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Why are killers expected to have skill but not survivors?
I keep noticing people say Spirit takes no skill, Freddy takes no skill, Pyramid takes no skill etc etc and they say these killers need nerfs to become skill based.
Yet there exists within the game many things on the survivor side which take no skill whatsoever and that's apparently not a problem? take for example a map like Lerys, you can literally just hold forwards and mash space bar a few times to waste minutes of a killers time. This map isn't alone there exists a number of maps similar like meat plant or midwich for example, or areas of maps which can waste minutes of time with no skill required. Add in a few crutches like dead hard or sprint burst and the amount of skill required sinks even lower.
Is it because the people balancing the game focus too much on statistics instead of the experience? do they spend more time in excel than in the game? or is this just part of the survivor side priveledge, where the game has to be created in such a way that the majority find it fun at the expense of the minority?
Comments
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Theres very few things in this game that take skill. I'm starting to realize both sides bickering back and forth about what is skillful and what isn't is pointless.
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Definitely a lot of casual survivor coddling. Some Survivors continue to push for 1v1 ignoring the fact that a killer has 3 other survivors pressing a time limit upon them.
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No.
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it's pretty common for games to put the burden of skill on the defending team.
Either they get longer respawns, travel times or something, because otherwise games end up largely not changing state. Full holds every time.
but this game. . i don't know. This game barely takes skill from either side honestly.
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always has been
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They should also only be 1/4 as powerful as a killer and yet the game is full of survivors who want to go toe-to-toe with the killer. That wouldn't be the case if they were only 25% as powerful.
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@Dizzy1096 don't worry about it.. it's usually the no-skill survivors the ones that complain when they lose.. they are just salty..
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Please explain to me how survivor doesn't take skill.
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I mean, if you really want to get into it, you can just hold W and predrop pallets while running mindless second chance perks. Which is sadly a very effective strategy.
Ironically, I'd also say it's harder to learn to loop as a survivor than it is as a killer, though the late 2019 chase music changes made my favourite trick, faking a loop and then just running away, ridiculously useful.
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A survivor like that would only hurt their own team in the end tho. This would only work against a killer who doesn't really know what they are doing as well. Survivors definitely take skill to play.
And yes, looping effectively can be hard for newer survivor players.
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Nope. If a survivor team is efficient on gens, you can afford to be wasteful with pallets. The only “skill” to playing survivor is memorizing loops. It’s not hard, just tedious.
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It's actually amazing how well faking a loop and running away from it works lol.
Even better when the killer tried to set up a mindgame
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That is assuming survivors are playing efficiently, or most likely well coordinated.
The skill to survivors is knowing how to maximize distance as much as possible while playing as efficiently as possible. In a loop, they have to peek at the right times and look out for different mind games, this can vary with many different killers. Memorizing loops and just memorizing in general is a skill, and one survivors can use to their advantage just as killer can. Knowing when to greed relies on the survivors predicting what the killer will do.
Survivors definitely take skill to play. Less than killers for sure, but they definitely take skill.
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Take a look:
On all matches where 'theoretically' the most invested killers went against the most invested survivors, the LEAST performing killer is way above the expected mean of 50% kills (the 2k outcome). Are you seriously telling that your experience is more valid than ALL red rank matches put together? Are you sure that your personal experience is really unbiased, despite EVERY SINGLE killer across the roster performing considerably better than what the community considers a draw?
Why don't you prove them wrong and show the data you collected throughout your games, pretty sure an excel sheet could be helpful.
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No, they wouldn't, not if their team is doing gens. That's the brilliant part: everyone has this idea that potatoes play like that, but it is a winning stratagey because you are using your resources to deny the killer of an early down and any map pressure, and it doesn't come back to haunt you in the late game because in a "normal" trial the map will look pretty much the same, but now the killer has only got 1-2 hooks instead of 1 person dead, 2 people on death hook.
It is such an insidious playstyle that has crept in to the meta, and is almost the sole reason I'm a Blight main.
