The low number of killers is the root of all evil in this game
This is gonna be long ....
The screenshot is from a friend of mine who just sent me after his last match. Well, he has hardly any experience in the game, he had played it a few months ago for a few hours but then gave up because all the matches were a torture for him. And I thought, after hearing about the new MMR changes, I'll tell him that now might be a good time to give it another try since BHVR now wants to protect newcomers from experienced players.
Well... you can see the screenshot.
This was a full swf on comms with meta perks bullying my friend the entire time with flashlights blinds , body blocks and pallet stuns like there was no tomorrow.
Now he doesn't want to touch the game anymore. He says if even the new matchmaking doesn't work, and there's no way to detect swf in the lobby screen, so he can dodge all swf, the game is just unhealthy for his mental health and he never wants to play it again. I've rarely seen him so upset.
However, that also got me thinking.
There is a problem , a problem that is not so easy to fix with a few tests and changes
Many Killer players have had this experience of my friend.
However, I keep reading posts where survivor say that they are still being matched absolutely unfairly, too.
My own matches (survivor and killer) have been mixed. Some were good but most of them still very stressful.
After the talk with my friend and some thoughts,
I now see the main problem with survivors and killers and so the main problem with the mmr and the unevenly matched players is that there are too few killers. Just that.
THIS is the root of all evil.
If there are too many survivors in the queue then any MMR changes will do next to nothing for BHVR.
1) From Survivor's point of view: There are too many Survivors and not enough Killers in the queue. The result is that the game always gives the survivor whichever killer is available, and as new killers like my friend get scared away, there are often only a few hardcore killer mains left (especially on peak times where most people have time to play) and so weaker survivor teams will still be matched with strong killers again and again, no matter how often they try to change the mmr system.
2) From the killer's point of view: As I said, there are too few killers in the queue. This means the game throws a random killer at the survivor team that has been waiting the longest in the queue, often an experienced full swf on comms. Again, the cap doesn't work as it should, the MMR gets out of balance, because if it worked as it should, some teams would never get a match.
The solution would be to make the game more attractive to killers.
The community is constantly fighting about buffs and nerfs for each side, but maybe if players were matched fairly, all the time, those arguments wouldn't be necessary at all. But this requires a balanced killer/survivor ratio with players of different skill levels.
But what does BHVR have to do to make the game more attractive for killers without completely destroying solo survivors?
Are we realistic, removing swf will never be a thing, they would lose more than half of the player base.
Bring solo queue closer to swf and then buff killer?
I don't know if that would really have the effect it needed, but maybe I am wrong and this could be a solution.
What do you think needs to happen to make the game more attractive to killers in order for the balance to be restored?
And please be realistic in your suggestions. It must not happen that one side suffers, so no suggestions with any mega buffs that would destroy the solo queue completely.
Comments
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Never had a problem finding a killer in this game as survivor
I'm a killer main tho and I don't see a problem with that either
Sometimes I win, sometimes a lose
Sometimes 4k
Sometimes a tea bag at the gate
Still having fun with the game
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Well, if I look at the forums (here and on steam) then you are in an absolute minority as someone who is completely satisfied and never feels unfairly matched.
If that's the case, then be happy, for many it's not like that and they want solutions.
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This happens to anybody I try to get to play Killer in DBD. I can't even lie anymore about how brutal the Killer experience is. It's bad.
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-Hey friend can you screenshot the end game screen where you dc'ed so I can post it on the forum?
-Yes.
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Having more issues finding survivors at the moment, getting bundle with some from half way around the world which usually means it’s time for a lag fest haha
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Hey you need to edit your screen shot so people wont think its a witch hunt. Aka mods.
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"Bring solo queue closer to swf and then buff killer?"
Yeah, the longest path tends to be the safest. If they would introduce a quick message radial so survivors in game can trade information, that would close the gap between solo and swf. It's worked in more than a dozen other asymmetrical games. Then they buff Killer and boom soon everybody is having fun again.
Alternatively stop thinking so much of if the Survivors are having fun, and think more equally if Survivors and Killers are having fun. Too many updates came back to back where we read the phrase "We changed this because it wasn't fun for survivors", and "We changed this to make it more fun for survivors" till the game was just a free win hand out for survivors, and Killers lose by chance - regardless of skill. They seem to be focusing on bringing buffs out now, but if they buff Killer too much before closing the gap between solo and swf they are still going to have a hard time.
