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Thoughts on Killer Bans and Map Bans?

Zeon_99
Zeon_99 Member Posts: 463
edited May 2023 in Feedback and Suggestions

I feel like every survivor should have a pre selected ban list of two killers that they will never go up against. Not only will this increase the fun of the player base, but it will show BHVR which killers need to be looked at. Sure, Skull Merchant players might have to wait awhile to find games, but they already sit around doing nothing at 3 gens anyways so sitting in queue is just a warm up.

I'd literally pay BHVR $100 to never play against Nemesis and Skull Merchant again.

As for Killers, banning maps would be good for the fun factor and again showing BHVR the problem maps.

Post edited by Rizzo on

Comments

  • Marc_go_solo
    Marc_go_solo Member Posts: 5,213

    Killer bans is a really bad idea on a few levels, such as waiting times, challenges and just unfun for people who want to play that killer. It would never be popular enough to ever go through, nor would it be healthy for the game.

    The map idea is less problematic, but if this was to be implimented it should be via an offering which prevents this instead. Ironically, if all the current map offerings were changed from "highest chance of" to "lowest chance of", then it may be better overall in terms of fairness.

    At the same time, I'd also make it that if the offering is used twice in a row, then the percentage of that offering working again reduces to srop repeat offerings. That's maybe overkill though.

  • Crowman
    Crowman Member Posts: 9,434

    Map bans could work. Give both sides 1 map ban, survivors can each vote for a map to be banned, but the one with the most votes is chosen to be banned otherwise it randomly selects a map.

    Killer bans should never happen.

  • Carth
    Carth Member Posts: 1,182

    That's way too heavy of a ban list. 4 players in a swf each banning 2 killers a piece is 8 total bans. 8/31 = banning over 25% of the roster. That's way way too much.

  • JustAnotherNewbie
    JustAnotherNewbie Member Posts: 1,941
    edited May 2023

    I'm not thrilled with the idea. Cause that means you never learn to play against those killers or certain maps and on top of that it will not be guaranteed that just because you banned something you will not get it 100% of the time. You can't get even on a team with people on the same level as you a lot of times.


    As for map bans I'm not sure. I've read that if a killer is consistently winning the system actually gives them a weak map. Now imagine a (strong) killer opting out of his weakest map. No thanks.

  • Zeon_99
    Zeon_99 Member Posts: 463

    Much more maps are survivor sided than killer sided. And it would be fair to the survivors, its not like any killer other than Skull Merchant will be heavily affected since a lot of people have different preferences. I'm pretty sure id be the only one banning Nemesis

  • IWasLeft2Die
    IWasLeft2Die Member Posts: 2,405
    edited May 2023

    Might as well delete skull merchant and nurse if they implemented this

  • Quietus
    Quietus Member Posts: 27

    Maps would be fine, but it'd likely have to work on a % chance, akin to the map offerings currently. Having a hard ban system would basically end up with "killer sided" maps vanishing from rotation due to the player ratios. If it was implemented as part of the map offering system it could be okay, especially since if both a map offering and the equivalent anti-map offering were proffered in the same game, they'd negate each other.

    As a pure QoL change (ie. no offerings, just a menu option) I'm less open to.

    Banning killers would cause queue shortages, it's not going to happen.

    There is the alternative of having Preferred instead of Banned. Being able to select 1 or 2 killers that you feel strong against or have fun against. Again, it wouldn't quarantee you anything, but increase the odds of getting a killer that you'd be "happy" playing against.

  • BlightedDolphin
    BlightedDolphin Member Posts: 1,839

    Killer bans should not be implemented. It would have no effect other than increasing queue times and punishing people just because they want to play a certain killer.

    Map bans are what map offerings should be. It shouldn’t be something you can do all the time, but as an offering it would be fine and be a rework to map offerings, which currently need to be addressed.

    There is no system that gives you a bad map if you are winning too much. Bhvr doesn’t even know what maps are even bad, they used to think the original Haddonfield was balanced. The only map system that exists is map repeat prevention.

  • ReikoMori
    ReikoMori Member Posts: 3,333

    Killer bans would be horrible.

    Basically if a killer has an active tome they'd be instabanned until the tome ended making the archives basically trash.

    Killers that are generally considered fun to play by killer mains are instabanned. Goodbye Wesker, Blight, Nemesis, Nurse, Ghostface, Huntress. Might as well delete them from the game.

    Does a killer have a strong addon? Instabanned. Myers, Spirit, Pinhead, Clown, Twins just never seen again. Probably lost in the same dimension Maurice went to for a while.

    Like the amount of damage bans would do to this game is wild.

