The program sounds fair enough, but Spooky wasn't exactly wrong to respond in the way he did. The fact that BHVR kept the consultant program hidden while the Fog Whisperers got all the heat for game changes most likely suggested by the consultants for several years now while also offering Whisperers little to no insight/explanation left them *all* out to dry. Whisperers were led to believe they actually had a say when it was consultants behind the scenes making the real changes must make Whisperers feel jaded. BHVR not telling Whisperers about this kept them in the dark when they thought they were the only thing with any power between players and developers.
For years I thought Fogwispers had the opportunity to contribute to balancing decisions but it was clear that wasn't the case when Otz got extremely disappointed that non of his feedback was taken onboard. I am happy to know that there is now a dedicated team that has at least some influence when it comes to the balance of the game and gameplay changes
This team has existed since, at least, before legions release. Dowsey has publicly stated he was on the team, and one of the biggest reasons for him moving on from DBD was the devs lack of taking their feedback seriously.
@@PackageCat SoloQ survivors are clearly not a strong role. Plague, Pinhead and other team play demanding killers usually destroy them pretty easily. But of course you can have your own opinion
@@Timothee_Chalamet_CMBYN for context, you are being pedantic. For context, it doesn’t matter that I shared this from Choy’s video or not. For context, for context.
See, the reason I don’t think this is gonna do a single goddamn thing? If literally anyone there had listened to a single word any of y’all said there’s no way that twins rework would have made it to the design stage let alone the PTB. All this has done is that they’re paying you to stop badmouthing them by making you employees
Honestly it sounds like a fun program to be in. It’s a shame there’s no open applications since I’m a player who plays both sides a lot and it would be nice to give reasonable feedback to changes.
there are no open applications because they dont want regular players to actually give opinions. they pick the popular content creators, which are the ones that already have a voice, and they give their voice more power by adding them to the program, while you and the rest of the regular community stay muted. this program is meaningless because of that. nothign changes basically, the people that could voice their opinions still do it, now more oficially, and the people that couldnt still cant
@@arthaiserthey also need trustworthy worthy people, otherwise they’ll be more Dweets out their spoiling every chance they get. Trust takes time and good observation too build. Clearly some of the Fog Whispers that left weren’t good candidates in the first place, just entitled children with bad egos that never really cared about the game in the first place.
Everyone thinks they’re a player that could give reasonable feedback, next comment section you can find them saying something like “learn to loop, get good?” Or “Pop goes the weasel is a must, cry baby unskilled survivors”.
im pretty sure people knew that when fog whispers became a thing, everyone collectively went "So they have them as consultants." so, even tho they are separate as groups we knew they were there
That's .... unexpected. I wished for something like this to happen for years, and it seems like they are doing a lot in the right direction - probably the most they can. That's amazing news
thing is, it HAS been around for years. i believe the earliest account that’s been confirmed is that it’s been around since at least around the time the trickster ptb went live…
Did he? I saw nothing of the kind. If so, I'd say he's more than entitled to complain, considering BHVR tends to set aside creators who actually and fairly criticize them, Spookyloopz and Otzdarva coming to mind @@blaze6620
I think his and Choys biggest complaint is about how they don't listen to either the fog whisperers or the consultant program anyways. Between Legion, Twins, skull merchant, reworking hillbilly's engravings etc..
I agree if you are talking about the latest good changes and additions to the game. Hens has always been analytical and fair in his points for balance and this is why he's a favorite of many
@@notHensi have the same Opinion do let me state my reasoning: We have seen a lot of logical changes to balance between chapters and changes. Sometimes it seemed like they where doing something stupid and then the next update they changed it to make sense. Those changes are seemingly thanks to your suggestions. Thank you Hens. Really. Thank you for what you’re doing. It is greatly appreciated. (Du bist echt der beste :D)
Honestly about time, many of us said for years they should be listening to the most experienced/respected players in the game as they seem to know the game better than most of the devs themselves
This is not a new program. It’s existence has been confirmed by former a member, Dowsey, to have existed since before LEGIONS release, as far as we are aware. Dowsey also made it clear that being in that team is one of the reasons why he’s given up on the game as a whole, due to the devs not actually taking their feedback seriously. Hens, meanwhile, has only been a part of the team for a few months.
Not really. Consultants don't have the final word, they give advices and opinions, the devs still decide to do what they want. And PTB is the perfect place to test out some things, see how bad some changes can be. For all we know, the devs didn't even ask them their opinion on the changes they wanted to try out for Twins. Also, most people couldn't see how busted Twins was gonna be with only the on paper information.
