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Lack of Killers at Night

So I am playing survivor with some friends at night and it takes forever for us to find a match.

It couldn't be because Pop got nerfed to 40 seconds. It couldn't be the massive nerf of Undying. It couldn't be the removal of the Mori. It couldn't be survivors using keys and decisive strike/unbreakable.

In all seriousness this game lacks killer players. Rather than try to get new killer players in they instead scare old players away. I hope they will shift to some killer sided updates soon but this games history says otherwise.

Side Note: I agree that in the higher levels of play this game is clearly killer sided. I am referring more to the casual level killer who doesn't have time to grind the 1000's of hours necessary to "get good"

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Comments

  • Crypticghoul
    Crypticghoul Member Posts: 574

    I play both but yeah, the queues are so bad to the point where it seems better to just stream killer games to each other than queue together for survivor games, which is ridiculous imo.

    I do wish the devs would address this by offering blood point bonuses when queues are lopsided in favor of one of the sides to help alleviate queue times no matter which way they swing.

  • Skullgrind
    Skullgrind Member Posts: 118
    edited January 2021

    Yeah it took me awhile to realize that 5-10p or so is peak ahole hours. Really hard to have any fun as killer if you play then.

    EDIT: Well I just played from 12a-3a EST and 99% of the players I faced were total jerks in game and after. So now I know I don't need to play this game at all! I win!

    Post edited by Skullgrind on
  • EvanSnowWolf
    EvanSnowWolf Member Posts: 1,583

    This is why I play Killer as early in the day as possible. I won't play Killer after 7:00PM.

  • carnage4u
    carnage4u Member Posts: 338

    Nighttime is always slow for SWF . I play a lot of SWF and we wait a good chunk of time. It makes sense. we come across 2 types of killers now and it is sort of sad


    Killer a.) -Try hard Esport wannabe who tunnels/camps/slugs - We usually lose with maybe 1 to 2 getting out, but can easily get all 4 killed

    Killer b.) Either newbie killer due to matchmaking or killer not running meta perks and not camping/tunneling, and we usually win. 1 out of 5 games, maybe 1 out of 4 people die.

    1 game per week, is actually a close game, where we felt it was close and even, and actually really intense, but felt fair (why the ######### do we still play? too lazy to find another game since we have a group of 7 friends that rotate in and out throughout the week and its a pain to get everyone to agree on what to play next)

  • UncleStabby
    UncleStabby Member Posts: 837

    Its cuz we're all crying ourselves to sleep at night.

  • Jarol
    Jarol Member Posts: 1,985

    I always play at night as a killer and I don't complain.

  • ShamelessPigMain
    ShamelessPigMain Member Posts: 1,878

    I’ve noticed the same problem, but also that survivor que times are much longer during the day.

    My explanation? Most good players are dedicated. Most dedicated players play at night, or are nocturnal. Most good players tend to play survivor; it’s more fun if you have the skill to take on the killer. This is especially the case with SWF, which more experienced players are more likely to partake in.

  • VexTheHex
    VexTheHex Member Posts: 1,009

    More people play SWF at night cause they are all off of school or work. It's quite simple. And no, most of them are not swat teams and will die off easily.

    And to be fair, as solo survivor or killer at night... I see plenty of low rank survivors thrown into the matches to be stomped. It's not just the low rank Killers that get the high ranks, I've been in plenty of matches as of late where I find out the team was all new players...

  • Igbylucy
    Igbylucy Member Posts: 47

    I found a majority of the killers at night are campers. It’s a bummer to wait 10+ minutes at night then get stuck with a camper that thinks he’s going to advance just standing and waiting after a hook. Best chances are to play during the day.

  • VexTheHex
    VexTheHex Member Posts: 1,009

    Or they give you Rank 17 allies for a Rank 7 Killer. Just had one of those matches. Was hoping the killer would throw a bone to me since they were literally new players dying in seconds. But nope, got smacked on the hook as I got 1 hook'd at the end.

