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(LONG POST) As a killer main, I agree with survivors mains on the current state of the game.

Hi, I’m a Pig main with 500+ hrs on her. A few other hours on Ghostface, Myers and. I mostly play stealth killers because I’m a HUGE slasher freak. 1k+ hours on DBD in total

I lurk on the forums a lot, sometimes reply on things, and I was reading a lot of the post that survivor mains have posted on here about the state of the game over the past few months. I also seen a lot of post from killer mains saying the opposite.

I play survivor sometimes as well, so I gave myself a challenge of 300 solo q survivor games and see how the state of survivor it is for myself. Basically, putting myself in the shoes of many of the survivor mains on these forums. The plan was to level up my survivors to p3, get better at survivor and honestly just see how the other feels.

Originally, it was 1000 games, and although I did get a lot better at survivor to the point I could loop the killer for a few gens, I genuinely could not make it past 300, because GOD, I was not having fun after a while. And then I started having technical problems with my PC. (My SSD with all the VODs of my 300 games died and I lost the footage, and my GPU lost one of its fans and started overheating and wouldn’t connect to my monitors. I think my motherboard may or may not also be on its last legs.)

Me personally, I don’t camp; I don’t tunnel, but sometimes a survivor who got unhooked is literally doing a gen in my face, I can’t just … ignore you. I play twins often, so sometimes I will slug, but only if there is a survivor already nearby that’s injured, otherwise, I don’t slug either since people running unbreakable is pretty common right now. I just don’t find any of those play styles fun, and it doesn’t get me double pips (nor even one sometimes) because the game would end too fast and I don’t have enough hook states. I don’t find those games very fun, and I’m sure the survivors I play against wouldn’t find it fun either.

I was going to upload it onto YouTube and have them unlisted so anyone who had the link could few the games. The clips I DO have are on streamable, but have copyrighted music in the background though because I enjoy listening to music while I play games. And I’m not sure if that is allowed in these forums?

I counted how many survivors DC’ed mid game, AFK, give up on hook, etc. I also counted the times a killer DC’ed. Along with that, I counted how many times I escaped, died, got tunneled, camped, or slugged. I also had to add how many times a random teammate teamed up with the killer and gave away everyone else’s positions (surprisingly happened quite a few times; Mostly by Ghostface mains. I genuinely dislike a few of you for this).

Now, I had rules for what counted as getting camped, slugged and tunneled since I am a killer main, and sometimes you can’t just ignore someone.

For me to add a point into getting camped, it had to be before all gens were done. I don’t count endgame proxy as “camping” because what is the killer supposed to do? There are no more gens, and most likely, the exit gate is 99.

To get a point for getting tunneled, I only counted me getting unhooked, and the killer instantly coming over to the hook and going after me ignoring the person who unhooked me. If I touched a gen, heal someone, or anything else, I did not count it as tunneling if the killer comes after me.

To count as slugging, I had to be on the ground for 50 seconds or more, or the killer downs someone else after downing me and ALSO leaves them on the ground.

Out of those 300 games, I can say that the state of solo q survivor is downright miserable. I understand that BHVR considers camping, slugging, and tunneling to be acceptable strategies and valid playstyles. I simply don’t care anymore after these 300 straight survivor games. It’s extremely UNFUN to play against, and I can understand why a lot of survivor mains ARE quitting DBD, or at least taking a break.

So here are the stats that I have. I kept what I had in a Notepad so I didn’t get confused or lose count. You can take these stats with a grain of salt since I don’t have VODs to prove myself. But I lack the motivation to attempt and redo this challenge right now, maybe later when I fix whatever issues I have with my PC and have a better way to make sure I have the VODs saved for proof.

Although I had a decent escape rate and got lucky to be saved by teammates after getting camped, slugged or tunneled, a lot of these matches were unnerving to play.

Hell, I played against a Wraith where the match lasted literally 25+ minutes because all the Wraith did was use deerstalker + knock out and try to slug everyone for the 4k. We didn’t even get a SINGLE gen done. 25+ minutes of us trying to pick everyone up and at least finish ONE gen. I was the last person to DC that game. Everyone else had DC’ed before me and I was just left with bots in return, and I really tried to at least get one gen done. Out of all my 300 games, that was the ONE game where I actually DC’ed and closed DBD. I don’t care if it’s a real strategy to BHVR.

I started running Unbreakable, Soul Guard and Decisive Strike, and Off the Record or sometimes Distortion after that because I HAD to, not because I wanted to.

I was playing with meme builds before the 20th game on the streak where I was just getting slugged to death almost every game after that.

Don’t even get me started matches where survivors INSTANTLY gave up. If it’s not the killer playing in the most boring, snore fest way, its survivors giving up before the second gen could even pop.

I had an Oni match where two people got hooked at 4 gens. It was me, a Kate, Dwight, and Mikaela in this match and for whatever reason — the Mikaela gives up on the hook before I could save her. I had to wait because the Oni was in his power and could instant down me if I played this wrong, she just gave up on the hook because I wasn't fast enough for her liking I guess. And then the Dwight that I unhooked literally just AFKs underneath the hook. The only ones who TRIED during that match were me and the Kate. Once I got hooked, I just let myself die hoping the Kate got hatch, and sadly, she didn’t.

