The Decline of Survivor Game Quality Over Years
Here are the links to the data for those that just want to see the data and watch some mediocre Survivor play over the last couple years. DbD Survivor Game Data is from the current games. DbD Stats is from games that were about two years ago I think. The descriptions of all games show which video to look at if you want to see the video.
Dbd Survivor game data.xlsx DbD Stats.xlsxFor those of you that have the patience to read my very long post here goes.
I started an experiment because I feel that there has been a substantial decline in the quality of survivor games over the last few years and the amount of tunneling and camping has gone up substantially. Fortunately, a couple of years ago when somebody said nobody was enjoying solo survivor and I said I can’t speak for anyone else but I do the forum poster accused of me lying and being a killer main (when I’ve played Killer/Survivor 60/40 roughly for years). As such, I recorded 74 games from close to two years ago and I have a basis to make this comparison.
So what I did was recorded 100 games over the last three months so I could compare and see what the changes are. I didn’t record games during 2v8 as that was too popular and would have thrown off my basis of comparison nor did I start until after the anniversary event this year. Also if there were bugs noted such as being unable to unhook or I had to leave suddenly I did not include the session. The Excel sheets showing the stats and links to the YouTube hosting my videos are in these series of posts.
First before I start I want to clarify some definitions. Also please keep in mind that I understand that my experience is my experience and other people may have different experiences. I have an understanding of statistics and sampling so I’m not going to claim anything truly foolish like a poll out by a content creator directly applies to all regions and all MMRs in a game as large as DbD. I can only speak to my experiences.
Tunneling: This is defined as attempting to remove one survivor from the game over all others first. If survivors were swarming a Killer and someone just happened to be the first one out, or if a Killer just found a particular survivor first, that’s not tunneling. If a Killer tried to remove one survivor first but the survivors countered that’s still attempting to tunnel. The Killer just failed to do it successfully. People will also try to tunnel but just realize they’re up against a strong looper and switch to take a different person out first. That’s still tunneling. The easiest way in my opinion to judge is do they return to the hook and do they target the unhooked or the unhooker. I didn’t include it if a Survivor was specifically targeted in the endgame though.
Dbd Survivor Session 1 (youtube.com)
Auspiciously or not auspiciously depending on your point of view my first game when I started was against a tunneling Clown so you can see an example of what I consider tunneling in Survivor Session One in the first game.
Camping: This is defined as staying around the hook and the returning to the hook to hit either the unhooked person (also tunneling) or the unhooker (not tunneling). If the camping was after all gens were done I did not include it.
Slugging for the 4K: This was defined as trying to slug all survivors left to either complete the 4K to minimize Hatch chances or slugging at the very beginning to just knock all survivors on the ground to either bleed them out or hook them all at the same time to minimize any chances of Hatch.
As a sidenote if you do watch my videos please note I’m not a content creator so don’t expect editing or commentary. Two of my videos have managed to reach the dizzying heights of low double digit views (but less than 20 for each) so don’t expect too much. I’m also average as a survivor. I’m not claiming anything else but as that would put me in mid MMR my experiences are more likely to be similar to the majority of the player base as opposed to a comp survivor that would be in top MMR.
For the current sessions all the videos showing this are title Survivor Session (Number) and there were 20 sessions to get 100 games.
Comments
Right. I don’t understand what’s controversial about your data. I’d love to see games from the people challenging it since they seem to be so adept at survivor. Maybe they’re escaping as often as they think you (ought) to be. But I know their evidence won’t ever come.
Got to agree with this, you're data is giving insight what the majority of playerbase is experiencing on the casual end honestly. Thank you for sharing your feedback I hope the team read through it <3
The Elo system based on Kills/Escapes does not work for solo queue survivors because each individual Survivor cannot carry their entire group unless there’s hundreds to over a thousand points higher in MMR.I agree its a problem, but I think you're misdiagnosing it. Individual survivors can never carry by game design. Against soloq the most effective strategy is finding the weakest link and getting them out of the game.
