The power dynamic is getting out of control and every reworked map set makes it worse
I've played the game since 2016, i play both roles regularly, and i have to say the most recent map "reworks" are getting drastically out of hand. When totems were added as a secondary "time wasting" objective for survivors, it took killer perk slots to force them into actually being done.
The same does not apply for breakable doors. Survivors are already the power role and stronger than every single killer (other than Nurse and Spirit), but with all the breakable doors being added to every map, this is just getting worse.
I now have to choose at the start of every match to either forgo a third of each generator a survivor is on (potentially losing up to a third of the entirety of the survivor objectives in the process immediately) just to break the most crucial doors on most maps, or i end up losing those 20-30 seconds in any given chance once a survivor runs at that tile and i'm forced to break the "optional" door.
We're effectively starting with pre-dropped pallets from a mechanical stand point, most of which turn into god loops worse than the ones that were patched out of the game (the new main building on blood lodge or the return of the god window on the groaning storehouse just to name two examples)
This has to STOP. Killers are already DRASTICALLY underpowered and the only way for me to even somewhat consistently secure a single kill involves a whole lot of proxycamping and just playing very very boring.
Adding unstoppable windows to two thirds of the map pool with a forced breaking interaction next to them is making this SO much worse.
Please Behavior, listen to your fog whisperers like Tru3Tal3nt and rebalance the maps around survivors that know what they're doing, not rank 15 people with 10 hours in the game that drop every pallet on sight and then complain they run out of resources.
Currently there's such an overflow of loops and resources available that i can loop any non-nurse/spirit killer for three minutes consistently over 20 maps and that is NOT okay.
I am getting utterly demolished on killer because one out of two squads has an object of obsession, 4 dead hards, DS spam, a dedicated BT/Unbreakable saver and about three dozen pallets available, and in return on survivor i'm getting matched with literal rank 18 console players at Rank 2 because noone wants to play survivor solo queue (and all the killers play "optimal" aka proxycamping to force 1 for 1 trades)
As a result my games consist of either
- Me being utterly powerless against teabagging SWFs,
- boredom and domination (when i do get a good survivor team)
- or boredom and getting onehooked via (proxy-/face-)camp when matched with low rank teams
At this rate i'm not surprised matchmaking takes between 15 and 20 minutes to find a lobby - the gameplay with this flood of resources at hand is garbage.
My goal with this post isn't just to lay blame at your feet for your recent design choices but to desperately urge you to improve the gameplay and design choices that have driven even your most dedicated allies and fog whisperers to either quit entirely (Noob3) or "not give a ######### anymore" (Tru3).
So in the spirit of constructive criticism, here's some changes i would implement immediately:
- Please stop adding breakable doors absolutely everywhere, or if you must at least remove an equivalent number of pallets. Having 40 breakable objects on any map means those maps are a default loss against good survivors
- Reevaluate the positions of indoor pallets, and the frequency of the long-wall "Small i" shaped walls that infamously spawn 4-5 times on Fractured Cowshed but are also super prevalent on other tilesets - we dont need 6-7 unmindgameable godpallets on every map. I shouldn't be able to loop a Meyers for 8 minutes on Haddonfield because i have 4 garage pallets and the indoor cellar one available.
- Adding 2 seconds to two-survivor gens changed absolutely nothing about the crucial first 2 minutes of a match. You're still faced with the choice of "Bring Corrupt Intervention" or having a gen go up after 46-50 seconds, which probably won't even cost the first survivor you find more than 2 pallets (out of up to 25 on some maps). Trading 20% of the objective (+ more progress by the fourth survivor) for less than 10% of the available resources consistently just because of spawns is bad balance and unhealthily predetermines the match outcome - 2 players on a gen should take 60 seconds or more to complete it, at least in the initial phase of the game. Think of it as an "Early game lull", for example a 90 second period where Aura reading perks don't function (No Object during initial camera spin to call out the position would be a huge help already) and generators are progressed significantly slower until a survivor is injured or a chase is initiated. Basically a reverse Endgame Collapse.
- I love your game and i want to be able to play it from both sides. But currently the levels of powerlessness against the teams i'm being matched with is frustrating, especially when compared to the teams i'm matched with on the other side of the equation. And i don't want your "here, have a rank 12 squad" pity wins in between either, every time i've lost 3 games in a row i get a remarkably weak team as opponents and crush them with 3 or less gens done. It's obvious what the matchmaking is doing there and i HATE the fact that that's even a design choice you would consider implementing. Leave that kind of crappy "engagement driving" to Activision, they literally patented it for a reason.
