250 2v8 Killer Winstreak and Balance Opinions
Hello!
My friend Weldo and I would like to share our 250 game killer winstreak and balance opinions during this iteration of 2V8. We have just over 11.5k hours between us. Wincon was 6K no gate, we feel this is the most realistic for the mode. Curious how we got so many games in general? Read on!
After the first 30-40 games, we felt the roster getting a little stale, so we decided to use a random wheel generator with each killer on it and let RNG choose our killer. From that point on, the killer we played was randomized and we chose our class.
This led to 97 unique killer combos.
I will also my Nightlight (although stats are private). The 2v8 stats on Nightlight have a rough UI to say the least, so I will post the streak as best I can.
https://nightlight.gg/u/Codester/stats
This shows all 250 games if you're interested:
Here are some of our top combos ranked. Nightlight only shows 8 at a time. I main Huntress/Blight but we did swap every now and then when we felt like it.
We both want this post to be centered around the suggested balancing and surv/killer/class changes rather than focus on the winstreak. It doesn't mean much when the MMR was in the state that it was this during this iteration, but we do hope it shines more of a light on that particular issue so we get better games. We just hope our thoughts are at the least seen after grinding the mode so much.
Below are our opinions on the current state of 2v8.
General Balancing:
- Indoor maps make 2v8 aura reading and hook prediction too strong (especially rpd)
- RPD needs removed, there's no other words for it. Games on this map are an absolute mess for survivor side, especially if Nemesis is in the match. Brute + Nurse combo is unplayable against on the map, gen grabs easy, hooks way too easy to predict, can cut off anyone rotating mid-map, and any Shadow killer gets insane value. See first point.
- Tonics could be removed (and were at one point). The Purified Tonic (cage state removal) should have a much longer interaction time for survivor at minimum. The Haste effect for killers is ok but could be changed to something more useful, possibly a shattered hope-style full aura read for a small duration, and/or survivors should get a visible effect on the killer indicating they're hasted by a tonic, possibly similar to a serum. (the Purified Tonic has also had a spelling error since they were introduced which is yet to be fixed. It reads "Purifed Tonic" in-game)
Killer Balancing:
- Gen regression. The base rate of gen regression is too strong. The Wiki states 200% in 2v8, but quite frankly this feels incorrect and is anecdotally more. Pressuring a high progress gen gives simply too much value. Our suggestion is to reduce the base regression, but give Killers a Pain Resonance equivalent on each fresh hook. The current system encourages killers to kick generators instead of chasing (there was a 2 year period of dbd on why this is a problem) which boils a lot of close games down to hitting regression limit, or survivors getting too bored that they give up. It also increases the disparity between killer strength. High mobility killers are great in dbd (no surprise), but they're especially great in 2v8 as they can apply this regression much more efficiently, while also being able to traverse the much bigger maps in 2v8. Additionally, killer mobility has TWO unique strengths in 2v8 as it allows the killer to quickly aid their teammate in chase directly, or helping corral survivors into their teammate which can snowball into downs/hits. The other benefit is being able to go cross map to protect an uncage after hooking someone, and due to survivors often resetting in groups, this is a great way to make pressure as long as you predict the cage spawns. Meanwhile, low mobility killers such as trapper, huntress, chucky, etc. don't have ANY of these benefits, so they generally get the short end of the stick in the mode which can make them feel quite bad unless specifically paired with a high mobility killer. Having a pain res equivalent would encourage killers to commit to chases more often, discouraging tunneling as fresh hooks will have a large benefit, and make killers who excel at close range such as nemmy, slinger, or chucky feel rewarded in winning their chases.
- Blight, Spirit and Nurse are all S tiers that are also giga buffed in the mode with a long list of buffs. They could all use slight nerfs (mainly phase time on Spirit specifically).
- Trapper NEEDS to start with all traps without the "Trapper Sack" downside. Frankly unbelievable that BHVR thinks it's okay to double map size and keep Trapper's power acquisition the same. Also, please bring back trap setting haste applying to your teammate. (that was cool)
- Oni's movement speed in dash needs nerfed, it's honestly ridiculous. Splintered Hull would also feel better overall, but possibly too strong.
- Billy could use Engravings but still feels ok. Doesn't need changed.
- Ghostface feels ok besides the amount of bugs between object leaning and the reveal mechanic. There's a bug with bots that instantly reveals you no matter what, cross-map for the entire game. Very strong 1v1 chase while chasing a stalked survivor and not revealed, possibly too strong. Haste could potentially be reduced, but could argue he needs to be that strong 1v1 in the mode.
- Huntress could use Deerskin Gloves + Babushka for sure, and possibly Rose Root.
