Uncomfortable truths of DBD

This is very true. Some people think tunneling is just the end all solution to an easy 4K. It’s not

For the most part this is an accurate assessment of the state of the game. Honest people who play both sides will agree with a lot of this. I respect this kind of objective opinion far more than those from people who come here and claim that killers are OP and need to be nerfed because they can easily 4K/12hook every match no camping/no tunneling ever, without ever offering any evidence that they actually play killer at all.

I honestly look out for this gif in the forums as It always makes me laugh 👀

Literally.

Get good enough & learn to understand when you can afford to at least drag the match out and don't sweat excessively.

The worst thing you can do is going for overkill performance every match. So boring for everyone involved.

Trueeee!

Camping and tunneling are kind of forced at this point. You can play the game normally, and lose every time. Or you can use these strategies, like a normal person in any other online game would, and maybe win.

I don't know why it isn't obvious to everyone, but SWF are the most privileged role of all. They literally never get nerfed. It's always stuff that affects solos and killers. All this solo buffing does is make SWF stronger, because the buffs you're giving these solos... They're not even supposed to be winning. The reason they're not winning is because they're bad, uncarryable even. No amount of buffs is going to make uncarryable teammates carryable, and neither is killer nerfs that are blatantly anti-fun and cater to the most casual level survivors possible/super biased survivor mains. "Killer shouldn't even be able to see aura" and crap like that.

It does feel like killers are seen as the strongest they can be, and survivors as their weakest. "But what if the killer has a really strong start and plays well?" Then he should win. "But what if the survivors play really bad and give up?" Then they should lose.

The 40% escape rate, if it wasn't obvious, is because survivors play bad. They throw the game, and throw the killer free kills constantly, in almost every match. And like I've said before, even if the kill rate is 60%, most likely a majority of games the killer is drawing. The survivors complaining about dying all the time, and always blaming the killer instead of themselves or their teammates, need to play killer. Watch in amazement as you do like 3-5 normal chases, nothing crazy but nothing bad either, and see that the game's already over. That's what happens when your survivor opponents aren't nothing.

I think it's misworded to say that killers have responsibility for the game pace. They definitely bear the punishment of the game pace. It's really controlled by survivors, because they can, at any time, just decide to focus on gens, and they're done. I've seen it, from unbeatable SWF teams to my half-cocked solo teams. I get on the gen with 1 other person and think out loud, "Oh look. We could have done this at any time, and closed out the game." instead of looping badly, healing constantly, and taking forever to do anything.

Updates most certainly are reactionary, and it's terrible. The one proactive change they ever did was give Huntress 7 hatchets. People lost their minds. But don't you see? People are saying even now that she's fallen out of favor in recent years. She's just too slow, and no amount of hatchet cap raising is gonna make her Nurse/Blight level: viable. Them giving her those extra hatchets, when they did, means that she's not as trash now as she would have been considered. But all the other reactive changes, you could go on and on about how nonsensical they were. Freddy nerf, Wraith nerf Pinhead nerf, Pig nerf, Twins nerf, Pop nerf, Pain Res nerf, Eruption nerf, Clown add-ons nerf, Nemesis zombies nerf, Knight nerf, base BT, base anti-camp, self-blocking gens, hook timer increase. They're all in response to complaints about strong killer stuff. BUT are those complaints well-founded? Are they affecting players who know what they're doing, and actually play both roles? I think not!

I came in expecting to disagree with a lot but these are actually spot on.

"The Game Balances Killers at Their Peak and Survivors at Their Weakest"

This one right here, especially. SO irritating. There is a complete double standard in DBD. They balance around a survivor that's solo queue and has no idea what they're doing, but when it comes to killer is it balanced around a killer that also has no idea what they're doing? Nope, it's balanced assuming it's a top tier killer playing at the peak of their game.

It feels like when killers have an issue they're just expected to "get good" and min max some microscopic counter play that only sometimes works and requires very high skill. Survivor issues? Nah you don't gotta get better, we'll just lower it to where counter play isn't even necessary so everyone can handle it while changing none of their game play and adapting to nothing.

