Why is BHVR so afraid to buff weak killers?
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So strange. Almost as if pure data analysis wouldn't be the only factor they make decisions over. Or if their goal wasn't even ensuring that every killer performs equally against survivor groups of various efficiency.
It's a very deep mystery indeed!
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They said that the numbers were in line with what they wanted to see, but keep in mind that stats in dbd can be exceptionally misleading. It isn't hard for a killer to get decent numbers while still have functional flaws that should be addressed. The main reason they gave for Trapper not getting very much outside of the small change and Naughty Bear skin and mori is because Trapper is the flagship beginner killer.
Sadako had a high kill rate that people like to throw around as proof that she's actually not a bad killer, but killers with the ability to kill without going through hook states should have a higher than average kill rate. Sadako while being a stealth killer lacks a lot of chase or hit and run potential base kit that you would find on other stealth killers. Playing for condemned kills is currently the most effective and popular way to play her. So stat wise it is easy to say that her numbers are in line with what the devs want to see but clearly the data is really skewed. When we get stats there is usually a lot of context behind them we simply don't have and that seem out of step with what players across all skill levels who are vocal enough to talk about their experiences say.
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As wonk as they can be, I'd say they're slightly better than 'random people on a forum'.
I already don't agree with Doctor. And I think Nemesis would be better served with bugfixing than buffs.
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The main problem is that killers' power are too far apart in efficiency.
Tier S/A killers are so much stronger than tier B and lower killers... that it is impossible to balance the game.
Devs should focus on homogenizing the killers efficiency - nerfing Nurse/Blight/Spirit and buffing weak killers Myers, Pig, Trapper etc...
At the same time they should rebalance every map that they fit and feel balanced with every homogenized killers.
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Crazy there are people saying "Sadako is getting buff soon".
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Definetely its hilarious some people think is a buff becuz devs put on the patch the word buff
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Eh doc was a stretch fair enough
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It very well can be I'd they make tweaks from ptb
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I like that some killers are weak, some ok and some good. I don't think they want all killers to be in the same tier since survivor teams are also S-tier to D-tier.
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As I saw in Otz' video.
They do not want to buff the trapper because they are happy with his performance.
I suppose this is the same for a lot of others
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Nerf to Wraith was just nonsense. I'm still mad about that
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Personally, I have my own theory on why lower-tier killers aren't really touched. The two main reasons I believe this is are:
1) Data. The devs have said and shown us that they do use data for decision-making when comes to balancing parts of the game and killers are one of these things. For example, look at Trapper, most ppl in the community would say he is the weakest killer and isn't in the greatest spot but the devs have said in the AMA that they think he is fine. In fact, they think he doesn't need anything right now since he is a new player-friendly killer and they want to keep him that way. I think they basing this on his killer rates in the newest players' lobbies(low mmr) where trapper can dormant a group of survivors but in high mmr lobbies he drops by a lot. The same can be said about nurse why they don't nerf her super hard, lot of players don't play her bc she has a high-skill floor so the data would show she has a low pick rate on avg. As I said data plays a huge part in the dev team's decision-making.
2) Time and resources. As we know the devs and high-ups in BHVR love their new killer every 3 months formula and thanks to the AMA we know its takes a year to make a killer for this dev team. This means the devs are always working on a new killer all the time to keep up with this release schedule. I can imagine this leaves little wiggle room for changes to the killers we already have. When they do get around reworking a killer it takes a long time to do so. Look at the Twins rework that was teased a little over a year ago. We still haven't gotten in word on when that rework will come out. I'm still surprised we even got a Sakuko semi-rework in the next patch and Im wondering how long that even took them to do.
Overall I don't think the devs are scared of buffing or reworking weaker killers. I just think the data tells them that some killers are fine and the fact they don't have the time to commit to major changes to every low-tier killers. Personally, I wouldn't mind if they drop the number of killers we get to 2 a year and take the time to make the game and all the killers better.
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I can chime in here.
