Thing DBD needed for BOTH killers and survivors
In my opinion, Dead by Daylight needs several core system changes to make matches more interesting and less repetitive.
Hooks
The first change I would make is to give all hooks a basekit version of Monstrous Shrine. Hooking a survivor should create more pressure by default, especially when the killer is not camping and is actively moving around the map.
I would also bring back the old BBQ-style Bloodpoint bonus. For every unique survivor the killer hooks, they should receive a 25% Bloodpoint bonus at the end of the match, up to a maximum of 100%.
Hook grabs should also return because they make hook rescues feel dangerous instead of turning them into nearly free trades.
I would remove the Safe Hook Rescue score event as well. It made more sense in the past, before Borrowed Time became basekit. Back then, it rewarded survivors for avoiding rushed and unsafe saves. Now that unhooked survivors already receive 15 seconds of Endurance, the safe-unhook requirement feels outdated.
In most cases, when a survivor goes down immediately after being unhooked, it is because they either want to leave the match or the killer is playing a character such as Bubba.
Generators
If the killer has fewer than six hooks, all four survivors are still alive, and the survivors have completed 270 total generator charges—the equivalent of three full generators—then all remaining generators should receive a 32% repair-speed penalty.
However, this slowdown should not be permanent. Every regression event applied to a generator would reduce that generator’s repair-speed penalty by four percentage points. This means that the more often the killer kicks or regresses a generator, the weaker the slowdown on that generator becomes.
For example, if a generator has the full 32% penalty and the killer kicks it four times, the penalty on that generator would be reduced to 16%.
If only two survivors remain alive and more than one generator still needs to be completed, those survivors should receive a 40% repair-speed bonus.
Limited Survivor Actions
Killers already have a limit on how many times they can damage a generator before it becomes blocked from further regression events. I think survivors should have similar limits on certain repeatable actions, especially healing and blessing totems.
For healing, each survivor should be able to heal from the injured state to the healthy state up to six times during a match. The seventh time that survivor becomes injured, they should become Broken for the remainder of the match.
Mending, being picked up from the dying state, recovering from other status effects, or being healed from the dying state would not count toward this limit.
This would mainly help weaker killers who struggle against constant healing and repeated resets. It would not make the strongest killers significantly stronger because those killers usually win through chase pressure, mobility, or instant-down abilities rather than gradual injury pressure.
For boons, survivors should only be able to bless a totem three times. If the killer snuffs out that survivor’s boon for a fourth time, the totem should be destroyed instead.
This would still allow boon perks to have an impact, but it would prevent survivors from repeatedly replacing the same boon throughout the entire match.
Survivor Bloodpoints
Survivors should also be rewarded for playing a complete match instead of focusing on only one objective. I would give survivors a 25% Bloodpoint bonus for each unique objective they complete, up to a maximum of 100%.
The four objectives would be:
- Break or bless a totem.
- Contribute a total of 80 charges toward repairing generators.
- Spend a total of 45 seconds in chase with the killer.
- Heal or unhook another survivor.
This would encourage survivors to interact with more parts of the game. A survivor who only hides and repairs generators would earn fewer Bloodpoints than someone who helps the team, takes chase, completes side objectives, and participates in rescues.
Endgame
The Endgame Collapse timer should begin as soon as all generators are completed, and it should initially last five minutes.
When a survivor opens an exit gate, the timer should be reduced to two minutes if more than two minutes remain. If less than two minutes remain, the timer should continue normally.
When the killer opens an exit gate, the timer should be reduced to one minute and thirty seconds if more time remains. If less than one minute and thirty seconds remain, the timer should continue normally.
Any perk that normally activates when an exit gate is opened should be disabled if the killer opens the gate.
The basekit Endurance duration after being unhooked should also be reduced from 15 seconds to five seconds during the endgame.
When only one survivor remains alive, that survivor should open exit gates 50% faster.
Downed Survivors
After 15 seconds, when only two survivors remain alive, they should be able to fully recover from the dying state without assistance. This would discourage killers from leaving both survivors slugged on the ground.
Hatch
When the hatch appears, every unopened chest on the map should close. The first chest opened after the hatch appears should contain a key.
