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How many kills should Killers be balanced around?
In your opinion, how many kills should Killers be balanced around, and why?
This should assume that the Killer and Survivors are equally skilled, so this should NOT make odd assumptions about one side being overly skilled against an opposing side that is new to the game. Also, this should NOT factor in perks vs perks. This should be vanilla vs vanilla. A baseline. Lower kills per match would balance them towards being weaker, higher kills toward stronger. SoloQ and SWF should not be factored into this.
I ask this because I have seen some comments here and there that suggest the playerbase actually has wildly different expectations of how strong Killers should be. Some seem to feel that Killers (overall and not specifically) have too many setbacks to be effective, while others seem to feel that Killers are too easy and should have to be challenged more for kills.
Also, it's worth discussing the idea of how many kills should be seen as "default" when a player is playing normally against an equally skilled opposing side. Should the challenge for Killer be to get a single kill at all, or to kill the entire opposing side?
Edit: Assuming this thread gets enough feedback, I might keep a tally so everyone can see the current "score".
Comments
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Two with 7-8 hooks.
A close, but ultimately fair and evenly matched game where both sides had push and pull.
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I don't think "number of kills" is a good point of balance, they vary wildly even in games which are stomps in different directions.
You know why they aim for 60% kill rate? It's not about aiming for a 2-3k every match. It's because it's extremely easy to get one kill even when you're being decimated, and when you've already secured a 3k, getting a 4th kill by slugging #3 makes it easier to push that number up, when realistically the skill difference and overall outcomes isn't really different if the killer doesn't sweat for the last kill.
They're 2 big factors that mean lower kill numbers, 0 and 3, will naturally have lower frequencies than their higher counterparts 1 and 4, which means when you average out the kill rate, it should drift above 50% even if everyone is perfectly matched in skill. It's unavoidable game mechanics that push kill rates higher even with balanced skill levels.
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50% so survivor has fair chance of escaping.
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7-10 hooks, not necessarily kills.
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I don't mind the 60% rate that much. I get the idea of making survivor escapes more challenging to be more worthwhile. As a player who prefers survivor, I doubt I'd enjoy it as much if I was escaping every other game.
I also don't think the 60% rate is anywhere close to the biggest problem the game has - the presence / ease of certain playstyles on both can really undermine the game.
But if it was up to me to shoot for a percentage, the 60 rate feels a little too high. I'd like it pushed down closer to 55 and see how that feels.
This should be vanilla vs vanilla. A baseline. Lower kills per match would balance them towards being weaker, higher kills toward stronger. SoloQ and SWF should not be factored into this.I just don't think this is possible though. One of the game issues is that it is much easier for the killer to go at 100% of their potential (best perks, top addons, complete focus on the game) then survivors. To be at 100% survivors have to get four people together, experience as a team, and each of them has to be playing at their best. To try and balance kill rates around a world in which killers and survivors of perfectly equal skill always matched each other would be impossible - but if it was possible, 50% kill rate would be the appropriate answer.
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Two, as it has always been.
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2 Kills.
But I would rather balance around Hooks. Because Hooks are a better indicator how well someone is playing.
Like, two games can be 2Ks. One is a 2K with 2 Hooks and the other is a 2K with 10 Hooks. Big difference, yet they would be the same if we just look at the Kills.
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I've been told many times on this forum that in ideal balance, killers will never get less than 2 kills a game. I'd love to see other people's feedback on that.
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Two.
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3/5 😉😏
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The game should be balanced around both sides having the capability to get all 4 Survivors escape and the Killer getting all 4 kills. So:
Every loop should be a 50/50.
Gen speed should take into consideration the amount of pressure a Killer has on the team. If you're injured, you perform repairs slower and your skill checks no longer grant Great bonuses.
Killers get universal regression at base on a first hook of a Survivor.
When you pick up a Survivor, all generators are blocked for 10 seconds. They unblock immediately if you drop them.
God pallets are removed.
Perks are changed accordingly to these new parameters. Gen regression and progression perks are nerfed or removed.
