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what is the ideal kill rate? How do we know?
This just came into my mind after another post... how do we know what the ideal win rate of an asymmetric game should be?
We know dbd is balanced around 50% (or tries to be). which from a game standpoint makes sense, both sides should have equal chances of winning. but should they?
there are several games where this isn't followed. one example is a board game I really like called interpol (called ny chase in other countries https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/534/ny-chase). one player is mr. X and the rest are the detectives that must work together against mr. X and capture him within 24 rounds.
The game has several different mechanics for both sides (which I'll go into if anyone asks, but feels irelevant), and some shared. so, asymmetric game.
how is the win rate of it? from my personal experience, mr. X escaped exactly 1 time.
Mr. X has several mechanics going against him, and several others going for him. but the longer the game goes, the more you notice how the game is stacked in favor of the detectives. In an infinite game, mr. X woud never win. but this doesn't make the game bad, far from it. trying to beat those odds is what makes playing as mr.X fun.
Then we have werewolf, mafia, among us... which I'll just group into one thing (because is just different dressings for the same game).
(this is from the official among us twitter account) so we can say this game has a 50% win rate kinda... since these stats are kinda like nurse's kill rate... don't tell the full story.
most people say the game favours the crewmates, specially when they actually talk with each other instead of just shouting "RED"...
Can't really think of extra examples rn... because people usually avoid making asymmetric competitive games. (besides the obvious different characters with different abilities but all follow the same basic game rules. like mobas, tf2 or any fighting game for instance)
but back to the question at hand, how do we know dbd should be balanced around a 50% kill rate?
You can go "50% makes the game fair", but another can go "75% makes more sense with the games idea. since it's based on the classic slasher horror movies where usually only 1 person survives in the end, if any at all"
"but 75% means it's too hard for survivors, they'll lose more often and it won't be fun"
"but making it harder means it's even better when you do win, and it should be hard to survive an immortal killer. Just like the movies this game is trying to emulate"
"but then it's too easy for the killer"
"it's 4v1, it's never too easy"
and so on...
I don't actually expect this to ever reach any conclusion. Just want to have a discussion about this concept of an "ideal" win rate. because i've seen people hold onto it like their lives depend on it...
How can we know what it actually should be? What if the 50% we have been going for is actually not the best for this game?
thoughts?
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The problem is they are lumping all survivors into that 50% win rate as a whole. They are essentially forcing killers to lose no matter how skilled they are at the upper tiers so people that struggle to hold m1 on a gen can win 50% of the time.
Then again.. kills = skill so basement bubba away with noed and end game perks.
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That's why they need to acknowledge the skill gap between low and high mmr. The 50% win rate can't be between all ranks, thus why killers like nurse are so low.
As far as kills/ escapes being the only way to move up in mmr. Then should just abandon that and just use pips. This way if you run the killer the whole game but die to like noed you don't go down in mmr
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The devs are the ones who decide where the balance point should be. Presumably they want he median match results in the 1-3 kill range with an average of 2 so that 0 kills and 4 kills are the exceptions and most games the gates are open and someone gets out. If the game is hitting those marks then its balanced.
Now hypothetically they could have picked other balance points. For instance, they could have gone for most matches being either everybody lives or everybody dies with few in between games. I suspect a lot of killers who complain about ”gen speed” think that’s how the game should work, because in their mind the gates should only be open half the time. In principle you could design a game to work that way, it’s just that’s not how DbD was designed. And ultimately the devs are the ones who get to choose what model that want to shoot for.
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I remember the red ranks stats being around 50% aswell, so there's that...
but this isn't about what skill is or how the game decides what a win is. it's about what you think the win rate should be
it was around just red ranks aswell (granted, red ranks don't really mean much)
I agree, pips was a better method.
but this isn't about what skill is or how the game decides what a win is. it's about what you think the win rate should be
They decide where they want it. where it SHOULD be is a completely separate thing.
I never said anything about the game not being balanced, just wondering where that balance point should be.
I suspect a lot of killers who complain about ”gen speed” think that’s how the game should work, because in their mind the gates should only be open half the time.
how would you know what they think or what's in their mind?
pretty sure they can speak for themselves. What I want from you is YOUR opinion. not what you think others opinions are.
In principle you could design a game to work that way, it’s just that’s not how DbD was designed. And ultimately the devs are the ones who get to choose what model that want to shoot for.
in other news, water is wet.
I'm well aware of what win rate they decided to balance the game around. that isn't the point.
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They've mentioned 2 kills + a few more hooks (eg, 8-9 hooks) before.
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how would you know what they think or what's in their mind?
pretty sure they can speak for themselves. What I want from you is YOUR opinion. not what you think others opinions are.
Because they literally say things like “I got 6 hooks so I completed 50% of my goal while the survivors completed 80% of their goal by completing 4 of the gens”. Which means that, in their mind, the game is “balanced” is the killer has an equal chance of stopping all the gens from being done versus not being done.
So yeah, you got my opinion of both where the game should be balanced, which happens to align with the dev’s opinion, and my opinon on why a lot of people have a misconception of what the actual balance point is.
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Ideally 50% but also it shouldn't be 2k each game because 2ks are like 1 less pallet and its a 3k or 1 missed attack and its a 1k. When its a matter of the gates are open and just how many get through it is too close for a 2k to be considered equal. Ideal situation the game is a mix of 4ks 3ks 1ks and 0ks with a very small amount of 2ks.
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Just make it to where a killer who plays well at least has a chance to 4k. We don't need that to be the average, because that would be disastrous. Just make it to where skill is rewarded, instead of perks making or breaking your game.
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