Visit the Kill Switch Master List for more information on these and other current known issues: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/299-kill-switch-master-list
We encourage you to be as honest as possible in letting us know how you feel about the game. The information and answers provided are anonymous, not shared with any third-party, and will not be used for purposes other than survey analysis.
Access the survey HERE!
is BHVR actually survivor sided?
I know this title seems like "one of those" but my intention is actually to gather info what anyone really thinks. One siders will ofc say "yes" or "vice versa" but my interest is the ones that play both sides, now i cant control that people can state being not biased towards one side so we have to go with a rough measurement here.
thats why i dont make a poll out of it. It will turn out 50/50 anyway so im giving the option to reason your answer and share your thoughts, maybe this thread will even proof me wrong. I would perfer that tbh.
But knight makes me really question things, his power is ridicilously easy outplayable. yes he CAN win. Like any killer CAN win. But it just feels so much work and pressure on yourself, as if you are an M1 without special abillity because as to what ive seen myself and read from others experience, his guards are well... a joke.
and i dont believe it was intended to have another campy killer, not when you read the descriptions of all 3.
there are other things that make me question it; looking at DH and nurse but the 6.0.1 imho is a counter argument. So i dont jump on this only because of knight. I just find some... decisions very weird. also the whole UB basekit/mori system rework while yes not being sure to release at all, the whole idea of it after the 6.0.1 seems to me like a complete diffrent direction, and this being definitly a slap to both sides.
lets have a serious and none heated convo for once all though it actively is themed around our great polarization we have in this gaming community right here.
And if a dev/mod happens to stumble uppon this post im very interested in officcial answer over this. Im sure im not the first one asking something like this.
Comments
-
I do not think that they are survivor or killer sided
That being said, I do think they are Noob-sided
The majority of their decisions (especially with balance) seems to be towards the noobs. It's why they might seem survivor sided because generally, a noob survivor is at a big disadvantage against a noob killer. It takes time and effort to truly figure out how to maximize playing survivor so BHVR balances to help them out.
Which in a way does make sense. A game doesn't survive for six years because they have a small but dedicated fanbase, a game like this survives by constantly trying to bring fresh blood into the mix. But fresh blood isn't going to stick around (and more importantly, buy DLC and Cosmetics) if they feel like the game is absolutely hopeless for them...
30 -
Personally I don’t believe that the devs are sided towards either role. They just make some very questionable design choices sometimes and the game in its current state highly favors using the strongest tools available on both sides if you really want to win. Strongest perks, strongest killers, strongest items/addons, strongest map offerings too.
4 -
They are not, no.
BHVR seem to understand that they need to look at the game as a whole, and that the idea of them being "[x] sided" is a silly and unhelpful way of looking at game balance, so that's why you get decisions like giving the Knight lots of telegraphed tells and decisions like the massive killer buffs in 6.1.0.
There's a wider picture than two "sides", which is why anyone arguing that they're one-sided has to cherrypick certain decisions while ignoring others.
4 -
Good take.
If the roles were equally intuitive at low level while equally non-exploitable at high level, there would be very likely be zero bias (subconscious or intentional) in balance decisions. As it stands it often feels like there is bias due to how many situations are handled/designed, but it also feels like many of them are due to trying to essentially balance two completely different games (and thus prioritizing the newcomer oriented one)
Stuff like getting rid of locker blinds is a step toward fixing issues at high level that have little to no effect on low level play, which feels consistent with that logic. There is simply too much variance in efficiency to tackle everything, so when issues conflict it seems they stick with a prioritization system that inherently causes biased responses, even though the bias itself is not the intention.
5 -
To give them credit, they are getting better about it. The locker blind being a great example and then the previous "big killer" update, specifically Dead Hard
Killers at high levels have HATED old DH because a good survivor knew how to use it to max out value but noobs were baffled why people hated it cause a noob would DH to dodge or DH straight into a brick wall. DH wasn't broken at low levels, therefore DH wasn't broken.
I still expect BHVR to keep their main focus on low level play in regards to balance decisions but I'm hopeful they'll stop ignoring high level balance...
6 -
It simply makes no sense for the devs to be any-sided if they want their game to be enjoyed by both sides.
That is my stance.
4 -
In a sense, even if they endeavour to be as impartial as possible, they need to be a little survivor sided, purely due to the fact that they need to retain four times as many survivor players than killers.
1 -
If there are no killers, the game dies. If there are no survivors, the game dies.
