The Unprofessional Killer Experience
Since the dawn of Dead by Daylight, the game has always leaned in the Survivor's favor. There is nothing anyone can say that will change my mind, and everything you will read is my proof.
First of all, I will always be optimistic for the future updates that this game will hold, but I'm focusing on now. The Killer experience of now. Nowadays, Killers are generally weak compared to the legion of determined human beings who wish to escape with their lives, and perhaps plant their flags in the realm of the Entity. The objective is super simple: protect the generators, don't let them get fixed. Seems easy enough. The first few trials will go smoothly. The next few hundred, maybe even thousand, and you'll start to see where people are coming from when they say that the game is Survivor-biased.
Just apply pressure.
You can't.
It is an impossible task unless the Survivors aren't trying. All they have to do is ignore all other things besides unhooking and the game is won. Why do Killers gain momentum so slow? Why do Survivors recover so quickly? This is why some Killers resort to slug builds or relying on cheap, unfun tactics in order to win. It's a bogus thing to do, and I don't encourage it, but a game in this state sparks uprise just like it would in any community, not just in gaming. People want justice.
That's why there is "killer viability". I hate it. I want to play as The Deathslinger or The Clown and have jolly good time doing it. I shouldn't have to divert all of my focus into this video game in order to avoid Entity Displeased while my foes relax and enjoy watching me suffer as the objective flies by and the gates are open before I can even reach them. I shouldn't have to be forced to play certain Killers to have just a chance to emerge victorious. I shouldn't have to be limited to a specific set of "viable" perks to cover my back while I carry someone to a hook. But even those can't save me.
Even after all of that though, it's not about the Killers. There's nothing wrong with the Killers. It's the Survivors, we should worry about.
The basic formula of Survivors NEEDS to change. Their objectives are way too easy. The only bit of knowledge they need in order to play effectively is knowing which perks are exemplary, and knowing which button is the Interact Button(M1). Not to mention, they have loads of tools to speed it up: medkits, toolboxes, Prove Thyself for goodness sake! Even the recent changes to sabotage have caused problems. They've strengthened toolboxes to the point where their utility outshines flashlights! All it takes is someone finding a box of Worn-Out Tools in a chest, and they have the power to deny hooks AND speed up the objective.
And then there are maps... The maps are quite complicated to talk about. When people refer to maps, they're mostly targeting loops, size, and gen placements, which is fair. Loops have been changing dramatically, as have gen placements, featuring smaller loops and new tiles. Generators have also started being placed in more unsafe areas to increase the risk involved in doing so. However, the size of the maps is one of the major issues.
Killers without mobility featured in their powers are often regarded as the weakest of the roster for obvious reasons. Maps such as Temple of Purgation or Sanctum of Wrath are massive, and moving at 110%-115% speed base is nowhere near enough to keep FOUR Survivors in check by patrolling the sparsely placed generators. Slugging is an effective method of dealing with this, but 9 times out of 10, you'll only end up forfeiting a hook. Killers such as Hillbilly, Freddy, and Nurse have movement abilities, such as a dash or teleport. All of the others who have only traps or chasing powers are almost guaranteed failure against a team of focused Survivors.
In conclusion, the base game is need of repairs, and holding down the interaction button won't fix it anymore. The Survivor's side of the game needs to be enriched and maps should be spiced up a bit. Killers will still get their designated reworks, but one day, we should turn to the side we feared the most and see what they have to offer.
Thanks for reading this essay, and see you in The Fog.
Comments
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Agreed, playing Killer lately hasn't been that much fun because of the insanely fast Gen speed and SWFs genrushing.
However, I think the Devs are trying to think of something to balance the game and that will be enjoyable to both sides, which is very difficult considering how divided the Community is one core issues of the game.
Currently, I think the Devs are balancing the game for the majority of the players, which are Survivor players. Also, many new players came in after the release of the Stranger Things DLC, and they were having quite a difficult time at first because they didn't know how to play the game yet. I have no way of confirming this is actually what they are doing, this is just my educated guess on this issue.
Many Killer players and players who play both sides agree that Gen speed is insanely fast, giving the Killer very little space to apply enough map pressure to slow down the Gens. A handful of Maps still have God Loops that force the Killer to stop chasing a Survivor if they run there, and since Maps are quite RNG-dependent, there are a plentiful of map iterations with strong, interconnected loops everywhere.
Hopefully, the Devs are aware of all these issues and are trying to address them.
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It's Devs intention of course, even if they don't say it.
1 if the game was balanced for both there would be too many killers, and to make people play survivor they would have to offer like double or triple experience just to play survivor ( in order to keep 1 killer and 4 Survivor s)
2 they're too lazy and they have to make money quickly, so they just confuse things every update and forgive ± things
3 it always worked for them, while should they change this brand? Forget the old players! There will always be new meat to use!
4 Gen rush? Shhhhh... It doesn't exist! And if you mention or criticize me in any way on Twitch or YouTube you will never obtain my partnership
5 there are too many swf survivors who like to win to nerf them
6 they always thinked the game to be random, and that's why I am out and now I'm on Rainbow six, a game where Devs actually listen to the community, have good game designers, fix bugs and all sorts of stupid stuff quick and players know the GAME WILL BE ALWAYS BETTER IN THE FUTURE, INSTEAD OF JUST TRYING TO FIX IT WITH PERKS AND PROMISES EMPTY OF EVERY HOPE
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The direction the developers need to take is to start fixing maps, as they play a major role in the issue of Killers getting gen-rushed and struggle to apply any pressure at all. If it takes you 30-40 seconds just to walk to the other side of the map, then that is a massive flaw in the balancing system of the game.
With maps being fixed, loops need to be less ''safe'' for the survivors. Many structures/maps have loops which are not able to be mind-gamed, which not only makes the interaction between Killer/Survivor boring, but gives the survivor a temporary state of invulnerability (I.E you cannot do anything to me on this structure).
Once the maps were properly fixed with the addition of loops/structures being balanced, perhaps they could look at some specific survivor perks like Decisive Strike, Prove Thyself or others which create unfair issues on the killers side. However, fixing the maps and loops of the game would probably solve a majority of the issues Killer face.
TL.DR - FIX maps to be smaller and make loops less ''safe'' so survivors/killers have more mind-game potential.
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Btw I'm a player with 1600 hrs, that with thousands and thousands of hours passed watching twitch dbd streamers and YouTubers now has more of 2600/700 of game knowledge, maybe even more, I don't even remember, Since when I first saw the game on its realise from a youtuber and bought a pc just for dbd, I've been playing dbd since January 2017
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There already isn’t enough Killers. Have you seen Survivor queue times? We need more Killers!
Also, I know they’re not lazy. BHVR isn’t a big company like Ubisoft is and doesn’t have as many employees. Not to mention that there aren’t many games quite like DbD, so there aren’t any models for them to follow in terms of balancing.
Lastly, I never asked for a SWF nerf. The whole Survivor’s side needs looking at: objectives, loops, even little things like healing and altruism. Then when maps get changed for the better, there shouldn’t be a gap between SWF and solo-queue at that point. If so, build a bridge. How? That’s why we’re here.
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Exactly. They should do what they do with loops where all tiles are 16x16, except with maps it’s about 100x130 or something like that. They should vary it slightly, but nothing too major so that we don’t have too big or small maps by accident.
But not just that, there needs to be a secondary objective of some kind. My idea is that the generators are the primary objective across all maps, but the secondary objective will be specific to the map and be incorporated into the map’s structure. Among other things...
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