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On BHVR's Design Philosophy and the PTB Changes

FrostburnICS
FrostburnICS Member Posts: 14
in Feedback and Suggestions

Hey, four digit hourcount giga-sweat here.

I know you probably are hearing a lot of backlash for the upcoming PTB changes (especially the anti tunnelling changes,) so I would like to throw my hat into the ring and give my two cents. 


I've noticed many people seem to be giving these changes a ton of hate without giving reasoning past "killer is dead," and while i do somewhat agree with their sentiment i would like to give more specific feedback regarding WHY these changes make people upset and potential solutions.


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I will not make the claim that the game is X sided, but it is undeniable survivor has received many basekit buffs that have not been compensated for killer. The best example of this would be 70 second hookstages. I know the stated reason is to make up for 90s generators, but every useable single slowdown was nerfed before that as compensation so I and many others see this as 80 seconds of time to spend resetting, doing generators, or rotating with no compensation. 


So, problem one with the upcoming changes is that most killer players do not feel that the buffs are adequate compensation for the extreme buffs to survivor.


Why is this the case? What would cause people to so confidently shrug off basekit pop, bbq, and haste? To answer this, lets take a look at how these perks are used in their live version perk forms. 



Pop goes the weasel is a perk that activates on hook and causes regression that scales based on progress. 


So, this perk is primarily useful on killers who can both consistently hook and travel to high-progress generators. Lets take a quick look at the killer tierlist. The most powerful killers in the game (Blight, Nurse, Hillbilly, Spirit, Dracula, Kaneki, and Singularity) all have two things in common: High mobility and strong chases. These killers can get hooks quickly and then instantly move to high-progress generators to get value out of pop.


Lets take a jump to the bottom of the tierlist. Trapper, Skull Merchant, Legion, Ghostface, Bubba, and Pig all have very weak chases and little to no map mobility. Therefore, a basekit pop goes the weasel only benefits the already good killers who do not need buffs, while doing effectively nothing for weaker killers. As it turns out, the same thing is true of BBQ. It rewards almost exclusively killers with strong chases who can hook frequently and have mobility to take advantage of the information before it becomes outdated.


As for haste, I would like to see that change reformatted to assist low-mobility killers. I would like to see the haste be be a bit more significant, but to lose said haste upon entering chase with a survivor. This is primarily because haste is just... annoying and unsatisfying as a chase mechanic. It needs to be used very tastefully, as even minor haste effects can become extremely problematic if they become too widespread. (I'm sure we all remember the MFT/Resi/Hope soldiers after all.)


Therefore, any killer buffs should aim to help low tier killers more than higher tier killers. If you intend on buffing killer as compensation for the anti tunnelling changes, then I would suggest at minimum basekit Corrupt Intervention, and the killer gaining 5% haste until they start their next chase. In addition, I would like there to be some other form of slowdown that scales with the number of survivors remaining if there is still intention for adding a punishment for tunnelling. There are innumerable ways for you to go about that, so i'll leave that to you.



Speaking of the punishment for killing survivors early; While i understand the thought process of including both a carrot and a stick for the anti-tunnelling chanes, almost any form of punishment for tunnelling can and will be used aggressively. Whether this be bodyblocking with borrow time or off the record, playing for pallet saves with decisive strike up, or combining anti tunnel with anti slug to force a lose-lose situation, almost every punishment for tunnelling has been and will be used aggressively. Some survivors may not want to be tunneled, but for me and many others being chased is far more fun than sitting on generators. 


So even if survivors aren't maliciously trying to abuse the system, any punishment for tunnelling WILL be used agressively as many players find playing aggressive to be more exciting. Additionally, this is not considering people giving up and triggering these effects unintentionally or being so bad that it tricks the system into activating similar to the afk crow rework.



As for the anti slugging changes? Twins are probably dead. I think basekit tenacity in combination with basekit unbreakable-minus is overkill, and that slugging isn't a big problem to begin with, but this is one of the least offensive anti-slugging changes ever implemented. 



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So, i've givem my opinions on the current direction for changes and their aims, but i'll give my dream suggestion. Survivor feels bad despite being the strongest they've been in years because the average survivor can't abuse the buffs they've been given the same way exteemelt experienced ones can. In my opinion DBD is in a strange state where its public matches are too competitive to be a casual game, but too casual to be a competitive game. 


I know it took yall 8 years to add an FOV slider so this is a big ask, but the ideal solution is to add a seperate competitive mode and casual mode. Changes like the ones you suggested in the ptb patchnotes will simply never be able to appease the competitive side of the community like myself and the casual side of the community. 


You can see this in the changes being made to killers aswell: Blight J-Flick and Hugtech removal, chucky's 180's, freddy's teleport cancels, clowns recent rework, vecna spell cooldown buffs, etc etc. I will give credit where credit is due to the recent pyramid head changes, but as a whole almost every change to killer just makes them easier and reduces their skill ceiling, and doesn't actually help good killers compete with good survivor teams. 


Clown isn't any stronger than he was before his rework, he's just completely braindead to play now. Blight is no weaker with the removal of his Hugtech or J-Flick, he's just significantly less fun and interesting to play as or against. Huntress having seven hatchets is completely meaningless for good huntress players, and only helps the 8 year old little brother playing on a steering wheel who can't land his hatchets.


Remember when matheiu cote got zero hooks against a random group of survivors while playing one of the strongest killers in the game at the time? No amount of buffs to hag's potential strength will change that, but if you make hag easier.... then suddenly that same clueless player can get some hooks on the board.


I don't think the solution to balance problems is to handhold bad survivors or bad killers. You can see that this design philosophy of removing skill expression and making everything easy make survivors extremely mad aswell. If you get obliterated by a 10,000 hour hillbilly who uses his chainsaw as an artform you  shrug your shoulders and go "damn. got smoked." If you play against a kaneki playing with his knees then you have the exact same result but suddenly its extremely frustrating because he put in no effort and simply won on the character select screen.

So, in conclusion: 


1: Consider how your basekit changes will have differing effects on low tier killers

2: Stop handholding bad players by simplifying mechanics, killers, and perks. 

3: Consider how the mechanics you add or change will be abused. (Because they will be abused)

4: Give blight hugtech back and make him lose a token on kick 💔💔💔

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