DLC was called “Hoarder”. This perk was originally supposed to:
- Give a notification each time a survivor picks up an item or searches a chest
- Reduce the rarity of the items found
- Cause two more chests to spawn on the map
When the characters were put on live servers, the log of known issues based solely on the six unique perks had 13 entries.
This is directly copied from Dead by Daylight’s official patch notes on the perk “Hoarder”
- Hoarder: The notification does not always work when Survivors pick up items in the basement
- Hoarder: The perk currently does not lower the rarity of items found in chests
- Hoarder: The perk currently does not spawn 2 extra chests
They released a character who does not work, with perks that do not work. For a time after the release, the new characters were completely unplayable. Unfortunately this soured the taste of many fans and, even as an avid player, I face the killer character released in this chapter maybe once a month. I have faced a total of four in my >1000 hours of game time.
Take a look at some clips from current gameplay to see for yourself:
The Resident Evil chapter is arguably Behavior’s biggest collaboration yet, and the Steam charts support this, however, it’s also a catastrophic demonstration of how the developers do not listen to their community and care more for profit than the longevity of their game. For example, there is a cosmetic set that can be bought for Jill Valentine and Leon Kennedy which both feature a completely identical hairstyle as the head cosmetic which can only be bought with real currency. Upon noticing this, fans proceeded to purchase only the body and leg cosmetic since it was cheaper. In response, when the developers hot-fixed to remove the RCPD map (an hour after the DLC was released), they also linked these cosmetics, meaning fans would have to buy all three pieces in a set and could not buy the body and leg cosmetics separately. Essentially, they are trying to force people to pay money on an identical cosmetic. The body and torso alone was around eight US dollars, whereas this set costs about ten — again — the hair is completely unchanged.
One hour after the Resident Evil chapter was released to live servers on June 15th, the Raccoon City Police Department map was disabled due to bugs. As of the current time (June 27th), it is yet to be available on public servers.
Throughout the year, fans were told that the other releases didn’t have a map because they were working very hard to guarantee that this chapter would be a good first impression to new fans. Any new fan would look at this mess and turn around before they invest in the obscene grind that this game can become.
There are 27 survivors and 24 killers to play as, each having three unique perks, as well as a few default perks that are universal. There are 95 survivor perks and 84 killer perks, however each perk is split up into three tiers, with tier one being the weakest version and tier three being the best version.
That makes 285 perks for just survivors and 252 perks for killers. Many of the perks are also not viable at all and never used in-game unless for a specific niche reason. The tier system was understandable when there were three killers and four survivors as a way to pad the game, but now they are unnecessary and serve only to force players to constantly grind in this bug-ridden game until they have the build that they want. Not to mention, to even have the option of using another character’s teachable perk, you must level that character first to either 30, 35, or 40 respectively. The maximum level a character can get to is 50.
The perks (as well as items, offerings, and addons) are all purchased in a web of sorts where you must first buy the items in the middle and are forced to follow a path to each item you may wish to buy, with the possibility of having items cut off and being unable to purchase them until the next level. The cheapest items are 3,000 points and the most expensive are 7,000. A late-game web has around 15–20 required purchases to level-up and refresh the web. Late game webs provide a maximum of two perks if you follow a specific path on the web.
To level a character from 1 to 40, it takes just over one million points on average. Ironically, there is a cap to how many points any one person may hold until they must spend them to earn more, one million. An unnecessary restriction which doesn’t allow players to save their points for the release of new chapters.
The maximum amount of points that can be earned in one match is 32,000 without addons or one of two perks. The amount of points earned relies on how well you do in a very flawed, unreliable emblem system which causes players with thousands of hours in-game to be matched with players with only fifty, as well as earn these points in specific categories which can be difficult for some characters.
For example, The Nurse is a killer who is 100% reliant on her power to do anything, meaning she will always have high points in the deviousness category as this is based on how much you use your power, but The Trapper could play a match where nobody steps in any of his bear traps, causing little to no deviousness points.
The problem with the game is the unwillingness of the developers to listen to the community and prioritizing profit and not the quality of their only successful game; if this game falls then Behavior falls with it.
Which is why groups of players are boycotting this game under the hashtag #DeadbyBoycott on Twitter. It does not mean that they are not playing at all, it means that they are refusing to spend any money on the game until things change. No cosmetics nor new DLC until the developers show some changes. All unlicensed characters and some cosmetics can be purchased with an in-game currency called iridescent shards; players are urged to grind for these instead of purchasing them with real money.
There is no viable way to get 100% of the community on board, but if even 25% of us stop spending money then it would be noticeable and perhaps changes will be made for the better.
There is no product without the customer and this is Behavior’s magnum opus; change needs to come so that it may live on for fans of the genre.
I truly hope that something will happen. I love this game, but the short-sightedness of money-hungry developers could crush it and without Dead by Daylight, Behavior Interactive will go bankrupt.