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The Real problem with the new changes...

Advorsus
Advorsus Member Posts: 1,033

I want to say beforehand that I like almost all the changes being made, I think they're good for the game overall as a whole and I'm excited to try them out. The issue with them I believe is that they're ill timed in a way. Which leads into what I feel is the real issues with DBD right now.


Killer Disparity:

Right now the gap between killer power is massive. Even just between the top killer and mid level killers there's a big gap in strength. I will say for the record, that I believe you can 4k with every killer, and you can get 0k with every killer, just depends on how the match goes. The difference is how consistently can a certain killer perform, or how little counterplay their kit offers. For example a crouched pig offers a lot more counter play options than say an omega blink nurse does. The problem with this gap is how massive it actually is.

The changes recently made to killer I think are great overall, it'll provide more fast and fluid gameplay, and is a definite buff to m1 killers. However, it's also a buff to killers like blight and nurse who don't really need it. When you make general killer changes like that, and there's this large gap, it's going to buff those at the top a lot more, which isn't good.

The reason I think these new changes are ill timed isn't just because I think other things need more attention, but because the range for your baseline is so wide. You need to close that gap first to make any real meaningful changes to balance. Otherwise when you buff one thing it's going to break another. Yes, you'll always have certain killers that will always just naturally be better than others due to the nature of their abilities, that's for any game. But you want that gap to be as small as possible. Otherwise you'll never truly be able to balance the game on a healthy level for all players. You won't be able to make changes perks, maps, or base killer/survivor changes without breaking something. For example, maybe you think survivors are just moving a little too fast for M1 killers to handle so you make a slight Nerf to movement speed. It's a slight buff to most killers, but a huge, possibly game breaking buff to others.

Now I don't think you should buff other killers to be as strong as your top killers. I think you should take a well balanced killer, say like Demogorgon who's pretty decent but has counterplay, and make them your baseline. Then Nerf/buff killer powers and addons as needed to bring them as close to that baseline as possible. Which killers need what is open to discussion elsewhere and is another topic altogether, but this is what NEEDS to happen to make meaningful balance changes that actually balance things.

I led off with this topic as this is the base things that are holding back other things that actually need fixing. Like.....


Maps:

Map balance is definitely an issue right now. It's no secret. Some maps are too big while others are too small. Some have too many safe pallets and loops all strung together, or too many deadzones, both of which offer no real thought or counterplay. Take for example you're playing killer. How many times have you started chase with a survivor, known exactly what they're gonna do and how they're going to run loops together, but still have no way of actually stopping it? Quite a bit. It happens a lot. Same when playing survivor.

So how do you balance them? Well right now you can't, which is why it isn't a high priority for Behavior right now. They know it can't be done the way it needs to be. Yes I'm sure they're always working on small changes, and looking at the maps they still need to rework, but even a lot of the reworked maps are vastly unbalanced one way or the other. Why?

Because of that killer gap. One map or tile or loop may be horrible to play on as say trapper or Myers or pig because it's super safe for survivors, but against a killer like nurse who just ignores all that? Or a blight with his best addons? No, it's not safe enough.

It's impossible to balance maps well when you have such a large gap. So first thing that needs to be done is fixing the gap, then balancing the maps. And then the final thing....


Healing & items:

It's no secret that right now the ability to heal and remove all killer pressure is way too fast. Items as a whole are pretty strong right now, and the difference in strength between bringing items and not bringing items can be huge. Medkits are definitely the biggest offenders but a lot of the items are pretty strong and can be game changing without requiring huge investments to the point where people just have hoards of items.

But once again it's hard to balance these things when against certain killers it doesn't matter and the items seem almost required.


See the changes they're making I believe are good, but should come after balancing all killers to be closer in power. Then you could actually see if healing or gen times are actually to strong. If killers are moving too slow or not slow enough ect..

Then you could balance maps, and then items.

After that all you would really need to mix up the meta occasionally is to make small number changes here and there. This is of course is all just my opinion so I would like to hear y'all's thoughts on it.