Stop using "fun" as a metric
Since Scott's new video, there have been a lot of discussions about what killers are "fun" or "unfun" to play against (fun usually just meaning "easy to bully"). I don't think the use of this metric will yield any positive changes if it's normalized and the balance team starts reading into these threads. I know I'm going to get responses along the lines of "Its not a competitive game", but the fact that it's PvP-only means that this game is, whether intentionally or not, competitive. And in a competitive setting, balance is the first priority. This game's playerbase has a lot of overlap with the fighting game community (IE Tru3ta1ent), which is about as competitive as gaming gets.
The thought of Deathslinger being changed to be more "fun" in the eyes of survivors haunts me. He's already a skill-based killer that requires movement prediction, pop-shotting and player reading to perform well with. I wouldn't put these devs above giving him a huntress-like directional terror radius to make him a straight downgrade, for the sake of "fun".
Comments
What game are you playing where clown is considered fun by survivors? Freddy with a slowdown build IS boring. Also, a good huntress isn’t easy to bully.
i don't know. I think fun should be used as a metric. I completely disagree with scott about death slinger. I don't find him to be very hard to deal with at all. But some killers...freddy comes to mind are both not fun to play or play against. Completely boring to play against prolonging games with pop and the ability to get to any gen instantly is boring. Very braindead to play as and easy kills against damn near anyone.
Legion is also boring to play as and against imo. Too weak to down people quickly but annoying enough to keep you mending/healing to make the game take forever and feel like no progress is being made on either side.
Yes okay but what are your points? You say unfun means survivors cant bully the killer but that is simply not true. Killers that are considered to be unfun to go against are usually those where survivors dont have any or very little impact of the game, especially in chases. I dont know what to add there anymore, Scott really nailed it. There are also many other examples then clown or Billy. Just look at Huntress and Deathslinger. They can be compared with each other, are almost equaly strong but most people would say playing versus Slinger is frustrating/unfun/annoying and versus Huntress it is not. Or Oni. Strong killer, i dont know many people who would say he is totally unfun to play against. On the other side the Trapper. Many hate to play against Trapper but he is considered a mid tier killer at best.
Here's the problem with "fun", the devs have a definition of "fun" too.
When the devs added Ash with his muppet hand, on the forums there was great debate about adding muppet type thing int the game,.... devs overwhelmingly responded "we want the game to be fun"
So they added some "fun" cosmetics, muppet hand Ash, hawaiin Shirts, then came the real fun,... Pink Elephant Clown, Bunny Feng, Jester Dwight and so on,.... even peaking recently with Bunny Legion! (which I wear with pride) however, lets look at the last few killers in regards to their "fun"
Is Pyramid Head fun?
Is Oni fun? Deathslinger?
Is the new map "fun?"
Fun no longer has meaning, it is like pride, everyone wears it and it always fits.
Fun can be purchased in this game, you just gotta be a bunny.
The ease with which you can bully huntress is dependant on both the skill of the killer and the map. In general, she's very easy to bully on maps that don't favor her playstyle (Lery's, Ormond, Gideon)
I've never considered Freddy boring and I honestly think the posts coming at him are salt posts, same with Oni. They're targeted in "unfun killer" posts because those killers are able to pressure all survivors. Spirit hasn't even been a problem for a while, but that's for another thread.
Scott's points about deathslinger were complete nonsense and have already been addressed in this thread. he complains that slinger can "just keep taking shots over and over again" which is straight up untrue, because he has to stop and reload after every shot, losing enough ground to reset the chase. His complaints about deathslinger popshotting is a trait of a GOOD deathslinger and something that most can't pull off.
The problem with balancing around "fun" first and foremost is that "fun" is completely subjective. The game is already fun, and if the problem isn't balance-related, characters shouldn't be messed with over such an opinionated thing as them being "unfun" in the eyes of others in the lobby. Clearly that character is fun in their player's eyes.
People don't like Spirit because she feels like a guessing game.
People don't like Freddy because they almost all play a massive stall game. Add in his broken looking lunge and he definitely can feel bad to face. Personally I don't dislike him. But I understand it.
