Slugging is rampant because there are too few advantages to using hooks

You're right about slugging. It's not that good, and hasn't gotten better over the years. It's just the least weak thing you can do now.

"Mindlessly" hook? How many arbitrary layers of skill do we need to tack on to that simple interaction? Are you parroting that "just because a killer got a down doesn't mean he deserves a hook"? How hard does it need to be?

And you're objectively wrong on that last comment. Call it an echo chamber, but what are we killer mains doing when we get together to talk? Devising strategies on how to not get sucky results, complaining about survivor meta perks and base game mechanics, and reassuring each other "it's not you, it's the game." It's pathetic. We're playing sweatier than we ever have, using the few tools available to us, and we're still aiming for draws at best. Believe me, there was a time (4-8 months ago) where putting on a chase build with Rancor would get me at least a draw, because I played well and the survivors didn't, not because I had "crutch perks." Now I can't even get that a lot of the time. A lot of of these survivors don't even know how to loop, and could be far more efficient on gens, but the bar is low and so they pass. I can't seem to recall ANY game-winning plays the survivors did in my lost matches, yet I did multiple and the result was the same. So you tell me, what are we doing wrong?

True.

Most players don't seem to know the meaning of camping, tunneling or even hostage.

And what to say about the handful of players who are so detached from reality it's best to ignore their posts?

At least Sluzzy (if I recall the name correctly) was imaginative while trolling for the survivors. (And was also a pretty good Nurse, or so it is said.)

I'm not entirely convinced the devs are trusting the posts though. They have statistics about everything.

Heck, one of the most experienced survivors in the world did a video series of him playing ONLY solo queue and had a 60% win rate (win = 3 survivors escaping).

So there's a factual mistake here that I've seen a few people make: by win rate he means how many survivors escaped each match. So it's a 60% escape rate of survivors in the match(actually 65.5% at the end of his 50 games), not 60% 3+. You can go to 24:58 in the video (The Ultimate Soloq Experiment) for an example of how he's doing the math.

Two other things about that video:

1: He's excluding games where a survivor quits early. BHVR's 60% rate is built in with the presumption that sometimes survivors rage quit early. He doesn't seem to have any similar rule if killers don't play / let survivors go,. I don't know the extent of this because I can't find the original videos.

2: This all ignores the much larger sample size from Otzdarva, which Hens referenced earlier, of having a rate of ~40% across 262 matches.

True, the really good killers in comp have someonoe dead at 3 hooks. All the times.

Can we stop saying: if you do x strategy that I dont like, your bad at the game?

Yes, but not for balancing reasons.

it literally is because of balancing reasons, not because "devs favor other side and hate mine!!!"

That is incorrect. Winrates and killrates are not that tightly confined because there's more than two outcomes. You can get a 50% winrate off a killrate as low as 37.5%. You don't need 62.5% kill rate for 50% KR at all, as is proven by the current Nightlight statistics.

they are not tightly confined, but the rest of statement is completely incorrect. Victory for killer in terms of MMR is only when you have 3+ kills. Now, there are also various community made conditions which we won't count in at the moment.

No, higher MMR has higher kill rates. Why do you keep insisting this when BHVR's official stats have disproven this?

higher MMR DOESN'T exist, it stopped existing the very day when BHVR decided to prioritize shorter queues over accurate matchmaking. Only pub (DbD matchmaking server) and comp (scrims, tourneys, DbDLeague etc., custom lobbies matches) communities exist.

Official stats have also proven that worst killers are having highest killrates and that average chase time per one hook stage is 20s (1m30s on average in case of good survivors). What does it mean? It means stats are literally extremely polluted with player related factors, such as skill and people who grief.

I see you've been to the Batusalen school of 'how not to calculate averages'.

Current lowest killrate according to Nightlight is Clown at 52.8%. He gets a 2K 11% of the time. He gets a 3K+ on 46.95% of his matches.

Y'all need to drop this dummy kill rate argument because it's just flat out wrong in all regards.

