Visit the Kill Switch Master List for more information on this and other current known issues: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/299-kill-switch-master-list
What is going on with the Nurse
Time to make a post out-lining what I think has actually shaped the discussion of Nurse since she emerged as 'the best killer' out of nowhere(following the most severe nerfing of any character which made her for a short time 'the worst killer'). I've made it in a new thread because it's long even for me. You were warned.
So just to outline my views on the Nurse: depending on what standards you measure her by, she is the best and worst killer in the game. Almost every discussion I get involved in about her revolves around the ability of one side to ignore this and the other to force them to look at it, like the creatures in Birdbox. Both know the Nurse needs adjusting, but the former group understand that if they consent to this then survivors will continue to enjoy being balanced on a different standard; that of 'how most players who are in lower-ranks play', which if it was applied to the Nurse would mean she needs several significant buffs. The nut-shell of everything now:
- Her addons have never been changed.
- This makes the sudden recent focus on them suspicious.
- The consensus that addons hindered blinking never went away, it just got drowned-out.
- This needs explaining by those pushing for changes to Nurse.
- Survivors having become worse at the game is currently the best explanation.
- That isn't being acknowledged because it undermines the case for changing Nurse.
- It instead supports the case for changing survivors, in a way they have resisted for 3 years.
- As they will not support that, a compromise is reverting Nurse changes in patch 1.9
TL;DR version below
Other than that is a more specific issue: there have always been complaints about the Nurse, but why have they only recently become fixated on her addons? I could say that 'survivors have found a wedge-issue, a point of least-resistence and the devs are cooperating with them'. Even killer-mains after all are saying 'her basekit is fine, it's just those addons'.
My own thoughts on that are: "Am I the only person left playing this game who doesn't have a goldfish memory-span?"; the Nurse's addons have not been changed at all since she was released, none of them. There hasn't been any listed changes to the game which would have affected them either in a way that reflects the drastic change in focus that complaints about her have had. Why was no one complaining about them in 2017? Why has it only become a thing since then?
I'll reiterate something else I've already said: if you told a Nurse-main in 2017 that people would be complaining about her addons making her over-powered, they would reply "Oh I wonder what buffs they'll get to cause that?". The answer is none; they haven't been changed, nor affected directly or indirectly by any other balance, design or mechanical changes beyond the superficial. That Nurse-main would then make the obvious conclusion: "What happened that made survivors so bad then?".
One narrative pushed is that Nurse's extra-blink addons give her multiple chances to react and course-correct during a blink-chain, limiting the ability of survivors to evade. This means you no longer have to be good with the Nurse, merely adequate.
IF this were all there was to it though, I would expect Nurse to have made great strides in no longer being so weak at low-ranks and another killer to take her place as the weakest. This doesn't appear to have happened. Also, was it the case in 2017 and people just didn't realise it was the addons when they made more generalistic complaints about her? Why were Nurse-mains at the time saying they preferred not using them because they interfered with muscle-memory? Did they just not realise the utility of extra blinks?
I think survivors have stumbled over the truth but not noticed: it's not that the Nurse has extra chances to succeed because of extra-blinks, but that survivors have extra-chances to fail. Blinking with addons remains as hard as it was in 2017.
With all the focus on addons though, we're out on what has changed about blinking itself. In Patch 1.9 from January 2018, substantial changes were made to the function and appearance of her blinking, as well as the way her lunge-attack out of a blink. Killers discussed these changes and the consensus was that the changes were mostly neutral. I have now partially changed my mind on this.
I now believe survivors failed to adapt to those changes. I don't think they realised the implications of this one in particular: "Duration of the blink now depends on the how long the player charged the blink for, rather than the distance traveled during the blink. The time required to fully charge a blink (2 seconds), the maximum distance traveled (20 meters) and the time required to cover that distance (1.5 seconds) remain unchanged."
Survivors are not able to judge how far the Nurse is blinking based on how long she charged each blink; they can react, but not anticipate. A Nurse can fully-charge a blink, then aim lower at the ground to shorten the distance. This reduces the uncertainty and inaccuracy that extra-blink addons introduce. It reduces the require muscle-memory for a Nurse blinking towards a close survivor. Killers though have become so accustomsed to adapting by now that we don't realise when we're doing it; the Nurse-meta following her initial nerfs happened almost by accident too.