The state of solo q survivor is actually so God damn unnerving that I rather got back to playing OW2 than playing another 300 matches of survivor, and I really hate OW2 and it's current state.

When I play killer, I play to have fun and I hope the other side has fun playing against me. That doesn’t always mean I win with a massive 4k, hell, some of my most fun matches, I’ve only gotten 1-2 kills, but I still had fun! I like a challenge and I LOVE games where it's hard to tell which side is going to win. I love playing against well-rounded survivors because it forces ME to get better at certain killers. I also just get to see new things I never seen before, because wow, I’ve met and befriended so many survivor mains who were just insanely good.

I’m not the biggest fan of the current killer meta, (pain res, ruin, pop, grim, corrupt or the slug meta), but I understand that a well-rounded survivor team is hard to deal with if you weren’t playing Billy, Blight or Nurse. A lot of killers are weak because they have low mobility and mobility is HUGE in this game because every second matters.

Honestly? I have literally no idea what would be the right step to help fix the current state of DBD and how unnerving it is to play survivor. I think I can agree with many people, that I miss 2v8, I didn’t realize how much I would miss it until it was gone.

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Comments

  • Murgleïs
    Murgleïs Member Posts: 1,105
    edited August 19

    Lmao, that deerstalker + knock out Wraith is a king. These niche builds make the game fun for me, as killer or survivor. I would rather go against that instead of the boring gen regression meta.

  • Sarrif
    Sarrif Member Posts: 192

    Yeah, the only real way to have fun as survivor anymore is be in a swf.

  • Neaxolotl
    Neaxolotl Member Posts: 1,477

    Only way to have fun in non-competitive team game, is to have fun, it's literally always the case regardless to the game

    It'd be even more true for a game where players somehow able to abuse a mechanics to circumvent well deserved penalty they should get

    At least we should start fixing that one obvious issue, I guess

  • Hex_KillerMainBTW
    Hex_KillerMainBTW Member Posts: 449

    Have you seen what most of the cosmetics are catered to? Survivors. They're either lonely guys who love cute outfits on girls or people who play survivor for the "thrill" and flashy clothes. Of course the devolopers will make gameplay easier on survivors. If a killer tunnels they they're being "sweaty." It's not sweat. Y'all can run around and do what you want. Playing fair? It's a 4v1. 8v2 was a joke with limited killers available and perks. Survivors have 16 perks they can use compared to a killer with 4. Make it more balanced and let killers have the ability to use half of that. It's a stupid game that just needs to die. I uninstalled, done with this game. Let the survivors laugh and say "get good."

  • solarjin1
    solarjin1 Member Posts: 2,222
    edited August 19

    it really no nice way to say it... 1v4 solo q is a garbage experience on average when i play. It just a lack of communication in a meta that revolve around heavy tactics. This is my goat game but it pretty much only due to the killer experience. Out of about 2500 hours of playtime at least 900 is on survivor. The 2v8 was the most fun survivor been in years for me. 2v8 show that dev can massively reduce all the tactics survivors hate and make the game about chase. They see the state of solo q as fine because it reaching the 60% killrate but is it actually fun anymore?

    To Summarize

    solo q matches are rarely about actual chases and more about dealing with tactics.

  • fussy
    fussy Member Posts: 1,717

    And what about state of the game: it's in the best state ever balance wise.
    If I would count only soloq games, where I got teammates near my level (I'm not god player, but at least I understand what I'm playing), my escape rate would be above 70% or maybe even 80%. Should we overbuff survivors again just to make another Sable player, who didn't learn the game for 1k hours at all and obviously won't get better at it even after 5k hours, escape more often? Of course not. Skill finally matter on survivors and I'm glad to see game in this state.
    Survivors who didn't learn the game suffer together with killers who play against really good survivors. To make average matches fun and balanced for both sides, as it is now.

  • Halloulle
    Halloulle Member Posts: 1,353

    Man. Those are some depressing stats. - But do feel very much like what I remember my match experience to be like (pre 2v8; have played a whole three 1v4 matches since 2v8 launched and nope, can't do any more).

    I wish there was a bhvr stat with a second killrate; where matches with early DCs (before 1st gen completed/first surv dead) and first survivor suiciding on hook are included, as well as the percentage of those matches vs. percentage of matches without either of those two happening.

  • Langweilg
    Langweilg Member Posts: 1,444
    edited August 19

    I agree overall. What do you mean with „But I feel that their current direction is off.“?

  • ratcoffee
    ratcoffee Member Posts: 1,577

    "sweat spot"? that's just my chair after i stand up from a gaming session 😆

  • Neaxolotl
    Neaxolotl Member Posts: 1,477

    Oh well, but if we look BHVR as an "entity" we all know, it only makes sense for them to aim for sweat spot

  • satx3241
    satx3241 Member Posts: 111

    100% yes to all your points here. I just got out of a match with a Bubba, myself, one level 79 survivor, and 2 100 level survivors. Survivor 1 got hooked. 10 to 15 seconds later Survivor 2 unhooked them. Survivor 2 was instadowned the moment they took survivor 1 off the hook. Survivor 2 was hooked on the same hook.

    At that point anyone that's played this game enough to be level 79 or 100 knows there's a very high likelihood we're dealing with a Bubba that's proxy camping. 20 seconds or so passed and survivor 3 unhooked survivor 2. Survivor 3 is immediately instadowned and hooked on the same hook.

