Dead By Daylight is Surprisingly Well Balanced (The Hard Truth)
Dead By Daylight is Surprisingly Well Balanced. And that is the hard truth 😊. Breathe in, breathe out. I know this can be a hard cope for certain killer mains.👍️
In this post we will be exploring in details 🔍, and with numbers, to prove how well the Devs have done their job in regards to tackling DBD's unique asymmetrical balancing changes and how well they have managed to balance the game ⚖️, in contrary to popular beliefs.
Let's dive right in! This is going to be a long, and detailed post~
UNIQUE CHALLENGES:
Let's first start with acknowledging the unique balancing challenges that come with a asymmetrical game like DBD.
For DBD in particular, there is an unequal learning curve. Meaning that for beginner survivors vs beginner killers, it is a lot easier for beginner killers to follow a beginner survivor and down them than it is for a beginner survivor to navigate a randomly generated map backwards. This unique learning curve makes it so that, even if DBD at its theoretical highest level of play would be balanced, all games with lesser skill would be biased towards the killer
RED: Survivor learning curve & strength
BLUE: Killer learning curve & strength
This unique challenge for DBD makes it impossible to balance DBD at its highest level, without completely gutting lower level players, which will then all experience matches highly biased towards killer, and with worse match results vs killers with equal game-time and relative skill.
Similarly, certain killers have their own style of learning curves too. And this ultimately dictates whether they can exist as a healthy killer in the game or not; strong killers with high learning curves like Nurse or Singularity are healthy, because beginner killers aren't able to utilize their full power against beginner level survivors, creating a more equal learning curve for both sides. However, for killers like Ghoul, you will see a massive disparity as a lot of the power of Ghoul is easily accessible to beginner players, where as the beginner survivors won't have much to fight back against that with. This means that to have a balanced experience for all players across ELO, beHaviour can truly only fully balance killers with high learning curves, as otherwise, certain killers due to their intrinsic design will absolutely dominate all lower brackets of gameplay, even if they would be theoretically well balanced at their highest level of play.
Another unique challenge is that Voice Communications can heavily strengthen a team beyond any level that is normally possible through just the means of the game alone. This makes it so that Voice Comms player have access to a significantly more amount of information, or shall I call it, free perks, than any normal team would normally have access to. What would require normal players plenty of perk slots would be attained for free by Voice Comm players.
And another unique challenge is that survivors rely in heavily punishable team-play. This means that survivors have to rely on others. Just 1 weak link can destroy the entire team. This means that for survivors to play at their higher levels, there need to be a lot more conditions to be set right than just a 1 man team (killer) who fully controls their own side of the match results.
So how were these unique challenges addressed and largely solved by the Devs?
THE BALANCE STRATEGY:
The Devs have resulted to multiple balancing strategies to target these unique issues:
Strategy 1: Make survivors stronger than the killers. It seems like a simple solution right? As we follow the curve above, this leads to a more generally equal match outcome across different skill levels, with beginner games favouring killers and high level games favouring survivors relatively. But wait, doesn't this prove that the game then is, in fact, unbalanced?
Not as much as others would have you believe…
Let's look at the stats: Comp DBD players hosted a rules free tournament, meaning, survivors can pick any perks they want, including duplicates, and pick any item as well as add-ons, including 4 Brand New Parts. And needless to say, they did. The tournament was mainly played with higher tier killers, both S tier and A tier, among which killers like Krasue, Ghoul, Dracula, Spirit, Hillbilly, Singularity, Vecna 2, etc.
And what were the match results?
21 Losses (0-1k)
13 Wins (3-4k)
15 Draws (2k)
So what does that mean for killers? That means that if you are playing against quite literally the Best Teams in the entire world, who are all running 4 BNP's, Shoulder the burdens, etc and other abusing builds, YOU, as any higher level killer, ARE MORE LIKELY TO DRAW OR WIN against the best teams in the entire world, than you are to lose, should you be playing at the best level as well.
