Visit the Kill Switch Master List for more information on these and other current known issues: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/299-kill-switch-master-list
We encourage you to be as honest as possible in letting us know how you feel about the game. The information and answers provided are anonymous, not shared with any third-party, and will not be used for purposes other than survey analysis.
Access the survey HERE!
Is DBD currently survivor sided?
Because New killer houndmaster is weak and Shoulder the burden is strong ( Survivor's perk )
Michael myers, dracula and chucky still got nerfed in new update.
All of the gen regression perks get nerf into the ground.
Current Gennerator is so fast.
Comments
-
Not at all.
If you're properly equipped/prepared on either side, you should expect to win most of your matches, IMO.
So if it's any sided, it's "whoever brings the best gear and is trying to win the hardest".
16 -
Nope, the game is killer sided right up to the top level where it switches over.
I don't care what stats say as we all know just looking at raw numbers rarely tells the full story with DBD. Also the majority of the player base are casual, unskilled survivors who would die to a no perk Freddy every time.
The game used to sway very much towards being totally survivor sided in the old days but a lot of the BS killers had to endure (infinites, old DH, old DS, excessively large pallet filled maps) have been removed over the years.
Good survivors in a SWF with comms will always be a problem at any level though
11 -
I don't think DBD is currently heavily weighted in either direction. Both sides have some egregious stuff they can bring, but that stuff is lesser in number and potency than it used to be, and both sides have roughly the same amount.
I also don't think current generators are all that fast, if you aren't facing toolboxes. The current state of the game allows for the killer to affect gen speeds quite a bit, it's pretty healthy in that regard.
7 -
Balance favors whoever is trying harder (assuming similarly skilled players). And if the loadouts and effort are equal, it still really depends on which killer we're talking about. The sweatiest Freddy in the world will struggle to get 4 stages at the highest level. And a top Blight will win 90% of their games.
9 -
Nope. It hasn't been survivor sided in a very, VERY long time.
15 -
Is DBD in the past are survivor sided?
I mean DBD in 2016.
1 -
Yep.
That doesn't mean it was impossible to win as killer, of course, but generally speaking survivors had the advantage. But that isn't the case anymore, most of the strong maps, perks and add-ons survivor had are no longer around.
Some of them had to be changed, others didn't. But most of them were changed years ago.
I would say the balance shifted from survivor sided, to a somewhat balanced state, then towards killers.
12 -
This is true, and really the only thing that needs tweaking on that front is toolbox repair speed. Then gens should be nicely balanced, perfectly even. Items shouldn't be stronger than perks.
0 -
Balance favors whoever is trying harder (assuming similarly skilled players). And if the loadouts and effort are equal, it still really depends on which killer we're talking about.
I definitely think there is something to this argument, but when ever the discussion comes up about both sides playing at their absolute peak, I don't understand why we throw all the killers in there. Players get to choose their killer. If we're going to presume both sides optimizing to the peak, then we should presume the killer is also taking the optimal killer choice.
5 -
People that play the game in the first ~50-100h - > killer sided.
Regular public lobby - > rather balanced.
"high mmr" - sweat lords and comp people - > survivor sided.
4 -
I'd say. When was the last time I had to sweat this hard only to get losses and draws over and over? Never. I'm genuinely not impressed with the looping I'm seeing. They either go down really quick the moment I get a favorable chase, or they're at a literal no-mindgame spot that forces Bloodlust/Entity Blocker. In any event, the gens are going really fast. You're never gonna be able to stop them, especially with people abusing the arbitrary time waste loops, where the killer has to break the pallet to get them anyway. So it's not that the game is suddenly survivor sided because of the killer nerfs and MMR change. The MMR change (which tbf, I asked for it) is really showing how unfair the game is for killer. I've had improved teammates as survivor, so that even when we lose, I knew my teammates were actually trying to the very end. But the survivors I gave as killer are just brutal now. They either don't go down, or they do but not quick enough to fuel Pop/Pain Res/Surge to slow the gens. A perkless killer would be screwed in this game state. It is SO bad. Probably the worst I've seen, and it begs the question of if we need something drastic for killer or not. 120% movement speed? Base STBFL? Faster Bloodlust? All I know is killers don't have enough tools to get survivors down reasonably fast. It's not even close, so I'm gonna take a break from the game.
