DBD Experiments: An Exercise in Futility
I am trying to remember the ideas, projects, and powers that BHVR put into DBD, that sounded good on paper but in reality they were rubbish. If anyone else remembers other cases please let me know.
1.) (More) Complex Killer Counterplay
Prime examples include The Singularity and The Xenomorph.
The idea of Survivor counterplay has been a part of this game since the beginning with The Trapper. We can see as time goes on we see more interesting interactions between Killers and Survivors. The Idea of counterplay is a good one, players are more engaged, there are more things you can do besides repairing, this makes the game overall more interesting. Where this stops being a good idea is when the counterplay is too strong or complex. Take the singularity for example, a strong teleportation power that can be used aggressively tempered by an item the survivors can use to make your power essentially useless.
Then there is The Xenomorph a killer with a ranged attack, a cool fast travel with their tunnels, and some minor stealth(when crawling the killer is lower to the ground and terror radius shrinks sightly). The Survivors counterplay are the flame turrets which will burn the killer knocking the killer out of their power, slightly hinder the Xenomorph, and beep faster as the killer approaches the flame turret. So with one item the survivors can delete your minor stealth buff, ruin your power and slow you down(I could go on a 5 hour rant about how horribly the xenomorph has brought into the game, but now is not the time)
The end result of these powers, is that against new players the killers are utterly overpowered and against good players they go from "The Killer" to "The Harmless". Now both have them have received quality of life and are decent, even good now. In any case they are much better now than their past feeble selves. But the problem still remains against good players who know what the counterplay is the killers aren't that threatening. If you buff the counterplay items to help the beginners the killers are trash at every level of play, if you nerf the items the killers are unstoppable.
Do I have any ideas how to fix this? No not really I don't even know where to start. The idea of the strong power and strong counterplay is baked into their powers and to fix this would probably require an entire rework. Seeing how long it's taking them to rework The Sk*** Mer***** "Rework", a single rework of these killer powers could take years. All we can do is hope the developers learn to never ever try to create a new killer with a complex conterplay ever again.
2.) Made for This and Dead Hard
These are the two most infamous survivor perks that make killers experience PTSD flashbacks to uncatchable survivors and the seemingly nonstop endurance status effects on every survivors. But currently they are ok at the moment, and dead hard specifically is a shadow of its former self(which is a good thing make no mistake).
Lets start with dead hard, when it was introduced it had very simple and strong effect, press a button and you will dash forward, and gain endurance. Now that was really strong with almost no downsides other than a cooldown after you use it. After a the exhaustion status effect was introduced dead hard was worked into an exhaustion perk but it was still very strong. It stayed like this for many years until patch 6.7 I believe, where dead hard was reworked where you have to unhook someone or yourself, making the powerful perk activate when you save your teammates which encourages players to be more active with helping your teammates.
Then there is Made For This a survivor perk that at the beginning sounded subpar but turned out to be a menace of a perk that reshaped meta builds for almost a year. Its effect was very simple whenever you are injured and not exhausted you gain a 3% speed boost. The issue was that the speed boost was permanent as long as you were injured, and 3% speed is just fast enough to make it to a new loop/pallet against most killers. An additional downside is that this perk also made subtle hackers harder to reveal in game. Currently the perk was reworked to only grant the speed boost when you are deep wounded which is much better as it reward players who correctly use the nerfed dead hard to take time their ability to absorb an extra hit from the killer. Overall the perks are strong together, dead hard is still useful and just requires an extra step, and Made For This only really activates on successful dead hards, legion, deathslinger, and ghoul attacks/abilities.
3.) The Previous and Upcoming PTB and the Anti Slugging System
Do I really need to say more?
Fine, fine, I will explain it. The basic idea for the upcoming PTB is that when a survivor is slugged for 120 seconds then they can get back up. You can recover faster if more people are downed on the ground. In a perfect world I truly believe that you can make a basekit recovery from the crawling state that pleases everyone. But this is NOT a perfect world and the developers have a history of balancing with a sledgehammer not a scalpel. I believe at this current point in time it is best to leave the ability to pick yourself up attached to perks, and let the developers think more about this massive change that will dramatically alter the state of the game, possibly for the worse.
4.) The Sk*** Mer***** "Rework"
I do not need to explain this situation, the developers nerfed a killer, made her unplayable, and then have the gall to say that they want to CANCEL her rework to move the developers to other projects. Now allow me to make a statement on behalf of the people who enjoyed playing Sk*** Mer***** and her add ons before/during/after your 3 billion reworks, you dug this hole and now you are going to fix it, and this attempt to escape and avoid responsibility for the mess you made is just pathetic. I completely understand that the rework with the drone crash and amp projectile will take a while but it sounds really fun and I actually am looking forward to seeing the end result even though I have to wait a bit longer(as I personally hate laser tagging mechanic and it just doesn't feel like the juice is worth the squeeze, sorry PixelBush)
Comments
You think 2 minutes on the ground is a sledgehammer? Is the sledgeghammer made of foam and makes a squeaky noise when you hit something with it? Don't slug three or four people at once and you'll be okay.