Now, to really realize how big that is, you need to realize how extreme the circumstances these killers were all playing under were. Because these are by no stretch of the imagination your ordinary games. These were fully stacked 4 BNP, shoulder the burden / full slippery meat maximum gen rush games with fully sweaty and trained voice communications that DBD doesn't even natively provide.
Yet even if you play under these extraordinarily rare circumstances, you are more likely to draw or win than you are to lose. And that is definitely not how this community has been selling it.
Now in the real world, the chance that you are playing against a fully premade team is already way lower. The chance of them all running BNP is already way lower. The chance of them using fully sweaty voice comms with trained call-out locations for every part of the map is already way lower. And the chance of them being highly organized and trained with thousands of hours training together and being in sync with their team play is already way lower. Yet with a quite wide roster of killers, while having to overcome little of such challenges of your own as you are always your complete 1 man team and are always under your own best conditions, you will more likely draw or win than lose, even against the world's best.
So what does that mean? Well, here is the hard truth; You're not as good as killer at you think. And I don't even mean that in the terms of getting a 1k, 2k, or any particular match result. Your personal results are inferior to other players on those same killers.
Which brings us to the following balancing strategy:
Strategy 2: Make sure the maximum MMR bracket is quite forgiving. Sitting around the top 18% of players.
For anyone who has played a lot of competitive games before, you'll quickly know that the top 18% isn't quite the best group of players in the world. Those margins typically sit around the top 2.5% of players, or for highest tiers, top 0.4%-0.1%
Being in the top 18% is kind of the equivalent to being somewhere in Emerald in League of Legends.
Now, what does this accomplish? Well, it quite accomplishes the following: This MMR is forgiving enough, so that weaker killers, like Trapper, can go on massive Winstreaks of 50+ 3-4ks, even perkless and add-on-less, if they are being played at their highest levels. That means that, even if they cannot buff a certain killer without destroying their balance distribution through all MMR's due to how their power access as affected by their learning curve, you, as a top MMR bracket player, will still be able to have a completely DOMINATING experience as killer in NEARLY all of your matches if you are playing the killer right. And if that is not your experience, it's sadly not the game that is the issue;
You are just not as good as killer as you thought you were. And other killers are outcompeting you in their match results by a long shot. It's not the killer that is the problem; It's you.
ON ANOTHER NOTE:
Now, considering that you can select a killer, just like any character in any competitive game, you can also select a weaker character. But you have nothing but yourself to blame for selecting a weaker character deliberately, as nobody is forcing you to either play with weaker killers, weaker perks, as neither are survivors being forced. However, for those killers who wishes lower tier killers to be buffed:
It is important to recognize that many killers cannot easily be buffed, specifically due to how their power level vs learning curve scales with each other. Should killers have to be strong, they need to be designed in such a way that makes that power not easily available, so that through MMRs they can exist as a balanced and healthy killers. And your suggestions for buffs for them should also follow that same philosophy; Buff weaker killers in ways that don't give beginner killers access to it. As that is the only way such a killer can exist in the game in a healthy manner. Otherwise they simply need to suffer the fate of being weaker. Not to the detriment of their general match results in this forgiving MMR, but for top level competitive integrity.
NO TRUE MASTER:
One thing that a lot of people also leave out when it comes to killers and survivors is, they also are very unique in their learning curves. Survivor mains of course, ALWAYS play survivor. They might have 10.000 hours playing survivor alone. One of the interesting things that happens is that, players with 10.000 survivor hours might play against a killer with 10.000 killer hours, but the killer may only have 300 hours in Singularity specifically, and perform significantly worse than had they had 10.000 hours in singularity to match the survivor's experience.
This is a part very few people talk about, but killers on their specific killers very often have inferior experience relative to the survivors have at their role. This also means that killers have not learned to max out their strength to the same degree survivors have.
