I'm a killer 1 trick who tried out survivor for a week.
And I've got to say, I haven't had this much fun-stration since I was a first time Blight.
I would like to catalogue my observations and things that I've learned playing the other role.
Warning, extremely long post.
Right off the bat I need to say that I was wrong about survivor. Watching you all play and do things really made me think the role was completely braindead, just holding mouse 1 on gens and holding W. But in reality that isn't true, some of the things survivors do is actually quite mechanically difficult, at least for me.
Leading to my second observation. Survivor is harder than killer mechanically when you first start out.
I've seen survivors 360, pallet tech, deadhard flash save, etc etc for so long from the other side that it really didn't seem that hard to do, especially in higher ranks because surprise everyone who's there (mostly) is decent at the game's mechanics. But trying to pull off half the ######### survivors do vs even low ranks with no experience from just seeing it, it's actually hard.
It's something that even now, just messing around in a corner during matches trying to consistently 360 which I consider a baseline tech seems impossible to me, how on earth do people moonwalk and all that? Killer is relatively straightforward mechanically when it comes to baseline stuff, m1, aim with your mouse, walk and strafe. EZ, anyone who's played a first person shooter would get it. Killers are responsive and move as you would expect. Survivors on the other hand? It's completely obtuse.
Survivor has a high skill floor and a lower ceiling, (most) killers have a low skill floor with a high cap on some.
Both roles are heavily limited by the games mechanics, such as:
Survivor movement is like tank controls. If you're on controller it's not as bad but man they aren't responsive to me when it comes to the simple act of moving. You have to use looking around, flashlights and your keyboard to do something as easy as turning in a tight circle. It's insane to me. But the actual objective is super easy, I'm getting decent at hitting those great skillchecks, and using windows of opportunity has helped me a lot in running killers. Aside from not getting 3 gen'd that's about everything I've had to deal with as survivor, the movement being the hardest part to understand.
Killers movement is pretty linear if you don't take powers into account. With powers things can get janky with Nurse, Billy, Blight, etc. Actually using the power itself effectively honestly isn't the hardest part about killer for me, it's the map control and chase efficiency, something I've been practicing for years and have gotten decent at. What really gives me the biggest issue mechanically is individual killers, not the role itself honestly.
And that brings me to my biggest criticism of DBD as a game from both sides, that we all universally have to deal with. And no, it's not balance.
It's quality of life.
Genuinely across each role, killer, survivor I've played the biggest frustration is feeling neutered by the game itself, instead of your opponent, or not being able to enjoy yourself because you run into game jank. Examples like survivor's hidden movement mechanics that entirely change the power of your "kit", or the random camera locks on certain actions as killer. It's all so cumbersome and irritating.
What I would suggest amongst the swarm of balance complaints and community rage, is the complete and utter overhaul of the game's quality of life for both sides. I don't have as much experience with survivor so take that with a grain of salt, but god damn I have some stuff to say about killer.
Survivor:
Solo que survivors should be able to see what the others are bringing for perks in the post game lobby to avoid perk overlap. Things like kindred or entire builds etc.
You should have some kind of indicator as to what speed of vault you are going to pull off, I know some people can just know from experience but I would never even know that was a mechanic unless someone mentioned it to me.
Movement should be less obtuse or feel better in general. I'm not a game dev so I don't know how to pull this off, but sometimes the slow ass turn speed of survivors just grates painfully, especially with you just sliding over the ground instead of actually animating the turn.
Killer instinct isn't explained to reveal you in lockers or at all really, probably should be somewhere.
There should be a mode where you can go to practice specific maps or movement tech with dummy killers that do things like attacks or powers etc.
The ability to turn down the freaking bloodpoint web in the main menu.
Killer:
Please god remove camera locks on everything and anything that exists with the exception of specific killers like nurse, blight, and legion for balance reasons. Especially ones that are pointless, like the stupid up and down lock on twins when they switch, or the one from breaking pallets.
Crosshairs on every ranged killer. No I don't care, people just use an overlay or put a piece of tape on their screen. There's no excuse, especially considering trickster has freaking COD hitmarkers.
Those little areas on maps that you definitely can walk through but can't for some reason.
The giant screen warping bloom explosions on notifications either shouldn't persist for so long, or be see through.
Some way of differentiating survivors who are the same, example, 4 identical Claudette's
Audio bugs of all kind need to be fixed.
The ability to turn down the freaking bloodpoint web in the main menu.
