Why devs don't give more killers Billy 3.0 rework?
For example take a Pig or Dredge. Not strong killers considered for most people. C tier at best.
Now why when buffing weaker killers, why such safe numbers?
Why can't we just make Pig dash faster, cooldown shoter even more? Why we can't give Dredge faster teleport, way better deal to destroy locked lockers, better chase power, etc.
Suddenly all these rare killers you almost never see would be A tier and people would play them more = more variation other than the same few killers repeating.
Why we can't give Freddy more slowdown on snare? Make fake pallets hinder you or something? Decrease his cooldown on top, making dream world a treath rather than "oh no, anyway" thing.
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Pig is seemingly on a watch list since her last update that was almost a nerf.
I don't expect any changes to her any time soon, and am frankly glad about that.
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She is still not great killer imo.
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For me, she's the best, but you know how I mean it.
She's not super strong but strong enough to stand a decent chance in most public lobbies.
If the best they can come up with is a nerf after all these years and have to change their plans immediately due to immense backlash, then I'm fine with her not being touched for a while. Don't try to fix something that isnt broke.
Amanda is a comfy c tier killer. That's fine.
I think many people also enjoy a killer due to their gameplay. Blight is undeniably fun to play. Same with Nurse. They are fast pase killers with lots of reward for mechanical skill.
Pig is a killer that rewards strategic skill over mechanical skill. That's not everyone's cup of tea. In that regard she is very similar to Sadako, who is also a killer that is pretty rare.
Variety is good though to keep an audience satisfied. I enjoy the strategic gameplay of Pig and Sadako a lot more than the gameplay of a killer like Blight, Wesker, Oni or Nurse.
Buffing killers like Pig would either make them lose their identity to become a chase oriented killer or could make their strategic elements overly oppressive to deal with.
Sometimes its not as simple as it seems.
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pig in my opinion is underrated. I think she's B-tier killer now. If her chase was slightly buffed to be less add-on dependant and her boxes were buffed to be a little less add-on dependant than I think she would be an A-tier killer.
-4 add-on being"
John medical File
-Workshop Grease
-Tamper timer(-10 second base-kit)
-longer box search+faster helmet placement
I just don't find her kit to be healthy when it is strong.
I think many people also enjoy a killer due to their gameplay. Blight is undeniably fun to play. Same with Nurse. They are fast pase killers with lots of reward for mechanical skill.
i am not so sure about that. I play quite a bit of survivor and i don't seem to be facing as many blights as before. Not sure what happen to all blights but now i face more billy then blight. Seems like Strength was big part of blight's popularity. from personal gameplay, i don't really play much blight either post-update, If i play a dash based killer, i play Chucky.
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"almost a nerf" due to a Timer Increase, which got reverted, because people who are bad at Pig see her Headtraps as her only power.
@Topic:
Because you cannot just compare Killer A to Killer B and say that Killer A got buffed and ask then, why Killer B is not buffed.
If we look at Pig and Dredge and your proposals, it sounds like those Killers will be pretty hard to buff.
Curving with Billy takes a bit of practice and even when in Overdrive, I dont even think that it is easier for him to get Hits, because you might end up taking the curve wider than you actually would, which would make it harder and not easier. PIgs Dash on the other hand is easier to use and you have to be careful to not make it a guaranteed Hit. Same with the Cooldown, it should not be the case that a Pig basically can miss the Dash and then instantly M1 the Survivor.
When it comes to Dredge, I would agree with the faster Teleport (even tho it would make Nightfall relatively weaker, because I dont think his Teleport in Nightfall would need any buffs), but the better chase-power would make him even more of a Lose/Lose-Situation when playing against Dredge. Because if it gets better to place a Remnant at a Loop and just either teleport to it or cancel it, it would just lead to Hits which cannot be avoided.
Freddy deserves a complete Rework. Making his current powers stronger while still being so braindead to play would also not really make him more popular (aside for those who really want to play an easy Killer) and also more unfun to go against.
