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If survivors should expect to escape ~3/10 matches...
…playing the game as survivor is not about trying to escape anymore. - And that is a problem.
What do I mean? I'd say people generally play a computer game to have fun and enjoy the time they are playing that game. So first of all: if "escaping as a survivor" is what you need to enjoy your time playing the game, you will simply not enjoy the game anymore and will probably quit sooner or later, switch to mostly/only playing killer or maybe opt for very coordinated meta swf-ing. - Either way: you're either gone or will belong to a very small sub-group of players* (remember that asterisk). So let's put that group of people to the side for now and focus on those that want to enjoy their time playing the game - which consequently has to be based on the match experience itself and not on the outcome of the match.
So, the survivor who wants to have fun based on playing the match loads into the match. How many beeline to a gen because that is what makes them have fun during the match? Now, I do think there are people who genuinely like just doing gens for one reason or the other (Fogwise-Hyperfocus do be fun sometimes) but I'm also pretty sure I don't even go out on a limb when I say it's a very small minority of players. Which makes the answer to my question "very, very, very few". What do people do instead? Well, anything but gens, I'd say. Whatever is fun to them; getting a challenge done, trying to hole the killer, trying to get a pallet/flashlight/whatever save, trying to pull off some perk combo, going for a sabo build, trying to get as much chase as possible, trying to cleanse every single totem or get that exponential value or whatever have you. Hopping on a gen is reserved for "downtime when the killer is busy elsewhere / you have to pass some time until you can do what you wanted to".
I don't know about you but I can't see that going well in the long run. - And blaming someone for prioritising their fun over the objective is a tad too close to "what? You want to have fun? When playing a game?! Unheard of!". Besides, all these things are part of intended gameplay and you can hardly say "you didn't play normally because you didn't maximise efficiency on a gen."
Now for the * from earlier. The DBD community is a pretty competitive bunch of people I have found. So a good chunk of people playing the game now are probably in the group I put aside earlier. At the moment I imagine they are pretty frustrated and are looking at the three options I mentioned earlier: quit, switch to killer or find competent, likeminded people to swf with. So far, this number is rather small - BHVR keeps saying something along the lines of "low percentage of players" (10-15% iirc…?). A number I'm rather sure will grow if the current trend of balance changes continue. … Which in return will more balance changes necessary since the game will have to be balanced more and more around swf.
I don't know about you but to me that is a rather grim future and I most definitely will stop to play then. - Though, I also have a handful of friends and call one of them my S.O. that would rejoice at the idea of DBD going full sweat and full comp. (Though, they also very much agree that it's a pointless endeavour since DBD is effectively unbalance-able. - But that's a different can of worms.)
What do you think? Would you agree with that train of thought? - Or do you go "nah, that premise is so far off, go get coffee, you're still asleep"? In which case I'd very much look forward to you outlining where/how got off track.
[And yes, most of this is just me thinking the thought "but wait, if you can't reasonably expect to escape even if you play to escape, what's gonna happen then?" through, so feel free to write it off as me just rambling.]
Comments
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It's more or less 4/10
11 -
That will decrease as more updates come out in time.
23 -
That's not what to expect tho, because they aren't intentionally going for 70 or 80 KR
10 -
They say 60% kill rate, then they try and release insanely overpowered huntress, twins etc.
That tells me where their intentions lie. Also the trend has been kill rates increasing for quite some time now, it shows no signs of slowing down.
28 -
Twins haven't even in live
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The thought of buffing Huntress & Twins that insane is the proof of Dev's path on balancing killers.
28 -
My post was deleted so i will have to type it out again.
No but they wanted to release twins. The devs thought that an insanely overpowered huntress and insanely overpowered twins was good enough to test on the ptb.
That shows me where their intentions lie. Anyone with a shred of commonsense could see that they were way too strong. These are the people that made the game, they should know exactly what should be fair and balanced for the game. The only reason it didn't make it to live was from sheer community outrage.
That shows me where their intentions lie. They want insanely overpowered killers.
The solo escape rate was 38% last time they released the stats. Since then there have been killer buffs, oops i mean 'reworks'. Upcoming haddonfield map nerf (made smaller, useless pallets, nerfed loops etc).
The next time they release the stats I would guess that the solo escape rate will hover around 30% or 3/10.
Repeat the same drop for the following time they release the stats.
Like I always say, its only going to get worse for survivors.
12 -
Where does the whole "three out of ten matches" thing come from?
All we really have to go on is the devs' stated goal of a 60% killrate, which would be somewhere around five* in every ten matches, which is… balanced. If you can only have fun when you win, you've got roughly a 50% chance of it, which is about what you should expect from a PVP game.
