Isn't it overkill to add standard features only for Survivors?

Right, they were so stubborn about not adding info for years until they realized they had to. 7 years later btw. It'll take them another 7 years for them to buff killer accordingly too (I'm mostly joking).

I dont think your comparison is fair in some of your points.

In 1_ is true that they nerfed meta killer perks but that was the point of the perk overhaul. To remove perks that were staple in every build to give more variety to the game. In the same way pop, ruin were nerfed, survs also lost iron will, DS and self heal so it is not a valid point to take only one side's nerf to boast your argument.

2_ that is also an unfair comparison, really. Those killer buffs of hit cd reduction and surv hit distance speed reduction were never meant to intend survs to never get to any loop with them. I understand some maps are survivor sided but unless you play with constant map offerings you can also get screwed with maps like the swamp or the Mcmillan giant tree map that spawn like 9-10 pallets and barely any loops in.

3_ the bloodweb went both ways also. Killers also got red addons more easily.

I've actually had the idea of perks being me or buffed to allow for peeks into the Survivor HUD. Ex: A Nurse's Calling shows you the icon for someone healing but you only see the aura if you're close enough. Thrill of the Hunt shows you if someone's on a totem somewhere. Gearhead shows the gen progress indicator when it procs, that kind of thing.

Not this again.

The game challenges your senses by its very concept. You can't make it accessible for impaired players without drastically changing the experience for everyone else.

Aren’t the kill rates that people keep quoting from September 2022? That’s 5 months old data while the HUD changes were introduced this year.

It would be nice to see some updated statistics. Until that happens, I highly doubt the HUD update will not make a dent in the recent kill rates. The figure should go down even more after the Eruption nerf is pushed live.

You see, if Killer had not had the Bloodlust mechanic as a standard feature for such a long span of time, and instead the Bloodlust feature was added as a perk in one of the patches, then players would probably not use that perk, since it would be situational, and would be deemed as a waste of a perk slot, since other perks offer more value for one perk slot. However, the reality is that we do have Bloodlust as a standard Killer feature, since a long time ago, since patch 1.5.0. But please, for the sake of the argument, pretend for a moment that Bloodlust did not exist as a standard feature at all, and imagine it as a perk for Killer. This perk description could possibly look like this: Gain tokens for this perk while in a chase with a survivor. Each token increases the Killer's movement speed by 5%, up to a maximum of 3 tokens. Gain the first token 15 seconds into a chase, afterwards, the other two will be earned 10 seconds apart. All tokens will be lost if you successfully land an attack on a survivor, or lose chase. I am grateful that we do have this feature by default for Killers, and that no perk slots need to be wasted to obtain this effect, however, just as how we do have this without needing to waste perk slots for Killer, we could also have other lesser-effective perks as standard features for all Killers, so that the players are given more opportunities while playing the game. Because, in the current patch of the game, it is quite bad for Killers. Good perks were destroyed such as Pop, and Ruin, and now Eruption too. Now no longer you can regress 25% of a gen progress by kicking it with the use of a single perk, so Killer is now most needed to tunnel survivors out of the game, since regressing generators is so very ineffective. It's a simple concept: the Killers cannot keep up with the gens, cannot regress them anymore as in the past, so instead, Killer is forced to take out a survivor ASAP and make it a 3 VS 1, instead of a 4 VS 1.

It's an extra 2 seconds every time you kick a gen. Whenever you injure a survivor, you shave off .3 seconds. Get ten hits throughout the game, that's 3 seconds off. Then add the reduced on-hit sprint, taking away some extra distance, combined with the reduced on-hit cooldown to take away even more distance.

If you combine all of the buffs killers got, on an average match, you're probably saving way more time than any of you are willing to admit.

This reminds me of an argument from high school: "Adding 1 minute onto the end of each class before the bell will improve the educational value of the class because at the end of the year that's an extra few hours of class time added up." That argument didn't work because what are you really going to teach inside of 1 minute that students will actually retain? Much like this argument not working because what are you really going to do with chunks of .3 seconds that may or may not be experienced in the only way it would be minutely useful (as a lump sum).