It turns out that she has in fact gone through a second evolution in her meta, due to being able to short-blink on a full-charge. The patch notes for 1.9 say that "The following points will address the additional balance changes that should counter balance the improved Blink", but none of the following points address blink at all, or seem to have any relevance. It's just changes to pallets, STBFL, map changes, scratch-marks and an exploit fix(listed under balance rather than bug-fixes for some reason).
Changing the Nurse on the pretense and manufactured consensus that her addons are a problem is absurd. There is nothing to explain how this could have changed since 2017, save for 1.9 changes which are really about killers adapting instinctively and survivors not at all. If it just seems like survivors really can do nothing against post-1.9 blinks, then there is the option to revert the 1.9 changes, not knee-jerk nerf the Nurse, because that is what it would be. Nothing has been learned from all the previous mistakes if this is on the cards.
Comments
-
Why? the answer is simple, they have reached enough survivors vs killers to actually finally go ahead and announce the nurse will be altered. They will downplay it by using words like "slightly" etc, but we all know what happens when devs look at something.
Slightly will turn into 15+ changes that they didnt even intend on but will "while we were there we noticed that and felt this needed changing"
4 -
Nurse addons hindering her instead of helping her is a super outdated myth, at least for people that can play her well.
It's also not suspicious that she's getting some attention from the devs now, it's just very, very overdue.
15 -
Ok, thanks for not reading. I'm not interested in these rock-bottom standards of discussion which ignore facts and resort to bumper-sticker slogans instead of reasoned argument.
You're repeating the narrative that I addressed in the OP. You're pretending the situation immediately following her nerfing never happened. You're putting words in my mouth. It has not been 3 years since January 2018.
You're part of the problem. Go away.
9 -
While the Nurse at base is fine imo her omega blink and extra blinks are the only issue I can see with her and probably used more due to her other add-ons having more downsides than upsides.
The add-ons in question don't help newer players or bad nurses as they still can't control the blinks but what they do is buff those who are competent with her. Maybe not great nurses but good enough that it makes it easier.
Personally using extra blink and omega blinks are a hindrance to using her to become more than good with her but that doesn't stop them being really strong in the right hands.
The Nurse has been complained about since day one. Each week for the best part of 2017 on the steam forums. Anew Nurse thread came out but it started to change when a new killer was to be released every three months as they had something else to jump on the bandwagon about.
Most complaints were always pretty consistent being that of Nurse, SWF, DS, SC, NOED, Looping, Amount of pallets, Camping, tunnelling. Basically anything someone used that they disliked or thought were too strong.
Since so many changes have happened Now the complaints have turned to irri add-ons, Insta heals, SWF, Adrenaline and still NOED camping and tunnelling along with Nurse.
Anything which is used where the person on the other side deemed it caused them to lose becomes a complaint. That's the one constant of the DBD forums.
7 -
So what do you want to say in short? Iam not interested to read all those rants. time is to useful.
3 -
All the cry babies showing their true colors
8 -
Other than that is a more specific issue: there have always been complaints about the Nurse, but why have they only recently become fixated on her addons?
The developers at least have said that they want to go through her add-ons ages ago (over a year ago) I
Why was no one complaining about them in 2017? Why has it only become a thing since then?
Survivors were busy disconnecting as soon as they heard the blink noise so they never paid attention to the add-ons
Her add-ons are dumb though, even if people haven't always been complaining about them. It's very much possible to stomp survivors without any add-ons whatsoever, based on experience, I can only imagine how dumb it would be if I ran multi-blink add-ons
7 -
You're ignoring one simple fact: games EVOLVE as time goes on.
Survivors have been nerfed quite a few times across the years. Removal of double pallets (yes, that's back on a few scenarios, but far from what it was before), removal of pallet vacuum, exhaustion changes, and more recently, DS nerfs after quite a few years. Would you say they are weak now?
No, obviously. In fact, there's nothing more prevalent on these forums than people bitching about survivors - except, maybe, Legion mains bitching about Legion.
