Fix DbD In 3 Changes: Go!
Can be big, can be small - but the goal is to make the game as much better as possible for as many people.
- Get rid of hook grabs completely.
- Another meta shakeup, aimed at improving more 'never used' perks, killers and addons.
- Rework Nurse (and possibly Blight) to be a bit less oppressive at the higher end, but a bit easier to learn at the lower end
Comments
1.Rework maps
2. Add improvements to SoloQ
3. Nerf items/add-ons and Nurse.
1) Rebalance maps and add a loop weight system.
2) Rework MMR completely.
3) Add incentives to fresh hooking.
How would you rework MMR?
I do like fresh hooking having more incentives - honestly, some perks (Grim Embrace is the one that immediately comes to mind) could be great like this, and Devour Hope is great for this, but unfortunately they are either just bad perks or unreliable.
Anti-griefing measures
1. Unhook spam griefing to have a "run to cancel" option (currently only applies to working on gens and people healing you)
2. For intentional body blocking, collision should be removed after 20 seconds
I'd make it be a functional system, for one. Skill-based matchmaking should track skill, not escapes or kills.
Have a map weight system. Total loops and strength of tiles/number of pallets or windows factor in to the total weight. If you lose as Killer on a highly Survivor-weighted map, you lose less points than if you'd have lost on a different map. If you win, you gain more as to reward you for overcoming a challenge stacked against you. If you win as Survivor on a map like Shelter Woods, you should gain more as you were clearly more skilled than your opponent, despite obviously being at a disadvantage. Map offerings should immediately flip the switch towards whoever used them. If you bring an offering for Aazarov's as Survivor, it doesn't matter what map it is, the game would still act like you were on a heavy Survivor-weighted map. Same with Killer's bringing map offerings.
Give bonus points for high hook stages. Getting 10 hooks and 2 Kills shouldn't be weighted the same as getting 4 Hooks and 2 Kills. Reward fresh hooks as well, every fresh hook gives bonus points for being more skillful but going after the same Survivor doesn't detract points.
Record chase times for Survivor (or times where a Killer is within X meters). Give points per X seconds of chase. Give points per X seconds of gen progress. Points for sabotage plays within X meters of a Killer carrying a Survivor. Reward individual power counterplay, ie, taking a hit for a Survivor speared by Deathslinger, solving Pinhead's Box, etc etc. Reward altruistic actions, saviors shouldn't be punished by being put in lower MMR tiers.
This is just stuff off of the top of my head.
Hmm.
It's easy to say 'skill based matchmaking', but that's bloody hard to quantify. Especially for killer. I mean - Hag, Artist and Wesker all play 100% differently to each other. Other, simpler games have experimented with skill based matchmaking (Heroes of the Storm immediately comes to mind) and results were...mixed to negative.
The map weight system is interesting, but I think that it might be a bit easier to just...rework problem maps. Honestly, about half of them need a bloody update and have for years.
Points...you mean BP? Eh. If I've learned one thing this year, from the number of people who will DC on the first down despite me bringing flans is that, after a certain point, people don't care that much about BP. I'd prefer to see more powerful perks that incentivize hooking different survivors.
If you mean MMR points - the problem is that it's going to play havoc with the system, and likely lead to silly deflations or inflations of MMR.
I thought the same, there should be something like come back basekit that allow both sides to slightly equal progress their objectives.
1: less loops, includes windows and pallets
2: make killers better. Let em be strong.
3: I'm not sure on a third so I'll add in change the egc
Points as in MMR points.
Killers who have consistent high hook games are objectively more skilled than players who get low hook games. It doesn't mean those other Killers are bad, just that it's objectively harder to play for Hooks.
Technically making 1 (survivors become weaker) means you already do the 2 (killers become stronger)
1. Like I said, it's a rudimentary version. I'm not saying necessarily get rid of slugging, but give both sides a comeback mechanic overall. If the killer is getting completely stomped, let the entity intervene a little and give them some help, if the survivors are just getting wiped at 5 gens, the entity wants to play with its food right? No match should feel set in stone from the start.
2. Communication systems would be a great start, and basekit info perks for solo Queue only. Something like kindred, I can't remember all of them but you get what I mean.
3. I'm exaggerating when I say delete them, but to me they both need HEAVY tweaks. Eruption has become the new ruin undying perk, in the heart of being both quite strong, and extremely annoying. It's not as powerful against a swf who can call downs and prevent incapacitating, but against solo Queue, it's just another haymaker in the face in the mma fight that is solo Queue. Completely shutting a survivor down for 30 seconds is just too much. As for nurse, I genuinely don't know how I'd fix her, she is a fundamentally broken killer that can Completely ignore the usual boundaries of the game, and holds most other killers back because certain things are balanced around the phrase "Can Nurse abuse this"
1: SoloQ information. If it is something SWF could communicate with just a couple words ("I'm on a gen") then it should be displayed next to the character portrait. Probably a radial dial as well with a 15 second limit per message + easy mute option.