And this is something that MMR can't really address, even if we presume it otherwise works. MMR can't tell what each individual survivors weaknesses are. Like I'm okay against Blight, but I suck against Clown, even though I know Blight is a stronger killer than Clown. If the killer finds that weak link, its basically game over for the survivors.
I think that part is fundamental problem with any 1v4 style elimination game without substantial redesign. Most games weak players can be balanced by the chance of having a particularly strong player or the other team having a weak player as well, it doesn't work that way in DbD.
Fourth, basing game decisions on games that include tunneling is unfair to Killers who don’t tunnel or camp.Not really unfair, if you don't camp or tunnel and that means you hang out at mid MMR, congratulations.
Another way would be to introduce a repair speed bonus each time a Survivor is killed perhaps before a certain number of hooks.I think the problem with this is that it would be impossible to find the perfect number to balance it. If its too high, survivors don't even try and save their teammates, if its too low killers tunnel anyway and perhaps justify it more with 'you get that repair speed increase'.
I had an idea once, but it's probably too complicated to work. Basically, take survivors gen repair speed and set it to 0.75 of what it is right now (this would also deal with early gen rush complaints). Every time a survivor is hooked (not advances a stage, hooked), all other survivors increase by .25. However, each time a survivor is hooked they reset to 0.75.
Numbers are just rough ideas, and I think it would add too much complexity, but it would slow down early gen rushes and also help against tunneling.
It would be possible to, if you can’t code tunneling out of the system, to just multiply MMR gains if a Survivor dies before the fifth or sixth hook.I don't think this would work because I think a problem with the game is there are a lot more good killers than there are 4 good survivors ready to match them. Given the killer strategies are pretty straightforward and you don't have to worry about guessing at what your teammates are doing, it shouldn't take long for a killer to get decent at the game. On top of that the system needs to find 4 survivors for every 1 killer.
If you agree with my point please feel free to mention that BHVR should aggressively tackle this issue.I agree with you, I've just become more fatalistic over the last couple of years when I was more ready to suggest giant game overhauls. Unlike most games, DbD seems to exist more off player created rules. Like I've always found it weird that I don't run double Iri and an offering to help me every match, but I don't because that would be sweaty (if I was redesigning DbD, the addons system is where I'd start). The game was designed around concepts like this (and if you played Deathgarden it was even more extreme there, so its a design they like), where BHVR creates more of a sandbox and lets the community decide how to play.
Being that different metas and playstyles have developed in different regions makes this all much harder.
But, being I've typed this long: remove hook suicide attempts on the first two hooks, this would decrease the urge to rush to rescue the hooked survivor so they don't rage quit and make the 10 second hit off hook endurance a different endurance proc than things like Off the Record and DH. Wouldn't fix it, but that would be helpful.
It's unfortunately the same song and dance on these forums, pretty much everywhere.
People simply cannot handle the idea that they could ever possibly hit their skill ceiling. They're "Max MMR" gods at the video game, and losing a single game out of 20 is an outrage. It can't be their fault, it's that the game is broken.
My favorite, which is directly in this and nearly every thread where this comes up, is that MMR is broken somehow. It's not. Or at the very least it's nowhere near as broken as people want to claim in this context.
You touched on it briefly, but what's actually happening is that killers have way, way too many things that boost their MMR above their actual skill level. Camping, tunneling are the biggest ones, but we've also had things like gen kick meta and 3 gen meta that do the same thing.
Tunneling is far easier to execute for the killer than it is to counter for survivors, so killers can tunnel every game until they are literally up against survivors who know how to counter it. At which point, here come the posts about how MMR is broken. Entity forbid that killers not be able to win every game every time, or even just 60+% of the time.
