Is it possible for DbD to become a balanced game?
Probably the fatal flaw of asymmetrical genre that it can't be ever balanced.
Currently in dbd we are seeing constant nerfs on survivor side, while killers are getting buffed.
Unfortunately the reality that these nerfs only makes playing solo survivor even more miserable. Now these survivor players will play in SWF, thus making playing killer miserable or they are just straight leaving the game(this is one part of reason for player drop)
Because lets be clear in one thing, when 4 good player, plays in SWF the game is fundamentally broken into pieces, you have so much information(knowing the killer location almost all the time), reliable teammates who can play decently, while the killer in chase, everyone else on gens, its like a god mode, most of the killer cast has no answer to this. Even the 2 killer who can do something requires significant time investment, you play killer like its your job(streamers can perform well or whose life is the game). So killers has to face more players in SWF, which in turns frustrates them and lot of killer just switch to play as survivor in SWF, or leaving the game(another reason for playerbase loss)
So in summary:
Solo survivor percentage is getting lower by each week, which in turn increases survivor numbers in SWF, which in turn decreases killer numbers because playing against SWF is really unfair for Killer.
I don't know how could this be ever balanced. If solo would be buffed ,then SWF would get out of hand. Giving comms wouldn't solve because most would refuse to use.(seen in games where comms there but you still need SWF)
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There's no real balance in a game like this where you can solo q or play with friends against a single person. The best possible opportunity to balance this game was to keep it solo q but that didn't stick.
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I'm pretty sure it's possible for dbd to be in astate where the strength of the best killers aren't significant over the strength of the weakest killers.
But I don't really have much faith that bhvr will get there since they are far too slow and often too safe with the changes they make.
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Yes it is possible:
- Buff Solo-q, make them close to SWF.
- Buff for all weak killers.
- Nerf maps (Make them less safe and smaller)
- New early game mechanic for help killers.
- Remove Dead Hard.
- Nerf Camping and Tunnelling.
- Nerf busted Blight add-ons.
- Remove Trickster (This personal request, don't take serious).
I think game will be alright. They still can change minor issues but game will be alright mostly.
I would watch Nurse after map changes, if she becomes problem i would rework her.
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i stopped reading at: "Currently in dbd we are seeing constant nerfs on survivor side, while killers are getting buffed"
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The game can never be 100% balanced, but it could be more balanced than it is now
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There would be a way of balancing. Just for examples: Starcraft has 3 parties of fundamentally differently played armies and is considered one of the best balanced games. Can't say details on Evolve but it never felt like you have 0 chances at the one or the other side, mostly you noticed where you messed up, it was never in my case the situation that I got killed or killed the monster (as the monster) in evolution stage 1. This was my eyes is an extremely well balanced 4v1 game also having 3 different monsters available with different playstyles.
Balancing like this is just super difficult and I'm pretty sure BHVR has not the knowledge or the appropriate tracking for stats and evaluation to get to the core of balancing issues in this game. Let alone the bad matchmaking be the cause why games in itself are unbalanced and just a rare number of all games can deliver valid stats about which perk is OP or not.
I also posted a while back about the rework of the post phasing addons that got reworked for spirit, that I think they were not a problem. In short: you could do insane hits because of the mega lunge but also go for a high risk because when you miss then you boost away like 15m from the survivor and you lose a lot of time catching up again, which kinda made it balanced, high risk high reward like. Just a guess, no clue about real numbers, just as example what can mislead: as there are way more consisten addons, most spirit players run other addons, but strong spirit players that can make better use of the addon run it more frequently for fun reasons, but wouldn't need the addon and still get a lot of 4k results because they are simply good spirits. Result: the stats say post phasing addons are OP, but they probably weren't. To identify that, you would need to include spirit MMR into the stats to see if mid MMR players perform better with this addon or high MMR or both.
Again, no idea if they have stats like that or if they read it like that etc. Don't wanna judge about it anyway. Just feels like statements like "OoO is fine because the escape rates don't show high numbers with this perk" are not the correct way to read stats. I would say DBD totally could be balanced way better, maybe not perfectly but better, but that would need a big effort and I don't think that BHVR has the capacity or intention to do so
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Where did you get the "the solo survivor percentage is getting lower every week" from?
