A question to all my brother and sister killer mains.
Rank one red legacy player here both killer and survivor- 5+ years on and off. I've seen patches come and go. Overall I've enjoyed the game for the most part for a few months at a time. I invariably come back when a new killer is released.
The past few times I've come back I've had less and less fun as the killer. Am I the only one that finds playing them to be absolutely grueling in high ranks? Just straight up not fun?
I genuinely don't mean this as bait or troll. This is just how the game has made me feel and it makes me rather sad. I'm pigeonholed into Nurse or Blight with gen regression perks for even a chance at a 4k in most of the matches I play. I have to sweat my bloody ass off to have a chance of winning. I suppose I could derank but dunking on baby survivors isn't satisfying and I honestly feel bad for the little fellas.
As a survivor, and I'm by no means the best, it just feels so much more relaxing. Hell, I feel guilty sometimes at how easy the game has become. My friends and I laugh and chat throughout the match and the joy of surviving hasn't changed since the game release... but killers? Grueling balls of stress at the top level.
Am I the only one that thinks this game is insanely imbalanced and just plain not fun to play killer anymore? Is this the direction the game is headed and will continue to head? I'm looking for a light at the end of the tunnel here. Gimme a reason to be optimistic.
Cheers.
Comments
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Well, eventually you make a forum account to complain and some random guy recommends a game called Hollow Knight and then you learn of a game that's actually good.
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I think it'll be a much shorter list if you ask any high ranking MMR killers who are HAPPY with the current state of the game. A lot less writing for you to have to do.
There's bound to be the oddball every so often but I would wager that most High Ranking MMR Killers are quite unhappy with the state of the game as BHVR for whatever reason balances around low level play and just let's the high level MMR killers be survivor punching bags.
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That game is incredible. I'm glad you found it. :) Can't wait for the sequel.
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I think, being a vet of three years, that the game is more balanced than ever. My first year was full of no-recharge five blink Nurse, insta-saw Billy, original Mettle of Man, and actual (actual) god loops.
Have the players who express thoughts like this (with their brand new accounts) ever considered if they’re bored with the game? Yknow that’s an okay outcome.
Maybe take a break. I hear Civilization is good.
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I am a dedicated camper / tunneler and I still find the game fun. Going for 12 hooks is a fools errand and I also don't feel like spamming Nurse / Blight.
They do kinda demand perfection but I still have fun. It's definitely not a casual game and I usually cool off between matches they are so sweaty now.
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Hey, thanks for the comment. I can PM you (or whatever) my steam account. I've had this game forever, I just don't post on forums often (ever). Several thousand hours. I take long breaks. Civ is a great game, especially with friends.
I LIKE DBD. I genuinely do. I'm just having less and less fun as killer as time goes by and wanted to know if I'm alone.
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Your next question should be how many of those were actually hackers?
But yeah, they buffed survivor to the point where it takes very little skill to play, and there is so much hand holding that playing Killer just isn't rewarding anymore, because all of the things that were meant to reward you as Killer is now denied by the push of a button, and passive second chance perks. I have even started to see Survivors stop running Borrowed Time because they know Killers are conditioned to play around it. How effed up is that.
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Yeah, I purposefully left out toxicity and hacking out of my question as I thought it'd be baity. Obviously those are problems as well and have contributed to me dread every time I think of queing killer after I hit iri 1.
Every few matches those gens seem to pop just a little too quickly and it makes me paranoid. I have yet to encounter a blatant hacker though, despite years of playing. I suppose I'm one of the blessed few. That and I don't have a stream to troll so I'm beneath their notice.
I've definitely had subtle hackers though. Much more often now than before. And the toxicity? Well, that's always been there. I'm actually shocked at how toxic this place has remained. But hey, at least post-game chat is all hashtags now, so that's an improvement. Right?
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So I should give up and embrace my inner Bubba? #########. I just might.
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I do, he's pretty relaxing. You gotta sweat at the start but the second you get that basement hook it's chilling time.
