I feel like the lack of empathy holds this game back.
And I'm not talking about the perk, (on a side note, I actually really like Empathy) I'm talking about how against the biased mains of one side are against the other.
No matter what BHVR does sometimes, they always lose. And I'm not making this a huge "Oh, BHVR are a godsend" they make mistakes, a lot, but sometimes even if they do good things they never win.
For example, this patch: Clown got buffed. It may not be the best rework, but it is all around a buff. A much shorter reload, and a slight way of making his way across the map? Wraith got buffed. He needs more, but it's a start.
Trapper got a nerf/buff. At least people won't get out on the first goddamn try anymore (most of the time.)
But because Undying got nerfed, all everyone is talking about is how survivor biased the Dev's are. When they Buffed three killers. Or at least, buffed two and half buffed one other.
Another thing is the biased members of each side hate when either side have a useful perk. All the nerf BBQ posts recently because I guess the multitude of counters to the perk are just too hard to do. Or the people that hate DH. DH is annoying as all hell, but at the end of the day I'm okay with it. DH for distance is the only thing I think is slightly unfair about the perk. Most of the time, it doesn't work if they have nothing to DH for distance to.
Solo-Queue is 100% the hardest thing in this game, and I think it really brings out the bias in the sides. There are killers that seem to think just because SWF exists, the problems with Solo Queue don't matter. Then the biased survivor mains thing because of how hard Solo Queue is, the only answer is to nerf every single killer and killer perk into the ground, when (imo) the real answer is just to buff Solo Queue. Nerfing things just makes one side less and less fun.
Speaking of SWF- It's important for the game. I used to think it didn't have a place in the game, but I've slowly realized... People just want to play with their friends sometimes. Yeah, SWF Sweat Squads suck but because there are Sweat Squads doesn't mean we have to punish the people who just wanna play with their friends.
Both sides have unbalanced things. I never really cared about Undying, because I learned a long time ago to not give a single ######### when it comes to the game, but I (as someone who plays Killer more) also understand the grievances with it. Against Solo Queue, it was debilitating.
I hate DS with a passion, for two reasons. I hate the free progression it tends to give, and I hate the fact that as an anti-tunnel tool, it barely works. A killer who really wants to tunnel will just power through DS easy-peasy. While DS is annoying, I also understand that getting tunneled is one of the most unfun things in this game. A perk like DS needs to exist.
Sorry for this rambly-ass post, I just hate the lack of empathy I see so often in this community. There are problems with this game, but I feel like they could be solved if we could all just stop being babies.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Comments
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I'm not saying the disappointment is unjustified. Personally, I feel like Clown's rework is the worst they've ever done. And I never really cared about Undying, because I knew it was gonna get nerfed from day one. I feel the nerf was a bit too extreme, but again - that's not what I'm talking about. I'm just talking about the rampant, blatant bias that's so common pretty much everywhere the game is talked about. Bias holds balance back.
The disappointment is definitely justified. But as a basis, I don't feel BHVR is Survivor or Killer biased, I think they just work too goddamn slow.
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I feel a huge reason for them working so slowly is they're always making new content. The balance and coding team are probably nearly always dedicated to the new chapters, and probably the next few chapters after that. They need to space out new content and balance, but they never will. Not unless something happens.
It'd be a start. I feel like Scott and Otz know this game more intimately than the Devs ever will.
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Hm high skilled unbiased players would say undying was unhealthy for the game, because solo Q survivors exist and not everyone is in a 4men SWF with 4 DS+UNB
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I agree OP that a lack of empathy or understanding for the other side is what causes such a disconnect. That is why I am a strong proponent of playing both sides with equal intensity.
Playing both sides really helps to clarify the truth of some of the DBD parlance we use, and define what exactly is, say tunneling and why it may be needed at times, for an example. But, honestly, if everyone would understand that we may not all agree nor play the same style and accept that others have the right to play how they want we would be moving in a better direction. And instead of hating or throwing shade, just move on to the next game.
Play how you want, and let others play how they want. And when ######### doesn't go your way, well just remember what Pac Said,
“I know it seems hard sometimes but remember one thing. Through every dark night, there's a bright day after that. So no matter how hard it get, stick your chest out, keep ya head up.... and handle it.”