    Now there's no doubt we're playing with a Bubba that's proxy camping. But instead of doing gens and ensuring this strategy didn't result in a 4k these 3 survivors repeated this process until they were all dead.

    On one hand I have no idea how that's even fun for a killer after the first couple times that happens. I can see it being amusing a time or two, but after that it seems like it would just get boring but if that's your thing I ain't judging.

    On the other hand the conversation I had with one of the other survivors after the game is the perfect example of why playing survivor can be so frustrating at times.

    One of the 100 level survivors messaged the other 3 of us complaining about camping killers. I mentioned that maybe a better strategy would be to do gens against a killer that's camping like that. The response I got from them all tells me everything about the complete lack of logic and strategy most survivors bring to the game. They basically told me they couldn't just let people stay on the hook and die. They said they were just trying to give each other a chance.

    It's ironic. 3 high level survivors that think constantly pulling each other off the hook is giving each other a chance against a camping Bubba when the truth is they are guaranteeing that none of them have a chance.

    But you run into it every game. It doesn't matter if you're playing with beginner survivors or survivors with 1000s of hours. Most of them couldn't play strategically if their actual life depended on it.

  • fussy
    fussy Member Posts: 1,717

    The response I got from them all tells me everything about the complete lack of logic and strategy most survivors bring to the game. 

    Absolutely, there is no any logic or strategy in most survivors head. But they strongly believe they should win at least half of their game. Literally my last matches:
    1. Claud with 2K hours. Start of the match, we hear Billy chainsaw. Me: go into safe structure and don't shifting. If he has Lethal, i'm in the safe space and can start chase safely. If he has no, I won't give him early info and quick first chase with my scratch marks. Claud: run out in open space, shifting across half of the map, run into his chainsaw and instantly DC. Is that killer's fault that you don't understand basics of the game in 2k hours, lol?
    2. Match against Twins. I gave them amazing chases, killer got 2 hooks when last gen poped. NOED kicks in, basement hook in Ormond main, totem spawned on balcony (10 meters away from basement?). Kate decided to cleanse it and just eat insta down right on it. She had clear vision of basement, heard killer's terror radius, had ultra safe pallet right next to her, but nah, who cares. My efforts alone was enough to win this game, but Kate decided literally gift free 2k to killer. Pretty sure her next move was going here and cry about killrate.
    3. Unknown match, going pretty close, we 3 survivors left with 2 hot gens left. I give to killer solid ~2m chase, was enough to make all gens done. They did one and after this Nea came to me to give me back (WHO ASKED YOU???) and was downed in 10 second and me after. So we were laying on the ground and last survivor best decision was… instantly start running and give info to killer, when we barely start recovering.

    And this happens almost every game, everyone can make a mistake and this fine, but those are not mistakes, it's straight up missing of gameplay understanding. Half of survivors with my amount of hours barely understand how to loop, Windows+Lithe is only thing they know, after this they are done. And I'm not even talking about how many survivors just give up without any reason, at start of the match, at mid-game, at the end, even when all goes pretty good.

  • Mr_K
    Mr_K Member Posts: 9,245

    Solo queue is bad because teammates give up too easy and only care about themselves.

    SWFs don't give up on each other.

    Camping/tunneling. Sorry but this has been a thing for 8+ years and survivors didn't DC as much as they do now. You want a better experience as survivor? Tell the player base to either play the game or don't play at all.

  • BlightedDolphin
    BlightedDolphin Member Posts: 1,888

    Your stats show my main problem with solo queue perfectly. Balance wise, aside from some QoL changes, it’s fine for the most part but most games just aren’t fun.

    Give some base kit form of anti-tunnel, deal with slugging for the 4K, and please do something to stop everyone giving up over nothing.

  • NarkoTri1er
    NarkoTri1er Member Posts: 649

    this perspective of soloQ is very dangerous for game balance because it lacks depth of looking into the problem.

    You see, the only actual game balance related problems with soloQ are bad matchmaking (because people wanted shorter queues) and no pregame loadout visibility to other teammates.

    Other than that, everything is purely related to players.

    Tunneling, camping and slugging wouldn't be nearly as successful as they are against any at least a bit more skilled soloQ team, but they are successful against average soloQ teams because you will always have people getting 2-tapped in chases due to lack of chase knowledge, making camping look op because they cobe at 1st hook if killer camps them, make tunneling look op because of 1st reason and make slugging op because they are too scared to go and get their teammate up.

  • mizark3
    mizark3 Member Posts: 2,253

    Hmmm the people who see their skin the entire match, or the people whose opponents see the skin, garsh that's surprising! /s

    As far as tunnels, I think this is based on intent. If the Bubba is autopiloting towards the closest Survivor, that's fine, but when he purposely slugs the person bodyblocking to get the tunnel on the other person, that is what people mean by 'sweaty'.

    For 'playing fair', the game is designed around a 60% kill rate, so the game is Killer sided definitionally. Same with the perks, the Survivor perks are designed to have 1/4th the impact of Killer perks. I mean are you going to seriously make the argument that 16 No Mithers would be more powerful than 4 random Killer perks, simply because they have 4x the perks? There has to be a calculation involved in perk strength, and you just ignored that.

    At least you did learn your lesson and uninstall. I'm foolish enough to still play this game on occasion with friends, and am often miserable as a result.

