What if we fixed the gen-slowdown meta with a mandatory timer for games?
Hey everyone, I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of game balance lately, specifically how frustrating it is that matches can fly by in literally 4 minutes. Right now, killers are practically forced to stack four slowdown perks just to have a chance to play the video game, and it completely kills perk variety. Instead of Behaviour constantly balancing the game around gen speeds and tweaking individual perks every few months, what if we introduced a mandatory 10-minute trial timer before the exit gates can power up? Here’s how I see it working without rewriting the whole game:
- The Core Loop Stays the Same: Survivors do gens exactly like normal. However, even if all 5 gens are slammed out in 4 minutes, the gates are locked until the clock hits the 10-minute mark.
- The Endurance Test: If survivors finish gens early, their reward is that their objective is done. The rest of the match becomes a pure endurance test—looping, hiding, and outsmarting the killer until time runs out.
- Endgame Perks: Perks like NOED, Blood Warden, or Remember Me would automatically light up during the final 3-4 minutes of the match or right at the 0:00 mark, ensuring endgame builds don't lose their value.
- The Hatch/Early Ends Stay Untouched: If a killer dominates and wipes out a team in 5 minutes, the match ends immediately. No waiting around. If 3 survivors die early, the timer shuts off, the Hatch spawns, and it plays out exactly like the current live game.
I feel like this gives a healthy floor to match lengths. Killers can finally drop Pop or Pain Res and run fun chase or info builds because they know they have guaranteed time to play. On the flip side, survivors have to actually focus on surviving rather than just speed running a generator simulator . I know some survivor players might hate the idea of not being able to leave instantly, but looking at both sides, it feels way healthier for the long-term state of the game.What do you guys think? Would a system like this make matches more engaging, or do you see any major loopholes that players would exploit? Let's discuss. i'm generally intrested in what everyone will say I have currently about three thousand hours in the game. An have been playing for years an this was something I realized an dont know if it was talked about.
I've put alot of thought into this an just want the game to be more fun for everyone with ten minute match timers the game isn't too long or too short I feel like.
Comments
Why would survivors not just rat the first 3 or so minutes of the game and say they still get the gens done in 4 minutes how do you stop them from all building crows if they can't leave and they have nothing else to do?
If they get it done that fast then stealth perks speed perks an even just hiding in an out of lockers would help them in this case an now have time to go loot stuff like chests maybe place boons an help add to there remaining time in the trial
This would overall benefit many perks on both sides from just being useless without also making gen perks completely useless an support the overall health of the game.
I know you were asking about them ratting but I hope my responses helped.
specifically how frustrating it is that matches can fly by in literally 4 minutes.1: Killers can also end the matches really quickly. I'm not sure why you are just focused on the survivor possibility. People have proposed comeback/slowdown mechanics on both sides before that would prevent the extreme speedruns.
2: I think this is an intentional design decision by BHVR. While they've nerfed a lot of things on the survivor side, gen rush isn't getting touched, its actually been enhanced with new perks over the past few years. So you're proposing a change for something that the player base (or at least BHVR's perception of the players) doesn't really want changed.
The Core Loop Stays the Same:Survivors do gens exactly like normal. However, even if all 5 gens are slammed out in 4 minutes, the gates are locked until the clock hits the 10-minute mark.The Endurance Test:If survivors finish gens early, their reward is that their objective is done. The rest of the match becomes a pure endurance test—looping, hiding, and outsmarting the killer until time runs out.To be upfront, that sounds really boring. One of the most hated times from killers is just the survivors hiding out, slowly walking around rocks. For the survivors - if you had four survivors, one of them gets in chase, the other three just stand around doing nothing.
And 'nothing to do' seems like a pretty bad idea for a video game.
The Hatch/Early Ends Stay Untouched:If a killer dominates and wipes out a team in 5 minutes, the match ends immediately. No waiting around. If 3 survivors die early, the timer shuts off, the Hatch spawns, and it plays out exactly like the current live game.As mentioned above, I don't understand why one is fine and worth preserving and the other has to be made impossible. Without having to worry about slowdown the chance of killers just stomping survivors goes up rather substantially.
Endgame Perks:Perks like NOED, Blood Warden, or Remember Me would automatically light up during the final 3-4 minutes of the match or right at the 0:00 mark, ensuring endgame builds don't lose their value.and
Killers can finally drop Pop or Pain Res and run fun chase or info builds because they know they have guaranteed time to play.This just seems like massive killer buffs. The strongest survivor build is practically useless, killer's are now stronger by not having to worry about gen protection, and killers are guaranteed that they can run an end game build and when it would trigger (automatic noed? guaranteed Blood Warden?)
