Developer Q&A's

This article is an overview of the official Q&A livestreams hosted by Dead by Daylight's Developers.

Q&A Stream (June 18 2020)

The following members of the development team were featured on this stream:

Marilou (aka Ribanne) - Community Manager

Ethan (aka Almo) - Live Balance Designer

Mat Walker - Level Designer

The stream opened with a screening of the Silent Hill Spotlight Trailer, followed by some announcements.

Announcements

The Silent Hill DLC is out now on PC and console. Players can purchase the characters for Auric Cells in-game, or the full DLC on the Store of their respective platforms. Today’s stream is a Q&A, but tomorrow the developers will be hosting another “Around the Campfire” stream, where different members of the development team play Dead by Daylight together and chat with the viewers on Twitch. This will be happening live on the official Dead by Daylight Twitch channel. The in-game anniversary events will be commencing on June 23rd. More information will be available “when the time comes”. Starting today, anniversary raffles will be held in the official Dead by Daylight Discord server.

Q&A

These questions were selected from a thread that the developers created on the forums prior to the stream, as well as from the Dead by Daylight subreddit.

Questions about the New Chapter

Why does Trail of Torment reveal the generator’s aura?

(from Orion)

If this aura weren’t present, the survivors wouldn’t know that anything was happening. They want to give survivors an indicator that the perk is active. The aura reveal can also be used to the killer’s advantage, as survivors may become needlessly cautious, or put themselves in positions they otherwise wouldn’t and be caught off guard while focusing on the Generator.

Will Pyramid Head’s perks be buffed?

(Asked during the PTB by Respectfulnancymain)

Some tweaks were made to the perks following the PTB, which mostly took the form of value adjustments. Forced Penance, for example, had its duration increased to 40/50/60 seconds, and it now grants additional Bloodpoints for protection hits. Trail of Torment's duration was increased to 16 seconds, and the cooldown reduced to 90/80/70 seconds, so that it may be activated more frequently. The duration of the Oblivious status effect on Deathbound has been increased to 60 seconds, and some improvements have been made to the way the perk’s activation status is displayed.

Are there any plans to add the cage skill checks to hooks?

(from Lycidas)

The developers aren’t sure yet, but they are considering it. They will be monitoring the mechanic’s performance – how many people fail the skill checks, how much time they lose, etc., as well as player feedback on the topic. They clarified again that they are not “dead set” on the current button-mashing mechanic, they simply want players to be interacting with the game in some way rather than doing nothing during the struggle phase.

Why did you go with Cheryl rather than Heather?

(from LordRegal)

(From Dave Richard, Creative Director): Cheryl was taken by the Entity following the events of Silent Hill 3, during which she changed her name from Heather to Cheryl.

Are there any plans to buff The Executioner?

(from geranium)

The developers were satisfied with the way the new killer operated on the PTB, and didn’t observe any major bugs or issues with his power which necessitated “dramatic” changes. However, they are closely monitoring his performance in the live game, particularly with regards to the Punishment of the Damned mechanic. From this, they will be able to determine whether his power needs adjustments and respond accordingly.

As always when a new killer is released, they received a huge amount of feedback and reactions immediately post-release, and they want to allow some time for players to get used to the new killer, learn how to play against him and level him sufficiently to be able to compare him fairly to the other killers, before they make any significant changes. Again, though, they will continue to read and process the feedback they receive.

What was the reason for picking things from multiple games in the Silent Hill franchise?

(from linoid)

(From Dave Richard, Creative Director): Those on the team involved with acquiring the license are big fans of the franchise, and as fans they wanted to be able to explore Silent Hill and its stories as much as possible. They took aspects from each Silent Hill game which they felt were most “iconic and interesting” and would fit best in Dead by Daylight.

The Creative Team felt that these selections were a good way to bring the two games together in a way that made sense.

What’s your favourite small detail on the new map?

(from Spengler)

Marilou: The corpse in the locker that pops out when you walk past.

Mat: The twitching bodies in the cages. This was a feature on which the animation, art, audio and level design teams all came together to collaborate. It’s very scary – in a freaky way, not in a jump-scare sort of way. It’s the kind of thing that you see a lot in Silent Hill, and has been “transformed” for Dead by Daylight.

Ethan: The bathroom with the girl crying inside a closed stall. It’s very creepy, and it’s in a relatively secluded part of the map, but something you encounter fairly often if you do venture in that direction.

Could the cages be changed so they are affected by Blindness?

