2v8 needs massive changes! (not band-aid fixes)
"Play survivor while you wait" was a nice idea, but in the end it's a band-aid fix…. which sadly hasn't accomplished much. Killer queues are insane…
"Nobody" wants to play survivor. Why? Because the survivor role in 2v8 has received next to no changes since the launch of 2v8. The killer side has been receiving a ton of content (mostly: new killers being added) with almost each patch, even though that's the role that's been much more popular than the survivor role. And the less popular role, survivor, has not received any major improvements.
The biggest indicator of the problems are the insane killer queue times. What is the biggest cause of those loooong queue times on the killer side? Survivor role not being enticing enough to play.
So if we go for real solutions (and not band-aid fixes), we need to address the issues with the survivor role:
- The biggest one: this role has received next to no major updates since 2v8 release. Why do survivors still have only 4 classes to choose from? There should be at least 8-10 classes to choose from by now.
- everything still revolves around generators - you know, the thing that so many people have been saying they are bored to death of. Something different, like with the jerry cans from the Blood Moon Event would do wonders
- chests take a long time to open for such a little reward… chests should feel exciting… flashlights are the most exciting item, because there's a challenge, risk and adrenaline, and yet they are sooo hard to find. other items are "meh", especially Fog Vials, which are basically useless, depending on the map
- if you take a look at content creators, they want flashlights, flashbangs, and go for saves. you could easily introduce a class that has to do with flashlights/-bangs… maybe a way to craft them?
- killers that completely ruin the fun of survivors in 2v8: Legion and Oni. And they don't even have to be in a same match, just have 1 of them present, and survivors are having a miserable time. It does feel great to play those killers, but facing them in 2v8 can be soul-draining.
- being stuck in a cage in 1 corner of the map, when every teammate is miles away from you, and even showing no interest in rescuing you, feels awful. I understand, crossing the whole map to save a caged survivor feels like a waste of time, especially since there might be a teammate near the cage. But what if there isn't? The caged survivor is paralyzed in a cage for 70 seconds, not being able to do anything (yay… so much fun…. compelling gameplay…), and then gets rescued after hitting the struggle phase… which is very demotivating for keeping to play the match. 1v4 has a similar problem, where you have to be bored to death on hook until someone saves you, when no-one is near you and is showing no interest in unhooking you.
- this point might be just me, but I feel like the Guide class was reworked in a bad way. Ability to activate Blast Mine or Wiretap does not involve skill, it's very passive. Before this update, there was actually skill and planning involved: you would strategize when exactly to activate the faster repair skill, depending on how much progress a gen had, and how many people were with you on that gen. Even the unlockable skill, that adds progress to a gen depending on how many people you finished a previous gen with, had planning involved. You wouldn't just drop the progress on any gen, you would strategize to use it when/where you wouldn't easily be interrupted by the killer. I used to find Guide the most interesting class, just because of this planning, "resource management", but now this got taken out, and the abilities are super passive - boring.
I hope that with the health updates you have announced, you address these problems with 2v8 as well. 2v8 will keep suffering for as long as the survivor role feels "meh" to play. The killer role seems fine, there is a lot of interest still, despite the long queue times. But to remedy the queue times, the survivor role needs to be made much more exciting, and less frustrating. Why? Because look at the queue times. This is not because survivors deserve more than killers, but simply because the queue times tell us a lot, are indicative of problems with the survivor side, and make playing killer less fun, because you have to sit in queue for ages.
Thank you for reading <3
Comments
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Even the Escapist class felt more fun to me before… Before, you could be running to someone in a cage with Escapist class, and suddenly get haste, and be able to uncage them faster. It felt cool. Also, if a killer suddenly came to you and others working on a gen, everyone would get sprint burst, and it would be chaotic but fun. Now, you don't just get haste near an Escapist class, they actually need to press a button. But facing this as killer feels bad as well.
I'm not a fan of the Guide and Escapist reworks.
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I do love the addition of Blast Mine because it feels closer to the original version of the perk and I loved running it so much. But I agree that it's more of a novelty than anything. It doesn't change the trial in any meaningful way.
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It’s not that “no one wants to play survivor” it’s just that people come out of the woodworks to play with their killer friends.
My friend only plays when 2v8 comes back. (He use to play for years but now only when 2v8 is live)Improvements and adjustments though are needed. You are right.
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I think people like to ignore the fact that you need 4 additional survivors and just 1 additional killer to create a lobby when making any take about 2v8. Especially when it comes to queue discussions.
Meanwhile under almost every post in social media and here all I see is "Bring back 2v8" and "I will only come back for 2v8" comments, like with your friend.3 -
You're absolutely right. 100%
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Yeah, exactly this — 2v8 suffers because survivors basically feel like 1v4 survivors but with more auras and more chaos. BHVR hasn’t actually designed survivor roles for this mode, just re-skinned the base game. That’s why queues are so lopsided: killer side feels fresh, survivor side feels stale.
The problem is, every flaw in the base game just gets magnified here.
- Generators being the only real objective? In 2v8 it’s even more obvious and repetitive.
- Survivors feeling like interchangeable placeholders instead of horror archetypes? Now you’ve got 8 of them at once, so it’s twice as bland.
- Unfun killers like Legion and Oni dominating? In 2v8 it’s near unbearable.
You’re right, this can’t be fixed with tweaks to chest timers or MMR. 2v8 needs survivor classes that actually feel unique (ritualist, chest-hunter, meatshield, etc.), and maps that aren’t just stretched 1v4 arenas. Otherwise it’ll always feel like ‘bigger DbD,’ not ‘better DbD.’
This is why I keep saying 2v8 either needs to be spun off into its own proper game or rebuilt from the ground up. Band-aids won’t stop people from getting bored, because the mode is basically an exaggeration of base DbD’s problems. Right now it’s just duct-tape chaos — fun for a weekend, stale after a month.
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