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Various Questions (Intended for Killers and Survivors)
Let's ask some questions!
I'm just a student researcher who likes to practically apply my questions. I use it a lot in terms of the games I play, so I wanted to post them here to see how the community feels about such things.
Killers:
- In an objective scale, rate your current satisfaction with killer through 1-5. Why would you rank your experience the way you did? What in particular is subtracting from your enjoyment of the killing experience?
- How do you feel about the recent string of killers? Do you think there's an inherent issue with their designs? What might be a problem that is setting back killers from being objectively good?
- What determines a good killer in your eyes? How did you come to enjoy your current main? What is enticing to you about their play style?
Survivors:
- With the new UI updates, has this positively affected your gameplay? Do you think there are perks that should be changed or modified in order for them to become more relevant in terms of information communication? Which ones? Why?
- Do you think that survivor perks should cater to more niche playstyles? What niches have not been covered yet?
- Do you think there's a campy horror trope you'd love to see in DBD?
Everyone:
- How do you feel about map sizes? Do you think this resolves the issue of killer having less pressure due to having fewer sq. meters to travel?
- Do you think that a killer with high-skill expression deserves to have a high success rate at mastery in a trade-off for being hard to learn?
- With the introduction of the new survivors, do you think that other survivors should get lines at a later date?
- Do you feel that the tome is successful enough in delivering lore? How do you feel about the stories told? Do you care for them at all?
Comments
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excellent questions
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These are the kinds of questions that any player should be asking themselves. Finally someone willing to ask the tough questions!
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PLEEEASE i accidentally posted it instead of saving it in drafts ;-; ill tag when im finished
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Killer Questions:
- Killer is pretty fun, but it can get rough fast if MMR goes up. 4 in satisfaction. Survivor strategies and too good loops subtract.
- I have no issue with the recent Killer, except maybe Skull Merchants mask, but im not her. I could not understand her.
- A good killer is a Killer who can effectively kill all 4 Survivors despite the current balance, I strive not to be a good Killer however I play to have fun. Atm I am enjoying Knight. its fun to set a ghost on someone and know they will be occupied for the next 30sec.
Everyone Questions:
- Red Forest has always bothered me with its size.
- Despite how skilled you are a Killer must be balanced, there are very few people who can be better than bHVR's balance. So they are not a problem, except for a small minority of players who themselves are really good. They have each other in high mmr.
- Voice lines for Survivors would be cool. Sure
- THIS GAME HAS LORE?!?!?! (I dont read it, I open this game to kill Meg, not read books.)
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- In an objective scale, rate your current satisfaction with killer through 1-5. Why would you rank your experience the way you did? What in particular is subtracting from your enjoyment of the killing experience?
Probably 4 out of 5. I will say I don't -love- the state of killer thesedays but with how the game actually functions I can't see them doing much to make it better for killers without completely overhauling the game. Killer is as strong as it's ever been really and it's likely only gonna get weaker from here so I can't really rate it low.
The main thing I'd like to see is more reward for playing fairly and spreading out hooks. I don't want to tunnel and I don't in many of my games but it does -feel- like you're screwing yourself over.
- How do you feel about the recent string of killers? Do you think there's an inherent issue with their designs? What might be a problem that is setting back killers from being objectively good?
To be fair I don't dislike Knight but he does feel underwhelming and this new killer looks that way too. I don't think it's a case of running out of ideas because these killers still have unique designs, the issue is the people working at BHVR just aren't that good at turning these unique ideas into actually fun game content. Perhaps the limitations of the game engine and the spaghetti code are limiting how much they can actually do.
The new gal though has such a... plain default skin. I don't know who thought she looked good.
- What determines a good killer in your eyes? How did you come to enjoy your current main? What is enticing to you about their play style?
The most important thing for me is, are they fun to play? I'm not -huuugely- fussed with how strong they are statistically and I happily play 'weaker' killers so long as they're enjoyable to play. That said they should still be strong enough. Some killers have fun kits but due to just how weak they are, that detracts from how much fun they -could- be.
I don't really have a main and I play a lot of the killers, but there are certainly killers I do NOT play almost ever. Generally killers like Oni, Billy or Blight who have a high barrier to entry and I haven't really clicked with their kits.
- How do you feel about map sizes? Do you think this resolves the issue of killer having less pressure due to having fewer sq. meters to travel?