"i will use my understanding of killrates because it fits my narrative" type of post

it literally is because of balancing reasons, not because "devs favor other side and hate mine!!!"

No, the devs stated that this 60% was to keep the horror vibe, not because of balancing reasons.

they are not tightly confined, but the rest of statement is completely incorrect. Victory for killer in terms of MMR is only when you have 3+ kills. Now, there are also various community made conditions which we won't count in at the moment.

10 matches

40 survivors

50% winrate = 5 matches with 3K+ = minimum of 15 survivors killed.

15/40 = 0.375 = 37.5%

You can get a 50% winrate as killer off a killrate as low as 37.5%. Yes, that's unrealistic because the statistics are way more volatile, but my point wasn't that we should aim for that anyway, it's that claiming that a 62.5% killrate is needed for a 50% winrate is effectively based on nothing.

DBD's stats don't work that way. Nothing I said was incorrect.

Official stats have also proven that worst killers are having highest killrates and that average chase time per one hook stage is 20s (1m30s on average in case of good survivors). What does it mean? It means stats are literally extremely polluted with player related factors, such as skill and people who grief.

Of course, this only ever works in a one-way street where it is used to discredit any issues survivors may have, because any purely anecdotal woe-is-me story from a killer main is 100% fact.

But hey, it doesn't matter whether you trust the stats or not, because Hotrod was talking about those stats anyway, making claims that they pointed out the exact opposite of what they actually say.

'High MMR has lower kill rates!'

'Stats say they don't'

'Official stats do!'

'No they don't'

'Well, the stats aren't accurate!'

It's just moving goalposts faster than Dredge can teleport between lockers.

"i will use my understanding of killrates because it fits my narrative" type of post

On Hotrod's part, yes.

The line of thinking he's employing comes from one forum user that has been explained, over and over again, why that line of thinking is flat-out incorrect. In all regards. It doesn't make sense from practical or theoretical points, it's even mathematically unsound.

Hotrod brings it up again because it agrees with his biases. You don't need a 62.5% killrate to get a 50% winrate.

Check Nightlight. Artist has 50% 3K+ rate on a 55% killrate. The closest killers to the 62.5% killrate are Hillbilly (61.73%) and Onryo (63.31%), featuring winrates of 55.8% and 60.7% (!!!) respectively.

The 'logic' that Hotrod is trying to pass here does not work theoretically, practically, or mathematically. Making it incredibly ironic that you're defending it by accusing -me- of using a different understanding of killrates to suit my narrative.

A couple easy things could be added to make slugging much less of a powerful strategy:

1. make bleed out times invisible to the killer

2. make bleed out take longer (5 minutes instead of 4 for example) and add a method to bleed yourself out faster if the entire team is incapacitated (hooked, bleeding out, or dead)

3. make it possible to put your recovery progress to 99% without Unbreakable instead of maxxing at 95%

please point me out to an announcement and when it was posted because i'm very well aware they didn't say it any time after game has actually stopped to be hide and seek.

I don't know how to search the forums for that specific post, but I believe it got quoted recently in another topic where killrates were also being discussed. I believe it was a post made by Peanits in which they stated that 60% was the goal, they never mentioned balance, they did mention the horror vibe.

killrates are based on average MMR and "top MMR", where average MMR would be supposed to have higher killrates because killer is easier role to win with on lower skill levels, while survivor is easier role to win with on higher skill levels. Basically average of 70% killrate on average MMR + 50% killrate on top MMR / 2 = 60% killrate, and that's why devs are aiming for it. Problem comes at the part where this is heavily corrupted because guess why, player induced factors.

Again, though: High MMR killrates are higher than average MMR killrates. Also, average MMR makes up a far bigger proportion of the playerbase, so that calculation is off by a mile. Top MMR would be such a tiny fraction that you couldn't move the needle with it if you weighted it appropriately.

None of what you are saying has any foundation.

High MMR has similar killrates to average MMR

Except the stats disprove this.

