Uncomfortable truths of DBD
Camping and Tunneling Are Necessary for Killers to Win
High-level survivors complete generators so efficiently that killers often resort to camping or tunneling to regain control of the game. While criticized as "unfun" tactics, these strategies are sometimes the only way killers can compete against well-coordinated teams.
Balance Favors SWF Teams Over Solo Players
Solo queue survivors frequently struggle compared to coordinated SWFs, who can share information, strategize, and counter killer tactics effectively. Meanwhile, killers have no equivalent teamwork mechanic, leaving them at a significant disadvantage in SWF-heavy matches.
The Game Balances Killers at Their Peak and Survivors at Their Weakest
Balancing is often based on killers performing at their maximum potential and survivors playing solo or with minimal coordination. This makes killers seem disproportionately strong in theory but doesn’t account for real-world factors like survivor coordination in SWF (Survive With Friends) groups, which greatly tips the balance against killers in practice.
The 40% Escape Rate doesn’t mean a 60% Killer Win Rate
Behavior Interactive has stated that survivors escape 40% of the time, but this doesn’t translate to killers winning 60% of matches. For killers, a "win" typically means defeating at least 3 survivors out of 4, which is more challenging than the flat percentage suggests. This discrepancy often leads to misinterpretations about the balance between roles.
Killers bear the responsibility for Game Pacing
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.
Updates feel reactionary
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.
To the developers:
Balance should strive to reflect the realities of the game, not merely the desires of those who want an easier survival experience. Making the game easier for survivors risks removing the core challenges and sense of accomplishment that make Dead by Daylight rewarding. A game without tension, stakes, or the potential for failure loses its heart.
Survivors often feel powerless because they are dependent on three teammates whose skill levels or willingness to engage may vary wildly. This isn’t a flaw of killer strength—it’s a natural consequence of teamwork mechanics. On the other side, not all killers are equally powerful or capable of handling high-level survivor play, which further complicates balancing efforts.
Instead of balancing based on extremes—killers at their peak performance or survivors at their lowest—consider practical solutions that acknowledge these nuances. 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.
The goal should be a fair, engaging experience for killers and survivors alike, where skill matters, but the game remains unpredictable and thrilling.
Comments
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My only opinion about this stuff is simply just learn to read the room of the match your in. You aren't playing against high level swfs every other match and survivors understanding the bare min of the macro of their role doesn't count as "high level" imo. Do you honestly need to 3 stage 1k timmy who clearly doesn't even know the layout of the map he's on to win? Im not saying that you never need to tunnel/heavily slug to win in some of your matches. It's 100% the only winning play sometimes, but if have to 3 stage someone every match to feel like you have a chance you need to look inward instead of blaming game balance if you're playing match make games. Just try to remember the human on the other side that's all im asking fellas.
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Here are some uncomfortable counter points and other thoughts:
You aren't high/Max MMR, you're just in over your head.
Camping and tunneling aren't necessary for the average player in any sense. These are base kit "strategies" that are easy for the killer to execute and difficult for survivors to counter effectively. This leads to killers over using these tools for easier wins until the killer eventually boosts their MMR higher than their actual skill level. Typically this is followed by complaining on the forums because the game is "too hard".
If you use camping, tunneling, and slugging as situational tools instead, you'll not only be better at the game, but also be at your actual skill level for easier games. The game is trying to force a 60% kill rate, so you can choose to use camping and tunneling in every situation, sweat every game, and kill about 60%, or you can use game sense, have chill games at your actual skill level, and still kill about 60%.
The killer team has perfect coordination.
Solo survivors have very few built in tools and no effective communication. SWF isn't guaranteed to have communication either. But a team of one person is always on the same page as themselves. There isn't one person doing totems while 3 are trying to escape, for example. Killers in 2v8 have the same problem, where not being on the same page can be detrimental.
A 50% killer win rate does not mean survivors are winning the other half.
Using a 3k or 4k as a killer win, killers are currently winning about 51% of games. Survivors are only winning with a 0k or 1k about 37% of the time. Draws are about 12%, which is the conveniently forgotten statistic.
