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God forbid the game asks you to predict your opponent's actions

I find this a completely baffling thing in this community.

It's generally accepted in other videogames that the ability to anticipate your opponent's actions based on the character or faction they're playing, the specific context of the match or game and the specific player being played, is often a sign of a highly capable player who displays deep understanding of the game and it's players, to the point they can operate several plays ahead.

This seems to be true of DBD killers to an extend, because having the First Person FOV they inherently need to make plays predicting survivor's movements and actions.

This happens in some situations for survivors too for instance they have to predict if the Huntress is gonna wind up a hatchet at the pallet or keep walking. This is unreactable, if you wait and don't drop the pallet she keeps walking and smacks you, if you drop the pallet and she readied the hatched she smacks you. However it's a read that the Huntress needs to make as well.

However for the most part I see post after post of people, mainly survivors, but killers as well, wanting killer characters to be more like NPC bosses than actual players with tools to be deceptive and play upon their opponent's expectations.

"Deathslinger's ADS is too quick, Spirit gives you no info, Pyramid Head can m1 after m2 too quick... THERE'S NO COUNTER PLAY".... Never mind the fact that the player on the killer side needs to anticipate what survivors are going to do. Never mind the fact that survivors can anticipate what the killer is going to do and counter accordingly IF they understand how the killer is played and pay attention to stuff other than "boxes+pallet=circle around until press space". If you pay attention and know how the killer's power works, their timings, how far you are from the killer, what loops are safe or not against them, what info the killer needs, how the player is playing them, every single killer in this game has counters that you can use... Yes, some of them deviate from the norm and ask you to use that knowledge to predict your their actions. That's not lack of counter play, it's counter play that's harder to pull off which is exactly what makes stronger killers strong.

This is a bit of a rant, but i just find it hard to understand how this kind of predictive counter play is seen as high skill in other games but in DBD when a killer requires it from survivors, all of a sudden the character is too OP and needs a nerf because NO COUNTER PLAY...

More on the subjective side, I absolutely love going against Spirit, SPECIFICALLY because, if you consistently beat her at loops, you are 100% in this player's head. You know how're they're thinking and you know what they're trying to do and you're just messing with them. Same thing with Deathslinger or Pyramid Head... I can understand people may like a different kind of play style to this, but to actively suggest it's a sign of 0 counter play is a whole thing entirely.

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Comments

  • catbeans
    catbeans Member Posts: 316

    Nailed it. I was just trying to explain this in a PH thread yesterday. You cannot loop him the same way you loop all other killers. You cannot expect to beat every killer the same way every time because every killer playes differently.

  • immortalls96
    immortalls96 Member Posts: 4,652
    edited July 2020

    To be fair avoiding or baiting shots isnt hard , especially if you run dh...its not super reachable but you do have that moment when you see his hin move and his shot still has travel time to it..I'd say his chase isnt even in has favor inside of tiles because pallets are legit force fields vs him..which is silly for a 110

  • immortalls96
    immortalls96 Member Posts: 4,652

    To be fair clown is weak primarily due to no map presence..hes a 1v1 character in a 1v4 game

  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,543

    Sure, you can instantly throw pallets against him and make it so you completely bypass the mindgame of predicting anything for anyone and he just goes around kicking pallets all day and hope they last til the game is over... but once again wheres the fun in that for ANYONE. The enjoyment in the chases comes down to outsmarting your opponent and predicting their movements. Games where I have ppl running from 1 pallet to the next and CAMPING them without ever trying to actually run a Junglegym or something is just incredibly boring. Of course this also would only actually work for like half the pallets in the game since many of them allows him to shoot you and walk around the pallet before the chain breaks.

    As far as your DH example, while its true that you can maybe predict a shot and DH to avoid it... that would have to be PURE prediction with no actual indication of a shot coming since by the time you see the rifle get raised on your side, the killer has already fired the shot on THEIR side.

