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The problem with these game modes and events
I think the biggest issue with these game modes and events is that when they get released with all the issues, being completely unbalanced, etc nothing ever gets fixed to make the event or mode balanced before it ends so people can actually enjoy it.
Obviously game modes like lights out, 2v8 are a bit harder to fix because they’re testing to see what works. And that’s okay because we know they’re gonna bring it back soon in its next iteration with all the feedback taken into account.
But for events… that’s basically a bust because they’re once a year. People get hyped for these events once a year and then they come out and are always heavily survivor or killer sided so one side always has a miserable time with no chance for it to be tweaked.
Like this Halloween event. Last year it heavily favored survivors and so killers had an awful time and just had to endure it and wait a whole year to be able to play it and have fun. Now this year, for whatever reason the devs decided “Lets move the pendulum so far in the other direction for killers.” so now the event is a bust for survivors. And now we have to wait another year for this event to come back and HOPE that they actually balance it properly.
And for the record, this is NOT an issue of “one side will always be mad cuz it doesn’t favor them.” No. Killers had a legit reason to be upset last year. Survivors have a legit reason to be upset this year.
My question is… why does no one play test this stuff before they go live? What is the process for actually trying to balance these events? Is there one?
Also I’m not interested in any comments saying “It doesn’t need to be balanced it’s a short term event.” Because that’s BS. That tells me you only care about events as long as they’re balanced in your favor because were the shoe on the other foot you’d be upset about a once a year event being unfun and unbalanced for you to play too. Being a limited time event and “you can opt out of the event if you don’t like it.” Is not a reasonable excuse. People shouldn’t have to opt out of a once a year thing because it was made in a way that favors one role over the other. /soapbox
Comments
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Besides double tap with ghost, this event is pretty balanced. If they will remove it in some patch on next week, it will be most balanced and fun event for everyone in long time.
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I don't think it's that they don't play test it, it's that they play test on a closed server and they're playing it as the devs intended not how the community will play it.
I hope that with events now being their own game mode that the devs make changes to really push the community, on both sides, to play the event as a fun celebratory thing rather than people trying to ruin the event for others and sweat fests that have been a major complaint for years now.
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I doubt the Dev in an in office playtest slug each other like killers do in game now.
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I don't think I've seen a single Killer go into the void to get a haunt. That said, sometimes when I've spent time going into the void as Killer, I've already lost 3 gens and the game is nearly over. Too many players so far are sweating and playing "normally" for me to be able to gauge if the event is Killer or Survivor sided. Neither side can progress their objectives by going into the void, so I guess it's hardly a surprise most players are treating it like a time wasting side quest instead of, you know, a fun game play mechanic or a way to earn more BP.
I have the odd fun game when the other Survivors are going into the void to get void crystals, but most players may as well be playing the regular mode for how little they've interacted with it.
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No idea what the true work ethics are at BHVR but it feels like criticism isn't part of the work environment.
As a customer it is feels like the outcome of some changes are driven by the goal to simply change something and not the goal to find the best possible solution.
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I haven't lost any gens by going into the void. But I will say this for the past two weeks gens have been flying in some matches at the start. There would be only 1 person on a gen and they are done fast. I can usually catch up at 2 gens and turn the game around but not these. Endgame there are no perks or toolboxes. Today as survivor I noticed a gen get repaired 50% faster than mine. Same thing endgame no gen perks and a toolbox isn't going to last two gens. I saw this in two separate games. I am thinking there's a gen hack to make them fast.
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Nobody is playtesting anything in this game.
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Yeah I think the hardest thing is getting yourself hyped up for something that ultimately doesn't meet your expectations. I felt like this during the anniversary event this year. That event has always been my favourite yet this year's was lacklustre for me compared to previous years. I do think the split queues are great though because if you find an event not to your liking you can just play normal mode, which is what I'm doing now.
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They do internally playtest everything. That isn't a question. I just suspect the skill level/mindset of the people on the team is mostly casual, so DBD is rarely playtested optimally, more like a party game between coworkers. This means mechanics don't get stress tested, synergies aren't regularly caught, and they definitely don't discover the ways players can use new mechanics to be huge jerks to each other.
It makes sense that the slant of an event doesn't get caught when you aren't testing it with quad BNP and perfect loops, hard tunneling, et cetera. Lower skill/casual DBD doesn't resemble optimized DBD at all and it's easily possible for either side to win regardless of the tools available if they aren't taking advantage of them. Though I agree that someone should have realized they were overcorrecting too hard on feedback from last year and that too many pushes in one direction just moves the pendulum (and I'm a little afraid of the upcoming 2v8 for the same reason.)