Overall Goal
Overall, these changes would push both sides toward healthier gameplay. Killers would be rewarded for spreading hooks and remaining active around the map, while survivors would be rewarded for doing more than simply rushing generators.
The goal is not to make one side stronger by default. The goal is to make matches less repetitive and reduce situations in which one side loses too much pressure too early.
Comments
These changes are healthy, but there would need to be softlocks around tunneling/slugging outside of that, because this doesn't stop killers tunneling just incentivises not-tunneling (not by making tunneling less efficient but making not tunneling more efficient, which isn't enough because the huge gap when it comes between 1v4 and 1v3 so some or even most might still choose to tunnel to ensure the win and would still be eligible for the bp bonus ect).
Honestly, basekit DS, UB and maybe even a Basekit off the record would be good changes to move in the correct direction with these changes also in mind. Outside of that someone suggested in another comment about an invisibility+incorporeal form sort of thing for like 10s after unhook. Cant body block, can't do actions, but can get away. Stuff like this that makes it difficult to tunnel unless your just unlucky/mindless but also can't be used aggressively.
The problem with creating a soft lock against tunneling is that it would not work. As you said, the advantage of turning the match into a 1v3 is simply too significant.
There are only two realistic ways to change the tunneling mindset. The first is to punish tunneling as much as possible. However, the 9.2 and 9.3 PTBs showed that this approach does not work well, because survivors can weaponize those systems and make the game frustrating for killers.
The second option is to give killers stronger rewards for hooking different survivors. This could include additional Bloodpoints, such as 2,000 Bloodpoints for each unique “golden hook,” or killer-specific benefits similar to what the developers attempted in the 9.2 PTB.
Obviously, the second option is better, but it would require a lot of development time and effort. The developers are unlikely to invest that much work into it, so there is no simple way to create an effective soft lock against tunneling.
The thing with tunneling is that it will always exist as long as the eventual result is the survivor dies. We can do things like add protections to survivors to help them off hook and give killers bonuses to unique hooks so they are rewarded for not chasing the same target repeatedly. But the community at large just needs to recognize that tunneling is just a part of the game.
I'd rather add things to change up gameplay rather than punish a side for performing well. I won't go into it here, but suffice it to say, I'm waiting for those modding tools BHVR promised us with bated breath, because I've got ideas.
Hook grabs should also return because they make hook rescues feel dangerous instead of turning them into nearly free trades.There were two problems with hook grabs and the game is much better off without them
1: Ping - going from healthy and about to rescue expecting nothing more than an injury, to picked up and the other survivor still on hook, was way too powerful of an effect especially given the impact a bad connection from the killer could have on it
2: The click game - the killer just standing behind the survivor as they click on and off trying to bait a swing was just awful.
Generators - the comeback mechanic for the killer seems far more complicated than its worth. I'm not opposed to the idea, but I think the game needs a simpler, more straightforward 'catch up' mechanic if it goes that route.
Limiting healing - no, survivors already have built into 'you'll run out of this' mechanic in the form of pallets and items. Right now both sides have a good incentive on when they need to move from just defense to offense, a change like this would take the game back to the Overbine era where it becomes attack/defend.
Make healing take longer after a lot of heals? Maybe, if we're talking larger changes. but healing is such a base mechanic of the game that eliminating it entirely causes way too many problems.
Boons - not as big an issue given the numbers you provide, but also why? In the vast majority of matches this would never come up, the only one I could think of is laying down exponential against a slugging killer, and encouraging slugging killers is not healthy gameplay.
EGC Timer - I've always advocated for it beginning when the fifth gen completes. The rest of the changes seem unnecessary.
I don't really have an opinion on the BP ideas as I don't care about them at all, except for the idea of giving a bonus to survivors for doing totems. In many matches cleansing a totem has no merit and just a time waste. This creates a split in the player base, with some playing to maximize points and others just to get escapes. That makes things like balance much harder.
You want gens to slowdown if the killer has 5 hooks at 2 gens? Five hooks is two people on death hook and one with one hook. Why do they get that, exactly? That's the game progressing normally. And going by charges instead of completed gens means there could be zero gens done with all gens having some progress. Why on earth should survivors get a debuff with no gens completed?
