How would you make Dbd more balanced?

TLDR:

• Make tunneling and camping not possible
• Give killers more basekit gen defense and nerf or rework the perks
• Give survivors some basekit ways to deal with slugging
• Give solo queue survivors a little more information on their teammates.
• Slow down the early game and speed up the end game.

Tunneling + Camping fix:

• Remove basekit BT
• Remove AFC mechanic
• Add new mechanic called Ethereal that survivors gain when unhooked.
• While ethereal:
  • The world gets a grey filter (think otherworldly or ghostly like going back to your body in WoW)
  • Survivor makes no noise
  • Survivor makes no scratch marks
  • Survivor is completely invisible to the killer
  • The killer makes no noise to that survivor
  • The killer's terror radius is not audible for that survivor
  • The killer is completely invisible to t hat survivor
  • All perks on the survivor are disabled
  • Killer powers and perks do not affect the survivor
  • Killer cannot hit the survivor
  • Think like, spirit's power but for
  • The survivor is unable to perform any conspicuous actions (other than unhooking a survivor or healing a survivor from the dying state) Doing those 2 actions remove Ethereal early
  • Lasts for 32 seconds
  • If ethereal is removed early, nothing happens
  • If ethereal expires, the survivor is healed to the healthy state
• Replace the AFC mechanic with one that works like Pyramid head cages. If a killer hangs out near the hook (even if other survivors are nearby) the survivor is automatically teleported to the took that is closest to the survivor that is furthest from the killer.
• Remove/rework all the anti-tunnel/anti-camp perks to do something else.

• This makes tunneling literally impossible
• This makes camping literally impossible
• This encourages killers to hook instead of slug because the survivor is put on a 32 second timeout where you know they won't be working a gen.

Give killers more basekit gen defense:

• Basekit pain res that doesn't require a scourge hook that knocks 10% progress.
• Basekit gen kick up to 10% for kicking a gen
• Basekit highlight gen with most progress in yellow when hooking
• Basekit 15% thanataphobia on gens for injured survivors so they are encouraged to heal instead of rush gens
• Basekit corrupt that lasts 20 seconds
• Basekit corrupt on totems (or just make hexes not spawn until they are activated like some of the newer ones)
• Massively nerf or completely rework all of the gen defense perks

Give survivors basekit information and anti-slugging:

• WGLF endurance becomes basekit (minus the healing speed)
• Survivors get kindred basekit (minus the killer aura reading)

Slow down the early game while speeding up the endgame.

• Make the number of charges it takes to repair a gen start high, but decrease based on the number of gens done, but equal to the same time.
• For example:
  • 5 gens: 135 seconds
  • 4 gens: 110 seconds
  • 3 gens: 90 seconds
  • 2 gens: 70 seconds
  • 1 gen : 45 seconds
• When a gen is repaired, all gens take less charges (take away the charges from completed progress so you don't have 5 gens all pop at once)
• Rework gen INCREASE perks and toolboxes to work based on percentages (basically, they are more effective early on, and less effective later)
• Because gen defense is percentage based, this makes gen defense stronger early on, but weaker later where 3 genning is more of a problem. This also makes 3 genning far less effective because you only have to repair the gen for half the time on the last gen. It also slows down the early game so you aren't losing 2-3 gens in the first chase.

From there you have solved the following problems at a BASE level (not with bandaid fixes or perks, but core design):

• Tunneling is no longer a problem
• Camping is no longer a problem
• 3 genning is (probably) no longer a problem
• The early game now actually exists for killer
• The late game doesn't feel like a killer can draw it out massively as much anymore
• Killers aren't forced to bring gen defense perks and balance the game around it
• Survivors aren't forced to bring anti-tunnel perks and balance the game around it.
• Slugging is massively nerfed/discouraged because killers get a ton of benefits from hooking survivors.

