http://dbd.game/killswitch
The Core Killer Game Mechanic DBD is missing
Over time, as the killer roster has been expanding, we've seen increasingly that more and more killers have fallen into the weak killer category. Sometimes even mocked in the dbd comp community as 3 stages killers; killers who can only get 3 stages over the whole match if played optimally. And what do these weak killers all have in common?
A Lack of mobility and map pressure.
It's no secret that bigger maps disproportionally make non-mobility killers weaker, where currently, the top roster of killers all have map mobility as a side-consequence of their killer power. Blight, Nurse, and slightly further down Kaneki, Billy, etc.
Now it'd be sad if we'd have to make every killer power in the future to also somehow be a map mobility skill in order for these killers to be able to have any relevance is higher level lobbies. That's why I say, no: We should target the fundamental flaw that non mobile killers have right now, so that killer power design can flourish and be diverse. But that means that we have to fix a fundamental game mechanic: Movement.
Luckily, DBD has already addressed this in the past, with mechanics such as Bloodlust. These fundamental gameplay adjustments have been great, and these mechanics have added a lot of higher level play as well, such as shift-teching etc.
But right now we are missing one: A fundamental movementspeed mechanic that helps killers get around the map, but doesn't help them in chase.
PATROL MODE
When holding the forward button (without pressing other movement buttons like sideways) while not in chase for over 5 seconds and not running over scratchmarks, your movement speed starts to accumulate up to a maximum of 130% (experimental number). Disables when running over scratchmarks or entering chase. When the effect disables, you get slowed down slightly for a second
Why is patrol mode so great?
Because now, every killer has the ability to move around the map fast, by holding forward. And although they can do more than move in a straight line by quickly moving their camera and change directions, they don't nearly have the same ability to look around as much as when they are walking normally and being able to fully look around without also moving in that direction. This makes it so that survivors can still hide without having to deal with a faster killer necessarily. The patrol mode is mainly useful when you want to move to a distant location in the map, giving weaker non-mobile killers the chance to play the game more, and not wasting half of the match traversing empty maps without a chase while the objectives get done without much interactivity, allowing non mobile killers to play as action packed as the current speed demons we all know and love 💕
Also, if you have a better name to name this mechanic, to fit the thematic naming, such as bloodlust, feel free to share it down below!
Comments
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I'm all for ideas like this!
There can't just be nothing you can do except abandon your favorites and always pick a high mobility killer, that really sucks for killer players, but it sucks a lot for survivors too because it slaughters the variety that players actually get to experience in the game past an intermediate level of play. It's like having 42 flavors of jellybeans with only 5 flavors making the bulk of what everybody ends up having.
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Real. It creates a situation where killers say survivors are OP, because like 90% of their killer roster isn't viable, yet survivors will say killer is OP, because they will mainly be facing that last 10% of killers in most of their matches (in higher mmr)
A proper patrolling movement speed mechanic would not only save all m1 killers and create more variety, but it would also allow more map variety and make larger maps less of a problem, as the new map currently is0 -
It's a fine suggestion. I'd like to see it tested to see the effects and how players use it. I've noticed players tend to find ways to break things pretty badly, so this would need a lot of games from all levels of play to determine whether it'd be healthy or not.
The one concern I have is how this may impact killers whose traversal power is also an effective chase power (Nurse/Blight what a suprise!). It'd result in them being able to apply pressure without having to arrive already dealing with fatigue or a reduction in tokens and could consolodate their power further (although likely not by much).
Killers with no mobility options should be whitelisted as able to get 'Patrol Mode,' whereas all others should not. Maybe a global sound cue for when this mode is entered so that survivors know to expect Usain Trapper to burst from the corn at 30mph.3 -
I will admit that the game is hard to balance when you have people gravitate towards mobility killers (Henry, Krasue, Wraith (yes, even Wraith), Kaneki, Hillbilly, Blight, Nurse, Wesker, etc).
We do not need to give a handholding mechanic to killers (130%!) speed boost for holding W.
I do not want to imagine me seeing a killer zoom across the map and then slow down while in chase with me. To me, and I'm sorry if this wasn't your intention - you are fundamentally describing how a killer might hack and then go slow. You are describing hacking level movement baked into the killer.
We already have Bloodlust, they buffed it years back when they changed the gen speeds by making it easier to obtain (less time to get it), made survivors lose more distance (you can look this up, I'm not going to give you the information - you can do this yourself).
