The extreme difference in killer and survivor playernumbers is staggering
Usually I'd like to present some evidence on why only up to 10% of players in queue are playing killer but I fear the forum mods won't like it due to these statistics being extracted via third party tools. Those of you who follow certain content creators might have heard about the related twitter thread, though.
One thing's very clear however: there's a severe lack of killers playing this game nowadays, caused by them either reducing their playtime or outright quitting DbD. Those who bother to stick around have 2 options: either play Nurse/Blight or become a dedicated camper/tunneler to gain any progress in a simplified MMR system that heavily promotes kills over any other sort of interaction.
The reduced killerpool also makes any actual balanced matchmaking borderline impossible due to lack of diversity in the skillpool. There are far too many survivors who have learned to abuse their role to the fullest extent.
Perks like Circle of Healing and Dead Hard have made the killer experience extremely stale and repetitive. Simply hitting a survivor to spread "pressure" doesn't work anymore, healing as a mechanic is absolutely out of control. You're literally forced to commit to any chase while the other 3 survivors are finishing gens at alarming rates. And those chases can take VERY long if you're playing a simple m1 killer with no other way to down someone.
It's only going to get worse the longer BHVR neglects these issues. Nerfing these insane perks would be the first step to address the situation, the next step should be to buff 75% of the killer-roster, and finally killers should get an inherent BP multiplier to compensate for the extreme stress they have to endure.
Playing DbD as a killer feels like a chore, it's anything but fun. Survivors already make as much bp as the killer if they know what they're doing, this isn't really fair considering how their role is the much easier one.
Comments
Fixing the queue time thing. They told us that it's going to prioritize matchmaking over finding fast games from now on.
That is positive news.
I agree with this so much,I rarely play killer now,why would I? Its a stress inducing experience and its much more fun to play survivor with friends.
The reasons you gave on why barely anyone plays killer are on point,its not fun and it feels unfair.
Not really, no.
You think spending your day making endless lobbies for survivors is less toxic than someone using DeadHard?
lmao
Then maybe you should play more killer Sluzzyboi
They even tbag??!! No way! This is absolutely unacceptable!
What exactly is the point of this thread? Lmao
Of course lol
You don't?
Cringe
Just killers needing to flex their weird behaviours instead of going outside or being strong enough to drag themselves away to play something else.
MMR doesn’t work when there’s 13 killers in queue for 4K survivors. You could literally hit ready and that 15k hour SWF that’s been waiting a few minutes in queue is coming your way.
Which is more reason why they need a SWF icon so the killer can dodge should they get an instant game vs this SWF.
Eventually this would kill SWF off for good (cheers) because their queues will be too long and the SWFS mostly run by toxic streamers will just stop playing it.
Which is another win because they’ll lose viewers.
If 4K is the standard of what's "fun" for killers then there's no point in discussing. That's a personal issue that has no basis whatsoever logically regarding balance. All killers are doing is throwing hissyfits.
If I go in a match as survivor, I don't consider making every single teammate escaping. Sure, it will be great if they do, but most likely, one or two are going to die and hopefully I don't get to be one of them.
No #########, if I have my standards of "4 escape = fun" mindset, every game will be not fun. Lower your standards.
What it feels like after enduring a SWF all with Dead Hard and CoH equipped.
Leaks aren't allowed to be discussed on these forums.
I had a SWF take me to RPD on my No addon nurse and they all had COH and shadowstep. So my only active perks was useless (nurses calling and sloppy) and within two mins of the game starting I heard four boons light up.
There was nothing I could do.
They all had DH/IW too so if I hit someone they’d get the speed burst and in my fatigue state it would be too dark to see anything on top of not being able to hear them or see scratch marks.
Here’s an example. From the article, at 4 PM there are 750 survivors in queue and 50 killers in queue. But according to Steamcharts there are about 46,000 people playing at a given moment at 4PM, so the actual totals are about 11,200 killers and 45,350 survivors, making the ratio 24.7% of players are killer at 4PM. In other words there are way, way more people in matches than in the lobby so the ratio is much closer to 25%.
Steam charts are a very bad statistic to use.
I could run DBD on four different devices and it counts as four players. Also someone could be just sitting on the menu or they’re in a game.
Steam charts can’t be used to debunk actual stats taken from the matchmaking queues which the application has done.
Couldn't agree more. It really feels like a lot of killers want a 4K EZ game every time they play and throw hissyfits when that don't happen. I always go into a game as killer/survivor knowing that I may not win. I don't expect a 4K or escape every game.
