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350 Hours: Embracing, and sometimes hating, playing killer
At 100 hours, when I was very much a survivor main, Gamedozer7 recommended:
Do you have any of the newer killers because most of the older ones are pretty simple but they have little tricks that you would never think of but most of the new killers have more to there power.
After 200 hours my play for the game flagged quite a bit. Then during Christmas Steam sale I figured that being they were so cheap I'd pick up the extra packs. If nothing else I could see how eruption felt using it as a killer (feels overpowered).
Gamedozer's post was pretty accurate. Of the killers I picked up I didn't really care for Executioner, Myers, or Nemesis, but really enjoyed Freddy, Sadako, and Pig (I know they are all considered weaker killers, maybe that is why they are enjoyable because it balances the game a bit more). I found having an array of killers to switch to really improved the killer sided game play - get bored of one, jump over to another. Really keeps the killer side fresh.
That said there are 5 issues that make me dislike playing killer compared to survivor:
1: Winning is not nearly as meaningful as escaping as a survivor. There are many times as survivor were I was not confident I was going to escape until I was literally out of the exit. And even when as a survivor we are winning, which in soloQ feels pretty rare, there is always the distinct sense that things can quickly change.
Killer the excitement is in the chase. Once you get the down its a pick up and walk over to the hook. And what should be the most exciting part, the final survivor, is just a chore. If I'm already chasing them do they have a chance at finding the hatch? Almost certainly not.
2: You have to play it out. As survivor if the match is unbalanced, example: one survivor is dead, you only have a gen done, and everyone's already been hooked multiple times, you can just sit on a gen until you are found. As killer? When you are stomping the survivors you just have to keep doing it. In the above situation you know you've won, but you still got to track them done, chase them, etc. but it's all kind of pointless. I've been in many games that went on for five minutes or more after it was obvious the survivors were toast just wondering what we were all doing (and that's not even counting when the final two survivors see how long they can hide).
3: An array of easy tactics can get you the win. Team have a weak link? Tunnel them out. You manage to get two survivors on nearby hooks. Just camp. Three gens really close together. Mostly ignore everything else and protect those. They're powerful tactics, but also boring and just plain easy. I hate that sometimes I have to intentionally play bad to have fun.
4: Killer build feels like a difficulty slider. On the killers I have one setup for Iri ranks: throw on eruption and other clearly superior perks and use best addons. Then I have another build for more fair/fun play. Avoid overpowered perks, limit addons, etc. It really feels like I'm controlling whether I want the game to be easy or hard. Which is great for a single player game, weird for a multiplayer.
5: What to do if someone disconnects feels like it falls on the killer. Do I play my best and get the other survivors out so we can move on? Feels cruel. Do I scale back how I play but still try to win? Feels like I'm lying to myself. Just let them do the gens? Feels insulting and takes a long time.
What can make killer better to play? Match the exciting feeling of survivors?
SWF
I know this doesn't seem to be the reaction of most killers, but the most memorable/enjoyable matches I've had are against coordinated teams. At 340 hours I hit a team running all flashlights, we were Azarov's Resting Place, and I was playing Freddy.
It was a great game. I recognized they were going for flashlight saves and so I went to a slugging strategy. They had one player who was a clearly superior looper and so I tried to avoid getting in chases and instead tried to bait him into mistakes on helping his teammates. They responded by going to dead zones of the map to heal and doing everything to protect their teammates who did have hook states.
It was a great game that went back and forth. It ended in a two kill, but there were points I came really close to having them all (once had two down and one on my shoulder, but he wriggled out seconds before I got him on the hook). Likewise there were moments were they all healed up completely and I had to play great to get them back down.
And that's kind of my take on killers. Steamrolling survivors isn't fun. I hope the new survivor information change actually ends up being a substantial buff because not only would I like feeling like I have a chance as survivor, but it would feel a lot more meaningful to play killer.
Comments
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TL;DR : killer too easy (I am stomping SWF teams with my Pig), just tunnel, camp, use 4 slowdowns or broken addons. I am so good I have to play meme builds to let them have a chance against me. Please buff survivors.
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Or you could read it.
I lose as a killer, as I should. I hit players better than me, sometimes lose out on 50/50 plays, etc. That's how games should work.
It's those games though that actually feel like they have meaning. Stomping survivors is even less fun than being the survivor stomped.