I'm sure there's many many more things that could be changed with zero affect on gameplay that would make the game more fun for each side, feel free to leave suggestions if you can think of anything. TLDR is survivor isn't entirely braindead, and each side desperately needs quality of life for the fun of the game to improve, arguably over balance.
Thank you.
Comments
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Good on you for trying out survivor. It's really important to have a deep understanding of both roles before one can truly understand game balance IMO. I get a chuckle out of the typical "killer hard" posts, because solo queue survivor often pits you against 4 opponents as well, except 3 are supposed to be on your team.
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period your post served. i basically only play survivor and don't think either side is easy, but the constant hate survivors get from killer mains is laughable. like the constant DH complaints where it's a braindead perk that requires no skill.... like anyone can 'press E' for a DH but only a certain level of players can press E and use their DH to make their chase last longer and turn the game around & make use of the perk.
while 4 man swfs bringing prove thyself, coh, and sweaty items can be a nightmare to go against, all of these in a solo game will still make these games basically a 1v4 for survivors
more killers should def play a round of solo queue survivor and they will just see themselves how much of a nightmare they are to play
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Not gonna lie, when I read the title I expected a completely different kind of comment. Glad I was wrong. 😁 It's always nice seeing the criticisms and suggestions from someone who has experienced both sides.
I like your suggestions, especially the idea of updating the tutorials to give new players a better start. For survivors, I'd even have a short guide on the most common "teamwork mechanics" that may come in handy later. And for killers, I say you should have different tutorials for each one of them you have unlocked because learning to place traps with the Trapper doesn't really help much with my blinks with Nurse. Also, for killers such as Trapper or Hag, maybe a quick walkthrough on the best ways to place your traps, or other like Huntress maybe a course to better your aim. Idk, some things can be learned by watching other people on YT but it would really help if the basics could be integrated into the main game by default via tutorials and training grounds.
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Whoever says X role is braindead either never plays the role they're trashing or has an absolutely bizarro vendetta.
I'm glad you're branching out.
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I play both side equally at one point and completely switched to Survivor recently.
The only thing that requires skill as a Survivor is loop that's it and maybe map sense if you don't want to use KIndred. You don't need to learn fancy 360s,crap,etc. The killer can't chase 4 survivors across the map. Just Hold M1 and win the game everyone just needs to learn how to last at least 40 seconds in a chase. Solo Q doesn't need anymore buffs they're fine as is.
In comparison to Killer having to have 100% of their brain in the game? The skill ceiling for survivor is low. I'm just listening to music the whole time.
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It's good that you started playing Survivor aswell. Playing both roles deepens your understanding of the game
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I arguably played more Killer than Survivor with more than 3K hours in the game now. But I played Survivor for a fair amount, I would guess in a 1:3 ratio (it becomes more and more survivor lately, because for obvious reasons). I have never played a single game in a SWF so far, all my games were in Solo queue. Of course, it can be frustrating, when you get steamrolled by the killer because of obvious mistakes done by yourself or your teammates. But this is still not comparabale to the frustration you feel, when you are playing Killer in higher MMR. I stopped playing my main Killer (Oni) a while ago, because I get matched against people, who know exactly how to outplay him (which is not too hard against the Oni) and deny me from my power while being in a chase and gens are popping left an right. This has created the feeling of complete loss of control over the game and being in the grace of survivors, which should never be the case if you are playing the so called "power role". A Killer, that I played well over 1K hours feels completely useless against a group of coordinated survivors (they don't even have to be on comms, just pressure the gens fast enough and I am in big trouble). Of course, I will make mistakes in my games (which is pretty normal), probably even more when I get stressed out. But the bad thing about playing Killer is, that every single mistake can cost you the game and gets punished very hard. Especially with the Oni: If you ######### up your Blood Fury once and get no downs, your game is most likely lost in a match where all 5 gens are done in 5-6 minutes. This led me to play other Killers, that I have a lower MMR with. I am not expecting the games going too good for me, not making myself any stress and don't overdo playing Killer (mostly only for the dailies and the tome challenges). I try to play fair, split the hooks evenly between the survivors and hope that everyone has a good match. And I have to admit that this has been the best decision I ever made in the game! I can enjoy the few matches of Killers that I do (I am currently playing DBD between 10-20 hours a week) and don't have to deal with high MMR stress any longer (still feeling sad for my Oni though).
