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Current State for Killer is Not Good
Let me start off with saying that I am a killer main, (Blight, Spirit) but have played a ton more survivor over the last few months. When the new hud update came out for survivor it was a welcome change to buff solo queue. Solo queue needed it. But now that it has been out a month or so I've noticed some things that have me worried. First, for my region killer queue has the incentive for most of the day nowadays. This means (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) that there are less killers playing than survivors. Second, games in general have been a lot sweatier and WAY more stressful for killer. Survivors have gotten a lot better at looping and gens are faster than they've ever been. I think the general strat now is to each solo a gen and have 2-3 pop by the time a killer has found, chased, downed and hooked 1 survivor. Most games for me in both roles get to endgame with maybe 1 person dead if that. I feel like I am a lot worse of a killer than I actually am. I have just over 2k hours in this game and I have never had to deal with sweaty matches like this consistently every game. I feel like as the killer every decision needs to be perfect. Chases need to be 30 sec or less otherwise I lose the game. I can't waste time looking for people in the beginning and I can't try out new builds or experiment with some builds on my killers cause the game will be over before I have a chance to do anything. <- This point really makes me sad. I don't want to run slowdown every game but I feel like it is necessary now with how hard it is to get downs, hooks and kills. It takes less than 10 mins to pop 5 gens now so if you don't run slowdown you need to end chases really quick. Which is hard to do with survivors been so much better than before.
I genuinely think that most of the community has quit killer and I understand why. I need survivors to screw up in matches for me to get kills cause even in games where I play really well I might only get 2 kills. I literally had a game the other day where I got 9 hooks, 9!! and only 1 kill. Killer is really frustrating right now, I would even say unplayable.
I feel like there needs to be a mechanic that passively slows the game down for killer. Like have a mini Gift of Pain effect be basekit. This won't happen though cause the player base will complain that the Nurses, Blights, and Spirits are even stronger with this kind of change. The fact that this is the reason for not buffing killers is ridiculous. If you go against these killers all day then you are a pretty good player who is at high MMR. The rest of the player base deals with the weaker, more useless killers.
What do others think? I am the only one noticing this? Am I crazy? Do I sound like a salty killer main?
I would love to know.
Comments
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Grasses always greener? I had 5 matches to night 4 were 4ks. We don't know anything till they give us someone data
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My games for killer are usually win all my games and survivor is losing them all. Just got done with a round of 5 soloq games and had 1 escape through gate. Running key+ left behind build now which doubled my escape rate.
I feel the only thing that you need to do as killer is run a meta build. Even low tier killers are mostly fine with strong builds and its really when you don't play well/ run weak builds where things get really out of hand with killer. I find if I'm getting real sweaty games I can make them chill by playing Nurse. Not really sure what to say if you are already playing a top killer and find your games hard in general.
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9 hooks sound like a fun game to me.
As long as killers play only for kill. survivors will play only for escape.
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Your reasoning is alot more sound than most posts like these
Currently killer is in very good shape when compared to past iterations of dbd (this is coming from someone whos been around since doc). The generators are taking longer (slightly but its at least noticeable when you don't run 4 regression/slow down, run 4 of those then gens can take forever) and the survivors splitting has been common for competent survivors since we joined. Haven't noticed anything new with survivor skill level overall (for us they usually fall into: actually good, know the map and loops but otherwise suck, play like they're new)
Your correct in that theres less killers but there is usually lulls in killer activity like waves, we just have a visual indicator now. Alternatively your correct and that people have just quit because they cant adapt but we wont really know till we have data as someone above said. Chases are a quick weight your options. If the chase is abit longer than 30 seconds but you've gotten rid of strong pallets, then thats a win to atleast us as the next chase in that area will end quicker.
While we agree that they should buff the weaker killers, giving every killer an effect like the one suggested is a bad idea. Yell kick and scream about buffing less played killers all day long and we'll suport that, but please dont give a global buff like that to everyone especially since some really dont need it.
This is treading to opinion territory so appoligies if it detracts but we don't understand why your frustrated with 9 hooks and 1 kill. Unless you tunneled and camped that 1 kill from the start, it seems to us you played well (won't know without a video).
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I try not to care about 'winning' as killer. I want to have fun chases and moments where I can feel like I played well. I play for hooks, and consider that my personal win condition. 9 hooks and 1 kill is a great game.
