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Many killer perks have a flawed design
My opinion: A game is mainly fun (for both survivors and killers) if they know they have some chance of winning. Once it is obvious that one side has no chance of winning (escaping, sacrificing) the game loses a lot of fun in my opinion. That's when AFK, DC, hook suicides start to happen. It is also less fun for the winning side, because the challenge is gone.
Therefore I think the perks should be designed in a way which help the player if they are in a losing situation.
The perks should not help if the player is in a winning situation. It causes a self feeding loop: the player is doing well, the perks give even more help to the player, now the player is even better, the perks help even more, and so on. This self feeding loop can easily boost a player into a level when they are so powerful that basically the other side has no chance of winning. While the losing side is not getting any help, i.e. sinks even more.
A lot of killer perks are designed in a bad way, because they reward the killers when they are successful and offer no support when they are unsuccessful. Basically all the perks which reward killers for hooking/sacrificing/downing survivors. Why? If the killer is doing well because the survivor was hooked/downed, the killer gets even more reward. If the killer is doing badly and can't hook/down survivors, the killer gets absolutely no help. Examples of badly designed perks: pop goes the weasel, scourge hook pain resonance, surge, hex:plaything, dead man's switch.
Good killer perk design: All perks which help the killer when a gen is worked on, gen is finished, killer loses a chase, can't find survivors, survivors are rescued etc. Examples: bitter murmur, brutal strength, coup de grace, deadlock, discordance, enduring, iron maiden, tinkerer, beast of prey, fearmonger, make your choice, play with your food, etc.
Survivor perks are I think relatively healthy, because they help survivors when they are in a bad situation. But e.g. Adrenaline and Dark Sense are probably bad, because they help survivors when gens are done, i.e. when survivors are doing well.
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BHVR should watch that.
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I actually agree with your sentiment and think you did a good job explaining it. As such, I'd like to ask some genuine questions from my notes that I took as I was watching your video.
Firstly, how do you explain the discrepancy in power between "healthy perks" and "unhealthy perks"?
Secondly, not a question. I agree that Killer perks should help more when the Killer is losing. I do not agree that they should do nothing when they are winning. You are playing well, ergo, you should be rewarded for it.
I'll make an example. Not saying this is balanced, just an example. Pop Goes the Weasel now does 50% gen damage upon your first hook, but if you have 6 hooks, it now only does 15% damage. It still helps you, but it's not overwhelmingly helping you.
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Definitely, this is why this game is so swingy... it's pretty much either of 4k or 4e, not much in between.
If you are winning, you have more moment and become less stoppable, while you are losing, you can't do anything and there is no way to crutch.
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This man has some takes the community is not going to agree with.
I 100% agree with bloodlust. It's haters love to say the killer does not deserve that kind of hand holding mechanic while they themselves are running Iron Will, Dead Hard, Decisive Strike, and Unbreakable.
Perks should help swing the course of the game to keep a momentum going back and forth instead of aiding steamrolls.
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Killer needs some sort of bloodlust effect for non-chase that goes away when they enter chase.
I do agree that the killer's perks are generally just "win more" perks, I wouldn't agree that those survivor perks like DS/BT/etc. are healthy though as they're just as powerful if not more so when you're winning. BT can make a killer lose the pressure they have from hooking someone and maintain that disadvantage for longer due to the extra hit + speed boost. Decisive Strike can extend chases and give you a free escape during the EGC. Dead Hard currently is not healthy as when executed properly it gives you an extra health state every 40 seconds you're not in chase, so if you break chase (and thus "win" that chase) you get back your dead hard, so you can "win more".
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Dead Hard needs to be reworked into something just entirely different.
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Thanks for watching and for the comment.
Could you explain your question about "discrepancy in power" a bit more? I am not sure if I understand it correctly.
Yeah, that could be a way to design Pop. The issue is still that you need to get hooks to get something out of it. But on the other hand the most help comes from the first hooks then you get only diminishing rewards. So it gives most of the total help after only a few hooks and you don't get a lot more help if you are doing well and manage to get a lot of hooks.
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Yeah, fully agree. And to fix this we need game mechanics that are proposed in the video. Good matchmaking alone can't fix it.
