http://dbd.game/killswitch
Survivor Role Is Becoming Overwhelming with the Current Killer Release Pace
Hey everyone,
I wanted to open a discussion about something that’s been on my mind lately as a longtime DBD player. I absolutely love how Dead by Daylight has continued to grow over the years—especially with the consistent release of new killers. That steady stream of fresh content has done a great job of keeping the game exciting and drawing in new players. But I think we need to talk about how this rapid expansion is impacting the survivor side of the game.
Here’s what I’m seeing:
- New Killers Every 2–3 Months: We’re at a point where Behaviour is adding a new killer every couple of months. While that’s awesome from a content standpoint, it also means the meta is constantly shifting—especially for survivors.
- Survivors Have to Learn Every Killer: As a killer main, you can get by maining 4–5 killers and mastering their kits. As a survivor, though, you have to be ready to face any of the nearly 40 killers in the game (and counting). That’s a huge knowledge burden—especially for newer players.
- New Perks Reshape Old Threats: Each new killer also comes with new perks that don’t just affect that killer—they can drastically alter how all killers play. For example, Ultimate Weapon from the Alien chapter.
- Early Weeks Are Rough for Survivors: In my experience every time a new killer drops, the first few weeks are brutal for survivors. Most players are still learning the new power, and instead of trying to use it effectively, they often fall back on reliable/easier to execute strategies like tunneling, camping, and 3-genning. This leads to a frustrating gameplay experience for survivors who are already trying to learn how to counter the new killer’s mechanics on the fly.
TLDR:
I love the direction the game is going in terms of content volume, but there’s a growing imbalance in how that content affects the two roles. Killers benefit from the additions without much downside, while survivors are increasingly burdened with having to adapt to a wider and more complex threat pool.
At this point, survivor gameplay has become relatively predictable in terms of counterplay options, with the only real weapon left in the survivor arsenal being aggressive gen rushing—which is a whole separate can of worms.
What Could Help:
It would be amazing if future development could look at ways to make survivor gameplay more dynamic—perhaps giving survivors tools or mechanics that force killers to adapt more in turn. As it stands, killers are becoming more varied, more powerful, and more surprising, while survivors are mostly stuck with the same tools they’ve had for years.
Would love to hear others’ thoughts. Are you feeling this disparity too?
Comments
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I agree with pretty much everything you've said here. I think particularly the fact that survivors have to learn and be prepared for every single killer, all of their potential addons, know what to do to counter various strategies (counters that can be modified by the specific killer, too, such as unhooking against insta-down killers or ranged killers), and it really is becoming a bit impossible, unless you are the type of person to play all the time.
One of the bigger issues with this overwhelm, I think, is the inability for survivors to practice against specific killers. Imagine you're a new player and you've played a couple hundred hours, but in that time you've still never seen rarer killers with complicated powers that require power specific counterplay, like Pinhead, Twins, or Hag. You're just going to get hurt or punished, and possibly even killed before you have an opportunity to actually understand what's going on. There are little loading screen blurbs for the first three or so matches a survivor has against a specific killer, but those are woefully insufficient. All of this is alleviated, of course, if you watch a zillion guides online, or simply play a lot when a new killer is released so you have the chance to practice against that specific killer, but once that release window is gone, the ability to have in-game learning experiences against older killers is sparing. And, since winning and losing is such a razor's edge in terms of balance in many cases, a team having even just one new survivor who dies quick to Dracula or Spirit or whoever leads to a worse match for everyone but the killer who gets a freebie. Naturally, there is fresh MMR for the newest players, but how many new MMR killers are playing every single killer? Not many, I imagine.As far as making survivor more dynamic, I actually think they should make it so every survivor has a single brown, no addon item in hand every match, without having to spend bloodpoints. Killers don't spend BP to use their powers, so what if survivors didn't have to, either? Doing it this way means they can design around these base "powers", introduce new ones for survivors, and balance the learning required out for killers, too. This would be a substantial rework, though, so it'd be a big ask for the devs to consider something like this. As it stands, though, most of my matches survivors either bring no items, or med-kits and flash lights, as those are the only two items that meaningfully change the "rules" of the match (if survivors have flashlights, for example, killers have to be careful when picking up, just like a ranged killer makes survivors more careful around vaults and pallets). If more items changed the rules of play like killer powers did, then I think things would be more balanced in that regard.