Come on, man.
3 -
Freddy will struggle to get 1 hook at the highest level. And Blight only wins that much because he constantly gets hits he shouldn't, because of PC sensitivity. Without that, he may as well be Freddy.
0 -
Come on, man.
What is it?
I believe DBD hasn't been survivor sided in a very long time. And current DBD definitely isn't.
15 -
It really is a bit strange. In other games people have no issue whatsoever accepting the simple reality that there are tiers to the playable characters, and that in high-stakes/high-level competition, most players will gravitate toward a select few characters. Hell, in DbD most people are seemingly perfectly fine with the fact that only a relatively tiny amount of perks are good enough at a high level, much to my dismay because they have no issue eating up the bad "non-perks" BHVR releases 90% of the time. Yet when it comes to killers, people can't seem to get over the fact that not every killer can win every time against the best players, but that as long as there is at least 1 killer that can compete with them, killer is "viable" at that level because you can always play that killer, nothing is preventing anyone from doing so.
What's more, people completely neglect that survivors also have tiers. And I'm not talking about the different characters of course (although there are also clear advantages that some have, such as harder-to-spot cosmetics, lower volume on their cries of pain, breathing or interaction grunts, more surreptitious footstep noises), but about the fact that "survivor" is not simply survivor, far from: first, we have a distinction between solo, duo, trio and quad premade groups, and there is of course a world of difference in strength between all of them; then we can have 0, 2, 3 or all 4 survivors on voice comms; they can all be strangers or they can have been playing together as a unit for years; every survivor can be on the best loadout, including items, add-ons and offerings, or none can be; all survivor loadouts can be fine-tuned in coordination and harmony with one another, or they can be completely disconcerted and even conflicting; all survivors can have the same goal of getting as many survivors out the gate as possible as effectively and efficiently as possible (i. e. to "win" as a team), or they can have completely different, conflicting, even anti-team/win-oriented goals.
To actually get the best possible survivor constellation, you need: 4 highly-skilled and experienced survivors that also have a lot of experience and practice together as a team, coming together as a premade group and all being on voice comms (as well as having a lot of experience and practice in their voice comms, having highly routined and disciplined call-outs and call-out systems), using the best loadouts and coordinating and harmonizing every single slot choice between them as well as their usage thereof in-trial, having pre-conceived strategies, tactics and natural coordination based on past experience together, all playing to "win" to the best of their abilities and all agreeing upon what "winning" means, and that it can very much include giving up their own life to increase the survival chances of the others. Hell, you could even go further and talk about stuff like everyone needing to have experience against and being highly-skilled at facing every killer.
If you look at it that way (that is, look at reality), the idea of what constitutes a high-level "pick" for survivors is tremendously more restrictive than that of their killer counterpart. To represent a high-level killer side, be good and experienced at the game and pick one of the killers that are proven to be able to consistently win even against the best teams survivors can muster, pick the best perks/add-ons/offering, decide to play to the best of your abilities toward whatever goal constitutes a "win", and there you are. You don't have to have other good and experienced players, a team and team cohesion, coordination and communication. You don't have to be on the same page with a bunch of other players about what a "win" is or whether you want to play to achieve it or what the best build or strategy is or anything else. You don't have to have multiple players that all have experience against every killer, and you can even play 1 killer only and never need to learn about the other killers, and you will also pretty much always have more experience playing as your killer than the survivors will have playing against them.
