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A compilation of why the Billy nerfs should never have gone through
Comments
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I still consider him pretty strong, I don't think he's weak or anything and you lined it out pretty well. A good Billy still preforms well, its just not as oppressive as before. He can't be all over everyone the entire match. He can't always be "on top of you no matter what" because he has to worry about his overheat. He can't sprint to an unhook, miss 2 chainsaws, land the 3rd, then sprint to a gen and miss 1 and get the 2nd, then sprint to where they downed the 1st person like before. I think that's a good change.
Also I don't know why you think I didn't like good players, good players are the thing we use to see how things preform, a good Billy before was too strong. A good Billy is pretty strong today, like you said.
With old Billy you had to miss a lot for it to really hinder your performance enough for it to really matter. One-shots save a ton of time, then he also saved a ton of time with map traversal. You had to miss enough to outweigh the one-shots and the mobility.
He just needs a little bump up (honestly I would improve his add-ons) and for people to get over the nerf and play him more. Its similar to what happened with Nurse, they took away triple blink and she vanished. They took away instasaw spam and people just dropped him.
Are these killers bad now? No. They just got a a little harder to play.
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People keep saying "he's not a good Hillbilly", but even if he's not, it doesn't change anything I said. And I think using if using your power as much as possible is as bad as not using your power at all, there's a problem that needs to be fixed. That problem is Overheat.
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The overheat mechanic is what separated the good Hillbillys and the average Hillbillys. Imagine Hillbilly when Ruindying was meta. Even now he's extremely underrated because his power takes thought.
Not every killer should be able to spam their power. Some should be punished for over using their power. Blight gets punished by having to replenish all tokens for using his power. Huntress, Slinger, Trickster and Clown have to reload. Freddy and Hag only have a limited amount of their power before it starts being re used.
And that's just some of them. Killers do have some sort of punishment for spamming their power (Spirit being a notable exception). The only problem I have with him now is occasionally hitting off things that he shouldnt hit off. Otherwise from my experience he's a fun, mostly balanced killer that becomes weak if people overuse his chainsaw.
It's why, to me, Whispers is a necessity on him. But that's a free perk that's on every killer rather than one that needs huge grinding.
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You kinda just ignored everything I said, mate. Billy's power has limitations. It's called survivors not being out of position, and debris existing on pretty much every map that isn't Rotten Fields. He doesn't need Overheat as another limitation when it's already difficult enough to land a good flick, and most people would agree that chase is the most important thing in DBD - it's where most of the fun stuff happens. Realistically, a Billy can't make it across the entire map in one sprint without steering addons because of all the tiles in the way. And flickbilly is ridiculously hard to pull off consistently.
For what I consider "perfectly balanced" - a killer whose power scales enough with skill to be able to take out anyone the player is more skilled than, while survivors who are more skilled than the killer can reliably win against them. Old Billy was the closest example to this we had before he got nerfed. (Source: QuixoticGreen vs Marth's Depip Squad; he put on crack billy and came out with a 2k. Quix was probably the best Billy around, and he was using crack billy.)
I think if all killers were Huntress tier, we'd lose the player base. Huntress is good, but she relies on survivors ######### up to score consistent hatchet hits (i.e. putting themselves in positions where she can hit them in the first place). Don't get me wrong, I think Huntress is fine since most of the playerbase can't do that, but old Billy was a better example of perfect balance imo. His power scaled perfectly with skill, aside from a few bullshit addons like instasaw. I do see why you'd be fine with killers being balanced around Huntress, though - this game's comp scene is kind of a joke, so with the exception of the occasional sweaty comp team, Huntress-tier killers would perform just fine. I'm more concerned with how interactive killers are to play as and against, though, and I think Billy has much more interactiveness against a good team than Huntress does.
I'm glad you agree they went way too far. I do think simply removing Overheat would be completely fine, but for discussion's sake, what would you compensate this with? My perfect Billy consists of this:
- No overheat.
