What is causing the crazy long killer queue times?
Killer queues times are higher than I can ever remember in the years I’ve been playing this game. 2v8 queue times have always been long for killers, but in this most recent version I’ve been consistently seeing times between 30-40 minutes, way higher than ever before. 1v4 mode killer queue times are also much longer than I’ve ever seen them.
In my personal experience, the killer side doesn’t feel overly easy. I regularly get matched against good survivors who know how to loop and coordinate and most of my matches require a lot of skill and effort to have a decent chance of winning.
On the survivor side, my most frustrating matches aren’t due to killers being overly strong, but regularly getting matched with teammates who are just bad at the game. The average teammate often gets downed very quickly and doesn’t have good game sense to know what to do in certain situations. When I have competent teammates, the matches are almost always enjoyable even if we lose. But it has been this way for me for a long time and that is not something that is new that would explain the increased queue time imbalance.
The overall killer vs survivor balance seems to be in a good spot based on my experience playing both sides, so I don’t know how to explain what’s going on. Has anything fundamentally changed with game balance recently that is making the game less fun and competitive for survivor players? Is it still because of Jason bringing a lot more people than usual to the killer side? Something else entirely?
I’m hoping to get thoughts on what is causing this from people who play both sides regularly and not the divisive “it’s because BHVR hates survivor players” type of comments that aren’t helpful.
Comments
Maybe look up what bad faith means.
How does that comparsion make sense? Who would they be ruining it for by being bad? If they're a duo they're the only ones suffering. Do survivors hate easy wins?
Another thing I think might be at least contributing to it is…when was the last huge licensed survivor that people were particularly excited for and also didn't come with a massive amount of bad publicity? I barely see any Dustins, Eleven was a little more popular but not by a lot. The Walking Dead survivors were cool, and Michonne even had a solid perk lineup with one of them being really good (we won't talk about Rick's perks for his sake), but there was the whole voice acting issue and all of the publicity during that time period was about the game burning down as the UE5 switch caught up with BHVR in a very nasty fashion.
All of the original survivors for a good while now have been banger after banger, but if we want to go back to the last time we got a genuinely Big Deal™ licensed survivor that actually had a more than lukewarm reception for more than one reason or another, that'd be Trevor (And Lara shortly before him) back in 2024! I am really, really hoping BHVR haven't dropped the ball again on that front, because Sienna would be an incredible addition for the roster for the Terrifier chapter.
Its bad faith because what you're saying is deceptive and pushing the narrative that killer players are damaging the survivor experience even though there's absolutely no proof of this other than saying that matches felt worse after the pwyw feature came around. Just because some salty people post on this forum, that doesn't mean a majority of players are going to put on the sheep's clothing and try to ruin survivor experience as survivor.
And forgive me to not adding more context, I was specifically talking about killer duos in 2v8 since the mode is currently live and I forgot to mention it. There's no better comparison I can add to the team related problems on the killer side.
I'm making an observation? You're telling me my idea is bad faith. For it to be bad faith I'd have to be actively lying for a nefarious purpose. What is that purpose? To remove pwyw? Yeah, I'd love to, but I'm not sure what agenda that helps.
I literally just got out of a 2v8 match with a guy who loaded into troll. Dropped evey pallet on the map, noise spammed, refused to touch gens, begged for heals but never helped anyone. 20 minutes of misery just to lose because of that. It's rampant in 2v8. Can't imagine why. Couldn't be pwyw with 40 minute queues.
I know what you mean it just doesn't make sense. Killers can't ruin the survivor experience by throwing. All that is is letting the survivors win. The only way I can load into killer intending to make people unhappy is too the opposite: play super sweaty. And that's just considered gameplay. There is no killer equivalent to a throwing teammate.
Streamers have already shown that it is possible to win more than 1000 games in a row on killer, if you want to. Why is that even possible in a multiplayer game?
It's not just a streamer issue or a top 5 killer issue. Just a moderately experienced killer main can reach more than 70% kill rate on a mid-tier killer, without intending a winstreak nor being a comp player.
Players with self-respect simply don't queue up to be an entertainment toy.