This is also reflected in the reality of the tournament environment that people often invoke for balance arguments. The teams are composed of 4 players that practice together frequently and regularly have played with and known each other for many years, always on voice comms with routined call-outs and call-out systems, pre-conceived strategies even specific to the killer and killer player they are facing (which they know beforehand), builds optimized and coordinated to the last slot, all obviously playing to win as hard as possible and being completely fine with dying on hook if it means increasing the likeliness that more of the others can escape. And yet despite this being such a restricting prerequisite that it would be more comparable to an S++++++ tier killer pick, killers still win more than they lose against these teams in these tournaments. Even in tournaments without restrictions. The strongest killers if piloted by top players still being expected to win pretty much every single time.
I've been trying to make a showcase happen where we get together various tournament players, mix them into PUGs and have them play without voice comms against tournament killers. They also won't know what perks the others are running, and so on. Even considering obscuring who they are so they can't know each other's play patterns and styles and such (the upper-echelon comp community is pretty tight-knit). All to simulate the average solo queue experience that is the overwhelmingly common proposition in the actual game and much more relevant for its live balance. Everybody involved expects that the upper half of killers will absolutely dominate, because we know they already win more often than not even against coordinated teams on comms. Hope this comes about in the nearer future.
5 -
if all variables are equal (skill, best perks, everybody trying hard etc) without maps coming into play, the game is survivor sided and has been for a long time. (3k hour surv main starting to play killer more often. 7-800 hours)
the real decider of most public games is maps and map rng.The game is balanced around bad survivors since that is the majority of the player base. Casuals don’t care to get good and that’s fine. But teams that do care get to use the same perks and do so more effectively.
that doesn’t mean that killers can’t win the majority of their public games, because they can, and pretty easily because the average surv is just bad. You rarely face the top 1% of people in the game and it’s definitely not consistent due to mmr.
Top 1% of survs vs top 1% of killers on an actual balanced map, survs will generally win those games except for s and some a tier killers.Tl;Dr yes game is surv sided but average surv is too bad to actually showcase that and maps decide much more than people think at the beginning of a match.
1 -
1
-
At the highest level of play, the game is survivor sided. At the lowest level, the game is killer sided. At average levels, its somewhere between, usually dependent on killer, map, what stuff people bring, teammates etc.
2 -
Agree. As killer if I go up against a good coordinated survivor team, I will struggle to get 1-2 kills. If survivors are average to poor, 3-4K wins come pretty easily. When I play survivor, even in solo queue it's usually competitive if my teammates are competent with good situational awareness and can last in chase without getting downed immediately. I also regularly get matched with brand new players and horrible teammates due to non-functional SBMM. Nobody escapes in those matches.
0 -
Hah.
No9 -
Game is killer sided at every level except highest when specifically using non-S tiers. And since those S tiers still exist at the highest level I'd argue the game is overall killer sided.
7 -
“When was the last time I had to sweat this hard only to get losses and draws over and over?”
Because you probably crutched on the gen kick meta and overestimated how good u are.
5 -
So survivor sided that we can have 300+ kill-streaks on even 'bad' killers.
The reality is that the game is killer-sided until 'high mmr' where its more of a mixed bag due to various means of cheesing a skill gap.
Please stop spreading misinformation.
11 -
Yea its not even high MMR though either.
Load up any streamer of your choice that plays more than several people in here combined and when they play they lose a majority of their matches on survivor.
It really is only coordinated SWF that you see consistent talking points for "survivor sided"
Most SWFs are just friends dorking around with one another as well. So its such a small portion of the player base that even is coordinated in a group.
People over exaggerate their matches to try to justify why they lose, just the reality of things for whatever reason. Been proven time and time again when we get to see what actually happens in real gameplay.7 -
If Dead by Daylight had a replay function like Overwatch does, people would be able to put their replay codes up for guidance on what they did wrong. Maybe then we'd see less over exaggerating of people's matches.
0 -
High MMR also shows that nurse only has a a below 50% kill rate and that freddy is a better killer than her. So i'm not talking about whatever BHVR says is "high mmr". I'm saying, that when played at the highest level the game is very survivor sided. This is very apparent given that comp tends to ban a ton of stuff for survivor, and have different rule and scoring systems based around hooks and chases rather than just binary "escape/kills"
Plus i can point to you the exact same kind of streaks and challenges on survivor side. Remember otz doing the one where they had to like, escape with every survivor and perk?