I just want equal treatment for both sides. If we're balancing around the average survivor we also need to balance around the average killer and that's just never been the case.

I have some grievances with most of the things said here, but I want to focus on the one I think is the most off the mark because I think it's the kind of thing that should be talked about more on the forums.

I want to look at point 5: "Killers bear the responsibility for Game Pacing".

So, there's a couple things to say, and I'll acknowledge something upfront- you do neglect to factor in the other things survivors have to juggle, they don't actually just get to focus on their one objective, but those things are reactive to the killer setting the pace. In general that point isn't wrong, it is the killer's job to set the pace and force reactions- that's what "pressure" is for the killer, after all.

However, you list some things that are really, really, really not the killer's objective. I'd kind of hesitate to call any of these "the objective" because I think that muddies the water too much, but I'm not really nitpicking about word choice here, I want to talk about the last two: "preventing unhooks" and "patrolling generators".

You should not be patrolling generators. That is a damn good way to lose. Your actual objective is to kill the survivors- they're the part that matters, not the generators. If all you're doing is harassing the survivors away from their objective, you aren't progressing your objective, and you can't be everywhere at once- the survivors are going to win that because you can't stall them out completely. The thing you should be doing is forcing survivors to do something other than generator repair, which is why chasing and hooking actually are your minute-to-minute objectives… and why I think "preventing unhooks" shouldn't be on your list.

Sometimes, that is a valid thing to do, I'm not saying never do it… but if you're sticking around the hook to prevent unhooks, you're leaving two survivors unoccupied, which means they're gonna do gens. You're giving up map pressure, by not capitalising on the opportunity a hook gets you. Be more active, go chase someone immediately after a hook, you'll get a ton more pressure that way.

The only time you should ever be patrolling generators is if you don't know where a survivor is, and that is a situation you should be trying very, very, very hard to avoid because it's bad for you. Patrolling generators is an absolute last resort for when you have no other ideas for where a survivor might be. Similarly, preventing unhooks should only be done when the survivors are giving you pressure by doing it- AKA, when there's two or three of them trying to crowd the hook, or doing that weird awkward dance where they stand just far enough away that you can't hit them and refuse to commit. If you do either of those things by default, gens are going to fly and you are probably going to lose.

This is also why point 1 isn't true, by the way. If you're playing your objective efficiently, you don't need to rely on cheese strats like that to win. Not that they'll never be appropriate, but that they shouldn't be your first resort because that's shooting yourself in the foot.

Which Freddy nerf? The one immediately after his release or the one he got in 2021?

"I find this comment rather comedic since I just read a whole lot of comments from you on another thread where you were telling survivors to "get good" to avoid slugging because it's not an issue while insinuating that you play survivor yet here you are calling for equal treatment for killer. "

Literally none of this contradicts a single thing I said in the other thread. This is misinterpreting what I said and confirmation bias.

"However, yes this game is balanced around well-coordinated swf teams but is miserable for solo queue. Its like most people forget that solo queue exist. But that is also why you will find more solo q players at low MMR than higher MMR brackets. And as a previous post states, if you have to camp and tunnel to get a win instead of getting better at the game, you will suffer later when you get into higher MMR and play against those well coordinated SWFs. "

It is not balanced around well coordinated swf teams, it's balanced around solos. Idk how anyone could forget solo queue exists when that's literally what it's balanced around. You "generally speaking" do not need to tunnel and camp, however, against actually equally very good swf teams, yes, you do. If you beat those teams without doing that, you're either using a top tier killer or the survivors made many mistakes, which does happen often. Against those teams it's balanced around assuming you will tunnel or camp. If you're not doing either against those teams you're relying on their mistakes as to whether you win or lose for most the killer roster. IE if both sides play perfectly and you don't tunnel or camp, you lose as killer, generally speaking.

what are you fr taking "148%" in this sentence as an adjective used to describe huntress' speed and not the word "justified"?

seriously?

really?

ah yes, and "just 88%", watch how dumb huntress was on that PTB with "just 88%". Good riddance they reverted that #########.

