This game needs an extreme high skill ceiling and floor killer
Too many people and players on both sides whine about "its boring to play against OP killers" and also "it sucks getting 0K, buff my killer" folks. I play both roles and I enjoy killer more than survivor, but I queue survivor more due to queue times. I come from a competitive FPS background (valorant, CS2, Overwatch, Rivals, Rainbowsix) so here's my thoughts
- The killer needs to aim
- The killer needs to be able to express skill shots
- The killer needs CLEAR signals and telegraphs of their attacks so once you get hit or downed by a survivor, you think "Yeah, that was fair. I got out played"
- The killer needs to be able to be OUT played and not just the pallet game
I personally find that all the killers in this game do not meet these 4 criteria, not all of them anyways, except Wesker and the gunslinger. Getting owned by a gunslinger or wesker feels very fair and "low salt". I find that the huntress is pretty close, but her random bullshit axes that fly in the air just don't make sense as a player. The nurse is basically the complete opposite of fair. A really good nurse means the game is solved, and you can't win a chase.
Killers like Krasue, broken trickster (knife spam era), Michael, etc are oppressive, offer no counter play, and really is boring to play against. Same with the kaneki. Failures of balanced game design. I get that this isn't an eSport and survivors have an approximate 40%~ escape rate which says everything already. If you want to expand the audience on this game, you need some resemblance to balance and expression of player skill in the game. Otherwise it's just some meme game.
I don't want to write a giant wall of text or a thesis, so I am deliberately leaving it short and ending my post here. I would like to hear what you think the direction of the game should go forward or if it should just perpetually stay in this "casual 1v4" area with new licensed killers being oppressive cause $$$$.
Comments
Looping and mind games are skill expression.
I think that a killer like this would be good, but hard to stick. It’s why deathslinger has a relatively low playrate
henry exists he does all the things thay you laid out and he was nerfed for some reason after launch
It's very telling to me that you think that trickster and myers have "no counter play"
It's kind of hard in a game where killers have such drastically different kits on such drastically different maps with such random matchmaking on top. Some killers also work way better on kbm than controller, and a higher skill floor will make that worse. I don't have any trouble on controller with shooters but ranged killers are mostly not worth the learning curve for me in dbd.
I agree about Deathslinger being top in skill expression though. I actually just don't think the average person wants to express skill. If they did, Ghoul wouldn't be so popular. My problem isn't so much that the game is all over the place, it's the high value a lot of killer players place on winning in a game that's as inconsistent as it is.
Vecna 2/Henry has to be one of the worst designed killers in the game. There is hardly any skill needed, just spam M2 until you win. I can't imagine many survivors enjoy playing against him.
Kaneki is probably the closest thing we got to a low skill floor and high skill ceiling. His reputation though makes many people completely overlook the stuff youre able to do which really is a shame since Ive seen good Kaneki's, and it really is impressive the stuff theyre able to pull off.
Reminds me of Billy before his initial rework back in 2020. His reputation wasnt great and many people actually played him very similarly to current Kaneki. Use saw to close distance, and then use insta saw to chew through pallets until he was close enough to back rev. This was made very effective as well when using Enduring since his charge time wouldnt reset its progress when stunned, so he could walk through the pallet and if he got stunned he'd just immediately continue the rev and break the pallet instantly. That being said once in a blue moon you would go against someone who knew how to curve or do sky billy and space billy. They just weren't as recognized because of his poor reputation
Notice how I said Knife Spam era?
Guess not.
First has nothing to do with skill expression, he's all about guessing and lucky shots.
I have 150 hours on Henry. I've never had so many 0-3 hook endgames on any other killer. Good survivors can thrash an average Henry. He's extremely juicable.
trickster was trash then and is trash now.
why are you always downvoted to oblivion? I always love seeing your comments lmaooo
spamming is exactly how you lose
I both agree and disagree.
You're focused very much on the micro game play. Against certain killers the survivors have to play much more of a macro game - chases won't be long, so they have to push gens and save at the right time.
Ideally I think its healthy when both elements of the game are encouraged on both sides, which is why I think the killers you list are good examples of healthy gameplay. So I agree in the sense that the micro gameplay should have clearer skill elements on both sides for most of the killers, but the macro gameplay is an important part of how the game is designed.
