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The Billy question no one is asking...
@Almo @Peanits If you're generally happy with how Billy is, why did you choose to nerf him at all? Obviously a lot of time was spent to create the changes for the overheating mechanic from the overheating visuals and the coding required for it to work.
But where is the news about changes that the players have been clamoring for for possibly much longer than you've thought about nerfing Billy?
-Underused perk improvements
-Generally weaker Killers
-Changes to keys and mories
-Nurse fixes
-Totems
-Sound issues
and other oft requested and talked about issues on the forums.
My question is simply "why"?
Why were resources spent on changing Billy when there are requests from the community for other more pressing issues like the ones I've listed already.
The Clown's movement speed penalty while throwing was removed while still leaving a slowdown bug in place and doesn't exactly help his issue creating "pressure" . Trapper still needs work but you mentioned before that the trap reset change happened because it was easy. If you were still working on Trapper, why have no changes happened since then to help with his other issues when clearly more effort has gone into this "minor" nerf for Billy that required an entirely new mechanic to be created.
Is something similar to the "minor" Billy nerf in the immediate works as a "minor" buff for Clown and Trapper?
To be fair, we're getting Bubba changes and it looks like you used the overheat mechanic for his tantrum without the overheat mechanic visuals and cooldown, then simply increased some numbers for him. Maybe additional Trapper and Clown changes are in the works and you simply haven't said anything just like these changes.
We don't know, but when things like these unnecessary or non-essential nerfs are announced, it really does feel like you don't listen to us at all.
Even if you totally listened and buffed Leatherface.
Please explain why this change was decided upon and why it was implemented before other longstanding and debilitating issues.
As an aside, I don't care about the change. I don't play Billy at all.
I'm more interested in how and why you make decisions and why you choose some to be prioritized over others.
I simply want to understand why, because many decisions that are announced often sound nonsensical to those of us who play the game at as high of a level as our skill will allow.
Comments
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Billy doesn't have a downsides beside just being bad at using him, making the game easier by nerfing loops & pallets made this change necessary, anyone who can't see that is just biased.
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Gonna agree with this but for a different reason.
With map sizes being reduced, he's definitely a stronger killer. Being able to travel the map in a short amount of time as much as you want allows for insane pressure fairly often.
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My guess is that the add on rework was such a buff they needed to add another mechanic to compensate. The other reason is the new mechanics removes game play they want to discourage.
For instance, if I read it correctly, if you activate a chainsaw, you don’t stop chainsawing until you hit something or let go. The bar doesn’t stop you. That part they want to keep. They don’t want people on the other hand holding a 99% chaijsaw in front of a hooked player. This was more of a Cannibal issue but Billy’s could do a similar move. Cooldowns stopped that.
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Don't forget about the matchmaking.
I guess things like this are on the "to do list", but I really don't understand why they aren't prioritised.
The dreadful state of the game should be priority number one, not shoved under the rug till they get around to it.
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We'll see. But if my hypothesis is right based on the info, he's going to be worse than people think.. especially at loops. But we'll see
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If I had to guess, I say that it's because Billy's design is outdated compared to the rest of the killers.
A lot of the newer killers either have limits to their power like cooldowns or lethality, are punished if they play badly or have to prepare their power before using it. Spirit and Nurse have great map pressure but have cooldowns to limit it. Legion, Deathslinger and Pyramid Head are punished if they miss with lengthy cooldowns to their attacks. Oni and Demo need to collect blood/place portals before they can utilize their power to their full effect.
Meanwhile with Billy he has none of these drawbacks with his power. He has the greatest map pressure out of all killers with no cooldown to his chainsaw, which can also one-shot. He doesn't have a long cooldown if he misses his chainsaw, which can be further reduced with add-ons. He also gets his full power from the beginning of the game, so he can cause pressure from the get go. His power is a low skill floor high skill ceiling power that doesn't really punish players for making mistakes, so my guess is that the devs wanted to raise the skill floor a bit so that the killer is punished more for making multiple misses in a row.
As for why they did it now was probably because of the add-on pass. The devs are bringing the chainsaw bros add-ons up to par so they probably thought that if they want to make any changes now to their base kits they should do it now so that their add-ons can reflect the new power without having to make any changes to them further down the line.