  • NarkoTri1er
    NarkoTri1er Member Posts: 649
    edited August 23

    game has 5 possible outcomes for killer: 0k, 1k, 2k, 3k and 4k. Count each outcome as 20%. Technical killer bare win condition for minimum MMR points gain is 3k, meaning if average killrate is 60%, winrate is close to 50%. Nobody focuses percentage for the game to be killer sided (even though it is still far from killer sided), it's just that players don't understand basic math behind killrates and that killrate ≠ winrate.

    And let's not forget how many additional factors impact killrates and are counted in the percentage, such as failing to kobe and intentionally speeding up dying process on hook and griefing teammates by working with the killer.

  • ImWinston
    ImWinston Member Posts: 254
    • Devs have an obsessive attention to killer gameplay for the last 2 years, they think that if a killer has fun, then the survivors will have a good game too. How many years has it been since a single new object has been introduced for survivors? How many years has it been since a new "mechanic" was introduced in survivor gameplay? (can we consider "chemical trap" a new mechanic?) even the 2Vs8 mode from the point of view of survivor gameplay was an absolute bore, eliminating practically everything and reducing survivors only to doing m1 to heal teammates or m1 to repair generators. how many years have they been asked to add simple "text lines" to help the Soloq. in the recent PTB there were hundreds of reports asking for a buff new survivors perk... they literally didn't touch anything. I'm starting to lose hope.

  • NarkoTri1er
    NarkoTri1er Member Posts: 649

    chase, the most fun aspect aspect of the game is literally still a very strong meta. OTR, DS, exhaustion perks, there are so many non gen related perks in game that are very strong, but average survivor just refuses to learn how to use benefits properly.

    Only ones i've seen talking how "survs are just supposed to heal and M1 on gens" are Distortion users

  • mizark3
    mizark3 Member Posts: 2,253
    edited August 23

    You are right! It would be foolish to simply say kill rate = winrate, lets do some math! Wait, I just did the math in another thread!

    Hmm, we get 50% Killer, 22% Survivor, 28% Draw. Or if you want to take out Draws, ~69% Killer, ~31% Survivor. Heck, even if you want to be favorable and give the Draws out as 50-50 (14% each) for both sides, that still is 64% Killer vs 36% Survivor. So when you do the math, it actually is even MORE Killer sided.

    As far as the inflated numbers concept, I agree. When DCs don't count towards the stats, and Survivor DCs are far more common, that would mean someone who had to actually play through a match with a teammate DC felt the loss, but their pain was discounted/ignored by the BHVR stats. In other words, DCs mean the killrate is even higher than stated/aimed.

    That's why I think using a killrate = winrate is actually a generous metric when speaking against Killer specific complaints, because it is the most favorable to Killers. I would do the same when speaking against Survivor complaints, to give them the best odds when I oppose the specific complaint being voiced.

    (Also as far as MMR specific things, it is based on the MMR of each person, and reduced per subsequent person. That means if you kill a babysurv first, you get the least MMR. Also if you kill a godsurv first, you could theoretically go positive if all the other Survs were also godsurvs [with your loss against a godsurv making you lose the least amount of MMR].)

    Edit: Fixed some mistyped numbers

  • Marc_go_solo
    Marc_go_solo Member Posts: 5,347

    The survivor disconnects and afk players are the problematic statistics. This happens all too often in games, and although the devs do not count disconnects amongst the stats, I would like to know if those who remain in those trials do get added to the statistics. Because if they do, I'd presume this would have quite the impact on stats.

    The tunnelling; slugging, and camping stats I take with a pinch of salt, because it's all purely subjective and whilst I don't doubt it happens, figures can easily be inflated (not purposefully, but just interpretation and presumption).

    Well done on a good success with the escapes! SoloQ isn't the impossibility some make it out to be. It's understandable that some like myself enjoy it but others hate it, and it's always going to be about preference, but it's not a "no win" scenario.

    Overall, statistics are fun! Thanks for sharing.👍

  • NarkoTri1er
    NarkoTri1er Member Posts: 649

    don't forget that only matches with DC don't count. Every other kind of match where survivors forfeit in any other way is counted into stats.

    My matches as killer, honestly even after a break, i saw survivors giving up even more (depipping removal had even more impact on it). I chase a survivor, they get...stuck at object during chase and get literally 2-tapped. I had a chase just like that against a 4k hours survivor yesterday.

    But when you look at average total chase times of individual survivors (for all both hook stages during which they are alive) per match are around 1 minute, you just realize how bad average survivor is.

  • mizark3
    mizark3 Member Posts: 2,253

    What match where someone wasn't fully feeling it going to ever be considered positively towards the stats?

    My matches (where I never go in with the plan to camp/tunnel, and only match Survivor energy) nearly never have people hard give up unless I have say… 6 hooks at 5 gens. That match is already won by Killer, and Survivors giving up is merely speeding up the foregone conclusion.

    I'm not sure I'm getting the last paragraph's point. If Survivors are so bad it makes the game ez pz lemon squeezy, then isn't Killer a near guaranteed win? That would be annoying to play Survivor with a near guaranteed loss, wouldn't it?