  • NekoTorvic
    NekoTorvic Member Posts: 778

    I feel that's a way to never be wrong though. Like if the slinger hits, its on hit for being good and if the slinger misses its on him for being bad? I don't agree that survivors can be completely taken out of the equation like that. Slinger's shots are predictive. If the survivor anticipated what you were gonna do and you didn't anticipate their actions you miss the shot and that's on both players. There are situations that you can be put in against a Deathslinger that are a lose lose for a survivor, but that's every killer and even survivors can put killers in those situations.

    About Dead Hard and most other strong survivor perks. I have 0 problem with perks like this. It's part of what survivors take into account when making their plays and it's on the killer's to see it coming.

  • NekoTorvic
    NekoTorvic Member Posts: 778

    I believe that is what sets stronger chase killers apart. They're given the tools, in whichever form they come, to make plays that survivors either have a very short time to react to or have to predict in order to come out on top.

  • NekoTorvic
    NekoTorvic Member Posts: 778

    I do like how you're thinking about Clown. I can't say I can unlock that potential on him myself. However I think his recent buff has made him pretty formidable.

  • anarchy753
    anarchy753 Member Posts: 4,212

    The issue is the imbalance of the guessing. Deathslinger and Pyramid Head are both incredibly hard to play against because of how quickly they can jump between what they're doing with almost no penalty. Deathslinger and raise and lower his gun rapidly, forcing you to move erratically with basically no penalty to himself.

    In Spirit's case, with sound she can precisely work out exactly where a survivor is and land a hit easily. Of course survivors know she's about to appear right on top of them, the issue is there's very little they can do to prevent that being a hit when she has a huge window where she could appear, or completely move around obstructions.

  • NumB_16
    NumB_16 Member Posts: 78

    This is wrong about huntress: she gets slowed down, has a windup animation, noise indication and timing. Also if she cancels the M2 she has a cooldown. So survivors get information of what she's doing and can react to it.

    Let's compare her to deathslinger: deathslinger can quick scope giving no time for survivors to react, also he can instantly M1 after canceling M2. Same goes for pyramid head can cancel the M2 with no cooldown and instantly M1.

  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,543

    Theres 2 things I wanna point out with this. A survivor juking implys that this survivor just KNOWS your gonna even try for a shot. Them running left and right when you dont even have your rifle aimed is just setting them up to get M1ed. This idea that they should just jerk over last second as you go from running after them normally 1 moment to raising a rifle and instantly firing a round before the rifle is ever raised on their screen is basically expecting someone to be a psychic mindreader. In the Huntress pallet scenario theres at least a 50/50 chance anytime you reach the pallet but your now asking that survivor to be in that mindset of every second the Deathslinger has LOS on you rather than just a pallet.

    As far as your scenerio with the Deathslinger pallet in which your juking and they have to blindly fire a shot or something...they dont. They have enough time to completely respect the pallet and not make blindshots. If you throw it, you get shot. If you DONT throw it, they'll shoot you before you make it back around to the pallet again. The Deathslinger is setup to REACT to anything you do with the appropriate move whereas you have to PREDICT a shot that could be fired at any moment. Really it just comes down to how good the killer's aim is and not what you're doing as a survivor.

    To once again wrap up everything... His 1 v 1 potential in chases are high enough to feel unfair to anyone he's chasing, but his 1 v 4 is low enough that ppl can crank out gens and leave before he can pressure anything since his overall dmg output is low and clunky. Thats not a fun time for anyone. While its fun to nail quickscope shots as Deathslinger, your CONSTANTLY feeling the limitations of how slow he does everything.

    Quick note about your "lose lose" mention. Its equally BS when survivors do it too, I'm not arguing that. When you have ppl cranking out gens while injured because they have DS+unbreakable so your not allowed to capitalize off what should be a risky play on their part...thats just as dumb.