To this day, we don't have a true master of something like Ricochet Trickster. Not even the best Trickster players in the world, like Wacek have learned to max out the potential of these killers. Obviously, for fun, killers vary their killer roster. But imagine DBD in which the only game was Trickster and everyone was trying to master Ricochet Trickster. The level at which that killer would be played at would be through the roof, and optimized beyond anything we see today.
Therefore, in a truly balanced game, it shouldn't be too weird that people with 300 hours (the singularity example) are losing against optimized players with 10.000 of hours at their specific role. DBD has a serious killer main optimization issue, even at the competitive level, and we haven't seen optimized Killer Gameplay nearly as much as Optimized survivor gameplay. With few people trying, Like One Pump Willie. But nowhere near at the level had DBD been a game with exclusively 1 killer, to match the hours of the survivors.
END NOTE:
With all of these subjects covered, I hope that you have an understanding now, at not only the unique balancing challenges DBD faces, but also, how quite well they were addressed by beHaviour, contrary to popular belief, to provide a good match experience for both sides, even at the highest MMR level.
The popular belief that killer is just underpowered for a large part comes from peoples delusion of not recognizing they are simply not as good as killer as they imagined themselves to be.
Sadly for these people, being outcompeted in match results by other killers playing the same killer with even weaker perks/add-ons will not sway them into believing they themselves are in fact the problem. And these people will go on and regurgitate the same old faulty beliefs.
But for those with a healthy ego:
If you are playing an A-S tier killer versing the most ferocious teams in the world who are going all out, and you are losing more than you are winning+drawing; YOU ARE THE PROBLEM
If you are playing killer at top MMR and you aren't nearly exclusively winning all your matches; YOU ARE THE PROBLEM
If you are an addonless perkless trapper at top MMR and you aren't nearly exclusively winning all your matches; YOUR ARE THE PROBLEM
If you are playing addonless perkless trapper against a full competitive team with abusable builds; well, in that case, you will lose that match. I guess that happens when you deliberately select weaker characters. But next to winning the next 20+!
I hope this post helped you gain more insight into DBD balancing and that you hopefully learned something about the real balance of DBD, which as it stands, is actually pretty neat!
So get your decently wide a-s tier killer roster and enjoy drawing and winning against the top tier teams in the world! And if that's not you? Time to start improving as a player ❤️
Comments
I could also refraim that as "You are more likely to lose or draw than you are to win". Or even better, since there was 21 losses (-1) 13 wins (+1) and 15 draws (0) you ended up with a score of -8. Now I don't know the rules surrounding this tournament ect, I dont follow tournaments that well, but If it is true that they were close to double the amount of losses to wins, does that not show the power difference AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL.
See previous reframing, I understand you want to minimize these stats, but if your going to bring fourth stats at least apply them neutrally.
And the chance of them being a high tier killer with a sweaty build and 4000+ hours in the game are infinitely less. I've seen people shitpost about one of my friends who had less than 500 hours in the game, If your going to acknowledge in your post that killers aren't facing the best survivors (which i agree heavily) you also have to acknowledge the average killer is nowhere near as good as them.
I'll agree that a lot of killers believe they are insane and still getting duped by your average soloqueue survivors, but ill also say survivors often believe they are in the top 1% going against the best nurses/blights/jason's and have no way to play against them. This inflation occurs on both sides. And yeah, people inflate their skill level to seem like they're an authority. See how I've gone through this entire argument without invoking my hours in the game ect, people as a whole on this forum seem to be unable to do this.
I will also say, however, that being good as killer takes a lot more than being good as survivor, which you acknowledged the skill floors of both roles are hugely different. On top of this unless you have someone who can coach you its difficult to teach newer killers decision making (a key part of being a good killer). A lot of survivor loops/maps/ techs can be taught and doesn't leave a lot of difference, making their skill floor a bit lower. so overall yes I agree with this point, just some revisions.