    -

    Overall my complaints are that Survivor's negative extremes are too low (like -3/10 instead of 1/10 like it should be), and those extremes need to be minimized. If a baby teammate is tunneled, as you put it, they are going down in chase regardless, so if they give up, the Kobes did nothing to change the outcome, it already was a Killer win. When a Killer decides to bleedout a Survivor seeking the 4k, that forces 4m of wasted time, compared to exit gates tbags for 2m (not even accounting for minimum 2 victim's 4m being wasted in the bleedout scenario). When someone hard Kobes/DCs against specific Killers, because that Killer is so unfun to go against that a Kobe/DC is more fun, maybe that Killer should be looked at, or Killer bans in place to make sure that only fun matches exist (personally I recommend 1ban/5 Killers round down). That also ensures that Killers players are only going against people that want to go against that Killer (although Killers might need a map ban to prevent their own negative extremes like Ghosty on Autohaven or Billy on RPD, with map offerings negating a ban, but only placing the map back in the pool, not forcing it, or simply refunding the map offering and doing nothing).

  • NarkoTri1er
    NarkoTri1er Member Posts: 649

    here is my recap from last 5 matches:

    3 of 5 matches, first survivor got two-tapped after i found them quite fast into the match. Immediately after got downed, boom, i hear sound cue and bot exchanges them. The remaining of two, only one person in both matches was skilled in terms of chase, others were so terrible they didn't even know how to hug environment objects in loops.

    Which draws my answer to your question regarding my last paragraph. What makes killer get an almost guaranteed win and survivors almost guaranteed loss. Your answer hides in 3 things:

    1. matchmaking
    2. skill
    3. different goals in the match (win, xy amount of glyphs, random challenge)/simply griefing.

    First of all, matchmaking is awful, thanks to community that wanted very low queue times and paid the price of very inaccurate skill level of people in their lobby. This means that your soloq matches are pretty much going to be pretty colorful in terms of players skill.

    Second, skill. A huge paradox in dbd that is mutual to both low and high hours players. People lack basic ingame skills, especially regarding the strongest and most important one, chase.

    Average chase time per hook stage of a high skill player (info from DbDL 1v1 ladders and tourneys) against A-D tier killers is 1min 30s. Minimum chase time against S tiers is 60s (2 perk slots taken only)

    Now let's compare that with average pub match.

    ~60s average individual chase time...per whole match woth full perk loadout. Meaning average survivor lasts 60s in chase for all hook stages total, average skilled survivor lasts the same in just one chase against S-tier killers as average survivor lasts in whole match. That draws conclusion that skill is the biggest problem of survivors performing so bad.

    Lastly, regarding fun, it's a very subjective term so balancing around "fun" is not possible in any game because everyone has different definitions of fun. Games are meant to be balanced around both sides having as close to 50% winrate on high skill levels.

  • BurnedHusk
    BurnedHusk Member Posts: 5

    i started in 2019 or so, almost always solo survivor, game is in a really good place right now. Very stable fps on ps4. The amount of information i have as a solo now, i know who is in chase, who is on gens and who is free to rescue hook.

    Since i am more experienced like you, and if i suspect noob skins or killer tunneling, i will run perks to help against camping against myself and others: babysitter, BT, Off The Record, and Desperate Measures. Sometimes switch up Camaraderie in there too.

  • KeonLennedy
    KeonLennedy Member Posts: 23

    The worst aspect of playing Survivor to me is the horrible SoloQ teammates. And by horrible I don't mean being inexperienced or a lack of skill. I mean babyraging brats who ragequit as soon as the match starts, go afk, or sandbang and team up with the Killer. I can get bothered by Killers' playstyles but they are far less frequent and also less aggravating than dealing with toxic teammates. Yet it's impossible for me to find people to group up with to form a 4 man SWF every match, because as long as there's even one SoloQ teammate, they're going to ruin the game. It's actually insufferable.

  • mizark3
    mizark3 Member Posts: 2,253

    Yeah that was kinda my point with 'what DC would have been spun positively (Survivor sided in this context) for the stats'. You got a quick double tap that basically meant you were so much more skilled than them, that it was your game to lose by AFKing by 3-5 minutes or something similarly extreme. It was going to be a 3K/4K (Hatch RNG/slug dependent), and now that Killer win is not being counted towards the stats.

    I largely agree with the 3 points, but all of those skew in favor of Killer stats.

    Matchmaking: I think game health was better under Emblems being the matchmaking driver, even if newer players who played too much, sometimes got to Red ranks in their first month. Also too many people are ego-driven, and think they cannot be assailed since they reached the tippy top of matchmaking. This game has the top 25% in the highest rank, whereas games like CS or SC or League or DOTA2 have at the minimum top 1% as their highest rank. That is such a huge range of skill levels. Where I think most Killer complaints come from is the 75-80% (the weakest of the top 25%) range, since by the time they reach the 85-95% range, they have too many weaker Survivors all but guaranteeing a Killer win.

    Skill: I too think no matter what, I can outskill my opponents (or learn from my loss and know how to win the next one), but as a linked concept, I can't outskill my teammates for a positive result. Soloq will always drag people down (and to be quite honest, my SWF as well - we are having fun from shared enjoyment/goofing off, not winning). I do think that when a SWF is all individually skilled players, going to the extreme to call out clocks, they can be nearly unstoppable, I just find those too rare to concern myself with. I don't stay in my house for fear of a meteor strike or lightning strike, so I think I can survive the 5 minutes of a sweat SWF teabagging since it will be over quick enough.