Being afraid has nothing to do with it, it's more to do with time management and priorities. Large scale Killer reworks require a huge amount of time between designers, programmers, and QA. In order to do these types of large Killer reworks, we need to sacrifice on other things such as new features, perk balancing, etc. In a perfect world where we could squeeze as much as we want into a single update, these sorts of reworks would probably be more common, but sadly that is just not possible. Everything comes with a tradeoff.
As for why these sorts of reworks aren't the highest priority, this is where it gets a bit more complex. First off, we're at the point where there are 32 Killers in the game and counting. Even assuming that each Killer is played exactly equally, this would mean that each Killer is only seen in a little over 3% of all matches. Spending a significant amount of time on an update that only affects ~3% of matches is harder to justify when it means sacrificing new highly requested features or a bunch of perk updates which could impact all matches.
Beyond that, there is only so much we can do to make a Killer appealing to everyone. Different Killers focus on different playstyles. Some may be focused on setting traps, others on keeping Survivors busy, some on chases, and so on. These different playstyles can help fill different niches. A newer player who's having a hard time finding Survivors might be drawn to The Doctor, for example. Naturally, certain playstyles become more successful in high end matches and others fall out of favour. Experienced Survivors, for example, are less likely to stumble into a trap because they know what to look out for and can predict where the Killer may have placed them. Each power also has a different skill ceiling, so while some allow you to continue improving almost endlessly, others have an upper limit by virtue of their design.
Making each Killer equally strong at the highest skill levels is not the goal. Dead by Daylight is for everyone, not just the few at the very top. Often times these Killers are already doing pretty well in the vast majority of matches even if they fall out of favour in higher end matches. In these cases, buffing these Killers to the point where they are competitive in a high end match would cause them to be far too strong in the majority of matches. This is a net-negative change. While yes, it may be better for you, it makes things worse for the majority of players. Everyone's experience matters, not just those with more skill. In reality, it is not possible for every Killer to be equally viable at all skill levels.
Something else that we need to consider are the players who already enjoy these Killers the way they are. Legion is a perfect example of this. There's no shortage of suggestions to rework The Legion's power to make them stronger. Yet in spite of this, The Legion is consistently one of the most played Killers. While they might not be the strongest in high end matches, there is still a large crowd who enjoy them as is. That raises the question, is it worth reworking a Killer that many people already love to play just to make the people who don't play them happy?
The Trapper is also a special case. He's the poster boy, front and center on all the artwork. He's the Killer you'll face and play as during the tutorials, and he's unlocked by default. This is all very intentional; new players are naturally going to gravitate towards him. His power is very simple and easy to understand, and it tends to be fairly balanced in matches between newer players. He serves a special role of being a stepping stone toward learning the game. Because of this, his power is intentionally kept as simple and intuitive as possible (pick up a trap, set a trap), and he is intended to be fairly balanced in these sorts of games.
All this said, that doesn't mean we'll completely ignore these Killers. We do make smaller balance changes on a regular basis, and larger reworks are still planned to release from time to time. But we do need to keep everyone in mind when making these decisions and consider the role they currently fill in the game, as well as whether or not our time would be better spent on balance changes that could affect all players rather than a select few matches. It would be a different story if there were only a handful of Killers to choose from, but the roster is fairly big at this point. The goal isn't so much to make every last one of them perfect for everyone, but to make sure that there's at last few options that appeal to everyone, regardless of how they play.
Post edited by Peanits on39 -
What about Myers? I'd say 99% of the community thinks his base kit is outdated and power creeped to death and needs buffs and his tombstone piece add on needs to be reworked. This killer made DBD what it is today he hasn't received any significant changes in years.
Without the Halloween chapter does this game even get off the ground back in 2016? How about some love for thr iconic first licensed killer.
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I don't have the details handy at the moment, and I can't reveal anything that hasn't already been announced, but cases like this a bit different. Individual add-ons are much easier to squeeze in than a full scale rework, and there's far less concern of completely throwing off the balance when we're only changing a handful of problematic add-ons. If there's a Killer that is consistently struggling across the board, then it's also much easier to justify giving them a little boost to help them out. In those cases, it becomes more a matter of timing & resources.