  • SkerpiTwitch
    SkerpiTwitch Member Posts: 327

    Its true, you can only play a few hours a day as killer. Its stressful, and i dont think it will be better in the future. Its the complete powerless feeling on games somethimes that stopped ppl from playing killer. Even i, who has been a main killer for years, got to rank 1 survvor after all these years

  • LaBPedro
    LaBPedro Member Posts: 22

    I commented on a similar post a while back about this. If survivors are all becoming toxic, that will simply cause people to not play killer any more so the wait times will go up and up. What causes this toxicity though, is it killers that camp and tunnel or is it simply people wanting to take the (insert rude word here)?

    I am a rank 13 killer, and regularly go up against red ranks that destroy me, a lot are fine, play the game and leave but there are a few that are just want to mess about and try to bully the killer into rage quitting, which might be fun for them but not the killer.

    At the end of the day, it's bad for both sides and something has to give otherwise it will only be custom maps amongst friends in the future.

  • Chicagopimp2019
    Chicagopimp2019 Member Posts: 458

    As you can tell from my screen name, I am in Chicago and notice a distinct change in the quality of players at night. Note I didn't say skill, but QUALITY. When I play killer at night, I see an increase of SWF players who act like total dbags in end game chat. I tend to have much better chats with survivors when I play killer in the afternoon.

  • TicTac
    TicTac Member Posts: 2,421

    Im in the same region and for me its different. During the day the survivor are better players then at night. I think during the day the matchmaking works better, bc there are fewer survivors.

    At night every killer gets the same survivor bc the survivor need to wait so long that the matchmaking system ignore ranks more, so for a rank 1 killer night is better, but for an rank 10 killer it is not.

  • TheRockstarKnight
    TheRockstarKnight Member Posts: 2,171
    edited January 2021

    I used to play Killer at night a lot because of my insomnia, and it's like everyone else is saying - nighttime is SWF time.

    Well, SWF or Solos who are very clearly overtired and make the most questionable of plays, but mostly SWF.

    And, obviously, while not every SWF brings Keys and OoO with a Haddonfield, Crotus Prenn, or Ormond offering; one SWF doing that can be all it takes to get someone playing Killer annoyed or disappointed enough to give up and go do something else.

  • sulaiman
    sulaiman Member Posts: 3,219

    Well, i am a survivor main, but i used to play both sides. Now i dont, its just 100% (solo) survivor. Thats one reason i am carefull with survivor nerfs and killer buffs. But the last updates made me not play killer at all. And if i need a change, i play something else.

  • mistar_z
    mistar_z Member Posts: 857

    The game is balanced around survivors being able to survive. It basically kills any goodwill killers feel, especially at a low-mid level of play where killers feel like ######### for playing. It also doesn't help that survivors love to bully and harrass the killer in game, post chat and sometimes outside the game too for simply playing the game in a manner that they didn't like.


    At higher levels of play or the more skilled killers who are adept in dealing with the game's way of balancing and sweat squad, just don't feel as rewarded for playing. As games are super polarizing one match its a full on sweat squad all on coms with object and sharing info with each other, and the next match they get boosted survivors who can't even run loops properly and the survivor harasses them in chat because they thought they were better than they actually were.


    assuming bhvr hasn't done anything dramatic mm, over time this made things worse as higher skilled and more competent players left due to all the bugs that screwed them over or the general game health not being what they would like it to be. which meant all the lower skilled players rose through the ranks easier to fill in their place, which made the game feel less rewarding. this slowly bled away at the killer pool, as more players moved to the survivor side where they get more instant gratification and are far likely to "win".

  • Aneurysm
    Aneurysm Member Posts: 5,270

    It's not as bad since crossplay but late night ps4 was always terrible, especially on weekends. After a few games you'd feel blessed to get a squad of only 3 and without object.

  • CheyeneKL
    CheyeneKL Member Posts: 723

    There are plenty of people playing killer at night, there are just tons more people playing as survivor, too, because that's when everyone is off of work/school. I'm southeast NA and I notice slower queues during the day if it is on a weekend and that's also most likely due to the fact that there are more survivors playing with friends then. Not only are there more 100% survivor mains playing at that time, but more 50/50 killer/survivor mains skipping out on killer games to play as survivor. I NEVER play killer at night unless none of my friends happen to be available, which in that case I just choose to go to bed early. 90% of my killer games are during the day when I happen to be free but my friends aren't yet free.

