Have BHVR devs ruined DBD for survivors?

2

Comments

  • Vorahk08
    Vorahk08 Member Posts: 266

    No, if anything, survivors' biggest problems are still their teammates and the MMR system. While survivors have been nerfed, a lot of these nerfs came alongside killer nerfs. Nurse has been nerfed (she could be safely nerfed some more). Blight's gotten his add-ons reworked (nerfed). Even Xeno got nerfed, despite the fact that it was bugged. 3-gen SM got thrown out and replaced with something actually playable, and the 3-gen playstyle as a whole was removed from the game. Oh, and Sadako got nerfed too.

    BHVR does seem to be trying new things with survivor. MFT was an attempt at branching out to exhaustion perks that don't cause exhaustion, but only work until you become exhausted. However, based on how MFT turned out, that experiment was a failure, unfortunately. More recently, they seem to have been trying to add more solo que oriented perks. Lucky Star and Boon: Illumination seem to be heavily geared towards providing information to teams who aren't on comms (solo que).

    Ultimately, though, the biggest problem in solo que is other survivors. It's rare that I flat out get a solo que game where, despite us playing as hard as we can, the killer just steamrolls us. Usually, we lose because someone plays badly or kills themselves on hook. Sandbagging is a big problem in solo que. Case in point: I was in a game against a Knight on RPD, and he had around 2 or three hooks when 2 gens were left. Our Ada got caught and put on her first hook, and she proceeded to try and kill herself. Our Steve rescued her, but she ran back into the killer and suicided on hook, resulting in a 3K. In that case, the match could have been a 4-man out, but it became a 3K because Ada decided to throw the game.

    In solo que, problems come from people killing themselves because a killer isn't "fun" or them never doing gens because they say doing gens is boring. These are problems the devs will never be able to solve, because it's not a mechanics problem, it's a problem that the individual player has. I actually think the game is continuing on in a steady march towards being more balanced, but this is revealing problems outside the game for some players.

    Also, as long as the backfill system exists the way it does, MMR will never be a very good system. When you have 5 people in a lobby, the likelihood of someone dropping out is high. Then MMR goes out the window, and what happens in the ensuing game is anyone's guess.

  • xltechno
    xltechno Member Posts: 1,026

    If I'm willing to mislead you, I'm more aligned with Killer in terms of balance. However, this is a modification from the fact that it was originally too advantageous for survivors.

    In the past, it was balanced because the survivors didn't have the know-how, but now the balance is reversed and the standard M1 killer is at a disadvantage.

    Ultimately, the problem is caused by sloppy MMR's functioning. If the MMR evaluation system counted not only one's own survival but also the survival of other survivors, this would not happen. It doesn't require any effort on anyone's part, as all you have to do is run it in the background or manage it on the server side.

  • tak47888
    tak47888 Member Posts: 127
    edited February 23

    Well it is in a much better state because it is way more balanced now than before. Killer gameplay was unbearable at that time due to the game simply limiting their actions. Survivor gameplay is not broken. In my opinion, it is just a skill and missing coordination issue in most of the cases. Especially in Solo Queue. But technically, all the options are still available to build strong survivor teams. Stats on SWF proove that.

    I wonder why Killer is constantly on 100% Bloodpoints during the nighttime in my region.

  • xltechno
    xltechno Member Posts: 1,026

    It's the same in my country. This seems to be related to the overall percentage of players who understand game balance. Any other explanation would be impossible.

  • Nebula
    Nebula Member Posts: 1,396

    In my region (NA East) the bloodpoint bonus usually switches to killer around 7 pm and I think the reason is the same as it has for years, you play way more SWFs at night than compared to the day. People are off work/school and play with their buddies and a lot of people would rather not have sweatier games where they have to try harder to win.

    Also, a lot of people also just want to play with their friends in this game and there’s obviously only one role to do this with. I’d play a lot more killer at night but it’s the only time I can play the game and same goes for my buddy so we just end up playing survivor (bHVR please drop the 2v8 mode 🙏).

  • caligraph
    caligraph Member Posts: 359

    I escape around half the time on solo. Granted I'm a meta spamming loser (SB, Adrenaline, Distortion, and OTR) and bring a med kit every match (bc soloq teammates don't know about healing) though. Typically, I die but I always get the sense that I did decently well and was helpful to the team. Thats normally enough for me to feel satisfied with a match (unless I got hard tunneled; but that rarely happens because SB+OTR).

