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Does DBD favor killers?

24

Comments

  • Princeharlequinhq
    Princeharlequinhq Member Posts: 82

    tbh I never actually experienced them pre-nerf so I can't speak to that but ill take your word for it

  • Firellius
    Firellius Member Posts: 5,441

    I think they’re referring to the 60% kill rate target. A lot of people believe this is “unfair” and “favors the killer side.” It’s subjective and everyone is going to have a different opinion about what is “fair”.

    To clarify, I think the post I'm thinking of was made by Peanits, and I distinctly remember it saying 'relatively balanced'.

    Which would imply BHVR is aware and accepts that it isn't properly balanced, in favour of the killer.

  • Firellius
    Firellius Member Posts: 5,441

    Also, I don't know why my post disappeared.

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448
    edited September 12

    ye okay—basic understanding + gamesense, using the resources around you, and not donating insta-downs is part of it. i expect that from people in my lobbies. i mean, that’s basics.

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448

    Many survivors play inefficiently or throw winning positions; even good groups refuse—after a certain point in the match—to give up one person and run straight into a Full-Team-Wipe. That inflates kill rates. Staring at KR without context is misleading: even in “high MMR” you still get EZ-snacks that give you absurd value. Plenty of players simply don’t belong there—SWF-boosted or whatever—and they sink the moment they have to stand on their own. And yes: sometimes the trade is correct—deliberately losing one so that three get out safely. If you don’t accept the trade, you often end up with a four-man wipe.

    KR ≠ this match; it’s not a one-game verdict. it doesn’t tell you what happened in-round—KR says less than people think.

  • thrive2survive
    thrive2survive Member Posts: 321

    Of course it favors Killer overall. They want to keep the kill rates at 60% instead of 50% because they don't have the balls to nerf SWF for all the information it provides. When they do that, then I'll believe they're looking at both sides. Until that point, it stays the same.

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448
    edited September 12

    I’m not dismissing KR because it clashes with a narrative—I’m pointing at what the metric can’t show. KR is a coarse average across brackets, SWF sizes, regions/ping, map rotation, killer pool, and wildly different openers. It compresses all of that into one number and strips the how (spawn spread, hook/ trade decisions, reset timing, 3-gen states). That’s why KR ≠ the match.If the global KR were 40%, my point wouldn’t change. I’d still say it’s a limited signal and a shaky basis for balance on its own. What would be useful is stratified data (per-MMR, per-killer, per-map, SWF vs solo, early-down contexts) and then talk incentives.And that’s my core argument: rules that soft-reset early misplays create more low-quality wins regardless of where the average sits.

    As long as I regularly face opponents who make elementary—easily avoidable with a bit of game sense and minimal willingness to learn—mistakes, a high kill rate says little about my performance. KR without context about opponent quality is just an outcome number. What matters is what happens in the match: player quality, spawn spread, hook management, trade calls, gen prioritization, chase quality, and the team’s macro. Consistently punishing mistakes is correct play and drives KR up—but drawing blanket balance conclusions from that is methodologically weak.

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448
    edited September 12

    As Killer you’re a one-man army with a clear win-con: pressure → downs → hooks → kils —> close the match. Decisions are linear, the feedback loop is direct, and “playing correctly” feels automatically right. You do the right thing, see value instantly, done.

    For Survivors it’s a coordination problem: four people, one shared win. That’s where emotions take the wheel — guilt over a trade, savior instinct, fear of salt / or emotional reactions from mates, “don’t let the mate die,” “I can’t let him hit phase 2 even if it’s efficiency-wise better.” Ego-saves, tilt after an early down. That often collides with what’s macro-optimal (e.g., accept 1-for-3, actually follow through on gen prioritization, don’t force a reset — “but he wants a heal now, the gen would be smarter, but… I’ll do it anyway”). Result: risky saves, double/triple downs, full-team wipe — and KR climbs.

