We need more balance changes!
Im just a casual player, but it’s clear to me that Dbd doesn’t get enough balance changes.
We finally get some in the next chapter, but how long did this take?
And yes we got perk changes along the trickster rework, but they were bad:
Self Preservation is extremely unhealthy for the game since it counters only Perks like bbq, Alien instinct and friends till the end (wich are healthy perks since they give killers directions to go and leave the hook).
And how broken fast track was … I don’t need to say anything about that.
We rarely get any perk changes, it should happen more often. Even newer perks like the one of Jason, Krasue or springtrap dont get any changes despite them being bad since their ptb and this is for now years and part of why we see the same perks every match, windows, dh, ds etc. on surv side and corrupt, pain res, and more slowdown on killer side.
But instead of Blanche changes we get tons of cosmetics, over and over again.
I would be more happy to see less cosmetics and more/regular balance changes.
Comments
It's one of the things many people criticise. They just need one guy rebalancing perks for every chapter and mid-chapter, 10-15 perks each, and it would feel fresh each time.
We certainly don't get enough changes across the board, but I wouldn't say that there are more issues every update. DBD is undeniably in a better state than it was, say, 5 years ago. The issue is that the changes come so slow and we have to deal with the bad things for so long, people are really getting tired of dealing with it
couldn’t say it better, I rather have multiple bad changes (since then we can give them more feedback) than waiting for changes that take years and then don’t even solve the problem
Problem is that when we get changes people complain about them. You listed two recently reworked perks and said you didn't like them, and one was immediately dumpstered by outrage. Cross Examination was also gutted instantly. But if the devs summon up a backbone and ignore everyone we'll just have CCs telling their followers the game is doomed and their least favorite side is broken because a perk got buffed. Like, if you ask for this, you can't immediately be mad when the perk changes aren't to you're liking or don't favor your preferred role. If it were up to me I'd nuke the top 5 to 10 perks on each side, but will all the killer players be happy seeing their anti-gen get the upcoming SB, Vigil, and Deliverence changes in the name of balance? Somehow I doubt it.
Agreed, and they are making some big changes soon. What I don't understand is that they change the basekit unhook protections alongside a new killer that does not hook. There is no opportunity to even test these things.
Self Preservation was a good change, it's nice to have one person at least on the team who has a counter to such aura perks.
Perks i didn’t like? So you liked the fast track that gave everyone free unremovable gen progress for free and basically punishes the killer for doing his objective? And you can’t contradict my point on Self Preservation can you? And cross examination was nerfed because it gave you free elusive in the middle of a chase which was stupid. My point in general is that bhvr takes way to long to change anything, remember how mft lastet 6 or 9 month? I’d say better more changes more often then changes once a year.
Can you provide footage if the trials you had to show why balance changes are needed instead of saying it?
You mean me and most of players using and facing the same perks every match? Me as killer forced to run 4 slowdown perks because I 99% of my time face 16 busted perks? For now years without any great balance patch that mention any of them or mine? There would be nothing wrong with more regular balance changes
As long as we aren't doing change for the sake of change/pushing new metas I would love to see it.
I dont personally follow meta builds and the perk changes I think don't even need to fit into the meta either. Simple changes could make something much more fun.
For example, No One Left Behind is a free perk that offers powerful altruistic potential at the end of a match. I've always joked that it should be Bill's teachable and not Left Behind. But a bitter pill to swallow was that the perk was useless because the gates had to be open. No effect matters at that point, its immediately dead. But in the 6.1 shakeup they changed the text to say "when the last gen pops" which suddenly made NOLB playable.
it still doesn't get used at all, but at least it fulfils its niche now for anyone who wants it and isn't just a newbie trap.
Got video of your trials or you just going to complain because some perks are very popular? I'm a killer main for years since myers came out and have NO ISSUE with any survivor perks with multiple killers. I get consistent 3-4ks depending on hatch spawn since. So again no video I won't believe you.
edit: im an idiot and misread the room my bad
It’s fine if you are ok with a stale meta. You don’t need to believe me but regular balance changes are better than yearly ones.