Whether you look at wins: 51% (which is only partial data since BHVR doesn't post this information) or kill rates: 60% (official data), all of these stats indicate the game is currently balanced in favor of killers.
The killer determines the pace of the game.
This i somewhat agree with. Although, many people need to hear that survivor gameplay is almost entirely in reaction to the killer. If the killer is AFK, survivors game play is "do gens and leave", and everything else is a reaction to what the killer does.
If the killer decides to focus on one survivor, by camping or tunneling, then there are 3 other survivors with nothing to do other than gens.
Update feel reactionary.
Completely agree. Some people on the forums actually feel entitled to change solely based on their feedback and have been angry they haven't been catered to fast enough.
To the Devs:
Mostly agree that there should be a coherent game direction. The devs need to generally have an idea of how they want a game to play out. Things like the current "gen speed increase on hook" are highly confusing because of the obvious implications: people will try to avoid hooks. Is that the gameplay you want?
What, generally speaking, do the devs want a "typical game of DbD" to look like? Because it feels like it's just a sandbox for players to do whatever. But balance changes absolutely affect the gameplay.
Hard disagree, though, that they're balancing for "best killers" vs "low level survivors". Quite the opposite. They're absolutely balancing for SWF, and since they keep making base kit buffs to make killer easier, the trend is more "average killer" should be able to contend with "very coordinated teams". Given that we had "chess merchant" as an extreme example, you had an average killer who nearly beat the best competitive survivor team, I think my assessment is more accurate here.
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The killer team has perfect coordination.…Unless you play Knight, that is. The Jailer loves to let me down.
All jokes aside, I mostly agree with what you've said here.
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Lol that's fair. Zombies too I suppose.
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Very well said, and to add about camping and tunneling being necessary:
It can be, but the opportunity needs present itself. If a killer see's their against a good team and immediately switches to "Im going to tunnel this 1 guy out", you are giving that one person all the resources that are meant to be split between 4 people, and are letting 3 people complete gens uncontested. Its not as black and white as some people make it out to be.
Post edited by Shroompy on11 -
This is very true. Some people think tunneling is just the end all solution to an easy 4K. It’s not
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Hahaha, I can imagine that is the case.
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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.
Post edited by I_Cant_Loop on5 -
Note the word: Sometimes.
I play survivor 60% of the time, I don’t think I ever had a game where slugging was the main strategy. Ever.
People here complain like if it were happening every match, all the time, and well, if your whole team gets slugged at 5 gens, it’s a skill issue or reluctance of the team to play.4 -
I like to say that camping, tunneling, and slugging are situational. I generally don't like any of them if I'm playing survivor and try to avoid them as killer, but there's a time and a place.
I've done all of them myself too, but sparingly and it's usually very rare that I feel it's justified. Almost always late or end game, never out the gate, for example.
I generally feel like people who say "tunneling is necessary" are overusing it and probably go into a match with that as the plan. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I feel like it's a measure of game sense and player skill to know when those strategies are actually needed, and not just resort to using them all the time.
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Many of these issues for newer people can be solved with BETTER TUTORIALS… I don't think BHVR know how to make anything BETTER though.. They just sort of listen to the community and see what sticks. When the community is secretly making the game for itself, we have a problem…
Tutorials need to be made to show new Survivors what objectives are most important at what time, WHEN is a good time to unhook, do a gen, etc. We need Killer tutorials that try to help newer Killers understand what they're focus should be as soon as a match starts, or WHEN to stop chasing the same person. The game has none of this.. Without good tutorials for your players, you're automatically telling them that you expect them to like the game enough to look all this information up themselves, which is NOT going to happen most of the time..