@@Libellulaireit’s extremely concerning that a change like that would not pass by a single consultant, and the devs should not be grouped in with “most people” they are professional game designers. anyone who’s familiar with the twins could have clearly seen how insanely busted those ptb changes were. if they didn’t run something like THIS by the consultants what are they even there for???
I think it's a right step in the direction, however; Its obvious high mmr / low mmr needs to be addressed more. The nerfs to Pop / Pain Res isn't hurting anybody at low mmr, but at high mmr, it's actually a problem for killers. Can Hens even confirm if the consultants on the program are a mix in skill levels?
imo pop and pain res are bad game design. they reward killers who already doing fine, and do nothing for killers who struggle to catch a survivor. it unbalances the game and kinda kills all intrigue to the game and you already 90% know which side is going to win after few minutes into a match
@@chances7035 after chasing a survivor for 20 seconds, start gaining a token every second up to 20 tokens, applies up to -20% regression when you kick a gen. successful hit resets all tokens
sooooooooo. they clearly got warned on the changes that were going to be a clear disasters like : twins rework op UW concept as a whole being op and possibly another buff from the aura reading rework chucky possibly being op next patch old Made for this these happened in just 1 year or less. everyone makes mistakes but i assumed that they dont know what they were doing or making human errors...but they got actively warned by people who play this game on a daily basis.
You being in the program for months means that it has probably been up and running all the time through 7.7.0, and the upcoming patch at least, maybe even more. Although I am happy for you personally, that doesn’t make the program look good, and for a reason. If I am right with my minimum time frame, then it seems like you don’t get to see what BHVR do before the PTB, but you do get a say in post-PTB changes, which could explain the Twins situation. Basically, if the devs make bad design decisions, consultants cannot warn them in advance. This gets us into Twins PTB and Vecna Perks in the first place. And that is the better scenario, with the worse one being assuming the majority of the feedback to the content planned for these PTBs to be positive. As a side note, I’d assume that the program had become increasingly active around mid Autumn, which would explain constant roadmap changes for reworks and a barrage of Blight add-on fixes.
Hearing this, I remembered back in the days those chaotic games were actually fun but nowadays sometimes they're just infuriating... I feel like matching should never exist in this game.. the five players would be picked randomly... Just like the mobile version there should be a loading screen where their loadout would be shown that's it... IMO this is peak dbd... Asymmetrical horror game
Well, good luck. Because 75% of the stream community along with a lot of Fog Whisperers are pretty ass mad about this new program and the fact they weren't invited so just be prepared to enter deep into the salt mines for awhile.
I dont think this is too specific a question to ask but, hens; are there any changes the consultants are aware of that you yourself are very excited for?
I don't feel like the lack of feedback is what holds DbD back. It's not exactly in short supply nor are the problems plaguing the game a complete mystery that requires hiring consultants... but good luck.
this is great, with you, otz and and people like lynxi this will be amazing, hope the devs won't be stubborn, I 100% want yall to speak for me, hope the rest of the people feel the same.
to me dbd should be balanced high level play because it would be kind of dumb to take balance choices from people who don't really know what there doing because that will lead to poor balance choice like what they did to freddy when they removed the aura reading when out side his terror radius
Hens, I'm not asking about what've been discussed behind the scenes on the programm, but about your opinion on the topic. In patch that comes it seems like BHVR are finally touching a bit core meta perks, mostly killers regression because of repetitiousness so I'm expecting same to survivors meta in future. From my POV each time dh got changes in last 2 years or MFT got nerfed survivors are straight up jumping on lithe or sprint for a few weeks or months, we play in one of that eras now. So to the point now: do you think those particular perks, and exhastion mechanic which we have now are healthy for the game? Or it have to be changed in future to minigate free distance creation and focus on resource management?
I dont think these basic exhaustion perks need any changes whatsoever. Yes survivors used mft and dh when they were extremly strong and potentially broken. It is just normal for people to exploit any balance mistake the devs make. But it is also just as normal that people go back to the normal perks once the busted ones get gutted. Your logic is like: well basically every blight did run the busted addons and now after a lot of them got nerfed they use the busted iri addons. By your logic we would need to look at the "normal" addons that people might use once the busted iri addons are nerfed and then nerf the normal addons too. If we would keep that logic we would end up with the worst addons and perks only as we gutted all others. However sprint burst and lithe are usually not considered problematic and are even allowed in comp against tier one two and depending on the tournament even tier 3 killers. Comp balance is usually way more strict as it works on the base of 4 very experienced survs that have access to communication and practice. Something you barely see in pubs even if people love to act like they do. So considering that the devs have to keep in mind newer players as well as mid tier players and soloq players the balancing of the game overall is obviously way less strict. Now if the strict balancing of comp does not see a huge issue within those exhaustion perks there is no reason that the less strict overall balancing should view those exhaustion perks as a problem. Pain res pop was also not gutted because everyone used it rather than because those perks were simply too strong on a lot of killers and because you can stack them. Now obviously because they are so strong people would happily use them in basically every build sure but the major problem is the combined strenght of those perks. The wide usuage was just a symptom similar to mft. However there is no real reason to tackle normal standard exhaustion perks just because bhvr gutted some of the slightly overtuened regression perks. Thats like survivors asking for gutting gen regression because they nerfed dh and mft. It doesnt work like that and it shouldnt work like that. Perks should only be nerfed if they are clearly too strong overall and not by the logic of "well but you nerfed x perks for my side so you need to nerf y perks on the other side". That would be a horrible approach for balancing.