*I'm not great with numbers, I don't know the exact number. Somewhere between four and five, trending towards five, is my understanding.
12 -
the ~30% of an individual actually making it out is a mix of personal experience (majority SoloQ matches), experiences of people I know personally and what I gathered over time in the forums along with the escape rates posted by bhvr. The ~3 matches comes from being somewhere between 3 and 4 out of ten matches.
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Ah, gotcha.
I mean, I'd point out that's not exactly a very robust dataset, and even if it were that's not the expectation, right?
The expectation would be what the devs are aiming for, not the current state of balance.
8 -
I think there's a disconnect between the devs and the playerbase. The devs say they want a high kill rate to support the horror theme of the game, based on the assumption that survivors have more fun if they die most of the time because it makes the game more scary. Meanwhile many players view it as a competitive pvp game with a horror theme, and pvp gamers generally want fair balanced gameplay.
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what is the point of a ptb if not to test ideas smh…
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Of course lots of subjective answers to come with this topic. I personally find it much easier to have fun even when personally losing as survivor since the game is a 1v4. So me personally surviving is irrelevant to my fun. It's about the team as a whole. Little rougher having fun on killer since then it's solely about yourself. Plus if you have a bad game as survivor you can immediately move on. If you're having a bad game as killer or getting toyed with your stuck for the long run. I also find there's a discrepancy in agency that influences the ease of having fun on each side respectively.
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Now consider they didn't include games with a single dc, and they counted hatch in the escape rate even though it doesn't feel like a win for survivors. Furthermore there are numerous killers with a kr at or near 70% (SM is higher) and the devs have no plans of nerfing them. Then you have the Twins rework which makes them the most powerful killer in the game's history. Based on their actions I'm starting to believe when the devs said 60% I think they meant a minimum 60% kr for every killer, with the range of 60-70%. Personally if they want killers to have a slight edge I think they should aim for 55%.
5 -
I definitely agree that people will either find a swf to play with or play more killer or they will just quit the game.
I play soloq and it's HORRIBLE. 8/10 matches turn into a hatch match where players have given up or the team have been stomped and gens haven't really been done (I try my best to prioritise gens BUT I also don't want people to go 2nd phase so it brings me off the gen majority of the time).
More killers are being released with chase pressure and map pressure which is fine BUT maps are getting smaller and looping is being reduced (less pallets and more unsafe pallets). Years ago it made sense for these changes and loops were busted but now it doesn't make sense when killers are able to combat loops more and can traverse the maps easier (teleporting or movement speed).
Also, more killers are getting buffs that NO ONE asked for instead of buffing killers who genuinely need it.
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it's more of a thought experiment so it's not exactly meant as an empirical study or anything. And expectation as in the player's expectation based on their experience. Maybe should have stated that more clearly. - So yes, this is rather subjective but at the same time I still have a feeling that the sentiment isn't too far off. I might even go as far as to say "if people feel like they don't escape more than ~3 out of ten matches then…" is really all that matters, now that I think about it. What the devs aim for and what the actual numbers say is one pair of shoes. What the players perceive is sometimes a completely different thing. - But it's the thing that determines how they behave.
And even if only one out of four people feels that way and opts for the "fun based on what I get to do during the match regardless of outcome" that will have an impact on the entire match. Almost like a self fulfilling prophecy, since the odds of actually escaping are greatly reduced the moment a single survivor doesn't prioritise gen pressure.
I'm very well aware that this entire thing is basically a slippery slope kinda thing… but at the same time I don't really see how the general direction can be avoided.1 -
Here's the core of the problem. BHVR just released new stats for Hillbilly and they're clearly happy about the fact they increased the kill rate from 54% to 63%. Most survivors think Billy is op now after the rework, but the devs think it's a good thing. That's why I think when they said 60% is the target they meant 60% minimum.
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Yee, that I think is also something that plays into it. - And it does feel like the minimum is 60% … not more like the upper limit / something they want to hover around with +/1 1%
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SM's kr is because everyone kills themselves when they see her
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I wouldn't mind the awful escape rate if we were drowning in rewards for playing a game we're expected to lose, but considering I take from 3 to 5 times longer to complete survivor quest compared to a killer quest…
Killers get awesome powers, moris, easy challenges that are often things like "kick a gen", "hit a survivor", "hook survivors"… My Freddy dailies are "achieve dream chaser score" or whatever and I have no clue what I'm meant to do, I just queue as Freddy once and complete it. My survivor dailies? Escape the trial. Sabotage hooks. Be the one that opens the gates. Things that often require me to throw the match to complete the quest and/or only happen once every 15 matches.
