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The REAL Balance problem in DBD

Greetings all,

As I am sure anyone who has played this game at least once will know, DBD (like any asymmetric game) is plagued by problems relating to the balance of their game. Whilst it is substantially better than it has been in the past, most people would probably agree that many killers find themselves falling short in the higher ranks. Many people will suggest that the reason for this are survivors - that some of their perks are too strong (looking at you self-care) and the constant debate over the whole SWF situation. Whilst these arguments may be true to a certain extent, I believe the reason for why so few killers are consistently viable at higher ranks is not just the fault of survivor balance but also the fault of killer balance.

Within higher ranks there are two killers who reign supreme - Billy and Nurse. Both of the killers are very powerful, even without add-ons. Let's take a look at both of them and determine why they are so good.

Billy - Chainsaw provides the ability to apply insane map pressure. He can in a matter of seconds make the fact that you are on the other side of the map irrelevant, a feat few other killers can claim. This ability alone is arguably better than the entirety of the wraiths kit. Why bother being stealthy when you can just zoom around the map for free. However, this is not all. Billy also has the ability to instadown any survivors fairly easily. Whilst mildly situational (due to windows and the like), it not only allows players to halve the amount of hits to end a chase and to bypass dead hard but also to close ground due to the acceleration of the boost, like a super lunge. On top of this he has base 115% movement speed. With these factors combined, Billy is capable of abusing the hizzozzle out of perks like BBQ (which is a good perk as is) and other aura reading perks.

Nurse - Has the ability to warp all over the place. It is a very powerful tool for providing map coverage and the resulting pressure generated from such an ability. In addition to this, in a chase blinks can be used to completely bypass windows, pallets and even entire floors of a building. This allows a good player to completely bypass a fundamental aspect of the game - the chase. Like Billy, she has the ability to turn BBQ into a god tier perk due to being able to act instantly upon this information. Combined with her ability to drastically shorten chases by ignoring obstacles and perks like Make Your Choice (the downside of which is completely negated by the Blink), the Nurse is undisputed the supreme Queen of DBD.

Now that we have established why these killers are good, we can now look at why they are the part of the reason why killers as a whole remain in a state requiring constant buffing. The problem is that people compare other killers to these two and are disappointed when they don't compare. For example, the Spirit has been condemned by many people for having a power that is less useful than Billy. Nurse and to a lesser extent Billy should NOT be the killers people use a yardstick for killer balance. No amount of balancing will ever make killers without mobility abilities even half as useful as ones that do. I have no objections to the notion of killers with mobility abilities, but in the case of Nurse and Billy, they also have another ability (or use thereof) that allows them to also have a huge bonus in chases.

I think that for baseline killers, like Pig, Trapper, Doc, or Wraith to be useful we need to nerf Nurse and Billy to a stage where they are just as good as most other killers before we can give other killers the buff they need.

P.S. I almost exclusively play killer.

Comments

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  • Killmaster
    Killmaster Member Posts: 429
    edited September 2018

    Agreed, bringing them down to baseline can only help the game in the long run, devs can then balance survivors around all 14 killers in place of how well survivors with certain perks do against the two "viable" ones, I'd like all killers and survivors to be fun to play as and against no matter what rank. It's no secret the only reason people bring sprint-burst, d-strike, borrowed time, self-care or adrenaline is because they are the only perks that can extend chases in high ranks, however they just lead to abuse against killers who cannot one-shot easily where a chase without nurses blinks or billys chainsaw turn into 3 gens popping without even getting a hook thanks to decisive. With them more in line survivors perks can get tweaked to make every killer viable and no survivor able to run circles for 3 minutes.

  • Khroalthemadbomber
    Khroalthemadbomber Member Posts: 1,073
    Honestly I've not REALLY compared Spirit to Nurse. She's more akin to an odd love child between Hag, Wraith, and Pig. My issue I've had with her is that her positives really don't justify all the negatives she has when compared to the three she's most similiar to. Honestly the three listed above in my comment are vastly superior to her, especially Wraith due to the most recent patch.

