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What is making Killer not Fun?
When I play Killer, I generally have fun. I play a range of killers, Plague, Sadako, Freddy, Twins, Trapper, Hag. When I play, I play really lax and will intentionally let survivors go if they are not good at the game. When that happens, I usually try and 2 hook each survivor, then just chase them down and hook them.
If the survivors are good or better than me, I'll try and get kills. I don't resort to face camping or tunneling-off-hook-till-dead, for me personally, I don't feel that is a win at that point. (Although I did do a test where I face-camped exclusively with Leatherface for 40 games to test to see if it's a valid strategy).
For me, what makes killer unfun is definitely face-camping, I had absolutely no fun doing that until the survivors became so good that I was averaging about 2 kills per game which happened about after 30 straight games face camping, before I got around a 3.2 average kill rate.
Aside from face-camping making the game boring for me, I also found that I really hating playing killer when the teams I went against were so much better than me that I couldn't do anything against them. Flashlight saves, perfect looping, it's a pain in the a*s and is stressful.
Those games don't happen often though. Usually I'm paired with survivors pretty close to my level or lower than my level.
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TLDR
When I face-camp.
When I face teams much-much better than me.
Comments
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There are usually two things that makes the killer games super unfun; games that are way too easy and games that are way too hard
Unfortunately for DBD, the vast vast vast majority of killer games seem to be one of those two.
Someone is getting obliterated in my games for the most part. No matter which side it is, that's not a ton of fun.
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Baby survivors. I am feeling bad for them because clearly we had not same skills.
New players should never face with exp players.
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What makes killer unfun for me but i still play it and enjoy killer but just will list the stuff that bugs me about killer play.
1] when the team is full on SWF and have near perfect communication. (sounds like your flashlight situation or close to it).
2] Generators finish too fast (3 mins) When a game should last at least 10 mins id say for such a game like this.
3] Meta perks all around need a good looking at. I know my opinion isn't common but overperforming meta perks should be looked at to match more average perks. This game isn't completive and it needs rely on your own skill over clutches in perk performance (so much of the meta atm). Im a killer main and ill take the hit as long as survivors perks are looked at as well. Much of the killer perks are used to counter the SWF and other bs the SWF pull off.
4] I never face camp since its stale anyway *but man sometimes you really are forced to with the good swf teams.. no joke there is a reason killer do ######### like this (of course super new people as well)... the swf teams are just that oppressive you have to. This goes along with slugging as well.. only viable thing i could do sometimes is slug since they picked their partners up in seconds as they literally leave all gens to save. I can say i only had one of these extreme swf which i imagine is up in the competitive area of dbd which i never want to touch again
I Love being killer but it can be a nightmare. I think my opinion is common on the balance of the game but may as well list my opinions on your post. For now just tank your mmr and just kinda gauge if your team looks good or not and enjoy your killer experience. Im not a sweaty killer at all and let them out a lot but its my choice over being completely gamed like an idiot when the games all about the killer hunting people (not the other way around)
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Being sent to an indoor map while I'm alt tabbed (so I didn't see the offering and couldn't dodge the game). That's the only time I feel like uninstalling the game
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What makes killer unfun is when survivors are using voice comms and calling out the killer’s location, so the survivors can hide early. So the killer sometimes patrols all the generators, and doesn’t find anyone, specifically because of voice comms. It also means that if the survivors are using voice comms, the killer is stuck camping on open maps, because if the killer leaves the hook, the hooked survivor will call out the killer’s location to everyone so they can hide early. The game isn’t balanced around voice comms, and when people use voice comms to gain an advantage, it’s not fun for the other side.
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When survivors lecture/belittle the killer after the match.
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Playing at off peak time (the only time I can) I'm forced into long lobbies and very hard games back to back.
Theres very little room to have fun, doesnt matter which killer I play I'll verse the same people just because it's off peak time.
The fact I'm limited to my server during off peak hours hurts the games for me but I cant control that, other games allow me on other servers
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SWF ruining anything you try to do.
Break off a chase with a tinkerer proc to ambush a guy at a gen? nah... He gets an early warning from the guy you were chasing.
One survivor finds your devour totem, all have found your devour totem.
perks are coordinated gens are called out and organised.
Dead hard.. Coh killing hit and run.
4v1 gate keeping and bullying
Streamers pushing the survivor rulebook and encouraging people to think that anyone playing killer is scum if they don't let them win.
A community that goes above and beyond to harass you outside of the game on your steam profile and social media.
