How many kills should Killers be balanced around?

StibbityStabbity

In your opinion, how many kills should Killers be balanced around, and why?

This should assume that the Killer and Survivors are equally skilled, so this should NOT make odd assumptions about one side being overly skilled against an opposing side that is new to the game. Also, this should NOT factor in perks vs perks. This should be vanilla vs vanilla. A baseline. Lower kills per match would balance them towards being weaker, higher kills toward stronger. SoloQ and SWF should not be factored into this.

I ask this because I have seen some comments here and there that suggest the playerbase actually has wildly different expectations of how strong Killers should be. Some seem to feel that Killers (overall and not specifically) have too many setbacks to be effective, while others seem to feel that Killers are too easy and should have to be challenged more for kills.

Also, it's worth discussing the idea of how many kills should be seen as "default" when a player is playing normally against an equally skilled opposing side. Should the challenge for Killer be to get a single kill at all, or to kill the entire opposing side?

Edit: Assuming this thread gets enough feedback, I might keep a tally so everyone can see the current "score".

WaveyTrey

When using my new Mini Mori Obsession build the stress ended.

Based on how everyone plays I may decide who I want to Mori. People think Rancor is a waste of a slot. It’s not. It gives info that can’t be negated. It’s satisfying to Mori the bully, toxic, or sweaty player at the end. You can feel their anger through the screen. It’s satisfying.

It’s really your mentality on how you play as killer. When you use meta, and lose anyway. That’s upsetting. If you’re playing casually, or EG build. You stop getting mad. You become satisfied that your plan worked.

xCALLxMExJJx

3. If they are evenly skilled baseline the survivors still have the advantage. 4 brains against 1 pair of eyes with 8 generators to monitor. The killer should gun for 3 every time, 1 can escape, totally fine with that.

mizark3

Trick Question: Killers should be balanced around hooks (actions not states). As for the balance factor, I think >8 hooks should be considered a Killer win. 2 hooks on an individual Survivor should be considered a tie if we have to use the current individualized MMR. Staying on hook can be counted as 0.51, that way a first hook kill is worth 2.02 hooks, thus a marginal win. There could be an argument for also applying this lesser hook point value for tunneling (either hooking Surv A then A again, or hooking a Survivor before they did a Conspicuous Action). Balancing around 8 hooks as the tie, means that even if all 4 Survs are 1st hook killed, the Killer (marginally) won. Arguably all Survivors dying on first hook should be seen as a big matchmaking boost, as the Survivors clearly didn't stand a chance, but shouldn't be encouraged.

Balancing around hooks instead of Kills makes the game more enjoyable for Survivor, even if you lose, because you are at least able to participate in the match more often. As Killer, it demonstrates your skill, and the degree of the win is more clearly granulated (9/10/11/12/or decimals from first hook kills and camped kills or the optional tunneled reduced values) compared to Kills.

Ayodam

@crogers271 said:

https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3684025#Comment_3684025

even though it’s been confirmed (I think by Peanits? Or maybe Mandy, or even Cote on stream) trials are evaluated as 1v1v1v1v1–which is probably why the kill rate and win rate, per Nightlight, differ. Since the two are tethered the kill rate should be what the win rate is.

I feel like there has been a lot of confusion on this lately.

BHVR doesn't have a win rate for the game. It's a concept the community created and when the devs talk about it they are usually reflecting that same community creation. The game gives you multiple metrics to evaluate your performance - blood points, pips, kill/escape, etc. What you want to be your win condition is largely up to you, though the community has created a standardized metrics - 1k or less loss, 2k draw, 3k or better win. If we're only using MMR as our metric, kill rate and win rate are the exact same thing.

The 1v1v1 nature has two purposes - survivors don't have to be a team, they are allowed to played completely independent if they so wish. You can't issue a report for someone being a bad teammate. But that doesn't mean survivors who play as a team are somehow playing wrong - altruism points are a thing. If you want to play the game where you are out for yourself, BHVR is cool with it, and if you think it is appropriate to sacrifice yourself for the others, BHVR is also cool with it.

As an aside: the lack of win conditions was even more stark is their other asymmetrical game Deathgarden - lacking win conditions seems to be a design philosophy of theirs.

MMR necessitated some type of win condition, thus the escape/kill metric. But even there survivors have a team element - whether you gain or lose MMR is dependent on if you escape/die, but the amount you gain / lose is influenced by the result of the other survivors. So from an MMR stand point the game is not team focused, but team influenced.

