Casual vs Competitive could kill balancing
I'm seeing some streamers and people say this game is casual, and some competitive. It's fine them thinking this but the feedback these people give to the devs is very mixed and we can tell they are taking all advice, however, they tend to push out some patches favouring either casual or competitive.
For example, the ruin nerf was beneficial for casual players, as early game is now more fun. For competitive players however the nerf was massively unjustified and made some killers leave.
The devs don't always do this however, as the Doctor change in the same patch was perfect for both cas and comp. It made him more interactive and less passive, but also buffed him at the same time.
I hope you see what i'm getting at, casual players care more for 1v1 fairness, interactivity etc. Competitive players care more for the win and how things are balanced in the 1v4.
From me saying this you can probably pick out any streamer and you can say if they are casual, competitive, or somewhere in between. Oddly enough competitive streamers are usually more watched, despite having controversial opinions cough wraith top 4. This kinda leads me to believe the majority of the community is more competitive than casual, but - from what I see from streamers, especially fog whisperers - the overwhelming majority of content creators are casual players.
How this could hurt balancing:
If the devs favour one side the other side is going to be disappointed, possibly losing a lot of players like the ruin nerf. It catered too far to newer and casual players, so it left comp in the dark. This could happen both ways. The problem is, with such different opinions, I don't think the community as a whole will come to one similar opinion on the game.
The devs as of recently have been doing a good job, as some of the more recent changes have favoured both sides. However, it only requires one small change to make one side go completely beserk and possibly leave.
Please comment if you think this game is casual, comp, or somewhere in between. :)
Comments
I mean, the game is kinda casual, whether one likes it or not. The fact that RNG of maps or addons can impact the outcome of a match as they do in this game shows to me that this game shouldn't be seen as a competitive game, though it does have it's competitive traits. So I guess you could say it's kinda in between, but I would never see DBD as an actual competitive game, and I don't think it was ever meant to be one.
Despite that though, the devs can still do as good of an job as possible to make this game as balanced as possible, despite it being a casual game. Devs won't favor any side because the game is casual.
People having very different opinions on the game's balance is normal I feel, no matter if a game is casual or competitive.
In my opinion, dead by daylight itself as a game is MUCH more competitive that Friday the 13th. Now that's a casual game. Dead by daylight is naturally more competitive, which is why I like it more
Devs won't favor any side because the game is casual.
But there's the issue, do too many things that help casual and people with competitive opinions get screwed over.
I knew id get split opinions on this.
wait dbd has competitive traits??? how?? just because its PVP and has wincondition?? xd like thousands of games??
i see many "competitive" killers with best add ons and slugging for 4k, its VERY competitive vs 4 solos xd
you dont even have 2 different que's for casual and competitive so ppl with competitive mindset wont use unfair things on casuals xd (yes i call best add ons unfair vs survs with no item, soloQ and casual perks) xd i would call tryhard swf unfair too(but only tryhard swf so its not as common)
my typical surv build consist: small game, bond, plunderers, inner str ofc playing on dog crap red ranks because i cant de-rank on normal terms (i mean playing game and de-rank) as i do on killer(just dont kill them and leave with 26k bp), so i cant avoid that sweat dripping from random killer that has to increase his selfvalue by winning in videogame
It's competitive in the same way a Nintendo party game is competitive. Yeah you can get better at something like Mario Kart or Mario Party and play to win, but ultimately you probably won't consistently win by the same amount, or even consistently win at all, because there's a lot of randomness and catch-up mechanics to make sure everyone stays near the centre of the action, because this is what Nintendo thinks is the most fun for everybody (And they're right). It kinda applies to DbD because there's way too much RNG and jank one-sided stuff in this game for it to be competitive. Eg a "competitive" 4-man SWF would win everytime against any killer that isn't a sweaty Nurse, who would instead probably kill them all in 2 minutes flat... Bloodlust, strong loops, random generation of tiles and pallets are also factors that can turn the favour to one side far too easily. The nature of this game is unbalanced in its own right, and it's ultimately just a silly casual party game that you shouldn't take seriously and instead just try to have fun with.
It's because you're not defining it enough. You can have a competitive casual game. Some streamers take "competitive" literally while others mean e-sports.
This game is definitely not e-sports ready. The fact that you can get to rank one, perkless, while losing a lot of matches along the way because of factors out of your control is proof enough. You can have skill in this game, but sometimes it just doesn't matter.