http://dbd.game/killswitch
Developer Update | August 2025
Comments
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''If a Survivor dies before 6 total hook states, all remaining Survivors gain a repair speed bonus for the rest of the Trial.''
So what happens if survivors do 3 gens before killer hook like 4 survivors? Do they will be Exposed until end of the Trial or get like crazy repair speed penalty? Why they adding penalty to one side and the other side is untouched? This is not how this game work. This PTB doesn't make any sense and I can't wait to play vs Nurse, Blight and Ghoul every single game where survivor q will be 10+ minutes.
None of this will pass to the live servers...
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So, a clarifying point.
We cannot in good faith talk about bodyblocking from aggressive just-unhooked survivors without acknowledging it isn't instant and they don't get to teleport. When I talk about getting to chase two survivors without giving much in return, I'm talking about the process of attempting to bodyblock.
Sure, a survivor that swoops in at the right moment to bodyblock and then vanishes back into the mist to go do generators is definitely harming your chase, no two ways about it. That's just not the scenario we're talking about- we're talking about someone following you around after they're unhooked and trying to get into a position where you have to hit them in order to keep moving.Even when they are capable of doing that, which frankly is only even realistically doable on every map because Shack entrance can be blocked this way, it still takes time following you around to set it up. That's time off gens, and I don't think the average attempt pays off in the least.
For an example of what I'm talking about here, think about flashlight saves. For every one smart and successful flashlight save that provides big value… there's nine flubbed saves from someone that was following the killer around for the whole chase losing time and value for their team. It's the same with this kind of bodyblocking.
Even assuming someone wants to bodyblock after an unhook and is willing to forfeit all the anti-tunnel protections to do it, they still have to try and get in position and that isn't guaranteed to happen soon enough for them not to be losing time overall.
(Though, as an aside, using a medkit absolutely turns off Endurance, healing is a Conspicuous Action. They'd NEED to use the Endurance syringe for this to work.)
This all ties in to the slugging point. Yes, they can get up from the dying state (though the new proposed way of doing that is really slow, it must be said), but that time is on top of the time they spent getting themselves into this position to begin with.
It's not something that'll never work, but realistically, it isn't nearly as "free value" as some make it out to be. Survivors swarming you is broadly a good thing, even if it's annoying to face and can easily fluster you into making mistakes.
Raising the barrier for entry for bodyblocking by making it impossible with the basekit features and requiring the use of a specific item with a specific addon is also weakening this strategy, not improving it. Nothing in this new proposal is going to make it worse.
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Raising the barrier for entry for bodyblocking by making it impossible with the basekit features and requiring the use of a specific item with a specific addon is also weakening this strategy, not improving it. Nothing in this new proposal is going to make it worse.
This part alone makes clear that you didn't understand the problem, or my point, at all.
For the bodyblocking, the only thing they need is to know that after getting hooked once, they can't be hooked again unless the killer wants to deal with a series of punishments, each worse than the last. That's it. Just knowing that, they can now do whatever is in their hands to waste the killer's time and try to force him to hook them again.
The other things, like the flashbang exploit with no collision and such, only make that problem bigger or are other ways survivors can exploit these mechanics. The only thing also relevant to the bodyblocking is that the slugging changes make the obvious counter to it not an option anymore, as after being slugged for 90 seconds total, they won't even need another survivor to get up themselves.
But the funny thing is, even if survivors don't abuse these mechanics, they will put a lot of killers in disadvantageous situations by themselves: You are playing Trapper, and the Dwight you hooked for the second time has fallen into yet another trap, meters away from you? Well, you can't hook him again, or you will lose your ability to regress gens. Sorry! Just go to the other side of the map to catch another survivor first without being able to slug him for pressure.
In conclusion, these mechanics are completely overtuned and exploitable on paper, and I hope BHVR really thought them through and there is more to them than what they have explained until now, or it will be a disaster.
And with this, I don't have anything more to say on the matter.
Post edited by Batusalen on0 -
If you even make it that far into a match, you don't need anti camp or anti tunnel.
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BBQ n chili base but distortion was nerfed to the ground. How else are we suppose to counter that a survivor beside running away from the gen you were working on lol
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Standard TTV response
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If tombstone Myers still works the same, they are nerfing that addon to the ground with this, along with you getting punished for killing if you get a perfect 5 stack on devour. Also, this feels like it insentivizes camping so you get the 6 hook states and aren't punished for killing a single person
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Then what would be your solution?
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I generally am of the opinion that this update will probably be good / okay with a few tweaks.