    Add the info gap: SoloQ has basically no reliable calls; you read body language, misjudge distances, underestimate killer positioning. In SWF, comms smooth a lot of that out, but then you get altruism bias (“we save everyone”) and those hero plays that are objectively -EV.

    all of that stuff factors in. for killers it’s more “natural” to play strictly for win-con. "chase, down, hook, repeat → kill" .. survivors have other motives that come before pure escape: human emotion, team spirit, situational responsibility. KR doesn’t capture that. if a killer accounts for it and plays ruthlessly—he wins a lot, KR spikes. survivors often play human: “he’s death hook, i’m going in,” “i’ll take the hit,” “i’m not leaving him.” that’s nice—but KR doesn’t measure it. sometimes that style is efficient, often it isn’t. the win-con only says: out or dead. if the killer knows this and leans in—cuts trades, taxes saves, converts distance into dead zones, locks a 3-gen, hard tunnels and pushes survivors into must-help mode—games swing his way. of course KR goes up. not because everyone is bad, but because team spirit > other emotions > escape. and KR doesn’t show that part of the truth.

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448

    because a lot of survivor squads just throw. Part bad matchmaking, part emotions, part straight-up inefficient play. That’s why KR sits high. If you’re even a halfways stable player and your group plays cold-blooded, max-efficiency, Survivor is still the power role vs most killers on the roster.

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448
    edited September 12

    Large-scale dashboards would be great, but you don’t need them to see the pattern. Get yourself into high MMR (or watch verifiably high-MMR VODs), record 50–100 matches, and code the rounds. Tag opener quality (spawn spread, first two downs, hook stacking), SWF vs solo, reset timing, 3-gen states, trade calls, people throwing and when, /endgame/over commitment

    That tape tells you the why KR can’t: a lot of 4Ks come from early macro errors and refusing a 1-for-3, and a lot of escapes come from soft openers. KR without round context is a blunt instrument.

    Record it. Just analyze high-MMR matches. See where it breaks. It’s not that hard. You should be doing this anyway if you want to improve.

  • Rulebreaker
    Rulebreaker Member Posts: 2,618

    Well can you show us then? You obviously know everything that's the problem. Give us a view and point out your theories.

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448
    edited September 12

    oufm, not hard to do the math:

    vs decent survivors it takes ~25–40s to find and down someone, ~8–12s to carry and hook, plus a few seconds to pick up/position—call it ~40–55s per hook state before you even spend time patrolling or kicking. five gens are 450 survivor-seconds. if roughly three people are on gens most of the time (one kites, no goofy resets), that’s about 150s to finish. in that window a killer doing ~40–55s per state gets maybe 3–4 hook states. that’s not two deaths unless you snowball—stacked hooks, bad saves, refusing a 1-for-3, etc. even if it averages more like 2.5 on gens (some rotations/saves), you’re at ~180s, which still lands around 3–4 hooks before the gens are done. on Nurse/Blight the timing compresses; on M1s it stretches. with clean survivor macro (spread spawns, take the trade, minimal resets), gen throughput beats hook throughput—which is why “decent, cold-blooded survivors” feel favored against most of the roster until they hand you snowball windows (which many squads do).

    and yup, that back-of-the-napkin ignores toolboxes, gen perks, and great skillchecks, yada yada —we’re using the raw 90s base. all of those only push gen speed further in survivors’ favor.

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448

    Spawn logic can be broken. Any half-decent squad spreads to key gens (not the spawn gens), and the first chase is routed away from teammates/key tiles into irrelevant space. If the killer commits, he bleeds time; if he doesn’t, he still lost time rotating. Holding two survivors in one zone at start only works if the team is unorganized—it happens, you take those, but it says nothing about overall balance. Anecdote ≠ data.

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448

    how so the moment i pre-shift to the zone i like to have and build up my chase?

