14 people found this review helpful
20 people found this review funny
Recommended
17.9 hrs last two weeks / 5,102.4 hrs on record (598.1 hrs at review time)
Posted: 24 Nov, 2017 @ 1:41am

I never thought I'd play one game for so long again after Dota 2. And yet here I am with now over 600 hours in Dead by Daylight...

Dead by Daylight is a 4 vs 1 asynchronous multiplayer game where a killer is forced to try to kill 4 survivors before they escape. Think Evolve but without all the bull crap Take Two loves shoving into its games.

The game shines on how varied each game can be. There are currently 10 killers in the game, and they are completely different from one another. It's not just a texture change, their powers completely changes how each game plays against different killers. A good nurse might force you to play more stealthily because she can end a chase in seconds, while you might want to play more boldly against a Freddy because he ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sucks he can't harm you unless you're in his world. However, this becomes an issue in later games because not every killer is viable at top tier play and at higher ranks, you might only see 3-5 killers consistently.

The skill floor and ceilings are skewed towards certain roles. The skill floor for killers is lower than survivors which results in more kills at the lower ranks, meanwhile the skill ceiling for survivors is much higher than the killers and a good survivor can keep a killer chasing him for minutes at high ranks. This can result in frustrating survivor games at lower ranks where your teammates will die quickly, and frustrating killer games at higher ranks where you just can't kill anyone.

This is the reason why only a few killers are viable at high ranks, but the devs are planning on reworks on a few killers to presumably make them stronger. The problem with this, however, is the skill floor skews further to the killer's favor. Sadly, it's the joy of designing an asynchronous game. I would have no clue on how to balance this properly, but I'm just stating the facts.

There is a separate rank for killers and survivors to theoretically match you against players of the same skill level, but currently each "season" lasts only one month and the ranks reset every 13th of the month.

Really, the biggest issue with the game might be how difficult it is to get into it. While not at Dota's level, the skill floor is still higher than most multiplayer games as there are a lot of mechanics and no proper tutorial. It would take you hours of consistently dying every game before you get a real grasp of how the game works. The best early game advice I can give is you should try to play both roles as playing a killer makes you a better survivor, and vice versa. Playing with some friends to help you is also recommended so they can guide you along.

The game is still in active development and has been consistently getting better every patch (unless the devs break something which they often do but they're almost always quick to patch critical issues). They also hold a weekly stream to showcase what's in the pipeline as well as news on events and competitions.

At the end of the day, if you had a bad game, just remember that it's only a game.


What I played (so far): 600 hours, with each character leveled to at least 40.
Like: The concept, the gameplay
Dislike: The bugs, Some players
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
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1 Comments
Makam 24 Nov, 2017 @ 4:31am 
Great review