Don't let bias effect game balance
People hate a perk or were just destroyed by a killer or a swf team and then come one here and complain about it. The complaining part is fine, this is a forum, go ahead and list your opinion, but don't list your opinion based off of 1 match or 1 very skilled meg that ran you the whole game.
For instance DH... Yes it's very powerful and it needs a nerf but many killer mains hate it so much they provide terrible nerfs for the perk that just absolutly nerf it to the ground and make it a useless perk, when you can nerf it a little bit and make it an average perk.
For instance, freddy. Freddy was really good, and imo he was fine, but many survivors that disliked him asked for a nerf because people just weren't good against him, and now look at him. He's the most boring killer in the game. (After forever freddy was fixed)
Just cause you love a killer dosnt mean they should be buffed into the heavens or just cause you hate a perk dosnt mean it needs to be nerfed to hell. You get facecamped by a huntress and people come on here and say she's "op," you get jebaited by Dance with Me and people are like "too op please nerf." Liker seriously I saw some posts saying DWM is too op like cmon guys.
Overall this bias is popping up towards coh and dh the most, where I fear that the perks will be nerfed to the ground because of bias people, when they could just get nerfed a little bit to where they are still fun and useful to use. Just think of deathslinger. People got demolished by good deathslingers and cried about him being to OP when he wasn't, and he got slaughtered with nerfs and isnt as fun any more.
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I disagree that freddy and deathslinger were fine, but they were both nerfed more heavily than they needed to be.
Slinger just needed the quickscoping removed, his terror radius was fine.
Freddy just needed the slowdown addons changed but now those addons are completely useless and I don’t think his movement speed penalty while placing a snare was necessary. Basically freddy went from being boring and overpowered to being boring and underpowered.
Just remove distance from the perk and add more iframes (can't vault/pallet during them like normal DH) to compensate
thats my point- people hated these killers so much because they weren't good against them, they complain about them being too OP and they get over nerfed. When the killer(s) is fine and only needed a sight nerf.
Some of it no doubt bias, some of it is fair criticism. In general you can seperate those two by looking at how many people complain about a certain issue. CoH is the perfect example. So many people hate that perk, which means it's most likely more than just the bias of some people.
The nerf to 50% is great, but I do agree, I am scared that BHVR ends up nerfing that perk into the ground. But right now the perk is still too strong.
We'll see if 50% is fine now, but I do think anything below 33% healing speed boost would make the perk too weak.
I'm not so sure that I'd say they currently do let player bias affect game balance.
I can't speak to Freddy since I wasn't playing for his initial release, but Deathslinger was changed because he promoted unhealthy gameplay and had legitimate problems to be fixed. Obviously the state he's in now isn't much better for very very different reasons, but there was obviously a clear reason to make changes to him to begin with- same with Spirit, who ended up in a much better spot to old Slinger.
Popular opinion may spur BHVR to take a look at certain things, but I don't get the sense they let that bias shape what the changes look like. Most things get changed for the better, too- just look at new DS and OoO!
Bias is a big problem when it comes to DBD, but there's no way to stop that. You have 2 polar opposites with completely different problems that the either side just can't see unless they play the other side, which most people don't
I can agree with this.
I think there's naturally a lot of bias towards the side you prefer to play as, and yes it does affect players feedback. However, we're also very aware of that when we make changes and so many factors are taken into consideration when any change is made to a perk or a power for example. Feedback is important and understanding where that feedback comes from is also important and something we have to consider.
Separating bias and feedback is nigh impossible, even the important factor like "new player PoV" is still a big bias.
I don't think there is a way to consider things "objectively", except seeing the data and ONLY data.
If you play both sides, one is less likely to be biased (which doesn't say anything about being wrong).
Seeing only data doesn't help. Context is everything.
The best example is OoO which wasn't very helpful for the survival of a player. Yeah, no kidding, he was the single obsession of the game and was usually killed in the most painful way possible. (e.g. slugged and bled-out and the match be damned)
I'm saying context itself is more or less biased.
Unless you develop this a bit, it sounds like nonsense.
Every feedback is made by personal experience and feeling, which is of course subjective and biased.
Doesn't really change anything even if one plays both side or whatever, if someone is a godly nurse and solo q only potato survivor he gonna think game is extremely killer sided and broken, if someone is a potato trapper and SWF sweat squad he gonna think game is extremely survivor sided and broken, it's all based on skill and not the way he plays.
Sure. But there is a reason for that bias - and that reason generally comes down to 'feel'. Feel can be as importance as balance sometimes.
DH 'feels' bad, because it'll often completely deny you hits that you earned.
CoH 'feels' bad, because you can site it in places where it's time consuming to snuff and covers 2/3 of a map (RPD library, Eyrie main structure etc.).
