BHVR Favoritism
Before I even start this, I'm calling out all the people that will read this and respond "ur just salty cuz ur bad lol." See, you aren't original, I did it first so you can just chill with all that.
(Also Editing this just to clarify: I'm not salty, im not angry. This is simply a talking point between me and some friends that I figured I'd share, because quite a few people feel the same way it seems!)
I was having a conversation with a buddy of mine the other day about why it always seems like Killers get the short end of the stick. Yeah Survivors are constantly complaining about it, but playing Killer genuinely feels harder and harder to do ( we each play both roles 50/50). We determined that while Survivors (who outnumber the Killer and therefore shouldn't be getting as many 2nd chances) are getting more and more second chance perks, Killers are constantly forced to play at their best or risk immediate loss.
We statistically analyzed the past several updates, patches, and bugfixes, and what we found was honestly revolting. BHVR simply doesnt want you to play Killer. After running these numbers, it was immediately obvious to us that BHVR simply prefers the Survivors over the Killers, and aren't ashamed of showing it.
Now we're not sure if this is because the Dev Team is made up of more Survivor players than Killers (this is true, we checked the gameplay of as many Devs that stream the game as we could find), but it's a glaring hole in the blind balancing that a dev team should maintain in a multiplayer game of two distinct sides.
When you as the developers select a favorite, it will influence game balance and overall game health, even if unbeknownst to you. Think about the biggest things that were recently added or changed and you'll see exactly what we're talking about.
The Developers added Boon totems, a new perk type that is supposedly "shaking the meta." But the laughable over-poweredness of these Boons is staggering, which even my most Survivor-mainiest friends agree upon. And what was Killer given to combat these new perks that will continue to be produced? A nerf to Thrill Of The Hunt, an already underperforming perk.
The Developers adjusted the hit validation, specifically preventing hits through pallets and enforcing Dead Hards. Now i'm all for making sure that things work as intended, but Killer players will tell you immediately that almost half their hits result in them getting "dedicated" (a term used to mean getting screwed over by the dedicated servers). Survivors can Dead Hard at killers to consume their Killer powers and drop pallets on killers heads, all while running away scott-free as the killers are told their hit connected and are given a scream and blood to wipe. And what did Killers get to ensure the playing field remained fair? Tea-bagged at the exit gate. (Though how bullying is being treated as part of the gameplay at this point is a conversation for another day).
There are so many other examples, but I'm just going to end it here. The long and short of it is this:
BHVR if you somehow read this, whether you know it or not, you have statistically proven to Killer players that it's you against them. You try to win them back over each time you hurt them with a flashy new chapter, but you are hurting the health of your game, and alienating half of your player base. Survivors have 4 players to a Killer's 1, so they should NOT be given as much power as they have, let alone more power than the Killer does. I do not think Killers should 4K every game, that's not my point. But I, personally, have noticed more and more Killer players uninstalling the game, or playing Survivor instead, and if BHVR wants to keep this game alive for as long as possible, they either need to rid themselves of this bias, or idk, maybe hire more Killer players or something.
(or hire me, I'm in the market for a job I suppose).
Please leave me some feedback, or just simply upvote if you think any of these points are valid. Maybe we can get BHVR to see it and try to make a positive change!
~~Also pay attention in Stats class, I wouldn't be able to spout this without it! And I guess go to school for Game Design if stuff like this interests you, follow your dreams!~~
<3
Comments
This is pure whataboutism.
The problem with boons (well, with CoH) is that a team playing around it hard-counters attrition based killers. One perk can make about a third of the roster much weaker. That's ridiculous.
Then take the situation where a killer takes 10 seconds to locate and snuff a boon (that's being generous, on some maps they are much harder to find). It takes barely longer to rebless it. There are 4 survivors and 1 killer - thus it's the equivalent of wasting 40 seconds of killer time.
Boons just weren't a good idea.
Want to be really depressed?
Consider this:
BHVR recently nerfed Wraith (and Slinger, but that's a different discussion). Their reasons? He was too difficult for newer survivors to deal with at their MMR and 'too easy to do well with'. Cenobite just had most of his addons nerfed to PH/Freddy tier for the same reason. Wraith and Cenobite were 'B' tier killers at best at high MMRs - you only need to watch Otz trying to do his Cenobite 'streak' right now to see that Cenobite actually needs a buff. He never managed it on Wraith before the nerf.
They are balancing based on gross kill rates. They've said before that they don't balance based on high MMR games.
Okay, fine.
However some killers (Nurse, as an example) have abysmal, meme-worthy kill rates. They are too hard to do well with, and too easy for newer survivors to deal with at their MMR.