This is where you truly lose me. This would make soloqueue unbearable for the better survivors (mostly streamers) because , as you mentioned league, the difference between top 18% and top 1-4% of survivors is huge. Making the soloqueue divide which is already insane at high mmr even worse. Which will alternatively lead to the other issue you've skirted over when talking about balancing. The dreaded SWF.
Now, I'm not gonna even argue that the average swf is insane comms ect. I play in a casual 3-4 man swf constantly, but even playing casually it gives a decent advantage. Being able to comm saves/ whos in chase/ who should take chase makes a massive difference. And being able to help my more employed friends on when to focus totems/gens/saves ect makes a huge difference in their fun in the game. And thats a casual swf. I cannot imagine 4 insane survivors all playing together to comm every pallet drop ect. And this will push top end survivors to swf with people they enjoyed playing with.
I agree and disagree with this statement. Yes, choosing a weaker killer shouldn't then be a justification to complain about the survivors you were facing. They owe you nothing, and vice versa. However, survivors also don't enjoy playing against the same killer game in and out, which is what your advocating for here. I think most killers should be buffed/nerfed/removed (nurse) to dracula/vecna level and see where we go from there with nerfs/buffs to balance playstate. Yes my examples are decently strong killers, but also most would prefer some variety and then balance around killers being that strong.
Another grey statement. I would prefer a multitude of killers (difficult or not) being strong. However, that does not mean their skill floor needs to be massively raised, I'd be fine with their skill ceiling being raised. Trapper should have some techs that allow him to pull some wacky stuff mid loop to make him viable. Myers moonwalk dash stab would be incredible and a pain in the ass to code but stuff like this would be my suggestion for buffs. basekit buffs for the weakest of killers, but more techs/interactions for C+ killers. Then nerf the S tiers.
Edit: you went on to say that later in the statement, seems we agree here somewhat.
I agree, but a lot of skills can be passed on to different killers. If I'm first timing singularity (a weird example you chose) but mained ghoul/ xeno before there are skills that can be passed on. I think singularity is the worst example for this, but like nemisis/xenomorph, myers/ghostface ect ect, skills aren't killer specific for the most part. And yes, whilst they might struggle they shouldn't be completely outclassed if they have 10k hours in killer, because their general knowledge/decision making and mindgames will be the same. They should still stand a chance, they are more likely to lose sure, but they shouldnt be completely outclassed. Even in this extreme example.
I agree most killers aren't as good as they think they are. I disagree that killer is op the better you get at the game. I very much believe the stats are inflated due to soloqueue and bad mmr, rather than killer being this op echelon that some believe it is. But yes, also, the killer can always improve. Lets not take away agency from the player, when you lose in DBD 90% of the time there is things you could do better (unless they hacked), and should strive to better yourself. This is even true for soloqueue.
I agree BHVR are better at balance then people give them credit. My major issues are because OP killer stuff is infinitely more important to nerf than OP survivor stuff (because the killer role has to remove people from the game, so OP stuff from them takes priority, which makes sense but rubs me the wrong way).
And also, the S-tier killer roster is 3/4 killers out of 40ish, and yeah, as said you've taken that stat the worst way possible, maybe should reframe the way you look at it for a second.
…does that not show the power difference AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL.The rules of these tournaments are typically match result vs match result under the same circumstances, not necessarily judged by how many kills you got. The kills metric is more what casual DBD uses. But the point stands. You are more likely to Win/Draw than you are likely to lose, if you measure by normal win standards. That is not however the perception of the community. The perception is that you almost always lose, which is incorrect.
And the chance of them being a high tier killer with a sweaty build and 4000+ hours in the game are infinitely lessNot really. The killer always has all factors going for them. The only thing they need to bring is their skill level. Obviously, if the other team has a higher skill level, you are (typically) meant to lose.
