Game unfun for survivors and killers

ColgateAdvancedWhite

When my friends are online I play survivor with them, otherwise I mostly play killer. Here are my observations:

1. Survivors
1-a. Expected death rate is very high
The developers try to balance the game so that killers get 4-kills 50% of the time in rank 1, which ends up making new-blood ranks complete steamroll fests.
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For most players, especially friends you want to introduce to the game, the expected death rate is around 80%-90%. When I introduce friends to the game, the default assumption is that they can escape 50% of the time, and die 50% of the time. I find that I have to tell them that they'd be lucky to escape more than 1 time in every 10 games.
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1-b. Survivors can die upwards
With the way ranking works, survivors can fail-upwards. Outside of deliberate effort, it is very difficult for survivors to de-rank. Safety pips are too easy to get, and survivors can rank up even if nobody escapes. This results in not-so-good survivors getting matched with higher and higher ranked killers, resulting in them just simply dying faster and faster until they die so quickly they can't get a safety pip by accident.
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Needless to say, when players reach this point, matches are mostly unfun for them.
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1-c. "Proper" survival skills are counter-intuitive
Instincts tell players to hide and play safe - sneak from the shadows and get the generators done. The "correct" way to play is to rush generators. Forget sneaking around, you have to get from gen to gen as quickly as possible, and then master the looping game.
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In order to do that, players have to familiarize themselves with map layouts, spawn patterns, what is a T-wall, L-wall, unsafe pallet, god pallets, which jungle gyms to run clock-wise or counter-clock-wise around etc.
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All of these are incredible barriers driving away new-blood players from playing survivor, if not the game entirely.
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1-d Oppressive killer perks vs new-blood while having limited effect on veteran players
(This is a con for killers too. More on that later)
NOED, Hex: Ruin are common examples of killer perks that do almost nothing to veteran players, but are incredibly oppressive and anti-fun against other players. Then there are perks like
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BBQ & Chili: Please find a locker to hide in when someone is about to get hooked
Whispers: Please do not follow your instincts and hide. You have to run off
Discordance: Please do not work with your friends.
Nurse's calling: Please do not heal when you hear heartbeats
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All of which destroy new players and drive them away from playing survivors. It makes killers OP in most ranks
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1-e. Crippling or unfun killer powers
(And on the killer side there are "useless" killer powers. More on that later)
For players who aren't already driven away from playing survivor, or the game, after realizing how much the game is stacked against non-rank1 swf survivors, they get to face the only viable killers in many of their games.
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So they learned a bit of looping techniques, then they face Nurses, Legions, Clowns etc. that break looping. Leaving them with running as the only option. Either you play swf, or you play a running simulator.
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2. Killers
2-a Killers stomp on survivors, until they suddenly don't
Killers can comfortably get 4-kills in most ranks, which sets up the expectation that 4-kills are supposed to happen 50% of the time. When I was playing killer, it was very often I get 4-kills. Sometimes with 4 generators left, sometimes with 1 generator left. It was something that I cultivated as an expectation.
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As I rank higher and higher into the purple or red, then 4-kills become less common than 50%. Somehow 3-kills feel like a loss. Somehow it feels like I'm losing more than 50% of the time (because 3-kills or less is a 'loss')
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But then I also play survivor, and I have friends I'm trying to get into the game. This makes me realize, the expected outcome of the game is un-fun for both parties. Survivors don't like dying 90% of the time if they're not swf, killers don't like not getting 4-kills most of the time.
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Basic understanding of mathematics and probabilities would tell you that these two expectations are not coherent; i.e there is no way to have one expectation come to conciliation with the other. It is like saying "When flipping a fair, six-sided die, I expect it to land on 1 50% of the time, 2 50% of the time, 3 50% of the time, 4 50% of the time, 5 50% of the time and 6 50% of the time" - impossible.
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2-b Perks/killers fantastic against most players, useless against others
Killers generally have very limited room to improve their performance outside of picking the "correct" killer and/or perks, and hoping for successful mind games or survivor mistakes. This makes killers feel helpless. On the other side of the fence, survivor performance can swing very wildly. A full solo-queue survivor team is a joke, but a swf survivor team will run circles around you unless you picked the "correct" killer and/or perks.
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You have killers/perks that completely bully survivors outside the red rank (those listed in 1-d), and then suddenly none of your perks work against red rank survivors. When you finally do something "right", they dunk all over you, making you frustrated that nothing works.
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2-c Killer queue times are very long
Having played both sides, I can confidently say it has to do with lack of players playing survivor. This game drives away survivors unless they are dedicated. For the casual-ish players who are supposed to fill up the gap between rank 2 to rank 20, they get screwed all over by killers that are balanced assuming the survivors are hardcore players.
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2-d Survivors can dodge too, but they do it in game
As killers, we can "nope" out of a game if we think we're not going to like that match. This is lobby-dodging. Survivors though, they can only "nope" out of it by dc-ing. It's free points for me, but it's not fun. I can't count how many times I enter a match, quickly do a 5-blink nurse scream, and see the roster just "nope" out.
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Or I do a iridescent artillery huntress and stand next to a locker doing long-range 1-hit-kos. If I get 2 downs within the first 30 seconds, I get a mass "nope" and hacker accusations.
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The developers have to decide how they want the game to be balanced. They should bring up solo-queue survivors up to the level of information that swf players get, and balance around that, or somehow address the big information and efficiency gap between swf survivors and solo-queue survivors. They should also make most killers viable across the ranks instead of just having those few "correct" choices, and adjust the perks so that they're not useful and useless.
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I think the biggest problem is that this game's experience is largely like this:
New-blood region: Unfun for survivors, fun for killers
Rank 15-rank 2: Unfun for solo, fun-ish for swf, fun for killers
Rank 1: Fun for swf, unfun for killers.

