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Should DBD be balanced around the highest level players?
Please take the poll, trying to collect some data.
Comments
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high level dbd sucks and is boring. clown fiestas have always been the heart and soul of dbd, but once you climb the stairway to maturity, you're left chasing the dragon.
optimal dbd is dbd played unoptimally.
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That's the idea though, if they balanced around high level play then high level dbd wouldn't suck.
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Yeah but high level dbd constitutes like 0.01% of the whole player base. DBD is not trying to be some really competitive game built for esports like League or Counter strike. Therefore I believe it's far better to find balance for your average red rank game which constitutes a large portion of the active community rather than the 0.01% right at the top. If bhvr can find balance in high level dbd while also finding balance for your average lobby that would be great but I find that to be highly unlikely and I would rather have bhvr prioritize on your average lobby.
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Nah, the highest level of play is boring.
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"red ranks" is meaningless when there is no SBMM. The skill variant of red rank players is all over the place, in part because climbing ranks in todays world, winning in this game is weighted heavier than losing. What exactly is the skill level of an 'average' red rank game?
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Don't wanna be playing a sweatfest non stop. You still don't understand this is a casual game, majority of the people play this game casually. I hate to break the news, but high level DBD is not fun for either side. Even a lot of the people you want to balance this game around, such as these sweat squads and killer. They don't play this game in public matches, they literally only play the game in the few competitive settings there is. Why would you balanced a game were fewer than 5% of the base actually plays like that.
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Well, don't take away the challenge for the high level players. Let them play together but don't clump me in with them. I would LOVE for DBD to finally one day have a game mode where no one gives a crap about rank. The only incentive would be to have fun. As for now though, I have always said that I feel the majority of DBD players are not high level try hards but instead just casual players just trying to have fun in a scary game. I think the game's balance should focus more on the majority than the 1% or less of players that sweat it out every match. The problem with ranked is that it clumps all of the different kind of players into 1 game mode because its the only choice we have other than custom matches. I love the characters in DBD. I just wish I could do more with them than just ranked matches.
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Yes, I was wrong in using the term "red ranks" due to the ranking system being far to generous. The skill average I was referring to was a match where all survivors are semi skilled loopers (good camera control, with decent map and killer knowledge, but still make a multitude of mistakes that the killer can capitalize on) and all killers are semi skilled killers (good chasers by knowing basic red light mind games, decent map awareness and killer knowledge but once again still make mistakes). The point of my original comment was that in a casual game such as dbd the game should be balanced around semi skilled players rather than a tiny fraction of the player base.
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Yes, just like every other game that wants to be properly balanced and stay alive.
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A lot of games aim to balance for the top levels and succeed very well. The issue is when low level and high level play is dominated by different characters.
So the best of all scenario would be both high level balance AND an effective ELO-style ranking system.
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Always thought they should balance for high tier but survivor would be garbage for the average and low skill players. So my stance has changed to balance around the average player. At least that way both sides can be as fun as they can be for a majority of people.
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It'd be nice to have the game be balanced at high level play.
But before I see the same goddamn link to the same goddamn Uncle Dane video agoddamngain, as an asymmetrical game, it's a lot harder to simultaneously do that and have it be an enjoyable experience at every other level than just "balance for tournament play, boom, done."
It'd have to be massive and sweeping. Which probably won't happen, ever, because that requires effort.
So i'll take the clown fiestas.
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High level /=/ comp. That's the highest level. DBD 100% is not balanced around high level play, but bad players. The game should be balanced around what someone can reasonably be achieved with effort.
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If DbD were ballanced around highest players that will mean... first, the game will need rewards.
Second, the game wouldn't be played casually which is the largest amount of player base, the sweatiness will increase a lot since the new comers, as they're perkless, they'll want to climb up to get each perk... easier, the game will need a ranking system... an accurate one which is indeed very hard.
I know some people would say "if you want to chill then stay in low ranks" but since the game will be competitive, even staying in low ranks will mean that someone will play as sweaty as possible.
I don't think it's a good idea... at all.
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no. 90% of this community doesnt even know how to properly use a pallet. and you think this game should be done around 10% of people who actaully know how to decently play the game? or even worse 1%? how often do you see them? if u are decent/good killer at the game you will find out yourself in a position where you almost never lose, so no, the game is fine as it is, why? because if u level the game with that people you need to also buff the killer so solos would be even WEAKER than they are already because they are solos they dont have the comunication and efficiency SWF can have, unless you go agaisnt 4 amazing solo players with is VERY rare, unless you give to those solos kindred base and some aura reading extra for free but that would be just dumb and i dont think the game should go that way anyway (thats why SWF are so dumb at the moment aswell, when they are decent at the game of course)...and top percent survivor are just gonna be what they are, boosted and pretty much unwinnable unless u are good at killer and also playing a high tier killer... wich is pretty much what it is right now, the game is survivor sided at the higher level and killer sided at a normal level.