You don't seem to be playing as if a 4k is the only thing that matters in the world. Keep in mind that there's no reward for 4k ing every match. In fact, I'd argue the 'reward' for winning all the time is higher MMR, and sweatier games.
But the last thing the game needs is slower gens base kit. That only puts more pressure on survivors to 'push gens as hard as possible or die' and the gen speed arms race continues. It also means tunneling and camping become even more optimal strategies, but they aren't more fun just because gens are slow.
If anything, the game needs a rebalance so gen speeds have less variance. Two survivors with BNP can finish a single gen in something like 30s, but the other end of the spectrum is dying light + Pentimento which makes a gen almost 3 minutes to complete. Imagine if every game had closer to 90s gens instead of the other extremes.
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What's wrong with 9 hooks? 12 hooks is a 4k and you weren't far off. One more survivor mistake or one less killer mistake and it could have easily slid your way. If that has you upset, I'm assuming it's because you're used to getting more than 9 hooks and 1 or 2 kills. The devs have said many times that the game will serve up opponents you have the capacity to beat at least 50% of the time, so if you're doing better than that then perhaps your MMR has increased and the game is giving you more challenges?
I play solo on survivor, and the HUD hasn't made any difference to my escape rate. My escape rate dropped after the 6.1 killer buff update and it certainly hasn't recovered, despite being thrown a quality of life update. I don't suddenly get more efficient team mates - the HUD just shows me how inefficient they actually are. And it certainly hasn't made me better in chase, how can it? It sounds like, as I said above, you're simply getting more challenging opponents.
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tsk tsk, it's you that aren't putting enough pressure, jUst 4pplY pr3ssUr3!1!
now, talking seriously, this IS the norm on dbd nowdays: you don't have the time to do nothing as killer, especially if you are playing with a non meta killer (and sometimes even when you are playing with them). Each patch released from the devs is only driving me (and other people) away from this game.
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Let me clarify "winning" and my frustration. I consider a "win" 3-4k, 2k = tie, 1-0k loss. Sometimes I count 2k as win if it was a late comeback. Do I need to "win" every game to have fun no. Obviously, killers are not meant to win every game and survivors are not meant to win every game. But when getting 1 kill let alone 4 is much harder to do now than before the HUD update, it can get frustrating. Survivors are much better at looping, make little to no mistakes which makes chases longer, gens quicker, and 3-4 escapes more common. Deal with this everyday for 7 days a week. Combine that with IRL college courses you can get a bit annoyed.
The 9 hook thing was just me being annoyed that it resulted in only 1 kill. Usually 9 hooks is 2-3k for me, but whatever.
I'm going on vacation for a week which is nice. I get to relax and get away from this game. But when I get back it won't be much different.
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Regarding the incentives : there are always less killers than survivors, for the 4:1 ratio to be in place. (Except generally on PTB or as a new killee comes out if they're good : when Wesker came out, killer queues were very long and incentives on survivors pretty much 24h/24h because everyone wanted to play him)
Incentive on killer means the 4:1 ratio is not met, like maybe it's 5:1 or 6:1. It's very often the case in the evenings as survivors play with their friends after work (which is what I've seen the past few days).
Survivor incentives are generally on during the day (I still see it when I log on in the afternoon for example)
To your other points, I get how Killer as a role could feel much sweatier right now, but I don't think the hud update has much to do with survivors being better at looping. They're definitely more organized (hopefully for their teammates), but didn't get better at the game overnight.
I'm horrendous at survivor (slowly getting better) and I do not win my matches significantly more often (still at an average 20% escape rate) and neither do my teammates from what I can tell.
It is true that we reach 5th gen a bit more often, which is really good for morale, as post 6.1 most games never went past 3 gens.
As for killer buffs, I don't doubt some will come. But since general buff to killers would help those that do well more than those that do not, I really really wish they will instead take some time to look at each low tier killer and buff them separately through QoL and power buffs.
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I'm really not finding this to be the norm.
Gens can go quickly, but quick gens lead to sacrifices in other areas that I can easily capitalize on.
I think what a lot of people are really disliking is the shift towards more macro-heavy gameplay. DBD has slowly shifted away from being a game where you can just sit down and auto-pilot, but still put up a lot of hooks or kills. Same with the Survivor side of things.
It's become more competitive and it's understandable that a lot of people are struggling with that AND that they dislike it.
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Survivors can always smash the gens and go.