Giving killers the BBQ BP bonus back is fine but why take BP for unhooking away from survivors? It's just BP. It doesn't hurt anything.
Hook grabs should never come back unless we also change it so a survivor being in the anti-camp range doesn't make the bar stop progressing. If the killer wants to stand behind you and wait for you to unhook so they can grab you, the meter should keep progressing.
Nerfing boons, which are already painfully mid, is a wild thing to want.
Your idea of making the game "more interesting" seems to be making killers get at least a 3k by default unless they are abysmally bad at the game. I'd never play survivor again if the game looked like this, especially since you have punishments for survivors just for touching gens and not a single bit of anti-cheese for killers. It's just a bunch of survivor nerfs with a bigger chance of one person getting out.
Every time a self-declared killer-main posts their laundry list for 'game health' changes, it's always like:
For Killer:
Nerf gens
Nerf healing
Nerf exhaustion
Buff camping
Buff tunnelling
Buff endgame
Buff slugging
For Survivor:
Add tooltips
Watch tutorials
5% more BP
1m anti-camp radius increase
"I think I'm being impartial and these would be good and fair changes on both sides."
Almost every suggestion here is a massive baseline killer buff, while the beneficial changes for survivors are limited to lost games/the hatch only.
Yeah but did you know you might get the hatch? Some matches will only be 3ks. Be grateful that there's a key somewhere on the map that you might find in time.
I'm genuinely starting to wonder if people think the game should be designed around the killer winning every match and the goal for survivors being maybe one final girl type of escape and some points.
Terrible.
The hooks you're just asking for reversions of previous changes made. And why remove safe hook score events without compensating for it?
The generator section is heavy-handed and hard to understand let alone implement.
As for limiting survivor healing actions that's not a good solution, the healing perks should be be focused on instead of that. For boons I'd like to see it take longer to set subsequent boons, i.e. 1st: 14s, 2nd 19s, 3rd 24s, etc., because then it gives survivors a dynamic choice of whether or not to waste time resetting boons rather than just a boring limit.
The survivor bloodpoint section is already how the base game blood points system works. Just make the score events larger rather than complicating things with a multiplier. And cleansing a dull totem is already too rewarding BP-wise. I'd like to see a BP score floor implemented for cases where survivors get eliminated early by a hard tunnel. Nothing sucks worse than burning a cake to only get <10k on the scoreboard. I think that floor should be 15k BP.
For EGC I agree that base kit BT should be reduced to 8 seconds or maybe less once the gates are powered. As for the rest of your EGC changes they just complicate the game for no benefit.
The rest is crap too. Thanks for posting.
Could've damn well fooled me.
You're giving killers hooks that survivor need to respond to faster, but you're also reducing their ability to respond by reinstating hook-grabs. This is a double buff to camping, as it takes less time to camp and is harder to counter.
Then your hook-spread incentive is to kick survivors in the teeth for not dying and slapping them with gens that would take ONE-HUNDRED-AND-THIRTY-TWO seconds, along with a colossal regression buff. Ideal scenario is to tunnel one or two to death hook and tunnel them out the instant this kicks in so you get to tunnel and benefit from the 'you did not tunnel' award.
Then you also make it so that any survivor that's been injured six times becomes perma-broken. Pretty random buff, but okay.
Then you're also adding an extra timer to EGC, AND shortening the timer if the killer opens the gate, which I think can make it physically impossible to open a gate in time with certain strategies. (Trap + No Way Out + Remember Me. No Way Out might actually be able to do it by itself though.)
Then there's a random drive-by nerf to boons, which haven't seen relevance since CoH copped its umpteenth nerf.
And a nerf to unhook protection in end-game.
And in exchange, you offer the side that is currently weaker:
When there's only two survivors left and one is downed, that person can get up by themselves. (Basically means the killer is less likely to stall out a loss for survivors)
When the hatch spawns, survivors can get a key.
So there's multiple, huge swings in favour of the killers' winrate, but survivors' losses are made a little less annoying. How do you see this match with:
Because these two things do not rhyme, not even remotely.