  • Sir_Bassington
    Sir_Bassington Member Posts: 229

    To be fair, you have to be a very skilled killer to play Spirit. The timing on her phase attack is extremely subtle, without a solid grasp on your mouse to use it, which the typical killer simply is unable to do, you're going to 0k. There's also Spirit's mindgames that you have to take into account, do you use your phase at a pallet to hit the person on the other side, or do you simply do nothing and wait for the survivor to do it on their own? The best Spirit mains understand this stuff. To this day I have never understood how anyone considers Leatherface useless. Compared to spirit without add-ons, he's stronger. Instant downs, pallet breaks, and normal speed vs spirit with slow speed and a power that enforces chance. Deathslinger need pin point accuracy to land hits, you know what Im talking about if you ever played MW2 back in the day, if he hits you its because hes a good shot. Its not the killers ADS, and instant cooldown and zoning potential that makes the slinger good, If you juke the Slinger its because he missed his mark.

  • xEa
    xEa Member Posts: 4,105

    Against a Huntress you have a choice how you use your defense, against Deathslinger you dont. Thats the difference.

    Or against Spirit, all you have is a guess, thats it. People say "but hey you can use this or that trick" ... its still luck. The problem is only that it has nothing to do with skill when you do the right or wrong move against Spirit.

    Dont even wanna talk about the Nurse. The Nurse means death, unless she is not playing well. Actually when i think about it, she is the best example. Its 100% in her hand if she wins a chase or not. No real influence of the survivor at all. Thats the problem with ballancing when you have a killer which can ignore every defense, the other side has. All she needs to have is skill and then it does not matter how much better in theory the other player is.

  • NumB_16
    NumB_16 Member Posts: 78

    DBD isnt a competitive game.

    And people dont want direct nerfs, they want changes. They're not saying those 3 killers are OP on the 1v4 scenario, but are just boring and lack counterplay on the 1v1.

  • Sir_Bassington
    Sir_Bassington Member Posts: 229

    Yes we should give every survivor Kindred, bond, empathy, OoO every aura reading perk known to the entity and buff every killers accordingly so every survivor playing solo has the ability to run BT, DS + Unbreakable, and the best exhaustion perk sprint burst. that way we can all compete optimally every game at being the best in this Esports ready game, since this game is a competitive game after all, that will help balance this esports ready game. we should also remake every map to be like Coal tower and Father cambells chappel and remove RNG so we don't get any overly good settups and remove all luck so we can actively messure individual skill of each player, because thats whats most important.

  • Sir_Bassington
    Sir_Bassington Member Posts: 229

    it takes ages to come to an "understanding" because you wont take any actual reason as a "good response". Even the devs have stated they wont make different queues because of queue time being an issue, if they split the player base into multiple queues the queue time will become longer, thats why theres only survivor and killer queue and nothing else. it isn't hard to understand. And having "unranked casual" queue doesn't mean only casuals play in that queue, good competitive players often queue up to bully or destroy casual players. the casual queue in DBD is the regular queue we have right now anyway, rank doesn't matter or indicate skill, rank 10-1 is the same skill level, all rank is an indication of how much you play.

  • TheLastGreatStar
    TheLastGreatStar Member Posts: 1,002

    You play different against Mr. YeeHaw. With Huntress you just keep looping her around the pallet until you know she isn’t going to throw a hatchet. With Mr. YeeHaw you just drop the pallet early. Can he still shoot you? Sure! But what use is it if the pallet is already down? Unlike Huntress he’s unable to down you over a pallet. I was against one earlier today and I just kept throwing pallets early and looping him until he would break them. The entire team escaped. He has a lot of counter play. Giving him some sort of cool down for aiming would make him almost unplayable. And unlike Huntress who throws whales at you his hit boxes are incredibly small. He’s rewarded for having good aim, that’s it. If survivors continuously dodge his aim (which is possible as I was doing it in my survivor match) he just becomes a basic M1 killer.

    I don’t think it’s fair to compare him to Huntress. She can down people over pallets. He can’t. She has an add-on that allows her to insta-down from close range. He does not. Her hit boxes are huge. His are not. Taking away his ability to freely aim without some sort of cool down would be such a terrible and unnecessary idea.

