How exactly is DBD intended to be played?

ChunChunMaru

After reading a dev's post about the intent of the ruin changes, alongside their comments in the thread, I feel compelled to make a post about it. The forums are teeming with constant posts regarding the changes, mostly negative. Unfortunately, the devs misconstrued what the outrage was about. As many have said before, the clear bias present in the patch notes and the baffling reasoning behind the changes, were the real reason behind the negative feedback. I made a post about a totem rework that I felt like would solve the problem, if any of you would like to check that out. However, it seems the devs have certain views on how the game is currently operating and how it's supposed to operate, and are going to go through with the changes with little regard to input. As it was stated that they are confident in what they are doing.

I will ignore the matchmaking issue, as we all know new players should never face red ranks, however as their first solution was to hide player ranks, i'm sure they aren't at a stage were any meaningful actions will be taken to fix this issue. This discussion will mostly focus around the explanations provided to us by the dev comments (and by association, the rest of the development team) and will hopefully allow for a civil discussion for all parties involved.

I will also ignore the emblem ranking system, as it is a similar issue and tied to matchmaking.

First thing first, new players and balancing around them. In any facet of life, it is a given that anybody who is new at anything, will struggle. It is through time, effort, and experience, that a person is able to persevere and improve. As many have stated, balancing around red ranks, is much healthier for the game. New players will not always remain new players. Eventually, they will improve. And if they simply don't have the time or desire to get better at the game, then they should rightfully struggle. If a student does not study, and then consequently fails a test, should the professor accommodate this student by giving them an easier test? With the nerf to Snap Out Of It and changes to ruin, survivor has an even lower skill ceiling. Great skill checks mean nothing other than rushing the gens faster and slow down effects like mending, snap out of it, pig traps, etc, are mild inconveniences instead of game altering effects that force survivors to change their gameplay.

According to the devs, ruin is better in the late game. Additionally, they state that it must remain a Hex Totem because the effect is too powerful. And that in three gen scenarios, it is particularly effective, as the killer can patrol gens without kicking them. As we all know, Hex Totems will never be viable late game except for NOED (which will get you bullied if you run). An experienced survivor will normally find ruin no problem, without the need for Small Game or related perks, and destroy it within in the first minute, sometimes immediately. Thus, stating that the perk is great late game, does not make sense. The effect is also NOT too powerful as other regression perks are unusable with the new Ruin. Not to mention, the perk being completely nullified by simply staying on the gen. The counterplay is to chase away the survivors, but as many have also stated, a killer can only chase one survivor at a time. There are certain time constraints from chasing a survivor, that a killer cannot overcome, especially in large maps. with survivors having a plethora of stall perks like Dead Hard, Sprint Burst, etc, even if they play badly. In regards to the scenario where the survivors have three genned themselves, it does not matter if ruin is effective, because in this scenario, ANYTHING is effective. And unless the survivors have some godly teamwork play, they deserve to lose for creating that scenario in the first place as the Killer cannot force survivors into a three gen. Its bad macro on the survivors end, and the killer should not be punished or be forced to concede the last gen because of the lack of planning.

Another comment stated that because it is a 4 v 1, generators are INTENDED to be finished quickly in the early game because a killer becomes inherently more powerful as the game drags on and survivors die. The question here is, how quickly must the gens pop before it is constituted as too fast? And if the speed of the game is fine as is, then if a killers power is derived from either arriving to the late game or killing off survivors quickly, then I can only assume that the devs are encouraging tunneling, slugging, and moris. Except, that with perks like BT and DS, killers are punished for making plays like that, EVEN IF the survivors play recklessly and dive bomb the hook. So then what is a killer left to do? Mori? More than likely, a survivor will DC straight off the bat, and their teammates will get destroyed without a need for a mori. If the games go by too quick and killers are punished for trying to kill weak survivors that keep getting found, can't loop, etc... then do we just have to rely on the survivors being boosted or bad at the game?

A killer is expected to hook a survivor 3 times, for a total of 12 hooks without tunneling, reading obvious plays, etc. That's what constituted a killer player playing "nice". Assuming you end EVERY chase at 20 seconds (humor me pls), ignoring pallets, perks, windows, flashlight, toolboxes, etc, the game would end in 4 minutes. Where as survivors can end the game in that time with much less effort. Realistically, a chase does not last 20 seconds. And there are plenty of avenues for survivors to quicken gen speeds or to delay the killer catching up to them. I will not get into the whole "which side has gotten more nerfs" argument, but It seems like Killers get nerfed much quicker and harsher than survivors do. i just went back through several patch notes, and any of you are free to do so if you'd like to debate about my point, but survivors don't get nerfed too badly. And more often than not, there seems to be some sort of compensation tied to the nerf. The balanced landing perk was given an additional functionality (not arguing the effectiveness), and that seems to be the go to survivor nerf that apparently justifies killer nerfs. Spirit was nerfed. Nurse was nerfed. Oni was nerfed. Pig Traps mean nothing now, so even with a few QoL changes, the nerf completely outweight everything else. Legion got the Freddy treatment. And aside from leveling out all the perks, I see much more positive changes and buffs to survivors perks than killers.

The number one complaint is that games go too fast. If you don't want to directly buff killer kits or perks, then a killer can become stronger if the game lasts longer then right? So why not make games longer? No one wants to wait 20 minutes to play a 5 minute match. Both killer and survivor players will attest to this.

Thoughts?

Mringasa

Gens go too fast at high ranks. They go really slow at low ranks. The developers have already stated, unlike any other "competitive" game, they balance for both ends of the spectrum. This is a point of view that many people cannot understand, and flat out refuse to consider. They think that balance should only exist at the top tier of the game, and too bad for the low ranks. They just need to "git gud".

This game isn't just competitive, it's also casual. I'd say, just from my own point of view, there are more casual players than actual competitive ones at any given time. They are playing for fun, not for bragging rights or e-peen measurement (or for subs on their stream). The Developers may have numbers or something to support this, but the balancing that gets done feels like it's a lot more for the casual side of the game than the competitive side.

I personally think, if they can fix matchmaking, they could institute a tiered series of objectives instead of the flat 5 gens/4 kills we have over all ranks. Give the lower ranks an easier time of things to learn, but give the higher ranks challenging matches that are fun rather than an M1 simulator or Slug, Camp, Mori.

It's entirely up to the devs though as to what direction they want to go. Vote with your wallet and playtime, as any gamer should do anyways. Me, I'll just stick around and play casually, thoroughly enjoying myself on both sides, because that's what I want from the game. I've liked and hated changes from both sides on Dead by Daylight, but I still come back to it because it really is a hell of a lot of fun.

DBD_Pinhead

If this game was casual, there would be no ranked matchmaking. IDK why people are still confused by this. Second, OP is right, tunneling and moris will be the norm since gen speeds won't be addressed, the Ruin nerf does nothing to address either that or map issues, and killers are still told to ApPlY pReSsUrE.