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Killer Being Able To See Survivors Before Trial
Why can a killer see the survivors before a match? Why do they get time to adjust their build based on what they see awaiting them in the game… yet, survivors can not adjust their build because we have no idea who the killer is going to be.
Killer sees lots of flashlights, cool let me add Lightborn. Killer sees lots of toolkits, let me throw on another Gen regression perk. Med kits? Maybe a bit of Sloppy.
I get that survivors shouldn't see the killer because there would be so much dodging. But that doesn’t mean the killer should be able to see the survivors.
While I’m on the subject, I don’t understand why Console can still not go anonymous? It was there, it worked and got removed. I don’t get it.
Comments
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It's a 1v4. Survivors have a numbers advantage. The killer gets an advantage in getting to prepare for items being brought into trial.
It's really not a big deal.
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Because 4 medkits and toolboxes with good addons literally change the game A LOT in the survivors favor...
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I do know it is 4v1, I play the game (although I play solo queue and that is at best 2v1 usually). But that doesn’t help me understand why the killer should be able to see who is in the lobby.
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It's also thematic to the horror-genre. The Killer is the Entity's servant and observing the victims before the trial from the campfire shadows.
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As others have mentioned, items make a big change in the match right from the start, and up to 4 can be brought in at the same time. Being outnumbered in a game that revolves around time management means you need to be able to adjust your strategy and resources to compensate, and in all honesty how much impact can be determined in the first few minutes of the match compounds the issue even further.
If you see 4 toolboxes, you know its either a sabo squad, or the first 3 gens are going to go extremely quickly. If you see 4 medkits, you know that you will either need to adjust your loadout for something like franklins, or you will need to commit to almost every down as they will just heal and undo your progress. You used to be able to switch killers entirely, which was apparently removed for MMR tracking reasons.
As it stands now, it fits logically with the build preset option they added: You can keep a main build and two reactionary ones based on the items you see, or assumptions made based off of cosmetics (4 neon color skins with 4 flashlights usually, but not always, makes it easy to assume a specific type of match.)
The reason people bring up the 1v4 dynamic in relation to it is because of the fact that the killer can only be doing one thing at a time, and even when in chase has to deal with the other 3 players simultaneously. Survivors can similarly see what each other are carrying for the same reason. Being able to see who the killer is beforehand would be far too relatively impactful to carry parity, so this is the result.
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So show a generic 4 people, why do items and prestige levels have to be shown? Or your actual gaming name? Not everybody can hide that.
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Neon skins? Really? I love the Stockholm Nea skin and wear it when I play her. I am actually trash at the game (only been playing a short while). I hope killers don’t think my Neon Nea at P4 is a some kind of chad.
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I wish when you ready up to find a match that instead of going into the match lobby it just loaded you directly into a match once all players for a match were found. The only thing that should be shown that gives you a chance to dodge is player ping - give like 10 seconds to see if someone has red bar or not - otherwise you just set your load out and hope for the best.
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This! Because let us also add that you queue for a lobby, then have to queue again where people should be ready but do not go ready. Then somebody leaves and timer starts again.
You should ready up and go into a match. I don’t care if I see who my fellow survivors are before I go into a match.
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I guess you didn't read the nuance in what I posted, but specifically seeing 4 neon skins and 4 flashlights is different from 1 odd person doing so. It also doesn't even necessarily mean its going to be a problematic match, but it is certainly an early warning sign that it can be. As a solo main I always make sure to take these things into account when looking at my teammates, If they all have items I'll usually go barehanded, if they all have bright cosmetics i'll switch to a more normal or even darker one. It's just a matter of knowing what types of presumptions the other side is going to make off of what they see, and trying to assuage said paranoia.
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killers should be able to know if they are about to deal with a 4 flashlight bully squad and prep accordingly.
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16 perks vs 4, you have to be able to prepare beforehand. It's not that hard of a concept to grasp. Each killer perk is absolutely instrumental on how the game will turn out. Thus they must have context. You can literally not afford to waste a perk slot as a killer.
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Killers also can’t change their Selected Killer. While a Survivor can change almost everything about what they run. It’s not like it’s a huge advantage.
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Many people in the comments explained the mechanical part of the game and why the killer sees the survivor and why can not survivor see the killer. I am gonna explain the different part which is related to the lore of the DBD.
