This game's update direction feels soley Survivor-focused
I started playing DBD in October, so forgive me if I am unaware of some year-long context, but from what have seen so far it seem like changes to the game are approached from a pure Survivor viewpoint, almost as if playing Survivor was seen as the normal way to play the game with playing Killer as some secondary mode.
I want to make clear that everything I am going to say is about game feel, not balance.
One thing that a noticed pretty early on was that when a Killer would hit a Survivor a short time after they were unhooked the Survivor was protected by an additional effect, fair enough. But then I noticed that when I was playing Killer, unhooked Survivors would intentionally run into me to block me from chasing the unhooker, which seemed pretty unfair to me, after all they were using something that was supposed to keep them from being oppressed, to aggressively protect another player, in a way that left me with no counterplay.
Then later while researching gameplay mechanics, I learned that I hasn't always been like that, originally, Survivors could be downed directly after being unhooked, something that many Survivor-players understandably saw as opressive, while from a win oriented Killer's viewpoint it was the optimal thing to do, after all an already injured Survivor was an easier target and also closer to sacrifice after already have been hooked.
Now the Devs agreed with the Survivors, but instead of adressing the problem at its core, the specifics of the injure-down-hook-unhook-sacrifice-mechanic, they turned what was formerly a Perk into a basekit Survivor ability. There was a situation that had both sides having legitimate causes and it was resolved by buffing Survivors without addressing the way this could be used as an oppressive tactic against Killers.
It didn't seem fair, but it was how the game had always been to me, so I didn't really mind.
Then still later I noticed that the majority of Survivors in my games both as Survivor and as Killer were toxic towards the Killer, waiting at the exit gates in a 100% save spot just to tea bag when the Killer apporached them or going into a game with their friends without actually playing to win, instead just stunning the Killer over and over again.
This is where the cracks appeared; why was a behaviour from Killers that, while unfun to the receiving Survivor, was in the end purely a efficient playstyle from the Killers point of view, worthy of a buff for Survivors, even if it means enabling an unfun tactic against Killers in return, but Survivors going out of their way to harass Killers wasn't adressed?
But I thought: "Maybe it's an ongoing process, maybe the next update will adress your issues."
Then the next Update hit the PTB: to adress slugging, admittedly the one pure "harassment over efficiency" tactic avaible to Killers, it was planned to give Survivors not only another strong perk as basekit, but to actually make it even stronger in the process, a change that would not only punish slugging, but go as far as punishing Killers for not immediately picking up Survivors, ignoring all the many legitimate situation where it would be simply stupid for the Killer to pick up a downed Survivor immediately, not to mention Killers who actually had downing Survivors without being near them as part of their gameplan.
Now of course, this was from the beginning pitched as an experiment, with no plans to hit live servers, but it still shocked me that a change, that would so massivly punish one side to adress a comparatively small issue for the other, was even considered.
This brings me to the current PTB patch; again a change that is a buff to Survivors in general. While the motivation behind it is understandable, it is still disheartening that the effect that this change will has on Killers is treated as an afterthought. It was stated, that if this change will affect kill percentages there will be adjustments, but honestly, how is there even an "if"? This is a buff to Survivors and it is intended as such, the only way how it could not affect kill, and therefore Killer success, rates, is if Killers adept an even more efficiency focused playstyle to compensate.
Why is Survivor satification important enough to upset the entire games balance over it, but Killer satification is reduced to win statistics? Killer players aren't bots who will be happy as long as enough Survivors die, we are also playing this game to have fun, but the direction and motivation behind the changes to this game that I have witnessed make me fear, that there is a, perhaps unintentional, philosophy towards "Survivors play, Killers perform".
Statistcal unevenness can destroy fun, but evenness doesn't guarantee it. In the end a fun game, no matter what the statistics say, is a better one than one that is fair on paper but sacrifices fun.
A game needs a healthy balance, but balance can't be healthy if one side is measured in fun while the other is measured in efficiency.
I love DBD, but the updates that I saw since I started playing make me fear that, whenever I will still love it three monthes from now it will be by chance rather than design.
Comments
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So... couple things.
First, post unhook endurance does have counters. You can wait it out and grabs completely bypass the effect.
Second, the patch that made that endurance effect be base kit also added 10 seconds to each generator, gave killers faster kicking gens and pallets, faster recovery from successful hits, shorter post hit speed boosts for Survivors, and a bit of instant regression when kicking gens.
I don't know which side came out on top with that patch, but it isn't nearly as cut and dried as you are portraying.
Same with this patch honestly. Yeah... Nurse is getting nerfed, but the Knight is getting some pretty nifty looking buffs and new Eyre of Crows looks a lot less mean to killers.
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I would say something like 90% of survviors do not consider the killer's fun. It's not fun to lose 3 gens in the first chase. Survivors got tunnel protection but killers have nothing basekit to prevent them from losing three generators in the first chase. DBD has always focused primarily on the survivor fun experience; the killer experience is like an afterthought that is kept one step above miserable.
Deadlock needs to be base kit. Add a "rollback protection" like they added for DH at pallets so if you complete two gens at the same time one gets rolled back and is locked. Change the perk by the same name to extend generator lock out for one minute. The bottom line is that the killer should never lose three gens in the first chase.
Consider for a moment that this patch is going to have one effect : survivors will be more efficient because they have more information. What is that going to push the killer to do? It's going to force the first player on the hook out of the game every time. That is the only way to combat losing 3 gens in the first chase.