If the game never explains how it should actually be played then why would anyone continue to play it if they're lost? Instead of marketing this game as "A DEADLY GAME OF HIDE AND SEEK" and have your new players sitting and hiding the entire match…. you should really be helping them understand the steps of each match and how to get through trials as best they can. The tutorials we have atm are extremely lackluster for how complex the game really is. It seems simple of course but it really isn't. DBD isn't only in a more niche genre for a bigger audience to enjoy, but the play style required to succeed is even more unusual than most games.DBD has never been one of those games you can just pick up and have fun due to the huge learning curve on each side that refuses to be acknowledged. This is why when a large amount of new people come into the game, most of them are gone within that same few weeks or month that they joined. New people tend to see the game as shallow and simple, when it's actually quite the contrary. At almost 10 years later, I really don't understand why we can't get better tutorials for new people to add some sense to the madness.. Just letting everything be a Free For All gives the message that you as a new person are on your own..
And just so everybody knows this, there is a reason the devs DON'T have a specific outline on how a match should be played out. MCote has said they've embraced the chaos of DBD. Let all 4 Survivors pick the same character with the same outfit to confuse the Killer player even more… Let all 4 Survivors run the 4 strongest perks and be in a SWF at the same time. Let the Killer just stomp 1 Survivor only into the ground. As long as the other 4 are having fun who cares right? No limitations whatsoever. The reason for this is it just gives them an excuse to not have to try so hard to keep the game balanced. When the chaos is being embraced it will only lead to downfall. No structure. The higher your structure is going to be, the deeper the foundation must be as well.
DBD was a beautiful mistake. They even admitted it when it starting gaining traction back in the day. BHVR isn't some asymm game making genius or anything. They simply got lucky with this genre and any/all licensing companies ever agreeing to using their prolific horror icons.The answers are literally right in front of BHVR… Finding a spot to fit this into their unreasonably tight and probably questionable "priority list" is another thing..
Post edited by biggybiggybiggens on3 -
Many updates are driven by community outcry
Exactly this. Huntress got her buffs because she has an abysmally low kill rate (55% to this day) and people lost their marbles about it.
They didn’t make her overpowered even remotely and people made posts calling for it to be reverted when they never played against it or played as her with them.
The Devs even said it was reverted due to “feedback” which was honestly just survivors crying that they had to try a little bit more against Huntress.
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I feel like I use this gif a lot but theres just been too many fire posts recently 🔥🔥
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I honestly look out for this gif in the forums as It always makes me laugh 👀
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Same!
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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.
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bruh, they reverted hatchet holding speed which was 146% justified and deserved because it was beyond stupid that she could walk this fast while holding m2.
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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!
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There's no time! You start the match easy, get 2 chases in, and lose 4 gens. You start the match easy, get 2 chases in, and lose no gens. It's literally impossible for you to tell what kind of match it's gonna be, because you're not told ahead of time what the gen speed will be like. The survivors don't even have to play well in chase. They just do their objective and win. But then you have players who don't know what their objective is. I would rather kill them all quickly, using whatever method, so we can both move on from the clearly not worthwhile mismatch. We want to beat good players, not noob stomp. And it's not a lack of trying or improvement on those harder matches. The gens just go too quick; There's nothing to improve upon, because you can't control it.
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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.
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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.
Interesting.
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.
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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.
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She was NOT moving 146% lmao. She was moving at 88%. Slower than Billy, Slower than Bubba, Slower than Slinger, Slower than Trickster and still the slowest movement speed in the game besides fatigues and Meyers stalk speed.
The speed was not problematic at all and no one can, gas or will ever have a good reason it was because simply put it wasn’t.4 -
Which Freddy nerf? The one immediately after his release or the one he got in 2021?
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"Truth" by Biased Killer. Its kind amazing how poeple talk about truth and ignore 80% of its logic.
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"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.
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This. Well, kind of.
I feel like the mindset of "tunneling being necessary at a high-level of play" often translates to "tunneling is the only way of playing" for a lot of people. Instead of using other strategies, spreading hooks, or focusing on improvement, players often focus on playing a specific way because the community tells them that it is optimal and nothing else matters in the long run.