― Tupac Shakur
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Blaming a community for a game doing bad is not really smart. Every single online multiplayer game has communities with similar people playing them and they also have a lot of toxicity and bitching about game stuff. But at the end of the day it's the game's company that decides what is done and what isn't, and this community bitching more than others is not what is holding the game back, it's their incompetence for not improving the game the way they should. Just compare to other game companies with similar size (600 employees) and you'd be embarassed with the little they do.
We can't make any changes, Behaviour does. So it's entirely their fault what holds the game back. Just look for example how well they handled No Man's Sky sky disaster. They were probably one of the most hated game companies out there and they still managed to make a comeback.
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Not to turn this into an Undying thread, but I will throw in my two cents- I think Undying was more so changed because it did the same thing old Ruin did. It was too oppressive for low skill players or majority of solo queue, or it just didn't do enough against Sweat SWFs.
Still though, I do agree with OP- I do think people should try to understand the issues of the people they're facing more often. Like the fact that, yeah, 4 DS+UB in a highly coordinated team can be absolutely killer. Or how randos can make or break your game as solo Survivor.
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I also feel like it's 'not really smart' to assume the community doesn't do anything for a game. The community is the driving force behind balance changes, behind the entire game. Without the community, there is no game. Yes, every game has bitching, but this game really has an issue because of the inherent "Us vs Them" of an asymmetrical game.
So yeah, BHVR makes the changes, but they make the changes in regards to the community. Ruin was changed because it only impacted the low ranks of the community,
The only reason No Man's Sky was changed because of people. If nobody complained, I doubt it would've been changed.
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I unironically think that this might be the problem, they shouldn't listen to the community because we don't even know what we want, the only thing we really want for the game is to be fun and balanced (and maybe not even that). We don't really know what is going to make it better and we are highly biased because we usually play one side more than the other, plus the people that make noise are a very small portion of the playerbase. They should use their data to balance the game and listen to some suggestions for inspiration. And do a lot more changes, they are sooo slow and feels like they are too scared to do big changes and more frequently.
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You mean all the dead zones they added on maps recently? Tell me how dead zones require any kind of skill by the killer.
You start generalizing by talking like all this game is SWF. Solo players exist, and a lot of you people really love to forget about that.
I consider myself quite skilled at 4k hours, always playing solo and in red ranks and never once used DS + UNB.
Undying was UNhealthy for solo Q and there's that.
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Yeah, the lack of empathy in this community just creates an extremely toxic place.
I've seen soooo many people who just play one side and could care less about the other side. I've seen killer mains who think every single survivor is a toxic scumbag who will use all the meta perks and tryhard, likewise I've also seen survivors who think every killer tunnels and camps.
I also agree with you on the whole no matter what BHVR does they're going to get a lot of complaints about it. I don't think they're perfect beings who could never do any wrong but with how this community is BHVR could buff 40 mediocre/bad perks and nerf like, 2 meta perks on survivor or nerf a killer and the community would say "BHVR has a bias against X side!"
Its seriously annoying and saddening to see. If people would just play the other side and acknowledge the problems with their own side the community would be a much, much better place.
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I never said I care if DS + UNB gets nerfed though. I don't use them.
This game can't be balanced around SWF.
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That perk has been in the game for almost 5 years
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Well, I already mentioned it in another post, but the reason they barely balance is that they're making too much new content. They are constantly working on new killers, on new perks, on new maps. They just don't have time to balance.
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Exactly.
It irritates me when because Solo Queue has problems, a persons first response is "make one whole side of this game have less fun by nerfing every single killer and killer perk imaginable."
Or, like I already said, when people act like every SWF is a death squad who comes in there wanting to bully and t-bag, when most of the time they're just friends trying to have fun.
People don't care about the other side, because with them it's always "sUrViVoR bAd, KiLlEr GoOd" or vice versa. It's like those people don't realize that there are people on that side that play this game for fun. Or they just don't care.
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I think that it is more of BHVR's incompetence rather than the community being very negative. They are a multimillion-dollar company and they can't seem to fix their game. Each patch we get there is hardly any new content, we get more bug fixes. I know it seems a little hypocritical for me to say that it is BHVR rather than the negative community since I myself have laced them before, but I do have a point. How can a multimillion-dollar company with a successful game for the past 5 years not manage to fix core issues that its own community has been complaining about; for 4-5 years.