Survivors feel bad when they get tunneled out of the game but they have no problem tunneling out the killer's generators. When you consider Nurse and Blight have stupid fast movement across the map it's fine for them to play any 3 generators. Something like 20 killers can't teleport or move quickly. If they lose a three gen then they usually lose the game unless they tunnel someone out. Maps like Azarov's only make the problem worse.
With the basekit Deadlock make it so the killer loses the gen protection if they camp the hook within 16m (kindred distance). Let the killer know they are about to lose Deadlock if they stay inside that range and there is no survivor nearby.
What would that do for the game? It would allow the killer to contest early generators and go for more chases. It would prevent the survivors from speedrunning the generators.
Everyone benefits from Basekit deadlock. If your gen is 99% completed and gets locked then you go for the save.
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The Endurance effect post-unhook was not added because it made survivors have more "fun", its called balance. No killer should just be able to sit idle and win without doing anything at all except stand right next to the hook. Would you as a player of a video game find doing nothing fun? No.
There are multiple killers that are able to negate, ignore, or add ailments to the survivor who is trying to protect their fellow survivors with the Endurance state they just gained. Actually, since they're walking right in front of you and gave up their protection, that lines you up to get an additional hook, or at the very least, lure survivors with a slug.
There are also killers who can make teabagging at the exit gate a lethal move, trapping them and allowing a save. Regardless, teabagging exists in many games and should not upset you, no one is forcing you to look at them, and no one told you to leave survivors alive to do so in the first place.
Being upset over the Last Stand PTB just because it was an experiment is a null point. There was also a No-Bloodlust test. Despite it showing that barely anything changed, Bloodlust is still here. Using this to fuel your biased point is questionable at best. You also completely failed to mention the mechanic where if all survivors are downed, the game immediately ends with a mori and win for the killer, so please tell me how this punished slugging?
You end this with complaining about survivors being able to see what each other is doing, something that SWF is already able to do with far more efficiency than that is capable of. Is there something wrong with people who don't know each other at all, have no communication together having a mechanic that can bridge the gap between friends having fun and strangers trying to survive? No amount of information is going to force people who don't know each other to want to work together. This patch suddenly isn't going to turn every survivor into a Head On saving, Blast Mine spamming, exit gate teabagging player. This paranoia is unnecessary.
The devs do not prefer one side to the other, because if they did, the game would die. You cannot have one without the other, and despite how upset you seem about the perceived bias, that is simply and only just perception.
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Like I wrote in my second paragraph and then reitererated multiple times towards the end, it's about the fact that one side is reduced to efficieny over game feel, not about which side is numerically stronger.
Also, waiting out the immunity on someone who is blocking you isn't countering them, it is doing exactly what they aim to force you to do.
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This is a very wise post. Excellent observations.
I think the ease and acceptance of survivor toxicity toward killers is that killers are the "bad guy". They're easy to hate, right? They're hurting and trying to kill everyone else. This coupled with the fact that survivors are the majority of the playerbase reinforces that killers are mostly set dressing to be played with. They're the bad guy, not someone else trying to have fun, so their enjoyment and feelings toward the game matter less.
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Is nurse getting nerfed? The compensation addon buffs outweigh the special attack consideration in my opinion.
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Except they aren't just focused on efficiency with killers?
Do the upcoming Knight changes look like an efficiency change to you? Cause they aren't. Not a single one buffs Knights who just drop guards at loops which is the most efficient but boring way to play him. Instead they all buff Knights that go for longer paths which is much more interesting and fun.
Honestly it's the same for Nurse. Sure overall she's going to be weaker, but they actually buffed a lot of her add ons that are currently meme level. Like the Undetectable post blink hit one, or auto 2nd blink one, or the rewind one.
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-"The Endurance effect post-unhook was not added because it made survivors have more "fun", its called balance."
And the extra time to die on hook around 2018 was added to give survivors more time to get the rescue - not more time to delay the rescue and rush gens in the meantime. You need to realize that every hook state being 15 seconds longer gives the survivor team 45 seconds of "action" as there are three players not in "time out" mode on the hook.
-"The devs do not prefer one side to the other, because if they did, the game would die"
Last year right before the 6.0 update we had times where there were 40 killers in queue for 4000 survivors. We know this because people were pining the info off the DBD servers. Killer has been in an abysmal state for the majority of the 6 year lifetime of the game.
Blight and Nurse are fine - right now relative to SWF power. But the "lower 28" generally suffer when you consider having to play across all the different maps. The crow map was in the game for a year before they realized it was completely busted (please fix garden of joy and 4/5 of the farm maps - abattoir is actually fine).
This patch offers nothing for killer and will just cause more tunneling.
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Tbh it's difficult to tell. She's losing a lot of her current broken stuff but gaining a lot of new stuff. There's really no telling if she'll be better or worse afterwards. I think she'll be worse, but I can definitely see somebody not agreeing with me on that.
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I think people heavily misconstrue.
Now of course, this was from the beginning pitched as an experiment, with no plans to hit live servers, but it still shocked me that a change, that would so massivly punish one side to adress a comparatively small issue for the other, was even considered.