Let me try my own reasoning:
>Well, it certainly is your opinion. In reality, every second counts, as you are literally in a time limit (kill them before they finish the gens), and even hitting a survivor is time spent. <Okay so lets assume the person dead on hook is trying to get in your face to trigger the early death effect on purpose. Lets say you're chasing another player while they try to do that.
hitting a survivor with a basic attack pre buff was 3 seconds of cooldown. twice to down the player is 6 seconds.
times two for two survivors sitting on gens is 12 seconds of gen progress + unknown time of the chase being extended.
The survivor staying slugged would waste 90 seconds of their time on the ground for the free pickup. that's 9 times amount of time equivalent wasted.
To break even on time efficiency, they would need to extend the chase by at least 40 seconds (*2) for the initial chased survivor
which im pretty sure is tier 3 bloodlust territory.
Now, on the second go, they would only need to be slugged for 30~ ish seconds to get pick themselves up. that breaks even easily, but also doesnt count whatever time they commit finding a way to heal to throw 2 health states at you again.
Idk im just not at all intimidated by any of this.
Like i've spent most of the past few years listening to content creators say "making the game an early 1v3 is the easiest way to secure a win" and listening to everyone go "now survivors will make every game into an early 1v3 because they were promised some non specific buffs to gen speed and disabled regression" really sounds like crazy land to me.0 -
I don't know what it needs but I agree—the end game needs to change.
As a survivor, getting hook-camped on my first hooking and being helpless is miserable. It's amazing when a group of randos rescue me, but it's infuriating when they abandon me, especially when I was the highest perormer in the match. I hate that I can't make any choices.
As a killer, I usually don't camp but that tends to costs me, but camping is so lame and boring. I don't really know what to do as killer in endgame.
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If the first person to be hooked is left to die, then there was no "Previous" hook, which means it doesn't proc the anti-regression stuff. As killer, you only get punished like this if you hook the same person TWICE in a row.
Sure, as survivor, you could sacrifice a teammate early to get some repair speed. Please do that. It's a good strategy (but only when I'm the killer)
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That's fair. I actually read that later in the day but forgot I made this comment. Thanks for clarity. I'm still not a huge fan of micrmanaging playstyles though. There are too many edge cases where this bites people. There has to be a better way.
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The solo players' situation is getting worse. I got betrayed by the premade party plays from time to time (like unhook right in front of the killer; obstruct the way so I can get killed faster, thus they can use flash lights etc.) so that they can get more blood points. Now they can even get a bonus by accelerating solo-players' death.
Lets be honest, solo-players cares nothing about tunneling and slugging, looping the killer is the best part of this game and get tunneled means you get to experience that more efficiently. When I get killed, I go to the next game. And no killers will intensively slug the surviver for no reason, most of time they just can't find where the survivor is. I can just leave the game and find my next game. You know who is angry about tunnelling and slugging？The team players who radically want to get an edge through team communicaiton, but ending up with the same game experience as the solo-players. They get ashamed into anger, and crying as babies for special treatment.
I'm a survivor main and I am really furious about these changes which further increase the gap between solo-players and premade party players. Your flase step that punishing killers for killing and awarding the survivor for loosing teammate will end up into completely new form of toxic behavior from premade party players . And you know their previledge is generated because of the solo-players in this game.
PS: I think a significant proportion of team players is toxic enough, its the game mechanics that prevent them from hunt me down directly. Your "promotion" is forcing the solo-players facing 4 killers in the game. Nice try DBD.
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Isn't obscuring the survivor's hook status and not showing when they get unhooked just gonna make healing under the hook completely free? on top of making it way easier to get deliverance up.
If you want unhooking to be 100% safe for the hooked survivor, then why not just rework it into a different mechanic entirely? and if you don't want unhooking to be 100% safe, then how badly does a survivor have to ######### up to get punished?
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Problem is, they are throwing this out as a blanket solution when there are lots of nuances that they aren't considering. Getting punished for a kill in under 6 hooks sounds like a good idea, but if you hook surv a, then surv b, surv a, surv c, and then surv a, you are getting punished as the killer for playing the game completely normally. They should make it so you can't 3 hook the same person in a direct row since that is what tunneling is.
