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Why playing killer feels so much more stressfull than playing survivor?
You always feels under pressure when playing killer,even when you do good.
Do you think BHVR babysits survivors too much that they forget to actually get better at the game?
I play both sides,mostly survivor now and I see a lot of survivors trying to rely on the best perks in the game and hope its enough for an easy escape without trying to loop,worry about a 3gen,take hits for your teammates or be mindful if the killer is near the hook while unhooking.(especially in soloq)
When playing killer,you're instantly worried about all your objectives and wanting to get better with each game.
I think survivors rely too much on perks,than actually improving at the game.
The difference when playing survivor without using second chance perks,boons,or perks like wop that makes looping easy mode is insane.
You have to actually know where loops are,how to loop the killer else you just die,and teamwork if you want a heal.
For killer,even if you use the best perks,you still have to play just as good in order to get anything from a game and you're still under the same amount of pressure.
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It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with perks and stuff in the first place.
The basic principle of this game with its asymmetrical nature in itself is build for a more demanding/stressful time for killers.
The killer is in action 100% of the time and has to keep the state of 7 gens, 4 survivor with their 16 perks, 5 totems (in case of hexes or boons) and (in late game) 2 gates in mind.
Ok the other hand only one survivor can be in chase at once. So given a averaged action (chase) time of 25%, interrupting streaks of boredom holding M1 on gens and maybe rescuing others from hooks.
Also the pace of the game is initially set by the survivors. Given no interference, survivor can end a trial in less 4 minutes. The killer is only trying to prolong that into infinity (aka 4k).
But that itself is a result of the age of this game and it's changes over the years itself.
In the beginning survivor had more broken tools but killer had a way higher lethality with old Mori's for example. Getting caught by the killer could mean an immediate death sentence. Therefore immersed playstyles without getting caught by the killer were more popular.
But over the years it becamd more and more standard for survivor to be hooked for all 3 hookstates and without camping they had to be chased again and again for each.
Combined with the improved efficiency in playstyles that develops in any game over time playing killer became more and more stressful despite survivor losing most of their broken tools while killer also became less lethal.
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As survivor, you heavily rely on the 3 other teammates in the game. If they play well, it's easier for you and vise versa.
As killer, you're alone juggling 4 different people and trying to take control over a situation where the odds are stacked against you depending on how well the survivors understand the many loops given to them in maps..
It's true the killer role is harder as your alone, and have nobody else to help the game go in your favor.
I've always said the killer should receive 1 and half to two times more points per match seeing its a 1 v 4.
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Because as a killer you need to defend 7 generators, understand when to commit to chases, be able to down survivors quickly in a chase, keep track of 16 perks, be mindful of generator progress, master your own killer power and get good value from your own perks.
Conversely, survivors just need to hold M1 until the killer starts chasing them. And even then, perks like DH and the absurd amount of survivor-sided maps will carry you decently in a chase.
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Because survivor has control of the game, and non nurse killers must wait for survivors to make mistakes before they are allowed to succeed. Perks and abilities don't really factor into this.
The tradeoff is that killer can punish survivor mistakes fairly well, but that doesn't matter if survivors don't make too many mistakes and use anti tunnel tactics (which is optimal). The deathslinger nerf and the difference between totems and boons shows that the modern balance philosophy of DBD is to limit killer control of the game.
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Because you are on your own against 4 other people, that in itself is kinda scary.
When it comes to survivor, I mostly get annoyed when my teammates go down in 10 seconds on a survivor sided map like the game or fractured or do some stupid stuff but it's never really stressful unless it's a close call and we are all playing well so the odds can change any second.
When playing killer, you are on your own, your mistakes can cost you the match and you have 4 other people who are either going to think you are bad and bm you or who are just better than you and you feel like there's nothing you can do.
And when you are doing good you still have to keep it up until the end so it only feels good once the match is over and everyone is dead.
My advice when playing killer is just to go with a mentality that you want to have fun and get the most use out of your power.
When I play Nurse I always just hope I will get some spicy blinks, with Ghostie I want to stalk and surprise people and have some cheeky insta downs, with Hag I just want those gen grabs with rusty shackles, or I want to get some cool shots with Huntress etc.
Playing and focusing exclusively on 4k is miserable, I say that from personal expirence.
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You need to think.
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I see this more in the remarks survivors tend to make (yes, killers do too but not nearly as often) if they didn't like your means of winning. That puts pressure on killers to play less efficiently in order to not be berated by multiple people afterwards.
The SWF dynamic makes it easier to perpetuate the general shaming of styles as it's easy for 3 or 4 people to win an argument against 1 even if it's just by repeating a fictional rulebook.
