https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/472588/future-of-dead-by-daylight-forums
Please Reconsider the Windows of Opportunity Nerf
Please do NOT go through with this Windows of Opportunity nerf. I genuinely don’t understand why this perk needs to lose pallet auras in the first place.
Windows is especially important for newer players. DBD has so many maps and tiles at this point and new players obviously aren’t going to know where every pallet and window is. Windows helps them learn maps and understand where they can actually go during a chase instead of just dying because they haven’t memorized years worth of map knowledge yet.
And pallets are literally one of the only things survivors have to protect themselves in chase. We can’t fight the killer. We run, vault windows and use pallets. Being able to SEE a pallet doesn’t magically make someone good at looping either. You still have to actually make it there, know how to use the tile, know when to drop it, know when to leave it, and outplay the killer.
It’s even worse for solo queue because how am I supposed to know that a random teammate already dropped a pallet on the other side of the map? A SWF can literally just say “that pallet is gone” in VC. Solo players can’t. Windows gives solo queue information that people playing together can already communicate to each other, so taking that away just makes the gap worse.
And if simply seeing important objective/resource auras is considered too strong, then why do killers get to see generator auras by default? Should killers need to equip a perk just to see where their gens are too? Survivors being able to see the pallets they need to defend themselves somehow needs a perk AND now that perk apparently gives too much information, but killers knowing exactly where their objectives are from the beginning is fine?
Also, Windows having a high pick rate does not automatically mean it needs to be nerfed. Maybe so many people use it because it makes survivor more enjoyable, especially for new players and solo queue. High usage should make you look at WHY people feel like they need the perk, not immediately take away the reason people use it.
There are barely enough people playing survivor as it is. Queue times can already get ridiculously long because everyone is waiting for survivors, and changes like this are not going to make more people want to play the role. They’re going to do the opposite. If survivor keeps becoming more frustrating, especially for casual and newer players, people are just going to stop queueing survivor or stop playing altogether. Then everybody suffers from even worse queue times, including killers.
I really don’t understand the direction here. Survivor already feels heavily killer-sided to a lot of us, and instead of making solo queue and the new-player experience better, one of the most useful survivor learning/information perks is being gutted.
Please listen to the people actually playing survivor and reconsider this before pushing it to live. Keep the pallet auras on Windows of Opportunity. If you want to change the perk, fine, but removing one of its most important features is not the answer.
Comments
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pallets are literally one of the only things survivors have to protect themselves in chase. We can’t fight the killer. We run, vault windows and use pallets.
You are kinda implying that survivors can't do anything about the killer and without this one perk is impossible to play the game, like if there's no counter play and survivors can't be skillful at looping.
doesn’t magically make someone good at looping either
It does and I am saying this as a killer main who has used it before, I am really bad at survivor and with windows I chase for quite a while most the time like I chased a decent Dracula for 4 gens just because I had WoO, my teammates went down very quickly against him. Don't say it's low MMR, it happened right after the MMR reset and I have lots of examples like this.
random teammate already dropped a pallet on the other side of the map?
There are 20 pallets on the map, should be enough.
And if simply seeing important objective/resource auras is considered too strong, then why do killers get to see generator auras by default? Should killers need to equip a perk just to see where their gens are too? Survivors being able to see the pallets they need to defend themselves somehow needs a perk AND now that perk apparently gives too much information, but killers knowing exactly where their objectives are from the beginning is fine?
This is a really bad comparison, the killers objective is to defend gens and to kill, there's 4 survivors that can find the gens and only 1 killer that needs to find the gens, there are many survivors that loop perfectly fine without the WoO and if you need to see the pallets so much then use Five moves ahead.
Let's say that killer shouldn't see gens, then survivors shouldn't see hooked or downed survivors, how is that any different?
Survivor already feels heavily killer-sided to a lot of us
Killer feels heavily survivor-sided (B tier killers and lower) to a lot of us, there's many players that fell killer anxiety, I am not saying that survivor side can't feel miserable but killer side is miserable as well.
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It will be infinite discussion. Survivors with WOO and Five Moves Ahead, Killers with Lethal Pursuer and Nowhere To Hide. None of those perks are healthy for the game.