The one part you are correct on, as killer you have to intentionally weaken yourself or know you are hitting a really powerful team to make the game balanced.
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I had roughly the same story and impression as you. For a while after I first played killer, I stomped every game with almost only 4Ks. The game ended up feeling so easy and unfair that I voluntarily played without addons, without gen perks, and tried to go for 12 hooks when possible.
However, something happened and now my story differs significantly from yours.
At some point, after a VERY high number of wins (500+), MMR actually started to catch up, and brought me some new types of survivors which I'd call... very sweaty. It was very obvious that something had changed, as my queue times became longer, and in every game I would now get 1-2 people with 4000 hours, sometimes streamers, while I still had barely 200 hours on killer. Suddenly every single survivor knew how to loop, most mindgames stopped working and it felt like they knew the map perfectly etc.
But still, I had already seen some good chasers, didn't prevent me from getting 4K's before. However, what I hadn't see before was the literally insane speed at which these new survivors do gens. The thing is, these players are actually playing to win, and as far as gens is concerned, they do not waste a single second. I have an anecdote here, in low MMR it would often put the game in background while in the loading screen and be literally AFK for the 1st minute of the match. But now, it feels like the total opposite, not only do I have to play with 100% focus from the first second, but if I waste even I'd say ~20 sec because a chase went a bit too long, then I know that I've already lost. Basically by the time I get 1-2 hooks the game is over.
I absolutely don't care about winning so high MMR killer games don't bother me, I still get some fun chases, I just find it a shame that the games are over so much quicker, and I'm very confused by the fact survivors enjoy this playstyle. As a survivor, why would you "gen rush" against a nice killer? We'll just be wasting our time back in the queue, and the game after you're gonna maybe meet a tryhard Nurse with Starstruck. I know as a survivor I would definitely prefer to meme in most situations rather than do gens. But anyway.
It turns out, there is indeed a problem with gen speed in this game. As a killer, it feels like the odds are really not in your favor math-wise. My survivors often bring medkits/toolboxes and gen perks but even without that, just getting 4 efficient survivors is enough to make you feel like you're being "gen rushed". When that happens, the balance of the game completely changes, because as a killer now it is physically impossible to win even if you win all your chases in 15 seconds. The gens are simply just too fast. To catch up, what I considered the "scummy stuff" like broken killer addons, basement, camping, tunneling etc, now becomes required. For me it is not fun to play that way so I still play nice, and I can still not understand the killer mains' logic that "I need to tunnel because they genrush", imo ultimately the fact that the other side plays in a boring way does not mean you should play boring too, but at least now I can understand why killer mains feel like the game is survivor-sided.
I'll tell you that difficulty-wise, this game is actually balanced. The massive problem, is that it is balanced around both sides playing in the most sweaty and anti-fun way. If survivors do gens as they are supposed to, then killers need to bring gen perks and tunnel, and then I think it's probably 50/50. The problem is that 90% survivors don't want to do gens because it is straight up boring gameplay. In this situation, then killer is indeed too easy.
TL;DR: killer is indeed too easy at first, but MMR eventually gives you sweaty matches regardless of which side you play, which is why both sides think the game is other-side-sided. Ultimately, DBD devs only care about high MMR balance, without realizing that very few players want to play this way.
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I agree
😀
Except the last part, I think the devs know what they are doing. I think they exploit it for profit, like typical frustration based games do(mobile shard type games).
I think because DbD is on PC/Xbox people are not as prone to see the similarities to typical mobile design.
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One of the reasons I've been doing these posts every couple hundred hours is because I'm interested in keeping track if my experience will change. I do look forward to see if there is a time I can post that my experiences went from strong survivors feeling like one out of 7 games to every game.
I also get your point about survivors and sweaty and I wish it was something that BHVR took more seriously. I wish they didn't balance the game around the idea that some players weren't playing with addons for example. Instead balance it like everyone was taking addons (which would require treating them like permanent perks, which would require a bloodweb rework, so unlikely to happen).
I also get the idea about how this could be abused by a coordinated SWF if that was what you were hitting regularly. I'll see when I get there I guess.
Thanks for the reply.