You could mess that up by constantly visiting each gen and only commit to sure thing chases, but at 2k hours with Blight you already know that.
So, as an opinion I'll mirror your own. They have the potential to do things too quickly for the game to be fun. The fact that they don't want to do the things they need to to get out quickly points to bad design, and specifically an unfun game loop for victory on survivor side.
I can agree with you on the problem, but don';t know about the solution. Its easy to say Gens go too fast, its not an obvious fix to say make them slower. Because when I play survivor, they are sort of an annoying must do, not a fun part of the game play.
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dbd and competitive can't stay in the same phrase... YOU CAN'T perfectly balance an asymmetrical game, especially when there are so many characters/stuff to put into the equation (in this case killers, perks and items/addons)... out of curiosity, did you play in eu servers? This could be another possible reason regarding the differences that you found in your matches
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That's understandable. I see 9 hooks and it looks like a pretty close game, even if not a 'win'. One more survivor mistake, or one less mistake on my part could've turned the tide in a game like that.
But games are also different when you're feeling burned out. I've been playing far less the past month or so, so taking a break for a bit well probably help.
Enjoy your vacation!
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About survivors getting better, i agree. I think that after the 6.1 update, most survivors got a wake-up call for how bad we actually were at survivor. I am including myself in this. After the update i think most survivor started learning how to loop and improve your skills, learn about time efficiency on gens and overall got more sweaty and less, let's f* around mindset, because the game demanded more of them and it was necessary to do.
It doesn't help with how "snowbally" Dbd is. Survivors if they cranck gens fast before you have put enough pressure put the killer in such a disadvantage, but if a survivor also makes one mistake it can kill an entire team. There are so many games where i know i played bad or was getting destroyed, but some survivor made a stupid thing and i got a 4K, i sure as hell didn't feel strong as the killer playing that match, but i got a 4k
Also the power level between the top tiers and low tier killers is so big that, yeah making wide changes are very dangerous and need to be very well though out, thats why they are very rare.
Also, for my region Bp incentives just fluctuate a lot, it used to be survivor locked the whole day, but now you can get about 2 to 3 hours at the end of the day of killer incentives, but then starts going to survivor again
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I do not play in EU.
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Gotta be honest bud, "spirit/blight" main saying game is harder is quite ironic
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I’ve recently been playing “both sides” fairly evenly a majority of nights a week and here’s my overall experience:
- Solo Queue is still miserable
- I win (3K+) a decent amount of my games as killer and in many others I finish with the same scenario you described in the OP- I get a good amount of hooks and I would go so far as to describe the match as enjoyable. I’m sure there was a thread on here recently asking at what number of hooks is it fair for a survivor to be killed- the consensus seemed to be 5/6. So if you play a game and get 9 hooks but only 1 kill, clearly you’ve played very nice (nothing wrong with that).
- There are games as killer where I am utterly destroyed and they are the ones I think we all tend to dwell on. I’m talking 2/3 hooks all game or 2/3 gens popping by the time I have a hook.
Now the last point is obviously the most relevant to this discussion. Why does this happen? Firstly, I have to hold my hands up and say it’s my own skill level. Clearly I was outmatched against better players. I tried my best but it wasn’t enough and that’s fine. However I do think there are still massive problems that a lot of the killer rosters comes up against when playing competent survivors which in my experience are:
- No anti-loop power or no instadown potential is rough. If you play an M1 killer who always has to hit twice and has no way to play around safe loops the game is undeniably harder. The difference between these killer power levels makes the game difficult to balance and I don’t know what the solution would be.
- Some maps are too large (encouraging the 3 Gen strategy people like to moan about) and other maps have too many resources and safe spots. This is emphasised when survivors know they can pre drop pallets and it won’t matter- wasting pallets should actually mean something. Most of the time it doesn’t.
- One or two slightly longer chases and it’s basically GG. If your first chase is tricky a comeback is very unlikely. I understand knowing when to drop chase is an important part of game management but there needs to be a better balance between wanting to actually chase good loopers and not having to worry about losing two gens
- Following on from this- this is a big reason why SOME (not all, I know some people do it anyway) killers tunnel players out the game- get the weaker loopers out and you greatly tip the odds in your favour. This is basically an inherent part of the game’s design and is encouraged by the matchmaking.
- Certain perks-we all know what they are- are still too strong.