    I guess I'm just lucky with my teammates, I normally get at least semi-competent players. Like at the very least they know to do gens and don't insta drop every pallet. I never bring a team-based build unless I'm SWFing though. You never know what kinda megheads you'll get matched with...

    As killer I mostly play blight (with meta) but I never tunnel unless playing nice will lose me the game (as in not tunneling the survivor when there's 1 gen on a big map with no kills or something). Sometimes I'll just slug a death hook survivor because I don't wanna remove them from the match that early but I still want the pressure etc. I normally 2k unless the survivors are just better, 3king if there's a dummy who doesn't do gens. Playing without tunnels is balanced imo, but if you want to win you definitely are. I did a win streak on blight that got to 48 wins pre-addon nerfs. I'm not even that good at blight, I just ran alch ring and c33 every single match and dragged the poor survivors to dead dawg for 48 games and hard tunneled with UW. It was NOT hard. There were p100 (presumably) 4man swfs getting rolled by my mediocre gameplay. I'd like to blame that mostly on the map and old addons though. Obviously the smallest map with addons that make blight better than nurse will be a free win. Whenever a ward was in play is was much harder... I'm just lucky I was never brought to GoJ.

    The same can be said for survivor as well. Not for soloQ... but if a SWF wants to win they can take me to GoJ with full meta etc etc etc. The only real chance I'd have in that situation would be hard tunneling (if I wasnt using the free win build from before, even then it would be tough against good survivors on GoJ). If any player on either side really wants to win they can, its just more accessible to killers as a solo role. Nerf tunneling, buff DS.

  • Crowman
    Crowman Member Posts: 9,511

    These systems fixed problems that people were complaining about. Killers can't really force hour long matches since after 8 regression events that gen can't be defended as easily. Not to mention how the system absolutely destroyed perks like Eruption.

    Antifacmp prevents you from sitting on hook for 2 minutes as you stare at the killer's face the entire time.

    BT off hook prevents you from just going down and being rehooked immediately.

    You can say they didn't solve anything, because they don't stop legit tactics. But you would much rather these systems be in place than the alternative.

  • imjay
    imjay Member Posts: 8

    "Do you miss the old DHDS Combo"

    I think this part is a case of nostalgia fever. Actually think hard back to those times with old old DH where survivors would use it for distance. Playing killer was brutal. The game is in a better state now but I do agree that they're middle fingering survivors and the game is currently more killer sided. Don't blame the devs. It's hard to find such an equal balance in a game with such a huge variety of killers, killer powers, map layouts and perks. It's not an easy job to please everyone.

  • MechWarrior3
    MechWarrior3 Member Posts: 2,383

    No I don’t lose every solo q match. I win 40-60% of them.

  • Nick
    Nick Member Posts: 1,237

    Is that a balancing problem or are most of your teammates just very bad? You can give them 10 buffs but it wont suddenly make them good. People have to learn and get better.

  • Raccoon
    Raccoon Member Posts: 7,713

    Pretty good thread, so far!

    The hyperbole is real, while reality shows that the game is thriving on Steam (top percentile) and also in the most played games on PSN/XBL.

    I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE!

  • Garboface
    Garboface Member Posts: 283

    I win some and lose some as survivor. Nothing extraordinary. I seldom play with a mic.

  • Crowman
    Crowman Member Posts: 9,511

    Standing in front of the hook for 2 minutes preventing any sort of interaction was the problem. The anti-facecamp system does the job at removing the uninteractive playstyle.

    Holding a 3 gen infinitely for 1 hour was never meant to be something people should be going out of their way to achieve. The 3 gen system makes it much harder for force 1 hour games on to other players.

    Tunneling and Camping themselves are fine and these systems were never going to remove it, because you don't like your human opponent having the free will to decide how they want to play. I'm sure you wouldn't like a system that forces survivors to have to get every gen to the same % threshold before they can progress gens to the next % threshold.

  • sinkra
    sinkra Member Posts: 400

    From a company perspective it makes no sense why they would want to ruin the game for 80% of the players to make it more fun for 20%.

  • humanbeing1704
    humanbeing1704 Member Posts: 8,999

    I don’t really understand how people say the game is dying I bet it’s one of the most popular games on xbox game pass

  • SMitchell8
    SMitchell8 Member Posts: 3,302

    Solos will win if they play properly, are gen efficient and work as a team. 1 weak link and the match becomes a struggle.

