What do YOU mean when you say that a killer is not balanced?
I'm starting to think that the source of many of the disagreements over which killers are balanced stems from how we define balance in the first place. I'll start.
Personally, when I say that a killer is weak, I mean that they're not good at the thing they're supposed to be able to do.
For example, the Cannibal is supposed to be able to down multiple survivors if they're close together. However, due to the many drawbacks associated with his power, he's fairly incapable of downing even one survivor. Therefore, I consider him weak.
When I say a killer is balanced, I mean that they're actually good at the thing they're supposed to be able to do, without being impossible to counter.
For example, the Clown is supposed to be able to herd survivors into areas that he wants or otherwise punish them for going into areas he doesn't want them to go. While he probably needs a few touches here and there, I consider him fairly balanced.
Overall, my issues with balance stem from what I perceive to be artificial restrictions and absurd drawbacks on the killers' powers, as I mentioned above with the Cannibal (but also the Wraith, the Trapper, the Pig, the Legion, and the Plague, to name a few off the top of my head). I think many killers have too many drawbacks when using their powers that in the end only serve to frustrate the player, rather than provide balance.
For example, the Wraith slowing while cloaking and uncloaking. Given the loud notification already present on his power, not to mention the fact that his invisibility isn't perfect, this doesn't provide balance, it only serves to frustrate the player who can't really do anything but "jump scare" the survivors while they get a chance to run away. It's not fun for the killer, and it doesn't make him threatening to the survivors. This drawback makes no sense.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. What do you think?
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I agree with what you said, for me when I think of Balance I think of how competent a Killer is in the trial, and also how survivors play against them but yes the effectiveness of their powers is a huge part of that too.
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If a power add on is required to play a killer it stops being an option.
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Most of the powers are actually decently balanced. The problem with killers mostly isn't really a problem with specific killer power's beiing unbalanced but with survivors lacks of other objectives forcing them into doing only gens and that resulting in 5-7 min games.
Like wraith, trapper, doc, shape etc have good powers but every power can't be based around high mobility with also strong chase potencial like nurse and billy so they fall short on beiing good enough to deal with those short games.
If survivors got some new mechanics that would enable them doing more stuff in each match that would still be part of main objective it would solve a lot of these power's problems. Ofc if games get longer with such changes survivors should get according non looping based buffs to even it out.
Right now I consider only Legion, Cannibal and Freddy in dire need of rework since their powers are actually unbalanced either beiing too oppressive or far too weak and unrealiable.
I hope that those 3 get some decent reworks while survivors get some new objectives to prolong games with additional endgame changes.
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That's not really the point of this thread. I'm asking what you think makes a killer balanced.
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For me a killer is balanced when he/she is not too strong or weak considering also the addon dependance.
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But what does that mean, exactly? What makes a killer strong or weak to you?
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Strong: Too much map pressure, OP addons, low skill high reward power. For me Hillbilly is the less balanced killer ATM. The nurse at least have a high skillcap and playing stealthy is effective against her.
Weak. Poor map pressure, addon dependance, trash without addons. (Trapper or Clown for example).
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Alright, in my opinion killer's power is balanced when it has decent chase potencial while still having enough couner play for survivors.
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To me what makes a killer strong or weak has a lot to do with mobility. The more map they can cover in a short amount of time the better the character usually is Bc they don’t get ran over completely by 4 mans or a pretty decently skilled survivor group.
Killers with lower mobility aren’t able to handle map pressure Bc as a killer you are 1 person with several objectives.
Honestly in my most honest opinion other killers suffer Bc they don’t have the same types of mobility
killers who dont suffer meaning balanced Bc they can hold their own usually due to power and/or/both mobility or just strong power
hag-billy-nurse-spirit-clown-Myers-huntress(sometimes not all Bc she can do some things if the person is good at hatchets)
all others fall below the waist to me usually they don’t have enough time due to power limitations so against a pretty decent team they can’t hang, as it’s not the killers fault , it’s the restrictions on them. Ie low mobility, or set up time, weak base power.