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It's so tough for dbd players to hear this. Most killer designs do not warrant a high level of power(not saying all high tier killer deserve their power such as nurse and spirit who are pretty easy compared to oni, billy, wesker and blight). Making half of the roster a current B+ tier killer wouldn't work. You can ever so slightly buff some killers but not many. Choosing billy of all killers as your example is how do I say this… not it. The killer is the highest mechanically demanding killer in the entire game and is still fair outside of obvious general killer bs, the only one who tops him on a overall skill level is blight but that's due to an unreasonably high amount of knowledge required compared to most things in this game we call dbd.
Anyway back on topic. Try to make clown or legion oni tier without making them more insufferable to play against and keeping their kit the same. You can't, it's not possible.
Not all low tier killers deserve to be low tier and not all high tiers deserve to be high tier, generally they do though. Pigs power for instance could be made a bit better base kit even because it's interactive, I MEAN THE DASH NOT THE TRAPS OBV.
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Thx for calling me and other bad. Althoug I dont see it as her only power, it is her main focus when playing. Its by far the strongest part of her kit. If you cant see that, then you simply play her wrong. Sorry, not sorry.
It was almost a nerf because the buffs to her chase are not noticable if you dont use 2 specific addons and / oor the survivors pre droop the pallet. Nerfing the traps would have been way too much foor the small buff that she got.
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Pig is definitely underrated. She flourishes in soloq due to communication problems. Her main problem and why I put her in c tier (as someone with 2k+ hours on this killer alone) is, that she needs to get a down to put her power to use. Getting a down against a team that understands her weak earlygame is extremely hard. Bodyblocks and smart gen completion will make it so that the pig will have one maybe two traps out when the gens are done.
On toop of this, she has no form of map moobility making it hard for her to defend gens. Pre dropping and shift w make her ambush pretty harmless on most tiles.
She can definitely shine and even become very oppressive with the right rng and addons, but can struggle hard against certain maps and teams.
Is she good enough for b tier? In the best case szenario, yes. Propably. That being:
- Midwich
- Jigsaw sketch
- Tempered timer
- Lethal pursuer
- Coorrupt intervention
- Stbfl
- deadlock / BBQ
- 1-3-4-4
Shes good. Just not that good.
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Very well said! Killers like pig and dredge couldn't be buffed significantly without also being nerfed first, traps for pig and probably nightfall vfx and hit and runs general pubstomping for dredge. Billy was basically the only killer that could be buffed without being nerfed at all, healthy strength can't come without healthy design first.
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There's no short way to answer this, so apologies in advance for the long response. There's a couple reasons for this that I can shed some light on.
The biggest reason comes down to bandwidth and how some changes are more difficult to do than others. It's fairly easy for a designer to make number tweaks on their own, but bigger changes that affect how something works or looks requires support from other teams. To use Hillbilly as an example, replacing overheat with overdrive requires programming, audio, and VFX support to name a few. There's only so much time for these teams to work their magic in each update, and unfortunately bigger updates like Hillbilly's can sometimes be out of scope. That doesn't mean these sorts of updates can't happen, but it does mean that they may need to be pushed back until there's enough time for them. Number tweaks, meanwhile, are far easier to squeeze in and help fill the gap between larger changes.
That said, cranking up the numbers isn't always the right move: It's easy to change a number and make something stronger, but doing it in the wrong way can create unhealthy gameplay and/or remove counterplay. To take Pig as an example, increasing her ambush speed would undoubtedly make her stronger, but doing so would make it difficult if not impossible to avoid at certain loops. When a Survivor is zoned and stuck at a loop, Pig players will ambush one way to trick people into vaulting a pallet, then fake back the other way to hit them before they can vault back. This usually works in her favour on smaller loops as it leaves them with less time to react, though the Survivor still has an opportunity to predict whether or not she's going to mindgame and decide not to vault. Increasing her movement speed would not only make this more effective on larger loops, but also make it much easier to correct course if the Survivor did correctly call her bluff and get the hit anyway, as her increased speed would allow her to cover much more ground much quicker.
