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Does the difficulty on Killers make sense?

AhoyWolf
AhoyWolf Member Posts: 4,396
edited January 2022 in General Discussions

The difficulties listed on some Killers don't make much sense if I say so myself.

For example, why is the Wraith listed as intermediate? All of his Perks are making tracking Survivors easier, or they at least suppose to (looking at Predator). His power isn't complex at all: While invisible you zoom, while visible you gently pet the Survivors on their back, that's the whole power, shouldn't he be listed as easy?

Another example is Michael, his Perks are more complex than Wraith's, I give him that, but his power isn't that hard to understand once you played him, you stalk Survivors to have a bigger pressence in the Trial, but grow more powerful. Shouldn't he be listed as intermediate instead of hard?

Comments

  • AlkaloidssOP
    AlkaloidssOP Member Posts: 254

    Some of the difficulty rankings are really questionable. Like Huntress and Trickster. All Huntress does iis throw hatchets - you hit, you injure the survivor. She is considered intermediate. Trickster on the other hand has to stack his hits with the Laceration meter, that decreases over time and has to plan around building up and using Main event. And he only has Main event available for 30 seconds. Yet he is considered easy.

    What the hell, right?

  • Yatol
    Yatol Member Posts: 1,960

    no

  • HectorBrando
    HectorBrando Member Posts: 3,167

    Easy/Intermediate/Hard is not related to their strength, its related to how easy they are to play (this applies to Survivors, how easy they are to play their perks, for example Ace's perks are all pasive bonuses, they are easy to use even if useless).

    Huntress is harder than Trickster because landing a hatchet is way way harder than landing the knives, with Huntress you have to aim, with Trickster you can just spam the knives and eventually enough of them will land, a newcomer will have a much easier time with Trickster than with Huntress.

  • LastShoe
    LastShoe Member Posts: 1,183

    I disagree, to play trapper effictively you have to know a lot of trap spots and know how will survivors move in certain situations, to either make passive traps, that will trap survivors after certain gens are completed or loop traps. You also need to understand how falling works, to put trap in a proper position, so survivor will fall on it and not next to. You need to understand the concept of mindgames to better utilise his traps in a chase and know on which loops place a trap and on which fake it. Trapper is at least intermedtiate.

    Not to mention that in certain positions you are reduced to m1 killer, which makes mindgames that much more important.

  • FrenziedRoach
    FrenziedRoach Member Posts: 2,600
    edited January 2022

    I've always interpreted the difficulty in how difficult the killer's POWER is to use WELL.

    Wraith is intermediate because while mechanically his power is easy to use - using it tactically isn't immediately straightforward till you put a few hours in and start to realize how you can use his power to block escapes or shorten a loop. It's the same for the Doctor - his power is easy to use for finding people, but using it in the chase effectively requires peerless foresight and timing.

    Trapper is considered easy because his power is not only easy to use, but being effective with it is very straight-forward and doesn't require a lot of tactical or mechanical skill to use it well.

    The difficulty has never been about how powerful the killer is - just how hard they are to use well. Which is why a mid-tier killer like Trapper is considered easy while S tier killers like Nurse are considered hard.

  • egg_
    egg_ Member Posts: 1,933

    One day people will finally realize nurse isn't as hard as they think she is

  • LastShoe
    LastShoe Member Posts: 1,183

    You need to play her frequently to not get too rusty and you will always have a way for becoming better with her... but, she is the most annoying killer to play as and you will slowly lose sanity and become hollow. Jesus christ, going into underground on temple because there was a slight step on your way... ugh... or going through void itself when teleporting through buildings on Myer's map... even her screams of pure agony will alone drill themselfes into your head...

  • glitchboi
    glitchboi Member Posts: 6,023

    Not at all. I made my own take on killers' difficulties a little while back based on the powers of killers, you can see it here:

  • BenihimeWrath
    BenihimeWrath Member Posts: 968

    Myers is listed as hard because of his addons moreso than his base power. His addons modify his power the most probably of any killer in the game at the moment.

    Wraith is listed as intermediate because while his power is simple on paper, it has a few nuances in conjunction with other systems. Particularly how the lunge mechanic works, and how he is one of 2 killers that can be light burned.

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 11,715

    Not anymore, but their OG version in 2018 was actually pretty accurate, imho.

  • egg_
    egg_ Member Posts: 1,933

    One day people will finally realize nurse isn't as hard as they think she is

  • Devil_hit11
    Devil_hit11 Member Posts: 9,102

    what are you talking about? Trickster has 2nd lowest kill-rate in the entire game. I repeat, he has 2nd lowest kill-rate in the game behind nurse. Basically, if nurse didn't exist, he would literally be lowest kill-rate killer entire game. Its not hard to even see why.