They'd be foolish to cater to one side, even if there is a 4:1 ratio.
7 -
This game is at the end of the day a business. Regardless of sides, I think they're on the side that makes their business grow, and that probably means catering to both.
2 -
I agree with this... and we'll see what happens with updates and new stuff
1 -
No
3 -
thats a very good take, not being sarcastic or something. An interesting view point because yes in low mmr lobbys i can totally see no info on knight being too oppressive. But then doesnt that also count towards artists birds or nurses blinks? If they start to balance every killer around low level, we might see many weak ones in the future.
and to all the other posters thank you, there is many things in this game that need to be worked on and balance is a never ending working point in any game, its just good to have the community say "listen its not like that." Its easy to get caught into thinking one side is prioritized over the other if you play one side more, all though i dont completely 100% only play killer.
1 -
If BHVR are biased towards one side at all, I think they don't realize. It seems to me they are trying to improve the experience for all players, killers and survivors. The problem is, that DBD is one of a kind. They can't look at other games and just copy their balance. They are pretty much pioneers in that regard, which is why a lot of things spiral out of control before they decide to work on that (like DH's 75% pick rate ore 6.1.0).
5 -
thats true, DBD is without competition basicly, which doesnt make it easyer to balance things because if they make mistakes they are the first ones to make them
1 -
No, BHVR realizes that having a fun game is better for both the game and business. You can't consider just one side of a PvP game and expect to succeed. In my opinion, they do their best to consider all sides when they make decisions. They can make mistakes but they've hit a good balance.
1 -
As a player of both sides and someone that works in balancing its more killer sided for sure. Which all 1v4 are.
SWF have to be taken out of the factor 100% in terms of how side vs side works.
now you look at things like gen times, they favour the killer side just as a standard time for gens with zero perks, addons. (Yes once you start adding perks and addons it can change, but that can be said about both side)
Hooking is killer sided, they can travel way too far to hook you and the time to get out is far to long meaning a hook 95% of the time.
killer is faster and has far more means to stop you then you have of getting away.
but it has to be that way cause as a survivor you got jack ######### to get away from a base point.
As survivors your key point to winning is working together on gens, unhooking, distracting the killer. Again it’s base no perk no addon form.
once addons come into effect it’s all a matter of who took what perk or addons to keep or gain the advantage.
that is why killers are more sided cause there addons and perks have to fight 4 survivors with 16 perks, 4 items and 8 addons and a map to help the survivors more so then the killers.
after all that is taken into account it leads towards survivors. But in its base killers will be a bit more sided
0 -
That's ridiculous. Dbd is not the only asymmetrical horror game out their. And yeah thoses games are not as successful as dbd but that doesn't mean that those games doesn't have mechanics that dbd can get inspiration from.
The devs can take some mechanic from other games I think they are just too proud to do so and it's making things worse.
2 -
Name one with similar pacing and similar mechanics, please. VHS for example is very different from DBD because the very pacing and the mechanics that define the game are nothing like in DBD. I don't know of any other game that is as one-sided in a 1v1. DBD's core mechanics, chases, objectives and killer powers are all one of a kind. You cannot play Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, or Blight on Cowshed, Midwich, or Eyrie of Crows in any other game. There are no equivalents. Its not like FPS games where you could look for inspiration elsewhere without needing to adjust the whole game for that part.
1 -
i don't think they lean towards either role, they're just not particularly good at their jobs sometimes.
5 -
I'm my opinion, I feel that from a business perspective they should favor the survivor side. More people play survivor and therefore buy more cosmetics and bring in their friends who in turn buy more.
I do feel that They have been trying to better balance for both sides as of late. I also look at swf. Regardless of what people say, SWF is an advantage. Especially on comms. They have not givin the killer any form of compensation for the info swf can give.
So if you were to put me on the spot I would say that they favor the survivors more. However I understand it from a money making perspective. You cater to your majoriy.
Just my 2 cents.
1 -
This post is brought to you by killer mains.
1 -
shouldve read it first.
4 -
Why would anyone actually read posts or explanations that don't agree with their pre-established bias?5 -
i mean they had the chance to express why they think how they think but yet choose not to and type a one liner. Missed opportunity XD
0 -
yes they are
1 -
No, they are not.
0 -
The most wild part is that half of learning is taking in different perspectives, including gaining insight from ones you disagree with. Its the entire foundation of feedback as a concept.
2 -
which this thread kinda is about ;)
1 -
50% or more of the survivor playerbase plays solo.