I can't see dbd ever being a proper competitive game. 10 years worth of spaghetti code, mechanic and perk bloat makes for a an interesting experience but not a balanced one.
The game balance has and probably will always be a mess. It'll certainly never reach the same level of competitiveness and esports like your examples. It'll always be a wonky casual sort of game. And there's nothing wrong with that, the asymmetric multiplayer vibe is unusual and a nice change of pace from pitched halo/cod style pvp.
I agree.
I'm so incredibly bored of the likes of Dracula, Ghoul, Krasue, Vecna and Jason. Nothing feels rewarding anymore, it's just "let me pumble you with my kit and get my inevitable downs as quick as possible" so people who aren't very good can feel slightly accomplished at winning and being fed 4ks because survivors resources no longer mean anything… and once 1 person is dead, there's too much alteriors to deal with
- 3v1 against Krasue? Similar to Twins where if you have no teammate to help you block hits, you just suffer.
Dracula? Good luck, he gets free map wide traversal and there's nothing to stop him from slugging 1 and hunting the next.
Ghoul is just epitome of low skill floor pub stomp.
Vecna, again the 3v1 situation, tunnel 1 - 3v1 is actually a 2v1 since you have his clocks to deal with too…
Jason, tunnel 1, slug the others since he can traverse the map freely without consequence….
Going out of my mind with how dim-witted DBD is/has become.
Give me a Billy where his kit is strong but punishes him for playing badly, give me Artist, where she has incredible zoning skills but can't mindlessly spam and hope for the best, give me Blight, who is strong BUT has to use game sense and bump logic to initiate a down and is punished when he whiffs by either waiting on his cooldown or something. All these new killers have far too much going for them to back them up when they play badly or don't fully understand every aspect of their kit, and it just… saddens me. I miss when you would be scared of the PERSON playing the killer because they have mastered their kit instead of just being destroyed because the killer has 20 rpgs and a tactical nuke in his back pocket ticking down waiting to go off LMAO.
And uhhh what exactly is that killer? It's fine to claim those things but you provide no implementation details. How do you actually draw the lines of this outside of "Bhvr please make a fun, high skill killer, that's not annoying, and people love to vs, and isnt OP nor too weak, its so easy come on dude" OP what makes wesker okay but not nurse? You say you like gunslinger but what does that mean…current gunslinger? Would you/did you like the old one with smaller TR and monitor and abuse? All that to say your lines of "this killers cool" can very swiftly change with a few balance notes.
So….. The Hillbilly?
Killers need to aim? While we do have killers with projectiles, this isn't a fps. How do you aim a swing with precision?
Expressing skill with a killer must reward at the level of effort put into developing that skill. Problem being every survivor will/has revolted to this scenario. Killer gets nerfed without reducing the effort to play making the killer not worth playing.
100% to all of your points, ranged killers require the most amount of technical skill but are also the most rewarding. I feel like Cenobite might actually fit all 4 criteria you listed, but maybe I'm just biased. He telegraphs when he is about to spawn a chain by lifting his arm out, survivors can see the portal open about a second before Pinhead can send the chain out, it takes an incredible amount of aim against decent survivors (its the size of a trickster blade with the environment hitbox of a huntress hatchet), and best of all in the current pallet density he is somewhat playable. The entire point of Pinhead's power has become a counter to the 'pallet game,' forcing survivors to prioritize stuns instead of pre-dropping everything and holding W. If you drop too soon, chain. If you drop too late, chain. If you run away too quick and don't dodge, chain. Then there's breaking chains on the environment or teammates bodyblocking chains. Most other survivor players probably won't agree since I get a lot of hate for playing Pinhead, but I find him genuinely fun to face. He's one of the very few killers that has their power completely reliant on survivors' actions, which can be annoying while playing as him. Some smart players will treat the box like Victor and hold it hostage all game until you chase them.
Overall though, the game just feels so stale for me on both sides right now. It has become pallet drop or hold W simulator on survivor, or break pallet and hold W simulator on about every killer. All of the low tier killers are mostly unplayable now thanks to the pallet density, all in the name of making the high tier killers more beatable in solo-queue or casual lobbies. I'm not sure who these changes were designed for, but I don't think it's improved the health of the game or playerbase at all. I am a more casual survivor player who solo queues in 90% of my matches, but I still don't win matches I should because the killer is forced to play dirty at every turn, and the matches I do win feel cheap. Like, finishing all 5 gens before the killer gets 3 hooks is just sad, especially when I can tell they're trying their best and they're not bad at the game. Its just there's nothing they can do if I (a barely decent survivor) knows how to just run around a tile. A lot of the current pallet spawns and loops are incredibly difficult to mind-game or outsmart survivors on. With all this said, I feel like everyone I know who plays this game is the most tilted they've ever been, forced to take a break from it, and not even content creators have much to write home about with the current state of the game.
