Your thoughts on the current situation of DBD

I feel like the game suffers most from questionable balance decisions, a frequently poor community, and rarely if ever fixing what needs to be addressed.

I still play it because I see what it could be, but I don't really foresee it ever truly improving at this rate.

Still, I do have positive feelings, when things go right it can be incredibly fun and satisfying even when losing, though having enough factors go right for that is unfortunately very infrequent.

I used to play the game a lot from 2017-2022 but I've only been playing a couple hours a week now.

The constant tunneling is my main cause of burnout personally. Ever since DS (my ex-favorite perk) was gutted, killers can tunnel so much easier and it's sad because it is a very effective strategy. 8/10 of my games have the first chased survivor getting sent back to the campfire before the 4th gen can be popped. I get that certain survivors love the adrenaline of getting tunneled, but I'm not running four chase perks.

I agree with how bad the current matchmaking is. Whenever I come back from a break, I get paired up against players who are ready to compete in a comp match.

There are a few factors involved that make it feel different.

One of those is MMR. The game is more balanced now but that doesn't mean it's more fun. By definition, the more MMR comes into play the more meta the tactics have to be to compete. The stricter the MMR, the more intense the match. Ranks were a lot more imbalanced but that also gave more room for non meta and meme builds to do something other than get stomped. If you're a survivor and switch from a meta to non meta build you'll get trashed until your MMR adjusts back down and the same applies to Killers.

Another factor is that Killers only have so many ways to slow down the game: gen regression, gen pressure, quick downs, camping, slugging and tunneling. Of those the most unhealthy for gameplay overall is camping, slugging and tunneling and camping has been nerfed. Slugging and tunneling are still really strong.

Gen regression, on the other hand, has been nerfed. There are only a few Killers that can cover a map effectively and the rest had to 3 gen (which was also nerfed since SM and the Erupting Call of Overbrine meta made it too strong) but now 3 genning is less effective. Quick downs, against an evenly matched group of survivors and a Killer, is not happening unless you're Nurse or Blight for the most part.

So, out of all the strategies, the only ones that remain really strong for the roster overall are tunneling and slugging. What further complicates it though is that protection against tunneling has been overall nerfed with DS taking a hit and Killers have overall lost incentives to not tunnel and to spread hooks. Ranks caused more spreading of hooks since you could hit a higher rank with 8 hooks 0 kills than you could with 4 hooks 4 kills and as a visual representation it was an incentive. Old BBQ helped with the spreading of hooks due to the BP incentive. While the incentive, in my opinion, should have been decoupled from perks it shouldn't have been eliminated but rather made basekit.

So we now have a more competitive atmosphere because that's what MMR encourages, less incentives for the Killer to not tunnel, survivors can't protect themselves as well if they do get tunneled, and the other ways a Killer can slow down a game have been nerfed overall but tunneling is still really strong.

Is it any wonder that tunneling and meta strategies have increased? The game is more competitive and less relaxed now than in the past. Depending on your definition of fun, that might not be a good thing.

First thing is Artist is A tier I'm not sure where you got the idea she isn't. But Dredge yeah a lot of players get overwhelmed by nightfall so they can do well even if they're not strong or consistent.

As for the larger topic at hand I'll be honest I get very confused when "casual" players get upset they don't win very often when by their own admission they don't want to try much. You loaded up decided you wanted to play chill and lost to people that wanted to win more than you. I see no issue here.

I do however agree matchmaking is a joke at the moment. The amount of people I play against as killer that have no idea what they're doing is honestly depressing. I have Xeno games where nobody sets up turrets, Artist games where people don't bother repelling birds, Plague games where everyone cleanses immediately. I get no joy from winning these games but sometimes it's all I get. I absolutely agree with the idea matchmaking should be stricter, I believe people don't mind waiting longer for higher quality games because rn matchmaking barely exists.

i have been summoned

i do actually have fun playing against toxic players via butchering them (its called becoming a comp player mid game)

the chill ones and the ones that give up i let go

SoloQ is just becoming more and more unplayable with every update to the killer roster, their kit, and perks as well.

Unknown is another laughable auto-pilot of a killer with 2 anti loop abilities and map traversal, literal brain dead version of artist with a teleport. Billy didn't need overdrive and no one asked for it, just take away overheat and he was fine, AKA classic Billy. Huntress didn't need all these hatchets, Clown doesn't need all these bottles, Blight still is problematic, Nurse is an unbalanced mess, SM is still broken and they all play the same, stupid broken addons that are only balanced against comp/comms teams (Stone piece, Tombstone, Black Incense, Bookmark, etc...) Ultimate handhold, Grim Embroke+DMStupid...