4 man SWF accounts for less than 5%.
The most common SWF is 2man.
Not all SWFs are sweaty tryharders and not all will use communication (if I added a person i thought was good from my previous game and we play together now but don't talk on discord or another party how would you categorize us? We obviously are not getting the benefits you're talking about).
If BHVR was survivor sided then solo survivors would have a bigger influence over the game. As it stand now BHVR will rather give us a gen-focused meta for both killer and survivor (just look at the last chapter that released). Focusing on gens means making slowdown stronger and 3-gens a stronger strategy. Who is the only one who an deal with those situation? Solo or SWF? Obviously SWF and 4 man at that.
Everytime a topic like this is discussed anywhere killers collectively forget that survivors aren't only comprised of SWFs or that they aren't even the majority.
Maybe keeping SWFs around means keeping players loyal unlike solo. Who knows? perhaps SWFs are the whales of DBD. I cannot know, only BHVR can know how much more invested (or not) SWFs are compared to solos and if they're a better consumer or not.
1 -
I don't believe these numbers are correct or correctly interpreted. I'll have to dig the last values though.
edit: found them
SWF4 : 20% SWF3 : 40% SWF2 x 2 : 10% SWF2 + solos x 2 : 10% Solos x 4 : 6%
For a detailed explanation, check the comment: https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3090730 and my reply a bit after on the same page.
1 -
No. As others have said, they TRY to keep it balanced in a way that will keep the game alive and the money rolling in. But in practice they seem to have a REALLY hard time managing to do it. Since the ‘meta shake up’ the game has been far too killer sided. As a solo survivor main for years I am really struggling to find ways to have fun and justify my continued playing. It’s pretty silly to say that because this last killer is kind of weak maybe they’re survivor-sided. Really? Did they remove Blight and Nurse from the game to make room for the new guy? And even though I tend to throw out Blight and Nurse as prime examples, even without those 2, all killers will generally destroy a 4 man solo team because of horrible matchmaking.
I find it frustrating that survivors have ‘screamed’ as loud as they could in these forums about how bad solo life is and the devs remain silent and continue to slowly buff killer and allow camping and tunnelling to be a major part of the game. Honestly, the only reason I’m playing now is more about addiction than fun. What used to be an 80 fun / 20 fail balance is now reversed so I jones for that fun 20%. When the game is balanced to a 4 man swf, 10% of games are vs 3-4 man swf, and matchmaking is horrible, thus 90% of games are vs poorly match made solo teams… it’s pretty insane to suggest this game is currently anything but killer-sided.
4 -
They were not happy with the 50/50 win for survivors and killers and buffed killers a few patches ago, so...
2 -
Their main point is battle passes and skins they dont care about balance a lot like it was in the past .If they were 50/50 survivors will get far less pallets on some maps and gens time will be increased to 160 seconds minimum to give walking kilelrs to do something .And mobile killers as nurse and blight will be nerfed from killers part.
2 -
How do you know SWF use communication 100% of the time? My reply pretty much mirrors those stats posted in the picture of the link you gave me.
As I mentioned earlier, if I am playing with a random player I added do we count as a SWF or duo solo? We are not using any communication after all. We are not getting the advantages SWF is getting. The chart (as far as I can understand) or you, don't make distinction between SWFs who use communication and those who don't. The game probably counts us a duo SWF but are we really?
When killers complain about SWF, they are not complaing about 4 randoms playing together who happened to add each other after game, they're complaining about those who are using discord and communicate the killer's ever move, calling out killer perks etc, which is probably even less than the percentage that appears in the chart.
The percentages you just gave me here don't even come up to 100%, only up to 86%. Where's the rest of the 14%? Am I missing something?
SWF4 : 20%
SWF3 : 40%
SWF2 x 2 : 10%
SWF2 + solos x 2 : 10%
Solos x 4 : 6%
20 + 40 + 10 + 10 + 6 = 86
Do I need to multiply something? What is going on? Maybe I'm simply stupid. How did you come up with those numbers? Is there a formula? Did you track your own matches? Please, make it make sense.
Regardless, what I believe you're trying to say is the distribution of the playerbase per match.
But by numbers alone, solo survivors are still the majority as a playerbase and whether they play with 2man SWF or a 3 man SWF they still suffer from lack of communication and something that the statistics probably cannot show, is that they're more easily sacrificed by the team in that case as saving your friends takes priority. Not to mention that they can be the ones to set the pace and decide the kind of game THEY want to play, so you still have not proved how solo survivor doesn't suffer the most from both killers and SWF. And that is without taking into account that not all SWFs use communication to leverage their advantage. Despite solo survivors being the biggest number of players they really do have the least agency as they cannot communicate and they make life easier for BHVR for being available to fill the spots that 2man and 3 man SWF need with the risk of being punished by it.