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I agree with the TLDR - “win more” perks are as a rule of thumb a bad idea, the better perks are ones that give more consistent benefits when the player is losing to help them catch up.
A good example on the killer side is Dying Light, since out of the gate it gives the survivors a bonus and gives the killer nothing at all. It takes a few hooks before the perk actually gives the killer enough of a boost to make up for that initial penalty. Eventually if the killer does well it can lock in the victory by giving the survivors a sizable penalty, but it does worse than nothing and actually hurts the killer if they’re losing. Ideally that perk should be tweaked to either remove the bonus the Obsession gets or to give the killer a base 5% to 10% gen slowdown right out of the gate at the start of the match to offset that Obsession’s bonus. That way the perk at least is at least not hurting the killer at the start and can help if they’re behind a bit but not getting stomped.
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Ok... so in theory I agree with you. Dead by daylight is a very snowbally game and it would be better if it wasn't.
In practice there's some problems.
- Player choice is important. Some people very much enjoy that high risk high reward gameplay that several killer perks encourage. Making that sort of build/playstyle not possible wouldn't be a good thing. What the Devs do need to do is do better at enabling builds that do start kicking in once the Killer is on the back foot.
- Loss aversion is a thing. We can't just go around reworking a bunch of perks that already exist just because they snowball. That's a very good way to royally piss off your players that liked those perks for what they were.
- Survivors arguably hate perks that activate when the killer is losing the most. By far the best killer perk like that in the game bar none is NOED. Killer in a bad spot because all gens are done; here's a massive power boost. I don't think I need to explain that NOED is probably the most debated perk on this forum. I constantly see people wanting to "fix" it by making it so it gives you X insta downs equal to the number of hooks you got during the trial, which completely circumvents the whole purpose of the perk as it is.
- Most perks that activate when the Killer is losing are bad. Bitter Murmur isn't terrible but there's a lot of better info perks. Coup De Grace is incredibly niche and only works on a handful of killers. Same with Play With Your Food. Fire Up is just pathetic. Same with Claustrophobia. Beast of Prey is in the running for worst killer perk in the game. Rancor is just kinda meh.
- Also... Make Your Choice is 100% a snowballing perk. Just wanna throw that out there.
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Part of the problem is that most of the "Good design" perks you listed are just BAD perks. They provide very, very little to the killer. I agree that there should be more 'safety net' perks, but they actually need to have a potent effect.
Tinkerer and Deadlock are great. They point you to the most at-risk gen or slow down gen progress. Stuff like Bitter Murmur or Beast of Prey are AWFUL. Their effects should be something like 4x as long on the aura reading of Bitter Murmur or making Beast skip you past from Bloodlust 1 and right into 2 or 3.
Perks that reward you for doing well are perceived by the Dev Team as "earned," so they feel more justified in giving them better effects. Second Chance perks are very common among Survivors, but take a look at the primary killer second chance: No One Escapes Death. It's the ultimate "well you lost the match, but you still have a chance to get something going, assuming the survivors didn't destroy/buff all your totems and you can find/hit the survivors, AND they don't find your NOED before you get any use out of it."
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BT and DS help the survivors when they are at a risk of being tunneled out, which is a big hit on them if the killer manages to tunnel out a person. So I think BT and DS are reasonable. (Yes, I agree about BT for protection hits or DS during EGC is questionable, arguments on both side can be valid. I don't want to go into the details of this here.)
Dead hard also follows the principles from the video: the survivors can use it when they are in a bad situation: injured and in a chase.
The problem is that Dead hard can offer too much help to the survivors, it can extend the chase by too much when used well.
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Thanks for the reply.
Let's look at Pop goes the weasel as an example, I said that it has a bad design. In your example if you play against baby survivors Pop will activate many times. But against babys you could win easily even without perks, you don't even need the help from Pop. However when you play against good survivors you maybe get only 3 hooks before all gens are done, so Pop would activate only 3 times. In this case you would need more help from Pop, but you get help only 3 times.
Perks based on my idea would give you help when you actually need the help. And it would not give help you if you don't need it (so that you can't too easily destroy the survivors).
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Wow, this dying light is indeed a weird killer perk. It is actually working against the killer until the killer manages to get some hooks. It has this "flipped over bowl" shape.
