I think this game is nearly impossible to balance
Warning: This is long as it was something I was thinking about for a while that I wanted to get out of my head.
I see a ton of posts about what people think the balance should be and there's a lot of disparity between what people think is balanced for this game and its made me realized that balancing this game is honestly really hard especially since it constantly has to add new content and meet a multitude of expectations. Killers want to feel powerful and scare/kill survivors but to do that survivors have to be weaker than killers which isn't fun for survivors who are also wanting to feel like they're powerful and have outsmarted the killer. And when 80% of your player base is ideally survivors you tend to cater to them as they're also 80% of your income and this is a business. That being said there's no game with no killers so there has to be something in it for them. Plus the game when I joined was marketed as "Be the killer and torment the survivors or be part of a team of survivors and work together to escape" which I think has been poorly delivered since so many killers and survivors feel frustrated by the state of things. So here are some balancing things I've thought about.
Starting with killers vs survivors. If you make the killer consistently capable of being able to juggle 4 survivors working together (working together should be the key premise for survivors) without to much effort why wouldn't he just kill one as fast as possible (tunneling, camping, mori) and the other 3 survivors would be screwed. If he could juggle 4 then 3 is going to be no problem and it's going to be that much harder for the remaining survivors as tasks will take longer (another advantage for the killer) and they're gonna feel cheated as the killer gains more of an advantage.Β
In the flip side making it so one survivor can stand against the killer by himself makes no sense either cause then it's one killer being bullied by 4 survivors and the survivors start with all the advantage. It would take a miracle for the killer to get it down to 1v1.
For the killer to be about as good as 2 survivors in terms of skill, the killer would likely be at a disadvantage for to long as the gens get done and the survivors cover for each other. Be more likely he'd lose I want to say 70% of the time before getting to level the playing field although I have no evidence to back that up.
Then we consider if 3 survivors working together is about equal to the killer skill level. The killer still starts at a disadvantage as there's 4 survivors to begin with but there's a fair likelyhood he'd get them down to 3 survivors if even one of them is selfish or incompetent making that equal playing field and if he does it in a decent time the killer won't spend the whole match frantically trying to level the playing field so less likely to resort to tunneling and camping. (All of this is theory. I know toxic players are gonna be toxic no matter what kind of incentive they're given not to be)
Now none of this even mentions perks. Perks add a whole new problem cause a killer that's balance for its base perks could end up unbalance with other killer perks and playtesting every combination of perks with every killers unique powers is a huge amount of work. Personally I think killer perks should be less about direct time delay (though how the game flows is another issue) and more about splitting survivors in a way that favors the killer (given traditional horror movies its the isolated ones that die first) The same goes for survivors. The meta perks are pretty consistently used because they blend together so well that using anything else seems pointless. If they introduce something that breaks the meta then they'd have to playtest all the combinations to make sure there isn't a new meta which as previously mentioned is a huge amount of work.
Now for that bit about how the game flows I mentioned earlier. I think gens were a good start but there needs to be more and increasing gen times is not the answer. Increased gen times is boring and sucks for the survivors. There needs to be something fun and engaging that survivors can do that pads out the run time of matches more evenly while still fun for the survivors. I don't know what that is but there has to be something.
Now I haven't even considered how to factor in add-ons which is another headache cause how much of a buff should they give, does that add-on break the game, is that add-on even worth it. Can we make an add-on less game breaking by adding drawbacks. Are those drawbacks to severe for the add-on to be useful. Its a nightmare.
Matchmaking is also hard to do adequately cause some people want as many games as fast as possible where others want balanced games. I saw someone say their should be two different modes. Quick play and ranked. I personally like that idea.
Which brings me to rankings. Rankings in this game are honestly hard to determine because if you're a survivors and your team does well you do well. If your a killer and the survivors do badly you do well. If your a survivor and your team does badly you do badly if your a killer and the survivors do well you do badly. I could go on and there are exceptions but the point is there's no good measuring stick because each match is different because everyone is a player with different builds and as a result a good move in one match can be a terrible move in a different match or even a different point in the same match. Building a system that can accurately determine how much value you added to a game like this sounds like a nightmare to me.
So in conclusion balancing this game is hard and we could all cut the devs some slack. Yes there are things they could do better. Listening to community feedback a little more, having a dedicated playtest team that plays the whole game in and out of production phases, and numerous other things but let's face it. This came out when asymmetrical game play was popular. They probably never dreamed it would get this big. Also thank you for anyone who reads this. It's much appreciated.
Comments
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The problem with balancing DbD can be condensed into just 2 words:
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Yes, the biggest obstacle to making a balanced Dead by Daylight is the average player.
This game is an anomaly. It's the only popular, actively developed, assymetrical (and horror) game out there so it encompasses too large of an audience.