In Survivor Solo queues, you usually got teammates being smacked down within the first 20 seconds of the game. But nevertheless, I can manage to escape in about 50% of my games. And for the other 50%, there is usually never (except for the very few games, we get steamrolled with 4-5 gens left) the feeling of being completely powerless against the Killer. You rather notice, which wrong decisions/mistakes you or your teammates might have done during the match, which lead to a specific unfavorable situation (teammates being chased running towards a hooked survivor, 3-genning yourselves, not focusing on gens, not knowing how to use pallets in the best ways etc..). It rarely happens, that I get facecamped or tunneled. And if so, I can still buy my team a lot of time, if the Killer decides to do so (that is why I love to equip Kindred, one of the best perks in Solo Q). Nevertheless, I still would say that Survivor is way easier than Killer (skill cap based and based on the stress level). Don't get me wrong, there are some Survivors out there with very high skill, knowing how to use loopspots most efficiently, using their camera the optimal way, knowing how to use their flashlight (yes, this is probably the hardest part about survivor gameplay :D) etc.. This is also the reason, why many people choose to main Survivor or former Killer mains switch to Survivor.
Still not hating on Survivor mains. They are just using the many tools that the game has given to them. They have the power role when it comes to "competitive gameplay levels", no arguing here.
If you made it until here, thank you for reading :).
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Yeah but the solo experience is almost only hard because of your teammates. While killer is mostly hard due to the game balance. Your teammates can improve and stop being a hindrance if they choose, but the killer role can't change the game balance to be more fair.
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You don’t need to win because you have 1k hours. You know survs can have 1000 hours also, don’t you ?
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I don't think you will find many killer mains who disagree with the majority of what you wrote. Well, not anything that isn't a "RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE MY SIDE MATTERS MOST" main, anyway, and you'll see those on both sides.
- Survivor definitely requires skill
- Playing as both roles is ridiculously important, if only for being able to witness with the other side gives you in response to your growth
- QOL is definitely something both sides would benefit from
When you get down to the core of why many players want killer buffs it comes down to something like, "SoloQ will always have potatoes, you can fix that by joining an SWF, but you can't fix killer without BHVR intervention. Survivors get such a larger return on investment for effort and time spent learning the game than a killer will, unless it's a madman hellbent on being a flickmaster Blight, or a Nurse god.
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You're right. Both roles are braindead - the whole game is, or it's at least trying to induce that in players :P
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Aggressive neutral, I see.
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Curious if you have much experience with third person action-RPG stuff before trying Survivor, given the control complaints? Killers using modern FPS controls might just be familiarity speaking, there.
I think Survivor controls something like those, at least. My memory is hazy as it was only the tutorial. <_>
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Survivor plays like most third person games (ie. Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare, RE2make/RE3make, Ni No Kuni, etc)- your movement inputs are directly related to your exact camera position.
You hold S while looking behind you and you'll move in the same direction as holding W while looking ahead of you. You have your camera angled wrong, you'll collide with a wall. That sort of stuff.
Not to knock OP's points or anything- I agree with most of them- but yeah that's how survivor movement works
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Yeah, so same as ever. Definitely movement that's easier controlled with a controller, I wouldn't argue with that part, since analogue inputs are way better if your camera's all over the place, but nothing out of the ordinary.
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I just want to point out the "pallet tech" isn't a tech. It's an exploit since you aren't supposed to clip inside a killer when vaulting but they somehow still haven't fixed that yet despite you being able to push charlotte out of the way when you vault into her while she's idle.
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It's funny you bring that up because it's the exact reason I've never played through Nier Automata. The wonky nonresponsive turn rate of characters in third person games with the exception of Warframe really bothers me for some reason, specifically because you just don't have as much control when it comes to mouse and keyboard for smooth movements when it comes to rotating. It's something I'm starting to put up with as I'm getting into games like Nioh and the like, but it really isn't intuitive to me at all. I've mostly played RTS games and a few first person shooters like Modern warfare and Overwatch.
If I had to liken it to anything, in League of legends when you move back and forth your character instantly rotates and moves from point to point with no delay, but in DOTA you actually have to wait for the entire turn before they get moving again. Same with something like Supcom and Starcraft.
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not the blight main saying what is and isn’t an exploit please
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I mean im not saying something isnt an exploit but that legit is not intended in the game so by default it's considered an exploit. Plus there is only really 1 exploit left with blight which is hug "tech" or to my knowledge that's the last exploit. Flicks are fine now since dpi no longer influences how far you flick it just affects how fast you turn 90 degrees.
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