http://dbd.game/killswitch
The inane balancing of Killer Powers, Perks, and Basic Attacks
Hello. I would like to tell you about how the devs don't know how to balance their game, (A shocking revelation I know), and specifically how they seem terrified to make any perk that synergises well with killer powers. I am of course referencing the abundance of killer perks that are pretty weak and niche and yet were still had a Basic Attack requirement slapped on for seemingly no reason. I am going to ask you a simple question:
If Demogorgon, Oni, Blight, Billy, Leatherface, Pig, Legion, and the upcoming Nemesis all had their powers count as basic attacks, would it break the game?
Power restrictions would apply first of course. Legion still couldn't down people with NOED up and Nemesis would have to infect survivors first. But otherwise every Basic Attack perk would work with them. If your answer to this question is; "Yes, because their power would become too oppressive", the I'd like to turn your attention to someone.
Why is it that Nurse, the most powerful killer in the game, has full synergy with every single Basic Attack perk but someone like Pig doesn't? Where the hell is the logic in that!?!
If that standard already set in place is that Nurse can use Basic Attack perks, then I fully believe that every killer I just mentioned should get the same treatment. It would promote build variety and fix the bizarre issue that some killers have where their own perks don't work with their power. *cough cough* Leatherface Blight*
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We don't talk about Nurse here. She's a... special case.
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In fairness, NOBODY really knows how to balance a game like DbD. It is a 4v1 with so many variables it would make a super computer overload. It is only possible because Players (rather than Bots) provide most of the processing power. :) And while the DEV don't really know how to balance this game yet either, they know MORE than most of us. They have been dealing with the issue since 2016 on a 24/7 basis and know all the information behind the curtains as well as what we seen that isn't. More to the point, for us the game is just a diversion, a luxury item. For them it is their bread and butter. It pays the bills. It puts food on the table. They are far more vested than you and I in making it work and getting the balance as roughly good as possible.
So again, NOBODY knows how to balance a chaos engine like DbD but the DEV are better suited to it than us.
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Yeah, I really trust their decision making. Gearhead and coup de grace would've been so OP if they weren't nerfed! Oh and thank heavens they nerfed Billy! (If it wasn't already obvious, I'm being sarcastic).
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And balancing a chaos engine is always a work in progress. They proceed slowly, glacially it feels like at times, because they know the slightest change can have a huge series of unintended consequences. Do they make mistakes? Certainly. They do eventually fix them. Let's just say I trust their judgement more than the CRAZY I see here on the Forums (my own included). It is always easy to heckle from the cheap seats. It is very different when you are on stage. Sarcasm is easy, when we don't get to hold YOUR life and accomplishments under a microscope. They are a wildly successful video game in a groundbreaking format. They have survived years longer than predicted and still going strong. How many people can say that?
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They are barely suited to balance the game more than the average forum user. No one asked for the Billy nerf, Breakable walls, Coup De Grace nerf, Gearhead nerf. I could go on. They have no idea what they are doing.
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"They eventually fix them"
Nurses blink spasms, survivors randomly gaining Iron Will, survivors randomly not making a noise while falling without Balanced Landing, survivors randomly making no noise, killer projectiles going through survivors, killer projectiles hitting survivors when they shouldn't.
Just to name a few of the bugs they have left unfixed for years.
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Special how?
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special in that she breaks the game entirely if the person playing her is good
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I mean, she's the only killer that outright invalidates pretty much every defensive mechanic the survivors have.
Don't get me wrong I know she -needs- to exist as that's the only way to counter a top level survivor team, the best killer player in the world will lose against a good team if they play Micheal or Wraith or something, but I still find her kind of weird from a design perspective.
She feels like a band-aid for the devs realising that there are deeper issues with chases and survivor gameplay that can't be fixed without a complete rework of chases from the ground up. So they just added Nurse.
So that if someone goes "hey BHVr, don't you think its a problem that over 60% of the killers in the game have absolutely no way of outplaying a god tier looper, regardless of killer skill" and they just point to a picture of Nurse.
This point about perks is just another weird thing about her power design.
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She only becomes uncounterable if the person playing her has had thousands of hours of practise and plays perfectly. At that point I'd say they deserve to win since you'll only ever encounter players like that in the single digits.
