Game Balance

ChunChunMaru

Dead by Daylight has always been notoriously hard to balance. I know these changes won't ever be implemented, but I thought it would be worth making a discussion about.

As far as I can tell, DBD has a poor foundation for balancing and too much clutter.

This is due to:

1) Killer and Survivor Add-Ons: These consumable add-ons complicate things too much for what they're worth. It is difficult to balance core gameplay like Gen Speeds, when 4 survivors could bring pimped out toolboxes, and ignore the gameplay balance. The fact that a rarity system is integrated into this, further divides new players and veteran players from one another, as the best add-ons will normally require a bit of grind, making the first few games for new killers/survivors feel harder than they should. The easy thing to do, would be to get rid of them entirely. The harder, but more rewarding route, will be this; I think survivors should be able to find med-kits, flashlights and toolboxes in game as it would give the killer time and allow survivors to have a "second objective" while adding to the "survival immersion". Keys should only work for one survivor. That makes it so that they have to make the choice of "I stay and try to help everyone survive" or "I will make sure I survive". I think killer add-ons should act as semi-perks, "Killer Experience". Remove the rarity system and streamline the effects and this will allow for different versions of the same killer that can be played without the need to worry about getting more of X add on. And if done correctly, could create TRUE killer builds like Myers who plays very differently depending on his add ons, instead of "oh I carry more traps". I have ideas for different builds BUT I'll save that for another time.

2) The number one complaint of good survivors that I've seen, ironically. has rarely been "This killer is op" or "This killer perk is op". It has always been "These potato, sand bagging, useless teammates". I would think then, that BHVR would want noob players to get better, but with the rework of ruin/doc, it's clear that skill is not important when balancing for survivors. But having noob players and good players get along is. This leads to noob players getting into red ranks through SWF or from the lack of difficulty in climbing the ranks. Which makes the games harder on the good players who get matched with them, making them believe that the killer is op, when in actuality, their teammates deserve rank 10 instead of 1. If rank is important, then red ranks should be much harder to get into. If it isn't then that leads me to my next point.

3) Competitive vs Casual: The game balance has always been attacked by those who believe the game should be more competitive and those who think the game is just a party game to have fun. I have solutions for both of these. New survivors get destroyed by new killers. While experienced killers get destroyed by 4 experienced survivors. Now, there are many variables in these games, so I won't use stats. This may be a turn off for some of you, but stats are easily skewed and misrepresented. If survivors blow through a game in three minutes and then BM too hard and get themselves killed, the game is still treated as a 3/4k, when it should have been a 0k. I believe the Depip Squad did a great job of proving that survivors are the power role in this game. That is to say, if the survivors CHOOSE to bully a killer or blow through a game in 4 minutes, they can. I'm not saying that's how everyone plays all the time, but by the mere fact that it is possible, means there are serious balance issues.

Competitive: I think the most important thing here is making the games longer. I think a healthy game would last 8-9 minutes if one side is stomped on and 12-15 in a good match. Assuming that both sides, are trying their absolute best and are playing flawlessly. With skill checks becoming stupid easy, I won't suggest adding time to the gen speeds, cause I don't want my survivor friends to die of boredom. I believe if we can add fuses and fuse boxes in the map, I think that would be enough. Killers become stronger the longer it takes to finish a game, so we can just end it there. Then from there, balance around a 2.5k as having 4 players against one, requires some sort of compensation to the lone player. And no, "The killer is faster/immortal" is NOT compensation.

Casual: Balance the game in favor of killers. Flat out. If it's a casual horror game, then you are playing to be scared or to have an adrenaline rush acting like a hero and the risk associated with it. Or if you're killer, you're playing to... feel like a killer and kill some fools. In this scenario, a survivor should expect to die, and try their best not to. Either by finding a key and abandoning their teammates or trying their very best till the end. I think this is the funnest way to play the game.But as we all know, there are a lot of toxic players on both sides that would lose their minds. Ego driven killers and entitled survivors.

I'd rather play competitively. But if the game is going to be shifted into something casual, then I believe this is the only way it makes sense as a horror fan. And I would still play the game this way. If anything, I would probably play more survivor this way as I care more about the horror experience than surviving.

What do you guys think?

honestscript

interesting