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Does not help that
Sadako does not have a power.
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Survivor teams like this ruin the game.
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Well the balancing of the game essentially ignores the imbalance for high mmr killer which is the root of the problem.
- Devs focus the balance on low mmr survivors
- This leads to unfair matches for high mmr killers
- Those killers leave the game or switch to survivor
- Now those high mmr survivors have less high mmr killers to face
- This causes a slow trickle of more and more lower mmr killers being forced to face those high mmr survivor groups because there aren't enough high killers left to match the demand. Supply and demand imbalance.
- This leads to unfair matches for mid/lower mmr killers and longer queues for the mid/lower mmr survivors as well since the higher mmr survivors are dipping into their pool of killers now as well
- Ultimately leading to unfair/bad matches and longer queue times for the lower mmr survivors that continuously gets worse
- So by trying to cater balance around the lower common denominator of players they actually end up completely counter productive and doing entirely the opposite.
Lesson to take away here is that this is why you don't balance from the bottom up, you do the top down. Balancing from the bottom up simply does not work.
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I don't know what your problem is, but we chat about the game and also exchange screenshots. I didn't ask , he sent it to me to tell me about his last match. now what?
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I might be, again, people around here seem to have a problem with everything in this game
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Yeah, I did, thank you, I forgot about it, I am tired. xD
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Now this thread gets deleted because of the naming and shaming and you didn't read the rules me thinks.
Edit: Nvm you did it in time.
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Yes, I said I didn't think about it at the moment. I did not want that. It's the middle of the night here and I'm tired. I don't want to argue either, so sorry for my tone. I just want a normal, friendly conversation and discussion, if that's possible here in the forum.
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I am sorry it was my fault for messing around. I didn't contribute to the discussion.
Don't blame yourself.
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IMO, a bot mode would help. So if you're new to killer you can just try different killers out and practice on ones you want to get better at. So you're not just jumping into the deep end and having to learn while potentially getting bullied.
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"Balancing" killers by ruining their powers is a pretty good way to drive off killer players.
"Balancing" killers by deleting their best add ons? Same result.
How do you make playing Killer more attractive to build up a larger player base? Well, that's hard to say. But it's certainly not those first two.
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one thing could help STOP DO THE FIRST TWO THING!!!
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The only way to incentive players to play killer is to make the killer experience more fun. And by that, I don’t mean giving them free kills, I mean creating perks, addons that are very fun to play. Most killers are punished with heavy cooldowns, poor mobility or stuns when they use their power. It’s horrible.
The killer experience is a chore right now, you need only 1 killer (for 4 survivors) to start a game, yet nobody wants to play killers and survivors have long queue time (if the player base was perfectly split it would be the opposite, killers would be waiting).
- The killer 1st view forces you to very focused, especially near jungle gyms, meanwhile survivors have a very relax 3rd view during these chases
- Killers get a lot of toxicity during and after the game. Sometimes it’s enough to prevent me from playing more games
- Killers have no time to breathe, meanwhile survivors can hide and reset / heal as much as they want, or do secondary objectives (chests, boons, unhooking). Of course survivors are not always repairing gens, but as Killer you don’t know and you assume that is what they are doing. The lack of info is stressful, you are on edge all the time, meanwhile I can listen to music when I play survivor.
- The Killer defeat feels more frustrating than a survivor defeat. Getting 1k, 2k as killer is meh (survivors will say gg ez you lost), 3k is OK (still doesn’t feel as a win). 4k you sweat for it. Getting killed as survivor when you did 1 gen and helped your team by booning / healing / taking protection hits or unhooking still feels like a win. I don’t have to escape to feel good.
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They will never add a bot mode.
We are already Killer starved. We need new Killers getting bullied by Survivors otherwise the queue times get too bad and the bully Survivors quit. BHVR would much rather give new killers a "baptism by fire" and make them take their beatings and let the community just tell them to "git gud" instead.
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You know whats most funny aspect of this? the dev think that reducing MMR-cap is going make survivors face more variety of killers.. but the reality why there is no variety of killers is because killers are too weak and can't get to that MMR with their skill because they're balancing for * most * killer powers is so atrocious.
Instead of trying to play around with matchmaking, they should be making changes to killer so that killers can physically win the game with their own skill to be able to compete at that level of play organically.