For me specifically. When I was a new player I would tunnel, camp, and slug in all of my games, and I won a lot of them, but I also did not grow as a player either. I got my head stuck in the mindset of "I got to get players out" then I never took a moment to analyze ways I messed up and ways I could improve. By the time MMR got added, I eventually came to realization that I sucked and worked on personal growth.
Part of me just feels like along the way we kind of just forgot that actually learning the game should be the forefront of everything first before winning, and new players should be encouraged to experiment, try new things, and take the game at their own pace.
In fact, you can look at some of my old, old Forum posts see this progression happen as time went on.
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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 #########.
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High-level survivors complete generators so efficiently that killers often resort to camping or tunneling to regain control of the game. While criticized as "unfun" tactics, these strategies are sometimes the only way killers can compete against well-coordinated teams.
Which killers, though?
Because this seems to be a sentiment shared by a handful of killer players who seem to consistently complain about how hard the game is, and immediately attributing it to game balance.
As opposed to, perhaps, their own competence.
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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.
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Sorry but that was a failure on your part for picking a completely random number that is also close to killer movement speeds.
And of course like I said you have absolutely no argument and nothing to stand on when it comes to it being bad for her to move at that speed. I don’t need to see a video. I played her on the PTB for the whole week she had the buffs. I played against her a lot too. She wasn’t overpowered, not even remotely. 10 hatchets was bad and leaving the shiny pin add on in was bad and that was it.
Thinking an 88% Huntress is Overpowered is a skill issue plain and simple.
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I love that "confirmation bias" is your go to phrase when you do not seem to understand the points that you are trying to make may not be the points you are actually making. It's not confirmation bias when multiple people take what you say the same way. That may be a communication issue on your end not ours.
This game is absolutely balanced around SWF not solo q, the devs have actually confirmed this. They cannot balance around solo q because of the loose MMR brackets and you do not know what type of survivors you will be teamed up with leaving too much of a wildcard.
While I do not disagree that updates are reactionary, you also have to take into account that they are not going to look into things unless they hear it from the community. That is how anything works, things brought to light get attention. Things left in the dark get ignored.
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Camping and tunneling aren't forced in any kind of way. It's always a choice whether to do it or not.
If you 'lose every game' because you can't win without camping or tunneling, your MMR will drop and you'll start winning matches without doing those things. Then you'll land in an equilibrium MMR state where you win sometimes and lose sometimes.
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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
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Many killers aren't in over their heads. They're facing people of the same caliber, skill and experience, as themselves. But they're losing and drawing by default. The bar for survivors is so low to win with, you have to play like 5x better than them to beat them, and at a certain point they're just too "good" to be beat, because the killer lacks tools to push to that level. And this obsession with "proving" that using strategy is skilless, or puts you above your level as killer, I'll never understand. The game doesn't provide killers enough time to go for random chases and still get the win; the gens go way too fast for that. So killers improvise, and go for tunneling and 2-hooking. In order to get to those positions, the killer has to be good at chase, so your argument on them simply not being good enough in chase doesn't work. Because if that was the case, why don't people at top MMR or tourney just go for random chases, since they're somehow good enough, and still get a 4k? It never happens, because it isn't realistic. They're still getting draws at best most times. No amount of skill or game sense enables you to bypass loops or counterplay which usually work for survivor, and that waste a guaranteed, arbitrary amount of time. You're just hoping that the survivors lack game knowledge or skill, aka accidental smurfing.
I don't even know where you're going with the killer team coordination thing. There's 1 killer, 1 mind. If you go to a gen and find there's no survivor there, you've just wasted time. There's no other voice in your head that tells you, "Don't go there, because there's nobody there." You're all alone and have to operate on instinct alone. You can, of course, use aura perks but they won't cover everything. And if you're spending slots on aura, you're giving up slots on chase, which you need all you can get. And that's not even factoring in reading survivor caliber. You're supposed to just know that a chase will cost you 3 gens after looping someone for 3 pallets, when you reasonably thought you'd have them down by then? No. There's no indication that you're taking a bad chase, or that the gens are too fast, until it's too late.