Also the general competitive nature makes it almost necessary for SWF players to find a reason to blame the killers tactics rather than just say "we lost" or "we played badly that match". It's not in human nature to admit defeat in a team environment vs a single player.
As soon as I stopped taking the toxic criticism seriously, killer became much less stressful.
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I find it more stressful to play survivor, but that's because I suck at it and if the killers finds me I almost always get hit xD.
I prefer killer and play it almost exclusively (I only play survivor for the tome and rift stuff) and although it's more hectic it's also more relaxing for me.
I feel like the survivors have to know every map by memory and since I play casually that's not going to happen.
As killer I just have to worry about what the survivor in front of me is doing and how to game the tile or loop. I can see the gens. Let the survivors worry about where they are going, I just want to chase them.
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Just curious. Did you happen to have a ton of killer hours before playing survivor?
I have the same issue of being able to avoid detection pretty well but if a chase starts I literally run into the open impulsively.
I used to play F13 the game and it randomly chose the killer (Jason) from the 8 person lobby.
I bought this game because I liked the idea of being able to choose to play killer. I had probably 800-1000 hrs of killer before I ever tried survivor. I've always wondered if that's why, that's why I'm wondering.
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You might be unto something!
I don't have a ton of hours because I plays this since the epic games freebie and I do so casually, nowadays perhaps 2 to 3 hours a day, not every day, but I did play killers exclusively for the first months and it's only recently that I started with some "surviving".
And it's exactly the same. I'm very good at hiding right in the face of the killer but if it finds me, I just do a beeline to the nearest whatever. Rock, tree, building. If I happen to run into a loop or pallet I'm actually pretty decent at keeping the killer at bay for some time, but it's kinda rng based whether I will find one or not xD.
Maybe it's some kind of killer syndrome?
My wife and I even joke about it. When I tell her I'm gonna play dbd (which essentially means, "there is no pause, please don't ask me to take the trash out") she just asks if I'm gonna kill people or I'm just gonna get killed
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Because of micromanagement mixed with a dev team that made survivors too forgiving at the current state.
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I must be some god at managing my stress or im just some soulless demon because I seriously don't understand whats so stressful about playing a video game
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Sadly you have to accept and realize that the 1 in the 4v1 equation is made weak intentionally. If survivors had low odds of escaping every match, then the fun factor for that role would cease to exist. Because of this I've accepted the reality that playing Killer will always be the harder role, I just wish that the game was a bit more fairly balanced. Playing against a SWF is absurdly difficult given the amount of information at the survivors' disposal, especially if you're playing a stealthy killer, and as such I think information perks like what can be had with BBQ should become base kit.
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Because current DBD is survivor sided.
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I think it comes down to the length of matches and who actually control the pace of the game. Survivors control the pace and games can end extremely quickly. 4-5 minutes quickly. The killer is supposed to disrupt their pace, and at that point it's dependent on how survivors react to that disruption that determines the game. Good survivors will keep their composer and keep things at their own pace. Bad survivors will let the disruption affect them and make mistakes. That's when the killer can take control and start dictating the flow of the game. That's why they call it resetting. You reset the control of the game by removing the pressure the killer has.
There's 2 main flaws with this design.
1. 80-90% killers don't feel like the power role. You're not in control. You can BECOME the power role if you snowball enough to take control. This feels bad overall for both sides. For killers it means you feel powerless 90% of the time and you can't do anything about it. But without killers you might as well be playing bots on DBD mobile.
2. It removes any urgency from the game. It provides this inflated sense of protection. The amount of times my friends and I have just done a bunch of BS in matches like throwing firecrackers in each other's faces or sandbagging each other for laughs is way too many. But it's okay because we know we're gonna win unless we purposely throw the game. We know we can bully killers as much as we want and still be safe and there's nothing they can do about it. Because we dictate the flow.
Most maps are so safe for survivors we don't actually feel in any danger unless we make a huge mistake. Because we have a safe pallet that can be looped multiple times, that leads to another safe pallet that can be looped multiple times, into another safe pallet, into shack, into another safe pallet, into a safe gym, into another safe pallet, into main building with multiple safe vaults and pallets, into another safe pallet that leads into another gym.
At that point killers are forced to either commit to chase and lose 4 gens in 4 minutes, or leave, lose all pressure, and try to go find someone else who can also use these loops. For a while after they fixed infinites it was good because you had a certain amount of pallets you could use, and if you just pre dropped every pallet you'd have nothing for the mid-late game and your team would hate you for it. This can still be seen on certain macmillan maps. However, most maps have so many strong pallets and structures that you can pre drop everything and still have enough to last the entire game.
Then you add in all your second chance perks, and how fast healing is right now even without COH, and it's no wonder why so many switch to survivor and why it's so much easier and laid back. There's so much at a survivor's disposal for safety, and so many things have been added to slow down killers, breakable walls, going out of your way to snuff boons ect.. There's just no real danger or urgency for survivors currently. It's no longer an asymmetrical horror game. It's a party game with friends and a horror themed skin.