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Oh gods, that is the bane of my existence. So many times have I started a mindgame only to end up mindgaminf myself.
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KR means nothing as DC/First hook suicides games are counted as even if only one survivor DCs it usually dooms the other 3(75-100% KR) hyperinflating the total KR.
There's simply put too many factors for KR to matter and it is why the devs have said repeatedly that KR MEANS NOTHING!
Edit: These satistics especially the rad rank ones means Nurse is underpowered and is the worst killer in the game.
So should she be buffed because of the red rank statistics?
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No it really is an effective strategy and it only works against bad killers? Lol I’ve seen it work against Otzdarva himself. Some killers really have very little in their kit to deal with it
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Imagine thinking that killers are more powerful than survivors when tournament squads exist.
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The other way around is also true. If a killer DCs, the match KR drops to 0 and pulls the average down, so what's your point?
Also, one statistic alone may not be much, but when ALL KRs skew towards the killer side then something might be up. And stop pointing to anecdotal evidence. "Nurse low KR is proof that statistics fail" is the most resonated fallacy I read in these forums when this graph shows up. Sally is a killer with a steep and unforgiving learning curve but she is far from a scapegoat to your logical prejudice and even if it was, she's still above the 50% threshold.
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Statistically survivors DC 4 times as often as killer due to there being 4 times as many survivors then there are killers in a match.
So yes it does in fact hyper-inflate KR upwards and that's with being TOO FAIR to the survivors as we all know survivors DC disproportionately more then killers do.
No the Nurse example holds up as the fact that she IS hard contributes to a low KR but not a low power which you use KR to be an example of killer's power strength.
Nurse is the prime example of why the statistics don't work for estimating a killer's power strength and PS almo has also confirmed that in the top 1% of 1% killers she only has 4/5th place KR wise even with god nurses only being counted.
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And how do you back your claims that "we all know survivors DC disproportionately more then killers do." Can you produce data collected by the community or given by the devs? Personal experience?
Out of my games last weekend, I had 3 DCs: 2 killers, 1 Survivor. Maybe my sample small or maybe it was not significant, the thing is: unless we have the data our personal experiences will be biased and subjective.
"No the Nurse example holds up as the fact that she IS hard contributes to a low KR but not a low power which you use KR to be an example of killer's power strength." <== I am struggling to understand what you mean by low power. I am not discussing killer power here, I am discussing outcomes of matches using the measurements provided by the devs and adopted by the community KR.
And no, Sally is a perfect example as one measurement alone may not be enough to rate a single killer. Go back to the graph and look at the other number at her bar, her pick rate. Now compare it to the others. You'll see that despite her minimal kill rate, she was still the third most picked killer along with Blight. She is the proof that one statistic alone may not be a measurement of success, but a group of them may.
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Killing is a skill, surviving is a strategy, whining is playing dbd
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"Pyramid takes no skill"
No one has ever said that unless they were trolling.
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killers outplay while survivors outperk.
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Most things that take no skill are slowly getting changed or removed. The map reworks (with the idea of removing busted set ups at least), The DS changes, old MoM, old insta heals, the key changes, ...
I'm all for those changes. Reward players for their skill and not because they have an item, addon or perk that grants them this, but this should apply to both sides. I admit though that sometimes the "no skill argument" doesn't really make sense. I'd argue that Pyramid Head actually takes a lot of skill for example. But killers like Freddy or add ons like iri head, they don't take much skill or effort to use. Freddys playstyle is extremely easy to pick up and he has all these small benefits to him like the slowdown add ons and the lack of a terror radius. I don't mind Freddy being a strong killer, but I don't like how easy it is to play the killer.
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You say this and yet the vast majority at this game suck and typically the only people who say this are the ones with thousands of hours.
