(LONG POST) As a killer main, I agree with survivors mains on the current state of the game.
Hi, I’m a Pig main with 500+ hrs on her. A few other hours on Ghostface, Myers and. I mostly play stealth killers because I’m a HUGE slasher freak. 1k+ hours on DBD in total
I lurk on the forums a lot, sometimes reply on things, and I was reading a lot of the post that survivor mains have posted on here about the state of the game over the past few months. I also seen a lot of post from killer mains saying the opposite.
I play survivor sometimes as well, so I gave myself a challenge of 300 solo q survivor games and see how the state of survivor it is for myself. Basically, putting myself in the shoes of many of the survivor mains on these forums. The plan was to level up my survivors to p3, get better at survivor and honestly just see how the other feels.
Originally, it was 1000 games, and although I did get a lot better at survivor to the point I could loop the killer for a few gens, I genuinely could not make it past 300, because GOD, I was not having fun after a while. And then I started having technical problems with my PC. (My SSD with all the VODs of my 300 games died and I lost the footage, and my GPU lost one of its fans and started overheating and wouldn’t connect to my monitors. I think my motherboard may or may not also be on its last legs.)
Me personally, I don’t camp; I don’t tunnel, but sometimes a survivor who got unhooked is literally doing a gen in my face, I can’t just … ignore you. I play twins often, so sometimes I will slug, but only if there is a survivor already nearby that’s injured, otherwise, I don’t slug either since people running unbreakable is pretty common right now. I just don’t find any of those play styles fun, and it doesn’t get me double pips (nor even one sometimes) because the game would end too fast and I don’t have enough hook states. I don’t find those games very fun, and I’m sure the survivors I play against wouldn’t find it fun either.
I was going to upload it onto YouTube and have them unlisted so anyone who had the link could few the games. The clips I DO have are on streamable, but have copyrighted music in the background though because I enjoy listening to music while I play games. And I’m not sure if that is allowed in these forums?
I counted how many survivors DC’ed mid game, AFK, give up on hook, etc. I also counted the times a killer DC’ed. Along with that, I counted how many times I escaped, died, got tunneled, camped, or slugged. I also had to add how many times a random teammate teamed up with the killer and gave away everyone else’s positions (surprisingly happened quite a few times; Mostly by Ghostface mains. I genuinely dislike a few of you for this).
Now, I had rules for what counted as getting camped, slugged and tunneled since I am a killer main, and sometimes you can’t just ignore someone.
For me to add a point into getting camped, it had to be before all gens were done. I don’t count endgame proxy as “camping” because what is the killer supposed to do? There are no more gens, and most likely, the exit gate is 99.
To get a point for getting tunneled, I only counted me getting unhooked, and the killer instantly coming over to the hook and going after me ignoring the person who unhooked me. If I touched a gen, heal someone, or anything else, I did not count it as tunneling if the killer comes after me.
To count as slugging, I had to be on the ground for 50 seconds or more, or the killer downs someone else after downing me and ALSO leaves them on the ground.
Out of those 300 games, I can say that the state of solo q survivor is downright miserable. I understand that BHVR considers camping, slugging, and tunneling to be acceptable strategies and valid playstyles. I simply don’t care anymore after these 300 straight survivor games. It’s extremely UNFUN to play against, and I can understand why a lot of survivor mains ARE quitting DBD, or at least taking a break.
So here are the stats that I have. I kept what I had in a Notepad so I didn’t get confused or lose count. You can take these stats with a grain of salt since I don’t have VODs to prove myself. But I lack the motivation to attempt and redo this challenge right now, maybe later when I fix whatever issues I have with my PC and have a better way to make sure I have the VODs saved for proof.
Although I had a decent escape rate and got lucky to be saved by teammates after getting camped, slugged or tunneled, a lot of these matches were unnerving to play.
Hell, I played against a Wraith where the match lasted literally 25+ minutes because all the Wraith did was use deerstalker + knock out and try to slug everyone for the 4k. We didn’t even get a SINGLE gen done. 25+ minutes of us trying to pick everyone up and at least finish ONE gen. I was the last person to DC that game. Everyone else had DC’ed before me and I was just left with bots in return, and I really tried to at least get one gen done. Out of all my 300 games, that was the ONE game where I actually DC’ed and closed DBD. I don’t care if it’s a real strategy to BHVR.
I started running Unbreakable, Soul Guard and Decisive Strike, and Off the Record or sometimes Distortion after that because I HAD to, not because I wanted to.
I was playing with meme builds before the 20th game on the streak where I was just getting slugged to death almost every game after that.
Don’t even get me started matches where survivors INSTANTLY gave up. If it’s not the killer playing in the most boring, snore fest way, its survivors giving up before the second gen could even pop.