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I think there's two main reasons for why it feels more stressful and less fulfilling in the long run.
One, it's a 4v1. You have no-one to share the laugh with, no-one to share the frustration with. It's all on you, and that can be a bit much at times. But also means survivors are much more likely to be toxic, because there's more of them and they won't get truly punished for it. Which definitely doesn't help.
Secondly, I think it's the lack of control you have as Killer. It's up to the survivor mistakes for you to do well, it's up to RNG for you to so much as use your power since some maps basically say "No" to you doing anything. (Examples being the Swamps as Blight. Trees are thicker than a bowl of oatmeal, but you'll slide off all of them. Or Corn maps as GF/Myers, where you have to pray they don't go into corn when 99'd.) It's also up to the game to not bug out as well and let you move at all. (The recent Nurse bug that's caused her to be disabled, for instance.)
Another thing though, is the Developers making random changes that make no sense. Such as nerfing every addon that's used the most on a lot of Killers for no reason. You know, instead of looking at the twenty other addons that are terrible. Also making Killers like Twins and Edgeslinger feel awful to play for some reason. (Still have ZERO clue why Billy needed a. overheat mechanic, or why they nerfed Freddy's snares so hard.)
Now, this isn't to say it can't have it's moments. I remember purposefully targeting streamers so I can make them extremely confused and scared as Jumpscare Doc on Lerys. Those were some of the most enjoyable matches I've had, especially watching one guy get hit then sitting there with his mouth agape for multiple seconds.
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That's not true,it would make them actually learn how to get better at the game and feel satisfying escaping,it shouldn't be easy.
Survivor is easy to pick up but hard to master,its the more fun role,not easier,because being an actual good survivor is hard.
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As a survivor, you don't realize your mistakes as easily as killer.
Being a ######### survivor by managing time poorly? Doesn't matter because you have 3 people who help carry you. And it can only take 1 really good survivor to carry a team.
As a killer, this doesn't happen.
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because the people who play killer aren't well in the head and play this as a competitive game, while survivors are more laidback
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Because you are alone, therefore meaning all the guilt will be upon you. You cannot share your pain with friends in real time, you cannot shittalk the camping killer and have someone supporting you on Discord and then laugh after that with them. You are by your own, the mistakes you make are your fault and they are punished hard.
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I honestly think that's the problem then. As killer you learn to follow a single target in first person view via scratch marks. Chase music kind of deafens killer too. So if that's how you learn and play only that for a while it makes a third person hard. Especially when you depend on listening for a heartbeat and trying to see a faint red glow lol
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If killer is stressing you out, I recommend a role swap. Half the reason my sister and I do not play more survivor is because that is the stressful role to us and why would we? Beyond the daily for rift progress.
I have been playing more and more survivor as I am out of killer challenges to grind for day one p3 Sadako and let me tell you the only thing keeping me from wanting to just stop playing the game entirely is the hype for her. It is dreadful.
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Because killers have to manage more things than survivors.
Killers have to patrol gens, chase and hook survivors, break gens, and guard the exit gates at end game.
Survivors only have one objective, which is gens. And there is four of them and only one killer. If all four survivors were doing separate gens and the killer couldn't find them, 4 gens would be done with only 1 left.
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It's really dead simple - Killers have no downtime, and have to be constantly active and engaged. Survivors do have downtime, and the killer's focus is divided among four. As a killer, you are your entire team, and while that gives you more control, it also gives you all the responsibility.
It's also way basic surv gameplay is just less fun to watch than killer. Way more downtime.
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I think you hit the nail on the head with this.
Killers were definitely more lethal and gameplay more immersive, but this has given way to an era of super bold survivor play and a state of constant chase.
1-2 chases as survivor is fun, but 8-12 chases as killer kinda gets exhausting after a bit, the level of invested effort is in no way equivalent.
People want 50/50 chance of escape gameplay but the effort to get that is actually 25/100 from a survivor/killer effort ratio.
It can make killer games feel more like a chore than a fun game sometimes and I can see why people are always saying they find killer less fun to play. Its not really harder it just requires a ######### tonne more invested effort to get something out of it.
I'd much rather play immersive against a really lethal killer than bold against a mediocre killer. The latter however seems to be the game's direction, which is a shame.
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I did a role swap,I play killer from time to time,I wish I could play more often but it just isn't fun anymore for me.
This,I couldn't agree more,lately all my games as killer feel like a chore,the gen pressure is the biggest factor why it feels like that,I know that if I lose a chase I lose all my pressure,there is no room for error for killer since survivors can punish you 4times for a single mistake.