These changes punish killers for wanting to win the game. The slugging mechanic introduced actually does sound like a good idea, but unlimited unbreakable with tenacity will be frustrating when you have to leave someone slugged cause 2 other survivors are crowding you for a save. These changes are literally punishing killers for taking advantage of survivor mistakes. Most of the time, survivors say they are getting tunneled when they are actually being ultra altruistic and making mistakes right in the killers face. These changes quite literally force the killer into ignoring their mistakes. What PVP game rewards the players making mistakes? It's not done smart in the slightest and the PTB is gonna show exactly how awful these changes will be in practice. This entire update shows the devs don't actually play their own game cause the 7 perks they are giving survivors with all the base kit is ridiculous. The hand holding genuinely makes this game so awful to play as both killer and survivor. IDK about you, but I'd actually like to get good at the game and have a challenge when I play, rather than getting 5 second chances, punishing the killer for outplaying me, punishing the killer when i'm making obvious mistakes, and basically handing me the win without much effort.
And for context before anyone spouts off that I'm a killer main, I play survivor 80-85% of the time and rarely play killer simply because of cue times. I get tunneled out of the game often since I play Orela and I really dislike it. I'm also not foolish enough to believe that changes like these make the game fair in any capacity and can recognize that these will make this game incredibly survivor sided.
I recommend the devs rethink these changes and I hope the communities and content creators response to this update will show the devs exactly how awful these changes will be. I am also gonna make some recommendations but I doubt the devs will read this.
Instead of making the anti-slug mechanic unlimited unbreakable with tenacity, it should be conditional in some way. I think if other survivors are near the downed person then the bar should stop and no progress can be made. This means the other survivors can't threaten pallet or flashlight saves and waste time until the downed survivor gets unbreakable and can run away. I also don't think tenacity should even be involved or added. I also don't think it should kick in until the survivor has been downed for a certain amount of time, other survivors are downed in which maybe the timer goes faster for all survivors and gets quicker for each one that is slugged at the same time, or the person is on their second hook state.
For the anti-tunneling mechanic, I don't think it should be a kill in under 6 hooks. Instead a kill in under 3-4 hooks since that would mean heavy tunneling which is what the actual problem is. This way, survivors mistakes actually matter and the killer isn't punished for taking advantage of those mistakes. I also think that they should implement a mechanic where if the survivor who has just been unhooked enters chase with the killer inside those 10 seconds of endurance, they get a longer amount of endurance. And if that survivor is hit inside that timeframe then the survivor gains 2-3% haste for a couple seconds and the killer is briefly stunned. This eliminates the killer immediately going after the unhook and tunneling out a kill whilst also making chasing that survivor and waiting out the endurance much riskier since too much time will have past and gens are likely to pop due to a poorly chosen chase.
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I think if someone is left on hook then it shouldn't count granted the killer is actively away from the hook and chasing other survivors and not camping. Genuinely, 3 man SWFs are already tough to go against, now we gotta get an insta loss just cause they wanna abuse mechanics.
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Are you seriously going to complain that it's unfair to the killer when a survivor gives him a free down and hook?
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Some of these changes seem really unhealthy for the game in my opinion. I agree that anti-tunneling and anti-slugging mechanisms should be implemented as it is no fun for either side, but some of these changes look really bad
For the anti-slugging, I'm skeptic about the proposed solution. 90s may seem too much but it's not, specially with the movement buff. Let's talk about some scenarios: Killer downs someone and it's going for a hook when another survivor sabotages. Only viable option for killer is dropping the survivor and start chasing the sabotager. While the killer is chasing the other two survivors can complete two gens easily and don't even need to go for the rescue, in the meanwhile the downed survivor can crawl to a corner and just recover by themself. At that point if the killer succeeds at downing the sabotager it's just one hook after winning two chases (Not event counting two health states for each downed survivor…) and two gens done. Bad result for an actual good call.