- Executioner basically doesn't have a power in 2v8. In fact, he's punished using rites cages while using the Shadow class (doesn't get the undetectable), but the survivor still gets their unlockable skill. He needs length addons. Changes we would like to see are applying torment with M2 hits and the killer teammate being able to do the old 2v8 stomp on tormented survivors.
- Xeno is ok but has some tunnel bugs preventing access to certain ones occasionally. The tail attack cooldown is extremely short, but he does need some sort of buff like this for 2v8.
- Nemesis zombies could be reduced by 1 and still be strong, and he could use a buff in compensation such as whip pallet break cooldown or even Marvin's Blood. (this killer is also complete torture for survivors on indoor maps because of the 4 zombies)
- Chucky needs Jump Rope.
- Slinger could use iri coin to help promote not 2v1ing for easy downs which people probably find unfun. (fun to do though >_>)
- The rest of the killer roster feels mostly good/balanced.
- Shadow is objectively the best class on every non-stealth killer besides Huntress, with argument being made for Fearmonger on any 110 killer and Brute on blight/nurse/wesker (more discussion on Brute as a whole later)
- Enforcer is objectively, by far, the worst killer class, and we didn't play a single game with it during this iteration. Needs reworked entirely. The extended lunge should be much more obvious that you even have it available (screen vignette possibly), and the window last 4x as long. The aura reading is often bugged and you don't receive it. We would like to see this reworked to something else entirely. the 3% haste chasing an injured survivor is pretty meh compared to what the other classes offer especially given which killers are available.
- Fearmonger good, needs no changes. 5% haste unseen lets any 110 killer get a faster start especially, and applies in chase when survivors aren't looking behind them. Also acts as a pseudo Whispers for locating survivors. Helps prevent beam saves. Helps Huntress get to a locker.
- Brute is a bit of a weird one. This is how the main cooldown skill of Brute works currently, per the Wiki:
Whenever you perform the Break action while this Skill is active, the following effects apply:
Increases the Breaking speed by +25 %.
Damaging a Generator will highlight it in yellow. When the highlighted Generator is repaired past its regression point, the Generator explodes, triggering a loud noise notification and causing any Survivor interacting with the Generator to be afflicted by -5 % Hindered Status Effect for 12 seconds.
This Skill has a cool-down of 60 seconds after use.
The issues with this skill, in our opinion, is that "Increases the Breaking speed by +25%" one, only applies to pallets/walls and not gens, and two, this ability goes on cooldown when you kick a generator. IOP, it should apply the 25% breaking speed to gens as well, and rather go on cooldown when you break a pallet/wall. Generally, you only want to run this class on a high mobility killer for the break speed in chase, and not for the Hindered off a gen, so just the core mechanics of this skill are backwards in our opinion and is not used what it was designed for. S tiers don't care that you get 5% hindered off the gen. They just want the faster break and extended aura read. The extended aura range applies regardless of cooldown.
Survivor Balancing:
- See tonic suggestions.
- Hook placements are too easy to predict making it extremely easy to attempt a tunnel or interrupt resets, especially on mobility killers.
- The Anti-Camp mechanic needs to apply even with other survivors near and possibly even at a further range. This is often an issue even if not intentionally going to a hook to interrupt.
- Escapist sprint needs to not be on a button. A very strong survivor is essentially untouchable with this class and it makes any survivor mistake easily recoverable. Make it proc similar to Sprint Burst and it would be fine.
- Other classes fine. Starting with an item is good, and good for the killer side as you can see someone's class at a glance.
- The Endurance given to other survivors by Torchbearer is ridiculously long. It should be 1/3-1/4 of current time. Otherwise a very fun class.
Queue Times:
Somewhere around the middle of this event, queue times were extremely bugged, and this allowed us to get such a high number of killer games. We had multiple days where we were able to get 5+ killer games per hour, sub minute queues, which was unheard of in previous iterations. When queue times weren't bugged, we could do 1 play-while-you-wait survivor game between each killer game, which rose to 2 survivor games for each killer game later on when queue times were fixed and became worse. We don't have exact numbers, but we would say our average normal killer queue time is around 20-25 minutes on East servers when queues aren't bugged, but we have had as long as 45 minutes very rarely.
A big slightly unrelated point we would like to make for this is to possibly allow customs (for 1v1s), 1v4, or inviting other survivor players to our play-while-you-wait lobby while queueing for 2v8.
MMR (the big one):
MMR was quite simply a mess during this iteration (admitted by BHVR as of their Twitter post Sep 29) and the only reason this streak continued the way it did. It was by far the worst we have ever seen, and we have played as a duo during every iteration of 2v8. We would get an alarming amount of players that simply don't understand that killers have basekit gen kick aura reading in the mode, spend a lot of time edgemap, run past resources, not look behind them (this is huge on Fearmonger as you just have perma 5% haste in chase without them looking at you), unhook survivors in front of the killer (this is also a massive reason for most game pressure), generally unaware of killer presence, not spray/vaccine, and just seemingly very new players in general. This is a failure on BHVR's part.