The lack of killers comes from the lack of fun playing killer. They're not making killer more fun to play. For last year or so, they've been making killer less fun to play. Anything that is fun to play is just getting deleted from killer side. referencing @Adjatha comment.
Deathslinger, fun to play? Deleted
Spirit, fun to play? Deleted
Freddy, fun to play? Deleted
Billy, fun to play" Deleted
Pinhead enginner fang? Deleted
Pinky finger clown? Pending Deletion
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Then you have these killer updates like ghostface that aren't going to make much of difference. they're much faster at erasing impactful killer add-ons and killer powers than doing anything positive with killer.
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It's the result, not the cause. If the game was balanced properly and people had fun playing killer, a ton more people would be playing it. But who wants to play a weak ass killer getting sent to an OP map with 4 toolboxes with BNP and then told to ######### because you are so bad at the game you culdn't get a single hook.
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Trouble is BHVR have been very slow to react to the many valid frustrations of killers so the problem has become self perpetuating like the sweat of SBMM causing both sides to play in an unfun manner.
I actually played a couple of survivor games last night and I got a killer just like this, a poor Wraith with 1 tier 1 perk and I waited quite a while for that match. Needless to say he lost that match since the other survivors whose profiles I could see also had thousands of hours in game.
There clearly wasn't enough suitable killers to match to us so after a certain amount of time it just matched us to this poor baby killer. Now do you think this guy is going to keep playing DBD when this is his experience as a new player?
A lot of the killer mains I know no longer play the game at all and I am sure a lot of the experienced killers either switched to survivor or left the game some time ago. I know I rarely ever play now and when I do I never play killer now.
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These are two of my games from this week. I feel like no matter what changes are made to match making at peak time (and generally) there is simply not enough killers to pair up with the survivors (especially the SWF’s) so we are like lambs to the slaughter lol.
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In one of those you got a 3k while playing doctor and with only 1 perk. How is that s slaughter?
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Plenty of killers in EU. You guys 'round the world need to adopt the Sigma EU killer mindset.
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This. PC, EU and crossplay off. You'd think with crossplay off it would even take more time to find matches. They're still just seconds of waiting on both sides.
But I've mentioned it here before and people got offended when I say EU killers seem to be doing just fine.
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I told bhvr already this for years and they did not listen. Also I bet before and after me, hundrets did the same thing and told bhvr that there need fun to be in their game and not only statistic usage.
Years later, I see slowly coming all the bad predictions come together. I need to say, that is also entertaining sometimes.
Tl:dr You are right, but you won't achieve anything.
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It’s an expression, not exactly meant literally. The 3K was nemesis as well rather than doctor. It’s more the nature of the games than the overall result. I made a post about this experience and I said that I was happy with the BP but the games did feel very attritional. In that Nemesis game the team were sabotaging maniacs, and you can see from their offerings they came in with a clear plan around that.
In relation to the OP as well, I do have basic game knowledge, whereas OP’s friend seems to have been thrown right in at the deep end.
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People like to parody the warning (or the threat, depending on who you talk to) that killers have, which is, "Killers are required for there to be lobbies and good queue times, so maybe we should not be driving them away and be more appreciative, and give them a reason to stay so the game doesn't die?" They liken the killers who say that to people who ask for respect but won't give it, or that they owe killers something just for playing with them. In reality, the scenario that comes from that (which again is made fun of, mostly by survivor mains) is a very real one, that if enough killers leave and the queue times get too long, the game could die. It's the truth: you cannot have DBD matches without a killer. And as far as I'm concerned there is almost no reason to play killer right now. The best I can come up with is that DBD noob mindset of, "I'm so excited to play this new game I got, because I get to play as Demogorgon and Ghost Face and all these horror icons I like." That quickly fades as the survivors they'll be going against literally can't be beat, mostly because they're unskilled killers at that point, but also because even if they are skilled the gens will overrule them. Nobody wants to keep playing a game they can't win, or that doesn't reward skill, or that is so stressful that winning doesn't even feel satisfying anymore.
But yes, this is exactly what we'll see as more killers leave. There will be fully prepared SWFs going against baby killers because nobody else was there to play killer at their level, because everyone quit. When those baby killers see the futility of it all, they'll switch to survivor or leave as well. The death of the game is not an exaggeration; it's a real threat.