  • Pulsar
    Pulsar Member Posts: 22,922

    If you just pre-run anytime you hear the TR, that works totally fine for me too lmao

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448
    edited September 12

    there’s plenty of tourney/scrim footage where survivors win often and consistently (even with heavy perk/item limits on the surv side). my own escape rate is ~50%, but i mostly play solo/duo and don’t sweat escape—I’ll die for endgame plays or for good teammates. tbh, sweating my personal escape is boring; in a lost game I’d rather take a juicy last chase than hard-camp exits and pray the gates spawn far. if I cared more about the stats (and ran full SWF), it’d be different—as long as the team actually agrees not to sack themselves for nothing (though, endgame plays are fun) and we always secure the 2/3-man out when it’s there.

    so y.. sounds like a you problem.

    If I played purely for escapes and stats, my rate would be way higher. I don’t, though—endgame plays are fun, risky plays are fun. (and i don´t play much second chance perks)

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448
    edited September 12

    there are plenty of vids and gameplay breakdowns out there (and, like I said, with heavy perk/item limits on the survivor side for the most part).

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448
    edited September 13

    you can—balance around the good players. if folks can’t keep up, they improve and actually learn. plenty of killers don’t play clean either. weaker survivor stacks will face weaker, non-optimal killers anyway. but at least they finally have to learn the game—necessity over freebies.

    not every killer is good, not every high-skill killer sweats, and weaker survivor stacks won’t face them anyway—MMR funnels them into similarly messy, non-optimal killers. if constant stomps still happen, that’s an onboarding/MMR problem, not a balance one. balance for mastery, teach the floor, and let matchmaking sort the rest.

    that sounds awful. i’m supposed to bank on the survivors’ macro being trash—can’t handle basics, burn every pallet in the zone, fail to avoid a 3-gen with four ppl alive early? you can tell you “don’t play killer much.” no half-decent squad gives you that. i’m not coin-flipping my win on them neglecting their survivor macro 100%, a huge gamble that they lletting dead zones happen in still-relevant areas, and refusing to use the whole map to dodge a 3-gen—then being “happy” with the occasional win vs a potato team while handing free escapes to the rest. that’s not my role as killer.

  • UnicornMedal
    UnicornMedal Member Posts: 1,528

    inb4 they nerf SWF (which technically they already did given the KR) and the game is still Survivor-sided. 😴

  • UnicornMedal
    UnicornMedal Member Posts: 1,528

    I don't know that I'd say Survivor is the power role, but where I'm willing to concede is that the the strongest nerf to Survivor overall is matchmaking. I would go as far as to wager that SWFs favor far less from comms than they do avoiding pubs. With the right synergy and skill level, you very well can negate a lot of the worst aspects of the game. Not completely, but enough to where the game is both engaging and not an instant steamroll. It's why you can strike gold even in solo.

    But matchmaking causes the game to be so random that those sorts of trials are rare. Without proper tools to give each individual Survivor a certain level of autonomy, the game is in a place to where they deal with incredibly frustrating gameplay with increasingly diminished returns. And at that point something has to give.

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448
    edited September 13

    KR is a blunt cut, not proof. it doesn’t tell you why people die: trades, scuffed MMR, throws, 1-for-3s, endgame gambles, altruism, and different win logic (killer = 4k, survivors = team outcome). comp ≠ pubs, sure—but comp is an early-warning system for outliers (perks/maps/add-ons) that grief pubs too. as long as MMR plays roulette and mixes you with much weaker players, you’ll get huge outliers—stomps with 4–5 gens up. KR measures outcome, not cause. pubs ≠ comp, but comp shows the spikes. balance = raise the floor, shave the spikes. fix MMR first, then we can talk which role is “favored” with a straight face. until then, i’m playing “comp” in every lobby the game gives me—like any other PvP game. it’s PvP.

  • Tenac
    Tenac Member Posts: 74

    To be honest I do feel like the game should be a least a little bit killer sided. Not by a ton heck even like a 55 45 situation. DBD is at its core a horror game and therefore you should fear the killer. It also makes surviving feel better. I agree the challenge should feel fair but yeah a little killer sided isn't nessicarly a bad thing.