You even agree on the killer vs solo vs SWF issue. Survivors playing bad? Here's a buff, we'll bail you out. Killers playing well? They're getting too much reward, nerf them! SWF with a 95% win rate? Never nerf them, because solos exist.
The stats thing is kind of pointless to talk about, because people don't understand it, and don't factor in... other factors. The escape rate is way lower than it really should be, because survivors throw all the time, way more than killers. Most times, that's because a good survivor gets put with absolutely hopeless teammates, who couldn't even beat a killer of their own level, and the game decided to give them a super competent killer. That's forced mismatches from MMR skewing the data. It's why the data is so unreliable right now, and you can't even have a discussion on imbalance with most people because of it.
Killer doesn't determine the pace of the game. Survivors do. Instead of doing a dull totem, a chest, or healing when unnecessary, they can do a gen during that time instead, and suddenly the game is a lot closer. 1 gen left til done instead of 2-3. It's that simple. The killer can only be in 1 place at a time, and thus cannot stop the gens until at least 1 person is dead. Only then is he somewhat capable of dictating the match result, but then again the match is usually over by that point.
Agreed on the reactionary updates. I'll add that they're usually survivor-protecting reactions.
I don't think the devs are balancing for SWF. They're buffing killer. But are those killer buffs making killers, who lost constantly to SWF before, all of a sudden start beating them? No, of course not. They only marginally help against solo teams. There's such a power difference between solos + killers and SWF, that you'd have to almost make the game unplayable for solos for killers to have fair matches against SWF. Now, that's an assumption using this same pattern and the same way of thinking that the devs/anti-killer survivors have been using for years. I'd instead suggest to simply nerf SWF, to a point where there'll be no more "But what about solos?!" It's a stone wall discussion, currently, until they're nerfed.
Aaaanndd you lost me, because you're citing that absolute sham of a Skull Merchant match. Given the same information, we've drawn dramatically different conclusions from that match, similar to how we disagree on other points. It's no small rumor that the comp scene, while definitely competitive, is likely less sweaty than your average top MMR match. Survivor stuff is banned, certain maps are banned, and so is some killer stuff. Top MMR matches operate without those restrictions. But you see the same thing, of killers always just camping/tunneling 1 out til dead, and maybe settling for a draw after, even as Nurse/Blight, because the survivors do the gens too fast. Looking at matches like that on ladder, I find it impossible that "the best team in the world" was held by Skull Merchant alone for that length of time. Here's what I noticed. They're facing an M1 killer (inherently weak) whose obvious best strategy would be to 3-gen using drones, as any other way would be a death sentence. They know this (or maybe they don't, because:) and yet they, rather than doing what every half-competent survivor team knows to do by default on Azarov's (although this is a different, albeit easier map) which is to 99' a far gen until they've broken the 3-gen, decided to play directly into 3-genning themselves. Against Skull Merchant. 🤦♀️ That alone disqualified them from their bogus title/reputation. And then they proceeded to, with 4 survivors still alive, not break the 3-gen, and in fact have people hooked and even downed, with no significant gen progress in exchange. At around the 16-minute and 23-minute marks, per Hens' timer on his video, I had my suspicions confirmed. Barely any rushing, let alone touching, of the gens. Dropped every pallet on the 3-gen side, and no gen progress in exchange. People just running back to gens, or standing around with a flashlight, instead of being on them. They just keep standing around, like ye old rank 20s. And they still beat her, after making every conceivable misplay and inefficiency possible (until they decided to turn their brains on)! So if anything, it shows survivors are advantaged, not killer.
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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?
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Which killers, though?
Because this seems to be a sentiment shared by a handful of killer players who seem to consistently complain about how hard the game is, and immediately attributing it to game balance.
As opposed to, perhaps, their own competence.
If the game's difficulty were purely about individual competence, why do lower-tier killers consistently underperform at high MMR? Shouldn't they all be equally viable if it's just about skill? Also… comp.