I think there's a limit on how big maps should be, though there's only a couple of maps currently I would deem 'too big'. I do think smaller maps would help many of the slower killers but the problem is they would -also- help the highly mobile killers too so it's a tricky one.
- Do you think that a killer with high-skill expression deserves to have a high success rate at mastery in a trade-off for being hard to learn?
To a degree. If a killer is really easy to play and is really strong and a killer is really hard to play and isn't that good, it does discourage people from ever playing the harder killer because why bother? That being said, just because a killer is hard to learn and hard to master, doesn't mean they deserve to be OP, like Nurse for example. Regardless of what many say, Nurse -is- hard to get really good with, but that doesn't mean she should be as absurdly-good as she is once you reach that level with her.
Similar to how Widowmaker was in Overwatch. It took a lot of time and skill to get to the point where you could consistantly and reliably head-shot people, but once you did you were the strongest character in the game and could just stomp.
- With the introduction of the new survivors, do you think that other survivors should get lines at a later date?
I personally don't think original survivors should ever have voice lines. It'd just feel... weird if suddenly Claudette or Meg or Dwight started talking, y'know? New survivors, sure, go ahead, we don't -know- them yet so it's not too bad.
- Do you feel that the tome is successful enough in delivering lore? How do you feel about the stories told? Do you care for them at all?
I'm... sorta interested in DBD's lore, though only really the overarching lore with regards to the Entity and it's cult. I'm not really interested in survivor backstories at all but killer backstories can be nifty to learn about if it's one of the ones I play.
As far as how good the tome is in delivering it. Eh, with this sorta game it's really the best they've got. DBD isn't a game where you can really put much lore in the actual matches so the Tome is all they've got and it does a decent job at it.
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Killers:
- In an objective scale, rate your current satisfaction with killer through 1-5. Why would you rank your experience the way you did? What in particular is subtracting from your enjoyment of the killing experience?
-2,5. Play for some time, stop to not burn out cause this xit is stressing. Too much to be aware off at any time with a clock tiking very fast.
- How do you feel about the recent string of killers? Do you think there's an inherent issue with their designs? What might be a problem that is setting back killers from being objectively good?
-Last killers, Dredge, Wesker and Knight i really like them (i would love a little buff for knight tho) sadako meh and adriana looks like a meh. Killers came with bugs, not polish, not tested (or that my impression). Also they still adding trash perks, i mean its ok if not all 3 are meta perks but some perks are horrible. Maps usually are not balanced for some killers, others ""needs"" addons to work (knight map, sadako heal=curse) if not, you just need to sweat 10 times more than usual.
- What determines a good killer in your eyes? How did you come to enjoy your current main? What is enticing to you about their play style?
While not every killer is for every one. First fun to play, feel responsive and not clunky (knight needs to walk back 1 meter and turn 45º camera to summon). Also a killer that have an actual chance to fight back for real, not need to be OP for example Ghostface sometimes feels like you just cant do more if survs reveal you from afar.
I dont think i have a main right now but i usually play Knight, Wesker and Nemi. Knight looks cool, wesker goes fium and Nemi random zombis MVP. I would like to be able to buy skins for those characters but blue shards are needed for more characters so its not an option.
Hope this helps somehow. Have a good day.
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Killer:
1) 5, this isn't like 100% a blast all the time but I'm enjoying my self as a rule and see my self continuing to do so. The factors that contribute most to matches where I don't enjoy myself is mostly a few maps, most notably Mother's Dwelling and Disturbed ward for their large sizes and strong, centralised main buildings, or unfortunate bugs as these are factors mostly out of the player's control. Despite this I think maps are in a generally good spot and so is killer.
2) I think they're generally good. unique powers that have obvious use cases but less intuitive ones that can be learnt and improved on to help them feel fresh. Naturally there are aspects I don't like, Mastermind's infection isn't great to play again and it looks like Skull merchant can enforce a pretty miserable 3 gen defence (to be seen), but as a whole good.
3) For me the killer needs 3 aspects to be good. Firstly, a power that has a unique aspect to it that helps it stand out and be interesting. Secondly, to achieve an execution of this power that is balanced and takes care of most potential problems with the power. Finally, a selection of addons that provide a variety of effects that can be used to enhance existing play styles or develop new ones. I will note this is vague and a bit wishy washy in it's details but provides a good idea of what the goals are.