(from zavch)

Objects related to killer powers are never affected by Blindness, because the ability to read their auras (or not) is a core part of the killer’s balance. For example, Pig has an add-on which inflicts Blindness and prevents survivors from seeing Jigsaw Boxes, which is part of the balance of her kit. This is why objects like these are shown in a white, rather than a red, aura, similarly to the Plague’s fountains or the Pig’s jigsaw boxes.

With the introduction of scripted events, like bodies falling out of lockers, are we going to get more of that in older maps or new maps?

(from the live chat)

It’s not currently planned, but it’s a very popular feature – players like seeing it, and the developers like doing it – so they are thinking about working it into their schedule. Players can probably expect to see more of this sort of thing in the future.

Questions about the Graphical Update

Will characters also get their visuals updated when the graphical update arrives?

(from Jota)

Some of the visuals will be gone over, but unfortunately they can’t go into details on this.

Are there plans to update facial animations?

(from Raidirar)

Again, it’s a lot of work with the amount of Characters in the game, so they can’t give details now, but there will be more information available further down the track.

What kinds of animations are being changed in the graphics update?

(from PassarinoT)

All kinds, from survivor movements to interactions with objects. More details to come.

Will the graphics update change some tiles?

(from RomeroJane)

The Art Team has been working very hard at updating the visuals and bringing the game to the “next level”. The Level Design Team are working closely with them at the same time to improve the game in terms of both fun and balance.

Will the graphics update bring breakable walls to older maps?

(from spiritjonie)

Yes – as mentioned, the Level Design and Art Teams are working together to improve the visual quality of the maps, and as part of this, they are looking into integrating Breakable Walls into older maps as planned.

Will the graphics update release all at once, or over time?

(from mewysocks)

They have received a lot of questions like this about the update. They will be communicating “properly” about it and giving all the details on what’s coming at some later point in the future.

Are there plans for more gore?

(from Flatskull)

There are no current plans along those lines, but it is still being discussed internally. So, again, more details will be coming in the future.

Miscellaneous Questions

Is The Clown getting any other changes?

(from DingDongs)

The Developers have been monitoring Clown’s performance for a long time, and while they believe he is underrated in terms of strength, they acknowledge that the fact that it is not immediately obvious how to use his power most effectively is a problem. Due to time and resource constraints, they discovered that it wouldn’t be possible to make any major updates to Clown in the near future, so they found a change they could make that was simple but impactful to go into the most recent patch. They are currently looking into the possibility of improving his “viability” further, but they don’t have any concrete plans that they can announce at the moment.

Will we be able to mix and match legendary cosmetics?

(from Esskay)

This issue has been the subject of a lot of questions from players recently. For those who don’t know, legendary cosmetics are outfits in which all three pieces are linked, such that one cannot be equipped without the others. They can be identified by a unique symbol in-game.

The idea of legendary cosmetics is to represent “the fantasy of a character”, so '#'it wouldn’t make sense to be able to mix them with pieces of what are essentially another character. They are also made differently to ordinary cosmetics, so things like clipping are not an issue as they would be if the outfits were made of separate components.

Will legendary outfits have their own voice?

(from Mooks)

This is a feature that the developers would love to implement. They haven’t been able to at this point, but if they are able to make it happen in the future, they definitely will.

Will there be a 104% Bloodpoint offering in the event?

(from TheNormalizer)

All of the Event details will be revealed next Tuesday (June 23).

Will we ever see more contests like the cosmetic contest (for maps, music, charms, etc.)?

(from Inferno427)

In the case of things like maps or music, this is unlikely. There is a lot more that goes into creating these things than just the concept, which makes them difficult to construct a contest around.

Does Silent Hill mean that we could see other game characters?

(from Eris27100)

This has always been on the table – Bill, who originated from the Left 4 Dead franchise, being the other notable example. If the Developers find another video game character that they feel would fit well in Dead by Daylight, licensing that character is definitely a possibility that they would consider.

Will there be legendary outfits that aren’t licensed?

(from colelema9)

This is something that’s being looked into. The team have a lot of amazing ideas along these lines, and these ideas will be brought to the game as their schedule allows.

Any update on the new matchmaking?

(from MiniPisa)

Tests with the new algorithm have already begun on certain live servers, and they are now beginning tests of the MMR system itself. If all goes well, the system will be released across all servers. There won’t be a patch required when this happens, but it will be announced on the forums.