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2.5/4
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The problem with balancing around kills is that at least 1 kill is basically guaranteeed if the killer just camps and tunnels on person. On the otherhand 1 escape is basically left up to RNG if you dont slug for 4k. The game shifts so much as soon as a survivor is killed so something like a 2 out is very hard to balance around. Since for a 2,3,4 out the same number of gens needs to be done its really quite a fine line. Once all gens are done unless the killer is running a ton of endgame perks its really coming down to just how long does the final chase last and how alturistic the survivors are. I think the most "fair" scenario is that there are 2 survivors left by the time gates are powered and the killer hooks and kills the 3rd survivor right as the last gen pops. Then its 1 survivor loops the killer, the other opens and gate and hopefully they both get out but then certain killers are extremely good at holding the gate and should have to deal with 3 survivors in the endgame but thats really hard to account for and balance around.
TLDR: Due to the progression of a match the game the killrate isn't really something you can balance for,
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All I know is the the current 60% isn't fun from the survivor side. My survivor games are miserable and 90% of my killer matches are me destroying bad survivors. There needs to be a more reasonable compromise at least. Perhaps dial it down to 55% and see how that feels. You could start by reverting the increased gen times back down to 80 seconds. Gen regression/slowdown is so strong at the moment that I don't think killers even need 90 second gens anymore.
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2.5 which is what behavior already does.
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The vast majority of the playerbase would prefer a 50% kr instead of the current 60%.
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Maybe that's a fact and maybe its cause the majority of the playerbase is survivors ^^
Jokes aside I would prefer to see them balance for hooks instead of kills. I cab tunnel out 2 people and that still feels bad for the survivor but if its balanced that the killer gets 8 hooks that would feel better. Ofcourse then bvhr would finally need to find something to do that isn't gens for the survivor cause they whole game would need to be longer since both sides enjoye chases so they should not get shorter
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This is one of the easiest games to balance ever because the win conditions are clear, and there are only 2 roles and 1 game mode. For example I played WoW and that game is a nightmare to balance in comparison. There are 13 classes, 36 specializations, both PVE and PVP game modes, many different abilities and talents, new gear coming out constantly with a bunch of stats and secondary powers.
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Every game tends to have it at 50% winrate. In most situations.
I am sorry, but when a killer has a 60-70-% winrate, that proves that something is wrong for the killer side and killer powers.
Nerfing perks can fix problems for some killers but that's a terrible way, because nerfing perks strikes bad killers with lower winrates.
Nerfing base mechanics can fix issues. Buffing or reverting some basic changes can fix issues, like that stupid healing nerf across the board. I do agree, nerfing it could help killers, but not obliterating the mechanic alltogether.
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Honestly speaking, the whole terrible idea has begun the moment they introduced the "this survivor perk deactivates after the gens are all done".
Punishing survivors for playing better than the killer and removing tools for escaping or nerfing them like that, seriously? The unskilled players on killer side are now allowed to make mistakes?
I am not even talking about how overbloated some perks are for killers and how EASY they can utilize their perks, compared to survivors. Open a locker and then run around the map like you are a mini-doctor so everyone shouts? Yeah, cool. Kick a gen so you can block every gen progress, still see which gen is regressed more, nearby survivor auras.
How long does it take to get a killer perk nerfed now compared to nerfing survivor perks?
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Also, I would like to see a "ban specific killer" button. The game has more than 30 killers, yet I always see the same Billy, Blight, Wesker every match. I don't even remember how Myers looks like. Adding this feature will show to the developers which killers are hated by the community and maybe this will move their balance ideas into right ways.
And don't tell me this will "kill" players who love playing specific killers. This is a competitive PvP game with balance changes or some fan based project? Even in PvP games there are one tricks who love playing speficis characters, but this or that character/agent/hero/legends, doesn't matter how you call it, can be blocked and you have to choose another and have other variants that can be used for playing.
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Overall, the balance decisions in DbD are sometimes like they have no idea what they want to achieve, but making winrates above 60% is not healthy for the PvP environment.
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I mean, this just shows that this Forum is biased towards Killer Mains. NEVER getting less than a 2K means that the average Killrate would obviously be way above 50%.
NEVER would mean that 0K and 1K should not exist. Which is simply wrong.