This clown buff IMO, was not that great. They had several months (I think over a year?) to come up with a fix to clown's power, and they thought of something that can speed up the clown and sometimes survivors every once in a while in a match. This was just a really lazy idea and the most disappointing part is that I know for a fact BHVR will just bring this to the live servers and say "yeah, this was good enough". They are always doing the bare minimum, just look at the "tutorial" we have.
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I'm sorry but i don't buy that excuse.
They could easily just ask the community for their ideas on how to change some perks and look and test what would be the best/easiest change.
Or maybe they could use their fogwhisperers for more than just marketing and try to involve them in their balancing.
They need to realize that balancing needs the company AND the community.
Like come on,they really needed 1,5 years to realize that Fixated should also work when injured?Sorry but that's just pathetic.
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I don't buy it either, I just think it's the most likely reason they take so long to balance things. BHVR has a problem with not talking to their community very often, and a problem with taking a very long time to fix things.
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A lot of people who play are straight up a$$holes. They don't care about other people. They don't care if it is fun for others, they are pathetic people. I think we need the existing ranking system, but we also need user feedback displayed. If someone has a history of being a jerk to others it would be nice if that showed in their ratings. I would like to know if I'm facing a fair killer or a cheap douchebag. I can be toxic, but I choose not to be unless the killer reveals himself in game to be a jerk. Then it is 100% toxicity for you.
The game by design feeds a certain type of personality. There are some real weirdos who love the power fantasy of being a serial killer who inflicts pain. Unless you are playing rank one against swf it is so much easier to play killer. I wish the game would address this and add some balance. The killer mains who wine about it being a survivors heavy game must really really really suck. I suck as a killer but I always get at least 3k and that is without trying and not using perks.
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The reason why the devs are usually blamed so much is because they are the only ones who can actually make changes to this game, and a lot of times they let echo chambers cloud their judgment and end up nerfing things that don't need to be nerfed, survivor or killer.
There is nothing we can do but complain as a community and call them out on the mistakes they sometimes make because otherwise they won't change. I'll bet you money that BBQ gets nerfed in the near future because survivors keep complaining about it even though it has a easy counter (getting into a locker for like 2 seconds).
That leads to my next point, which is how are killers not supposed to see the devs as survivor-biased? Almost every decision they make seems to point towards that direction. I'm not saying that they never nerf survivor perks, but it seems like they always nerf killers/and their perks even more.
Why the hell is Undying getting nerfed to the ground & DS/OoO isn't even though its been complained about for a long time now? Didn't survivors wants more objectives anyway? I just dont understand the mentality.
Disclaimer: I will say that the devs should not be shamed & harassed because they try their best to make everyone happy even if it sometimes doesn't work out like that.
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They just choose to not spend enough ressources on important matters.
They know that they don't really have to try because there's pretty much 0 competition and they abuse that.
That's pretty much it.
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Undying and Ruin still works. It simply prevents Ruin from lasting to totem 5. That’s unnecessary, and is the primary reason they changed ruin to begin with (no free pressure). Giving extended pressure with undying is fine. It also now gives longer life to lullaby, devour hope, etc because you don’t lose stacks when undying is broken.
Life, like this game, is not black or white. It’s not “nerf or buff.” It was changed and rebalanced. That’s all. The sky is not falling.
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Back to the OP. Well said. I don’t have anything to add or say beyond I second your sentiments fully
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And Almo flat out said: "I don't care about Decisive Strike."
Something something statistics.
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If we want to create more empathy players should be forced to play Killer for every 4-5 games they play as a survivor. I learned to empathize a lot with killers after I started playing one. It would also help with the waiting times and regenerate some of the killer pool. I wouldn't mind playing a killer for every 4-5 games I get in as a survivor.
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Well that's just speculation that they don't have time (600 employees btw). I agree they should focus on balance rather than on new content but i genuinly don't feel like they are getting overworked unless they got spagetthi code, in wich case they better start working on DBD 2 with better design from the ground.