For the past month or two, the MMR system has been running in the background calculating players’ MMRs (but not yet using these for matchmaking), so that the developers can gather data on how well the algorithm works at predicting the likely outcome of a match based on the players’ skill levels. Based on this data, they have been able to make improvements to the algorithm, and now they are doing limited practical tests using this algorithm to facilitate matchmaking. Once they are confident that the matchmaking is working as intended with the new system, they will roll it out across all servers and platforms.

Final Comments from the Developers

Ethan invites players to share their feedback on the new perks in particular, especially on how they work in combination with existing perks. The best place to do this would be on the official forums (https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/categories/suggestions).

Q&A Stream (May 14 2020)

The following members of the development team were featured on this stream:

not_Queen - Lead Community Manager

Mathieu Coté - Game Director

Patrick Harris - Game Designer

Donnella Plastik - User Research Specialist

News and Announcements

The Design-Your-Own-Cosmetic contest entries closed last week (May 3), with over 1000 entries (some of which Mathieu described as “delicious”).

The winners of the contest will be announced during the Fourth Year Anniversary Stream, which will be held on May 26 and will be watchable on both [twitch.tv/deadbydaylight Twitch] and YouTube. The Developers will still be streaming remotely from their own homes for the anniversary, but it is promised to be “super fun” and “epic”.

No new content is being announced in this (May 14) stream – all they are doing is answering questions that were asked on the Forums.

Q&A

The following questions were selected from this [subforum https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/categories/q-a-questions], where people were encouraged to submit questions for the Developers to answer. The most upvoted questions, as well as those most asked, were chosen to be answered on stream.

They did their best to answer as many questions as possible, but it should be understood that there are some questions they cannot respond to, either for legal reasons or because they simply can’t commit to a concrete answer at this stage.

Will we ever see Devotion rewards?

(from MrCandyKiller)

There are no current plans to implement Devotion rewards, but they do have some plans for “Prestige rewards”. However, it’s still too early for them to really be able to talk about in any detail. Suffice to say that they are working on a design of some kind.

Will we have an option to disable anti-aliasing?

(from Malkraz, Vulgstein, PrinceAshitaka, LeRauxe, mistar_z, Tortel_games, ruze, cclv_dbd, DannyDecheeto19, itzperfect, Hewie, White_Owl, OhHelloThere, Sergeant_Panda, CreatorTH, zenith1)

For those who don’t know, anti-aliasing is a rendering technique which is generally used in games to smooth out the pixelated edges on 3D objects. It generally makes the game look nicer because it makes jagged shapes less visually obvious. However, there is a performance cost, and some people don’t want to pay that cost, or simply don’t like the way it looks visually on their machine.

Recently, the players’ ability to disable anti-aliasing was accidentally removed. The Developers also want the option back in the game, so they are indeed working on re-implementing it. The ability to toggle anti-aliasing will be introduced as an in-game option “in the not-too-distant future”. They can’t confirm exactly which patch it will be coming in, but it is definitely in the works.

Any news on fixing hitboxes or hits through windows?

(from denis_ssssswwww)

The short answer is yes. They are planning to make a number of fixes related to hit registration in order to make hits feel more fair. One change which is planned to be implemented “very soon” is introducing server-side hit validation. What this means is that every time the killer hits a survivor, the server will check whether the hit makes sense according to the information that it (the server) has available (such as the survivor’s relative position, for example). The goal is that such a change will make current issues like being hit through windows, through walls, or from a long way away a lot more fair than they are now. If the server decides that the hit was not valid, the survivor will not take damage and the game will continue as normal.

(Having said that, it should be noted that being able to hit survivors through windows in general is intended design; hitting survivors who are already far away on the other side of a vault, however, is not.)

Are there any plans for a “Story Mode” with AI?

(from LeoCookie)

The introduction of AI into the mobile version of DBD in particular “opened the door to a lot of interesting conversations internally”. DBD, however, is very much a multiplayer game, and we can “expect it to stay that way”. [They said it in an intentionally convoluted and cryptic way, but the conclusion to be drawn seems to be that the implementation of a single-player mode is unlikely at best, and there are no current plans to do so.]

Are you going to improve graphics and hair physics in the future?

(from youngkingthoj)

Visual improvements, and improvements in general, are things that the developers are frequently thinking about and working on. Hair in particular is quite difficult, but they promise to continue to make improvements to the best of their collective ability. Compared to the way the game looked four years ago when it was first released, things like hair and other visual effects have improved dramatically. In terms of their future plans, though, they can’t go into specifics.