Trickster isn't a strong killer but feels annoying as hell to play against (ditto Doctor).
This can also work the other way. Twins are a decent killer but feel horrible to play.
I think that where a lot of bad blood comes from is when something gets nerfed in a way that doesn't simply 'balance' it, but removes a lot of the fun and variety from that thing. Freddy would be my best example - he went from probably too strong (but really fun) to feeling awful and being very mediocre. His addons now, for the most part, may as well not even exist.
People look at things like this and go 'well, I need to be as vocal as I can be to prevent any nerfs, because if that thing that I love gets nerfed, it's going to go too far, and hit it right in the fun'. And feedback turns into a nest of whataboutisms and twisty justifications.
Mm. I'm going out of my way for a while to play a lot of survivor. I'm curious as to whether this will change my opinion on anything - I will say that man oh man that camping change needs to happen ASAP.
Yes on all points. (Although I don't think godly Nurses exist. Nurses who are godly relatively to their opposing survivors yes.)
To come back on the previous reply, the way I see it "context" isn't perception. Full disclaimer, English is my 3rd language. Sometimes I misuse words because of their similarity (conceptual or phonetic) to my 1st language. I'm pretty sure this one is correct though.
I'm saying there is no objective way to balance game around anything but a data, if you see the context, you have to consider something based on specific situation, and if you change something based on that situation, it is already biased toward that.
say, if twins is changed because "she is bad/good at high MMR", it implies high MMR is more important than low MMR for some reason, I believe which is a biased decision.
Blows my mind how some people are happy playing only half the game.
Most people do play both sides, though, in some capacity.
It becomes very clear when someone does not, based on their wording and post history.
Or how about just remove the distance and leave it at that. It does not need any buffs to compensate.
The point of the nerf is to make the others more of an option and not keep DH as the staple.
Make sure you play as a 4 stack.
Solo is awful and partly becuse all the "good" survivors are in a swf of some kind. This leaves derankers, challenge / daily doers and people practicing looping or something without being focused on winning.
Nah you dont need to play the other side to see whats wrong and whats not. Just play survivor and you understand the whole game.
Even if the camping change comes, which will probably just be a nerf, Killers will just use the next best thing.
Bandaid fixes won't do anything. As long as BHVR doesn't change the core aspects of the game, those being Hooks and Generators, camping won't go away, nor will tunneling or "Gen-rushing"
Hooks and Generators need changes. Going for Hooks as a Killer is not worth it, as all 5 Generators can be finished before a Killer gets 1 Sacrifice if they spread Hooks, and having a Killer that goes for Sacrifices also doesn't feel good, as most teams crumble once the Killer finds and focuses on the weak link, usually not having time to finish all 5 Generators
I can only speak for myself but I don’t play survivor because I just don’t find it fun. For me there’s too much downtime between working on gens or being downed or on a hook, and I also am more comfortable with the first person perspective than the third person perspective. Also I only play the game solo and killer is the side that’s clearly specifically designed for solo play. And finally there’s a much greater amount of variety in playstyles and abilities among killers than survivors which are all just the same character with different skins aside from the loadout they pick. (Not that loadouts don’t change things up of course but killers have just as much variety in loadout choices as survivors do.)
Obviously if I played survivor more it would help me with my looping, etc, but in terms of actually enjoying the game I’m perfectly happy not bothering.
I agree,also I dont mind seeing Dead Hard being nerfed to the ground and make it useless.
Then see perks like Red Herring become meta perks.
I want meta perks to be bad,and non meta perks to become the new meta.
Honestly, with your usual kind of posts, I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not
The way I see it, "specific situation" is a definition of "context" (but enough about semantics).
High MMR is supposed to imply "when everybody knows how to play", so it should be the one that matters (obviously). Not a good example.
But I think I understand what you mean and I believe it exactly means "context is everything".
If you change context/specific situation the results/observations are obviously different.
That's an awful way to balance the game and smacks of sour grapes.
This sort of 'to the ground!' thinking is why Freddy now sucks, rather than getting some more surgical nerfs.
Eh...I generally don't tunnel or camp unless it's that or lose. Mostly I try to at least spread the hooks around (although I'll certainly chase you if you run into me) and I do...okay. I'll totally agree that some maps (Eyrie, Badham, Mother's, Lodge etc.) are way too safe and if the survivors know what they're doing, you're going to struggle - especially on weaker killers.
Maps as a whole need a top-down rework. Safe pallets should be the exception, not the norm and silly vaults/100% safe vantage points with a gen on them need to not be a thing.
