Killer Avoidance Slot; A way to keep more survivors playing

RDyer05

Killer Avoidance Slot

I had an idea that I genuinely think could help keep people playing DBD.

What if every survivor could choose one killer they simply do not want to play against?

There are so many killers in the game now and everyone enjoys different things. A killer doesn't necessarily have to be overpowered for someone to absolutely hate playing against them.

I regularly play survivor with the same group of four. We haven't gone online moaning about killers or demanding nerfs, but Jason really started to make the game less enjoyable for us and now The Judgement has pretty much finished it off.

At the moment all four of us have basically stopped playing DBD.

That got me thinking. Surely Behaviour would rather we kept playing the game and avoided one killer than just stopped playing altogether?

My idea would be that every survivor gets one Killer Avoidance Slot.

You pick one killer and matchmaking simply doesn't put you against them.

There would obviously have to be some rules around SWF groups. For example, maybe a four person group could only have a maximum of two different killers blocked between them so you couldn't have a group excluding four different killers.

You could even have one full avoidance slot and maybe a second preference where matchmaking tries to avoid that killer but can still match you against them if queue times get too long.

I also think this would give Behaviour some really useful information.

At the moment if people hate playing against a particular killer, Behaviour might never know. Players don't always go on Reddit or the forums and complain. Sometimes they just stop playing.

That's exactly what our group has done.

If Behaviour could see that hardly anybody avoids one killer but a huge percentage of survivors are avoiding another, that would tell them there is something about that killer people are really not enjoying.

That doesn't automatically mean the killer is too strong either. They could be perfectly balanced and still be miserable to play against.

Behaviour could then look into why people are avoiding them and whether something needs changing.

I don't want easy games and I don't want survivors being able to choose exactly who they play against. Some of my favourite matches are ones where the killer absolutely destroys us.

I just think with such a massive killer roster now, allowing someone to say "please don't give me this one killer" isn't unreasonable.

People who enjoy playing against that killer can carry on as normal.

Killer players can still play whoever they want.

And people like my group who are currently not playing DBD at all might actually come back and play again.

I'd be interested to know what killer everyone else would put in their one avoidance slot and whether having something like this would make anyone currently taking a break start playing again.

MiseryandCompany

That would screw over queue times for everyone involved. And incentivize players to not actually learn to play against killers they dislike.

RDyer05

Yeah, I can see the queue time concern, which is why I thought limits or a soft avoid could help.

For us though, it’s not really about refusing to learn a killer. We know how to play against Judgement, we just don’t enjoy those matches.

At the moment the four of us are choosing not to play DBD at all, so I was thinking keeping players in the queue with one killer avoided might be better than losing them completely.

Arcturus

@RDyer05 said:

Yeah, I can see the queue time concern, which is why I thought limits or a soft avoid could help.

For us though, it’s not really about refusing to learn a killer. We know how to play against Judgement, we just don’t enjoy those matches.

At the moment the four of us are choosing not to play DBD at all, so I was thinking keeping players in the queue with one killer avoided might be better than losing them completely.

Although I understand the appeal of the idea, especially because I knew someone who literally couldn't play against Chucky because of her phobia and would either have to DC or run in a straight line with her eyes closed. However, this would just make queue times so much worse for certain killers. As much as I don't enjoy playing against Knight, I'd hate to see his players get way higher queue times because people don't like going against Knight. I just don't think that would be helpful for the game.

RDyer05

That’s fair, and funny enough I actually really enjoy playing against both Knight and Chucky, which is kind of why I think it could work.

Everyone seems to have completely different killers they dislike, so I’d imagine most of the choices would be spread around the roster.

If one particular killer did end up being avoided by a huge number of people though, I think that in itself would be really useful feedback for Behaviour that there’s something about those matches people aren’t enjoying.

Bloodraven

Obvious flaws aside with this idea it could also be used quite maliciously to have certain killers targeted to skew data in favour of having them unfairly nerfed into oblivion. As unlikely as that sounds I could see a discord server and reddit being created for the sol purpose of just such behavior.

RDyer05

That’s a fair point, although I definitely wouldn’t want the data to automatically mean a killer gets nerfed. I’d see it more as a flag for Behaviour to look into.

They’d also be able to spot sudden organised spikes pretty easily compared with genuine long term player behaviour.

If a killer stayed unusually highly avoided over months and across thousands of players, that would probably tell them something useful.

RDyer05

Just to add- I’m all for Behaviour trying new killer mechanics, but I also think players need some security around the core DBD experience they originally fell in love with. The suspense, hiding, chases and horror feel very different with some of the newer designs. I also wonder how a brand new survivor feels encountering these killers before they’ve even learned the basics. An avoidance slot could let Behaviour experiment without those players simply deciding the game isn’t for them and able to retain longstanding players.

pidgeon

If you cannot have fun in a game because of two characters, do you really like the game?