Survivor:
1) I believe this new change has removed what was previously a random variance that existed and punished players for not being overall cautious about what their teammates are doing. This has made the experience more enjoyable and when playing with my friends we can focus less on talking about the game and having a conversation. Although certain perks have been made better by these changes, none have seen a significant enough of an improvement to need a change off this alone. Certain weaker killers could receive some quality of life changes as a result, but I believed the kill rate was pretty high before this so I see no major need for immediate change.
2) Generally most play styles have perks that help them. A good variety of perks are needed and if each chapter comes with a generically good perk, a perk for a niche play style and a counter perk/second chance perk on average that wouldn't be a bad idea moving forwards, worth noting some perks can fit multiple of these so this shouldn't be terribly hard.
3) Depends on campy, less serious horror can work but I wouldn't want it to be too jokey. Mastermind's voice lines being comically evil work well as something that can be seen as campy that fits in the game style, but I'm not sure I'd want anything too much more than that. Items like the Wazzup mask kinda go too far but as it's a rare cosmetic and a reference people enjoy so I don't despise it and is fine as an exception, I wouldn't want to see this on a base killer themselves or in original content without good reason.
General:
1) Map sizes on average are fine but they're exception in some extremes. Certain big maps, Fractured Cowshed or Shattered Square, also have the issue of being too safe, one or the other is fine but not both. Meanwhile certain small maps, Dead Dog Saloon or Midwhich, are not safe enough. Size is a balancing factor and big maps can be mostly balanced, Tormented Creek and Sheltered Woods, and same with small maps, Coal Tower or Lery's, it's finding a balance.
2) To an extent. Killer that are hard to learn but even average tend to have low play rates due to a lack of reward but survivors shouldn't lose by design because someone put enough hours in because they also deserve to win off skill and time invested. Another way of putting this is that survivors do need to be able to keep up in spite of this skill curve at high level. I'd argue a killer like Nurse or Blight take this skill expression too far but other difficult killer like Cenobite or Plague reach a better balance in skill expression.
3) If fitting. I wouldn't want this game to become a Marvel movie of one liners constantly as that would make the voice lines lose value and feel repetitive. Having a match where Wesker perfectly says "Poor performance indeed" is lovely but every match and it becomes boring and corny. I don't see the need to give any other character voice line at the moment except a line in the mori of licenced killer for some survivors like Nemesis.
4) Yay and nay. Cutscenes are nice but generally I don't read tome lore. I like the lore presented in the killer's story's but I prefer reading lore over cutscenes and generally would do it before I play or when a new killer comes out, not during/after a play session when I complete the challenge.
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That's a lot of questions but I suppose I'm now contractually obligated to answer...
Killers:
- A 2. It's primarily now just kind of boredom. In the games defense I'm now going on like...Year 3 of this game but I just don't really want to put in the effort. Most matches seem like you have to swear like crazy (something I don't want to do) to be effective OR you absolutely curb stomp the opponent (something that is boring).
- I appreciate that the killers are getting a bit more complicated to use. None of them are overly complicated but adding a few fun new mechanics and stuff to do I think is a good call. The hard part is going to be for them to balance them.
- A good balance between having a little complication while not being too complicated to be fun. For myself, my current mains are the one shot killers (Bubba and Oni specifically) because it takes effort and at least some skill to use them effectively. I also have been really enjoying The Dredge because I really like his more unique powers.
Survivors:
- I am incredibly happy with the UI Changes. There are probably some perks that are borderline useless that could use adjusting but I don't know what they would be since my staple of perks is pretty consistent and none of them, positively or negatively, are affected by the change
- Uh...IDK so I guess no comment :D
- I would love more silly killers! Killer Klowns from Outer Space would be fun (though probably not likely given their own game is about to come out). Maybe a map based on The Cabin in the Woods and whatnot. This game hasn't been a "horror" game in years so go nuts BHVR
Everyone:
- I've never been too bothered about map sizes and whatnot. There are absolutely maps that are killer sided, survivor sided, and some that are killer sided with X killers and AWFUL for Y killers (like...really any indoor map with Oni or Billy for an example). But I see that as some of the fun of the games RNG so it doesn't bother me
- Yes
- I'm not a big fan of the survivors having lines. I don't mind killers having lines but honestly, I'd prefer no one has lines. It's just the usual video game setup where once you've heard them once, their charm very quickly evaporates
- I don't even listen to them (sorry BHVR story writer)
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