@@leonthegamer2839 thank you for your essay, I really could have not hope for such huge feedback on the topic. I agree with everything you say except I didnt say lithe or sprint is op, the thing I wanted to say was they are heavily boring to go against and I wished for nerfs of them for the same reason as pop and pain res was nerfed - they was not op, but boring to go against again and again. Even though they are counterable, I can even say, interactable with looping skills, sabo or other form of altruism, while lithe or sprint dont have those aspects
@@nikitunder3451 no worries I always enjoy a good exchange about dbd :) Well alrighty but the problem is that "being boring" by itself would not justify a nerf I think. Especially because bhvr has realased a lot of counterperks and addons that tackle exhaustion and therefore exhaustion perks. This exactly in case people specifically want to nerf them or deal with them. Similar to lightborn if people dont wanna have to think about flashlights or flashbangs. However there is no real option to counter regression perks especially not if they are stacked. The regression perks were definitely too strong. Not necessarily by themselves but combined. But there is no way of combining sprint burst with lithe or make them insanely opressive like the regression perks as the exhaustion mechanic prevents any exessive usuage anyway. Even with vigil it is rather unlikely to get your exhaustion back in chase reliably. Also considering a lot of killer buffs and the huge number of anti looping killers would become more of a problem without those exhaustion perks as there arent any good ones left outside of lithe and Sb. So yeah there are a lot of boring things in this game I agree but I am afraid that we cant nerf or patch everything just because people find it boring. Especially because this is very subjective as well. Some people hate going against x but others like it. Sure the community agrees with mostly with certain things but even there you have people that disagree. So sure being boring is definitly one aspect but I am afraid that other aspects need to be problematic as well before a nerf is justified. (Skill expression, counterplay and srenght)
Hi Hens, didn't play game since Xeno was released, so, i have very pessimistic mindset about it, do you actually believe that devs will listen any of these consultants in balance changes and other parts of game, it's hopeless to believe into this, when they have added scull merchant... (they don't play their own game)
I wanna know how they select consultants. I've seen at least 2 people with proof for it etc. but they are kind of nobody. I don't mean that as an insult but just people without any type of audience or online presence. Which is fine, I don't actually like most creators' takes but I wanna know how did they even find them.
I mean if you’re talking about the anti 3 gens rework that’s actually a good thing (I’m a main killer) but the sabo buff wasn’t necessary at all indeed
I get that Fog Whisperers and Private Consultants are different, but why not just make them do the same thing? The people who know this game the most AND want this game to succeed the most ARE the Fog Whisperers
What a slap in the face to fog whisperers. I feel for them. I hope Bhvr listens to consultants, but I don't think they really do that much. This is just bizarre imo.
Time to throw in the, probably already in discussion topic of "i need to know other survivors perks in soloQ" i mean... it would really help a lot xD some small icons on the characters ingame portrait would be fine for me anyways, i hope they really listen to you guy , for what ever is in discussion^^
Who cares about this program? Dowsey was part of it and they never listened to him. IMO he was as, if not more knowledgeable about the game and overall mechanics as anyone. At the end of the day this announcement is damage control for twins backlash and will not affect anything.
Forgive my french but iirc there was a time when some fog whisperers were flown to montreal also to give their opinions on upcoming changes also featuring NDAs this sounds the same. Furthermore I strongly disagree with what you said around 2:08 while comp has its own rules, dbd should be balanced around the highest lvl of play and not otherwise. Yes rules help to adjust the balance of the main game but there is only so much you are able to do as lots can not be changed.
No. No game should ever be balanced around the highest level of play. Because most people aren't in the highest level of play. So congrats you now have such an unfriendly game that most of your casual players quit because they don't want to treat the game like a job, but at least you retain that 1% of the playerbase who is already addicted and fallen victim to sunken cost, who won't stop playing no matter what. You need to cater a game to the people who keep it alive, and that is not the top 1% of players.