  • I_CAME
    I_CAME Member Posts: 1,289

    It's popular relative to the average game. Go look at the average player count in September of 2021 (when they added MMR) and compare it to now. 51k vs 31k. That's a massive decrease by any standards.

  • xltechno
    xltechno Member Posts: 1,026

    For many serious Survivors, the oversupply of base kits was a bummer as it made the game boring and simplistic.

    Casual players often don't know how to use tactics, so it may be necessary to give some consideration to them, but I made it boring anyway.

    In the first place, asking only about advantages and disadvantages and taking away the strategy of the game will lead to the loss of 20k players.

  • Snowbawlzzz
    Snowbawlzzz Member Posts: 1,419

    What is with these profile picless survivor mains throwing pity parties like the devs didn't kill 3-gens and camping

  • xltechno
    xltechno Member Posts: 1,026

    The existing advanced killer stands on the deceased intermediate killer corpse. They all left their bodies and their soul passed away.

    If they can develop a legitimate adjustment that they can return, You will be blessed with a good match.

  • Raccoon
    Raccoon Member Posts: 7,713

    It's on the most played lists for Xbox/PSN/Steam.

    Also one of the most profitable games on Steam.

    That's reality.

  • Crowman
    Crowman Member Posts: 9,511

    Getting killed first in the match didn't mean you didn't get to play.

    It's clear to me you'll never be happy with survivor focus changes until it makes it so you can escape every game.

  • KerJuice
    KerJuice Member Posts: 1,907

    Yes, I’m exactly like you and have the same experience. I’m not a fan of lobby dodging either, but it’s frustrating knowing the system will use you as filler after “X” amount of que time has passed. I too can take my losses, but I prefer fairer matches where the killer outplayed me and my team of similar skill, rather than newbies giving up or making rookie mistakes. After games like those, it makes me question how many players before me were smart enough to dodge that lobby? A lot of times everyone will be readied up, including killer- and the lobby timer is shorter after I join. That indicates to me that players before me were leaving the lobby after seeing prestiged 4 masked Meg.  🤣

    lol you make a good point. They say the middle class is shrinking/being eliminated IRL, so a fair comparison could be intermediate killers in DBD? 🤔

  • Lit
    Lit Member Posts: 62
    edited March 1

    Fair - b

    I have played the game since the beginning and it was ALWAYS in the killers favour. There were groups of people who made the game very difficult with perk combo and real bully squads... not people these days who try to mess around with head-on or attempt a CJ... but real co-ordinated bully squads.

    I know what it was like and how brutal it was... but actually the reason it was so brutal was the Pip system... stacking 4 out of 5 pips at Rank 2 to lose 8 games and be back to Rank 5 again.

    But I rarely find the games overbearingly difficult as killer, but that's because my goal is to get at least 2K. But saying that, I still to do this day win majority of my killer games (3ks+). I've notice the benefit of gen changes and 5% kicks, just an example of buffing killers.

  • Lit
    Lit Member Posts: 62
    edited March 1

    I have played the game since the beginning and it was ALWAYS in the killers favour. There were groups of people who made the game very difficult with perk combo and real bully squads... not people these days who try to mess around with head-on or attempt a CJ... but real co-ordinated bully squads.

    I know what it was like and how brutal it was... but actually the reason it was so brutal was the Pip system... stacking 4 out of 5 pips at Rank 2 to lose 8 games and be back to Rank 5 again.

    But I rarely find the games overbearingly difficult as killer, but that's because my goal is to get at least 2K. But saying that, I still to this day win majority of my killer games (3ks+). I've notice the benefit of gen changes and the 5% kicks, just an example of buffing killers.


    Post edited by Lit on
  • Ayodam
    Ayodam Member Posts: 3,077
    edited March 1

    I don’t think it’s fair that newbie survivors take the blame for terrible games, or that veteran players avoid them. The prestige 4 Meg with a mask may have a killer who lobby shopped until they found her lobby (quite likely). Newbies need space to learn but can’t learn if they’ve got a killer who lobby shopped for an easy game turbo tunneling them at 5 gens. I understand you both to be frustrated with subpar teammates but I think it’s important to shift the blame where it rightfully belongs. That isn’t on newbies

  • TheNameIsGilgamesh
    TheNameIsGilgamesh Unconfirmed, Member Posts: 22

    Killers and survivors are both ruined. Why does it always have to be an us vs them topic?

