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I don't understand how any survivors are having fun right now unless they are in 3 or 4 person SWF

A lot of the perk and effect changes are obnoxious and I think in my last 20 games, maybe 15 of them everyone died? Far from the "2 deaths per match" average that is apparently the target. The game could be fun for survivors even when everyone dies but it's not because everything feels so frustrating now. I've never really used dead hard or decisive strike or anything killers tend to complain about so I'm not upset by those being changed. The issue is more the across the board changes that lean toward slowing down survivors' progress in an inconsistent way with limited feedback about what is happening or why. Overall...the game just isn't fun right now. In-game feedback about what is happening has always been a bit lacking, but now more than ever it is super common to feel confused and wonder things like "wait...how did they know where I was?" or "why did this generator regress/explode?" or "why can't I heal this person?" etc..etc..etc... So, on top of the effects being frustrating in general, that frustration is amplified by a lack of clear info to the player in-game.

The whole idea of "slowdown" perks/builds is just fundamentally flawed, and they seem pretty common right now. If gens are too fast, make them slower or add more of them and require 6 gens or add an additional objective, etc... The "slowdown" approach might work from a big-picture balance perspective, but from an individual player perspective, it doesn't feel balanced in my games (most of my games now are ending in 4Ks). The counter play is just...bring stuff to speed things up? So then what's the point? It's just a wash where each game is a pseudo-random mix of competing speedup and slowdown effects. All this does is make games inconsistent, not fun or balanced. If hard-nerfing toolboxes helps, do it. If getting rid of brand new part helps, do it. Don't balance them out with equivalent slowdown effects.

I make frequent use of the fun rating thing at the end of matches, and I think right now my average score for a match is about 2/5. Even in matches where I do well, it doesn't feel fun. It feels frustrating right up until I escape. So, I'll be taking a bit of a break for now, but I wanted to throw my thoughts out there in case anyone cares (doubtful...I fully expect people who play a lot of killer to disagree, and they seem to be the people who have BHVR's ear mostly 😕)

Comments

  • Biscuits
    Biscuits Member Posts: 1,097

    Makes me wonder how large of a killer que the developers are okay with until they actually do something.

  • JoByDaylight
    JoByDaylight Member Posts: 707

    They won’t do anything “until the dust settles”. I guess when the dust settles they have to start advertising again to gain a new player base :)

  • YOURFRIEND
    YOURFRIEND Member Posts: 3,389

    I just escaped three games in a row. Bubba, pinhead and huntress. I've been getting way more consecutive escapes than I did previously. My go-to build has been Shadowstep, Circle of healing, Dead Hard and a wild perk. Botany or windows or spine chill.

    My assessment is that people sleep on Shadowstep. It's an incredible perk. Denied so much Nurse's calling, floods of rage BBQ and bitter murmur value. I even got to deny that hatchet addon that reveals auras which felt really good.

  • jaawn
    jaawn Member Posts: 80

    Maybe that build is decent right now, but you shouldn't need a "go-to" build to be successful. That means there is a problem. Ideally, everything should be viable. Choices should be based on preferences and what playstyle is fun for you. I am not interested in doing a detailed analysis of all the perk stats on the wiki and building an optimal combination of perks or something. I just want to have fun. The game should always prioritize fun over everything else, and just because it is an asymmetric struggle between a killer and 4 survivors doesn't mean it can't be fun for everyone involved. Right now, it seems like BHVR is trying to "balance" fun because they can't figure out how to make the game fun for both "sides". This is causing problems. Any specific build that is stronger than others may help people be more successful, but it doesn't help fix the issues or make the game more fun.

  • YOURFRIEND
    YOURFRIEND Member Posts: 3,389

    ...... What? There's always gonna be a meta. True and perfect balance is a nice dream, but expecting everything to be perfectly balanced is impossible. Every video game works this way.

