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Conclusions from data sheet

gantes
gantes Member Posts: 1,611

I LOVED the selection of data that made it to the dev post. I think we should be able to overall draw some conclusions from that.

  1. SWF groups are really, really, REALLY not as prevalent as most people here think.
  2. Even among the SWF groups, the escape rate doesn't change much. That goes to show that full groups are more annoying than they're strong, and most people who play SWF do so to fool around with friends, not to tryhard and make killers miserable and the role impossible to play.
  3. The overall survival rate goes to show what we all might've expected. The least experienced/skilled players are, the more killer-favored the game is. The only concerning point is the survival rate at red ranks, rank 1 more specifically. However, it's a sudden spike at rank 1 and it could be due to a small sample size. I'd say an escape rate anywhere between 45 and 55% would be ideal, but 40-60% is an okay range too.
  4. The killer popularity numbers are a bit more... concerning. If high rank players feel like they should pick Nurse so often, something's wrong.
  5. Survivor perks aren't as centralizing as I thought, except for low rank self care, but that's expected.
  6. Killer perks need to be looked into. I don't think Ruin is THAT strong, I just think it's a necessity depending on what killer you're playing (at high ranks, you ARE gonna use it if you're not Nurse, Billy or Spirit, and even those three use it sometimes). BBQ is absurdly popular too but that's probably partly because of the BPs. Maybe more interactive ways of slowing the game down through perks are necessary.

I'm not gonna touch on killer kill rates since it's not divided by ranks, only by platform.

Overall, the game seems to be in a more balanced place than expected. I think a lot of the complaints come from the fact that the game is an inherently frustrating experience when you do poorly, more so than other games. But the numbers look pretty good imo.

I think we should paste the data sheet link everytime someone asks for SWF to be nerfed. I still think some solo survivor buffs can be discussed, like making an iteration of Kindred basekit, but other than that, when you get better as survivor, you tend to be smarter around the map and more optimal, either you're playing alone or with a group.

Thanks a ton for the data, devs and @Peanits . I hope we can get more posts like this, especially about the future impact of EGC on balance and game times, and maybe some map-specific data, if there's enough of a sample size for that. A few days ago I made a post about how vital I think having game stats is for healthy and constructive discussion, and you guys delivered.

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Comments

  • DenimChicken
    DenimChicken Member Posts: 114

    On xbox if I get a 3 man or 4 man lobby load it's usually a group of try hard bagging SWF you can tell which of the 3 are not on com. If you kill just one of them they message you something toxic. If they all escape they message you something toxic. They will even invite you to their chat party to trash talk you. Not all of them are like that of course but the majority of my end match communications are toxic and salty with swf groups. I main killer and play survivor sometimes. I was in a 3 man SWF playing the solo survivor hooked in the basement next to someone else. They unhooked their friend and left me on the hook no terror radius no urgency to run and literally left me hanging for the entity.

  • CornChip
    CornChip Member Posts: 540

    A very well worded and thought out post mate.

    I agree with alot of what you have said. The bad games definitely stick out in the mind while the easy games tend to be forgotten or considered what should be the norm in the brain.

    I merely based my assumption on the sheer number of posts and comments about SWFS!!!!!! on the forums. There is a tonne of them.

    Going off that, one could be forgiven for thinking that almost all SWFS!!!!!!! are as coordinated and organised as the NAVY seals lol.

    I guess its as you said of the painful games sticking out in the brain more than the fun/casual ones though.

    It's just annoying to me to see so many people blame their losses on SWFS!!!!!!!!!!!

    (The exclamation points were for comedic effect)

  • gantes
    gantes Member Posts: 1,611

    Yes, it's the same principle as remembering all the times MoM/Adrenaline/BT cost you a lot of time, pressure and kills and forgetting about all the times where they were minor annoyances.

    That's why I love game stats and hope the devs do more of it.

  • Kenshin
    Kenshin Member Posts: 912

    this stats dont matter to me since at rank one in my region the only thing i face is the tryhard swf with all the crutch perks and items. same for killer players who only uses the same two killers with the most bs addons. no fun at red ranks my friend. and you never balance a game around ppl who are bad at the game btw. game is is ######### at high ranks because the balance is ######### period.

  • bigbadbeetelborg
    bigbadbeetelborg Member Posts: 18

    This thread wasn't completely free of jabs and vitriol, but the forums have definitely changed. I quit them a few months back bc it was toxic up in here, and i returned to see these stats bc i saw many people talking about them on Twitch. I was pleasantly surprised to see some civil discussion. This is of course only based on one thread, but I want to venture forth and that is different.

  • DocOctober
    DocOctober Member Posts: 2,230
    edited May 2019

    I'm not just talking about 4man SWFs, the same holds true for 3man or 2man SWFs: they are suicidally altruistic most of the time and many Solo players are as well.