I play solo and despite having some bad days, i don´t plan on going SWF. (mainly because none of my friends play dbd anymore.)
If the game can be balanced? Depends on what you consider balanced. Whats balanced for new players is insufferable for veterans and whats balanced for veterans is OP for new players.
So the only way around this, would be 2 game modes (casual and ranked) and balance around high skill mmr (maybe even tournaments).
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It might be but here is the problem:
1) New chapter every 3 months means that once a while we get weak Killer (Sadako) or OP perk (like CoH) and then it takes months and moths to slowly getting balanced.
2) Balance changes are too slow.
Combining these two you will fix something, then add something bad again or weak, then waiting to fix it while other things like weak killers also needs something. Then we have on each side like half the perks being underwhelming at best and barely anyone using them, etc.
It would be possible if they faster do changes that are in need and add less problematic content (in terms of balance).
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When there's so much difference in strength between specific killers and perks? Probably not.
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No. No matter what the devs do the game will never be properly balanced.
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Even they will buff legion and ghostface but current dbd still is a survivor sided.
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It is possible but I don't think it's gonna happen for years.
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Until the developers decide on what metric they want to balance the game on it wil never happen.
top level mmr - low level, swf vs solo.
There can never be any balance.
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Perfect balance is technically impossible and even if they somehow managed it, people would still complain. However, there is ALWAYS room for improvement.
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No, it will be too convoluted and too difficult
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Balanced? No. But it can be made to feel substantially better to play.
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Impossible in its current state because there is to much of a power difference between:
-SoloQ and SWF
-The strongest and weakest killer
-The strongest and weakest map for each killer
-The tiles generation on a single map where one can have an impossibly strong window setup and the other basicly empty of usefull tiles
-Perk and item and addon aren't taken into consideration for matchmaking
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You cannot ever completely balance an asymmetrical game by its very nature, the entire basis of the game is unbalanced by design. However of course you can do a lot to reduce the inherent imbalances but it seems to have always been a constant battle for BHVR.
The current situation is clearly an imbalance towards survivors but I think they will do at least the minimum to address this, as the reducing player numbers and unpleasant gameplay meta that has resulted has hurt the game and will ultimately affect their revenue stream (the only thing they really care about).
Will this be successful? Well when you have people who are embarrassingly bad at the game making major balance decisions... I am not so sure.
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Maybe not perfect, but updating the hud to show activity is a great step imo
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As you said - APvP games are impossible to balance.
But...that's true of most games more complex than Chess.
Balance will always be a perfect example of Xeno's Paradox. It's fractal. No matter how balanced your game is, one side will always have at least some advantage, albeit ever smaller.
Perfect balance is impossible.
That doesn't mean, however, that you shouldn't balance your game - it just means that there will always be balance QQ.
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Why'd you stop reading at a truthful statement? does truth hurt?
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Sluzzy burner account?
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I wouldn't say it will ever be balanced however it can feel a lot better in the long run.
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I imagine since it's asymmetrical there's no really way to make it completely balanced. And with this kind of game, balance is very subjective, everyone has different opinions and always will even if the game is skewed more towards killer or more to survivor, it is what it is.
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Balancing DbD would either require first balancing solo and SWF completely, or removing one of them from the equation: either queueing solo or queueing together would have to be removed.
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yes, like patch 3.7.0 , when they remove a huge amount of good loops and maps got smaller(amazing QoL change)
sadly REALM BEYOND bring those back with no reason on some maps, soo yeah.......🤦♀️
They can make dbd balanced completly NO , but they can fix some issues for sure like map tiles and Solo Q lacking of information tools
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Perfection is unattainable but there's no harm in trying.
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"It's not perfect, but 'perfect' is always the enemy of 'good' , and nostalgia is the arch-nemesis of 'better'."
Don't know where I stole this from, but I like it
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Of course there is. Now, absolute and complete balance? Probably not. But faaaar better balance than right now? Absolutely.
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How could it never be balanced? There's a million suggestions for how the game could improve. Just none of them have been implemented. And no, we are not seeing survivor nerfs and killer buffs all the time. Look at the Pyramid Head nerf, the Freddy nerf, the Spirit nerf, the Pinhead nerf, the Wraith nerf, the Deathslinger nerf, on top of perk nerfs like Pop, Coup De Gras, and Gearhead. Meanwhile survivors get boons and a new Boil Over which everyone knew was going to be abused, on top of less hooks in maps overall so that killers can't get hooks after downing people. And now they're talking about BT basekit. I can see where you're coming from, that the game will never be balanced, because you think these balance changes favor the killers over the survivors!
