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This should be a red flag to developers (Freddy OP!!!)

thesuicidefox
thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223
edited October 2020 in General Discussions

The fact that Freddy has a relatively low pick rate but a SIGNIFICANTLY higher kill rate should be a major red flag to BHVR that he is too strong.

IDC what you want to say about Nurse or Spirit, but Freddy is objectively one of if not the strongest killers in the game and there are multiple reasons for it.

I must preface this with...

  • I was an old Freddy main at rank 1. I played him without Ruin or NOED and was still quite effective with him. However I would acknowledge that he was, at the time, the weakest killer in the game.
  • I play new Freddy regularly at rank 1 and I find him to be hands down the most oppressive killer to play. Consistently. Like I win games regularly with 3 or more gens left, AND I rarely have to camp or tunnel.

So why is Freddy so strong?

First is his teleport. He has the best map pressure in the game because he can instantly go to the gen you are working on. No other killer can do this, save for Demo and Hag but they have to set up first which greatly reduces their pressure. Every single gen slowing or gen tracking perk is borderline God tier on Freddy. BBQ, DIscordance, Surveillance, Tinkerer, Thana, Ruin, Pop (especially Pop). Yes these are good perks for many killers, but on Freddy they become exponentially more powerful.

Second is his snares. He has an anti-chase that is very similar to Clown. Say what you want about Clown, but a good Clown will catch you CRAZY fast. Freddy is just a slightly weaker Clown in this aspect, as he can't plant a puddle in front of you during a chase. It is damn near impossible to run a good Freddy for very long around most loops just as it can be a good Clown. This is a minor issue however.

Third is Dream World, or rather the fact it automatically gets Oblivious. This means that he gets a free BT counter, or any perk requiring a terror radius. Sure this hurts him too, but the perks he can't use aren't that great anyway (Unnerving, Insidious??? LOL). Infectious is probably the only TR perk that is good, but guess what? IT STILL WORKS FOR HIM! Yep try it, Infectious will make dreaming survivors scream. Oblivious doesn't stop that for some reason but it negates a lot of good survivor perks.

Fourth is stealth. He has built in semi-stealth due to him being INVISIBLE to awake survivors outside his TR and even sometimes in his TR. This means he can get really close to you while awake without you having a reasonable way to react. He is basically a Wraith.

Finally, he is the ONLY killer in the game with add-ons that affect gen speeds. This is the big one. He has 3 add-ons that do this, and while they were nerfed that is not good enough. They shouldn't exist, period. Don't get me wrong, at first I loved them because my main tactic with old Freddy was to use range add-ons and tracking perks like Surveillance and Nurse's to permanently keep survivors asleep for that sweet 50% action penalty. It was a strong tactic, however since I had to put them to sleep myself it was fair since I had to be active to get that reward. But now you just fall asleep in 60 seconds OR when he hits you. You are going to be asleep more than 50% of the game easily, and usually without any action on the killer's part. Basically he just gets this stuff for free by equipping an add-on.

Let's summarize... Freddy is basically a combination of Hag, Wraith, and Clown with built in BT counter and passive slow down that no other killer has access too.

My entire point here is that Freddy just has WAY WAY too much in his base kit, and that is why he has such a significantly higher kill rate compared to other killers. You can say "don't draw conclusions from data alone" remember that I told you I play new Freddy at rank 1 and my experience is that he is oppressive. Furthermore, as survivor, a good Freddy with a strong slow down build is one of the most difficult killers to beat. Literally your only chance against a killer like this is to run in a 4 man SWF, which anyone who plays this game could tell you is already broken, but I digress.

So what is the solution? How do we fix this? I'm not just making this post to complain, I'm making it to offer a suggestion. Now I have been writing down my ideas for changes to Dead By Daylight I would like to see that I believe would improve the game. It's a lot, I will just copy and paste what I wrote for Freddy. Let's take a look...

