http://dbd.game/killswitch
50% kill/escape rate is the objectively ideal balance of DBD whether you like it or not, lil bro.
This is for all the players—*cough cough* killer mains, who ignorantly believe that the 60:40 kill to escape ratio is "balanced" gameplay and that it should stay this way because killer is "supposed to win". This delusion is a confusion about what the word "balance" means, which is essentially the equal and right distribution of something.
Imagine you have a scale which weighs gold coins. You put 60 coins in the left plate, and 40 coins in the right plate. The scale is going to fall down on the left and raise up on the right because the scale is clearly imbalanced. Imbalance is poor balance and what we want is good balance for a video game to be fun. This fact is not controversial, not even for Dead by Daylight.
Equality is good balance because it makes for the most fair ratio of challenge to reward, which produces a flow state for every player involved. The flow state is the unity of opposites which is the pure bliss that makes any game worth playing. A game with too little challenge is boring, while a game with too much challenge is frustrating, and if this imbalance is severe enough, players will simply quit the game. It is no coincidence that the suicide on hook and DC rates were so high for survivors before the go-next prevention was implemented. This was merely a symptom of how heavily killer-sided the game has become.
In the game's current state you basically fall asleep while playing killer on auto-pilot as the game hands you one free and easy 3-4K after another with no effort required. Whereas on survivor side you have to actually apply your intelligence to even stand a chance of escaping against clearly overpowered killers with broken mechanics.
So it is imperative that the devs severely nerf tunneling, proxy camping and slugging across the board on all killers as these are low skill cheese tactics that offer way too much reward with little to no challenge, which means the killer never has to learn anything to be good at their role. A game which does not teach anything to the player has far less value than a game which educates the players, and this should include both survivors and killers, not only survivors like in the game's current state.
This global killer nerf will bring all killers' average kill rates down to an equal and fair 50% so that all players can enjoy the game as much as possible. This is objectively the optimal possible balance for the game. If you think a 60% kill rate is "good balance" then you are simply biased in favor of killer and giving that role too much importance. The devs could even do a live experiment where they nerf killers down to 40% average kill rate for a year so that they can see how it feels to be on the wrong side of objectively poor game balance. Then once they learn their lesson, they will all believe that 50% is the objectively optimal balance for Dead by Daylight and that the heavy nerfs to killer role across the board that raise average escape rates up to 50% are well-deserved.
Comments
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I remember when killers across the board had close to a 50% kill rate via BHVR's stats. Nobody wanted to play killer and it caused the devs to introduce 6.1 patch.
There's a reason 60/40 is the ideal mark and it has to do with the fact it's a asymmetric game.
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We've seemingly entered the same era for Survivor.
So, what's to be done about it, I wonder.
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You don't think:
- Anti-camp
- Anti-tunnel
- Anti-slug
- Anti-go next
Are not part of that?
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Are the sides equal in a 1v4?
Are they equal in a 1v3, 1v2, or 1v1?
When should a 1v4 become a 1v3?
What happens if it doesn't?
What counts as a win for the survivors? A two dead two out? Why two and not four? Four escape a 200% win or 100%?
If killer is worth 1 gold then how much are survivors worth? How do the scales tip?
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We have no idea what those systems are.
Anti-GoNext was a colossal failure. It has done far more harm than good, and I hope they've taken the advice given into consideration.
Anti-Camp forced Killers to back up six feet from the hook, which is cool but the outcome has remained the same. If the Killer wants you to stay on the hook, you are going to stay.
Anti-Slug and Anti-Tunnel haven't been revealed, but considering the absolute travesty of the anti-GoNext and the uselessness of Anti-Camp, I don't think many people are hopeful.
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60% kill rate is on average 7 hooks per game lol.
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Anti-GoNext in terms of detecting AFK or attempting to get killed was a failure. Simply we got BHVR'd. Is there a way to make a system with those goals? I believe there is. Not one that uses one match but over the course of many. Maybe one that doesn't give a penalty but a special queue with others like them.
Punishing DCs and removing the killing of one's self on hook is not a failure. Such a system did bring resistance from those that did that very thing but why should that be tolerated? Either they learn this is a multiplayer game or move on to something they actually enjoy playing.
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"You put 60 coins in the left plate, and 40 coins in the right plate. The scale is going to fall down on the left and raise up on the right because the scale is clearly imbalanced."