    Also, FWIW, in my own experience, queue times were nearly the same BEFORE your mentioned changes. There will be different variables per night in how long it takes to get matches, but overall I haven't noticed a difference. Last time I got fairly fast queue times at night was around the Christmas holiday, I believe.

  • IronWill
    IronWill Member Posts: 244

    I said the same thing in another thread regarding the same issue: it's the current ranking system, nothing else. Before when rank reset happened, one red rank got put back to green rank. Nowadays a red rank get put back to rank 5 only. This causes a HUGE amount of survivors to be permanently in red ranks (with a ton of them not really belonging there).

    You will see once the new rank reset and matchmaking releases, it will most likely be way quicker for the average player to find a match than now. Just the top whatever % will have a longer queue.

  • Tsulan
    Tsulan Member Posts: 15,095

    Yeah, but then the low rank killers will be matched with ex high rank survivors, which will rolf stomp them.

    So i would´t be to optimistic about those queues.

  • AnnoyedAtTheGame
    AnnoyedAtTheGame Member Posts: 539

    No killers want to come on herw and loae to swf lobbies. It isn't fun to loae against them.

    Swf don't get nerfed. They get buffa all time. Killers get nerfs all time.


    These queue times are going to get massive becuae of the unbalance between killer and survivors

  • IronWill
    IronWill Member Posts: 244

    Not if the matchmaking works. In other games that have a decent machmaking system, you will be put together against random ranks for maybe 10 matches or so, to determine your own "rank" by how you do against each of them. After that you SHOULD only get matched against people close to your own skill level. If BHVR manage to do the MMR right is another thing but it SHOULD at least work just like that.

  • Mr_K
    Mr_K Member Posts: 9,244

    It lacks enough killers to supply survivor demand this cycle.

    Throughout DBDs history this unbalance has been seen both ways.

  • notstarboard
    notstarboard Member Posts: 3,903

    This has been an issue since crossplay went live. This has nothing to do with killer nerfs. Killers are still performing well.

  • notstarboard
    notstarboard Member Posts: 3,903

    They do not. This forum is just an echo chamber repeating that.

  • EvilJoshy
    EvilJoshy Member Posts: 5,295

    You know when you play CoD as solo. You get into a room. Your team is composed of randoms and the entire other team is all in a clan? That's what it feels like to play against a swf. Only your by yourself. It's not fun and you've only the devs to blame for making killer frustrating.

  • Shirokinukatsukami
    Shirokinukatsukami Member Posts: 1,624

    I think killers have largely moved on from the game. Not necessarily because of nerfs to killer. They probably just got bored and found something else to do.

    Killer survived much worse nerfs and the killer population was solid even after the first Ruin nerf, which was a lot worse than the current Ruin/Undying meta, and also survived the massive nurse nerf.

    As someone else pointed out. Survivor has more longevity in the game simply because a.) you can play with friends -- which contributes a lot to a game's longevity -- and b.) survivor in general is not as stressful as playing killer. Survivor can be just as frustrating, but it's less stressful because you are 4v1. Killer needs to shoulder a much heavier pressure than any survivor simply because the game is asymmetric. The game is already 5 years old there are many killers that have already moved on.

    2 years ago the game was a lot harder for killer but we had tons of players doing Spirit and Nurse around the clock. These players have already grown up and moved on to other things. Spirit hasn't been touched since her rework when there were tons of her running all round the place and there was no killer shortage. Survivor hasn't really gotten any stronger since then -- the same perks are still used and untouched since that time -- and arguably got weaker because some perks were nerfed and the maps have been totally redone.

    People have just moved on from the game. And it's a lot easier to get burned out playing killer than it is playing survivor.

  • notstarboard
    notstarboard Member Posts: 3,903
    edited January 2021

    The kill rate from late 2019 to late 2020 did not change at all at red rank: ~68%. When you consider that the hatch opens automatically for the last survivor, this is a really high number. Killers are performing very well at the moment.

