What is the vision for the gameplay balance?

ZCerebrate

I always hear whining from both sides about game balance and wanted to understand what the players' expectations are vs the developers'

It got me thinking, what exactly is the "ideal game" from the developer's standpoint (other than handing over our wallets for auric cells or chapters)?

I. Let's define both ends of the scale now because obviously it shouldn't be happening (often) though still theoretically possible.

a) 5 Generators up, 12 hooks, all survivors were sacrificed on 3rd hook with no prevention of rescues, suicides or disconnects (I've actually had one of these games before in the last few months vs some green ranks). Killer Flawless Victory.

b) All survivors escape, 0 downs and by extension 0 hooks (basically never happens unless killer is trolling/afk but in theory you could get looped for the entire 5~7 minutes that a prove thyself swf protects the OoM guy with adernaline toward the exit). Survivors Flawless Victory.

II. Now for what I believe are arguably reasonable expectations for a game that went extremely well for one side:

a) 2~3 generators up, 9~11 hooks, all survivors were sacrificed with the hatch getting closed in time before the last guy escapes. Killer Merciless Victory (Sometimes it isn't atm...)

b) All generators finished, 4 Survivors Escape, 3~6 hooks (maybe twice the downs than that ultimately due to Slugs Pickups/Unbreakables, DS, flashlight/pallet saves)

III. So what should be considered a "draw game" where neither side really came out ahead (even though individual bloodpoints and pips might differ getting a +1 pip in the below situation for both sides) Because currently:

a) All generators done, 2 survivors sacrificed, 2 survivors escape with 7~10 hooks, similar to above with more downs as necessary to slow the game down and result like this. Killer gets Ruthless (Black pip) and occasionally a Brutal (+1) Victory, Survivors get 0~2 pips usually with current system and almost never lose one here.

I feel like that is what the devs were aiming for in a "balanced" game but neither side is "happy" with that result because well draws suck and having a clear victory like section II is far more fun. Unfortunately those results happening an overwhelming amount of times results in balance tears (as seen by these forums) and rage quits, disconnects and general toxicity about not being able to play the game to Section II's standards.

The problem being the game has things like Mori's, Keys (or even the hatch in general), Slugging to create a 1~2 hook everyone dies situation and the emblems cannot account for that as it directly goes against how the game is scored and balanced at the moment. New matchmaking isn't going to address that - it's just going to stick a bunch more people together and muddle up the ranking system into a 'hidden number' so people don't rage about "4 red ranks and I'm just a purple rank 10 killer - behavioral WAHHHH".

So what do you guys think is a "draw game" that the game should be balanced around?

P.S.

Please fix your disconnect/crashing on loading issue, fix this new auric cell transfer offer for $$ issue, fix speed hackers - I've reported other survivors who run alongside of me as another survivor but clearly have a permanent 2~4% buff as they outrun me to the next gen (not to mention the rare idiot who turns it up to 100% and teleports around). Fix how easy survivors pip for apparently no reason which is screwing up how many survivors are getting matched (this could indirectly be related to the swfs thing but honestly I see people solo queues in rank 1~3 all the time who have NO IDEA what is happening all the time and running incoherent builds).