Dead by Daylights biggest problem

Prologue

Hello everyone,

First of all, this is not actually a post that I really wanted to make. As some of you will probaply know, I no longer play this game, so my enthusiasm for it has dwindled too. I have just not been having the motivation to make a long post like this one for a long while now, though I did write down the thoughts from this post in earlier comments already, just in a less detailed form.

Ever since i quit DbD in August 2021, I have been reflecting on why I quit and after discovering the reasons, decided to dig a bit deeper and find the reasons for those reasons. And I do think that I managed to figure out an issue this game has that I barely see anyone talk about, yet sooo many things people do talk about and discuss end up being direct consequences of this one, bigger thing.

So I did decide to make this post eventually, simply to shed some light onto what I believe to be, by far, Dead by Daylights biggest problem right now. The "root of all evil", if you will.

Also I am not saying this was DbD's only issue, there are some others that are very much seperated from this one that are important too (e.g. the discrepancy in strength between solo Survivors and SWF groups), but I believe this one to have the biggest impact on the game as of right now. And do keep in mind that this is my opinion, it is very possible that some of you might view other things as more important issues than this one.

The Issue

I'll be straight forward and tell you the problem right away:

The Survivors objective is unfun and boring.

Now before you go in the comments and start calling me crazy, please read my reasoning for this being DbDs biggest issue first. It is a lot more complicated than this one sentence might make it look like.

How to balance an asymmetrical game

I know this might seem off topic, but trust me, this is very important for later.

Dead by Daylight can be split into two seperate "games":

1. The "Macrogame" (referring to the overall trial and its progression)
2. The "Microgame" (referring to interactions between both sides)

The way we can create a balanced experience for both sides is, by making each side dominate on of those two cathegories, but as a result of that be weak in the other.

Essentially, this game boils down to both sides racing each other by pushing their strong suit and hoping that they can finish their objective before the other side has been able to finish theirs.

Due to this being an asymmetrical game, the side that has less players in one round (Killers) needs to be the dominant side in the Microgame, while the opposing side (Survivors) gets to dominate the Macrogame.

This makes sense, given the Survivors superior numbers that allow them to apply pressure on the Killer in multiple different locations, which the Killer can not contest due to them only being able to be in one place at a time.

To make this fair for the Killer, they need to have the upper hand in this 1v1 interaction, so that they don't waste much time on this one Survivor and can instead go and pressure the team after dealing with them quickly. This is also why they are referred to as "the powerrole", even though they themselves arent any more powerful than the Survivor side is, but they feel very powerful due to the fact that they heavily outclass an individual Survivor.

In other words, a balanced Dead by Daylight would be a game where Killers dominate in chases, whereas Survivors dominate in generator progression, with the deciding factor being who can be more efficient in "their game" of DbD and outperform the other side.

How the Issue affects DbD's balance

In a balanced Dead by Daylight, as discussed above, long chases do not exist. Killers dominate in this aspect, so Survivors will want to avoid chases altogether, focussing their gameplay on generators.

But generators are no fun. No one wants to focus their entire gameplay on holding M1 and occasionally hitting space bar - understandably so.

If this game were to ever be in a balanced state, Survivors would be the ones quitting out of boredom. And since Survivors are just as essential to this game as Killers are, while also making a majority of its playerbase simply because of the 4v1 nature of this game, this would be very bad news.

This is also something that I believe the Devs are very aware of. They have stated multiple times in the past now that they have no intention of balancing Dead by Daylight to make it fair, but to make it "fun".

But what does that mean exactly?

What is the one thing you think of when you talk about "fun" in Dead by Daylight? - It's chases.

Chases are a fast and easy way of bringing action into this, otherwise very boring, game. They are full of fast paced interactions between both sides and you need to think on the run to make the right call in order to avoid certain death at the Killers hands.

As a result the Devs have started balancing DbD around chases - some people might even refer to chases as Dead by Daylight in its entirety, completely forgetting that there is more to it outside of them.

