Statistics and "Balance"

DeDoeH

There has been quite a discussion and an uproar since the statistics were released. Apart from the fact that the data and how it was collected (or the lack of clarification how exactly) makes the whole statistics kind of worthless with regards to balance. There is another very important reason why is often misinterpreted.

Sadly, people who misinterpret what balance actually means, derive false conclusions from it because the think red ranks means skill. If we really wanted to ultimately test "balance" and define "balance" as in other competitive games like SC2, LoL, WC3 here is what would have to be done:

• only look at the highest tiered/skilled players and gather your statistics there
• in DBD this would be data ONLY from rank 1 killers and rank 1 survivors who have both held their top rank for an extended period of time
• all other players are of NO INTEREST with regards to balance because their insufficient skill level makes it impossible to determine whether its balance or lack of skill
• as long as this is not done, balance can not be analyzed; bad players having bad statistics does not represent a game balance at top tier

Here are a few examples in recent statistics to strengthen my point:

1) According to the stats, nurse is a relatively bad killer (worse than wraith). Everybody who has played against a high skiled nurse or watched high skilled nurse mains knows that this is simply not true. It's just that very few are good enough to really use her.

2) If we look at older statistics, there was dramatic increase in survivor escape rate between rank 2 and rank 1. This kind of proves that rank 2 are simply not good enough to be considered for balance.

I would really be interested in some hard high tier/skill data. Survival rates vs. specific killers (vs.4 rank 1 survivors) and survival rates of 4-man rank 1 SWF groups. This could lead to some balancing conclusions. Everything else is just pleasing the public and not balance. (by the way pleasing the public might be the better choice for DBD)

Karl_Childers

With regards to your #2 example about the rank 1 escape rates, if you are referring to the previous graph it’s been explained many times that it’s not accurate. The actual escape rate at rank 1 was I believe 43% according to Peanits, not the 80% shown in the graph.

DeDoeH

I've never stumbled across that explanation. But even If that was so, it would not really change the the rest of my points and the rest of the data i'd be interested in would still matter.