    In other FPS games that have tracking as a skill, The time to kill is very low. you can go to cs-go, overwatch, call of duty, heck even halo infinity and in all of these games have one thing in common. your health pool is not very high therefore when wielding a smg-automatic type weapon, you only need track for < 3 seconds, so a lot of tracking skill and flick aim ends up being quite similar in those games from time to kill.

    With trickster, his time to kill is considerably higher because he needs 12 knifes to down. 12 knifes to down at least compare traditional fps games is eternity so realistically, trickster spends more time aiming than huntress. its why many people joke about trickster being bootleg huntress that needs land 12 tiny hatchets to down. Tricksters that have bad aim are awful and end up being as bad baby nurses. he has high skill-floor with similar skill-ceiling as huntress with slightly lower pay-off(power-level in my opinion).

    If he was so easy, he'd be higher or about same kill-rate as huntress.

    difficulty rating are hard to comprehend because its entirely subjective on skill-floor, skill-cieling and power-level. the greatest analogy I can give is mountain.

    Power-level is how high mountain goes. Its how much reward/pay off you get when you master a character.

    Skill-floor is how high you start on mountain. its often labeled as entry-level of the character.

    Skill-ceiling is how hard it is to climb mountain and how much time it takes to get to the peak level of that character. It is how much you have to learn.

    Its hard to rate difficulty of a character because what is low or high is subjective to each player like with trickster. some player might think he is easy but globally, stats suggests otherwise that he is not that easy pick-up and most player struggle to perform average on him.

  • drsoontm
    drsoontm Member Posts: 4,903

    The difficulty is about understanding and using it's powers, not about how easy it is to kill survivors with it.

  • ThiccBudhha
    ThiccBudhha Member Posts: 6,987

    Is there literally any game out there that has listed difficulties that are universally agreed upon?

  • HectorBrando
    HectorBrando Member Posts: 3,167
    edited January 2022

    Im talking about the "easy/intermediate/hard" parameter on each Killer ingame profile being related to how easy they are to use and play and not how strong they are, THOSE ARE DIFFERENT THINGS.

    Trickster is literally look at someone and spam knives, he is super easy to use unlike Oni who needs practice to use his power properly, a new player is going to have a much easier time looking at someone and tossing knives than trying to land a Demon Dash, a Hillbilly saw or a Huntress hatchet.

    All that wall of text about power levels, skill ceilings, kill ratings etc is meaningless around the difficulty OF USE NOT PERFORMING STRENGTH.

  • Frodo_Tbaggins_
    Frodo_Tbaggins_ Applicant Posts: 20

    I am sorry for your loss. Prayers for your soul will be said. 🙏

  • konchok
    konchok Member, Alpha Surveyor Posts: 1,719
    edited January 2022

    Just have them pull the kill rates for killers with under 40 hours and use that to determine difficulty. I doubt that the kills with Nurse, Blight or Nurse are very high with players with less than 40 hours so they get an easy difficult rating. Doctor, Wraith, Legion all seem like killers that would be fairly easy for a new killer to do alright with, they get an easy. So on and so forth. You can even update the difficulty every 6 months or so without really having to think to much about it.

  • Devil_hit11
    Devil_hit11 Member Posts: 9,102
    edited January 2022

    Oni is normal 115% m/s killer. he doesn't need his ability to play the game. His ability empowers him to be more effective. Trickster is 110% m/s, he is worse than basic m1 killer and as such, he requires his ability to be effective. Your statement is overgeneralizing his ability. I could same statement that huntress is look at someone and throw hatchets but that is not indicative of her skill-cap. A new player that has poor aim will not be downing survivors with knifes. Instead, they'll miss a lot and have to reload. FPS skills is not natural talent that many players are good at. Tracking skill in particular is not to be underestimated. When MMR wasn't in the game, sometimes as survivor, you would face these baby tricksters when the game had rank resets. They're as hopeless as new nurse player hence why trickster's kill-rate is among lowest in the game. As peanut said, it doesn't mean that nurse and trickster are worst 2 killers in the game. it just means that they're harder to pick-up and play well on average lvl.

    Your post is exactly proving my point that deciding difficult rating for killer is difficult. your saying trickster is easy and I'm saying he is hard for average new player because most new players generally are not talented at tracking skill/flick shot skill without extensive practice.

  • GuyFawx
    GuyFawx Member Posts: 2,027

    Personally Ive found twins to be harder to master Nurses real difficulty comes in knowing what you cant blink through as well as how to properly do a chase with her. Twins is hard mainly because at first they are easy because of your competition and survivors having know real strategy against them. As soon as that fades and you find players who do know it ends up becoming a slug fest and managing hooks as well as using victor as a proxy detector.

  • GoodBoyKaru
    GoodBoyKaru Member Posts: 22,817

    Trapper may be easy to understand the basic concepts of but to play him anywhere near okay-ish you need to have such an in-depth understanding of survivor pathing that I wouldn't say easy.

    After all, the devs themselves say "the amount of time and effort that is required to properly learn to play him and use his Power effectively".