@@FreePigeon The theory is generally that balancing for high levels is best because low level players won't understand why the changes are being made, and because most games are generally already balanced for the mid level players because they don't have enough game mastery to take advantage of anything that's overpowered. I think there's merit to this, but I don't think it's as obvious a solution as advocates make it out to be. Quite often there are pubstomper characters who are mediocre-to-balanced at high level who are oppressive at all other skill levels, which is something that gets overlooked a lot. Honda in Street Fighter 6 is a great example of this.
@@FreePigeon Literally every game that ever succeeded designed around high skill environment. The only game that explicitly changes for lower ELO and is successful is LOL and LOL specifically makes those changes while considering if they ruin pro/challenger gameplay, while also still making changes specifically for high skill gameplay. Any PVP game outside of intentionally wacky party games (which DBD could be but it clearly doesn't want to be) that is decent is balanced around high skill players because low skill players complain/fail at stuff anyways. If you cater to them they will still cry about something else that's fine while it ruins mid to high skill games. Like, you're just flat out, objectively, demonstrably wrong.
@@FreePigeon Yeah I really think valve did a piss poor job with dota 2. They probably cry themselves to sleep every night. Oh wait right, those are the guys that made more earnings with a single battle pass then dbd has players. It is not about friendly/unfriendly that has literally nothing to do with balance. You either want your game balanced or you don't. But you do not balance around low levels of play because it ends up a shit show at higher levels of play. Balance does not cater to a specific group of people, it is acknowledging what is possible within the framework provided by the developers. Your take is horrible. Because due to you, these people you want catered for, are getting stomped in pubs because they have no clue about the game at all while being mischieved with "ranks" and so forth. If you want to cater to new players, give people QoL and good tutorials. Do a better job of explaining killer powers and how to counter them so they have a better overall understanding and develop quicker in the game. Right now almost all of that is being outsorced to the community. But doing balance for them is probably the dumbest thing I ever heard/read.
@@FreePigeon Actually I shouldn't have replied in that much detail. Your idea of balancing is literally buff nurse because she has so bad kill rates. Saying that in any way that isn't a meme disqualifies you from any further balance discussion.
Ooo ok so this is why the game has been getting better?! They are not only listening to us but actively hiring hard core players to play test and give opinions!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
well considering they forward messages about people that were gay and how they like one character (not saying where but a 4v1 asymmetrical horror games forum) while not giving a flying F about the 1000s of complaints that all want THE SAME THING says a lot. This wont fix a thing. This is the most competitive game ever made it just drains you mentally its disgusting to play. I feel gross when i play DBD now. It was so much more fun back in 2016 - 2020 (both as killer and survivor). i dont care if i lose or win, if survivors use meta perks blah blah. I just want to have fun...
picking people from the "community" by pointing fingers at the same people means that the same voices are the ones that are heard, while the real community stays unheared as always. that in turn only means that the real community is not going to take the consultants seriously, so all in all, this program amounts to nothing.
@@sorin_markov I mean idk whos in this but experience and hours doesnt mean you have good takes. Either this will make no difference at all because BHVR wont listen or this will still cause weird decisions to be made
@@mojolmao1752i don't know all the members either, but it's clear that these are trusted and knowledgeable people and not just "people with many hours" thrown together. If someone like Hens is part of this, and the others are just a little bit like him, there should be no reason to worry.
The mere fact that they hired you for this program shows how worthless it is! If the others are the usual suspects known from your circle, nothing good will come of it! You all have some really strange views, which you legitimize by agreeing on a topic and then presenting it as fact! Always with the remark "All good players think this way" or "Many people believe..." These are old manipulation tricks you’re using! Namely, these are consensus pressure, the bandwagon effect, social proof, groupthink, and argumentum ad populum (appeal to the majority).
@@sorin_markov i actually agree with him, not because their views are not the views of the community, because they can be (they are for you for example), but because the program is likely composed of the same people that we all know, the content creators. there cant be any regular players there, they havent even given a chance for a regular player to enter, is a secret club that has been handpicked, the regular community is supposed to accept this "elite" group of players to speak for them when we havent been given the chance to choose them.
I mean BHVR doesn't play their own game so it's better than them flying blind. Also it's not up to the consultants what happens. Just they give their opinions.
And yet that's how all games work: devs change and adapt their game based on the feedback they receive. Smarter game companies handpick very experimented, objective, down-to-earth players to give them detailed opinions about the game and the direction it's going, like it's the case here.
@@sorin_markov Yeah I don't really understand how someone can see this as anything but good. Most other games/devs don't even bother doing this and imo are worse off because of it.