  • jaawn
    jaawn Member Posts: 80
    edited July 2022

    There is a difference between a "meta" and not being able to play/have fun/be successful unless you use certain builds. "Meta" is about what is optimal (or popular) right now, not what is viable. Everything should be viable.

    Post edited by jaawn on
  • jaawn
    jaawn Member Posts: 80

    I'm glad to see it isn't just me. Hopefully there is enough pushback to shake BHVR out of the weird mindset they're in right now. The game isn't about taking fun away from one "side" and giving it to the other until things are "equal". Everything should be fun for everyone. Obviously that can't be 100% true, but that should be the goal to aspire to.

  • Onyx
    Onyx Member Posts: 214

    See, I think the devs are looking at it the wrong way. They should have removed all slowdown and speed-up perks, items and addons from the game and, instead of increasing gen time, artificially increase end-game time.

    What do I mean by that? Rework how gates work and do it more Left 4 Dead style where you all have to wait out a timer before the gates open by themselves. Could be a 5 minute timer, could be shorter, could be longer, it's something that needs to be tweaked. Reveal survivors auras at the end so nobody can hide. Force survivors to get chased. Maybe remove one hook state from everybody at that point (unless you already have 2 hook states). Basically, play with the idea of "all gens WILL be done and everybody WILL reach that point" than "prevent people from ever getting all 5 gens powered".

  • dugman
    dugman Member Posts: 9,713

    The average kill rate since the patch went up 12 days ago is about 7% higher than it was prepatch on the aggregate site I'm following (it was about 49% pre-patch and I'm estimating it's been 56% post-patch). So the average kill rate definitely isn't 75% or whatever.

  • jaawn
    jaawn Member Posts: 80
    edited July 2022

    Aggregate stats can be very misleading. If you do a case study of 100 players, and look at their experience across 10 matches, and 50 of the players have all 10 matches be 4-kill matches, while the other 50 players have all 10 be 0-kill matches, the average will be 2 kills per match...but there is still a massive problem. There are so many different playstyles, different skill levels, different mixes of SWF groups vs solo, different types of players (both within survivor players and killer players), that looking at a single average across the board is very likely to lead to a misguided view on where things stand. Maybe factors in my situation make me more likely to run into trouble, I don't know... but the average alone doesn't mean a whole lot, and even so... a 7-point jump up to 56% is problematic, especially if it really was already at around 50-50.

  • LapisInfernalis
    LapisInfernalis Member Posts: 4,218

    True. I see it with the queue times.

    Before the update I had short survivor times during the day and long ones in the evening. Now survivor queues are almost always instant. Guess why....

    I also noticed a lot more face campers and tunnelers.

  • tendyhands
    tendyhands Member Posts: 268

    Biggest issue for me is matchmamking. Sometimes I will have teammates that get insta downed when I consider the killer a baby and can run them for a minute without getting hit and they leave me. If games were more balanced in skill then they would be fine.

  • yes_hello
    yes_hello Member Posts: 146

    I'd say about half of my matches result in one survivor being dead before 2 generators are completed since 6.1. More often it's due to DC or giving up on hook, but I notice tunneling and camping have increased significantly.


    I don't think it's healthy that as a solo survivor, I have to constantly, and I mean CONSTANTLY hold my breath every single match that the first person to go down doesn't give up. And when they do, I have to totally change how I manage my expectations for that particular match, almost instantly knowing I won't win and have to just farm for BPs. Not at all a good thing for any game, I'd expect.


    In what world would this consistent pattern of player base behavior be ok for a developer team? I cannot imagine this is isolated to only a few people, but if most people are having different, positive experiences as solo players, I'm envious! :P I'm truly hoping BHVR's relative silence on this is lifted soon, and that they are working to both address and possibly "correct" the new, unhealthy gameplay trends.

