Visit the Kill Switch Master List for more information on these and other current known issues: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/299-kill-switch-master-list
We encourage you to be as honest as possible in letting us know how you feel about the game. The information and answers provided are anonymous, not shared with any third-party, and will not be used for purposes other than survey analysis.
Access the survey HERE!
When killers have to "guess" it's fine, but when survivors have to "guess" it's a disaster.
Do you know why Spirit is the "SWF" killer?
Because she doesn't depend on survivors being bad or making mistakes like many other killers do.
AS WE ALL KNOW
Most killers lack abilities that shut down loops in one way or another and have either to power through them (run in circles until survivor is forced to drop a pallet) or try to mindgame survivors (which usually works only in closed loops, where nor killer or survivor can see each other and have to guess what each of them will do.).
Killers are forced to "guess" what moves survivor is going to make and try to predict them and act accordingly or make lucky guesses (if killer has zero clue how survivor and hope that they will be correct. The good example of such "mindgamable loops" are:
- Long&Short high walls. They are usually present by high rocks or walls which cannot be seen through.
- T&L walls
- Jungle Gyms` pallet loop
- Any unique loops with long walls
and etc. In any of these loops, killer has to either power through and waste a lot of time or "mindgame". Good killer has a pretty good understanding of survivors' behaviour in such loops and he can try mindgaming them there and hope his mindgames will work. The thing is, if the survivor is good, he will not fall for these mindgames. Killer will only waste time doing them and he will have to power through loops.
The "M1" killers are at disadvantage in mindgames. They are the ones who have to rely on survivor's mistakes and the ones who have to force these mistakes in order not to get looped for 5 gens. If survivors are bad - mindgames work and killer is winning. If survivors are good, the killer is losing because he cannot afford powering through loops against good survivors.
All "M1" killers mindgames are relying on survivors' mistakes, guessing and trying to force mistakes. Or losing because 1 chase costs too much.
That situation is perfectly fine for many spirit, edgeslinger, pyramid and other "not loopable killers" complainers. They are totally fine when the SURVIVOR is in advantage in loop and killer has to be the one "relying on other's mistakes".
however
When the situation is mirrored, people are going nuts.
When survivors are at the disadvantage and not the killer that's awful.
When survivors have to be the ones "guessing" it's horrible.
When survivors cannot do much against a killer who makes no mistakes it's a disaster.
When survivors are the ones who have to understand killers' behavior in loops (instead of just hearing them/seeing red stain) or lose it's unacceptable.
I'm talking mostly, almost entirely about spirit, as she is the one who gets upper-hand in mindgames, however this partly applies to Deathslinger&Pyramidhead (as they have some other generic counters like early pallet drops, keeping distance or hiding behind obstacles/having direct line of sight between you). As for Spirit - you understand how she moves, there's little guessing for you. If not, then yeah, flip a coin, just like bad killers have to or get downed, just like they power through loops and lose 5 gens in 1 chase.
I'm waiting for your pathetic excuses "yOu DoN't uNdeRsTaNd tHaT iS dIfFeReNt"
Comments
-
I don't think "lack of counterplay" is really an issue, especially in a game that is not really all that competitive.
But spirit does not seem quite right to me, I mean, she has her difficulty and all, but comparing her with killers like hag, billy, huntress and nurse with a high skill ceiling, she just feels too easy to play for what she offers, same problem I had with old billy and current freddy.
Its okay that a killer is strong, but to get to play him to his maximum potential you should have to put a considerable amount of brains on it, and with spirit its really not that hard, specially with add-ons.
3 -
She feels too easy because 99% of people don't know how to deal with her and refuse to do so.
It's as if people ran in straight line against charging billy, he would seem easy to play too, but once you face people who do all these jukes, you are going to have really hard times.
Once you meet survivors who actually know how to avoid Spirit, she won't seem very easy to you.