    Different goals: Yeah I think this is the most fair argument for kill/win stats being out of whack. So many Survivor tomes are outright 'throw the game' tomes. What is even worse, is that you never know if someone is catching back up on older tomes, which also are throw tomes. The most recent tome I gotta say had surprisingly minimal 'throw the game' type challenges, and I just hope more tomes aren't just made to artificially adjust kill rates for a short time.

    -

    In regard to games being balanced/fun at both sides having roughly equal chances at high skill levels, I partially agree. I think its best when the game overall roughly matches that, otherwise you might have a game where there are not enough casuals to support the game. Even then, if we look at the last stats BHVR gave us, I feel like the opposite has happened.

    Now I can understand if you were to take the argument that 4 SWF is close, but my argument is that soloq odds of winning drop too sharply. I mean heck, look at the difference between 3 SWF + soloq vs 4 SWF, 1 solo drops ~6% (additively). Even all skill levels have soloq dropping ~1% (additively). If anything, all High MMRs should be higher than their Overall equivalent, but never exceeding 50%.

    Our current problem is soloq is too detrimental to win chances, so more information should be shared between Survivors. Stuff like perks seen in the pause menu (not lobby, since people might dodge adepts/No Mithers), anti-facecamp bar visible to all Survs, and a dialogue wheel with lines like "Someone help" and "The Killer is near me" to say when someone should head over or stick on gens.

  • Cadpig
    Cadpig Member Posts: 50

    I completely forgot about two things by the time I finished my post.

    The first is that if we're talking about fun, which I think we should in this case, balance isn't the most important thing. I've seen it happen a few times, that a developer shows something about their game being mathematically balanced, and can't figure out why no one is playing it. Sometimes things can be fair and not fun.

    It's a tougher question because obviously what's fun varies from person to person, but it doesn't mean it isn't something that the players feel and it can be aimed for.

    The other thing is Hooks vs the Cage. 2v8 made me really appreciate the Cage. I've realized that one of the quickest ways to stall the progress of Survivors is to get them trapped in a "Rescue Leapfrog" cycle. I've seen so many teams get the first 4 Gens quick and easy, but the second one person gets hooked and the rescue goes bad, they get caught in a cycle of rescuing each other and never finish the final generator. The nature of the Hooks makes this very common, especially for teams that don't think about it or aren't coordinated for it.

    Now, any permanent transition to a Cage system would have to rebalance a lot of things, because a lot of Perks and other elements of gameplay right now expect that the Killer will be temporarily busy while carrying someone to a Hook, but I think it might be worth the effort.

  • FixTheLegion
    FixTheLegion Member Posts: 4

    IMHO they should bring back infinite mending legion and bring back pre release legion as well to be the most toxic killer in game that survivors are meant to hate vsing

  • NarkoTri1er
    NarkoTri1er Member Posts: 649

    Yeah that was kinda my point with 'what DC would have been spun positively (Survivor sided in this context) for the stats'. You got a quick double tap that basically meant you were so much more skilled than them, that it was your game to lose by AFKing by 3-5 minutes or something similarly extreme. It was going to be a 3K/4K (Hatch RNG/slug dependent), and now that Killer win is not being counted towards the stats.

    Exactly, but guess what is the most embarrassing thing? Seeing actual players with 3k+ hours in the game getting two-tapped. And that is the case quite often.

    Matchmaking: I think game health was better under Emblems being the matchmaking driver, even if newer players who played too much, sometimes got to Red ranks in their first month. Also too many people are ego-driven, and think they cannot be assailed since they reached the tippy top of matchmaking. This game has the top 25% in the highest rank, whereas games like CS or SC or League or DOTA2 have at the 

    minimum 

    top 1% as their highest rank. That is such a huge range of skill levels. Where I think most Killer complaints come from is the 75-80% (the weakest of the top 25%) range, since by the time they reach the 85-95% range, they have too many weaker Survivors all but guaranteeing a Killer win.

    also true. The soft MMR cap in this game is so low that we can freely say there is no such thing as high MMR. You can be a player at the hard MMR cap and still be matched with people at the very bottom of soft MMR cap because game sees everything from 1600 to 2200MMR as if it's just 1600. The worst thing is that we won't see any improvement in terms of matchmaking because majority community just wants instant queues instead of accurate queues.

    Skill: I too think no matter what, I can outskill my opponents (or learn from my loss and know how to win the next one), but as a linked concept, I can't outskill my teammates for a positive result. Soloq will always drag people down (and to be quite honest, my SWF as well - we are having fun from shared enjoyment/goofing off, not winning). I do think that when a SWF is all individually skilled players, going to the extreme to call out clocks, they can be nearly unstoppable, I just find those too rare to concern myself with. I don't stay in my house for fear of a meteor strike or lightning strike, so I think I can survive the 5 minutes of a sweat SWF teabagging since it will be over quick enough.

    yeah, because survivor is a role driven by working as a team, and one player playing significantly worse than others can ruin the match for the rest. In terms of pub SWFs, majority of them are rather annoying than good and i think that they are way overrated in terms of difficulty to vs. when it comes to pub matches.