Another issue, endgame situations. Let's say you find the last two survivors trying to open a door, you manage to down one and start chasing for the other. By the time you catch the second, the first survivor already crawled into a corner and waited for recover. While I don't like cheesing the 4k there are ton of scenarios in which not looking for the 4k implies just 2 kills (i.e. flashlights)
Don't get me wrong, I don't think being able to recover in 90s is bad. Problem is when it's also possible to crawl at the same time as it makes it much harder for the killer to find and is a really boring part of the game to just look for a dude that is crawling around the map for no reason
Moving to the antitunneling, it seems to be easily abusable not only by coordinated comps but by solo players too, and the worst is that some of these scenarios are not even under killer's control. The 6 hook states is just too much, a single player that just hides during the entire game or that only plays around super strong structures can delay their hooks to a point the game is already lost just by trying to go catch them, 6 hook states requires at least 2 survivors dead on hook and the other hooked at least once. Worst than that, it'd be super easy to abuse by just letting one survivor die on first hook. Not even considering the stupid scenarios where teams pick 4 Claudettes that are indistinguishable, specially if killers are not going to have any information about hook states in exchange. Also denying gen regression is just too much when survivors get a buff to gen progression, and even more considering that the killer meta perks have always been gen regression since it became a thing cause it's necessary for killers
Also, it seems to easy for the first downed survivor to just annoy the killer and playing super aggressive for pallet saves and flashlight saves knowing that if they get tunneled and killed the killer will be in an even greater disadvantage
Now, there are things that I think are in the right direction, like the mini pop goes the weasel when hooking fresh survivors, haste, etc. While I think this is in the right direction I'm presuming it's not enough compensation. I really think that killers should be incentivized to hook different survivors. Notice that a killer in order to hook someone not only needs to win the chase but also carry the downed survivor to the hook. THIS is what needs to be encouraged to reduce both slugging and tunneling. I think something like "Hooking any survivor regresses ALL gens by 2% for each survivor still alive in the match" is a better overall approach, it encourages hooking and encourages not tunneling a survivor.
With the proposed changes killer is not encouraged to hook fresh survivors or avoiding slugging them, but it's denied from that option even on scenarios where it is ok to do so.
Post edited by TrustMeImDolphin on-5 -
Complete and utter horsesh*t of a patch. What an absolute disaster. Whoever came up with this crap, you should fire them.
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Miserable? It lasts a couple of minutes and if you're that upset about it, you're free to DC.
I don't see anything here addressing SWFs doing gens too quickly and making the game a miserable waste of time for killers, why is that? Why do survs need their hands held even more than it is already?-5 -
Lmao this change is Already broken enough, if you didn't disable it in endgame it would literally just be a guaranteed escape for survivors.
Its already hard enough to secure a kill in endgame, this would actually make it impossible
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Yeah the concept of nerfing slugging is really great, they just completely overshot it.
Giving survivors: base kit unbreakable after a while, a speedboost while crawling, Gen repair speed if you dare too hook everyone once and decide to kill one/the team just letting them die on hook, killer aura+no scratch marks+no blood+no grunts+a speed boost is a freaking HUGE overshot.
Pretty sure they added so much at once because they knew killer mains were going to complain, but they can't complain about everything so some changes no matter how good or bad they are will stay in the game
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Me too. I think they threw a whole slew of nerfs onto the pile so they could "listen to feedback" and take some away.
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lol this person may have the worst takes on here and thst really says something
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Yeah this will be so awesome to play against, especially paired with unbreakable and all the other "anti slug perks" especially the nrw one where you can pick yourself up after only a few seconds.
This is basically just a fifth perk, now you can have 5 perks so ocu yourself up so fast/can crawl to a pallet so fast It should be illegal
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personally this is the worst update in all dbd history
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Which is saying something.
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Let me just start with saying wow this game has become so killer biased it's unreal coming from a survivor main I understand the way in which the developers are pushing the direction of their game, however it will only hinder new players. Furthermore, by having said players rely more on base kit perks and not strategy they will never learn the mechanics of looping. Anyway just wanted to give my take on this what do you guys think?
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"I love being tunneled."
"Killers never slug for no good reason "
Yeah I totally believe you're a survivor main with this one random response in this one post.
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I could write a paragraph to why this doesn't make sense but I'll keep it short.
1 they only change it BECAUSE people complain, if you think they change thinks because influencers say so you are straight up wrong, otzdarva made multiple videos in things he think are broken/bugged and nothing has changed
2 zero clue why you would think no killer buffs would get nerfed, ig thats the Defiant survivor way of thinking lol, survivor gets hella buffs and the first thought you have is that they will nerf it to the ground while keeping the killer buffs the same. You can not make some people happy ig
3 I mean I hope it doesn't change too much, this is waay too much change at once, this is going to be a nightmare to balance I don't get why they didn't change much for a long time and now try to change give survivor and killer multiple basekit perks
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Why don't you?
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"brooo just drop the guy that you chased for 90 seconds and chase the healthy guy it's that easy man duhh. Totally not a huge waste of time and will pretty likely loose you the game"
You do realize that the killer just waisted his time for litteraly no gain whatsoever?
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A guaranteed escape for the survivors...after they've completed all 5 gens, which in itself is not guaranteed
Also it should be impossible to secure a kill in endgame, you don't deserve a kill just for hooking and camping one person
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If someone ubhooks in your face the survivor can basically walk through you with the new speedbuff and just take a hit they normally never could have taken.