When i say softlock, I mean doing everything possible to stop tunneling outside of outright making it impossible (Such as, making it waste the killers time, be innefficient and balance around the more efficient option (which would end up being not tunneling)).
My examples would be both incentivising hooking other survivors AND implementing like a 10s incorporeal form where survivors cant do anything but also cant be seen/heard. On top of this, maybe boost their speed, whilst slowing the unhooker a tiny bit making them an easier target. This would be what I do.
Altruism gets me killed enough that going in with the goal of sandbagging might be interesting. Killer's chasing me and another survivor? Well here's a pallet to the face Mikaela - Tae-young out!
I'd actually argue that giving basekit unbreakable in 2v1 makes it MORE likely killers will stall out the match, and would stall it out for longer. Why would they not leave the injured one on the ground and keep searching as before? Still prevents the hatch from spawning, and they have a general idea where a survivor is, plus the knowledge that they're injured and so easier to track and find, while also unless there's only one gen left that's at like 80%, not threatening to make the killer lose. Even moreso if the other survivor is healthy, as waiting to kill one until both are injured makes it easier to find the other and limits how much distance they can cover when chased. Or sit on top of/W-S them until they can get an abandon and let a bot take over who they don't care if the bot finds the hatch or escapes, or wait for the bleedout if the survivor goes fully AFK.
Basekit Unbreakable in the 2v1 has never been a solution to the fundamental issues with the hatch. All it would end up doing is putting BOTH survivors into the ######### hiding/slugged loop as the killer ping pongs between them until one abandons.
The hatch should spawn if one of the last 2 has been slugged for 30s. That would make slugging for the 4k an actual risk instead of a free victory, since both players could potentially leave through it if the standing one picks up the slug. The hooking would likely guarantee the 3k and a normal, gamplay-intended chance of a 4k, but slugging could result in a 2 out.
@cogsturning
If you read the ideas I suggested, I included catch-up mechanics for both sides.
For killers, if the survivors have completed 60% or more of their objective while the killer has completed less than 50% of theirs, the killer would receive a generator slowdown effect. However, every time the killer regresses a generator, the slowdown on that generator becomes weaker.
This would mean killers would not need to run only slowdown perks and could use more interesting builds. Again, this mechanic would only activate if the killer has completed less than 50% of their objective while the survivors have completed at least 60% of theirs.
For survivors, if only two or fewer survivors remain, they would repair generators faster, giving them a better chance to escape.
I do not want to remove the Bloodpoints awarded for unhooking survivors. I only want the “Safe Hook Rescue” event removed because it feels pointless now that unhooked survivors receive 15 seconds of Endurance.
Does it make sense to reward someone for making a bad decision simply because the game prevents that decision from being punished?
They could keep the event, but if the survivor you rescued is hit at any point during those 15 seconds, you should lose the Safe Hook Rescue bonus.
The only reason I suggested bringing back hook grabs is that survivors should not be able to run directly in front of the killer and unhook someone without taking a significant risk.
If you dislike that idea and still want hook trades to remain possible, another option would be to make the rescuer Exposed for two seconds after unhooking while inside the killer’s Terror Radius. That would give the killer enough time to land one hit and trade the hook.
Regarding limited actions, the average survivor should not need to bless the same totem more than three times in a single match.
The healing limit is intended to help weaker killers who need two hits to down a survivor or rely on hit-and-run tactics. Realistically, an average survivor would not normally need to complete six full heals during a match.
These limits are mainly intended to counter bully squads and, in extreme cases, help the weakest killers.
@Firellius
In that ideal scenario, the killer would need to complete four full chases against two survivors and then one chase against another survivor.
If we assume that it takes the killer 30 seconds to find the first survivor and an average of 30 seconds for each chase, the match would already be around the three-minute mark. That is assuming the killer is extremely efficient.
An average Dead by Daylight match lasts around five to eight minutes, which means the survivors should have completed at least three generators by the time the killer reaches five hooks.
Therefore, the slowdown would not affect survivors in the ideal scenario. It would mainly help killers who cannot secure downs quickly enough or killers who require time to set up their power.