I don't really play Billy so I don't have much opinion about the change but when I play survivor a good Billy is my favorite killer to go against, so I hope that the change won't affect the killer's skill ceiling too much. I won't have an opinion on the change until the PTB comes out so I can see how he performs.
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That's the reason he was nerfed, because of all the sweeping map changes & loop reductions and pallet reductions, that's it, he's too strong for the game currently. and why should the devs shy away from "controversial" things just because there are other things to also work on?
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More accurately, why weren't the changes to Trapper finished before moving on to Billy?
The question is at its core about their prioritization choices.
Also, is it a good idea to change killers according to the data they currently have rather than finishing and implementing the MMR system and using THAT data to implement changes as needed to create and keep fair matches between players?
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Everybody that doesn't understand that nerfs are not as important as fixing gamebreaking bugs as sound is just biased and entitled.
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Their priority doesn't have to match your priority, I don't see why you think it should, when they see 90% off billies running pop/infectious and 4King almost every match because of those perks, especially with sweeping match changes you could maybe understand why their priority doesn't match yours.
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No, bugs are important to fix too, now move along with your gaslighting.
Can you just point out to me where I say they should nerf more things instead of fixing bugs btw? I can wait. :)
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Actually they are more important. Not just a few people who wish for an operation health and no more content pushing.
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Except I'm not complaining about them fixing too many bugs and not nerfing enough things, your argument has literally no valid point other than gaslighting.
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Well, the problem here is that billy does not really require you to be really good with him, just that you know how to rev your chainsaw around the whole map and catch a survivor ina bad position.
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No, it doesn't. Which is the entire point of the thread.
I'm asking what their reasoning is so I can understand why.
You're trying to pick a fight where none exists as usual and as evidenced by your defensive posts against other posters who understand the question/OP.
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and I've said why, they made sweeping map changes, billy has always been a killer that's had a high kill rate, obviously his contantly high kill rate isn't fun, especially with the majority of them (from what I've seen) running pop / infectious there's next to 0 downsides to playing him.
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Are you a dev? Are you privvy to their prioritization decisions and reasonings or are you assuming like the rest of us are forced to.
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Doesn’t have a downside? Like chainsaw cooldown, stuns, can’t M1 for 3 seconds without add-ons after cooldowns, false saws, collision with invisible walls, and more that people who play Billy would actually know.
Claiming he has no downsides really shows how much you have played him.
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Did they change maps? ✅
Does Billy Do Phenomenally Well With Pop / Infectious? ✅
Is the only downside missing a chainsaw attack with a minor cooldown? ✅
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Not really a matter of getting lucky, just knowing when to use your power (which is not really hard in the first place). Get close to a survivor, if he is not near a loop chainsaw him, if he is make some cheeky mindgame around the loop and either down him or break the pallet almost instantly.
Truth is billy has too little downsides for a power that grants him both good lethality and massive map pressure.
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Yikes, imagine mentioning bugs as downsides, if only you knew how buggy survivor was, then that's the buggiest role to play with the most downsides.
If you miss a saw, that's on you, oh no, you can't immediately M1 after not being able to get an insta down for a whole 3 seconds? Sounds completely underwhelming considering YOU FAILED AN INSTA DOWN. His "downsides" don't correlate to how strong his power are, they're basically non-existant.
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You are shooting yourself in the foot saying this, just because one side is buggy it does not nullify the bugs of the other, billy does have some annoying collision bugs especially on maps like haddonfield and lerys
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Who says that balancing and bug fixing is done by the same people?
I mean only the Devs can answer that question, but from what I remember they said quite some time ago in a q&a that the chainsaws are on the list (could have already been a year ago, but I'm not sure).
Maybe they are happy with Trapper's Performance after the changes or maybe they want to finish the addons reworks, that give all killers the same addon structure, before they change other killers.
The last mid chapter Patch had no killer rework, so imo it makes sense that this one has. Also they will buff Bubba (and it wouldn't make sense to change the chainsaw killers in different patches imo) and some perks with that Chapter and I would assume that bug fixes are a different team's reasponsibilty, so it's not like the only thing they are doing this mid-chapter is nerfing Billy.
Another reason could be that they fear that planned general changes in the future (like the early game mechanic mentioned in the stream) would make Billy OP, so they change him first.
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I'm not shooting myself in the foot at all, both sides have bugs, and they should be fixed they aren't downsides that are supposed to be there for either side, my point was people making out like bugs are a downside are just proving that survivors are the most hard done by because they suffer the most bugs with phantom hits, being hit over pallets, meters away.
