Survivor is no longer fun

They were longer in 2021 because that's when MMR got put in. The game was actually about accurate matchmaking, even though you'd be waiting for a minute or two before joining a lobby, instead of random forced mismatches. I remember all the survivors actually praising the inaccurate MMR systems the devs were testing that one time, saying "Ohhhh mahn! Dis is da best MMR system evah!" because it was giving them good teammates, and putting them against literal day 1 killers you'd see in DBD YouTube content.

Now, you did have survivor queues at the top top level, especially with sweaty SWFs, who were waiting for many minutes before getting a match, but I feel that in solving the queue times for that section of the playerbase, 1) the devs ended up creating mismatches because they'd just put a less experienced killer in their lobby, and the killer would obviously get destroyed 90% of the time, and 2) the devs didn't understand the reason why killers weren't up at that MMR in the first place. The very few killers who were up there were the top of the top, and I imagine even they got sick of sweating like their lives depended on it, just to win or even draw their matches, every match.

It's my belief that they eventually got fed up with the abuse, and most of them left the game. After that, those super strong survivors were forced to take on the next "highest" level of unprepared killers, and they got fed up and left. Repeat, repeat, repeat. So now the average killer who's crazy enough to stay with the role is actually pretty elite, so that when they face mediocre survivors, they crush them, creating the illusion of imbalance towards the killer side. But a good SWF or even a competent solo team will still beat those killers. SWF has not had a nerf throughout any of this. But killers and survivors have. It's the combination of mismatches and still-unnerfed SWF that's killing this game. Those will cause the queue times to rise the most.

No.

Sorry this is a bit off topic, but I just wanted to say this was very eloquently written. I clearly understood the point you were trying to make and I think it was done very respectfully as well. Thank you for posting this discussion, looking forward to your list at the top when it’s finished.

Acting like slugging and getting picked up over and over doesn't drag out the game.

Not it my experience, no

The kill rate is purposely chosen to be 60%. If maps are redesigned to have more survivor-sided loops, then BHVR would need to do something else killer-sided to move the kill rate back to 60%. If more anti-slugging is added to the game, then BHVR would need to do something else killer-sided to move the kill rate back to 60%.

In every single scenario, where survivors get a buff that would lower the kill rate, there would need to be a killer-sided change to move the kill rate back to 60%. And survivors would complain about this killer-sided change, regardless of what it is.

Because for reals, let's pretend BHVR does make a very survivor-sided change to make games less frustrating for survivors. What killer-sided change do you think is fair compensation, that is powerful enough to move the kill rates back to 60%?

Not in my experience, I've been playing a lot of survivor lately due to the frustration as a killer going against team after team, all meta perks and map offerings after map offerings. All that crap gets to you after a while. I think solo survivor is way less stressful because you only have to rely on your teammates. Like Killer at high MMR is very stressful and not fun. I am saying this as a Freddy main btw.

Waiting for paint to dry on the wall is more productive than playing Solo Survivor, there is no longer any point in playing this mode.

Yeah see this is what i mean, it's all subjective but the thing is when you play these low tier killers, you can make like 3 mistakes at most to have an actual chance of winning but if you play like these S-tier killers you can more mistakes but you can also correct those mistakes due to how strong they are. I just don't find playing in solo queue stressful because i go in with the mentality that my teammates that i get are going to suck. It just feels less stressful to me but that is not to say that solo queue is fine, solo queue right now is in a terrible spot imo but that's because of all the excessive slugging and the thrill of the hunt meta being used but that's because all of the gen regression got gutted or nerfed to the point they are not even worth using, perks like Shoulder The Burden and Babysitter that exclusively helps SWF, basekit yellow mori promoting slugging making slugging for the 4k more prevalent than ever.

so a soloQ survivor should win / escape 50% ot the time?

I think the issue is that Survivor was never really a fun role to begin with, only ARTIFICIALLY fun because you could previously curbstomp some Killers into the ground with stuff that frankly, needed adjusting.

The role isn't fun because we and BHVR emphasized the idea that the only way to have fun as Survivor is to do your objective, harass the Killer into an impossible chase that takes five gens, and leave instead of the hide and seek game it was meant to be. In return Killers learned to optimize, so Survivors learned to optimize, and not a single soul at BHVR sees an issue with this because we all said on the surveys that CHASE was the most important. Not hiding, not other objectives, chase. And both sides consistently have said this.

Nobody has stated anything so much as "give Survs more meaningful things to do and give Killers REASONS to show mercy and not just gogogogo all the time." Not one. The reason Survivor isn't fun, is because Killers aren't encouraged to show mercy or make the game fun for Survivors. They're encouraged to win at all costs, so Survs are encouraged to win as fast as possible, so everyone goes around in a big circle and just hates the game, and then they post threads like this one that state what everyone already knows.