  • Alionis
    Alionis Member Posts: 1,030

    That is not what the devs say. What you quoted there is from the wiki, that is the wiki's interpretation of what the difficulties most likely mean based on comments the devs made when they introduced that stuff.

  • Aurelle
    Aurelle Member Posts: 3,611

    No, they don't. The difficulty for both survivors and killer literally mean nothing.

  • GoodBoyKaru
    GoodBoyKaru Member Posts: 22,817

    Well, my bad. Couldn't access dbd and it was 1am so the wiki was the best I had.

  • HectorBrando
    HectorBrando Member Posts: 3,167

    You are not understanding me, the Difficulty parameters are related to how easy/hard the power and the perks are to use, the simplest the power the easiest it is, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW EASY IT IS TO GET 4K.

    A new player with poor aim will be landing knives because its a continous stream of them, missing 3 or 4 its not a problem, he doesnt stop, you dont need to re-aim, actually the more you miss the easier it becomes to land for he tosses them faster and becomes more accurate, with Huntress you have to raise, aim, if you miss you have to re-raise and aim again and you have only 5 attempts, plus the speed of the proyectile changes depending on how long you raised the hatchet, is way harder to play her than Trickster, even if she is stronger.

    Also you are mixing baby tricksters after a rank reset, any newcomer is going to struggle against seasoned players, period, the "difficulty" thing assumes newcomers face newcomers but then again, 4k has nothing to do with the difficulty on the profiles.

    You keep using the kill rate as a metric for the difficulty which I repeat, ITS NOT RELATED, difficulty only measures how hard to use and understand the power and the perks are, ITS NOT RELATED TO STRENGTH OF THE KILLER OR HOW IT PERFORMS AT HIGH RANKS JUST HOW EASY IT IS TO UNDERSTAND.


    I know the Easy/Intermediate/Hard is busted, nowhere in my post I said it was accurate I was clarifying they are related to ease of use and not perceived strength like some people tought, a lot of the difficulty settings are from release and they didnt change with the Killers getting changed, even Freddy remained as hard (he was actually quite hard to play in its original iteration and confusing to understand) when now its super simple after the rework.

  • Devil_hit11
    Devil_hit11 Member Posts: 9,102

    by that logic, most of the killer powers are would be label easy by your definition. simplicity is not related to difficulty rating. Nurse's power can be described in one sentence, charge power and release to dash to forward to a location based off charge. Freddy has like 4 passives and 2 activate abilities. It doesn't mean nurse is easy and freddy is hard because one has simple power where as other has more complicated power.

    difficulty rating has almost nothing to do with simplicity. it has everything to do with how easy killer is to pick-up(skill-floor) and how much is there is to learn(skill-ceiling). Typically, players like characters that have low-skill floor because they're newbie friendly and high-skill ceiling as it gives them a lot of room to grow as a player.

    "A new player with poor aim will be landing knives because its a continous stream of them, missing 3 or 4 its not a problem, he doesnt stop, you dont need to re-aim, actually the more you miss the easier it becomes to land for he tosses them faster and becomes more accurate,"

    I had to hold my laugh when reading this. first of all, having a mechanic for shooting faster over-time is not an advantage. it is disadvantage. it would be better if there was no mechanic for shooting faster and he just shot faster by default and had consistent fire-rate. this is like saying that huntress would be better off if she had longer hatchet-wind-up when she carries more hatchets and shorter wind-up when she carries less. this would not positive change for her. I'd be very confused with that mechanic. Tricksters fire-rate poorly thought out of mechanic that just makes aiming harder due to random fire-rate.

    secondly, he needs re-aim every second because he fires a knife every 0.5 seconds. presumably, your trying to hit every knife. Its other way around. Huntress doesn't re-aim because she aims once every 20-30 seconds. he aims every second in throwing mode. its just how tracking aim vs flick aim works.

    lastly, to touch on some brief points. huntress projectile speed is somewhat advantage in certain situations because it allows you to do dip-shots. Being inaccurate at trickster knives in combination of throwing faster means you run out of ammo faster which is more punishing for the new player. The more you throw as trickster, the slower your throwing movement speed becomes which means the survivor gets more distance on you, adding more ambiguous punishment.

    so now that I finished decomposing your statements, as you see, his skill-floor for new player is not newbie friendly hence why his kill-rate is very low among low-medium MMR play but my guess is that a player that mains trickster probably has nominal stats that are comparable to other killers just like nurse has nominal stats for players that are good at her.

    If you read @Adjatha post, Its not really worth playing most of harder killers because they do not offer enough pay-off for learning them. difficult rating is not related to power but it has some indirect correlation. For players that have put a lot of hours into the game, they have hit personal peak for the killers which is near top of the mountain but because the killers are too weak, they can't advance their gameplay. They have too low of skill-ceiling. they get to top of the mountain too quickly and the mountain is not tall enough to beat stronger survivor teams in my analogy.