- Current tuned carburetor; if you want more charge time then you should be forced to use your chainsaw more (since you're 4.4 m/s).
- Both engravings basekit - both speed and charge time. The higher speed makes flicking much more viable, while the longer charge time makes backrevving harder (because backrevving doesn't require too much skill, at least in my experience). This means that Billy players are forced to flick more often, which counteracts the fact that his chainsaw is so versatile - it's one of the hardest things to master in the game.
- Pre-nerf animations as well. I didn't play Billy too much before his nerf, but according to some long-time Billy mains I know, he used to feel so much better to play.
Your next point, about Billy missing so much, is kinda my exact point. As I've said - we want newer/worse Billies to use his chainsaw more often, not resort to W+M1 out of necessity. His cooldown provides enough time to vault a pallet, window, etc. or even just make distance (and the saw is easy to dodge if he's coming from a distance). In my opinion, Overheat is just far too restrictive, and it doesn't allow new Billies to get as much practice in as they should.
As for Nurse, imo, the reason most people don't hate Nurse too much is because the skill you need for her to be truly uncounterable just doesn't exist. I'll again point to SupaAlf as an example of this - he's a ######### CRACKED nurse, and in his videos you still often see him getting the ######### juked out of him. Flickbilly is similar; his chainsaw is ridiculously strong in theory, but in practice, nobody exists who is skilled enough to the point where you can never dodge his saw. Therefore, I believe Flickbilly is balanced at all tiers of gameplay; from new players (Billies getting their ######### kicked in as they learn to control his saw) to good players (Being able to curve well enough to have a fun and interactive chase with most survivors) to high-tier competitive players (Probably losing due to good coordination, but putting up one hell of a fight and getting some sick curves in anyway).
That was a bit of a tangent, but I actually agree with you for the most part. I think we should balance around old Billy, not Nurse or Spirit. Bear in mind, I think Nurse has more potential than Spirit, but Spirit is better in practice because there truly is no valid counterplay to her like there is to all the Nurses who currently exist. Also, a good Nurse and a good Spirit aren't interactive for the survivors at all, so I think we should avoid designs like those that give survivors no counterplay. That's why I think old Billy was the epitome of balance, along with most of the rest of the community. His power was incredibly strong, but survivors were still able to counterplay it, and it took an extremely respectable amount of skill to master.
Billy's chainsaw's limitations consisted of debris in the way and the fact that, when flicking, he had to choose how hard to flick. Essentially, he had to predict where exactly the survivor would be as he released the flick - would they peel away from the loop to try and dodge, would they call his bluff and stick closely to the loop? From the survivor's side, is the Billy close enough to hit me before I can make it around this corner? That's what I mean by "interactive". There's a lot of split-second decision making and prediction that, ultimately, is what we should aim for in a chase. It was totally possible to make a Billy whiff his saw long enough to get all the gens done, even if the Billy was really good.
I see camping as less of a balance issue and more of a fun issue. I think killer powers should be structured to incentivize them to not camp, so neutering Billy's ability to just sit there with his saw 99'd would be a good example of a healthy change. That's what Overheat should be, imho - and hey, that'd be another limitation to his power. He can't use it to camp effectively. So you're right; we shouldn't remove Overheat entirely. But we should make its sole purpose to counter camping. We can do this by making his heat buildup disappear completely and immediately whenever he initiates a saw dash, since then you're not just sitting there with it 99'd anymore.
Thanks for having a civil discussion with me! It's a nice change from how balance discussions usually go in this community.
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Billy is... okay. There's just really no reason to play him now that Oni and Blight exist.
I feel like you're coming at this from a fundamentally different point of view; that if a killer uses their power a lot, they shouldn't be able to use their power anymore. Overheat basically reduces Billy to a 115 M1 killer for the duration it takes to cool off - a trapless Trapper, if you will. My question is this; how is that fun or interactive for anyone? His saw is pretty damn fun if you use it at loops, and quite frankly, I think most people agree the chase is the most fun part of DBD. Mobility is related to the 1v4, but the 1v1 is where the fun stuff happens for the most part.