So, no - I would hate to see this mechanic at my MMR brackets. I honestly would probably retire my account entirely, move to GTA 6, and hope that a new game would come out to fill that niche that Dead By Daylight gives.
Trapper was my second most used main after Onryo, I do not need 110% movement speed as Trapper or Onryo. This is functionally game-breaking and I don't know how to take this at all. Bear in mind, I did not use basement Trapper - pure slowdown (Pop, Surge/Pain Res, Grim Embrace, and No Way Out) - your recommendation even if I don't want to go play killers (I am not interested in the role anymore) would really make me not even want to load up a customs and play as the killer (like I did with The First recently).
I appreciate your level of thinking and trying to make the game more dynamic, but I would hate this version of the game - and this isn't accounting for the fact that high mobility killers would get this, yeah no thanks.
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In regards to breaking things, I agree. I initially thought about it myself too. Right now you could even argue that "shift tech-ing" at shack is breaking it too but in survivor's favour, but in this case of course we'd be looking at it breaking in favour of the killer.
That's why i made it so that you have to press forward only (or on controller holding forwards with a 15 degree variation only) for the effect to trigger. This way they can't run backwards and use the ability to not look at the survivor to sneak up to a survivor at a lot of speed. And in cases where there's a lot of cover, I made it so that scratchmarks block the effect too so that survivors can slow it down. I think it'd even be possible to boost the heartbeat during this ability to compensate and give a bigger heads up. All of these smaller details could of course be looked at to get it to perfection.
Also, I agree that on certain killers it wouldn't be necessary, like on blight or on nurse. It could simple be a mechanic that's presented just like terror radius and movement speed, where some killers can also have the tag "Patrolling" added to the list, showing they have access to this feature. So I definitely agree with that.
I think there are many small ways in which to fine tune the patrolling mechanic, as long as its satisfies it's general design philosophy of being a non-chase transportation mechanism for at least killers that lack basic ways for transportation inside their kit1 -
In regards to:
"We do not need to give a handholding mechanic to killers (130%!) speed boost for holding W."
I think this statement is actually very wrong. If you'd want to balance killers who are natively at a massive disadvantage due to their lack of navigating the map, merely due to how much passive progression the survivor team gets by virtue of being a slow transportation killer, either their main power would have to be overbearingly strong in chase, or it would be impossible to balance, so I think this statement by itself is already very wrong.
In regards to bloodlust: This is indeed a movement speed mechanic, but centered around chases. And for it's addition to the game it has in fact been unanimously great. This in fact testifies the importance of the Patrolling mechanic as it is made with the same philosophy; Without bloodlust, for many killers, a lot of pallets would be permanently safe pallets, unless their specific killer power was designed around making it not so. In the past, many spots may even have been infinites to some killers while not to others. These equalizing mechanics that have addressed the flaws in the core gameplay's fundamental mechanics have unanimously made the game better, and for the lack of these mechanics, you would've likely quit the game even sooner if you had any plans of quitting3 -
Of course, the things I mention aren't to rain on your parade. I think there's potential in the base idea. It would be along the lines of a balance change I'm seeing rumbled about more and more - per killer balancing.
I think the main thing is knowing just how much of an impact particular numbers could have, which killers need it more/less. It sounds to me like if they brought in this mechanic, having an attribute like you described, such as "Patrol Speed" would be a way to allow it to shine for the killers that need it.
I'd still want a very lengthy PTB for something that shakes things up so much. Do not underestimate the ability of thousands of players to turn the best ideas and intentions into a rather brutal stick to beat each other with.2 -
I think what you said is actually quite smart, and it might indeed even have a varying effect on different m1 killers, which is why I'm always glad why forumers discuss thing more and more.
I think it would genuinly be great if they tested something like this, and if proven that there are considerable effects in balance, they could even make the 130% a varying number per killer. So killers base stats would more like this:
- 4.6ms movement speed
- 32m terror radius
- 130% patrolling bonus
And have these base stats simply be different for every killer. It would also make buffing m1 killers a lot more convenient, as micro adjustments to these numbers are overall easy to adjust, which is why I often wish beHaviour did more numberwise micro adjustments.1 -
Indeed! Thank you.
