Why cant you tell people to get better? Over nerfing X instead

Good players don't need to rely on any specific perk, addon, map setup, or power to be good. If something is over relied on and overused to inflate a player's skill level, it should be nerfed.

I think he gets three, on average.

But still, analogy stands.

At lower levels, the skill you need to counter Killers is more than what most will have. This leads to Killers just winning games.

That's why we have traditionally noob-stomping Killers. Pig, Pinhead, Doc and Legion.

From the point of view I have, it's because most people seem to think that they're absolutely perfect when playing the game, and that the reason they do bad is because of powerful perks, items, or add ons. Powerful perks, items, add ons, etc. do exist, and they can easily turn the tide of a match, however when someone is complaining about them you can usually point out many things they did wrong in a match, such as a recent one where a Wraith said they "Resorted to camping because Wraith has no chase potential" after bloodlusting 4 pallets and failing to get a hit on any of them, one of which was unsafe. All in all, people who complain about X perk usually are looking for a scapegoat to the fact that they didn't play perfectly.

And you need to add that, for steam, people only have 2 hours to make a decision on whether or not they like the game.

Most people are going to note the initial impression that the first, say 1 and a half hours of gameplay gives them to decide whether to keep the game or not.

This in and of itself can be a huge issue. New or very casual survivors who get thrown into games with highly experienced Killers and new or very casual Killers who get throw into games with highly experienced survivors aren't going to learn anything or improve from those games. The games themselves are over too fast and the player on receiving end is going to be baffled about what even happened much less be able to assess what they could have done differently/better.

If this happens several play sessions in a row (or less) that new or casual person will likely play less to not at all. The less they play, the less they stand to learn.

It's not particularly complicated, but it is A LOT. There are currently 219 perks in DBD according to the wiki, something like 30 killers, multiple killer add-ons that can drastically change gameplay, 18? 20? maps, however many unique tiles can spawn on the maps, and then how different perks/add-ons/powers/map layouts interact with each other. That's a huge amount of information to ask of people who maybe play the game a couple of hours a week or go long stretches where they don't play at all.

Say the term 'god pallet' to a new/casual player and they may have 0 clue what you're talking about, much less how to identify them, use them correctly/play around them correctly. And, what I think alot of 'hard core' players (of any game, really) do nto understand is that the new/casuals don't care what a god pallet is. They may never know that tombstone Myers has a closed fist or that a locker can prevent the insta. It'll probably take them a couple or more times to understand Bubba's chainsaw eating through endurance, making all unhooks with a camping Bubba super risky. They may never understand all the angles of flashlight blinds and how to prevent/avoid them the most effectively, or a dozen other things that people regularly scoff at killers and survs for not doing.

And it's not necessarily that....

...they don't want to be 'good', but they aren't willing or able to invest hours everyday for weeks and longer to learn all the ins and outs of the game. They have no desire to play for 2 hours, watch 3 hours of videos, and then read pages and pages of posts. They just aren't that invested in the game.

Personally? My metaphorical "constantly trying, pushing, and playing [my] best..." is reserved for work and family, followed by friends, games played with family and friends, and then finally solo ventures of fun time like DBD. So, there are a lot of days where I'm just logging in to play a bit and then crash for the night if I play at all. If my matches start off with nothing but tunneling and slugging out of gate, or gens popping so fast that I can't keep up, I just quit for the night. If that trend continues for long enough, I quit playing altogether until a new chapter release catches my attention.

In summary, it sounds like a lot of your complaint is that people don't invest as much in this game as you do. The issue with that complaint is that if DBD becomes an unfun slog for anyone but the most dedicated, I would imagine the game will get 10 times sweatier at best. But regardless, not everyone cares enough about DBD to put that amount of time and energy into it that you're talking about. At the end of the day, it's just a video game. Telling them to 'git gud' is never going to have any effect.

And, whether anyone likes it or not, sometimes 'git gud' isn't the answer because the problem isn't a question of dedication or skill.

As far as perks/powers/add-ons/items go, a thing can be overpowered and need to be adjusted and that reality can be completely independent of player skill. If a perk or perk combination can carry a lesser skilled player to victory, then it probably needs adjustment. If such a thing forces matches to drag on for an eternity, it probably needs to be adjusted. If it allows one side to take the match hostage, and on and on......