NIGHTMARE

  • Survivors no longer passively fall asleep at the start of the game and do not see the sleep clock until they are hit and put into the Dream State at least once.
  • Dream Snare radius reduced by 20%.
  • Oblivious removed from Dream World.
  • Nightmare can be always seen by awake survivors within 32m.
  • Remove stacking penalty on Snap Clap wake up action.
  • Cat Block, Z Block, Pill Bottle, Paint Thinner, Outdoor Rope, Jump Rope, and Swing Chains reworked.
  • Cat Block inflicts Haemorrhage on sleeping survivors. Healthy survivors that are asleep will bleed.
  • Z Block inflicts Mangled on injured survivors that are asleep and blocks the aura of their dream clock outside of 32m.
  • Pill Bottle makes the Nightmare; disappear intermittently to awake survivors; invisible to sleeping survivors outside of 32m. 
  • Paint Thinner reveals the survivor's aura for 4 seconds upon falling asleep.
  • Outdoor Rope greatly increases interaction time for each successive Snap Clap.
  • Jump Rope causes the survivor's dream clock to move to a new location every 30 seconds.
  • Swing Chains causes Dream World to inflict the Oblivious status effect.
  • Garden Rake and Prototype Claws Dream Tokens reduced to 8.
  • Prototype Claws aura reading removed. Prototype Claws inflict Hindered for 10 seconds on survivors that interact with Dream Pallets.
  • Kid's Drawing adds 5 Dream Tokens.

So let's unpack this.

The first line is actually a slight nerf and buff to Freddy, as one of his only drawbacks is that you KNOW it's a Freddy right when the game starts. This would give some leeway at the start of the game for survivors, and also give Freddy more element of surprise opportunities. Though of course once he hits someone they would see, but the point is he would have a bit more spook at the start. Once you hit them the clock appears and it functions as normal.

Making Dream Snares smaller means it would take better planning in their use. I feel like I can just spam them without care and they do more than what I need them to do. At least require me to use to skill here.

Next. we basically take away all the "fluff" from Freddy's base kit. The goal is to shift most of them to his add-ons. Pill Bottle is a bad add-on IMO, it does nothing for him. This new version would do something for him. Notice how for most of these things while I offer to take away something from his base kit and move it to an add-on, I'm actually buffing it in the process because it now requires an add-on and therefore can be a tad better.

This all opens up new builds for Freddy. I enjoy add-ons that change how a killer functions over straight up making something they do faster or stronger. It leads to more interesting emergent gameplay.

The dream pallet add-ons I feel are redundant. You don't need 3 of them, hell 1 is enough. So let's take Paint Thinner and do something else with it, what I suggest is reminiscent of old Freddy and I would enjoy this as both killer and survivor. I only kept 2 dream pallet add-ons because I honestly couldn't think of another thing for Claws to do.

All the slow down add-ons are gone and in it's place are add-ons that are still really good but not stupid to play against. Giving Oblivious in Dream World as an add-on is acceptable. Base kit it is not.

Finally we make his lame BP add-on a bit better. This is just to offset the fact his snares just got worse.

These are just my suggestions, obviously they won't be implemented but something like this would be a good change for Freddy. If you guys have suggestions you are free to put them here.

Be aware I'm not looking to argue with anyone about whether Freddy is too strong or not. He very much is and the chart above confirms it. We need to discuss ways to fix this.

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Comments

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    Because Wraith is invisible. Freddy is invisible to awake survivors outside his TR, so you can neither here or see him. On top of that, he disappears at random from 32-16m for awake survivors. This means in order to see him coming you need to be asleep. And in fact his stealth at that range is superior to Wraith because you can still kinda see Wraith. You can't see him at all until he gets within 32m, at which point you have much less time to react that for literally any other killer as you could see potentially them coming BEFORE they got within 32m.

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    No I'm using the chart to support something I have other evidence. What they are saying is to not purely look at the chart and draw a conclusion. EG. don't sit there and say "Nurse needs a buff". However if there was precedent for that claim, then you would use this data to support your claim. That's literally what they are doing on the back end. Coming up with a hypothesis about something in the game, looking at what is going on, then using data to validate the hypothesis and then make a change. Don't tell me they don't, I worked in game UX for a time this is exactly what gets done.

