There is no Diversity in DBD now, here's how we fix it
introduction
Hey, today we'll be talking about the many issues that plague DBD! Nah, just kidding... Today we're going to talk about the issues with diversity in DBD at the moment.
I've noticed a lot while playing a bunch of Survivor again that the diversity is... lacking... it doesn't really exist tbh. Either it's Freddy with the strongest add-ons and Dream Snares... or it's... spirit.
I barely see Nurse anymore after her nerf... and it's kind of sad that some Killers only follow the strongest Killer trend... it's quite boring for Survivors to face every day, and i'm sure it's boring for the Killers as well.
I'm going to touch up on some topics in this post and give some suggestions on how to fix these growing issues!
a small disclaimer
Please don't attack me in the comments below because i'm mentioning Spirit in this post. Yes, i'm VERY AWARE that she's being nerfed, we don't need to flood the comments about that. This isn't a Spirit post, if it was the title would be "Why Spirit is killing the diversity" or something like that. Thank you!
first, lets talk about why spirit is the most used killer
This one is kind of a no brainer... but let's go over it anyways. In a sense, Spirit is one of the strongest Killers now after taking over Nurses throne. Once Nurses era ended, Spirit became the most common Killer to face in high ranks.
But now... even the low ranks are starting to follow this trend. I'm all for "It's your Killer so do as you please" but we shouldn't all main a Killer because they're the strongest. Yes, a lot of the maps suffer from Survivor sided issues and vise versa with some Killer maps with Survivors... but we shouldn't write off every other Killer because they're mid or low tier.
Anyways, Spirit is the most used due to her ability to ignore most if not all loops during a chase, similar to Nurse but to a lesser degree when it comes to a bigger loop AND when it comes to seeing the Survivors. Unlike Nurse, Spirit can't see Survivors during her phase walk like Nurse can with her blinks.
But because of Nurse's nerfs, she's technically below Spirit now in terms of "practicality" in a match. This is why she's the most used Killer... because of how Spirit can counter a lot of loops, her versatility, and other such things... she's quite strong against most if not all Survivor teams.
While a good coordinated team can hold their own against her (depending on the Spirits skill) most casual or moderate teams can't do so well... especially if you're solo and your teammates decide to DC on you... but that's another issue that she tends to cause.
the draw backs to having only a few viable killers at high level play
While yes, if we're talking with perks and add-ons... than Freddy, Billy, and even Demogorgon can be also considered "Top-Tier." But again, despite every killer being viable with enough skill and forward thinking in a match... they all come short when we compare them all in base-kit.
Billy is a good example, he's a PILLAR of balance if we're talking about THE most balanced Killers in the game... Billy is strong, versatility, and has massive map pressure and mobility. What makes him more balanced than Spirit though is that he has weaknesses. Yes, Spirit is being nerfed to help with this issue but let's step back from this for a moment.
You have Spirit who's being nerfed to be a bit more balanced, you have Billy who's quite balanced and has plenty of counter-play, we have Freddy that is fairly strong on his own with just dream Snares... but suffers from what most M1 Killers have... which is his looping potential and what not, and that's about it.
While Freddy can be considered very good, he still has his flaws due to him suffering from what most if not all M1 Killers are plagued by... which is their ability to handle loops... but that's another topic.
So we have Freddy, Billy, and Spirit... that's it. If we're talking base-kit, those are probably the only 3 that can hold their own for the most part. You can argue Demogorgon can also do the same, but if we look at his pounces distance, how slow he is when using it around loops (depends on the loops length), the basic concept that he's still an M1 Killer... and he's a solid 4th on this list of "viable Killers."
But again, any Killer can be viable with enough skill... BUT ALSO, if we peel back the perks, and the add-ons, and just go full base-kit... than you can probably guess who's on top.
We can all agree that Nurse is actually fun to use now because of her nerf (depends who you're as a person and your concept of... "fun" is...) but we can also agree that her nerf isn't really... "noob friendly" is it? Like think about it, if you were a pro with Nurse... you could probably get around the nerf a bit... but if you have never trained with Nurse or we semi-decent with her... than you'll struggle heavily from this draw back.