I think the root of the current uneasy feeling playing the game lately is actually a simple problem. The balancing has to be addressed directly, not by increasing pallets on maps, and not by giving pity buffs to low-tier killers. What they've done has broken the RNG on the majority of maps. Its almost back to 2016 DBD in terms of the ridiculous chains with like 6 pallets all spaced only 10 meters apart on tiles that are sometimes 16 meters wide. It forces any non-ranged killer (even Ghoul or Wesker in some cases) to break each and every one of them if they don't want to bloodlust just for the survivor to drop the closest pallet and make an infinite out of them. Maps that used to be shining examples of balanced RNG like Coal Tower or Wrecker's Yard are now the ninth circle of hell where you have to pray that the game doesn't flip out and spawn half of the map's pallets in a single area rendering any survivor who goes there untouchable for about a 4 minute chase. BHVR needs to just make straight forward balancing decisions, like they did for The Blight, and nerf the top tier killers in meaningful but not overkill ways, and lower the pallet counts on maps simultaneously. This way the top tier of killers is more in balance with the lower tier, without having to make any changes to the vast majority of the killer roster. They also should be going map by map and tightening the RNG to have guaranteed pallets in certain places, making exceptions so that if pallet A spawns then pallet B can't spawn right next to it. Or if tile A spawns here, tile B can't spawn right next to it and create chained window infinites with 4 pallets between them. The devs have gone on record stating they want maps to be a factor in the survivor/killer sided nature of a match, that's fine. But the way it currently is working is basically survivor leaning almost every match, but then practically unwinnable for the killer in at least 1/4 matches.
Something has to change, survivor gameplay is the least engaging its been for me since the busted release Ghoul had, and killer is the most difficult its been in the 3 years I've been playing at least.
Theres Nurse.
Unlike other killers she's 100% reliant on hitting her ability. She also needs to adjust her skillshotk at every usage.
I think you dont even need pallets to mindgame her.
I get in trouble for "wrongthink" but i honestly don't even know what the up/downvotes are, i run an extension on my browser to just hide that kind of garbage on here and reddit and similar sites.
If you want to play an FPS, play an FPS.
I love dbd because it allows for different kinds of skill expression on a macro and a micro level.
Map knowledge, hook save coordination, aiming projectiles, predicting movement, hiding red stain, 180 flicks, flashlight saves, skillchecks and so on.
The game has a lot of ways to express your skill, but they're not always precise mechanical inputs.
We have this already in a fair few cases.
Slinger is pretty much this. You could argue that his telegraph is very short but a good survivor will observe both their own path and Slinger's path and pre-empt the shot before the animation even begins. Slinger has a very high skill ceiling too. However, you could have the best mechanics of anyone in the game and still lose because Slinger's map pressure is so low. 1v1 killer, not 1v4.
Also I'm not sure what you mean by random bullshit axes from Huntress. If you're referring to orbitals, these absolutely can be countered and are skill expression themselves. It requires the huntress player to not only understand their relative distance between their position and intended target, but know exactly how high to arc the axe in order to have it land in the right position. Survivors get a super long-range sound cue when Huntress fully charges a projectile too, so you can often see these coming and keep an eye on the sky.
This game, overall, is better suited staying casual with some opportunities for clip-worthy plays. It's okay for some killers to be easier to pick up, so long as the counterplay to them is in the same realm of difficulty.
It feels kind of like you view anything outside of the skillset from your previous games, i.e comp shooters, to not be skilled gameplay.
Imagine if the only thing that mattered about chess was how cleanly you moved each piece, instead of where you moved them to.
EDIT: People have mentioned Trickster and Myers, but I gotta question you. Krasue has no counterplay? She absolutely does. You can deny her so much pressure with a buddy system. I do agree, however, that I'd prefer Krasue's opening projectile to be moved towards a skill shot with buffs to her infection or head form to compensate.