It is worth noting that graphical improvements are more difficult in DBD than they are in many other games, because things like visibility also need to be taken into account for balance reasons. They wouldn’t want to make something like hair look better visually at the cost of making it much easier for other players to spot in-game, for example. There have been glitches in the past regarding the ability to see hair through fog and things like that, so gameplay balance is always going to be the top priority.

Having said that, there are some slight improvements to lighting and shadows planned for the next major update, which should help with things like visibility.

Are you planning on adding a Dedicated Server located in Russia?

(from vlas1tan)

“No, it is not currently planned.”

The developers are aware that this is disappointing for many Russian players. For what it’s worth, they are working on improvements to the matchmaking system and how it connects you with other players and servers, to minimise the effects of things like geolocation and distance latency, so hopefully this will become less of a problem in the future even without the introduction of new dedicated servers.

Are any changes planned for the Memento Mori offerings, such as only being usable on death hook?

(from lucasdoamaral)

The developers have analysed the mori from a design perspective, and they don’t consider it perfect by any means (few things in a live game ever are), so they are looking to improve it at some stage. It is definitely “on The List” and is actively being discussed, but as with everything, it is a matter of priorities and they are unable to make any promises as to when such changes may be implemented.

Any update on Quentin’s face update or new cosmetics for licensed killers?

(from ACUREFORLIVING)

They have addressed the former in the past – it is a complicated issue involving a lot of different parties and legal considerations. For the time being, they have no updates to give on that front.

As for cosmetics, obviously they have been able to implement licensed cosmetics in the past, and they are aware of how popular these tend to be with the players. It is therefore definitely something that might happen in the future, but in any case they aren’t able to discuss it at the present time.

Have you thought about a 2v8 gamemode?

(from Jojomaxi2, Xethias, fortukas, Snviy)

This is an idea that has been brought up many, many times, both internally and externally, since the earliest days of prototyping. They tried many different balance combinations when they were first designing the game, and settled on 1v4 because they felt it was the best mix.

The main issue to be considered in any such case is matchmaking, and the ratio of killers to survivors playing at any given time. We can all agree [the developers themselves included] that matchmaking and queue times, as they currently stand, are far from perfect.

The problem with adding a new gamemode of any kind now is that it would split the community, meaning that there would be less players in both modes and all the existing problems with matchmaking and queue times would only be amplified. It is a difficult decision to make either way, but for now they are choosing to keep the game as it is for that reason.

It’s also worth noting that the perk balance would be thrown off a lot in a mode with more killers and survivors, since every perk in the game has been designed around the 1v4 dynamic. Doubling the player count would exponentially increase the power of certain perks which were not made to stack to such a degree, or work in combination with one another in the way a 2v8 game mode would allow. In essence, it would be a completely different game, albeit probably a very cool one.

Will there be any quality of life improvements for solo queue players?

(from gwnNL7, SeeYoureWrong, Viceus, andyollolloll, Zombaco, Bresk, BestGame, Ihatelife, SoterDave, Jallybwan, Thundy, SBK, Aprettygoodjobsofar, Kebek, Sylqi)

Statistically, the difference in performance between SWF and solo players is not significant enough for the issue to be of critical importance. They are aware that it feels very different from the player perspective, but from a data-based perspective, it is not “a huge concern”.

It is, however, still very much a concern, particularly as it relates to the matchmaking system. The introduction of the MMR system will make it much easier to quantify the relative performance of SWF and solo groups and how the quality of matches is affected, which will make it easier to adjust matchmaking to compensate for this. While the MMR system is not directly targeted towards improving the solo experience, it should have a positive impact on it nonetheless.

Why did you guys remove the switch to killer/survivor button?

(from CreepyAmateur)

This change was intentional, and it was part of the reworking of the SWF lobby experience, wherein changed were made such that parties would persist between matches, among other things.

The reason why the button was removed was because the way the changes were implemented meant that solo lobbies effectively functioned as SWF lobbies with three empty slots. This was a huge improvement in many ways, but it also meant that SWF players would potentially be able to switch to killer in the same way as solo players while remaining in their party. Obviously, such a feature would be highly exploitable and bad for matchmaking, so the developers decided that the “cleanest” solution would be to simply remove the option altogether.

Any chance we’ll see new mori animations for old killers?

(from HamletEagle)

Prior to the introduction of the Hag, mori animations were fairly simple and straightforward. Given that they have developed significantly since then, there have been discussions about reworking older moris, but it’s not a priority at the moment.

Would you consider changing Legion’s mori to include all four members?

(from Zaitsev)

They think that The Legion idea in particular would be very cool, but they have no plans to do so currently.

Could we get the ability to rejoin if we lose connection?