  • Kebek
    Kebek Member Posts: 3,676

    I feel like you're missing the point, I don't want seperate casual mode, I'm just laughing at the silly argument that DBD is a casual game when it has so many traits of competetive game. Just because it doesn't match all conditions of competetive games due to it's asymetrical nature still doesn't make it a casual game and definetly doesn't somehow mean we should balance it around casuals. But if you'd like, I'm all for massive nurse buffs since she's historically weakest killer when played by casual gamers. Balancing around casuals would be so funny to watch.

    Also please either be constructive or I'll just ignore you if you have anything more to say, so please no silly arguments like "thing X is boring because I don't like it so it needs to be nerfed".

  • Sir_Bassington
    Sir_Bassington Member Posts: 229

    I actually agree with this, you just play him like a clown, drop every pallet early and he wont catch you, and if you play against decent players that know how to bodyblock and break the chain then he loses a lot of pressure, I don't think he is as unfair in chase as everyone else says he is, but I do think his TR with MAA is stupid, I run him with nurses calling and can see people heal outside my terror radius. taking away his quickscope would just make him unfun to play.

  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,543

    I know you can always prethrow pallets, but that completely removes the interaction between players. Either the pallet is too safe for the deathslinger to do anything and he just breaks it and runs for the next pallet to prethrow...or he walks around it after shooting it and manages to hit you b4 the chain breaks. As for him hitting his shots...thats up to him to do. while you can say you can dip and dive to makee it tricky, ultimately its fully up to him to miss, thats not an outplay.

  • Sir_Bassington
    Sir_Bassington Member Posts: 229

    now you just moved the entire goalpost to avoid the point. this game is a casual game. it isn't competitive in any way, just because theres a pip and "rank" system, as much as you think. and you outright will ignore my future comments because I don't agree with you? because disagreeing is "unobjective"? on this? Fine by me either way.

  • Sir_Bassington
    Sir_Bassington Member Posts: 229

    Nurse is the best killer in the game still, what are you even on about? buffing her becuase people suck at playing her? that makes no sense. what.

  • ABannedCat
    ABannedCat Member Posts: 2,529

    The stand-still-mindgame doesnt work for Spirit anymore every since they increased the footsteps volume of killers. You can hear her waking during the phase. You just need a decent headset yourself.

  • NumB_16
    NumB_16 Member Posts: 78

    Rank means nothing in this game and only exists to give a sense of achievment every month.

    Its not about being the typical M1 looping. There are killers that counter looping but still fun to play aggainst like demogorgon, huntress. Even pyramid head would be fine if he just had a cooldown when canceling M2

  • immortalls96
    immortalls96 Member Posts: 4,652

    That won't be much of an issue after the server hit validation I thi k

  • immortalls96
    immortalls96 Member Posts: 4,652

    I'm no stranger to clown and his workings but this is exactly huntress problem too..now she gets away with it by having fast damage output but even then shes the most msp dependent killer in dbd..and if you end chases fast sure it's got hook pressure but let's face it..it wont stop a good tesm..anyone who understands clown will straight up make his life miserable

  • TheLastGreatStar
    TheLastGreatStar Member Posts: 1,002

    How is me running side to side to throw off his aim not me outplaying him? That’s like saying when a survivor 360’s a killers hit the killer messed up for missing. It’s not always as simple as that. Some people are good at making you miss hits. I’ll often run in a straight line and then erratically move side to side and it more often than not will make a Gunslinger miss his shot because he can’t predict where you’re going to be. I had this last night when I was playing as him. There was a Dwight who always seemed to know when I was going to shoot, even when I faked it. He would move in unpredictable ways so I couldn’t tell where I should try to quickscope him. I personally would say in that moment the Dwight was outplaying me. As he was deliberately making it hard for me to shoot him. The thing a lot of survivors struggle with is they either spend too much time looking behind and end up running into walls and just being M1’d or they just move in a straight line. Which is exactly what you SHOULDN’T do against him. Every killer in the game needs to be approached differently. I constantly see him being destroyed in red ranks as very few people actually know how to play as him. If you’re against a really good killer, the chances are, you’ll probably lose. It’s just how it is. Deathslinger isn’t problematic in the slightest. He’s rarely played as it is and adding a cool down to him would make him virtually non-existent.