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Yeah, I don't buy that they are overworked with the current release rate and 600 employees(I have worked at smaller big time studios with better release rate than this). All of the graphics are last gen, the engine is very basic, and the arena is so limited that there ain't much to do except redo the map entirely if anything is needed.
Most likely they have a skeleton crew working on DBD while the rest is working on new projects(ie. new titles or ports). That's the standard MO for game studios like these. Only time you have a large proportion of the employees dedicated to a single ongoing title is in MMO type games.
My guess is that we are halfway to getting DBD2 rather than a proper overwork of the current one.
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Here's my 3 and 1/4 cents on the matter:
As a Killer Main, I actually empathize with Solo Survivors quite a lot.
Tunnelcamping sucks, period. It just does.
Sometimes it's unintentional, and there's just nothing you can do about it.
But on the whole, I feel like Solo needs a buff to SWF level, and then we can buff Killers across the board to match that new level.
The fact that they didn't even consider this still baffles me to this day.
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Imo that goes for both sides. If more killers played solo q survivor maybe they would think twice before hooking the person who was just farmed off hook without BT etc
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The first fix to solo queue is a working matchmaking system.
As for the killer buffs. Apparently ppl consider clown a nerf because the add-ons were changed as well and the buffs that were given don't compensate.
Trapper is more of a neutral change but it really depends on the numbers they put.
Wraith is a net buff.
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I play mostly survivor* and used to get really mad when killers were slugging, tunneling, or camping me. Then I tried killer and suddenly I couldn't get mad anymore. If anything I try to say "gg" to every killer I play against just to be that one bright spot in a sea of toxic survivors.
*My play time is about 90% survivor and 10% killer. However, that 10% negative experience is enough for me to be an apologist when someone camps, tunnels, or slugs me.
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No argument here - solo queue survivors have it fairly rough. It's why while I personally do feel devs are survivor biased (mostly due to the reaction time to survivor problems vs. killer problems), I also recognize that non-swf also gets a raw deal, and the biggest change I lobby for is just putting voice chat in the game and balancing around it.
Killers aren't the only ones getting the short end of the stick when it comes to wishy-washy balance.
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DBD thrives on bad players. It's the only reason why killers still play. If killers ran into 4 good players every game, the majority of killers would need to 3 gen to even stand a chance.
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Precisely.
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I've actually studied player psychology, and found out about a simple but important fact:
Nerfs make people angry. Literally invariably.
Buffs make people angry. But only if handled in the wrong way.
This has actually been proven. It's better to make everything horrendously overpowered than everything being pathetically underpowered.
This even works with tabletop games. Just look at Rifts or Exalted.
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This game just attracts the worst kinds of people and brings out the worst in gamers.
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I think this is a great way to help. Or make it random and you choose a killer and survivor in the Lobby but don't know what you are gonna get until the game starts. That random element would make the game much more interesting!
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The problem to me lies at the core of the game's design. There's stuff for both sides to abuse, and there's nothing that individual players can do to stop it.
Tunneling, camping, and slugging are strategies that will guarantee you at least one kill if done against good players, usually two or three if you do it against mediocre ones. The game is poorly balanced for the 12 hooks goal that it presents during the tutorial (and in the upcoming UI), to the point that the three strategies that are mentioned above are usually more reliable to get kills. A killer can abuse any of these, say for example tunneling: they tunnel a guy out from the game and there's nothing that individual survivor can do about it. The other three might escape if they rush the gens before that first dude is dead, but that one first survivor is absolutely dying. And if the other survs aren't efficient enough (which is usually what happens in solo Q, because of lack of communication and poor matchmaking), the game becomes a 3v1 pretty quickly and there's little the remaining survivors can do if they didn't rush the gens early. The same thing applies to camping. As for slugging, it's a bit different (and the reason why I don't find slugging as scummy as the other two) but given that killers usually need to slug to slow the game down I think we can all agree that it's more reliable than going for normal hooks.