It wasn't just a small issue, basekit Unbreakable would help against the killers that abuse slugging. It's been happening quite a lot as of lately. I don't know if the devs will even do this anyways cause of survivors finding ways to exploit and abuse it. Both sides abuse tools that are given to them for their entertainment until fixed, however, killers are still able to abuse a mechanic against their own will, making it very fun and unengaging for survivors. Not every killer uses slugging as a strat and rather a way to abuse.
Then still later I noticed that the majority of Survivors in my games both as Survivor and as Killer were toxic towards the Killer, waiting at the exit gates in a 100% save spot just to tea bag when the Killer apporached them or going into a game with their friends without actually playing to win, instead just stunning the Killer over and over again.
I still can't seem to understand this from many people. If you see survivors teabagging at the gate or wasting time instead of trying to go for saves; pressure them out? I don't get how that is toxic unless they are blocking you into a corner and BMing.
Why is Survivor satification important enough to upset the entire games balance over it, but Killer satification is reduced to win statistics? Killer players aren't bots who will be happy as long as enough Survivors die, we are also playing this game to have fun, but the direction and motivation behind the changes to this game that I have witnessed make me fear, that there is a, perhaps unintentional, philosophy towards "Survivors play, Killers perform".
Tell that to the killers that only serve a purpose of making it completely unengaging and not fun for the other side rather than playing their role respectively. Honestly, both sides aren't innocent of this, but to ask why "survivor satisfaction is important enough to upset the entire game balance" is a stretch. There needs to be a fine-tuned balance for both sides to "play". Killers "performing" is rather a personality than intended gameplay.
I will say the last few patches weren't that great, but the devs seem to be listening and taking steps into the right direction. I may not agree with most changes and mechanics, but that doesn't mean the devs won't listen and try fine-tuning things for both sides.
Nurse is still relatively strong as I feel 'Jenner's Last Breath' will get nerfed for release. They kinda made Knight more anti-loopable.
HUD icons aren't going to drastically change the game, just help people get the memo to do their job, which I fear may not be effective enough, but that's just me and we will see.
Do you think it'd be fair if killers could still insta-down the same survivor they hooked after being unhooked? People want the trial to end fairly quick, but not in 5 seconds. That defeats the purpose of having challenge. Plus, it is still super easy to wait out the endurance effect. It should be punishable for the killer but that doesn't disincentivize killers enough to get them to understand they could be making a bad play.
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Again, I'm not talking about game balance, let alone specific balance changes.
I'm not a Knight player, so I don't want to make statements about how the changes will affect him, but if you're asking how they look to me, then yes, number changes do look like efficiency tuning to me.
And if I wanted to be nasty, I could point out that Nurse is (rightfully) the most complaint about Killer from the Survivor side, while there aren't many Nurse mains who were asking for changes, so Nurse receiving changes while the Killers, Killer mains are complaining about, don't, doesn't contradict my impression that changes to the game are motivated by looking at the game from a Survivor viewpoint. Not to mention that the update contains an improvement to the Survivor experience, but nothing for the stealth Killers who will be negativly affected by said change.
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"It wasn't just a small issue, basekit Unbreakable would help against the killers that abuse slugging."
It would be another basekit Perk and it would hurt Killers who don't abuse slugging, why should it be acceptable for a change against a specific rare abusive Killer behaviour to also punish innocent players who don't engage in any abusive behaviour, and if it is where are the changes against similarly abusive Survivor behaviour.
"I still can't seem to understand this from many people. If you see survivors teabagging at the gate or wasting time instead of trying to go for saves; pressure them out? I don't get how that is toxic unless they are blocking you into a corner and BMing."
If a Survivor stays one step away from safety instead of just escaping so they can wait for the killer to see them tea bagging then that is toxic behaviour, whether its upsets you or me doesn't change that it is a completely unneccesery act that serves no other purpose than to make another player upset.
"Tell that to the killers that only serve a purpose of making it completely unengaging and not fun for the other side rather than playing their role respectively."
How does that contradict what I was saying? Nobody should be allowed to be toxic, but sofar I have only seen changes to combat toxicity from one side.
"HUD icons aren't going to drastically change the game, just help people get the memo to do their job, which I fear may not be effective enough, but that's just me and we will see."
Their whole purpose is to give Survivors more information, the only way how they could "fail" at that is Survivors choose to ignore them. Again I am not talking about how strong these changes are on their own, but about the fact that they are changes that look at one sides gameplay experience while only looking at the other sides efficiency.
"Do you think it'd be fair if killers could still insta-down the same survivor they hooked after being unhooked?"
No, but I think that it isn't fair, and an unresolved issue, that the solution to this problem negatively affects players who specificly, maybe even by choise, are not part of the problem.
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But hey... Parallel to this, ALL survivors got a buff.
The most important part of the game is information and it wasn't fair that the group was getting an advantage over the singles because of the huge flow of information.
However, instead of equating groups with singles, the developers decided to equate singles with groups. Have you ever been bullied by a group? Now it will happen much more often.
How about to fleetingly give a huge advantage to killers? I don't remember this happening. Only averaging out a very strong meta and an overall buff because the previous situation was disastrous. Seems like bhvr don't learn from mistakes.
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Didn't you know that killers only exist for the fun of survivors? If killers do something to win that is unfun to survivors should be banned!...
Jokes aside, welcome to the club. You had the same feelings I had when I started playing the game (the same time as you, it seems) so I got what you say. But even if BHVR balanced things in the past mainly guided by the crying of survivors (see what happened with Freddy in it's release, Ardetha has a good video in youtube about it and a lot of other interesting "DbD history" topics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXwqWxNKdOU) I don't thing that is the case anymore.