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Just breaking everything down, it looks like matchmaking is the biggest issue.
- Skill levels difference - 7 votes
- Face-camping, because it's boring
- Indoor Maps
- Toxcity on endgame chat
- Dead Hard
- CoH destroying Hit and Run Strategy (This seems like it will be fixed in the next patch)
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Losing games thanks to Dead Hard.
Dead Hard is easily the best Perk in the game and the most overpowered one. Losing because of it sucks so much
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For me, it's map selection. I have a limited amount of time to play every day. It's ridiculous that I can select a killer and randomly get a map or be forced onto a map via offerings that renders my killer power virtually unusable. It's completely unfun when 20 minutes of my 1 hr for gaming is spent playing Billy on Lerys or an M1 killer on The Game.
The only way to mitigate the stupid BP grind is via offerings, but the only way to even give yourself a chance at a good map is also an offering. We have way too little control over map selection given how much they swing outcomes and the fun factor.
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Trust me when I say that a Killer DCing is not as bad as a Survivor DCing. But you are right, most Killer DCs are shameful while Survivor DCs receive scorn from the very depths of H*ll.
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Honestly and this might sound silly but the perk Dead Hard. It's really frustrating mindgaming a survivor only for them to press a single button and make it to a pallet or window extending the chase way longer than it needs to be.
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Skill difference isnt the issue, it's more of the fact beating those people in a 4v1 isn't reasonable especially when you get higher (DH&COH actually makes this worse)
But like I said in my comment if the devs make the mmr strict and take longer to find games then I wont get to play. I already wait 5-10mins for a few hours of my time so if that increases I doubt I'll bother playing.
No point playing if your games are over faster than your queues and arent even fun in general
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I see a lot of killer-players saying Dead Hard. It's never bothered me as killer and I never use it as survivor but there's definitely a lot of animosity about it from other killer players.
If I was going to complain about an exhaustion perk as killer, it would be Balanced Landing. Something about a survivor jumping off a hill and sprinting away just irks me, lol.
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This haha
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It's just the fact it's basically a get out of jail free card for survivors. It pretty much punished good killer plays and rewards bad survivor plays lol.
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MMR has something to do with it... Facing better Survivors
Perks and Playstyles are the next thing (having a match where the Survivors are just as lax as you are... to a match where the Survivors are "sweaty")
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Dead hard takes the fun away. When almost every survivor has a "nuh-uh!" Button taking away the satisfaction of pulling off good plays that can be used several times per match it's just not a rewarding experience.
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So you feel the game being unbalanced instead of skill differences, is the issue.
Let me get you to clarify. If the game is unbalanced, what level of play is it unbalanced at. Is it all levels of play? The top 5% levels of play? Is it only when someone plays Circle of Healing and Dead Hard?
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Will just do a list of short "sentences" :
- too many unfair perks (4 DH mainly)
- too many unfair/unskilled loop - it is just gambling at that point
- semi-infinite loops (when 2 windows are near - not talking about LT though)
- gen speed
So we could say unfair maps' layout and amount of strong surv perks making the surv team unfair. Apart from that gameplay is okay even though some killers' movements feel clunky : PH rite of judgement feels weird, Sadako TP feels slow and clunky, Billy's chainsaw end stun is dumb.
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It is unbalanced at a low and high skill level.
Low skill level = killer has the advantage
High skill level = survivors have the advantage
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The most unfun matches for me are when I’m facing coordinated sweat squads running every available second chance perk. If I play “fair” by the survivor rule book, I get zero kills, t-bagged at the gates, “gg ez git gud” comments, etc. I know full well that I’m not great at killer, and I don’t have the time to play/practice enough to be a great player.
The only way to avoid this is for 1) a better matchmaking system that minimizes the likelihood that an intermediate player like me won’t get matched against pro-level survivors; and/or 2) a way to opt out of playing against 3-4 man SWF teams. #2 ain’t gonna happen, and #1 is only possible if there’s a larger pool of killer players. So the root of the problem lies in the fact that most people just don’t want to play killer. If this sounds like an infinite loop, that’s because it is. Playing killer sucks because the matchmaking system sucks because people don’t want to play killer. The problem only gets worse and worse in this infinite loop.
It would be awesome if we could see the data to show the total number of “advanced” survivors who play the game vs the number of “advanced” killers. BHVR will never do this because would it make the real problem glaringly obvious. There are far too few killers at the “advanced” levels, so “advanced” survivors get matched against intermediate and beginner killers so that they don’t have 20+ minute queue times.