I never really hear people complain about Oni. The only issue I have with him is his funky terror radius.
I've said it before. And I'll say it again. Survivors don't dislike a killer being strong. Billy was the perfect example of this. He was fun to face. He could wreck you but was never oppressive feeling.
I think one question people aren't asking is "Whose suppose to have fun?". Cause sometimes it feels like only one side is suppose to enjoy the game.
Oh, I don’t think Deathslinger is boring. Just like I don’t think DS and Unbreakable are the worst things to exist. My point was mostly that people shouldn’t really lean so much on the opinions of content creators. Like how they all made posts about his unfun killers video but none about his unfun perk video.
My main grievance was you thinking the game shouldn’t be measured on fun and that the only unfun killers to people are top tiers. I think the first thing that should be considered for a killer and their power is how fun it is and then you balance it around the game. There are things that are objectively unfun.
I think Huntress is much like Nurse in the way that if someone is just amazing with them you’re going to be having a real bad time in that trial.
Freddy in general is fine. I’ve only seen people complain about the full slowdown build for him. I also tend to only hear good things about Oni.
@Snowbawlzzz
But even if that is the purpose of the usage of the word, doesn’t warrant calling someone a “bully” for simply (hate to say it) being better than their opponent.
As with my example. I am not a Huntress main, I was just playing her because of her challenges. Had those same people played against me as Michael (who I main) they would have had a more difficult time with me. I don’t wanna toot my own horn but I usually get at least a 3k as Mikey.
I just think you can’t equate their lack of experience as “getting bullied” because that victimizes that player as if they did nothing wrong, which they did. That’s why I hate using that word, because the real bullies are out there in the real world.
Not cheating, devs support it.
Ummm I think you’re forgetting that NFL players get paid millions of dollars to win.
People play games to have fun and enjoy themselves. Yes, this game is PvP which promotes competitive natures, but that doesn’t mean that the vast majority of people that play this game go in with an ultra competitive mentality.
I play this game for fun and can confidently say most people do too.
I want to see a source so I laugh some more of devs supporting voice comms?
I have yet to seen a source, if so, then they should buff killers and balance around voice comms whilst making it available in-game.
OP I have to ask, would you rather have a balanced boring game or a fun imbalanced game?
He didnt say he can keep shooting over and over. Said he can spam M2 to zone the survivors with no downsides. If the survivor tries to juke they lose distance, killer gets a M1. if they dont try to juke they get shot. Its a lose lose situation
Are they asked to care how the other side wants the game should be played? No but in the fun for everyone argument I can't play to hard or I'm ruining the game for some else.
Lmao no NFL players don't care if the game is fun for the other team because they are playing a legit competitive sport.
Last I checked DbD has no competitive scene and is labeled as a "casual party game". You can play however you want but just know that you get nothing for trying your ass off. No rank rewards, no money, only a slight sense of accomplishment.
I find trapper and clown unfun. Huntress isnt weak btw
Freddy's boring because hes extremely repetitive. Spam snare at pallet, down them, bbq to gen, and pop it
Spirit because she has no counterplay its just a 50/50
I like oni not hate him
No. Just because you can't get an easy 4k doesnt mean its cheating. Swf is perfectly fine as is. You have the option, so its not cheating. Lmao what an entitled killer main.
It's seems to me that you think I have a low IQ. Monopoly and Risk are casual party games that end friendships. In those games the only goal is to win no second place just first loser. With your logic no one should try just be happy to play a game. Really would like what your taking sounds awesome.
Wow, you're as constructive as ever,
I rate it by how much fun I had in that match. Like I encountered a max level bloody Ghostface in a match and he was pretending to help us at the generators. He had a dance off with a Meg and we were cheering. I gave it a 5 star rank. If no one was toxic and it was a good match, regardless if I won or not, I'll rank it 5 stars. I just rate it by fun. As for some Youtubers that make toxic builds and taunt others on the mic, I don't support them. I believe I've seen a video by True Talent and I don't support him. Being competitive is good, being a jerk is bad.