You also have the "incentivize other play styles so killers don't tunnel" argument that came up, which is basically just saying "everything should have a 90% success rate for killer" in this conversation. That won't ever work and it's a terrible idea. We need more things like the +10 seconds to hook time that discourage tunneling by making it less efficient, but aren't abusable by either side.
This is also the other reason MMR is so complained about: because currently MMR is the only thing in the game that punishes tunneling every. Single. Match.
And some people hate that.
I think there's developed such an expectation of what the game is supposed to be. Like if I came on the forum and posted 'look at my 10 game win streak as killer!', the general reaction would just be a shrug. A ten game win streak as a solo player in most other things, well it wouldn't make you the best at the game by any means, but it would still be a pretty impressive accomplishment.
My confusion is in the fact that people are implying OP is either lying about how often he actually escapes trials, his experiences aren’t indicative of general trends (despite his mirroring experiences shared by others), or that he’s not skilled enough at the game and is thereby failing to win. It seems to be everything but that there could be some sort of issue creating deep imbalances as he has suggested. I don’t understand why people bend themselves into pretzels to deny what’s true for OP. BHVR obviously monitors data closely, so if the rationale is that if people don’t really talk about camping or tunneling or low escape rates then survivors will never be buffed/killers will never be nerfed, that’s not going to stop anything.
The other part I find so silly about the bending themselves into pretzels for it is that close to two years ago when I experienced far less tunneling my escape rate was better than what BHVR intends at 40% but still in the ballpark. As well, when games that include tunneling and camping are removed from the data my escape rate and very importantly the escape rate of the other survivors is within the ballpark of the 40% BHVR intends. It's only when tunneling is included that the escape rate falls far below what BHVR wants to see and the largest difference between the two sessions is that the incidences of tunneling have increased substantially.
Another part that's silly is posters implying my MMR hasn't settled. Both sets of games were with MMR so, if after two years of playing regularly, my MMR hasn't settled when exactly is it supposed to settle? After three years? Five? Ten? I started playing DbD when there was Emblem based matchmaking so if there are people suggesting that during the entire time there has been MMR my MMR has not settled that's rather ludicrous.
My experiences are similar to those of other people in the thread as we've both noted. Also, as we've discussed earlier in the thread if people feel that it's so easy and the solution is to just 'git gud' they're more than welcome to record 100s of their solo queue Survivor play and how they managed to get three other random players they've never met before and can't communicate with to consistently show enough coordination and teamwork over multiple sessions to stop tunneling. Until they do they don't have a leg to stand on.
Thank you, I hope it helps. I did it partially from curiosity and partially because I noticed people were bringing up the huge decline in playability of solo survivor games. I knew tunneling had gone up and games with tunneling were miserable but I didn't actually realize how bad it was until I looked at games with tunneling in them and realized the Killer won 25/26 games simply by tunneling. Hopefully BHVR checks or is checking to see if my experience mirror's other people's experiences, which it seems to, and then does something to help.
I'd like a good solution as well which is why I put in different ideas. I understand, of course, that BHVR is the only one with the resources to develop a solution and playtest it and anything else is just brainstorming ideas. That's why I also suggested getting rid of MMR and using Emblems again. It's definitely not an ideal solution but I saw a lot less camping and tunneling with Emblems. I'm not 100% sure the Emblem criteria was the cause though as Survivors had a lot of busted stuff during the Emblem period and it's possible tunneling was just something busted that Killers could do that helped even the odds so maybe it was the change in match making criteria or maybe it was Survivors had busted stuff to help counter it?
As well, I came in at the end of Emblem based matchmaking so I've spent a far greater amount of time under MMR than Emblems. In any event though although Survivors did have a lot of busted stuff in the past that's irrelevant to the fact that currently Survivors have nothing that's busted. BHVR has made great strides in making sure it's fairer to face Survivors but Killers still have easy access to something that is busted. I hope it gets changed soon.