Survivor isn't fun because we made it that way, and BHVR doesn't listen or add ways to change up the gameplay that are meaningful. The best we get are totems, Invocations, nerfed tools to counter Killer tactics, and changes in the modes and events that don't really do much. The fundamental issue is the gameplay loop is stale for Survivor in a way it's not for Killer, because Killer has the option of choosing 30+ different playstyles but Survivor only has one.

How can they fix this? IDK… bring Survivor classes to 1v4?

This is a good point, most people do not mind losing if they feel the loss was fair.

The problem comes when people lose based on a totally bad matchup they had no hope in, mechanics that tilt the game so far out of their favor they can't do anything concrete, they only get a few hooks before everyone's out the door or a single half-chase before they're dead at 5 gens, and they then feel forced to run sweatier and sweater perks to not have that experience again. The worst part is, like you said, that win then doesn't have to do with skill but because you hammered your opponent with overpowered stuff to the point they cried "uncle".

It comes down to what you said here, for Survivors and Killers alike: the game feels like it actively punishes you for losing, both sides, despite you trying your hardest and using skill and not messing up and you STILL get slapped on the wrist and told "No, bad player, git gud and try harder". And that's bad game design, because failure is a game state, not something you should punish for or reward.

I think winning is convoluted. Totem spawns are still wank. Not all maps are equally balanced. RNG or preset spawns.

A year ago I played dbd, there was a tree that stood right next to the killer shack which made it impossible to loop.

This is truth that nobody wants to admit and really well put. It's not that 60% killrate IS 60% winrate. BHVR has said as much that killrate isn't winrate, and that does make sense because in an assym the 1 has to be as strong as the 4 for actual balance. One look at Nightlight.gg can tell you that. 60% killrate mans the Killer is able to kill 60% of Survivors in an average round on average. That means a 2k and a few hooks, not 60% 4ks. Last I checked, a 2k was a tie, not a win. This is also why other stat sites like Dead By Stats show KILL rate not WIN rate, and for all Killers the KILL rate is right around or a little below/above 60%. So if you're hitting 60% or about there, you're doing just fine, even if you're not doing consistent 3-4ks, and this is across all Killers. Think mine last I checked was around 62%, which is a little better than average but still average - and I am playing mostly M1 Killers that are kinda on the weaker side, like Pig and Ghostface, in rounds that are honestly kinda hard fought battles if Survivors play seriously. This is because Killrate and Winrate aren't the same. WINRATE means how often you 3-4k, and that actually IS at 50%… if everyone on both sides is balanced around similar skill level.

However, you aren't matched around the intended skill level for balance hardly ever. Killer is always SoloQ except in 2v8, so they have this issue of course with the exception of the fact they need to be 4x as strong as Survivor, and are. Every Killer even the weakest is 4x as Strong as one individual Survivor because that's how the game tracks kills, so of course the ideal is an even match. But the game doesn't do that in order to preserve queue times, it's speed over quality, so Killer queues can be a crapshoot of absolute infants to 4 man death SWFs with hardcore items galore.

This is a frustrating unfun game experience where you have either a boring game you stomp easily in, or you have a really hard frustrating game where you get a few hooks and it feels like you were set up to fail, neither of which feel good, and which lead to people getting tired. Nobody wants to go from simple kindergarten slaughterfest to "Oh my God why the hell did I even load up as [Favorite Killer] today". And the only way to handle the latter is by throwing on the strongest stuff and playing super sweaty optimal in preparation, only to stomp the former at five gens and look like a jerk who wants to ruin peoples' days. In NEITHER case does your skill with the Killer matter, what does it matter if I am great at 99s and ambushes as Ghostface when my opponents either never fail to reveal me or are so blind they're easy pickings all the time? My skill is always either never challenged or not enough to help, and it's the same with every single Killer - what does it matter that I'm able to flick my whip as Nemesis if nobody ever hugs loops or they ALWAYS hug loops in a way that makes it easy? What does it matter that I can set up the perfect web of birds at shack as Artist to guarantee a hit if nobody knows how to use shack, or they know exactly why not to use shack? What does it matter that I'm a fantastic Xenomorph if people either know perfect turret placement every time so I can't use my power, or they're so bad at handling me that I can easily track them in my tunnels pop out and skewer them on my tail every time while they try to greed a pallet like I'm Trapper with no traps?