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If you're a killer main, then don't comment complaining, this is for survivors, not killers
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We are all same playerbase. I defienetly agree that with how massive WOO usage is and how solo q and resources work it's overall a huge nerf. But justified in the end.
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You are kinda implying that survivors can't do anything about the killer and without this one perk is impossible to play the game, like if there's no counter play and survivors can't be skillful at looping.
No, you’re confusing having resources with knowing how to use them. Pallets and windows being the main resources survivors have in chase doesn’t mean Windows is required to use them or that survivors have no counterplay without it. The skill is in how you actually USE those resources. Seeing a pallet through a wall doesn’t make you path correctly, greed correctly, mindgame correctly, chain tiles correctly, know when to leave a loop, or stop the killer from mindgaming you.
It does and I am saying this as a killer main who has used it before, I am really bad at survivor and with windows I chase for quite a while most the time like I chased a decent Dracula for 4 gens just because I had WoO, my teammates went down very quickly against him.
You didn’t chase Dracula for 4 gens “just because” you could see yellow rectangles. If you lasted that long, you were still making decisions during that chase that kept you alive. Windows gave you information about where resources were. It didn’t press W for you, time your vaults, drop your pallets, predict Dracula, dodge his power, or choose when to rotate.
There is a difference between a perk making looping EASIER because you have more information and a perk making you GOOD at looping. Of course Windows helps. It’s a perk. It’s supposed to help. But if simply knowing where a pallet is automatically makes a bad survivor capable of a 4-gen chase, then the killer made plenty of mistakes during that chase too.
And from the killer side, I genuinely do not struggle with survivors simply because they know where pallets are. Killers move faster than survivors, Bloodlust exists, killers have powers specifically designed to help them in chase, and pallets are finite resources that can be broken. Knowing a pallet exists does not suddenly make that pallet unbeatable.
If I chase someone through enough resources for four generators to get completed, at some point that is MY decision to keep committing to that chase. I can drop chase and pressure someone else. Windows didn’t force Dracula to spend four gens chasing you.
Don't say it's low MMR, it happened right after the MMR reset and I have lots of examples like this.
I don't need to say it was low MMR. Your example doesn't establish that Windows caused the outcome regardless of MMR.
You had Windows equipped during a successful chase. That proves Windows helped you, which nobody is disputing. It doesn't prove that pallet aura reading is what made a four-gen chase possible. If someone goes down in 20 seconds while running Windows, that wouldn't prove Windows is weak either. Individual matches have far too many variables for that.
There are 20 pallets on the map, should be enough.
That completely misses the issue. The number of pallets that EXIST at the beginning of the match tells you nothing about which pallets still exist when you're actually being chased.
In fact, saying there are only a finite number of pallets makes the information MORE relevant. Every pallet another survivor uses permanently changes the resources available to everyone else.
A SWF can communicate that immediately: “shack pallet is gone,” “main is gone,” “that side is dead.” A solo player has no way of knowing something happened on the other side of the map.
So “there are 20 pallets” doesn't solve the information problem at all. There could be 30. If my teammates have already used 10 of them and I don't know WHICH 10, the problem remains exactly the same.
And you later agreed yourself that because of how solo queue and resources work, this is a huge nerf. That's precisely why “there are enough pallets” isn't an answer.
there are many survivors that loop perfectly fine without the WoO
Which actually works against your previous argument.
If plenty of survivors loop perfectly fine without Windows, then clearly seeing pallet auras isn't what makes someone good at looping. Experienced players can already use their map knowledge, tile knowledge and game sense to accomplish much of what Windows provides as information.
So who loses more from removing that information? The experienced survivor who already knows the maps, or the newer player who doesn't?
Saying good survivors don't need Windows isn't an argument that the effect is unhealthy. If anything, it shows why removing it disproportionately affects the people who haven't already memorized years of DBD maps and tiles.
if you need to see the pallets so much then use Five moves ahead.
But that creates a problem with your own argument.
If seeing pallet auras is powerful enough that removing them from Windows is justified, why is your solution to use another perk that lets survivors see pallets?
