The State of DbD (and How to Fix It)

Bugs aside, newly released content that is imbalanced aside…

DbD has glaring balance issues - the same ones for years on end. We've slowly come a long way since the game's first inception, like fixing hatch standoffs and infinite loops, but there is still much work to be done, and the game mechanics allow others to make the game extremely unfun and unfair for others. Just a quick list of issues (and there's probably more I'm forgetting):

1. Generator speeds way too fast
2. Camping and tunneling
3. MMR
4. Offering dodging
5. Survivors hiding when they've clearly lost
6. Killers slugging and bleeding everyone out
7. Other QoL issues

Issue 1, 2, and 3 are all closely related imo.

#1 Generator speed is a common complaint from killers. As their MMR goes up and they start facing more skilled survivors, or at least, survivors who don't crouch in a corner the entire time wetting their pants, suddenly it feels like there's a million pallets and windows on the map, and organized teams will quickly finish 1-3 gens by time you down the first person. Slowdown perks were very popular for a reason, but many of them were gutted, and in compensation, the time to complete a generator was extended by a mere 10 seconds. Far too little, too late my friends. Because generators can be done so quickly, this causes many killers to resort to other less savory tactics in order to "apply pressure". See item 2.

#2 Camping and tunneling are even more common complaints from survivors. It's not fun being tunneled out of the game. It's not fair. The basekit borrowed time everyone gets hardly does anything, as most people from ages four and up know how to count to ten. The anti-camp mechanic we have currently is a terrible joke. Only people who are genuinely bad at playing killer will get this to trigger unintentionally. Many killers have some ability, be it a ranged attack, a form of teleportation or high mobility, or other zone control that makes proxy camping extremely easy. And even if a killer does not have any such power, all they have to do is stay a certain distance from the hook (which isn't much).

We have been told that "camping and tunneling are valid strategies" for years, but this is bullcrap. I interpret this as meaning they are not bannable offenses (which would be insane) but nonetheless these practices are not healthy for the game. It's up to the devs to change the overall feel and mechanics of their game so that these strategies are not so easy and rewarding. Below, after discussing MMR a bit, I have some solutions to these issues.

#3 MMR has always been controversial since its release, and frankly, it isn't implemented very well. In fact, it's been implemented very lazily. Looking ONLY at kills and escapes provides the least information, and can be wildly inaccurate. The old ranking system we had was somewhat more ideal, but even building from that, the emblem system we currently have is great for keeping track of all the things a player has done during the match. Killers get points for preventing the generators from being repaired, for chasing survivors and hitting them, for hooking and killing survivors, and for skillful use of their power. Survivors get points for repairing generators, running from the killer and avoiding being hit, unhooking and healing other survivors, and simply surviving as long as possible, or escaping.

These were pretty simple systems that kept track of all the things players have done in a match, and the overall kills and escapes can certainly weigh in heavily to determine an overall team performance. When we look at MMR, ideally a team of survivors vs a killer of equal MMR should expect to see around 8-10 hooks, or 2 kills. When adjusting MMR, look at the overall team scores, look at each player's contribution and performance, and decide if their MMR goes up, down or stays the same. Research how chess ratings are calculated and do a system like that.

Finally, swinging back to issues 1 and 2, I propose this: Once MMR has been properly sorted out, we'll do the following to balance the game:

-Matches with high survivor MMR take longer to complete generators. Make the additional time up to a whopping +30 or +40 seconds at maximum. Sounds like a lot? It is. But a good team shouldn't have any issue doing this. Remember that even at maximum, this is not +200 seconds to a match. With three survivors each on a different generator, it would ideally be only +80 seconds.

-Matches with high survivor MMR take longer to open exit gates. At highest MMRs, up to +10 additional seconds maximum to open the gate. This should make getting everyone out challenging, and not a guaranteed open gate just because one person was ready at the switch right when the last generator was completed.

-Matches with high killer MMR take longer to sacrifice survivors. It can take up to +30 seconds maximum for a survivor to progress to the next hook stage. Therefore, if the killer is camping, this gives more opportunity for the joke self-unhook timer to fill up more, and more time for the other team to reset, reposition, or even just do gens.

-Matches with high killer MMR have slightly more windows and pallets. This will make the killer's job harder, just as the survivors' objectives have been made harder.