    But back on topic. I play a bit of survivor in addition to killer. I've seen plain as day the massive difference in someone that has decent skill with the two killers you mentioned and people who have mastered them. Against true blue masters of those killers the best you can hope to do is get two generators done and find the hatch before they do because either only one of you is getting out or none of you are.
  • Killigma
    Killigma Member Posts: 372

    Or, instead of nerfing the two most viable Killers. We nerf all Survivor viable perks and loops and that will bring all the other Killers up instead? To me that is the mirror effect or what you just suggested, Survivors do not want that, so obviously Killers would not want this suggestion.

  • Master
    Master Member Posts: 10,200

    Nerf the only two viable killers and you gonna kill the game.
    The devs are aware of that, so that will never happen.

    I just wish that they could add more killers to that pool because seeing the same 2 killers over and over in a game with 13 killers is kinda pathetic, but I guess the devs are too scared which is quite sad

  • Bravo0413
    Bravo0413 Member Posts: 3,647
    If you take away Billy and Nurse you kill the game.... people need to understand that you can say "this game is supposed to be about having fun" well how do you think the killer is going to have fun? You're putting 4 people up against that player and if that player doesnt have the tools to get the job done how is that fun? Billy and Nurse are the tip of the spear huntress follows shortly behind and hag may have some say but behind them it's only a matter of killers not having enough time to get around the map asap like Billy and nurse do... the rest of the crew need to be brought up to where Billy is and Nurse needs to stay where she is where when a player matters her their rewarded with what she is in the game.. if there is no reward to getting better at killer why would anyone play killer? Hag is restricted.. less then she used to be but still restricted... below her every killer is restricted with hard skill cap meaning you cant do anything better once you've mastered them... Billy, Nurse and Huntress you can significantly get better at and become a force which is what killers want they wanna get rewarded for practicing and playing not get punished..
  • Mister_Holdout
    Mister_Holdout Member Posts: 3,144

    Yeah, nerfing Billy and Nurse would be the quickest route to total disaster.

    At that point, survivors would have total control over the game.

    No, what this game needs is a big change to the core mechanics.

    Namely, looping and gen rushing need to be addressed.

    I would suggest that looping be heavily limited in its use. Survivors shouldn't be able to rely on looping alone.
    Instead, add more stealth and juke mechanics to make chases more skill based.

    As for gen rushing, a moderate increase in objective time is all that is needed.

  • MegMain98
    MegMain98 Member Posts: 2,919

    Nah. Nurse and Billy do not need to be nerfed. Not every killer is going to be viable at a higher rank. Obviously a Nurse at Rank 1 is gonna be better than Freddy or Wraith. The design of the Wraith’s ability is NEVER going to be on par with The Nurse and that is what people fail to realize. Wraith will NEVER be on The Nurse or Billy’s level, he will always be a low rank killer due to his design. Huntress and Myers are the next viable killers at higher rank and can be used quite well. Instead of the same ol’ “nerf this and buff that” argument, what really needs to be addressed is map designs and chases. Survivors need a better chance at losing chases and breaking line of sight and possibly while you are in a chase the scratch marks disappear quicker than out of a chase. While killers need to deal with less loops.

  • Global
    Global Member Posts: 770
    edited September 2018

    To nerf nurse or billy you need to buff survivor stealth as of now being a stealthy survivor sucks arse especially since all the survivor stealth perks besides maybe iron will or urban evasion are complete dog dung. I love BBQ to death and there is nothing better than teleporting through a wall because you can see someone healing and gut them like a fish but the main reason why survivors rather loop is because stealth sucks and is boring. Plus there is also an emblem rank for being near the killer that should really be turned into a stealth emblem but eh i dont think they will improve survivor stealth any time soon. And since looping is so meta due to sucky stealth you need killers to counter it i dont agree with nurse nerfs but hey thats only me. As of now the only way for a survivor to survive is to loop because hiding just isnt a clear option. But if they make stealth fun i believe it will null out looping especially if they make a stealth emblem and reward you for being stealthy in return nurfing the top tier killer will be justified. But until then i dont see it happening. :/

  • shadowsfall42
    shadowsfall42 Member Posts: 201
    Nerfing two of the games top predators is going to gut the killers side and kill the game. 