Pyramid head is my next runner up, godly chase power and you always gotta be scared of him because he can tunnel people out so easily. You can proxy camp the cages too which is pretty funny.
Both pretty much bypass the meta. Nobody says you gotta run the doggo tier killers, although I do sometimes for kicks if I am bored. Usually I am quickly reminded why I don't play them often though.
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I’m with you - having less fun as killer than I did before the intro of SBMM and boons. If I get matched against a group of competent survivors (especially if they’re on comms), I have to play super sweaty and camp/tunnel for kills. Gens just go way too fast against coordinated teams and some maps are riddled with strong loops next to each other making chases take way too long (but if you let them go, they’ll just go to their boon and heal). Boons have given killers a secondary objective that they never had to deal with before. I play both sides and I’m finding survivor easier than ever and I’m finding killer more difficult than ever.
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are you starting a cult or something? the thread title is sus as #########
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If you want to stay in high MMR then yes... give up on all but the strongest stuff
If you don't care for high MMR then play whomever, however you want to
IDK what else you want to see
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It's funny you mention that, I was 100% plan on trying Pyramid next season. I'll definitely do so now. Gotta love that mori speed + anti loop combo. No clue why I haven't tried him yet already.
Cheers.
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It's not that bad. But it depends on what we define as "sweating" and what we consider fun at the end of the day. I play nearly every killer on the roster and don't find myself having to turn on the omega-sweat that often.
The lack of viability is hugely overstated IMO. Do you have to run meta builds to compete with meta builds? Of course. It would be ridiculous to expect otherwise. Do you have to play well and make good decisions to win? Of course. It would be ridiculous to expect otherwise. I think 12 hooks isn't a reasonable expectation for balance. That's saying the killer should be able to go about their goal as inefficiently as possible and still win.
I think killers often take a fairly myopic view of the game in the sense that it's viewed as killers vs the world. The survivors are playing the game too, and sometimes they position well and make good decisions. You might only get a 2k when that happens. That's the literal definition of balance. It may not feel good when it happens, but that's a separate topic.
I'd say the balance is in a spot where killers should be walking away with 2ks at worst if they play reasonably well on a solid killer. If they're consistently getting less, there are gameplay issues. Obviously some killers are straight up bad though coughTRAPPERcough.
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I miss the old ranking system. It wasn't flawless, but it also wasn't as soul crushing as it is now.
Survivors only whine about the queue times, but they won't touch the killer to make it easier for everyone else.
When you play on high MMR you're almost forced to play unfun perks just to get any kills, because gens now pop like crazy and before you'll find first survivor, 2-3 gens will be already done.
And if you play those perks, you'll get to see the absolute entitlement of survivors later in end game chat.
Playing killer should give more profit than playing survivor, so more survivor mains would touch it and maybe understand that its not that easy.
When I'm playing survivor, I can literally throw the game and still win, because of million of second chances. I'm mostly a survivor player now, because game is so survivor sided, it's way easier to gain points that way.
As survivor I can try as many goofy builds as I want cuz ima win anyway. But when you play the killer without a ton of slowdowns, good luck in keeping the game longer than 5 min.
Even though I own all perks and characters on both sides, as a killer I can't play whatever I want if I want to rank up. I don't remember last time I've met Myers or Twins when playing survivor. It's all the time the same 2-3 killers, cuz not every killer has a kit which makes gaining ranks easier.
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Honestly I think that the bad games for killer just feel SUPER bad. Personally I don't usually have much of a hard time winning, but there are definitely days that feel hellish. I think for a week and a half I saw every survivor using DH and COH. Pre-dropping all the pallets, running across the entire map when hit, just generally playing in such a way that losing would require effort. The issue is that none of the core mechanics have really been looked at. Part of the reason I don't play M1 killers is because I don't want to kick pallets the whole game. Granted, not all of them are impossible to play. But mind-gaming a jungle-gym with a dropped pallet is just so much harder and time consuming than kicking it.