I thought the Fast Track outrage was greatly overblown and I'm pretty tired of talking about it at this point. It no longer matters. It's gone from unpopular before the rework to non-existnet after the nuke.
SP is a just okay perk. I'd rather deal with it than Shadowstep or Distortion. It's not game breaking and counters only BBQ fully, which is also countered by lockers. Friends still gives noise notifications if someone with SP isn't the obsession. Alien Instinct still gives Oblivious. So those aren't 100% countered. But Lightborn also counters flashlights and thus their associated perks. TBTC counters Blastmine. These are the random happenings in a game that's more about RNG and luck than skill and sometimes your perk doesn't get value. At least on killer there's three other people who probably don't have a perk that's interrupting your build. I run Lethal and if that one Distortion user blocks my opening usage I'll be okay.
But you're making my point for me. You want the changes, but if the changes could be perceived as useful than you're against them, and the meta remains. Because if something is to overtake the meta it's going to have to not be absolute garbage.
No im just an idiot and misread the whole thing my bad. Yeah qe need more fine tuning
My point with Self Preservation is that it only counters healthy perks that lead killers away from a hook. It also activates automatically with zero effort. TBTC activates if you as killer hook someone. Lightborn counters an item and wastes one of your 4 perk slots where you could have something better like other genslowdown. I might not have been happy the changes during the trickster rework, but I would be happy for more changes in general even if I’m not happy with them, because no change makes everyone happy.
And for fast track point, after the fist change if every survivor had it and the killer 8 hooks it gave almost 150% unremovable gen progress for free and because the killer does his object. It got changed for good reasons.
One thing that should be noted is often times when it comes to at least KILLER perks... something that is mildly good on one killer is problematic on another. Haywire for example is in its current mediocre state because Singularity could effectively use it to insure no one could open a gate with its original state.
Beyond that, we have so many perks and addons that you always run the risk of combos making them far stronger than they were intended and it can be difficult for any one person to predict every possible combo everytime they add more stuff to the game.
So Lightborn is a wasted slot even though you can see the lobby and decide to put it on, potentially shutting down whole builds and playstyles, but SP is unhealthy cause one or two people might counter one of your perks when they could have just dont so with a locker anyway? I honestly don't know how anyone defends Lightborn. It's can stay, I don't care, but it's the most unfair perk in the game.
I mean, just remember saying that. Because we had quite the chorus of angry people complaining Fast Track and Cross Examination into obliteration and many of them also like to complain about the stale meta. I myself complained about SB and Vigil and I'm also not happy to see survivor meta being nerfed while killer meta is (so-far) going untouched, aside from NtH.
I played with and against FT plenty and it made no difference in my matches. It's too situational. The skill checks are random, it could max out before you could use it, and if people are getting hooked that much you're probably cooked anyway. Full teams running it were very rare too. Good on paper isn’t necessarily OP in execution. I highly doubt it was overperforming.
For example Nurse heavily restricting Aura perks, you simply could nurse the blindness effect while charging her power because perks like awakened awareness and Nowhere To hide suffer because of her. Another reason for more changes
Lightborn is unfair?! If the survivors don’t use their flashlights it’s absolutely useless. Even if it counters perks, it’s very specific and a killer pok slot (killer perks should be more powerful than survivors anyways because he has 4 and they have 16). And if so many people complained about FS and cross examination then it should proof my point. And what part of killer meta you would nerf? Pain res requires you to hook unique hooks for its full potential, corrupt is mandatory because it prevents early games where survs sit on 3 gens during your first chase (and help setup killers). Only perks on killer I would change are like Thrill (wich they do but not enough) and perks like dissolution (also slugging perks like coulrophobia).
Edit: Some people use lightborn because they get headaches from the blinded screen.