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Where do you think those imbalances start, percentage wise?
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MMR. It's really that simple. If you want to go more in-depth, you can talk about maps, perks, stuff like that. What made it tolerable was the randomness in random matchmaking. Trying to make a 1v4 asymmetrical horror game perfectly balanced in a game where 4 equally skilled survivors should have a much easier time, even if they die, against an equally skilled killer, is just silly.
Both sides have a lot of frustrations, and the developers rarely do much to help with it. That is the game and it will never get better
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Yep. The games I don't enjoy as killer are the ones where 3-4 survivors have dead hard. That's about it. I guess the rare 4 man stealth squads can be annoying too. But they're far less common than the multiple dead hard squads. Easily the strongest perk in the game on either side.
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Killer gameplay, at base, is incredibly flat.
Survivors have a variety of tasks that need to be accomplished. Find gens, do gens, keep an eye out for the killer. Find totems, find items, dodge the killer while going for an unhook. Try to help your teammates, open doors, hide from the killer. And of course, there's the all important chase. There's dynamism and variety, one second you're in a heart-pounding chase, the next you're taking a breather as you work on a gen.
Killers, in comparison, have almost no elements to their gameplay. Find survivor, chase survivor, hook survivor. From there, you either rinse and repeat, or camp. You are -always- on the clock.
Put simply: The gameplay design for survivor is a TON more involved than for killers. I think that's also leading to killers complaining about survivors being OP, then posting a screenshot of them getting 3K+: Killer gameplay isn't fun unless you are in full control of the match, which is generally only going to happen if you're stomping the survivors.
So I think that a lot of balance complaints also stem from killer gameplay being flat.
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For the high skilled i would say it starts to be unbalanced favoring survivors when you face the top 10/15% survivors.
For low skill i would say the killer is favored against the bottom 30 to 40% survivors.
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Boiled over, hook offering and then running up to 2-3 floor. You simply just can't walk to hook in time.
Bodyblocking the hook, so after an exhausting chase and long walk to hook you can't hook the survivor just because someone sat. What is the point of sabotaging if you can just sit?
Aaand matchmaking is far from perfect, fun games where skills are similar is a rare occasion.
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It's not about what level exactly it's more about tiles, tile layouts/how they group together. Safe pallets etc.
Basic attack killers versing safe/god pallets isnt a good experience. But the game definitely goes gets more unbalanced the higher you go, that's just because of the level at which they balance for.
But COH and DH definitely hurt alot of killers, every extended chase has a big impact and infinite fast heals sure is an issue for alot of killers.
Theres alot that could be changed to make the game more fair at all levels, but my biggest issue personally is the limited servers and me playing off peak time (and DH distance)
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1) Unbalanced maps
2) Dead Hard
3) CoH (getting nerfed but it might still be meta)
4) Same meta builds (BT + DH + UB + DS + ...)
5) Toxic Survivors (macro flashlights, tbagging, end game chat, survivor rule book, etc.)
6) Unbalanced killers (aka many weaker or just avarage killer powers)
7) "Forced" to run 4 slowdowns, etc.
8) Map offerings
Just to name a few that are mostly common from killer complains.
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people who pre drop or hide because chase is the most entertaining thing in the game for both sides
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MMR but if I had to blame a perk it would be Circle of healing.
Also it will NOT be fixed next update, it'll still be busted asf even at 50%.
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At the moment annoys me the most:
If i start chasing and immediately see they are good.
Run from one pallet to another - i break them mostly asap - then when you caught up - Dead Hard - to next pallet/window.
Also even if i know the drop, i try to stay a bit away but the pallet hitbox seems pretty big - get stunned anyway.
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The only time I don't have fun are when survivors hold w and predrop pallets. Chasing is legit the only fun thing in the game, so when I get denied a good chase I have no fun. If I just get those survivors for a while I just stop playing for a few days or a week.
I also noticed, especially with a lot of the matchmaking tests I'm just getting survivors way below my skill level compared to mmr right now (which does it occasionally), and I hate it. I don't have fun destroying teams that have no chance - it's honestly dreadfully boring. I want more of a challenge in my matches.
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MMR but if I had to blame a perk it would be Circle of healing.
Also it will NOT be fixed next update, it'll still be busted asf even at 50% BONUS.
ftfy.
