Dead by Daylight Developer Update January 2023 – Solo Survivor Buffs, Nurse Changes, & More

It’s finally happening. After years of the game having to be balanced around half of the players being in a Discord call — and the other half desperately praying that their random teammates knew how to play the game — BHVR are finally giving solo survivors information about what their team is doing. This will come in the next patch, alongside changes to The Nurse, The Knight, and the Eyrie of Crows map. That’s not all patch 6.5.0 will include, however — it also features the inclusion of an in-game Challenge Tracker, UI improvements to the pre-game lobbies (searching and pre-match), Merciless Killer rating improvements, and more non-licensed outfits becoming purchasable for Iridescent Shard Prices. As if that wasn’t enough, the new wiggle mechanic leaves beta along with some changes.

For those of you who can’t wait to check out all the new stuff coming to DBD, know that it becomes available tomorrow (January 4th) on the Public Test Beta. Read on to see details for everything coming in 6.5.0! You can also use the Contents button to find the specific info you’re looking for.

Survivor Activity HUD

Players playing in a group (or SWFs, as it’s known) have long had an immense advantage in Dead by Daylight. It’s a game where you are supposed to play with imperfect information — but when you’re on a Discord call with your buddies, you can tell each other exactly what you’re doing, and even where the Killer is. This gives the Survivors a huge advantage, and making Killers strong enough to fight a team on Discord means they’re way too strong against Solo Survivors — this is likely a large part of why the game generally feels imbalanced (among many other factors).

Fortunately, the next update should help mitigate this imbalance between teams and solos. In patch 6.5.0, the HUD will indicate what actions Survivors are currently engaged in via an icon above their name. The following actions will be indicated by the HUD when performed:

• Being in a chase
• Repairing a Generator
• Opening an Exit Gate
• Healing, Mending & Recovering
• Cleansing & Blessing a Totem
• Searching a Chest
• Killer specific actions (e.g. Snapping out of it, waking up a Survivor, etc.)

While the Killer obviously won’t get to see most of these icons, they will get to see the icon indicating that a Survivor is in a chase — this will let Killers distinguish between two similarly dressed Survivors without having to injure them. As another improvement to info/clarity, Survivors being carried now have a specific icon (rather than simply appearing to be in the Dying State).

Killer Changes

Nurse

The Nurse has been a balance nightmare for years, thanks to her Power — it’s incredibly strong when used by someone who’s practiced it, but more of a hindrance than a help for new Killers. Additionally, her Power doesn’t do damage, and the Basic Attack she does after Blinking therefore procs a wide variety of powerful Perks. In Patch 6.5.0, The Nurse’s attacks post-blink will count as Special Attacks, meaning they won’t count for things like Hex: No One Escapes Death or Starstruck.

As a minor compensation for this nerf, a sound cue will play for the Killer when the Nurse’s blink charges are full again. There have also been modifications to some of Nurse’s add-ons, with the general goal of nerfing the strongest add-ons and buffing the weakest; all of the add-ons that increased max-blink range have been completely reworked to have new effects. The specific effects for two add-ons have been revealed already:

• “Bad Man’s” Last Breath – After hitting a Survivor with a blink attack, The Nurse becomes Undetectable for 25 seconds. This effect can only be triggered once every 45 seconds.
• Jenner’s Last Breath – Once all blinks have been exhausted, The Nurse may teleport back to her original position. Once she returns to her original position, all blink charges are restored.

The following add-ons will also be changed:

• Catatonic Boy’s Treasure
• Dark Cincture
• Heavy Panting
• Ataxic Respiration
• Fragile Wheeze
• Campbell’s Last Breath
• Kavanaugh’s Last Breath
• Torn Bookmark
• Matchbox

Knight

The newest Killer in the roster, The Knight has been struggling to use his power for anything other than anti-loop — it’s just too easy to avoid and disable the guards. With that in mind, the upcoming changes for the Killer aim to allow The Knight to use his power in a wider range of situations:

• The orb Survivors see when Knight is creating a guard path will shrink the further away from it you are, disappearing completely beyond 10 meters.
• After creating a path longer than 10 meters, The Knight will receive a Haste Status Effect, with the duration of the Haste effect increasing the longer the path is.
• After spotting a Survivor, guards will move to the position they first saw the Survivor in and begin chasing faster depending on the length of their patrol path — only guards who have paths longer than 10 meters will gain this speed boost.
• Guards’ instant generator regression will be buffed to 5% (from 2.5%).
• There will now be a 10-second limit on the duration The Knight’s Terror Radius is suppressed while drawing a guard path — this one is actually a nerf to prevent camping without a Terror Radius.

Merciless Killer Changes

It’s officially a meme how difficult it is to get the Adepts for Killer in Dead by Daylight. This was especially when highly ranked, since the Killer ratings were linked to the pips/grades system. The meme is soon to be dead, however. Starting next patch, your rating will be tied to the amount of kills you get:

• 0 Kills: The Entity Hungers”¦
• 1-2 Kills: Brutal Killer
• 3 Kills: Ruthless Killer
• 4 Kills: Merciless Killer

Eyrie of Crows Improvements

While folks would probably agree it’s one of the cooler-looking maps, both player feedback and statistics point to The Artist’s map being Survivor favored. The following changes should offer a more balanced experience in its strange, twisted landscape:

• The map will become more like a square (rather than a long rectangle), making patrol paths shorter.
• Maze tiles (the ones with many turns and tall walls) are being moved away from the main building and shack, to make it harder to chain loops together.
• Foliage has been added to make hiding traps easier — new tiles have also been added that presumably contain this foliage (though the official update’s wording was not clear).

Wiggle Mechanic Beta Ends, Gets Changes

The new wiggle mechanic (the one where you have to hit skill checks) has been in beta for a long while, and apparently over 80% of players were using it. Because of this, it’s becoming the default wiggle. When this occurs, some changes will happen to wiggling:

• Great Skill Checks while wiggling will no longer increase wiggle progression. Instead, it will increase Killer sway by 20%.
• The sound that plays when you don’t attempt to hit the wiggle skill check will be quieter.
• Wiggle skill checks will no longer begin immediately after the Decisive Strike skill check — there will be a .5-second delay between the two. You’ll get an equivalent amount of wiggle progress, so that the delay doesn’t affect your ability to wriggle free.

QoL Improvements – Challenge Tracker, Lobby Changes

6.5.0 will bring with it a Challenge Tracker — no more forgetting how many hooks you have left to sabotage! While it won’t help with people playing suboptimally to complete challenges, it will at least help them finish their challenges sooner, so that should still kind of help.

You’ll also be able to select a new challenge without canceling your queue, as the next update will allow you to browse the Archives and the Store while you’re searching for a match. In the pre-game lobby, Killers will now be able to customize non-selected Killers while waiting for a match (you still won’t be able to swap Killers after entering the lobby, however).

Iridescent Shard Prices, Cheaters

It was announced previously that all non-licensed outfits would become purchasable with Iridescent Shards about a month post-release; today we got an update on which existing outfits will also become purchasable with shards. The following characters’ outfits will become purchasable with shards “around” the time the update releases on all platforms:

• The Clown
• The Spirit
• Ace Visconti
• Feng Min

Lastly, the devs shared an update on cheating. They’ve been working hard on preventing cheating and banning offenders — looks like they cleaned up quite a bit of trash in 2022.

It’s an exciting list of changes — we’re pretty pumped about the Survivor HUD update in particular. We hope this run-down was helpful! Let us know what you think of the patch 6.5.0 changes in the comments.