As a killer, you simply select your killer, the best perks, and your strongest add-ons, which killers often run, and you're in as good as a position as you get. The match results shown are however of a way less common scenario. A full team of 4 BNP's occurs way less frequently as a killer simply running meta. So even in load-out alone, killers are more likely to run the strongest loadouts compared to a full survivor team.
I will also say, however, that being good as killer takes a lot more than being good as survivor, which you acknowledged the skill floors of both roles are hugely different.I do not necessarily agree that being good at killer takes more than survivor. What I do agree with is that, due to survivors only having to learn survivor once, and a killer typically diving into multiple killers, that they have a lot to learn if they are variety players. However, the role of survivor is probably the most complex, as a standalone by itself. But yes, if a killer switches between killers, there is more for them to learn in total, and it would definitely be harder to optimize ALL killers, versus only optimizing the survivor role.
This is where you truly lose me. This would make soloqueue unbearable for the better survivors (mostly streamers) becauseI'm not sure if I understand you here. What I'm saying here is not a suggestion. This is already the reality, and it doesn't have the effects you're describing it would. What it does however, is allow for the BEST killer players to be able to have a dominating experience with the complete killer roster, in which their winrate is 90-98%+
Disagree as said before you've either intentionally looking at those stats faultily, or are framing them to make your argument for you.I do not look at the stats faultily. I correctly acknowledge that you have bigger chance of not losing a match, when playing under the most extreme conditions that this game have to offer. Conditions so extreme that people will rarely if ever experience when playing as a killer in a casual max mmr queue.
Sometimes you might run into an SWF. Sometimes you might play against a full BNP team. Sometimes you might bump into a comp team that is win-streaking with unique perks. But seldom will you ever get a full competitive world class team on comms with absolute meta perks and 4 BNPs. And should you get them, than you, with your own available skill, should have a higher chance of getting a different match result than a loss on an A-S tier killer. Something that the community definitely has a hard time acknowledging.
Bro is yappin for two hours just to tell me i'm a ######### killer😭
Generall, agree with everything said tho. Dbd is hard to balance, because of it's unique asymmetric nature. And MMR higher than the softcap is a range from meghead to comp player on both sides.
Agreed, you don't always lose, and if thats how you perceive this communitys perception of the killer role. Yes, that is wrong. However, As i said, this is at the highest level, and your own metrics show your less likely to win then you are to lose, a draw is a net neutral event, you didnt beat the survivors, the survivors didn't beat you, so to try and lump them in on one side SEEMS (although probably isn't your intention) disingenuous.
"The killer has all factors going for them. The only thing they need to bring is their skill level"- this is just not true though. You yourself acknowledged that weaker killers struggle ect. And the same could be said to survivors. The best survivor will win more often than not against average killers, because thats who they'll face. Because all the best survivor needs to do is bring a meta build, a maxed out toolbox, and rush those gens, taking chase where possible, and even bad survivors will touch gens when not pressured. The best survivor can have high escape rates in soloqueue because theyre good enough to carry a team. Otz's soloqueue escape rate probably 70%.
"a team of 4 BNP's occurs way less frequently as a kilelr simply running meta."- But a team bringing 4bnps will be infinitely stronger than a trapper bringing hex build or full meta ect ect. Entirely depends on the killer.
Your graph shows the skill floor of killer being 2 whilst the skill floor of survivor being 0. Your graph. The level of skill needed to be mediocre at killer is way less than the skill needed to be mediocre at survivor, due to how survivors can hold w at loops and drop pallets, whilst killers decision making and mind games take recognising survivor patterns, which takes a lot more. Learning 5 killers vs learning to play vs 5 killers, playing against them is easier.
Can you name a single killer main with a killrate of above 80%?????????? I watch some of the good killer mains and they average around 65% killrate. And it does have the effect im describing, because the best survivors already only play in their teams. Most comp squads stay within their comp squads and play tourneys/practice matches quite a lot, the best survivors already shift towards swf. And the latest stats say only 48% of survivors are soloqueue, which would mean the majority even outside of comps are shifting to swf. By definition.