I think the main thing that we need to make sure we're doing, though, is remembering that many less mobile killers can be quite strong in chase/zoning/locking down areas. So any boost to map pressure they could achieve through a patrol mechanic must not give them the ability to switch pressure points as quickly as mobility/telport killers do, as that would somewhat sap the point of those abilities. 130% is quite a high baseline given the increments the game tends to work with.
But, I won't know the right figures, and it'd take time to create figures that work. There would also need to be a very strict system beyond even the forward-only/turn-with-camera restriction. Every single combination of button presses and mouse movements has some kind of tech associated with it in this game, and many techs are abusing mechanics in unintended ways. Don't think for one second that the starving Trapper mains won't immediately form a discord channel exclusively for figuring out how to exploit this patrol idea in an offensive way.
There is one mild concern that I have, however, and that is a matter of immersion. If you get somewhat used to patroling at high speeds, is it possible that chases for some killers will feel slow? Like we're wading through liquid tar? If I'm zooming about as trapper getting set up, catch someone and start a chase, is that chase going to be exilerating if I feel like I'm slower than I was just mucking about the map?
There's strengths and flaws. I'm not 100% let's get this in the game, but I'm open to discussion and experimentation. I don't particularly enjoy playing the high-tiers. I find success with the low -tiers. But I've also had games where my chases have been quick and efficient, but I've just not been able to keep the gens from going off because the map is too large. Possible macro skill issue, sure, but it's a common enough complaint that maybe it's worth more of a review than simply pointing at some kill rates and calling it a day.2 -
Id rather they balance around low mobility killers and stop making mobile killers and bring survivors back in line than making every killer a speed freak.
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I really would love for you to watch high MMR gameplay with that type of mindset.
Please show me with your own footage how you can easily dominate killers over and over.
I think I'm fairly experienced at the game, but for you to act like the killer itself is at an inherent disadvantage? Okay.
If you feel you need to have speed hacks + Bloodlust to catch me, be my guest. I just know that Behavior would never implement what you just described, it would fundamentally break high MMR (where I'm located). I sympathize with low and mid MMR, I do - but at some point you need to stop asking for handholding mechanics. If WOO is handholding, all aura is handholding. I've had a Wesker literally kick a gen with Nowhere To Hide, I ran with scratch marks, and he did a complete 360 and could not find me. (Distortion ftw, BTW!)
Please be serious and do not be condescending - if the killer role was so horrible, why do people play it? Hmmm........
Oh yeah, another edit that I have. I don't need catch-up mechanics to play Onryo, Trapper, Doctor - yet you NEED it, talk about entitled to say I'd quit over anything, lmfao.
Oh yeah, another edit - I'm on a roll now.
If you argue that killers need 130% movement speed, I say for the low-mid MMR survivors we should also have 70% movement speed when we're not in chase to help us with macro to do our objectives. Are you aware of how silly that sounds?
Post edited by CautionaryMary on-2 -
I personally think that the best thing is have as many various as possible to adjust. The 130% is a clear example, but the devil is in the details tbh. Like, at least how I originally proposed it, the patrolling only activates after 5 seconds and builds up slowly, causing it to only work if the killer is committed to a longer patrol, and won't really have much effect in an area where people run around.
Another good variable for balance is the slowdown after a patrol, similar to many killer powers like legion cancelling ability, and giving time to escape, as it's purely meant defensively. It could for example partially scale based on how long they've been patrolling for (with a cap of course) so it can't really be used offensively.
The 130% buildup could also apply to both speed and heartbeat to compensate.