And how can it sound good on paper but be rubbish in reality when the reality has yet to come?
I really agree with you on the killer counterplay. The best designed killers are the ones that involve some kind of aim or mechanical skill. Look at the most fun killers to play as and against. IDK all the stats but I think wesker is top 5. He requires good aim and mechanical skill but his power is also not trash. Every player feels like they can perform better on him because his power has freedom on how to use it. Until you get to a certain level where he falls off a cliff. But that’s rare.
Huntress is one of the best designed killers because she needs to aim. There’s no new mechanic to counter it. It’s just dodging and looping well, and the infinite range and high skill ceiling of huntress makes both the survivor and the killer feel like they always can improve. She’s actually kinda weak but i think still popular, correct me if im wrong. Similar case with spirit even though she doesn’t aim and even ruins looping. Some may not like to play against spirit but her power is genuinely one of the best designed imho. I think the reason spirit isnt more popular is because of the huge cooldown on the power and how punishing she is.
when they start to put in counterplay as new mechanic usually outside of chase, thats when killers get unpopular.
Xenomorph, twins, trapper, etc. These killers generally feel like they dont have a very high mechanical skill ceiling on them and it’s a matter of game sense mostly.
It’s not wirh every killer though. For example the unknown’s teleports are a new thing but they’re not actually boring because the main power is directly related to chases and aiming well. He’s just less popular because he’s very punishing similar to the artist
Basically i believe both survivors and killers want killer counterplay to be directly related to chases, survivor movement, looping, but not new boring stuff like « do this to disable the power »
I was specifically thinking about the first anti slug attempt on the previous PTB and then applied that experience to the upcoming PTB, a lot can still change in that time so the system might be ok, in theory the 33% speed boost to the pick up meter should be ok against aggressive slugging killers. But if it underperforms(and there is a chance that it might do that), the spreadsheet developers can easily over buff this mechanic making the game into a nightmare for killers who don't want to slug but have to when they go against a competent SWF. That is why I said above that the changes have the POSSIBILITY of negatively affecting the game, not that it WILL negatively affect the game. I truly hope that this mechanic works and makes the game better but as the saying goes "hope for the best, expect the worst".
As for how something can sound good on paper but not in reality let me provide you an analogy, in the USA in the early 1900s they introduced mosquito fish to bodies of fresh water to lower the mosquito population and stop the spread of disease. However these fish had unforeseen effects on the other aquatic creatures, specifically predation on native species like small fish, invertebrates, and amphibian tadpoles, outcompetition for food, and the disruption of food webs. They are now considered invasive, pose a high ecological risk, and sometimes cause economic damage to native fisheries. That is how an idea can sound good on paper but have negative effects in reality. I know this example is a bit extreme but I believe it proves the point I am trying to make about unforeseen consequences.
Then it will again get nerfed. Fog vials made it out of the ptb and were obliterated less than two weeks later, and for pretty ridiculous reasons. We're probably about to see the pallet density change get nerfed too. They won't hesitate to destroy and dismantle at any point.
But I'm super tired of these SWAT teams being the permanent example of all problems. They're not the majority, and if they can use the mechanics to win, then they deserve their win. It's okay if your opponenet wins sometimes.
Well, that a really intersting and odd example but I know what the term means. I'm saying it doesn't apply to things that have yet to pass.
I would like to add on that the unknowns teleport counter play is fun, cool, and FAST. So even though it is out of chase the speed and creepy camera angle make up for having to go out of your way to get rid of it(and isn't there a tech where an unknown can delay the copy to ensure it spawns in a good spot?). Your points on Huntress and Wesker are spot on, I could argue with you in spirit however as I am partially deaf in one ear and others who have a hard time hearing can't really counter her effectively. All your other point are good in my opinion.
1: Xenomorph et al - As an asym, DbD is always going to have difficulty putting in gameplay elements that create equal degrees of difficulty for both sides. Things like turrets or Sadako tapes are primarily dependent on the survivor, as they get better the killer is going to have a noticeable drop in power. This is why 'dash slop' seems to be becoming so common, it does create equal skill progression and counterplay on both sides.
I'm personally in favor of having some unique killers, even if they fall off at higher MMRs.
2: There've been a lot of these. The Overbrine meta that was supposed to cut down on tunneling for example. Flashbangs through the killer model. Sometimes they introduce perks or playstyles that end up being way too strong.
3: PTB - testing things out and them failing is not inherently wrong. That's part of testing, if you're afraid to test possibilities you won't move forward.