Neither side should have bugs, and I don't class bugs as downsides, I was being facetious.
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Survivors have more bugs, really, Is that how disconnected you are from the killer role? When did this turn into a survivor Vs Killer argument anyways you’re being defensive for some odd reason.
So no M1 after a chainsaw miss IS a downside still, one of many that made him balanced enough for a survivor to be able to make a vault/loop in the given time and extend the chase.
Downsides absolutely correlate to power, what kind of statement is that anyways.
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Aside from that, while I won't claim that devs are survivorsided, survivorbugs get a higher priority since you know..fixing 1 bug fixes a ton of player's concern as to where for example fixing nurse fixes like...what...10 people's issues with her? Survivorbugs often get high priority because it affects way more people than a single killer being bugged.
Now the soundbug on the other hand, I'd rather point my finger on "they dont know how to fix it"
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I think they went for Hillbilly change first because it was on the list and its easy to do. Believe it or not most of your list is not as easy as to put some kind of CD on a power.
The only thing I believe would be easier are Moris and Keys but they have a problem with that rework, the very moment they announce a change to either of them (even if they were to be changed at the same time to avoid drama) people would go INSANE with tantrums and tears everyone would start burning all their Moris and Keys until there were none left to make the "enemy" experience as miserable as possible because "HOW DARE YOU TOUCH MY MORIS/KEYS, ITS ALL YOUR FAULT BOOSTED KILLERS/SURVIVORS", making the game unplayable and super unfun for everyone for a time.
It happened with the Ruin and Toolbox nerf, the sheer amount of Ebonys I had to suffer when they announced the Ruin change still gives me nightmares.
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Lessons in how to Dodge a question #3
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and yes, survivors as a whole have more bugs than what billy does, or what the other killers do.
No, his downsides don't correlate at all, he has a 3 second cooldown for missing an insta down, at which point he can then just try and insta down again or M1, the punishment "cooldown" doesn't fit the crime "missing an insta down and being able to try and insta down 3 seconds later", or sooner with addons.
They aren't balanced "downsides" at all.
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Didn't dodge it, making assumptions based off obvious information is very easy to do.
I gave three points that showed yes I'm making observations, but they're based on facts that I listed, no?
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You ignored the question you quoted while answering.
Lessons in dodging questions #4, 6, and the entire "answering another question section"
You really never have anything constructive to say so I'll refrain from responding to you from here on out. I'm waiting for a response from someone on the dev team anyway.
Feel free to argue with everyone else though.
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In the 3 second cooldown, you gain 12m distance which takes 30s to catchup. Instasaw aside, missing a chainsaw often leads to losing the game.
Dont worry, 28.5 seconds overheat cooldown will fix billy forever. This "minimal" change will fix his pickrate, so you dont have to play against billy again. Its time for real skill killers like freddy
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Yea, because you say such constructive things, usually you make a bait post and abandon it soon after if the replies you get aren't what you want, lmao.
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What constructive criticism did you give besides ask him if he is a dev? lmao.
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Survivors run at 4 m/s
Most killers move at (including billy) 4.6 m/s
Why does it take a survivor 3 seconds to get 12m, but a killer (who moves faster) 30 seconds to catch up? lmao
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It's funny because he asks a question he knows the answer to and then because I don't answer it he uses it to gas light me with "well you didn't answer the question I already know the answer too therefore I'm not going to discuss with you anymore".
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3 seconds, where survivors move at 4m/s and killer at 0m/s. 12m distance lead.
Now killers move at 4,6m/s which makes them catch up with 4,6m/s - 4m/s = 0,6m/s. To catchup a 12m distance lead, it takes 12m / 0.6m/s = 20s. 30 seconds was wrong, its only 20 seconds.
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Straight maths doesn't really work for this game I feel though, survivors don't just hold W, they'll go to a loop and stop, and then you're right next to them, I understand what you're saying, if they were racing, yes it would take 20 seconds, but survivors tend not to run in perfectly straight lines.
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Do you feel that the frustration with most decisions for DBD lies in a lack of communication?