As for the second part, I think you've fundamentally misunderstood why Billy players just dropped off the map. It's because, compared to how he was before, he feels ridiculously clunky to play. So nobody plays Billy; they've just moved on to Blight and Oni because those killers just do his job but better - and they feel better to play, too. He doesn't have a reason to exist anymore. That's why nobody plays him. It's not about strength at all.
Also, for the record, a good Billy wasn't "too strong" in the slightest. I linked Quix's match against the Depip Squad earlier - I'd say that the players are roughly evenly skilled - and he came out with a 2k while using Billy's strongest addons back then.
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i agree. i started playing after the hillbilly rework, so no nostalgia bias or anything here.
Overheat was useless and only made me want to NOT play hillbilly. I would be counter intuitive to have such a fun ability that i wanted to get better at, but get punished by trying to do so.
it literally took me over 6 months to even think about playing hillbilly. And even then i prefeer using Oni or Wraith.
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We've actually addressed all of this earlier in the thread, but in a nutshell:
- Focusing on only "good Hillbillies" completely ignores the fact that we want to encourage new Billies to use their chainsaw more often, so that they can become good Billies. Ultimately, Overheat did the opposite.
- "Spamming" his power is a moot point. You get punished for missing by a cooldown that lets survivors loop you for longer. That's how it should be; there was no need to add an arbitrary heat system like they did. Especially since BHVR themselves said that they were happy with how he was performing. Nobody thought he needed to be nerfed aside from a few addons.
- "Overusing" his chainsaw is just a sad concept, imho. How can you overuse a killer's power, the very thing that makes them unique? The very reason you play that killer specifically? Killer powers should be designed for as much use as possible. Otherwise we just get trapless Trapper gameplay.
Idk why you brought Whispers up. Please elaborate.
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Yep! I'm actually a Wraith main too. I should probably change my profile pic; haven't played Pig in months and don't intend to until she actually has a power.
Edit: And this is what I'm talking about. I understand a few people find Billy unfun to play as or against, but the vast majority of people love him on either side. So it makes sense to encourage use of his ability. We should still listen to the people who don't like certain aspects of his power, and take their feelings into account, but if there's an unresolvable clash then it makes sense to appeal to the broader majority of people.
TL;DR - Everyone's idea of fun matters, but if there's an unresolvable conflict, we should go with the majority. And the majority agrees that we should bring back old Billy.
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To avoid making you talk about things you already have, I'll talk about whispers.
I brought it up as it's a perk that I find incredibly strong on him, similar to STBFL on Demo or Stridor on Spirit. Maybe you can say that perks shouldnt be in the conversation, but if we're being realistic then most killers will have perks at their disposal, especially one that isnt a teachable.
Due to his power needing to cooldown, the addition of whispers allows it to be used more efficiently as he can know when traversing the map if he needs to continue on and ignore the area or if he should stay. Additionally, while using his chainsaw he goes at 9.2 m/s (iirc) so survivors dont always have a ton of time to react.
Yes whispers isnt completely accurate, but from my experience it saves more time than it loses as if you know the general distance of 32m then you can search and get into a chase quickly, and helps Billy what he does best. Create a ######### ton of pressure as he can roam around the map quickly and allows you to not overuse your chainsaw to the extent that it overheats.
Combine this with Ruin, and to me you've got the best map pressure in the game.
You're entitled to your own opinion however and if you believe that Billy shouldn't have been nerfed then that's fine. I think there are certain parts where they did go too far (Such as his add ons mostly being useless) but his overheat is one of the few things that they did right in my opinion.
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Those sounds like fine changes to me. If you're gonna make his power stronger again, make him use it to get hit at least. See how it goes adjust from there if needed. Give him some better add-ons, not stuff like Black Grease.