    There have been tons of positive changes for killers and nerfs for survivors as well, but people only see what they want to see. People ignore that survivors haven't gotten new meta perks in years when complaining about how the Undying/Ruin/Tinkerer meta is being nerfed. Undying and new Tinkerer didn't even exist until a few months ago, and even new Ruin was only added like a year back... People ignore that DS has already been nerfed three separate times and that Pop is stronger than it was at launch when complaining about how Pop was nerfed and not DS. People still haven't stopped complaining about the old Ruin nerf, despite the fact that survivor toolboxes, coop gen speeds, and great skillchecks were all nerfed and that a number of maps were shrunk and had their most broken loops removed around the same time Ruin was changed. People are complaining about this patch being a nerf for killer because of Tinkerer/Undying/Ruin being worse (but still solid!), while ignoring buffs to three killers, and that Undying is now solid with token-based hexes. It should be insanely good with Devour.

    And these are just some examples from the past year. The game was absurdly survivor sided at launch and has gradually gotten more balanced since then. I think the game is in a better state now than it ever has been.

  • notstarboard
    notstarboard Member Posts: 3,903
    edited January 2021

    I agree that the SWF/solo gap needs to be reduced and that queue times for survivor are terrible at the moment, but the answer to that is not buffing killer. We need to buff solo queue. If we buff killer from here, solo queue just becomes an automatic L and no one is happy. We also need to at the very least add an expected queue time to the main menu so that people who don't care can proactively pick the shorter queue. Better yet would be BP incentives. I have a great time playing killer, now more than ever. It's just an inherently more stressful role and people can easily get triggered by doing poorly in match or by the post-game chat. And then they come to the forum to complain about toxic SWF instead of just closing the chat and trying to evaluate how they might have played differently to improve the result, as is tradition.

    As for hook suicides and the like, these are going to be a factor, but things like AFK de-pipping Wraiths or farming killers are also going to push things in the other direction. There is almost no chance that the combination of these effects are enough to make a survivor-sided game seem killer-sided. Maybe 68% would prove a bit inflated or a bit deflated if these effects where adjusted for, but it's not going drop the kill rate like 25% or something.

    Undying is far from the only meta perk that's been added for killers since the last survivor meta perk (Dead Hard, July 2017) was added. Pop and BBQ are meta. Infectious Fright is meta on a few killers, namely Plague and Oni. Corrupt Intervention is meta on slow starting killers like Trapper and Hag. Undying and New Tinkerer were just added a few months back and both will very likely still be meta on high mobility killers like Blight even after the upcoming nerf. Nemesis was meta on Bubba for a while. Discordance is meta on Legion and is strong on many killers. Spirit Fury was the basic M1 killer meta (along with Enduring) for quite a while, and it still gets a decent amount of use today. Undying wasn't a "hey killers, here's your new meta perk since we've ignored you for years!" It was more of a "hey killers, here's another meta perk...oh crap, actually, that might have been a bit too strong". It's the same thing that happened to MoM, except Undying is still very good and MoM is meme tier.

    Survivor meta perks haven't even just stayed the same; they've gotten weaker. DS has been nerfed three times since launch, and while I agree it still needs another nerf (it pisses me off enough as killer that I don't run it as survivor), it's certainly weaker than it was and it's somewhat counterable. Sprint Burst and Dead Hard have both effectively been nerfed from their initial states due to the exhaustion change that prevents you from recovering from exhaustion while sprinting. These have all been good changes, but we can't ignore them when complaining about one-sided nerfs.

    Hillbilly's nerf was basically just an add-on pass, since overheating is usually not relevant when playing normally. As a result, Billy's still an above average killer. I've only had issues with overheating when running engravings personally. Nurse's change was a clear nerf, but she's still nearly universally recognized as a top 2 killer in the game. Seems to me like a very justified nerf. If we're bring these up, though, we can't discount Freddy, Doctor, and Bubba's transformative buffs with a "but they were weak before" argument. Yes, they were. And Billy and Nurse were both extremely strong. Now that the dust has settled, all five of those killers are pretty strong, and less extreme outliers in terms of strength than before. Freddy is still a bit of an outlier (highest kill rate in the game), but he's not as overwhelming as old Nurse was.

    The killer and survivor community are both whiny as hell. The difference is that survivors usually whine in the post game chat and killers usually whine on the forum.

    The current kill rate suggests there is no need for an early game mechanic to make life easier for killers. The generators clearly aren't going fast enough to allow even a middling amount of survivors to escape.

