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BHVR Almo on why ASYMS fail

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Comments

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 201

    I don't think killer role agency has much to do with why VHS died, given how scuffed early DbD was in terms of the sheer amount of bullshit the survivor side had. I think the VHS team just completely mishandled the game (and the community) from the top down. The first and biggest mistake being that they were in closed beta for so damn long, never got out of early access, and never released a console version.

    A lot of the other asyms died due to IP restrictions and/or unremarkable/one note gameplay that didn't lend well to the live service model.

  • JimbusCrimbus
    JimbusCrimbus Member Posts: 1,153

    If you honestly look at the state of VHS through it's ENTIRE lifetime, and see ALL the VHS streamers, with 1/40 of them queuing up for monster. Looking at 90% of them queuing up as Teen, swearing up and down that Monster is "fine and fun to play" but would rather wait nearly an HOUR in queue to play Teen…and you think it had nothing to do with the Monster role?

    The evidence is screaming, and you're simply incorrect.

  • Reinami
    Reinami Member Posts: 5,795
    edited January 24

    Rarity doesn't change the fact that its a problem and led to the games eventual downfall and likely will lead to DBDs as well.

    Just because something is rare doesn't mean it is balanced. My question to you is, are you one of the ones who thinks killers like blight are too strong? Do you think nurse is too strong? After all, it is rare for someone to go against a killer that can just 4k at 5 gens with these killers. So they are fine right? Is nurse fine? Is she balanced? After all, in most games, she's actually below average in terms of kill rate when you look at the average games played. Its only in the hands of that "rare" 4k hour nurse main that she's able to destroy everyone while trolling.

    Watch a tru3ta1ent video some time. I know he gets a lot of flak, but look at the caliber of teams that he constantly goes against. This is also the kind of thing i see, almost every game, all p100s, bringing in crazy medkits, instaheals, bnps, all survivors with DS/DH/Hyperfocus with cracked toolboxes almost every single game (on my main killers anyway)

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 201

    I don't think it has "nothing" to do with it. I just don't think the game would've magically took off if they fixed that issue anyway. They screwed up too hard in too many other ways for it to matter in the long run.

  • Nomade
    Nomade Member Posts: 59

    Lack of agency and the general weakness of the killer side in particular is what ends of killing asym games. This has very notably happened with the game Level Zero Extraction. And while it is true that game has other issues as well, including the developers caving on core design elements like maps being dark, and has a serious problem with cheaters, I can, as someone who has played since the full release attest to the serious player agency and balance problem present where alien can feel very weak and have very little agency.

    I never played it but VHS had similar problems where the teens were just so much stronger than the monster role and it could feel like as the monster role you just had no chance to do anything.

    DbD has managed to avoid these issues by allowing a variety of play styles, regardless of how survivors may feel about them individually, to exist. This makes the killer role feel as though it is more dynamic. You can actually react and adapt the way you play and effectivly counter a variety of stratagies from survivors. This is SUPER important to the health of the game, as we have seen time and time again what happens when this agency is denied to the killer role.

  • biggybiggybiggens
    biggybiggybiggens Member Posts: 738
    edited January 24

    I agree with the TCM game having a better Killer experience in terms of how much you can actually do. The part where TCM fails is the Victims can F with you way too much. DBD can reach that point, but it has 0 competition from a rival game studio.. Competition breeds innovation and ever since EGC we have never received any other massive changes to the mechanics of DBD. Adding perks only goes so far unfortunately.. BHVR has all the power. I suppose they're just holding off on doing any more broad mechanic changes until they absolutely have to, which I have to say is extremely complacent.

    BHVR need to get out of their comfort zone and make big changes before they are forced to. That point will come eventually. The game won't survive forever in it's current state.

    Post edited by biggybiggybiggens on
  • BorisDDAA
    BorisDDAA Member Posts: 109
  • Firellius
    Firellius Member Posts: 4,600

    The part where TCM fails is the Victims can F with you way too much.

    That, and how extremely powerful rushing is.

    As in, DBD killers complain a lot about genrushing, but TCM rushing can crack an exit in under a minute and have everyone out.