Literally you have to hope the killer is new or just bad at the game at this point to reasonably even have a chance at escape or have fun on solo survivor. And that's a CHANCE, as you also have to contend with other survivors on your team, WHICH YOU ARE MASSIVELY RELIANT ON, for any hope of escape. Its so aggravating, EVEN WITH KINDRED AND OPEN HANDED, being face saved in front of the killer to be tunneled out, losing pips in the process and there was ZERO you could have done to prevent it as your chances of escape were based on everyone but yourself.

I cant predict that I would need DH+DS+OTR+styptic every single match, and even if I did, the game should never get to this point.

Its not like you can report your survivor teammates for something like this either, or 3-genning your team, or leading the killer to a critical gen, or leading the killer to another injured survivor... they are just blissfully playing the game. So you end up just being stuck, and stuck, and de-pipped, and stuck again in this circle of BS that BHVR wants to just make worse with every update.

It's first time I have issue with cheaters. From my experience I can say that 50% of Anonymous Mode / Epic Games Players are cheaters.

And it's usually subtle cheats like increased movement speed by 5 - 15% - increased the chance to unhook yourself, increased wiggle speed etc etc. I thinki cheaters just discovered something new and BHVR may have problems to deal with it.

You're right, bud. BHVR has tested MMR before at varying degrees, but I remember one test they made it fairly tight and I wanted to kiss my solo q teams, on average.

I guess twin mains got stuck waiting 3 hours for a lobby so we can't have nice things. Which is a shame, because I was excited to have survivors of similar skill on my team.

It's basically confirmed now that matchmaking prioritizes speed so MMR feels pointless???

I guess a middle ground has to be drawn, because I remember if you wanted to play survivor at night you used to have to wait literally 10 minutes but now it's like 1 minute

I think the game itself is more balanced than ever... but the matchmaking is making the game extremely sweaty and unfun. This has been happening since MMR was made stricter last year. Stricter matchmaking means people with really high MMR only play with people with really high MMR... which sounds good on paper, until you realize that, if you have thousands of hours in this game, you will only play against people who play a huge lot too. I've lost my count on how many p400 squads I've faced on the latest months, and I was even paired against a comp team once.

But MMR is not just about how experienced or skilled you are, it's also about how COMMITTED you are to winning, so the chances of going against teams with the strongest builds also increases. I keep seeing more and more people with meta builds for rushing gens, multiple toolboxes and map offerings. Meanwhile, going off-meta (which is far more fun than playing meta) feels more punishing than usual, because the odds of facing a full meta sweaty squad that will have an advantage over you because of that are way too high. Seriously, there were days I was trying to play with a MEME BUILD and immediatly went against four survivors with only meta perks, 4 items with iri-add-ons (BNPs, Syringes), and a map offering.

On the survivor side is hard for me to compare because, since I'm a killer main, my MMR as a survivor is much lower. On the MMR I currently find myself in, I must say the solo survivor experience is actually better than it used to be. I'm matched with good teammates more often now and the information on the UI actually makes a lot of difference. Still, solo survivor is still plagued by problems that already existed before, like those teammates that kill themselves on first hook (I've said this before and I will keep saying it: survivors shouldn't be allowed to do this unless there is only one survivor standing). The killer tunneling the first survivor seems to have become a little more common too. Then there are the nurses that bring map offerings... but those are only common after midnight, I cannot say if they become more common in higher MMRs, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

No I get it, I have 3 accounts but I don't touch 2 of them for sometimes a year at a time and I get matched with people like this.

All arguments aside, I have to say baby survivors are absolutely adorable. Completely terrified, missing skill checks, disregarding the fact you have ears and can hear them injured, terrible hiding, blinding the side of your head at pallets and running themselves to dead zones and letting team mates die on hook as they are too scared to rescue even if you walk to the other side of the map to let them lmao

It has become my experience that survivors don't want to play the game anymore. They ignore gens and just mess with the Killer.

glad im trapping you here bud :P

It has gotten better for veteran players in some aspects of the game but far, far worse for new players. The amount of killers powers to learn (how to use and how to counter) and the insane amount of perks has gotten totally out of control. I have about 2,000 hours, play fairly casually, and even I feel overwhelmed. As soon as I sort of figure out how to play against a new killer, yet another new killer gets released. Every friend I've tried to get to play this game with me has quit immediately because of how overwhelming it has become.

better than ever

It is one of the worst-balanced games you'll ever play if you try to touch solo queue. The developers don't want to balance their game and would rather blame solo-queue for issues that plague the game than attempt to assist it. The game is downright miserable with multiple flaws that have stuck with the game since launch.

Playing killer though is a breeze and you'll nearly always win nowadays with little resistance in most matches.