Do you consider Dead by Daylight survivor sided, killer sided, or balanced?
For clarification, we're talking about high skill levels of play. Not tournament levels, but both teams being in about the top 25% of players. And for the sake of argument, we're excluding killers in the top or bottom percents, like Nurse, Spirit, Trapper and Trickster. Curious to see what people think.
I'd consider this game more survivor sided than not, but considerably more balanced than it has been when I started playing. Although that's not exactly difficult to reach. This is due to the effectiveness of splitting up on generators - being nigh-uncounterable without incredible mistakes on the survivor team being capitalised on, the relative lack of an early game to allow the killer to start pressuring, the ridiculous spawns of survivors next to generators and totems, map design and RNG, and the ease of which the survivors' objective can be completed compared to the killer's 12 hooks.
What about you? Please keep it civil, we don't want a "My opinion is right, if you disagree you are obviously an entitled killer/survivor main who wants to 4K/bully the killer every game."
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Survivor sided at low skill.
Killer sided at average skill levels.
Survivor sided at high skill.
There’s a reason average Survivors cry for Killer nerfs and Rank 1 streamers cry about Survivors being overpowered.
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Surprisingly accurate first response to a sensitive subject. Let's see what the rest of the chuckleheads will do to take this thread downhill.
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I think overall it's survivor sided, though much closer to being balanced than years passed, the game just overall has more tools for survivors in 1v1 and 1v4 aspect of the game. I honestly prefer solo queue survivor to killer at this point.
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Swf sided
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Map rng makes the game balanced in the sense that either side can get a huge advantage
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Kind of depends
If the match maker were working it would be killer in the beginning, then shift towards survivors at higher ranks.
But it doesn't, so its:
Swf>killer>solo
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This pretty much. I play survivor and killer equally. Id say overall its more survivor sided. Especially SWF games with comms. I cant remember the last time more than one of my team died in a SWF game at any rank.
High skill levels are definitely survivor sided. Which is a shame. Cause even as a survivor i want to be scared out of my wits and run for my life trying to survive. But the majority just want to mess around, follow killers about like it doesnt matter and bully/harrass.
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As ranks go up it goes from Killer sided to survivor sided
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Killer sided.
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its survivor sided if we are talking about top 25% of players. if every survivor knows how to loop and knows to do gens, on average 3 survivors should be able to escape. i wouldnt say 4 because the last survivor camp is always possible. with how easy it is to waste killer's time with the power of holding W with linking loops together, you can waste over a minute of time per chase and with gens getting fixed with everyone split up, killers will have a hard time.
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Killer at low and medium skill; Survivor at high skill
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It honestly depends. I'd say red ranks is more survivor-sided because survivors are efficient on gens and know how to loop, while green ranks is killer sided because it's the exact opposite, where you'll see survivors not lasting too long in chase as well as not splitting up on gens. Killers rely on survivor mistakes after all.
With that being said, DBD is more balanced now than it has ever been. However, I still feel there is some bais when it comes to balance, as killers seem to get nerfs quicker & more often. An example could be moris, something that got nerfed to the ground a loooong time ago for ending games too early even though keys do the same thing and still haven't been nerfed. Just my 2 cents.
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I'll probably get ######### for this but honestly? Largely balanced.
I can only report my own anecdotal experiences, and they are this: As a solo survivor main, I've had good teammates and we all escaped, or at least some of us did. I've also had bad teammates, or good teammates who nonetheless got outplayed like myself. I've switched over to killer and find it much more difficult. In general I think that playing as killer is the harder role. But again, I can only report what I've experienced. And I've experienced every single killer in the game in the hands of someone who knows EXACTLY how to use them and seen myself and my team get absolutely annihilated.
All things considered, despite the fact that some killers feel a little OP or cheap and despite the fact that each side has perks that are as well, I think that the balance in this game is actually pretty even. If I can play for three months (as I have) and beat red ranks but also lose to yellow ranks, what can I say? It all comes down to the player, and the play. As a game like this should.