  • crogers271
    crogers271 Member Posts: 2,053

    I see lots of people talking about different asymms and arguing over high MMR.

    I've only played DbD and Deathgarden really, but looking at the Steam charts for these games (Evolve version 1 I couldn't track down), lot of these games saw extremely quick player count drops.

    VHS went from 6k to 2.5k in a month, and was in the hundreds within three months.

    Level Zero Extraction went from 2.6k to 500 within a month.

    Evolve Stage 2 went from 51k to 13.8k in a month, and was within the hundreds within six months.

    TCM, which has done much better than other asymms, went from 17k to 4k within 2 months, and then was in the low thousands/high hundreds after that.

    It is normal for games to drop off, but the reason I cite how quick these games went is saying the problem was high MMR doesn't make sense. You aren't losing 90%+ of the player base within a month because of high MMR issues. For more likely explanations are:

    A: the game just isn't that fun (or just fun for a short while)

    B: mastering the game was quick enough that everyone got to the high MMR level really quickly, which is a bigger problem than balance issues

    For comparison, DbD kept a player count of 10k+ its first few months (before Myers was ever introduced), only seeing relatively minor month to month changes. It kept that player count for years, before seeing sustained jumps in 2018 and another in 2020 (when people seem to agree the game was significantly survivor sided).

    Looking at the data, it sure seems like those games just weren't as fun or enjoyable for players in the long run as DbD is.

  • RpTheHotrod
    RpTheHotrod Member Posts: 2,017
    edited January 24

    Survivors in DBD are powerhouses at the high end but incredibly weak at the low end. It's pretty much the opposite issue with the same problem here. Survivor is far less of a fun experience for newer players.

    I honestly wouldn't mind the devs putting in some sort of crutch safeguard for the lower brackets, a weakened crutch for mid, and then have all crutches removed for the high end gameplay.

  • bm33
    bm33 Member Posts: 8,298

    I play both roles in TCM but I've played killer way more than victim there. It just feels more fun to play killer in TCM than DBD. I get bored with killer in DBD because like you said it falls flat and for me it doesn't feel rewarding.

    Each match of TCM feels different because of the maps, the different ways to escape, and what characters your teammates choose v what characters the other team choses. Are you going to be more of a chase killer in the match or a support killer? In DBD, unless it's 2v8, you are the chase killer all the time. Survivor in DBD you can have the gen jockey, the rescuer/healer, and the runner - you aren't necessarily limited to a single role, although with the game becoming more and more competitive survivors are getting pushed into focusing more and more on just gens which is a bummer.

    It's a shame the devs in TCM dropped the ball on fixing issues/bugs in a timely manner because it is such a fun game for both sides, even DBD brought in ideas from TCM - 2v8 survivors get an ability and the ability is on cool down at the start of the match just like in TCM.

  • Tits
    Tits Member Posts: 413

    I recall que times being absolutely bonkers as well like 20-40 minutes to get into each match. Thats the part that drove me away other than the way the game was set up so that the monster prettymuch has to do thinga that make you unable to do anything - in order to get you down. So most of the teens fighting was either ganging up or camping around corners which made it seem like everyone had to win through cheap shots on either side.

  • TheSubstitute
    TheSubstitute Member Posts: 2,607
    edited January 26

    I found a lot of parallels between the Monster experience in VHS and the solo queue experience in DbD. Monster was incredibly frustrating for new Monsters as the Monster was similar to playing the Lights Out modifier in DbD but less dark and only the Monster has the disadvantages; the Teens were in regular mode. So the Monster would have to learn to track by audio which took far more time to learn sitting at a corner or ducking behind a door and zapping the Monster from behind.