Yes, there are many things in the game from the survivor-sided past that still need to be changed or reworked, but BHVR seems to have learn it's lesson and started to balance the game for both sides as he must do, as a competitive game. One of the things I think is good is the Status HUD for survivors, as one of the problems the game has is that SoloQ players are in a disadvantage in comparation with SWF because voicechat. So, if you balance the survivor side taking in count SWF (what they should do) SoloQ players would be even worst, but if you balance the game for SoloQ then SWF would destroy killers. Leveling up SoloQ to SWF is what will allow BHVR to balance the game taking the most efficient way of playing on both sides, which would make the game fairer in the higher MMRs.
About the basekit BT, even if survivors abuse it (like any other mechanic BHVR have tried to solve problems survivors cry about) I don't see it as much a problem because it has downsides (if the survivor use the protection for a free bodyblock you will be able to tunnel him without waiting) and doesn't completely nullify tunneling as a valid strat, just removes the possibility to hook the same survivor 3 times in a row without even a chase.
And I agree with you about the anti-slug mechanic thing (even if I think you can't blame them for trying to solve things people not like as long as they don't go live without testing, that's what the PTB if for), but wasn't only because for the slugging's cries but also a try to remove the hatch and change the end game as well. If they did that change, you would only need to slug all survivors to be able to win, that's why they also changed the bleeding mechanic to adapt to that new way of play.
Not only that, but in the last patch announced they're going to change one of the maps because it was literally "too survivor sided" and buff a killer just to make him better to play with, without mention the 60% killrate they want to maintain so winrates are equal to both sides. So yeah, there are things that still need changes, but for the moment I see BHVR with a true intent to really balance things for both sides and not because one side is crying about the other.
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Idk man I don't think the survivors are exactly good either for kicking small victor around
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Most of the updates favor one side or the other. Earlier this year killers got alot of small basekit buffs. This update is focusing on survivor QoL updates.
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This update mainly feel's like a Quality Of Life update, with just tweak's and alteration's to make thing's feel better. Nothing really has been changed enough that i would call it a nerf or buff to anything in the PTB just QoL tweak's. The most major change is the action icon's, it won't alter gameplay heavily or possibly at all, but it's nice to have it and newer player's will probably get more use out of it than those who started playing over the last year.
Also your concern's about the Basekit Unbreakable Update, this game has a history of update's where something drastically sway's the game in favor to one side while making the other miserable, granted the dev's have been acting alot faster and better at fixing these update's when they hit, it's rather great that they are treating it with as much care as they are instead of just doing a ptb then slapping it on live.
Hopefully you can look past the thing's that bring you concern and find what make's the game fun for you and bring's you back to play it.
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I say it in advance. I am a veteran player (with over5.6k hrs since 09/2018) so I might not understand you completely. Just because I learned to see things differently and might not ba able to imagine a pretty new player's view on the game anymore. But I try nontheless.
I completely understand your frustration regarding the fun of playing killer. Killer is a very stressful role, not gonna lie, and it has been for a long time. But it got better over the years. Sure there will always be mechanics that are annoying, but you can't always change that sadly. To be honest with you, getting camped or tunneled is also quite annoying and often feels unfair. I lost count of the matches where I got tunneled out of the match for no reason at all. Many times the answer is just "because i can" or "you genrush" or "you looked wrong at me" or similar even if I just wanted to play the game without having the goal to genrush in the first place. Many times I sat on a gen for maybe 10s before getting tunneled. Killers mostly (and sadly) don't care for your fun as well. Or have you ever had an insidious camping Bubba who cared for your fun? No.
When I play survivor (or killer), everything I can do, is to play and be fair to the other players. No tbags or flashlight clicks, no camping and tunneling when not necessary. Of course I bodyblock after I get unhooked, if the unhooker is injured. It would be dumb not to. But Endurance after unhooking only lasts for 10s and can be ignored if you can grab the person. And a tip for you: If someone shoves themselves in your face after getting unhooked, slugg them on the ground and wait a minute. They probably have DS and want to stick it in your back. Often you can get more pressure like this anyway. If I play kilelr I will tunnel or camp if gens fly, sure, but I can always be fair as long as the other side is fair. That's a rule I made for myself.
Getting stunned is annoying, especially if you are quite new to the game, but I can assure you that you get some sort of intuition after a while. Flashlights can (mostly) be avoided by looking against walls or faking a pickup and listening carefully for steps. Always be cautious if someone has a flashlight in your lobby. Pallet stuns are not that bad, and the "vacuum" pallet drop you can do (basically running through a pallet and dropping it last second, "vacuuming" you back to the pallet) is hard to forsee as killer.
And about the tbags at the exit gate.... well you have to learn to ignore it. I still get triggered by it sometimes, but usually I just walk away from the gate if I see them teasing me and do something else. EGC is just 2min long and I can wait that long if it means I don't have to see them spamming CTRL.
The current PTB aims to make the gap between soloq and swf smaller so killers and perks can be balanced around a basic amount of communication between survivors, which it currently is not.
I hope I could help you a bit.
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Thank you for your reply, I really helps to hear that from someone who seems to see things from a similar perspective.
