Killer Mains and their idea of "Balance"

I agree with some of your points here, but "Saying the game is killer sided on the higher level just because of win rates is wrong" needs to be qualified. The kill rate directly reflects the experience of red rank players. Therefore the game is killer sided at red rank. However, we're agreed on the fact that all red ranks aren't created equal and even one potato can sink a team. This doesn't say anything about how the balance would be at high skill levels with a proper MMR system, but it certainly does reflect the game's balance at high rank (i.e. not necessarily high skill) using the current rank-based matchmaking.

You certainly should be able to 4k on any map as Pig; balance in DBD isn't that lopsided. It's all about mistakes and good plays on both sides, luck/RNG, and of course matchmaking. Not every game will be a 4k, but no game should be a foregone conclusion even for a garbage red rank player being hurt by a non-skill-based matchmaking system. Pig had a 73% kill rate at red ranks in late 2020, which is 5 points above average. That's extremely high.

If your Discord SWFs rarely lose, that just shows that they're very strong compared to the average red rank killer. It's no different than a Twitch streamer with 5k hours going on a 50 match win streak with either side; it's just a side effect of the bad matchmaking system and says nothing about game balance. This shouldn't be feasible on either side once MMR goes live.

Old Ruin was certainly still very strong at red rank - per the devs it was used in more than 80% of matches pre-nerf and that certainly wasn't because it was weak. I agree it was even stronger at low rank, though, and I'm sure that was a factor in it getting nerfed. I think that's a good thing.

I would disagree that analyzing player experience should be the driving factor behind balance changes. I do think it should be a factor in changes in general, as with OoO in particular, since I don't at all doubt the devs' numbers showing it doesn't really help survivors statistically, but that also doesn't make it fun to play against. Fun obviously needs to be an important factor too. Still, I much prefer balance changes coming from in-game statistics. For example, perks that are extremely underused or that lead to worse outcomes than running most other perks should usually be buffed, and vice versa. The problem with making player experience the main focus is that now you have to wade through the partisan shitstorm of community feedback to get at something resembling a fair balance change. They would do well to listen to community feedback when weighing whether something needs to be changed in the first place, but the community directly informing the devs on balance would be a nightmare.

It's also worth keeping in mind that if OoO really were busted in high skill matches with SWF, but weak at low rank and/or in solo queue, the devs should easily be able to see that once MMR goes live. There are a lot of variables to consider, but something truly OP or underpowered should theoretically be able to make enough of a dent in match outcomes to show a clear trend. Without a good metric for skill, though, which we won't have until MMR goes live, the devs might not be able to see something like that in the stats; so, for now I'll admit it's fair for community feedback to fill the gaps in the stats on potential balance issue, but once MMR is live and performing well I don't think it should be much of a factor in balance changes.

---

Losing as Pig, Myers, or Trapper against efficient survivors feels bad, but all three of them are above average at both red rank and at all ranks as of the late 2020 stats drop. So, statistically, proportionally more people should actually be frustrated that they're always getting stomped by Pig, Myers, or Trapper.

MMR should address those bad, frustrating losses on both sides and generally make matches more competitive. Even if killers like these perform a bit worse when MMR goes live they'd just be paired against weaker survivors to compensate, because MMR is killer specific. This relies on the overall game balance being somewhat decent, meaning there are actually the right amount of similarly-skilled players to make for good matches, but I would expect we've already cleared that bar. If not, the devs can tweak overall game balance accordingly. They can also of course still buff weaker killers based on their performance, but at the end of the day it won't be nearly as much of a functional issue once MMR goes live.

Dude, I don't know if you missed the point of what I was saying, but I meant that BHVR does not WANT to take the game in a strictly competitive direction. It has NOTHING to do with whether I think it should be able to or not, I'm for competitive balance.

Like I said, it's a problem because competitive games tend not to have a mass appeal.. most people don't want to get really good at games. SF 5 was pretty much in a loss for years, and yea that had somewhat to do with mechanical changes people didn't like, but remember, this was a game that even had a period of commercials between fights in order to sure up profits, and SF is a big dog in the fighting game community, so imagine all the other hyper competitive fighters that don't have nearly the profile of and SF. I defy you to go find a fighting game that isn't SF, Tekken , or MK and find an active lobby with any consistency.

TLDR; BHVR does not have a great financial incentive to make the game a competitive first game. Therefore they will likely never go in that direction over balancing for the middle.

you see theres this thing called a moron. They aren't good at the game, and both sides have them, and they are very good at b1tching about everything because they don't know any better. They're also notoriously loud

There being a 4k 0k difference doesnt matter tho. The AVERAGE should be a 2k. If 50% of the games are a 4k and 50% of the games are 0k, that goal of an average 2k is reached

On the forums? Their idea of balance is nerfing anything they deem "second chance" or "undo button".

