There is no Diversity in DBD now, here's how we fix it
introduction
Hey, today we'll be talking about the many issues that plague DBD! Nah, just kidding... Today we're going to talk about the issues with diversity in DBD at the moment.
I've noticed a lot while playing a bunch of Survivor again that the diversity is... lacking... it doesn't really exist tbh. Either it's Freddy with the strongest add-ons and Dream Snares... or it's... spirit.
I barely see Nurse anymore after her nerf... and it's kind of sad that some Killers only follow the strongest Killer trend... it's quite boring for Survivors to face every day, and i'm sure it's boring for the Killers as well.
I'm going to touch up on some topics in this post and give some suggestions on how to fix these growing issues!
a small disclaimer
Please don't attack me in the comments below because i'm mentioning Spirit in this post. Yes, i'm VERY AWARE that she's being nerfed, we don't need to flood the comments about that. This isn't a Spirit post, if it was the title would be "Why Spirit is killing the diversity" or something like that. Thank you!
first, lets talk about why spirit is the most used killer
This one is kind of a no brainer... but let's go over it anyways. In a sense, Spirit is one of the strongest Killers now after taking over Nurses throne. Once Nurses era ended, Spirit became the most common Killer to face in high ranks.
But now... even the low ranks are starting to follow this trend. I'm all for "It's your Killer so do as you please" but we shouldn't all main a Killer because they're the strongest. Yes, a lot of the maps suffer from Survivor sided issues and vise versa with some Killer maps with Survivors... but we shouldn't write off every other Killer because they're mid or low tier.
Anyways, Spirit is the most used due to her ability to ignore most if not all loops during a chase, similar to Nurse but to a lesser degree when it comes to a bigger loop AND when it comes to seeing the Survivors. Unlike Nurse, Spirit can't see Survivors during her phase walk like Nurse can with her blinks.
But because of Nurse's nerfs, she's technically below Spirit now in terms of "practicality" in a match. This is why she's the most used Killer... because of how Spirit can counter a lot of loops, her versatility, and other such things... she's quite strong against most if not all Survivor teams.
While a good coordinated team can hold their own against her (depending on the Spirits skill) most casual or moderate teams can't do so well... especially if you're solo and your teammates decide to DC on you... but that's another issue that she tends to cause.
the draw backs to having only a few viable killers at high level play
While yes, if we're talking with perks and add-ons... than Freddy, Billy, and even Demogorgon can be also considered "Top-Tier." But again, despite every killer being viable with enough skill and forward thinking in a match... they all come short when we compare them all in base-kit.
Billy is a good example, he's a PILLAR of balance if we're talking about THE most balanced Killers in the game... Billy is strong, versatility, and has massive map pressure and mobility. What makes him more balanced than Spirit though is that he has weaknesses. Yes, Spirit is being nerfed to help with this issue but let's step back from this for a moment.
You have Spirit who's being nerfed to be a bit more balanced, you have Billy who's quite balanced and has plenty of counter-play, we have Freddy that is fairly strong on his own with just dream Snares... but suffers from what most M1 Killers have... which is his looping potential and what not, and that's about it.
While Freddy can be considered very good, he still has his flaws due to him suffering from what most if not all M1 Killers are plagued by... which is their ability to handle loops... but that's another topic.
So we have Freddy, Billy, and Spirit... that's it. If we're talking base-kit, those are probably the only 3 that can hold their own for the most part. You can argue Demogorgon can also do the same, but if we look at his pounces distance, how slow he is when using it around loops (depends on the loops length), the basic concept that he's still an M1 Killer... and he's a solid 4th on this list of "viable Killers."
But again, any Killer can be viable with enough skill... BUT ALSO, if we peel back the perks, and the add-ons, and just go full base-kit... than you can probably guess who's on top.
We can all agree that Nurse is actually fun to use now because of her nerf (depends who you're as a person and your concept of... "fun" is...) but we can also agree that her nerf isn't really... "noob friendly" is it? Like think about it, if you were a pro with Nurse... you could probably get around the nerf a bit... but if you have never trained with Nurse or we semi-decent with her... than you'll struggle heavily from this draw back.
It's hard enough to get Nurse down in Pre-Nerf... now it's a lot harder... nerfing something to be more balanced isn't always the answer when it comes to top level Killers of course... which is why we'll talk about this more in a bit.
nerfing the best is nice and all... but what about the rest?
This part might be slow, but it's important to add in. Nerfing Spirit and Nurse isn't exactly the answer to the diversity in DBD... you need to also look into other Kilers as well, Killers that're weaker and less used because of their issues with the current map design or just struggling with map pressure in-general...