Either pallet aura information itself is the balance problem, in which case moving it to another perk doesn't solve the problem, or pallet aura information is acceptable, in which case “use Five Moves Ahead” doesn't explain why it needed to be removed from Windows.
You're telling me where else I can get the effect. You're not explaining why removing the effect from Windows improves the game.
This is a really bad comparison, the killers objective is to defend gens and to kill, there's 4 survivors that can find the gens and only 1 killer that needs to find the gens.
Four survivors are not one player controlling four characters with shared knowledge.
That's actually one of the reasons solo queue has an information disadvantage in the first place. If one survivor sees something happen, the other three do not automatically know it happened. Having four sets of eyes only becomes shared information when those four people can communicate.
A killer doesn't have that problem because everything the killer personally observes is available to the one person making all of the killer's decisions.
So “there are four survivors” doesn't eliminate the information problem. It actually explains why SWF and solo queue are so different despite technically having the exact same number of players.
Let's say that killer shouldn't see gens, then survivors shouldn't see hooked or downed survivors, how is that any different?
That comparison actually supports the distinction I'm making.
Seeing a hooked survivor's aura doesn't unhook them for you. You still have to decide whether YOU should rescue, when to leave your generator, how to approach, whether the killer is nearby, whether you're going to trade, etc.
Seeing a generator aura doesn't defend the generator for the killer either.
The game gives both sides information because information allows players to make decisions. It doesn't make those decisions for them.
And that's exactly what pallet auras do. Windows tells you “there is a pallet there.” It doesn't tell you how to win the chase once you get there.
Killer feels heavily survivor-sided (B tier killers and lower) to a lot of us, there's many players that fell killer anxiety, I am not saying that survivor side can't feel miserable but killer side is miserable as well.
Killer being frustrating sometimes has nothing to do with whether Windows needs to lose pallet auras.
I play killer too, and if I'm struggling against a survivor at pallets, I have plenty of tools available to me. I'm faster on most killers. I have a power. I can Bloodlust. I can mindgame. I can force the pallet and break it. I can zone them away from the next resource. And most importantly, I can stop chasing them if they're wasting too much of my time.
If weaker killers are struggling overall, address weaker killers. Nerfing information for solo survivors doesn't suddenly fix the balance or design problems of B-tier killers.
We are all same playerbase.
Exactly, which is also why looking at how a change affects both roles matters. I play both sides. From the killer side, I don't find “this survivor knows a pallet is there” remotely equivalent to “this survivor now wins this loop.”
I still have to get outplayed at the pallet for it to actually cost me significant time.
I defienetly agree that with how massive WOO usage is and how solo q and resources work it's overall a huge nerf. But justified in the end.
This is where your argument stops making sense to me.
You agree that it's a huge nerf because of how solo queue and resources work, so what exactly is the balance problem severe enough to justify that huge nerf?
It can't simply be that Windows helps in chase. Of course it does. You spent one of four perk slots on it.
It can't be that good survivors require Windows to loop, because you already said many survivors loop perfectly fine without it.
It can't simply be that pallet aura reading is too strong, because you just suggested using Five Moves Ahead to get pallet information instead.
And your four-gen chase only demonstrates that you performed better while using Windows. It doesn't demonstrate that the perk was responsible for the entire chase or that the killer had no counterplay.
So you've established that Windows is useful. You've established that removing pallet information is a huge nerf to solo queue. You haven't established why that nerf is justified.
Those are two different questions.
A perk being useful enough that you notice the difference when you equip it is not evidence that the perk is unhealthy for the game.
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It's not really a perk that required a nerf, but I think the idea was to open up space for maps to actually be useful. The main problem with that is that 5 moves ahead still exists from their last attempt to push windows out of the meta, which makes the nerf in effect just push players to spend 9000 shards if they don't already have the perk.
Unless they can come up with a complete rework idea for 5 moves the windows nerf is probably a bad call. Do something else like make it only active when injured if they really want to restrict it somehow.
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It will feel better to play the killer when survivors will run into deadzones because they don't follow yellow aura. In the end who desperately relied on this perk can run 5MA or maps and do the same but not with the perma-on effect which is good for killers and I'm glad people will have to think twice about going into unscouted area.
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I really rely on this skill, and I don't know if I can replace it with another one.
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