So everything after this will mainly be about trying to wrap up the side points that were brought up since we came to a middle ground understanding on the main topic, somehow, on the internet, let alone the forums lol. So thank you as well for having a civil discussion, that only work if both sides participate.
As for the Nurse/power level point, its not about being uncounterable to the highest level of play. In fact I don't like balancing for the highest level of play at all since that's a very small fraction of the playerbase, so I believe there we just don't agree on what skill level the game should be centered around which is fine. I think games should be balanced around where players are good/great, but not depip squad/god nurse good as I feel that would be the best ground for most of the playerbase to be be the best state overall. So your assessment of me wanting killers around Huntress tier, or a little stronger honestly, is pretty much spot on.
Right now I feel like the game is balanced around potato survivors (no offense to those players) but good killers. Not good killers and good survivors. However I don't want top tier balance either as that just makes the game unfun for everyone whose not in the 1-5%.
However, I do understand your point of effectiveness scaling with skill and investment in and can understand how that can be frustrating to deal with, especially since that most of the current killer roster.
Yeah I agree camping is more of a fun issue and pushing killers not to is something I'm on board with.
Yeah I agree Blight and Oni kinda stomp all over his territory, but killer powers being too similar is also an issue there. Like we got Billy, and we got Yokai Billy (Oni), but only temporarily sometimes if he hits you. Oversimplifying but I think you'll get the idea.
It's not about a killer using their power a lot that I'm against necessarily, it just depends on the power. Like I think Pyramid Head should be using his power more in general and not just doing the "you're animation locked" tactic all the time but its just not viable to do so most of the time because of multiple factors that aren't the point of this thread. So I can actually relate to the feeling. Its just getting it to a point where using it a lot isn't going overboard. There needs to be decent downtime in between, especially with a 1-hit down with crazy mobility. Like we don't want Legion/Ghostface levels of cooldown, those are way too much, but I also don't want "haha one-shot pallet breaker that can hit around corners and cross the map go Brrrr" back.
But again, your changes lined previously sound fine, the increased charge time would help in that regard. I really though he was just a little overboard before, so pulling him back a bit compared to before with different changes would be ideal in my opinion.
I can understand not playing a killer due to "feel", so if we can get him feeling better that sounds like a win in my book.
As for the final line, maybe at the highest yeah he was fine, but that's not what I aim for or look to for balancing. Again I think there we just disagree on where the game should be balanced around. I just think baseline the chainsaw did just a bit too much for how much he was using it in a game with just decent - good players. Like it scaled well into top tier play, but any lower than that is where things got funky. At least in my experience.
I can understand the Hillbilly plight a bit more now I think. Again, thank you as well for keeping things respectful and carrying out a civil discussion. 🙂
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Of course, I'm really glad we could come to some agreement! I'll be honest; I've been up for way too long and I don't have the mental capacity to respond to all of that, so I'll just pick out things I think I can formulate a response to.
Yeah, I agree we shouldn't balance around top tier players - DBD's comp scene is a bit of a joke, and very few people I know want to sweat their balls off every game. Especially with the sheer range of power levels across the killers - Clown and Nurse being on totally opposite ends of the spectrum really doesn't help Clown mains if everyone's playing to win. So in a sense, I would agree with killers being balanced somewhere between Huntress and old Billy.
I think the main thing for me when changing a killer power is "How do we reward players for being skilled without leaving zero counterplay for skill on the other side?" With Billy that takes the form of making Engravings basekit and making Overheat dissipate instantly when you start a dash. For PH (and Demo actually), I want them to have more drastic slow-downs when they cancel their powers, but buff those powers to incentivize people to actually use them. For example, range/speed buffs to Shred and Punishment (possibly a wider hitbox for the latter).
I feel like Billy's power has a bit more nuance to it than you've seen, which honestly I understand since most people who used to play Billy were of the instasaw-noed-bamboozle type. That's why the emphasis is put on speed (helps with flicks) and lowered charge time (nerfs backrevving). Blight and Oni's powers are much more versatile than Billy's saw simply by nature of being more easily maneuvered around corners and such, so I feel Billy's power doesn't need nearly as much of a cooldown, even if it's an instadown (since getting that instadown can prove very difficult in the first place).
