The problem of looping as it relates to balance.

savevatznick

Let us be frank here. Looping is the core of DBD's balance, but the developers do not balance the game as if it were so.

What is looping? In an ideal sense, looping is an exploit, in my opinion. A survivor has a smaller collision box than a killer, and thus the path they take around an object if they hug corners, is naturally smaller than the path a killer needs to take. This mitigates a killer's advantage in speed to the point where a survivor is able to waste a killer's time to allow their teammates to complete objectives.

What does this do to the game?

Well, for one, a killer's effectiveness revolves around their ability to shut down the "looping " exploit. Nurse and spirit are perfect examples, because they turn the entire map into a mind-game, instead of a single loop. This means that a survivor no longer has a reliable safe-area that wastes a certain amount of a killer's time - instead, it relies on a survivor vs a killer's skill in the game. Given that people play competitively, a killer will always choose to have more agency over their time, as opposed to less, - thus ,at high ranks, most players rely on the "holy Trinity" to shut down survivor loops, preserve time, and ultimately efficiently snowball the game.

Looping is a mechanic that places the locus on control onto a survivor. If they can loop optimally, they can waste a set amount of a killer's time such that a killer can not kill most of the survivors in time to stop the generators from being done. Looping puts a survivor into the power role, neutralizing any threat a killer can pose.

What problems does this pose for balance?

Obviously, this creates problems for any character who can't evade loops. Even a character like The Clown, who specializes in shutting down loops, suffers because his ability to shut down looping is counterbalanced by his complete lack of map control. His power budget doesn't allow for him to both have map pressure and shut loops down. Characters like the newly released Ghostface are, despite their power, quite lackluster simply because they are vulnerable to the same things most other killers are vulnerable to - if a killer can be looped, they are not strong.

Characters who can circumvent loops are increasingly prevalent in high rank because they can ignore a survivor's one way of self-preservation. Nurse, Spirit, Billy. All of these killers can ruin a survivor's exploitation of a loop to stop the amount of time they can waste from a killer. The faster a killer can end a chase the better their chances of winning, since their time isn't spent chasing someone around in circles repeatedly.

How do we fix this?

We can make every Killer like Nurse or Spirit, that can evade loops, and balance accordingly. This is quite hard.

We can avoid balancing around loops in the first place. We could add ALTERNATIVE WAYS OF AVOIDING THE KILLER. This will also be hard, since hardcore survivors will be pissed at any system that mitigates their "skill in looping" in favor of a more varied skillset. We need less exploitative ways of a survivor evading a chase, and that is not a small undertaking. I doubt the devs will consider this.

We can make every single loop mind-gameable. This could mitigate the issue of certain buildings or pallets being "safe areas" against m1 killers. Every looping being mind-gameable would reduce the game to a series of mindgames, where if a killer won two in a row, they'd be rewarded with a "down". Of course, this would require devs to balance their maps competitively.

I'm sure there are more solutions, and I know Looping is the plain and simple meta. I'm simply looking for ways to balance everything competitively. Please let me know about your feedback! And please refer to my other thread, which deals with a different issue. I want to tackle the core problems of DBD and make it a long term viable product!

(https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/78487/the-problem-of-the-add-on-system-as-it-relates-to-balance-long-read#latest)

oxygen

At this point looping is basically a "fault-turned-feature" much like rocket jumping in games that feature it, Gandhi dropping nukes left and right in Civ games and so on.

Making looping less foolproof by making structures more mindgameable would indirectly make actually breaking chase more appealing as well, you'd be less likely to safely run from pallet to pallet for as long. I would personally love this as when I play the game my focus is heavily on individual chases over the end result, and mindgaming (and getting mindgamed for that matter!) is the game at its best to me.

My perfect chase-related design would be one with maps heavily reworked to facilitate more mindgames and with the need for bloodlust eliminated.

Milo

"We can make every single loop mind-gameable." Isn't this happening with map balances?

derperson

Amen brother.

I made a suggestion recently to buff bloodlust by making it tier more quickly, and for chases to end more slowly, which I hope would allow the killer to extract some value from wasted time in chases due to mechanics you mention here. But, my suggestion is a part of buffing a perk, and after reading your post, I'm reminded of things that make me realize the issue is more than to do with a perk alone. Maybe a buff to the base activation times of bloodlust and a delay to ending chases in general would empower more of those 'm1' killers.

You also gave me an idea from your suggestions... what about having a probability to control the time it takes for pallets/generators to be broken, rather than a flat value? Like, a 90% chance of it taking the base time, but a 10% chance of it taking 3/4 of the time, and a 5% chance it takes half the time?

Ultimately, I don't know why this game's balance is off. It's like this in almost all of the games I play these days, balance is just up in the air, like some sort of industry trend.

CoffengMin

ok so , how and since when can billy shut down loops, isnt he good just because of instadowns and map presure?

isnt map presure what makes both spirit and nurse good too?i mean, yes the mindgames/blinks at pallets are definitively a plus but looping is only a problem if you dont have map pressure or just suck at mindgames too much

my point is: nurse isnt strong because of shutting down(or rather ignoring) any pallet/window, shes OP because of it, shed be only strong if she couldnt just ignore mechanics(and had decent movement speed).

spirit is the example:doesnt completely ignore mechanics but can move really fast around the map with a slight warning shes coming and has a bigger mindgame potential than other killers making her strong but not op (unless prayer beads is used)

billy is like spirit but instead of mindgaming he punishes bad positioning with instadowns and can use it more freely

Milo

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/616432#Comment_616432

"You also gave me an idea from your suggestions... what about having a probability to control the time it takes for pallets/generators to be broken, rather than a flat value? Like, a 90% chance of it taking the base time, but a 10% chance of it taking 3/4 of the time, and a 5% chance it takes half the time?"

We don't need even more RNG...