Nothing is ever perfect at Cortyn. The latest patch of Dead by Daylight causes balance issues and frustration.
As I threatened last week, I’ve taken a bit of a break from too much World of Warcraft and Heroes of the Storm to focus instead on the new patch for Dead by Daylight.
The horror game received a new DLC called “Spark of Madness.” At the same time, there were also many balancing changes. The aim of this update was to weaken particularly powerful perks and slightly improve disliked perks.
I play both killer (when I’m playing alone) and survivor (with friends), so I think I have a fairly neutral view of the whole thing: killers are the losers of these changes. Survivors are still using exactly the same perks as before. For killers, the selection has become smaller as the “teachable perks,” that is, the perks that can be learned from other killers, have been drastically weakened in some cases. This ultimately leads to the “teabagging” of the survivor increasing again. But I have already commented on that.
A second point that really bothers me is the Doctor. I was really looking forward to this killer because he seemed to be a real change from the other crazies. With the new “Madness” mechanic, he causes survivors to see strange things through electric shocks. Sometimes it sounds like the killer is standing right behind you, sometimes you can hear the terror radius swell, and sometimes an illusion of the killer appears right in front of you.
The problem is: All these things only matter to you if you are a complete novice. Any other player will figure out in 5 minutes what is triggered by Madness and will basically not be affected by it anymore.
However, what makes me really dissatisfied is the developers’ decision on how Madness works at its highest level. When a survivor reaches Madness level 3, they can no longer perform 3 actions: heal themselves, repair a generator, and rescue allies from hooks.
That sounds cool in itself, right? The “catch” is: A survivor only reaches Madness level 3 during a chase anyway. So they won’t be repairing generators, rescuing allies from hooks, or healing themselves.
No, I’m not really warming up to the Doctor. From the perspective of both a killer and a survivor player, he is mainly one thing: more boring than expected. Conceptually good, but far behind the expectations in terms of gameplay. He is a “noob slayer” – especially against a team of newcomers, you can quickly stomp them, but those who already have days of experience in the game will laugh at the Doctor as a “free win.”
Meanwhile, in the forum, people are mocking the game developers. “You wanted to ruin the game with the Doctor as announced? Yes, that worked – just the opposite of what was planned.”
I can only hope that the developers will patch a bit soon – sooner rather than later.
But I don’t want to condemn everything either: With “Spark of Madness”, you can have a lot of fun. The new map is creepy and has a completely different atmosphere than the previous maps, and the perks from the killer are cool as they can also be taught to other killers.
Have you tried the new killer or fought against him? What do you think of the Doctor?
Last week was about WoW and the exciting quest design of the Legion judges …