Regarding the Endgame Collapse, I will admit that I did not explain my idea clearly enough.
When I said, “Any perk that normally activates when an exit gate is opened should be disabled if the killer opens the gate,” I meant any perk that activates through or interacts with the exit gates in any way.
It's not 60% of their objective unless 3 gens are complete. You said charges, which could be on 7 different gens with 0 gens complete. And then regress builds could make those charges regress. The free slowdown being weaker means it still exists. The killer can intentionally avoid using pain res until they hit this point, get 4 regression events (and probably a person or two killed) and still be receiving this free slowdown.
A 40% gen speed buff with 2 people left but with more than one gen left is still going to be a 3k, at least. It's not a catch up if winning is impossible.
Sure because it's free now. And no one needs to bring slowdown. They choose to.
If people unhook in the killers face it's almost always a trade. With a ranged killer it could be a double down. The killer could also choose to slug the unhooker and tunnel the unhooked, massively increasing pressure. It's plenty risky already.
Make Your Choice already exists and there's a reason it's outside 32m and not within 32m. There's no reason at all to do this. This would, as I already mentioned, lead to killers slugging then tunneling. It already happens a lot. It will just increase.
But why? Boons are not meta. They're not OP. And they're a time waster. I'd rather survivors bless a totem than do a gen.
Can't remember the last time I felt bullied in this game. This is mostly a baby issue, and goes away with time. If you want healing to be an issue there's a plethora of perks for that. You're asking for tons of perks-level buffs to be basekit for killers while all survivors get is a slight chance at a 1 out. No anti-camp, tunnel, or slug. Just killer buffs in a game that already favors killer.
Realistically, in what situation would survivors spread 270 charges across all seven generators? That would mean every generator had roughly 38–40 charges of progress.
Based on your concern, the more logical scenario would be for survivors to complete one generator and spread the remaining progress across three other generators. In that case, each of those three generators would have around 60 charges of progress. The moment the slowdown ends, all three generators could be completed very quickly.
Please define what you consider a survivor win, because I think you may have the wrong idea of what winning means for survivors.
No, unhooking directly in front of the killer is not always a simple trade. Survivors can body-block, use defensive perks offensively to force the killer into a lose-lose situation.
Yes, Make Your Choice exists, but my suggestion has nothing to do with that perk. The purpose of my suggestion is to make sure that a bad decision can be punished, just as survivors expect killers to be punished when they make bad decisions.
I am glad that, in your personal experience, you cannot remember the last time you felt bullied in this game. However, we both know that it happens, and it can be extremely unpleasant when you are on the receiving end of it.
Now tell me: what do you consider camping? There is already a basekit anti-camp system that prevents camping from being effective. Do you want the killer to be teleported to the other side of the map after hooking a survivor, or perhaps prevent them from coming within 32 metres of the hook?
Regarding tunnelling, my changes would reward killers for hooking different survivors and slow the game down overall, reducing the pressure to eliminate one survivor as quickly as possible.
We both know (or at least I assume we do) that if a killer is determined to tunnel, they will do it. There is very little a survivor can do besides wasting as much of the killer’s time as possible and trying to make that strategy cost them the match.
That situation is frustrating, and the only way to completely prevent it would be through a system similar to the anti-tunnelling mechanic tested in the 9.2 PTB.
However, most players do not want to tunnel. Sometimes they feel forced to because of how quickly the match progresses. Instead of forcing killers to play in one very specific way and punishing them even when they did nothing wrong, my suggestion would simply give them a little more time to play the match and reduce some of the pressure and anxiety they experience.
Lastly, you clearly believe slugging is a problem. What solution would you suggest that addresses slugging without unfairly punishing killers?
Not at all.
Remember, all you're arguing for so far is that the killer has fewer than 6 hooks and no one has died yet.
Yes, with absolute optimal play, the killer could aim for five hooks with no kills, but this can also include a killer just hard-tunnelling one person to two hookstates, and then getting rewarded with totally free jumbo-slowdown while tunnelling their initial target to death. In fact, assuming survivor competence, that is what should be happening: The tunnel target should last long enough to buy his team time, and his team should be doing gens to pressure the killers.