An have been playing for years an this was something I realized an dont know if it was talked about.There's people who have discussed it quite a bit. Either from just nixing some of the stronger gen run options to a larger 'slowdown / comeback mechanic idea'. There tends to be three problems
1: Some people like the faster paced trials
2: Some people like variability. Maybe one trial will be six minutes, the next fourteen, the one after than nine. It gives each trial a different feel while a standard time would become repetitive.
3: Lots of people seem to hate enforced mechanics. Players want to engage in actions that advance their objective. Just 'wait it out' isn't very engaging (see version 2 of BHVR's Deathgarden for a good example)
Alright so im gonna respond to this in parts to not try to make it too long okay
actual im stupid im sorry I can respond to this all at once while I can agree on this an overall arching issue for the entire game at the momment for certain people would change gen perks wouldn't be useless just a timer for both sides to be able to play the game I understand this is a killer buff but it also helps survivors cause now players can ether play more stealthy or aggressively an run chase an I agree with this to some extent I understand it would change alot of pacing an overall change the entire arch of how alot of people approach the game but as we know dead by daylight is not played by just A good chunck of speed runners alot of casual players. maybe make this casual an bring back rank with no match timer that way they can still speedrun then
nope i personally say cripple toolboxes and gen progression perks but technically this is a dbd specific problem because 4 survivors can do 4 seperate gens and technically doesn't matter because pallet density needs to be reverted since that makes chases go longer
This is just another massive buff to camping and tunneling. The only counterplay survivors have is to slam out gens and leave. And you think removing that so that they have no counter to it whatsoever is somehow healthier for the game.
awfull ideas but thanks for sharing
"The Core Loop Stays the Same: Survivors do gens exactly like normal. However, even if all 5 gens are slammed out in 4 minutes, the gates are locked until the clock hits the 10-minute mark."
You just forget when the killer is AFK (often in low MMR for instance), nobody wants to stay 10 minutes long until the next match.
If 5 gens are slammed out in 4 minutes, the matchmaking has a problem & the trial is already over.
I feel like implementing a hard timer into the length of the match would just give killers a legitimate reason to tunnel as much as humanly possible.
The first and most problematic issue is that you are under the false impression that killers have to run 4 slowdowns.
Thats my take too. People complain about gen speeds but its mostly due to how good toolboxes work, specially if paired with perks. Toolboxes requires no skill, give a big advantage and can be used anytime in the match. Its the least skilled item and the most powerful one.
BHVR really should take a look at toolboxes and gen speed perks. They are one of the most unhealthy stuff for the game in its current state.
well i'm on the fence since it's gen speeds + pallet density and i'm more leaning in favor of reverting pallet density sincd shorter chases means less survivors on gens overall
Well, pallet density is another issue. But even without it, toolboxes and gen perks would still be a problem.
If pallet density alone was an issue, high tier killer wouldn't feel how fast gens are going, but even with them i can feel the struggle to keep up whenever there is some toolboxes in the match.
We already have a very similar scenario that already plays out every day that this would be very similar to. The 2v1 scenario when there are multiple generators left. Survivors often completely forgo doing the generators and go into full hide mode in the hopes that they can out-endure the other survivor for a chance at hatch. And sometimes it has to continue because the killer slugs for the 4K and then the last survivor standing has to outlast a 4 minute bleedout timer to have a chance to survive.
I wouldn't enjoy this mechanic from either side.
So what do you suggest to allow survivors who get tunneled out in 3 mins to be able to play a 10 minute match too? Or teams that get wiped out without a single gen done? Because I'm curious why it's only the killer deserving a full match and a strong winning advantage without ever having to even use any macro sense in your pitch. They can just not worry about the gens getting done and still win, yet i guess survivors can still get sent back to the lobby with 6k points when hard tunneled.
true but both high tiers and low tiers are affected by both but in my original statement i say this is a dbd specific problem and even if we nerf gen progression perks 3 gens can be done while the killer chases and not much would change unless you increased gen speeds to make it not worth it which is why chases for killer should just go faster instead so survivors are forced to not be on gens circumventing the issue
Alright, i understood your point. I agree with you: by design survivors can "rush" gens much faster than a killer can stop them. Yeah, making chases shorter - or more fair - would help a lot, specially weaker killers.
But i am saying that Toolboxes makes the whole killer experience worse, because it "steals" time from the match without too much effort from the survivor part.
Hope both issues can be addressed soon.