UPDATED REVIEW - original review below this one.

Well, a viewer of my stream gifted me this game with the request that I try it again and give it another chance. Despite being one of maybe 2 or 3 games that I've EVER returned on steam, I agreed. I mean, why not if it's being gifted, right?

I still don't know if I would change my thumbs down to a thumbs up, because quite frankly I don't know if I'd flat out reccomend this game. But I MIGHT depending on the person. I think DBD fills a very specific niche. Quite frankly when you play it with 4 other people and you're in voice chat laughing and joking and one of you is killing the other four, it's just a hell of a lot of fun. But sadly that's not usually the case for most people.

I think some of the issues that I mention in my original reply have gotten better, a little bit, but all of them are still there. The game can still feel like lobby simulator. The people you play with CAN be toxic and salty A.F. The DLC heroes feel way more powerful then the base game, but not as bad as they were before multiple tweaks. Basically everything negative I said in my original review still applies... it's just not quite as bad as it was before.

I've found myself enjoying the role of killer a lot, and have had quite a fun time playing as one, even if I do terribly in a match. As long as you aren't a 'camper' people generally seem to be fairly non toxic, for the most part. What brought about that change from 6 - 7 months ago? I don't know, but it's noticible.

As of the time I'm writing this, they've made changes to the level up system, which means that the shrine of secrets, an important part of leveling up your characters, isn't currently in the game. This makes it feel WAY less grindy since you don't need to try to hope for RNG and the right amount of exp to get character perks. Unfortunately the trade off is that now you NEED to buy the DLC and level up other characters you want to get those perks. So, you know, one step forwards, one step backwards.

/shrug

Listen, ultimately, I'm enjoying it a bit currently, but I just don't know if it's the right game for you, so I'll close with the same sentiment I had 7 months ago:

Save your time, save your money, and unless you have friends you are going to play this with, give this one a pass.



----------------------------
Original review below
----------------------------



There's no way I can reccomend this game, for a few reasons:

- the DLC money grab feels very blatant and intentional.

All of the DLC heroes feel far more powerful then the base game heroes. You can easily spend 2-3 times as much money on the DLC as you did for the base game, and that's not counting if you want the alternate outfits (which arguably ALSO grant an advantage over the base outfits)

- the matching system is terrible

First of all, as a streamer, it's pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥ to sit in a lobby and wait for people to try to join a game for upwards of 10 minutes. Then depending on everyone's connection, you're sometimes staring at a loading screen for several more minutes. I know that this is frustrating as a solo player, but as a streamer, it makes the game practically worthless to play on stream.

- Disconnects / quitters

So lets say you get into a game and the game begins loading. Guess what happens.... frequently? Someone disconnects, either because of lag or on purpose. Then what? Your loading screen just sits there for upwards of five minutes. That's assuming other people don't force quit the game, which causes the loading screen to go on even longer. Then when you finally get into the game, you're sometimes looking at a 3v1 scenario instead of 4v1. Or god forbid a 2v1, which I've had happen twice in less than 4 hours owning the game. There's pretty much no chance of the survivors winning in a 2v1 scenario. So what happens? The killer often ends up just farming the two remaining players, not letting them win, not letting them lose, for as long as it takes before one of them quits out of the game. Why does he do that?

- The game is VERY grindy.

As you play you earn experience (bloodshards). You use these to rank up your survivors or your killers, but when you put BS into a character, that's it, it's just that ONE character. So decide which killer or survivor you like, because you're going to be putting a LOT of points into them. With only 3ish hours played, I couldn't tell you how much you need to 'max out' even a single character, but I can tell you that as I dumped all my points into one character to see how 'deep' i could go, I didn't even unlock the 2nd perk, which im told is rank 16. It's is an absolutely ridiculous amount of grinding needed especially for new players.

- the level up system

It's called a blood web, making you think you can choose your branch and specialize and pick your talents right? NOPE. you have to put ALL points into ALL nodes on each web before you can go to the next level. it's ridiculous, especially since several of the points on the web are somewhat worthless one shot items.

- one shot items

Remember how i described how some matches are ridiculously unfair because of disconnects and because some killers are FAR more overpowered then others? Well guess what? BEFORE you queue into a game you can choose which items and boosts you want to use, but once you get into a game, boom, they're used up. So if you only have one 'toolkit' left and you queue into a match that has 2 people leave / DC, guess what, that kit's going to be gone on a match you have no chance of winning. GUESS YOU BETTER START GRINDING FOR MORE BLOOD SHARDS EH FRIEND?

- toxicity

This was a mixed bag. About two thirds of my matches were actually pretty cool people. After the game people were like GG or even said a little bit, which was really nice. But of course that just points a glaring finger at the other third of the games I played where people were so toxic it was sad. "Die in a fire noob killer" and the like. Really? How does that enhance the game play experience at all? Also, in game, like I said, some killers will purposely proloung games as much as they can just to farm as much blood shard experience as possible. One game the killer quite handily dispatched three of the survivors (he was using a DLC killer of course) and then would just rotate letting the one living guy pick up someone else, then knocking them down, letting the up person pick someone else up, knocking that down, etc etc etc. Until people started leaving the game. Not letting them get any objectives, just drawing out the game as much as possible to get the maximum amount of blood shards he could.

- bugs

Finally and this is a very minor point and one i didn't experience often in my short time playing it, but the game is buggy. I clipped through walls, rubber banded, and found myself struggling with the terrain far more often then I should have considering my PC specs as well as how long this game has been out. One time it even caused some sort of error where the ALT and the A key were perma pressed down, forcing my character into a permanant crouch shuffle to the left.


Save your time, save your money, and unless you have 4 friends you are going to play this with, give this one a pass.