    There are three major issues with the game:
    1. Survivors can extend a chase for far too long with optimal routing and efficient use of pallets.
    2. Survivors have a significant number of second chances that are somewhat bypassed by a mori. (Eliminating a survivor after only being hooked once is a massive boost to the killer but doesn't necessarily constitute a victory condition for the killer)
    3. Generators being the single objective of victory and are also rather quick to finish is the absolute biggest issue with the game because it's the thing that determines how much time the killer has to work with.

    Now for the first point, a potential fix is to change the hitbox so that looping is less efficient at reducing the different in movespeed. Also reducing the number of pallets and adding more objects or hiding spots to encourage people to juke and avoid the killer, rather than just running them around like it's a game of follow me. Chases last too long for the amount of time killers have to do their job. Also fixing loosing bloodlust when you shouldn't would help.

    The second point would be helped somewhat by the previous fix as chases would be shorter overall.

    The third point is by far the biggest issue. At low ranks, survivors will be lucky to do all gens within a 5 minute window, in fact it's not uncommon for all 5 gens to take upwards of 10 minutes because low ranks play scared, and really inefficiently. However at mid-high ranks, without Hex: Ruin games generally last no more than 5 minutes, 3 at best because of just how optimal survivors are. 

    Adding more generators to complete or increasing the time to complete will not fix anything, low ranks already struggle with getting gens done, it'll just kill the low rank audience, and make high ranks more boring. What the game needs is either objectives to complete that either connect the to be conpleted/completed gens with a central power source or the exit gates. Something else that requires the player to do or find something to go towards that goal of escaping. Other ideas are fuel for the generators, or actual parts or even finding switches to throw. The community has no end of ideas and would be more than happy to help them test them on the ptb. (It would very likely be something that would fill the ptb better than a new chapter. I would personally much rather them do an overhaul of the games core mechanics rather than new content.

    I meme it, but doing Dead by Daylight: Operation health would be incredible for the game. Stabilizing the fps on all platforms (console needs at least a stable 30fps) improving the games core systems to be more reliable, plus changing and adding objectives and improving the killers who need a boost. (Not all killers need to be rank 1 viable, Wraith for example will probably never be rank 1 material but making their gameplay better for the killer would be huge) I mean given that their income isn't necessarily tied to chapter releases anymore, they have more wiggle room to perform an Operation Health.
  • thekiller490490
    thekiller490490 Member Posts: 1,164
    edited September 2018
    Buff all killers to the level Billy and nurse are and we have an asymetric horror game. Maybe tone nurse down but billy is perfect.
  • Daddy_Myers
    Daddy_Myers Member Posts: 2

    I think people misunderstand what I was trying to suggest. I wholeheartedly agree that there need to be MANY Balance changes to DBD to fix the big gap between killers and survivors. I agree with the notion that if the devs nerfed Nurse and Billy right now that the game would be terrible and survivors would run riot even more so than they do already. I also agree that perks such as Self-Care and Decisive Strike are very poorly balanced and need to be toned down, I hate them as much as the next guy. However, I was more suggesting as a long run change.

    Let's assume that the devs buff killers in general to the point where a relatively vanilla killer (ie, Trapper) is somewhat viable at high ranks without relying on a huge stack of misplays by the survivors. If this were the case then the game would be terrible for the opposite reason. Nurse and Billy are only 'viable' because they are the most poorly balanced killers. They are the least bad. If a normal killer was viable (not saying a 4k every game, but to have at least a decent chance to 2K) then Billy and Nurse would be super OP.

    "But wait! What if all killers were buffed to Billy or Nurse status?" I hear you exclaim. Exactly how would an M1 killer like Trapper, Doc, Leatherface or Wraith be buffed to that status without completely redesigning all their kits entirely to give them more pressure. That being said, I am not a game designer so I am sure some smarter person out there has probably thought of a solution.

    What I am suggesting is that for most killers to be collectively buffed to be viable, we need to make sure they are all LOOSELY around the same power level, otherwise a balance to help the common killer will make the already good ones even more busted (meaning people will play them). I understand that there will always be imbalance in a game like this, I never expect Freddy to be the best choice in the game, but for killers as a whole to be buffed in any meaningful way that isn't just going to make the game unfun for the other party, we need killers to be the same strength. If

    @Peasant It is an interesting point you make regarding looping. If looping was removed or toned down, or some other alternative introduced it may tone down the necessity to play these killers. I hadn't really considered this.