Of course, doing that introduces this overwhelm to killer, too, but it would at least balance out the amount of learning both sides have to do, and maybe that's good? Whatever the ultimate solution, I think you're right OP in that this problem is going to get worse if nothing is done for it.1 -
I feel like this issue is rooted more by a core imbalance issue than a "content too fast" issue, BHVR doesn't implement good tutorials on how to play against certain killers, leaving newer players dumbfounded. I think if a better tutorial system were implemented, this wouldn't be as much of a problem if at all. Maybe in the "tutorials" section there is a tutorial short tutorial dedicated to the basic counterplay of each killer, or maybe even the basics of looping? I can't really agree and say survivor has become overwhelming, as if anything its the opposite, as the game evolves and grows killer is becoming increasingly more stressful, which also leads back to a core imbalance as on some maps and some killers game are just completely unwinnable, this goes for survivor too. If a survivor has certain perks and good RNG on certain maps, then games are near unwinnable as killer, unless your playing S-Tier killers (Nurse, Kaneki, Blight), this also goes vice versa, but depends on what perks you run.
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Killer mains only need to learn 1 killer, not 4-5. Overcome the somewhat steeper learning curve on a Blight or Nurse, and you can easily 3-4K SWF teams with several times more skill and experience per survivor.
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A big tip would be to find 2-3 killer mains on YouTube and see if they have a ''this new killer's build destroys survivors' videos to get an idea of what the current perk meta on the new killers is - you'll typically run into a TON of killer players copying the build (which is fine, whatever) so its useful to know this to try counter it.
But to address your post, yes you're right and a tutorial would definitely be useful but will typically have the problem of getting outdated quite quickly if/when the killer gets inevitably tweaked, and god knows BHVR seem to have enough on their plate as it is…
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If you look at it objectively, it goes both ways through different ways. Survivor needs a spread sheet for how to counterplay each killer and needs to constantly keep up to date on reworks buffs and nerfs, while killer needs a spreadsheet for how many endurance effects, exhausted effects and "second chances" are in the game.
If you're a new player getting into either role, is exceptionally difficult to understand what's going on half the time when on survivor you're playing against 35+ different killers on a million different maps while on killer literally anything you do you can be hit with an endurance effect or a perk that mitigates what just happened with effects that literally contradict what the tutorial tells you.
If we're talking perks survivor has had many more meta shifting perks in recent patches. There hasn't been an actual meta defining perk since Ultimate Weapon which got completely dumpstered after a couple of months and is now borderline useless (tell me when the last time you saw someone running UW since they nerfed it). Haywire seemed like a perk that might encourage some variety, instantly got nerfed. Same thing happened with unbound which wasn't even meta, just usable and now it's been nerfed for no reason.
In order of release from when I started playing, Knight, Skull Merchant, Singularity, Alien, Chucky, Unknown, Vecna, Dark Lord, Hound Master, Ghoul and Springtrap have come to the game. That's 33 perks added to the game and of those 33, unforseen, nowhere to hide, face the darkness, Ultimate Weapon for about 3 months, friends till the end and weave attunement are the only perks that have actually seen consistent use and of those only weave attunement and ultimate weapon actually genuinely shaken up the Meta.
Compare this to the survivors and their perks added added in the same timeframe.
Vittorio, Thalita, Renato, Gabrial, Nicolas Cage, Ellen Ripley, Alan Wake, Sable Ward, Yazar, Lara Croft, Trevor, Taurie, Orela for 39 perks added. Of those, background player, made for this, dramaturgy, scene partner, champion of light, strength in shadows, finesse, shoulder the burden, duty of care and do no harm have all seen good use. Of those, Finesse, Shoulder the Burden, duty of care, do no harm, scene partner, dramaturgy, made for this and background player all substantially changed up the meta and in some cases straight up broke the entire balance of the game in BGP and MFT's case.
This idea that the killer perks are somehow more impactful than the survivor perks is just flatout false if you actually look at the perks and the impact they've had on the meta and while some perks are better on some killers than other, the impact it has on the game doesn't even come close to some of the meta shifting perks added to survivor recently.
"but there’s a growing imbalance in how that content affects the two roles. Killers benefit from the additions without much downside, while survivors are increasingly burdened with having to adapt to a wider and more complex threat pool."
Other than what I just explained which has forced killers to adapt to the never ending meta shifts, there's also the changes/buffs to old perks. Ever since the medkit nerfs, BHVR has been buffing healing perks almost every single patch and not just small buffs, huge buffs. Right now reset speeds are completely out of control and resets are happening faster now than they were during the COH meta (I am resetting my teammates in literally 7-12 seconds depending on their hookstate).
I feel like you've not played a fair amount of both sides so aren't seeing the bigger picture for both sides (I'm not trying to insult by the way).