Now let's see all the player related factors that are severely affecting killrates, making killrates highly unreliable as something to balance the game around

Alright, so we're not going by killrates.

So then 60% is NOT a good benchmark, your earlier spiel about why they picked 60% is based on nothing.

But also, you're moving the goalpost again, because now you're arguing that the 60% killrate is entirely insignificant when this little tangent came as a response to me arguing back against Hotrod claiming that it WAS significant.

Now also omitting my rebuttal to your accusation of bias on my part, you gotta admit: This is not a good look for you in that regard.

I would not bother with this person, daniel. I think they must truly only play Survivor.

Everyone who plays this game should be required to play both sides so we all understand the real issues in the game.

No honey, you're making a critical error where you only consider average outcomes.

Just because half your matches are 3Ks doesn't mean the other half have to be 2Ks, which is what your 62.5% figure is dependent on. Think about it for a second: You're only considering the killrate for a pair of matches where one match is a 2K, and the other is a 3K.

But if one match is a 0K, and the other is a 3K, that's still half the matches being a 3K, is it not?

And 3/8 survivors killed is nowhere near 62.5%. So no, that's not required for a 50% winrate. Your math is only considering the outcomes closest to the average, but DBD doesn't work like that. In fact, it works quite the opposite: 2Ks are, by far, the least likely outcome.

You are choosing literally the second highest killrate configuration for the 3K+ rate, which is incredibly unfair, just like the aforementioned 37.5% would be, as that is the lowest possible killrate configuration.

Long story short, your "side of the argument" comes down to the grounds that a single kill is considered a killer "win" (and a killer can win 4 times in a single match with a 4k)

I have never once mentioned 1Ks as a win. That is a complete fabrication. Go back over the math I showed and try to find where I counted 1Ks as wins.

If you have a million matches, and you get 5 4Ks in a row, you can't run around and claim you have a 100% win rate. That's not how averaging works.

It's quite ironic that you say that, but we'll get into that.

Having two matches which is what your example is based off doesn't remotely have enough of a sample.

That's because it's not a sample, but an example. It's to show you that your ruling isn't necessarily correct, and that datasets can exist that do not abide by what you claim.

Perhaps you have issues with percentages, so let's make it easier. a 62.5% kill rate translates to a 2.5 kill rate. That means on average, you're getting 2.5 kills. Over the period of several matches, that essentially translates to you winning roughly have your matches (where winning means a 3k+). While you can have a 0K match and even some 4K matches, on AVERAGE across multiple matches, you'd essentially be alternating evenly between a 2K and a 3K.

No, that's not true. You don't 'essentially alternate between a 2K and a 3K'. There's five possible outcomes in DBD and their distribution isn't linearly even, so the data doesn't neatly compress to this point.

Consider the overall average of all matches recorded over the past month on Nightlight. This is a dataset containing 19.361 games. The average killrate here is 57.68%, or roughly 2.3 kills on average. According to you, that'd mean that you'd on average, across multiple matches, essentially be alternating between a 2K and a 3K, with considerably more 2Ks than 3Ks.

That is your logic, correct?

However, within this dataset, Nightlight also tracks the outcomes of the matches.

And only 13% were 2Ks. Only 18.7% were 3Ks.

Neither of the outcomes that, according to you, would be the average outcome were the most common outcome. The actual most common outcome was a 4K, at roughly 32.9%.

Your logic is dependent on the averaging resulting in a very neat and even distribution of all outcomes, and DBD does not do that. There are five outcomes with very complex and shifting relations among each other.

Consider the following:

Wraith vs. Bubba. Bubba is, of course, really good at guarding hooks. This makes him very qualified to secure at least a single kill, as a down at the end of the match will more likely turn into a kill with Bubba than it does with Wraith. This means 0Ks are less likely to occur for Bubba than they are for Wraith. Assuming the same rate of getting 3K or higher on both killers, it would thus stand to reason that Bubba's kill rate would be higher, due to the lower occurrence rate of 0Ks.