What's my reward for playing survivor? Clicking on a generator or on a survivor for minutes on end. I don't have cool powers like throwing out decoys or teleporting between lockers. I'm stuck clicking generators for 20k bp while killers get at least 25k per match by putting minimum effort and being able to enshroud everyone in darkness or vomiting weird stuff from their belly like a grenade launcher.
Like, okay, I get it, you want survivors to lose so killers can live their power fantasy. But at least make it rewarding or fun? Give us more stuff like Diversion, Deception, Blast Mine… and less "Every full moon, if a killer opens a locker and you're looking straight at them but don't start chase, you get a 1% extra gen repair speed until you break line of sight with them".
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Very much this. - Imo, maybe the only viable alternative route (aside from drowning in sweat or just playing for the fun of it with no regard to gen efficiency or teamies which, I'm very sure, will hurt the game in the long run).
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Any time I've brought friends to dbd, especially people who aren't really familiar with this genre, don't care about being tossed into a hopeless meat grinder.
How do you think shooters like CoD were so popular despite the average person rocking a .25 K/D? Because they have fun with their mates.
The average person really doesn't care as long as they can be a team player and get a mate out. Heck, I sometimes preferred playing with my "play dbd once every 6 months" friends because they're not bitter and crusty about every little thing.
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I think how you arrive at an escape rate matters more than the escape rate itself. Survivor feels like a very contrived role right now.
At least half my losses on survivor have absolutely nothing to do with my gameplay. There's no reason for matchmaking to be this bad. I load in and 1 or 2 teammates aren't even functional relative to the other players. They're so unbelievably stubborn about this matchmaking system. It's been 3 years. Entire games are developed in that time. Give players separate queue options. Test different algorithms in a transparent way. *Do something*. Do something that isn't shuffling invisible numbers and refusing to show your work.
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The issue with comparing this to cod is that in cod you can respawn a million times a match and it doesn't matter. With dbd, a survivor essentially can contribute nothing if a killer decides to tunnel, proxy camp, etc, on a whim.
I don't like the idea of balancing this game towards window shopper players. What I mean that is people that play this game because X killer got added or my friend group is playing but I have no interest in playing. We should be balancing this game around the people that play this game because they enjoy the gameplay loop and the potential it has to improve, not for the people that ONLY love getting jump scared, or the people crouching and begging the killer for mercy on Mikaela. The issue with targeting the window shopper players is they are just as likely to leave as they are to come and play, and they do not have the game sense or knowledge to have critical opinions on the state of balance. Balancing around these people is an AWFUL idea for the longevity of the game.
We should be balancing this game around people that view it as a strategy pvp game, which is what it is. Saying dbd is a horror game is how we get into the atrocious state of balance that we're in. Killers being very strong just to "keep the spirit of horror alive" has to be the worst reasoning for the dev's philosophy of balance. The "horror" aspect of this game is gone after 3 hours of gameplay, which is about how long the window shopper players stay.
11 -
That's my main issue with this game for awhile, killrate stats being the only thing being considered while balancing the game does not mean that it is fun. I just wish they would instead balance for close matches first that are not so quickly clearly won or lost and feel like they could swing into either side's favor at any point, and killrates only second.
Most of my games I get horrible killers like that Bubba in the last play session before I went on yet another extensive break. He was so bad, he started chainsawing way too early, I could just run on in a straight line, didn't even have to use a pallet. I finished a gen in his face in a really open spot where any remotely decent Bubba would probably have downed me but this guy just managed to saw into the gen even though I was already running away in the open and it was the only thing with collision nearby.
My teammates? Got pressured so hard, I hardly found time to sit on a gen because Bubba almost always had two of them on hook. With one survivor dead, two dead on hook and only two gens done and no other gen with significant progress, I figured the game was pointless to play and just let Bubba down me (he would never have gotten me if I wouldn't have stood still …) and killed myself on hook to get into another match. The game doesn't even give me the option to force the killer chasing me the entire match so that others can do gens. If the killer wants to ignore me because the others go down much easier, he can do so. Such a kind of match feels just like wasted time. I can't get better, I can't try to learn anything from such a game because the skill gap between players is so massive.
And when I escape … it's the same kind of bad killer, just that I have three more teammates in my league or even better than me and the result of that is that the killer usually DCs if the gates are powered while he hasn't gotten a hook yet and thus denies me the MMR increase I probably need to finally get better mates and killers.