Meanwhile, the same issue is four times worse in SoloQ Surv. SoloQ Surv is such a crapshoot I barely ever play it unless I have no choice, I am ALWAYS with at least one other person I know usually on Discord so we can vibe, because SoloQ Survivor feels bad, because you're not intended to be as strong as the Killer is when you're one lone Surv. You're supposed to be about even to the Killer only as a team of four - one Killer is as strong as four evenly matched Survivors. So you end up the 1 in the 1v4, where one of the 4 is 4x stronger than you, and despite your best efforts and skill and everything you brought and your attempts to communicate, all you can do is save friends you brought in with you or save yourself. But you can't even do that half the time, because Hatch doesn't count as a win, and it doesn't feel satisfying to leave people hanging, so you become overly altruistic and die or tie anyway. It feels unrewarding and like you're doing the motions, because you are - do gens, die or escape, maybe loop, repeat. Of course the Killer won't engage with you if you're strong because they don't have time to, weaker links exist, so you get no fun and in the end die anyway, you don't get to show your skill and it's not interesting.

This is because you never or very rarely, at least in SoloQ, get four equally matched Survivors and a Killer for your skill level. You could load into an underlevelled lobby where nobody knows pallets, but because your MMR is higher, the Killer matched to you is also higher, then they stomp the weaker Survs and you die because the Killer saves you (the strong link) for last. Or you could be matched into an overlevelled lobby, where everyone knows the game better than you including the Killer, and then when you lose to a Killer who's outside your pay grade the whole team crumbles and inevitably blames YOU for being a failure. Neither one feels good at all, and it happens way too often. No wonder Survivors would rather SWF, I sure as hell refuse to play SoloQ because Randoms ruin the experience for me while meanwhile the Killer is usually just doing what they do.

Don't even get me started on the toxicity either side can bring, I've had just as many Surv randoms decide I need to be punished by bringing the Killer to me or teaming with the killer at 2 left, teabagging me on hook, or sandbagging me on purpose as I have Killers who decide to bleed us all out at 5 gens and hump us on the ground. But unlike when you see that as Killer, as Survivor it feels worse, because you have absolutely no way to fight back against it.

If camping, tunneling, slugging, and 3-gen.. are all unfun for survivors, then what buffs do you think killers should get as compensation, if those strategies are nerfed? If maps are made more killer sided, that would be considered unfun for survivors. If killers get more powerful in chases, that would be considered unfun for survivors.

Seriously, what possible buffs do you think killers could get, that would be considered as "fun for both sides"?

Add Skill Based Matchmaking to that list.

Only way to have fun as survivor, for me, personally is to destroy my mmr so i can screw around while severly lower the risk on eating dirt for 4 minutes or get hard-tunneled. This sometimes still happens, though, but way less frequent.

God forbid i try to run a meme-build/playstyle against opponements that just hard-focus on winning nothing else (this goes for both sides fyi)

Heres another one, optimizing the fun out of this game. Both sides complain about OP stuff, it gets nerfed if complains are hard enough, people find other ways to win, making it hella unfun. hell certain techs are also removed what made the game interesting (I will NEVER forget the first time when I encountered a cracked Sky Billy on Midwich)

I'm assuming you're referring to my list from the phrasing but I wasn't pinged. Apologies if I'm not the person you're responding to.

Yes, on a larger scale I would agree SBMM is an issue. The matches are a lot fairer under SBMM but the question is are they more fun overall? Balance is a tool to achieve fun but not the end goal. It's completely possible to balance all the fun out of a game; VHS is a fairly recent example.

Also, as @Akumakaji has mentioned several times earlier and quite correctly in my opinion, SBMM contributes to optimizing the fun out of a game. An MMR system, by definition, means players should face harder and harder opponents and have to become more efficient with their tactics or they will lose more and more until their MMR drops. The stricter the match making is, the more often that will take place.

That's why I quite often offer feedback that suggests more base kit gen defense at the beginning (to slow down Survivors while they're at their strongest) to repair buffs when Survivors die (to make it harder for the Killer when they're at their strongest).

That would encourage spreading hooks more which was encouraged more under the Emblems system and part of the reason why the games were more fun. Right now, MMR just forces sweatier and sweatier tactics the more somebody wins and seems like it's lost the forest for the trees by focusing on balance as an end goal and not on whether the players are enjoying themselves and balance was used as a tool to achieve fun.

So, yes, I do think SBMMR contributes a lot to the issues at hand although it's not the only cause.

MMR was purposely made less strict, because people don't want everything to be balanced and equal. They want for some of the games to be lopsided, which means a decent amount of 0k or 4k games.

When MMR was at its most strict, the games were way more balanced, and the giant killer win streaks were pretty much non existent. And so many people complained that they weren't having fun, that MMR was heavily nerfed, so there would be more lopsided games.

People wanting lopsided games means that people want the game to be snowbally, and therefore wouldn't want a lot of the snowball potential to be taken away.

Some of the most people DBD videos involve survivors being extremely better than their killer opponents. "Survivor hardcore challenges", when survivors purposely manipulate their MMR so they are matched against low MMR survivors, can have an extremely high viewer count. And some of the most popular DBD videos involve survivors completely outplaying their killer opponents. People want drama and excitement. They don't want games to be rigged so that tied games are much more frequent.