  • Zeon_99
    Zeon_99 Member Posts: 463

    There would only be two bans for you individually, or two per swf. 1 of them is always going to be Skull Merchant for obvious reasons, if not her than Twins. The other one will most likely be one of the many annoying killers in the game, but that could be anyone who that person doesn't like. There's so many preferences that I doubt anything would change for anyone except for Skull Merchant players, but that's deserved tbh.

  • ReikoMori
    ReikoMori Member Posts: 3,333

    That isn't deserved and you gravely underestimate the vitriol people carry in the community when given the tiny shred of control.

    Let's set aside the personal behavior concerns and talk game balance though. Pretty much any game where bans are a normal part of the game both sides tend to have the ability and necessity to ban out characters. DBD isn't designed in a way where that holds true as survivors are essentially all the exact same character. Only killers are functionally unique so giving survivors to the ability to ban killers while literally being immune to the effects of bans is insanely lopsided.

    That is a recipe for disaster before you even get to the things I mentioned before.

  • appleas
    appleas Member Posts: 1,126

    Killer ban only works if there is a healthy amount of people queuing as each killer most of the time.

    Imagine there were 400 survivors + 100 killers queuing within a MMR range and the survivors all banned Nurse and Blight. If there were even 10 Killers who decided to queue as Nurse or Blight, these 10 players wouldn’t get a game and 40 survivors would be stuck waiting in lobby. BHVR would probably compensate for this by stretching the matchmaking range even further to grab non Nurse or Blights from other MMR. So these 40 survivors would be facing someone either below or above their skill level. Add in lobby dodges/backfill and it gets even more messy. Your idea would only work if there were enough Killers and Survivors even if the strong Killers like Nurse, Blight etc were banned.

  • Nazzzak
    Nazzzak Member Posts: 5,485
  • BlightedDolphin
    BlightedDolphin Member Posts: 1,839

    Skull Merchant already isn’t very common, and people just DC within one second anyway. I doubt she would be the most banned killer. Same with Twins. Why waste a ban on a 1 in 100 killer?

    Most people would ban one of Nurse, Blight, Spirit, or Legion and then cycle through whichever killer they currently are playing against a lot and are sick of (so probably a lot of Wesker, Nemesis, Wraith bans).

    High MMR survivors would just ban Nurse and Blight.

    Low MMR would just ban Bubba and Wraith. And this is where the biggest problem lies. Wraith and Bubba are the best killers for new players to play, if these are banned and their queue times rise they’re just gonna stop playing killer.

  • Brimp
    Brimp Member Posts: 2,927

    Can't happen won't happen.

  • HoodedWildKard
    HoodedWildKard Member Posts: 2,013

    Map bans? Iffy. We'd never see coldwind or swamp again if killers could ban maps

    Killer bans? Maybe only one per player and swfs can only choose one between them. Two would mess with mmr too much. It seems unfair to force players to endure genuine phobias, and it might help prevent ragequits.

  • ReikoMori
    ReikoMori Member Posts: 3,333

    It would do less than nothing for ragequits and you'd be making the killer experience actively worse. There are other ways to address phobia issues in games that much better suited than banning killers. They could put in an option that could be toggled by those that need it to turn the character model into something less likely to trigger phobia responses like a wire frame of grey body model.

    I know this is just a random thought discussion, but there is literally zero benefits to banning characters in DBD. Some would say diversity in killers played, but I would argue that getting their via bans rather than improving lesser picked killers isn't really helpful. Also, what does the killer get out of this? Games with bans have both sides able to ban and both sides are on a surface level equally affected by the bans. DBD isn't built like that so what does the killer get in this hypothetical situation if 4 people ban every killer they enjoy and have put time into? Do they get to back out of the game lobby with no penalty? Or if this happening before getting into a lobby what do you do if someone is playing a killer than is getting banned so often their queue times inflate massively?

  • Pulsar
    Pulsar Member Posts: 20,775

    Map bans are a maybe. I think maybe a whole team can vote to ban one map, and the Killer can vote to ban one map.

    Although, I'd like to see map offerings changed to simply prevent a map from appearing.


    Killer bans are an absolute no.

  • HugTheHag
    HugTheHag Member Posts: 3,140
    edited May 2023

    How many maps are what sided is irrelevant. If only one side can ban maps, it is unfair. Map bans would be a terrible bandaid fix to map balance, and I think we're past wanting terrible bandaid fixes.

    And thinking killer bans might be fine because you personally would ban Nemesis, an unpopular choice to ban (I personally enjoy going against him quite a bit), is skirting the problem. It would greatly affect Skull Merchant players, as you said, but maybe also Wesker players (a quick browsing through the forums is enough to see many people are sick of facing him all the time), Nurse players no doubt, and Blight players. Possibly Knights and Artists. If Hag had been more popular, she'd be a famous ban pick as well.

