How would you define a balanced match?

Balance is a great deal to do with hook states, gens, kills and such. However, another sign of balance is something you can't easily measure and that's the performance in things such as chases, tactics and enjoyment.

I would say to add how much you enjoyed the game alongside everything else.

Easy 4k at 5 gens sounds pretty balanced to me. 😈

Seriously though, that's something I don't think you can define by numbers alone. It can be a perfectly balanced match until one tiny slip up happens and the game just ends.

I'd say it's a balanced match when there are a lot of back and forths with both sides playing similarly effective. That doesn't necessarily mean, that a match in which 4 gens pop by the time the killer gets their 2nd hook is unbalanced, because after that it can still very much turn around with all survivors dying before the last gen is completed. Ideally both sides should progress their objectives to at least 50%-60% before the other wins. DBD is a bit finicky that way because even when the killer still has 3 gens left, the survivors could very well all escape in the next 30 seconds. Just as a killer that has only 5-6 hooks can make a sudden comeback late in the game and kill all survivors.

I consider pretty much every match that doesn't end overly one-sided balanced. The Nurse that ends the game in 2 minutes with all 4 survivors on the ground and the comp SWF that break a Padded Jaws Trapper's will to live, don't count.

There is too much to account for to generally say what a balanced match is, even the mere starting conditions can wildly change the balance expectation of the game, i. e. perks, items, add-ons, offerings, maps, killers. I think given this, for a general statement it is much more appropriate to simply numerically evaluate the game, and say 2 kills and 2 escapes make for a balanced match, or 6 out of 12 hook stages. That doesn't mean a match with more or less stages or kills can't have been a decently balanced experience, especially depending again on the starting conditions, but still, in general these are good indicators. And they absolutely are what an MMR system has to go by, as they are the only objective, functional way to measure balance.

Personally I would maybe say that in a balanced match, by the time all gens are done, the killer should have 6 stages, with at most 1 survivor dead. The endgame can then go any which way, but the match will have felt fairly balanced. This would then maybe come out to an average expectation of 2.4 kills to 1.6 escapes (~60% kill rate), or an average of 8 stages.

To consider: In a balanced match, all gens are supposed to get done. That already is quite difficult to fathom for quite a few players, I think. Also, at least 3 survivors have to still be alive and kicking by the time the last gen pops, because killers can regularly all but guarantee at least 1 kill in the endgame, and survivors escaping is also intended in a balanced match. An endgame with just 2 people left alive is very unlikely not to end in both of them dying. Similarly, in a balanced match, some survivors are expected to die. One of those survivors can be you yourself. The match is not lost just because you did not escape, even if from your perspective it may be over. A shift in mentality can be beneficial, where you realize that your contributions to a round still allowed others to survive and succeed against the killer. Any time you occupied the killer in chase, any progress you've made or valuable plays, they are still worth just as much. After all, we play the game to do those things, we would not play the game if we could simply get an endgame screen that says "escaped" without any of that gameplay.