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Absolutely not the high end of this game is boring as hell.
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So balance around the top 10% or 25 even. Why is everyone so fixated on like 10 people. 99% of the people on tgese forums bring up serious issues most of which can be balanced at the top. The poll doesnt even say "highest level" it says "high level" which would be reds.
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Mmr is going to do that anyway, which is why it needs to be legit balanced
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That. Exactly. Thank you
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Then you must be pissed about mmr
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High-level DbD is currently camping and genrushing and 4-minute trials. And it is relatively balanced. So ######### that, let's force all the sweaty players into one area like the comp scene pretends happens and the rest of us can enjoy the game.
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So let me ask you a question. Do you think nurse and spirit need to be nerfed?
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I believe there should be more counter play against a really good Spirit or Nurse. Blight for example is extremely powerful however even a really good Blight has a lot of counter play interaction between the survivor and the killer. I think Nurse and Spirit should be about the same.
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That’s the point though: high level DBD wouldn’t be as bad as it is now if it were balanced. The game can be balanced without killing it for low level players.
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Okay, just to make things super simple.
Dead by Daylight can never be balanced
This is because we have Solo Queue and SWF, which play completely different. You cannot accommodate the differences between the two of them, it's just impossible.
Even if you balance around the average between the two, you're still going to leave solo queue behind while SWF thrives. You cannot balance this game accurately until we close the communication gap that they have.
Before we choose how to balance the game, we need a foundation first.
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Balancing for average players just make high level players stronger tbh, so do that I suppose, let's the ecelebs make better montages for youtube.
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Perfectly balanced? No i don't think its possible. No game is, unless you take that game and strip it down to basically having no differences between any perk/ability. But we can certainly get much closer than we are now i think.
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But you see, you can't fundamentally hold these 2 beliefs at the same time. You say, the game should not be balanced around high level players, yet at the same time you say that nurse and spirit need
more counterplayto be nerfed. But, nurse and spirit are really only a problem in the hands of "high level players" Hell the statistics, for nurse HEAVILY show that nurse is the worst killer in the game by far. but this is due to average players bringing down her kill rate. Yet we all know that nurse is easily the best killer in the game.My point is, you can't have it both ways.
Either the game SHOULD be balanced around high level play, and we need to nerf survivors and nerf nurse/spirit/blight, or buff every other killer to be on part with nurse/spirit/blight.
OR.
The game SHOULD NOT be balanced around high level play, and we should leave nurse and spirit alone.
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That is..not at all why Evolve died.
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Should the game be balanced around the highest skill rate? Of course it should.
Or could you imagine a R6, LoL or CS getting balanced around bronze or silver ranks?
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so what are some changes they could make that wouldnt ruin the game for the rest of the playerbase then?
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I think top down balancing works if you want a competitive game. But as far as I can tell, this game is really casual. People get mad at you playing win conditions which is a big sign that top down balance would disrupt the community too much, in my opinion. We are 5 years too late to head that direction.
Generally speaking though, I prefer all games to be balanced around tournament play.
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Let all 4 survivors spawn together for example. Bad players dont use the advantage of a good spawn most of the time anyway, so it doesnt matter if you take it away from them.
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Define what you mean by high level players?
Top 0.1%, 1%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%...
Where is the cut off point?
People like talking about this as if the choice is the top 100 people in the world or everyone else...
Balance should be strived for the higher experienced players, yet more in the ballpark of top 30% of all players than the top 1% that people talk about. For a balanced approach you need enough of a diverse group, but also one that actually knows how the game works.
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Considering everyone so far in most of my matches hold W and pre drop everything I would say yes.
That is high level survivor 101.
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Just a few examples that would make the game better for everyone:
- adjusting killer hit boxes to be the same size as survivor hit boxes. Which would reduce the running in circles meta.
- removal of bloodlust (bandaid that was only required because killers have a bigger hitbox)
- introduction of additional objectives like refilling some gens with gasoline (including new items: gas can) and repairing some gens with parts. For balance reasons, this should be best applied to the strategic gens. Preventing at the same time that killers lose 2 or 3 gens in the first chase while also avoiding that survivors 3 gen themselves accidentaly
- removal of the 8k point limit per category. People shouldn´t be punished points wise, when the specialize on chases, gens or healing.
- introduction of bonus bloodpoint items for survivors. Which give more points in exchange of gimping certain things. Like applying the Oblivious status effect while the item is equipped. But giving 100% bonus points for every action while holding the item. Just like the addons that basically remove the killers ability. On top of that, all bonus point items/perks/addons should apply those points after the match. No Mither should also receive bonus bloodpoints.