I definitely agree that updates feel reactionary, and that swfs have a rather unfair advantage over solo queue. There's really no stopping those things.

Camping and tunneling aren't necessary to win though. If someone needs to camp and/or tunnel to gain control of the match, they need to just take their loss instead of resorting to things that will make the game pointless for other players. A lot of people will say it's necessary to do those things to win against highly talented survivors, but if that's true, then it shouldn't be possible for some people who 'win' more than 'lose' beyond what's expected from matchmaking algorithms.

And although streamers can't be taken as representative of the player base as a whole, they do represent some fraction of the spectrum of players, and everyone gets to see them perform at whatever level they can manage. And there's one streamer I watch who regularly dominates nearly every match I've ever seen them play as killer without resorting to tunneling or camping, which suggests that it is definitely possible to do that. It might not be possible to do with all killers, and there might be a fraction of survivor players who can dominate every match they play, but it appears there aren't a large enough number of these super dominant survivor players to prevent some killer players from winning at an extremely high rate. From my own experience in game, I've also never reached a level where I thought the survivors were so good that I couldn't get a 3k in at least some of my games if I just kept improving.

And even if the game mechanics do make it necessary to tunnel/camp to 'win', that's not a reason to do those things. Someone else's gaming experience shouldn't be ruined by hard tunneling just because one player might not win otherwise. If games really can't be won without those things, and nobody does them, BHVR will have to rebalance some of the game to ensure survivor and killer roles remain competitive at all levels. And that's really the answer to all these complaints.

How do you know the OP is a "biased killer"? You are ASSUMING THINGS and I know how much you hate it when other people do that

2021. We may have had this conversation before, you and I, but I'd be surprised if you of all people bought into that whole business, that outcry of, "Nerf Freddy because he's S tier! He's Nurse level!" As an M1 killer, with a tablespoon of slowdown via add-ons. "Forever Freddy." Please. That build included Ruin, which is a hex that could be destroyed. Used Pop as well, a perk dependent on the killer getting multiple downs fast, and kicking gens before they're done. Don't know what other perks were used, but they were most definitely negligible. A team who let Freddy beat them using that was likely to lose to him anyway, and that's the philosophy I often use when defending killer stuff. But I know you think Freddy is stronger than popular belief. Even you would agree that his S tier placement (at the time), the way the nerf was done, and especially his nerfed Dream Pallet count, was uncalled for, right?

Most of the killer cast. Basically anyone but top 3, S tier.

We're attributing it to game balance because it is the game's balance that's at fault. I have confidence that most of the experienced survivor players, as many biased survivor mains as there are, would agree with us. I'll say it but hopefully others have thought of it: Of the complaints that we killer mains had 4 years ago, or 2000-3000 hours of playtime ago, a lot probably had lack of experience/skill as factor. I'm no longer an ill-tempered recruit, but a seasoned veteran on both roles, at least by the average player's standards (some still don't know doing gens is how you win). And yet, I'm still having the same issues. We all are. The gens are too fast, good loopers waste too much time/are near impossible to catch, and killer keeps getting nerfed while SWF never gets touched. I'll dedicate some of my losses to my platform and my compatibility with it. A joystick just isn't the same as a mouse, and neither are the sensitivity settings compared to PC, so I'll genuinely miss an attack, maybe even 2, in a match. But I practically trained my chase/game sense alone for the last year or 2 where I continually said, "Gen defense isn't worth it against good survivors. Use chase/endgame instead!" I got better at chase, at camping, at tunneling, at slugging, at dropping chase when necessary, at letting a gen go when necessary, at settling for a draw rather than a loss, and at knowing when to take the big risk to get a 4k. I stay away from Nurse/Blight/Spirit because I just don't want to rely on them always. I've become good with many complex/weaker killers like Wraith, Clown, Demogorgon, Deathslinger, Unknown, Alien, and I've 4k'd with them many times, through hard work and force of will.