2 -
I mean there are tons of things they could change at high level that wouldn't affect low level play. I always use this example but in league they balance low skill champs around low to mid mmr while high skill champs are usually balanced around mid to high mmr. They can nerf nurse and blight but they would also need to nerf some of the extremely strong things on survivor side such as stacked med-kits and hyper focus builds. Because a nerf to the most stacked of med-kits won't affect someone who just needs to heal themselves because they don't know how to find teammates or their teammates wont heal them. There are lots of other things like this as well.
Truly I feel like if survivor mmr functioned perfectly( I know that's impossible) then the game could be balanced way way better. There is way too much inefficiency all the way up until top 5% mmr survivor's who are probably a 3-4 man swf anyway. If a better mmr system and indicators are in the game I think it will be in a much more balanceable spot.
0 -
Oh of course, I absolutely agree that balancing for high and low levels does not have to be mututally exclusive, and there is plenty of work to do on both fronts. My point was more that if there is something that is bad for killers at high level but good for survivors at low level, It will generally be deprioritized vs something that is bad for survivors at low level and good for killers at high level. Low level survivor players tend to be the largest driving force in many of their balance decisions, which is entirely understandable due to the nature of learning the game paired with the obvious 4:1 ratio of players. The biggest problems in high level play tend to be due to advantage stacking having a disproportionate effect, which will only ever be touched if it specifically doesn't affect low level play. Thats why I mention things like the locker blind fix as a step in the right direction in that regard, they're acknowledging its not a mutually exclusive issue between the two overall groupings, and fixed it to address the issue.
All in all, the game just needs better sanity checks. Things should not stack and synergize anwyeher near as much as they do, especially as selectively as they enforce breaking up said synergies.
0 -
For the MMR to function the game needs way more players than it currently has. I also make the mistake of comparing DBD to league, but when you see the numbers of daily players for each player side by side you start to get a reality check. And that's not accounting for region. That's why there can be so many teammates and killers with bad ping.
Implementing icons and ping systems might seem more challenging technically but it is something the devs have control over and can implement much more easily than attract 500k players for DBD which is hard for most games to do already. Good matchmaking is dependent on more external factors.
The other thing to consider is how can DBD attract and retain new players? Because it needs them if we ever need the experience for the average player to improve or feel more fair, but this becomes a cycle. if matchmaking is so bad, new players won't stick. New players not sticking means matchmaking cannot improve without suffering from long queue times.
0 -
That league example can translate to most types of games though. It's already half in the game as it stands, with most bad killers being m1 basic killers with little skill expression and Blight being the second best killer while also having the most skill expression. I do agree a lot of things in this game can't be compared to league just by the nature of their genres but there can most definitely be comparisons made in some areas.
0 -
DBD on this problem would be easier to compare to fighting games minus the mechanical difficulty. Fighting games have a lot of legacy players and are hard to get into, mostly because they are not popular games. So even if people wanna play against other people they cannot find a match and if they do the guy they are dealing with could be playing the game for 10 years already. In many fighting games if skill is to be considered you could as well be waiting over 30+ mins for a match and it can be especially bad for new players. So not only do you get stomped in the end, you also have to wait ungodly amounts of times to get into a match.
At least DBD only has the first problem (since it has more players than many fighting games) and the matches are formed fast. It cannot afford to have good matchmaking, the number of players just doesn't allow it. And people are coming out of covid, so less people are stuck inside now and less people will play video games in general or watch Netflix etc. Let's not forget about the global influence covid had and the inflated numbers video games and film subscription services got.
They had a nice idea by making the game free on Halloween weekend or at other items (ignoring the cheater problem) because the most popular games are games that are free to play already (league, overwatch 2, dota) but the question is how do they make it a good experience for new players and how do they inspire loyalty? Maybe during those times they should make matchmaking better for newer players so they are mostly matches with other new players and afterwards it can go back to normal the end of the weekend, idk.
0 -
Is that even a question at this point?
0 -
No, they're still pushing towards that. That's why they released those bad stats they knew everyone would misuse and get triggered over. They want killers to draw with the survivors, as in barely squeezing out a 2nd kill.
2 -
I don't think the developer takes any side.