    And it wouldn't be fair to "survivors" as a whole : those killers would not spend forever in queue. Matchmaking would gradually broaden its limits like it does currently, and instead of a good team of survivors going against that sweaty Blight, it will be a group of casuals who definitely don't have the skill to compete. Would it be fair to them ? Or to the Blight if after half an eternity in queue, the first group they can reach is a sweaty 4-man above his skill level ?

    Again, it would serve as a bandaid fix to killer power balance (wether it needs fixing is another thing entirely).

    So this is why I'm wary of those offered changes. I don't think it comes from a bad place, we all have things we wish we could change about the game, but I don't think they would be viable, that's all.

  • LapisInfernalis
    LapisInfernalis Member Posts: 4,205

    I have nothing against Blight per se, but the amount of op ######### addons he has is insane. But even with the addons I can have fun vs Blight. Skull Merchant is another level. She is just boring on both sides (I think she is even more boring than Forever Freddy).

  • NoHookDC
    NoHookDC Member Posts: 234

    Sure, but only if Killers can pick 2-3 Survivor perks to ban, so they never have to see those perks.

    You ban Killer powers, so Killers get to ban Survivor power. And Survivor power is in the perks.

  • Gandor
    Gandor Member Posts: 4,258

    As a blight, you are safe. Its merchant+problem killer for that person - some hate bubba for camping, some trickster as he doesn't belong, plague/clown for specific fears/conditions, nurse (maybe here occasional blight instead of merchant) for meta slaves, nemesis/wesker for seeing them too often or legion for "mending simulator", knight for "AI-only/flipchart/nobrain" interactions, pinhead being annoying/soloQ stomper, twins for slugging too much or any random killer for random reason (like he destroyed me so much last game, or some less objective reasons like "slinger is braindead easy and unfair").

    The point is, there's too much variety in "hated" killers for you to have serious problem as blight player. If you wanted to play merchant - then I would understand. But for anyone else? Not an issue.

    You presume brutal unimosity. Even most picked killer does not get picked more then 15% of games by official stats. Why do you think everyone will be meta slave? From what I can tell by talking to quite a large number of people (sure statistically irrelevant for general usage, but already good sample), people hate different things and most hated killer can be weakest. Like even before SM got buffs after PTB, lots of people already hated her and would pick her over objectively stronger killers - see my response above, those are real reasons I remembered people complaining about - none of them are made up by me. Overall I think Merchant is the only killer, that would have really hard time finding match now (but that's devs fault that should have been fixed months ago).

    I don't know about you, but I don't like 3v1 and consider them unfun for both sides. Picking "wrong" killer greatly increases chance of this happening - especially if that killer gets good start.

    Swamp? I doubt it. Again. There's enough variety in maps already, that coldwin, garden, eyrie, badham, the game, mac, RPD, midwitch, lerys will see the light of the day even if both sides could ban a map.

    It would be different with banning say survivor item (there are only 6 types out of which 2 are really bad making it possible to ban 25% of usual/used options), but that's not the case for maps (or killers for that matter). Like even single perk would be manageable now even if the end result would be felt a lot more (because most people on both sides do use 1 of top 10 perks making bans effectively limiting 10% of choises), because there are so few trully good perks on both sides. But banning single killer (2 might be too much) will just lessen worst DC's.

    Do you realize you yorself named so many different killers, that this would stop to be an issue? Because nobody can ban your whole provided list in a single game (meaning some people will make room for the other killer on "hated" list, because they hate something else more)

  • ili
    ili Member Posts: 64

    until this idea is cool, but certainly the queue for the killers would be longer.

  • HugTheHag
    HugTheHag Member Posts: 3,140

    Your argument that I named several killers and therefore it would cancel itself out ignores how mmr brackets work. Not all killers are popular at the same mmr levels.

    I have named 6 killers as probable ban picks. Nurse and Blight would be the pick of the highest mmrs, Artist and Wesker of above average mmr. The Knight and Skull Merchant would probably be picks of average and lower mmrs.

    I don't know if you completely grasp what I mean by different mmr brackets. You certainly do seem to ignore the main points about how mmr works after all when it comes to redirecting players.

    But even two or three killers being ban picks at any mmr bracket would make matchmaking difficult. Killers did complain of queue times when survivors were mildly disgruntled after 6.1. and some of them stopped playing. I don't know what could make you think giving the ability to ban certain killers, when there is 4 survivors in a lobby, would not affect queue times for the most picked killers.