This would be a great analogy if DBD weren't an asymm. It's more like having one large coin on one side and 4 smaller coins on the other side, and trying to even those out. They'll never be identical, they're different sizes and weights, but a balance can still be attempted, even if it means putting your thumb on side of the scale or the other.
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It should not have been done first, but rather last. Massively punishing people, making them arbitrarily stay on the menu in order for the timer to count down, all while the state of the game is lackluster is incredibly tone-deaf, imo.
Likewise, if someone is dead at 5 gens, I don't feel like it is unreasonable to want to speed up a doomed match. Certainly, that isn't an uncommon occurrence, but that has been removed as well.
We are already seeing exactly what I said would happen in response to this system. People are just giving up in other ways, you haven't even attempted to fix the problem, just the symptoms. You'll continue to play wack-a-mole with players until you've caught so many in the crossfire that there aren't any left.
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I think it depends on how you look at it. The last official stats I saw put 4 man high mmr swf at I 48%. I could be wrong on this stat and don't mind being corrected. It may not be quite 50% but it is close. So at higher mmr, where players are probably more competitive, it is close to balanced when playing with a group.
If they changed the goal for average players to 50/50 then that could have a severe imbalance at the top level.
Personally I could care less if killers had a 100% kill rate if the matches felt fun and rewarding somehow. I haven't felt that way with the game in a long while though and haven't played in a long while either.
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Why do they continue to play when they know if something doesn't go right they will just stand still and wait? Why should those types be catered to? Why should the enjoyment of players that want to play end up second fiddle to those that scream and kick? No, let them tantrum and burn out.
If the goal is strictly escape or give up then they mistaken what the game is about. Not every game you will escape. Even in OP's 50/50 two are going to die. But some don't want to be one of those two, so they give up and kill the whole team. If there is any mistake here, it's allowing this mentality to fester this long.
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Asymmetry is more about equity. How do we bring players with different strengths and weaknesses onto the same plane? Giving the power role more opportunities to express that power while giving the weaker role whose strength is in numbers more punishment for not striking the perfect balance is not the way to get there.
In half the time, no less. It's quite the feat.
Couldn't have said it better. People look at me like I have 3 heads whenever I say this, but the game has become increasingly PVE over the years. It doesn't really feel like you're playing with real people when you don't communicate with them or when the lack of autonomy is reaching NPC levels. It's so one-sided that you can't feasibly force people to stick around. Despite the metaphor, it's not a game of hockey. Either deliver an experience that's fun and fair or let us opt out of bad trial (whether that's going next, DCing, or abandoning). Right now we have the worst of both worlds.
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60% kill rate is an average of 7 hooks or about 2.4 kills per game. What you're actually saying is you want killers to statistically lose most of the time.
You're not getting the balance you want in an asym game where luck, rng and skill come into play somewhat equally.
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Would agree survivor has just become unbearable except for one way to specifically play it. Which in turn makes killer unbearable to play.
But killer is mindnumbing to play against soloQ because you dont even have to try anymore. People that enjoy the power fantasy dont have issues with it, generally as they dont pick the "weaker killers" to begin with.
The skill gap is so wide that this year alone, even with more and more players, you are waiting longer and longer in killer que but you can insta find a survivor match.0 -
You can have your opinion on what the “ideal” ratio should be, but the fact is that nobody wanted to play killer when the kill rates were lower. Some of us here remember what that was like. 15-20 minute (or longer) survivor queues during peak times. The 60% target is there for a reason. It’s all about balancing how many people are playing each side. That’s the way it is whether or not you like it, lil’ bro.
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It's kinda wild people freak out so much about the fact BHVR balances the game around killers getting mostly 2ks and 3ks with 3ks being slightly more common.
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I don't have high hopes.
Mandy all but confirmed that these systems will be designed in such a way that they won't obstruct these tactics much, if at all. They've been taking on every killer talking point, which means I consider it more likely that we'll see a nerf to anti-tunnel than a new anti-tunnel system that actually works.
BHVR could always surprise us, but…
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Actually, 2ks would be the most common outcome with a 60% kill rate (average 2.4K per match). But there are some people who think the game is “unbalanced” if they don’t get EZ escapes and get to t-bag killer at the gate in 98% of their matches. Fortunately BHVR doesn’t make their balance decisions based on the fringe outliers on both sides who have wildly unrealistic expectations.
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Uh, because any system that actually meaningfully punishes them also equally actively meaningfully punishes innocent players…like we literally just saw.
If banning innocent players doesn't bother you, I think we're done here lol.