- There has to be a HARD limit on how far apart the players you put together can be, or otherwise yes their queue time stays below half an hour but the 5 minute game that ensues is utterly frustrating and in no way fun or engaging them to continue playing. I played against a literal rank 20 player with 2 hours of game time in their first ever killer match yesterday, as a Rank 2 survivor. Yes, the queue wait time was 21 minutes long, but do you REALLY believe that player is going to continue playing DbD after i ran him around for over nine minutes and then DSed him for a free escape? At this point i have to say DbD is finally overtaking League of Legends as my "game with worst matchmaking" and that's not exactly an achievement.
Comments
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TL;DR: Breakable walls are a huge problem because the time required to break them to disarm (former) godloops is a "secondary objective" most killers literally cannot afford to do against competent survivors.
Matchmaking is in the worst state it's ever been, you would get more accurate matches by randomizing from the entire pool of online players (because matches would still be bad but at least queue times would go under 15 minutes)
Bunch of balancing suggestions to compensate for the huge discrepancy of resources available on reworked maps pre- and post- rework (Ormond being the only map to actually get more balanced in the rework process, while every other map consistently became more survivor friendly, or at least more resource-loaded)
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One of your suggestions is literally killer perk, "Generator progress slower when Injured", Thanotophobia. Recently got weaker by removing the healing penalty to insure that the perk can never hit 4 stacks as you can heal easily out of it. Gen speed problems is nothing new. honestly if they just set to 90 seconds, It would fix a lot of issues at higher ranks.
Survivor being imbalanced hasn't changed in last 4 years, most of major changes occurred in first year of the game and nothing much has changed ever since. God windows were intentional by design from the looks of it, Before there wasn't even any option to deal with them, At least now you can breakable walls but that is barely an improvement given time sink. Haddonfield and Fracture Cowshed were always imbalance maps and they haven't really changed. Same for majority of old survivor maps both pre-rework and post rework. Apart from T-L wall maze tile, most of the tiles included a very strong window when utilized correctly & safe-god pallet and most of the filler pallets are still as safe as ever. Overflow of resource to loop for 3 minutes is not new. Its just rewarding survivor skill. The issue is "When does DBD begin to reward killer skill?" on non-nurse/Non-Spirit level killer. It appears that whenever this starts to be the case e.g Billy,Freddy,Pyramid head, Survivors complain about it enough that it get removed or needs changes. Stuff that is skillful for survivor get preserved and Killer stuff seems to never stay the same.
Matchmaking hasn't change much either. The only thing that did change is crossplay. Seems console has a lot of survivor players and almost no killer players. When you win a lot, the matchmaker seems to put you against stronger survivor players until you lose, and when you lose enough, it eventually puts you against weaker players. This is all well and good but why this is not reflected in ranking system remains a mystery. as for lack of killers... well that is related to fun factor killer, which has progressively becoming worse over last year. When killer becomes more fun to play, you'll have shorter survivor queue times hopefully.
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Holding W to the nearest pallet isn't survivor skill though. The amount of resources should be balanced around the survivors that know what they are doing, when to take hits and when to drop pallets, how to not just camp at pallets to avoid creating deadzones etcetera.
Right now the balance is in such a poor state that just holding Shift W to the nearest pallet, camping it and dropping it instantly is a VIABLE ESCAPE STRATEGY. When there are 3x more efficient strategies easily available. That's what i have a problem with, it's set up to literally reward bad survivor play, making great survivors immortal in the process.
It's unfun to go against on killer and it's starting to outright bore me on survivor, because it forces every killer to play either Spirit, Nurse, or the same slugging deadzones tunnel strategy that i've gone against in 80% of my recent games.
Yes you read that right, i want killer buffs to make my survivor games better. Not only am i sick of waiting for literally an average of above 10 minutes to find a lobby (with spikes up to 25 minutes during off-hours) but the games themselves are so boring because the killers are forced into the most "optimal" strategy of slugging by the sheer overflow of resources.
I can only beg the developers to start listening to the people with thousands and thousands of hours like Tru3Tal3nt who seem to analyze the mechanical outcomes of their design decisions far better than their own internal balance team.
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Here, here!
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