Overall, what we're experiencing is survivors are getting meta shifting playstyles and perks while killers are getting a bigger variety of killers and more reworks than ever before. Survivors are needing to adapt to the constant amount of killers and their numerous reworks (sadako has literally had 7 different versions in that past year and a half while Skull Merchant is on 9 not including the upcoming one) while killers are needing to constantly adapt to the endless amount of meta shifting perks and playstyles that can and will completely uproot matches without you actually knowing they're in play.
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Survivor is the easiest mode possible. Literally zero skill needed to escape. What the heck are you talking about? The only time I feel like I have to even try is when I'm facing Nurse (good Nurse), otherwise it's cringe ez mode where I can sleep while playing and win 100 % time. Untill they buff killers significantly I don't even bother play them, because why should I do that, when I can get 100 % escape rate as survivor on top of feel free to farm points from that.
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Not necessarily, it takes a lot of contextual knowledge for all the killers/perks/maps, how to not 3gen spawn, how to not create deadzones, adapting to your solo Q team mates, and the difficulty/risk of working with a team communicating effectively.
Honestly survivor could be made more forgiving in some places, the healing perk changes is a start. Now if they could up item chest spawns and maybe look at snowballing (full gen regression/lock builds).
Now let me make it clear I'm not saying such issues dont exist on killer side either, I feel killer could be made more forgiving too, mainly for the lower tiers, the sooner we nerf the high tiers, the sooner we can fix the killer role in general.3 -
I see where you're coming from about survivor perks being just as meta-defining and complex as killer perks, especially with 4 survivors bringing a total of 16 perks into each match. That’s a lot for killers to keep in mind, and I agree it takes awareness and experience to play around. That said, I still believe the knowledge burden leans more heavily on survivors — and here's why.
A killer's power is what fundamentally defines the structure of a trial. The killer you're facing dictates how survivors must adapt their entire play style — from how to loop (should you pre-throw pallets, avoid windows, camp them, prioritize line-of-sight breaks, etc.), to how you unhook, heal, rotate, choose gens, and interact with unique killer mechanics (like boxes, fountains, traps, drones, birds, etc.).
But it doesn't stop there. Some killers are heavily map-dependent, meaning their threat level can vary dramatically based on map layout, size, and even specific tile formations. Survivors not only need to understand how to counter a killer’s base power — they also need to factor in how that killer plays on a given map. This adds another layer of dynamic complexity that killers rarely face to the same extent.
And as more content is added to the game, this complexity scales disproportionately for survivors. Here's a way to visualize that:
- When a new killer is added, the survivor must learn:
- 1 new power (often a completely new mechanic),
- 4 new perks,
- and how that killer’s power synergizes with the rest of the perk pool.
- So the survivor knowledge burden increases by roughly:
+1 (new power) + 4 (new perks) + p (existing perks the new killer can combo their power with) - When a new survivor is added, the killer only needs to learn:
+4 (new perks)
This is a critical difference — survivor knowledge growth does not scale linearly with killer knowledge growth.
4 - When a new killer is added, the survivor must learn:
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Youre making it sound like you need a diploma to verse killers
Either take like 5 minutes of your time and read said killer powers, watch a youtube guide or play the killer yourself to understand how to play against him.
And that doesnt even take into account that you pretty much never get to see a good chunk of the entire killer roster.
Cant remember the last time i played against a xenomorph or twins
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I am not gunna lie I kinda like the new metas and amount of killers. I can't tell you how many games I've ditched over the years because it seems like just the same thing over and over. While dbd as a survivor is definitely that repetitive streak having 40 ish mystery opponents and abilities keeps me on my toes. While I agree the early weeks of new killers is rough trying to learn and go against them, or even trying to play them with the 15+ minute que on killer I appreciate the variety...
Hell I'd be happy if we decreased the amount of perks being added and focused on skins and such for a bit. It seems like 80 percent of perks don't get used much and the new stuff is almost always a rework or the same thing as before just flavored differently. Kinda feels like we have every perk covered and they just keep mashing together concepts that are fine on their own already. Not a complaint just an observation
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If I'm being honest, I don't even pay much attention to patch notes anymore. If I can't figure out how a new power or perk works just by playing with it, then it's not worth my time.
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I'll entertain this to prove a point. I play 2 matches as every killer to get a genera idea of how they all work; there's ~40 killers right now so lets say that takes 15min (1 match roughly) x 2 x 40 = 1200 minutes. Awesome, I'm mid at best with every killer now.
Imagine I throw all 1200 minutes into a single killer. I'm probably pretty dang good with that killer after playing 20 hours with them.