  • not_requested49
    not_requested49 Member Posts: 1,979

    I feel like the increase in camping and tunneling is due to the change in BBQ and decisive strike

    Since they dont earn anything from targeting different survivors now and that decisive strike no longer gives them as much penalty, they have no reason not to tunnel and camp

    I really hope they revert the changes to these perks, but we all knows that its pretty unlikely to happen

  • yes_hello
    yes_hello Member Posts: 146

    The 4 stacks on BBQ is something I pay attention to during matches, and it is noticeable. Killers do not "spread out" their targets as much as before. Sadly... it's kind of a logical side-effect, as you said, since BP stacks are gone.


    I admit, over the many years I've played this game (solo survivor 99% of the time), I've never used any of the "META meta" perks except Dead Hard. Prior to 6.1, I focused on self-sufficient escape then heal builds. After the announced nerfs to every single perk I used except one, I tried to mix it up with a new build. I've found a new balance that I like, but unfortunately, it still doesn't even out the miserable matches where people give up, or the killers play in such a way that the survivors essentially have to accept loss so early on.


    I hate sounding negative, because I still enjoy this game, but I hope something changes with its current state. I genuinely hope the player base modifies its mindset and just plays better. But, with the current meta, killers who play that way are cognizant that they aren't playing to WIN, they're playing to ensure FUN for opponents, which should not be the case so frequently. Again, I recognize not EVERY match is this way; that's silly lol, but far too many matches HAVE been that bad.

  • dugman
    dugman Member Posts: 9,713

    For reference, the site does track percentages for each kill bracket as well (0, 1, 2, 3 and 4) and the spread is about 23% 0 kills, 19% 1 kill, 14% 2 kills, 15% 3 kills and 29% 4 kills. So just about half the matches eiher everybody escapes or everybody dies, and the rest are a mix of escapes and deaths. It tends to the extremes but not nearly as much as being all or nothing 50% no kills and 50% no escapes.

    And a 7% increase isn’t problematic assuming the devs are aiming for 56% kill rate and not 49% kill rate overall. They said a few times they felt the kill rate was too low and one of the goals of the patch was to raise it. Going from being slightly survivor sided in their opinion to slightly killer sided is totally fine.

    Of course in a game like this there are all sorts of things that come into play, including specific killers used and loadouts and maps and swfs and backfills creating MmR mismatches, etc. But I’m fairly sure their plan is put in the broadscale changes in this patch to shift the overall stats to where they want them, let it settle a bit, then fine tune the specific cases that are a bit out of whack. So get all the killers boosted a bit then pare back things like STBFL or Legion + Thana, etc, as needed.

  • JoByDaylight
    JoByDaylight Member Posts: 707

    Keeep looking at those numbers all you like, it will not change how people are feeling playing this game. That is what matters.

    There is an enormous gap between people on coms and solo q. Too big. What this patch did was stomping on the casual player-base which makes up the biggest portion. And thus there will be angry people speaking up.

  • Mat_Sella
    Mat_Sella Member Posts: 3,556

    I like playing survivor, the most annoying part of playing survivor right now are the whiny entitled other survivors that suicide or DC the moment things dont go their way.

    Adapt or Die, as they say.

    Guess people would rather die...

  • dugman
    dugman Member Posts: 9,713

    Historically if I remember right escape rates go up about 2-3% per person in a swf. So if you figure the average swf size is about 2.5 or so then you’re looking at around a 6% difference between solo and swf typically.

  • dugman
    dugman Member Posts: 9,713

    I can’t help how people feel, but I can try and give some objective context for the scale of what actually changed versus what some people might be exagerating.

  • CluelessWanderer
    CluelessWanderer Member Posts: 939

    I heard it was more like %15+ . Where did you get the 2-3% rate? I thought Devs kept those stats under lock and key most likely because they know the difference is significant.