I say this as a survivor main. So my opinion probably doesn’t mean much.
At the same time you can snowball with any killer at any rank Bc survivors can be real air heads sometimes.
I also have seen a good bit of killers deemed lower tier killers completely dominate but that’s bc they main them exclusively usually so they are the best of the best and have tried multiple builds, know what works and what doesn’t. Have a decent collection of good addons for the character. So they’ll have more “good games “due to character experience.
I consider most of the lower tier killers unbalanced Bc they usually have to result to camping or tunneling against a good team to get a single kill or even a couple of hooks. Most times when these killers try to space out hooks between the survivors their lack of map pressure due to lower mobility/power takes up too much of their time.
the yellow trapper bag definetly needs to be built in or they should try having them like hags power of automatically having 10(or whatever I’ve never took the time to count how many traps are on a map)with auto reaccumaltion when disarmed. That would help him a ton, and if it’s too strong tweak his MS a little bit.
Wraith keep the bell but the quicker transition should be built in. He’s weak to loops so come on him being able to do that without add ons wouldn’t be asking to much I don’t think.
thats just from survivor experience and what little I play killer for daily’s knowledge though.
Post edited by HeroLives on1 -
Sounds logical.
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Thank you, that was my goal.
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How would you "fix" my Wraith?
You identified a few drawbacks of his pretty well, so would a simple removal of a or multiple drawbacks suffice?
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Either reverse the slow on his cloaking and decloaking (that is, make it so cloaking is slow, while decloaking is fast) so that he becomes a sort of "hit and run" killer who tries to surprise his target by catching them off-guard (like a discount the Shape), or make the slow when decloaking stop at his base speed (115%), rather than slow him further.
Alternatively, and my preferred option, is to give him the ability to attack out of stealth, after which he immediately decloaks and is stunned for some time (3 seconds should suffice). Note that he would not be able to grab anyone out of stealth (except when searching lockers, obviously), just attack.
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Your alternative is EXACTLY what i've been wanting for him for a while now. 😁
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I consider a killer to be balanced if they are able to suceed at their mission within the trial: catching and killing the survivors. That implies both mobility and map pressure. You have killers who are good at “killing” yet somewhat average or not that good at chasing and you need to build it around perks and add-ons that improve that inefficiency and, thus, balance their gameplay. You have them the other way round as well. However, you will end up being even more inefficient if you boost a fast killer’s speed and not their power. For example, if you grab Legion and use a Frenzy speed boosting add-on you are pretty much wasting a slot. The same goes for people that use wraith add-ons that boost its speed while cloaked instead of boosting the speed at which it appears and disappears, which, like you mentioned, is its weakest point. You could even use add-ons that affect the bell to avoid this dead space and obvious disadvantage.
With a balanced build you should be able to do alright at trials. Doing alright isn’t the same as killing everyone tho. The problem is that people tend to use the same perks for every single killer to counter standard survivor builds that they assume are used, and that’s when imbalance happens.
Some of the killers need an obvious rework because even with add-ons their power is not as efficient as it should be. And some killers need to be looked at too because with little to no effort they can turn the table in less than 2 minutes.
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So in your view, there are several, let's call them attributes, and a killer is balanced if they don't max out all the attributes, but instead have a few strong points and a few weak points (or are average across the board). Do I have that right?
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When i try to balance my killer the little bubble says hes not balanced he needs fixing help
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The nurse is strong but learning her is hard. So that would be balanced. The Hillbilly is strong thanks to its darting across the map with a 1 shot chainsaw but it doesn’t require that much skill to learn, that would be less or not balanced at all.
I love the Clown and while he’s good at L/T loops (if you’re good at throwing bottles) he can be crap in open spaces. It’s not hard to avoid the shots and fumes. You can improve his power’s effects to balance it more.