Those are just a few things, that come right into my mind and would help both sides.
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High level dbd is a nurse facecamping someone to death while everyone else is holding m1 on gens. Let's balance the game so that everyone plays like that and the game will die.
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None of the games you mentioned are asymmetrical though, so can really compare them to dbd?
I recently saw a post about R6S on Reddit, where a common complain was, that Ubisoft only cares about comp and doesn't fix things, that suck for the casual players, so even in symmetrical games not everybody likes the balancing around the top.
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I mean, I'd hope most people would aspire to be better than "average," I don't imagine people play this game thinking they'll be mediocre at it still a year later. So I don't get why balancing around higher levels of play than just average is a bad thing. Besides, even if you say that the highest level of DBD is too boring, then you could also say that it's because they don't balance for highest levels of play that made it to stale in the first place, cuz they don't bother changing anything
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The average player should be the point of balance. This is a game that will have many casual players, amd balancing it versus the top 0.01% would be an extremely bad move - alienating many players.
Instead, there should be more rewards for players who dare to be different. As an example, perhaps weaker-tiered perks would offer a much larger BP total, endgame. Maybe even throw in some Iridescent Shards or something. Make variety a very real option, and incentivise players for more experimental builds.
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Difference is: R6 has ranked and non ranked modes.
Since we don´t have different game modes, the game needs to be balanced around ranked and high skill gameplay. A new or casual player can get better in time. But someone who has reached the skill ceiling can´t improve, when the game doesn´t allow him to.
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Except it is actually balanced. It's just not even remotely fun.
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if anything they should separate the worst players from the high level players so they won't have to worry about balances.
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Balancing about competent players is always preferable to balancing around incompetent players, because the former would learn to abuse/exploite/exquisitely use the advantages given by balance around the latter.
The same applies to the solo-swf problem. We could add all that fancy aura reading and UI help for "solo", but SWF will just use that crap too PLUS their voicechat.
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What is ballance in DBD? 2K average? That it "feels" ballanced? (because i think some here confurse stressful with unballanced)
What actually means highest level? Tournament level groups? The average rank 1 solo player? The top 20%?
My opinion: Ballancing a game like this for the top 1% or even Tournament players will never really work, since we have way to many factors to considere: The map sice, RNG factor, the different killers with their very different powers, SWF etc.
What would i do if i was forced to ballance this game for Tournament level:
- Change every map to Coal Tower size/tile spawn.
- Remove RNG factor completly from the game. Pallets and Tiles are always the exact same.
- Every killer gets buffed to a level somewhere between Nurse and PH, at least.
- Voice chat available for solo players.
Does not sound fun, right?
The best way to ballance this game is to acutally keep it how it is and change some things like extreme RNG or nerve some overpowered killers (overpowered for the average/good player). It will never ever be the big tournament game for obvious reasons but it can be a good game for the majority, and this is how it should be!
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I mean, in some ways it is? Nurse, Spirit and Blight can take on any team if played well (and we recently had the weird thought of suggesting giving these three their own qeue, they don´t even play the same game as the other killers that´s how strong they are). In my opinion people need to realise that they´re bound to get juiced if they decide to play one of the many trash killers and face a good team.
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But the killers they are facing are lower tier too. Thats WHY its called balance. I dont need more time to stomp new survivors. It wouldnt matter if gens took 1 minute or 5 mins you put me in a lobby with noobs theyll always lose. You put a brand new killer in with brand new survivors he has a bit of an edge but not a huge one
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Yeah but PRESUMABLY if were balancing around high levels of play were also fixing tge ranking system 🤷♂️
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you cant balance a game around "high level competetive gameplay" when the entire game is heavily build on RNG being a deciding factor in your matches.
they'd literally have to rework the entire game from scratch if they wanted to do that.
demanding something like this is not only extremely unrealistic (and therefore is basically guaranteed to disappoint you), but also shows a clear lack of understanding of this game.
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Let me first clarify that when I say "high level dbd" I'm referring to competitive matches with teams such such as Oracle. Now I don't believe you need to be at the level of high level dbd to make Nurse and Spirit overpowered, especially not Spirit. The reason Nurse's stats are so low is because the bare average (Top 50%) of the community even at red ranks are bad at the game. I'm not saying we should balance around this average. I think BHVR should balance (like I previously stated in another comment) around the semi skilled portion (Top 20-10%) of the community, because this point of skill is achievable with a decent chunk of time and desire to improve by any average player.
So my point would be to not balance around the top 0.01% of the community because of how sweaty and serious matches are at that level but also not balance around the average top 50% of the community because the average player is pretty bad at the game and doesn't make strives to improve at the game. Instead I think BHVR should balance around the semi skilled portion of the player base. And at this level of play Nurse and especially Spirit are still way too strong while offering very minimal counter play.
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