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Killers need to feel more powerful
Just to be clear, I am not talking about the Nurse or Blight. The nurse in particular is way too strong.
Rather, I want to focus on how the average non S-tier killer is currently like and how it needs some tweaks.
Actual Power vs Feeling Powerful
The first thing that needs to be addressed is the difference between feeling powerful and having actual power. You can feel powerful but lack any actual power, and you can feel powerless but actually have plenty of it.
For example, Nemesis feels powerful to play. You punch survivors, break pallets instantly, and even have minons to do your bidding. However, Nemesis is actually quite weaker than his initial appearance. He is not bad, but he feels way stronger than he actually is.
On the other hand, the camping m1 killer is basically the opposite. You feel increably weak, having to just look at someone instead of chasing and actually doing something. You are also doing one of the hardest to counter things in the game.
You can win a game but feel terrible, or lose a game but feel amazing. It all ties back to the idea of feeling like you are powerful in the killer role.
The Problem
Survivors have a weird problem, one that completely hamstrings their side; communication. Anyone who played Solo Q can usually recount a time where one person poor decision led to the entire team dying. For me, the worst is when you know something that the other person doesn't, a real classic horror experience. "Don't go for the save Dwight! He has Lightborn!" or something along those lines.
If you give them perfect communication, god help the killer. The sheer amount of stuff that survivors are communicating can throw at you is just straight up stupid. If you have the audacity not playing a top killer or your main, prepare for a painful game. Body blocking, lighting fast healing, and always having your location known are just some of the 'fun' things that killers can look forward to.
In other words, survivors are either blind or all seeing, weak or all-powerful.
We also have some perks, with a particular perk being a constant nightmare for killers even after its rework. Dead Hard. This perk is such a terrible idea in a game like DBD. While it is better than its old version, it still creates another 'fun' feature of the game, the DH cliff. The DH cliff is what separates the high tiers from the mid tiers, the wheat from chaff. A killer that can deal with DH will be significantly better by a large margin than one that can't.
If you wonder why you only see certain killers, this is a key party of that. Why would play a killer when a hard-won hit is lost because they pressed E? This is made worse by how easy it is to cheat with dead hard, automating the process of pressing e for you. While there are other perks like it, those tend to require communication which loops back around to the first problem.
How do we make Killers feel powerful?
Non-Hook Grabs
Grabs are terrible in this game. It feels like grabs more often lead to a missed hit than a successful grab which so, so very stupid. The reason fixing grabs would be a good first step is that while grabs don't happen often, they feel so dang good to pull off. Even if the survivor is already injured, nothing makes you feel more an unstoppable force than grabbing someone by the throat.
By contrast, hook grabs are a terrible game of chicken that involves both sides waiting for the other to press m1. I don't think I need to explain why this is stupid.
Shoving Survivors
Body blocking is a weird thing that I dislike heavily. While I think body blocking when a killer is carrying someone is fine, the fact that my slasher who can break a heavy wood pallet in seconds can shove a small Korean girl aside is dumb.
My solution is to let killers shove survivors. Get too close? Get out of the way. It could still slow down the killer, but I think that the satisfaction of shoving a survivor to the side would more than make up for a few seconds of chasing.
Shortcuts
DBD is a game that can be a little to predictable at times. If you are in a corner of the map and your teammate is being chased by the killer on the other side of the map. To counter this strength of communication, my idea would be a series of shortcuts that a killer can take to change their position away from the seeing eyes of the survivor. This idea would have to be map specific and require a bunch of testing, but I do think that it opens up more room for making maps that are fun for both sides.
Where are all the buffs?
Have you ever heard the tale of the Twins? It is a story that BHVR is unlikely to tell you. Once upon a time, there was a killer that was one from two, a bond between from siblings that was turned into a weapon. They were unstoppable, powerful, and not fun. Despite being capable of winning games with ease, they did so in a way that was slow and boring, prone to endless slugging and camping.