So basically, if the survivors make the correct plays, they get rewarded with a 32% gen slowdown.
At minimum, this entire slowdown should evaporate as soon as one survivor dies, otherwise this is a huge, HUGE boost and incentive to tunnelling.
Can you tell me why survivors deserve a debuff simply for working on (and, again, not necessarily completing) generators when you're not offering anything for the opposite scenario? You've basically inverted the anti-tunnel from the ptb. Why don't survivors get a buff if someone is dead before some amount of gens are done? Survivor is already the role that has almost no comeback potential, unlike killer, who can win in endgame with zero hooks. So you want to drastically increase that potential and give the role that already lacks it nothing?
Again, if you think one person maybe escaping is a great scenario I don't know what to say. I would not play that game as either role honestly. I don't want killer to be the game that I just log on and win even when I play like crap.
What aspect of the game punishes killers for mistakes to the extent of basekit Exposed? Killers get bloodlust for being bad at chase. They get windows blocked after three vaults.
So you want the whole game changed because sometimes new players get put through the ringer?
Standing just outside the anti-camp and watching the hook, waiting to zoom back, is camping. The basekit anti-camp is weak. As it is, if you down someone trying to unhook, the slug keeps the meter from going up. You can facecamp and wait for them to die if the slug doesn't drag themself out of range in time.
Yes, if the killer is determined to tunnel, they will. But your throwing out a debuff to survivors for doing their objective too efficiently, so why not one for killers too? The type of tunneling where people feel forced isn't the issue, it's tunneling at 5 gens to secure an easy win. The anti-tunnel in the ptb wouldn't have heavily impacted desperation tunnelers because at that point the inability to regress gens no longer matters. You're probably losing either way. Rewards aren't going to stop people. There are already people who load up intending to 4man slug and get little BP. The people that are the issue are the ones obsessed with winning and will do so at any cost. Removing someone from the match immediately is already a better reward than anyone can give them. There would have to be something that makes it a risk instead of an instawin.
If the answer to slugging was easy it'd be fixed. After some amount of time on the ground survivors should be able to stand up. The amount of time is the issue. Whatever it is, it should increase with each subsequent slug. Nerfing or reworking perks that are being abused in slugging builds, like Coulrophobia and Infectious Fright, would also help. I don't actually have a problem with normal, tactical slugging. I do it all the time. I have a problem with it being a whole playstyle. It's an attempt to circumvent the entire intended game structure and it's very hard to counter, especially in soloq, and especially since people don't see it coming.
But you want to punish survivors for doing nothing wrong. This gen speed debuff is very much a punishment for doing not even great, but just okay. You said the average game lasts 5-8 mins. I don't know where you got that number from but my normal matches last about 10-15 minutes. Looking through my recent matches, these are the low number ones:
Three 4k at 5 gen stomps so severe I didn't even crack 30k. So what do you suggest as basekit for these survivors to "give them a little more time to play the match and reduce some of the pressure and anxiety they experience' as you said.
@Firellius
I am fairly sure you did not read what I wrote, so let me clarify it.
The slowdown only activates if all three of the following conditions are met at the same time:
If even one of those conditions is not met, there is no slowdown.
Additionally, every regression event applied to a generator reduces that generator’s slowdown by four percentage points. This means the slowdown becomes weaker over time as the killer attempts to defend the generators.
If a killer tunnels one survivor and completes five chases, the other survivors should still be able to complete roughly three to four generators’ worth of progress before that survivor dies. At that point, the remaining survivors should still have a strong chance of escaping.
@cogsturning
This is not intended as a punishment for survivors. It is meant to help weaker killers catch up when the survivors are progressing too quickly.
The game is currently in a state where generators can be completed extremely fast. Survivors have many perks and items that increase repair efficiency. This slowdown would only help bridge the gap so both sides have enough time to participate in the match.
In my original post, I also gave survivors a comeback mechanic. It simply activates during a 2v1 rather than a 3v1.