The balance issue arises because survivors have access to tools and teamwork that scale exceptionally well when used efficiently, while killers often rely on strategies like tunneling or camping to stabilize games. These strategies aren’t about incompetence; they’re about compensating for the pressure that 4 survivors can generate when objectives are completed in 80 seconds with optimal play.
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.
It’s important to recognize that what a skilled streamer can achieve isn’t necessarily representative of what the average or even above-average killer player can consistently accomplish. Streamers often play with thousands of hours of experience, near-perfect map knowledge, and optimized strategies. Additionally, they may benefit from survivor behavior that isn’t always optimal due to the casual nature of many public matches.
Moreover, not all killers are created equal. The streamer you mentioned may dominate with specific killers or under certain conditions, but weaker killers require significantly more effort to achieve the same level of pressure. The same applies to map design—killers without mobility can struggle on large maps, even in skilled hands. The difficulty disparity between killers is an acknowledged design choice, but it does mean that balance issues affect different killers unequally.
It’s also worth saying that survivor skill scales differently. A single skilled survivor can loop a killer for an extended period, but a coordinated team with voice communication exponentially increases the pressure on a killer. This creates scenarios where tunneling or camping becomes less about lack of skill and more about adapting to overwhelming survivor efficiency in the absence of coordinated teammates on the killer's side.
If a small fraction of survivor players dominate matches, as you suggest, shouldn’t we also consider that a small fraction of killer players can dominate without tunneling or camping? Wouldn’t it be fair to focus balance on what’s feasible for the majority of players rather than a few highly skilled individuals?
Personal thoughts:
Statistics from platforms like NightLight demonstrate that survivor escape rates generally range from 40% to 52%, depending on factors like skill, perk usage, and teamwork. These stats often combine all survivors into one category, as survivors fundamentally share the same tools and objectives. However, for killers, this kind of amalgamation is impossible due to their vastly different power levels and mechanics. Balancing killers is much more nuanced, as some killers (like Nurse and Blight) have extremely high skill ceilings and dominance at top levels, while others (like Trapper, Clown, and Myers) are considered borderline unviable due to their outdated mechanics, reliance on RNG, or inability to apply consistent pressure.
Many killers urgently need reworks or buffs to make them competitive. Trapper, for instance, is heavily dependent on map RNG and preparation time, which modern survivor tools and perks nullify with ease. Killers like Clown or Myers lack the mobility or utility necessary to keep up with high-pressure survivor playstyles, making them extremely challenging to play effectively even at average skill levels. This discrepancy highlights a fundamental issue: while survivors function as a relatively uniform group, killers face a balance spectrum so wide that some are effectively excluded from competitive play.
Balancing Dead by Daylight must address the unique struggles of both survivors and killers. Survivors' universal tools and shared mechanics make balancing their stats straightforward, but killer balance requires addressing the glaring disparities between strong and weak killers. Ignoring this reality risks alienating a significant portion of the player base who enjoy playing less viable killers but feel left behind due to outdated design.
If balance continues to cater to survivor preferences—such as nerfing strategies like camping or tunneling without compensating weaker killers—it risks reducing the game to an unchallenging experience that undermines the satisfaction of victory. The developers should focus on making all killers viable, balancing the game for achievable fairness rather than appeasing demands for ease, ensuring every match retains its tension, challenge, and sense of accomplishment.
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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.
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The zombies just love to suck.
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I do not care about the other points but whenever I see that SWF excuse am going to always comment on anything swf. Seriously stop the scape goating, swfs are suffering as much as solo q , can you yall stop thinking coms=free wins. Do you ever think that possibly too all 4 persons in a swf =are new people who just got the game? Reality check both swf and solo q is doing the same role=survivor. SWFS groups are broken up and people move on to other games because swfs too are tired of every good survivor perk and mechanics gutted.
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Totally agree. People who say tunneling is necessary are above all things, lazy.
I mean that the fallacy that it is necessary is used like a mantra by people who can't be bothered to actually assess each match as it is developing, or lack that analytical skills to do so. And of course, also a simple justification for taking the easiest route to a win every time without any other consideration.