Post edited by Aven_Fallen on4 -
The issue is that Killers need to be designed and balanced in a bit of a vacuum. If you balance them around "possible bonuses" of any kind, you might gimp them when those bonuses aren't in play. Conversely, if they are balanced around strong opponents, you might over power them. Therefor, Killers likely NEED to be designed and balanced around the concept of playing on completely even terms, and without perks to muddy up the perception of how balanced they are. I will be the first to admit this has problems, but with how DbD is currently designed, it's the best way to do it.
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Probably somewhere give or take around 8 hooks. Kills is a terrible metric to balance the game around for a multitude of reasons.
A 2k with 10 hooks and a 2k with 2 hooks look the same based on kills but when you look at hooks you realize they were not even remotely similar matches.
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So, here's what I'm seeing thus far:
50% seems to be what most people agree with. That would be, as metrics currently go, 2k.
Others have said 2.5k, which I understand entirely. If one were to assume that 2k is what someone would likely score on an even playing field and without other obstacles or bonuses to modify performance, it would mean that 2 players likely received more pressure than the other 2. At 2.5k, however, this means a third player likely received a fair amount of pressure but would, mathematically, make it out on average.
Nobody has pushed any of the more fringe opinions in the matter within this thread thus far, which is honestly kind of disappointing. I have seen users that stated Killers should be challenged just to score a single kill by the end of the game, but those people only ever seem to want to mention this in passing and never explain their opinion. Was hoping to get one to do so here.
However, a fair number of people have said they would rather hooks be the scoring metric rather than kills. Now, I don't disagree with this sentiment, but it would require a rebuild of the games scoring mechanics. Not saying that's a bad thing, just that it's a thing. That being said, I asked about kill rates, not if hooks should replace them. Still, these are good things to discuss.
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2.5
But that's already what they aim for more or less. That's in-between "I won" and "I didn't win".
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I think you're confusing the kill rate with the win rate.
Just because we have around a 60% kill rate does not mean killers are winning 60% of the time. Each kill is not a win, you need to kill 75% of the survivor team for it to be a win. Anything less is a "didn't win".
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killrates are tied to winrates. High killrate means killers kill more survivors during a match and a winning situation for a killer is to have 3-4 survivors dead during a match.
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Yes that's true but they are not equal. Idk where you're getting the information killers have a 70% win rate because afaik that info has not been released and isn't evident anywhere.
Even on Nightlight the average win rate is 50% almost exactly at 49.68%.
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I think they should aim for a 55% kill rate (2.2kills). With it killers would have a slight upper chance and it would maybe finally become fair. I dislike the handholding of killers and constant nerfs behavior is doing.
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I think Nightlight perceives matches as 4v1–even though it’s been confirmed (I think by Peanits? Or maybe Mandy, or even Cote on stream) trials are evaluated as 1v1v1v1v1–which is probably why the kill rate and win rate, per Nightlight, differ. Since the two are tethered the kill rate should be what the win rate is.
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https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/433
Killrates on certain killers plus winrates in solo-to SWF. Overall it's below 50% for survivors, it's somewhat 40-41%. Across the board. Even at high MMR it's below expectations despite killers complaining that SWF are overpowered and are making killers "cry" about "gen rushing".
There are different graphs published this January (2024 year) and this is a stat for a singular month. You see, killers have above 55% killrate. Only ONE killer had a killrate of 51% and that's Doctor. The second one lowest in January was Hillbilly but I guess after the February rework, the numbers are much higher.
Basically half the killers have around 58-61 or 62% killrate. But yeah, let's forget about killrate stats, which, when killers kill a lot, shows, that that certain killers win a lot.
What about that 40-41% winrate of escaping possibilities for survivors?
They even have a direct sentence there: "We try to keep Killers near a 60% kill rate on average to keep matches relatively even and support the horror theme of the game, where the Killer is a force to be reckoned with and the survival is not guaranteed."
So they don't hide they want HIGH killrate for killers to get kills instead of trying to balance it around 50% while they confirm "50% kill rate would mean they kill two Survivors per match on average". Anything above 60% counts as a win, but 70%, like seriously?
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2290 posts here but you didn't even read the "January 2024" stats reveal by the developers themselves.
Alright, here is the link. https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/433
Basically half the killers are above 58-60% killrate. And developers don't even hide they want killers to be at 60% killrate (like why, why not 50%).