If we're talking base-kit, which most people do, we can see that Killers with powers that don't offer mobility or secondary downing mechanics are quite weak... If the Killer relies on the M1 to get the Kill... they're most likely going to do poorly in the tier list. Unless however, that power offers a slow down mechanic AS WELL as mobility like Freddy... this is why Clown struggles in-game... his tonic doesn't match up to Freddy's "slow down mechanic" and the toxins usually end WAY TOO FAST! Also, he can't teleport to generators like Freddy... And Freddy can even switch between dream snares to dream pallets with an add-on... but he's the stronger of the two as his base-kit, so that doesn't matter.
To put it short, what i'm getting at here is you shouldn't JUST nerf the top tier Killers... we need something else... like...
why improving the low tiers gives more diversity
Now here's the main point of this entire post... If we BHVR were to improve the lower tiers gradually after the implementation of Spirits nerf... than we would see a slow yet more active increase to the diversity of Killers that we see in-game.
Instead of seeing Spirit every few matches or in a row... we could see the Pig for once at Red Ranks... or LeatherFace outside of the basement... or Trapper or what have you! We'd see more use of these Killers rather than only seeing Spirit and Freddy for the most part being used...
The issue with having Killers that have little to no counter-play is that we see them used more often due to THAT EXACT ISSUE! While yes, I agree Freddy deserves his time in the sun, his Dream Snares really don't give any counter play to them when you're in the dream world... unless you're starting from a fresh timer in a chase with Freddy, than you won't do well in the dream state at all... it's as if you can't even loop him since dream snares will make that not possible.
The argument about his dream snares could string for paragraphs, but let's ignore this (hopefully) and address the point i'm making.
Anyways, the same can be said for Spirit, it's good she's being nerfed to give more counter-play... but nerfing her isn't enough. If we were to buff the other killers below her than we could see a lot less Spirits and even DCs and toxic behavior from Spirit mains...
It would be a change of pace for sure! Now, this is how you'd fix it... but what you'd do for each Killer could span essays long with different posts, so let's not follow up on specifics.
The point is, buffing Killers that're hardly ever used anymore in high ranks or even low sometimes would improve the overall diversity and health of the game for sure... you could improve all the maps to be more balanced for both sides and be more practical, improve their powers to aid with their weaknesses, even out the plain fields between Killers, edit their add-ons to improve their weaknesses, etc.
The little things help, they really do.
WAY TOO long didn't read at all (tl;dr)
I'm just going to add the main point here to save reading space and time writing it.
The main point is, if we were to buff the lower tiered Killers while being reasonable with the nerfs like Spirit is getting... than we can overall improve the diversity and health of the game as a whole. You could do this through base-kit changes, add-on changes, map changes to aid M1 Killers, reasonable nerfs to the strongest Killers (Like they're doing with Spirit... you can argue the Nurse one was too much), etc.
While yes, it's good that Spirit is finally getting counter-play... it's not really enough to stop people from playing her ALL THE TIME. More needs to be done for sure for the lower tiers. It's got to a point where even the low ranks are starting to main her, and that's... not good.
What will be left if everyone is a Spirit main? Who will play Pig, LeatherFace (Outside of basement), Demogorgon, Billy, etc.
Having unfair mechanics that don't have any downsides like Dream Snares or Spirits power is a good step to change... not nerf into the ground but change a bit... but we also need to buff Killers that're below them as well.
by the way
If you comment about Freddys Dream Snares having 1000 reasons to counter-play than you're missing the point... that wasn't why I made this post. You can comment it, but it's not what i'm getting at here.
I felt like I should say that... I just want people to be on the same page with what we're talking about, since sometimes people don't do that lol... idk... do as you please.
Comments
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I find the reluctance to address the lower end of the the killer roster astonishing. I initially thought that nerfing Nurse and Spirit was a mistake. But hopefully this might be part of a grand plan to even out the killers. When everyone was playing Hillbilly I absolutely hated it. Now everyone has abandoned Hillybilly he doesn't bother me so much.
We need fewer people playing the same killers to keep it interesting and players need more incentive to play the others. The nerfs are the first step but they MUST follow this up by buffing those at the bottom.
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Reworking maps in a faster pace to make them more suitable for weaker killers plus buffing the weaker killers (either directly or through QoL stuff) would improve killer diversity A LOT.
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I literally just called for this too. I see more diversity within Green ranks, but even then it's still not THAT much difference.
We should just buff the weaker killers. Freddy got his total rework, and now he's powerful and oppressive, which a killer should be. We need to make this a more common thing.