    Using data to validate a claim is not the same as using data to draw a conclusion.

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    Yet for a previous stat release, where they gave both all ranks and red ranks, Freddy was STILL on the top for both.

    This consistency suggests that yes, Freddy is indeed too strong.

  • TAG
    TAG Member Posts: 12,871
    edited October 2020

    BHVR discourages people from using that data to go "Aha! This chart confirms XYZ!" because this data does not take a number of factors into account. They've said this time and time again whenever they put up stats like this and in fact have even questioned whether or not they should keep putting up these stats for this exact reason.

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    I'm not saying he is OP, I put that in the title to get attention.

    He is too strong. This I'm saying from experience AS and AGAINST him.

    If you don't believe he can be super oppressive play with any gen tracking perk of choice, Ruin, Undying, Pop, Swing Chains, and Jump Rope. You will 4k almost every game. The only survivors that will actually be a challenge for you are 4 man SWF.

    Being awake doesn't stop his gen teleport. It reduces the recharge but the difference is minimal. It also means that he can more easily sneak up on you are I point out with his built in stealth. All it takes is 1 hit to put you to sleep, and if he can get close enough either because of teleport or stealth he should easily be able to get that first hit on you, easily negating any effort you put in to stay awake.

  • GodDamn_Angela
    GodDamn_Angela Member Posts: 2,213

    I'll be the first one to say that Freddy is way too strong for how easy he is too play. He has too many tools that are similar (and in some cases, better) than what other Killers have. I just don't like the use of the stats as literally the first thing you see in this thread. I have bad memories of all the internet fights I had with people trying to use the last set of stats to ask for nerfs or disregarding other's opinions because they didn't line up with said stats.

    Do I think Freddy needs a nerf? Hell yes.

  • nursewannabe
    nursewannabe Member Posts: 1,075

    No, according to the stats, nurse is one of the few almost balanced killers who's kill rate is around 50%, which is what "balance" is

  • GodDamn_Angela
    GodDamn_Angela Member Posts: 2,213

    He still has power over you though.

    1. He is invisible at, basically, all times.
    2. He can teleport or fake teleport.
    3. He's a basic M1 Killer and if he hits you are already dead.
  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    The title says "red flag" as in "please investigate this with more scrutiny". I'm not claiming it as definitive proof, but with the very detail breakdown I gave of why he is so strong PLUS the chart I have a good argument. You even agree he needs to be toned down, so why come into the thread to disagree with me? If it's true does it matter where it comes from?

  • MusicNerd_TC
    MusicNerd_TC Member Posts: 3,099

    Swing chains and jump rope aren't even that good, look at the numbers.

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    Again Freddy was on the top of the chart last time, AND they even gave a red rank chart which he was also on the top of by a wide margin.

    There is tons of evidence to support what I'm saying. I'm not drawing this conclusion solely from this chart. Stop trying to dismiss it by taking what the devs said out of context. AND YES YOU ARE TAKING OUT OF CONTEXT because I have multiple sources to validate my claims, the chart is just 1 more in the pile.

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    Why would realms matter? Like really, because when you average it out the killers at the top will just be the more consistent across the realms. If you want to find a problem with the REALMS then you look deeper. Using that same information to determine killer strength is the backwards approach.

    Also you keep dodging the fact he was at the top of the chart last time when they ALSO showed just red ranks. I highly doubt that he would stay consistent with previous all rank performance but go down in red ranks much if at all.

  • GodDamn_Angela
    GodDamn_Angela Member Posts: 2,213

    Not disagreeing with you. I agree with basically everything you said in the OP.

    Just have my own hang-ups about the stats. Sorry.

  • TAG
    TAG Member Posts: 12,871
    edited October 2020

    I never once tried to make any sort of claim in this thread over the validity of the belief that Freddy is too strong. I am saying that BHVR has repeatedly discouraged people from using these stats to make any arguments.

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    "Probably gonna blow your mind that Freddy is actually balanced, and you're just bad at the game. "

    Uhhh I guess you missed the part where I literally say I came to this conclusion by PLAYING HIM AT RANK 1. Not from playing against him.