Alot of people come back for 2v8 and i mean alot because its the only time killer can play with friends so the killet player count shoots up while survivors dont really come back they just migrate to 2v8 making 1v4s queue times longer.
Would still expect your SWF to do better with those hours. SWF I usually play with we have maybe 55% escape rate. We have 2 players with thousands of hours and then 2 with clearlt less hours. Other maybe around 500-700 hours and the least experienced has couple hundred of hours at best. We teach them to just slam gens as fast as possible and bring BNP:s when possible.
We do have bit more variety with the killers and their build but most has couple slow downs at least. Some hex build here and there. We do win a lot because killers play "fairly" instead employing tactics like tunneling and camping. Survivor experience overall seems to get worse each year with all the changes happening.
Couple years ago I had experienced swf sometimes and we won most games pretty easily even without comms. Last time I played with them it was more 50/50 still winning most games but clearly it was much more difficult. They are good players even able to beat streamer like lilith omen back in the day.
The current state of Solo is pretty miserable. You are constantly aura read and tracked. The Killer traverses the map in seconds. Pallets and windows have become nearly useless against many Killer powers.
Many matches are just the Killer ping ponging from one down and hook to another and then back again until everyone is dead.
It might be the difference the lower hour players make in your matchmaking? The regular players in our group have 2k-8k hours. Killers we play against are consistently sweaty and the cheese is nonstop. When they aren't like that they're just skilled. It used to be more chill. We were able to go in and meme and charm killers or just goof off and do okay but that's been in the past for awhile now. Oh top of that, they're hella BMy. All this talk about survivor toxicity is lost on me when I'm getting humped and hit on hook for no reason every time I play.
Same thing for me on killer. The survivors I get generally run meta and are way better at the role than I am, and I have to sweat every win that isn't from someone throwing. But both my KR and ER are always 10%+ over goal for my 30-day, so the hole I'm in is probably the one I'll be staying in. Which sucks, because the whole game has become pretty awful. Survivor has just been worse. I've already cut my survivor time down so much, and these upcoming changes definitely make killer look more appealing. 5s off BT, my most hated perks, SB and Vigil getting nerfed, and my favorite killer perk, Nurse's, getting buffed for absolutely no reason. I don't know what could excite me to play surv after all that.
So you never escape? I play solo queue, I’m a very casual player, and am usually around the average 40% escape rate. In my own experience it’s not nearly as bad as you’re describing. It’s very possible to escape in solo queue, but it’s not going to happen every match. In a horror game where killer should be the power role, escaping 40% of the time feels very fair to me.
I play with random perks and my all time escape rate is about 40% too. So I don't usually take anyones claims of solo being bad that seriously. My stats also does effect the fact I am quite often playing really alturisticly that quite often causes me to change place with the person who was hooked in end game and usually dying of it. So my escape rate would be way higher if I would just leave when I can. Still usually my 30 days average is more around 50% escape rate usually.
Do you abandon any matches? I keep asking this because the stats page treats those matches as if they never happened. The stats site has my escape rate at above 40% but I know it's ignoring a decent chunk of matches I abandoned because of a team slug or slug for the 4k. I have no idea how inflated the escape rate it displays is. It's been an issue since they introduced the site and abandons and official sources ignore the issue, at this point the inflation feels intentional.
I don't abandon ever. I totally refuse to use that feature. So no you have no argument with me with that.
ps I also don't DC eiher
I've noticed it seems to take abit of time to get reflected onto your character stats. I noticed games that were showing on recent matches the night before hadn't been shown yet on my character stats at all yet.
Last 2v8 survivor game I played was late on the 15th
Took this yesterday and it wasn't showing yet
Took this one just now
If there's one thing I have seen in DbD, it's that if something is possible in DbD it happens in DbD. And if it is incentivized it happens a LOT.