Very true. The other part with the MMR argument is that I started playing DbD during Emblem based matchmaking and the two sessions are close to two years apart. So, if during not only two years but the entirety of time there has been MMR, my MMR has not settled when exactly is it supposed to settle? In a decade?
As I mentioned in another post as well, the escape rate BHVR intended is reached or within the ballpark in the games where tunnelling and camping is excluded. It's not even in the same city as the ballpark when we look at the games with only tunneling and camping. It's pretty apparent where the issue is.
Two primary reasons:
There is always a survivor bonus because this role is simply not fun when skill expansion is non-existent. It's a little intriguing how the game is still popular due to this.
They say under their own comment containing 3 separate ad-homimens.
but in a way op is correct if at low/mid level mmr tunneling is so effective it also promote bad habits for the ppl playing killer that only use starts that win way more then loses they shoot up in high mmr and then they get stumped and then they complain i do think it's detrimental for both sides you get survivors that don't learn the game because tunneling they can't play the game and learn to play it properly and for the killer it wins them games exponentially until it doesn't and they only learned to play that way don't know how to macro/micro with killerpower/addons/perks/map ect… and then think everything is op like ill give a example outside of tunneling do you remember when ppl used to track crows around the map to know if some one went by to track survs i do almost no one do it these days ppl are so dependent on aura perks now hance the whole distortion perk drama to be clear i don't use it i think it overrated if you're good at looping and there's plenty of counters to it but anyways that's a side topic that i don't think tbh is a issue but tunneling is a mechanic that is explosive and promote bad habits with explosive gains until it doesn't also at the determent of the game in general on both sides
hell 2v8 completely removed tunneling and it was great for both the killer and the survs and made the game better imo and relieved a lot of pressure for both survs and killer and especially SOLO Q the main game mode might need to a extent some type of small overhaul in general even tough i do think that game i alright right now
There are so many threads about this. Everyone stating that tunneling/camping is a problem but no one brings up the “why is it such a problem?”
First, when you have one chase that perhaps lasts for 60 seconds, and two gens pop simultaneously, now there’s some pressure. What is the easiest response? Get someone out of the game early so that there’s not so many people working on generators.
Tunneling accomplishes this. Camping does not.
With toolbox speed, limited regression, and the various perks that speed up gen progress, The mechanics are set up, so that tunneling is probably the only viable solution for most killers.
Think about it it’s not a hard equation. If you take one or two people out of the game early, there are less people to be popping two and three gens during the course of a chase.
Stopping chase for gen control is null and void because the game says they will complete the gen no matter what you do… unless they just aren’t in the game any longer to be able to do that.
The way the game is set up now is that the only true gen regression comes from removing those that are doing them. Tunneling becoming more prevalent is a consequence of survivor complaining which led to the changes that were made.
If we want tunneling to go back to being the few rather than the many then we need to make it viable for the majority of killers to play alternatively.
I have been tunneled in plenty of games, and I have experienced it much more in recent times than I have ever experienced it before. But I also know the cause of it. Just last night, I was with one friend and we joined SoloQ. Friend took chase, we popped three gens in less than two minutes friend gets first hook. I go make the save, killer back to hook, I bait, he ignores, goes right back after friend. I take a protection hit, does not deter him. Friend gets frustrated they’re being tunneled, takes second hook before the killer even thinks about coming after me. Other two gens pop in meantime. Now he returns to hook to camp. Random (Who never had Chase never even saw the killer never got injured, open doors and leave) I trade hooks so my friend can get out. This game went all of about 6-7 minutes.
Post match: 2 brand new parts, 2 commodious toolboxes, 2 built to last. 1 prove thyself, 1 hyperfocus.
So I mean at this point, we are pretty much complaining that killers are doing something that they pretty much been forced into doing in order to have a chance.
It doesn't appear that you even read my post or considered the accompanying observations before posting the same stock argument (which isn't even valid as Killers have a 60% kill rate and win the majority of matches by design)