Now, let's look at the survivor perspective; let's say I've played for 20 hours. I'm probably pretty decent with survivor at this point, but there's a very good chance I haven't even played a match against every killer yet. I might get matched against a killer I've encountered 0 to 2 times, but the person I'm playing against is basically an expert with said killer that's sunk a lot of time exclusively into that killer.
This is not the fault of the killer player. It's minor design flaw on the game's part; survivors typically adapt to the killer they're against, not the other way around (not saying killers don't have to adapt too, but they are not the same). How effectively can I adapt to something that my opponent is likely much more of an expert on?Like I said in the original post, the game needs to find a way to make the killer adapt to the type of survivor they're up against too. And no, I don't think survivor perks accomplish this but it's definitely up for debate.
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We have stats now, please, go ahead and post your 100% escape rate. Otherwise you can stop posting nonsense as a killer main who is likely sub par.
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Absolutely agree. I’ve been pretty vocal on these forums about this exact issue. It’s not always a skill issue, more often, it’s a skill gap. I've voiced this exact issue in every feedback survey I can lol.
Whether people want to acknowledge it or not, the fact that killers have access to custom bot lobbies is a huge resource. Killers can test builds with or against perks they don’t even own, experiment with different items, choose specific maps, and tailor exact scenarios to improve. That is an incredible learning tool. Meanwhile, survivors are expected to adapt on the fly - every single time. And while learning to play as a specific killer can give you great insight into how to counter them, it is unreasonable to strong arm someone into playing a killer they have no interest in, that they will have to pay money for, just to get an idea on how to face them because it's the closest thing to practice they have access to- when again- this is not an expectation pushed on the other role.
And look, growth is good. More killers, perks, and mechanics keep the game exciting. But as the game evolves, the learning curve for survivors keeps getting steeper, and it’s honestly becoming a barrier for newer or even returning players. The fact that the killer role has had access to this training resource since 2022, while survivor still doesn’t, feels like a real oversight.
All players deserve equal access to tools for improvement. Survivors shouldn’t have to “trial by fire” their way through 40 different killers just to get better. Practice shouldn’t be exclusive or a privilege, it should be standard and equal.
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Anyone who says that "Survivors need to improve" to counter tunneling or anything else should be directed to this thread.
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This also leads to killers being balanced around the idea survivors are bad against them instead of the other way around which is also really disrespectful to people who put time into learning these killers.
BHVR really should slow down with killer releases, we genuinely have enough already.
They need to figure out other ways to add new content.
We also need a way more functional guide system.
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The Twins
83,5 hrs
10.84%
70.67%
2
The Pig
67,1 hrs
8.61%
67.80%
3
The Artist
51,2 hrs
6.76%
63.61%
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Dang, I completely forgot about the fact that one can practice in BOT lobbies as a killer. The ability to practice specific builds in tailored environments is such a huge practice resource that survivors don't have. If I want to get better playing against Demo, for example, I either have to play x matches hoping I run into him (which is basically never at this point) or convince a friend to be Demo in custom lobby with me so I can improve (kind of a waste of time for them).
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If you could go against killer bots then you eony learn anything outside of its base since a bot has to be repetitive to work (look at survivor bots having perma wallhacks) do while players might not like playing killer they can play that killer against bots at their own pace to see how it works on the killer side of things so they can prepare for whats to come. (I sadly dont think this is an issue you can easily fix)
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I think custom lobbies with killer bots will come eventually, but I imagine the problem is programming the bot. Like imagine a poorly made deathslinger bot for instance, either it can't miss, or it can't hit. Killer bots take more time to make, that's why if a killer DC's they aren't replaced. The only time we see killer bots are in the tutorial sections and 2v8, in fact I imagine the long wait between 2v8's is because of the killer bots.
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Yes, I completely agree. The fact that you have no control over which killers you face, or how often you face them, means your skill level can vary wildly depending on the specific killer, regardless of how many hours in the game you have. And as far as I know, MMR doesn’t account for that nuance.
I believe that the way it's set up, is that you could have like 100 hours in and never once go up against, say, Clown. But because of your overall playtime and boosted MMR (because lets say you've been doing decent at the first 100 hours), you won’t be matched with a Clown player on their first game, even though it's your first game against them. So now you’re a complete beginner against that specific killer, but the matchmaking isn’t treating you like one. Meanwhile, the survivor next to you might be amazing against Clown, but has no experience with Dredge - who you do know how to counter. Everyone’s experience is scattered like that, and I think it helps explain why you see survivors making rookie mistakes, like cleansing immediately against Plague or staring at a Myers, despite your personal experience level or the experience level of the killer you're facing being higher than theirs.
