Loved this game for a couple of years. I've dumped 3k hours of my life into it. But for some reason, BHVR is listening to the not-so-skilled players as far as making changes to the game.

The release of 4.5.0 killed this game for me, and I cannot recommend it to friends who will start off with no skills. I believe a lot of my frustrations with this game started with the release of dedicated servers. I do realize there's a lot of difficulties in overcoming latency-based issues while having a smooth matchmaking experience. I would prefer to wait 10 minutes for a decent match without janky hitbox issues (like your pawn's collision capsule lagging behind your character on your screen) than to deal with what we have today.

Revert running, walking, and standing animations. Why is my character, who is trying to survive a trial by someone more sinister than the devil himself, standing above the weeds instead of crouching behind them? Why are they trying to peek over the wall that I'm running the killer around? These animations not only removed outplay potential, but there's a VERY serious desync between the pawn's animation and the collision capsule for the killer's weapon swings.

I have mixed feelings about the UI. I realize that it was intended to bring more immersiveness to the experience of being a survivor, by taking away a lot of the clutter that was distracting from the scene, but there are some very glaring issues for me as a long-time player:

• The button that shows up in the middle of skill checks is distracting and makes it more difficult to see where the skillcheck is on the bar. You only have a couple of seconds to react, so it's important that it's clear to the player when and what button to press. The giant white and yellow icon takes away from being able to see clearly where that skillcheck is immediately.

• Emblem progress is a lot more difficult to see being shoved to the top-right. Maybe this will just take some time to set in, but it's never been a problem on the left side on my screen. I cannot think of a single time where emblem progress toast spam has cluttered up the left side of my screen so much as to affect my decision making ability because I couldn't see something.

• Remove the scratch marks from the player's faces when they're injured. It's for clarity that they're injured, sure ... but why have their portrait there if you do not want us to see their face and know WHAT character the person is playing?

• Get rid of the italicized text on player's names and/or give breaking points in the hook progress bar, so it's more clear to players when they'll be pushing into the next phase. Before this update, I knew to-the-pixel where those break points were on any name ... but between the new smaller size of the bars and the italicized text, I cannot figure it out.

This update sucks ... and shame on BHVR for not getting feedback on it before pushing it live.

UPDATE (05/18/23):

Devs continue to push changes to the game that nobody asked for (okay, circle of healing DID need a nerf, but they also wanted to make healing take nearly twice as long in general?!). Games currently have a 100% chance to have 20% of players not having fun. Either the killer is getting run over by an experienced SWF (not fun for the killer) or he's camping the hook (not fun for the survivor getting camped and tunneled). Devs see camping and tunneling as a viable strategy, so inadvertently endorse anti-fun strategies in order to "win".

Game needs to be rolled back to getting more bloodpoints to rank up rather than basing everything on kills. Give killers REASON to not camp/tunnel the first person they hook and the game could be fun again.

I can't play the game in the current state it's in. It's emotionally draining as both a killer and a survivor.

Loved this game for a couple of years. I've dumped 3k hours of my life into it. But for some reason, BHVR is listening to the not-so-skilled players as far as making changes to the game. The release of 4.5.0 killed this game for me, and I cannot recommend it to friends who will start off with no skills. I believe a lot of my frustrations with this game started with the release of dedicated servers. I do realize there's a lot of difficulties in overcoming latency-based issues while having a smooth matchmaking experience. I would prefer to wait 10 minutes for a decent match without janky hitbox issues (like your pawn's collision capsule lagging behind your character on your screen) than to deal with what we have today. Revert running, walking, and standing animations. Why is my character, who is trying to survive a trial by someone more sinister than the devil himself, standing above the weeds instead of crouching behind them? Why are they trying to peek over the wall that I'm running the killer around? These animations not only removed outplay potential, but there's a VERY serious desync between the pawn's animation and the collision capsule for the killer's weapon swings. I have mixed feelings about the UI. I realize that it was intended to bring more immersiveness to the experience of being a survivor, by taking away a lot of the clutter that was distracting from the scene, but there are some very glaring issues for me as a long-time player: • The button that shows up in the middle of skill checks is distracting and makes it more difficult to see where the skillcheck is on the bar. You only have a couple of seconds to react, so it's important that it's clear to the player when and what button to press. The giant white and yellow icon takes away from being able to see clearly where that skillcheck is immediately. • Emblem progress is a lot more difficult to see being shoved to the top-right. Maybe this will just take some time to set in, but it's never been a problem on the left side on my screen. I cannot think of a single time where emblem progress toast spam has cluttered up the left side of my screen so much as to affect my decision making ability because I couldn't see something. • Remove the scratch marks from the player's faces when they're injured. It's for clarity that they're injured, sure ... but why have their portrait there if you do not want us to see their face and know WHAT character the person is playing? • Get rid of the italicized text on player's names and/or give breaking points in the hook progress bar, so it's more clear to players when they'll be pushing into the next phase. Before this update, I knew to-the-pixel where those break points were on any name ... but between the new smaller size of the bars and the italicized text, I cannot figure it out. This update sucks ... and shame on BHVR for not getting feedback on it before pushing it live. UPDATE (05/18/23): Devs continue to push changes to the game that nobody asked for (okay, circle of healing DID need a nerf, but they also wanted to make healing take nearly twice as long in general?!). Games currently have a 100% chance to have 20% of players not having fun. Either the killer is getting run over by an experienced SWF (not fun for the killer) or he's camping the hook (not fun for the survivor getting camped and tunneled). Devs see camping and tunneling as a viable strategy, so inadvertently endorse anti-fun strategies in order to "win". Game needs to be rolled back to getting more bloodpoints to rank up rather than basing everything on kills. Give killers REASON to not camp/tunnel the first person they hook and the game could be fun again. I can't play the game in the current state it's in. It's emotionally draining as both a killer and a survivor.