While this is a very understandable decision made by the Devs, it is also one that brings major imbalances with it.

The result(s)

Due to the Devs focussing their resources on making chases a fair, interactive and balanced encounter for both sides, Killers feel very weak to play.

Remember what I said earlier about how to balance an asymmetrical game - Survivors need to dominate in the Macrogame, while Killers need to dominate in the Microgame.

But this is no longer the case. The reality of DbD is, that Survivors dominate the Killer in the Macrogame, as they were designed to, and are equal to them in the Microgame, while on the flip side Killers get dominated in the Macrogame, as they should, but are only equal to Survivors in the Microgame.

By balancing this game around the 1v1 aspect of it, the Devs took away the Killers strongsuit. Killers now struggle immensly to compete with Survivors, especially since those Survivors can hardly be nerfed in their strongsuit, due to that being a direct result of their superior numbers. Simply put Killers can not end their chases quick enough to properly race Survivors who focus on generatos, meaning any time the Survivor team is working on generators efficiently the Killer will most likely lose.

As a result the game becomes frustrating to its Killer playerbase, because any time they go up against a team of Survivors with an equal skilllevel to theirs, they are heavily outclassed simply due to this game being tilted in the Survivors favor as much as it is.

For Killers to be able to win, they need to be on a higher skilllevel than the Survivors are, so that the Killer makes less mistakes than the Survivors and can punish their mistakes more efficiently.

And this leads us to a very modern problem, namely that this essentially rules out the existance of MMR systems in a game like this - at least functional ones.

There are two possible outcomes with an MMR system in DbD right now:

1. The system works and puts players of equal skill against each other. In this case Killers are heavily outmatched and will lose a majority of their games (unless Survivors make a huge, game losing, mistake, but for the sake of the argument we have to assume both sides play equally well), which feels unfair and bad for the Killers. Additionally, the high end Survivors would have no opponents, because Killers can not compete at this stage, which results in very long lobby queue times for them.
2. The system doesnt work and puts players of varying skill against one another. In this case Killers would get to fight lesser experienced players as well, which allows them to win those games, which feels unfair and bad for those Survivors, as they feel outmatched.

This means no matter what happens, this is a lose-lose scenario. This is also why I keep saying that the most basic requirement for a functional MMR system is a balanced game, which DbD can not (and will probaply never) offer.

Another very common complaint by the Killerplayerbase today is, that gens are completed too fast. That however is not actually the case, it's that they are too slow at killing the Survivors.

And as I explained above, this is essentially an unfixable problem. There are two possible solutions to it, which equally don't work:

1. Make Killers the strong chasers they are supposed to be to be able to rival the gen speeds - this one turns Survivor gameplay into a hold M1 simulator, making it extremely unfun for them to play.
2. Make gens take longer to complete - this one makes Survivors sit on gens, holding down M1, even longer than they already have to, at which point no one is having fun anymore because of how sluggish the game has become.

Both of these fail entirely at the non interactive nature of generators.

And there are more, but we would still be here tomorrow if I went into detail on all of them, so I'll make it short. Here is a list of other issues that are directly linked to this one with a brief explanation:

• Maps having too many timewasters for Killers on them or generally not allowing for much map pressure (Pallets and Windows are what Survivors have to have fun in chases, to maximise fun and fairness in chases we need a bunch of them and make it so whoever mindgames who wins)
• A vast majority of the Killer roster being unviable in high level play (only viable options are Killers with strong chase related abilities to at least sometimes put Survivors in a lose-lose situation they can profit from, who also have good map pressure to fight generator speeds - e.g. Nurse and Blight)
• Killers getting nerfed who did not need a nerf (strong chase ability = unfun match for Survivors, therefore they get nerfed. This is what happened to Deathslinger or the Twins Toy Sword Add On)
• Killers being forced to run a bunch of slowdown Perks (essentially a futile attempt to force solution 2. from gens being done too fast. As explained above it makes the game miserably boring for Survivors, but is a necessary evil currently)
• Camping & Tunneling being such popular strategies (eliminating one player early on makes the Survivor teams overall map pressure take a huge hit, which can allow the Killer to relax a bit more. Not doing this is pretty much a lost trial. This is a result of gen speeds, which are a result of their unfun nature)
• Playing Killer being significantly more stressful than playing Survivor (you essentially have to play perfect to beat even just a mediocre team. The smallest mistake can cost you the entire game, due to a chase being extended too long and you therefore getting crushed in the Macrogame)