0 -
You cant point to the "exact same kind of streaks and challenges on survivors side" when that number is not in the several hundreds or even thousands of win streaks(Supaalf).
Go ahead and point us to the win streaks [comparisons] emphasis on sample size and "s" though and it will become apparent there is one side clear out in narnia with several hundred for kill streaks and the other is barely reaching 20 escapes4 -
Have you never watched otz? He goes on challenge streaks all the time with his friends. Usually they are absurdly hard so they don't get into the 300+ games, but they certainly complete them. Also, whataboutisms aren't useful.
0 -
I never understand why people try to use the "killer potential win streak is higher" perspective when its apples to oranges. Even the best coordinated groups will always be less coordinated than a single killer. Even the best teams are not sharing consciousness like the borg. Killers have a lot for one person to keep track of vs having 4 people to share important data, but they are only limited by their memory and strategy in that case, while 4 people need to both coordinate and play perfectly to reach the same level of consistency potential. One player having an off game or a connection issue or anything is all it would take for the other 3 to lose the streak alongside them.
I get the "big number scary" intention behind said comparisons, but its always important to weigh potential vs actual strength. Very few killers will get anywhere near the records for multiple killers, especially the ones with high skill potential/requirements.
0 -
Apparently you dont pay attention when you watch him.
Hes never got to several hundred wins in a row on a survivor. I think he probably has reached in the 15-20region in terms of survivor.
This isnt a whataboutism this is reality.
Your comparison is just laughably misplaced, with the difference in magnitude between the two in the order of several decimal places.6 -
Right, because again, he goes on crazy difficult challenges. My point is that even handicapping themselves they still manage to go on big 30-40+ win streaks. There are survivor teams that have gotten hundreds of wins in the past by playing the best stuff, it exists on both sides.
0 -
No it doesnt there is a single team(eternal) or 2(elysium) that have managed to get about 100 and they play comp dbd
Otz and his friends havent got to 30-40 .
Please stop making things up.
Your comparison is still terrible and they arent even in the same realm of people who make killer streaks, and coordinated SWFS making streaks.
So not only do comp[ SWFS not get several hundred win streaks, the amount of teams even out there that are capable of even barely over 100 are limited to less than the number of half the fingers on one of your hands.
Killer several hundred win streaks there are several dozen.6 -
In addition to this: didn't Otz have a video that his survival rate over a lot of games was basically 40%? I haven't seen it, but I know it gets referenced in a Hens video that tends to come up a lot.
Edit to add: Also, the only really survivor streak I'm familiar with Otz trying is hardcore survivor and they start fresh accounts for that, so they get lots of matches at brand new MMR.3 -
I would love to see some of these streaks. Only one I've seen recently has been OhTofu (playing with Xeno, Zubat, and Alby, all players with I0,000 hours each I believe though I can't say I'm familiar with all of them) and the most they got was 20. They did do it twice though, losing to a Blight and a Dredge, and all within the past 2 weeks. Unfortunately, doesn't look like they have picked it up again since the newest chapter but I hope to see it continue.
Funnily enough, OhTofu also got to 50 wins with Oni on his first try at the same time. Weird coincidence though, I'm sure.0 -
I see, so when we balance the game, we balance around the average survivor player, but the best killer players? Makes sense.
0 -
You have yet to explain to me why comp bans so many survivor perks and imposes so many restrictions on survivors, while only banning a handful of things on the killer side (like moris)
0 -
Yup his soloQ test over like ~300 games he got to about 39.X% escape rate.
Theres a chart out there for it let me see if I can find it
Found it:https:/bit.ly/soloqdata
Not sure where all the discussion is around it, lotta videos and too many channels, but he made videos about it a year ago. Talks about how even trying his hardest it usually ended up in a loss.1 -
These 4 streamers, all with 10,000 hours in the game and some with comp experience even, are the average survivor players but also one of them happens to be the best killer players?