(from HDwasHere)

Not in the foreseeable future. As a player, this seems like a fairly simple mechanic, but it’s actually very difficult to implement on a technical level. Most games which allow players to reconnect mid-match were built with that feature in mind in a way that DBD was not. Considering the fairly short average match length, and the fact that any kind of crash or network issue is likely to take a couple of minutes at the very least to resolve, most if not all of the game will likely be over by the time the player is able to reconnect. If you were a survivor, you would probably already be dead by that point, and if you were a killer, most of the generators would be gone (and that’s without even taking the disconnection penalty into account). So not only is it very difficult to implement into a game like DBD, it would also hold little to no practical value.

Are you going to remove the DC penalties?

(from the live chat)

Since the penalties were introduced, there has been a huge reduction in the amount of disconnects – around 35% initially, but that number has grown the longer the feature has remained in the game, and is now up to around 50%. They have also looked at data around hook suicides, in which there has actually not been any significant statistical increase, contrary to popular belief.

Are there any plans to punish facecampers?

(from Big_Mister_E)

Camping as a mechanic is intentionally balanced in such a way that it keeps the killer “distracted” and the survivors are free to repair generators in the meantime. They realise that it isn’t very fun for the player on the hook, and they’re not happy about that, so there have been some internal discussions around ideas for rebalancing the mechanic.

The Developers do not want camping to be an appealing or particularly lucrative strategy for killers – they want it to be punishable by the survivors. They are not going to punish camping by banning them or making it a reportable offence. They may rebalance it in the future to make facecamping in particular even less appealing or viable as a strategy, but the overall official position is, “you can do it if you want, but it’s just a bad idea”.

This also applies to any other strategies which are considered cheap or unfair. As long as the player is not breaking the Terms of Service or Game Rules (Game Rules), for example by using hacks, the Developers are pretty okay with it (“🤷” – not_Queen).

The other thing to consider is that the more limitations the developers put around things like camping, the more they limit the possibility for interesting and unexpected edge cases to arise. They want players to be free to be able to do a variety of things in-game in order to allow “crazy, one-in-a-lifetime things” to happen. Player agency is very important to them – sometimes players will choose to do things that don’t work out too well for them, and that can be fun. It’s all part of the experience.

Things like camping, as strategies, should not be “rampant”; if a killer were able to win game after game by facecamping all four survivors, that would be a lot more concerning and would probably spark some very different conversations, but right now that is simply not the case.

Will we ever be able to personalise our character’s clothing (for example, picking the colour of your shirt)?

(from YellowTrio)

This is not an area which the Developers are planning to go into with the customisation options. However, they do plan on giving players many more cosmetic options in the future, to the point where everyone should be able to find something that suits them.

Can we get the option to add prestige blood to any outfit?

(from xBlackPanda)

This is another question that comes up very frequently, and no, this is not a feature which will be implemented in the future.

Thematically, one of the reasons why Prestige cosmetics are applied to the default outfit of a character is because they are intended to represent that character’s “ultimate” form. Implementing this option would also be very time-consuming for the developers, and given that time is a limited resource, it’s not something that they want to prioritise right now. However, as mentioned earlier, they are looking at implementing Prestige rewards of a different sort.

Any plans to make the Killer ping visible in the lobby?

(from AsePlayer)

This isn’t something that they’re planning on at the moment.

Since the introduction of the dedicated servers, survivor ping in general has been lowered significantly. Killer ping obviously has not, given that they had a ping of 0 before, but their ping is still not unusually high.

The main problem here is that killers with high ping do have a number of unfair advantages compared to killers playing on lower ping, and the developers do have plans to rectify this issue – for example, the introduction of server-side, rather than killer-side, hit validation as discussed earlier. One of the functions that feature will have is that it will “reject” a hit if the information it receives from the killer is too far (maybe five seconds, for example) outdated.

Will licensed characters have stories in the Archives?

(from Hailoh)

“They’re characters,” was Mathieu’s answer [which seems to imply that there is no reason why they shouldn’t receive the same treatment as other characters].

The current plan is to focus mainly on the original characters for the Archives lore, as they don’t really “need” to do Archives around licensed characters. They did confirm that any character which is required for a Tome challenge in the future will be available for shards.

Could we get points for recovering while downed?

(from HDwasHere)

It’s certainly a possibility, and it is something that the developers have considered. They do think it’s a good idea, but they can’t make any promises for the time being.

Have you considered making the hook struggle automatic?

