Crows are the sole interact-able wildlife featured in Dead by Daylight
.
Often found in pairs, they are usually perched on top of rocks and crates around the outskirts of the Map, but can also be found standing on the ground in an area without rocks and crates.
Startling Crows
If a Player is too close to a Crow, they will make a small noise and fly above the skybox.
They will then return 15 seconds later, possibly making another smaller sound as they land.
This event can be triggered by both the Survivors and the Killer.
The noise of Crows will not present a visual cue to the Killer, unless they have the Perk Spies from the Shadows
, which provides a visual cue at a certain range.
Survivors can avoid startling Crows by crouching past them.
However, if they come much too close to a Crow while doing so, it will still get startled.
The Perk Calm Spirit
will prevent startling Crows while walking or running past them, with the aforementioned exception.
Killers will always startle Crows with the exception of a cloaked Wraith
,a crouching Ghost Face
, or a crawling Xenomorph
.
A shot from The Redeemer
, however, will always startle any Crows within 24 metres.
Startle Conditions
- Step-on radius: 0.6 metres
- If a Player comes this close to a Crow, it will always fly away, regardless.
- Fly-away radius: 4 metres
- If a Player comes within this range of a Crow, the Game will start to check whether it should fly away or not every 0.5 seconds.
- If a Player is farther away than this, Crows will not be startled.
- Fly-away base chance: 95 %
- Fly-away speed threshold: 1 m/s
- A Player's momentary Movement speed influences the chances of startling Crows: the faster they move, the higher the chance.
- (Movement speed divided by Speed threshold) + Base chance
- A Player's momentary Movement speed influences the chances of startling Crows: the faster they move, the higher the chance.
Idle Crows
Idle Crows (originally known as "Stillness Crows") are special Crows that will spawn above a Survivor's head, flying in circles, if that Survivor is staying in an area for too long without performing any interactions such as repairing a Generator
for example.
This also applies to when a Survivor hides inside a Locker
for too long, though the Crows will then be perched atop the little roof.
Idle Crows will caw, a noise that can be heard quite clearly from several metres away, which can alert a Killer who recognises this to your location.
The circling crows are also quite visible from a distance, which will further alert an experienced Killer to your location, even without the noise indicator from the third Idle Crow.
Up to three Idle Crows can appear unless the Survivor
moves away from the area they were in or starts performing interactions.
The third Idle Crow will give the Killer a noise indicator to the Survivor's precise location.
This is to prevent Survivors from going AFK in Lockers for the whole duration of a game or for hiding in the same area for too long.
Spawn Conditions
- Idle threshold: 0.7
- Idle Distance decay: 1 second
- Refers to how long it takes for the Distance to decay back to 0.
- Idle Decay Speed multiplier: x3
- This means that the idle condition decays 3 times faster than it accumulates.
- Idle Speed threshold: 300
- Idle Distance threshold: 400
A Survivor's "idleness" is determined through a combination of their momentary Movement speed and their physical distance to a checkpoint in the environment.
That checkpoint is the Survivor's current location on the Map, whenever the Game checks for it.
The Idle mechanics perform two sets of calculations:
- Divide current Movement speed in cm/s by 300 (Speed threshold).
- Divide current Distance in metres from the checkpoint by 400 (Distance threshold).
If both calculated values fall below 0.7 (Idle threshold), the Game will mark the Survivor as idle, activating the Idle Crow mechanic.
Spawn Times
Idle Crows are accrued one-by-one at specific intervals:
| Idle Crow(s) | Time the Survivor has been marked as idle |
Triggers Loud Noise Notification for the Killer? |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 60 seconds | No |
| 2 | 75 seconds | No |
| 3 | 90 seconds | No |
| 3 | 100 seconds | Yes |
De-spawn Times
In order to lose Idle Crows, a Survivor needs to start interacting with something in the area or leave it and move on to another area of the Map.
Idle Crows are lost one-by-one at specific intervals:
| Idle Crow(s) | Time the Survivor has been marked as active again |
Triggers Loud Noise Notification for the Killer? |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | 30 seconds | Yes |
| 2 | 60 seconds | No |
| 1 | 75 seconds | No |
Trivia
- On The Pale Rose and other Maps, there are many Crows sitting on the main landmark, the Paddle Steamer. When either a Survivor or a Killer walks into the main landmark, they will caw at the same time and fly away. The cawing can be heard across the whole map, alerting every Player to someone's presence on or near the Paddle Steamer.
Both Killers and Survivors can use this to their advantage.- The same is true for the main Landmark of Grim Pantry.
Video
Gallery
-
Crows standing on a rock