The survivors on the other hand have never felt more mediocre, and they're seeing better results. I feel it as survivor. We're losing a match, and all of a sudden me and 1 other hop on a gen, and now all the gens are done, when before they were going at a snail's pace. "Wow, so we could have just done that at any point!" I sarcastically say every time. The average survivor player really isn't that good compared to the average killer. They prioritize heals over everything, won't do stuff until healed, hide when they have no hooks and their teammates are on death hook, do chests and dull totems, don't know how to run no-mindgame tiles like shack and jungle gyms, waste pallets after getting hit. I see them more and more all the time, no matter how much I escape and push my MMR up. It's as if 90% of ladder is MMR hell, because it's so simple to escape as survivor that so many do it, not knowing some of the most basic game knowledge on how to beat decent killers. They give up constantly too, something I almost never see killers do. And eventually they do die, and me with them... because of them.

It comes down to MMR. That's the X factor that runs this whole machine. When MMR first launched, it was perfect. You knew exactly what you were going to get in 95% of your matches: teammates and/or opponents who were of your level. But the devs have screwed it up hard. What it does now, as an end result of counting just escapes and kills as a measurement of your caliber, is it puts you and 1 other good teammate with 2 potatoes, up against a decent killer. If the killer realizes they're the weak link and tunnel them out, you're done. The killer doesn't even have to play well at that point, because you've been playing a 2v1 essentially. If the killer chases you instead, most likely y'all escape, as long as teammates know "Do gens = win." And yet, if you're good with killer, you get non-stop tough matches. They don't have to play well. Just as long as they do gens, you'll have a major uphill battle. Against a good SWF, it's basically impossible to win. They have too much control, too many tools and not enough pressure on them. But we don't see this imbalance with the naked eye. MMR hides it, and I believe that's what it's designed to do. It orchestrates the 60/40 kill/escape rate. It forces mismatches on ladder (90% MMR hell), and gives good killers constant tough, gen-efficient opponents at high MMR, to manufacture that 60% kill rate. And people look at that state, recite it, and that's it. No in-depth discussion of any kind. Just "That's what the stats say." The stats are garbage, and don't tell you the story of a match, and we've always known this. A killer getting 2 kills could have got 2 hooks, and was getting destroyed the whole match, or he could have got 10 hooks, put in a ton of work and got a draw by default because gen speed.

We've had our differences, you and I, but I think you can agree with at least some of what I've said. I simply combine the facts with my experience and others' experience, to conclude that killer is bad off (due to balance), solo is bad off (due to matchmaking, not balance), and SWF remains the untouched power role. You may have had different experience and interpret the information differently, but that's the point. The feedback loop of bad balance and MMR skewing results is what has deceived and confused us all.

The zombies just love to suck.

This explains some of our different viewpoints! You and I have interacted some, but I always discourage tunneling, camping, etc., and you always say it's needed.

Now I see why :)

I agree; some killers have powers that aren't a good fit for top MMR play. But I've always had the perspective that if you want to face the most talented survivors you possibly can, you have to pick a viable killer. So for example, if I'm playing Pig, I'm fine with the fact that some teams are going to bring a commodius with add-ons, split up on gens and make my life hard. If I lose to them, no problem. And that likely keeps my MMR lower for certain killers. But if I'm playing Nurse, I usually consider losses to be a skill issue from my side.

I think it's a near-impossible task to balance all killers in a way that makes them viable for top-tier play, but I just accept that and make sure I give my survivors a good match for whichever killer I'm bringing. Honestly, with that approach, I usually still get 3k or 4k more than ties or losses, but on some killers, my MMR is probably lower than on others. And that can bring some rubberbanding issues, but then I just get to sharpen my skills more :)

dbd balances killer based off what survivor like and dislike to play against. Killers that survivor dislike to play against are nerfed ruthlessly and preemptive perks that survivor might not like to play against are released under-powered and ineffective. Survivor perks that are disliked are also nerfed immediately and often face same issues as killer perks.