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Thanks for the response, you are raising interesting points.
1. Good point, risk reward perks could make the game more interesting. However IMO still we need to make sure that it can't get too overpowered and boost the killer too much. Also probably since it is a risk-reward, by default it should work against the killer and help only when some conditions are met.
2. Reworking the perks would not mean that they feel weaker. Since they would help more when you actually need it, they would feel more powerful IMO. Quick Pop idea: "You start with 3 tokens. Each finished gen gives you one token. Kicking a gen consumes a token and regresses gen by 25%."
3. I mentioned Noed in the video. I think the problem with it is that it is weak against 4 survivors but strong against 2. But yeah... It is a long discussion.
4. I agree, many perks that I listed as good design are quite weak. It is because listed them not based on strength, but based on the idea behind them. I am sure that there would be ways to buff them and make them viable.
5. Possible, maybe I was wrong about that perk.
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NOED is a perk that rewards losing the objective. you are saying that NOED is the ideal designed killer perk.I do not like design of NOED because it can skew kill-rates and turn games around on a dime. you can super beat-up as killer, have like 1 hook in all 5 gens and than somehow get 2 kills by the end of it from NOED concluding 2 kill-2 escape. a balanced game.
I think your looking at survivor perks and killer perks in the wrong way. When you look at commonly strong survivor perks that community agree upon such as Dead hard, Decisive strike, Borrow time, Circle of healing, Borrow time, You notice that all survivor perks have one thing in common which is that they prevent the killer from snowballing in various ways.
Dead hard prevents snowball by extending chases at loops therefore preventing the down.
Decisive strike discourages tunneling snowball by adding a cost to picking the same survivor up twice.
Circle of healing prevents the killer from snowballing from injuries & health states.
Unbreakable prevents slugging snowballs
Borrow time adds a cost to hitting an recently unhooked survivor to prevent tunneling off hook.
When you look at popular killer perks, you realize that many of the popular killer perks are about empower snowball. Examples are BBQ, Corrupt intervention, Pop goes weasel, Scourage hook: Pain Resonance, Dead man switch. all of them empower snowballing in one way or another. some at different points in the game.
conclusive DBD is not about seesaws and balanced weighting scales. That is what symmetric games are about. its more about outpacing your opponent and getting to finish line before your opponent does and the killer perks are there to get to finish line faster in my opinion.
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Yes, most of the perks listed under good design are weak, but they are not weak because of the design. They could be easily buffed to make them more viable.
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I believe almost all perks are flawed, the balance wouldn't have been such a mess if perks worked like side grades instead of upgrades.
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They COULD be buffed to make them viable. The problem is that they're not weak because of the design, they're weak BY design. As in, they are designed specifically to be weak.
The prevailing killer design philosophy is to reward success and punish failure. Anything that helps you when you are struggling is perceived as 'rewarding failure' and therefore is intentionally made to be niche and minimal. This is a common theme you will find in Western games, where the aesthetic is 'if you are winning, you deserve to keep winning,' and leads to snowballing situations where one side gets so far ahead that the other side loses any chance to come back.
And that's why so many people use NOED (and why survivors hate NOED so much). It is, effectively, a Blue Shell in Mario Kart. It's a perk that says "okay, you're going really badly, so here's one last opportunity." But NOED is the exception to the rule. Virtually every other perk worth using rewards success and multiplies your lead, instead of mitigating setbacks by giving you a needed mid-game push. There are lots of opportunities to build in mid-game catch-up, but the design philosophy just keeps getting in the way.
Just look at Grim Embrace. Here's a perk that gives killers a mid-game breather, completely stopping all gen progress. However, it only works IF the killer manages to down and hook all four survivors once. I don't know about you, but my games typically had 2-3 generators pop by the time I got my first hook. Tack on that survivors can use the same characters with the same skins, making it extremely difficult to tell who you HAVE and who you HAVEN'T hooked yet (since the killer hook counter HELPFULLY has less information than the survivor one). So, if you're doing quite well, Grim Embrace gives you more time to keep doing well. But if you're struggling to get get downs, much less evenly spread hooks? Totally useless.
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