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448
    edited September 13

    Just the logic of constantly talking about “comp.”
    Every PvP game is competitive by default. Queue = consent to play to win. If you want uhm.. like a "sandbox," that’s Customs.
    Play how you want, sure, safe safe,—but your fun can’t come at your team’s expense. If you wanna meme, do it in KYF or with a stack that opts in.

    (or tune MMR so meme players get funneled into their own lobbies)

    Balance should raise the floor, not erase consequences for bad openers.


    PvP without competition is a contradiction. Queue means both sides are playing to win. For pure meme-vibes: KYF or stack, not randoms in live matches. Or just exept to die the momnt you only q for memes.


    So yup: you balance a PvP game for competitive play—not for memes. Every PvP game is balanced around competitive play; it’s on the devs to ship MMR/matchmaking that converges to true skill fast and reliably and doesn’t dump new/inexperienced/casual/meme players into "for them wrong"-MMR pools.

    MMR’s job is to match people with opponents they can actually keep up with—not to shrug at a bad system with huge outliers and then balance around it so inexperienced/casual/meme players still have a “good time” while getting thrown into much stronger lobbies. That’s what happens when you leave MMR broken and tune balance off kill rates instead of fixing the matchmaking.

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448

    y and i i already said this: MMR goes both ways, obviously. that’s why you need to match people cleanly. there are plenty of weak/inefficient killers and plenty of casual or just bad survivors—pair them together. i know good killers who don’t want this "super sweaty lobbies" and deliberately play soft. i know survivors who don’t go full meta and aren’t trying to deny all pressure from minute one. there are tons of casual/new survivors and casual/new killers. if you balance for the upper lobbies, plenty of players will play differently—and good MMR filters that. if you want to sweat or play clean, you naturally climb into a top slice (not top 4%) without touching the broad playerbase. my point: BHVR keeps staring at KR while the MMR is super watered-down mixing, which creates stomps that inflate the number. fix matchmaking first, then we can talk and look about a “favored role.”

  • Sava18
    Sava18 Member Posts: 2,514

    Killers are overly represented on the forums? Like they are more than 1 in 4? These posts over the last week or so show how blatantly wrong you are. Look at my comment on page 1, it's so neutral, not favoring either side and yet it has double down votes over upvotes. whether that be because people just lack knowledge or it's survivor mains down voting me without thinking, this last week most definitely shows there are more than 50% survivor mains on the forum.

    When you talk about streamers that's just because survivor youtubers and streamers make pure content way more than they project their view, whereas it seems players who are originally killer mains are much more objective oriented. Not to say there aren't killer mains projecting an immensely biased view on the forums but all of the popular threads are neutral and wary at worst.

  • Sava18
    Sava18 Member Posts: 2,514

    I think it's exceptionally fair to say that survivors throw at a far greater rate than killers. I've made several comments in the past few days centered around that and I would say it's quite conclusive. 1 survivor in any game can decide it's gg outside of extreme skill disparity. 47% escape rate, pre map nerfs, god validation dh, bugged IW, prime CoH, when killers had weaker perks, when killers were generally weaker and when there were few killers A tier and above. Not to mention plague, oni, spirit and nurse not exactly being high play rate killers when outside of blight they were the only a+ tier killers.

    Survivors always have and always will throw their game at a far greater rate than killers. It's just how it is and people who play survivor outside of 4 mans will know that to be the case.

  • oecrophy
    oecrophy Member Posts: 448
    edited September 13

    I agree. Matchmaking isn’t “random”—it pulls from broad buckets and stitches lobbies together. There are almost always 1–2 players who don’t belong in that trial. That mismatch gives the killer free value. It’s why so many games are won even in good/very good/high MMR: the lobby often includes people who clearly shouldn’t be there.

