Why is BHVR so afraid to buff weak killers?

They said that the numbers were in line with what they wanted to see, but keep in mind that stats in dbd can be exceptionally misleading. It isn't hard for a killer to get decent numbers while still have functional flaws that should be addressed. The main reason they gave for Trapper not getting very much outside of the small change and Naughty Bear skin and mori is because Trapper is the flagship beginner killer.

Sadako had a high kill rate that people like to throw around as proof that she's actually not a bad killer, but killers with the ability to kill without going through hook states should have a higher than average kill rate. Sadako while being a stealth killer lacks a lot of chase or hit and run potential base kit that you would find on other stealth killers. Playing for condemned kills is currently the most effective and popular way to play her. So stat wise it is easy to say that her numbers are in line with what the devs want to see but clearly the data is really skewed. When we get stats there is usually a lot of context behind them we simply don't have and that seem out of step with what players across all skill levels who are vocal enough to talk about their experiences say.

Definetely its hilarious some people think is a buff becuz devs put on the patch the word buff

Okay we can understand trapper but how about The singularity? definetely not a killer for new people with high skill ceiling and yet he has been struggling with EMP making him a M1 killer 89% of the game.Do we expect it keep the same and he slipstream to the Twins forgotten dimension?

sometimes it does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome_bias

With lots of experience it is easy to answer those types of questions. For example, i can say that probably one of the main reasons legion has a very high pick rate, is that they have the ability to max out the bloodpoint gain in 3 categories, without getting a single hook. Pretty much unless you completely mess up super terribly, you are all but guaranteed 30k bloodpoints. They are the easiest character in the game to farm with.

Is that the only factor? Probably not, but in general if a killer is perceived as "weak" by the community, you'll see pick rates for them be really low. Also, if a killer is recently released, you'll see they have a high pick rate. There are some outliers of course. For example, wesker is by far the highest picked killer (at least on the data WE have publicly). I would suspect that the reason for that is that he is generally perceived by the community as being "fair" but also still pretty good in terms of power level. Additionally players generally find him really fun to play. He hits the perfect trifecta of being fun, viable (in matchmaking) , and also seen as "fair".

Now if you look at nurse for example. She is by far the best killer in the game in the highest level of play, yet her pick rate is around 3%. Why would that be? Probably because when you are playing in regular matchmade games, people tend to give up immediately, making it really boring to play her. She also has a perception of being "really difficult" to play, so people tend to be too afraid to play her.

There are obviously tons of factors at play as to why a killer is played more than the others. But play rates should not be the only thing that dictates balance decisions. What if something were super super overpowered, but had a low play/pick rate? Does that mean that thing is totally fine? Absolutely not, because the players that do pick it, exploit it, and make the game miserable for everyone else.

The problem, at least as an outsider looking in, is that you all always talk about "the data" but it APPEARS (again as an outsider looking in) that you aren't looking at data at the granular level, you are just looking at broad strokes and that you AREN'T looking at all of those factors. You look at killers like myers for example and say, oh look, myers has a 50% kill rate, guess he is fine. But you aren't looking at the fact that maybe myers only has a 50% kill rate, because of the ones that use tomestone.

Or you look at something like SWF, and see that "well they don't escape any more than normal players" but you aren't looking at the totality of the match. If i play a match against a SWF group and get 0 hooks, but in the endgame i use NOED to get a down, and then the survivors BECAUSE they are a SWF play really overly altrustic, to the point where i suddenly get 6 hooks and maybe a kill or 2. Well it looks like SWF is fine because that match was a draw. When the reality is that match was only a draw BECAUSE the SWF attempted to play in a way that was reckless BECAUSE they know how powerful they are. Because at that point they KNOW they won, so they just throw themselves at the hook to get their friend out. When in reality, they simply won, and if they played like it, they would just let the 3 of them escape and take the win.

Sadako's kill rate was in large part on the back of a really awful playstyle (which they are now nerfing). You have a Sadako players who are struggling with a ~30-40% kill rate, and then you have the condemned practitioners who are absolutely cleaning up and boosting the overall numbers. That slug/condemn strat is godawful and should be kneecapped, but if BHVR doesn't balance that nerf with some actual buffs to her chase, her kill rate is gonna tank, just you watch.

