What does the AFK Challenge say about the balance?
I see that a lot of streamers are playing a killer challenge where they use no addons or perks, stay AFK for 30 seconds and then play as sweaty as they can. Most of the results I have seen are way above 2K average kills.
I'm really not sure what to make of these results. More importantly, I'm not sure what the devs will make of these results. What message are these streamers sending when they complain about MMR giving them sweaty games and then they still win them under these conditions?
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What that challenge is highlighting is that camping, tunnelling and slugging aren't just unfun strategies, they're also really hard to deal with on average.
For all the talk on the forums about the game being survivor sided, if the killers decide to play to the absolute most they can, with no regard for how fun the game is, the game suddenly swings in the complete opposite direction. It doesn't say much about balance other than the one thing that Otz said when he presented the results of this experiment: The game is sweaty-sided. Those who play purely for the win with no regard for enjoyment of themselves or others are generally favoured.
I think the best takeaway from this would be that the game needs some overhauling to reduce the power of the most powerful strats on both sides. It can't just be survivors that give up power here, the experiment shows that something must be done about the most powerful killer strategies.
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It doesn't say that much about balance, because you are not comparing same sides.
Good luck trying to do it against stream snipers, that go there to win.
But if you decide to tunnel / camp from first hook, most players just can't handle it.
What it shows is that normal games are not that survivor / killer sided, it is just contest who wants to win more and use more resources to win. Problem is when you don't want to camp / tunnel and maybe not even use meta perks, you will have a game with 1 hook total and feel like #########.
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Not true. They are easy to deal with, but survivors are altruistic to a fault. They can roll a killer and still get team wiped during EGC because they refuse to let the single hook go. Lol.
But yes, tunneling and camping are the second strongest tool a killer has. It pales in comparison to the average survivors game sense, however. Let's be real. No sugar coating the truth... We all know I am right.
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Maybe look at Otz video where he explains it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acHiwnCW7eI
As in the person that set out this challenge spells it out for you: This game favors whatever side wants to be the most cruel and unfair.
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the problem is tunneling and camping, i'm saying for a long time we need something like DS and BT basekit and then balance the game around this. It would solve a lot of toxicity. I'm sure a lot of the killer doesn't want to play like this but whenever i do i feel like i have to against a decent team in order to win.
It's way too strong in pub matches against solos.
nah, it's not easy to deal with if you can't communicate and 5 gens aren't done in one camping session. Only because some tournament teams can play around it doesn't mean it's easy to deal with. I play both sides and i know how easy a game is where you tunnel someone out early. It's nearly impossible to lose as killer if you get someone killed at 3 gens
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It obviously depends on the skill level, but at high mmr, there is no excuse. They deserve to get 4k'd so they get to a level they can manage a little better. That is WHY we have MMR. Otz did those survivors a favor.
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'We all know I am right' sounds like sheer desperation. I think people are starting to realise you aren't.
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Ultimately I don't really think it says a lot. Streamers put a lot of hours into the game because it's a job. So they are certainly going to be better than the average player.
Then it's such a small sample size overall that it's hard to draw any sort of real conclusion from it.
If you really need a take away then perks and addons are not the main contributing factor to winning or losing.
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It says that the game overly rewards gameplay styles that the vast majority of the community dislike or find boring.
Camping and tunneling is certainly not fun to go against and I'd say at least a decent amount of killers dislike overly using those tools either, so how do you counter these strategies? Well you just hold m1 on a generator as spread out as possible and don't even bother with altruism or interacting with the killer and if the killer does chase you just throw down every pallet you run to which isn't fun for killers to go against either cause it just turns into pallet kicking simulator.
DbD needs to more heavily incentivise interacting with your opponents instead of the easiest and most effective strategies for both side being to limit those interactions.
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Yes, the same people who are drawing conclusions from a test they didn't even watch. What am I desperate about? Proving that survivors who did gens before anyone reached second state still lose because they make horrible decisions? Yes. I am so desperate. I care so much about how bad survivors are at the game. You can really tell how concerned I am by how intimidated I am by survivors. It is all I post about, all of my losses. Complaining about mmr. Talking about how I want to quit because of it.
That is what my posts are all about. A huge storied history of crying about how survivors constantly wreck me and how my tunneling and camping never work. I think everyone knows that I never advocate for those strategies because... Honestly, I went so sarcastic that I forgot what the point was.