From there, now that the base core game is fixed, you give it some time, collect some data, and then start looking at individual killers and see if you can nerf/buff them based on the changes. Likely you'd probably see ones like nurse, ghoul, blight etc. would need to be nerfed, and some of the weaker ones like trapper, skull merchant, ghost face etc. would need buffs.

But the point there is you would have a healthy base to build off of that removes all the annoying BS that everyone hates.

*This kind of balance has been achieved as a matter of course up until now. *The game is so simple that there's little reason to continue playing. *The players that are always present are inexperienced players (including new players) and long-time veterans. *It can be assumed that there aren't many middle-class players.*There's no reason to continue. For example, even if you can earn a lot of BP, you won't necessarily play and develop every killer, or every survivor. *Because the results won't change much. *If there were more reasons to continue playing the game, the balance might improve.

* But Just because it's balanced doesn't mean it's fun.

*Additional Note *I don't know what exactly qualifies as a reason to play this game. *What reasons do you have for playing it?

Nerf the top 5-6 strongest killers and buff the weakest killers. Tighten matchmaking slightly so we don't get 50 hour players getting matched with Otz and Hens.

• I'd simply put "kindred" (without killer aura vision) basekit. SoloQ would benefit HUGELY from this, and SWF wouldn't change anything at all, since they already have this kind of information. With this simple change, half of Soloq's problems would be solved. As a solution it could be implemented immediately and without huge programming efforts (since kindred already exists). Plus the current kindred could remain unchanged as a perk (even if now it would have less value) ... since it would still show you the killer's aura

I'd make a dynamic system that tweaks the balance as the game progresses. Check gen completion versus how many hook states and kills the killer has.

If gens are vastly outpacing the killer then gen repair speeds should slow down. If killer is stomping survivors very quickly then gens should speed up. Possibly with speed nerfs and buffs in the mix

It would be immensley difficult to implement but is the only way i can see of rebalancing the game without screwing up either high tier or low tier games. Any survivor buffs make the higher skill end of game almost impossible for killers and any general killer buffs make low skill and soloq more punishing for survivors than they already are

• Slow down the release schedule, so things aren't rushed or not thought through, and allow for adjustment to existing material.
• Stop using Excel spreadsheets to determine balance changes, and don't be afraid to make big swings.
• Actually examine the most popular perks and make BHVR understand why they're the most popular, and from there establish with player consensus what the strongest perks in the game are.
• Then nerf the strongest perks on both sides: Pain Resonance, DMS, Nowhere to Hide, Vigil, Resurgence, the more meta exhaustion perks.
• Meanwhile, rework or buff weak or poorly-designed perks, especially ones that synergise with non-tunneling playstyles for Killers and that are altruistic for Survivors.
• Make all maps closer to the same size/density and easier to navigate. That way Trapper isn't doomed by Badham or Gas Heaven and Nurse isn't guaranteed a win on Midwich.
• Give solo Survivors more information about their teammates.
• Implement a comms wheel to allow solo Survivors to communicate.
• Nerf toolboxes, and give Survivors more positive reasons to use other items, especially keys and maps.
• impose limitations on stacking of buffs and debuffs like haste or repair speed to mitigate power creep or unintended combined effects from future perks and powers. Adjust the numbers of perks and effects accordingly.
• Improve explanations of Killer powers, Killer and Survivor perks and other effects to newer players, so they aren't deluged with unclear nonsense and obscuring the real strength or weakness of certain Killers or strategies. Improve the tutorial so it explains common scenarios and how best to address them.
• Return Survivor hook time to 60 seconds.
• Bring the top tier and bottom tier Killers (as established by community consensus and not Excel spreadsheets) in line with the rest with regards to power levels and ease of use. Give them full reworks if necessary.
• Give several of the older Killers an add-on pass to improve their Power versatility and remove problematic designs. Maybe even consider reducing the number of addons per Killer overall to reduce bloat.

What do you think the core problems are, and how would you balance the game so that both side is fair and fun to play?

I've always felt that the problem begins with addons and the game's grind and everything kind of spirals from there. By creating tiers of items it creates a strange balance mechanic - if one side sweats more in what they bring, they are going to have the advantage.