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Word up. I hate the sensation when a game I once loved no longer feels fun. It is really unfortunate and sadly, the only thing you can do is find a replacement.
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Because people take this game too seriously.
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I've been playing killer more and more because a majority of the time it's more fun for me ... however ... I am exhausted from the second chance perks every game lol. And it's most likely because I don't have great perks as killer since I have I think only 3 leveled up so far? So my observance of the map is REALLY limited and I don't have like ANY gen pressure perks currently. (and I've also noticed playing after 8pm is the worst idea for me cause it's ALL try hard swf's that I run into after that time). Plus, as a new killer I am horrible at getting looped/spun/body blocked... sigh... okay maybe it isn't THAT fun all the time. But like everyone else said ... more pressure on the killer and your mistakes make a lot more of a difference vs survivor cause it's just you vs 4 ppl
All I know is thank god for lightborn right now LOL
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Playing killer is more exhausting,I get more exhausted playing 1 killer game,than 10 games as survivor.
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Well if don't take this game seriously, you get sh*t on from the opposing side most of the time.
Luckily I managed to dump my MMR down and avoid killing most survivors intentionally (can't do anything against people abandoned on hook or suiciding on their first) and I am spared of most BM while being a friendly crash test dummy killer player.
I made it my goal to make it easier or give fresh breath of air for low skilled survivor but still will see bm for that.
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All hail our lord and saviour Lightborn 😎.
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MMR will never work as intented because killer isn't funt to play and I understand why some will intentionally lower their MMR.
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That's personal, for me killer didn't feel stressful.
Many killer perks don't help you if you are in a bad situation, that can be a problem as well.
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That video needs more views,its very interesting.
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Well yeah killer isn't fun to play if the goal is the 4k everytime. Problem is that the clean swipe against good opponents feels the most rewarding. None really enjoys stomping noobs.
My playstyle wasn't originally aimed at lowering my MMR. I just started to intentionally play without camping, tunneling or slugging more than one person at a time and passing hook states evenly aka hook a then b,c,d and back to a and so forth.
But getting any kills with that was so hard and survivor even try to deny you any hooks sometimes that is just stopped giving a crap about kills but it is hard to change ways so i made it a point to avoid killing at all and maximizing playtime for survivors. I felt bad for every survivor that died because their team didn't save them even with me being intentionally on the opposite side of the map.
Now my first aim are the 4 bbq stacks and then to bring everybody to hook stage 2. This allows me to provide normal intense gameplay for them and see how far they progressed the game with the pressure i exceed, which isn't too much.
If they managed all 5 gens i take the gate opening points and let them leave. If not I ease up even more and if that still not helps and they run around like headless chicken then i just end their misery one after another.
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That is your problem i feel fine playing killer just be chill if you play with that kind of mentality you will lose most od times 🙃
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Thanks, I am happy that you found it interesting. If you would leave a comment on the original forum post where I first published the video that would be great. I would be happy if it would get a bit more views.
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I would add being isolated and alone hits different.
Also something about being big baddy but mocked and powerless at times. Like you are an abomination that "normal" people gang up on. Etc.
It is individual ofc. People can attack me for being soft idc. I am just being honest like always.
I feel more comfortable playing survivor because frustration is better than frustration+anxiety. It is not always like that but it happens. And I don't torture myself like others, I switch roles. Or game.
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There's a difference between playing to win and playing like the world depends on the outcome. People take losing too seriously, which in turn leads to them stressing over a game. I used to get worked up playing F13. I felt like I failed as killer if I let more than one person escape. I got alot happier when I stopped worrying about it.
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I believe this is individual. I find playing killer less stressful and survivor more stressful.
When I play killer I usually got more control in the game, as a solo q survivor I am dependent on others, and others are not always helpful or good. (I always try to be helpful but my survivor skills are way below my killer skills so I am not always good in a match 😅)
There are of course also the matches were survivors dominate the match, which I do not mind. Gotta have some challenges.
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Because survivors are stronger. That's the answer
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Its not soft at all though because it gets tiresome gaming with really obnoxious people who like to drive home the point that they are better than you at a game.
Sure its a game it doesn't really matter but at the same time you are forced to play with these people you wouldn't want to play with under any other circumstances.
We all know that person we don't want at boardgame night because playing with them is just a terrible experience win or lose. Well you roll the dice of being paired up with that person, or a group of them, every time you queue solo for DBD and killer is the solo role so you get it far more often as killer.
It doesn't make killer worse than survivor, but it can be the more tiresome role when this typically negative social element is a very common part of PUG gaming.
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Because playing killer is hard. And playing survivor is easy.
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Stress or inactivity / boring / waiting. Pick your flavor.
The beauty of this game is that I can choose either based on mood or schedule.
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