    Different goals: Yeah I think this is the most fair argument for kill/win stats being out of whack. So many Survivor tomes are outright 'throw the game' tomes. What is even worse, is that you never know if someone is catching back up on older tomes, which also are throw tomes. The most recent tome I gotta say had surprisingly minimal 'throw the game' type challenges, and I just hope more tomes aren't just made to artificially adjust kill rates for a short time.

    EXACTLY <3

    Tomes and rest of challenges are outright the most unhealthy aspect of the game when mixed with soloQ. For example, i will do gens, be chased by killer and actually progress the match, while random Sable (sorry i just hate Sables lol) will go and search whole map for chests to open, or attempt to camp pallets in order to complete "stun the killer" challenges. While some other player will just attempt to farm BPs by working with the killer and sell all of us out.

    Now I can understand if you were to take the argument that 4 SWF is close, but my argument is that soloq odds of winning drop too sharply. I mean heck, look at the difference between 3 SWF + soloq vs 4 SWF, 1 solo drops ~6% (additively). Even all skill levels have soloq dropping ~1% (additively). If anything, all High MMRs should be higher than their Overall equivalent, but never exceeding 50%

    this is also a very big matchmaking problem and it's sheer inaccuracy. There is quite a low chance that you will get 3 teammates that actually match your skill level when you play survivor, meaning soloQ will just be a fest of losing. Regarding SWFs, i think stats are not as high as they should be because there are still many SWFs playing in the way just annoy the killer (sabo builds = all 4 getting bled out; constantly lurking for flashlight saves = not progressing the game because nobody does gens).

    And i would again like to add some stats from DBDL 1v1 ladders (bandaid for DBD ranked not existing) and compare them with pub matches:

    Average chase time per hook state against low mobility killers: 90s

    Average chase time per hook state against high mobility/S-tier killers: 60s

    Average pub chase time per hook state across all MMR: 20s

    Average pub chase time per hook state at soft MMR cap: 22s (proving the statement how terrible matchmaking is).

    Conclusion: Average pub player lasts 4.5 times less in a chase than an actual good player against low mobility killers and 3 times less than an actual good player against high mobility/S-tier killers.

    Our current problem is soloq is too detrimental to win chances, so more information should be shared between Survivors. Stuff like perks seen in the pause menu (not lobby, since people might dodge adepts/No Mithers), anti-facecamp bar visible to all Survs, and a dialogue wheel with lines like "Someone help" and "The Killer is near me" to say when someone should head over or stick on gens.

    Perk loadouts visible to every teammate in lobby is extremely needed, i would also be all for adding voice chat, but i think barely anybody would use it at all.

    And yeah, more ways to share info with other teammates would be just as good.

  • HouseOf1000Corpses
    HouseOf1000Corpses Member Posts: 12

    I’m a new player and only have something over 40 hours in the last few month playing on an old switch lite in my spare time, so I’m not competitive to say the least. I started recently and I’ve always heard and been told ‘this game is not beginner friendly’ and yada yada. I honestly think a big problem with the survivor meta right now is the players themselves. While it’s great as a new survivor that you can be put on a team with a great team and they can just kinda be carried along while they learn the game, once you get good (or okay in my case) at the game, it kinda sucks to play survivor. Because you know to unhook, you know to do gens, you know at least a little bit on looping the killer, and then the rest of your team just wanders around without even looking at a gen or running as soon as they hear terror radius, and will never go for a mildly risky unhook or taking a hit for someone dead on hook or lord forbid an exchange. It’s unfun when you constantly get just put on with people who don’t know what they’re doing.

    I feel like I’ve kinda been forced into maining killer because as fun as it is for me, it just feels impossible half the time to even get a chance to practice survivor outside of a bot game. Playing killer isn’t even fun half the time because I’ll play Myers against new players who think ‘haha I’ll teabag on the other side of this pallet for a year why isn’t he getting me so funny haha’ because they don’t even know what the stalk mechanic is. It’s kinda funny, but makes for really boring games. Same thing with people who don’t even know you can disarm a Trapper’s traps. It’s just unfun in general. But I guess that makes me a masochist for playing dbd almost exclusively lol

  • Cadpig
    Cadpig Member Posts: 50

    It's weird, I'm a Killer main who only started playing Survivor again thanks to 2v8 (including after 2v8) and I agree overall, but I do have some different experiences.

    1. I run into DC'ing Survivors all the time when I play Killer, but not so much when I play Survivor. Usually the DC happens the first time I hook someone (they have no idea the nice match they just missed out on), but one time I had two people DC at the same time about 20 seconds into the match for no apparent reason.
    2. My Solo Queue teammates don't seem to be that bad on average. Sure they don't often last too long in chases, and there's often inexplicable periods where no one seems to be doing anything, but they're generally careful, safely unhook, and the only people I ever see leave anyone for dead are when bots take someone over.

    Before I go into my ideas for solutions, I want to cover a couple of common things I see people want the game to balance around, but why I believe you cannot balance around them.