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Oop didnt see the Nemesis there, but didn't really change what I think about it since I'd consider Nemesis and Doctor just average at best.
One thing I'm 100% sure is that MMR just doesn't seem to be working. I'm nowhere new, but every time I try a new killer I still go against the same type of survivors I go against with my main ones, which should not happens since their MMR is separated supposedly. I can see how this would also happen for new players.
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I don't even know how you stick to survivor. I play one trial and then I'm done.
For the complaints, I think it's a mindset issue that affects both roles tbf. How many times do we see a thread pop up where someone tells the world how awful of a game they had and they post a screenshot of a 4k as proof? "Oh but I didn't have fun because I had to sweat". I guess some people won't ever be content unless they win 100% while eating their dinner.
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This game has lot of casual playerbase, they want to killer to be just as casual than being survivor.
However they dont understand its impossible, even if killers made to be equal to 4 people in SWF power, it would be still sweaty for them just because facing for 4 is always harder than one. It takes more effort.
Also buffing killer to that extent would kill dbd, casuals would leave
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Similar to what I said to another poster, it’s not so much the results but the nature of the games. I think people throw around the words “sweat” and “try-hard” a bit too much in relation to how easy/difficult it should be to “win” matches but (and I know you only have my word for it) both those games were just so so attritional to play in.
The Nemesis game I only got 3K because I figured out they were more interested in sabotaging hooks and body blocking than actually doing gens which gave me enough time to slug one of them out of the game. In the doctor game that one person DC’d after I admit that I’d had enough of their seemingly clairvoyant ability to be in the right place to blind me and decided to tunnel them out of the game to at least get one kill- which they couldn’t even let me have and decided to DC instead.
For me the Nemesis game is a perfect example of people using things in the game simply to be annoying rather than to actually play the game. A well timed sabotage or a body block is fine, to bring a purple oak offering, two stacked toolkits and be part of a team is in my opinion overkill. Yes, I was happy with the BP and the 3K but did I enjoy the actual match? Not really.
I think you’re being a little naive to think survivors with all tier 3 perks, unlocked across multiple survivors would have less experience than a level 1 killer. Again, you obviously only have my word for it but I am not an experienced killer, nor am I a particularly good killer. I only really started consistently playing killer this year because at the time of day I can play (evening/night UK) survivor queue times are a minimum of ten minutes and ain’t nobody got time for that. Perhaps I have more overall hours due to playing survivor all throughout the lockdowns etc but there is no way I have more killer hours compared to them as survivors.
In relation to the OP, I probably at least have more game sense than the OP’s friend due to experience to be able to cope a little better but I do think that at peak time there is no way killers are being matched fairly simply due to the lack of them queuing up. So whilst the game may not match people up on perks they have, the game should be able to recognise if you’re choosing to only use 1 perk or if you literally haven’t even levelled up that killer yet and are a total novice with them.
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I’m on 15 min break, so can’t read everything.
Here my suggestion, not new and people didn’t like it much. Have SoloQ players separated from SWF. Give Killers extra BP by facing SWF. Killers will warm up or chill or experiment with SoloQ. Killers will use good builds and Killer powers against SWF, with the mindset to fight it out.
People pretend like nobody will challenge SWF. I dont think Killers are so weak, they just need small incentive and with the correct build and mindset. So many times we get bullied because we were caught off guard or the survivors did a last second switch. Anyway…
Edit: Also, SWF will not have easy bully targets which is less fun for them, that’s why this will never happen 🙃
Post edited by Hi_Im_Chucky on1 -
here's an example. I got devour hope 5 stack and mori everyone. My grade progress is still 0 because chases stopped halfway when I'm breaking blockers and I didn't hook. What makes me wanna play killer when everyone just DS DH and such? I got to resort to exposed to avoid them healing each other with circle and such while can't DH if they are not injured.
Post edited by Chusan on1 -
So youre one out of thousand that has a logical mindset. Sadly this forum is just about unrealistical mindsets as killer player.
As survivor you get instant lobbies in EU at nearly all times. Just towards late times it goes up to some minutes, which still isnt that much at all. So the numbers are pretty fine. The game itself is attractive enough for killers. Its just that its solo game play, while surviors is also koop. Thats all the difference is about.
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There's not many killers playing dbd? hmm i got a solution! nerf Freddy again!
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Yeah I found it very strange that lot of players writing about insane queues for survivors.