Legion on the other hand can be brutal with their add-ons. It’s fast while on Frenzy and can see everyone around when their skill is landed on someone. They are not as fast at normal speed but you can counter that in many ways. It’s not fun to play against but it can chase and kill effectively if built appropriately.
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No, I meant killers already have weak points that you can strengthen thru perks and add-ons and hence balance their performance. That doesn’t mean their power is balanced at all times. The question is, if they changed some killer’s powers but didn’t change those add-ons that made them “balanced” already, would they now become broken?
Read you answer again and yes, I think balance is based upon those “attributes”. If a killer excelled at every aspect, they would call it broken.
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What about a developer's intention? Developers sometimes create characters with low skill floors and low skill ceilings on purpose, as a sort of stepping stone for newbies. How would you try to measure the balance of such a character?
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Honestly I think you nailed it. I got nothing to add. Well said. @ me if u respond btw.
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Do you think new players would stick to such character? I don’t see it viable and it’s not like learning a killer will make you better at the next one because the power would be totally different. It’s not like a fps that you train with bots and then you go online once you feel confident enough. New players in dbd are faced with different killers both in playstyle and complexity from the start, there’s no actual “training”. You go out there and do your best. You will fail a lot until you understand what you can and should do. Any killer if used correctly and with experience can achieve great results at whatever rank imo
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I disagree. At the very least, regardless of what killer you play, you have to know how to find survivors and how to win chases.
The Trapper, I believe, would probably fit the "stepping stone killer" role perfectly, since his traps can serve as both indicators of where survivors are and ways to end chases quickly. You can also learn to corral survivors into areas that are better for you.
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Trapper is a good stepping stone, but he still has some (not much but some) potential at higher ranks.
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But that works great for his skill, not for all the other killers. You can learn such mechanics with any killer. And even if you did learn those with the Trapper how are you going to handle not having the traps anymore? My bf, for example, he never played the Trapper until Halloween 2018’s skin came out. He learned the game with Myers. He struggled a lot but in the end he got good at it and then tried this and that killer.
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My point is that the Trapper makes it easier to learn those essential skills, thereby being a stepping stone for new players. He's not great against survivors that know what they're doing, but that's all he's meant to be. How would you take that into account when deciding if you believe he's balanced or not?
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Those two things are also essentially counters to the current DbD meta. Is that why you think those things are what make a killer powerful?
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The thing is that the killer would still be balanced if used at the proper difficulty tiers.
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But can balance be relative to the skill of your opponents? Anyone can do well against potato opponents in any game with whatever is perceived to be the weakest class/role/character.
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It shouldn’t
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Yet that is what you're saying by appealing to "difficulty levels" in regards to the Trapper.
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Because you stated the killer would have been created for new players to learn the game. Being such the objective then it would be balanced. But if we place it as a choice among over 10 killers where the objective is to kill the survivors of whatever rank you face considering that you could facing more or less skillful survivors then the trapper would be less balanced than others.
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I see now, thank you.
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@orion I’d actually like to answer this question. While I find that he is a stepping stone killer and at 20-12 ranks he is viable and therefore he is balanced at those ranks. However he is not balanced on all ranks because of set up time and his power being easily countered unless you have his best add ons at all times. He doesn’t cut it in higher ranks because the survivors advantage is much higher than the killers in this case. Which is why I would buff him again. He stands no chance against good survivors ,only still learning ones. So balance to me means viable at all ranks. Meaning the match could go either way depending on skill of both sides. Or atleast that’s my opinion.
so I mean I guess you could consider him balanced on lower ranks Bc survivors have a difficult time against him, but not the more skilled ranks(especially if they change ranking system) Bc he’s a walk in the park almost compared to viable red rank killers to go up against.
id like the variety the 20-10ish ranks have to go up against meaning you see most of the killers often Bc they are viable there. I feel like it might completely f up the survivors though still learning.