In term of swf, they're essentially not account for as if they don't exist. As a result, killer power are often under-powered in fear of them being too oppressive for poor play. In some cases, killer power are also shamed, ridiculed and labelled.

as you can tell, this is not objective balance. it is developer favored balance(the dev who pick winners and losers on each killer) and the survivors community that picks winner and losers.

Encourage fair play without over-penalizing strategies like tunneling or slugging, which are often necessary responses to coordinated survivor efficiency. Design changes should reflect what’s feasible and fun for all players while maintaining the core asymmetrical challenge that makes DBD unique

Read your second sentence to understand why tunneling or slugging or camping are being penalized. design changes that penalize tunneling, camping and slugging are directly affecting the fun for all survivor players. there is no assumption that it is unfun for killer player to be penalized. by directly punishing killer in these strategies, they are removing the extremes for killer which survivor deem as imbalanced.

They hated @Vishlumbra because they told the truth.

The most uncomfortable truth? BHVR isn't that overly worried about balance. The game is designed to have a wide degree of variety, the option to sweat, and random chance.

Camping and Tunneling Are Necessary for Killers to Win

The uncomfortable truth here is that everyone has a different definition of what camping, tunneling (and slugging) are and when they are fair. Lots of disparate disagreements and suggestions get lumped together making discussion difficult and strawman easy.

Balance Favors SWF Teams Over Solo Players

Conceptually, I don't think anyone disagrees with the idea that a SWF can and generally are stronger, but it depends on the SWF. Are we talking 4 person comp team (exceedingly rare), a group of friends, or someone playing with their spouse who touches the game every couple of months?

Balancing is often based on killers performing at their maximum potential and survivors playing solo or with minimal coordination.

I don't think that's true at all. We've got balance changes for killers based on them being more difficult to play on console for example. If we were just balancing killers off their maximum potential, Nurse, Hillbilly, and Blight would get massive nerfs.

Meanwhile, killers have no equivalent teamwork mechanic, leaving them at a significant disadvantage in SWF-heavy matches.

I'm going to say this is wrong and a huge misunderstanding that comes up in any type of asymmetric activity. Being on your own makes things easier. Having to deal with team work, even if we just artificially limit this to SWFs, are having to add a whole new thing that they can mess up (communication) that the 'one' doesn't have to deal with.

This isn't just DbD. It comes up in other asymmetric style games were players who like to play the side with less players think they have the harder role because they have more opponents, when in fact they have the simpler side.

The 40% Escape Rate doesn’t mean a 60% Killer Win Rate

The uncomfortable truth here though is that the kill rate is a better long term reflection of what the game is actually balancing around.

Unlike survivors, who can focus on a single objective (generators), killers must simultaneously manage multiple objectives: chasing, hooking, preventing rescues, and patrolling gens. This disparity makes playing killer far more stressful and demanding.

So this is one of those things I've come to realize the community is just going to always disagree on. When I first started this game and being involved in the community I couldn't believe people found playing killer stressful, while it can feel like I'm having a heart attack playing survivor. At first I thought people played killer because they didn't like the intensity of survivor.

I find the idea that survivors have a single objective particularly striking in light of your examples. Likewise killers only objective is to kill. All of your examples are things the survivors have to worry about as well. Do I focus on the gen or go for the rescue? Is it worth it to heal? Where should I take the killer on the chase?

Both sides have a single objective (well, survivors also have the gates), and a number of other things that they may or may not do during the game to increase their chance of completing their objective.

For me, win or lose, killer is chill. The meta-gameplay seems pretty obvious. As survivor, you have to do the same thing, while either also communicating (SWF) or, more commonly, having uncertain information about what is going on (soloq).

Many updates are driven by community outcry rather than long-term strategy. Some changes address vocal complaints but lead to new issues or unbalanced mechanics.

The uncomfortable truth here is two fold:

1: Balance is only one of BHVR's decision makers on game design.

2: They want the game to constantly be changing, for metas to come and go. There isn't some long-term perfect goal for DbD. To say they lack long-term strategy makes the mistake of thinking there is an end goal for DbD.