Yeah I agree a nerf shouldn't be nerfed to the ground,but I think overpowered perks should be toned down,while others that nobody ever use should get a buff good enough that will make players use them often
Boons would've been Very Strong, but ultimately fine if they only provided ONE perk's worth of bonuses to the entire survivor team. CoH that only gives +100% heal speed, like Botany Knowledge but for everybody? That's still very, very strong, but it's not game breaking. CoH that gives Self-Heal at -50% heal speed, like Self-Care but for everybody? That's still very, very strong, but not game breaking. Having both? That's an embarrassment of one-sided design.
As to the larger theme of the post: letting player demands dictate balance decisions is already the state of the game. That ship has sailed.
People complained about Billy, he got gutted, complaints moved to Freddy. Freddy got gutted, complaints moved to Spirit. Spirit got gutted, complaints moved to Deathslinger. And on and on forever and ever. Mass complaints WORK in this game, so why would people ever stop? The current target is Bubba, and it's a matter of time before he too gets knocked down due to survivor hive mind pressuring Devs. And there will be another one right after, be certain of it.
Well this is why I always suggested having players link their accounts to the forums. Even if only the devs can see all their info I feel thatd help a bunch.
I know on these forums I seem like a killer main to most when in reality I'm nearly always on survivor because of how my killer games go. It's odd too because BHVR (if they had my linked account) would see me swap from killer main, to 50/50 to more survivor each update they do. SBMM is what pushed me to survivor more but blabbing on lol
You’re outta your mind if you think Freddy was ok in any form than his original. After his rework: teleporting to any incomplete gen on demand, stackable slowdown add-ons, denying BT just by existing basically (back when BT was terror radius based, though this problem was obviously not unique to him), no slowdown while placing puddles.. yeah, definitely not busted.
Like @sizzlingmario4 said above: went from OP and boring to now underpowered and boring. Should just bring back a renewed iteration of his original power.
I think you're wildly off the mark with this one, honestly.
First of all, characterising it as "mass complaints" that the devs "bow" to is immensely misleading. In any ongoing balance situation, paying attention to popular complaints among your playerbase is just a good idea, even if you don't really act on it- and in situations where there categorically are problems, as with almost every killer you mentioned here, acting on it is a good idea too! They do miss occasionally, Deathslinger is the biggest example of that, but them having acted at all isn't the problem; acting poorly is. Every killer you mentioned except Hillbilly (who I also didn't think people complained about?) did need to be changed, and that context is incredibly relevant and completely counter to the point you're trying to make here.
(Also, Spirit is fine? Who on earth thinks Spirit was gutted, she's still a S-tier killer if you know what you're doing??)
I also think it's straight up disingenuous to only mention killer changes and to only mention bad changes here (while also... making some up to be bad changes, like the aforementioned Spirit changes), since the developers have tackled popular complaints from both sides and have done it phenomenally well about as much as they've done it poorly. Decisive Strike was a huge problem for years, and the fix to that perk was elegantly done, solving the problem without taking a sledgehammer to the perk's effectiveness at its actual job. Same for Object of Obsession, an obnoxious perk that got a change that honestly just straight up makes it better and more engaging while solving its old issue. It's the same on the killer side, with perks like Hex: Ruin and Hex: Undying getting sensible changes that retained the perk's usefulness while solving the actual problems the old incarnations presented. Not to harp on about it too much, but the Spirit changes also fall into this camp.
Thank you! Freddy and Deathslinger were never that strong. To be fair, sometimes nerfing a perk into unusability is how you make it balanced. People still say DS is a useless perk, even though it's still used offensively and can guarantee an escape in endgame. People say Balanced Landing is unusable after the nerf, but you can just play with the perk a little bit to see that's not true. People have said that STBFL is OP, but if you make that perk any weaker, nobody's gonna use it... until they do.
Except where they have no idea how hard something is for killer. Sometimes killers do some things because they are really skilled vs. the survivors. Other times it is simply a strong build. If you just play survivor, you don’t know.
Cmon deathslinger was cracked at both fortnite and dbd... my guy. Freddy has always been boring to play, but good, and death slinger was amazing before he got conpletly gutted.
Maybe if the ratio of survivors to killers was 4:1 like the game intended we could consider the game to be balanced.
Instead with ratios like 50:1 during late night and 12:1 - 30:1 during prime time we know which side is preferred by the majority of players and BHvR will cater to this side.
People who got off their main game, Fortnite, for a bit to try out their new horror game DBD, that they picked up on a whim, that's who the Deathslinger change was balanced around. No survivors worth mentioning were complaining of Deathslinger's power.
Are you making fun of me🤨 I personally have never played fortnite I just like the speech lines about it. "I'm cracked at fortnite my guy" it was just a joke. Dbd is my main game and has been since 2017