Decisive Strike + Unbreakable Reveals Why This Game Sucks
Every new perk in the game is competing with Decisive Strike and Unbreakable. Due to the fact that no perks can match Decisive Strike combined with Unbreakable, the meta has been unchanged for years. This stagnant meta has been turning players away due to a lack of variety in matches.
Poor gameplay mechanics force Survivors to run Decisive Strike + Unbreakable every match, and Killers are forced to play against this combination every match as a result. BHVR's solution so far to mend this has been to shift the meta by buffing underused perks to make them more appealing. The problem with that, however:
If the perks you are trying to buff do not give you 60 seconds of complete and total invincibility, they will not be used, unless buffed to absurdity.
If you want things to change, buffing bad perks is not enough. Decisive Strike and Unbreakable need to be nerfed to the level of every other perk.
A better change would be transforming Dead by Daylight into a completely different game where DS + Unbreakable didn't feel like a requirement, or didn't even exist.
When a Survivor is not being chased, the only thing for them to do is repair generators. The Killer can't chase all 4 Survivors at the same time, causing gens to be repaired alarmingly fast. The speed at which Survivors can complete their objective, compared to the time it takes for the Killer to get their first hook, causes Killers to become frustrated with the game. This is the main reason you see complaints from Killers about the game being stressful.
The solution to this is to then camp and tunnel Survivors. Staying near the hook and forcing Survivors to come to you, or focusing on killing one Survivor very quickly, takes far less work then chasing every Survivor 12+ times while also slowing gen progress. The Survivor on the receiving end of this is not having any fun at all, however. This is what leads to Decisive Strike being used. Decisive Strike causes Killers to be stunned for 5 seconds when picking up a Survivor within 60 seconds after being unhooked. This gives the Survivor a chance to escape if the Killer is only chasing them.
60 seconds of working on generators while being ungrabbable is very powerful. Slugging, or leaving the Survivors in the Dying State, can stop Survivors from abusing the 60 seconds of invulnerability this perk provides. How do you know if a recently unhooked survivor should be slugged? You don't, so the smart decision is to always slug.
Being slugged is not fun. In response to being slugged, Survivors use the perk Unbreakable. Unbreakable allows Survivors pick themselves up from the Dying State. This means that the other 3 Survivors can continue working on generators while the slugged Survivor picks themselves back up. This causes the Killer to lose any map pressure gained through slugging, making their actions feel less impactful, leading to more stress.
Decisive Strike and Unbreakable combined grants 60 seconds of invincibility towards being hooked and being slugged. When all 4 Survivors are using this, the effect becomes overwhelming. If you are playing too well, this can create moments where potentially multiple Survivors cannot be hooked. Untouchable Survivors working on generators can cause matches to completely turn around in the Survivors favor. Outplaying the Survivors only to have them escape due to invincibility leads to games that can feel cheap for the Killer.
Another reason why Survivors are pushed towards Decisive Strike + Unbreakable is because it allows for a more aggressive playstyle, which means constantly being chased by the Killer. The reason why Survivors are adopting this playstyle is because the main objective for Survivor is mind-numbingly boring. No one wants to hold m1 for 80 seconds on every gen in every match. Powering the exit gates simply isn't fun.
I believe the main reason toxicity is so rampant is because of just how unfun this game really is. Survivors do whatever they can to get the Killers attention, because they want to be chased. Killers then play like dicks in response to Survivor behavior, who are only acting like this because the main objective isn't fun.
So what we essentially need is Dead by Daylight but with no slugging, hooking, or generators.
What does this look like? Probably like Monstrum 2.
Comments
-
Actually with the queue times I wouldn't be opposed to 25% of the survivor playerbase rage quitting
1 -
I just knock out DS early. Hook, tunnel to down, pick up. If DS, find another survivor. If no DS, drop them.
0 -
In my half year of playing DBD, i have never encountered Decisive Strike, neither as a survivor nor a killer. As for the game going too fast, i've never noticed it going TOO fast while I kill. Yeah its annoying when two gens get done by the time I hook the first survivor, but then it usually slows to a crawl. Maybe its my killers, Legion, Wraith, and Doctor that make that the reason for the slow down, legion is surprisingly good at making survivors take a bit of time off generators, Wraith makes everyone so paranoid they never want to stay still for too long, and Doctor makes sure you always know where they are if you play him right.
0 -
What are you, Rank 18 as killer?
Getting DS'd after hooking a survivor, hooking another survivor, and then downing the original happens to me once a week. 60 seconds is a loooong time and you just stop thinking about DS in these situations.
1 -
I was gonna say, the guy must be at brown ranks or something. I see DS almost every game at purple/red ranks.
That said, I guess it really depends what killer I’m playing if I care about it or not. If you are playing some of the stronger killers I can see why it’s in the game. Especially against solo Q teams.
I get DSd constantly. Either for killing survivors too fast, because I’m actually tunneling, or because survivors love to force it.
My only real problem is locker DS. Depending on my mood I do play “nice” sometimes as killer and just go for the basic gameplay of swapping targets and letting survivors get easy unhooks because I like blood points; but nothing ends that faster than someone locker DSing me. I usually just tunnel them out of the game after that. Unbreakable won’t help them in that situation at all.
0 -
Rank 16 for the record. And mathamatically, just taking the DS is faster. You grab them, they stab you, you lose 5 seconds and they run away, but they lost their DS. Or you let them Unbreak themselves and waste 60 seconds.
0