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According to NightLight, which you know grain of salt, 4K's are the most common distribution of Kills. 2K's are actually the smallest distribution of Kills.
Ultimately, until BHVR says something, all we know is that two Survivors are guaranteed to lose by design.
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As a survivor main, I disagree. I think 60/40 is a good balance to strive for. I do think killers should have the edge. Not a massive one. There's definitely some killers that need adjustments. Overall though I think most killers aren't in a bad spot.
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The objectives are outdated and are no indication of the skill of the players. Escaping doesn't make you a better survivor and killing a lot doesn't make you a better killer. Balancing the game based on that data leads to nothing.
A sample of this can be 2v8, where the escape rate was high. You repaired 3 generators, didn't have a single chase with the killers and you escaped... outplayed, right?
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That system was pulled. Like we agree, was a failure best to be tested before bringing live.
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And I am saying that, as predicted, the system is only shifting how people give up. You said we should get rid of those players too, but any system that does that effectively will also grab plenty of completely innocent players as well.
So I propose we actually try to improve the game, then see what happens.
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The devs should fix people boosting each other by playing with friends but other than that yeah i agree it needing to be 50 50 ratio.
Why should a premade which consists of 2 or 1 high mmr survivors and 2 casual players but they are friends and in comms, why should they verse a low mmr or avg mmr killer just because 2 of the friends are avg to low mmr as well.
The game should automatically place premade squads againts top mmr killers.
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Not your best work.
This has happened in the past as previously mentioned and resulted in Killer buffs as the game is asymmetrical.
I do find it weird that they just scrapped the anti-slug version of Chaos Shuffle and have yet to release any info on Phase 2, though.
Post edited by Raccoon on3 -
"balanced" gameplay and that it should stay this way because killer is "supposed to win"To be fair, these are different arguments made by different people.
The first is a blatantly incorrect position because of a bad math concept about what 60% means when there are multiple variables to consider.
The second is a subjective take that a game does not need to be balanced and can be more fun in fact by being unbalanced.
I've spent quite a lot of time arguing against the first and how people are wrong.
The second is a subjective stance on what people find fun. I think there is merit to the idea of creating more of a challenge for one side so that escaping feels rewarding (though to me that makes the other side less fun). Personally, I think 60% is too high, especially because a 60% target means some killers will tick up above that, which makes a lot of matches feel pointless.
@Moonras2 is correct that if they went for a general 50/50, you'd have an explosion at the top level, just like killers who want 4 person SWFs brought down from 48% to 40% don't see how that would decimate everyone else.
Post edited by crogers271 on1 -
I'm saying there isn't an improvement that can be made. Anyone that just stands still and taps a gen not to get crows is unreasonable. They want to be the one that always escapes or always 4Ks.
A system to get rid of them can and did go wrong and punish a lot of innocents. There are a few ideas that would work better that if an innocent player does get hit doesn't affect them for too long. These are ideas for in match behavor and not DCs.
- A posion queue or a queue where a system has labeled bad actors. They have to play nicely with other bad actors in order to escape the queue.
- Instead of punishing for one instance in one match, look at a history of matches and see if a pattern exists.
Clearly a system that punishes for being tunneled out is at fault. But one that looks at a broad history could filter out those false positives.
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Let me ask you this, why do you think the system that punished for tunneling is at fault and failed, what makes killer tunnel?
(Not a trick question)
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So the majority of the community is lying when they say the game is unenjoyable due to X thing? We shouldn't even attempt to address common pain points, we should just go full-send into banning people?
Feels like that's all your proposing. Ignore the issues, beat people down until they quit.
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Ill be honest, I hadn't even thought about the swf argument. That would be a killing blow for solo queue.
The devs have never said it, but I have wondered if that's why they don't seem too worried about the high mmr 4 mans having a higher escape rate. At least not yet. Because they have figured out a way to balance it there, while trying to keep the rest still playable. It has its ups and downs but they still seem to be working on things that may help lower tier killers as well as solo queue survivors.
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Mathmatically, if every survivor had a 50% chance to win (escape, and remember the game is 1 vs 4 individual survivors each with their own win condition) the killer would only get a win (majority of available kills) roughly 32% of the time.
Math isnt for everyone, so do a simple test. Take a coin. It has a 50% chance to be tails (a win) and a 50% chance to be heads (a loss). Now flip it 4 times. It won't be very often you get 3 or 4 tails...and not remotely close to 50% of the time.