So - by this logic, Nurse needs to be changed to be easier to do well with, right?
Wrong.
BHVR stated that Nurse wouldn't get any changes with the implication that she'd be too strong at high MMR.
What this means is that they are operating with a direct double standard. If a killer is too good at low MMR, they'll nerf it - regardless of how this impacts the killer at high MMR. However, if a killer is really bad at low MMR - they won't buff it, in fear of breaking high MMR games.
It's stuff like this that makes people go 'BHVR are survivor biased'.
It's feeling powerless as Killer that really gets to me. It's supposed to be the power role, so why does so much of the game always feel completely beyond my control? RNG'd into a map with strong loops and not playing someone with strong anti-loop potential? Better hope the survivors are dismal otherwise it's pray someone messes up in time I can really do something with the game.
I play both sides. Lately i play survivor more because of how frustrating killer has become. The last 5 years ive found myself almost always siding with killers because i genuinely feel they are getting shafted the most.
Mm. This is always my thought.
There are more survivors than killers, even factoring in the 4v1 nature of DbD.
It's also far easier to develop cosmetics/skins for survivors as you are only dealing with one 'rig'.
There is a direct financial interest in making the game enjoyable for survivors, even if that makes things unenjoyable for killers. And yes, this tinfoil hat is rather comfy.
Yeah this grinds my gears.
Dead Hard was a meta perk (honestly, the meta perk) before the 'fix'. See: buff. It was crazy strong despite it's validation quirks.
Now it's just oppressive. It constantly gives killers fake hits, which almost always results in a dropped chase AND it eats some killer powers due to the new validation. This is likely impossible to fix, as it's the old DH quirks, just now on the killer's side.
Their response?
'This is always how DH was supposed to function. It wasn't a buff'.
Wut.
You only need to watch Otz's 'streak' videos to see this.
If you don't slug and proxy-camp, you are going to be stomped and teabagged all the way to the exit gates.
The only way to be consistent as a killer at high MMR is to engage in tactics that are considered 'toxic'.
That's not healthy.
Regardless of semantics/technicalities - DH was one of the (if not the most) commonly selected perks for survivors. It was crazy strong despite the validation issues.
This 'fix' amounted to a buff.
Buffing something that is already strong creates a problem.
Nobody is saying 'nerf all survivors'.
We're saying:
i remember the devs saying they want to change the ‘meta’ why not nerf some survivor things I’m so sick of seeing dead hard i use it all the time when I play survivor it’s busted. No other exhaustion is near that maybe overcome when that comes out but that’s even more problematic
It's very difficult. So many things need a buff, some need a nerf, but the various interactions are so incredibly complex in terms of the 'meta' that even a small tweak can make something busted OP (Dead Hard) or suddenly non viable (Wraith, Slinger).
I like killer role more and experienced both sides. So I can say, that the game as is favors tunneling (what survivors hate the most) because otherwise you most likely gonna lose.
When I play killer its usually high concentration and think ahead. As a survivor I can watch youtube during chilling game. The only thing that ruins my experience as surv is that you can't find games at all, while killer gets them every 5 seconds. It means that people move to play survivors side due how easy it is with decent perks (you just need specific 4 for soloQ)
I'm ADHD and ADD out of the ass in real life. I drop sentences if I'm doing something because it's really bad. This doesn't take a lot of concentration. I guess the reason it's relaxing to me is due to the fact that I don't take Adderall anymore for it and I can zone in the game instead of losing focus a lot. I'm like a dog. I see a tire. I want to chase the tire. Nothing else goes through my mind until something happens that affects me at that very moment. What I mean is, no gens popping? Then I'm not dreading it. I only tunnel at 2 gens and only if I can't find someone else first. This game isn't life or death. I play it to enjoy myself and I usually get Merciless as an Iri killer. I'm going to be streaming again now that I have an Elgato HD60 and I'll start posting links from my games to help others' with my playstyle. You'll see my ADD brain going nuts in chases lol. I just don't think killer is that hard.
I'll be streaming this weekend, probably. I'll share my link for YouTube when I do. I play random killers about 2-3 times then switch and I play 4-6 hours straight with no cuts so you can see my wins vs. losses.
THAT! THAT is how I see it. I get super tilted when someone screws me but when it's my own mistakes, I don't get bent out of shape. As Survivor, I get tilted a lot when I go to second stage without the killer camping because of stupid teammates or how I get face camped at 5 gens with a 4 minute chase while I'm recording then once I'm down, I'll see everyone crab walking around the map. That makes my blood boil lmao.