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none of the above.
Sadly when people say balance they usually mean "changes that benefit my gameplay".
DBD is asymmetric, its kinda meant to fall in the killers favor as a non-threatening antagonist is just dull. Games are most fun when you have to flee from the killer, they are least fun when you just waist the killers time because that's best practice.
The more "balanced" the game becomes the more we have the latter, which is dull for all involved.
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Four competent survivors in red ranks against weak killers. Survivor sided all the way.
Reduce Survivors base speed by a smidgen, or reduce the terror radius would balance things out greatly. Unless you’re a stealth killer, survivors run away from the generator a couple of seconds before you even reach it. It’s a great tactic for survivors on large maps it extends the chase greatly, and allows them to get to a nearby loop. Competent killers know it’s a pointless chase, because this example wastes so much of the killers time.
If 4 survivors do exactly this it’s impossible to get any form of consistency in pressure, without using top tier killers.
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Killer sided basically but if its SWF so yeah its SWF sided
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Low Rank: Killer Sided. The Killer's goals and methods of achieving those goals are fairly straight forward for a beginner to pick up. Survivor's goals are less obvious and more difficult to figure out on your own so are harder to pick up for a beginner. Seriously, looping is not an obvious mechanic. There's a reason why Killer queues at rank 20 are really long.
Medium Rank: Survivor Sided. Going from Low to Mid rank as a survivor has multiple avenues to improve. Looping, awareness, and general efficiency to name a few. Killer basically needs to learn how to mind game and moon walk to get better... neither of which are particularly easy or obvious. Beyond that... the perks available to Survivors without investing Shards or Cells are far superior to those available to Killers without spending Shards or Cells. Seriously... as far as excellent perks go, only Tinkerer is free. Meanwhile well over half the Survivor meta is found on free Survivors.
High Rank: Killer Sided. Once Killers get good loadouts and learn to mind game and moonwalk, they start doing very very well. Not because Killers are OP mind you... its because Matchmaking will very rarely send a full group of 4 high skill Survivors at them. Usually there's at least 1 or 2 that the Killer can exploit to make the whole team fall apart. Countless streamers going on very long 4k streaks on Killer pretty much cements this.
Pro: Survivor Sided. Only the best Killers on Nurse/Spirit can stand up to a full team of 4 good survivors on comms. Even then they still usually lose. I'm pretty sure everyone knows this already but yeah.
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A good well thought out post.
Something i disagree on though.
One thing that playing this game for so long has taught me is ranks are more or less meaningless. A player can be red ranks for a year, not play for 2 months and be green, come back and still be a fantastic player able to loop and destroy lower ranked killers. Its also notoriously easy to rank up in this game. Im green killer ranks at the moment and today alone ive had around 4 teams with at least 3 red ranks on and all played horribly. Checking steam profiles some of them had 100-200 hours on the game. Just because you beat red ranks and lose to yellow doesnt make the game balanced. It "usually" means a good killer has either deranked or returned and remembered how to play.
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Too many variables, the spectrum is too wide
But my overall opinion is: (Strongest to weakest)
- coordinated 4 man swf
- killer
- mixture of swf and solo q
- all solo q survivor
Again, too many variables that can alter my opinions, but this is based on the factors you gave and my general viewpoint.
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I think it depends on some other factors too, although granted this is just my experience so far. So what I've noticed is that yes, lower levels is typically killer sided. Can't really argue that. Mid way for me gets a little fuzzy. My experience so far is that it really depends on who you're playing, and what perks your running. I've been leveling my killers and being at purple trying to level baby killers is so damn painful... Playing nurse and figuring her out while also having no perks for added map pressure or extra information was a terrible experience. So for me, I think it's very much perk dependent. If you have meta perks on both sides then I'd say even. If you have horrible perks and going against meta perk survivors (and if you're not on the level of say Otz as killer) then you're gonna be in for a real rough time. For example. Nemesis I leveled to 48 last night. I have a Legion who I enjoy playing as well at level 41. Nemesis I feel somewhat good and ready to take on whatever comes my way cus I have some good perks like Ruin, Undying, Surge, plus his normal perks, and all around I got some good pressure perks to help. With Legion I have absolutely nothing...the best perks I have are his own, plus Coulrophobia from Clown. Everything thing else is just bad and has no synergy with anything, plus I don't have any gen regression perks on him cus the Blood Web's RNG decided nope.