Thanks once again for being reasonable! God bless. ^^
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Thanks for the consideration, I appreciate it a lot.
I agree, we should always consider perks and maybe up to yellow or green addons when discussing how to balance a killer. And you make a very good point with Whispers; I can see your logic and how it would be an amazing perk on him, especially with Overheat as a mechanic.
However, I think we're both focused on different aspects of his power. I'm more concerned with encouraging Billies to keep trying their hand at flicking, over and over, incentivizing them to practice and get better. You're more focused on the 1v4 aspect of DBD, creating pressure across the board rather than individual chase potential. With DBD, both are important, but Overheat forces you to pick one and ignore the other. If you use his saw for mobility, you won't have much heat left for the chase. If you save the heat for the chase, you lose your mobility. Not to mention, Overheat makes it so that you have limited practice - but with Billy's saw being among the most interactive powers in the game, I think we should let Billies curve more, not less.
As to whether or not I think Billy should've been nerfed, you're right, I think the nerf was absolutely unnecessary. I would have agreed with an Overheat solely to punish camping; i.e. it builds up while revving but goes away when you dash, to punish Billies who facecamp with their saw out. That would've been totally fine by me and probably the rest of the community. I also would've been fine with BHVR nerfing his charge time addons, Tuning Guide, etc. They went way overboard with what they did to him, though, and completely ignored the outcry from the community (because let's face it, most of us loved old Billy and we're sad that nobody plays him anymore).
Basically, BHVR pulled an "if it ain't broke, break it" and ignored the ######### out of the community when we told them not to go through with it. Not only was it a horrible decision balance-wise, it came across as a huge middle finger, as if to say they don't value our input when it comes to the game. I can't speak for them to say whether or not they do value our input, but it certainly doesn't feel like they do when they pull stuff like this.
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Everything you say there about the overheat is understandable and for the most part I agree with (especially that a similar mechanic just to punish camping but not to punish people trying to learn him). Additionally, like you said, he is a much harder killer to learn now due to the limited use of his power.
It's a shame with how much they changed him, especially that he basically has no good add ons now. Regarding if they listen to us or not, I'm not sure. There's a thread regarding optimisation that has over 1.5k comments yet no news on that from any Developer or Community manager, which to me says enough.
All in all I do still find Billy fun, but he must be a pain in the ass to get into with what ######### they've done to him, especially that you can put less effort in to learning a better killer. They did go overboard on many aspects but I doubt they'll revert them any time soon :/
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Oh yeah, the devs are horrible at listening to their community. That's just a known fact at this point. It's probably the number one issue with BHVR's balancing - they keep trying to pretend like they're good at it and don't need help, when they aren't. If Almo of all people is "half the balance team" like he says, that explains a lot. The guy doesn't understand the game at all, which is why he keeps pulling stats to try and prove something in a game that cannot be quantified accurately with stats. But then he responds with snark and dismissal when anyone calls him out on it.
If the balance team actually listened, we wouldn't have had Overheat. We wouldn't have had the map reworks making everything worse. We wouldn't have them trying to shove MMR down our throats.
They need to start now.
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blight
additionally, a punishment for being bad at one of already the most difficult killers is antithetical to DbD's casual balancing, you can't balance survivors for the casuals while balancing killer powers for MLG 5000 hour billy players, that's having your cake and eating it too
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Yeah, exactly. It's actually possible to have a pretty well-balanced killer while still having them be mostly fun to play as and against. Old Billy was a great example of that until BHVR nerfed him.
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Also, Mandy moved this to feedback and suggestions for some reason. The thread is about discussing a video showcasing why Billy shouldn't have been nerfed.
Although it's not exactly a wonder why a lot of people would put feedback in the discussions category. Lord knows BHVR doesn't check the feedback category.
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