2: Rework addons. Games should not be decided by who brings the best stuff. By rework I mean basically trash the current system, especially for killers. Replace it to a system more like perks - get rid of the idea that addons will be lost, iridescent addons should not have unique effects, but be slightly stronger versions of lower tiers. This way you go in knowing that a killer will have two mods, the question is which two, instead of trying to guess at how sweaty they are. For survivors, nerf the iri addons.
3: Create in game rewards/penalties for killer camping/tunneling (ie not blood points). If a survivor's hook count exceeds the rest of the team, that survivor gets a permanent haste effect. If killer camps a hook too long killer aura gets shown and survivor gets hit with reassurance. In return give the killer benefits beyond just blood points for spreading out the hits: a weaker no hex version of devour hope probably.
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Basically: the best strategies to win this game are boring. Instead of asking players not to play that way on both sides, make those strategies less effective.
1. Add 20 seconds to each hook stage; make it an extra minute on the second stage if the survivor that was just hooked was also the one that was just hooked last
2. Add a gen repair speed debuff for each unique survivor that was just hooked and this debuff becomes a repair speed buff when the survivor is killed.
3. Rework maps and Killers as a combined package with an eye to how Killers actually operate. As an example, the number of visual obstructions and LoS blockers are inconsistent on maps which affects versusing Nurse, Thompson House is a nightmare for Dredge while Midwich is a godsend, and most Killers struggle with map size while on others it's just a minor nuisance.
1. Gen and Hook RNG. Make it so 3 gens aren't a thing by spreading gens out better, also add a gen so there's 4 gens available when 1 gen is left to complete. Make it so there aren't hook dead zones, hooks broken by sacrifice return after 3 minutes so there aren't permanent dead zones but killer still needs to be aware of where they're killing someone to avoid temporary dead zone.
2. Caps to healing speeds/debuffs, gen speeds/slow downs/regression. Put exhaustion like effect on perks like Jolt, Eruption, and Pain Resonance where a gen can't get hit by multiple gen regression perks in short time. Gens shouldn't fly by but also shouldn't take forever to complete.
3. Trapper - add more ground cover to maps, make traps blend in better with different color maps, fix the trap collection to not require walking all around the map to collect them at start of match, any survivor that escapes a trap have deep wound so it hurts injured survibors too.
1 rework maps (actually most of them are too much safe)
2 nerfs/buffs items, addons and perks in order to balance better the game overall (perks should give SLIGHTLY buffs, not being so strong to completely change the outcomes of the match... this will include also the killer's powers such as traps for trapper, too weak for being troublesome, and nurse's blinks, too strong because it will ignore every kind of defense that survivors have for example)
3 ANTICHEAT THAT WILL WORK and punishing toxicity
after doing those things you'll have a better game, even if bugs will still be present...
1) Give SWFs an action debuff for each SWF in a team
2) Get rid of map offerings and make the biggest maps in the game smaller
3) Flag players who DC or kill themselfes on first hook and match them with eachother
I'd be happy to have 6 months or more without a new chapter if those things were adressed first.
So killers who get 3 kills with 3 hooks and facecamping should get less experienced survivors so they have it easier and survivors who don't know how to deal with camping should be the ones who face the most campers?
Mmr isn't a personal badge of how "skilled" you are it's a way to find the right opponents for you. A killer who gets a lot of kills by camping 100% should be facing stronger survivors
Current system isn't perfect but yours would bring more problems. It's a lot more complicated then just "tracking skill with hooks"
You know I thank McClean for making the best designed thing in the entirety of this game, but when he laughed at scott junds fake patch loop money system I lost respect. But then again he chuckled over more than half of that video without explaining his thoughts.
To be honest, tunneling and camping need to be fixed at the root. This incentive thing killer's spout won't actually work. People will always go to the most efficient way to win and I can't see tunneling being stopped without extensive balance changes to replace the lack of pressure from tunneling in a even environment in which both sides are even and semi competent at least for this games standards.
Wish I could change my username. HugTechTheHag would be hilarious.
Ideally, yes.
It would suck, but this would actually force the Devs to do something about problematic mechanics that have been in the game for years.
Or I guess they could ignore it. But at least it would actually be a skill-based system. I'm also sort of betting big on people's ego's being massive, which in my experience, is completely true. That's why I'd have MMR be visible.
You'd be mine and HugTechLover's lovechild =)
Eh, I got yelled at for saying that I didn't think incentivizing going for fresh hooks would work. I figured we could at least give it a shot, even if only to prove myself right lol
Reduce the release schedule to 3 chapters a year, to allow for more time in the proverbial oven.
Implement a cap on actions speeds. Also includes a cap on regression.
Figure out what a “good” map actually is.
As preface to what I am about to say, of the three sins of killer slugging should most definitely not be removed. Personally I have never had more fun than an end game slug vs a good swf. Irrelevant to say but I felt like it.