Of course, we don't know what insane things never make it to PTBs due to in-house playtesting, so for all we know, we've been saved from terrible fates countless times alerady.
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I don't think these events are too much in one side's favor or the other. I think there's beginner's traps involved, where people have no clue what their abilities look like, or how to navigate the portal world. But I've never really said, "Oh my god! This event is so incredibly survivor sided!" I made the mistake of skipping the first event that featured survivors blocking windows, because I thought "That's just stupid." But all you have to do is play these events a little bit, and get used to them. They're not these horrible experiences people make them out to be. I'll get tired of them, sure, and want to move back to standard as soon as the BP bonus makes it lucrative enough. Or if the queues are just too much, I'll switch to a different game until they're back to normal. This is really basic stuff though; I don't get the outrage that's currently happening.
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The event is not that killer sided imo, the grenades are fun (and very useful for me), void portals are still insanely strong to make chases longer, the void itself have some good loops... I really don't mind the two Tap thing because It happens like, once in a while
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why does no one play test this stuff before they go live?
Game devs see the game as they want it to be played. This is in general across many/most games and game developers. It's like that in areas outside of game development as well, people see a thing as it's meant to be perceived and may have trouble seeing it outside of that perspective.
Even if BHVR released these modes to be playtested among a small subset of other players, it probably still wouldn't be the same as what occurs when the mode is released into the wild. BHVR would do well to make a list of the worst of the worst-case scenarios and assume every one of them can and will happen, but they have more faith in their playerbase than the playerbase deserves. Or perhaps the developers at BHVR aren't adept at imagining worst-case scenarios. After all, somehow they didn't realize survivors would stack as many Endurance hits as possible in that one PTB.
If SBMM and the queue could discern playstyles, it could put like-minded players together for a more harmonious experience. Instead, casual and competitive players are put together for discordant matches full of friction.
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That's probably accurate to their work environment. So many clearly bad ideas getting into the game, more towards the survivor end than the killer, let's be honest. And it's reinforced by the community as well. There's a lot of theoretical stuff we talk about, and then soon, it's no longer theoretical because you see it. Skull Merchant, who didn't receive a proper rework but did receive a nerf of unprecedented proportions, doesn't see any play right now. It's almost like anybody could've seen that coming. Same thing with nerfing every single gen defence perk, as well as camping. Now killers are tunneling and slugging more, the community's concluded. We were way ahead of them on that, we called it, and it should have been common sense, but it isn't for some reason. It happens with killers too. Everyone could see that buffing Victor so much like they did in that failed Twins rework would be obviously overpowered, but they shipped it anyway. And I almost never say a killer thing is overpowered.
So are they gonna keep letting groupthink ruin their decision-making, or are they finally gonna learn? It's not about pleasing the players; it's about making sound design decisions.
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The events when survivors could block windows killers could break pallets with that same event power. pretty much like Knight's carnifex. In the first one of those, which you skipped, killers even got to expose the survivor on Bloodlust 1 at level 2 event power. Chases ended as soon as the pallet was dropped as survs didn't get any distance from killers having to break the pallet. It was that horrible. Once again your ignorance and bias is showing.
Last year's Halloween event was busted in favor of survivor with a much stronger void for them and MFT still unnerfed.
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This has been my experience as well, it seems like it’s not worth the time to go into the void as killer as gens just go too quick.
The smoke bombs are annoying and I h will say as survivor the void is pretty strong for extending chases or disappearing.2 -
you haven’t been playing in my games then. All day yesterday I had killers go get the haunt and then when in chase they waited until they were right on my back and released their haunt then did an M1 and basically insta down you. That may not have been the case in the beginning because people didn’t know to do that. But now that word is getting out, I’m getting killers doing it every match.
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I don't have any problem with the ghost
But the fact that, the power of the killer is active in the void, AND the killer got an icon to say "this survivor is in the void" are maybe the problem
And again, for the ghost, it is not a big issue, if you had the smoke bomb from survivor who are pretty nice, and it balance a little with the ghost1 -
And what's wrong with killers are not powerless in the void?
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Why the killer gain the indetectable effect, have power and can have an information of who is in the void, since the survivor are exhausted, broken (if they are injuried) in the void?