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You would have to nerf the ######### out of survivors to give them those perks basekit.
There is no way you could just do it like this. All those perks they would get for free would be replaced with Unbreakables and gen rushing perks.
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Yes, the same people who are drawing conclusions from a test they didn't even watch.
At least blind data is still better than just trying to prop up your idea of a survivor-sided game on 'we all know I'm right'.
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Honestly, I went so sarcastic that I forgot what the point was.
That's some next level #########...
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I do definitely agree with you about killers not enjoying tunneling or camping someone.
Tunneling and camping in a match sometimes you have to do, not because you had a bad day and want to take it out on survivors, but sometimes 2 gens pop before you even get your 1st hook; you sort of panic and decide you have no choice but to play 'scummy'.
once in a while playing like this when you feel a match is getting out of your hand is fine, but if you feel like you need to do this for a vast majority of the matches, its just not worth it.
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That was not what I said. I stated that the greatest asset to a killer was the fact that most survivor mains are sussy baka. I was telling people that tunneling and camping were the strongest strategies a killer had at their disposal when I was like one week into the game and all of these people who were playing for years were genuinely convinced camping and tunneling lost you games.
I am not sure if you play killer, but if you did, surely you know what I am talking about. All of the gens fly before you have a foothold in the game, and then you get your hook and 3 of them rush the hook when the gates are 99. Right? They gift you that opportunity. Rarely do they ever just leave that guy to die.
That is what I am talking about. If you know you know. I suspect if and when that happens to you... I guess you don't snowball and they just pull him off and leave. But when they do that to a good killer, 2k at least. A draw from a game where you got destroyed. Who would have guessed?
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I completely agree that they will always need to be in the game as an option but they shouldn't be the default and there should be stronger and more interactive strategies.
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I’d agree with Otz’ take on it, with the added comment that it’s unfortunate that the most effective tools in the killer toolkit (tunneling, camping, and slugging) are deemed “unsportsmanlike.” You put killers in a terrible situation by having to deal with gameplay as well as social pressure to fail and deal with the BM that is seen as something that just requires thicker skin. It’s a pretty wild swing between sadism and masochism.
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It says exactly what people don't want to hear:
- At the highest level, playing as sweaty as possible, the game is balanced.
People hate to hear it but it seems to be true. It seems like the devs have actually got a perfectly balanced game at high ranks. The tournament that took place a month ago was the early signs of it.
The one thing I like about this challenge is that it is teaching people that they can still win a game, even if 2/3 gens pop immediately.
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In the case that your claim is true (and it doesn't sound too Unreasonable) this challenge also highlights the facts that nearly no killer uses this tactics in all it combined glory, at least all the time, be that because the community desided that its more or less scummy or they don't feel indifferent about draining all the survivors fun out of the game just for the sake of winning.
Yes, sweat wins, and this probably goes both ways. Maybe the meta take away of this experiment could be that regularly more survivors use every tactic and tool available to them to sweat it, because this game rewards this behavior? I don't know, but you read it so much here, on reddit, on Discord, practically everywhere, this feeling that killer players are somewhat punished for playing good by been thrown into the meat grinder of sweaty game after sweaty game, all day, every day, and that it's burning killers out.
This kind of threads sadly all too quickly devolve into "we vs them" mud matches, and even I, with my hopefully measured response, probably made a few more accusations then needed, because I am biased.
I like your conclusion, though: both sides how very strong and aweful tactics and tools at their disposal if they go full "sweat mode", and this should be looked at and de-toothed somehow, so that killers can play the game without getting all sweaty just for thinking of the next match and survivors an play 3 games in the row without being face camped and/or tunneled out of the game 1min into the match.
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I got bored a week or two ago and did something like this. I brought what I wanted to but would joke around for 2-3 gens (playing peek -a -boo, just kicking gens, etc) then when the survivors take there guard down kill them all. I was surprised how easy it was. Now I'm back to just killing them from the start.
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It shows that if you play at certain times of the day you can be matched against survivors who can't find their m1 button, regardless of your mmr.
No offense to Otz. I just think he didn't consider this variable.
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Its shows that perks and addons don't determine success for a killer.
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At the maximum sweat, the game is balanced
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The conclusion is that unfun strategies are too viable.
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