Funny thing is though, that Super Smash Brothers Ultimate have been doing this exact same thing with their diverse roster of 74+ characters, and the community is saying that the game's never been better! Overwatch, however is nerfing anyone who helps define the current meta and the game's in shambles. DbD is starting to head more down this path and that's scary. We need to stop the trend now.
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I play almost every low to mid tier Killer while switching between them each time.
This is kind of why I do it, but I also do it because I find Spirit and pre-nerf Nurse to be amazingly boring... I don't even use Billy anymore despite him being quite balanced.
I guess I like the challenge, or maybe I just want people to face something that isn't Spirit every match... either or. After playing a lot of Survivor again after awhile of doing it once or twice in awhile... I can say that playing against her is one thing... but facing her 3 times in a row with several DCs is... terrible.
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Very true, most of the issues that M1 Killers have is from the map design and some of the loops in-general... While Meat Plant doesn't have this issue at all because it's literally a box... other maps like Lampkin lane with perks that abuse the loops is horrible to face...
Especially if the entire team uses Balanced Landing because one person told them so and they're bringing a offering for the map lol.
I play mostly mid to low tier Killers for the challenge and to help the diversity... but man... if you get a really strong Survivor sided map you might 2k, 3k if you're lucky. If they're REALLY coordinated than i'll be lucky to 1k.
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It would help with the overall health of the game in spades...
They might even be doing this after Spirits nerf and we don't even know... they have said they're looking into aiding in Pigs add-ons and other Killers add-ons, which is a step in the right direction.
Maybe in the future we can see more reworks or buffs to the low tier Killers base-kits as well.
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The main problems that I see most of the killers having in the low tiers is that their base powers are simply too weak.
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Well it's that, but it's also the mobility and map pressure potential as well.
Map design also is a factor as well...
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Looping was heavily a part of their original design...
You can see it in older videos of the beta and 2016... window loops used to be WAY too strong. I don't think looping is the main issue, it's also the Killers powers and their mobility as well.
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Good point.
I dont think that nerfing the low tier killers will impact the killer-survivor balance much. at top level play the interaction between those top tier killers and survivors stays the same.
Additionally: buffing the weaker killers (and maybe some aspecets of the top) would be a obligatory reaction to the much wished for "Solo-CWF"-gapclosure, regardless of it's implementation. (additionally to general changes in killer-survivor interactions favoring killers, a personal idea)
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Agree, right now you mostly see 80% spirits and the rest freddys or huntress for my experiences since the last weeks.
Its getting boring facing always the same killers in high ranks, genrushing and then getting some salt in the post game. Is sometimes funny and all but its getting reaaaaaally boring since its always the same, the spirit nerf is definatly justified but now after the chapter, (not talking about the new killer) we will see even less killer variety in the roster. And that is getting even more boring. I wish the devs would do something against this, that means. A new gamemode, more and faster killer buffs (Doc, Pig, Trapper etc.) and reworks (Legion and Leatherface).
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I literally thought this post was going somewhere else based off the title.
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Well, if they buffed the lower tiered Killers than the variety in-game would be mixed up a lot. With new variety comes new experiences...
I don't know how Spirit mains play Spirit every game, but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again expecting different results... I doubt they're looking for different results... I think they're looking for the opposite which is the same results lol.
I can't say every Spirit sees it that way, but I noticed some of them act a bit high and mighty because they're on Spirit. Reminds me of Nurse mains... aka, Nurse mains are now Spirit mains because Spirit is basically the new Nurse... so it must be those same people that act this way.
But I do agree that if there was more diversity with the gamemodes as well, than we'd probably see less Spirits also... maybe not... but maybe.
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How so?
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It's not because of the "I want an ez win or escape" argument, it's because Spirit is fundamentally an unfun killer... The same was said towards Nurse which people had to deal with for 3 years...
Now that she's nerfed, I might try her out because having an instant easy win wasn't interesting to me. Like I get it, you're the Killer and you should be empowered and such. But if the Killer you're using is not fun for the either side... is it really fun in-general?
I main Killer and never touched Pre-nerf Nurse or Spirit because of this... I P3-50'ed Billy because he has counter-play, those two had barely if any counter-play to speak of. Now, I don't even touch Billy despite him being a very balanced Killer. This is personally because having a fast game isn't fun if it's not through the challenge of a lower tiered Killer... but that's me personally.
The point is, I main Killer and I don't touch those Killers... and this was before I started to play Survivor a lot again. We should be thinking of how both sides are having fun, rather than our individual sides that we main.
Also, in 2016 most players were still noob or literally almost all were... nobody knew what they were doing for the most part... and the people that did weren't seen a lot. Billy was fairly OP because other Killers that existed like Wraith and Trapper were just basic M1 Killers.
