Anyone Else Remember Almo's warning and insight?
"Disclaimer: after 6 fun years of working on DBD with an amazing team, I've moved on to another studio to work on something new. These opinions are mine, and not those of Behaviour Interactive.
First, it's extremely hard to set up an asymmetric game of any kind that works. From a game design perspective, you're not able to assume that any rule fair to one side is fair to the other. Worse, asym horror games tend to put multiple players against 1. There are a whole host of reasons this is difficult to get right, but that's a huge topic better left to another discussion.
With regard to games that set out to compete with DBD, they often start by saying "we're gonna fix X which is a deep problem with DBD". Why not learn from the competition, right? Well, sometimes it then turns out that X is something that makes DBD work.
I was a VHS (Video Horror Society) early adopter, and a Superfan (large DLC purchase); I'll use this one as an example. Much of the discussion of how this game works comes from my 110 hours spent with the game as well as discussions with my Twitch audience.
VHS failed in large part because the Monster couldn't tunnel or camp. It seems clear to me from the design that they looked at DBD and figured that the biggest thing its players hate is tunneling and camping, so they eliminated those tactics.
But that meant the Monster ended up fighting 4 Teens most of the match, and there was no way to deal with a particularly difficult Teen. You'd finally kill one, and then they'd get the book of the dead and you're at 4 again. It was miserable to play Monster, so few did. I am a DBD Killer main, and I even gave up playing Monster because it was so miserable to play. I'd rather wait in a 15-minute Teen queue and play something else in the meantime than deal with that.
The difficulty in killing one Teen early also made its 25-minute matches feel very samey the whole way. DBD matches have phases: 4 Survivors, 3 Survivors, do we try to finish gens or hatch jockey, hatch hunt. That results in large shifts in play style over the course of one match. There are issues with some of these stages, but that they are present adds variety to each match.
There was also the ping system, another response to something DBD is perceived to be lacking. It hurt the atmosphere and made it much more gamey. Also, it meant Teens had a much easier time learning to coordinate against the Monster.
Then there were the Journeys; these were sets of challenges for players to do to earn stuff. Nice in principle. But some of these encouraged VERY bad behavior on the part of the Teens. Imagine you're losing as Monster; the Teens have one more Sigil of the four to take to win. Instead, they keep chain stunning you with the other attack types in order to fulfill their Journey requirements. They're encouraged not to win, but to bully the Monster for their unlocks. We can't fault the players... they're just behaving in the ways that the systems encourage.
But part of this issue steams from another thing they wanted to fix from DBD: "We want more interaction between the Killer and Survivors, and we'd like to be able to hinder the Killer more than we can in DBD." One reason DBD works is that the Survivors try to do gens to open the gates, and the Killer tries to stop them. It's never about stopping the Killer, but delaying them until you can get the gates open and escape. In VHS the Teens want to kill the Monster and the Monster wants to kill the Teens. I would argue that the goal structure being set up like this means DBD can give the most important thing to the players: the sense of an unstoppable Killer. When I boot into a game as a Killer, I don't want to be afraid there might be a Survivor lurking around any corner with a weapon. I want to go in and watch them scatter like rabbits when I come near.
This brings up what's called "ludonarrative dissonance". When you see VHS or DBD advertised, you are being sold "80s movie monster runs around murdering civilians". What you get in DBD is largely that. In VHS, it's considerably harder to kill individual Teens, and so you're not getting what you were sold. You may have a difficult time actually completing kills in DBD as it's difficult to learn to play. But that's a totally different feeling than what you get in VHS where so many systems and rules are set up to make it systemically difficult to kill a Teen.
It's easy to give reasons like "DBD has the licenses", "it has more content", or "it's already established" as reasons for competitors' failures. Or that "they didn't market it right", or "their early access was not done well". VHS shipped with 3 monsters, 6 teens, and 3 maps. Over the course of their one-year early access, they released 2 new Monsters, 1 Teen, and 2 Maps. They tweaked a lot of things, and listened to player feedback. It was very impressive for such a small team.