UPDATED REVIEW - original review below this one. Well, a viewer of my stream gifted me this game with the request that I try it again and give it another chance. Despite being one of maybe 2 or 3 games that I've EVER returned on steam, I agreed. I mean, why not if it's being gifted, right? I still don't know if I would change my thumbs down to a thumbs up, because quite frankly I don't know if I'd flat out reccomend this game. But I MIGHT depending on the person. I think DBD fills a very specific niche. Quite frankly when you play it with 4 other people and you're in voice chat laughing and joking and one of you is killing the other four, it's just a hell of a lot of fun. But sadly that's not usually the case for most people. I think some of the issues that I mention in my original reply have gotten better, a little bit, but all of them are still there. The game can still feel like lobby simulator. The people you play with CAN be toxic and salty A.F. The DLC heroes feel way more powerful then the base game, but not as bad as they were before multiple tweaks. Basically everything negative I said in my original review still applies... it's just not quite as bad as it was before. I've found myself enjoying the role of killer a lot, and have had quite a fun time playing as one, even if I do terribly in a match. As long as you aren't a 'camper' people generally seem to be fairly non toxic, for the most part. What brought about that change from 6 - 7 months ago? I don't know, but it's noticible. As of the time I'm writing this, they've made changes to the level up system, which means that the shrine of secrets, an important part of leveling up your characters, isn't currently in the game. This makes it feel WAY less grindy since you don't need to try to hope for RNG and the right amount of exp to get character perks. Unfortunately the trade off is that now you NEED to buy the DLC and level up other characters you want to get those perks. So, you know, one step forwards, one step backwards. /shrug Listen, ultimately, I'm enjoying it a bit currently, but I just don't know if it's the right game for you, so I'll close with the same sentiment I had 7 months ago: Save your time, save your money, and unless you have friends you are going to play this with, give this one a pass. ---------------------------- Original review below ---------------------------- There's no way I can reccomend this game, for a few reasons: - the DLC money grab feels very blatant and intentional. All of the DLC heroes feel far more powerful then the base game heroes. You can easily spend 2-3 times as much money on the DLC as you did for the base game, and that's not counting if you want the alternate outfits (which arguably ALSO grant an advantage over the base outfits) - the matching system is terrible First of all, as a streamer, it's pretty shitty to sit in a lobby and wait for people to try to join a game for upwards of 10 minutes. Then depending on everyone's connection, you're sometimes staring at a loading screen for several more minutes. I know that this is frustrating as a solo player, but as a streamer, it makes the game practically worthless to play on stream. - Disconnects / quitters So lets say you get into a game and the game begins loading. Guess what happens.... frequently? Someone disconnects, either because of lag or on purpose. Then what? Your loading screen just sits there for upwards of five minutes. That's assuming other people don't force quit the game, which causes the loading screen to go on even longer. Then when you finally get into the game, you're sometimes looking at a 3v1 scenario instead of 4v1. Or god forbid a 2v1, which I've had happen twice in less than 4 hours owning the game. There's pretty much no chance of the survivors winning in a 2v1 scenario. So what happens? The killer often ends up just farming the two remaining players, not letting them win, not letting them lose, for as long as it takes before one of them quits out of the game. Why does he do that? - The game is VERY grindy. As you play you earn experience (bloodshards). You use these to rank up your survivors or your killers, but when you put BS into a character, that's it, it's just that ONE character. So decide which killer or survivor you like, because you're going to be putting a LOT of points into them. With only 3ish hours played, I couldn't tell you how much you need to 'max out' even a single character, but I can tell you that as I dumped all my points into one character to see how 'deep' i could go, I didn't even unlock the 2nd perk, which im told is rank 16. It's is an absolutely ridiculous amount of grinding needed especially for new players. - the level up system It's called a blood web, making you think you can choose your branch and specialize and pick your talents right? NOPE. you have to put ALL points into ALL nodes on each web before you can go to the next level. it's ridiculous, especially since several of the points on the web are somewhat worthless one shot items. - one shot items Remember how i described how some matches are ridiculously unfair because of disconnects and because some killers are FAR more overpowered then others? Well guess what? BEFORE you queue into a game you can choose which items and boosts you want to use, but once you get into a game, boom, they're used up. So if you only have one 'toolkit' left and you queue into a match that has 2 people leave / DC, guess what, that kit's going to be gone on a match you have no chance of winning. GUESS YOU BETTER START GRINDING FOR MORE BLOOD SHARDS EH FRIEND? - toxicity This was a mixed bag. About two thirds of my matches were actually pretty cool people. After the game people were like GG or even said a little bit, which was really nice. But of course that just points a glaring finger at the other third of the games I played where people were so toxic it was sad. "Die in a fire noob killer" and the like. Really? How does that enhance the game play experience at all? Also, in game, like I said, some killers will purposely proloung games as much as they can just to farm as much blood shard experience as possible. One game the killer quite handily dispatched three of the survivors (he was using a DLC killer of course) and then would just rotate letting the one living guy pick up someone else, then knocking them down, letting the up person pick someone else up, knocking that down, etc etc etc. Until people started leaving the game. Not letting them get any objectives, just drawing out the game as much as possible to get the maximum amount of blood shards he could. - bugs Finally and this is a very minor point and one i didn't experience often in my short time playing it, but the game is buggy. I clipped through walls, rubber banded, and found myself struggling with the terrain far more often then I should have considering my PC specs as well as how long this game has been out. One time it even caused some sort of error where the ALT and the A key were perma pressed down, forcing my character into a permanant crouch shuffle to the left. Save your time, save your money, and unless you have 4 friends you are going to play this with, give this one a pass.