Kill rate is a dumb metric, though for a completely evenly skilled team vs killer it should avg out to two kills, or one escape with hatch.

I play both sides religiously, and i typically get 4k's or solo escapes (or just you know solo sacrafice myself for the entire team to get a 3 escape)

But like.. kills aren't the final metric of winning imo. i mean, if a clown can get a 4k vs a freddy who can get a 4k against the same team whilst having vastly different perks and abilities, whose truly the superior player? who feels like they've won?

the freddy likely had a far easier time of it, but would that denote that the clown had a more rewarding game? or a more stressful one. whose the better player if their playing against a perfect team and still get a 4k? are they both masters of their craft and was it a fair win.

did the clown camp until they all died? did the freddy?

how do you define a win in dbd?

In order to win in red ranks you need to 4k or 3k with a lot of points. So a 70-75% kill rate is likely the most ideal. But i dont care for kill rate what really annoys killers is buggy broken mechanics. Survivor this patch got to see some of the absolute nonesense crap many killers have to deal with.

By that I mean the desync issue is awarding unfair hits. Meanwhile im playing blight and several months after release still sliding off walls. I'm still getting huntress hatchets give an indication of a hit (blood splatter) but then randomly not connect because dead hard? Then theres recent map changes that have gimped many range killers even though indoor maps exist which horribly neuter them as well.

Most of the stuff mentioned above was unintentional whats even more grating is the intentional nerfs that have utterly annialated the play rate of traditionally popular fun killers. Ie billy and nurse. The deliberate effort to rain them in was so horribly executed many lost interest in the killers entirely. Again kill rate isnt pissing off killers its these horrible god awful design choices.

I remember when the pallet vaccum got changed we could still get kills even with pallet vaccum nonesense exisitng or double pallets. These changes forced survivors to play better. Coasting off easy pallet vaccum safe zones was out. Looping and pathing got more efficient. This will continue espicially since even now people are adjusting there pathing to accomodate the new map changes.

Tldr killer mains want cleaner less clunky gameplay that dosent break or have glaringly simple counterplay.

Dude, I never missed your point. I said the financial incentive isn't there for BHVR, I never said an assymetrical game can't be competitive or even make money.

And it's not like they haven't already tried to make competitive assymetrical before. Hell, the first ever true Assym-game, Evolve, was extremely focused on becoming an E-sports, it was born with that as part of the intent. It didn't work then, but I still loved the game for what it was.

Also, BHVR tried to make another Assym-game, one they were gearing towards strictly the competitive scene... It flopped within months.

This is why BHVR specifically is reluctant to go into that position again. Also the fact that they attempted tournaments in the past with this game, and for the most part they were embarrassing.

I do hope another game dies pull of ayssm in a more competitive style of game, I absolutely do. But it's likely just not going to happen with this game

Those stats aren't reliable though.

There are a lot of factors that make them unreliable.

A 50% survival rate would be balanced as an average, but a 2k/2e isn't realistic in how the game actually works.

Killers start the trial at their weakest, all survivors are full health, 3 hooks from death and all resources are still available. As the trial progresses, pallets are destroyed, items are used, perks are used up and hopefully some of the survivors are closer to death than others.

Once a survivor dies, the other survivors need to pick up the slack. As this goes on, survivors get weaker as they run out of health states, have more work to do, and less resources to use to do it.

So goes the snowball, as survivors fall, so do the chances that anyone escapes (excluding hatch escapes).

The way to balance the game is improving matchmaking, re-balancing maps that are one sided, and probably look at the most common perks and add-ons and figure out why those are the most common and give some nerfs and buffs to improve the variety of gameplay styles.

It aint about kill rate, It is about the fact that when you get down to It survivors have more control then the Killer in the game.

THIS

they already admitted hook suicides are averaged into those things since they "have no way" (meaning are too lazy or poorly skilled) to sort those out

This person gets it ^^^^^

You know survivor queues are so long because killers are rare right? Because killer is underpowered and not worth the abuse.

No ones asking for a 4k every game. But killer does need buffs as do solo que survivors. I dunno what the point of your post is? To make it out the majority of people are asking for insane nerfs, nope simply not true. Yea there small groups of survivors and killers who are asking for insane stuff but that's the same with every group.

Your point is invalid, not true and isn't helpful in the balance discussion stop being toxic .