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And the playerbase, that uses massively proxy-camp and tunneling to win their games, are jsut inflating the kill rate and so the performance statistics for killers.
That is the problem with this community, they do not understand that with sweating every trials exploiting design flaws of the game to win jsut bring false statistics.
Yes the trapper in top 1% MMR is getting a 60% kill rate but if you remove all the trial where the killer has camped and tunneled right at the start, you would get a 30% kill rate.
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As an aside: Are your forums set to French by any chance? Whenever I get a notification that you, and specifically only you, mentioned me, the notification is in French for some reason.
For anyone else I get the normal 'Mentioned you', but with you it's 'Vous a mentionné'.
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Devs should check their stats deeper.
Looking at the kill rate is a thing, understanding why the kill rate is that high with Myers or Trapper, for exemple, is another matter.
They should check if, when the trials ends up with a 3k to 4k, the killer has killed one survivor really fast (camping/tunneling) or has hooked the same survivor 3 times in a row or used pink add-ons (for the clown for exemple).
If it is the case, it doesn't mean that those killers are ok, it means that players are using cheap mechanics (exploiting design flaws) or OP add-ons to win.
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No but I'm stuck in French settings plz help I can't read French to change it back
Wait yes to you question I mis read it but i don't know how to change it back it's only on this website
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Okay we can understand trapper but how about The singularity? definetely not a killer for new people with high skill ceiling and yet he has been struggling with EMP making him a M1 killer 89% of the game.Do we expect it keep the same and he slipstream to the Twins forgotten dimension?
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The data never lies
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sometimes it does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome_bias
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Not to BHVR it doesn't
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You ever think that maybe the reason some of these killers have such a low pick rate is because they can't compete?
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I don’t think any of the killers are weak per se. I think certain others just have certain strengths that give them great advantages and that certain add-ons make them even stronger. We are never going to have each killer be completely balanced and I think that’s fine. The highest rewarding killers are also the hardest ones to play and even then they can often be easily countered if the player doesn’t utilize them correctly. All killers share the same base strengths and it’s then up to the player to strategize and make use of their power to achieve their ends.
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We do! We have entire dashboards full of detailed stats, and even conduct deeper studies into more specific cases when the situation calls for it. It's a bit of a misconception that all we look at is kill rate. Kill rates tend to be the stats we share most often because they're simple and easy to grasp. When we're writing a long blogpost with a dozen other balance changes, it's very difficult to go fully in depth for each change since doing so would, understandable, make the blogposts way too long for most people to bother reading.
In reality, stats are only one part of the process. Community feedback and design intention are also integral.
The Singularity is brand new and has already received a few batches of changes. We'll continue to make changes as necessary. I don't think this would be a good example for a Killer that hasn't been updated.
I have no doubt that some people would avoid playing a Killer that they find uncompetitive at this skill level, but I would say that trying to boil a Killer's popularity down to a single reason is incredibly nebulous and is a huge assumption. There's far too many factors that play into it to confidently point to one and say, "That's why." I hate to use the same example again, but Legion may not be the strongest Killer in the game, but that doesn't stop them from being one of the most played.
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Peanits I know you can't say anything specific about any plans or changes that haven't been announced but is Myers on the radar at all for any kind of changes or updates. He's been largely untouched since he came out back in 2016. That is kind of crazy.
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Is there a specific reason why some of these stats aren't released? I know you mentioned wanting to keep things concise and simple for people to read but I think a good majority of people would love to see these more detailed stats. It would give people a better idea of how killers are truly performing compared to something like kill rates that can be rather misleading, especially to newer players. A new player looking at the most recent kill rates released would be led to believe that Sadako is a top 3 killer in the game and Nurse is the worst killers on the roster, when anyone with a solid amount of hours knows this to be vice versa.
Like I would love to see kill rates when it comes to maps or even kill rates for specific killers on different maps. There's so much interesting data that could lead to great discussions, it's a shame we hardly get to see any of it.