    Also, I was thinking about this more as an ideal. I was assuming that the devs can make whatever changes they like (irrespective of community backlash) and could get away with nerfing the obviously broken survivor perks. I realise now that this was a pretty stupid assumption to make as even one look at the balance history would have told me otherwise. The proposed Self-Care change I found to be pretty good (SC would still have been a staple perk), but people claimed that SC was fine as is. I understand now that following my approach absolutely would be bad as survivors would not receive their nerfs well (as always). In spite of this, I still hold that Nurse and Billy need to be nerfed. I also think that most killers need to be buffed as well. I think there is a line of balance between most killers and Nurse and Billy.

  • TeaLeaf
    TeaLeaf Member Posts: 205

    I think the issue with balance in general is the difficulty to balance the game in terms of skill cap. There is a pretty big difference between low rank vs high rank players and balancing for one tends to screw the other. If you balance for the young survivor the elder exploits the system. IF you make the game balanced toward more experienced survives young survives get wiped out with out a chance to learn. Further the power of the killer should = 4 survives, but the gap between solo players vs SWF is huge enough that balancing for one again unbalances the other. DBD suffers from the fact it does not want new game modes, it can't balance ranking to be meaningful, and the very one dimension of the game with so many variables leaves a logistic nightmare to correctly implement a true balance... because again... so many gaps between groups.

  • MrMyers
    MrMyers Member Posts: 43
    edited October 2018

    Nerfing the killers with the best abilities won't do much good. Buffing killers with sub-par abilities won't do much good either. If these buffs and nerfs were put into effect, survivors would be more powerful than ever.

  • DeadByFlashlight
    DeadByFlashlight Member Posts: 1,642

    @Daddy_Myers said:
    Greetings all,

    As I am sure anyone who has played this game at least once will know, DBD (like any asymmetric game) is plagued by problems relating to the balance of their game. Whilst it is substantially better than it has been in the past, most people would probably agree that many killers find themselves falling short in the higher ranks. Many people will suggest that the reason for this are survivors - that some of their perks are too strong (looking at you self-care) and the constant debate over the whole SWF situation. Whilst these arguments may be true to a certain extent, I believe the reason for why so few killers are consistently viable at higher ranks is not just the fault of survivor balance but also the fault of killer balance.

    Within higher ranks there are two killers who reign supreme - Billy and Nurse. Both of the killers are very powerful, even without add-ons. Let's take a look at both of them and determine why they are so good.

    Billy - Chainsaw provides the ability to apply insane map pressure. He can in a matter of seconds make the fact that you are on the other side of the map irrelevant, a feat few other killers can claim. This ability alone is arguably better than the entirety of the wraiths kit. Why bother being stealthy when you can just zoom around the map for free. However, this is not all. Billy also has the ability to instadown any survivors fairly easily. Whilst mildly situational (due to windows and the like), it not only allows players to halve the amount of hits to end a chase and to bypass dead hard but also to close ground due to the acceleration of the boost, like a super lunge. On top of this he has base 115% movement speed. With these factors combined, Billy is capable of abusing the hizzozzle out of perks like BBQ (which is a good perk as is) and other aura reading perks.

    Nurse - Has the ability to warp all over the place. It is a very powerful tool for providing map coverage and the resulting pressure generated from such an ability. In addition to this, in a chase blinks can be used to completely bypass windows, pallets and even entire floors of a building. This allows a good player to completely bypass a fundamental aspect of the game - the chase. Like Billy, she has the ability to turn BBQ into a god tier perk due to being able to act instantly upon this information. Combined with her ability to drastically shorten chases by ignoring obstacles and perks like Make Your Choice (the downside of which is completely negated by the Blink), the Nurse is undisputed the supreme Queen of DBD.