    The fact that the kill rate has been consistently strong since at least year also suggests that killers are not being nerfed over time relative to survivors.

  • EvilJoshy
    EvilJoshy Member Posts: 5,295
    edited January 2021

    I agree with the part that the gap between swf and solo is terrible. However how does buffing solo address the lack of people playing killer? If we were to buff solo, which I think we need to somehow, that still doesn't fix the issue with que times. The only way to fix the survivors long que times is to get more people to play killer. Buffing solo survivors sounds like it would be good for the game but that won't encourage me to come back and play killer.

  • Shirokinukatsukami
    Shirokinukatsukami Member Posts: 1,624

    You mentioned that you were basing your opinion on your personal experience.

    And that is the thing. All you are talking about is from your personal experience where killer is weak. But in truth Killer is not weak and killers dominate the game in general. You can downplay the 70% kill rate at red ranks all you want but the kill rate is 70% for a reason at the highest level of play. And you yourself acknowledged the average survivor can't beat the average killer.

    The game is in a good place for killers. And has been for a long time now. "Survivor hasn't been significantly screwed over?" You'd have to be a dedicated biased killer main who never touched survivor to say that.

    But I do agree with you that the problem "isn't the kills. It's the enjoyment." Like I said, killers have gotten bored of the game and moved on. That's because killers can get burned out of this game a lot easier than survivors, whether they are winning or losing.

    But that's the thing. You cannot nerf survivors or claim they are underpowered because killers are, objectively, empirically and factually, winning a lot more than losing. Killers are in a strong position. Whether the killer experience is actually good or not is another matter. Obviously it isn't, because we don't have enough killers playing.

    And that isn't something you can solve by buffing killers and nerfing survivors. The game is a lot more killer-sided than it used to be two years ago, and two years ago we had a huge glut of killers and not enough survivors.

  • Shirokinukatsukami
    Shirokinukatsukami Member Posts: 1,624

    Not just that. Back in 2018 the kill rate was something like 60%. Now it's something like 70%. The game has objectively gotten better for killers from a balance standpoint.

    Killers have had more than enough buffs over the last two years and it's still not enough. Something needs to be done though, it's extremely perplexing that we have less killers now that it's easier for killers to win, compared to 2 years ago when things were harder for killers, yet we didn't have enough survivors and killer queues were 10-30 minutes.

  • notstarboard
    notstarboard Member Posts: 3,903

    My thinking is that buffing solo queue will allow the devs to better balance the game, including buffing killers overall if it turns out that survivors with more information are performing too well. Right now they're in a tough spot because they basically need for killers to be competitive against two different kinds of opponents. I have no idea how the kill rate actually changes if you limit just to SWF or just to solo and I doubt Behaviour will ever tell us, but still, that's the general idea.

    I think another really important thing for improving killer numbers is improving performance. I play on PC, and in my experience queue times were much better before crossplay. I'm guessing that part of the issue is how terrible frame rates are on console, and particularly while playing killer.

  • notstarboard
    notstarboard Member Posts: 3,903
    edited January 2021

    Yep, totally agreed, and I agree it's a shame it hasn't really led to better queue times.

    To copy and paste from my other comment, I think a really important thing for improving killer numbers is improving performance. I play on PC, and in my experience queue times were much better before crossplay. I'm guessing that part of the issue is how terrible frame rates are on console, and particularly while playing killer.

    I also do think that simply expected queue times and little BP incentives for playing the side with shorter queue times would do wonders. I often play survivor with my friends, but when I'm playing alone I play maybe 2/3 killer. I'm not too married to one side or the other, though, so if I had a real incentive to play more killer I probably would. Plus, it's nice to not have to sit in a queue for ten minutes to realize it would have been better to play the other side.

    Colorblind accessibility options would help killer numbers too, since I know plenty of players struggle to play killer because they can't see scratch marks.

  • Crypticghoul
    Crypticghoul Member Posts: 574

    If you're referring to queues on PC, it's not that less people are playing killer but that crossplay is a thing now and survivors massively outnumber killers on the consoles. I still remember when crossplay first went live and survivor queues went from instant to several minutes and killer went from 3+ minutes to instant.

  • Yords
    Yords Member Posts: 5,781

    Maybe they are sleeping?