- This is more of a “both sides” thing but I feel more impacted by it when I play killer- people bringing the absolute strongest stuff possible and stacking the deck in their favour for reasons I don’t understand. You want to win that badly? So you bring two styptics, two BNP, a favourable map offering and petrified oak (ok, the oak isn’t a big deal but the sentiment is still, “let’s make the game easier for us and harder for you”). Well isn’t that fun for me playing Sadako on The Game. I know this obviously doesn’t happen every match, but I’d say there are usually four strong-ish items in all my lobbies now and it’s a bit much. Map offerings are also very common and I know some people just want to play their favourite map, but it’s interesting how often that map seems to have corn in it.
The issue is however do these games happen frequently enough to warrant big changes? I don’t know. Like I said when I have a bad game I would think so, but then for the killer players who are much better than me if some of the issues I’ve mentioned are addressed would they just be stomping all the time if they’re not already? Because that’s not good.
On balance, I would probably say the size of some maps should be looked at, as should some of the items/add ons survivors can bring- the speed at which survivors can heal themselves and BNP’s do probably need looking at. Then tweak individual killers appropriately- I don’t think another all encompassing killer tweak is the right play here. And there’s only so many times perks can be reworked or nerfed before the devs realise reworking the meta isn’t the proper solution.
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Yeah I used to be a killer main now I’m on survivor. It’s easier and I win with way less effort. Even solo q is better than killer now thanks to the hud. I might do one killer game now for every 29 survivor and it used to be reversed lol
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Survivor is the easier role without a doubt… I can sit there and eat chips or scroll through tiktok while playing survivor lmao..
But… I’m also not struggling in killer. I still 3&4k at the same rate I did before the update. The average team is definitely more proficient, however it’s just the difference of finishing them off at 3-4 gens or 1-2 gens most games. I haven’t had to change the way I play, and I still only PR for slowdown.
I have no doubt buffs are coming to killer. You could always just take a break till then. Sons of the forest is actually remarkably good.
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I think survivors have gotten better at holding W, rather than looping.
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According to the forums killers haven't had time to do anything for 7 years and despite gens speeds getting nerfed significantly over that time somehow they're faster than ever.
My guess is what's actually happening is you got high enough that sbmm kicked in and games are harder now. I don't think killers need any across the board buffs but I think a lot of the low tier killers need maintenance to bring them up to B tier and a lot of killer perks not related to regression could get gigabuffed so kicking gens is no longer the meta.
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The pendulum has definitely swung the other way. I play whatever side gets me into a game the fastest and post shakeup patch it was like 80/20 survivor and killer. It's back to pre patch levels, maybe worse? Queues are back to 5+minutes on survivor after 7pm est, instant for killer.
Consequently I've been playing a lot more killer and my low tier, low regression games have gotten very very difficult.
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Gens got faster in spite of the 10s nerf because survivors aren't bringing 3 anti tunnel/camp perks and an exhaustion perk anymore. They don't need to bring BT. DS is bad. Unbreakable was mostly good when combined with DS so the killer couldn't tunnel or slug.
Instead they're bringing CoH, Prove Thyself, We'll Make It, Hyperfocus, Built To Last, etc... and they're just doing things faster because that's what those perks do.
In addition to that, the changes to bloodpoint economy is resulting in survivors bringing in powerful medkits and toolboxes a lot more often. Which further speeds up their healing and repairing.
Are gens longer at base? Sure. But that's ignoring the fact that Survivors are bringing way more time efficiency stuff more frequently than they ever have in the past.
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i think the real problem is the extreme imbalance on the high MMR end and the low MMR end. On the high end, SWF teams will usually crush the killer, and on the low end the killer will usually crush solo queue teams. It seems so rare (at least in my experience) that there is a close match. Seems like the only way to try to balance that out would be to add some sort of comeback mechanics for both sides but I don’t have any great ideas for how to do that. Maybe gen speeds could be sped up or slowed down depending on how many gens left vs how many hooks killer has, for example.
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Just tunnel, camp and protect a 3-gen from the beginning of the game
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I tend to not play during peak hours which impacts it, but it's basically 100% BP bonus for survivors for me all the time. When I try to play killer I expect to wait quite awhile. If I'm not into a survivor lobby within 15 seconds I feel surprised.
Balance wise: as survivor I get crushed and as killer I usually feel bad because of how easy the win feels. That's both a comment on when I play there not being a lot SWF but I also 'get' killer a lot more than I do survivor.
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