The Entity is the one that traps the survivors and the killers in his realm. The Entity's goal is to enjoy this show and each time a survivor survives, he will be moving to a new match where he should do this indefinitely till he's dead. The killers are the puppets of the Entity and their goal is the satisfy the Entity, while most of them do not know they work for the higher creature, they are basically killers in their real life and enjoy the hunt. Because of this reason, survivors can not see the killer and the killer can see the survivor because The Entity needs to show the killer that they are the "prey" of this hunt. That's why the killers can see the survivors, at least that is my opinion according to the lore.
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Seeing their items, survivor choice and outfits? Yes. Actually gameplay relevant information.
Names and profile access? Should be gone, luckily the anonymous modes at least exist. Not gameplay relevant information and for every neat interaction like "Mori me Piggy" getting mori'd by Pig and everyone having a laugh at it, there's at least 2 cringy "rivalries" of the bad sort or people being able to go to someone's profile to rage comment without even getting a chance to cool down while manually looking up their profile.
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Just set your profile to private, it's what I do.
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It's more about knowing who you're up against rather than what. People right down the names of previous players they played against just to grief them, which IS reportable.
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While I certainly sympathize with console players not having the same options to overcome that particular issue, I don't think it outweighs the strategic necessity of being able to see at least items and cosmetics. The names/profiles accessibility and lack of anonymous mode full support is due to requirements from the respective platforms iirc, so all that can be done really is to be ready to record and report i guess (which is another bad situation in itself.) I feel bad not having a better solution because there certainly are a good handful of console only issues with the game as it is.
Edit: on the bright side, its just as possible for someone to recognize you positively from a previous game, and either be extra altruistic or merciful due to it. Empty positivity, but its equally possible at least.
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Well it decides what level of build I am running, that's for sure. It essentially tells me a large portion of the survivor's power level before the match begins.
Generally
3 med kits = alch ring and green speed
4 med kits = iri tag and green speed
I'll probably slap on pain res as well instead of I'm all ears in those stacked med kits game.
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When the game is balanced for all that stuff, sure, let us not see. However the game is not balanced for all that.
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Who they are and the items they have absolutely should be shown. Prestige levels shouldn't be shown. Your actual name doesn't have to be shown - that's a choice you make. You can literally hide your name in options.
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Why should they? Survivors don't get to know if they're playing against nurse.
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because it's 1 v 4
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If survivors could see killers, then they could just lobby dodge all day long until they get a killer they want to match against. Killers have no reason to dodge survivors since survivors already could have a variety of perks that are not tied to the survivor. Essentially, survivors are just skins and don't affect gameplay much.
Killers can hide their identify, and survivors can hide their 16 perks.
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Yes, and killers are stronger than survivors within the setting of the game to reflect this. Information pre-game should be available to either side or none at all.
I would suspect that if players could see the killer they were going against there would be fewer disconnects as well.
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If it makes no difference and survivors are just skins then why should they be seen in the lobby?
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Not worth the development time, or it's boring to see a bunch of shadowed people pre-lobby? Why NOT see them?
Their hand-held item would naturally need to always be visible, as that's vital information, though their add-ons are still secret.
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The devs have been moving more and more to a competitive landscape. These half-assed 'Muh lore, muh killer threat, muh unstoppable force' arguments are getting stupider and stupider seeing the direction the game is being taken in.
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I disagree. Survivors don't even get information about the perks their own teammates are running if they're solo.
I don't think they should be able to see the killer in the lobby, as this would be detrimental to stealth killers, but I don't think the killers should have information on the survivors either.
Survivors are expected to hope for the best in every game they enter, while killers can cherry pick their games/perks if they see too many beamers, toolboxes or medkits. Neither side should have an immediate advantage before the game has even begun.
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If you don't understand why there being FOUR of you and ONE of them is a gigantic advantage, I don't know what to tell you.
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so it should be 1 on 1? 4 v 1 is automatically an advantage.
I'm all for survivors being able to see other survivor perks. SWFs already can do that, and solo-Q could use the help.
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Yep, the killer should be more powerful than a single survivor when the game has started, but that advantage should not extend to before the game has begun.
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Then let's remove items from the game so neither side has an advantage before the game begins.
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Okay, if you'll give up your addons.