  • Snowbawlzzz
    Snowbawlzzz Member Posts: 1,419
    edited March 1

    "With the consistent middle finger to survivors (removing MFT, stopping gen regression, mangled/haemorrhage changes etc)"

    If you don't think MFT was a glaring problem, I don't know what to tell you dawg.

    The other two things you said had flipside nerfs for killer that you conveniently ignored. Killers can no longer 3-gen, and thana got nerfed + sloppy butcher is on the roadmap for a nerf.

  • Lit
    Lit Member Posts: 62

    I didn't say it was or wasn't a problem - Just to note though, don't forget almost all killers are faster than survivors even with MFT and it's 3% speed. I rarely saw top MMR killers struggle against MFT if I'm honest, but that's separate to the point I was trying to convey. MFT was in the game for like what... 2 months? so time to remove... ok.

    I'm suggesting that Devs look at survivor perks and are like, "hey lets just gut it completely" -... DS, DH, MFT, and on the cards Adrenaline (the last remaining "good perk" imo which only activated once and you have to get to end game)... Yes 4 players running Adren sucks that's fair. But it takes a while to get there...

    What I'm suggesting with the statement of "consistent tent middle finger to survivors" is the aforementioned perks for survivors get ripped apart whilst killer perks like STBFL stayed untouched for years, and even when it's changed its like... the smallest change. Here we are with Ultimate Weapon still months away from being reviewed (strong perk for me).

    Thana wasn't nerfed for years and was overbearing on at least 4 killers - it was a poorly designed perk for legion/plague - that's it. The rest didn't matter. And yes... months away from sloppy being reworked... that should have been fixed ages ago.

    How often do I 3 gen as killer... only when the survivors made it so.. like they did the gens on one side of the map so I would take advantage of it... But the 5% / gen tap removal has been big for me so it's even better (i.e. buff to killer, nerf to survivor).

    I would have to kick 3 gens 24 times to get blocked out of my 3 gen... killers only doing that if they're sweating.

    Question then, how many have seen the gens blocked (by the killers own doing) since the change. When I play survivor, I've only ever seen a blocked gen for a killer (8 kicks) maybe once since it was implemented. But I've certainly seen a killer benefit from the 5% and gen tap at least 100 times.

  • Zeidoktor
    Zeidoktor Member Posts: 2,065

    Have BHVR devs ruined DBD for survivors?

    Only until the next time they ruin it for Killers

  • Mr_K
    Mr_K Member Posts: 9,212

    Movement speed buffs? You know the base speed for killers has been 4.6m/s (115%) since 2016. Are you talking about individual killers?

  • sinkra
    sinkra Member Posts: 400

    If these survivor perks were so overpowered then it would show in the stats right? Yet the data says the kill rate back then was around 50%, which by defintion is much more balanced than now. It seems like anything that could give a challenge to killers is seen as problematic by killer mains and the devs. Survivors are just supposed to flop over and be fodder for a killer's fun.

  • catnip18
    catnip18 Member Posts: 149

    I literally stopped playing killer because if I put in literally any effort I had a 90% kill rate. I'd frequently play while watching tv in order to get it closer to 75%. Its braindead easy even after 4king 50 games in a row to try and boost my mmr. Maybe you're just bad?

  • catnip18
    catnip18 Member Posts: 149

    Nowhere did they state they were high mmr, they were using their rank/grade to indicate play time and how negatively the recent changes have impacted that play time.

  • Cryopier
    Cryopier Member Posts: 62

    Red Ranks and everyone else are too different worlds. They try to balance for red ranks, because that's all they care about. In red ranks, killers get bullied by competent survivors, ergo survivors in lower ranks are going to get buff tucked.

  • Massquwatt
    Massquwatt Member Posts: 439

    Survivor is fine for the most part? At least balance wise but it's a 4v1 so balance will periodically swing between the survivor's favour and killer's favour. I think people mistake balance as the woe of survivor rounds when it's really mostly an attitude problem, the role by definition is supposed to be a team role but there's no real inclanation for anyone to work like a team. Sadly, more often than not most people you'll be teamed up with (especially as a solo survivor) are pretty selfish and will put themselves above everyone else, even at the team's detriment and I just don't think you can balance your way out of that conundrum unless you literally baby these people.