And very few people are actually using that, for some reason.

Very good, most rush teams are higher mmr. Also just because most people aren't bringing the rocket launcher to the pistol range doesn't mean that it's not a problem when a team DOES bring it.

Sure, if you want DBD to turn into an unplayable spectator sport.

You are grasping at straws.

You would think so, except its to help alleviate other issues. I suggest you look up why the developers added those features.

More information is a good change IMO. It closes the effectiveness gap between solo queue and SWF, basically letting the devs balance around survivors having SWF-level information without leaving solo queue players in the dust. If the immediate result of increased info is survivors being too strong, the devs can give killers buffs in some other way that doesn't disproportionately affect solo queue players.

Close the distance. Obviously.

Yeah, you can't teach much in one minute, but you can give chase with that additional .3 seconds. These DO actually add up. Just because you can easily discard them in your perception doesn't mean they aren't there, or that they aren't contributing to higher kill rates.

Excuse me, but close the distance to what degree if not minuscule/none at all? You would need to take a constant, practically clairvoyant path of least resistance for the entire match, and any sort of tidbit time chunks you'll have "saved" would evaporate with a single stun or blind.

And how much of that is down to Hyperfocus versus Stakeout/toolbox? How much of that is actually the new stuff? How much does this impact the average killer? And why is this being argued on this topic, specifically?

Did you not bring up the time added to gens as a killer buff? I mentioned the hyperfocus/stakeout combination because it subverts the added gen time and exacerbates the issue of ultra fast completion. It impacts the average killer because no human being who consistently plays this game is going to remain a novice, they will inevitably get better/develop game sense over time and adopt the most effective tools available or the "META". Is it not foolhardy as a game dev to leave crazy-strong combinations as they are just because a majority of the player base isn't running riot with them at the moment?

Am I? Because DBD already has trouble retaining newcomers and intermittent players, so upping the skill floor for 80% of match participants even more seems like a really bad idea.

Yes, you are. In fact, I'd actually go as far to say that if this is your stance, then you don't possess a hard grasp on the causes behind the 3 primary events that make uninstalling an attractive option for survivors and killers alike, i.e. tunneling, camping and/or hard-slugging.

Our current predicament with tunneling, camping and hard-slugging has spawned primarily (albeit not entirely) due to:

• Prolonged exposure to generator efficiency elements that boost completion speed beyond the scope of reason, conditioning killers to jump to desperation tactics early unless playing one of the few top-tier killers quite well.
• Overabundance of defensive resources and 'second chance' perks inside a high efficiency environment.
• Killers looking at their hud not far from the start of a match, seeing that survivors have 60%+ completion while they merely have 0 - 8.3% completion and effectively going into 'oh s**t mode.'

Necessity is the mother of invention and it became a necessity to deal with fast completion inside overly safe environments, thus tunneling, camping and hard-slugging were born. Atm if anything negative is done to camping, tunneling or slugging without also including some form of meaningful base kit completion limitations or map changes, it's likely that even more killer players will turn coat or flat out uninstall because there would be even less that could be tried in scenarios of desperation, the occurrences of which are very probable in swf matches and more probable now with SoloQ due to the upgraded hud (especially with M1/Stealth killers).

If killers can be easily pushed into a scenario where tunneling, camping and slugging are the only real cards they can play (or lose the game), you can count on at least one if not all 3 of those deadly sins happening. This, in turn, makes playing either side obnoxious with extremely unsatisfying gameplay, leads to people uninstalling and writing bad reviews, company reputation decays, overall sales decrease, etc.

So, most certainly, ultra fast gens have to leave the picture and base killer stats need another slight increase due to the general increased player efficiency from the new hud (or map generation needs a big revamp). AFTER THIS more strict mechanics can be introduced to make tunneling, camping, and slugging virtually pointless/tactically undesirable. I'd rather play hook-based matches (with more chases) that feel more fair and fun instead of kill-based matches that mostly feel like a sweating fever dream.

The OP is correct, the current state of affairs sucks.

Patrick's hockey-based vision of DbD, gameplaywise, is a failure and does not deserve further support.