Was my same thought, he is a newbie most likely
I think you've hit the nail on the head, and it just shows exactly how OP did not watch Scott's video. Killers aren't unfun because they're good, they're unfun because the experienced gained by playing the game means nothing. I could be the best survivor in the world, and I still would have to just take a complete random guess as to whether or not a spirit is phasing when she stands still. Or on the other end of the spectrum, I still have to drop a pallet 9 years early when in clown gas. It has little to do with how good a killer is, but everything to do with how applicable your skills are to playing against them.
Fun is highly subjective. You can't judge something by a subjective criteria. That's it.
Exactly. You need to make it interactive for both sides, not just a complete guessing game or “I am forced to drop a pallet early because Freddy can puddle me to death with no drawback”.
hillbilly, a fun killer to verse cant be bullied if the person playing him isnt a brainlet, survivors bring up fun because they want to have fun playing the game and not verse stridor spirit or freddy with 4 gen regress perks you just dont want to play the same way killers dont like to verse toxic swfs or keys because theres no input you can make to change the outcome, and sorry deathslinger does not take skill it takes 1 frame for him to ads player reading is fairly easy, just wack some tape in the middle of your screen and pop shotting is easy.
A lot of killers that survivors deem unfun have more impact on a chase than they do, and killers that find survivors unfun typically have less of an impact in that same scenario.
What this really comes down to is neither side being right, but more a core issue with the game itself - pallets are the only hard defense survivors have, with vaults being a soft delay of sorts. A lack of varied defensive options resorts to survivors playing in the one most efficient way they have (looping). When you create killers that seem to ignore this defense or take it away entirely, the survivors feel like they have nothing left to postpone the inevitable, hence, killers feeling "boring."
Fact of the matter is, it takes two to tango. If nobody wants to play against your killer because it's unfun, that's kind of saying something. I'm not somebody to whine over tiny little things usually, but you have to be open to the idea of "hey, maybe they don't think it's fun playing against this because this isn't very fun to play against." That doesn't mean that it can't be fun to you as well, but if something is only fun for one side then it usually tends to be because it isn't very balanced.
500 hour red rank killer, not super-experienced compared to others, but I've encountered everything there is to see in the current meta
That's what makes him hard to bully. Same principle as pyramid head. You can't make a killer that ends loops faster without making them negate survivor experience in some way
If I didn't watch the video I wouldn't have directly responded to his points about slinger
Bullying is such an overused term in dbd. Now trying to loop a killer is bullying... Ok... If youre decent at killer you never feel "bullied".
And yes you can, demo and huntress are 2 examples that the power helps countering looping and still fun to play aggainst.
If pyramid head had a short cooldown when canceling M2 he would be fine too.
Don't use "fun" as a metric for a game?
Competitive shouldn't = Not fun
Games in general are for the enjoyment of players.
Personally, I don't have an issue with specific killers, I just hate being camped. That's my only issue with the game, if I'm being completely honest, and Idrc how i lose otherwise. My big issues are Campers and broken matchmaking. That's it.
But still, just in general it doesn't sound sensible for any game to be like
"Lets throw the concept of fun out the window! We need to base this game on Competitive Gamers™ and not give a rats ass about the bulk of the player base! You know, the ones playing for fun. Who needs those?"
The game is already fun
My point is that using "fun" as a reason to change a killer's mechanics is a subjective and dangerous way to balance the game, as a lot of the time these are salt posts. Clearly, the guy playing that killer is having "fun" with them, so how are you even going to weigh such input?
I think it might be like a majority rules at that point.
Like a one person on the train tracks vs four situation.
But alsoooooo..... Eh, both killers and survivors are extremely toxic and for some having "fun" really means bullying the other and if we wanna look at ingame bully potential, some killers kinda have more than others. Like, there's a reason people associate Leatherface, Doc n Gunslinger with bad times all around. Meanwhile Survivors will tbag, clicky clicky, try to compose a whole toxic SWF team, find your social media, and then leave mean comments on your deviant art page.