    That’s how I see MMR—based on my experience, when it actually works (which it often doesn’t).

    Brand New Players (Baby MMR) — Heavily Killer-sided

    Survivors lack game knowledge; killers dominate easily. (SWF or not doesn’t matter.)

    • Tunneling: Deletes a player instantly; zero counterplay awareness. Panic unhooks + bodyblocks feed downs.
    • Slug/Proxy: Total slaughter even from inexperienced killers; survivors don’t split or reset wrong.

    Somewhat Experienced — Still Killer-sided

    Survivors start to understand basics but lack coordination and loop knowledge. (SWF often prolongs the match, but usually doesn’t change the outcome.)

    • Tunneling: Usually still a massacre/EZ win. Early tunnel at 5–4 gens forces trades → dead by midgame, even if the killer is inexperienced.
    • Slug/Proxy: Works consistently; teams stack at hook and hand you doubles.

    Moderately Skilled — Map/Perk decided

    Both sides can win; killers can dominate with strong perks or favorable maps. (SWF = small edge.)

    • Tunneling: Strong line, especially with info/anti-gen/anti-heal; mistimed tunnels waste tempo.
    • Counterplay: anti TUNNEL perks, bodyblocks, safe unhooks, reset paths appear; escorts/bodyblocks peel target to strong tiles.
    • Slug/Proxy: Still effective at spawn/2-hook clusters; weaker if survivors spread and pre-run.
    • Tunneling: Usually EZ win. Early tunnel at 5–4 gens forces trades → dead by midgame.

    Good Players — Slightly Survivor-sided

    Survivors use teamwork and efficient loops. A single lost 50/50 can still snowball into killer pressure; tunnel/slug/camp can secure wins. (SWF = major edge.)

    Why they usually lose the resource/time race

    • Opener misplayed: Bad spawn spread → early down near a gen. Team spends HP/bodyblocks to deny first hook, but pays in time + states. Killer gets huge value → tempo lead.
    • Gen economy poor: Instead of a 1 chase / 1–1–1 split, two sit on the same safe gen, create 3-gen clusters, or trade 25–30s running for 5% progress → free regress, no map pressure.
    • Heal vs. tempo misweighted: Double-heals on-path (or right after an unsafe/under-hook save) burn 30–40s and hand the killer a second chance. Better: off-path reset, heal only if it creates distance, otherwise pre-run.
    • Unhook macro scuffed: Unsafe saves with no escort line, no pre-run from the unhooked → 2-for-1 trades. anti TUNNEL perks/BT gets used for greed/aggro instead of buying distance.
    • Pallet economy: Strong pallets dropped too early (or greeding 50/50 fillers) → later you lack anchors. Killer trades a hit for center position → wins long-term tempo.
    • Info discipline missing: No quick signals (who’s on which gen, who escorts whom, where to rotate) → colliding rotations, one quadrant, zero spread.
    • Weak proxy answer: Into proxy, they stay too close instead of pre-running to next tile/off-angle gen → grab/corner/re-down.
    • Tunnel mitigation sloppy: No anti tunnel chain prepped; bodyblocks burn strong tiles around key gens and create dead zones → midgame fight worse.

    • Killer: Still the most reliable line if opener gives you a hook near the triangle. work trough anti TUNNEL perks, cut escort lines, proxy only for guaranteed trades, slug if needed. If the chain starts burning clock, swap before you lose map control.
    • Survivor: they don´t expect the tunnel, but if it happens they are know their job, ppl are ready to laser focus gens or are ready to bodyblock. (bad cover can give the killer huuge value)
    • Hard tunneling still wins the games most of the time.

    Very Good Players — Survivor-sided (SWF = huge edge)

    Most killers win only off survivor mistakes; coordination and knowledge carry.