    That being said, I don't wish to argue further on the question. I have my opinion and you have yours, you probably won't change mine and I probably won't change yours. Let's leave it at that.

  • Sonzaishinai
    Sonzaishinai Member Posts: 7,976

    "I don't know about you, but I don't like 3v1 and consider them unfun for both sides. Picking "wrong" killer greatly increases chance of this happening - especially if that killer gets good start."

    Sorry but that is a absolutely awefull argument. You're just rewarding bad behaviour at that point.

    What's next? Stunning the killer for a minute at the start to ensure they don't get a good start?

    Punish the people who cause the 1v3 not the person who is equally a victim. Remove the easy ways to circumvent the penalty

  • Boons123
    Boons123 Member Posts: 789

    Comments here oppose this idea, but in my opinion, I liked it

    Why am I forced to play against a killer I hate?

    I'm tired of seeing legion and spirit in every match

    And when you see the "behavior" more killers have been banned, they're sure to look back at it

    All the comments here are about, "No, no, I can't play Blight anymore."

  • Gandor
    Gandor Member Posts: 4,258

    It's about addressing root cause of ppl DC'ing instead of treating symptoms (just make DC penalty more hefty).

    My kind of solution lessens (does not remove) DC's while potentially keeping more players in game. Punishment lessens (does not remove) DC's while lowering active number of players (including ppl facing cheaters, ppl having phobias from certain killers, bad internet connection, game crashes/bugs that force you to DC, etc).

    Suppose an idealistic (AKA impossible) state - if the game was fun for both sides all the time, all the DC's would be reduced to technical reasons or IRL problems - and that would be true even if there were no DC penalties in any way.

  • RaSavage42
    RaSavage42 Member Posts: 5,549

    Killer bans would be terrible... for a lot of reasons

    1) would cause Killers to play Killer they don't want to

    2) would cause Survivors to not get used to how the Killer plays

    3) learning a specific Killer would take longer

    4) BHVR wouldn't know if to buff them or nerf them

    5) it would be to shallow...

  • DaddyMyers_Mori
    DaddyMyers_Mori Member Posts: 2,205

    You can as well remove Nurse and Blight/Spirit.

    They would never find lobby.

  • Sonzaishinai
    Sonzaishinai Member Posts: 7,976

    Your solution doesn't lessen DC in the slightest. People who DC often have a plethora of reasons why they do it. One killer they won't face isn't going to put a dent in the number of DC's

    Also thinking your solution will keep more players in the game is naive. Pick a lobby of survivors and every survivor picked a different killer to ban. Suddenly 4/31 or close to 13% of killer players get screwed with higher queu time

    That is if every killer is picked equally, which they aren't. And seeing how it's more likely the popular killers that get banned that number is going to be much higher.

    And for what? Just so petty people have one less reason to dc but isn't preventing them in the slightest to DC vs the other 3 killers they hate.

    It's a bad idea and that was the worst argument for that bad idea.

  • Gandor
    Gandor Member Posts: 4,258

    This can be solved easily. Just force bans before you queue - for SWF 1 ban is allowed. For soloQ you can slightly prioritize banding together people with same bans (if you have problem with matchmaking).

    I know quite a few people that will heavily weight pros/cons of DC-ing if they face certain killer. And as I said previously - it's not even a same killer for those people...

  • nikodemo
    nikodemo Member Posts: 779

    no killer bans. you get what the Entity gives you.

    Map offerings should BAN maps, not force everyone else to go there.

  • fulltonon
    fulltonon Member Posts: 5,762
    edited May 2023

    2 killer bans for individual? so to make it "fair" for both sides killers gets like 16 perk ban with 4 map ban or something?

    Have you even actually considered how much is that numbers?

  • Sonzaishinai
    Sonzaishinai Member Posts: 7,976

    Your easy sollutions just increased queue times for survivors too. I don't think you realise how big of a effect adding more restrictions gives to matchmaking.

    Your new solution now needs to look for lobbies without a certain killer and 3 other people who banned the same killer

    Every thing you add just makes it worse and convinces me more how bad an idea it is

    Implenting this would easilly increase the queue time by 5-10 minutes for each match.

  • Annso_x
    Annso_x Member Posts: 1,611

    Besides the whole queue times & matchmaking issues this would cause, it would also mean survivors who don't ban the most banned killers (like Blight & Nurse for eg) would get repeatedly put in lobbies against them because there's no other survivors available. The most banned killers would have very long queue times and terrible matchmaking, and so would the survivors who refuse to ban them (which would lead them to ban those instead, which would make things worse for killers...)