(from AlbinoSquirrel)

They have considered it on multiple occasions, and decided against it every time. The mechanic exists to make players feel more engaged and immersed in the experience, as if they are actively “pushing back against the Entity”. They have thought about making some changes to the way the mechanic works, but not automating it fully, because they think it is important for players to have the physical “sensation of struggling”.

Have you considered a stats page showing your survivor and killer stats?

(from @PumpkinKing)

It’s definitely something that they have considered, and many would like to see implemented. One of the challenges with doing this is solving the issue of how such a page could reflect past stats, and not just data gathered from the point of implementation onwards, since having a page with all your stats at zero might not feel great, particularly for veteran players who have spent many hours in the game already.

The biggest issue with implementing features like this is all the UI/UX work that needs to be done. For those who don’t know, UI (User Interface) covers things like the menus in-game, what the player sees and how they interact with it. UX (User Experience) is about how the player feels while using the UI, how intuitive it is, etcetera.

Are you still planning on updating underused perks?

(from grzdyl12383, Vixley, AliBreakIT, TedDiBiaseMK, Toastyy, Dr_moha88, Luigifan64, PrinceAshitaka, Musicalhex, Thadius, Fost, CriticalWeasel, lucagarden00, Xpljesus, fullknightsleeve, Malman25)

The answer is yes, they are still planning on making updates to weak or underused perks. Every perk in the game is always under scrutiny and open to being changed if the developers feel that it is “not good enough”. They do have a list of specific perks they want to change, in [priority] order, but the order shifts as new issues and information arise.

Do you plan to add an effect to We’re Gonna Live Forever?

(from Superpablog)

Yes, We’re Gonna Live Forever is one perk that they are looking into. Again, they can’t give any details, but it is certainly something that is being looked at.

Do you think there will ever be a new survivor objective?

(from Reice)

It’s possible. They have added secondary objectives in the past for certain events, so it is a possibility. They won’t be drastically changing the game on a fundamental level, but they may certainly introduce more fun and different things for survivors to do in the future. The main challenge here is ensuring that any changes they make along these lines add something new and valuable to the gameplay experience, without changing what it is at its core.

Will we see any more Legion or Clown buffs?

(from raikko7)

Can we get a hint for which killer(s) will be updated next?

(from RazeSK)

They are looking at making changes to Clown right now, and there is some work being done in that area. These changes are still in the brainstorming and testing stage, so the developers can’t give any details on what those changes are or when they will be released, short of promising that we will see some updates to Clown “before the heat death of the universe” [in other words, it will definitely happen at some point].

Is there any chance that survivors will have unique passives?

(from FilthyQuentin)

This is another idea that has come up many times in the past. There have been similar changes made previously, such as unlocking each survivor’s unique perks by default, but other than that there are no plans along those lines. They have other things to work on which are higher priority, and they don’t feel that this is something which would significantly improve the game as it currently stands.

Any plans to change “Slightly/Moderately/etc.” to exact numbers?

(from P0PG03S)

“Moderately, yes.”

This is a question that has been asked a lot. They are looking into it – it is definitely something that is higher up on The List in terms of priority, but it is a difficult task because there is a “tremendous” amount of text in the game that follows this pattern. The developers want to ensure that any changes they make to this text will be clear without being confusing, since putting too many numbers into a description can sometimes make it feel more complicated and harder to understand. So the aim is currently to figure out a way to redo these descriptions in a way that is “clear, accurate and useful”.

Will we ever be able to buy different Mori animations in the store?

(from BurzoMan)

They don’t like to say “never”, but it’s not currently planned.

Will there ever be environmental risks?

(from hagling)

Making maps more interactive has always been a goal, starting with the addition of the Gas Haven map where the bell rings every time a player enters the garage. The foghorn in the Pale Rose map is another example. Map designs are continually evolving and becoming more interactive as time goes on, so “who knows what’s gonna happen next?”

With that being said, there are “no concrete plan[s]” to implement maps with environmental risks for the time being.

Are there more reworks/balancing planned for rarely-used killers?

(from LifeByNightlight)

They are always paying attention to underused killers – see the answer given above regarding upcoming changes to the Clown. One of the reasons that Clown drew the designers’ attention in the first place was because of his low usage rate, and they would like to make him more interesting and viable for players. Usage rate, along with other things like “success rate”, is one of the factors that goes into deciding which killer to focus on, and they consider statistics across all ranks and experience levels.

Will Susie and Joey get their own voices?

(from EmotionalDaisy)

It’s not something that’s currently planned.