Increasing missed attack recovery speed is similarly risky on powers with high mobility. This is something we could see in action with the original PTB version of Chucky; even if the Killer missed their Slice & Dice attack, they'd find themselves close to the Survivor and ready to attack almost immediately after. This becomes problematic because even if the Survivor does dodge the hit, there's a good chance they'll get hit anyway, making it a lose-lose situation for them. It would be stronger, but not in a way that has a positive effect on gameplay.
To complicate things further, it's incredibly difficult to balance something equally across all skill levels by virtue of how their powers work. Some Killers thrive in the lower-mid range, others excel at the highest level. A Killer like Trapper will always be more effective in the lower to mid range where Survivors haven't quite clued in on where he's likely placed his traps, but may struggle against Survivors who know what to expect and can change their pathing on the fly. Likewise, a Killer like Nurse with a high skill ceiling may not do so well at the low end where Killers might have a harder time predicting Survivor movement (or simply struggle with aiming their blinks), but can dominate at the high end in the right hands.
This gets tricky because a Killer may already be balanced or even strong for some people, but lacking for others. To use Nurse as an example again, buffing her to be effective in the hands of new players would cause her to be way too strong in the hands of people who have mastered her. This same problem exists in reverse too, where buffing a Killer to the point that they're effective in the top end could make them much too strong for everyone else.
That doesn't make it impossible to change them, though! There are sometimes tweaks we can do to make a Killer stronger for some players, but not others. When Nemesis was introduced, we noticed that he typically performed well, but struggled a little in higher end matches. Interestingly, higher end Killers also used his Tentacle Strike more, causing them to reach higher mutation levels. This created an opportunity for us to buff his Mutation 3 Tentacle Strike, increasing his effectiveness in the higher end without having much of an effect on the lower end, reducing the gap. Similarly, changes that make a difficult Killer a little easier to play but not necessarily stronger (e.g. simplifying controls, improving visual feedback) - or lowering the skill floor - can help them perform better in the low end without impacting their performance in the higher end.
All this is to say that number tweaks can do a lot of good, but they can also do a lot of harm if done poorly. Pumping up some numbers can leave them in a better spot for some and worse for others. Ultimately this is a game for everyone, not just folks in a certain skill range, so we need to handle those changes with care.
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smaller loops don't need killer power in most instances because they can mindgame without any ability. that is why pig ambush dash was consider almost useless prior to the change. One of the pig mains even argues that current pig dash provides no difference in gameplay because stronger loops still make pig dash irrelevant while weaker loops were defeated with regular bloodlust/m1 play. The actual relevant part of the ability, that being the jigsaw boxes used to mori survivor is worse because player has less information to make said plays in regards to the ability. This is what DeeDubya on youtube argued when The pig changes were announced. He also made similar video in regards to Leatherface. On the contrary, small numbers sometimes do not make much of difference at all.
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Thank you for detailed responce. I hope we can see more of very nice reworks/buffs to killers like Hillbilly where they went from being somewhat rare killer and hard to being popular, way more fun, better but still have some window of skill.
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TLDR: Too much focus on stats that create a false perception of certain killer strength levels. IE not seeming like they need as significant of buffs when they actually do.
Also, I think there’s some unwarranted concern over how those buffs would affect low tier survivors. This is important, but isn’t an issue when balancing correctly. AKA raising the skill ceiling if the killer. This leaves high skill killers more viable against good survivors while not hurting low tier survivors since low tier killers wouldn’t have the skill to utilize this higher skill ceiling. The inverse of this would be lowering the skill floor or just flat killer buffs which would negatively effect the lower players and is not how they should go about it.
Another side note. MMR adjusts your match ups. Meaning if you hypothetically starting losing more as survivor from a killer buff it would adjust your mmr to make you face lower mmr killers until you were winning/losing the same as before the change. So lower tiers are less effected than I think is assumed because of how mmr functions.
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Billy was only allowed to be buffed, because his movement ability is an outdated clunky mess, that makes it really easy to miss his M2. If Billy was updated to have the same quality of life movement as Blight (moving your mouse quickly makes an automatic 90 degree turn, and after a small delay, additional movement can turn beyond 90 degrees), then Billy would need to be severely nerfed, because it would be way too easy to land his M2 hits.