Alright, let's forget about killers. What about 40-41% winrate of surviving? That's way below 50%. It's only fine with 48% at very high MMR where people are basically acting like tournament mode, but that's like in every other game. Only top 1-2-5% of the whole community achieve high MMR stats. What about the medium MMR? I am not talking about low MMR, what about an average gameplay MMR experience? It's still around 40-41% and it's not even close to 45%. Why?
I agree, killrates are different than winrates. But if developers spread messages like "50% killrate is fine for getting 2 kills" so that means like a tie/draw. Above 50% means:
1) Personal player is skilled enough to win matches by killing more survivors.
2) Flaws in balance.
Since the killrate here represents ALL MMR combined, not personal gaming experience or certain MMR bracket, do you really believe that suddenly killer players are all so good and full of skills and survivors are suddenly dropping in skills? I wonder why, after all the nerfs survivors got and all the perks that require literally nothing to do, just a simple action, like "let me open a locker to become a mini-Doctor".
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Way too narrow. And sometimes not even a factor ie: Nurse.
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I think the reason is because they want the game balanced at the highest level. High MMR 4-man SWF has an escape rate nearly 10% higher than the rest of survivors, so a 50% kr would mean the elite players are escaping 60% of the time.
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Out of 10 games.
Killer should get 3 kills and 1 escape or 4 kill in 6/10 of their games.
The survivor should escape with 2 or more survivors escaping through exit gate in 4/10 of their games.
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The game is fundamentally set up so that the killer either kills everyone by snowballing with a slug party or early kill, or he kills one person by tunneling them, maybe another by camping them at endgame, and the other two get out. Elsewise all 4 get out.
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This is the best answer. Balance around 2 kills means on average the killer never wins. Balance around 3 kills means on average they always win. 2.5 is a nice balance between not winning and winning on average.
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exactly, they shouldn´t (and they can´t) balance the game to be 100% fair when it´s almost pure RNG, and they can´t just make it miserable to play, so i think 2.5 fair
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What the heck is a 2.5 kill?
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If a killer can go on a 1700 game win streak it means the game is broken
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Much more fun playing for hooks and if everyone escapes who cares?
Kills tells you nothing about skill, killer or play style.
A survivor kills themselves on first hook and a 2k becomes a lot easier with possibly just 2 hooks.
Slug all 4 and its a 4k with 4 hooks but maybe get one kill with 9 hooks.
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Maybe with only 5 post you shouldn't assume things about others on forums.
Yes I do know the stats, that's why I originally thought you were confusing the 2. Please point me to where in the stats it specifically list "win rates". Not "kill rates", "win rates".
Its above 50%, 60% in this case, because in order for the killer to win half the time, they need to at least 3K at least half the time. Not 2K, 3K. So the Average gets pushed up above 50% by default.
If we balance for a 2K then you'd be aiming for something like sometimes 1K, mostly 2K, sometimes 3K. So most of the time the killer would not win. 2/3 of the outcomes are not wins. If we factor all the outcomes, 0-4K, then 3/5 are still not wins.
If we want the killer to have a 50% win rate, then we need an above 50% kill rate. Because the killer does not have an even split of outcomes that are wins.
A draw counts as a "didn't win" so as far as win rate goes it's a "fail". Wanting a 50% kill rate is asking for the killer to not win the majority of the time. For example if you 2K every single match you'd have a 50% kill rate, but what is your win rate? 0%. Because 2K's are not a win.
On the other end if you 3K every single match you'd have a 75% kill rate with a 100% win rate.
So if we want 50% win rate, which is in-between 0% and 100% we should aim for in-between 2K and 3K. In other words around a 2.5K average. Which is above 50%.
That's why. The vast majority of people are not fine set up to fail most of the time. As we saw in the past when almost no one wanted to play killer and survivor ques were long enough for me to watch an entire episode of a show and still be in que.
The only information for win rates specifically we have is nightlight. And over there guess what the win rate is? 49.68%, basically 50% with a slight survivor tilt. As far as history has shown nightlight and the official stats have been pretty much identical. Enough to be considered pretty reliable. So as far as information we have access to, you have your 50% win rate with our current kill rate.
Post edited by MrPenguin on2 -
It's an average. Basic math should let you know what that means.
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No they're not the same thing. If you only 2K every single match you'd have a 50% kill rate, but what is your win rate?