The fact is that the game has evolved. The playerbase is better than it was years ago. And the same applies to Nurse players.
The playerbase getting better benefits both survivors, since they've become more and more optimal with making the most of each pallet (the good ones) and Nurse players because she ignores the core defense mechanic for survivors and the only thing between her and a hit is her own skill (or lack of skill).
Besides, the entire point of the Nurse debate gravitates around the highest level of Nurses. It's NOT your average Nurse player. Average Nurses are actually fun to play against because of the amount of mistakes they make, both in game sense and execution, which offsets how overwhelmingly powerful her kit is a little bit. It doesn't change the fact that a mediocre Nurse is still more powerful than the majority of killers though. But that's a talk for another thread.
15 -
Sorry, but you have been debunked! If addons or her base-kit make her broken then she would be noob-stomping at rank 20. Stats show she is the 'weakest' killer at all ranks until rank 1 where is finally a threat after much, much practice.
So 70% is slightly more than 50%. 90% or 100% might warrant a global warming crisis here.
Hell, Trapper has a little over 60%, maybe he needs the nerf hammer too.
8 -
If she was broken, as so many people claim, she'd stomp no matter the skill of the person playing her.
5 -
Woah, wait just a minute Charlie Brown! We're getting ahead of ourselves. Did you say 'highest levels of play'? That standard is not applied to the other killers, where they are balanced around noob to average survivors. The game is mostly balanced around average survivors. Nurse shouldn't be held to a different standard.
5 -
gamers of today have no clue what real "OP" is, they think anything remotely strong or challenging is "OP"
No kids, OP means that no matter who plays it would demolish all survivors, and nurse just isnt that way at all.
7 -
"Survivors in training should not be taken into account when discussing balance of the game - Let us make that perfectly clear. Survivors are weak in the hand of potatoes and we all agree we should balance the game around the highest level of play."
I'm sorry for mocking Thaznar, but if this adjusted quote seems silly, welcome to "survivormain" doublestandards.
7 -
Stop with the false argument that "if she was broken she'd stomp at low ranks".
That's not how balance works.
Starting from the premise that balance should be made at the highest level, it matters very little how bad Nurses perform. The absolute best Nurses matter when talking about balance.
And no, hours spent playing her shouldn't allow her to become broken. Someone who took the time to master her should NOT always win, especially against people with the same time played as survivor.
I sure hope the balance team doesn't have people who think like that, because it's TERRIBLE design. Can you imagine how hellish every single moba would be if characters with high skill ceilings were allowed to win every time? Hell, in competitive games, something with a 60% win rate is already a major red flag. Surely we can't trust the stats from DBD because of DCs, but S T O P arguing that a 77% kill rate would be OK. Because it wouldn't.
"Let's just learn this thing so I can't lose anymore!!!!" Ffs
12 -
You are arguing semantics.
The terms "overpowered" and "broken" are defined as things that are so strong, that you will win with them, no matter your personal skill level.
You cannot argue definitions, no matter how deep you dive into those personal anecdotes you like to share.
The Nurse is by definition neither OP nor broken. She is generally one of the weaker Killers in terms of kill rate across all ranks. If she were OP or broken, she would have the highest kill rate across all ranks.
Generally, any Killer wipes the floor with Rank 20s, that's just how the game is, however, we've all heard of the baby Nurse, that even Rank 20s can bully. That wouldn't be a thing if she were OP.
9 -
Hey, just a heads up
What you defined: Broken
The only thing OP actually means: more powerful than it should be (you do know that OP literally means "overpowered", right? And nothing else. So it's a subjective term at heart).
The Nurse is not broken, but she's OP.
You're the one that should stop arguing definitions when you don't know what those definitions are. Careful with that!
7 -
Hey, just a heads up.
I don't give a damn. I'll argue definitions all day long if you want to.
Overpowered may have had a distinction to broken, but not necessarily anymore these days.
Even going by your definition, base-kit Nurse is not OP, unlike what people like Thaznar try to lobby for.
4 -
See, you are facing an inexperienced killer in terms of balance.