It’s absolutely ridiculous that during Billy’s curve window, that I have to move my mouse in small millimeters, or Billy’s turning flies off uncontrollably.
It would have been a much better rework, if they had instead updated his movement to be more like Blight, so he would be way more accessible, and much easier to play.
And Billy was also nerfed with the new update, because he moves so fast during Overdrive, that survivors can often just crouch behind an object and be safe. And yes, comp survivors will do this sometimes, so it’s not a “skill issue” problem.
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I'm begging on my knees, if you think that faster Pig's dash basekit will be too strong, at least remove this silly downside from Last Will addon, so we don't have to bring second addon (Workshop Grease) to make Ambush finally useful. After her buff I played a lot on Piggy and there is only difference in strength of ambush with these two addons. Please please PLEASE remove charge time downside, so we can bring actually two addon instead two-addons-to-make-one-good.
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But mr peanits, nurse is only hard for very new players and players who can't overcome a skill floor of 20 games(being extremely generous as it was one or two for me in prime god validation dh meta). Her reward is far too high for how easy she is, same with spirit. As I said in my comment Blight, Oni, Wesker and Billy are you pinnacle it's a shame to use nurse as an example just because players pick her up for two games, fail and then quit.
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I think the issue with nurse is that yes she's super oppressive but the key thing here is 'in the right hands". Not everyone will have the skill expression required to make her as oppressive as she can be. Also most survivors in the low to mid range dc and give up on first hook which doesn't help at all.
Just because a killer is easy for you doesn't mean they're easy to learn for everyone. There's a reason there's not a nurse every single match and she isn't in the top 10 of picks.
Even though nurse is a S tier killer she isnt as easy to play consistently as other weaker killers at low to mid levels and some high levels to a degree (depending on if the survivors know how to counter her and waste time). No matter what map you go to when playing Oni, wesker, billy, at the end of the day they all move at 4.6 and can fall back on being an M1 killer when the time calls for it, meaning if your terrible with their power but still a good M1 killer with good game sense you can still compete. With nurse you only have her power there's no other play style aside from making her 4.6 after a blink attack but no longer able to blink.
Balancing changes should be around the bulk of players which fall into the mid to low range, tbh most players have an inflated perception of where they fall when it comes to their level of skill. And no I'm not saying nurse needs a buff or that's she not the strongest in the least. She's just not the strongest in everyones hands as most people would suggest. At the top level most players have enough skill and game sense that most killers will be equally viable across the board.
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Just because dbd players are generally awful doesn't mean you don't change a character who has been the best for the entirety of the game. She's stronger with a far lower skill ceiling than the one's I mentioned. Even though I was able to gain enough proficiency to win every game in 2 games on her, most players should be able to start doing so by 20. She isn't played because her fatigue feels clunky and horror fans love their characters.
She's S tier after an hour for 80% of the player base which is wild considering the player base itself. I don't mean to discount you but dbd simply isn't a hard game and nurse isn't the hardest.
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Honestly I feel like it's just some killer having good design team and some killer not
I heard killers will stick to same team in term of balancing, so those who made not a good killer tend to do not a good rework, and those who made a good killer tend to do good rework, and I feel it only explains why some killer get a rework repeatedly yet still sucks all the time
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but you see… the issue is
Increasing her movement speed would not only make this more effective on larger loops, but also make it much easier to correct course if the Survivor did correctly call her bluff and get the hit anyway, as her increased speed would allow her to cover much more ground much quicker.
this is not an issue. if this happened, it would be very much fine.
also
A Killer like Trapper will always be more effective in the lower to mid range where Survivors haven't quite clued in on where he's likely placed his traps, but may struggle against Survivors who know what to expect and can change their pathing on the fly.
I fully disagree with this.
He is that way because of the way he currently exists. With very few changes this can change.
The only reason he will always be that way, is because he is being forced to be that way.
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They even nerfed Pig very recently, for some reason. They even used the joke 'so we have decided to nerf Pig' in recent years but still went on to nerf her 😂
And random buffs for Huntress. Changes to Knight, Singularity. But killers who really need it: Freddy, Pig, Myers (super outdated) keep being left unchanged.
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