Billy was new, he was fresh, he had a different concept of how to deal with looping. Nobody faced that in 2016 because the only two Killers they could face was Wraith or Trapper... and those two are just basic M1 Killers...
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Perhaps if we also had different game modes and other such objectives... than this concept wouldn't even need to be said.
Keeping things fresh through balance is one thing, if it's the same thing over and over than it gets dull as well... even if in the future (we hope,) that all Killers are fairly equal.
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if you don't play killer, the least you can do is not teabag low-tier killers and denounce your teammates who do post-game
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"But again, any Killer can be viable with enough skill..."
Your entire basis many including myself would disagree with.
Also, people do not play Spirit a lot because she's strong, they play her a lot because she is one of the few rank 1 viable killers. That is very different.
People also don't play strong killers "because they have no counter play", they simply play what's viable.
Many things you say don't have counter play, indeed do have counter play. Freddy's Dream Snare counter play is the same as against a clown, you drop the pallet early.
Regardless of all the statements I disagree with, your main premise:
"buffing Killers that're hardly ever used anymore in high ranks or even low sometimes would improve the overall diversity and health of the game for sure."
I do agree with. There are a lot of very weak killers that currently need buffs and that would increase the diversity we see.
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I played huntress with fun perks and no addons yesterday to get a better muscle memory with her hatchets. I got trolled by a 4man teabagging flashlightclicking blendette squad. I understand killers that wanna be able to win every game.
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Pre-nerf base nurse had fair counterplay. New nurse is only fun for survivors, because her blinks feel extremely clunky and slow.
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If you can utilize the right perk combos and add-ons than you can be viable at Red Ranks with said Killer. I do it with Wraith, Pig, I've even done it with pre-rework Freddy!
If we're talking base-kit than no, but I wasn't talking about base-kit.
Being strong and being viable are two different things yes, but they sometimes do go hand and hand. For one, nobody at low ranks who plays Spirit is playing her to be viable... they're playing her because she's strong and the "SS Tier" Killer. You don't need Spirit to be viable at low ranks... yet a fair bit of people are playing her because of that reason.
And yes, she's one of the most viable killers at Red Ranks... that's kind of why they should idk... buff the other low tiers?
It's good we see eye and eye on that main point at least.
Also, about Freddys dream snares
Dropping the pallet early will not stop him from downing you... you can loop around the pallet all you want, but if he can drop snares to shorten the loop or force you to sit at the pallet and vault it over and over, than that's not a "counter-play..." that's a dead end.
Snares have no cooldown, they have no draw backs, they don't really have a counter except leaving the loop when he drops them... but than he can just follow you after doing that... and than the snare is left there for the next person to be hit by it and be downed.
Not everyone is going to drop the pallet early or leave the loop when he's using his dream snares though. And if they do, they'll still get downed regardless.
but
This isn't why I made this post, to talk about his power, so we'll leave it at that (I hope.)
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I don't see how that'll fix anything.
People will always be toxic in DBD, not everyone is like this but some are. This isn't really going to fix the balance and diversity... which is what I was mainly talking about here.
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We won't have the same Killers with different skins, you don't need to nerf a Killer into the ground to balance them out a bit.
That's why Nurse wasn't reworked... and Spirits nerfs are reasonable. If they buffed the whole roster than these issues wouldn't exist and we'd have a lot more Killers be used.
Using the main apex Killer that's the most viable isn't always the most fun or the most satisfying way to play as Killer.
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That's another issue with the nerf itself, Nurses that mained her can somewhat get around this, but decent to not the greatest Nurses will struggle heavily...
The new Nurse isn't really "Killer Friendly" for new players or seasoned veterans that don't know how to play her.
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That's just toxic behavior at it's finest, it doesn't really excuse the imbalance with Spirit as a whole or the diversity imbalance as well.
I get you're not happy with that experience if you main Spirit because of it... but taking it out on people that're just trying to play the game normally is... not really the way to go.
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I hate the "She's not fun to play against" argument, because fun is not quantifiable and shouldn't be used to balance around. Or if you really wanna go the "it's not fun" route, how about how unfun the experience of playing killer is. In an equal skill matchup Killers will mostly be lead around the map through 15 safe loops and 5 jungle gyms, unable to get a single hit off, and if they break the chase to go after someone else the cycle repeats. The only saving grace is that ranking up as survivors is stupidly easy, so for the most part survivors are a little lower skill than the killer at their given rank.
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"nobody at low ranks who plays Spirit is playing her to be viable... they're playing her because she's strong"
That is a good point and I would agree.