I'm kinda shocked someone in 2026 is acting they've never heard this. It's a perk that gives value from you doing absolutely nothing. If the killer couldn't see the lobby you'd have an argument, but they get free build info, unlike survivors. And yeah, those flashlight build survivors can just be perkless and sit on gens, just like killers can maybe get less value from one perk and still use their eyes to find people. SP also isn't super useful if the killer isn't running specific aura, just like Lightborn isn't very useful with no flashlights.
Like I said, I'd decimate the top perks on both sides. If you want a real shake up then that's a real shake up, not these tiny number changes or niche nerfs that do nothing. "Corrupt is mandatory" is quite the take. I haven't used it in at least a year and I don't see it in every single one of my survivor matches. They're giving Coul, a niche perk, a minor nerf while buffing Nurse's, which is used in the same slug builds. And Infectious is the bigger problem anyway. The Coul nerf is borderline useless for its intended effect. Thrill needs a complete rework, as does the hex system in general. That's a larger issue. Dissolution is an issue on specific killers.
And some people DCed against Doctor because of seizures and Dredge cause they get headaches. Kind of a different topic.
Thats a possible solution for that particular problem, but theres plenty of others. We have several killers that are good at guarding totems. Do we make singularity cameras see a black box around the totems and Artist crows scared to fly near them?
Here's an interesting one I saw recently. All shaking thunder is kinda garbage most of the time since you're kinda relying on taking a chase near a drop-off. If you use it on someone like Freddy however, you can trigger it and teleport across the map to USE it which kinda negates its drawback.
A perk that gives value for doing nothing, like 50% of survivor perks? If you don’t try to blind the killer than the perk does absolutely nothing. And my games as survivor are 80% against corrupt so we live in different universes.
Agree kinda … guarding totems with cams as singularity can be dealed with with empa and artist crows are a project that don’t even stop your action. A better example would be something like Jason, because you can’t stop him just seeing you and appear. If we had more changes that would consider this and find solutions for them, it would be great.
I agree that changing base game mechanics to work differently for different killers would not be the most popular solution. But given the fact each new killer has more and more at their disposal, the imbalance is only getting worse. Aura reading on Nurse and now the Judgment is of course way too strong, and you can't rely on players to be 'nice' or play fair by not equipping them. Maybe something like those killers have 50% shorter aura read would help in some way. Who knows.
The main defense of gens in those cases is simply detection. You need the killer to not interrupt you and if you EMP a cam... they know your making a move.i suppose I could've used Doc as an example since he can shock at a really large range and often enough to never give you a chance with TOTH.
You can TRY to keep patching away uneven power spikes on random killers, but they really do just keep popping up. Nemesis+PWYF was really potent on OG bubba on Oni's release. They had to nerf STBFL cuz of its effect on killers like Pig funny enough. A relatively recent one was Turn back the clock comboed with one of Wraith's brown addons. Alot of times "nerfs" just introduce new headaches too. They increased the TR of blight and Billy for example, which just ended up boosting the effectiveness of perks like infectious fright.
I've been saying this for a long time now. Numbers changes can be done by one guy, probably wouldn't take more than 10 minutes per perk to pull up the data of the least used perk and buff numbers on several of them for each side. If the perk is insanely broken it can just be toned back/reverted after PTB. If it's anything less than that, let the changes go through. If it changes the meta, let it change the meta. If that meta turns out to be stale/boring after a month or so, it can be reverted in a later patch instead.
These don't have to be comprehensive reworks that can be saved for more dedicated balance updates. Just a handful of perk changes in every chapter and midchapter, regardless of what's shipping alongside it.
That sounds great if we look at the perks in a vacuum, but often times its the combinations with other factors that cause the issues. Lend a hand for example is a decent effect, but not game breaking... but the devs probably didnt think about conviction when designing it and how survivors can get up again in the time it takes a killer to do a wipe animation all of a sudden with certain builds. The individual perks effects are fine if you look at them in a vacuum, but crazy things happen when you start combining.