What would you suggest instead? Would you give the killer a comeback mechanic during a 4v1 and then give survivors comeback mechanics during both a 3v1 and a 2v1? Or do you believe killers should not receive any comeback mechanic while survivors should receive one in both situations?
The claim that survivors have almost no comeback potential is false. Survivors can still win through strong chases. If a survivor reads the killer correctly and plays loops well, they can buy more than enough time for the team to escape.
The real problem is the sunk-cost mentality. When generators are completed quickly and the killer has already invested a large amount of time chasing one survivor who still has many resources available, the killer may feel forced to continue tunnelling that survivor to justify the time already spent.
However, if a mechanic reduces that pressure, the killer may be more willing to abandon the chase and pursue someone else. The purpose of this system is to help the average killer make that decision.
Bloodlust exists because of poor map design. You know that some loops require Bloodlust for many killers to have any realistic chance of catching the survivor. Even then, the killer immediately loses Bloodlust when they break a pallet or use most killer powers.
Blocked windows exist for a similar reason: to prevent infinite loops. If survivors had no limit on how many times they could vault the same window, certain loops would become impossible to counter, even with Bloodlust.
These are not comeback mechanics for killers. They are necessary systems that allow the game to function.
Let me make sure I understand your position on camping. If the killer remains near the general area of the hook, patrols nearby generators, watches the hook, or does anything else you consider camping, survivors still have several options.
They can coordinate a rescue and give the unhooked survivor time to reach the nearest loop. Alternatively, they can focus on generators and punish the killer for remaining near the hook.
Those options already exist in the current version of Dead by Daylight. However, I assume you do not consider them sufficient and would prefer the killer to be forcibly teleported away from the hook.
Under my proposed system, survivors could still make the same choices. Repairing generators while the slowdown is active would take longer, but they could still build significant progress. Once the slowdown deactivates, those generators could already be close to completion.
Again, players who enter a match intending to tunnel someone from five generators will always exist. You cannot completely prevent that behaviour without also punishing killers who are playing normally.
I agree with your final point. Some players enter a match intending to slug all four survivors while earning very few Bloodpoints, just as some survivor groups enter a match intending to bully the killer.
It is difficult to prevent either behaviour without negatively affecting normal players. The better approach is to provide meaningful rewards for not playing that way.
And I fully understand what you wrote. The problem is:
If a killer decides to tunnel the first person he sees, but does not manage to kill them before the other survivors clear as many charges, then he is rewarded for it with a 32% slowdown.
Imagine he gets the second hook on that initial tunnel target when there's 240 charges done. That's 80 seconds of work if the other three survivors split up and just did work.
What are the survivors now supposed to do? If they continue doing gens, they'll be giving the killer 'forever Freddy' levels of slowdown. If they hold off and just sit around, the last survivor will die and there'll be a 3v1 which heavily, heavily advantages the killer.
From the killer's perspective, this is worse, because if you decide to just hard-focus one person, not only are you very quickly steering the game towards a 3v1, which is massively advantageous to you, you're also guaranteed very heavy slowdown if you fail to do so quickly, with a chance for getting both at the same time if they happen to finish that 270th charge, just before you death hook your tunnel target.
With this idea hard-punishing survivors for doing gens at the start of the match, why not hard-focus one target and leave the others completely unpressured? The only thing they can do is gens, which this suggestion would punish them for. This change would very aggressively tell killers to tunnel more.
This is getting pretty repetitive. If a killer character is drasically weaker, they should be buffed or reworked. If a player is weaker, that should be addressed through matchmaking or through them improving. I didn't actually say I think survivors need a comeback system. All I've said is that killer already has a good chance to comeback as is and survivor doesn't. A smart killer isn't going to have a match in the bag and suddenly ego chase someone and lose. If all four survivors have 2 hooks at 5 gens up 3 or 4 are going to die. There's no coming back from that.
You're propsing a system that could give killers who have 5 hooks at possibly no gens done—which is a winning trajectory—some free slowdown. What I'd like you to tell me is what survivors in a similar situation get that's parallel to that, because you're only suggesting a true catch up for one side. If it's down to a 2v1 and there's at least two gens left the game is over even qirh a repair buff. I can already bring a key and try to get hatch for such a scenario. You're not improving anything about the game for survivors with the chance of a one out.