"I do not look at the stats faultily, I correctly acknowledge that you have a bigger chance of not losing the match"- to act like a draw is a positive for killer is insane. To say that a draw is a net positive for killer means its a negative for survivor, which is just false. It is a net neutral event. So if we look at the win vs loss rate its loss heavy, which you have refused to acknowledge repeatedly throughout both your original comment and the later address to my comment, and have used it as a basis to fuel the rest of your post. Your not lying, your just misrepresenting the stats to fit a narrative you want to push.
"Sometimes you might run into an SWF. Sometimes you might play against a full BNP team. Sometimes you might bump into a comp team that is win-streaking with unique perks. But seldom will you ever get a full competitive world class team on comms with absolute meta perks and 4 BNPs. "- Firstly, SWF is 52% of the playerbase as per the most recent stats. Secondly, I could shift this entirely on its head. Sometimes you might face an S tier killer. Sometimes you might bump into an S tier killer with an insane build thats meta breaking. But seldom do you go against a full competitive world class killer with 4000+ hours on their killer with absolutely meta perks and addons. And should you get them, your within the mmr bracket where you should have a higher chance of a 4 escape than a loss if your doing all of this. The community also has a hard time acknowledging this.
TLDR: it seems your response is removing all agency from the survivors, misrepresenting the stats and then whilst acknowledging the average survivors aren't comp squads (in which you don't blame them for losing) you decide that a killer not being a top tier 1% killer it is on them and just a skill issue. At this point I don't know if your just trolling, or this is the biggest rose-tinted speech I've seen in a while.
so to try and lump them in on one side SEEMS (although probably isn't your intention) disingenuous.What I'm trying to make clear here is that it's not ingenuine. And yes, I pair them together, for the reason that right now, the common belief is that if you'd play "against strong survivors" (I.E. the same setup as in the tournament), you would just lose. The reason why I pair them together is to quite simply show; no, that is in fact not the case. And IN FACT, the majority of your games, in the most extreme conditions in DBD, would not end in the killer losing. With would end in either a win or a draw. But that is not the current perception.
So yes, it is not my point to convince you that you are more likely to win than to lose. But it is my intention to convince you that should you be matched against the best of the best, under the most extreme conditions, you are more likely to either win/draw than to lose. And considering the extremity and rarity of such a scenario, I think people would be very happy with a draw.
And the same could be said to survivors. The best survivor will win more often than not against average killers, because thats who they'll face. Because all the best survivor needs to do is bring a meta build, a maxed out toolbox, and rush those gens, taking chase where possible, and even bad survivors will touch gens when not pressured.The same cannot be said for survivor. What I'm talking about here is how accessible it is to reach the maximum strength of a particular side (where the players of course have to bring in the skill)
Merely selecting the right build, character and add-ons that you can easily do doesn't put a survivor at the maximum strength of their team. They can have completely random teammates that are very bad. They can in many cases not control the builds of the people they play with. They in many cases do not have access to effectively the 3rd party applications that they would need to require them to perform at their best, and on top of that, most of their hours will most likely not be spent with the same teammates in which they could've practiced together and gotten accustomed to each other's strategy and playstyle.
The amount of team play and effort survivors need to be setup for is more akin to games like League of Legends at their peak performance than it is to the killer side, which simply only have to bring themselves. Therefore, the chance and possibilities of a survivor team to perform at their maximum strength is insanely more rare than the readily available accessibility of a killer to perform at their max strength
But a team bringing 4bnps will be infinitely stronger than a trapper bringing hex build or full meta ect ect. Entirely depends on the killer.Definitely not infinitely. As per the all goes rule, killers also have all add-ons available, and they are not forced to pick weaker killers. And with those strong add-ons, perks and killers available, they hold up pretty well, as the stats have shown. And that is DESPITE that many of the killers are NOT OPTIMIZED, as even in comp play, comp player's general experience massively favours expertise in survivors and not a particular singular killer.