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wait until you'll reach the point that you'll face ONLY sweaty SWF, then come back to tell us your experience
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i partially agree with you... i said partially because devs won't balance around high mmr, otherwise buildings like the house in the garden of joy (not to mention all the jungle gyms and pallets present in that map), the school and the fake basement (badham), the central building in the swamp and the boat, the HUGE quantity of safe pallets in the game just to name a few ones shouldn't even exist because you can keep busy the killer for 5 gens without issues in those zones. Add also the fact that people can stuck multiple 2nd chances and you'll have a MISERABLE time aganist those groups no matter what you'll do... in low mmr the game is killer side without doubt since people are actually afraid of the killer and will hide instead of doing useful things like doing generators or destroy/blessing totems
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thanks for sharing your experience.
I was a hardcore survivor main who only push for gen defense nerfs into one day i decided to play killer. I wanna to show them just how easy it was to 4k. Just like 90% of the killer mains u start off winning for a while into your reach these gen efficient players who also can loop crazy. Suddenly u realize that both sides are right in their own ways.
At low levels (which is most survivors) killers are simply overwhelming strong due to lack of gen efficiency, not being able to loop, and a lack of knowledge on the proper way to counter the killer. At mid level they are better loopers but still fall due to killer tactics and lack of coordination against those tactics (tunnel, camping, forcing the 3 gen). Only After getting to the good survivors u realize "i can't win without regression"!!! they are simply to efficient. 5 gens popping after 2 to 3 hooks every game. 70% of the killers are weak and need overpowering gen regression perks to even stand a chance at the top but do this justify the majority of survivors at the bottom suffering?? sadly yes
I'm glad solo q is getting push to swf level because that the only way killers will ever get the buffs they want. Only once solo q become a credible threat can killers get meaningful buffs. We know the devs not gonna fix all these maps and killers but they can introduce mechanics to help. Every killer should have map mobility and some type of anti loop. Allow killers to be able to teleport to certain spots of the map regardless of their power for a price of some sort. Allow killers to call upon the entity to block pallets for a price of some sort. These prices could restrict your powers or anything. idk just brainstorming here but every killer need mobility to pressure the map and anti loop so 2 gens won't pop in 1 chase.
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I agree with your read on it. I reckon a good way help balance it is a rolling handicap based on whoever is winning.
The more hooks a killer has, the faster gen speeds go, the more gens finished the slower gens go.
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Disagree. Half the killers in the game have ways to ignore the strong pallets/loops, even weak killers like Trapper do. This is perfectly illustrated by the fact Otz put Gideon as "killer-sided map" in his tier list despite most of the forum constantly complaining about this map. DH is overrated and is not a 2nd chance due to how unreliable it is, if you really get hit by DH more than once per game then you're getting outplayed, even Otz who constantly complains about this perk still wins his chases in 30 seconds.
The reason why the game feels hard for killer is not because chases are too hard (they aren't), it's because no matter how good you are in chase, survivors can just play like bots and press M1 then they will win due to math. There should be more perks like DH which allow outplay possibilities for both sides, I know getting hit by DH is annoying but think of the alternative, now if all 4 survivors run a perk like Lithe then now it is just a guaranteed 10 sec loss for the killer at every chase, so survivors get even more free time to press M1, which the game definitely does not need more.
Imo generators as a whole need a rework and the game needs actual secondary objectives for survivors. "Just do gens" is currently the optimal strategy for survivors in 90% of cases, and it's boring for both sides. Survivors doing gens are for the killer, equivalent to what facecamping is for survivors.
Killer is camping? Just do gens.
Killer is playing normally? Well, still do gens.
Want to open a chest, cleanse a totem, open envelopes, things that the game gives you BPs for? Well, you're throwing, you should be doing gens instead.
Wait, why did you even bring a flashlight? You should have brought a BNP and just done gens.
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Complete reading comprehension failure. Please try again at your earliest convenience
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I most definitely agree that stomping is boring. I'm truly lucky that my schedule allows me to play at the times I do so that I get matched better at the very least. I really want them to add an option next to cross play so that you can wait longer for better matches. My only worry with that is that survivors won't get that much better in chase, just bring stronger and stronger things. Which I wouldn't mind that much, but I would much prefer good chasers holding a flashlight.