I am willing to accept the possibility of me just missing the big picture to see what is currently happening in context, but I still can't shake off the uneasy feeling. Tunneling and camping feel horrible for the receiving player, and I make sure to never do it against Survivors who play even remotely fair, but seeing those things that, unfun as they are, adressed before things that don't even fulfil any gameplay purpose like teabagging or bully squads, that I am on the receiving end of more often than not, still gives of an aweful first impression. It's not even that I take things like that to heart, I don't, but what I do take to heart is seeing that being constantly at each other throats seem to be the norm.
To me body blocking feels just as unfair as tunneling or camping (I spend a long time thinking that it was an exploit that would be fixed any day), so seeing people defending it while they ask for even harsher measures against tunneling makes me fear that toxicity, or at least what I personaly would consider toxicity, is simply accepted by the community. Maybe I am naive, but I think that there is a lot of room for mechanical improvements (not balance changes) that could make the game a better experience and less of an "us vs them" situation for all players, which would improve overall game feel in the long run and enable a healthier balancing philosophy.
Furthermore the fact that the current plan is to introduce more buffs into a meta that already can be summed up as "turbo gens vs infinite regress" and doing so in an "one side after the other" way makes me thing that it will get worse before it will get better.
Several people here have said that I just got a bad first impression and I want to believe that, but on the other hand I've also been told that I need to learn to overlook what I see as unacceptable, so I have mixed feelings.
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It is quite honorable that you play like you do! We need more people like this in the community. But you can't expect others to do the same. The only thing you can do is to be a good example. Sadly there are some people who don't care about other peoples' feelings when they are online. It's a lot easier to be mean to a person you can't see or you'll probably never see in your life. That's a fact.
There will always be mean people in online games and you can't change that. And therefore you can't just remove bully squads. My advice is to keep a cool head. Try to think like them and adjust what you do. Play dumb. And then strike when they don't pay attention. I have faced a bully swf with a total of over 20k hrs about a year ago (2 players of them with over 6k hrs). They tried different techs and were bodyblocking, tbagging, clicking their flashlights with the full meta perks... the whole package. I played dumb, let them do their thing, gain confidence, let them think they had their 4 man escape ezpz safe. And then a failed CJ-tech and failed save of the same later I had a 3k. Don't let your feelings use you, but use them yourself.
The us vs them mentality is sadly common for most if not all multi-player games where you have 2 different roles. I don't think we can change that. The only way to lessen this mentality here in dbd would be to get people to play both sides. But I am not sure how to do it further.
I already shared some thoughts about making some of the unfun parts of the game more bearable. For example that you don't loose a pip when you get (face) camped or even get points for keeping the killer busy, or that Killer's can't use insta down powers in a let's say 16m radius around the hook (or maybe no power at all like Artist or Twins).
The meta was changed shortly before you started playing. The Devs wanted more perks to be used, but somehow they nerfed the old meta too hard in some cases (imo DS, Ruin) and buffed mediocre perks a bit too much (OTR, Eruption). Or the Devs did not consider all the combinations like CoB, Overcharge, Eruption or OTR, DS, DH. And until there will be a faster way to "win" (whatever that might be in this game) killers will tunnel and regress gens and survivors will rush gens.
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-"I am a veteran player (with over5.6k hrs since 09/2018)"
I've been playing since 2016 and let me share some perspective.
The most common two perks in 2016 were : AGI+IG because it made for very long carries to the basement. You could drop a player against a wall and immediately hit them and pick them up again. For a bit of perspective- the old Iron Grasp level 1 perk was stronger than the current Iron Grasp level 3 perk.
Trapper once upon a time was on par with Billy for killer strength. Why? Traps that were put on a lane of a "4 wall" could not be walked around because the trap had a wider hitbox and the lane was smaller. Traps set on a pallet could never be walked around. Traps could be placed under a hook which meant the trap had to be disarmed before you could unhook a player.
Wraith with 2016 NOED was in a better place than wraith is right now. That's not exactly fair considering how strong old NOED was but wraith got buffed and then got nerfed. Old wraith took less time to uncloak than current wraith thanks to Horvath's meddling.
Billy is a joke to play right now but man was he powerful back until like 2019 when he could use his chainsaw to zoom from point A to point B on almost every map. I think indoor maps to a large degree were added to artiificially nerf Billy and Nurse. Billy with the 2016 flick was beyond broken and was a lot like Oni Flicking his power around corners. Note: People say billy can flick but what they mean is curve; by contrast 2016 had a chainsaw flick that was busted.
Killer overall in 2022 is "fine" if you are playing Nurse/Blight. It sucks tremendously for any killer that doesn't have : fast movement, strong antiloop, and the ability to ignore/fast break pallets. Nurse and Blight have all of those traits and even get some 4v1 potential because they can move across the map so fast as well as down players quickly.
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"Nerfed"
7 blink nurse says otherwise. And while the Knights buffs are nifty, they don't really change much; the guards still feel like they dont offer enough for how long they exist. I'd have rathered that they made all the guards have the same chase timer as the carnifex, and made the jailer block pallets/windows near him while chasing than these buffs.
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So you are one of the ancient players who didn't stop playing. You get fewer and fewer, which is sad to see.
I remember the Trapper stuff from videos. And I also think that Billy got nerfed too hard. Wraith is OK, which is OK, since not all killers need to be top notch.
Anything but AGI+IG was not fun with all the perma Sabo I guess until STBFL came into the game. And then there were insane infinites, insta vaults, insane we'll make it heals and so on. You can't tell me killer was easier back then. Survivors were just not as efficient as today.