Have you considered adding characters from iconic horror games instead of focusing on movies?

(from youghurtmannen)

They have added a character from another horror game in the past – Bill Overbeck, from Left 4 Dead. So yes, they have definitely considered it.

Will each killer be getting their own unique chase music?

(from Sleepyboii, Trebor)

The plan is to create unique chase music for every new killer introduced to the game, and they will also consider unique chase music for older killers as part of any major future reworks that those killers may receive. However, they won’t be adding unique chase music for killers as a standalone feature in any future patches.

Are there any plans for a Huntress add-on pass?

(from thesuicidefox)

There are definitely plans along those lines, but the developers are unable to provide an ETA at this stage.

A Brief Interlude on Player Questions and How Changes are handled internally:

There are a lot of things that are on the Developers’ radar, but some of these plans extend much further into the future than others, because not everything they want to do can be worked on at once. Usually, they have plans not only for upcoming changes, but for when they want to announce those changes, and they’re not likely to change those plans just because a player asked them to. They are still happy to hear questions about it, but players should be aware that sometimes the answers will be necessarily vague and disappointing.

The Developers are very much aware that it doesn’t feel good for the players to be told that they’re being heard while no visible action is being taken. It’s not that they’re not working on things, it’s just that there is a bigger, long-term plan, and sometimes changes take time or need to be postponed. Sometimes, they will announce a plan on the roadmap and things change further down the line such that different plans end up having to take priority. It doesn’t mean that the advertised plan has been abandoned, just that it has been temporarily shifted to the back burner.

Will we be able to preview different outfit pieces at the same time in the store?

(from Supernaut, HDwasHere)

This has been a highly-requested feature, however it’s not something that the Developers consider a priority at the moment.

Will there be more community-influenced cosmetics?

(from the live chat)

There has been a contest ongoing over the last month for members of the community to design their own in-game cosmetic. The winners will be announced in two weeks, during the anniversary livestream.

Any chance of having two sets of daily rituals – 3 killer and 3 survivor?

(from bm33)

Overhauling the daily ritual system is something that the developers have been considering. They’re not very happy with the way rituals are currently distributed, which is very “killer-centric”. No word on when such changes might happen, but it is definitely an issue that they are aware of and looking for ways to address.

Any update on the Rank Update Error?

(from @v3ct0r)

This is a really tough issue to solve, and is still under investigation. If you are experiencing the Rank Update Error, please visit this section on the forums and share details of your experience https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/categories/DPP_RankUpdateError. This bug is proving very difficult for them to diagnose, so the more information players can provide, the easier that will be.

It seems to be something which is specific to the players’ hardware and/or network conditions, so it’s impossible to recreate easily, and there have been several times in the past where they thought it had been fixed, but once the fix went out, it turned out that there were still players suffering from the same error. They are taking it very seriously, and doing everything they can to try to get it sorted.

Any update on optimisation?

(from Ps_One)

Optimisation is an ongoing process, especially as new features continue to be added to the game. The team are continually looking to optimise new additions, as well as find opportunities for other large improvements across the board. They are prioritising changes which benefit players across all platforms, but if they find that a particular platform is struggling in this area, it’s not impossible that they might give that platform extra attention. Sometimes changes will be small and unnoticeable, and sometimes they will be large, but this is something that the developers are constantly looking to improve.

There is also a section on the forums (Optimisation) where players can report specific issues with optimisation. They would prefer if you didn’t make posts that just say something like “FPS bad”, since that’s not very helpful, but if you can explain the circumstances, map, character, platform, etc. that you were using when the FPS dropped, that will help the developers to identify areas where they can improve in terms of optimisation. You can also upvote an issue if someone else has already reported the same problem, instead of creating your own post.

Bone-in, or boneless wings?

(from the live chat)

Bone-in, says Patrick. “Boneless wings are just nuggets”. Not that there is anything wrong with nuggets – Mathieu even had animal-shaped nuggets for lunch – but they are not interchangeable with wings.

Would it be possible to gift Auric Cells to friends? Also, would it be possible to gift cosmetic clothing purchases?

(from SkylarPup)

It’s a cool idea that the developers would love to implement, but it’s not something that’s planned for the moment. However, you can work around this issue by sending gift cards to your friends for credit on whichever platform you happen to play on.

Any new gestures planned for Survivors?

(from Harbinger512)

This question has been answered previously. The difficulty with gestures is that they don’t want them to be used purely for bullying or taunting other players, so the idea has always been to keep communication to a minimum, which is why there are only two gestures in the game (three, if you count crouching).