New Killer ---------------------- Average Killer -------------------------------- High Tier Killer
New Survivor ------------------- Average Survivor ------------------------------ High Tier Survivor
^ Any new Killer can beat new Survivors. Again they are both new and will make tons of mistakes. A baby nurse, however, is not only a new killer. However, the mechanics of nurse are muscle memory. Even High Tier killers struggle with nurse simply because they don't use the power enough to get the Time/Distance ratio down.
However, generally when you say survivors can bully nurses they can bully any low tier killer. Anyone with more experience in the game than the killer knows certain loop combinations and rotations of loops to get the best yield.
However, once you come to high tier play this is all thrown out the window by the mechanics of the nurse.
Walls forget about them, Pallets see what happens, Mind Games I will use my second blink. The fact of this matter is in many cases Nurse has too much map pressure and chase potential considering she can cover large distances at a time. "Oh but they nerfed her base speed to be super slow" Well that is amazing and all but doesn't help when she uses her blinks for movement now don't ya think?
Generally speaking the only times I have lost using nurse and I mean <2k was when the map design had dead zones where you actually couldn't blink or it would assume a short blink. This does not make nurse balanced. If they didn't exist I would have went on my merry way. Almost like perk and bug exploits. Just because you know how to use them doesn't mean they should exist.
"A good survivor can..." - Yes, generally can get an additional fatigue in here or there if the Nurse happens to make a dumb mistake or collision decides to be wonky as usual or attacking bugs out. However, if you for some odd reason are being beaten at any point you can resort to slugging or hard-core 3 genning. Which again due to the insane map pressure and distance you can cover. This is not the hardest thing to do in the game.
However, just because you don't have a muscle memory time/distance down for the killer doesn't mean those who do have any skill. As I keep saying you can't skill a straight line. It is similar to riding a bike or walking once you get it down it is down. You struggle at first because it is new and it is nothing more. Skill is mind-game ability and being able to outsmart the survivor. You don't outsmart when no matter the distance or location you will catch them.
9 -
I'd argue that OP and Broken used to have a lot less distinction back in the day, but nowadays, with how widespread discussions on game design and balanced are, they both are very different things.
But OK then, you do you. Keep being angry as a hobby
5 -
The analogy between learning the Nurse and learning to ride a bike made my day because of how accurate it is, after thinking about it a bit. Thank you <3
5 -
Overpowered and broken can be the same thing but "broken" is just a term used on the forums, Overpowered has been used in game design for at least 20 years LOL People use the term "broken" when they mean OP.
4 -
I have always thought of broken and Op differently.
Over Powered - Is stronger than it should be.
Broken - Something isn't working right.
Things that are broken can sometimes be OP but things that are OP are not always broken. Depends on a case per case basis.
6 -
Yes, but it's a pretty innacurate use.
People I know in game design use the term broken to define something that breaks a game's mechanics, period. It can be something that's so strong or automatic that automatically wins a game, something that literally crashes the game, etc.
5 -
I'm sorry, but what is your point with this mongrel of a post? I can't tell if you agree or disagree, you are somewhere in-between.
1 -
I'm not angry at your comment, I'm simple indifferent to it. If you interpret that as anger, then that's on you. I'm not accountable for interpretations.
1 -
I was simply pointing out how she is in fact OP. However, also breaking your logic that just because a Rank 20 nurse can get beaten means that nurse overall is balanced. While I also explained her mechanics in a fair way.
8 -
This is called semantics, when debating on forums.
2 -
I mean, I think it's pretty clear to people who understand words that OP = too strong.
The subjective part is what you define as too strong.
Thinking anything isn't too strong just because you have to lEarN it first is pretty questionable. That's not how game balance works.
7 -
I did not say that because of baby Nurses, the Nurse is balanced. I said that because of baby Nurses, the Nurse is neither overpowered nor broken. There's a difference.
To you as well: I am not responsible for what you interpret.
1 -
If I'd accept all those silly requests for "play against x, with conditions y and record it to prove z" I'd be playing this game to prove my points 24/7.
And I guess you misunderstood me, I'm not denying that Add-on Nurse is too strong, she is. Her Add-ons need changes, I'm on board with that, I even said it myself often enough.
However, my argument is that base-kit Nurse should be left alone as she is neither OP nor broken without her Add-ons.