    Now that we have established why these killers are good, we can now look at why they are the part of the reason why killers as a whole remain in a state requiring constant buffing. The problem is that people compare other killers to these two and are disappointed when they don't compare. For example, the Spirit has been condemned by many people for having a power that is less useful than Billy. Nurse and to a lesser extent Billy should NOT be the killers people use a yardstick for killer balance. No amount of balancing will ever make killers without mobility abilities even half as useful as ones that do. I have no objections to the notion of killers with mobility abilities, but in the case of Nurse and Billy, they also have another ability (or use thereof) that allows them to also have a huge bonus in chases.

    I think that for baseline killers, like Pig, Trapper, Doc, or Wraith to be useful we need to nerf Nurse and Billy to a stage where they are just as good as most other killers before we can give other killers the buff they need.

    P.S. I almost exclusively play killer.

    By nerfing another killer, a certrain killer like trapper e.g. wont become usefull suddenly. You would need to nerf survivors at the same time to make that happen and if this is not done, then the high rank gameplay will be very odd (if it exists at all anymore).

    Btw, in order to make killers like trapper viable against competent SWF, survivors would need a drastic nerf

  • Dabrownman1812
    Dabrownman1812 Member Posts: 1,857
    Smh, no one thinks of the real issue. Problem solving 101, let's work backwards.
    Billy and nurse top tier due to map pressure and strong chase game, but mostly map pressure. They will always be top tier so them being the top isn't the issue, issue is why is there such a gap? The answer is it takes time to check on gens, time saved is time saved. But what causes both of these? Ding ding ding, objectives! Lack of forced objectives gives survivors a huge advantage and those killers who can do more with less time in chase are rewarded which leads to billy and nurse being top tier. Survivors have 6 objectives. Killers have 12. 5 gens and a door vs 12 hook phases at base. While a killer is in chase he isn't stopping 3 survivors from doing half of the objectives in one chase. 

    What did we learn today guys? Give survivors more forced objectives because if they aren't forced, they won't be utilized and the game will end in a crazy fast pace and eveything is ranked, not casual mode. 
  • Keene_Kills
    Keene_Kills Member Posts: 649

    Past experience shows it takes developers a good long while to make adjustments, even after committing and admitting to what needs accomplished. Let's say they go ahead and nerf Billy & Nurse, then there's a long waiting period before they'd buff the rest. In that span of time, with all killers at the absolute mercy of survivors, how long would it take the killer main base to throw their hands up? I know when I'm having a bad SWF night on Doc or Clown or even Huntress, I fall back and lift myself with an at least leveled game with Billy. I know I'd probably just switch over to survivor and play until the bugs are worked out (with no promise they would buff across the board, just blind faith). How many others would? How long until the player base on both sides would drop off, killers from just giving up and survivors from being unable to find a lobby?

    I just don't think they'd be able to implement the across-the-board buffs in a timely enough manner to save face.

  • newduls
    newduls Member Posts: 90

    I can't even imagine how horrid R1 play would be without the billy or nurse as an option.

    I play all the killers at R1, but when I want a fair shake I play nurse or billy. When I choose any other killer I do so for the challenge, knowing full well I'll probably get stomped.

  • Dabrownman1812
    Dabrownman1812 Member Posts: 1,857
    Smh the problem is lack of survivor objectives, is no one thinking deep about this? 
  • Dabrownman1812
    Dabrownman1812 Member Posts: 1,857
    Also, nerfing billy and nurse won't help, the billy is good but not overwhelming, he just saves time, same for the nurse. Billy is overrated, look at why the are effective vs what makes them strong. They move fast, that's the key
  • se05239
    se05239 Member Posts: 3,919

    @Tsulan said:
    So, you nerf the only 2 viable killers and expect the other killers to suddenly be competitive on high ranks?

    Go ahead. See how that turns out.
    My prediction: a "matchmaking error" for survivors above rank 10. Estimated time to find a match = 45+ minutes

    That's not how you do balance.
    If you want more killers to be viable at the higher ranks, you need to look at why they aren't.

    As it stands, the two main reasons are either that their chase game aren't as good as the Nurse's or that their map pressure aren't on par with the Hillbilly's.
    The first one of the two reasons is actually the easiest to fix. Simply, make the maps less looping friendly. If maps become more accessible for killers who's chase game ain't top tier, we'd see far less Hillbillys and Nurses dominating the high ranks.