  • DarKStaR350z
    DarKStaR350z Member Posts: 765

    Just wanted to add something about Freddy and Spirit - that their pick rate is so high because they are easier to play than the stronger killers, while not being as bad as the others.

    There was a question in the last survey about killer strength and ease of use; and I think there should be killers that allow less mechanically skilled players still feel like a scary killer, otherwise there is a point where a killer will hit as far as they can go with the less skill reliant killers and feel like they have no agency to affect the match outcome, and are unable to play skill reliant killers.

    On console for example most of the stronger killers are restricted in performance by the lack of controller options and it honestly feels rubbish to be playing Trapper for example and hit that limit where you only feel like a killer when the survivors are low skill due to a favourable matchmaker or they make loads of mistakes you can take advantage off; but you will mostly play teams that run rings around weaker killers and you don’t feel like a killer at all.

    Freddy is still an M1 killer with basically placeable Clown bottles, he can still be looped like all the others, he can still lose to survivors just holding W to waste time while gens are done in sub 5 minutes.

    If anything I would rather they buff underused survivor things to even the gap between solo and SWF and then start bringing other killers up to the level of Freddy; rather than nerfing anything viable or strong and leaving this massive disparity between what is counterable depending on if you are solo or swf <3

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    You are still twisting their words. They don't want you to draw a conclusions SPECIFICALLY FROM CHARTS.

    But if I have other evidence, including past stats and experience on both ends, and valid arguments as to what exactly is the problem and how to fix it, that is literally how you are supposed to do things. OMG. Just stop. It is a very clear with what I present there is a problem.

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    I said "you will 4k almost every game" That's not saying EVERY GAME.

    You can see the teleport but it doesn't change the fact he can come to your gen faster than any other killer, even Nurse or Billy. If he has Ruin or Pop your gen is toast.

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    Exactly. I use a Sheep Block for OOO, but otherwise it's ropes. There really is no other option, a passive action penalty is very strong at the end of the day.

  • TAG
    TAG Member Posts: 12,871

    I am not twisting their words in any way. This is exactly what they are trying to avoid.

    If you want to make arguments about Freddy being too strong and provide evidence to support that, by all means. What BHVR is discouraging is using the chart as evidence.

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    You can't hear him until he is within 32m, and if you are awake you can't see him until he is within 32m. He can also fake the teleport to force you off a gen and come from a different angle. It is EXTREMELY easy to sneak up on survivors if you mix real and fake teleports.

  • notstarboard
    notstarboard Member Posts: 3,903

    I think they just don't want people on the forum to freak out tbh. You also clearly can't take results in a vacuum with Nurse being the obvious example of why; sometimes there are other factors that make the kill rate a poor representation of a killer's viability (e.g. learning curve, Rift challenges to push someone to use a killer they're less familiar with). I can't think of anything that would be artificially inflating Freddy's kill rate, though, unless people very frequently hook suicide against him because they hate playing him, or something.

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    Yes let's pat each other on the back and laugh instead of presenting actual arguments. SMH

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    No because I didn't draw this conclusion SPECIFICALLY FROM THE CHART.

    You people should read a thread before commenting. This is like the 8th time I've said this now.

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223

    Exactly! But dear jebus no don't show a chart as evidence of claims, even when you provide other evidence this single piece is inadmissible becauses the devs said so.

    I can't believe people around here, thank you for being a reasonable person.

  • GodDamn_Angela
    GodDamn_Angela Member Posts: 2,213

    You can't hear him until you can see him. At least with other Killers you can watch them from afar.

    You can see his teleport but it almost always forces you off the gen, and if he fakes it, or teleported somewhere else that's wasted time for you. So it becomes a game of "Do I stay and assume he's not coming or get some distance so he doesn't catch me?"

    You are reducing his chase to nothing more than "I'mma chase you and drop these here snares hoping you'll touch 'em". Freddy just has to place a snare by a window, pallet or corner and you are screwed. There is no real planning or hoping. You drop 'em like crazy and if you get close enough you attack. The fact that there is no slow down to use it or a resource requirement just makes it that much stronger.