The real problem is map design, not Gen speeds or perks. Big maps like Mother's Dwelling should not exist. Maps like Ravaged Square or The Game have too many safe loops etc. Tiles connecting to each other creating insane layouts (Suffocation Pit) are a problem. That needs to be fixed first. Survivor spawns at the beginning need to get fixed. Medkits need to get nerfed.
Yes, there is a reason why Blight and Nurse dominate in high level play. There is a reason why Myers and Trapper struggle against the same people. Anything that is just right while vsing strong survivors will destroy any newcomers. There are 2 aspects that make balancing difficult: experience and swf. Experienced players can make the most out of pallets and play very efficient, while new players don't. Swf have insane info, soloq hasn't without perks. You see? How do you balance a map or a killer without it being too strong or to weak for either side of the spectrum? It will always feel unbalanced to you if you are not in the middle.
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I dont wanna be nitpicky but i kinda dislike your " its okay for bad characters to not be on par"
Why cant the bad killers be buffed to be on par with the good killers? The killer tier gap is actual game mechanics/variables compared to the voicecomms and group mentality of swf.
If the power level of survivor can be pulled up to "survivor+comms+teamplay", then im sure we can buff every killer except the top 3.
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-"You can't tell me killer was easier back then"
Actually I can. Pallets had a smaller hitbox and the stun was on a delay from the drop so it was very easy to trade a stun with a drop. Something like 95% of my swings at pallets in 2016 were hits. Trading a hit for a stun was always a win. What was problematic was when you had someone pre drop every pallet.
Pallet looping didn't exist until the change that changed pallet drops. Until that time it was too easy to trade a stun for a hit. So that means the only defense most people had was infinite looping via windows. Trapper literally turned that off with only a few exceptions. The old Cow tree is a perfect example that was insane if you ever watched a video of someone loop it for 20-30 minutes.
Did you know that Shelter woods had a 76% kill rate? That's because there were no infinite loops. It was literally hide or die.
And then there was NOED which was completely insane with a 9% speed boost and one hit downs. We also had green moris so you could just remove one player from the game before they ever visited a hook.
Also you have to think back to 2018 when we had "super bloodlust". That was an extremely strong time for killer as well. Most of the Survivor nonsense had been removed and bloodlust was way stronger.
-"Wraith is OK, which is OK, since not all killers need to be top notch."
For this to be True then Wraith should have a MMR cut off. If it is accepted that Wraith has a skill limit ceiling then he can't play anyone over a certain rating. That actually would be fun. You could have people with thousands of hours on killer play vs people with hundreds of hours and have a fair game.
All the killers in my opinion should be within a 15% strength zone or we need to have protected MMR killers that don't play over a certain MMR rating. Clown would be an example but that rating barrier would vanish if you use pinky finger.
-"So you are one of the ancient players who didn't stop playing."
Everyone on my friends list who still plays DBD is someone I met within the last 365 days. DBD is balanced as a gaming fad that isn't meant to last but has somehow miraculously lasted for 6 years. For the majority of 6 years the killer experience has been essentially miserable unless you were playing the best killer at the time.
"The real problem is map design, not Gen speeds or perks. Big maps like Mother's Dwelling should not exist. Medkits need to get nerfed."
The problem with having a map like Garden of Joy is that it is fair for Nurse and Blight and almost no one else.
You're not wrong that the maps we have are mostly unfair. Badham, GoJ and almost all the big maps are unfair. All the maps need to be retooled to be no larger than 9500m².
There is a very simple quick fix that would make all killers without a movement power much better. You take any killer that has no movement or teleport power and you make them 120% base speed. So Trapper but not Wraith would move at 120% along with Michael Myers, Nemesis, Plague, Pig, etc. To compensate Wraith you undo the 2022 nerf. Teleporters still get a better movement power as do Nurse and Blight. But now all the old M1 killers become absolutely terrifying on the current size loops. The very best players have to pre drop very quickly and looping as we know it is dead. Bad players around which the game is balanced would play about the same and still go down in chases almost instantly so nothing would change there.
But small size does not mean fair. The Game map is Fair if you are playing a killer like Nemesis, Blight, Nurse or Legion with Iri button but unfair for almost everyone else. Many killers crash when survivors pick that map. My game never crashes when I am playing Nemesis and people pick the game. I have something like a 95% win rate there with him.
Where you are wrong is that gens are too fast relative to chase speeds as long as the Killer can't kick completed generators. DBD becomes a completely different game the moment a killer could turn a completed generator off - but that's likely never going to happen so we can ignore that thought. Relatively speaking Blight and Nurse have efficient chase speeds that allow multiple chases and quick downs. The other killers are incompetent buffoons by comparison. And it only gets worse since the best two killers have the strongest addons.
There was a planned solution that would make medkits and CoH "fine". Somewhere around 2019 there was a plan to limit survivor so that they got two heals per game and then would be broken. It got scrapped the same way that infinite unbreakable will likely be scrapped.
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I really don't know about MMR protecting killers. The most boring thing I endured (and I guess you as well) was hitting red ranks and only see Nurse, Billy and Spirit. Or only nurse for that matter. Now it would be only Nurse and Blight. No thank you.
Surely the game needs more balance, and killers should not vary much in strength, but I also think that this is not easily done with the Killers who need it.