While not all of those might be a direct result of generators being boring, they are all linked to it in some way. Basically, the boring nature of gens caused the Devs flawed balance philosophy, which is what stops us from properly addressing those issues.

If we ever want to properly fix those problems, we need to address generators first. If we don't, all we achieve is trading one problematic thing for another.

What is the Solution?

A complete rework of the Survivors main objective.

We need to get rid of the excruciatingly boring gameplay that is holding down M1 while waiting for a progress bar to fill up - and this is not exclusive to generators by the way, all of the Survivors objectives are this boring, whether that be exit gate switches, totems (cleansing and blessing), healing, chest searching - they are all the same.

Of course these progress bars serve a purpose. These objectives are meant to be timewasters first and foremost, it is necessary that the Survivors spend a good amount of their time on doing them to allow the Killer to find and hunt them down.

So a reworked Survivor objective would need to be both time consuming and interactive for them at the same time.

It is not until this is achieved that we can properly address so many of the other, much more noticeable, issues that plague this game today.

This being said, personally I don't think this is a realistic demand to make.

Generators are one of the most fundamental mechanics in this game and they have existed for almost 6 years at this point without any major changes to them and with a total of 27 DLCs (some bigger than others ofc) that further change the game and, in many cases, directly rely on this mechanic or further add to it.

There are Perks on both sides directly tied to generator progress bars and there are some Killer powers that also rely on Survivors being on gens (such as Freddies teleport or the Doctors Madness Skill Checks) that would need to be addressed if gens were to be fundamentally reworked.

This absolutely does not mean it was impossible to address, however it would require a huge amount of time, ressources and effort from BHVRs side.

And I mean this when I say it, but I definitely think that at this point it would be easier for them to just work on a Dead by Daylight 2 and redesign it from the ground up with this in mind, rather than to try and somehow fix the current game (also due to spaghetti code that further hinders this).

However, I would definitely not mind being proven wrong on this. Though it would be a long and tedious process, I believe the game would greatly benefit from it in the long run.

And they can start small, not tackle the whole thing at once, but maybe start by doing one thing and see how it plays out. For example, rework the Exit Gates to no longer require you to hold M1 next to the switch until a progress bar is filled, but make it require fuses that the Survivors need to collect and insert - each fuse lights up one bulb and 3 fuses open the gate up. It would be significantly more interactive for both sides and it would get rid of people 99%ing the gates (another common complaint you hear a lot). You can also do something entirely different, the most important thing is that something is done.

Afterword

Thanks for reading this, admittedly very long, post. Might be my longest one yet, its definitely the one I put the most work into.

What do you think of this? Do you think I'm right? Or do you think I'm entirely wrong? Did i miss anything crucial? Please tell me down below!

Also please keep in mind this post is not meant to give solutions to this issue, but soley to highlight it - though if you think you got a good sulution to it you can share it down below too / make your own post about it! The more ideas we can give the Devs on this the better. I also deliberately did not post it in the Feedback subforum, as it is not meant to be feedback to the Devs, but as a bit of an explanation to where I believe the game stands right now and why certain things are happening to it for the community - as stated above, I do believe the Devs are very keenly aware of this issue already (and have been for a long time now).

Have a nice day / night and I'll see you next time!

also revert the Slinger nerfs, k thx bye.