It's these kinds of arguments that show why this community has no business talking about balance. Not buffing the strongest killer in the game is not a "double standard." BHVR uses kill rates as one part of their balancing feedback, but they have never stated anything so absurd like that kill rates are the end-all be-all determinant of what needs to changed. You're unironically saying that, "I think BHVR made a bad decision here, how dare they not make even more awful decisions with this other thing!" In the process you, unlike BHVR, are missing the essential design logic as to why mechanics that underperform at low skill levels don't present the same issue as mechanics which overperform at low skills. Skill is a good thing. A player seeing more success as they gain more skill is a good thing. As Nurse stands right now, she shifts from the absolute weakest killer in the game to the absolute strongest as the person who controls her gains more skill with her power. This is fine. This is not problematic game design. The opposite happens with killers that overperform at low skill levels. As the player gets better with those killers, their results will not improve in line with their skill, and in fact, their results will probably get worse. And the reason is that their success never had as much to do with the skill of the player using that killer as it had to do with the interaction of their power/perks/addons against people of comparable skill level. That is a problem. That is the kind of thing balancing might want to correct. Slamming BHVR for adjusting results to better reflect the user's skill is not demonstrating that they're survivor-biased, it's just more par for the course forum nonsense.
But if you don't care for design, you can just use common sense and realize a killer that's only bad when the player is bad is a problem that solves it self. Less experienced players can just pick a different killer with a better learning curve. Meanwhile, a killer being unusually strong at lower skill levels encourages picking that killer... which exacerbates the issue above. It also leads to misguided perceptions about how unfair the game is at higher levels by those players who never properly learned its mechanics as they were boosted through the ranks, but that's a whole other topic.
Another Killers have it bad, survivors have it good thread. It’s SURVIVE WITH FRIENDS that makes the game bad for both solo Que and killers. Get that ######### out of public matches and the game will be much better. Who populates the Top 1% of Survivors? SWF. Whenever your favorite streamer is getting their ass handed to them on stream, what do they usually say? SWF (and they’re right). Who used to destroy the “killer” (forgot the appropriate name) in Resident Evil Resistance? SWF. Who neglected objectives and kept killing Jason players every single match? SWF.
SWF is busted and doesn’t belong in Asymmetrical games, other than in the form of private matches. Please stop saying the game is survivor sided, when it’s SWF’s that causes your matches to be frustrating and not fun.
Yes killer has changed for me. It can get stressful even when trying to just have fun. I have noticed myself tunneling here and there and it bothers me. I don't want to ever do that and I used to do just fine without any of the mean tactics. Now to be clear (I see a lot of people say this) I don't mean playing Nurse, Blight, Sprit (She still pretty good)....I mean killers like Trapper, Mike, Ghosty, Pig, etc just feel at such a disadvantage these days to use. honestly no killer should lose before the match starts (Decent survivors all it takes) and that can actually happen with maps, resources on said maps, spawn points, etc.
Those of you playing Nurse and Blight probably don't feel no different because you are running the cream of the crop. NOW as tilted as I can get playing killer.....Is nothing compared to how tilted I get being a solo survivor. If it's not a tunneling/camping killer who kills you it's a DC, throwing teammate, unhooks in front of killer (With or without BT still your dumb asf), crouching around map AKA killed by teammate.
After patches like that one which made flashlight and pallet saves require no timing I have no doubt. Things like saying Wraith is "a wee bit OP" or "you killer mains!" just cement it even more.
I don't blame them though. From an economical point they have no reason to cater to killer players, because they are only ~20% of the playerbase. They'll just throw a bone here and there so survivor queues don't get too long.
im tired of seeing this response, just because we “main killer” doesn’t mean we don’t play survivor. The only time I feel dominated is when I feel like I’m playing with bots and I do 75% of the gems.
I play about 65% killer and 20% SWFs and 15% solo. I've been playing for 5 years with over 4k hours and I started on consoles release and moved to PC. I remember when perks were in a line and Thana was permanent when someone died xD
No need to get hostile, just because I didn't address those points in my already way to long post doesn't mean they weren't considered. The problem is not that Killers get changed at a higher frequency or even that Killers are getting changed negatively at a higher frequency. It's an in-depth issue rooted in Development mentality that has favored one side over the other.
The other issue is that Survivors are currently in a position of power over the Killer side, so referring to them as the 'passive' side only contributes to the mentality that Survivors need to be nurtured over Killers, when I simply believe both sides should be treated equally.
