Dead by Daylight: Best Settings for the Survivor Intent System

01What Patch 10.2.0 Changes About How You Talk to Teammates

Dead by Daylight's October 6 Mid-Chapter update, version 10.2.0, didn't just rebalance five dozen-plus perks — it added the first built-in way for Survivors to talk to each other mid-match. The Survivor Intent System is a message wheel of eight preset lines, and it lives inside a brand-new Gameplay tab in Settings that didn't exist before this patch. If you haven't opened your options menu since the update landed, there's more to adjust than you'd expect.

None of this is explained particularly well in-game, and the same patch also rewrote how matches end — Abandon, Surrender and a new Killer-side End Trial option all behave differently now, on top of a pass over dozens of general perks. This guide walks through every setting worth checking after 10.2.0, from the message wheel itself to the audio and accessibility options that are easy to forget exist, so a patch built around communication and perk tuning doesn't quietly change how a match feels without you knowing why.

02Setting Up the Survivor Intent System in the New Gameplay Tab

Open Options from the main menu and you'll now see a Gameplay tab sitting between General and Graphics. Everything related to the Intent System — laid out in the official 10.2.0 Mid-Chapter patch notes — is grouped under a Messages heading here.

The system doesn't let you type free text. Instead, you're choosing which of the eight predefined lines Behaviour Interactive shipped with the patch are available to you mid-match. Spend a minute going through them before your next trial, since the wheel only shows the options you've left switched on — there's no way to add your own wording, so this pass is really about trimming the list down to lines you'd actually send.

The same tab holds the master toggle for the whole feature. Switch it off and you neither send nor receive messages — and everyone else sees a small "opted out" icon next to your name on the post-match Match Details screen. There's no partial setting between "on" and "off"; it's either the full wheel or nothing.

03Using the Message Wheel Mid-Match

The wheel itself isn't on the Gameplay tab — it's a new input you'll want to check under Controls. On mouse and keyboard, press and hold the scroll button to bring it up, hover the line you want, then let go to send it. On controller, hold the right side of the d-pad instead.

Both inputs are rebindable, which matters if you already use scroll-click or d-pad-right for something else, like a perk shortcut or ping. Check your current bindings before your next trial rather than discovering a conflict mid-chase. Sent messages show up next to your name on the left side of every Survivor's HUD, and a short cooldown kicks in if you send too many too fast. It scales up to five seconds of lockout the more you spam the wheel, then resets back down toward its shortest duration once you let it breathe for a moment — there's no setting to change that curve, just the behavior to plan around.

04Muting and Opting Out Without the Other Player Knowing

If a teammate's messages — or just their play — are getting under your skin, the Match Details screen after a trial is where you deal with it. Select any Survivor from that match and you can mute or unmute them going forward, silently. The game never tells the other player they've been muted, and there's no confirmation prompt, so it's worth being deliberate rather than muting on a whim mid-rage.

That same screen also marks anyone who's disabled the Intent System for themselves with a small "no" icon, so you know at a glance who won't be sending or receiving messages at all. It's a cleaner way to curate who you're hearing from than most live-service games bother to offer, and it's entirely separate from any platform-level block list you might already have set up.

How to Set Up the Survivor Intent System

1. 1From the main menu select Options, then open the new Gameplay tab added in patch 10.2.0 — it sits between General and Graphics and holds every Intent System option.1 min
2. 2Under the Messages heading, review the eight predefined lines and choose which ones populate your wheel. You can't write custom text, only select from the presets Behaviour Interactive shipped with the patch.2 min
3. 3On mouse and keyboard, press and hold the scroll button to open the message wheel, hover a line, then release to send it. On controller, hold the right side of the d-pad instead. Both inputs are rebindable from the Controls tab.1 min
4. 4Messages appear next to your name on the left side of every Survivor's screen the moment you release. A cooldown up to five seconds kicks in if you spam the wheel, keeping it from being used to tilt or harass.Ongoing
5. 5After a trial, open the post-match Match Details screen, find the Survivor you want to silence, and select Mute. The system doesn't notify them, and a small icon marks anyone who has opted out entirely.1 min
6. 6If you'd rather not send or receive messages at all, the Gameplay tab has a toggle to deactivate the Intent System. Doing so flags you with the opt-out icon other players see on the Match Details screen.1 min

05The Abandon, Surrender and End Trial Changes to Know About

The same update touches what happens once a match is already decided. Survivors still in the Dying State together can Surrender — the option previously called Abandon — and it now counts as an MMR loss rather than a draw. Killers get a new End Trial option once every remaining Survivor is a bot and downed, instantly sacrificing them and scoring the match on the results so far.

Behaviour Interactive's dev notes, published alongside the patch, say the goal was removing exit conditions that "could promote negative gameplay behaviours or cause players to leave prematurely" — specifically dropping the old rule that let a Killer bail after a long generator-less stretch, and the one that penalized Survivors for repeatedly recovering from being downed. None of this needs a settings change on your end, but it's worth knowing before a match ends in a way you didn't expect, especially if you're used to the old Abandon behavior from before the patch.

06Why Your Audio Settings Matter More After This Patch

The 10.2.0 perk pass leans heavily on Terror Radius this time, and that makes your audio mix worth a second look even if you never touch the new Messages tab. Agitation now grants 14/16/18% Haste while carrying a Survivor (up from a flat 6/12/18% scale) and permanently extends the Killer's Terror Radius by 12m while carrying, while Distressing's baseline Terror Radius jump is now a flat 30% rather than the old 20/23/30% scale. Bitter Murmur's Aura-reveal radius around each completed generator also grew from 16m to 20m, with the reveal window doubling from 5s to 10s, so Survivor auras are visible more often and from further away than before.

In practice, more perks are now pushing Terror Radius further out or pulling it in, which means the heartbeat cue you rely on to judge Killer distance is less consistent than it used to be. If you play with music or a separate app running, this is a good excuse to check your in-game audio balance — specifically the slider between game sound and menu/UI sound — rather than relying on habits built around the old numbers.

07Accessibility and HUD Settings Worth Revisiting Too

New message icons on the left HUD are one more thing competing for your attention during a chase, so it's a good moment to revisit the Accessibility menu next to General — specifically the colorblind filters (deuteranope, tritanope and protanope presets) and the separate UI-scale and HUD-scale sliders, which size the menus and the in-match interface independently of each other. If aura-reading perks like Bitter Murmur or Dominance are part of your build, a colorblind filter tuned correctly is doing more work than it was last patch.

If you're jumping between horror games this patch cycle, it's worth comparing notes against what to adjust in Silent Hill: Townfall's own difficulty and accessibility menu before your next session — different studios, but similar instincts about what a scare-first game should let you turn down.

08Graphics and Performance Settings to Pair With the Update

None of 10.2.0's changes are graphics-related, but a Mid-Chapter patch is as good a time as any to confirm your render settings haven't drifted. Dead by Daylight's Graphics tab — right next to the new Gameplay tab — separates Resolution, Quality Presets and a handful of individual sliders for shadows, post-processing and anti-aliasing, and dropping Quality Preset to Medium is usually the single biggest frame-rate win if you're chasing a steadier 60 on older hardware, well ahead of toggling any one slider by itself.

Full patch notes, including every perk change from this Mid-Chapter update, are archived on the official Dead by Daylight patch notes page if you want the complete list alongside your settings pass.