17 -
Obviously with your last statement, I already know that you won't actually listen to anything anyone will say. So I'm aware that this is falling on deaf ears:
In the times that the Killer is guessing, the survivor is also guessing. When the killer attempts to mindgame, you're guessing if the survivor is going to double back or not. At the same exact moment, once the killer's stain is gone from sight, the survivor is also guessing. Likewise, when the Huntress' hatchet winds up, you're guessing when she is going to release, guessing when Billy is going to fully charge his saw, etc.
Stridor Spirit removes pretty much all of the guesswork from the Killer's side. That's the part that people are complaining about.
9 -
I don't think you'll be ignored. He was just saying not to reply something like "STFU entitled b*tch"
3 -
Can't you say the same silly argument apply in reverse? You think there's decent counterplay because 99% of people don't know how to play her properly.
2 -
I think this is in part due to the fact that every other post about Spirit on here says "how to get good at spirit: buy a headset lul". She's a killer that mediocre killers can stomp mediocre survivors with, with very little skill required, but then said mediocre killers get shredded by good survivors. Mediocre spirits will burn all their power trying to find the survivor while phasing, fall for the "counters" people suggest, then chase as a 110 killer for 20 seconds while their power regens. But Spirits that utilize their powers in short bursts and use lunges to make up the difference are nigh uncounterable, but those are honestly decently rare. So when someone who watched a Tru3 video uses their counter against a Spirit and it works, and believes the posts that say all you need to be good at Spirit is a good headset, they think they've unlocked the master key lmao
2 -
That's a really fancy way of saying "I don't know how mind games work, but I'm gonna explain them anyway!"
Mind games involve guessing from both players, Spirit involves guessing from the survivor while she retains all the tools she needs to gain an advantage. Killers don't rely on survivors making mistakes to get downs, they take chances with 50/50s in order to have a shot at ending the chase early. Otherwise they have to use their power to close the chase gap and prevent the survivor from extending it indefinitely. This is objectively how chases work, you have no argument here so I don't expect you to respond. If you do respond, try not to resort to name calling too fast, that would be boring and predictable.
14 -
(Ik it has little to do with the post, but still)
Sweaty Spirit main's and tryhard swf 's problem would have been fixed if the mmr actually worked. It would keep these players in very high mmr, where no solo or not viable killers wouldn't exist
1 -
Stopped reading at Spirit. You're using literally the most OP killer in game. If you think otherwise you don't know squat about the game.
3 -
How does the Wraith use their power to "close the chase gap and prevent the survivor from extending it indefinitely?" M1 killers are given that moniker because their power does nothing to aid them in a chase: Their success is determined wholly by survivors being outpositioned, or by guessing incorrectly.
Every time a situation occurs where the outcome is not definite, that is technically a mindgame. The reason why the "winning chases relies on survivor mistakes" meme is such a thing, is because the majority of mindgames tend to be in the survivors favor by design: The red stain, a zoomed out third person perspective, the terror radius, being able to see over foliage/some walls, etc. The only real universal tools for killers to counter these things relies specifically on attempting to punish survivors over-reliance on these advantages: moonwalking, baiting pallet hops, etc. Therefore, the counterplay is, in itself, "making the survivor more likely to mess up."
When used honestly, its not saying that the killer's input doesn't matter, but more that the survivors input is "more important" to the outcome. Of course, since resources are limited, it starts more heavily in survivors favor and shifts toward the killer's favor as the match goes on... but thats why every killer player and their mother wants to slow the game down in the first place.
6 -
most times guessing as killer is honestly pretty rare the only examples i can think of is like the 50/50 pallet mindgame you can throw in your favour by moonwalking the pallet, or like people double vaulting windows but all some killers are can just be guessing like spirit or slinger
0 -
Spirit is worthless against any decent SWF, regardless of your skill and tactics. Food for thought.
3 -
By the outcome not being definite do you mean that players have to guess? The thing about guesses is that they are purely probability and "mind games". "Mind games" are used specifically to describe learning another player's preferred way of playing and exploiting it against them in situations where you would have to guess by knowing which guess is better and more likely to work against that particular player. Note the "situations where you would have to guess" part.