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Doctor would be "fine" with 120% movement speed along with all the other non teleporting/movement speed killers.
Blight and Nurse need to have their obviously broken addons removed to do other things. Most people know the addons that need to go.
Killers like Nemesis that have almost no viable addons need to have an rework. And even that would be easy.
Remove the 60 second duration so that if you are contaminated then you are oblivious.
Change the hindered effect so that if you are contaminated then you are -2% movement speed.
Change this addon to either : injure survivors who open a vaccine case/deep wound an injured survivor who opens a case OR -1 supply case in the trial.
Change this addon to -2 supply cases from the trial
Change this addon to : -3 supply cases from the trial.
Change this addon to: Increase Zombie Movement speed by +1.5m for the remainder of the trial whenever a generator is completed. Increase Survivor Zombie detection range of zombies by +2 meters whenever a generator is completed for the rest of the trial.
Change this to read: A zombie within 6m of a survivor reveals the survivor's aura. When a survivor leaves the zombie's radius their aura is revealed for 3 seconds.
Double the effectiveness of this addon on a map larger than 9000m². Double it again (4x) on a map larger than 10000m². In other words : +8m detection on large maps.
Double the effectiveness of this addon on a map larger than 9000m². Double it again (4x) on a map larger than 10000m². In other words : +16m detection on large maps.
Change this addon to cause the broken effect for 60 seconds on injury. If a survivor is not injured then the broken status is applied the next time they become injured.
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Yeah, broken Blight, Nurse (she gets new broken ######### lol) and Spirit addons need to go, not arguing here.
My problem with the 120% is that it makes a lot of loops less safe. If it was solely for the purpose of getting around, outside of chase, sure.
I don't play Nemesis at all (too loud for my taste) so I can't tell you about your suggestions, but they look nice. There are other killers who need addon passes like Pyramid Head or Freddy.
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Do you understand that this is good?
there would be no endless loops in the garden of pain and headonfield
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For garden of pain it would be great. But for maps with short and unsafe loops it would not.
The real solution would be to fix GoP's dumb spawns.
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I don’t think that if the trapper was 120% it would be OP, there are so many frankly weak killers in the game that you can genrush in 2 minutes
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Let's just say I would be open for an experiment
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-"My problem with the 120% is that it makes a lot of loops less safe."
That would be the entire point. Trapper with 120% movement speed would be a threat - not a joke.
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This. The only reason they finally buffed killers across the board was because survivor queues were reaching 30 minutes and survivors were not happy. Only way to fix it was to make killer 10% less depressing to play.
It was funny because I could play two games as killer while my wife had not started one. We sit right next to each other and I’d look over and see her waiting. She didn’t mind because she wrote her books while waiting.
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I agree with much of what you said,but await with interest if nurses nerfs do ruin her,I do not run nurse but can imagine the frustration of nurse mains who have put hours of gameplay and possibly spent money on cosmetics etc for their favourite character only to have her potentially downgraded by the devs.I believe it’s all down to the nurses kill ratio being so high the counter being nurse is very hard to master so I salute players who can so bang goes high skill high reward.The knight is very weak so I would be amazed if any buffs improve it,however time will tell.
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No problem, if maps get fixed first. It just can't be that stuff like Garden of Pain exists while there are maps with big dead zones or many unsafe loops to begin with. Fix that first and I have no problem with killers being 4.8. Or if this bonus was just outside of chase only for getting around.
And what about killers who can teleport but have a long cooldown or no real chase power like Onryō or Freddy? They would not benefit of this change but still need to chase like a Trapper. And they are definitely not mediocre or good killers.
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Freddy has a teleport and so does Ring girl. Being able to teleport is a massive advantage compared to say : huntress who has limited movement. On the very large maps you notice it most. Both Freddy and Ring can have a 3 gen setup almost anywhere because they can teleport.
It's a huge advantage that other killers just don't have and forces a very close three gen. Freddy might be a bad example for you to pick because he has "ok" anti-loop. Trapper has nothing if a survivor vaults a downed pallet; If he stops to set a trap the survivor leaves the loop. Freddy can just put a snare down as he is moving around the loop.
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I was just saying that your idea would leave killers behind who belong to your "strong killers tier" because they can teleport no matter how bad the rest of their kit is.
Yes Sadako CAN teleport quite freely as long as TVs are on and Freddy has 7 TP points at the start and 0 in the end. Yes TPs help with 3gens but traps or Doctor's shock also does. Hag can also TP, but she is also another thing in herself, since her mobility is reactive without Mint Rag.
My point is, that Sadako and sfredsy would both need buffs (Sadako more than Freddy) because their chase is so weak. At least give these killers an addon rework so their addons are better.
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3 months is too little to gauge the direction the game is headed. That's like measuring your long term improvement at a skill over the course of 3 days, and it makes no sense.
Nevermind that you missed the perk overhaul in summer, which bumped killrates from 50 to 60% and included many basekit killer buffs.
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If I am being honest, playing survivor feels way easier and less stressful than playing killer. I don't even own an exhaustion perk because I rarely play survivor, but I probably win like, 60% of my games, and factoring in the hatch, escape around 70% or more of them.
