This week’s Dead by Daylight developer stream answered some of the community’s questions and detailed plans for the upcoming year. One of the more interesting things revealed concerns the upcoming Doctor changes. For many players, the Doctor is one of the more annoying killers to play against. This is not because he is too deadly or anything. It is because he can quickly discover all 4 Survivors at the start of the match with his Static Field. Dead by Daylight game designer Ethan Larson commented on specifically this fact during the stream.
In the past, developers have mentioned that they like having counterplay to all mechanics in Dead by Daylight. Yet the Static Field mechanic has almost no counterplay. Changes are thankfully on the way. Keep in mind that nothing is set in stone yet. Players will begin testing changes on the PTB in January.
The Doctor will lose the passive Static Field. Instead he will get a new ability: Static Blast. On use, Static Blast charges for 2 seconds and then sends a static charge to anyone within the Doctor’s terror radius. This applies 50 madness immediately. Then the ability goes on a 60-second cooldown. This change essentially turns his old Static Field into an active ability, to make players really think before using it. This redesign comes alongside some substantial adjustments to the Doctor’s add-on options, and removal of his stances. If you want to know more, we have a detailed overview of the changes.
This is all the information we have for now, with more details coming in January. Also mentioned in the Dead by Daylight dev stream were planned matchmaking improvements and a penalty for disconnecting players. The game is sadly not having a winter event this year. Players may still receive some consolation in the Blood Hunt double-XP event on Jan. 2.