Some of the killer perks that give their value for doing absolutely nothing, or from survivor actions:
Distressing, Iron Maiden Two Can Play, Coup de Grace, Pahntom Fear, Wretched Fate, Hoarder, Discordance, Haywire, Noed, Languid Touch, Stridor, Insidious, Haunted Ground, Undying, Crowd Control, Human Greed, Monitor and Abuse, Tinkerer, Rancor, Secret Project, Batteries Included, Superior Antaomy, Fire Up, Cruel Limits, Deerstalker, Spies From the Shadows, Overwhelming Presence, I'm All Ears, Iron Grasp, Weave Attunement, Enduring, Hubris, Shadowborn, Territorial Imperative, Knock Out, Overture of Doom, Ruin, Mind Breaker, Bitter Murmur, Dominance, Corrupt Intervention, and, next up, Celestial Witness.
That's not even all of them. Both sides get free stuff. Be mad at both or be mad at neither.
DbD suffers from balance change problems for a number of reasons.
1: Different metas and different opinions on how the game should be play and what is or is not strong.
2: Whether balance changes should only be done to keep the game in balance, or just done to shake up the game.
3: That some perks are designed to be niche and not actually that frequently used, but provide a 'what is going on' kind of moment.
Good on paper isn’t necessarily OP in execution. I highly doubt it was overperforming.I think that's a really good point. We get lots of 'this could be powerful if X occurs', but how frequently does it actually happen like that?
It's also sad because BHVR could eliminate these arguments easily if they accompanied nerfs / buffs with how the perk had been performing (even if they want to break it down by MMR) to give an indication as the reason for the change.
Most of them arent even good. Coup, corrupt and noed are for example good perks on their own but have requirements like only start pf the game or when last gen pops, but you don’t want to tell me that insidious or distressing are viable? And hexes like ruin can be broken. 90% of these perks I never face because no one runs them except in nice builds or adept.
on surv side you have windows (free aura), vigil (free recovery), do no harm and botany (free heal speed for existing), Deja (free gen speed and aura), Sprintburst (wich will still be good after the next changes), Five moves ahead (similar to windows +faster drop), Self Preservation (I already why ist unhealthy), resilience (just be injured for free speeds) and more. If we compare this to your mentioned killer perks, it shows that survivors have more zero effort strong perks than killers, in fact most killer perks that are good have requirements, like pain ress and TBTC need hooks.
Most of them arent even good.You've gone from talking about the number of perks, to the value of perks. It's a moving the goalposts kind of deal, but let's chase.
Coup, corrupt and noed are for example good perks on their own but have requirements like only start pf the game or when last gen pops, but you don’t want to tell me that insidious or distressing are viable?The only way the killer doesn't get 'free' value from coup and noed is if they beat the survivors before the perks have a chance to trigger.
That's like saying old Fast Track was fine, because what if the killer never gets a hook?
Corrupt runs out, sure, but lots of perks do that on both sides.
on surv side you have windows (free aura), vigil (free recovery), do no harm and botany (free heal speed for existing), Deja (free gen speed and aura), Sprintburst (wich will still be good after the next changes), Five moves ahead (similar to windows +faster drop), Self Preservation (I already why ist unhealthy), resilience (just be injured for free speeds) and more. If we compare this to your mentioned killer perks, it shows that survivors have more zero effort strong perks than killers, in fact most killer perks that are good have requirements, like pain ress and TBTC need hooks.It's interesting what you label as free. Botany has no value if you are the survivor being chased, windows has no value if you are the survivor trying to rescue others. They have the same requirement as Pain Res - something that's a frequent part of the game, now you just have to adjust your play around it. Pop, Pain Res, Nowhere to Hide, etc. all fall into the same category as what you listed - strong perks that give free value to actions the killer was already going to do.
Also throwing resilience in there - the survivor has to take a huge requirement of being injured. It's a massive ask of the survivors skill to get that 'free' value when it could result in the killer getting a very quick down.
Basically you are greatly exaggerating the definition of free on the survivor side while restricting it heavily on the killer side.
The team that does cosmetics is not the same team that does balance changes.
The devs have also explained that they are given limited bandwidth from the platforms and they have to book updates in advance for approval. This affects the rate at which we see balance changes in amongst everything else