    1. Solo Queue being balanced differently than Survive with Friends. The problem with this is that, while it's more likely that a friends group will be more coordinated than a solo group, it's not by any means guaranteed. It also doesn't anywhere near guarantee they'll be good. The friends I play with are less good on average than the people I Solo Queue with. I don't mind playing with them because they're my friends, but playing together doesn't magically make us good. On the other hand, there was a Lara Croft in a Solo match of mine the other day that was absolutely amazing. She knew exactly when to be where and saved me from every mistake I made (which was a lot, because I was doing an annoying old challenge that guaranteed the Killer would want me dead). I thanked her for bailing me out, but I really felt sorry for that Killer.
    2. It's hard to punish quitters when you don't know why they quit. As someone who used to have incredibly unreliable internet, I've DC'd from games 100x more due to reasons beyond my control than because I "ragequit". Also, punishing someone when they already weren't having fun isn't going to make them put up with not having fun, it's just going to make them leave altogether. I also think this is moot nowadays since Bots fill in the gaps. Aside from being incredibly selfish and running out the exit the first chance they get, the Bots play like most players I play with, so I don't see the problem here. Really that's already the best of both worlds. Someone who isn't enjoying the game can stop playing the game, and the people who are still playing still have a full team.

    I remember someone articulating it very well somewhere once that I unfortunately cannot remember, but as much as a high skill ceiling is something seen as a virtue in modern gaming, the bigger the gap between the low end players and the high end players, the more impossible a game is going to be to balance properly. The answer cannot be "get good" for a large variety of reasons, but the simplest being that there's always going to be someone new who hasn't even had the chance to get better yet.

    1. The first step in balance is trying to close that gap. Considering how much I see Killers complain about Survivors with decked out Items, I think that's a good place to start. I almost never see Survivors bring items into a trial. It's not a very common newbie/casual thing, so this is probably more of a reason than anything else that games are so different between the low and high ends.

      I had an elaborate class/skill system suggestion elsewhere that served a similar purpose, but to summarize the intent: if Survivors are to have access to items, you need to make sure all Survivors have items so that you can balance around knowing for certain that they will. As long as some teams have no items, and some teams have fully kitted out items, you can't make sure that's fair.
    2. The second gap I've noticed is one of information. By default, Killers can see the Auras of the Generators and the Exit Gates. This means that without any Perks, and without even using their Power, they have the basic information they need in order to win because the Survivors have to end up at these locations at some point. On the flip side, by default, Survivors start with absolutely no information at all. With no Perks, they have none of the information they need to win and can't even make informed strategies.

      For new players, this automatically means that Killers are more likely to look competent than new Survivors. I remember when I was new, I spent several matches crouching around, trying not to be seen, yet still getting caught before I found a single generator. One of the most jarring things going from 2v8 back to 1v4 is realizing how few generators there are in 1v4 and how there can be huge chunks of the map with none or a single one tucked in a corner out of view.

      I recently learned about what is apparently some sort of infamous Killer Perk that prevents Survivors from seeing certain Auras for either a long time or the rest of the match or something. That's absurd. You cannot make an informed play with no information.

      I don't know what would be best, but Survivors need some sort of information by default. Obviously some existing perks would have to be replaced or nerfed, but that's sort of the whole point. Shrink that gap so the game can be better balanced.

      I understand that it makes things scarier to play Survivor, but it's not the best design. It means that the gap between someone completely new and doesn't know any maps and even just a casual player who's seen the maps a few times and knows where generators generally are, is huge, let alone the gap between a new player and a pro expert. Balancing a game in that situation is virtually impossible.

  • GonnaBlameTheMovies
    GonnaBlameTheMovies Member Posts: 682

    I feel like these are really the only issues with the SoloQ games at the moment, yes.

    Remove self-unhooking attempts without a perk. Remove suiciding on hook entirely. Give us something to deal with full slug bleedouts, and give us something to stop tunnelling out from the word go.

  • Hex_KillerMainBTW
    Hex_KillerMainBTW Member Posts: 449

    The game is designed to have a 60% kill rate, yes. However the devs decided it would be best to nerf gen regression perks. As a killer you need to be able to juggle yet a lot of maps tend to be RNG for killers. If it's a map that goes against your power, then you're probably lucky to even get 1 kill. There are killers I love(d) to play as and they just seem too weak now. Survivors got a base borrowed time. And killers got a base….what? Survivors pretty much have 4 perks and a slightly less time of borrowed time. Kicking gens isn't really worth it since it's 4 seconds to remove 1 second of the progress. Most survivors are smart enough to just have one go touch it while you spend time chasing another person. Eventually the only logical option is to slug and tunnel. That's not exactly fun for either side that's meant to be a party style game.

  • P0MNI
    P0MNI Member Posts: 15

    This checks out, survivors go next in games all the time and the tunneling is rampent. Solo queue feels like garbage to play because nobody seems to know how to coordinate.


    Killers are allowed to see items and get info before the game, I think survivors should be able to see their teammate’s perks.

    I hate that my Deliverance can be wasted because a survivor lurks the hook, I hate that I can run For the People but it won’t ever work because my teammate isn’t ready to be picked up. I hate that my teammates might have a sabo build and I forget to wiggle because I’m not expecting a team body block. Knowing what my teammates are bringing into the trial let’s me play around their perks and get an idea of their playstyle, it would help solo queue a ton.

  • Beluga_Simpática
    Beluga_Simpática Member Posts: 1

    I have around 300hs on it, and after two years without playing DBD, I tried again.

    Result: game uninstalled again 🗑️

    Unplayable as survivor unless you play in a premade of 4. Devs do not know the word "balance."

    You simply cannot enjoy the game. Maybe some day…