Clearly there could be a lot done to improve new player knowledge and their experience in general. Another point I will add to this is that specific 2v8 innate killer skills are NOT included in the F1 menu that all survivors are prompted to open on first chase or injury. I would absolutely guarantee this leads to new players being completely unaware of things such as Drac's wolf form 3rd pounce, Wesker's 3rd dash, Ghostface's haste, what the Tonics do for killers/survivors, etc and being caught out in a bad spot.
Out of the 250 games, we only had 3 that we considered close, and only 1 where all gens were completed before the wincon. In previous iterations, we would generally play 20-30 games between losses, and players in general were simply better with more hours. We would often get players with sub 50 hours in DBD in this iteration.
Hopefully this is better in the next event, we actually much prefer having good/close games with strong players.
Overall, we really love playing 2v8 and hope it keeps coming back better. Feel free to post any questions/comments, would love more discussion around this mode!
Comments
Thoughts
RPD - Yes, this is currently extremely lopsided if the killers have any sort of organization. I think they could do a lot to rework the map by giving more paths from east to west and more gens outside, but it certainly needs changes.
Gen regression - It does feel very fast, as a survivor sometimes can be shocking if you run away for a moment and come back and see how much progress is lost. I'll have my own post on this, but I think the gen regression speed should be tied to the catch up mechanic and the rate should drop substantially as survivors are eliminated.
High Mobility Killers - They are definitely very strong. This has been proposed for 1v4 before, but I think certain kickers having weaker/stronger gen regression would help with this. I'll also add that a speedy killer takes away the down side of the two killers teaming up, giving up a lot of pressure on the rest of the map, because the fast killer can get to the other side so quickly.
Finding the Hook Spawn - It's an issue because the the strongest killer strat is still tunneling and with two killers even if one survivors manages to use their elusive to escape, well plenty of other survivors to become the target.
Trapper - I know that this is a common suggestion, but I feel like if there is no middle ground better to just remove him and call it a day. All traps and trapper just sets up a fort right at the start. We've been down that road before with other killers in 1v4 and know how the community responds.
Anti-camp - Agree that it should still apply with survivors close by. Unlike 2v8 were the anti-camp allows a free unhook, here the hook just gets moved.
Escapist / Torchbearer nerfs - being I think these are the weakest classes in a team game, seems unreasonable to nerf them. Killers can just ignore escapists until others are eliminated and the torchbearer endurance buff is pretty helpful to make killers consider what they are going to do.
We would get an alarming amount of players that simply don't understand that killers have basekit gen kick aura reading in the mode,I had this happen a lot as well and yeah, its concerning. Like there's an icon on your screen + general game knowledge, why are you hiding in that bush?
Out of the 250 games, we only had 3 that we considered close, and only 1 where all gens were completed before the wincon.I appreciate the thoughts but I'm curious, and I think about this for survivors on winstreaks, but how did the two of you not go mad with boredom?
This is such a hugely detailed post! Thank you so much for taking the time to not only track your stats, but also break out so many thoughtful pieces of feedback (extra points for giving so much attention to both roles)!
Our team is actually in the process of sharing feedback on this round of 2v8 with the team right now, so I'll be sure to pass on your points!
Given Xeno is the newest addition to 2v8, though, I did want to see if you had any additional thoughts. Are there any other things that stood out about Xeno through 2v8?
Thank you so much for commenting! I was the dude playing the majority of the Xeno games so I'm happy to answer!
One awkward aspect about the tail is the collision it has with your teammate. There's times where I'm trying to hit over my teammate while timing it with their attack, but unless we're on opposing angles on the survivor the killer hitbox is difficult to avoid. Dracula's hellfire, or Huntress' hatchet on the other hand, completely bypasses the killer hitbox and feel very fluid to use.
My friend suggested there should be a movement speed buff for survivors when carrying a turret. With 2v8 being such a fast paced mode, taking time to place down a prop for only of the two killers is a big commitment. Perhaps as compensation, Xeno could get Lambert's Starmap basekit? (reduces turret range by 2 meters) It made turrets feel somewhat overwhelming at times and seems like a must-have in 1v4.
Thanks again!!
Thank YOU! I'll note these down on my side (and it's especially helpful having the comparison to Huntress and Dark Lord to help contextualize that note about the hitbox!)
Great post, I agree with everything OP said. Specifically what the post explains well is that, a lot of things are frustrating for the survivors BUT also not very interesting for the killer either, rather, it feels more like cheap wins when it happens. To improve queue times, these should be the priority to address, as they will reduce survivor frustration a lot while not making killer less fun to play as.