  • dugman
    dugman Member Posts: 9,713

    It was from a while ago, they posted a bar chart that showed kill rates by number of people in a swf, it ranged from something like 3% for 2 people, 6% for 3, and 11% for 4 (I think? It’s been a long time.) And the percentages of groups of those sizes were about half of swfs had 2 people, like 35-40% were 3 people and 10-15% were 4 people, so the weighted average is between 2 and 3.

    It’s definitely possible that since then the 4 person swf escape rate difference went up to 15%, in which case it would be more like a 5% difference per person.

  • roundpitt
    roundpitt Member Posts: 578

    I invite you to go look at Evil Dead. The developers of that game kept nerfing killers until no one wanted to play killer. The queues got so bad that they merged their servers together which temporarily lowered survivor queue times, but now I see people on reddit complaining that Evil Dead survivor queue times are so bad that they can't get into matches for hours.

    So yea, if you make on side not fun, people will stop playing my dude. Then you end up with a dead game.

  • rvzrvzrvz
    rvzrvzrvz Member Posts: 940

    I agree I really tried since patch but it's just not fun nothing else to say, even playing killer is pretty boring they really broke the "flow" of the game, i'm kinda upset I have to find another addictive game

  • jaawn
    jaawn Member Posts: 80

    This is exactly the wrong mentality. These games should not be seen as 2 sides competing for fun. If the developers are trying to make one "side" more fun at the expense of the other "side", they've already failed. The game design & mechanics should be fun for both "sides" in concert. A killer ability should be fun to use and fun to run from. A survivor ability should be fun to use and fun to chase.

  • jaawn
    jaawn Member Posts: 80

    That kill distribution is flipped from what would be healthy. That shows the problem right there and is exactly the shape I would have predicted. It's inverted (most matches are either 0 kills or 4 kills). That is the opposite of how it should be. The highest % should be 2 kills, then slightly lower for 1 kill and 3 kill, then lowest for 0 kills and 4 kills. That would be a healthy distribution.

    Unless my math is off, the average # of kills based on those stats is 2.08. Again, this perfectly illustrates what I was talking about. That average is almost exactly at the target of 2 kills per match, which sounds good... until you look at the distribution and it is way off of what it should be. This means it is way too common for matches to either be a breeze for the killer or a breeze for the survivors. Yes, the average is 2, but 2-kill outcomes are the least likely outcome...which is the opposite of what would be best.

  • TragicSolitude
    TragicSolitude Member, Alpha Surveyor Posts: 7,343

    I'm not having fun on either side.

    BHVR made escaping more difficult (I always expect to die in a match, I'm not that good, so I can't really tell a difference), but they also increased the amount of BP rewarded for surviving. This encourages worse, less team-like behavior from teammates. It always makes losing feel even more punishing. There are no WGLF stacks to soften the blow of a bad match. And de-pipping is still a thing, which I complained about before disconnecting and throwing became more common. Nothing like getting one pip away from the next grade and then getting into a match where someone suicides first thing and someone else throws.

    On the killer side, no BBQ stacks means I feel directionless. Killing was never my goal, but now the act of hooking feels empty and pointless.

    In summary, survivor is frustrating, killer is boring. (I don't know if killer is easier, I've never played to kill so my MMR is low as crap. And I don't run any gen/slowdown perks.)

  • badkarma
    badkarma Member Posts: 10

    I'm doing my part by camping, tunneling and essentially making the game as not-fun, yet within intended gameplay parameters, as possible.

    I'm particularly showing newbies with 20 hours how much unfun they can have in the game and how much unfun they'll continue to have via this recent and amazing patch that is both recent and amazing. Doing my part to 'play fair' and use different perks to make their experience as DbD as possible

  • Deathstroke
    Deathstroke Member Posts: 3,514

    Survivor is not that bad but some things need to be changed buff to thanatobia needs to reverted. Also nerf to ds should be reverted and the skill check should be removed to help new players. I would also increase hook timer to 70s instead 60s to help with facecamping. Nurse needs nerf definetely but some lower tier killers still need buffs.