I think the benefits of PWYW are questionable at best because completing matches quickly without escaping or helping your team is incentivized by "Complete Trials" quests and having a queue time of <10 minutes (worse if it's even shorter) also happen. Those are 2 incentives for a player to want a quick survivor match of DbD where they may decide to throw. So if you have a selfish player who doesn't care about anyone else's enjoyment of the match who decides to bring Slippery Meat or a luck offering and/or let the killer catch them without much resistance it's already bad for the match. It gets worse when malicious players do even worse things and we know malicious players exist in DbD, especially if their last killer match was them getting their behind handed to them by a SWF that they couldn't dodge because queue times are so long. It's not like there's any real punishment for this sort of thing.
Honestly I like the idea of the PWYW feature but the way it's currently implemented I can see how it makes matches worse and killer queue times longer at the same time.
But go ahead and call my argument bad faith too.
Stumbled across this while scrolling through shorts and reminded me of yall's convo. Not sure if its cuz of PWYW, but it does seem like some people just cant be bothered to run.
https://youtube.com/shorts/rRnEoeg10ls?is=43Qz4eB0mntiPDVQ
I’m just going by my own tracking of matches and the stats that BHVR have reported in the past that show a 40% average escape rate (or much better if you are playing high MMR SWF). People here can choose to not believe that and downvote if they want. I don’t know what else to tell you other than if you’re not having fun as survivor or feel like you should be escaping way more often, then work to improve (I found survivor much more enjoyable once I learned how to loop consistently) or just don’t play if you’re practicing a lot and still not having fun.
Seems a lot of survivor players took your advice to not play. Hope killers enjoy the long queue times while continuing to say everything is fine and balanced.
That’s their choice and I’d do the same if I wasn’t having fun in the game. I’m just saying that I still have plenty of fun playing both sides and I don’t know why some survivors get so bent out of shape when they don’t escape a majority of their matches.
I don’t know why some survivors get so bent out of shape when they don’t escape a majority of their matches.How many killers would be having fun if we flipped 60% KR to a 40% KR?
I’m sure not many. But we already know from history what happens when the average kill rates are lower than 60%. I remember in my early days of playing the game when kill rates were lower that during peak evening hours I would be waiting 15 minutes or more to queue into a survivor match. More recently, before the Jason chapter, queue times were much better balanced during peak times and it was nice not having to wait so long to play survivor in the evenings. Since then, killer queue times are definitely longer than I can ever remember, which was the whole point of me creating this post - trying to figure out why. It certainly could be because the balance has swung too far in favor or killer, but in my personal experience playing both sides I don’t see what has fundamentally changed with balance.
That has nothing to do with the pwyw feature, neither is it being enhanced by it. This sort of thing happened WAY before the system was ever in place. Its why the option to unhook the first state for free was removed to begin with, survivors using any means to throw away the match has been happening for years now and has nothing to do with the pwyw.
I disagree. I believe both match quality and killer queue times are affected by this and I have presented evidence as to why. Yes, this stuff happened before but it was very rare and now it's more often because someone who is a killer main who wants to kill 7 minutes until their killer queue time is up is less likely to take the survivor match as seriously as they should.
You haven't said anything to prove why it wouldn't have an effect.
Whatever. You're clearly close-minded on this topic and think PWYW is an innocent little angel so we'll just have to agree to disagree.
It's not a recent matches issue. The site outright ignores matches you abandon as survivor. The delay exists because it would be a word waste of resources to recalculate your stats each time you visit. Instead on a scheduled basis a process calculates and stores your stats in a different place from the individual matches store and serves your stats from there. The matches you abandon will never be used for those calculated stats.
This a good example of both people not knowing the game and people throwing, and that's like the whole 2v8 experience. I've been one of the last standing in almost all my matches because the players are so insanely bad.
Your "evidence" is just pointing out things that happened way before the pwyw feature. It has no real correlation other than you pointing out possible bad actors who could be killer players because 'trust me bro'.
Rare? If it really were rare, the devs themselves wouldn't have to address the go-next problems by removing the option to die on hook. I don't know what to say other than don't think pwyw will bring about killer boogieman to ruin your matches disguised as survivors.
Okay. I get it. You like the PWYW feature. But that doesn't mean it's a good feature.
You've posted several times in this thread railing against people who are saying PWYW might be having negative effects but you haven't posted any valid defense of PWYW. Are you sure you're not arguing in bad faith?