It's hard enough to get Nurse down in Pre-Nerf... now it's a lot harder... nerfing something to be more balanced isn't always the answer when it comes to top level Killers of course... which is why we'll talk about this more in a bit.
nerfing the best is nice and all... but what about the rest?
This part might be slow, but it's important to add in. Nerfing Spirit and Nurse isn't exactly the answer to the diversity in DBD... you need to also look into other Kilers as well, Killers that're weaker and less used because of their issues with the current map design or just struggling with map pressure in-general...
If we're talking base-kit, which most people do, we can see that Killers with powers that don't offer mobility or secondary downing mechanics are quite weak... If the Killer relies on the M1 to get the Kill... they're most likely going to do poorly in the tier list. Unless however, that power offers a slow down mechanic AS WELL as mobility like Freddy... this is why Clown struggles in-game... his tonic doesn't match up to Freddy's "slow down mechanic" and the toxins usually end WAY TOO FAST! Also, he can't teleport to generators like Freddy... And Freddy can even switch between dream snares to dream pallets with an add-on... but he's the stronger of the two as his base-kit, so that doesn't matter.
To put it short, what i'm getting at here is you shouldn't JUST nerf the top tier Killers... we need something else... like...
why improving the low tiers gives more diversity
Now here's the main point of this entire post... If we BHVR were to improve the lower tiers gradually after the implementation of Spirits nerf... than we would see a slow yet more active increase to the diversity of Killers that we see in-game.
Instead of seeing Spirit every few matches or in a row... we could see the Pig for once at Red Ranks... or LeatherFace outside of the basement... or Trapper or what have you! We'd see more use of these Killers rather than only seeing Spirit and Freddy for the most part being used...
The issue with having Killers that have little to no counter-play is that we see them used more often due to THAT EXACT ISSUE! While yes, I agree Freddy deserves his time in the sun, his Dream Snares really don't give any counter play to them when you're in the dream world... unless you're starting from a fresh timer in a chase with Freddy, than you won't do well in the dream state at all... it's as if you can't even loop him since dream snares will make that not possible.
The argument about his dream snares could string for paragraphs, but let's ignore this (hopefully) and address the point i'm making.
Anyways, the same can be said for Spirit, it's good she's being nerfed to give more counter-play... but nerfing her isn't enough. If we were to buff the other killers below her than we could see a lot less Spirits and even DCs and toxic behavior from Spirit mains...
It would be a change of pace for sure! Now, this is how you'd fix it... but what you'd do for each Killer could span essays long with different posts, so let's not follow up on specifics.
The point is, buffing Killers that're hardly ever used anymore in high ranks or even low sometimes would improve the overall diversity and health of the game for sure... you could improve all the maps to be more balanced for both sides and be more practical, improve their powers to aid with their weaknesses, even out the plain fields between Killers, edit their add-ons to improve their weaknesses, etc.
The little things help, they really do.
WAY TOO long didn't read at all (tl;dr)
I'm just going to add the main point here to save reading space and time writing it.
The main point is, if we were to buff the lower tiered Killers while being reasonable with the nerfs like Spirit is getting... than we can overall improve the diversity and health of the game as a whole. You could do this through base-kit changes, add-on changes, map changes to aid M1 Killers, reasonable nerfs to the strongest Killers (Like they're doing with Spirit... you can argue the Nurse one was too much), etc.
While yes, it's good that Spirit is finally getting counter-play... it's not really enough to stop people from playing her ALL THE TIME. More needs to be done for sure for the lower tiers. It's got to a point where even the low ranks are starting to main her, and that's... not good.
What will be left if everyone is a Spirit main? Who will play Pig, LeatherFace (Outside of basement), Demogorgon, Billy, etc.
Having unfair mechanics that don't have any downsides like Dream Snares or Spirits power is a good step to change... not nerf into the ground but change a bit... but we also need to buff Killers that're below them as well.
by the way
If you comment about Freddys Dream Snares having 1000 reasons to counter-play than you're missing the point... that wasn't why I made this post. You can comment it, but it's not what i'm getting at here.
I felt like I should say that... I just want people to be on the same page with what we're talking about, since sometimes people don't do that lol... idk... do as you please.