But the game? It is map sided. :)
1 -
Yes, but not directly.
if you ever watch any of the devs play the game, i think a few stream on twitch sometimes, they are very very bad at the game. And the reality of the game balance is. At the lower levels of play, killer is overpowered, and at the highest level of play, survivors are overpowered. This is simply due to the nature of the game being a 1v4 asymmetrical game. The 4 players need to be strong when playing together as a team, and weak when they aren't. And the reality is, weaker players don't know what to do, and the game is quite hard for new players. When i first started i thought killers were OP, but that quickly changed once i realized how to actually play the game.
Most of the devs are that, i doubt any of the devs play killer at the level of otz, or survivor on the level ayrun.
1 -
they seem survivor sided but its just bc they balance around bad solo players and lack the understanding that bad players improve and that swf exists, so they just allow survivors to dominate at high level instead of balancing around it
also the devs arent very good so they also balance around themselves in playtesting, its the reason garden of pains main building would be an infinite if the window didnt block (and it can be ran in a way that it doesnt block), and the new map has almost 40 pallets on it, and why knights power is so mediocre with so many weaknesses
2 -
They're not survivor sided, they just don't know what makes a good power and good map
1 -
As a killer main, i wouldn't say that they're on either of the sides, but it feels like they lack the understanding of their own game.
I mean it in the way it feels like they don't play their game and try to make balance changes without knowing how it'll turn out, and it a lot of times ends up in survivor's favor, and when they try to balance it other way, it gets overtuned. They just can't find that sweet spot.
So no, imo they're not survivor sided, but also not killer sided. They try to balance stuff, but they're doing it in a way that makes people think they're with one of the sides
2 -
They made Borrowed Time (One of the strongest and most used perks in the game) baseline while giving killers nothing to compensate for that. It's pretty clear.
2 -
To be really honest, there was a time they seemed to be survivor-sided: way back in 2018. And I don't say that because of the really unbalanced state of the game back then, I said that because they would sometimes make some quite dismissive remarks about killer complaints and requested changes. The worst comments came from the game director. He suggested DbD perk meta was ok because every game had its meta and said "I don't think Decisive Strike is going anywhere" (Btw, DS was REALLY broken back then. It was active from start until used, with no requirement to be hooked first). Of course, there was also the infamous "play another game" when he was answering a question about improvements for the stressful killer experience. The comment received so much backlash in the community he had to apologize, but later in the same year he called out a comment about the game being survivor-sided during a stream, laughed it and argued that survivors had a harder time based on some really vague data they had shown about individual survival rates (they didn't show kill rates per match, didn't even inform when the data was collected , and the stream was right after a really bad Halloween event when survivors where farming and killing themselves on the hook). I don't remember him being as dismissive with survivor complaints. As a matter of fact, one year earlier, Freddy had been nerfed to the ground ONE PATCH after his release due to survivor complaints. Meanwhile, they took years to nerf DS amidst multiple killer complaints and, when they finally announced it, they planned and tested ways to rework it without ruining it for a year before releasing.
However, the way the devs balance the game and communicate with the players changed and improved a lot through the years. I think the latest changes should make quite obvious that today they listen to feedback from both sides. Base-kit BT, buffs to Legion and Ghostface, increased generator times, Dead Hard nerf and Tinkerer nerf were requested by survivors and killers for a long time, and the devs delivered.
2 -
The maps they make are horrendously survivor sided, but other than that I'd say they're swf sided because it seems they practically go out of their way to make soloq a miserable experience and make sure 80% of the killers in the game are completely and fundamentally helpless against a good swf.
4 -
The Knight is the first killer where I can honestly say I think they went way overboard on the counter play and made his power far too weak. But given the last killer was Wesker who is great I’m not inclined to call BHVR survivor sided on the back of the knight.
Some of the decisions they make around killers are very questionable. As I write this there are two very pertinent topics regarding this whole discussion on the forum right now- why is the killer FOV so low and why is shattered hope a perk and not simply base-kit? To add on to this, it’s completely reasonable to ask why maps (especially the newer ones) are overwhelmingly survivor sided both in terms of their layout, structures and the sheer number of pallets that spawn.
But, as others have said, it feels like a lot of these decisions are made for bad/newer players, rather than being a deliberate design choice to favour survivors. It’s just unfortunate that the way the game is designed means that once survivors reach a good standard of play these same things in the game make life pretty easy for them and at the same time I believe the game becomes more punishing the better you get as killer.
3