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Peanits, Sorry to snipe you here. But since we are talking Killer development, can you answer why some Killers feel like, they only work with a specific set on addons? Not to pin you, but I feel bHVR has a tendency to make addons that are so good, they become the only logical choice.
Examples of this is Deathslinger with reloadspeed addons, trickster with speed while raised knives addons and knight with Guard range addon, Wraith with uncloak speed addons
I think you could do these Killers much better by adding these to the Killer's basekit (to some degree) and reworking the addons to have a more interesting effect. Because to me, Killers who have addons designed in a way to logic trap them is a big turnoff.
Like those Killer's addons must have huge stats, huge usage rate right? Does that not entice you guys to focus on spreading out the addon use some more? Just wondering how these things happen and are seemingly never remedied?
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With lots of experience it is easy to answer those types of questions. For example, i can say that probably one of the main reasons legion has a very high pick rate, is that they have the ability to max out the bloodpoint gain in 3 categories, without getting a single hook. Pretty much unless you completely mess up super terribly, you are all but guaranteed 30k bloodpoints. They are the easiest character in the game to farm with.
Is that the only factor? Probably not, but in general if a killer is perceived as "weak" by the community, you'll see pick rates for them be really low. Also, if a killer is recently released, you'll see they have a high pick rate. There are some outliers of course. For example, wesker is by far the highest picked killer (at least on the data WE have publicly). I would suspect that the reason for that is that he is generally perceived by the community as being "fair" but also still pretty good in terms of power level. Additionally players generally find him really fun to play. He hits the perfect trifecta of being fun, viable (in matchmaking) , and also seen as "fair".
Now if you look at nurse for example. She is by far the best killer in the game in the highest level of play, yet her pick rate is around 3%. Why would that be? Probably because when you are playing in regular matchmade games, people tend to give up immediately, making it really boring to play her. She also has a perception of being "really difficult" to play, so people tend to be too afraid to play her.
There are obviously tons of factors at play as to why a killer is played more than the others. But play rates should not be the only thing that dictates balance decisions. What if something were super super overpowered, but had a low play/pick rate? Does that mean that thing is totally fine? Absolutely not, because the players that do pick it, exploit it, and make the game miserable for everyone else.
The problem, at least as an outsider looking in, is that you all always talk about "the data" but it APPEARS (again as an outsider looking in) that you aren't looking at data at the granular level, you are just looking at broad strokes and that you AREN'T looking at all of those factors. You look at killers like myers for example and say, oh look, myers has a 50% kill rate, guess he is fine. But you aren't looking at the fact that maybe myers only has a 50% kill rate, because of the ones that use tomestone.
Or you look at something like SWF, and see that "well they don't escape any more than normal players" but you aren't looking at the totality of the match. If i play a match against a SWF group and get 0 hooks, but in the endgame i use NOED to get a down, and then the survivors BECAUSE they are a SWF play really overly altrustic, to the point where i suddenly get 6 hooks and maybe a kill or 2. Well it looks like SWF is fine because that match was a draw. When the reality is that match was only a draw BECAUSE the SWF attempted to play in a way that was reckless BECAUSE they know how powerful they are. Because at that point they KNOW they won, so they just throw themselves at the hook to get their friend out. When in reality, they simply won, and if they played like it, they would just let the 3 of them escape and take the win.
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They also have fire cosmetics, great and unique chase music and they are fun to play as.
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Sadako's kill rate was in large part on the back of a really awful playstyle (which they are now nerfing). You have a Sadako players who are struggling with a ~30-40% kill rate, and then you have the condemned practitioners who are absolutely cleaning up and boosting the overall numbers. That slug/condemn strat is godawful and should be kneecapped, but if BHVR doesn't balance that nerf with some actual buffs to her chase, her kill rate is gonna tank, just you watch.