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playing nurse/blight changes the game A LOT in the killers favor. Nether side should get free info.
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Addons are part of the killer part and the thing they need for the 1v4.
Being able to see survivors in lobby is solely to see what items they bring in. If items are removed, there's no reason to see survivors in lobby.
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I see, so you're saying that killers can have things and survivors shouldn't? Very balanced argument.
You're correct though, if survivors didn't have items there would be no free information for killers to gain, but we do have items so I'm not sure your point is relevant.
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It's a 1v4 game. The killer having things and survivors not having things is not an innate problem, because survivors are the 4 player team.
If you want to remove the killer's ability to see survivors before the trial, then items would have to be removed. If you don't want your items to be removed, then the killer seeing what item you bring into trial is fair game.
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I'm fine with killer seeing survivors - if you really want to, you can swap to a different item at the last second so the killer can't counter it, and you can use anonymous mode to prevent most profile snooping / lobby shopping from killers. What I don't like killers seeing in the lobby is survivor prestige levels, as I have to last second swap to my high prestige survivors or it'll take me 10 minutes to get a game with how many killers dodge my lobby.
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Just a bad take. It's a 4v1 where medkits and toolboxes are effectively as temporary 5th perk.
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Yep it's an asymmetrical game and killers are stronger than survivors to compensate, have powers, run faster etc. Again, this is something which is resolved within the game setting, not pre-game.
I'm not sure where you're getting that all items for survivor MUST be removed if killers can't see the survivors before a game. It would be a small but healthy change to allow both sides to enter the game with the same amount of information whereas deleting items would be disastrous for game balance, the two changes aren't equal.
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Seeing survivors doesn't provide that much truely useful info. Just their items, which do affect the game a LOT.
the rest is just incidental information. You can get a rough idea of high skill levels if you see high prestiges and playstyle from how dark or bright their chosen cosmetics are. Different survivorare really just a cosmetic skin. Slight chance of them running their personal perks but not that often.
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And still, survs can quickswitch in the lobby at any time while killers can do the same, but can't change the killer they're playing.
Also i'm on Xbox Series X and i still can choose anon/streamer mode at any time.
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It 100% should do he can prepare.
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I don't understand, why the killer shouldnt be able to adept to the survivors... The only thing the killer is able to counter with seeing the survivors are their items. A simple "power up" of their abilities in the game. Items are extremely powerful in this game, so its neccesary for the killer being able to adept. A Flashlight is able to steal the killer his objective (hooking a survivor). Toolboxes are strong as well, because there are so many BNP after the change of the bloodweb. Same goes with Medkits. A lot of Instaheals, BT in a bottle and so on. The killer often needs to adept in some kind of way.
And i can't tell how often survivors prepared another character with items and perks, switching to them in the last second of the lobby.
It is a 4v1 in a (in my opinion) still survivorsided game, so please keep the killer the advantages he has rn.
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I would be ok with killers not seeing items, but ONLY when survivors may not bring multiple items of the same type!
Having to face four flashlight can be really frustrating, with four toolboxes (and possibly BNPs) the gens will fly, four medkits may totally doom a hit-and-run playstyle. So if you want to remove the killers ability to prepare for items, the survivors have to do a sacrifices as well. Which is, only one medkit, toolbox, flashlight, map or key at a time!
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A killer who say changes to Lightborn because they see flashlights is probably not the best killer anyway.
I don't think this is a big issue at all and other than to be annoying I never bother changing anything based on what I see survivors bringing. Though I will tend to tunnel out someone who last second switches to anything, it isn't the item either but rather the dirty tactic of switching that annoys me and will make me punish them for it
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You can't even say that....with how some impossible blinds happen a Good Killer player may just not want to deal with it and if it's a 4 flashlight bully squad any Killer with a brain cells will put Lightborn on just to avoid the headache....
I'm a midrange decent Killer player and have had times where I would get blinded by survivors NOT within my FoV while I'm looking right at a wall. So if I don't feel like dealing with multiple flashlights in a single game Lightborn will be put on.
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muh 4v1 is a worse take. The game is balanced around being a 4v1, like i just don't understand the statement.
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While Im agree that killer should able to see survivors before the match, I think survivors should be locked from loadout at 20sec remaining to give 15sec for killer to change the loadout.
But seeing killer's agrument here is really funny
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