You have people who genuinely see it as a competitive experience, those who want to improve and play to win mixed in with just as many people who see it as Mario Party with blood.
It creates an impossible dilemma where the devs can never make a "happy" balance because even if the game is perfectly even between killer and survivor there will be a large outcry from the Mario Party crew; same will happen if they appeal to the casual players and in turn upset those who play competitively.
This game will never satisfy everyone unless a more or less serious/casual competitor enters the market.
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You have a good point. Though we could also divide them with ranked an unranked modes. Mario party with blood would be unranked and ranked for those that want this game to be something they can get down to a science. Doesn't solve everything but I think it would be a decent start on the devs part.
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I wish they would start focusing on just making the game fun....
I want a goal as survivor in solo queue for example besides just escaping alive. Something with weight to it and such that I can do.
I want perks for killer that apply silly effects but give you more bloodpoints or some other reward.
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Thing is this game can never be balanced, because a certain set of people are holding the potential of the game back.
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The devs are balancing the game for the average survivor and they are usually not that good, they also are pushing changes wither it be buffs or nerfs to perks one of the main balance points of this game too slowly.
Like with perks it doesn't take a genius to see certain ones are bad and can be buffed reasonably hell i have a full list of perk changes that for the most part are all balanced in my eyes.
like i can get why killer changes need awhile for it to go through but there are SO many perks that can be changed mostly buffed and it's like the devs are afraid to make any changes at all.
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I absolutely agree with you. To me, the main problem is that if you balance the killers so that 12 hook matches are feasible, then the current non 12 hook strategies that killers have to do to win (slugging, camping, tunneling) would be insanely broken.
I honestly don't think this game can ever be balanced. And anyone who says "the killer is the power role" as an excuse to affirm that killers should win most matches doesn't understand how video games work. If one side has a bigger chance to win, no one will play the other side. The game is a bit more survivor sided currently, and look how long the survivor queues are -and the breach between survivor and killer isn't even THAT big, specially if you cast SWF sweat squads aside.
Not to mention that some people treat DBD like their serial killer roleplay fantasy, and ngl y'all need to stop playing and go to therapy maybe, if you are THAT obsessed with the idea of going in a murderous spree and being unstoppable. Lol.
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There's one point I want to comment on. If they made separate ranked and unranked modes SWF should only be an option in unranked. If you're gonna have a ranked mode it should reflect your skills at the game as a solo player working with other solo players. This eliminates swf discord edition in the ranked mode and allows people to experience the game as it was designed to be experienced. Of course this only works if the ranking system accurately reflects an individuals skill at the game which as I said in my post sounds really hard to do.
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The problem with the game isn't so much the gameplay as it is the stupid ranking system. The basic core of survivors working together against a killer is fine, but the fact they implemented a ranking system which ultimately punishes survival teamwork and compels them to sandbag each other is what destroys the game. The consequences of being hooked SHOULD be dying, but when that consequence is also de-ranking, it frustrates survivors who get face-camped, because there's literally nothing they can do.
That doesn't even begin to address the actual balancing of killer abilities, such as the fact that most of the insta-down killers are the fastest, and can hit multiple people at once. Nobody would care much about that if there wasn't punishment for dying. Killers are in the same boat for gen-rushing and survivors sitting at the open exit gate. It wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the punishment on top of losing a match.
BHVR wants the game to be professionally competitive, but it isn't. There was just an attempt at an ESport event in Japan, and it was the most boring, horrible crap ever, and nobody else (to my knowledge) even signed on to sponsor it. All the commercials were just DBD DLC trailers. For the fact the game is really the only one in its genre, you would think they'd be on top of the world here, but it appears that the only reason people play it is because it's the only game in its genre.
And that's all without even beginning to mention all the game-breaking bugs, desync, latency issues, etc. Even if the game was able to function at an optimal level, all of the above becomes the next big issue.
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I did try to address this in my post but you put it better. The current ranking system doesn't properly account for good or bad play on either side. Survivors can sandbag each other with no consequences. Part of the altruism category really should be based on how many teammates made it past the 5 minute mark or something like that where your score is tied to keeping everyone alive. Similar to how killers score is tied to how long they can go without a generator popping. Killers can camp and they now face some consequences score wise but they didn't always and the points lost are almost always made up for by how fast people die when you camp them. It's not a good play but its still rewarded or at least neutral as far as improving your rank goes.
Also first I heard of them trying a competitive esports event in Japan but it does sound terrible and didn't the developers explicitly state a few times that "DBD is not meant to be a competitive game" which completely goes against the idea of trying to sponsor an esports event.
Seems like they're grasping at straws because the workload to keep this game going is to much for them at this point.
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