I kind of got this feeling around the ruin nerf. Now with hindsight its very clear that ruin was nerfed alongside them developing the mass map changes. Do you think that if they either waited and released the ruin nerf alongside the map changes or at least said "we are changing this because we are about to massively improve and balance most of the maps in the game" that we would have been less inclined to get pissed. while their were some glaring ommissions in certain changes to maps I would argue overall it was a bonus to a more balanced dbd. In conjuction with the map changes the ruin nerf doesnt feel like such a severe nerf anymore on most maps. Anyway point is communication.
If the devs talked to us more about the ######### they were working on or atleast say after they announce changes that go live in the next update they atleast mention what they are working on next that everyone wouldnt feel so on edge and angry?
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Thats a mistake on their part though, not because missing a chainsaw has no consequences. I run straight lines when billies miss chainsaw and i actually do get 20s lead, which leads to very long chases.
If survivors camp pallets instead of looping them or running to a further loop, its their fault tbh
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I main billy, if you're a monster with him of course you'll do well. But that's like 4 to 5% of the general playbase, if you play both roles like most 1000+ hour players you know that every killer requires you to play different, billy has issues that should be fixed before a nerf. Like invisible walls, false saws (which happen more than you'd think) and God awful sound bugs. If anything maybe nerf his addons a bit. As a survivor he's pretty easy to juke but literally everything boils down to skill. And devs just enjoy catering to newer players.
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Against a good billy you have to try and play around those kind of obstacles though, I've had a lot of billies zoom infront of me and turn around, with addons to reduce cooldown I have know here else to go.
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They’ll never answer this question because you’re asking them to explain the internal workings of their business.
Besides which, “why are you doing X and not Y?” isn’t a particular easy question to answer when they probably have to balance a ton of things - data, player feedback, management expectations, allocation of resources, cost, how long a particular task has been in the “to do” pile, and so on.
How do you prioritise tasks at work? Would you be comfortable explaining it to an online forum of people who know exactly who you are and where you work why you make every decision you make? I wouldn’t.
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And thats exactly where the problem lies. Cooldown reduction aka instasaw reduces that lead to a minimum, so you can use it to catch up. Thats what should get nerfed as it allowed chainsaw spamming to catch up and try lucky chainsaw again and again.
Normal billy doesnt even allow that playstyle. Thats instasaw
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The problem here is that it's not just bad billy's that are punished here.
The good billy's are punished too, even moreso since they can get more out of continuous momentum while a bad billy is more likely to just resort to M1ing and thus end up not being overheated as often.
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They did a Bubba rework, added a mechanic to stop Bubba from reving in the face of a hooked survivor
noticed Billy has the same issue that he can rev in a hooked survivors face, added a simular mechanic that wouldn't hamper his original playstyle to much, that's all the reason there is
It's up for the ptb now to decide if this mechanic really doesn't detter his normal gameplay
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Now it’s survivors altogether have more bugs than Billy? Isn’t that obvious and why it needs mentioning is just more filler space.
“he can then just try and insta down again or M1” - When is the last time you played Billy because at high ranks even the best Billy’s know it’s not that simple.
You say all these things as if you know Billy so well but everything coming out of your arguments shows more and more that you clearly don’t play him.
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100%
If I remember right, we got hit with the Ruin nerf and only heard about the map changes weeks or months later. I think there were some killer changes in there too. But the biggest issue was that we were hit with the nerf with the knowledge of past actions by the devs expecting to wait several months of gen rush (which we still are) with no word on actions taken or planned to be taken other than "we're going to watch and wait"
Communication is the most important aspect of any relationship and Player/Developer relationships are no different.
Possibly, but there's certainly room for transparency isn't there? We don't have to know every aspect of the decision making process, but it wouldn't hurt to be a little more transparent in regards to their decision making process right?
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Survivor literally doesn't have any bugs, what are you talking about?
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If you think people wouldn’t use their answer as a bludgeon to beat them with you’re kidding yourself. If they said that they base their decisions on data people would scream that their data is bad. If they said it was player feedback people would scream about rank 20 survivors. If they said they picked their next task based on a multitude of complicated factors but the biggest reasons for their decision were X, Y and Z there would be thread after thread about how Behaviour only cares about those things because they’re things survivors care about and Behaviour hates killer players.
Look at the forums whenever Behaviour release any kind of update on upcoming changes or features. They’re filled with threads giving absolutely no leeway or benefit of the doubt whatsoever. A lot of people here hate the devs and hate the game and yet obsess about it constantly. That’s not the sort of community that invites transparency.
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