"...easiest than ever before" ≠ easy
When you say "[Survivor/Killer] is the easiest then ever before!" ≠ it doesn't have to mean it is easy. This whole "argument" doesn't make sence and people are not using it correctly at all.
If there is cave with 500 turrets that attack you on sight and you have to escape from the cave, if it is suddenly 490 turrents, it doesn't have to mean it is easy by saying "Hey! But it is the easiest then ever before! Get gut!".
Comments
Basically yeah.
There is inherently an issue with DBD's core design. Since the game is a 4v1, you have to make Killer undesirable in some way, or at least less desired than Survivor. Survivor is not necessarily "easy" compared to Killer, though it is less stressful to play Survivor compared to Killer. The game has created a situation where the only thing dictating who plays what roles is the amount of stress and pressure there is.
As a Killer, you are alone, all your efforts matter, your decisions (and mistakes) carry more impact, which makes it overall more stressful. Survivor is not necessarily "easier", but there are things that remove tension between impactful actions, such as doing Generators or Totems between chases, etc. Because of this, I feel like players will often just never touch Killer because they think/feel that it is overwhelming compared to Survivor.
I feel like most of the time you see people making that argument, though, it's specifically in response to people making out like the game is impossible and you're helpless unless you do X or if you go against Y. In that context, it's a perfectly reasonable argument- it points out that the game used to be a lot worse for that role, and it wasn't as though things were impossible then, let alone when you have far more leeway and tools these days.
I do think the argument is a little overly simplistic, but it's not entirely wrong.
Players that say that probably don't play both sides equally, and if they do, it still depends on which killers they play/main. For example take Nurse being easiest atm? Maybe, sure. But Billy? Freddy? And so on, not so much.
From what I've seen, "skill issue" gets thrown around often to discredit a lot of criticism and complaints. Someone doesn't like something in the game? Call them bad, then nothing they say is valid.
This. This is the kind of attitude that i DESPITE: those are often the same people that in the game will bm the other players in the endchat no matter what will happen. They want to dismiss valid criticism and try to discredit good reasoning with a STUPID sentence that doesn't bring anything positive/constructive
It will never be "easier than it has ever been" for either side.
Killers no longer have instant death murders with the old Moris.
Survivors no longer have true infinites and insta-pop gens.
Claiming either side is in its easiest state ever is just a flat out lie. Like, it's not even an opinion at this point. It's like saying 2+2=37.
I literally had someone this week try to defend Dead Hard by saying I'm bad at using it as a Survivor. Apparently there's nothing wrong with Dead Hard as a killer, because I have no skill in using it WHILE I AM PLAYING KILLER.
As much as I hate to say it, I very much agree with you on this one.
Difficulty, in of itself, is a hard thing to measure to begin with, since some things come naturally to some but not to others. I personally find Killer significantly easier and more relaxing to play than Survivor since I can control the flow of the match with my own decisions, meanwhile as Survivor, I feel like I am at the mercy of my teammates; other people have an easier time with Survivor than Killer. Everyone handles things differently, so difficulty is measured different from person to person.
Furthermore, "difficulty" and "application of skill" are sometimes non-factors in DBD, just because something is skillful to do does not necessarily make it smart to do (and vice versa). It is often better to make the smarter play than the skillful play, yet by doing so, the other side will always complain about how it is unfair (this applies to Survivor and Killer). The highest possible difficulty that can be achieved does not matter if people are always going to play smart and take the path of least resistance, Billy's low pick-rate is a prime example of this. But this could be it's own topic so I digress.
I once heard it said that the best definition of "lucky" is where skill and opportunity meet and intersect and I think there's some truth to that.
You could be a great looper, but if you have nothing to work with you are just holding W in a dead zone. You could have an amazing tile setup, but if you don't know how to use it you probably go down trying to camp a pallet. Have neither and you just die. Have both and you can last a long time. But only some of that is in your control.
Like with your example of controlling the flow of the match, there's not much you can do as a Survivor if one teammate is AFK getting crows, a second teammate is trying to get the killer to farm, and the third teammate is off trying to complete a challenge by opening chests. You just aren't winning that game.