Survivors, on the other hand, can take advantage of the poor balance around gen speed + map sizes. If they split up and are efficient enough they can get all five gens done in like 6-7 minutes, even less if they carry toolboxes + perks like Built to Last or Prove Thyself. Many killers lack the mobility to stop this, and even high mobility killers can't be in 3 places at the same time. If you hook someone and BBQ shows you 2 survivors in 2 different gens, you usually have to gamble. Let's say you are running PGTW, you go to one gen in hope that it does not pop right before you get there, and also leave the possibility for the other gen to pop as well because you can't go to both of them at the same time. Which is the reason why many killers choose to disregard gen defense almost completely and defend their hooks instead. The game encourages you to protect gens in the tutorial, but many times this can't be done in the actual gameplay. Specially on low mobility killers (but not only).
Survivors can also abuse perks like DS, UB and BT to make the killer waste a lot of time. These perks are necessary for the three strategies I mentioned above, DS is slightly useful against tunneling, UB is useful against slugging, and BT is reliable against camping. These perks exist to stop the killer from abusing strategies that wouldn't be a thing if the game was balanced around 12 hooks. However, they can be easily abused: survivors will aggressively unhook their teammates in front of the killer, and the killer won't be able to take advantage from such a move because the unhooked survivor will have BT + a whole minute of DS protecting them. They can instead go for the unhooker, but it is unfair that, in a situation where the killer is literally gifted with the presence of two survivors in the same place solely because they chose to unhook safely, they can not take advantage from it immediately. Not to mention the unhooked survivor abusing BT to bodyblock, and the 59 secs DS the killer may get stun with without even tunneling.
However, how can this be fixed? I don't think it's that easy. You could nerf the survivor meta perks, and then the tunneling and/or camping would be rampant. You could buff the killers so that 12 hooks is actually feasible against equally good survivors, but this should be done with extreme care because it would be make tunneling, camping and slugging even stronger. If killers become so strong that they can actually 12 hook, it's only obvious that their current strongest strategies would become even more reliable, too. At the same time, gen speed + map size is a difficult subject, because making survivors hold M1 for longer is not a good idea, since it would make the game boring as heck and most survivors find chases the most enjoyable part of the game. I'm in favor of survivors having a different objective during the early game, so that gens don't pop that crazy at the start of the match, but this should also be implemented with care because it can make currently strong killers insanely deadly, and the above strategies mentioned even more reliable.
Not to mention that the devs try to fix core design problems through perks; this is a statement that I read someone make long ago when I just had started playing, but it took me a while to figure out how true it actually is. Gen speed is a problem if survivors split up, so they introduce slowdown perks (such as Ruin, PGTW, etc) to compensate. Pressuring multiple gens at the same time is not feasible for most killers, so we got Oppression, maybe Surge, also Ruin. Totem spawns are #########? Have Undying and Thrill of the Hunt. Killers camp? Use BT or Camaraderie (lol). Killers slug? Have Unbreakable, Soul Guard, etc. Killers tunnel? BT and DS can help you. And so on. Perks should not be there to fix design problems, imo. The design problems should be addressed themselves, and perks should give the players... perks. Small buffs, information that they don't have basekit, etc.
And then there's what you mentioned: many players lack empathy. Many killer mains don't give a ######### if the survivors are having an awful time because of the strategies they abuse. They don't care if the survivor being tunneled has a ######### time because "it's not their duty to make the game fun for others", because "survivors do not care to make the game fun for the killer either", because "the game allows it, the devs have said that tunneling is ok", etc. Empathy goes beyond any of these, it's looking at the situation from the other person's perspective and understanding how they feel. The same thing happens the other way around: many survivor players don't care about the killer's experience of the game. They will click click their flashlights, teabag, abuse the perks that they can abuse, rush the gens, all for pretty much the same reasons I mentioned above: "the game allows it", "it's not bannable", "most killers are scumbags anyway", "I don't care about the killer's fun".
But then again, the problem lies at the game's core. There is stuff that both sides can abuse, most of it being part of the core game design (+ the mentioned perks for survivor), and as long as that game design remains unchanged, there's little that either side can do about it. One can choose how they play, I usually try to be polite and not do to others what I do not like being done to myself. But I get people telling me that I shouldn't care how the other side feels and just play how I want. To some extent, it's a philosophical matter.
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Another example fallout 76 if you play it now it feels like a completely different game that's complete and getting free dlcs
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You've just described every competitve multiplayer game ever - and the exact reason why whoever decided to turn it into "esports" deserves to be hunted by a pack of rabid chihuhauas
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