I understand why MMR is not (as far as I know) this specific, it would probably be a nightmare for queue times, and is probably impossible to code? but that’s exactly why I think the game should offer better resources for practice. If players had the ability to train against each killer in some kind of custom or offline mode, survivors wouldn’t have to wait to randomly face them live just to learn their mechanics.
Sorry if this comes off like a bit of a tangent lol I’m just weirdly passionate about this topic. But seriously, thank you for sharing your perspective. I really appreciated hearing it. Gliyn!
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I definitely agree that bots can’t replicate the unpredictability of real players, their limitations are obvious. But I still think there’s value in being able to learn the basics: recognizing a killer’s power, understanding cooldown timings, and seeing how their abilities interact with the environment. Right now, unless you’re lucky enough to face that killer in a live match, or you're willing to buy them, you don’t get that opportunity. That’s a big gap in accessibility.
In custom bot lobbies, killers don’t need to own survivor perks to test and learn how they work. But they do need to own the killer in order to play as them. But purchasing a killer when you have no interest is an unreasonable request to make for killer players, and is an unreasonable request to make for survivor players too.
And while I agree that playing killer gives valuable insight into how to counter them, not everyone wants to play killer, and especially not if they have to pay for it. Expecting players to buy and play killers just to understand how to survive against them does not make sense. I can't agree with expecting one role to pay physcial money to attempt to get something similar to the same kind of resource that the other role already has, and it's only similar because it's playing As and not Against. So essentially they're having to pay for a substitute.
It's like you and someone else go to a resturant and their burger comes with a side of fries they get for free, while your meal, the same exact burger, does not come with fries, but you can get mashed potatoes, but there is an upcharge.
I understand your view that this may not be easily fixable, but respectfully, this isn’t a request for something that doesn’t already exist. Custom bot lobbies do exist. Killer bots do exist. They even appear in 2v8 when a killer disconnects. So this isn’t about inventing a new system, it’s about providing access to a system that already exists, but allowing both roles access to it.
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I really hope that they do come eventually, and will continue to voice the importance of it when I can. I understand the programming could be difficult, but I disgaree that it wouldn't be worth the effort. The game is only going to get bigger and bigger which means the knowledge for survivor will get steeper and steeper. Providing access to a resource that part of the playerbase already has doesn't feel that unreasonable of an ask, in my opinon. Survivor bots are flawed, 100%, but that doesn't mean there is no value you can take away from facing them. Even something as simple as looping against a survivor bot, base-kit, on a specific tile could have value. Just learning how a specific tile could be played gives you an insight in to how better to manage it later, especially with specfic killer limitations, and that's not including the various perks and perk combinations you can slap on a survivor bot to practice against how they work. I'd rather have the option to practice against a terrible deathslinger bot, rather that not being able to practice against one at all.
We may just agree to disagree when it comes to the bots in 2v8, as I think them existing in 2v8 shows that implementing them into custom lobbies isn't that far-fetched. I don't see their existence as a limitation in this regard, only as another reassurance that this is possible.
In any case, thank you for taking the time to share your perspective!
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I think a better way to explain what's happening is to say that the game is becoming more and more unwelcoming to casual players. Was it ever? that's hard to say, arguably it was easier to play when there were only 5 or so killers to have to learn their counterplay. Naturally, as we all expected and asked for the game to offer more so that it wouldn't become stale, more killers were added to the roster.
Because as you suggested, there are more killers and add-ons being added to the game every few months, so I would say it's only overwhelming if players want to only play as survivor while not doing anything to try to learn the gameplay involved. As this point it's unrealistic to expect that you can be a survivor main and expect all aspects of gameplay to be immediately obvious to you. However, if you take the time to learn the killers and their counterplays even if you don't ever want to play killer, it's still more than possible to be an effective survivor and even have fun while doing so, but again, not without effort on your part.
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Oh don't get me wrong, if they're being made they may as well go into customs too. As a killer main I always use bots to practice before an adept, test out things like the momentum trick and lunging off ledges. I was just saying that (while I think it's worth the effort) its a lot of effort. Besides there's apparently improvements for custom matches coming in phase 2 of the health initiative so its possible we'll see them in some form of limited functionality.
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Ah, I get you. Yeah, I totally understand your points and they are valid. And that's true, I forgot about those custom match improvements! Maybe we will see a few killer bots implemented :D Thanks for your sharing your thoughts. Gliyn, cheers!
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