While I do think tunneling and camping can give good killers more than just one option at a time, which is where I feel a few killers come from when they talk about this, It's really not skillful and should be removed. The thing is I do not trust bhvr to somehow remove tunneling and camping but also give killers either a flat buff or an advantage without breaking the game. A hard meta blight or nurse will get 3 manned out vs a equally skilled swf without the ability to tunnel. And you can't just say high level doesn't matter because in reality if all the streamers will start hating the game even if they continue to stream it for the revenue, more and more players will stop playing. This is the one thing I have no idea how they could change to not break the game, everything else is simple with maybe a few errors in numbers on my part.
Lol. They may resemble each other in appearance, but their game play styles could not be further apart. Perfect.
Sorry, but that's an awful idea. You're asking for a lot of newer players to be made to suffer to...change aspects of the game you don't like by proxy.
I do like MMR being visible.
To be honest, I think Devs leave tunneling/camping on purpose, knowing they're unfun for players. Most complaining and arguing are on those, removing it would make players satisfied.
Satisfied players dont make post or comment, people dont create a post just saying "I like this game", people dont make a comment saying "Right, I like this game too".
Arguing is the reason to make the forums live, people only make comment when seeing someone says the opposite to their thinking.
1) give solo queue survivors advanced communication tools, including optional built in voice chat, status icons and on demand basic info relaying buttons.
2) remove all perks and tools that affect Gen repair speed. No Gen speed up, no Gen defense, at all, make it a constant.
3) buff killers and balance the rest of the game around the previous 2 changes.
The glare from the light reflecting off that tinfoil hat is making it difficult to see my screen XD.
But seriously, I think it's more that they've tried a few things behind the scenes, and the solutions ended up creating bigger problems in other aspects of the game.
Baseline BT and OTR were a big help against tunneling and camping. The problem is that Nurse (and maybe a handful of others, but mostly Nurse) can stick to a survivor so well that they can bypass it.
1º Balance maps
2º Balance killers buffs and nerfs.
3º Balance a LOT of perks to get different builds.
Bonus, QoL changes for lobby surv and killer.
It helps from getting hit right off hook, yes.
But hitting unhooked with base BT is still better than injure unhooker. Both will take 2 hits, except the unhooked filled with Deep wound overlay make it harder for them to proper run than unhooker.
Easy.
2- First person view for Survivors
3- Increase ultra rare addons in Killer Bloodwebs
1) Balance Maps...
2) Revert the Gen changes (80 charges per Gen)
3) Change some Killers (Nurse and Blight getting "nerfed" and Trapper, Freddie and Pig getting "buffed") and changing a lot of the perks and addons
1) Balance the maps
2) Make Corrupt Intervention Basekit for all killers
3) Add a quick message radial for survivors, as described in Sycamore's post
1. First of all, did we all forget about Badham and Cowshed? Many maps should get a rework or change in some way (Groaning Storehouse for example should have at least one of it's two pockets removed, Blood Lodge should be slightly smaller with more LOS blockers).
2. Well having base kit Kindred without killer aura part of the perk would be sweat. Self-Care being good would also impact really dumb players to not throw a match by healing for 40sec.
3. I hate medkits. I don't want them to be nerfed into the ground but healing by yourself in 13sec? Are you kidding me?
Boons are badly designed in general but that's discussion for another time.
As for add-ons, some of them are just too strong and not very healthy for the game (MDR, 3 blink Nurse, Recharge Nurse, Insta heals, Tombstone piece, Iridescent Uroboros Vile, and many add-ons that Blight has).
I agree on 1. and 2. but am not sure on how 3 is gonna play out.
Survivor sure could do with ping tools or a messagewheel to give some basic info relay abilities, or even maybe real comms. But i dont think the game does need to spoonfeed free info via "just give permanent bond to all survs lul", unconditional aura is way more precise than comms ever be.
Your idea of actually customizing the info the survivor has actually shown to him. But remember, Killer basekit and indivual abilities ( more for lower tiers obviously) would need to be adjusted for such a huge change on survivors. And it'd be weird to not buff the killers just because some prosurvivors would turn 20% of the new features off.
1. Well we can all dream of that one day where Badham won't be a horrible map.
2. It won't make Swf any stronger and it will help SoloQ. My point still stands altho i like the idea of base CI (i would give only 80sec CI and then perk CI would extend the duration of blocked gens to 120sec so set up killers can still use this perk)
3. MDR makes Spirit busted (hens333 won with Spirit MDR without perks i believe on Mother's dwelling), so while using this add-on her power recharges slower and Spirit has no passive phasing so this add-on isn't as busted and survivors can know what they are up against.
I basicly main Wesker, yes, Iridescent Uroboros Vile is extremly strong if you know what you are doing.
Dependant on how it actually is implemented sure.
1: Add multi killer mode, tag team time, along with proximity chat
2: Change map offerings to deny the associated realm
3: Add a "Start of Game" mechanic alongside a massive item rework (namely toolboxes)