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The devs have never said it, but I have wondered if that's why they don't seem too worried about the high mmr 4 mans having a higher escape rate.I've always presumed this to be the case. It would be very strange for an organization have a goal, to hit that goal in everything they are measuring, but one extreme outlier is a bit off, and then for them to risk breaking everything else to try and fix that small outlier.
It has its ups and downs but they still seem to be working on things that may help lower tier killersKillers are in kind of the same situation as the above. Take Sadako, if you raised her to be at 60% in high MMR, she'd so thoroughly devastate low and mid MMR that not a single Sadako would be left there who wasn't intentionally throwing. If Nurse was brought down on high MMR, she would be so awful on low and mid MMR that no one new might ever give her a chance.
Balance issues are a balancing act. If you have a goal of 60% kill rate (presuming for the moment that's true), the idea that you'll be able to hit 60% for new killers, experienced killers, against soloq, and against coordinated SWFs is not realistic. I'm amazed BHVR comes as close as they do. The main issue, the balancing act, is not let any of the area get too far out of whack to the point that it falls apart.
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Math isnt for everyoneThe forum math discussions have made that pretty clear.
You can't take a coin flip scenario which has two possibilities with equal probability and compare it to a game of DbD with five possible outcomes (not even counting hatch as unique) with different chances of occurring. A 50% kill rate would probably be a 3+ kr of around 40%, but we can't know that for sure without knowing how they would actually balance the game to get to 50%.
You have to deal with how they get there, the most clear example is if they just increased the final survivors chances of escaping you wouldn't alter the win rate at all. You don't deal with those differences in a coin flip example.
Nor can you compare unalike things, if you want to treat the survivor side as a 1v1 against the killer, then you need to treat it the same way with the killer against the survivors, i.e. kill rate equals win rate.
Edit to add: Just to stress how much the math framing is off.
Even if BHVR was able to get a 50% percent kill rate where each survivor had a 50% chance in every trial regardless of the performance of the others, and even if we took the assumption that survivors were being taken individually and killers were being taken by the result of all of four 1v1s, it would in fact be perfectly balanced. The survivors win 50%, the killer wins 31.25%, but the survivors lose 50% while the killer would only lose 31.25%. You have balance because the killer difference in wins and losses is equal because they have a different possible outcome.
So even if this was how the game worked, the argument would still be wrong.
Post edited by crogers271 on0 -
you should play more killer and tell us your experience in high mmr.
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Oh yes, they could easily make some killers completely broken. I'm fine with not all killers being super strong at every level. There are too many and sometimes making them stronger just makes them unfun to play as or against. I think the small changes, and qol updates, are helping a lot of the killers feel better to play, while not making them as strong as blight or nurse.
They seem to be doing the same things for survivor or solo queue. I haven't played in a while. I just found survivor becoming frustrating and I can't play killer the way I use to enjoy. I'm hoping some of the changes they are making and have planned for the year will bring some life back to it.
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The system wasn't design to punish tunneling and that wasn't the topic.
The go next detection system was more than likely running a timer after a survivor got unhooked. If that survivor was down or hooked again within a time window they would be marked as going next and hit with a penalty. This was seen when a killer tunneled and the survivor was hit with a penalty when starting the next match.
Nothing was was said about the good or bads of tunneling.
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To allow unacceptable behavor is to allow more of it to occur. You can make your complaints here on the forums and other social media but don't be ruining other players experience for your protest ingame.
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Notably didn't answer the question.
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if this was the question:
So the majority of the community is lying when they say the game is unenjoyable due to X thing? We shouldn't even attempt to address common pain points, we should just go full-send into banning people?
Then I think I did answer. It's not whether or not the community is lying it that they are ruining matches for others over their complaints.
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The second part was unanswered.
Should we go full-send into banning people, without looking at pain points, even if it means innocent players are caught in the crossfire?
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So much mental gymnastics from self proclaimed math wizards in this sub just to justify why a poorly balanced game is a good thing. The funny part though, that all these killer mains saying 60/40 is a good thing would be outraged if the devs suddenly decided to invert the ratio to 40/60. They'd be furious and quitting left and right. These kind of sloppy, incoherent and convoluted analytics are just a self report of their bias in favor of killer role because they'd never accept the same imbalance if it was their preferred role that was disadvantaged.