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i stopped reading when you said otz put gideon as killer side map... but in all seriousness, there's no way that people with a lot of experience will put this map as killer side (add also the fact that otz has a DIFFERENT mmr from the others, specifically made for him since most of the survivors that he will face are straight up bad...). DH isn't overrated, quite the contrary, it's underestimated by people that think that's sufficient to bait it when there are various issues with that perk, and again if otz found people with that perk that will go down in 30 seconds then it further prove that he's currently facing people that aren't good (plus auto dead hard is still a thing). The fact of survivors winning by pressing m1 on gens isn't something new, but that's not the main issue imo since gen time is fine until someone took items or perks that aid to shorten up the time needed to repair generators (just like medkits or CoH erased the hit and run gameplay for example). The other exhaustion perks are nowhere near the POTENTIAL usefulness of dead hard for a couple of reasons:
1 unlike the other perks, dead hard doesn't triggher doing certain actions, but it require only to be injured and to activate it whenever you want with a button (it's potentially a lot more optimal essentially, especially when people that know how to loop use it)
2 unlike the other exhaustion perks it will pratically ADD another health state (3 hits with 2 burst of speed for the survivor instead of 2 hits and 2 burst of speed with every other exhaustion perk), not to mention that you are free to abuse certain loops without wasting your exhaustion perk earlier. For example: you are already injured and you have 1 pallet and 1 window in a jungle gym, where at a certain point you'll be forced to use the window to gain distance in order to avoid to be cached with lithe, dead hard will allow you to juice up that loop until the killer will have enough bloodlust to catch you while vaulting (and still being unsure if lunging at you for the possible dead hard)/fake it (and use dead hard)/throwing the pallet (resetting his bloodlust from the starting point, with the possibility to juice up that loop even more while keeping your dead hard for later)
regarding about another objective to do for survivors i fully agree, especially considering that generators skillchecks aren't exactly a funny thing to do (at least for me)
Post edited by Tostapane on1 -
"I didn't really care for Executioner, Myers, or Nemesis, but really enjoyed Freddy, Sadako, and Pig"
PH and Nemesis require you to land difficult skill shots repeatedly. If you miss a lot you lose.
Freddy and ring can teleport which makes them very easy to play at low MMR. People can't loop so you can still get easy downs.
With Pig you can control your stealth so you can sneak up on people but you cant with MM when his power is active.
Just so you're aware it's very commonly accepted that the strongest of all these killers is PH because he has better addons than Nemesis. the next stongest is Nemesis. After that they are all pretty much in the "garbage" tier of killers.
Actually this might surprise you but MM is the next strongest killer but only if you use the purple tombstone or infinite T3.
Pig would be the next strongest killer because she can use STBFL.
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So you are saying that Otz does not have a lot of experience playing killer?
Watch for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L566X0gs_8
You are viewing only the downsides of killers, and not the massive upsides. Yes, the number of pallets on this map is annoying, but killers have a power that usually changes everything and many tiles can be mindgames/bloodlusted. In practice, survivors never play perfectly, they eventually make a mistake or end up cornered after 2-3 pallets.
If you believe it's Otz being too strong, I can record myself playing as Trapper and winning on Gideon, I've already had the discussion with many people on this forum, in fact I claimed that Gideon was an easy map for Trapper, before Otz made the video.
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Did i stated that otz is too strong, too weak or that he doesn't have experience? I Never said that as far as I know... I said that he get a DIFFERENT mmr from other players with the same experience (short words: he found bad survivors instead of the classical tryharder premades)... Winning a match in that map doesn't mean anything but that the survivors that you were facing are bad (I won matches here as a addonless trapper before his rework without perks... Does that mean that I'm a God killer? Does that mean that trapper is OP? Obviously no, the survivors that I went against were simply awful). Just because a streamer with a lot of hours stated something about a perk, killer or map doesn't mean that he's in the right... Opinions, just opinions
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Trapper can't ignore strong loops or pallet, he can try to set up a trap and hope no one find that trap and try to push a survivor on that side of the map. This is not "ingore strong pallets"
Gideon is a "killer sided map" not because how easly you can avoid pallets, it's a "killer sided map" ( no it isn't but ok let's say it) because is indoor, small, easy to navigate and if you're lucky enough gens spawn on the lower floor. I won't even comment on DH and the survivors need to have more second chanche persk because it's hilarious
On the other side i do agree with you regard a new objective both for killer and survivor
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