Generally speaking, one thing many people forget when looking at the kill rate for weaker and lesser used killers is that they are propped up by some degree by people who main them, even the point of exclusivity. Keeping on the Sadako example, there aren't many Sadako players, but most of them are committed. For casual players or players who don't want to sink all their playtime into mastering only 1-2 killers, these weaker killers are essentially useless, and inaccessible.
If you're Joe Casual horror fan and you're like "oh neat, Sadako, I 'm gonna use her!", you're gonna get wrecked a bunch of times and pick a stronger killer.
I think the broader point here is that it seems ridiculous that we can have killers like Blight and his all-star array of busted add ons go untouched for years while weak killers are left to tread water in mediocrity because the devs won't give without taking just as much (or more) away.
Of course it should go without saying that a huge part of killers being weak or straight up non-viable in some cases is the piss poor map balance.
Post edited by Thusly_Boned on4 -
Well, I think I can tell you that your struggle with changing the language back to English is not because of your (lack of a) grasp of the French language, because mine's still on English and I can't find it either.
Oh wait, just as I'm writing this, the languages are alllllll the way at the bottom of the page, under the listing of the DBD channels.
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With all due respect, but the piece on Trapper sounds like a logical trap and not well though through. Why should makeing Trapper stronger increase his complexity for new players? And why should he only ever be a starting killer, shouldn't experienced killers go back for a round with the Trapper, without being hit with frustrating and counter productive design decisions?
Trapper would already be much more fun and viable to play, if all the maps had actually tall grass in places, that survivors routinely traverse. Or if all the traps started primed. Or if disabling the traps came with at least SOME risk for the survivors to become trapped and/or injured. Or if the traps at least had the same tone as the maps ground. Or not keeping taps on how many escape attempts survivors made this game and adjusting the next time someone steps into a trap, removing a bit of the RNG element. All of this wouldn't increase the complexety for a new killer starting out, but poor old Trapper wouldn't be the lol-cow and laughing stock of any seasoned survivor worth their salt. And this is some stuff that I came up one evening, just staring at my screen for 15min. Even more complex ideas like "the Entity teleporting traps around every 90s or once a gen is done, so that the Trapper doesnt have to traverse half the map" wouldn't actually increase the complexity for a new player, but actually give them an easier time trying to figure out, how to best set down this easy to understand power.
And if it truly IS a concise decision to make certain killers weaker then others, how about a real and honest warning somewhere? "Be adviced, that The Trapper is the staring killer and the one the longest under The Entities influence. He is close to being burned out and is the weakest killer on the roster. He is good to start out, but on your DBD journey, you should discover some of the exciting new killers, who are more eager to go into the frey, with their stronger and more interesting powers."
Trapper has the trappings (hehe) of the mastermind or thinking mans power, where you really want to try to outthink and outsmart your opposition, adding some zest to a mechanical less complex set of powers, but even that is sabotaged by so many aspects, like how easy traps are seen, how save they are disabled, how RNG often screws you over with two survivors escaping on their first try.
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Thank you so much it's not that I can't learn French I've been stuck for about a year on French I learned Spanish not French
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And I could tell from the notification that you managed to fix it! No more French!
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blight isnt really broken, but his alch ring certainly is. his alch ring needs nerfing specifically
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A lot of his add-ons need nerfs, but Alc Ring is definitely high up there.
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can you guys please pass along maybe to the balacing team, that the shape needs serious changes? his tier 1 needs to be really buffed, and he needs an addon pass, specifically to tombstone piece. ive always been calling for removing the stalk limit because it just makes him a worse ghostface, and you could possibly be unable to use your power once you drain every survivor. please do something for him because hes in a really sad state!
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I actually can understand and sympathise to some extent what you say in this answer (I am no game dev but I can imagine the difficulty when it comes to making changes on a game which keeps increasing in scale, like you said with the large and ever increasing killer roster).