  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,543

    The server hit validation will only actually change anything in the event of extreme ping. If the killer is lagging out and hit the spot you were at 10 seconds ago...you wont take dmg from it. Its not going to make ping go away though.

  • Kebek
    Kebek Member Posts: 3,676

    @Sir_Bassington

    Ahh, here we go again.

    If DBD wasn't competitive game then there wouldn't be so many competitive aspecs to it. I'm not even talking about only those ingame like ranking system etc but those that were created by the players themselfs, biggest indication of a competitive game.

    We have meta, large amount of skilled streamers, insane amount of balance discussions, constant balance patches, high skill celling klillers, insane amount of information needed to be a good player and so so much more. People never go around and just agree when someone says "Hey I'm new here and this killer called Nurse is so hard to play so can we buff her so that new players can enjoy her too". No, everyone tells them to either gid gut or gives them tips to improve, nobody ever says yeah nurse is hard for new playrs let's buff her.

    I'd go on more about this topic but I feel like you're hard set on your opinion so writing more would just be a waste. I'm not saying that you aren't allowed to disagree with me and that you have to adopt my view on the game but if you want to discuss whether DBD is or isn't competetive game you'll have to make serious arguments and not excuses.

    I'm not planning on ignoring your future respones because your disagree with me but because you disagree with me and aren't progressing the discussion with logical points supported by some actuall evidence/examples. You just say "it's casual game and not competetive" but you lack any actuall examples or points that would suggest so.

  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,543

    You running side to side in itself is just guessing that I'm even gonna take a shot. Unlike Huntress who has an actual windup and everything... Deathslinger doesnt. That shot could come at ANY moment and unless you plan on zig zagging to every pallet...

  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,543

    And I feel like I should once again point this out...I'm not saying he's OP. Survivors can 100% slam out gens and leave. He just has the same issue old Legion had. Legion being able to FF stab someone 4 times was time consuming but basically unavoidable.

  • Kebek
    Kebek Member Posts: 3,676

    I'll agree with you on that rank means nothing right now but only because MM is broken and needs a rework.

    PH already has very CD punishing power so further nerfs might just trash him. You can still do some tricks to play around him faking his M2 just like all killers. No power is fool-proof with 0 counterplay as of now, only 2 times during DBD's history that happened and both times they were fixed.

  • lucid4444
    lucid4444 Member Posts: 682

    It also has a lot of traits of casual games (add-ons/items being optional boosts of power, keys, moris, random maps, random gens, random spawns, etc.). Another thing not talked about much is hidden perk information - in a competitive game you need to know exactly of what your opponent is capable of, so you can plan a strategy. With DBD you can be surprised by a head hard or a NOED or Iridescent add-on. Not saying that it isn't fun to guess what your opponent has and feel like you outplayed them when guessed correctly... but it wouldn't be taken seriously as an e-sport. You also don't know who the killer is until you spot him or you're on comms that can tell each other.. another thing that's casual - no communication between players unless on a 3rd party program.

    Then again, like you said, there's ONLY a ranked mode. I think the devs just put that in so you can feel you matched up against someone of similar skill level so it's not a stomp either way.. but inadvertently made the game much more competitive than they imagined

  • TheLastGreatStar
    TheLastGreatStar Member Posts: 1,002
    edited July 2020

    Well I would personally zig-zag towards a pallet if I was near one. As that’s a good way to take away his ability to shoot you. But I don’t just run to pallets, against any killer. I look for loops and ways to get out of their FOV. The whole aim for my chase with a killer is to waste their time and ultimately escape. You don’t do that by just lingering around pallets.

    I already said you can’t compare him with Huntress. Two completely different abilities. She can down you a lot easier than he can. I’ve played her a lot and you don’t even have to be accurate with her hatchets, considering how ridiculous her hit boxes are.

    I see more matches lost to a Huntress then I do a Deathslinger and that’s because a lot of people don’t know how to play him. On console I rarely face him. I think I see Freddy, Legion and Doctor the most. Clown and Deathslinger are a rarity nowadays.