  • Tsulan
    Tsulan Member Posts: 15,095

    @se05239 said:

    @Tsulan said:
    So, you nerf the only 2 viable killers and expect the other killers to suddenly be competitive on high ranks?

    Go ahead. See how that turns out.
    My prediction: a "matchmaking error" for survivors above rank 10. Estimated time to find a match = 45+ minutes

    That's not how you do balance.
    If you want more killers to be viable at the higher ranks, you need to look at why they aren't.

    As it stands, the two main reasons are either that their chase game aren't as good as the Nurse's or that their map pressure aren't on par with the Hillbilly's.
    The first one of the two reasons is actually the easiest to fix. Simply, make the maps less looping friendly. If maps become more accessible for killers who's chase game ain't top tier, we'd see far less Hillbillys and Nurses dominating the high ranks.

    I know that.

  • Master
    Master Member Posts: 10,200

    @Dabrownman1812 said:
    Smh the problem is lack of survivor objectives, is no one thinking deep about this? 

    Devs dont want to force survivors into doing other objectives.
    Thats why they made hexes so weak that its possible to kill 4 hex totems within a minute (happened yesterday to me), but the hex effects are actually so weak that the survivors can completely ignore them most of the time, devour being the only exception here.

    Their next idea to buff sabotage/slugging is the same. Survivors can simply ignore those and just hold M1 on the gens as before and we have the same situation.

    Either the devs dont understand what the real problem is (gentime) or they simply dont wanna adress it and balance the game around casual low ranks instead

  • Dabrownman1812
    Dabrownman1812 Member Posts: 1,857
    Tsulan said:

    @se05239 said:

    @Tsulan said:
    So, you nerf the only 2 viable killers and expect the other killers to suddenly be competitive on high ranks?

    Go ahead. See how that turns out.
    My prediction: a "matchmaking error" for survivors above rank 10. Estimated time to find a match = 45+ minutes

    That's not how you do balance.
    If you want more killers to be viable at the higher ranks, you need to look at why they aren't.

    As it stands, the two main reasons are either that their chase game aren't as good as the Nurse's or that their map pressure aren't on par with the Hillbilly's.
    The first one of the two reasons is actually the easiest to fix. Simply, make the maps less looping friendly. If maps become more accessible for killers who's chase game ain't top tier, we'd see far less Hillbillys and Nurses dominating the high ranks.

    I know that.

    Yeh, he didn't get you wasnt with the nerf. The issue is time, some people dont get it
  • Dabrownman1812
    Dabrownman1812 Member Posts: 1,857
    se05239 said:

    @Tsulan said:
    So, you nerf the only 2 viable killers and expect the other killers to suddenly be competitive on high ranks?

    Go ahead. See how that turns out.
    My prediction: a "matchmaking error" for survivors above rank 10. Estimated time to find a match = 45+ minutes

    That's not how you do balance.
    If you want more killers to be viable at the higher ranks, you need to look at why they aren't.

    As it stands, the two main reasons are either that their chase game aren't as good as the Nurse's or that their map pressure aren't on par with the Hillbilly's.
    The first one of the two reasons is actually the easiest to fix. Simply, make the maps less looping friendly. If maps become more accessible for killers who's chase game ain't top tier, we'd see far less Hillbillys and Nurses dominating the high ranks.

    It's also not really loops, its lack of objectived and time it takes to finish them for survivors. It's quicker for them to so their objectives no matter what as it is now. Skilled survivors with jukes n such will waste time even with less loops and pallets. Loops are getting hit, some loop spots needs to be there since survivors cannot do anything directly to the killer. Not supposed to be free kills either, it's a time issue. Too few objectives, 6 survivor objectives to 12 killer objectives. The killer solos his objectives and survivors don't, you can keep one busy but the other three are still on half of the objectives for survivors.
  • Justicar
    Justicar Member Posts: 319

    They just need to fix chases, specifically they need to make longer chases favor the killer, not the survivor. Return bloodlust to its original values, and make it so that bashing pallets doesn't drop bloodlust.