And for goodness sake, stop claiming that the 60/40 ratio is due to Dead by Daylight being "asymmetrical". I refuted this already, as the asymmetrical nature of the game refers to the difference in gameplay between killer role and survivor role and always has since 2016. The game was asymmetrical when survivors had the upper hand so clearly the meaning of asymmetry is not referring to overpowered killer balancing.
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Oh, the hyperbolic one. I ignored it.
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The Devs have stated that 60/40 is what they want because if everyone is exactly equal in strength, one person mathematically cannot handle four others, "lil bro" (extremely condescending tone with these words in the title by the way). The game, like it or not, is designed as a survival horror game where teaming up is the strongest thing Survivors can do. Teamwork is meant to counterbalance Killers and get you those wins. Not Survivors being equally strong.
This is for EVERYONE'S benefit, not the Killer's, it's especially for the Survivor's benefit actually. So lets do that, let's look at this in terms of how a 1v4 60/40 split actually benefits Survivors, so you can see the reasoning.
Not all scales have their fulcrum in the center. Overwatch is a game that has scales like this. Bit some have it off to one side, because the other side gets more, which is the issue with DBD. Because that is how an asymmetric game is designed.
The Killer is intended to always be stronger, BHVR designed it like that on purpose, because this game is a survival horror game whether it feels like one to us jaded long term players or not. The Devs consider it survival horror, and design it like one. But survival horror is inherently biased against the one trying to survive, in other words it has that off center fulcrum. This is to ramp up tension and make the player feel a sense of risk, so they might be scared or feel that adrenaline rush of winning.
So to counteract the offcenter fulcrum, because one Survivor versus one Killer is a curbstomp, the Devs gave you, the player, a benefit the Killer doesn't - three other players of your same role. And when played correctly, four Survivors of equal skill to the Killer is in fact the same strength as one Killer, a 50/50 balance even though the killrate is 60/40. In other words, if you constantly team up with three others well enough, you equal together one Killer and probably win/lose as much as one Killer in reality. When you don't or there is a significant downswing in communication, the Killer wins.
The scales are balanced. One Killer weight is as heavy on their light side as four Survivors on their heavier side. The weight is the same. Because that's how an asymmetric game is balanced.
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People keep saying this but I have yet to have anyone back it up with evidence. Do you have any numbers, data that actually supports this claim? Genuinely asking. Because if it's solely based on the mult that survivors have right now, that happens with EVERY new killer release. Not to mention the simple fact you need four survivors to one killer. I was playing today and there was only a 1.25x mult as survivor, and my killer queue times were only about 3 minutes.
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Guaranteed two deaths per trial.
Every single group of Survivor/MMR range is sub-50% ER.
The general outcry of Survivor.
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The fact that we have access to our stats now and so many people here have 70%+ kill rates is concerning in a way that's hard for me to articulate properly. I don't feel as though the 60/40 target has led to a better game experience, rather that the game experience has subsisted despite this target.
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This is mixing together different issues.
The Devs consider it survival horror, and design it like one.You're saying the game should be unbalanced. It's a subjective opinion, one I agree with though I'll quibble over where the line gets drawn, but its opinion while the fact remains 60/40 is unbalanced.
So to counteract the offcenter fulcrum, because one Survivor versus one Killer is a curbstomp, the Devs gave you, the player, a benefit the Killer doesn't - three other players of your same role. And when played correctly, four Survivors of equal skill to the Killer is in fact the same strength as one Killer, a 50/50 balance even though the killrate is 60/40.But this is something totally different.
If the target KR was 50%, the killer would still be stronger than survivors in a 1v1. Even if the target KR was 25%, killers would still be stronger in a 1v1. I'm not even sure if I've ever seen anyone seriously disagree with that idea.
Survivors getting their strength from numbers is an obvious point that would still be absolutely the same if the KR was 50%. But it has nothing to do with the idea of where to draw the kill rate line.
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You can call it mixing issues but all I did was repeat what the Dev's design intent is. Whether or not it's accurate to the game is on them.
The Devs want 60/40. They do not want it to be "balanced" so that Killers always 2k and Survivors always 2 out. So, they didn't design it that way.
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The Devs want 60/40. They do not want it to be "balancedAgreed. It's unbalanced. That's their intent. OP is arguing that they have the wrong intent (subjective argument) and that those who are arguing it is balanced are wrong (factual argument).
so that Killers always 2k and Survivors always 2 out.Even if the game was a 50% KR we'd still likely be seeing far more of a mix of 4ks and 0ks than 2ks.
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