Do you understand this?

Another example.

Blight vs. Clown. Blight is, of course, a high mobility killer. So in the even of three survivors dying before the generators are done, Blight can zip around the map, looking for the hatch at a much higher pace than Clown can. This means Blight is much more likely to turn a 3K into a 4K. Assuming the same rate of getting 3K or higher on both killers, it would thus stand to reason that Blight's kill rate would be higher, due to the higher occurrence rate of 4Ks.

Do you understand this?

So keeping in mind that outcomes aren't evenly distributed, consider the way DBD works in general. How often, in your games, do matches close out with 2 kills and 2 escapes?

Because judging by Nightlight's statistics, across the board, 2Ks are the -least- likely outcome. So this 'essentially alternating between 2Ks and 3Ks' of yours is a massive corruption of the dataset. The reality is closer to alternating between 4Ks and 1Ks. 2Ks are, by a substantial margin, the least likely outcome. So your assertion that you can glean the winrate by averaging out the killrates and then pulling those killrates to the absolute average-point is antithetical to how DBD -actually- works.

You don't 'essentially alternate between 2Ks and 3Ks', because 2Ks are rare. So your assertion that a 2.5 killrate is, on average, comprised for one half of 2Ks and for the other half of 3Ks is just flatly incorrect.

I'm not "choosing" the 2nd highest kill rate

And in that regard, you are 'choosing' the 2nd highest killrate, because your assertion omits all outcomes that don't suit it. The only way that you could get a higher killrate out of a 50% winrate is if you use only 2Ks and 4Ks instead of 3Ks, at which point you'd be looking at a 75% killrate.

Let's actually increase that to a 50% kill rate. That means on average across all matches played, that player is only getting 2Ks. With a 3-4K being a win, on average, he's never winning. CAN he win? Certainly! Just over multiple matches, on average, he is not.

Here, though, you show a critical misunderstanding of averages.

'On average, he is never winning' and 'Can he win? Certainly' are fully mutually exclusive.

In any dataset that does not contain negative values, the only way to average to 0 is to have no value above 0. This means that if the average winrate is 0%, there cannot be a single win anywhere in the dataset.

You cannot claim that he is on average never winning, while also claiming that he can get wins. Those are mutually exclusive on a mathematical level. If you want to hold to that, then you are NOT talking about averages.

With your number, it's even worse. With your 1.5, that means on average, he's teetering between 1-2 kills on average. Again, there's literally no way someone who only gets on average 1-2 kills is having a 50% win rate UNLESS you subscribe to the belief that each kill is considered a win and that a killer can win up to 4 times in a single match.

No, you misunderstand the purpose of the 37.5% figure. It is entirely unrealistic to expect a killer to hit a 50% winrate off of that, I fully agree with that. But the extreme outlier dataset that produces a 37.5% killrate to a 50% winrate is the exact same type of statistical anomaly that your 62.5% killrate to 50% winrate is.

THAT is the point of the 37.5% killrate figure. No dataset with any relevant sample is going to produce only 0Ks and 3Ks, but neither is one going to average out to half the matches being 2Ks because that's not how DBD works.

Your error, same as the guy I'm assuming you learned this erroneous way of thinking from, is that you are confusing the outcome of the average match for the average winrate.

But the average match is never played.

@Firellius gets into this in more detail, but we just did math thread a few weeks ago and I'm going to try a simpler approach than him.

You're not understanding the basics here, so I'll explain the basics

The problem is, you're too basic. Of the five possible results, not all of them have an equal probability of occurring given game design. 2k is the rarest outcome (roughly 1 in 10 instead of 1 in 5) because they require a less common set of circumstances.

This isn't like rolling a die where given enough time everything has an equal chance of occurring, game design has to be considered. So if you look at all the possible permutations that could give you a sixty percent kill rate, you can't just pick the one in the middle as the outcome. Each permutation has an equal chance of being true until you look at how the game actually plays out.