Game Balance/Skill Conundrum: Mind Games vs. Mechanics

Hello reader! I hope to take you on a thought journey that is hopefully as fun to read and it is to write. 😁

Intro

DBD is one of the most interesting and unique games I know. I've played all kinds of video games since I was 5 across multiple platforms, and the mind games and mechanics of DBD are the most unique of any games I've ever played. There is no game experience that I can really equate to it...

The Basic M1 Gameplay loop

A thought that has been bubbling in my mind for a long time is the disparity of killers such as Trapper, Myers and Pig compared to the likes of Nurse, Huntress and Blight... and after a while of thinking about these killers, the main differences generally speaking between higher level killers vs. lower ones seems to be the difference of the reliance on mind games vs. mechanical skill...

I propose that Survivor and low tier Killers rely more on mind game skill expression, rather than mechnical skill expression...

What I mean by this is, your typical basic m1 killer gameplay loop is to induce the survivor to make a mistake in order for the killer to close distance and land a hit. The key skills here for both sides are positioning and predicition, and something that is hard earned through experience... the knowledge of tiles structures, tile and window spawns and how to chain tiles together, accounting for the potential perks in play, this is all paramount, but ultimately all of it boils down fundamentally to positioning and prediction.

I would argue the actual inputs required to do this are not very difficult/complicated, i.e. are not high in mechanical skill expression... and I would argue that survivor by and large is not full of opportunities for much mechanical skill expression... while hugging tight to corners and inputting your direcrions accurately for fast faults are factors, your decision making is the primary tool with which you survive in DBD.

How mechanical skill expression differs in practise

How this manifests is the likes Trapper have little in the way of mechanical skill expression to level the playing field, and become notoriously hard to elevate with buffs without making them obnoxious... against Survivors who are wise to the mind games, optimally positioning at tiles, and rarely making mistakes, there is little Trapper can do about it... there is no mechanical skill he can employ to swing the mind game back in his favour... all he has are traps he places to limit options, which still follow the same principles of positioning, mind games and alike to induce a survivor mistake.

You compare this to someone like Blight, Hillbilly, Huntress or Nurse, these characters each have a lot of mechanical skill. Their mechanical skill creates new mind games for the killer to use, and can even brute force a scenario where it is entirely on the killer to miss instead of anything the survivor can realistically do about it. I'd argue this disparity is most heavily pronounced on the Nurse...

Against Nurse, she still needs mind game skill, but it isn't as heavily required as it is on m1 killers. Survivors still are primarily using the tools of positioning and prediction to defend themselves, however Nurse can use 2 blinks; the first to get close, the second toblink on top and hit the survivor. The survivor has basically no mechanical skill they can employ to avoid this hit... maybe a spin tech, but that's about it... all a survivor can realistically do is position themselves awkwardly and unpredictably to make it so the Nurse needs an absurdly high level of precision to land the hit. This ultimately means it is entirely down to the mechanical precision of the Nurse as to whether she gets a hit or not... her mechnical skill expression can completely subvert the survivors prediction and mind game skill expression, and is something the top tier Nurses can do to run roughshot over even strong survivors.

This is the same for Blight's rushes, Hillbilly's chainsaw dashes, and the accuracy of Huntress hatchets... the ability to use these powers precisely takes a lot of mechanical skill that, swings the mind games heavily back in the killers favour with sufficient mechnical skill.

An interesting set of side cases: Slowdown Killers

This difference of mechanical vs. mind game skill expression creates an interesting problem for balance. Killers like Pinhead, Pig, Freddy, Sadako, etc all universally have high killrates as killers, even though (for the most part) their chases are not strong... there is little in terms of mechnical skill expression they can employ to level the playing field... not to say they don't take skill, but they have to rely on mind games far more to win, and thus end up hitting a pretty concrete upper skill bound...

High level survivors who understand their powers and position/predict well against them can run rings around them with little they can do about it... there is absolutely an upper end to their mechnical skill expression...

However on the other end of the spectrum, the players that don't have those skills as well tuned yet, can easily get overwhelmed and get run over horribly by these killers, because ultimately these killers powers are all about increasing the likelyhood the survivors make a game losing mistake...

The hated characters that lack both... Anti-Loop Killers

Similarly characters that block off loops and get all the benefits of mechnical skill expression, without anywhere near the requirements for precision and mechanical skill expression to achieve it (such as Artist, SM, Knight, etc) get a lot of criticism, even if they aren't strong.

Against these killers there are no mind games to employ, and no mechnical skill expression to force out of them... instead they close areas off while keeping hot in chase, and basically force a hit out of the survivor without really much the survivor can realistically do about it...

Again, positioning and prediction are the survivors tools, and a power that robs them of those tools is not fun for a survivor, especially if it doesn't takes much effort for the killer to do... a great Hillbilly chainsaw is fun to face, because you can make it very hard for Billy to land his hit, so when he does, even if there was nothing you could do to avoid it, it doesn't feel cheap.

Conclusion: So is it OK for lower mechnical skill killers to be low tier?

As a Pig main 🐽, I don't particularly like this thought but...

This leads one to think... is it OK that some killers are stuck in the lower tiers and have this disparity? Newer players go up against them, and they need these kind of killers to learn the basic mechanics of the game. When they get good enough, they start encountering more of the mechanically skillful killers (the dream that is MMR).

The theoretical problem is that should say Trapper be buffed to rival the power of Nurse (say something silly, like invisible traps)... because he lacks mechnical expression in his kit, wouldn't he be getting into the realms of Skull Merchant or Knight style killers? Able to get free damage without much effort by robbing survivors of their prediction and positioning tools juat by using his power as and when?

It seems to me the issue with nerfing upper tier killers and buffing lower tier killers, is to make an upper tier killer weaker you need to limit the potential of their mechnical skill expression... since survivors only have positioning and mind games to combat you, and don't have any equivalent to mechnical skill expression to fight against you with (survivors would need somethimg like being able to burn Nurse out of her blink if they are accurate with a flashlight for example)....

Similarly buffing killers without mechanical skill expression means making then able to deny the survivors mind game tools without having to use any effort to do it...

Does this mean it's actually better that lower tier killers have an upper bound they can't break through?

I'll let you decide, and would be very happy yo read your thoughts... Have a good one 😁🤘