0%. Because 2K's are not a win.
On the other end if you 3K every single match you'd have a 75% kill rate with a 100% win rate.
So if we want 50% which is in between 0% and 100% we should aim for in-between 2K and 3K.
2.5K average.
The 1111v1 doesn't really change that as far as I see. The killers win/kill rate still means the same thing. An individual survivor might be different because they are competing with the other survivors as well as the killer and are not graded as a team.
Post edited by MrPenguin on2 -
I know what it means. My point is that the statistic is pointless. If the killer is veering wildly between 4 kills and 0 kills then that doesn't mean we say it's 2.5 and we should be happy.
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If you know what it means then why ask what is it?
The statistic is not pointless, aim for a 2.5 average. Aim for sometimes a 2K, sometimes a 3K with anything less and more being less common than those 2 outcomes.
If killers are "veering wildly" then there's a problem somewhere. In that case my best guess is it'd be matchmaking and survivors giving up at the slightest inconvenience.
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It's almost always a 4K, a 0K, or a 1K with the guy getting tunneled or camped while the gens fly by. Almost never does a match feel balanced and like either side could win.
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The only information on current kill distribution we have is through nightlight and on there 0K and 4K combined only make up 50% of the overall average.
That's not "almost always" as far as information we have goes. It's not Ideal but I'd rather take that over someone's anecdotal evidence.
Now is that too high? That's subjective I suppose.
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even though it’s been confirmed (I think by Peanits? Or maybe Mandy, or even Cote on stream) trials are evaluated as 1v1v1v1v1–which is probably why the kill rate and win rate, per Nightlight, differ. Since the two are tethered the kill rate should be what the win rate is.I feel like there has been a lot of confusion on this lately.
BHVR doesn't have a win rate for the game. It's a concept the community created and when the devs talk about it they are usually reflecting that same community creation. The game gives you multiple metrics to evaluate your performance - blood points, pips, kill/escape, etc. What you want to be your win condition is largely up to you, though the community has created a standardized metrics - 1k or less loss, 2k draw, 3k or better win. If we're only using MMR as our metric, kill rate and win rate are the exact same thing.
The 1v1v1 nature has two purposes - survivors don't have to be a team, they are allowed to played completely independent if they so wish. You can't issue a report for someone being a bad teammate. But that doesn't mean survivors who play as a team are somehow playing wrong - altruism points are a thing. If you want to play the game where you are out for yourself, BHVR is cool with it, and if you think it is appropriate to sacrifice yourself for the others, BHVR is also cool with it.
As an aside: the lack of win conditions was even more stark is their other asymmetrical game Deathgarden - lacking win conditions seems to be a design philosophy of theirs.
MMR necessitated some type of win condition, thus the escape/kill metric. But even there survivors have a team element - whether you gain or lose MMR is dependent on if you escape/die, but the amount you gain / lose is influenced by the result of the other survivors. So from an MMR stand point the game is not team focused, but team influenced.
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There are only two ways I could think of that such a design could make sense:
1: Make 4ks also almost impossible in any game. In such a game the design would be a true 1v1v1v1v1 where the survivors actively worked against each other.
2: Make the survivors a true team with a clear win condition. Then you could balance the game off whatever metric you wanted. You could give the killer a 75% win rate, but give the survivors the win if a single survivor escaped.
The first one would be a totally different game, I don't think the second would work for an elimination format.
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Therefor, Killers likely NEED to be designed and balanced around the concept of playing on completely even terms, and without perks to muddy up the perception of how balanced they are. I will be the first to admit this has problems, but with how DbD is currently designed, it's the best way to do it.I get what you are saying, but its just not how the game plays out. The game tries to not just balance off skill expression, which is all most games have to worry about, but that every player has their own difficulty slider in terms of addons they bring.
This used to be somewhat balanced when the grind was harder and having Iri addons took a little bit of investment. This has morphed into most players though somewhat handicapping themselves - this is killers running less meta addons or playing by a rulebook of some kind (same on the survivor side, just less stark).
It's probably the design element I least like about the game, but without changing it I don't see how you could balance the game around hypothetical state, instead they need to balance around the game the way people are actually playing it (which is its own nightmare given the meta has evolved very differently in different regions).
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