Can you elaborate on that? Possibly also include some more specifics on the Otz/other survivor win streaks you were referencing?0 -
You are missing my point.
At the HIGHEST levels of play, the game is survivor sided, at the LOWEST level of the play, the game is killer sided. At the average level, it is relatively balanced but swings heavily from 1 side to the other based on RNG, the map, what perks people bring, the killer played etc.
When killers do these "crazy win streaks" they are playing in matchmade games, against the AVERAGE PLAYER, so a top 0.01% killer is playing against the "average" survivor player. Which is more about the skill differential in the players, not the actual killer role.
Yeah, sometimes RNG factors into play and survivors are 4 players, so there are 4x as many opportunities for one of them to make a game ending mistake for the team. Which is why survivors typically are going to go on smaller streaks, more opportunities for mistakes. But the reality is that the "Average player" is generally pretty bad at this game, which is clear from the data.
When you look at comp matches, they impose a ton of rules to more balance the game and remove unfair elements. On the survivor side, a ton of perks are banned, you can't have duplicate perks, a bunch of item addons are banned, you can't bring the same items, etc. On the killer side, they basically just ban a handful of perks, things like mori, and myers tomestone. They also often create separate scoring systems, and its usually less about kills vs escapes, and more about team vs team (I.E. Team a has a killer player and a survivor team, and they go against Team B, and its about how many escape against Team A vs Team B not, oh well the killer wins because they got X Kills). This often results in things like Team A gets 1 kill because they hard tunneled the guy who didn't have DS, and Team B gets 2 kills because they did the same, and also got a good NOED spawn, so Team B ends up winning. Its an entirely different system.
And the data that BHVR releases clearly shows this. Unless you are going to look at the data and honestly tell me that nurse is one of the worst killers in the game, and needs to get on a much high level like killers like freddy and pig. And that is looking at the "high mmr" stat that BHVR releases.
When i talk about "high level play" i'm not talking about whatever the hell BHVR thinks "high MMR" is. Because obviously their idea of "High MMR" is not looking at the best of the best players, otherwise it would clearly show nurse being the best killer in the game.
The main point is. If you took the best survivor team in the world, and put them against the best in the world for each killer and had them each play 10 matches. Most killers would struggle to break the 50% kill rate, with the exception of maybe nurse and blight. With many killers probably never winning any games, and probably only getting a number of kills you can count with 1 hand.
0 -
Cool stuff. Weird comment to give to me though, as I never once mentioned balance.
I was talking about the win streaks you referenced which now sound like they…don't exist?0 -
You are being so disingenuous at this point. I literally said they exist, Team eternal has done major win streaks before. I'm pointing out that the argument of win streaks itself is just a bad argument anyway. I would like you to make some counterpoint to what i just said though and stop strawmanning. Otherwise if you are going to be disingenuous i'll just disengage because no point in having a discussion with someone who wants to argue in bad faith.
You even proved my own point, by arguing that the people going on those win streaks are survivors with comp experience and 10k+ hours. Which is literally what my point is, but ok.
Also, this entire thread is literally about "balance" its asking the question, is this game survivor sided. By definition that is a question about balance.
0 -
My interest is in win streaks and the general game, not explicitly balance because I think its a very nuanced topic.
I wouldn't have even commented on this thread if you didn't bring up win streaks but when you did, I was intrigued. So, I brought up the recent ones I've been seeing to relate and provide what I'm seeing to see how it relates to your streaks you've been seeing (which you still haven't specifically referenced, by the way).
So, I guess I just don't know how this is straw manning to ask for the examples you explicitly referenced but I apologize if it comes off that way.
And what is your point then? I don't want to misconstrue it but if the point is that a team of 4 survivors with 10,000 hours each on comms playing explicitly to get 3 escapes no matter what only managed 20 in a row proves some sort of imbalance towards survivors, I'm just not sure I follow.2 -
Its not they are just changing topic since their original point held no weight and was a bad comparison and trying to distance themselves from it.