You can argue that survivors have 3rd person PoV but it's not much compared to the wide coverage that killers have in the form of a lunge. The red stain is unreliable because it can be hid. About Wraith, he's a hit and run killer so he uses his power to easily apply injury and leave survivors vulnerable to his future surprise attacks. Wraith couldn't hit and run or perform surprise attacks effectively without his power, which is why he's a moderately viable killer despite being an "m1 killer". Being an m1 killer doesn't mean you are automatically disadvantaged in chase, it just means that you lack the advantages other killers have. As a killer player I think gen speeds are fine.
0 -
If we're referring to Spirit here - this is a false argument.
Mind games are one thing. Mind gaming a pallet for example - both the killer and the survivor are attempting to mind game the same exact thing at the same time. This isn't the same as Spirit.
With Spirit - not only do you have to guess where she's going, you have to start by guessing if she's actually using her power or faking it to begin with. Which is impossible unless you're close enough for her to hit you, in which case "I guess you got mind games because she faked it when there's no tell 4Head". If she has Stridor? It doesn't even matter if you have Iron Will, if the player has ears, you're just dead usually. It's just a poor design.
Oni for example, or even Freddy (as boring as people say Freddy is, he has many counters). Both are very strong killers, with decent counterplay that can be outplayed by the killer - counterplay that doesn't involve guessing more than one thing at a time. Giving Spirit a specific animation when she starts phasing would remedy this, and it wouldn't hurt her skilled mind game play.
7 -
You can mind game without conditioning, if you replace the conditioning with the most favorable outcome. At any given uncertainty, players have to make a choice based on how they can benefit most from the situation. The baseline, therefore, would be for the killer to make their action based on countering what is most favorable for the survivor. From that point on, the mental competition is established, and the mindgame begins based on what information each side takes away from then exhange. You could argue that the "first mindgame" is based on implication rather than conditioning, and that the larger the sample size grows, the more it shifts from the former to the latter.
Third person perspective can be absolutely massive, especially with how much the devs have been adding and improving visual obstructions. As someone who is colorblind, corn maps and yamaoka maps are legitimately unplayable for me as killer, but as survivor I have minimal problems with them. Audio is supposed to be a compensation for this, but it gets bugged regularly and can sometimes cause more problems due to this than help. Lunging also slows the killer if they miss, so it is something that requires commiting to (risk vs reward) and being punished for failure. If anything, you should compare lunging to survivor interactions, as they need to commit to the vault/drop/etc and can be punished with a hit for misjudging distance.
I understand that the wraith is a hit and run killer, and that was exactly my point: His power does absolutely nothing for him in a chase, and can even hinder him: its strength comes entirely from increasing the liklihood of an unsuspecting survivor making a mistake with bad positioning, being caught unaware and not being able to correct their mistake in time. If bing bong boy is cloaked and you're sitting under a pallet, he can't do a single thing to you until he finishes decloaking, and you are entirely in control until he does, when the mindgame resumes.
On the last point of gen speeds, they're always fine until they're not. Far too many survivor players do not utilize gen speed to their advantage, which feels like the intended way they're supposed to progress. When they optimize gen speeds though, it has an exponential effect on every time a killer guesses wrong, eats a pallet, etc. Its part of why some killers like Demogorgon and the Clown take such a hit to map pressure, even though their powers help them in loops: Every time they do anything, its telling every survivor not in a chase "Don't worry guys, I'm not sneaking up on you, and am currently preoccupied." This makes many survivors act less afraid of focusing on gens, and thus indirectly speeds them up.
As long as they keep urban evading in corners and waiting in lockers the second someone gets downed waiting for the bbq proc, gen speeds tend to remain much more stable and reasonable. Take that apprehension out of the equation, and games speed up.
5 -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4bsPIdct_Q
Here is your answer. She is broken and needs CHANGE.
CHANGE doesnt necesserily mean NERF. Peace.