I had an Oni match where two people got hooked at 4 gens. It was me, a Kate, Dwight, and Mikaela in this match and for whatever reason — the Mikaela gives up on the hook before I could save her. I had to wait because the Oni was in his power and could instant down me if I played this wrong, she just gave up on the hook because I wasn't fast enough for her liking I guess. And then the Dwight that I unhooked literally just AFKs underneath the hook. The only ones who TRIED during that match were me and the Kate. Once I got hooked, I just let myself die hoping the Kate got hatch, and sadly, she didn’t.
The state of solo q survivor is actually so God damn unnerving that I rather got back to playing OW2 than playing another 300 matches of survivor, and I really hate OW2 and it's current state.
When I play killer, I play to have fun and I hope the other side has fun playing against me. That doesn’t always mean I win with a massive 4k, hell, some of my most fun matches, I’ve only gotten 1-2 kills, but I still had fun! I like a challenge and I LOVE games where it's hard to tell which side is going to win. I love playing against well-rounded survivors because it forces ME to get better at certain killers. I also just get to see new things I never seen before, because wow, I’ve met and befriended so many survivor mains who were just insanely good.
I’m not the biggest fan of the current killer meta, (pain res, ruin, pop, grim, corrupt or the slug meta), but I understand that a well-rounded survivor team is hard to deal with if you weren’t playing Billy, Blight or Nurse. A lot of killers are weak because they have low mobility and mobility is HUGE in this game because every second matters.
Honestly? I have literally no idea what would be the right step to help fix the current state of DBD and how unnerving it is to play survivor. I think I can agree with many people, that I miss 2v8, I didn’t realize how much I would miss it until it was gone.
Comments
Nerfed Gen perks - Gen perks got nerfed because too many Killers were 4 stacking them (PR+Pop+Deadlock+GE). That's why I recommend balancing gen perks around being 50% boosted if you bring only 1, so that they can still be powerful, but only in moderation. Too many Killers who stack gen slowdown win from Attrition and Attrition alone, and soon find themselves inflating their MMR above their skill level. By crutching on slowdown so much, they lose the ability to win normally, and start to think it is impossible to win without it. It's like a Survivor who starts to bring 4 Meta perks, then starts to only play with a Syringe or BNP, and finds the game impossible to win without them.
A lot of maps are RNG - I mean yeah Ghosty on Autohaven or Huntress on The Game aren't the best of times, but its better to have good and bad maps for every Killer, so that they can have that better time when the maps are swapped (as Huntress on Autohaven is fun, and Ghosty on The Game [if you play Ghosty right] is fun). As far as maps in general, so many maps are getting butchered, like the new Ormond seems to be a 10-20% escape rate (ignoring Hatch) from my matches on both sides. Even the Farm maps got 5 tent pallets and nothing of value beyond that. So I guess there is RNG, and it just determines for Killer if it is a free-win or fairly easy.
Survivors got basekit BT and Killers got? - 10s per gen (80s→90s), 10% Brutal (2s →1.8s & 2.6s→2.34s), 10% STBFL (3s→2.7s), 10% Survivor hit speedboost reduction (2s→1.8s), the deletion of DS, and probably more I can't think of off the top of my head. Oooh, also Endurance being butchered, to prevent BT from stacking with OTR and/or DH. So I'd say if you are playing the correct way for the health of the game (chasing the rescuer) this gives Killer exclusively buffs at no cost.
Kicking gens isn't really worth it - Exactly! Chase Survivors! Lethality is far more powerful for slowdown than kicking gens over and over again. The sooner I get someone on hook, the sooner I force someone to rescue, the sooner I can chase the would-be rescuer, the sooner I can get them on hook, the sooner the Survivors lose. If I tunnel against Survs with brains not in another pair of pants, they have 3 Survs on gens the entire match, and if I spread hooks, I have 1 Surv on gens the entire match (Chase/Hook or Healed/Rescue or Healing/Genning).
The only logical option is to slug and tunnel - I mean tunnel, on paper, yes. Injured Surv or Healthy Surv, person with hooks or person without hooks, it logically makes sense to tunnel, and that is a massive design flaw. The problem is this sets people up for failure. If I tunnel the weak link every match, I can only win by tunneling weak links, and don't learn how to win against Survivors with more skill than me. By forcing myself to 8 hook before killing, I make sure my MMR only increases when I 100% win a match against all Survivors, thus I am prepared for the softcap of MMR, where weak links no longer exist. Slug, kinda mostly not logical. The sooner I get someone on hook, the sooner they die, or the sooner I force someone to rescue them, which provides natural slowdown. Slug an obvious DS play, or push off a would be pallet/flashbang rescuer, yeah these are the only times it makes sense logically.
My only issue with solo q survivor is the team mates i can get
when team mates aren't utterly useless the games are fine an fun.
Well bhvr is slowly encouraging to tunnel/ camp cause some that counters something gets nerfed or gen regression gets badly nerfed theres nothing killer can do other then damn i tried but survivors have (insert perk here) i cant do anything about it other then tunnel them