Its talking points that they hope people know 0 specifics about and just accept, but unfortunately I do :D. (its not like this stuff is not on the internet)
Best to just move on as there really is no point and they know it.3 -
only one way to find out! go into solo q and see
1 -
Because you are comparing win streaks in matchmaking, which is a different thing. Please take a look at the comp discord. There are tons of rules and bans for specific killers. Like you can't bring a ton of stuff against clown for example, or must play on certain maps. Then look at the killer perk ban list, and its so much smaller compared to the survivor one. There are reasons for that.
When killers go on big win streaks, you'll see they often will play matches and say "oh my streak is paused right now because i'm playing more chill" and they "unpause" the streak at various times. Streaks are meaningless. Please look at what i said.
At the HIGHEST LEVELS OF PLAY this game is survivor sided. At the LOWEST LEVELS OF PLAY the game is killer sided. Nothing you have said attempts to refute that, you just keep bringing up win streaks in matchmade games which have nothing to do with what i'm talking about.
0 -
Let me put it this way.
I'm saying:
Hey, at the highest level of play, this game is a survivor sided.
And then you are saying:
Yeah, but when you look at these crazy win streaks which are these highest level players playing in "average" level matches, this thing happens.
It doesn't make sense.
0 -
The game is not survivor sided at any level anymore, killer players just cling to that myth because their ego won't let them accept they're playing the easier role.
Post edited by doobiedo on5 -
Such is the way of a party game trying to be played as a hardcore pvp game. I enjoy your posts usually as it sums up most of the problems with this game. Never change and enjoy your break, as Im on one too :)
0 -
At the highest skill level the game is survivor sided, except against similarly skilled folks playing meaner killers (Nurse, Spirit, Blight, etc). The type of person to care a lot about the balance in the game is generally the highly skilled competitive type, so… that's why the shorthand answer is usually 'the game is survivor sided'.
It's not such a simple question, though. And outside of those circumstances it's quite a toss up, depending on what killer we're talking about, the skill levels, the maps, whether players have comms, and to a large degree what strategies are 'on the table' for each side (genrushing, tunneling, or more specific killer tricks like basement trapper).
Unfortunately, I think the more apt question is which side has more 'un-fun' moments or strategies that are miserable to the other side.
Y'know. Things like getting slugged for 4 minutes because the killer wants a 4k/mori. Downing someone in an area of the map where you literally can not carry them to a hook in time (cough badham's basement cough). Going up against a full SWF who are all running exponential, flip flop, break out, and boil over. Playing against a ghost face utilizing knockout whose intent from the start is to win via bleedout. Trying to finish a game against the last two survivors who are both hiding and playing for hatch. Playing against Chess Merchant. Having a Legion Moment. Getting put into a match where your entire team intends to throw from the start for tome challenges. Getting flamed in the postgame chat by 3-4 people who were in a bully squad.
Honestly I'd say soloqueue puts up with the bulk of that. Easy as it is to write it off as nothing but a temper tantrum, It's why there's such a 'gg going next' mentality. Killers get their fair share, but their equivalents are either less miserable or at least have a chance for counterplay or flashy turn-arounds.
I care less about balance and more about this.
0 -
It’s weird that you literally type “you are saying” and then be the one to accuse me of straw-manning.
To set the record straight, I’m not saying that. I’ve said nothing, and continue to say nothing, on the balance of Dead by Daylight because, as I previously said, it’s a nuanced topic. And honestly, when it comes up, I generally find people irrational and tribal.
What actually happened was you brought up win streaks in public queues while arguing some other point. You specifically mentioned Otz and/or his general group go on crazy “30-40+ win streaks” and others going on hundreds long win streaks previously.
I haven’t seen that. So I brought up what I’ve been seeing (which specifically seems to contradict what you claim to have been seeing) in hopes we could discuss why we have such different experiences.
That's all I cared about. Now that it's fairly clear that is no longer the point you want to make (as win streaks in public queues don't matter, which absolutely could be true), I'll drop it. I just hope you can get over your Us vs Them mindset to actually comprehend where this discussion broke down.2