I think that balance for both is a 2k-3k average atleast at red ranks for any killer. So bring any killer not on that level to that performance level.
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So, TL;DR, balance to you means viable at all ranks, and viability is determined by average kill rate against the top rank survivors. Do I have that right?
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Yes. If you can’t on average get atleast a 2-3k in red ranks WITHOUT tunneling and camping with that killer it makes them not viable in my humble opinion.
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Why do we give such relevance to red ranks when it’s a fact not everyone gets there because of their skill lvl?
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Define tunneling and camping.
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Bc not everyone in red ranks is bad there’s a good bit that are actually skilled. Swf can put potatoe players in red ranks though Bc they farm each other running around the killer instead of doing anything towards progression to power gates. Or they have a couple of good people on their team and piggy back escaping over and over putting less skilled players in high ranks, even though they haven’t really acquired any skill other than being a gen jockey, and still run out the gates. So even though it doesn’t mean anything it still means something. You have to look at it as a whole. That’s why it means nothing and something. Bc skilled players still get to rank 1 also.
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Balanced to me is more or less what you said. No unnecessary drawbacks to a power. The power either has to have good map pressure or strong anti-looping. At base it should be ok with add-ons increasing the power to an extent.
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Balance ist not about being weak or strong. Its about fair or unfair in general.
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How do you define fairness?
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When I talk about whether a killer is balanced or not, I'm talking about whether he/she can get the job done without relying on the survivors making huge mistakes. And the job is killing survivors.
So for me, it's about the killer's potential to win against good survivors. Ideally, one killer should be as powerful as a team of 4 survivors.
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There's a lot to consider with balance. But for me, I look at what they are supposed to do, as well as chase times and map pressure.
If their power can't be used due to drawbacks, or requires add-ons to function close to properly, it's weak.
Examples of these: Freddy Requires add-ons, Leatherface is only fun if you are actively handicapping yourself, and Legion needs add-ons to vs decent survivors.
Honestly, I haven't really seen a "to strong" killer. Old Nurse was op, i've seen vids of that. (but then again, those were the days of endless window loops, and pallets every 10 meters. So she was probably balanced for that enviroment) But nothing has released to strong in a while. I think they are scared of doing what most games do, releasing something a bit OP, and scaling it back after people have their fun for a week or so.
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Balance cannot be gauged on just the killer: addons, perks, and even the very maps influence their effectiveness. Doctor is absolutely broken on The Game, along with the Nurse. The Pig's only map where Ambush can really be effective is Lery's. Myers is stronger on the maps with low obstructions (which is most of them).
Pig is a well balanced killer, as her addons aren't all that strong most of the time due to RNG, but her power still costs survivors time. Her build influences how effective she is as well, and Spirit and Hag can vary wildly on perks, along with Doctor and Nurse.
I consider Hillbilly broken as sin because he doesn't need perks or addons to be effective at all, so everyone runs almost the same build on him, and there's no way to deal with it if he's any bit decent at being a killer. His very over-the-top design on mobility and one-shots isn't fair in the slightest, and considerably narrows map design potential in relation to other killers. Even Nurse isn't quite as bad to deal with most of the time, since the skill ceiling for Hillbilly is about 20 stories less than her. His power has multiple perks built in, just like the Doctor's (another killer whose design I have a problem with).
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Honestly, I feel Wraith would still be pretty weak with your alternative buff.
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If killers are not “strong”, shouldn’t the survival rate be much much higher than it is now? And does it always really depend on survivor mistakes? Last time I heard it was lower than 50%. Maybe one of the mods can confirm the survival rate figures for each rank range? @not_Queen
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How many times do you see survivors ######### around because they know they're safe? Overconfidence leads to mistakes. If survivors were to play seriously and actually try to escape, the survival rate would spike.
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Would they always? I would say over 60% of survivors are bad or not good enough at escaping from the killer once they are found.
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