Relating to Freddy though, even if that scenario happens you are still wasting quite a bit of his time. The goal isn't to escape, the goal is to waste as much time as possible. You will go down eventually. How short he can make that time is one of the reasons he's one of the more viable killers.
Anyway, I don't want to distract from your posts main topic. It's a good one I think the devs need to see.
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I think the main issue for the looping and jungle gyms is the map design itself.
I'm not saying we should remove all safety pallets and give Survivors one window in the map no... i'm saying that the current design of most of the maps works against M1 Killers greatly... that's why Spirit is more viable than most Killers and Nurse WAS the most viable... because they both ignore literally all obstacles (Except Spirit struggles with some of the bigger loops.)
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Oh I agree, and I said in another thread that realistically maps should have at most 3 safe loops, the rest unsafe, and maybe BHVR should take a look at killer shack. Admittedly, killer shack is way more balanced than before but it's still an insanely powerful loop on the maps that have it, and it always spawns around at least one safe loop.
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Exactly. And unfun to play fir good nurses too.
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I don't like to play spirit personally. Just saying, that i can understand people, that wanna play viable and fun killers.
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It's the maps. All of the top killers avoid dealing with strong map tiles on older maps in one way or another. Clown's power isn't a bad power on its own. It's bad because it does a poor job of stopping a long wall jungle gym, to name one tile. He's a beast on Hawkins with balanced pallet tiles.
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Maybe in the future we can debate more on Freddys power, anyways, I do appreciate the discussion!
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Especially if you look at Crotus Pren, which is just one giant safety loop... and it comes with shack too.
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Yes but does anyone really need to play Spirit to be viable at low ranks? Apparently the Green ranks think so...
I think having a apex Killer is not the right thing in the tier list or ANY game that focuses on a dominating role for that matter.
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Yeah but most of those tiles are unsafe anyways, I don't agree that all the tiles should be unsafe with literally no room to loop, but I also don't think they should be all the same length on say... azarovs or something.
That map does have 2 safe loops though... safe-ish.
The issue with clown is he has no mobility like most M1 Killers, and his power is quite weak with its lingering effects that slow Survivors down... without Ether 5 Vol% or any of the Ether add-ons... his tonics lasting effects are not so... lasting... in base-kit.
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If they'd stop trying to boost killers by only reworking a few of their add-ons and calling that a "buff" instead of buffing them on their base kit, we'd be good across the board. They need to stop pretending that a heavily add-on dependent killer = a good killer, because it's not. If I need to use one or two particular add-ons to be able to hold my own against a decent group, I'm not likely to play that killer at all, because they're not innately viable. Simple as that. Buff base kits or keep having to go through this over-and-over cycle of "nerf, wait on new top-tier, nerf, wait on new top-tier, nerf, etc."
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I can see what you mean, add-on changes wouldn't fix anything if the Killer is add-on reliant in the first place.
Hopefully in the future they'll see to it that all the base-kits get a look at... rather than just what is popular demand to be changed. Like for example, LeatherFace is considered the worst Killer now when it comes to base-kit... but with his add-ons and only a specific perk set-up he can be viable... But that still doesn't fix the issue.
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I find this trend of "let's buff some lower tiers buuut..this killer should get nerfed too is going to be made into a fruitless venture once the solo survivor buff happens..then nobody will play anything but meta again be cause matches will end even faster than ever
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think harder then or ill just tell you: tea-bagging is easier to do vs low-tier killers, other killers like spirit/nurse will have a way easier time downing you if you take time to teabag
additionally, teabagging low tier killers will frustrate them and encourage them to play higher tier killers for the reasons mentioned dujh
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Elaborate more on the solo Survivor buff, i'm not in the loop with that.
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Yes, but people shouldn't be discouraged about T-Bagging in the first place... or finger pointing.
If t-bagging and pointing upsets someone that much than... idk what to say to that.
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They havent announced their plan but their plan to balance the game is balance solos in a way that brings them to swf level..which will inevitably buff swf a bit, then balance weaker killers accordingly..while it sounds good on paper for killer it doesnt end up well at least at first
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*red ranks. I'm playing on red ranks, maybe that's why i got such an opinion.
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Ah I see. I don't know how they'll "buff solo" so... this should be an interesting outcome.
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No, I was speaking low ranks. Spirit doesn't need to be played at low ranks because low ranks doesn't require viability due to that rank bracket not being as... "dedicated" as Red Ranks is.
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Try PS4 lol. Tons of variety on there.
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Well without Mouse and Keyboard it helps a lot with players you're facing.
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High ranks need it tho. Constantly nerfing red rank viable killer will push survivor queues in red ranks into heaven.
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No doubt through base kit aura reading/changes to give survivors way more information
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