Comments
Knowledge is half the battle yes but in a game it's everything
But once money was on the line, everyone went nurse. (Official tournament)
This says a lot.
If there is money on the line than you'd bet all the Killers would be Nurse or Spirit...
Honestly, if we improve maps, a lot of the problems will be solved.
Basically...
I doubt they'll scrap the buff..its their whole balance strat
You severely underestimate how powerful information is..in dbd especially
I don't about playing high tier powerful Killers, I always play for enjoyment and this is why I don't play certain Killers, not because they're low tier but because their base-kit isn't powerful enough to be fun and enjoyable.
I desperately want to play Trapper so I'm unlocking all the necessary perks to even play the dude and even then he is still disadvantaged because of his archaic design, the game was never designed around him even upon conception; it's ridiculous. Back in the Beta you cannot say Trapper was EVER designed to be a threat in this game when they launched the game with a loop that had 3 windows, they expected Trapper to trap all 3 with his slow speed and carrying a single trap and expected him to be powerful; never designed to be good.
We need all Killers to be powerful and fun in their own way, top tier doesn't matter and to be frank won't even EXIST if all Killers got changed to be fierce and fair. That will bring diversity and be healthy for the game. I like that the Devs are changing Killers but those changes need to be smart, hopefully the Spirit changes they chose are all she needs and the Doctor changes turn out to be amazing.
Who knows, things can change.
This conversation isn't really going anywhere.
We're basically saying "no u" to each other until the last person is saying "no u" at the end.
We'll just agree to disagree and move on from this.
I think when it comes to inherently weak Killers, they deserve a rework or buff. Kind of like how Freddy deserved his rework after being considered the worst Killer for 2 years.
I suppose we don't really need to even the plain field with every Killer to destroy the unique concepts they hold, but most if not all Killers should be at least buffed or reworked if they're stuck at low tier to make them more viable for Red Ranks and just in-general.
That, and the map design should honestly be changed to reflect a more healthy outlook to M1 Killers as a whole... rather than punishing them with insanely strong loops and set-ups that make using a certain perk an insane loop that requires bloodlust to overcome, like Lampkin Lane + Balanced Landing, or Iron Works and balanced landing, etc.
I was mentioning in another post about Rotten Fields how it is the most dangerous map for a Survivor because it is the most wide-open map with the loops only being on the edges so if they are caught in the open they're dead. The problem is the corn, the corn blinds the Killer and instead makes it the most Survivor sided instead. If they just take the corn and make like 4 of 6 squares of corn in the same area you wold have large areas of no corn and several patches of corn, that would decrease places to hide and make the corn a trap instead of cover. This would encourage Survivors to stay near the edges with the loops, if maps got changes like that then playing Killer would be more fair because maps are also a huge deal when it comes playing Killer.
I try to practice Huntress sometimes. When the survivors start doing that, walk away and practice throwing hatchets at trees or some other inanimate object. They hate when you ignore them. I've had survivors DC over that.
Also, I've started equipping Lightborn since Tome level 2 went up. I've had a lot of survivors trying to flashlight me, way more than usual (either because of the challenge or because of the Halloween flashlights), and it's nice to frustrate them without having to do too much. I dunno if they actually tried to blind you or were just clicking away to be annoying. If it's the first one, Lightborn's good, and if it's the latter, muting the game is good.
I dunno about you, but I get satisfaction from ignoring the survivors who try to bully or taunt me. If they get nothing out of it except a boring generator repair sim with no killer interaction and possibly a depip, maybe it'll stop being fun for them.
(Also, I'm still terrible with her hatchets. I have trouble lining it up to hit trees much less a moving target. I wish there were a reticle or something to help with her on console, because damn she can be frustrating.)
More on topic: If survivors want to see a wider variety of killers, they shouldn't scare people off of playing the other killers by treating them like garbage. Just play the game normally without being jerks. That alone would help. Losing isn't the worst thing, but being treated poorly when you're already struggling will stop people from trying again.
True, the map size does play a factor in the mobility and map pressure some Killers have to apply in droves to be viable.
If they did that and some buffs and reworks than things would probably be a lot better.