On EU almost all day, survivor is instant. The only time I have to wait 3 minutes is at night. But for a killer game its not uncommon to wait for 10 minutes a game, yeah night is instant. But if anything after the killer buff, imagine trying to play killer during daytime
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Some of these posts are delusional as if there isn't a problem with the number of killers. These people may well play at a time where survivor queues are not so bad but I think most of us know that at any peak time queues are generally horrific and the killers we eventually get matched with are often babies you just feel bad for.
But hey, keep kidding yourself that there isn't a problem as pretending it doesn't exist will not end badly right?
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Everyone knows Meg is the root of all evil.
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I believe majority of survivors would prefer this game be PVE anyway. They want a Monstrum type bot killer who is dumb and easy to cheese.
You can see the survivor main juke videos, they can only cheese low skill kiillers.
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Looking at these scores, it doesn't seem like they bullied him for that long. They do have strong perks though.
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I don't really know how to say this but nothing about the screenshots in these threads is strange at all.
"4 man SWF with meta perks" is so much complained about. The survivor meta perks are all on free characters and unlocking them takes maybe a week or two. You only play as one survivor during a trial. David you get to level 35 and get Dead Hard. Bill has Unbreakable and Borrowed Time at 35 and 40 (don't remember the order). Sprint Burst and Decisive are also easy as Decisive is at level 35. Getting all meta perks on killers takes considerably longer because there are more killer meta perks and there are more killers. Survivor? It takes a month if you play casually.
"Experienced 4 man SWF" there's no way your friend can know this. First, at your friend's level, there's no chance they're getting paired against a group where comms would actually matter. Second, getting blinded, pallet saved, or body blocked does not require any comms coordination.
That's not to say this game is new person friendly. The in-game tutorial is good for the basics but absolutely does not prepare you to play against others. There's no mention or acknowledgment of any part of the meta. The tutorial doesn't even mention totems. It doesn't mention flashlights or looking at walls. It barely even mentions lunging I think. But I don't really see any issue with the matchmaking just from this picture. Based on the number of points, it seems your friend got flashlight blinded once and then quit and yelled about SWF.
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Turn off SBMM and back to ranks new Killer players wouldn't be as stressed out and Survivors could have quicker que times because back than before SBMM ques were instant for both sides for a bit there were times when it wasn't but, the majority of the time they were nice and quick.
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I just don't play anymore these days
Best medicine in years
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Same I'm actually playing nurse rn and tryna to get my blinks in order. So far 4 man escape but I'm getting there.
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Honestly what they mostly need to do is make the beginning Killer experience better. That'll go a long way to keeping more killers playing. To that end they should do these things.
1. All perk slots unlocked from the word go for both sides. Rank 1 perks aren't great but 3 rank 1 perks will be better than only 1 vs people with full load outs.
2. Buff most of the general perks for killers. There's a lot of useless crap in there which is why so many new killers run NOED. It is literally their only good perk.
3. Buff the bad perks belonging to Wraith, Huntress, Trapper, and Nurse. As it stands, Survivors can acquire DH, UB, and BT by investing zero iri shards and blood points into only 2 characters. Killers don't really get anything remotely comparable to work with for a similar time investment.
4. Make Legion free. Legion has a very approachable power which is very good for a new killer. Also, Frenzy is nearly impossible to completely deny and has built in slowdown so a new Legion probably will never feel like they got totally bodied. Lastly, bullying a killer usually requires being healthy and grouping up... Good luck pulling that off against Legion... So they are oddly resilient against shenanigans. Jeff can be free too if necessary.
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Yup basically.
Most the buffs they do on the lower tier killers such as Ghostface or Legion while yes an improvement, still leaves them weak and ultimately still isn't getting them anywhere close to "viable" per say. Even if we were extremely generous and said they were B tier now, B tier in DBD is trash tier anyway and relies on the survivors making a ton of mistakes to win. I'd argue that not only B but even A tier killers can play a literal perfect game and still lose, that's how bad the balance problems are.
They don't realize that their entire balance philosophy is flawed.
If you noticed on their post they called low mmr games "unfair" while calling high mmr matches "tough" and "challenging". Quite ridiculous when it's the exact opposite. Lower mmr matches are tough or challenging because they haven't got good at the game yet while high mmr matches are the unfair ones. They've got everything totally backwards.
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