Generally speaking, one thing many people forget when looking at the kill rate for weaker and lesser used killers is that they are propped up by some degree by people who main them, even the point of exclusivity. Keeping on the Sadako example, there aren't many Sadako players, but most of them are committed. For casual players or players who don't want to sink all their playtime into mastering only 1-2 killers, these weaker killers are essentially useless, and inaccessible.

If you're Joe Casual horror fan and you're like "oh neat, Sadako, I 'm gonna use her!", you're gonna get wrecked a bunch of times and pick a stronger killer.

I think the broader point here is that it seems ridiculous that we can have killers like Blight and his all-star array of busted add ons go untouched for years while weak killers are left to tread water in mediocrity because the devs won't give without taking just as much (or more) away.

Of course it should go without saying that a huge part of killers being weak or straight up non-viable in some cases is the piss poor map balance.

With all due respect, but the piece on Trapper sounds like a logical trap and not well though through. Why should makeing Trapper stronger increase his complexity for new players? And why should he only ever be a starting killer, shouldn't experienced killers go back for a round with the Trapper, without being hit with frustrating and counter productive design decisions?

Trapper would already be much more fun and viable to play, if all the maps had actually tall grass in places, that survivors routinely traverse. Or if all the traps started primed. Or if disabling the traps came with at least SOME risk for the survivors to become trapped and/or injured. Or if the traps at least had the same tone as the maps ground. Or not keeping taps on how many escape attempts survivors made this game and adjusting the next time someone steps into a trap, removing a bit of the RNG element. All of this wouldn't increase the complexety for a new killer starting out, but poor old Trapper wouldn't be the lol-cow and laughing stock of any seasoned survivor worth their salt. And this is some stuff that I came up one evening, just staring at my screen for 15min. Even more complex ideas like "the Entity teleporting traps around every 90s or once a gen is done, so that the Trapper doesnt have to traverse half the map" wouldn't actually increase the complexity for a new player, but actually give them an easier time trying to figure out, how to best set down this easy to understand power.

And if it truly IS a concise decision to make certain killers weaker then others, how about a real and honest warning somewhere? "Be adviced, that The Trapper is the staring killer and the one the longest under The Entities influence. He is close to being burned out and is the weakest killer on the roster. He is good to start out, but on your DBD journey, you should discover some of the exciting new killers, who are more eager to go into the frey, with their stronger and more interesting powers."

Trapper has the trappings (hehe) of the mastermind or thinking mans power, where you really want to try to outthink and outsmart your opposition, adding some zest to a mechanical less complex set of powers, but even that is sabotaged by so many aspects, like how easy traps are seen, how save they are disabled, how RNG often screws you over with two survivors escaping on their first try.

And I could tell from the notification that you managed to fix it! No more French!

I actually can understand and sympathise to some extent what you say in this answer (I am no game dev but I can imagine the difficulty when it comes to making changes on a game which keeps increasing in scale, like you said with the large and ever increasing killer roster).

I think however, a solution might be to instead of having entire reworks for some of these low tier killers (some do need it, but not all though) just make some number changes. For instance, you could buff Myers so that in his tier 3 he breaks pallets say 20% faster or you could buff pig so her basekit gets something a little extra. This will obviously not make these killers suddenly go up a huge amount of tiers but it will make them nicer to play and make players who like playing them feel less powerless in their matches. I am not saying the buff ideas I just mentioned are the correct ones, but I think something along those lines could help whilst also not requiring a huge amount of dev time for a rework.

I would say that the core issue right now is the difference between the high tier killers and low tier ones are huge. I agree with what you said that not all killers will be good at a high level etc. However, the gap between them could definitely be decreased. Yes you could nerf higher tier killers but the gap is so big that you might have to completely gut them (which I along with many others would hope you guys will not decide to do).

So overall I think recent changes like the Sadako rework (which I believe you will make her a bit stronger since she is arguably weaker right now then in live) are a good step in the right direction, there are still some other fixes for low tiers that could be used that do not have to be complete reworks in order to bridge this very large gap we are seeing right now within the killer roster.

Well killer players could start to stop using those strats maybe devs buff those killers then when their kill rates go down.

You missed the part where i said that wasn't the only factor. I'm stating what i think a possible factor would be and then pointing out the obvious, that there isn't any one factor, and then go on to point out that it feels like the devs ignore all of that and only look at macro things. Please read the whole post.

He's almost unplayable without add ons. His tier 1 he's way to slow. And his power is nothing special now considering how many killers have been added to the game that have similar stuff in their kit JUST BETTER.