Asymmetrical games have a rocky history, with many innovative titles failing to garner an audience and ultimately fading into obscurity. The same cannot be said for Dead by Daylight. Horror fans fell in love with its cat and mouse gameplay that pits one Killer against four Survivors and have stuck with the game ever since.
Since its 2016 release, Dead by Daylight has undergone numerous changes, its roster of Survivors and Killers has expanded, and iconic horror franchises have joined the game. The game has seen tremendous improvements, but there are still some fixes the game needs to reach its full potential. Here are some of the biggest.
10 Solo Queue Buffs
While Killer is always a solo experience, the Survivor side can either be played as a Survive With Friends (SWF) or by oneself with random teammates. Unfortunately, there is a considerable disparity in survival rates between the two. In brief, SWFs communicate better (revealing the locations of hidden bear traps, asking for a friend's med-kit, and calling out a camping Killer, etc.) so they die less.
Playing with friends is wonderful, so the best and the simplest fix is to give solo players better tools to communicate with one another. Even a relatively small fix such as including HUD icons that show every Survivor's current activity (being chased, working on a generator, healing, etc.) would go a long way toward helping balance Survivors.
9 More Power Diversity
When Dead by Daylight was released there were only three Killers and three powers: Hillbilly and his chainsaw, Wraith and his invisibility, and Trapper and his bear traps. Since then dozens have Killers have joined the game, bringing a variety of other abilities with them.
Unfortunately, a number of Killers have powers that are similar and don't lead to enough unique strategies or skills. Teleportation is a fantastic mechanic, but before the introduction of the Dredge it had already been used by the Hag, Onryo, Demogorgon, Cenobite, and Nightmare. Greater diversity in Killer powers would help keep the game fresher longer.
8 Dead Hard Rework
Dead Hard is without question the strongest and most popular Survivor perk, granting the Survivor a brief forward dash accompanied by invincibility frames, allowing them to escape the Killer even in desperate situations. Easily the strongest exhaustion perk,Dead Hard has a reputation for saving Survivors even when they've lost a mind game or been otherwise outplayed.
It's important for Survivors to have powerful tools at their disposal to escape the Killer, but the current version of Dead Hard promotes the boring gameplay interaction of simply following Survivors to "wait it out." BHVR has announced that a rework of the perk is imminent, but it's unclear if the proposed changes will actually nerf the perk enough to matter.
7 A QoL Pass
Dead by Daylight's core gameplay look is excellent, with every passing year more and more small issues have raised their heads to irk players. Though these are for the most part insignificant, they can become major headaches over time, especially when experienced in conjunction with other issues.
The Bloodpoint grind, long queue times, troublesome archives, a cumbersome perk menu, and other issues have needed quality-of-life fixes for some time now. BHVR has announced its plans to address some of these issues--rewarding players who play needed roles in order to reduce queue times, for example--but it's unclear yet if these QoL fixes will go far enough.
6 Boon Changes
Hour of the Witch brought with it Boon Perks, giving Survivors a new way to interact with totems, blessing them and instilling them with valuable, AoE benefits instead of cleansing totems to rid them of powerful hexes. Most Boon perks have proven underwhelming, but the fast and powerful heals granted by Circle of Healing have made that perk a source of serious contention.
BHVR introduced Shattered Hope as a countermeasure, allowing Killers to break Boons permanently, preventing Survivors from relighting them infinitely. This change helps but doesn't go far enough. The totem-breaking of Shattered Hope should be made basekit for Killers, and Circle of Healing should receive a significant nerf. With those changes made, the other Boons can receive buffs without disrupting the game's balance.
5 Survivor Item Nerfs
Survivors lack the powers that Killers have but can bring items with them into the Trials in order to give them an edge. Keys received a major nerf with the reworking of the Hatch system, and Maps have always been situationally useful, but toolboxes and med-kits remain incredibly powerful.
Killers may complain about Brand New Parts and Commodious Toolboxes, but med-kits arguably pose a much more significant threat to game balance. Paired with Circle of Healing, strong add-ons, and other healing perks, med-kits can make the hit-and-run irrelevant and make many Killers feel too underpowered to be fun.
4 Anti-Camping
Three strategies have become particularly popular amongst Killers and controversial amongst players in general: slugging, camping, and tunneling. Camping, the act of remaining in proximity to a hooked Survivor in order to force additional hook stages, force trades, and otherwise deprive Survivors of options, can be lethal. Unfortunately, it can also be boring.
Forcing Survivors to try to fight their way past the Killer to unhook can be an optimal strategy, but it's often a miserable experience for the Survivors, and against Killers like the Cannibal there's little counterplay. The core gameplay needs to make camping a suboptimal strategy, otherwise, it will continue.
3 Anti-Tunneling
If any Killer strategy is more hated than camping, it may be tunneling, the act of focusing one's attacks on a single Survivor in order to kill them as quickly as possible. From the Killer's perspective, tunneling is often the best strategy, as a 1v3 is far easier to win than a 1v4. For a Survivor, however, it's not fun to wait for a game just to be deprived of the chance to play.
It's absurd to ask Killers not to tunnel for the same reason it's absurd to ask Survivors to do gens slower: it's a demand that the other side throw the game in the name of their opponents' fun. BHVR should take significant steps to make tunneling inefficient, otherwise Killers will continue to use that strategy, since it's what rewards them with the most wins.
2 S-Tier Killer Nerfs
Few players would argue that Nurse and Blight are anything but the strongest Killers in the game, with mobility powers that leave Survivors few options in a chase and can be totally oppressive in the hands of a skilled player, especially when paired with the strongest perks and add-ons.
Many Killer perks must be kept weak or kept out of the game entirely because of how powerful they would otherwise be in the hands of these two Killers. Blight's add-ons and Nurse's basekit must receive large nerfs in order to bring them more in line with the other Killers. This would benefit Killers by allowing many perks to be introduced or buffed in ways they otherwise couldn't be.
1 D-Tier Killer Buffs
The Shape, Trapper, Pig, Onryo, and other weak Killers need considerable buffs in order to bring them closer to the power of the average Killer and make them more fun to play as and against. These Killers suffer too much from a weak early-game or lack of anti-loop ability. As a result, they can feel powerless against good Survivors.
Dead by Daylight is a horror party game, not an ultra-balanced competitive title like CS:GO or Valorant. Killers don't need to be perfectly balanced against one another, but if they aren't at least somewhat close, it's difficult to balance the gameplay overall, making the experience far less fun for Survivors and Killers alike.
Dead By Daylight is currently available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, and Stadia.