What’s the philosophy behind making killers fun but not viable?
Shouldn’t the goal be to be fun AND viable?
Moreover, wouldn’t more fun be had on BOTH sides if more killers were balanced to be viable - killers would have fun because yay! Variety! and also not feeling held back to coddle survivors, survivors would have fun because yay! Variety! and they would have actual stakes and skill in surviving a horror game instead of being bored of their sole objective because it’s a walk in the park?
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Its because it caters to the survivor-side of Dead by Daylight. The majority. If they're having fun with the game, there's higher revenue being generated via the Store to Behavior. A happy player is a happy customer.
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Seems to me that the only survivors who are truly pleased with the state of things are survivor only players who know full well the extent of control they have on the game and are toxic little nincompoops. As someone who plays both, I feel like more fun and fairness would be had all around if dbd started feeling as scary as it did when you first start playing.
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The fun philosophy i guess?
They don't care about killers being strong, only fun to hit things with.
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Yeah that's probably when the game felt the best to me, loved how terrifying it was when you knew nothing. They need to add more scary aspects to the game. Something i'd personally like to see is darker games as survivor.
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Honestly I have given up on getting another viable and fun killer. Now I only care about the new killers design and aesthetic which scares me because if I end up liking the killers design I might main that killer. I don't see how a killer being unviable is fun though makes no sense to me.
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Keeping the Survivors from throwing a fit.
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I think the problem with viability comes down to the powers.
The most viable ones have good mobility, teleport or hit from a distance.
The power is what dictates how viable a killer can be against good players hence, Nurse, Billy, Hag and Huntress all fit into that mold as they can apply more pressure and can do better against looping than the others even if three of them are 110 speed.
The standard M1 run and chase killers are the ones considered less viable due to having to be right up on the survivors with no ability to help get closer other than walking.
I think the fun aspect the talk about is from having a variety of killer powers which can be fun to play as they create diversity.
Any killer that has to take the time to walk or can't hit from a distance has more of an issue.
That's not to say they aren't viable as some players can take a good team down with them, they are just less viable for the majority and take a lot more work in game to get the result.
So do they make all killers more mobile and balance the game or do they make them all walking and balance the game? As with both existing can they truly have balance between them?
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To me, a killer has to be viable to be fun. What's the point of Doctor or Plauge? It's a PvP game. I'm not playing a PvP game to use "fun" powers that don't appreciably affect the outcome. That's a design philosophy for a different style of game.
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I agree to a point. Iirc Plague was classified as a “fun” killer by the devs and sure, she COULD be fun she’s ALMOST there but she’s not because she is not viable and her power is held back for SURVIVORS fun. Plague could be so much more than just giving survivors an icky green coating.
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The idea behind it is to make you go play Civilization V
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Nothing makes it as fun as seeing 4 survivors tbag you at the exit game after "fun" game of spending the game as killer with useless power.
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What does your "viable" mean? If devs listened to most Killer Mains on these forums on "how to make all Killers viable", all Killers would be straight up broken.
By the way, just because many people think that only 2-3 killers are viable, doesn't mean that's true.
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Personally I use the methodology of "solve a problem, check to see if you created a new one (you almost always will), repeat with this new problem" That way you always end up going somewhere.
My legion fix post is a great example of that in action
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/56821/legion-mega-fix#latest
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This game is survivor sided, so I doubt that will see any buffs to M1 killers.
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Basically it ends up working like this:
Look at something broken that one side has (survivor looping is a good go to)
Give the Killer something to handle it effectively and reliably. This will itself be broken by design
Give survivors some tool to deal with it
Give the Killer a tool with the survivor's tool
Give survivors a tool to deal with the killers tool to...
you get the point. Anyways the goal is to use the same tool twice in this chain. Once you do that it becomes a loop and that means you win at designing counterplay.
Once you are at that point the specific balance isn't really THAT big of a deal since it means all strategies within the interaction set you were looking at will have counterplay.
Of course it's not that simple since there is more than 1 broken thing. But generally it's just:
Can the Killer counter gen rush and loops?
and
Can the Survivor's counter this Killer if he tunnels?
if the answer to these questions is a yes then you did a good.
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What's wrong with Doctor? I'd say he's solid mid tier.
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The solution is more skill based killers like Spirit. This allows them to make the killer very powerful ie rank 1 viable when played well, but not abusable at low ranks because the killer would have a high skill floor to be played well. That's why Spirit and Nurse for example are rank 1 viable but not abused at low ranks.
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Some people find being challenged is fun, so less viable Killers requiring a higher skill ceiling to do well are for them.
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In short, the only reason killers are not just stationary NPCs is so that survivors have the pleasure of knowing that their "skillz" is actually affecting another human being. BHVR is sadistic that way.
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I imagine they're having a hard time coming up with new abilities that make a killer viable at higher ranks.
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Yes, fun and power can be separate things.
Unfortunately a lot of people conflate them, thinking (wrongly) that only powerful/op killers can be fun.
Killers can be viable and fun (to play as or play against) . For example, huntress.
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He's a trash tier noobstomper.
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So the most played side stop whining at every patch.
Wich makes the other side whine instead in a never ending whining circle.
Cool stuff.
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To me, viable means a power that is useful at all ranks while also not being add-on dependent. Take Clown for instance (I may have the exact numbers wrong): he has a 15% slowdown when throwing a bottle and his base gas slows survivors down by 15% for 2 seconds. In other words, it doesn't actually do anything without add ons. It takes him longer to reload than Huntress, but his bottles don't directly do damage and don't actively affect loops without add-ons or survivor mistakes. That to me is not viable. He depends on survivor mistakes at higher ranks when add ons are not factored in.
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