Currently, entering chase would also force the killer out off patrol, which is of course based on a survivor running, but we could make it so that seeing scratchmarks within 16 meters would force you out as well, so you couldn't try anything by going around scratch marks to somehow get closer
I think another good way to prevent offensive use could be to make it stop patrolling if you stay within a certain area, so if every second you aren't moving further away and to new places from your original patrolling points or something off the sort, you'd be forced out too (with implementation details that would make it work for multi story maps ofc)
There could also be a potential sound cue warning if the killer is close if they have undetectable and are in patrolling mode. Details like that. (Although it may not be necessary if the slowdown after leaving patrol makes it unviable for sneak-ups of course)
I think with the perfect implementation is somewhere out there between these nuanced implementation details that could be added and adjusted to the system to make it perfect. All of them would take some iterations of testing to get them just right to where we'd want to have them, but I'd think we'd be one step closer to perfection for the game (and we will just be left with the exhaustive last 2 person slugging timer situation after)1 -
I think that would just unnecessarily ruin design variety imo, which to an extend is already a problem with the ever more morphing of killers into the dash (myers, pig, etc) or projectile design (huntress, glitchtrap, etc)
Right now, non mobile killers would have to be stronger in chases than all mobility killers to be balanced, but if mobility was built in then we would have complete design and balance freedom around chases mostly, which I think is the best0 -
Eh, I just think we are getting too much bloat. Everything is too chaotic and almost impossible for any new players to understand the game and stick around. That means less new blood which means a slow death of the game. I feel the game needs to go back to the basics and focus on low mobility killers, but give them some sort of unique twist that makes them different. They dont have to be mindblowingly different - just different enough to add a bit of variety. Right now we have TOO much variety which is hurting the game. Every match is all over the place which pretty much scares away any new players. It has gotten so bad that even the devs realize this which is why the devs released a more streamlined description of perks this patch.
The fact is, high mobility killers have been problematic for the games health. I dont think trying to fix it by making all of the killers the problem will be a good fix - the problem of high mobility still persists. We would be turning a few problematic killers problem into an every killer problem. High mobility simply breaks the balance of the game. It even makes tunneling worse when a killer from across the map can quickly get back to any hook. In every aspect, high mobility is just broken.
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I'll be waiting for your footage, please let me know when you upload it, OP. ❤️🤗
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I regularly watch high level comp dbd gameplay, and if you knew how many killers are considered "3 hook stage" killers then you'd understand how dire the situation is for many of the m1 killers.
Also, if you say high mmr, you realize that the maximum mmr in dbd is capped at a pretty low level right? It's like capping chess mmr at 1600 and letting all 1600 players play with players up to 3000 mmr. Comp dbd is realistically the only real high mmr.
"If you feel you need to have speed hacks + Bloodlust to catch me, be my guest."
I feel like this statement is a bit of a strawman. This is not about catching you. This is about eliminating the completely uninteractive transport time that the already weak selection of killers currently has. A time that killers like nurse and blight do not have all while also having a way stronger chase power themselves than the killers for whom a chase power is all they have going for them.
"Oh yeah, another edit that I have. I don't need catch-up mechanics to play Onryo, Trapper, Doctor - yet you NEED it, talk about entitled to say I'd quit over anything, lmfao."
Everyone needs it on killers like trapper when paired in real mmr. You simply seem misinformed about how mmr works in public lobbies. When you convince yourself of are high mmr lobbies are in fact not high mmr lobbies. Comp dbd are the only real high mmr lobbies and if you think trapper is remotely balanced in high mmr in regards to hooking ability then that simply doesn't match the reality. Forget about how good you believe to be in chases, just based on pre-running it would already be over.
Trapper, as well as many m1 killers are considered 3 stage killers for a reason. Because that's realistically all they can chew. With tunneling and everything.-2 -
I think the general consensus of the entire Comp DBD community already suffices
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No, show me YOUR footage of you dominating killers.
Please, show me your footage or are you a one-trick pony advocating for your side? Hm.
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I do think that DBD right now has a very dated tutorial that doesn't help newer players understand the game mechanics that are at play, though i disagree that it scares them off, as the player base has only grown. I think it has accomplished the opposite. Depth in gameplay has kept players more interested at sticking around in the long run
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I don't have to? If you think it's normal to randomly demand strangers to do tasks for you, I have one for you. Jump on the Comp DBD 1v1 server and show your chase times against top players with trapper sets. My estimate is that you will be ran for 2-3 minutes if not more. Needles to say, not a chase time that you're winning any group games with.
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So, are you ready to 70% movement speed for survivors? It takes me time to get to the three gen, I feel us survivors need that because the maps are so large. Have you seen the new map? Wow, I need 70% movement speed to get to the objectives because I see low-mid MMR dying with terrible soloq experiences.
Are you down for my proposal?
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Also, no - you think comp DBD is where high MMR is? Lmfao.
So, I have to go play with Wispy, MomoSeventh, X9 Note, Angelz on full comms with complete clock callouts to be in high MMR. Get off your soapbox, show me your games of playing survivor.