Slowly but steadily, the twins were chipped away at. It may have been their addons, a new perk, or even a new bug, but in time the once powerful twins were brought to a pathetic state, being easily defeated by even a team of uncoordinated Solo Q players. But legend says that if you head out to the French Countryside, you can hear a whisper in the wind...
buff toy sowrd plz
In all seriousness, the reason why I tried to avoid buffs is because killers are in a pretty good state when it comes to balance, just not feel. Outside of a certain medical assistant and a Scottish man with a ring, most killers don't need a buff in numbers, but more so QoL. The Twins are the best example of this, they aren't weak, but you would not know that by playing them. The Twins feel awful to play even if you are dominating with them.
Also, I don't want to screw over survivors. As much as I hate them as a killer main, I also would like to have the bloodpoint bonus for once. Therefore, it makes sense for me to make playing survivor actually fun. The removal of hook grabs is a worthy sacrifice for blood points.
In conclusion, give Nemesis his rocket launcher, each member of the legion an AK, and Dredge the pool inflatable cosmetic. I am not sure how the last one helps, but I am sure it will improve the game.
Comments
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Remove survivors
Done, killer wins
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Tbh gear head needs a major buff. Then killers will feel powerful.
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Not radical enough for me.
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I think killers should be more feared and respected for the sake of the game. But I don't think killers should be much more powerful. It has to do with some graphics enhancements and with some quality of chase improvements. Possibly reducing how impactful are pallets. Introducing more elements survivors can use in* exchange. Medkits need a slight adjustment as well as the meta of taking hits makes 0 sense lore wise. I accept it for life threatening situations (tunneling/unhooking) but not for keeping the killer hostage in front of an hook.
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Just delete survivors from the game. That's it!
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Crouching in front of hooks doesn’t work to stop the killing from hooking a survivor anymore.
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When I looked up bias on the dictionary, your name was included.
You inherently can't feel all powerful in a PvP game unless the game is significantly unbalanced or you're stomping noobies or in general maybe having one of those rare games where it is challenging enough but you still manage to win. You can also just play a a single player game in that case.
At least you're pretty honest for a killer main saying you hate survivors and want to keep solo que in the state if currently is. I'll give you that. But you're not more important than 4 other people and your fun shouldn't be prioritized.
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DBD is a game with two different sides, each appealing to a different fantasy.
The killer is about the power fantasy, while the survivor is about, well, the survivor fantasy. One side is about feeling like you in control, a dominating force that shapes the game, while the other side is about close calls and narrow escapes, outsmarting a superior foe. In other words, in order for survivors to feel like survivors, killers need to feel like killers and vice versa.
You don't feel powerful crushing a team of noobs, you feel powerful when you beat a team of skilled survivors. You don't feel like a badass survivor for beating someone who is new, but a killer that knows what he is doing. Enjoyment is not a finite resource that has to be taken from the other side. DBD is at its best when both sides feel like they are facing an equal opponent, because that is when it is the most fun.
The killer having more fun does not mean that survivors are having less, and in many cases can actually mean that survivors have more fun as well. Most of my changes add more opportunities for survivor-killer interactions, more ways for killers to create plans which means more variety for Survivors.
Also, even if that last bit about me hating survivors is sarcasm, did you miss the next line? About me wanting survivors to also have fun? Because the whole point of that section was about how I don't want to make playing survivor unfun?
You did the videogamedunkey thing, the classic:
*insert person here* is nitpicking and biased, I win.
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About me wanting survivors to also have fun? Because the whole point of that section was about how I don't want to make playing survivor unfun?
I am just going take a guess, but a lot of survivor dislike losing, so the killer having fun is the survivor not having fun. that is unfortunate reality of video games. Survivors like being super powerful. When they are super powerful, your not very powerful and vice versa.
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Hey, if shoving a survivor aside doesn't hurt them, I think it'd be alright. Just trying to think how it could be done without people whining and whatnot. I DEFINITELY want killers to feel powerful. Thinking it'd be funny for someone like Frank to just shoulder bash through someone and knock them back while going through.
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Damn it, now I'm thinking of certain killers being able to have effects with this action. Blight basically knocking them aside if he runs into a survivor while rushing and Legion just bashing them out of the way with the press of a button...
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