    • Opener botched: Spread fine, but early greed on first hook → dumb 2-for-1 near key gens; killer insta gets value, grabs tempo.
    • Gen split off: Stack mid or break the wrong 3-gen → little progress, free regress.
    • Heal vs. tempo: Staying injured too long or double-healing on-path = 30–40s gone. Better: off-path reset or pre-run.
    • Shaky unhook: Looks “ok,” but no escort line / unhooked doesn’t run ahead → 2-for-1 instead of distance.
    • Pallet mistakes: Drop strongs too early inside the triangle or greed a 50/50 → hit + center position for killer; anchors gone later.
    • Comms ≠ roles: Lots of talk, no roles: two escort, nobody anchors a side gen → rotations collide, spread collapses.
    • Weak proxy answer: Try to brute-force through proxy instead of pulling aggro and pre-running → grab/re-down.
    • Tunnel setup sloppy: anti tunnel perks chain mistimed, (players uses this perks for distance, not for trolling/ego) bodyblocks out of order; escort drags chase through the triangle and burns anchor tiles

    At high level, one bad call (position/trade/route) hands the killer position + regress. One minute of messy macro deletes minutes of perfect chases/good survivor value.

    • Tunneling/Slugging: Assume it every single match. It forces the errors the killer needs and breaks team coordination.
    • Survivors assume tunnel from second 0 (expanded): Pre-plan anti tunnel chains, pre-run on unhook, escort away from the triangle, 1 chase / 1–1–1 gen split, off-path heals, avoid greed vaults, pull proxy outward and don’t force through it.
    • At “Very Good,” tunnel/slug secures tempo—nothing more. Clean escorts + info discipline are what break it. If escorts are crisp and the killer overcommits, force a swap and take the gens they just donated.

    Top-level Players (High MMR / “Comp”) — Heavily Survivor-sided (SWF nearly unbeatable)

    • Opener botched: Spread’s fine, greed first hook → dumb 2-for-1; killer insta gets value → tempo swing.
    • Gen split off: Not 1 chase / 1–1–1; stack mid or break wrong 3-gen → tiny progress, free regress.
    • Heal vs. tempo: Stay injured forever or double-heal on-path = 30–40s gone. Do off-path resets or pre-run.
    • Shaky unhook: “Safe” save with no escort line; unhooked doesn’t run ahead → 2-for-1.
    • Pallet mistakes: Drop strongs too early inside the triangle or greed a 50/50 → hit + center position; anchors gone.
    • Comms ≠ roles: Lots of talk, no jobs—two escort, nobody anchors a side gen → rotations collide.
    • Weak proxy answer: Try to brute-force through proxy instead of pulling aggro and pre-running → grab/re-down.
    • Pallet/Tile economy: Use strong pallets late and only for save routes/key zones; don’t greed 50/50s.
    • Slug maement: Pick up safely (with info + position). If it isn’t safe, trade tempo and slam gens; don’t allow chain re-downs.
    • No unnecessary stacking: Don’t all stack mid; keep spread so the killer can’t get a center lock + regress.
    • no "wonderchases" wins the games at this point, good surviormacro wins the matches.
    • Tunneling/Slugging: Standard at this tier — the low-variance killer wincon. Timed past anti TUNNEL perks, situational slug for position, selective proxy at hook clusters to lock triangle/tempo. Assume it every match.
      Survivors assume tunnel from second 0 (what to do): anti tunnel perks chain prepped, escort pathing away from triangle, 1 chase / 1–1–1 split, off-path heals. No greed, no on-path double-heals. Pull proxy outward—never brute-force through it.
    Post edited by oecrophy on
  • UnicornMedal
    UnicornMedal Member Posts: 1,528

    Not a bad point, although that gets weaker as the trial goes on as well. But those trials were all 3 Survivors dive the hook is pretty intense.

  • UnicornMedal
    UnicornMedal Member Posts: 1,528

    I don't have anything to add, but I wanted to say nice work on the response. I think that's a pretty thorough roundup of what I've seen discussed over the years. 😎