If it didn't require skill everyone would be almost nearly the same as the best killer and survivor
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No the map reworks are the opposite. They were fine last year but the graphics updates have gone backwards. Look at new meat plant, literally no skill required. If you run windows of opportunity you’re invincible against against almost any killer aside from Nurse or Hag
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That's a bad metric to assess difficulty. The only skillful interaction with survivor is in chase. Perhaps timing an altruistic play (perfect timed hook save, slug pickup, flashlight save etc.) falls under skilled survivor too. These interactions aren't 25% difficulty of killer; it's just the occurance of these interactions are lesser than killer.
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As far as I know the Devs do not includes matches with a dc for this statistics. Atleast they did so with the 2019 stats: https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/107244/are-those-stats-with-or-without-dc
I also don't think you can base balance decisions only on stats but atleast the dc Part of your argument is not correct.
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They never said they removed them in the 2020 stats which mind you were overall much higher making it seem like DC's were counted.
It also still doesn't address first hook suicides which accomplish the same thing.
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Did they say they outright removed games that had DC's in them or simply that they didn't include DC's as deaths? Because if on person DC's and the rest die, that still inflates the stat.
And as warcrafter said, this also doesn't include hook suicides, which are probably just as common as straight DC's, in my experience they are anyway.
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I don't really blame people for playing these killers but at the same time it's a bad argument to say they're fine because "SWF OP" and other stuff. They're all unhealthy things that need to be addressed.
There is a fundamental issue with the balance of killers in this game where some of the easiest ones are also the best.
Spirit, Pyramid and Freddy should not get rewarded as much if not more than killers that are way harder to play like Billy, Oni, Blight; there is no reason to play these killers in terms of efficiency and consistency which is just terrible design.
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Survivors have both a higher skill floor and skill ceiling. A bad survivor is far worse off than a bad killer. But a really good survivor can be better than a really good killer.
There's a ton of room for a talented survivor or team of survivors to express their abilities and give the killer the run-around, but there's comparatively little skill expression in killers, some more so than others. That's why Nurse, Huntress, and Spirit are such high tier picks: They have a lot more room for skillful plays with their powers which makes them better suited for going up against high skill survivors.
Everyone DOES expect a certain skill level for survivors. But that skill level is so hard-line mandatory for any survivor player that the ones who fall short of it probably don't show up on these forums.
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1. It doesn't seem really logical that they would change the way to collect stats.
2. No, the stats aren't that differently: In red ranks the highest killrate was around 75% (maybe even a bit higher) and the lowest was around 60% which is similar to the 2020 stats. Also, in 2019 most of the killers in Red ranks had killrate over 65% which is also similar to the 2020 stats. Sadly we can't compared the stats that well because of the weird way that they displayed the 2019 stats, but the most notable difference is Nurse's Killrate who actually decreased quite a bit. Nurse is btw not the only killer whos killrate was higher in 2019, Spirit and Billy are in the same boat (both were nerfed though so that makes sense).
I haven't compared every single killer but in general: No, the 2020 stats are not significantly higher than the 2019 stats. (Atleast in red ranks).
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I think I they excluded the matches completely and I found that quote in regard to the 2020 stats:
It is from this post: https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/200064/red-ranks-kill-pick-rates/p2
But I don't know which dev said that, maybe it was said on the Stream when they shared the stats.
Hook suicides are random for me, sometimes they are really often and sometimes not.
But I think people are missing the point imo: It doesn't matter that much, if the stats are accurate or not because kill rates alone doesn't tell you much. An insidious LF can usually secure two kills, a perfectly balanced match according to stats but it will probably depip/maybe safety pip everbody with a very low bp earning. Sometimes a killer gets two kill with Noed after a very bad match, sometimes a 4k because the survivors refuse to let someone behind etc.
A killrate alone doesn't tell you how the match went it only tells you how it ended. A 4k with 12 hooks is a very different game than a 4k with 5-6 hooks. Same for a 2k with 6 or more hooks and a 2k with 2-3 hooks. The former fehlt probably more balanced for everyone but the statistics will rate them the same.
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I saw it a lot with old pyramid because every loop was m1 or m2 and either way the survivor gets hit. Adding the little animation for ph to take the blade out of the ground instead of the immediate swing he could do before made him far fairer.
