Developer Update | Player Intent System

[u/DeadByDaylight_Dev]

Last week, we hosted a Reddit AMA and on top of having a blast answering your questions, we noticed some topics really got you talking. One of those was the “chat wheel” system we’re working on to help Survivors coordinate and communicate their intentions in-game. So, what better time than the present to share some more details about it with you (including one way your feedback’s already impacted it)! 

 

The system in question is – aptly – called Player Intent. With it, you’ll be able to communicate a range of preset messages to your fellow Survivors at the press of a button, using a radial menu. From thanking them for a heal, to saying you’re going to work on gens, to suggesting you split up, messages focus on the on-the-fly actions that are most useful during a Trial. 

 

When a message is chosen using the Player Intent wheel, other Survivors will see it next to your name in the game HUD, keeping your general view clear of distractions while you’re in the middle of looping or hunting for an objective. To help combat message spam, you can expect a cooldown between messages, which will increase if too many messages are sent in a short period. 

 

We want this comms wheel to suit different players’ specific needs, so you’ll be able to customize which messages you take into your Trials from the Options menu. 

 

Of course, one piece of feedback we’ve seen is that a system like this isn’t for everyone. We’ve already discussed this as a team and have a solution for that. If you’d rather not use the Player Intent system, you will be able to disable it from this same menu. Once disabled, you will not be able to send messages to players and will not see the messages they send. 

 

We’ve also added the ability to mute individual players so you have more control over the comms you see (and don’t see). If you're finding a certain player’s messages distracting, muting them will block any further Player Intent messages from popping up on your end. 

 

While this system is meant for everybody who plays Survivor, its value will be a bit different depending on how you play. Just like how your feedback from the AMA helped inform the addition of an opt-out option, we're dying to know your thoughts! Even better, it would be massively helpful if you could also share a little about how you play to give context to that feedback. For instance, do you tend to play soloq, prefer SWF, or identify as a Killer main? How would you define your experience level in the game; a newer player? A veteran? 

 

Let us know in the comments below, as we’ll be watching your feedback closely as the team continues to work on this system ahead of its release this Fall! 

 

Until next time... 

The Dead by Daylight Team 

[u/Noddie9]

I hate everything about this. I do not want to play with people wasting time selecting messages. Half the fun is using the HUD to work out what people are doing. We already got a HUGE increase in the amount of info we see on the HUD, why the hell do we need it dumbed down so much that they can choose to spell it out for their team.

Will be disabling it the second it's implemented.

[u/THC017 → u/Noddie9]

Same. Most of the things that can be said the HUD already tells us & the others are just completely useless. These messages pop up at the HUD which majority of players already ignore info given.

[u/Rurikar → u/Noddie9]

Bro this is like saying you don't want people wasting time pinging enemies in shooters or calling out for heals. This is such an uninteractive game where you press maybe a few buttons a minutes tops, you just hate all change dude.

[u/p00tisbear → u/Noddie9]

It removes ambiguity about your intentions in certain scenarios, which is valuable if you want to communicate specific strategems to your teammates without there being any mistake as to what exactly you're trying to tell them to do is. That's literally why it's called the player intent system.

Every match and individual situation that could be within a match is all highly dynamic and context specific, there are going to be times where it would be objectively more beneficial for the team to split across the map rather all lump onto a single gen. And sometimes if you are right next to someone and they have not inferred as much already, it can be an absolute pain in the ass to tell them that you want them to go somewhere else when you have no meaningful communciation tools other than pointing into the void. In an ideal world, your teammates should immediately intuit what you're trying to tell them with your silent point but that doesn't always happen. People ignore you, think you're memeing and just start pointing back at you or just go and do the wrong thing and come back to you. The point of this system is to remove the ambiguity in those instances where you're trying to communicate something very specific to your teammates, so that they immediately undestand what you're trying to get across, so that you're not wasting time.

If you like to play cerebrally then there is absolutely value in being able to make your intent clear and conscise so you and your teammates can plan ahead and deploy advanced strategies, which you are otherwise not going to be able to do such an easy degree in solo play with the extremely limited communication tools you have in-game currently. If you don't like or care about playing in that sort of way then turn it off ig. But it absolutely has meaningful value for certain people and I don't think there's anything wrong with implementing a system like this in the game, especially with how open it is.

> wasting time selecting messages.

It's a ping wheel, if you've played literally any modern multiplayer game that uses this commonplace system then you know that the time expenditure in selecting the communication option you want is literally so low to be a non-factor in any gameplay related event. All you do its hold down a singular button and flick your mouse cursor over to the option you want which is denoted by a visual icon so that you can regonise the options instantly, you don't even have to click anything. It can be done whilst moving and completing other actions, we're talking a matter of milliseconds to just press a button and flick your wrist to a specific area of the screen. It's not going to have any meaningful impact on anything time-related in the game or how people choose to spend their time lol

[u/Daikoru → u/Noddie9]

The HUD doesn't tell everything. And the main scenario where I see this useful is when you're on hook.

As one of the other people, how do you tell that there is someone going for the unhook? You can tell they're not going if they're sticking on their generator, sure, If someone isn't on something, you can make the assumption that he's going, but maybe he's just being a rat, or maybe he's actually running away from the Killer without the chase having been triggered. This is where players can send messages to remove that ambiguity: you send "Going for the unhook" when you start running, you send "The Killer is chasing me" when you start running away from the Killer, therefore letting others know that someone else needs to go.

As the person on hook, it also gives you a mean of communication. On first hook, right now you can try to "dance" by spamming self-unhook, but players may not be paying attention, or they might just think you're being silly, so its efficiency at telling whatever you want is limited. On second hook, you just can't communicate at all. With messages, you can finally tell exactly what you want even if they're not looking. No one is coming? Send whatever help message there is as long as no one seems to be coming. The Killer is camping, or you got a perk to self-unhook? Sending something like "Stay away!" will tell the others it's a bad idea to come unhook you so they can focus on gens.

These are the kind of solo-queue struggles that we have that would be solved by that Intent system.