  • Kebek
    Kebek Member Posts: 3,676

    You see that's where you're not entirely right. Old Legion was broken not because he was able to bypass survivor defences and down them eventually 100% but because he could do that and it was easy to do. Nurse alway evaded all survivor defences far more then any other killer ever made but she's hard to play and slow which is why she wasn't ever reworked. Same with DS, he can bypass some of the defences but he has many limits and is very difficult to play which is why he's actually completely fine.

    You can beat DS in a chase just like any other killer, difference is, he's the one in control most of the time so you have to think like him if you plan on beating him in chase. Better players comes on top and ofc DS is favored in that since he has to outplay min 3 times 4 survivors. That however doesn't meant you can't be in his head and read his every move, it's hard but entirely possible if you know how DS operate.

  • Sir_Bassington
    Sir_Bassington Member Posts: 229

    you mean to tell me the competitive aspect of this game, the argument you chose to use, rest soley on the fact that people try to make this game competitive on the outside of this game? As in telling people to get gud with hard killers? And tournaments made up by players for fun in their spare time? that no one takes seriously? People calling this asymetrical online "pvp" game unbalanced? Man just dont respond to me anymore, this is getting stupid. Dark souls isnt a competitive game, yet there are tournaments in those games. Doesnt mean its an esports title. get real.

  • Kebek
    Kebek Member Posts: 3,676

    You make good points but remember that DBD is asymetrical game so it can't really fit the criterias for e-sports level of competitive game. That howerver doesn't make it casual game, it's a kind of very unique competitive game with casual elemets.

  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,543

    Im not claiming Deathslinger is winning alot of matches. Alot of his kit is HORRIBLE in the 1 v 4 aspect of things. Im just saying his counterplay is to just guess when you need to zig as opposed to run straight because he has 0 tell. That and pre-throw pallets to make his gun as useless as possible because you cant risk giving him an opportunity to make a shot matter. Ultimately thats not exactly a thrilling interaction. We HAVE examples of STRONGER killers than Deathslinger with more fulfilling interactions in chases. If you get chainsawed by a Billy, its because you got outplayed. The chases COULD be really freaking short but at least it doesnt feel like a cheap down that you couldnt really avoid. You dont really get that with Deathslinger.

  • lucid4444
    lucid4444 Member Posts: 682

    I think you could make an e-sport out of an asymmetrical game, just have teams of 5 with 1 player being the designated killer. You could even have the games going on simultaneously. Although so much would have to change it wouldn't look anything like DBD. There would be map, perk, and killer banning phases, static maps, open coms on the survivor side, minimal randomness, etc.

  • Kebek
    Kebek Member Posts: 3,676

    I feel like the more time I give respones for you the more insultive and close minded you get. My guess would be that I'm slowly making you realise that your view on DBD beiing casual game might not be as 100% correct as you felt it is which is upsetting you.

    Still don't now where you got that I've said that DBD is by any means e-sports level of competitive game. I didn't, I've said that DBD is more of a competitive game then it is casual game thus it should be balanced as a competitive game and not as game for casual as it was clearly showing in the nurse example.

    Also it's more then clear to me now how much time I've wasted on you. You're 100% set on making excuse insted of arguments so consider this my last responce at least for a while. It's a pity that you just can't find any logic to support your claims, still I enjoyed attempting to reason with you.

  • Kebek
    Kebek Member Posts: 3,676

    Hmm I don't see that ever happening (too many restrictions imao), do you know any other asymetrical game that was ever as competitive as DBD is ? I can't really think of any, I've wondered if there ever even was any real asymetrical game that could be considered competitive and if DBD might learn anything from it.

  • immortalls96
    immortalls96 Member Posts: 4,652

    No but itll certainly make reactionary gameplay much easier especially with the double tick rate..I'm honestly worried of the repercussions

  • LordGlint
    LordGlint Member Posts: 8,543

    It wont literally at all. The ONLY effect it has is in cases of extreme lag. Other than that, the system will basically be off.