And when one always employs the laziest method to do anything, doing it any other way feels like a ton of work, so they just revert to the easy way.
As for me, I simply don't care enough about "winning" to just indiscriminately crap all over other players. I'd much rather misread a team and get a 2 or 3K than absolutely curbstomp some poor potatoes because I sold myself on the lie that every team is so good I needed to play that way.
Even at "high level" (which almost no one who thinks they are at actually is), hard tunneling is only necessary in a fraction of matches. And it does without saying that "necessary" is a relative thing, assuming your family is being held hostage and will be executed if you don't 4K, which is how some people play.
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One of the saddest things is there were times where several killers were in a pretty decent spot, and were on their way to viability. They just needed 1 or 2 more buffs. Take pre-nerf Wraith, the best example I can give. I don't need to go too much into it, but he's got a boatload of counterplay, from baiting pallet drops, to rapid vaulting windows, to holding W to the next loop when he slows himself down or tries to body block. And yet, he used to feel pretty good. That speed boost/long lunge was awesome, and was basically anti-loop, even though it technically wasn't. But, and I know you won't like this example, if Tru3 (competitive DBD streamer) could face Oracle (some top team or something) for 5 rounds as Wraith (his best killer at the time), using different add-ons/perks each time, and struggled to get even 1 down vs a coordinated team (because of body blocks and pre-dropping), what does that say about the killer's strength? He doesn't have enough. He needed better base cloaked speed, faster uncloak speed (or less slowdown when uncloaking), something. But instead, the devs nerfed him. They nerfed him! 🤣 And there's several killers who were in his position, and still got nerfed, some that same patch. Deathslinger, Twins, Nemesis, Pinhead. And for what? Because survivors lost to them, after allowing themselves to be hit by their powers over and over, and get downed over and over, in exchange for no added gen pressure? The types of killer nerfs we've seen completely destroy these killers at high level, and make them more bullyable by SWF. But clueless solos will still lose to them, and so further down the road, they're just gonna get nerfed again! It's really ridiculous. I've never seen devs have a game so close to something beautiful, and then just disfigure it to cater to casuals. In a competitive online game! They just view it as competitive when it's in the survivors' favor.
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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 :)
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Most uncomfortable truth about DbD?
DbD is a videogame. In 20 years (a far shorter time than you think), not a single worthwhile soul in your life is going to remember or care about what you knew or thought you knew about it, or what you tried to do to influence it. They're only going to remember the kind of person you were when you were too busy playing it & complaining about it on forums.
Making sure that person is a person you're proud of is more important than anything else.
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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.
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I repeat confirmation bias because it’s what you keep doing by misinterpreting what im saying. I’m simply pointing out what’s happening as I don’t want my words misconstrued into something I haven't said. Majority is not an accurate measure of accuracy either. We can go into statistics on average reading comprehension levels in the world to back my reasoning for this if you want to but it essentially dismisses a “majority interpretation” argument for really most things in life in general. Idk why you’re so aggressive towards me in all our communication. We can have normal conversations on here about things we disagree on without being so passive aggressive and condescending. I’m trying to keep things civil and I haven’t been rude to you even though you’ve made countless jabs at me.
Also the devs have not confirmed they balance around swf, that is a false statement.
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They hated @Vishlumbra because they told the truth.
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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?
Absolutely.
As someone who mained him throughout the entire "Forever Freddy" era, I don't think he had the same level of strength Nurse and old Spirit had. And the nerf to the Dream Pallets, when they were never good to begin with, was pretty terrible.
However, I don't think he was healthy for the game either. For a variety of reasons that have already been discussed extensively here in the Forums, and especially due to the impact it had for people who played him before the rework. I wanted Freddy to change, yes, but I don't like the way he was changed.
I am not happy with current Freddy. Not at all.
Don't know what other perks were used, but they were most definitely negligible
Dying Light and Thanatophobia, if the Freddy player was going for max slowdown.
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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 WinThe 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 PlayersConceptually, 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 RateThe 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.
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I think this is well said. It makes me want to change my display name to 'tarjay631'.
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