    It's very similar with tunnelling and camping as the skill floor to counter tunnelling and camping is far higher than the skill floor to counter it is just as the skill floor to kill Teens in VHS was far higher than the skill floor to kill Monsters. I suspect that DbD has an unrecognized problem with new player retention because of this but the issue is masked by tunnelling and camping has only reached significant proportions in recent years (my recorded games showed a roughly 5% incidence of hard tunnelling roughly two years ago versus a roughly 25% incidence now in my matches) and the percentage of hard tunnelling is still significantly less than 100%. However, Monster faced the issue 100% of the time which is why the player retention rate was in the single digits. As well, BHVR's licensed Killers help bring in new players. However, as the incidence of tunnelling continues to rise less and less new players will stay.

    It is definitely possible for devs to treat a problem at the bottom without severely affecting the top. One of my suggestions for VHS was to give armed teens scratch marks. Anybody who was already winning most of their matches as Monster was tracking effectively anyway without scratch marks and the tiny polychromatic effect after a Teen was hit wasn't enough for inexperienced Monsters to not just get zapped next after hitting a Teen (a successful hit caused the Monster to look up so as to lose sight of the Teen).

    For DbD, I think the best solution is to base repair speeds off of survivors left alive. Nobody is claiming a 4 person SWF that's decently experienced is having issues doing gens quickly. Similarly, nobody who's being serious is going to claim a group of 4 solos, especially if inexperienced, have a chance of getting anyone out if a survivor dies at 4 or 5 gens still up.

    As such, I think a repair speed nerf at 4 Survivors still up would slow down the early game enough to allow Killers to get a foothold and spread hooks at higher levels while a repair speed buff once a Survivor dies would give Survivors at mid and lower levels a shot at getting someone out after a Survivor dies. Hopefully, it would also reduce the go next problem that DbD has since people go next since they don't perceive themselves as having a chance (regardless of whether it is possible as people react according to perceptions and perceptions don't always match reality). At the very least, knowing there is a repair speed buff could encourage people to stay.

    It would probably also reduce the number of 4Ks and 4Es in favour of 2 or 3 either out or killed but I consider that a good thing. I find those type of matches more entertaining than a cycle of stomping or being stomped and think most people do as well.

    Post edited by TheSubstitute on
  • AssortedSorting
    AssortedSorting Member Posts: 1,356
    edited January 26

    "VHS failed in large part because the Monster couldn't tunnel or camp. It seems clear to me from the design that they looked at DBD and figured that the biggest thing its players hate is tunneling and camping, so they eliminated those tactics."

    I think VHS failed not for a lack of camping and tunneling, but from a lack of what Almo mentions later: "the sense of an unstoppable Killer".

    In DBD's gameplay loop the Killer is always "finding/chasing the Survivors" and Survivors need to "hide/run from the Killer", but in VHS the Monster must "find/chase/run away from Teens" and Teens are actively incentivized to "hide/hunt down the Monster".

    The inclusion of the Monster needing to run from Teens and Teens needing to hunt the Monster changes the core gameplay loop significantly.

    I'd argue that camping and tunneling are not core pillars of DBD gameplay, just paths of least resistance. I think methods could be introduced to alleviate some of the pain points involved while still maintaining the Killer as an unstoppable force (Example here)

  • Glaive
    Glaive Member Posts: 91

    It’s been proven time and time again that Behaviour alters the matchmaking of popular content creators (Fog whisperer's), ie giving them easier matches, it’s better for their content having easier games and makes the game look more appealing to those watching streams/youtube videos, I’m no fan of Tru all he does is complain, but his games are far more difficult then Otz, he goes against organised players that actually know what they are doing, Otz seems to go against mediocre players despite the fact he has over 10k hours and wins a lot, Tru was a Fog whisperer at one point but he no longer receives this special matchmaking privilege.

  • humanbeing1704
    humanbeing1704 Member Posts: 9,001

    one of the biggest issues I’ve always viewed with most Asymmetrical games is they rarely get console ports

    Now I know dead by daylight got ported to console a year later but these new smaller games only have one portion of this genres playerbase and it tends to fall

  • Nomade
    Nomade Member Posts: 59
    edited 10:26AM

    I suggest the mods lock this thread. Very few people are trying to have intelligent discussion. It has devolved into people picking fights and completly unhelpful and brain rot comments. This thead has been almost completely hijacked by bad actors at this point.