Aside from keeping players occupied while they are stuck in a queue, is there any other benefit to PWYW?
Do you have any logical reason to believe PWYW is having no effect on match quality or killer queue times?
I am against going around saying that pwyw is bad because killer players are salty and use it to ruin survivor experience. That's just misleading and crossfires an argument into people who are just using it to play both roles as intended. I am not some pwyw defender, I just don't think people should reach and share the wrong conclusions antagonizes a group of people who just want to play the game.
You just answered yourself. pwyw was created to do exactly that, keep people busy as they wait their queue. It wasn't designed to do anything else more than that and neither it should.
I just posted two times that all issues you pointed out pwyw was causing were things that already happened without the feature, and it wasn't anything new. Bad actors existed before pwyw was a thing, if anything, making the F2P for a limited amount of time allowed cheaters to go rabid. This is not a situation like that, its just a simple feature that lets someone who enjoys both roles play them seamlessly.
Many Survivors are simply burned out at this point. Stale Meta, Stale Gameplay, still hunting for the "one" good game in which you can be the "hero".
Many Survivors simply lost the trust to other Survivors aswell.
Example:
"Oh boy I can´t wait to play against bubba, I didn´t see him in quiet a while and its fun to play against… sound of disconect because the other Survivor don´t want to play against bubba Well game is over as it seems…"
Many Survivors got quiet comfortable to chase the "perfect" game by dcing at the slightest inconvenience.
Another Example by myself:
I love to play against Legion because I find it funny to spin them or stun them out of power. So I got a Legion at my favorite map "Freddy Fazzbears" and was thrilled to play. And… 2 people disconected the second they saw someone going into the mending state. Well I guess I will abbandon too then… Seeing the other Survivors rage in chat that Legion is a boring Killer because they have to mend. I asked them what they wanted to do instead. Answer doing Gens…
So you area telling me it is okay to wait in quque to hold M1 on gens all game… but it is not okay to hold M1 to mend?
Well another game for someone who was thrilled was robbed and many players experience this lately since many content creators are calling "that it is to okay to leave because you paid for the game so you are allowed to ruin it"
So you can't actually come up with any logical reason as to why PWYW wouldn't have an effect on match quality or queue times. 👋
No argument award. Just don't go around blaming people who have nothing to do with the bad actors who actually damage the game or antagonizing QoL features.
I do escape when the Killer player is obviously bad. Get to end screen and it's a baby doctor with one green perk.
How do I get paired with a baby Doctor one match and then a P70 Jason on the next?
The disparity between classic Killers and modern ones isnt enough, we also get brand new palyers and P70 Jasons in the same que?
The MMR brackets are there... just very loose. Generally its just basically 2 brackets, Brand new players and everyone else. Even then though, if the queue times is long at all, itll start mixing.
Few reasons actually. It comes down to less survivior playing and more killers playing.
For me (reasons why I play survivor muuuuch less)
My friends also left dbd.
Our friend group went from 2-3 people waiting for a slot to be free to barely anyone playing.
They decided that dbd isn't fun or entertaining to them anymore. That's depressing if you ask me.
I still love the game and not leaving any soon, don't get me wrong.
Bro, My kids got playing DBD years ago. Now they won't even touch it.
I've tried to get friends into it and they always try to stealth. I'm like nah bro, stealth isn't really a thing. The Killer probably knows where you are and then they quit.
Yeah, game changed a lot over the years.
Hiding used to be viable thing and the fun bringer actually, you would be so happy if killer was near you and your hiding spot worked out.
I don't blame your kids tho, because there is nothing to do in DBD but making prestiges, no ranked system or anything.
Different games offer you that - ranking systems actually give people reasons to grind.
I've got 22 p100 now and I don't care about getting more, that will just happen automatically.
There is not much happening anymore aswell, because after krasue ptb devs decided not to change much anymore.
No perk shake ups, only new content every 3 months.
Grimoire chapter might be the first one that I won't be purchasing for money, because it doesn't feel impactful or entertaining.
I just play different games more now - only about 40% of my gaming time is spent on DBD.