0 -
No one really flawless at DBD. Its more of how many mistakes killer has to make vs how many mistakes survivor has to make. Some games are legit unwinnable for m1 killers because the auto-pilot nature of the game for survivor. Spirit,Nurse,Doctor,Freddy and Pyramid head have the tools to win because they're able to challenge every loop at equal or killer favored tile. They just make the game "fair" on both sides.
The tools to win does not mean free win. It just means, possibility to win. It can be argued that DS,Huntress and Oni have some chances, but their power has too much definitive auto-pilot gameplay that they might as well not be considered. too slim chances to win. Billy used to be there too, but he is very far away now. Ideally, all the killers should have opportunity to win with like iri-add on but its just not the case and a lot of the games are games that you feel like you had zero influence on match outcome. A lot of the time in the game, It feels like killers need add-on and creative perk synergy's to become scary raid bosses but I feel like creativity for killer is very low as not much gets added to the game for killer where as the game is already complete from survivor side.
2 -
Decent? At what gens? Any killer would lose. A counter to the killer role shouldnt be a counter to a specific killer in retort to a true statement that spirit has no counter. If they are good at looping well that means nothing and if they hide well they arent food survivors
0 -
Just a fact, there are many loops that are literally unmindgameable. In those situations survivors are having the complete upper hand every single time against m1 killer.
This is the same as spirit, just in reverse. As killer you have no choice but to waste time to brute force it.
Even if survivor makes a mistake, dead hard will always save them. And i think these situations are far more common than facing a spirit.
2 -
unmindgameable loops are a problem that should be fixed or mitigated as much as possible, I agree. Dead Hard saves you from one 50/50 sure, but sprint burst and lithe can take you to an unmindgameable loop and BL gives you extra options where you wouldn't have any. DH is no better than any other exhaustion perk.
0 -
Agree. Those exhaustion perks are also literally uncounterable as m1 killer.
You cannot stop sprint burst and lithe and to some extend, DH used in loops for distance.
And these are only having 40 secs cooldown.. so if i drop the chase, 90 % of the time when i see the same survivors again, they get it back already
6 -
I agree there is a pretty hard double standard going on with the "mind game" vs "guessing" debate.
10 -
You are confusing "skilled" and "good," although there is little skill to survivor outside of an m1 chase. Good survivors are the ones who always escape.
0 -
That's part of my argument why the while deathslinger/PH discussion is BS. People just want reliable counterplay. Reliable counterplay is what makes a killer bad btw.
8 -
So that's why Doc, Ghostface, and Hag are bad? Oh wait they aren't and you were wrong about reliable counterplay making a killer bad, oopsies.
0 -
I am personally fine with nurse even tho many would say she is stronger than spirit. Spirit is a ######### design at it's current state, sorry but she needs any sort of indicator while she is phasing; she will still be strong but at least i can interact with the killer in a mindful way, not just a standing still mindgame and have to guess 50/50.
she also needs some penalty to her power, she can't be spamming it multiple times; it's a reward for bad plays.
0 -
That means there is no good survivor and no good killers based off of your logic
0 -
What 50/50s? Loops like jungle gyms and some buildings are blatantly unfair. There is no guess, the survivor is in control.
3 -
As a Nurse main, about 90% of my games feel “easy” because the majority of survivors don’t even try to engage in mindgames. It’s 2020 and they are still doing things like running in a straight line and slamming pallets. Most of the community stinks at the game, to be totally honest.
7 -
I think a lot of the frustration comes from people that played mainly/exclusively Survivor for a long time. They are used to chases being easy to prolong and now that the game moves in a more balanced direction they feel robbed because it isn´t as easy as back then anymore.
With Spirit and to an extend Deathslinger you make a fair point to a degree because it gives a taste of how it feels like for a huge bunch of the Killer cast in chases. Usually the Killer has no reasonable chance to outplay the Survivor but has to wait for the Survivor to mess up.