I have achieved everything I want in DbD in terms of grind, all I want while playing is people roughly on my level and fair matches. When I get players in my lobby that are on my system and they haven't hidden their games on their profile, I had recently teammates with ONE hour in the game, 7 hours and 16 hours - in different lobbies all within 15 minutes of lobby dodging trying to find me a lobby with teammates who look like they could play. They still need to discover the game and figure out how to play. It's a terrible idea to match players like me and them together. Even if there aren't enough beginner lobbies, they should match them with people who are still on a grind and are willing to play out a match to get bloodpoints or tome challenges, or just play super casually and don't mind if they lose.
I really want to see MMR numbers of all players at this point.
5 -
Survivor BP in general is ridiculously bad, honestly limiting those doesn't makes sense when we have so much of infinite things to grind for
4 -
I tend to hover around the 2,000,000 BP cap constantly, just because I find that I have to actually focus on spending blood points now that all my survivors and killers have all perks.
But sometimes I find myself forgetting that not everyone has bought all the dlc as they release, completed all achievements and unlocked every perk, and that DBD is really not friendly to new players as other live service games.
2 -
I think for the most part, survivors will never be satisfied with this game, because not all survivors are meant to escape trials. 4 man escapes should NEVER be a thing. If it happens, then the killer MASSIVELY misplayed. Some survivors are ALWAYS going to die in trials, so some survivors are always going to be angry. I've made peace with it
4 -
Agreed. A huge part of what made playing comp so fun was that it was consistently good players vs good players in an even match. That rarely seems to happen in public matches.
Games usually seems to be a runaway in either direction. I'll have a game where a teammate is found in basement at 5 gens for no reason, or a game where we 4 out and the killer has 3 hooks. It feels like they're matchmaking for a kill rate and not for gameplay.
And maybe they're not. Maybe MMR is usually really close between players in a trial. But it doesn't feel like that, and we have no way of knowing that. I would think you want to be transparent with a well-functioning system. It's not like SBMM is some industry trade secret that other devs are going to steal. This isn't a new problem BHVR is trying to solve. So I don't understand the smoke and mirrors surrounding it. The feedback on it seems to be consistently negative. I'd think you'd want to prove that it's functioning correctly to counter that feedback.
0 -
It sounds like you'd enjoy Identity V more to be honest.
0 -
since whole MMR range between 1600 and 2100 is stuck together, you will rarely get someone that has similar MMR as yours.
That's why tournaments and DbDL are much better place to actually expect to play with/against people of similar skill.
The big problem with SBMM is that people would complain when it gets tightened because "boohoo, longer queue times".
3 -
I'm convinced the matchmaking system in this game matches you against players at much higher or lower MMR to maintain your win/loss rate. It's like you lost a few games in a row? Ok Here's an easy stomp. It might also be placing skilled survivors with newbies with the intention they carry them.
1 -
I suggest you immediately switch to killer.
Let's see how you feel once you reach your difficulty level.
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Maybe this is one of the reasons:
Also, the Twins rework was specifically made to change the slugging strat that survivors hate so much. They overtuned them? Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that it was made for the survivors, as Twins mains were perfectly fine with the way the killer worked before (they had more killrate being the least picked killer than the second most picked killer, after all) and if they just wanted to "make them OP", they could just buff their numbers and done.
Post edited by Batusalen on6 -
The twins isn't even live and that change is actually FOR survivors, because they don't like being slugged, and they literally walked back several of the huntress changes. What exactly are you on about?
5 -
I mean as a huntress main did she need buffs absolutely not, were the live version buffs op na bro not op just not necessary. They didn't make bad huntresses better in any way. Kill rates are a terrible stat honestly they should be looking at hook states. If I 4k but I essentially only got 4 hooks then that's a L. If a 1-2k and I got 8-10 hooks states that's a dub and every one probably had the match of the week. Hook states determine how well a killer played not kills, playing for kills will always lead to tunneling because you still get 12 hooks if you kill someone.
The most you should be rewarded for a single hook state kill is 2 hook states at the most. I would prefer a single hook kill showing only a single hook state when it's all said and done. That way sandbagging teammates, camping and intentional first hook suiciders aren't padding the stats. This might not directly deter tunneling, but at least we can see what killers are actually overturned.
I would also say that an average of 9 hooks would be healthy seeing as how you can get 8 hooks without killing a single player, let's be honest someone has to die lol.
1 -
I havent played the ptb but from what ive seen and heard it seems twins was actually even better at winning with slugging instead of hooking on the ptb.
I do give props to bhvr for trying to address what survivors dislike...its just that quite often they go a bit overboard - at the very least on ptb...which idk if thats a good thing or setting wrong expectations / primes players to judge the final changes in a certain way.