But my experience as someone who was on the DBD team for 6 years and having played VHS and Evil Dead quite a lot is that these competitors just aren't as much fun.
Like it or not, despite its flaws, DBD is a brilliant game that's just fun to play and competitors have to beat that part to survive. Focusing on DBD's flaws and fixing those first is the wrong way to go about it.
I'm never happy when my fellow game developers slave away on a game for years (VHS was in the works for 5 years) and then fail and lose their jobs. They worked hard, they cared about their game, and it's clear they put everything they had into it. The studio behind VHS unfortunately appears to be gone now, and that's a shame."
The PTB is literally doing the thing…..
Comments
I mean yeah, we still got Kenneth doing his best Usain Bolt impression even though many people said it was silly.
But then Killer feedback got Fog Vials nerfed into irrelevance within two weeks of them hitting live and the reaction to those was quaint by comparison to that of the anti-tunnel and anti-slugging changes. There's no way the more extreme measures are going to make it to live. No way. Many of the biggest streamers don't approve of the changes either. I'll honestly be blown away if much of what's in the PTB isn't substantially watered down.
The moment I saw the content creators were displeased I knew it was doomed.
Noo, show us how many matches you played the survivior aswell. Escape rate is irrelevant
You leave Stegull out of this.
I had a 70%+ escape rate for the month springtrap dropped and I played 50+ matches like he did in his post. This was not the norm for me and it was largely due to the number of new killers I was being matched with. This stat without the full context is pretty meaningless. I'd stake money on this being cherry picked from a specific month where he did extremely well. I could post my 93.75% kill rate on Unknown and act like I am some sort of god. Even though in reality I have only played four games on him. At the very least you need in the hundreds of matches to prove any sort of point with stats.
Look man… hag is busted, needs nerfs!
but in reality…
it has been one match!
If we give some "proof", let's do the whole picture.
Check your official stats again…
The box that says "Average Kill Rate" only appears for the Total Killer Stats. You won't find that box under any of the individual killers.
Similarly, the box that says Escape Rate with the escape icon, only appears for the Total Survivor Stats. You won't find that box under any of the individual survivors.
And if you had a problem with the official stats, you could have just scrolled down like half a foot, to see the screenshot that showed the actual in-game stats at 34 escapes in 66 trials. The official stats are still broken, because BHVR never bothered to fix all the bugs on their online website, so they aren't even accurate anyway… and people should either use the in-game stats or they should manually track their stats.
What you mean you won't find info on individual killers? You totally can.
But the root cause is they aren't enjoying the game. The symptom is they are quitting. You can't solve a problem treating symptoms, you need to find the root cause and fix that.
There are specific boxes that are only available on the overall killer or overall survivor stats.
For example, the Average Kill Rate box is only available on the overall killer stats. Look at your screenshot you just posted. The Average Kill Rate box isn’t there, because it’s not an individual stat.
The root cause of the problem is that people think “not having fun” is a valid reason for ragequitting.
But should people force themselves to endure unfun or miserable things? It totally is valid reason.
People aren’t literally forced to play a game of DBD.
But if someone ragequits, they should be forced to get a punishment. They deserve a punishment for breaking the game rules.
If someone isn't enjoying games of DBD, then they shouldn't be queueing up to play DBD. The problem with giving up over "fun" is that it just ends up being people quitting matches until they get a match where they get to steamroll the killer in.
well they're not required, you're not being forced to use them. They are there to help you in whatever you're struggling in. Simply put: If you're struggling with tunneling use anti-tunnel perks, if you refuse to then you cant complain about getting tunneled when you do.
theres nothing crazy about it. Killer cant tunnel you if you never go down in the first place. whats really crazy is that you feel entitled to not doing any problem-solving or higher thinking when faced with a problem or just that the game should give you a dozen basekits
well, we dont. most of us KM's dont que up for a trial and go: "alright, cant wait to ruin survivors fun hehehe", we que up intending to give it our best. If you go and think "the killer ruined my fun by tunneling me", thats on you guys not us.