Yet Spirit and Slinger definately don´t provide interesting chases for the Survivor on high levels. Their kit feels unfair and it sucks. I´d rather have the DEVs make Tiles more fair for both sides and nerf these Killers.
As a Killer "main" I WANT interesting and tense chases. This is nothing one can get from car loops, debree loops, long wall Jungle gym or Ormond tiles though.
1 -
How are jungle gyms unfair? Unless you are playing a completely M1 killer like GF, legion or wraith you have ways of cutting them.
0 -
The man has spoken... it's funny that it only works one way on these forums
For the record I am that dirty Stridor Spirit who cranks my volume up if I feel like winning after a rough couple playing other killers and I think the phasing noise should be directional or produce soft footsteps if all her addons are remaining the way they are now (Activation, movement speed , especially the Yaku Amulet + Mother Daughter Ring Combo which is borderline broken at +70% movement speed, -26% movement speed with insane recovery and 8.5 second duration instead of 5 seconds.
0 -
Isn´t the mindgame fixed on the survivor side by streched resolution? After seeing ppl play with 1080 x 1080, i would really say mindgames are gone for players who don´t want them.
3 -
How? Please explain.
0 -
^^^ This.
Can you really call it a mindgame, when you yourself have the advantage at all times? There really is no mindgame to it when you have the upper hand. You either phase or you don't and as survivor you wouldn't know which one they're going for. Just slap on some Stridor on that Spirit build and unless they don't know how sounds work in the game, and bye-bye goes the unpredictability when she's phasing argument as well.
It surprises me how much of this unmindgame-able bs is still in the game and it's starting to really annoy me. Unmindgame-able loops, Spirit... Just delete it all please
2 -
Even noob3 doesnt escape all the time
0 -
Most killers can’t do anything about it. You forgot trapper, pig, Myers and others btw. Regardless, that situation shouldn’t exist against any killer.
0 -
That's why those killers need buffs. Then wow suddenly there are less map problems in the game.
0 -
they waste x amount of time by the fact that you can treat a jungle gym like safe filler pallet but many experience survivors will try to greed the window and than use window as vantage point or look for red glow for when a killer turns a corner. Basically your forced to break the pallet and the killer gets nothing for it than you just run next to tile and do same thing while everyone else just does gens. there is some very specific red glow mindgames on those tiles at very specific positions but they are a bit unreliable and rely on your intuition of seeing people through the wall. It is just surprising for how few people are able to loop the basic m1 killers for 3-4 minutes on super favored survivor loops and how badly most survivors fail to hold m1 on super easy skill checks but the game is pretty casual as most of the killers are easier to beat then a dark souls boss.
0 -
Survivor is usually getting more information than killer because survivor has 3rd person view. The simplest example - survivor can stand in the pallet and observe both sides of the long wall in long&short loop, while killer isn't even 100% sure survivor is in the pallet because he cannot see him. Guessing part is less for survivor who naturally gets more feedback.
As for "stridor spirit", this mostly works when you are injured. If you are healthy and she manages to HEAR your "breathing" while being deafened by vacuum cleaner noises, then you just can't be mad about it, because THIS spirit is really good and has an exceptionally good headphones set and owl's hearing (which is not the case for most spirits you are ever going to face, let's be honest).
0 -
We are not talking about "other" killers in that thread who have ability to cut loops in one way or another. It's obvious that if the killer can cut loop, then (usually) the killer is in control in one way or another and has bigger advantage.
0 -
You’re last statement is amazing because it actually describes your problem. You don’t understand.
2 -
Then go ahead, tell me what I don't understand.
0 -
That's a lot of words for something that boils down to "I like being op at chases".
Yeah, I can see why. An organized team will do that to you. But the pot has everything stirred in. Swf and uncoordinated teams.
Simply put, they need a new mechanic that desyncs a swf swat teams rhythm without compromising literally the entirety of the rest of the playerbase. Hardcore mode? I dunno.