I can understand the broken effect, survivor can go in the void just for a safe healing, but why the exhausted effect since the killer can use his own power?2 -
because last year you could basically use the void to:
- force Oni out of power or make him waste it;
- render Legion completely useless because you can make them never be able to get 5th hit or simply make them lose their power by making everyone get into the void until their power runs out
- turn Huntress into an 4.4 M1 killer
- turn Nurse into an M1 killer slower than survivors
- all in all, turn every killer into a powerless M1 killer with different base movement speeds
Even with the buff for killers inside the void, it is still much more beneficial for survivors if killer enters the void, tho since event queue is separated from normal queue, i think nobody should care, just go and have fun with event objectives
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I feel like the problem is that it's just the regular DBD but with side quests. Side quests that are very hard to engage in if anyone is focused on ending the match as quick as possible. If gens pop to fast, or a Killer just constantly interrupts your attempt to engage with the event it ends up feeling like you may as well just play the normal mode.
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Literally - before I knew that killer players could insta-down a survivor with ghosts - I thought the event was pretty balanced.
So if it wasn't for the insta-down - great event for both sides. Dear developers - just take off insta-down possibility from the killers in the next year!
Or maybe now in the hot-fix - why not…
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Look, I don't see a reason for survivors to be exhausted in void as well, but this is not the reason for killers to not have powers there. Last year simply proved it was wrong, when against many killers (NarkoTri1er already mentioned them) you can simply ignore their powers by going there.
Survivors as always prefer to ignore that void in this year also got several strong loops and god pallets, but even with this, who said void should be safe space or something? It's already literally another small map killer should pressure and work with, so I except survivors are exhausted I see nothing wrong with how it's working this year.
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I already explained in my main post why “just go play normal mode” is not an acceptable retort to people who look forward to playing a once a year event.
But some of yall love to only read what you want and ignore everything else. Have a good one.
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No it’s not balanced. One smoke bomb doesn’t do that especially if you’re dealing with a killer with good audio. I’ve rarely gotten any value from that. The killers benefits far outweigh the survivors. I made a post already going down the list of everything killers got this event vs survivor.
I also acknowledged that last years event was horrible survivor sided and killers didn’t have fun. Instead of balancing it back for both they simply buffed killers and nerfed survivors to where it’s now unbalanced for survivors. Thats not how it should be.
Anyway I’m not gonna engage in a debate where you feel like one smoke bomb means it balanced and people should just not play the event if they don’t like it, when it’s a once a year event and people SHOULD criticize unbalanced events to make them better. Like I said have a good one.
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And now
Get power and can abuse it in the void
Having a ghost who can two tap a survivor to get him down instantly
Having a indicator of who are in the void
Yeah, why playing a role where the event just give more power to one, and give just a big smoke bomb where the two team are blinded in the same times and stopping some perk to work in this?5 -
In this case, I see no problem, okey, killer have her power back in the void, but don't give exhausted to the other side
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Being exhausted in the void is not all bad. I've been able to use the portals to quickly travese the map and keep my Sprint Burst at the same time.
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and now:
- having much stronger tiles in the void to make same killers waste their powers again in the void while vacuuming pressure inside it;
- losing significant amount of map pressure for the sake of getting haunt is not really a good thing to do;
- even with indicator in the void, survivor inside still has the advantage.
And i simply don't care about it because i locked in to play separate queue meant to be for having fun with event objectives
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Majority of the killers don't have the time to spend precious seconds getting a haunt in the void that goes in a straight line, can't go over pallets or over windows
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don't worry, I for one am glad you don't work there either, the balancing there makes 0 sense. "Survivors can maybe lose chase in a smoke bomb while killers can insta down with no repercussions" Sounds balanced to me :D
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what is the most important aspect of killer's gameplay, chase or map pressure, quick?
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The biggest issue with DBD events are the DBD playerbase tbh.
It's crazy to me that people will go to an entirely separate game mode specifically designed to get challenges done and not interfere with regular lobbies and still slug you for 4 minutes and W+S over your body until they feel like using their Mori.
Even with the broken Ghost ability killers get, it would be fine if people didn't play like jerks. (And I already know the defenders of jerk behavior will come into the comments with the "people can play how they want since they paid for the game" crap but it doesn't make the behavior any more justified
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problem are both sides, not just one. I play killer, survivors barely focus event objectives even when i give them signs to go for it.
I play surv, my teammates suddenly play the way they should be playing regular soloQ (but they don't) and focus gens while barely even kicking the pumpkins and using void exclusively to siphon killer's map pressure.
I think main problem with events is that game still revolves around gens and hooks as main objectives. We need some new kind of main objectives that are exclusive to events and can actually make event queues much more enjoyable
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I agree with that.
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