Personally I don't think any form of anti-slugging is actually needed, but its a common complaint, and 120 seconds is rarely going to have an impact.
Does the same apply to killers as SWAT teams then? So the arguement about streamers who play the game for a job getting kill streaks with certain killers is ok and they should deserve to win because they’re using the mechanics and aren’t the majority? Because people love to throw that around as a reason to blanket nerf killers at every level.
I agree with the killer power section, killers like singu are a drag to verse in soloq but if im in a two or three man he becomes so much more bearable because I can actually communicate with my team.
I feel like the issue is solo q cannot communicate with each other in the match and cant be like "i need to be EMP" leading to any killer that has a complex counter play or requires "teamwork" to counterplay just doesn't work due to the lack of communication survivors get in solo q, if soloq had something like a comm wheel like dbd mobile had I think it would bridge the gap enough where those sorts killers feel better in soloq
I don't think those streaks should even be possible unless an equally skilled survivor-player/team can do the same, which I've never seen. Not those sort of numbers anyway. If both can be possible at the same time, then it's fine. Then it's balanced. I think S tiers need some nerfs but not because of streamers. I'd like to see Ss become As and Ds become Cs and killers be more even, just different.
The top tier performers (especially streamers, who already sadly dictate this game's direction) are an example I hate. I don't think the game should be balanced around its mystical, magical 1% that always comes up. It should be balanced around the majority, which is probably the middle two brackets of MMR. Whatever changes come, if they're so amazingly skilled, they should be the ones to adjust. That applies to both roles.
I think if both the winstreak survivor team and the winstreak killer OTP played against each other every match, both of them wouldn't get past 5 wins in a row tbh, maybe not even 3. Because the game balance can flip so fast at that level depending on map RNG and just one mistake.
And to be fair, they don't need to balance around the mid MMR. The lack of skill in the lower levels should already balance itself out. a mid MMR nurse and blight can bring these killers down to A or even B tier because they're doing many mistakes. The problem is a mid MMR soloq team can play against a winstreaker blight. That should not be happening.
If they shouldn’t balance around those streamers etc, how can they stop those streaks without nerfing things and hurting the rest of the playerbase though?
As you say it’s a minority that can play to the level to get those streaks, most players aren’t able to do that even with Nurse Blight Ghoul etc.
Streamers have motives. They're not normal players. If a streamer has a 1k win streak with Trapper does that mean he needs a nerf?
They should balance around the multitude of amassed data that they should have and not around any small minority. The streamers are in there, but they're just additional data. The consideration just needs nuance.
For example, if someone who plays with 5 killers has a 50% KR overall with thousands of games, but gets a maintainable 80% with Ghoul, that's a potential red flag. If that trend repeats constantly, it's a big red flag. If a survivor who has a 30% ER overall except when they use botany knowledge they have a 60%, that's an issue if it also shows to be consistent across players. If Nurse players in general get way more kills with aura read, then consider making the aura read inactive during a blink. There has to be some sort of consistent trend, not just a few hundred people performing well that get to decide for everyone else how the game will go. Now, if all the insane win streaks are with Blight and there's a good amount of them, then that is a consistency that needs looking at.
But as it is now, the trend I see is that killers can go on massive win streaks that survivors can't get close to. I can see a mini reflection of that in my own matches. I don't think I've ever gotten a 10 win streak as survivor. Maybe once. Yet I have had multiple 10+ winstreaks as killer just this month and I'm not even a good player.
Oh yes the pallet change will definitely be reverted I have no doubt about that(ideally they should tie pallet density to killer strength, like blights, nurses, and krasue's get more pallets then the weaker killers, they did demonstrate that they had the ability to change the rewards that the krasue and blight get for unique hooks, but this idea is just a pipe dream). As for the Navy SEALS, they themselves are not necessarily the problem (as all survivors can equip a strong build and gain game sense the more they play) its the coordination and communication between them that is the real issue in my opinion, as if they were unable to communicate and coordinate their actions I don't think they would be as oppressive as they can be now. If they added some sort of communication feature for solo q they could probably balance the game a lot better, like a little wheel you can pull up with different messages that relate to the game objectives or actions that the team should do like "look for totems", "fix generators" and other simple messages that get the point across.
I do agree its ok to lose, I have had my fair share of losses as both survivor and killer and losing against good survivors or killers who outplay me allows me to learn from my mistakes and improve as both roles.
Its frustrating to me that they spend time and effort on a project but it ends up being for naught (the twins rework, and the old anti slug mechanic) and the potential for failure with this new reworked mechanic is high in my opinion. I see your point with the fact that these mechanics haven't arrived yet, and that they are probably still being looked at and adjusted last minute, but these big changes can negatively impact the game if they aren't balanced correctly make no mistake.