    The statistics, as usual, lack context in how the data was obtained. Drawing conclusions from that is dangerous as they don't necessarily reflect how the game actually plays out IRL.

    And another point: realise that with a 4man SWF, all slots are full, so the number of lobbies containing 4man SWFs will always be very low. Fact is that about 70 % of all in-game lobbies contain some form of SWF set-up.

  • Raptorrotas
    Raptorrotas Member Posts: 3,254

    I wouldve liked to see the swf per rank percentages.

    Running into 4mans might be more common in red ranks as there are less people at that rank

  • Boss
    Boss Member Posts: 13,616

    I was really surprised with how low the amount of SWF actually is.

    And Killer Perks need some love like right now.

  • CronaWins
    CronaWins Member Posts: 650

    "The killer popularity numbers are a bit more... concerning. If high rank players feel like they should pick Nurse so often, something's wrong."

    Well yeah. I could tell you why just from looking at the killer roster.

  • BlackReaper
    BlackReaper Member Posts: 134


    "Overall, the game seems to be in a more balanced place than expected. I think a lot of the complaints come from the fact that the game is an inherently frustrating experience when you do poorly, more so than other games. But the numbers look pretty good imo."

    You just nailed it.

  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675

    My main conclusion from the survival rate is that the game is balanced for rank 8-11. There's an 80% survival rate at rank 1, which is even higher than I thought it was.

  • 245_Trioxin
    245_Trioxin Member Posts: 171

    @Orion Yeah, that is a really strange anomaly that happens between rank 2 and rank 1, a 20% increase in survival in one rank is odd.

    But, it does make sense that they would balance around the mid-ranks, as that is where the majority of the player base is, more than likely, playing at.

  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675

    @245_Trioxin No data was given, but unless you think it's a massive coincidence that many players all suddenly started suffering from high queue times at roughly the same time as a large group of players stopped playing, then had their queue times returned to normal once that large group of players returned to the game, I don't see what more you'd need.

  • 245_Trioxin
    245_Trioxin Member Posts: 171


    @Delfador That, I agree with completely. There should be a bit more play with staying in that rank. But, like I said in another comment. I think it reflects the issues with the current rank system. Killers do have an easier time getting to rank 1 than survivors, so the survivors that are at rank 1 are going to be the cream of the crop, whereas the killers may not be at quite that skill level. It would explain the jump in survival rate.

  • 245_Trioxin
    245_Trioxin Member Posts: 171

    Well, right now it's just hearsay. I would have to just give you the benefit of the doubt.

  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675

    @245_Trioxin It's either that, or you suggest that it's all a massive coincidence, including the player count.

  • ranbuta
    ranbuta Member Posts: 92

    OK, swf with VC is not OP,but not fair.

  • NuclearBurrito
    NuclearBurrito Member Posts: 6,807

    Is it safe to assume it was the 4 month period where DBD lost 50% of it's playerbase?

  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675
  • NuclearBurrito
    NuclearBurrito Member Posts: 6,807

    In that case. There is your hard data

  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675

    @Delfador You know what, Delfador? You raise a very good point that I hadn't thought of. However, even if we take the survival rate at rank 2 into account, it's still a 60-80% winrate (since we'd need to group up rank 1 players as well, but don't have enough data to do a weighted average). It's way too high.

    @Peanits Can we get this discretized data in full?

  • 245_Trioxin
    245_Trioxin Member Posts: 171

    Okay, here's the link to Steam Charts:

    https://steamcharts.com/app/381210

    You would be looking at March 2017. It wasn't a 50% reduction in the player base.

    Here's the Steam forum thread, showing that the discussion started around March 3, and the protest was planned to happen on March 13. So, you cannot take January or February into account, as that is not when the strike happened.

    January was the release of RE7. March was the release of the final DLC for DS3. So, there may have been at least a few other factors.


  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675

    @245_Trioxin The organized strike started in March, yes, but the overall drop in players was due to killers quitting en masse, for one reason or another. And yes, there were other factors, but you have no evidence to suggest those releases were responsible for anything by themselves. I do remember players saying they were quitting to play other things due to being frustrated with DbD, however.

  • 245_Trioxin
    245_Trioxin Member Posts: 171

    @Orion Your argument was that it is objective fact that the strike was the cause of a massive drop in the player base and caused survivor wait times to sky rocket.

    This is not true, as the strike had less impact than that if we look at the stats.

    The only reason I pointed out that there were at least a couple major releases was to show that there is possibly some other influence on top of the strike itself. January could be written off due to it being directly after the holidays. People get games for the holidays, and stop playing games they usually play to try out the new games.

    Correlation is not causation. There are a number of variables that could have come into play there.

    I am not saying it didn't have an impact, but I am saying that it had less of an impact than you initially implied.

  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675

    @Peanits I meant the killer usage rate, separated by rank, but that's nice as well.