I think however, a solution might be to instead of having entire reworks for some of these low tier killers (some do need it, but not all though) just make some number changes. For instance, you could buff Myers so that in his tier 3 he breaks pallets say 20% faster or you could buff pig so her basekit gets something a little extra. This will obviously not make these killers suddenly go up a huge amount of tiers but it will make them nicer to play and make players who like playing them feel less powerless in their matches. I am not saying the buff ideas I just mentioned are the correct ones, but I think something along those lines could help whilst also not requiring a huge amount of dev time for a rework.
I would say that the core issue right now is the difference between the high tier killers and low tier ones are huge. I agree with what you said that not all killers will be good at a high level etc. However, the gap between them could definitely be decreased. Yes you could nerf higher tier killers but the gap is so big that you might have to completely gut them (which I along with many others would hope you guys will not decide to do).
So overall I think recent changes like the Sadako rework (which I believe you will make her a bit stronger since she is arguably weaker right now then in live) are a good step in the right direction, there are still some other fixes for low tiers that could be used that do not have to be complete reworks in order to bridge this very large gap we are seeing right now within the killer roster.
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i think your post is good example of subjective bias. I think big part of what killer play has to do with how smooth a character feels to play. if a killer has a lot of cooldowns, feels clunky and not intuitive to play. The killer will get selected less. The last part is fun factor. Legion is smooth as butter to play. he is intuitive to play. He likely feels fun to play for those that like high-speed pressure injure play-style.
Otz once talked about this in regards to pyramid head where he plays a less pyramid head post-changes because he feels like the character feels a lot more clunky to play. I share that similar opinion that killers that feel weird to play are hard to pick-up unless you just like suffering through gameplay. So while power-level is factor in playing a killer, I think fluidity of a killer plays major part in killer's enjoyment. You can have fun as killer in losing as long your finding joy in the gameplay you play. power-level is part of the killer but it is not everything. Fun-factor is most important when playing killers. The more killers are fun to play, the more variety you are likely to get.
Post edited by Devil_hit11 on3 -
Well killer players could start to stop using those strats maybe devs buff those killers then when their kill rates go down.
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I would like see killers closer to each other but most diffcult killers to play should be the best still. Myers, pig etc are easy to play so they should by no means be as strong. But certainly more viable.
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You missed the part where i said that wasn't the only factor. I'm stating what i think a possible factor would be and then pointing out the obvious, that there isn't any one factor, and then go on to point out that it feels like the devs ignore all of that and only look at macro things. Please read the whole post.
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Amen. Not understand what's so hard to analyze with this.
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He's almost unplayable without add ons. His tier 1 he's way to slow. And his power is nothing special now considering how many killers have been added to the game that have similar stuff in their kit JUST BETTER.
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I agree with you, I love Legion bc I love the high speed of bouncing from one survivor to another. It feels so good when you get that 4 man chain and down someone on the 5th hit, it's a rush no other killer gives me. For clunky killers, I say Knight is that for me. I love the knight in theme and his power but what I don't like is how clunky his power is in chase. I like using the Big guy to break pallets that are just dropped and walk through the new broken pallet to get a hit but most of the time the action is harder to do bc you cant use your power if something(the pallet in this case) is blocking your ord from spawning. I just wish you just order a guard to do action without having to enter the orb since they already highlight gens, walls, and pallets. I don't understand why I cant just order a guard to do something to a highlighted object without having to go into the orb and then order him to break it.
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Last stats are almost a year ago, and that was the best time for killers.
Lot has been changed in favor of survivors, seriously a lot.
Using extremely outdated stats for reasoning seems pointless.
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I don't get why every killer needs to be strong...
There are hard killers to master and very easy ones. No killer should be equal in power, no game has characters having the same strength. It's good that Blight is so strong, go play Blight to see how you do with his power, and tell me how you 4k'd. Now pick trapper, put his s***d traps on the floor, and wait so a survivor steps on it, done, your gameplay is done.
Every game has the best and worst characters, but somehow this community thinks every killer in DBD should be as strong as Wesker and Blight. I don't get it...
I genuinely don't get it.
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“is it worth reworking a Killer that many people already love to play just to make the people who don't play them happy?”
I wish you guys felt this way before you reworked Freddy :(
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