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And that is exactly the problem bhvr cant solve. Too easy are games against random solos and unfair are games against swf. Exceptions prove the rule.
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I've been using lightborn so much lately and survivors are killing themselves because they can't taunt or be toxic lol
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1. Super fast Gen Pops.
2. Toxic Behaviour
3. Deadhard
4. Survivors hiding the entire Match
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I think I'm not having fun when:
_ survivors play gen-jockeys no matter what.
_ boons are boosting survivors healing, hiding, speed, ...
Sure, tunneling helps but having to tunnel 24/7 to win isn't fun.
(and then of course there are the cheaters, the awfully big maps, the silly auto-miss, ...)
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What is making killer not fun?
Bhvr
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I can't stand when the "non aim assist" aim assist forces you into a corner or window frame... Feels so unfair.
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Mostly SWF thinking they are playing a fair game using comms.
It's clear the game wasn't designed to be played that way. Hence aura perks which they no longer need and can fill with other controversial perks like DH or Boons.
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Dead hard
COH
Unbalanced maps
Toxicity
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lol imagine being scared of a map.
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I'm not scared, I don't find indoor maps well designed and they're not fun to play in. They don't affect my performance as killer
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Did that comment really warrant any kind of reply? Everybody knows some maps are awful, too big, too much hiding places, corn, ...
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I fell for the bait 🤒
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Not even really bait. I prefer indoor maps. They are much more varied than the bog standard cars, coal, and corn you get 90% of the game. And this from a killer main.
I am more mocking the entire notion of d/cing. #########'s sad.
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i can only speak for myself, and speculate on what other people's experiences are. It's been clear from a killer shortage during peak hours that there are a number of players who simply don't play the role since they don't enjoy it. I play a substantial amount as killer and DO enjoy it the vast majority of the time, but I can definitely can understand why some people don't.
When do I NOT enjoy playing killer? It's the matches that feel lost before they've even begun. Those are the exception and not the rule for me, but they do happen. Matches where survivors with multiple BNP Commodious Toolboxes power through gens even when I getting multiple downs. Matches where no matter how fast I'm getting hooks, gens are still flying and heals happen almost instantaneously. Seeing every survivor on a team who knows how to run tiles going to an area on a survivor-sided map I've been sent to, where multiple strong tiles are strung together -- and I'm playing Pig, lol. If I'm playing survivor, unless the team is throwing or someone DC's out the gate, I NEVER have a match where I feel like it's unwinnable 2 minutes into the match. Playing killer, that has happened, though, and it's extremely frustrating.
I don't mind going against meta perks or builds, since I'm usually running them myself. COH may not be well-balanced, but I've learned to work around it, and I have accepted that playing hit-and-run is something I'm less likely to do now. Dead Hard is the only perk that feels "unfun" (I hate using that word, since it's a phrase that's way overused in the community) -- it's frustrating to outplay someone with a mindgame at a tile, only to watch them Dead Hard for distance to make a window or pallet they should never have gotten to and extend the chase significantly. Nothing else survivors do bother me -- saboing, the Boil Over squads, flashlight squads, none of that is an issue for me, since I've played against so many of those teams that I know how to deal with them, but I can understand why those players make the game miserable for some killers to face.
I have messages on console set to friends only, so I don't get to see any post-game chat -- thankfully! I play as "nice" and "fair" as I can, but I'm sure there would still be survivors who are raging on their end over some self-perceived "problem", so not seeing any unwarranted complaining helps me avoid a large part of what causes a lot of other killer players stress (I'm of the opinion that post-game chat should be eliminated entirely, eliminating a huge source of toxicity, but that's another discussion altogether).
I think matchmaking is an issue, but the root of the problem is the imbalance between killer players and survivor players during peak periods, and no tweaks to SBMM (unless it ends up with people sitting in stupidly long queues) is going to fix that. With speed prioritized over fairness in matchmaking, you're getting killers who are new or inexperienced getting survivors well above their skill level, while still sending killers with a lot of hours in the game against new survivors, making for bad experiences all around (I have no fun playing against a bunch of new survivors with barely any perks any more than they're having going against me).
I think a lot of the lack of "fun" for many killers is that there's no margin of error against competent survivors. One mistake is enough to cost you an entire match, and there's very little room for meme perks, builds, or a single bad play. That can lead to stress, and add in the poor sportsmanship shown by too many in the community, and I know a lot of survivor mains who simply don't play killer for those reasons.
Again, all of the above is my own personal experiences. Your mileage will vary.
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