But hearing grunts while phasing is just too much currently. She's invisible, gets a speed boost, and sees your scratch marks. She's Wraith without any downside. Might as well have a marker showing your position too while playing survivor.
0 -
You're apart of the problem.
4 -
I think Spirit having a mindgame advantage at loops is perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with some killers being better at looping than others, and there's nothing wrong with a killer forcing a survivor to have to make educated guesses about the killer's intentions to increase their chances of making a misplay.
To me, if Spirit needs a nerf, it's only because she is both excellent at loops AND has excellent map mobility. Her ability doubles as both a way to efficiently beat survivors in loops and a way to very quickly transition from one part of the map to another to extend her pressure. It's that double whammy of great at chases and great and map movement that makes her one of the top two or three killers in the game (along with Nurse and Freddy who are great for the same reason).
For example, Clown is also excellent at chases and loops. He can very efficiently get hits in chases and can basically force early pallet drops and still then potentially beat survivors at the loop after the pallet is dropped depending on its size. And that's great. ... But that's also all he has. Without a way to get around the map quickly he's limited in how much he can do when the survivors are spread out and he needs to spend time getting from one chase to another. Spirit in comparison can pretty much do it all.
Or on the flip side, look at Demogorgon. He can set up portals and get around the map really well, but his Shred is mostly situational so his efficiency at getting downs and beating loops isn't as good as Spirit's. And even though she can't teleport she can phase sprint very quickly when necessary.
So if Spirit is in fact overpowered based on her actual stats (which I have no idea if she is or not since there's no official stat site to compare killer's scores and kill percentages) then nerfing her should probably be either to make her not quite as good at loops OR reduce her ability to get around the map quickly but keep her able to do loops. An interesting idea for instance would be to make her phasing move her at 110% or 115% or 120% speed for a fairly short time but allow her to phase through objects. By phasing invisible through pallets and walls she could potentially still have an edge at loops like she does now, but by only moving at normal speed while phased it takes away the ability to cross the map quickly. (It also probably makes more sense thematically being able to phase through things but that's just my opinion.)
1 -
You know what the counter to Stridor Spirit is. Stealth and not getting injured. Sorry that you can't loop her but I don't believe all killers should be loop-able and have yet to find a convincing argument otherwise.
2 -
It's because the killer always has the option to not guess and just chase the survivor without doing any double-backs. Survivors don't get that opportunity against Spirit. They will go down if they don't attempt a guess.
In short: the situations aren't reversible
1 -
No, you are wrong here. If survivor refuses to mindgame, he loses the chase. If killer refuses to mindgame, he loses the chase (wastes too much time on it, which inevitably leads to defeat). The only difference is that if survivor refuses to play mindgames, the chase ends very fast, while if killer refuses, the chase will last too long for it to be acceptable.
Situations are reversible with taking assymetric aspect in account.
2 -
I think Scott Jund said it best with Spirit. It is not about strong killers vs weak killers. It is about killers that completely remove the skill of the player. It does not matter if you are a great survivor or a crappy one, Spirit removes that aspect all together. It is down to pure guess work. Though as killer I have to guess at times, it is not the core of everything I'm doing. I use experience and strategy to force things most of the time. Whether it is consciously taking the worst approach to a jungle gym loop in order to push the survivor into my trap, or picking which areas of the map I won't pressure due to a lack of gens and/or the presence of strong loops in an area. In a chase, I may intentionally feign a pallet break or placing a trap in order to push a survivor away from a strong loop. None of this is guess work. It is all strategy. As a survivor, many chases, if not all, come down to pure guess-work and hoping the killer sucks. It does not matter if I'm good at stealth or good at looping, Spirit bypasses all of that in the hands of a semi-competent player.
There are whiny survivors out there that claim every killer is OP, but I don't find the argument vs Spirit to be in the same category. Her power, especially when combined with certain perks, is too oppressive. It eliminates the skill of the survivor and anytime you do that, you are hurting the game. What is the purpose of "getting gud" when it is irrelevant vs a certain power set?
1