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I don't think that's necessarily the intention when those lopsided matches happen, though it definitely feels like it. What I think happened: they brought in someone to implement SBMM who had previous experience with such things in symmetrical PVP games, but they had no context for DbD or its asymmetry.
The MMR averages probably work out on paper, and in other games they probably produce good matches. But there's no mechanism to force engagement in DbD, and survivors have limited carry potential. It's not like an FPS where a great player can straight up carry. A great survivor will just be ignored until 1 or 2 relatively less skilled teammates are sacrificed.
4 -
4 kills in a match should never be a thing then.
It's funny you mentioned about killers massively misplaying. They can misplay and still win via cheese tactics like camping, tunneling, slugging.
Survivors can never misplay, start the backup plan, and win a match at will.
Survivors pretty much have to play flawlessly, and the killer must be significantly less skilled at the game in order for a killer to actually lose.
4 -
I don't expect to escape but if you do wanna have that feeling then I say look forward to killer bots coming at some point like I am. Hopefully they make for good practice!
0 -
i never understood this logic of thinking. Why do u q up to lose? I hate this notion that the Survivors should just focus on having fun and not worry about winning. I'm not saying u said that but it very common to hear it on these forums
5 -
The people who say this are primarily killer players who solo queue to run chest builds and play immersed.
Very similar to the people who say survivor should feel terrible to play because its realistic to the 'horror theme.'
10 -
They are being reworked Cough Buffed Cough because their pickrate is too low and they haven't surpassed the minimum 60% kill rate(Easy mode).
The only thing that will change is that their kill rate will increase.
It is not FOR the survivors, It is FOR the killer mains.
Post edited by EQWashu on9 -
i don't know what world these players be living in but no one q up to consistently lose. The whole horror theme gimmick only works on new players for first 100 hours max
9 -
all that only to disregard the fact that Survivor is a team game mode and unless you are playing with friends who are all down to do dumb #########, you are ruining the match for other players
Post edited by EQWashu on1 -
Except… survivor isn't exactly a team role. or more like. The design of the game mechanics doesn't consider survivors to be a team. As far as the game is concerned it's 1v1v1v1v1v1. - Just that four of those individuals have the same objective (though: still individually) and the remaining individual has a different objective. As far as the game is concerned it would be perfectly alright for one individual to throw the three others that share the same objective under the bus in order to complete the objective.
[Also, since there's quite a bunch of different opinions and sub-discussions in this thread, it would be very helpful if you quoted the post you're referring to. If no post is quoted, at least I just gonna assume OP (aka me) is addressed. And I can assure you: I am most definitely not a killer main.]Post edited by EQWashu on2 -
I believe we both have played this game enough to know how it works in actual matches.
If you truly believe that the flawed mmr system and the way it works should be taken into considerstion when playing surivor, meaning you will on purpose throw matches and make it frustrating for your team, just stick to killer.Post edited by EQWashu on1 -
You're also kinda addressing the exact three options that I think will be the choice all the players who find "just playing a match for the fun of it - regardless of outcome" isn't what they want to do / how the game should be played: Find a swf (I think that what it ultimately comes down to when survivors "play as a team"), switch to killer — or, well, if neither of those options are chosen then only quitting is left. I mean, even at the very beginning I say that if it comes to survivors not playing for escapes anymore (be that because they actually only escape ~3/10 matches or because they feel like they do) — and personally: outside of swf that is kinda what I experience, both when I play SoloQ and when I have solos/not-4-man-swf when I do occasionally play killer — it's a problem.
Seriously, I don't think we really disagree all that much. - The only difference I see is that I don't blame/judge players who opt for fun. I don't say it's good (like i said: it's actually a problem). - Games should be fun, yes. But it should be the process of working toward the objective/achieving the objective that is fun - and that only works for as long as players perceive the objective to actually be attainable often enough to be worth the effort. Or, well, at least I don't see a point in putting effort into a futile struggle.
Post edited by EQWashu on0 -
tho people love to use it as an excuse when they clearly get outplayed and lose the match.
Remember, my opponent wins and i lose = "they don't play for fun, i didn't have fun"
I win and my opponent loses = "ggez, ur so bad at the game"
3 -
Though: If either of those two is happening a lot of times that should be a clear indication of something being off on the dev/mechanics side, no? You win some, you lose some. - But if you consistently lose you should get to a place where you lose less and get back to the equilibrium stage of "you win some you lose some." Sure, there are petty people who think it's "you win all, you lose none" but overall that's not the complaint people make. The complaint many people make (at the very least many SoloQ players) is that they consistently lose and "lose streaks" are way too long / never really ending.
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