Arcturus

@RDyer05 said:

That’s a fair point, although I definitely wouldn’t want the data to automatically mean a killer gets nerfed. I’d see it more as a flag for Behaviour to look into.

They’d also be able to spot sudden organised spikes pretty easily compared with genuine long term player behaviour.

If a killer stayed unusually highly avoided over months and across thousands of players, that would probably tell them something useful.

Just a couple of things.

1. Just a heads up, if you don't quote a person's comment or @ them, then they won't get a notification you responded to them.
2. I understand the idea that a highly blocked killer tells BHVR that they are highly disliked, but people are very vocal about which killers they don't like already, and BHVR just recently took a player survey including thoughts about all the killers in the game, so they should have a decent idea already.
3. No matter how disliked by one side, there are plenty of enjoyers on the other. Myself and a lot of the community dislike Knight's gameplay loop, but if they rework a bunch of killers that people dislike going against then it isolates the killers that still enjoy playing as that character. What BHVR really needs to be reworking are killers that are too weak or too strong, and killers that are not particularly liked on either side of the fence (ex: Skull Merchant is getting a rework partially because her mains are not happy with her current state, although she is also very weak)

Bloodraven

The other thing you have to remember is at the end of the day this is a PvP game and as such not everyone will be happy with certain things, but you can't strive to make everyone happy because no one will be.

Could you imagine playing Warzone where you could play matches without certain guns in them?

Playing a beat 'em up like Street Fighter but never fighting against that games version of the meta character?

When you load the game and click Find Match you sign up for whatever comes, whether you're a killer vs seal team six on coms or fresh installs or a survivor against a P100 Ghoul main or baby Trapper, sometimes you win sometimes you lose thats just PvP for you.

NeverSolus

@RDyer05 said:

Killer Avoidance Slot

I had an idea that I genuinely think could help keep people playing DBD.

What if every survivor could choose one killer they simply do not want to play against?

There are so many killers in the game now and everyone enjoys different things. A killer doesn't necessarily have to be overpowered for someone to absolutely hate playing against them.

I regularly play survivor with the same group of four. We haven't gone online moaning about killers or demanding nerfs, but Jason really started to make the game less enjoyable for us and now The Judgement has pretty much finished it off.

At the moment all four of us have basically stopped playing DBD.

That got me thinking. Surely Behaviour would rather we kept playing the game and avoided one killer than just stopped playing altogether?

My idea would be that every survivor gets one Killer Avoidance Slot.

You pick one killer and matchmaking simply doesn't put you against them.

There would obviously have to be some rules around SWF groups. For example, maybe a four person group could only have a maximum of two different killers blocked between them so you couldn't have a group excluding four different killers.

You could even have one full avoidance slot and maybe a second preference where matchmaking tries to avoid that killer but can still match you against them if queue times get too long.

I also think this would give Behaviour some really useful information.

At the moment if people hate playing against a particular killer, Behaviour might never know. Players don't always go on Reddit or the forums and complain. Sometimes they just stop playing.

That's exactly what our group has done.

If Behaviour could see that hardly anybody avoids one killer but a huge percentage of survivors are avoiding another, that would tell them there is something about that killer people are really not enjoying.

That doesn't automatically mean the killer is too strong either. They could be perfectly balanced and still be miserable to play against.

Behaviour could then look into why people are avoiding them and whether something needs changing.

I don't want easy games and I don't want survivors being able to choose exactly who they play against. Some of my favourite matches are ones where the killer absolutely destroys us.

I just think with such a massive killer roster now, allowing someone to say "please don't give me this one killer" isn't unreasonable.

People who enjoy playing against that killer can carry on as normal.

Killer players can still play whoever they want.

And people like my group who are currently not playing DBD at all might actually come back and play again.

I'd be interested to know what killer everyone else would put in their one avoidance slot and whether having something like this would make anyone currently taking a break start playing again.

I like the spirit if this idea, but I can't agree. Not because of the effect on the queue times or the like, though I agree those would be terrible. But instead because of application. This would effectively be an accessibility option that everyone could use, which means all people would have access to them.

That also means this could be used by SWF's to simply avoid potent killers. A SWF could queue up and block out Ghoul, Blight, Dracula, Nurse for instance, and the game's balance would skew violently. Alternatively, imagine the week Jason came out. No one wanted to learn counter play they just got sick of seeing him, and rightfully so, he was in every #)*%#% match. So if you could just block Jason, your group could effectively stall out the new killer queue.

I love the spirit of the idea, but I just don't see the effects working out. Handing out what are effectively 4 killer 'ban' slots to a each group of survivors would be wonderful in a world where I could trust it would only be used for accessibility features. Outside of that though, it's nothing but dangerous.