we're brought to this patch because survivor whined too much after getting outplayed and lost.
well you're not being forced but perks like DS and/or DH were implemented to help deal (Not delete!) with tunneling. You dont have to use them but you can and they can help combat it if you feel you're facing tunneling often.
well because its a strategy, something we can try to get value on the current situation but still has a chance to fail, why should we be punished for that? why should we answer to "dont like it, dont tunnel" when survivors refuse to answer to "dont like it, bring perks".
not really a good comparison, especially since not a lot of ppl can kill all 4 survivors before a gen pops. you wont always find the hatch every single time and i've had some survivors escape by hatch, sometimes even spawned underneath them. Its really 50/50
So Survivors need to be prepared to bring the following: Anti-Tunnel, Chase perks, Gen perks, Healing perks, Anti-Camp perks and Anti-Slug perks. If you don't bring all of these perks, you apparently have no reason to complain. Wild take.
Genuinely must be a troll post if people are genuinely using the "just don't go down 4head" argument in 2025.
well thats what they are there for, otherwise why make perks like that?
well then I give up man, the solutions were place out for you but you'd rather pout and say no. cant make you do it, you have to do it on you own
-good luck-
I think it's just that you genuinely don't have a good argument.
Do you have anything else other than "run perks" or "don't go down 4head"
It'd be like telling a Killer in 2016 to just "hook Survivors 5head"
Now tell us what he thinks about Pig being too strong and facecamping basement Bubba being fun
If survivors cared about losing, there'd be a hell of a lot more pushback against BHVR openly admitting to balancing in favour of the killer.
I disagree, not having fun is the ONLY reason to not play a game. I'm not some minion that killers of the world can compel into entertaining them. To find the root cause, just keep asking why? Survivors are giving the answers BHVR just doesn't care.
I think if most survivors were to devise the solution to why they aren't having fun the game would quickly become unplayable for killers. BHVR should ignore that and just listen to the WHY people aren't having fun.
For me it is queuing for a game that might last 10 minutes and spending 5 minutes unable to actually participate. Hanging on a hoo, bleeding on the ground, mending simulator, whatever…these are activities that survivors tolerate to get to the good parts. The good parts are just getting fewer and fewer, and the dreadful parts are getting more and more. Hence Killer Q's are getting worse, and we have a go next pandemic, even after their go next solution.
Almo leaving is news to me. Sad to hear that!
You know, I really don't buy this idea that VHS fell apart solely because of Monster. I do agree that the odds were stacked against Monster, but it's also not as if Werewolf didn't made quick work of the Teens either. The larger picture, in my opinion, is that VHS offered very little that completely set it apart from DBD and it had a boring loop. The queues didn't help either. But it did walk so other competitors could run, so I do still respect it all the same.
In addition to that, we can say whatever we want, but the first part of the post is why DBD is the only one that lasts—"it's extremely hard to set up an asymmetric game of any kind that works". I'd go one step further and say that it's impossible. You're essentially turning a PVE game into a PVP and hoping that nothing breaks in the process and that all parties are satisfied. Outside of a private lobby of a few friends, that's a very tall ask. And as close as other games have gotten to getting it right, they can never please enough people to stay afloat. If we're being completely honest, DBD has survived because of licenses. There's not enough there otherwise to keep players invested long term.
1.Multiple issues but the one thing that has sticking power is the Monster Vs Teen part.
2.Devs waited too long with the key releases, Quests designed to harass the Monster, new players matchmaked with experienced ones* and win/lose condition on who is last standing**
3.Asymm games outside of Dbd/IdV are doomed to die.
* it sucks to try a new game and your randoms are just speedrunning through the match working most efficient (as monster or teen)
**Dying as monster counted as a loss even if Majority of Teens are dead
Defense is best offense.
Endurance after getting unhooked is useable to take a hit for your unhooker.
It doesnt have to be an actual weapon
Defense is a horrible offense... the saying doesnt really work when you reverse it.
Also, my comment was mostly a joke talking about weapons rather than anything about game balance.
Here's an example of someone who who thought defense was the best offense