I agree with your statement, Killers simply have more variables and are therefore at a higher likelihood of being changed, that's just the nature of statistics. But please attempt to understand the nature of the post as simply a conversation starter about a point of contention, and the actual problem it is trying to address before blindly attacking the point, it doesn't help peaceful discussion at all :)
The game is only stressful to people who can't handle stress to begin with. I've been through hell in life. A game is nothing to me. Btw, it's awesome you play all killers randomly. I do too. It keeps things a bit fresher.
Killer isn't a "small" role. It's as important as survivor. No killer players means no game.
Your statement contradicts itself though. If most Survivors (including the top 1%) are SWF squads, then they are the "Survivor" problem.
As a SoloQ Survivor as well, I understand the hardship. I really do. But you can't cater to them and also keep SWF in check, that's simply not possible. The stronger you make Solo players, the stronger SWF become. Therefore, they should be lumped into a category simply to sort out the balance of the two sides. After that is done, then focus on the internal Survivor balance of Solo vs. SWF. At the moment, they're trying to solve everything at once, and my point simply is that it's clearly not working out.
I get bored easily so I switch between random killers. I'm firing up my Elgato HD60 S for Saturday so I can start recording again.
That is very true! Which is exactly why I made this thread to begin with. Survivors cannot play the game without a Killer, and Killers would have nothing to kill if there were no Survivors. That is why the sides need proper balance and individualized card, instead of blanket sweeps that harm the games already fragile structure.
I honestly believe that there should be two teams, each bringing a Killer/Survivor perspective to the table to address all balance changes, because at the moment it just feels like they aren't properly weighing each side.
I actually decided to make a small video about this, as it seems to have gotten some good reactions and feedback. In this video I will go over everything we did and show the results, so please allow some time for that :)
I'll link the video in the original post when it's finished.
Survivors are the passive role in the game, if they weren't - they would be the side that demanded the opposing side to play in a certain way.
Currently, the only way that survivors demand for the killer to play a certain way - is thru perks like DS or UB, but killers have their perks and powers. Also, if killers weren't the power-role then why did the statistics show that killers simply out-performed survivors drastically?
what about Freddie he has the second most kill rate but he is awful against high level survivors 🤷🏻♂️🤔
pallet validation, fair. needed to happen. dead hard validation meh. fair I guess.
Why do these both look and feel like #########. why do you get the animation of them getting hit still. feels kind of half done.
Most of all. I sure do love going against boons. feels so fair when I injure everyone and they all can heal at a boon in about 10 seconds individually, even faster with eachother. 3 survivors can completely reset all your progress bc of one perk. It's like no one learned a ######### thing from how busted old self care was... but this is okay bc its a completely different thing?
Here's my big issue, how hard is it to balance survivor perks? its not. they all are the same. When it comes to killer I get it, lets say nurse with start struck versus a pig. its obviously harder. cmon man. lol
So do i need to mention all the map reworks that have happened to benefit killers? or how everytime EG was changed, it was to better the situation for killers? How literally the last few killers that we've gotten, have kits which completely ignore the core mechanic survivors have against killers? or how a whole survivor mechanic has been reworked making a whole selection of a specific item redundant in it's function?
Well if he has the second highest kill rate, how awful can he honestly be?
not really killers need to break walls wastes time killers need to get rid of infinite boons wastes time and also killers have to build a certain way now especially against efficient survivors you will see a Freddie or a demo for example having to go and build the same perks because the efficiency is to much. You also see killers ending up to camp/ proxy camp it’s because the pressure of the gens is insane for a killer to deal with especially in big maps a play both survivor and killer and I can say survivor is way easier than playing killer besides solo Qing as survivor that’s a bit of a challenge
He is really bad they nerfed him to the ground he isn’t any threat at all and all his add ons are quite useless and his snares are buggy you only can put 5 down not good enough in big maps also the kill rate is looked at the casual spectrum as well as high gameplay all in one
Current Freddy is not weak, he is boring.
There is a difference.
It's the Cenobite problem.
These killers are very strong against extremely new/low MMR survivors, which likely represents a lot of the playerbase and these numbers are throwing off the stats. They are mediocre to weak in higher MMRs.
How do I know?
Look at the Nurse kill rates.
I agree with you 100% they shouldn’t be looking at low play to make balance changes look at the high level of play 👍
See, that's the thing.
I'm fine with them balancing around low MMR.
I'm fine with them balancing around high MMR.
What I'm not fine with is the double standard.
Nerfing killers because they do too well/are too easy to play for new killers at low MMR, without concern for their performance at high MMR and also refusing to buff killers that do terribly/are too hard to play for new killers at low MMR with the implication that you don't want to mess with high MMR balance is very, very frustrating.