Yeah, some of my most enjoyable matches were where I only managed 2k. They were real intense fights all the way till the end.
”kill off swfs for good (cheers)” pathetic
Agreed
There are 2 million people playing DbD, I don't think there's a lack of killers or survivors.
I'm getting insta-queues on survivors and insta-queues on killers.
Not today, but you can just vpn and to test a queue whenever you want in whatever region. No need to play the trial too, so nobody gets upset from lag hits.
If theres 2 million people and only 10% of that is playing killer. Thats really bad if the numbers are true.
Where does the 10% come from? Is that an actually quoted number from somewhere?
He doesn't understand that the numbers we've seen are people in queue only and doesn't actually represent the player base as a whole
While were on the subject of numbers where did we get 2 million from? Are those active players or just people logging in for the daily reward and playing something else?
From the ring chapter press release. And no, they didn't specify actively in matches vs staring at the menu screen.
I didn't say anything about 2 million, but nice deflection as usual from yourself, lmao.
2 million was part of the post i asked. Its not deflecting, i was asking a legit question.
Ehm that's not how the necessary math for player percentage works?
Taking your totals of 11200 killer and 45350 survivor player gives results as follows:
Player total: 11200+45350=56550
Killer percentage: 11200:55650=0,198
so 19,8%
And Survivor: 45350:56550=0,802
80,2%
Which isn't surprising when comparing 56550 player in trial with 800 in queue, which won't make much of a difference (here the 0,2% +/-) with a factor of over 70 times.
(Btw i guess you calculated the killer to survivor RATIO not the respective percentages since 11200:45350=0,247, which is also not surprising given the natural 1:4 in any given trial)
Edit: Ah, you WERE talking about ratio but my other post was pointing at population percentages.
No, the 45359 includes the 11,200. You shouldn’t be adding those together.
actual totals are about 11,200 killers and 45,350 survivors
Didnt sound like that in your first post.
And even then it is 45350 total players and a trial is made up by 4 survivors plus 1 killer aka 5 player and from that we get 45350:5= 9070, not 11200.
Either way your math doesn't add up.
Edit: And my point still stands that if only 10% of all players in queue are killer, then the true percentage of killer is still dependant of the ratio of player in queue to player in trial, since the latter is always 20% until a survivor is killer. But i addressed that complication already by mentioning the fluid state of trials and queues.
well i usually play killer but when my killer queues got longer than survivor im not tempted
My last 4 games as killer, the 5 gens were gone in less then 5 minutes. A combination of big maps, Not beeing S tier, and fun perks for me got this effect.
I just stopped playing for today.
Well I quit playing killer for a reason, and so did many others. Survivor is more fun and rewarding, and it's sad because both roles should be fun and rewarding.
Imagine the role being less played having less players in the matchmaking queue depending on the time of day.
More useless crap that people will fling around to fit their chosen narrative.
If some of you had cared to notice, between 11:42 AM and 2:12 PM the Survivor queue is hovering around ZERO while the Killer queue is around 100-200.
Ah yeah, my math is a bit off as well, it should be closer to 20% not 25%. Let's try again:
There we go, that's better. 🙂 It's still not anything like "10% of players are killers".
Aside from balance (where I think killers have to play very well to win compared to survivors having second chances out of the wazoo), it feels like the devs just glaze over the more technical side of issues killers deal with.
All of the bugs left in the game disproportionately hit killers. Want to pick up a survivor? Survivor can crawl to a window or pallet. Even if you know about and expect the bug, it forces you to face in whack directions which leaves you vulnerable to flashlight saves.
At least you can expect that normally, yeah? No, because there's a bug (commonly referred to as a 'tech', CJ tech or something?) where the survivor can slide across the pallet to change the interaction at the last second so you'll pick up the survivor and get locked into the animation. Then they will spam the flashlight into your face.
These are not listed as a bannable offense anywhere in the game rules, btw. Killer exploits are, though. No idea which, but the devs went out of their way to mark them.
Voice chat is also openly allowed by the devs. There's no way it doesn't give an unfair advantage among groups who know the game well. So many perks can single handedly be replaced by voice chat. As well as a lot of things that aren't perks.
Communication apps are literally "3rd party software", and while only if intended, they can be used "to gain any kind of unfair advantage that wasn’t intended by the game". The parts in quotes are legit pulled straight from the Game Rules. "Using 3rd party software or other tools to gain any kind of unfair advantage that wasn’t intended by the game, except if they have been whitelisted by us. We are not banning for the use of communication apps."