Vietfox

Let me see if i read that well:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ta0Sj05tjc

fcc2014

Can Trump borrow this piece for his wall?

Eveline

I mostly agree but you have players like me who don't mind dying as long as I pip and keep being rank 1.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

NMCKE

ColgateAdvancedWhite said:

Rank 1: Fun for swf, unfun for killers.

SWF aren't always a commando unit, why does every killer assume the absolute worst?

PhantomMask20763

This is pretty accurate. Although I never pick the "correct" killer. I do well with Freddy, Legion and Pig at rank 1. Is it easy? No, but is it hard? Also no. Its challenging. But sometimes theres a difference between challenging and frustrating. Such as losing all of your momentum with DS, or your ruin getting cleansed the first 20 seconds of the game. Swf isnt as big of a problem as some say, sure they're more coordinated but when I look at their builds when the match ends its rarely 4 DS, Adrenaline, Dead hard, flashlight, MLG pro loopers. I think the game is an alright spot right now. There are buffs and nerfs needed for both sides, but the devs cant actually carry them out unless they're certain they will work, which is why we have the ptb

Eveline

Well games can be frustrating for survivors also. 

OrionsFury4789

fcc2014 said:

Can Trump borrow this piece for his wall?

Lmfao 😂

Coriander

Yeah, you can de-rank easily when a killer catches you first, tunnels you, and your teammates unhook you as soon as you get on (expecting the killer not to just down you again right away). What am I supposed to do in this situation? They're not even running Borrowed Time, and even if they did, they've already lost the pallets all around me.

JoyfulLeader

At least this game isn't as unfun as Friday the 13th, that game is bulllshit

Eveline

Coriander said:

Yeah, you can de-rank easily when a killer catches you first, tunnels you, and your teammates unhook you as soon as you get on (expecting the killer not to just down you again right away). What am I supposed to do in this situation? They're not even running Borrowed Time, and even if they did, they've already lost the pallets all around me.

Remember that survivors are op and killers are weak.

Watery

death rate is high, but it doesn’t take a lot to pip. The goal is to not necessarily rank up, but fill a minimum.

Bravo0413

Git gud

TragicSolitude

@Bravo0413 said:
Git gud

The point I think OP is trying to make is that new players are turned away from spending the time to "git gud" because the game isn't fun for them. I have trouble getting people to SWF with me because they get frustrated and quit after a few matches. I can't "git gud" for them.

Maybe what we need isn't a change in the game mechanics but a change of expectations. Instead of calling them "survivors," we'll call them "sacrifices." Instead of "killers," we'll call them "hookers." Wait, that may set a whole new expectation. Hmmm...

ATOMIC_ACE_PUGG

Short version-the game sucks for new players
Ok

ColgateAdvancedWhite

ATOMIC_ACE_PUGG said:

Short version-the game sucks for new players
Ok

Err... The last part of the post ( or short/tl;dr version ) specifically says it's unfun for new survivors but fun for new killers, which swaps around at rank 1.

DexyIV

@ColgateAdvancedWhite said:
Rank 1: Fun for swf, unfun for killers.

Not very fun for survivors in general too. All you ever see is Nurse, Billy, Legion over and over and all of them are reddit killers lol

LCGaster

I have fun

JoyfulLeader

@LCGaster said:
I have fun

Same

artist

Nickenzie said:

ColgateAdvancedWhite said:

Rank 1: Fun for swf, unfun for killers.

SWF aren't always a commando unit, why does every killer assume the absolute worst?

LOL YOINK

darktrix

@Nickenzie said:
ColgateAdvancedWhite said:

Rank 1: Fun for swf, unfun for killers.

SWF aren't always a commando unit, why does every killer assume the absolute worst?

This is true, while they can run into these once in awhile they are not the norm - like an omega blink god nurse that ends the trial in under 3 minutes. How many SWF go through the trouble of scheduling 4 people to get together then regularly practice and coordinate to the degree they are an overwhelming threat - for a small game that rewards nothing for rank? Not many - even so, there is usually only 1 or 2 strong members and the rest are just gen jockeys easily taken out, which forces the strong ones do nothing but look after the others.