I've had a lot of people come and go and it sucks, and trying to meet new people all the time is a drain. It really does bring you down after awhile.
Luckily we'll be getting a pretty big perk shakeup in the midchapter, over 40 perk changes most of which will be either reworks or straight buffs, and a fair few of them finally addressing diminishing returns. They said the only (very, very few) nerfs are going to be for overperforming perks that ignore the intent of DR, and I'm going to be honest I can't think of a single one besides Resurgence that fits that description? Like, there really aren't a lot of options for that on either side, but they made it sound like theres going to be more than just the one, so I'm left a bit baffled honestly. Still, mostly buffs and reworks to underperforming perks, which is pretty nice. Big hopes for Empathic Connection specifically, what the perk does is very appealing but the numbers just aren't quite there.
Hyperfocus + Stakeout probably
Play while you wait feature the only thing that keeps the game queue system somewhat functional, but ultimately I think I will just alt tab the game and rather wait 5-10+ minutes for a killer game than play Solo survivor. I guessing that the number of killer only player just will grow higher and higher due to massive imbalance.
Always laughing on new survivor perks, its extremely situational and only works in SWF and even then the positives you get less than the time invested required and again asks for several hard to get condition.
Even if we talk about survivor and killer perk nerfs, its mostly affecting survivors since all they have perks while some killer even without any perk inherently designed to be extremely strong.
Also looked around and 100+ killers win streaks in a row extremely common, not even news worthy, stronger killers are even 1000+ wins or more in a row.
While survivor streaks are very rare and much shorter and requires 4x 10k+ hours players.
Yeah, but that's not it.
We didnt get meta shake ups for more than 4 years now, that's the problem.
Also devs said they are not gonna be changing things anymore, at least not often.
What are we supposed to do if there is nothing new to try? People don't care about p100 grinds anymore.
I think you are right whats exactly a survivor player to look forward in the game?
All perks they are getting extremely situational and every 3 months survivors getting new skin, thats it.
And any solo viable perk from the past constantly taken away with nothing to replace with.
While as killer you have far bigger agency over the result of the game and you get 3 perks that usually way better than survivor ones and even if weren't , one gets new killer power to master as well with usually game changing addons.
Plus the game calibrated to killers have 60% kill rate at avarage, while as survivor you only expected to survive 40% of the matches. The personal influence over games are massively different. One weak link and game lost instantly as survivor without any potential of comeback, I dont know but in 2026 this ain't it
They really do need to start changing perks much more often. While I agree with the philosophy about not doing major base mechanic changes during a character release, I have no idea why they've been so timid about doing even just small numbers adjustments over the years. Its not even consistent! They'll do things like the initial Fast Track rework or the completely unnecessary Thrill buffs a while back despite both being obviously really bad ideas, but they'll leave a whole slate of perks - even the ones with good ideas that just need some number tweaks - in the gutter for seemingly no reason.
Perk philosophy as a whole seems really inconsistent. I mean, as an obvious example for hex perks: Nothing But Misery needs SEVERAL full chases to even activate, and is locked to M1s for a bit of hinder against healthy survivors every now and then. Blood Favour is a significantly stronger effect, is active from the start allowing the killer to maintain the pressure they've gotten from it even after its cleansed, and doesn't care about what causes the damage, leading to being really overbearing with the stronger end of the roster.
I think it might be that the killer role is pretty oppressive for new players. Coupled with some downright unfun tactics (slugging and camping), it isn't surprising that newer players would leave quite quickly. This selection process leaves fewer survivors in general and has the effect of raising the average skill level of those that remain. This is a self reinforcing process, since killers want ever more buffs to deal with the skillful survivors. This makes the new experience even worse for unskilled survivors, so they leave….and on and on it goes.
idk when there's not a new killer or an event my killer ques are like 30 seconds. less even
EU its 7 minutes currently even without any event
over here in the US its 4 minutes to que for killer. Logged on to see that and then immediately hopped off to play something else.
8 minutes where i am. This is the time of day I usually play and it has never been this long.
EU morning its even worse, right now 11 minutes.