You're saying it's to give the killer more time to play but it isn't. It's to give them more time to win. You don't seem to care if survivors have a 5 min match when they lose, only when they win.
@Firellius
I understand the point you are making and your concerns. The best addition I can make to the original idea is this: if one survivor dies before any other survivor has been hooked, all remaining survivors gain a 40% repair-speed bonus. Any stronger mechanic than that could probably be abused.
@cogsturning
We both know that the developers do not have a good record when it comes to buffing or reworking weak killers. They gave Ghost Face only two additional seconds of his power, gave Doctor a 0.5-second improvement, and we are still waiting for the Skull Merchant rework.
The scenario you keep bringing up is unrealistic. No normal match will have 270 charges of generator progress evenly spread across all seven generators.
If all four survivors have reached two hook stages while five generators still remain, then matchmaking has once again done a terrible job by pairing weak survivors against a strong killer, or the survivors have made nothing but mistakes. In either case, matchmaking needs to change because it currently prioritizes finding matches quickly over creating fair matches.
Survivors need a comeback mechanic when only two of them remain. If they have not already completed three generators by themselves, they may still be able to finish the final generator.
However, when more than one generator remains and only two survivors are alive, they could play slowly and carefully. With the repair-speed bonus, they could complete a generator in around 64 seconds, even without any additional perks or items.
Survivors are at their strongest when all four are alive. When three remain, they lose some strength, but the match is still manageable. That is the reality, unless you are arguing that survivors automatically lose the moment one teammate dies.
Yes, you can bring a key and try to escape through the hatch, but neither you nor the other survivors normally enter a match expecting to lose and become the final survivor.
You bring a flashlight to make saves and possibly waste the killer’s time. You bring a toolbox to repair generators faster or sabotage hooks. You bring a med-kit to heal yourself. You are not going to choose a key over every other item simply because you might eventually need the hatch, and you know that.
When the developers increased pallet density, did they do it simply to make survivors win, or did they do it to give survivors more time to enjoy chases and participate in the match?
The slowdown I am proposing follows the same logic. It is not intended to guarantee killers a win. It is intended to give weaker killers more time to use their powers, participate in the match, and enjoy the game.
The fact is that within your idea is the possibility of two survivors on death hook with no gens done and the survivors getting debuffed. You seem unwilling to just say "at 3 gens done" and that feels pretty intentional. It also should be 3 gens done with no hooks, not 5 hooks. 5 hooks isn't a bad number to be at mid match. That's just normal mass progression.
Just got out of yet another match like this. One of the survivors had 6k hours so it wasnt a baby lobby but if the reason is "that's matchmaking" then why do you want global survivor debuffs in-match instead of better matchmaking? If the reason is "they made mistakes" well then, so did the killer in your scenario.
Do I? Becuase I bring a key into my matches. It has multiple uses but it's a last ditch option as well. And one of my SWF mates can pick it up if I die. Between a key and a hatch offering we usually get someone out of hopeless matches.
The difference between completing three generators and completing 270 total generator charges is:
Before you bring up the unrealistic scenario of survivors spreading 270 charges across all seven generators again, the worst realistic scenario for survivors would be completing one generator and spreading the remaining progress across three other generators. In that case, each of those three generators would have around 60 charges of progress.
The developers have made it clear that they are satisfied with the current matchmaking system and do not intend to change it. In an ideal version of Dead by Daylight, players would be able to choose between faster matchmaking and more skill-based matchmaking, but the developers will probably never add that option.
I am glad that you and your friend find value in keys. However, keys remain one of the least-picked and least-used survivor items in the game, and most players do not choose them.
Not sure where you got your info from but the MMR rework is still in the works. Mandy just mentioned it the other day.
Try to keep the conversation focused on the ideas in the post.
As for matchmaking, even if the developers make some changes—and do not abandon them like many other things they have said they were working on—they are not going to separate matchmaking into ranked and casual modes, nor should they.
They are also unlikely to make matchmaking prioritize anything other than how quickly players can find a match. Overall, it will probably not change in any meaningful way.