Any plans on returning Legacy to those who lost it back in the day?

(from Sasuke)

This is another question that has been previously answered, and it comes up quite a lot. Because of the difficulty involved in getting a character to prestige back in 2016, the developers want to maintain the significance behind the legacy outfits. Therefore, they don’t want to give out any more unless they obtain a really solid way to check an account’s exact status at the time when Legacy skins were introduced. “It’s not impossible, but it is extremely complex.”

The way data was tracked back then was very different, and there are many ways to “cheat the system”, so it is difficult for the developers to figure out a way to be completely confident that they are returning legacy cosmetics to those who truly earned them, which is why it’s not something they’re able to do at the moment.

Do you have a plan to add The Nightmare and Quentin to the Nintendo Switch?

(from roku1107)

They would love to do this, and are in ongoing negotiations with the license owners, but until these are resolved there is nothing else that BHVR can do.

Special Guest Segment: Stats and Surveys

This segment featured User Research Specialist Donella Plastik.

Donnie is a User Researcher at BHVR. If you have seen a survey in the last seven months or so, she is most likely responsible for it. She is part of a team called Rover, which is comprised of User Researchers, Data Scientists, Engineers and Analysists, who use resources such as surveys, analytics and focus groups to provide insights to the production team and help them to make “data-driven decisions”.

Why does BHVR do Player Satisfaction Surveys?

Player Satisfaction Surveys are released around once every three months, and the reason why they get released is because some data cannot be gained just from looking at game analytics and needs to be gathered through direct questions – for example, why players play a certain character, or what sorts of things feel fair to them. This is particularly true in a game like Dead by Daylight where balance is such a huge focus; something may look balanced just from the analytical data, but it’s also important to take player sentiment into account.

Does everyone go to the Opera, or not? (question from the live chat)

Donnie wasn’t part of the team at the point in time that this question is referencing (https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/61114/community-community-data-requests#latest), but she and her team do still get comments about it.

Who decides what questions go into the surveys?

It’s a team effort. Before creating a survey, Donnie meets with members of all the different departments to find out what questions they want to have answered by the community. Often, these are very specific questions, but sometimes the developers want to know more general things (like what players do with their free time, for example – visit the Opera). After that, whoever is making the survey, a job which Donnie has recently assumed, writes the questions themselves.

What sort of information do the team normally look for?

All kinds of things. Generally, survey questions will be things that the developers can’t find out using in-game analytics, but sometimes they need to ask players about such things regardless. For example, if a survey asks players which role they prefer to play, they are not trying to figure out what the distribution of killers and survivors is, because they already have that data.

However, there are some issues that they can break down more easily by asking different questions, such as a couple of surveys ago, when they asked players which map they believed could benefit from a rework. Predictably, killers and survivors had different opinions on this, which is the kind of thing that the team can only discern by asking these combinations of questions. So even though the data they’re looking for is things that they can only get from surveys, sometimes they have to ask questions that seem very obvious as part of that process.

Once the survey is done and the information is collected, what do the developers do with that information? Why don’t changes which are asked about in the survey get implemented right away?

The main purpose of the surveys is to narrow the gap between player feedback and actual implementation. What happens is that the data team create an extensive report on all of the data they have collected and send it out to all the different departments. Assuming the questions have been answered satisfactorily, the developers can then start the process of making fixes or developing new features based on that feedback.

Often, the data received from surveys extends beyond the questions asked and encompasses a huge amount of additional and unexpected information. The team do their best to process that information as quickly as possible, but it can take quite a long time.

Does someone actually go through and read all the responses?

Yes, and Donnie is usually that person, although she does have tools to assist with the process. Each survey receives tens of thousands of responses, including tens of thousands of open comments, of which she tries to read as many as possible. She has been Rick Rolled, she has seen photos of people’s dogs that they have sent in (often disguised as game feedback), and often, players even attach their emails.

She reads a lot, but no one can read all the many thousands of comments that they receive, so Donnie uses software designed by one of the developers on the Rover team which divides the comments into more digestible topics. Using this software, they can determine how many players are talking about which topics, which gives them insight into what the main player concerns are, and allows them to then go more in-depth to figure out how they can best respond to those concerns.

Would cat pictures also be acceptable submissions?

Donnie will accept pet photos of any kind, as well as actual gameplay feedback on Dead by Daylight. Either way, she will read it, but especially if it is feedback on the game. Ultimately, the goal is to improve the game in all areas, but sometimes a well-placed cat photo will also help to improve Donnie’s day.