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"Skill" checks are more of an alarm to make sure you are not sleeping.
Run in circles around a piece of plywood until you think you can't make it again or drop it one loop early to play safe.
Then it's just 50/50
Let's take a killer with a fair amount of effort/skill huntress need time to learn how long to hold a hatchet to get the angle she needs to hit
Needs to constantly watch out for los blockers needs to predict where the surivor will dodge of there is a lot of distance on top of doing this 2twice per a surivor while pressing the other 3 survivors
1 killer btw not included blight nurse and the rest of the cast
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The looping process as I have said before still takes skill to learn. Skill checks are pretty mundane and easy though.
What do you mean by 50/50?
You sort of just said that huntress needs to watch out more for what survivors are going to do.
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Imagine thinking that just because something is rare means it is balanced:
Let's imagine for a second there is a killer offering that exists. This offering does the following:
- All survivors are permanently exposed
- The killer automatically gets 32k bloodpoints maxed at the start of the match
- All survivors auras are permanently revealed.
- The killer's movement speed is increased to 200%.
- Survivors now have to repair every generator instead of just 5.
Now let's imagine that the offering had a rarity that only made it appear with a 0.1% chance in the bloodweb. This means it can only be used in ~1 out of every 1000 games for a killer.
Would that offering be balanced?
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Nah, nah, it doesn't work like that.
Survivor is supposed to have 25% of IMPACT on the game, but the skill demand is supposed to be at least equal to the killer.
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Because when you play against killer it should be, if the killer is better than you, you loose, if he is worst, you win
But what actully happen is if it is an doctor that is better then you will probably loose, if it is an bad killer like for example wraith ( at leat the old one i dont know if now that it has been buffed he is actully good ) it is alot harder to the killer win but if he is really good he can still take you down, but with A LOT of more dificullty
But when going against spirit, the killer has an good chance of winning even if he is awfull with some dumb technics like the stans still
And with survivors it dosent have a lot of that, its more run and win
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They are. Survivors are naturally at a disadvantage, since they can't exactly fight, and they have 25% of the power of their team. In order to loop efficiently, it takes a considerable amount of skill.
As for spirit, Freddy, etc. Freddy I can agree is a pretty low skill ceiling for a lot of power, but Spirit can get stomped by survivors who know what they're doing. Just like stealth killers, Spirit is an absolute noob-stomper, but against a skilled team, she can become the stompee.
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Holding W and pressing Space is hard. Killers like Huntress who have to calculate the angle of their hatchets and predict where the survivors are going to make sure they hit a survivor have it sooooo easy.
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You make no sense. You say "that's rare" so i present you something else that is rare, and then you say "yeah but it's rare"
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No my argument was exactly to disprove your point. My point is it's JUST AS skillful but occurs less often.
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They are a team. Their summary strength succeeds killer's strength if they invest as much skill as killer does.
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Stats are from before the mori and Undying nerf. So pretty outdated and unreliable, or do you want to buff nurse?
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Killer mains think the game is too easy for survivors, survivor mains think the game is too easy for killers.
Nobody wins.
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I think it’s unfair to say that playing survivor doesn’t require skill, because it does. Sitting on a generator isn’t all there is to playing survivor. Knowing how to loop and counter a killer trying to down you, takes practise and not everybody is good at it. Knowing how to prioritise is a skill. Should you heal? Get the unhook? Get on a generator? Cleanse the totem? Also being able to remain out of the killers line of sight is something some people struggle with. Wasting the killers time by making them search for you in an area but not actually find you is beneficial to the entire team. This is something I do a lot and I get killers complimenting me on it saying how annoying it was trying to track me down lol.
Killer is obviously a lot harder to master and you’ll never see me state otherwise because I play both sides frequently. I just don’t agree with making out like playing survivor is easy because I constantly see people struggle at even the most basic of tasks. Some people don’t even look behind them during a chase and that’s one of the most obvious things a survivor should learn early on. 😂
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