Can you name a single killer main with a killrate of above 80%?Variety killer mains like King Wolfie on youtube has many killrates on even more mediocre killers that are 90%+ to name an example.
It is a net neutral event. So if we look at the win vs loss rate its loss heavy, which you have refused to acknowledge repeatedlyWhich I have not failed to acknowledge repeatedly. I acknowledge that you are more likely to lose than a different individual match result. I also acknowledge that you are going to lose less than 50% of your matches under these extreme conditions, and that you are more likely to end in a draw or in a win. I also acknowledge that these stats are from extreme matches that don't generally mirror real queue scenarios. And that the top tier comp players in them are heavily optimized in the survivor role, and less so in the killer roles they play, with superior hours in survivors and inferior hours in the particular killers they are playing during these matches.
Your graph shows the skill floor of killer being 2 whilst the skill floor of survivor being 0The graph is merely to illustrate the rate at which each side learns to utilize its power. They simply reflect the real change in winrates as MMR improves. With low mmr killers dominating low mrr survivors and survivors becoming stronger as mmr improves. It merely illustrates the unique balancing problem that it introduces. The numbers on the graph have no meaning in particular.
due to how survivors can hold w at loops and drop pallets, whilst killers decision making and mind games take recognising survivor patternsYour bias is showing here. You are no longer talking about beginner survivors nor beginner killers. Because beginner players have severe trouble even navigating to loops consistently. Which is a large portion of the player base. The type of gameplay you're subscribing is already a very accustomed-to-the-game playerbase.
Learning 5 killers vs learning to play vs 5 killers, playing against them is easier.I agree, learning to fully optimize gameplay of a particular killer (and some more than others) is extraordinarily hard, and learning to play against it is significantly easier. But it doesn't take away from my point. We are talking about maximum capacity here. Therefore, for the game to be truly balanced, we must assume complete mastery of 1 role vs the complete mastery of another.
To know if that's the case, you must imagine DBD as a game with only 1 killer. Therefore, both roles have an equal amount of experience in their own role, as well as mastery. The question here then is, when both roles are fully optimized, which one is stronger?
It can therefore entirely be the case that, due to DBD's nature, and variety killers choosing variety, that they therefore start to lose more EVEN IF their killer is theoretically stronger than the survivor on a 50% win vs 50% lose rate. We could have a game where killers lose more than survivors WHILE killers being the more power role. But that's why I said. When we talk about balance in the current environment of DBD, we are always talking about fully optimized survivors, and more often than not, versing not fully optimized killers. Now some killers have way more space for optimization, like Nurse, Singularity, Trickster, Blight, where as killers like trapper have less space for optimization, however, if we truly had a 1 killer game, we would most likely even see trappers commonly knowing the dirties trap spots, and tricks, that we wouldn't even see today due to there not being such an incentive to optimize the killer as hard, as we do for survivors (for the sole reason that survivors cannot choose another type of survivor to otherwise optimize)
Much to my surprise, I agree with much of this. But there's this one thing here:
Two things.
First, I know I'm not good. Yet I still maintain a higher than goal KR even when most of my opponents are better than me. I actually don't have to get good on my A tier main to win more than I lose. As you said, when I lose, I'm very aware that I was the problem.
Second, many of the killers who complain about balance or the game being survivor-sided aren't just winning, they're winning constantly. They post overall KRs that are drastically above goal. Whining isn't the same as losing and there's a lot of deception that goes on. These people won't be satisfied until they have the 90-100% KRs they feel entitled too.
So the serial complainers often aren't actually bad at killer, they just want more and more and more ego food. I haven't seen very many killers who have a good amount of matches and are below the 60% (assuming they always play serious).
Also, though I don't think the balance is terrible, I don't love that the balance is basically achieved by some killers being ptw and some being very challenging. It levels out to "balance" but its not the best way to get there.