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You are simply trolling. But here are real comp sets for chase times as an example (pretty standard), should you be interested:
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1v1 sets don't have coms my friend. But the chase times remain the same; game losing
Also: if you're afraid of coms, remember than in a non com public lobby survivors aren't forced to run unique perks. All 4 of them are allowed to run DS, Shoulder the burden, etc. so the coms setting is not exclusively a buff as you suggest it-1 -
Alright, I'll be waiting when you show me killers start at an inherent disadvantage at low-mid MMR by again, asking YOU for your footage.
If it's so easy to loop, get gens done, and everything why can't you show me your footage? Do you have footage of you playing survivor? I have footage of me playing killer and survivor, so where is your footage?
..........?
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Where did I claim that killers are at a disadvantage at low-mid tier again? The claim I have been making is that m1 killers without mobility are at an inherit disadvantage, and at higher mmr are considered 3 stage killers. As confirmed, and is consensus documented by thousands of hours of footage all over youtube from comp dbd players. Thousands of 1v1 sets with game losing chase times, and many personal accounts from such players as well.
Consider your history of rejecting empirical evidence, I don't see why any other footage would help. Consider you yourself are unwilling to post your comp dbd 1v1 sets yet are trying to instruct me to record videos for you0 -
Your points aren't invalid at all, in high MMR this would rattle and break things. However… why are we advocating for balancing off of high MMR? That's a niche portion of the game, and MMR is broken anyway. Hasn't the model BHVR has been using been focal on balancing according to the lowest performers and their struggles?
Bringing the bulk of the game more in line with being welcome to newcomers is important, we need that fresh blood. If a change is made that rattles high MMR I'm just not certain that concern is as egregiously weighty as you present it to be. Certainly there would need to be minor adjustments to adjust for the higher MMR, but OP's idea here is (while rough) trying to adjust for a very real problem. BHVR is releasing larger and larger maps, and many of which are indoor. Why would they not then pivot balancing to accomodate for those things? If the environment changes, so too must the balance. Evolution is determined by environment afterall.
And before someone says something along the lines of 'High tier would benefit too much on killer side' again, need I remind you that the high tier killers (as the OP pointed out) are largely mobility killers. They don't need this buff that's correct, but it also would not particularly help them. Blight is going to pinball around either way and I would presume this speed boost would preclude movement abilities speeds. Nurse is going to blink around anyway, and Kaneki is gonna do his Alex Mercer zoomies either way. Billy is going to fly around with his saw, either way.
The problem really is that mobility is proving to be meta for killer Tiers, and unless that can be addressed we are just going to see new killers being mobility to compete (as if they don't compete they won't sell and if they don't sell what's the point for BHVR?) while lower tiers become more and more obsolete.
Is the idea rough? Sure, but it's a helluva lot better than just griping until nothing new shakes things up and BHVR is forced to release increasingly large numbers of mobility killers just to make something people are willing to buy. No one wants to see the next three killers be S-tier due to mobility - it's sad to see as a Killer and depressingly annoying as survivor.
TL-DR;
I'm not worried about how killers would 'break' this at all, partially because survivors will also meta around 'breaking' it by forcing loops. It's already common practice to have a survivor on loop duty trying to get and keep the killers attention - that would immediately break patrol mode as killers have no control over when they enter chase, it's determined by a survivor in line of sight running.So long as the killer abilities do not gain this movespeed bonus in patrol mode, or patrol mode is made to interrupt the patrol mode, I think it's a fine idea.
I.E. - Huntress hatchet throw state shouldn't speed up, billy chainsaw dash shouldn't speed up, etc etc etc.
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I think I'm gonna bow out of this conversation, but do/have you played survivor? I just find it a simple request to ask someone for footage if they're dominating.
Maybe I want to learn some stuff from your own survivor gameplay, I get tired of watching Cru5h, so it'd be nice to see you dominate killers routinely.
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I am literally a survivor main. This isn't a "make killer or survivor stronger" type of post. I advocate for all sides, including fixing the gap between Solos an SWFs and other issues the game currently has
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I think some kind of global patrol mechanic would help a lot of the non mobility killers
and also help killer design move away from dash slop too.2 -
as a survivor main, i absolutely LOVE this idea (along with tweaks and adjustments mention
ed in comments from @Anti051 and @AlwaysInAGoodShape). i think this would bridge that awkwardly large gap between dash killers and m1/slow killers and encourage players to actually play other characters. it would be so refreshing to queue into dbd for the night and not know what killers i'll be seeing.2