In my opinion:
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You make a great point about hooks, me n my duo played a lottt of survivor games during our queues and getting left to 2nd is unfortunately both annoying and common. Due to the gamemode's chaotic nature, most people aren't paying a whole lot of attention to the hud or general tells that someone should go for the unhook. I also found that while playing killer, intercepting people who WERE trying to save very easy, both because maps are very open and people don't usually stealth for unhooks in 2v8. Intercepting only ONE person was often more than enough to bring them to 2nd stage, as there wasn't another person rotating that was nearby. Having a higher hook timer would definitely help this issue, maybe a basekit kindred-like effect when someone is caged too? That could be sick.
100% agreed on RPD, that map needs a major rework that would take too much effort from BHVR's end to fix.
I think my friend and I agree that we feel more or less indifferent about lery's though. On one hand, it does make using ranged and dash killers very difficult/unfun, but shadow was a saving grace as it allowed killers like billy and oni to get really free downs on that map. We also might have bias because we've had very fun and memorable games/moments on that map, although I likely wouldn't miss it too much if it were removed in 2v8.
Yessss exactly about nemmy, there's soooo many ways you could buff his whip in 2v8. Mentioned in the post are the likely easier ideas to implement (whip and pallet break recovery + marvin's blood) but you could get creative with him if you wanted. What if there was a tier 4 that was difficult to reach, that extended the whip range even FURTHER and could maybe injure directly? A 3rd hit killer is a little awkward in 2v8 at times, its food for thought.
Actually why don't we just give him a rocket launc-
it's human nature to suffer the Bystander Effect. It could be easily solved if more people decided to be the change they want to see in the world.
"Why bother when someone else will do it?" is what we say but is that something that should be buffed simply because humans cannot rewire their biological programming?
Regarding regression, that'd be a dream come true and ideal scenario to have killer-specific regression numbers. The Krasue PTB where those changes were proposed was overall a mess, but it had great ideas and the regression specifically could translate well to 2v8 for sure. Maybe fast killers who excel at kicking gens in mass (Wraith, Blight, Spirit, etc.) could have a weaker form of the gen kick regression to encourage more chasing. Your idea of regression being tied to the catch up is good, would ultimately depend on numbers but it'd help in those bad survivor games where a couple people die early, making catching up on the killers regression much harder.
I disagree on trapper, and I say this as someone who dislikes going against him in the mode. I think his role in 2v8 has a really cool spin on his existing 1v4 power, making him act as a more supporting role where the other killer can help alleviate his poor early game and assist in corralling survivors into traps. I think in the mode where Wesker + Drac have three dashes, Nurse, Spirit and Blight have a grocery store list of buffs, allowing trapper to start with all of his traps is the least you could do, and he'd still be relatively weak that I don't think he'd be much of a problem either.
My issue with torchbearer endurance is that it lasts for so long and forces the killer into a lose-lose position specifically in endgame. Me n my duo played easily over 95% of our survivor games as torchbearer and we generally think the class is balanced coming from our experience. Having bangs + beam, as well as seeing nearby chases via aura reading made the class pretty versatile at saving people as long as you gave yourself time to position for them. I agree with the sentiment that it doesn't need a straight nerf however. Maybe as a sidegrade idea, you could give the class a distortion-like effect where the fresh hook aura reading when a generator pops doesn't apply to them, and you could earn stacks of this by bang + beam saving people to reward use of the class. I had experience playing in big survivor groups in 2v8 (like 6-8 people) and we would often 99% gens so one of us could hover for a save. This is crazy for the average 2v8 survivor to realize and actively do as it's hard to know if someone is hovering or not, there were a lot of times where it straight up killed us because we were caught edgemap with our pants down from the aura reading lololol.
Escapist I heavily disagree. I think its one of, if not the strongest class in 2v8 that can definitely be used altruistically. I've dodged a lot of hits from a nearby escapist user using power, and it can help in a pinch during endgame or scenarios where someone is being tunnelled. Additionally, being able to activate the speed boost on a button press feels very uninteractive from the killer's end, as you can manually correct your mistake in chase, which makes mindgaming or making a play with your power as killer feel redundant against the class. Against good players using this class you can't ignore them either, as it allows the survivor to pressure an unsafe generator and easily escape into a good position if the killer shows up. The earlier iterations of 2v8 where the speed worked more like sprint burst in 1v4 was much healthier and was still pretty strong while having the benefits of the speed applying to your teammates as well.
That's exactly why we started randomizing the killers we got, we started getting bored lol. Plus 2v8 killer is extremely fun to play with a homie, so much crazy and goofy stuff happens in the mode regardless of how sweaty the game is.
Thank you for commenting!
How is BHVR going to collect feedback like this in the future? This forum is the only place where detailed feedback like this can be found, discussed and documented for others to easily find later, and it’s shutting down soon. Is there going to be some other place where this same format of feedback/discussion can occur? Discord is certainly not it.