Number 2 will never happen because it assumes that all swfs are hyper efficient gen/escape machines (they aren't). As it stands, 4 man swfs escape about 48% (which is above average) with the average escape rate for all survivors aimed at 40%. If all swfs were nerfed, the overall escape rate would almost certainly go down. So I'll say again, swfs are strong on average, but killers still perform better regardless of whether they are facing a fulls swf or full solos.

That doesn't matter because Surv perks and Killers are nerfed all the time because at their peak performance they are broken. The attempted counter argument that SWF shouldn't receive nerfs because not all SWFs play super serious doesn't matter, the coordination is something this game wasn't built upon and one of the core reasons the game is entirely unbalanced.

I don't need you to say it again, I'd actually prefer you don't say anything at all if what you do say is of such low quality. I honestly couldn't care less for stats that don't factor in afks or even DC's when the majority of my SoloQ matches have DCs in them; that in of itself glaringly tells me that my matches aren't even contributing to whatever bull stats you wanna bring up.

I get that the shilling for SWF will continue no matter what, but can we get some originality with the rebuttals at least? Instead of the same washed responses?

Not every 4-man SWF is a "bully squad". Nor are all of them super-cracked "seal teams" either.

I think attempting to achieve perfect balance isn't really super desirable, so my focus personally would be on tightening up edge cases and promoting more fair + engaging gameplay for both sides.

This obviously isn't an exhaustive list but I think the big bullet points would be…

• Nerf tunnelling. I've got this post up for more details on the specifics of how I think it should be done, but TLDR is that rehooking someone immediately after they're unhooked results in no hook state gained, to make tunnelling someone more of a situational slowdown tactic like slugging.
• Rework toolboxes, also explained in the post above but the TLDR is that problematic gen speeds basically always require a toolbox. Since just nerfing the numbers wouldn't be satisfying, repair speed should be replaced with something else entirely.
• Increase information gain for solo queue. I'd personally be wary of some kind of ping system, so instead I'd look at things like seeing your teammates' perks in the match details screen + a timed aura reveal on your teammates when someone's hooked, stuff like that.
• I don't have specifics for this, but something to pare down aggressive objective denial on the survivor side. Full dedicated teams for this can be really obnoxious, but each component they use is reasonably balanced on its own, so I'm not really sure how to tackle this one.
• Disincentivise slowdown perk stacking on the killer end. Refer to this post for details on how, but TL;DR would be that regressing generators wouldn't be affected by generator explosions or generator blocking.

From there, I think you'd be left with more specific balance problems, EG, nerfing the strongest killers, shuffling strength on meta perks for both sides, and addressing overall map balance. This kind of thing is always going to be a longterm, iterative process, but the bullet points there should provide a more stable base to work from.

Not every Killer is nurse, so why do perks have to balanced for Nurse? You really don't see how atrocious your comment is, when Killer side has dozens of Killers that need to be balanced around aside from Killer perks, but here you are claiming that SWF shouldn't be balanced lol

That's the point, you didn't say it, you people never do lol So what I did and maybe you're familiar with this concept, is use a analogy to directly compare how Killers get balanced with how Survs get balanced.

There's a massive variance in Killers, does that mean the less picked ones don't matter? Who cares if they are op or not? Or perks, why should perks be balanced for all Killers? There's just such a huge variance and that's not even accounting for the variance of skill, right? Why do any Killers receive nerfs to their kits, there's such a huge variance of skill at play to be doing that, right?

No, ofc not because that would be ridiculous and promote awful gameplay balance, much like what your comments do, but for Survs.

And yea, I'm a huge proponent of wanting repair speed debuffs for SWF's and I totally think they could handle it. I also think that by doing that, those top S-Tier Killers can be rebalanced, leading to an overall better gameplay experience.

Okay lol The same people are on here crying about the game balance and why it never gets better. There's really no truth to any of your rebuttals, just an immense lack of critical thinking.