I get that they can't police it, or that they're worried the game will lose a lot of business if it isn't allowed.
It still feels like a huge middle finger every time I'm screwed over by it though. Everything else aside, the survivors using it sucks fun from the killer and gives the survivors an advantage.
TL;DR, Survivors can get away with using so many more morally gray tactics. On top of that, lots of third party software is legalized for them, and their bugs aren't treated as exploits.
It's rough. So I generally don't play killer and only play meta schmeta killers whenever I do.
I played a lot of killer games this weekend. There were a few games I got rolled in, but I didn't think the overall experience was that bad.
Yep that's the correct way.
But isn't a correct representation sadly. Steam player only make up a fraction of all players at a given time in DBD.
All consoles together seem to heavily outnumber steam alone. Also from what I remember before crossplay was a.rhunf is that on console killer already was the minority role. We had many queue time threads coming from console which wasn/isn't surprising in a game were one side gets controller friendly thirds person and the other first person without any helpful form of aiming correction (the aimdressing behaviour has implemented over all us more detriment than aid).
Therefore we don't really now the numbers at all times and the 750 survivors in queue might get way more increase than the 60 killer and the overall ratio between the 800 queue and 45000 trial player might also shift in one way or another.
Like i originally said, when the queue ratio of killer and survivor is 1:10 (10%) and the ratio in trial is always 1:4 (20%), then the true value lies somewhere in between depending and the real ratio of player in queue and in trial, in your example 800 to 45000, so roughly 1:56 leading to the 0,2% difference from 20% to 19,8%.
And again it is incredibly hard to really determine anything quantifiable since the number of player always fluctuates because trial end and start nonstop and even moreso survivor that did first/second might directly leave the trial and inflate the number of survivor in queue even more.
Let's stop here, i think we are turning in circles.
Yes, you are correct that the 10% aren't correct but also are wrong that it's the nice 20%. It remains a fact that survivor are stuck in queues between 5 and 15/20 minutes during prime time (8pm-1am) and therefore the killer percentage is absolutely not the perfect 20% but we can't defenitly say how much lower. It still depends on the difference between the number of all player in trial and all players in queue to define the correct deviation from the perfect 20%, which was my original point.
And my original point was the article being quoted here is misleading and a lot of people are just posting snapshots of the lobby numbers and saying ridiculous things assuming those are the actual ratios of players when they're not.
It WAS fun, I played both pretty consistently for years, but tipped more to killer since I was solo often after friends stopped playing as consistently and I liked the uniqueness across the board for the killers.
After long enough it wasn't what it used to be, for whatever reasons. Just how time works.
Great points you've both been raising. Just wanted to add here as well - I think even the 20% numbers may be oversimplified just for steam alone. From the article, it looks like all of these numbers are only coming from the NA East servers - not the entirety of DBD's servers. I'm assuming steam is showing global server numbers (not sure about that) but either way, the queue numbers shown here would only be a fraction of the overall steam playerbase. Not sure how many other servers there are but assuming the numbers are fairly consistent across the other servers, the killer population is probably well under 20%. All that said, without having some numbers about how many people are also in game right alongside the queue numbers, it's hard to extract any useful conclusion about killer population
Now if we were just looking at the average queue times, the article raised a good point. If we're looking at peak hours, assuming killer queues take 5 seconds and survivor queues take 250, then the killer to survivor population ratio is 1:50 (below 2% killer population). That seems way too low and is also an overly simplified calculation (doesn't take MMR into account at all, SWF etc. etc.), but it's still thought provoking
I agree with the point you ended on - we can't definitively say how much lower the killer population is compared to the survivor population with this information alone. It seems realistic to me that the actual killer population is hovering somewhere between 5-15% of players on average during peak hours. That sounds a bit worse than it actually is, since if queue times were perfectly balanced, the killer population would still only be 20% (which would roughly translate to perfectly equal queue times for both roles). It's unclear if the "estimated wait times" numbers in the article are survivor only, or if they're an average of killer AND survivor. So again, all these numbers need to be taken with a pile of salt but they do seem to indicate that there is a dearth of killer players right now.
Also seems reasonable to assume that if there are more survivors in queue than killers at any given point in time (for instance, during night and peak hours), then the killer population is below 20% of the total playing at that time. If there are more killers than survivors in queue (during morning/day hours), then the killer population is above 20% at that time. I think we can pretty safely make those conclusions, at the very least
Exactly