Well said.

Reinami

@StibbityStabbity said:

In your opinion, how many kills should Killers be balanced around, and why?

This should assume that the Killer and Survivors are equally skilled, so this should NOT make odd assumptions about one side being overly skilled against an opposing side that is new to the game. Also, this should NOT factor in perks vs perks. This should be vanilla vs vanilla. A baseline. Lower kills per match would balance them towards being weaker, higher kills toward stronger. SoloQ and SWF should not be factored into this.

I ask this because I have seen some comments here and there that suggest the playerbase actually has wildly different expectations of how strong Killers should be. Some seem to feel that Killers (overall and not specifically) have too many setbacks to be effective, while others seem to feel that Killers are too easy and should have to be challenged more for kills.

Also, it's worth discussing the idea of how many kills should be seen as "default" when a player is playing normally against an equally skilled opposing side. Should the challenge for Killer be to get a single kill at all, or to kill the entire opposing side?

Edit: Assuming this thread gets enough feedback, I might keep a tally so everyone can see the current "score".

https://c.tenor.com/SoH-2BeRGRQAAAAC/tenor.gif

None, kills should not be the balancing factor. Removing a survivor from the game early should not be possible (tunneling)

• Remove the 4% mechanic
• Survivors share the first hook state, meaning the earliest you can remove a survivor from the game is 6 hooks if you hard tunnel that person.
• Balance the game around hooks
• 0-4 hook states is a loss for the killer
• 4--8 hook states is a draw for the killer
• 8-12 hook states is a win for the killer
• Hook states only count if they are natural (I.E. the timer goes for 60 seconds, or a new hook action) not if you slug all 4 survivors and hook them all, you only get 4 hook states (a loss)

Survivors win and lose as a team instead of this weird thing where if i do 5 gens, and unhook every survivor teammate and run the killer for 5 minutes, and then in the endgame collapse i go for a hook save, and that survivor gets out but i don't, should not count as a loss for me. Then make escaping only matter for bloodpoints.

This addresses many concerns survivors have:

• Tunneling is bad, because if you tunnel someone for 6 hooks, that is 6 minutes (not including the chase time) and 3 survivors can do 5 gens in less than 6 minutes and the killer gets few hooks.
• Camping is bad because its about hooks and not kills, and you have to camp for 6 hook states which again ,is 6 minutes, and the other 3 survivors will easily get out.
• Slugging is bad because you want hook states, so letting people bleed out on the ground counts against you.
• Killers feel better because in order for this world to be a reality the gens MUST be slowed down (my proposal is to nerf all gen defense perks, and massively buff the killer's basekit regression, I.E. 10-15% gen kick regression, double, or even triple passive regression after that, basekit corrupt that lasts a short time and also blocks hex totems etc. then go and halve, or even more, nerf the gen defense perks)

SMitchell8

@Pulsar said:

Two with 7-8 hooks.

A close, but ultimately fair and evenly matched game where both sides had push and pull.

Majority of my killer games are like that, with the match swinging like a pendulum. More often than not though, the balance tips in the survivors favour and it plays out 1k > 3k

100PercentBPMain

Kills are irrelevant, imo. You can use 3 perks to basically guarantee kill 1 survivor then use 4th perk Noed to secure 2nd kill. Perfectly balanced. Yet that can be a result from just 2 hooks lol.

I think addressing feel bad situations and ensuring both sides have a comfortably stressful match where everyone feels like they had any semblance of agency is more important.

Killers should on average get 2.5 kills imo. Not per match, but overall.

UndeddJester

@Pulsar said:

Two with 7-8 hooks.

A close, but ultimately fair and evenly matched game where both sides had push and pull.

I was thinking about exactly this, and its actually my explanation for why the average is higher.

The problem with 7-8 hooks being the average, is the absolute best a killer can score is 2 kills, and the worst is 0 kills, and will often be 1 kill if you break down the possible combos of games.

In order for it to be truly equal, you need 9 hooks, cause that means at best killer can score 3 kills, and worst 1 kill... the obvious problem is, that it's impossible for all survivors to escape if your expected average in 9 hooks... on average, a survivor should die every game. This also means the killer can be in a situation where they only need 1 more hook to get a 4k...

Ofc a player can die with fewer hooks, but with tne addotion of the AFC, camping out a hook stage shouldn't happen mosylt of the time. So I think this is the real reason for the 60% kill rate,a ns why BHVR seems to tend to 1 survivor dying every game...