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Things get lonely as a killer in Dead by Daylight when you aren’t playing 2v8. One solution? Bring an AI ally. The problem? Behaviour‘s bots aren’t great. The Knight’s guards break their pathfinding every other chase and Nemesis zombies still spend much of their time stuck on rocks or marching into walls. The arrival of The Houndmaster brings Snug to the Trials, but The Entity’s goodest boy was super janky on the Player Test Build. Although many things could improve before The Houndmaster goes live, Behaviour’s track record with AI leaves reason for concern. Here’s what’s going wrong.
The Houndmaster’s Unruly Dog
Pirate + dog companion should be a recipe for greatness, but PTB Snug has bigger issues than his tracking. His pathfinding is often scuffed and elevation breaks him completely, letting survivors thwart the killer with the power of Gradual Slopes. Though the latter is almost certainly a PTB problem that will be fixed before the killer’s release, the former isn’t. Nemesis zombies walking face-first into obstacles has been a thing for three years. Tarhos’s merry band of AI assistants have been bugged, if not outright broken, for two. If Houndmaster’s hound functions on launch, it will be a first.
Sometimes, unruly AI adds personality. In those moments, Snug feels like an actual animal with a mind of his own. Mostly, however, unruly AI extends your chases, loses you gens, and turns a fantastic character concept into raw frustration. It’s funny when Snug grabs a survivor and starts dragging them away from you, forcing you to chase after your own dog, but it’s an unwelcome dose of unpredictability. It’s the difference between Pinhead box spawns and Victor pounces, between the kind of RNG you can play around and the kind that just spoils things.
Survivor Bots and Reasons to Hope
It isn’t all doom and gloom. The introduction of bots has made a huge difference in matches where survivors DC, and the survivor bots aren’t even bad. Yes, you get the odd Fake Meg that runs into Comp Corner during your first chase for no reason, but that’s not wildly different from the average solo queue experience. They won’t loop you for five gens, but depending on your killer and map RNG, survivor bots can be a proper menace. Behaviour has had some success with AI, just not for killers. The reasons are debatable, but the existence of the problem isn’t.
If Snug’s AI isn’t fixed, Houndmaster may end up as one of the hardest killers to play in Dead by Daylight. Imagine Artist, except the crow is a Cane Corso with a fondness for dragging survivors in random directions. Actually, when I describe it that way, it doesn’t sound that bad. How big a deal this is depends on how much jank and silliness you enjoy. Dead by Daylight is a game in which Ellen Ripley and Nicholas Cage can give Chucky a private lute performance in Silent Hill. Silly is fine. I just don’t want it broken.
Please Fix My Future Main
The Houndmaster has a ton of potential in Dead by Daylight. Portia can zone with the best of them and is a demon at landing hits in corridors and other linear spots. She’s also, let’s not forget, a pirate. That’s at least 1,000 Aura Points before we even get to the whole Bermuda Triangle backstory. I want to main this killer. I might do so even if, after a meaty bug hunt, Snug still needs obedience school. I just need Behaviour to show our AI helpers a little love (and a few dozen hours of code polishing). I know you have too much on your plate already, but please. Do it for the dog.
