The reaction to Alien proves some people don’t understand how a 4 v 1 game should be balanced.
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Look, this post will contain some us vs them, but honestly the reaction to this chapter is making avoiding that impossible. An actual good killer is released into the game for the first time since Wesker and the crying is unbelievable.
It’s very clear now that a lot of survivor mains don’t view this as a horror game where the killer should feel powerful. They view this as a game where the killer and survivors should feel equal at all times- and if you think that in a game which is 4 vs 1 then I don’t know what to tell you.
Let’s have a little reminder of how balancing in an asymm should work. As a team the 4 in the 4 vs 1 should have to be efficient as a unit in order to win. In the 1 vs 1x4 individually, meaning in the chase, the killer should feel stronger. This does not mean the killer should be insanely OP, but the killer should be threatening , powerful and in this 1 vs 1 the killer should be advantaged. If you end up in a 1 vs 1, the end result should be the survivor goes down. Easily and quickly? Of course not. But too many people have forgotten the goal as survivor in a chase is to DELAY going down long enough to buy your team time to get progress on gens. Just because you watched a top survivor streamer juice some tilted/baby killer for a 5 Gen chase does not mean this is the norm or what the game should be balanced around.
“But that’s not the issue you toxic killer main! It’s how quickly Xeno can down people due to the OP crawler mode!”
Can they? Or are people not placing flame turrets in clever spots, looking out for the very obvious visual and audio cue they give when alien is getting near and actually looping with flame turret location in mind? Did you ever think the reason the tail is powerful is because the devs want you to use the turrets and not just ignore them?
Also let’s address the cool-down issue on the tail attack. Let’s just say it is unfair and Xeno should be a bit more sluggish similar to Pyramid Head and Nemesis, particularly after missing. That’s fair right? Killer makes an error, survivors should gain a bit more distance. Ok, so all those in favour what do we now do about flame turrets? You have a killer power in line with other M2 killers- except for that the fact Xeno can literally be denied their power multiple times a game. Does that seem fair?
Just a final thought as well- what do survivors want? Like seriously, who are the killers survivors enjoy playing against? Because the days of the outdated m1 killer are probably over. Not to say you can’t have fun with these killers, just that it’s very unlikely BHVR release killers like that anymore and the killer player base will continue to gravitate towards stronger killers because it’s kind of necessary. And I’d take a Xeno over a Blight or Nurse anytime.
Comments
why are you saying "the survivors think that the survivors and the killer should be equal" is like a bad thing? the only way I can interpret a statement like that is "oh no, the survivors want the game to be balanced and fair, how dare they! clearly the only fair thing would be for the game to be balanced disproportionately in favor of one player! we should definitely strive make sure the minority of players get an easy game at the expense of making it nigh-unwinnable for the majority of players, not any of that making-the-game-balanced-for-everyone nonsense." surely you can't mean that, but I can't figure out what you do mean; please try to clarify
This is an asymmetrical multiplayer game. 1 vs 4. In a 1 vs 4, the 1 has to be stronger individually than the 4 individually. So how do the 4 win? By using teamwork and all pulling their weight. That’s how you balance an asymmetrical game.
Do you not think that in the 1 v 1 (meaning in the chase) the killer is and should be stronger than the survivor?
Think of it this way. The killer can ultimately only chase one survivor at a time. Now imagine if that survivor moved as quickly as the killer. On top of having things like strong pallets and windows. No one would play killer lol.
When you said "the killer is as strong as the four survivors" I thought you meant "[the killer] is as strong as [the four survivors]"
The way you describe it here is better described as "[the killer] is as strong as [any one survivor from the set of four]"
And I don't think that any survivors think that all 5 players should individually be as strong as each other - that survivors should match evenly with killers in the 1v1. I think they think that the two sides should be balanced but they feel that killers, as they stand now, have far too many tools at their disposal and killers are advantaged to such a degree in the 1v1 that survivors don't stand a chance even in the 4v1. I disagree with survivors who assert that outside of a few notable exceptions, but I feel your characterization of survivors exact desire, even with that more reasonable clarification, is inaccurate
If people want a 1vs1vs1vs1vs1 game, splitting queues is the only solution, which will not happen, so it stays 1vs4.
Lots of survivors absolutely think any individual survivor should be as strong as the killer, which is absurd on its face.
Its asimetric game so 1 v 1 surv should lose, its a 4 ( team) vs 1 (killer)
Yep they forgot about the others 3 surv players
I think people need to move past the idea of the power role that the genre had at its inception. Some people talk about the concept of the power role like it's 2016, and they talk about DbD as if it's some sort of horror experience first and a PVP game second.
DbD has found its success in large part because they moved towards more of a balanced PVP concept. You don't get to be powerful simply because you selected the power role. You earn that through gameplay. And we're at the point in DbD where, yes, barring a few killers, you are more powerful than the survivors if you're good enough.
But you can't just flat out say one side is the power role and therefore shift all skill expression to the macro game for the other side. This is a PVP game, both sides are playing, and some players need to accept that both sides want to feel rewarded for skilled plays.
So when you have a killer like Xenomorph whose tail attack can lack meaningful counterplay, people are going to complain. For the millionth, trillionth time, the vast majority of players are not complaining simply because a killer is strong. It's often a lack of interesting or meaningful counterplay that causes complaints.
i understand what ur saying but i dont feel threatened when im in a chase with an alien, i feel annoyed that i have minimal agency in my part and its only a matter of time before i die. this is an even worse feeling than playing against nurse because if the nurse player is bad, you can still outplay her. with alien you literally just zigzag until he eventually lands the hit.
with someone with clear gameplay from both perspectives (wesker for example) i feel threatened because i know i can last this chase for a long time as long as i dont make mistake. you said ppl are crying about alien because he's a strong killer since wesker. this is bad generalization because personally i am not against strong killers as long as they're fair e.g. huntress and wesker and im sure many others who play both sides feel the same.
i would rather play against a blight than an alien knowing blight is stronger because at least it feels like i can do something that matters in a chase against an average blight. Alien is just a cringe hold w and pray gameplay. it reminds of the freddy rework when every noob picked him because he had everything a killer needed to be good and had brainless chase sequences. anyway thats just my two cents, i dont feel happy to be found and chased by any killer but at least some of them are fun to be in a chase with.
There’s too much conflict over the direction of the game. Some want it to be casual friendly so that people who aren’t good at the game can have fun.
Some want it to be balanced as a 1v 4 aka competitive. Others want it balanced as a 1v1v1v1v1. This thread is already an example.
The end result is everyone arguing for their point with different visions which will lead to conflicting arguments most of the time. BHVR takes one random aspect from each argument and tries to appeal to everyone. It might explain why it feels like BHVR is missing part of the plot at times.
Thats fair, instead of spend 3min to setup turrets, survivors can spend those time to complete 4 Gens.