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Thank you.
To be honest I've never understood the ranking system either. Not the concept of some kind of skill-based matchmaking per se, but the actual 1-20 ranking system. What is the point of it if there are often huge discrepancies between the numbers? And if it resets each month anyway? What purpose does that serve? As you said, the numbers are themselves not a true representation of a player's skill. Someone could get down to red, quit playing for a few months or whatever, then come back as a yellow or brown rank and wipe the floor with everybody. What good is that concept? Does that actually achieve anything other than screwing over players who are genuinely new and inexperienced?
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survivor sided at high skill but killer sided on average to low skill...
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balanced
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If 2 or more are on coms, its survivor sided. If not i think its pretty okay (solo vs killer).
Its not all about the win or loss, but the fun on the way to a finished match. The stress vs 3-4 okay swf is just so high.
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Survivor side its a 4v1 and uf the survivor start playing as a team nothing will stop them unless its a nurse with recharge addon
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Old ranking system was a laugh. Rank 1 to 10 got reset to rank 10 to 14 and rank 11-20 got reset to 15 - 20
I never really understood it either. Im sure someone explained it to me one time but i never remembered because it still didnt make a lot of sense.
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LOL sounds about right.
The best (or really only) explanation I ever got was that pushing the ranks back each month somehow increased the sense of achievement. I mean, maybe? For some people I guess. All I can think about is the poor schmoe who's paired up with someone that will wipe the floor with him because the ranking system bounces around for no apparent reason.
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Killer being 2nd is a huge variable. Usually will depend on which killer and experience but likewise will also depends on the experience of the swf and solo players. Ive had some solo games where i have or other solos kept the killer busy for 2/3/4/5 full gens and gotten out. Id definitely say those two are either or.
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Balanced every level except tournament level, and then it's survivor sided
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Personally, I think it's balanced. It does depend on the current patch of the game though. Sometimes survivors have gotten really screwed over by certain changes, and sometimes killers do. While some changes made are stupid, I don't think they're necessarily target at either side. I feel like the game just kinda ends up in certain stages of balance, and the devs try to push it back toward the middle usually.
Definitely not to say that there's never been times where killer sucked to play or survivor sucked to play. Examples: current mori-vs-key situation makes me hate killer sometimes, but being a solo queue player and especially back before Nurse got her update, I would constantly be running against 5 blink Nurses. Just really depends what BHVR got in store for us that month/patch.
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It's still heavily survivor sided.
It used to be worse don't get me wrong. But it still really survivor sided.
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Definitely survivor sided, most maps, most overpowered perks, items or add-ons, keys, etc.
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Non sided.
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Survivor-sided at high ranks.
Killer-sided at low ranks.
Balanced in casual ranks.
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I think it's survivor-sided in terms of gameplay, but I also think the survivor experience is centered a lot more. On the anniversary stream, Mathieu Cote told a story about when they were first testing the game and showed the footage to people -- how the killer footage was okay, but then the survivor footage made everyone go crazy, because they wanted to cheer for the little guy and see him beat the killer.
That story really made something click into place for me, in terms of how the devs view the game and what they see the story of DBD as being -- about cheering for the (supposed) underdog to survive. They need people to want to play killer in order to have a game, but I think they see the survivor experience as being the "main" experience that the game is based around.
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My heart rate and stress levels while playing killer are usually 📈
While playing survivor they immediately go 📉
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At the lower ranks, killer sided
However, if everybody in the match knows what they're doing, it's survivor sided
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