1 -
3-man Swf on Temple of Puke. They are fine with names being shown they played fair and hard. Had perks and items. Coms and still couldn't win. Apparently base nurse is just balanced.
Rotten Fields; Dc on third hook will never understand why.
Post edited by Jdsgames on5 -
This completely misrepresents my views.
0 -
It's a distraction and they're trying to get us to defend positions we haven't even expressed. It's classic baiting: you're provoked with blatantly outrageous claims, your position is portrayed as something different to how you expressed it but you answer because their rebuttal of it is the same as their previous replies.
Then rather than argue with specific facts and reason, they've come out with this nonsensical 'fite me, i'll take u on m8' as if playing some KYF games mean anything.
Reading back through the thread; they've taken nothing on-board. My OP is meant to address every typical point of argument that has been used recently in arguing for Nurse nerfs, yet they just ignore it and think all it takes is to repeat those same talking-points.
Thaznar seems to be currently taking an enforced break, I hope they're using it to read more carefully without having the temptation to immediately start typing a reply. The 'short version' misrepresentation of my OP would not have been written if they had.
I do not believe 'Nurse is fine'. I do not believe 'because of a bug Nurse was weakest killer'. I do not believe 'nerfing Nurse is not needed'. All Thaznar needed to do to understand what my views were, was actually read them in the OP.
However, survivors do fail to adapt, it's just in this case there was actually some justification for it and they might not have been able to even if they realised the significance of the 1.9 changes, as I aknowledge in my post right at the end.
That survivors do not know what they want(and the devs must stop listening to them) is another matter which I do not bring up in my OP. However, the inability of people to sustain their attention long enough to actually read what amounts to just two A4 sheets of text can reasonably argued for excluding anything they have to say from feedback.
3 -
These arguments are hilarious.
The same people saying Nurse is fine because brand new rank 20 players struggle with her, also claim the game should be balanced around the highest rank Survivors.
The amount of bias is hilarious.
11 -
-
KillersNurse should be judged and nerfed by the best players playing her. - Survivors should NOT be judged by potentail of the best players.
Survivor double standard at its finest, hillarious.
7 -
-
When did I say Survivors shouldn’t be? Both sides should either be balanced around the best players, or the new players.
8 -
Horvath said on the dev stream specifically that they would only be looking at her addons. Not at her power itself. So base Nurse will be fine.
2 -
Except he didn't?
5 -
The Nurse is the only skill-based killer, and nerfing just means hindering her and the player.
SWF´s with voice comms can still get the gens done and escape, i dont know where people see a problem actually.
2 -
Considering that one of the biggest complaints in the game is the gap between solo survivor play and SWF, I don't think it's healthy if you NEED to be a SWF to escape against the Nurse.
8 -
Being SWF with voice comms is the best thing survivor can put on the table.
Being a good Nurse is the best thing a killer can bring on the table.
When the best thing a killer can bring on the table cant compete with SWF´s anymore there is a problem.
And being a good Nurse requires more than downloading teamspeak.
2 -
And when the Nurse is nerfed to fit solo survivors, how you compete against SWF´s, (which is the majority of the playerbase) in higher ranks?
0 -
The thing is, this game offers a solo role and a team role... when you are solo, its your problem if you play the team role... when you have no friends like me, play the goddamn Nurse (or Trapper) yourself and stop complaining :)
0 -
Why is Nurse judged and evaluated at her highest potential whereas survivors are not?
6 -
its like playing counterstrike with a f... gamepad, asking for mouse and keyboard players to get a artificial disadvantage to stay competititve.
You play solo survivor? Dont complain...
0 -
And Peanits said on this forum they will be changing her base kit "slightly"
2 -
False. It's already been shown time and time again. Fake news.
2 -
What has been shown?
0 -
SWF's is not as common as you think it is.
2 -
LOL devs have posted stats showing it is over 50% and they have posted stats showing it at 70% of all matches is SWF.
Sure, 50-70 % is "not as common as you think"
too funny when even the devs stats prove you wrong. Here's my advice, do a test, comb each lobby and see who is in SWF, youll see at least 50% of your matches contain them, usually more than 50%
2
