http://dbd.game/killswitch
Struggling to Understand Balance Priority
It's so strange to see killers like SM and Xeno get gutted, when the numbers don't seem to indicate that they're an issue. They claim that they feel bad to play against, but outside of the vocal minority, is that really the case?
And are we really determining who to nerf based on that? We have basically every pro player in agreement that two killers are head and shoulders stronger than the rest of them, but we waste time with these seemingly arbitrary changes to a low-performing killer.
The overwhelmingly negative response to the proposed changes really makes me wonder what BHVR is doing sometimes.
Comments
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Xeno nerf was…idk what they were thinking.
SM at least had a 70% KR, so there's SOME basis there, no matter what side of that debate you fall on.
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Skull Merchant was changed because of consistent community complaints, so while there wasn't a good reason to gut her, there was a clear and obvious one.
Xenomorph changes were very clearly not meant to be gutting the killer and were intended to improve it, hence all the buffs thrown in there too.
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Well according to the devs (and this was stated on their discord livestream back when Skull Merchant was getting nerfed), pre-nerf Skull Merchant had a 72% kill rate (2.5% of that was quitters/giving up on hook, leaving 69.5% which is still too high) so there were definitely numbers involved there, but regardless of her kill rate she is a badly designed killer who needs to be reworked. That rework was going to take a considerable amount of time no matter how BHVR went about it, and it also wasn't acceptable to leave her in her previous state in the meantime, so she got nerfed. There was no perfect solution, but that's a problem that could've been avoided if she was never released in that state in the first place. A killer can be badly designed without necessarily being strong or having a high kill rate (although Skull Merchant did have a high kill rate).
As for the Xenomorph changes, I don't think they intended for this to be the end result, I do believe they were trying to address pain points of the killer for both sides, hence why there were some buffs thrown in there as well. The changes just completely missed the mark and ended up making things way worse and introduced a bunch of new problems instead. At this point, their best course of action for Xenomorph would be reverting the changes and going back to the drawing board. I don't think Xenomorph is a perfect killer, but this PTB iteration of Xenomorph is FAR worse for both sides due to a variety of issues with the changes as a whole.
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It's just whatever. None of it makes any sense. There's so much caution surrounding new killers or old ones getting buffed, and it's like dude, they're not gonna all of a sudden be stronger than Nurse/Blight. Why can you not just make a killer decent, and then that will create more variation in killers being played? Everyone claims to support that, though half of them clearly don't, and still I don't think the devs have ever made that a priority, or ever voiced that it is. I mean, why are B and C tier killers constantly getting nerfed, for like these past 5 years straight, and the strongest ones mostly stay the same.
When they do touch the strongest ones, or the weaker ones, they don't even address what's being complained about. People complained about Blight being too fast, or breaking into every possible angle even if you juked him, and thought that destroying Adrenaline Vial would fix it. It didn't, because PC turn rate. They nerfed Deathslinger, Spirit, and Chucky, because they were "uncounterable" at loops, yet Nurse exists. And people still Deathslinger and Spirit are uncounterable, and that Chucky is strong "because of his stealth and his 3rd person," which the changes didn't fix. People still complain about Nemesis, because he "breaks pallets too fast." So what was the point of nerfing the zombie AI or his different add-ons? Pinhead can still down the box solver and get a continuous Chain Hunt if he gets lucky and snowballs, so what was the point in nerfing his add-ons? They just bandaid fix these killers, who aren't that strong in the first place, and it's not even linked to complaints. Just random balancing to go with their random matchmaking. Good job.
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Xeno is getting nerfed? Why?
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Some of it's fine, making the Tail more reactable is good, nobody should like a Killer with an unreactable attack. Making him have more resistance to heat is good.
Making him take 15x longer to dissipate heat is….not good. The logic is…questionable.
Post edited by Pulsar on-2 -
I don’t think the kill rate matters at all when it comes to how the devs balance. We have a few killers at 50-53% and have been for a year and when asked if they would get buffed a certain person from DBDs team said “just get better”
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Kill rate isn't the entire picture.
Nurse, historically one of the strongest killers in the game, has always had a low kill rate. Nurse and huntress (since you reference that killer) both have the situation where they do require some game knowledge and practice to master, but are available for new players. That can dilute the kill rate for people just picking up the game.
SM had three huge red flags that all point to the same thing:
- Insanely high kill rate (69% after you ignore games with disconnects or where survivors die in first hook (give up)).
- Killers saying her power feels like garbage.
- Survivors saying she's awful to go against, in large numbers.
All of these are indicators that her power is just not good and desperately needs a rework. An actual rework.
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I have no idea why they would apply that fix to the aliens and Chucky, since it is what the management does to make the balance even worse by adding an "exciting loop" to the crow's nest that was still on the survivor side after the rework.
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Chucky nerf basically made me stop playing.
SM was a kill switch, with no priority to actually fix her.
Xenomorph is perhaps the worst nerf I have ever seen in this game. No the tail was not imposible to dodge, was actually hard to use. That opinion comes from more survivor mains that want useless killers. The 15 seconds waiting time paired with 2 flame per second instead of 25 sealed the deal. He is a goner. Maybe in 2 years or so they will realize they are gutting the game by being survivor biased.-3 -
Here's hoping it never happens to the Ghoul
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