And I will say, I can loop okay at best, and I don't have a single chase perk to help me, I think my current, and really only perk set is Boil over, Prove Thyself, Leader, and either CoH, Hope, or like flip flop (I play Default Dwight too if that wasn't obvious by two of the perks)
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Ah yes, losing both range and recharge addons, two of her best addon sets, will for sure make her worse to play against as well as losing 12-13 perks as they will no longer be usable on her definitely means she is worse to play against. It's a bit of an overreaction to think one unique addon is going to be as strong as recharge and range, and regardless, I doubt they will keep the addon live with how they nerfed the fatigue add-ons, even though nobody ever used them lol. Also, I get people are all making the 6 blink nurse things, but how many Nurses have you seen using the 3rd blink addon even after they buffed it lol I saw 1, and that was after they had buffed it, and people still never used it over range and recharge.
Though the Jenner addon likely will be used well simply because there are very few add-ons left to use that offer utility and allow you to better control the blinks at this point. Like maybe since all the other addons are now kind of trashy maybe, the third blink will be used more since the alternatives are the awful undetectable addon or awful addon that makes nurse an m1 killer lol. The other ultra rare, I don't know if it will be strong, people have been saying it's super strong, but I never liked it, so I doubt ill like it still, even after the buff.
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Most people agree that the killer experience has been 1 step forward and 2 steps back for the majority of the last six years. Survivors are mathematically 4/5ths of any one particular game and as such get too much say in the shaping of game development.
There was a killer strike at the end of the first year of DBD. At that point in time matches were 15 minute queues. It's a miracle the game survived considering VHS had literally the same problem in their first week and died.
A perfect example of power disparity is the Trapper. His traps lost about 30% of their trigger radius but can no longer be permanently be destroyed by sabotage. Lanes were made wider so it was no longer possible to place a trap in a lane and make that trap unavoidable. Grass was literally nerfed so traps were easier to see. Fewer than half the maps even have regular thick grass patches making Trapper terrible on those realms. Beartraps can no longer be placed under hooks (which were unidirectional once upon a time meaning you had to disarm the trap before a rescue was possible and while this was a fair change for the game it made the killer much weaker. It bothered me immensely however that Hag traps which almost guarantee a free hit are allowed under hooks and bear traps are now "illegal".
If Trapper were stronger than Blight then it might make sense that the Trapper had to gather his traps across the map. Should Blight need to wander around and pick up 6 vials so he can do 6 bounces? It's a completely unnecessary design element that might have made sense in 2016 when every map had thick grass and traps could take 20+ attempts to escape as a function of RNG. By the way that was something else that got nerfed as now you are guaranteed to escape a trap on the sixth attempt. You can find old videos where people failed on the 24th attempt right before they got hit or grabbed. And while the RNG nerf makes sense for the game in terms of fair play - why does the trapper not start with about 5 traps in hand and require 3 to be picked up?
Freddy snares should be reverted to their pre nerf state - but take away the ability to place snares through obstacles. If that's not enough when all the gens are done make him be 120% movement because he can't teleport anymore.
Survivor queue rates were also a function of SWF and repeated wins with the MMR system. Good SWF teams won most of their matches and went "up" in the ladder. So they had to wait longer and longer to play someone on their level. That was fair to the players but unfortunate to those teams.
Now it is possible to have 1600 MMR and face a 2200 MMR SWF team if you are the highest MMR killer in the queue. That is unlikely to happen but it does happen. It's not fair when it happens either.
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No they are aiming you to hit them immediatelly unless they have otr if you wait out that 10s they're easy to tunnel. And you seem still pretty new to the game so let me tell before it was actually very hard for killer to get trade while camping hook before 6.1 patch if you hit survivor going for unhook they could just dh or the unhooked could take protection hit with bt now that is very rarely possible.
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115% speed is fine some killers just need something to go around map faster maybe giving m1 killer 150% speed boost after hooking someone. If you struggle in chase to get hit bloodlust kicks in to help as well. First they should immediatelly make that huge buff but start with something slower like making killers 116 or 117% and see how that works. Blight should be nerfed to 110% though he does not need to be as fast as sadako who has no antiloop whereas blight can make looping nearly imposible.
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That would be a nice idea. Maybe like this: every time a Gen gets completed you get 1% stackable movement speed. So in many cases that would be at least 2-3% for most of the game.
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Actually your idea would make for a nice killer perk or maybe something we tie in to the "fire up perk". Add 1% movement speed to the fire up perk OR add a new killer perk that slows all survivors by 1% for the rest of the game for each generator completed (no - it's not a hex and there's no way to remove it).
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Sorry but nobody wants to play most of the M1 killers at high MMR as they are just ineffective. Either we need to completely gut SWF Nurse AND blight or buff old killers that are pathetic. Making all the non movement speed killers have 120% speed would go a long way to making them interesting.
Considering Horvath wanted to make Billy into a 110% killer I can't believe that Blight is full speed. Furthermore it's just insane he has pallet break built into his power. Remove either one of those and he would be a lot more fair compared to the other ~28 killers on the roster.
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I think buffing them right away to 120% is too much they should try first 116 or 117% that would already allow many hits which you would not get otherwise. Something to travel around map would be good too. Many of those old m1 killer need other buff as well myers T3 should be more threarening and he should nevee run out of stalk. Only killer which I think should start as 120% is Oni because survivors just pre drop every pallet and when you finally get your power 3 gens are done.
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I think I had this idea for a Fire Up buff some time ago and posted it in one of my "make bad perks better posts".
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"This game's update direction feels soley Survivor-focused" thats because it is, survivors are a whiny bunch and the devs kowtow to pretty much everything they say
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