-Matches with high killer MMR grant survivors longer haste and endurance times when unhooked. Up to +20 seconds maximum just based off of MMR alone, which should be plenty of time to get to another loop or tile.

-Matches with high killer MMR have increased anti-camp system ranges. Up to +12 meters at higher MMRs. But of course, other survivors in this increased range also foil the system and will prevent the bar from going up.

Final anti-camp and anti-tunnel adjustments: When a survivor is on hook, or unhooked, the server checks how many hook states that survivor has compared to other survivors. Example: Dwight has been hooked for the first time, and Meg, Jake, and Claudette haven't been hooked at all. Dwight has one hook state, the others have zero. That's a difference of one hook state compared to each survivor, and therefore, three total. While Dwight is hooked, the anti-camp system actually has a +30% additional range, and the bar fills up +30% faster. When Dwight is unhooked, his endurance and haste effects will last +30% longer, and the haste effect is +30% stronger.

Then, let's say Meg is hooked next. Dwight has 1 hook state, Meg has 1 hook state, the others have zero. So she'll get those same bonuses, but only at +20%. Then, let's suppose Dwight is hooked again. He now has 2 hook states, which is 1 more than Meg, and 2 more than Jake and Claudette. This will therefore further increase the effects of the anti-camp and anti-tunnel system by +50%.

Other changes: The anti-camp system still works during end game. If a survivor is hooked in the basement, the entrance of the basement is used to determine "camping distance" if it is closer.

Lastly: because I also know such tools are used "offensively", the endurance effect granted from unhooking shall be negated if that survivor were to take a protection hit (grace period 5 seconds from being unhooked).

#4 Offering dodging. We have all probably seen this done by streamers, or done it, or at least had many of our own games prematurely end before they even began. I don't think there's any proper way to prevent this, other than keeping all offerings hidden. Let them be revealed after the game map loads (check offerings and perks with ESC), and people who choose to disconnect after the fact will receive proper punishment, as they should.

#5 Survivors hiding/AFK. There have been many topics about this already. When the game is just about over and the survivors have clearly lost, sometimes they all tend to be "rats" and continually hide and stall the game. At this point, they aren't even trying to complete objectives. They're just hiding, doing nothing, hoping the other person gets caught first. Well, we need crows. The current system won't give survivors crows who are continually moving around but doing nothing, nor will it give survivors crows who hop from one locker to the next. Simply put, what we need is a system that keeps track of what the survivors have accomplished recently. In two minutes, they will need to either heal another survivor, cleanse a totem, open a chest, open a gate, repair 20% of a generator, or interact with a select few number of killer items.. or start getting crows.

#6 The 4k slug and bleedout is just toxic and wastes everyone's time. Give survivors the ability to pick themselves up. Or give survivors a surrender option. Or do that thing you had years ago where the match just ends and everyone gets morid. I don't care what you do, just don't make everyone wait 4 minutes for the most boring and anti-climactic end of what I'm sure was a very "fun" match.

#7 Various Quality of Life issues:

1. skill checks: Ever notice how like 80% of the time you're about to leave a generator, then a skill check decides to happen and blows it up? This has got to stop. Seriously.
2. Hit boxes: Be it wonky ranged attack hit boxes, killers being fat shamed, invisible sky boxes, getting slowed down and caught on literally nothing, and really strange collisions, all our game maps need to be polished to the point where this never happens and isn't a source of immersion breaking and frustration.
3. Totem locations: It really isn't good when totems are right next to generators in plain view, you know that? There is supposed to be a risk/reward to totem perks, but the reason most people either don't bother with them, or feel they must also run Undying is because often times totems are way too obvious and found too early in the games. At the very least, they should not be in plain view of generators, not completely out in the open next to a rock, and survivors should not spawn right next to them.
4. Chests and killer item locations: This is one of those situations where again, I feel the coding was either very lazy or very poorly thought out. Killers like Onryo and Xenomorph in particular need their items in the best strategic places. Regardless, the placement of chests should not be prioritized over other objects that are far more impactful to the game.
5. Colorblind settings: The game has been out for 8 years now, and all we have are some filters that don't actually do anything to help. Scratch marks and auras are the very big issues here. Give us a system in the menus to customize what color the scratch marks are, and also to customize the aura colors of various perks. This will be very helpful in the case that there is overlap.