With this in mind, do you think that making a killer like Blight also have his power count as Basic Attacks is fair?
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To be fair them not having basic attacks also gives them amazing synergy with STBFL
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Its a weird one for sure. There's a lot of killer perks that I feel become instantly non-viable on half the roster thanks to this limitation. Surge is a perfect example. Imagine if you snipe someone with Huntress and break multiple gens from 32M from the down, for example.
I think it'd open more potentially viable perk builds for certain killers.
It's funny that you bring up that Nurse can use all these perks when she has by far the strongest power in the game, yet the reason they don't let certain killers use them is "cUs bAlAncE". Would it really be the end of the world if Demo could proc Sloppy on his Shred? No, probably not.
But then theres the trade off of they'd probably make a perk like STBFL count every attack including powers and thus the perk would become worse on certain killers.
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But it sucks for build diversity. There's no reason not the run the perk on certain killers. Until Demo got his new Black Heart add-on it was almost mandatory on him. Wouldn't it be better to consider running a whole selection of perks than just 1?
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To copy my point from GoodBoyKaru, I think it would be way better to have synergy with many perks than just 1. I'm honestly a bit sick of STBFL because there doesn't seem to be any reason not to run it on certain killers. And I find it makes the perk boring after a certain number of games.
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STBFL is a perk I use quite a lot and began to feel kinda naked without. But it is kind of boring to actually use. There's a lot of perks that I want to use but the limitations of extremely long cooldowns or M1 only requirements make them non viable. I kinda of wish they'd do away with them in a PTB just to see if it would be a big deal or not.
Surge would probably be decent enough if they got rid of the cooldown and limitations. I wouldn't mind using it. But most killers I use have M2 attacks so its pointless.
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I think that is actually a good idea. It would give many killers the chance to use some underused perks without handicapping themselves, and reduce the usage of STBFL, a perk which is not OP or broken but you don't want to see it every single trial because it gets a little bit annoying.
But then again, not sure if my opinion is valid here. As a long time Freddy main, I never had to deal with special attacks.
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You could go on but it would be kind of silly. Just because nobody asked for it doesn't mean they didn't have a reason for doing it. Remember, they see things we do not. As someone who plays Myers, I completely understand why they nerfed Coup De Grace. I was abusing it myself. It suffices to say that they see things we don't, and often have reasons for doing things we do not understand.
I'm not exactly a cheerleader. I don't pretend they don't make mistakes, or at least things that "I" see as mistakes. I think Wraith overshot the mark and is far too tough now. I accept that the current Wraith is here to stay for a bit until their own, internal measurements tell them otherwise. There are lots of things I think they could (and should) do differently. That doesn't mean I'm right. I'm making educated guesses and basing things on the metrics I take personally. Obviously my number are incomplete. Do I think I have a good handle on things? Yeah, of course I do. That is ego. I might be right, but let's be honest, I don't have the full picture and no matter how self-aware I try to be, there is always bias. You have it, I have it, everyone has it.
The assumption that we have to ask for something to make it a valid change is silly. There are lots of things we don't ask for but are thrilled to get. Just as there are things we do ask for and soon regret. :)
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Although I would love this, there is one issue I can find with this change.
Knock Out. Do you really want Victor to have Knock Out?
Also, Exposed perks should only count for basic attacks, obviously. Aside from that I am fine with this change. BHVR are eventually going to nerf STBFL by removing the special attacks not losing stacks part, so that part of this change is manageable.
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Victor doesn't function with perks at all. I'd assume he'd stay that way.
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Yes. Hitting someone while in a rush is a hard thing to do because is so easily countered by survivors.
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Well... Blight with NOED wouldn't be OP if his special attack were basic... it's not that easy to land a shot and on the first rush you can't hit survivors.
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Well... they stated many times OoO was fine and it wasn't until like, large part of the community asked for it that they said it was going to be changed... I get the idea behind coup d' grace but come on, you can only use it 5 times at most and it's not like you can decide when will you use your tokens... BTW if you have reached tier III with a large amount of tokens and the 5 gens aren't done by that time means the survivors let you feed evil whitin tiers... at that point is their fault, not yours.
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