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I stole mine from a zerg geneticist from star craft 2 named Abathor :p
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I'm not even going to attempt to understand what you just said
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This game would’ve die ages ago if SWF wasn’t a thing.
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No this game is a 4 V 1... Live service
Also the Devs worry to much about stats and not how the game is played (Just look at the MMR for proof)
And the Devs don't share what they see with us... Other then Pick rate and Kill rate (and not perks pick rates)... Then tell us not to read into it
And there is way to much RNG in the game
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I'd say it's only possible if they remove items and killer add-ons
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unpopular opinion, the game is at a very balanced state. The game can definitely still be improved, both sides have things that need looked at, but it can still be fairly balanced. The problem with the game is that it really doesn't want to be a balanced game imo, there are way too many things for both sides to drastically change the game in their favor. The game isn't survivor or killer sided, it is sided to the side that brings the stronger things. If it is a balanced map with both sides using the strongest things then it is pretty even. I just think MMR was a bad way to take it because it means people think they need those things to win because they think their opponent will do the same thing, which leads to the sweaty and (subjectively) unfun matches
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The way to balance solo survivor and SWF is not so much complicated, should be enough create the following rule: you can see the random survivors' aura. Maybe this rule need a balance because is OP, but can be buffed and nerfed easly, maybe you can see the auras at intermittence, or insted of auras you can see something like kill instinct... The idea is: if you know where are the others survivors and what are they doing the solo survivor and SWF game should be pretty balanced.
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Of course it is possible. Is it probable for all those working on it to discover how to make it become a reality? Very unlikely..
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Maybe without perks or very limited perks, limited item effectiveness, and static maps-- essentially, the less randomness, the better foundation BHVR will have to balance around. So no, I don't think this game will every truly be balanced.. just enough for casuals to be happy (enough) with it.
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Would have been for the better than see what its become today
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nope. Every other day one side as to complain about something the other side is doing wrong. killers are throwing water into the survivors boat, survivors throwing water into the killer boat. No one wants to bail themselves or each other out when they could just make the other boat sink faster
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Can't balance a game that has 3 separate elements to balance. Nerf SWF and solo suffer, Buff solo & SWF get out of control, buff killer to match SWF & solo suffer. Never ending cycle of one side suffering due to one element being too strong. Only real winners that will stay on top after any changes are SWF.
The only possible way would be to apply some kind of handicap to SWF teams, but that would most likely require a complete overhaul & months (maybe years) of tuning to get it right.
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If you’d stop complaining about it then it wouldn’t be so bad.
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This image is perfect.
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"wouldn't be so bad" yeah right. If I just didnt complain about how unbalanced the game is or no one did that then no meaningful changes would come. Its not like they come fast anyway other than the exception for CoH and boil over. They're finally getting to dh even though they have been looking at the data for nearly 2 years now.
I find it better to play the game knowing the state its in than try to act like there isn't an issue.
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That would just be too strong for survivors. If we are making solo Q close to SWF we would need to rework some other perks like spine chill to compensate for stealth killers
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Dead by Daylight is an asymmetrical game.
It's literally the games definition not to be balanced.
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I stole the line from a character in a game called Star Craft 2
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possible? absolutely.
realistic? no.
the devs said themselves they dont strive for balance. what they balance this game around is not fairness, its "fun". in other words, they balance this game soley around chases, which will always result in Killers being underpowered.
and we're in so deep in this now that them changing their mind on their balance goals and balancing the game properly is a very unrealistic scenario. Itd be easier for them to just remake the game from the ground up and sell it as Dead by Daylight 2 instead of trying to fix what we have at this point.
now all of that doesnt mean that it was impossible for the game to improve and go in a more positive direction, but i very much doubt we will ever see the day where Killers and Survivors are on equal footing.
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Pretty much this but I’ve lost faith, a lot of my friends stopped playing a while back as survivors just got worse each iteration.
it’s a shame but I’ll still play, just as killer as it’s more chill than solo q.
But definitely agree with the above, think you hit the nail on the head man
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