Like being faster than the killer and having no collision definitely gives you waaay more options to take hits for teammates
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What survivors need to do to win the game is not to play the game and improve their skills, but to make nerf calls on Twitter.
WRAITH scattering injuries is annoying!!Please make SelfCare and Botany available by default soon lol
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And it's called ENDGAME and not survivors instantly escapegame, I don't get why people think once they completed all gens they instantly serve the win, dies survivor AND kill not both have multiple perks to change the outcome of the endgame. What is hope for? Or bloodwarden?
Like the gate dosent instantly open for a reason
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You can, just make a play in less than 90 seconds, if you cant do that then you are at a higher mmr than you should be in.
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It's no collision with the killer too. So they cant take a hit after unhook.
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My biggest concern is that the game will become too repetitive. It's true that it's boring for survivors to tunnel, but they can counter it with OTR and DS, and even then, a killer targeting a tunnel is taking a big gamble. Try to reduce the number of survivors in a chase even when you're at a disadvantage, or try to target survivors who don't bring counter perks...
This update will take that away, and the game's story will become extremely monotonous, repeating the same pattern: "First, find a survivor! Once you hook a survivor, you'll see the aura of another survivor, so target them!" If that's okay with you, well, good luck.2 -
Don't the devs think that by making perks available to everyone (without the need of adding basekit whatever) would actually balance the game? Oh wait they'll lose their bussin-
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Also, how will players who don't read the patch notes or new players find out about these changes? Neither the AFC nor the 3gen system are useful if you don't know about them, and there's no explanation of them in-game. The existing system is getting complicated, so it seems a bit ridiculous to introduce an even more complicated system without introducing a tutorial.
...Or rather, there are so many killers and tactics that can be dealt with if you know how to counter them, so why don't you try to implement a tutorial?
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You get extra haste, gen regression and intel, for free. Did you read the patch notes?
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This is such a healthy change for the game. I hope this goes live. I have 4k hours as survivor and I‘m telling you!! Every time I had a killer playing fair without tunneling and slugging, he got at least 3k! Playing fair is nice and this change is absolutely good. Killers that don’t slug or tunnel won’t get affected by that. It’s good that this way you’re motivating killers to actually get good at the game instead of relying on tunneling and slugging. Those who are mad about the changes are those typical killers that tunnel you out and hit you on hook and hump you on the ground.
Please keep those changes BHVR. This game is getting healthy FINALLY.-1 -
Did you read everything???? You get a lot of bonuses as killer if you don’t tunnel. Get better at the game and those changes will not affect you.
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Keep crying but thise changes are good and healthy. Idk what you’re on.
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Me: 6800h Killer Main of Dead by Daylight been playing since 2016 eating these changes while every one else is kicking and screaming. Honestly I think you all stopped playing SoloQueue cause all of this is desperately needed for it.
I know you all have not read every single discussion post about tunneling and slugging to understand how these changes solve the majority of problems that people have been leaving the game over, its like you guys want the game to die. I cant.
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“killer is dead” while all you have to do is not sug or tunnel 😂😂😂
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IMO this update isn’t good. Sounds like they helping survivors alot. I have run into really bad players and end up in my face again and again, so you telling me because they dont know how to hide or not run into me i get punished for killing him? I literally just played like 30 mins ago, 2v8 and i had someone complain saying im tunneling but he literally ran towards me right after he got unhooked so i see him and im chasing.
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Although promising, the current state of the game isn't idyllic for an update like this. An overall killer nerf will only encourage the proliferation of certain killers, while other regarded as weaker will be cast aside without any doubt. I do believe they should first find a way to strengthen the weaker killers that are already struggling such as Sadako, Artist or Dredge.
Also already beating a dead horse since this will make twins even less playable, and Skull Merchant will completely disappear from the game. I won't lie, these tunnelling and slugging changes should be postponed until all the killer roster is ready for them, because now you will just be encouraging playing nurse, blight and ghoul. And the fact that Myers had to be changed into a dash killer exemplifies how stealth killers for instance no longer can keep up, and only killers who can freely cover mid-large distances in a short space of time are the ones that can be played.
So please, Behavior, it is not too late to delay it. Because these game changing things cannot and should not be done fast, it requires time. It needs to be slowly implemented to prevent disasters. I would eliminate the slugging changes, that are too radical as of right now, and go only with the tubelling ones, which seem a bit more polished and actually posess some semblance of balance. Because if you take away slugging without compensation, aplying pressure as certain killers will become impossible.
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