It's always been like that with DBD too.

Even when I first started to play, I wanted to quit. It wasn't even close to fun. You know what my friends said? "Just stick it out until you get DS, that's when you really get to start playing." "Wait until you get Ruin, games slow down a lot when you have it."

There's a difference between new players shouldn't dictate balance and Eruption can't be countered effectively by 80% of players.

Same with Overcharge.

Or Nurse.

And you can bemoan the matchmaker, as we all do, but BHVR doesn't really seem capable of improving it to stop people from being in mismatched games.

1: You can't tell people to get better because its not going to happen. The player base is spread out between multiple countries, languages, and systems. Those reading/following guides to get better are relatively small number. You can bemoan the state of survivor play, but it is what it is. As a soloQ survivor I have no control over 75% of what my "team" does, as killer I have 100% control of my play.

2: You mention enjoying things being hard; I agree, it's why I rarely play killer. I'd love to have hard killer games more frequently.

3: Survivor is not the easier role, not even close. Even if a killer is completely new to a map, they are told where the gens and hooks are, they really just have to learn perks as all survivors are the same. Survivors have to figure out where those things usually are + learn all the different killers.

Overcharge is hell for most Survivors.

Pulsar summed it up, most of the player base is casual and so balancing for the better players is a recipe for death for DBD.

Some things are indeed broken (Eruption) even if there are also people who cry about anything and everything as well.

the point of the perk is to punish you for gen-tapping. there is no cooldown to gen-tapping, so putting cooldown for killer to punish gen-tapping makes no sense.

You can have fun and get alot of points, but still lose most of the matches, over and over again.

So no, whenever i hear "fun" in DBD, what it really means is TO WIN. And sadly, most of the times AS EASY AS POSSIBLE (that goes for both sides).

First ten games or so I played as survivor I probably missed 1 out 10 skill checks, maybe more. Even for a while after that it was not an unusual occurrence. Eventually they become just a minor distraction, but they are hindrance and something that has to be learned.

Killers learning chases is much easier, it corresponds to lot of other video games. Run, hit, repeat. Sure you get better at it as you play, but unless you are new to video games it is extremely basic. Survivors are much more unique.

Now I actually think this is a good thing. Killers should be straightforward, otherwise you gets Nurses who are almost impossible to play against at high levels and the easiest opponent at low levels. But let's be honest about the game: survivors have to make choices without having information about the map or what their teammates are doing, killers have to play a strategy management game.

This is why people keep saying not to balance for the 1%.

Good players will be good regardless of how you balance the game. They'll find another thing to exploit and stick to it even if it takes them weeks to master.

Average players, which compose most of the player base, don't do this. They have lives and other interest. There's varying degrees of effort they can put, but for the vast majority, if it takes them intensive training on an isolated environment (custom games or bots or any training mode), they're not gonna master it probably ever.

You have to balance around the average player. If you don't and balance around the most competitive players, you alienate the biggest chunk of your player base and most of them leave, which raises the barrier of entry dramatically for any new player as there's no player of equal skill to match them with.

You keep thinking things should be balanced around top play, but when you only face SWF with thousands of hours with the top items and perks even when you play a new killer for the first time, that's when you regret thinking that even if you don't realize. It's literally what happened with The Knight.

Killer has the biggest advantage over survivor for the first week when neither side really knows anything.

Several months later when you get to middle ranks the game is relatively even. The only problem is that most of the killers can be completely shut down by god pallets.

When you get to above average players - the survivors have a little advantage overall. The only saving grace for the killer is that you probably learned to play a more advanced killer. Nemesis is not the best killer by a long shot but he's way better than trapper. If you want to win consistently in what would be old "purple rank" play then you can't really keep playing the weak killers and still have fun matches where you feel you had a fair fight.

When you get to the comp scene you realize there are only a few viable options for killer. Survivors are completely amazing and make you look like a noob even playing the best killer with really strong addons. This happens because overall the survivor has more skill potential than almost all of the killers.

"Survivor is not the easier role, not even close"

Most people would disagree with you. At any given point during the day how many "really good" killers are streaming? There's always about 5x survivor mains for every killer main.

Survivor starts as the harder role but becomes more powerful with a higher overall potential.

When you look at competitive DBD it is the survivors who are usually severely limited - not killers (who often only have a few restrictions).