A lot of the game's problems would be fixed by an overhaul to how maps play. i.e shortening them, not placing 3 god loop areas in every map, survivors spawning closer together, not having 36 loops that all lead into each other and shack, you could do a lot.
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God, i hate MMR.
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Genuinely not. I just wanted to know if it was "just me" as it were. Some people have made some great suggestions I'm going to check out (like trying Pyramid head or Basement Bubba for a while.) Sorry if I came across that way.
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I am a killer main. I do play survivor on occasion however. The game definitely makes it easier on survivors. It boils down to money. The survivors outnumber the killer 4 to 1. They buy the majority of cosmetics. They bring in their friends. They in turn spend more money.
In any business you cater to your majority. If the survivors feel the game is easy they will keep playing. Just makes business sense.
I have found the best way to have fun, is to not give a s**t about winning or losing. Just say f it. As a killer you know you are at a disadvantage. I will just do what I can.
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You're definitely not baiting. I keep hearing people say that killers get nothing but buffs when that's the opposite of the reality.
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I think you're largely correct. However, not everyone enjoys constantly adhering to the meta. The Johnnys among us want to play weird gimmicky builds, while the Spikes are fine with Ruin Undying Tinkerer Corrupt on Nurse if it means they can win as often as possible.
It's less a matter of "I feel entitled to a win even when I'm playing a low tier killer with an off-meta build" and more a matter of "I want to play off-meta and still do good enough to have fun." The question of viability is more that against high skill level survivors, many killers simply cannot win even in the hands of the best of the best. I may 3k or 4k most of my games as Wraith, but those are also games where I can run no perks and no add-ons on 4.4 killer and never use my power. When I'm up against genuinely skilled survivors with an optimized build on a low-tier killer, I'm constantly stressed.
That being said, there's nothing wrong with have power differences between characters. Some are good, some are bad. There is value is in having bad characters in a game; self-expression from the player and challenging oneself. But the power difference between an M1 killer like Pig and Trapper with gimmicky builds and a Nurse with a full sweat build is simply beyond staggering. One struggles to land even a single hit, and the other struggles to keep survivors from DC'ing.
For a more casual gamer or for someone who doesn't play DbD often enough to get very good at it, the feeling of helplessness you get as killer can be very overwhelming at times. We all want DbD as good of a game as it can possibly be, and a large part of that will come from making the game less frustrating for all players.
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At high mmr? Absolutely. He is, in my opinion, one of the only killers who can actually handle those survivors.
I derank my other killers because there is no way in hell I would stand a chance and I just want to have fun playing Sadako. I tried with Freddy and I get the stress everyone else talks about when I play him. It makes me not want to even use him knowing what I am up against. Bubba is chill as can be. I do not care if gens fly in 4 minutes when I play him. I do not even run slowdown because you do not need it at high mmr to get your 2k with Leatherface. And that is all I ever expect from facing death squads. The rest are narrative mode 4ks which happen a lot more ever since they loosened mmr.
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I genuily feel anxiety when I want to play killer, but didn't for a week or so.
Buuut once you get in the flow it can be as relaxing as survivor. Even if I 4k once a week or more :)
Yeah, the game is imbalanced and miserable in high mmr. It's a stomp or be stomped enviroment there.
Buut they are still improving the game. For now if you want to stay top, you gotta use the strongest stuff (that's just how it is).
I think Civilization might be on sale, because Spring sales.
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It certainly is almost as peaceful as hugging a gen.
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I think we agree with each other. In my mind, BHVR has a fairly obvious solution that they're being very goofy about for one reason or another.
They will never, ever, be able to thread the needle with one matchmaking algorithm for all players of all playstyles in a single queue. It's naive and a waste of time/resources for them to even attempt it.
Have a casual queue in place with loose grade-based matchmaking and a ranked queue in place that goes off of stricter MMR. I'd personally never set foot in the casual queue, and a lot of players would understandably never touch the ranked queue.
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