What I think needs to be tweaked about dbd
I play both killer and survivor, and have about 50 hours in both. I can see why killers used hex: ruin constantly, and can appreciate that as a new player, and even somewhat skilled player, it was quite annoying seeing it in almost every game I played. And I lot of people think that killers ran it because gen speed is too fast, even though when you're a survivor it can feel like an eternity.
I am here to disagree.
I don't think gen speed is the issue, although from a killers perspective, it is a little fast. I don't even think that map size is a major issue, although if you don't play a killer with some form of movement speed enhancement, you're in for a rough time. No, what I believe the true issue of dbd is, is how the killers and survivors are balanced and played.
When you are playing as killer against four completely random survivors, the game is balanced, as that is what the developers have balanced the game around, which is fine. With no communication, no way of doing callouts, no way of organizing yourselves, while the killer still has to play decently (especially against really good survivors), it's relatively fair, although there are a few too many survivor crutch perks.
That balance is completely and utterly destroyed as soon as Survive with Friends comes into play.
Some SWF are just playing for fun with their friends, so the games can go by relatively balanced, especially if their playing with new friends who are just picking up the game. But as you get higher in the ranks (even as early as rank 13 as killer in my personal experience), you start to get the try hards, the sweat lords. And then the survivor 'crutch' perks and items become downright toxic and unbalanced.
For example, imagine you're a clown who just spent a minute or so getting a survivor down. You don't see anyone in the vicinity, so you pick up the downed survivor, only to have a Meg sprint burst in with the flashlight stun. Now the survivor you chased is up and about, you are blinded for 4-5+ seconds, and the survivors very nearly vanish into the fog, with your only saving grace being the sounds of pain coming from the survivor you downed. After downing them again, you look at a wall or tree to avoid being flashlighted again, and go to hook them. But as soon as you hook them and turn around, they are unhooked. But you can't punish the survivor that unhooked the other by downing them again, because the perk to prevent camping, 'Borrowed Time', is now being used as a get out of jail free card, which leads you to a third chase with the same survivor for just one hook. This all happens in the span of three minutes, which means that the sruvivors only have 1 gen left to do, and you have gotten nothing done, with no way of coming back from that.
Now this is the part where people will be 'oh you just need to get good, start listening more, pay more attention to your surroundings, look for shadows or grass rustles or anything', but I'm here to tell you that that is really stupid. And it's stupid for one simple reason: Why do I, as a psychopathic serial killer/monster, have to become a literal god at the game for a single kill? Why am I not the intimidating one? Why aren't the survivors running in fear of me, like it's supposed to be a horror game? Why are they so relaxed they can take time out of a chase to t-bag and be toxic, while I have to sweat for one kill? Why do survivors, the ones who should be in fear, get to have a cruisy game with minimal effort because of items and perks while I have to triangulate the trajectory of the longitudinal distance that a survivor is running just to smack them once?
This game is supposed to be a horror game, but what kind of horror game is it when the monster is scared of the survivors? Killers should be terrifying, and the clutch perks that survivors have access to should be punishment for the killer tunnelling/camping, not for free wins that can run circles around the killer with almost nothing they can do about it.
And I should know how stupid powerful the survivor clutch perks are, because I run them myself with my SWF, and we get out almost all the time. Only god tier killers at ranks 1-2 can get a 4k on us, and we don't even use flashlights yet.
I think that BHVR should implement a system where if you're up against a SWF group (because lets face it, at high ranks that's usually all you'll get), then the killers should have a small buff to offset the fact that survivors have access to the most important thing of all: communication. Something to even the playing field a bit, and to make it less inticing to try and be absolutely toxic, like making it so that hex spawns next to the killer always instead of potentially next to the survivors, giving the killer a small movement speed buff or lowering the time it takes for bloodlust to activate by 5 seconds and elongating it by 5 seconds, or making actions for the survivors take 5% longer to slow the game down a little, just something to not make the killer's time an absolute nightmare.
But only when up against SWF groups: the game is fine where it is when all the survivors are randoms and can't communicate.
TL:DR: there are too many crutch perks in the game that SWF can abuse the crap out of, so killers should get a slight buff specifically against SWF grounds, like an extra 3% speed boost if against a party of 3+ or something, idk.
Comments
I've been saying it for a while, and I'll keep saying it lol. Remove terror radius heart beat, Remove red stain, Remove red scratch marks. The game would be awesome! One of the things I hate most as a survivor is knowing when the killer is coming. It's not scary and makes them a lot easier to just, avoid. I'd rather not know they're coming and have to actually play safe and constantly watch my back. It'd actually make it scary again and a lot more fun as both survivor and killer. And killers would actually have to hunt for survivors. But it would allow a lot more mind games too. You'd see a huge change in skill sets, and a complete change in killers and viability. I'd love it
Like could you imagine having to play in 1st person as a survivor as well? With a button to look behind you. That one little thing would change the whole dynamic of the game. It would require more teamwork, a lot less gen rushing cause you'd need someone to keep constant watch. Far more strategies other than just M1 for the win.
I wouldn't enjoy 1st person survivor as much for one simple reason. M1. Staring at at my general surroundings in third person is already boring enough.
No thank you, Daddy Michael makes me stain my undies often enough. Not to mention removing scratch marks will make Claudette ascend into complete Shadowform.
You'd still be able to look behind you still, but this would eliminate being able to just 360 the whole match lol you'd have to actually have a strategy for getting away outside of doing little flicks
You're right, but if they fixed sounds, made them more discerning, it would help a lot with finding her. Like when they're trying to crouch through tall grass, that should make a noise. Now if they're just hiding behind a wall not doing anything but crouching? Yeah it'd be impossible to find them. But scratch marks doesn't change that right now lol because if they're crouching they don't leave them anyways