Killer balance
Can I just talk about something that confuses me? Killer balance.
The devs have said the intended kill rate is around 60%.
According to Bhvr’s stats, the only balanced killers are: Krasue, Vecna, Henry, Twins, Freddy, Sadako, Kaneki, Pinhead and Dredge.
And that doesn’t work. Most killers here are pretty underpowered and just pub stompers (Sadako, Pinhead, Dredge), knowledge checks (Twins, Vecna and Kaneki) or released very strong (Kaneki and Krasue).
Now, because we don’t get much from Bhvr, according to Nightlight, the only balanced killers are: none of them! According to Nightlight, every killer’s kill rate is under 60%, so every killer is underpowered.
The highest is Dracula at 55% and the lowest is Deathslinger with 38%.
Now, if I remember correctly, Nightlight gets it’s data from players who put in the data, usually at high mmr (probably the best place to gather data, where people know what they’re doing) and it shows that the intended kill rate is a literal pipe dream for every killer (at high mmr, gotta say that).
If Bhvr is going to continue with this method of balance, they need to collect data from the right places. Hell, Nightlight is doing their job for them, they can probably just use that! Besides, that’d likely lead to buffs to killer/nerfs to survivor to actually balance the game (or at least try)
Comments
I think BHVR does collect the data. They just don't share it.
Nightlights data is not a clear representaion.
Nightlight is the most consistent data we can get, and represents the people who are actually committed to the game longterm, with knowledge. And it shows that certain killers, once you know what to do, are a one sided stomp. Just look at Sadako, put her against a team that actually understands her, she’s getting a 1K at best.
Bhvr collects from the general player base, which includes the stereotypical solo queue survivors who will throw games. The game should, probably, be balanced around knowing instead of ignorance.
Nightlight is the most consistent data we have access to, but this does not mean that it is actually good data. This is like saying that I am the best Basketball player in my home. Which is true, but does not mean anything.
The Data BHVR gets is way more consistent because they actually have access to the full data. Nightlight does not provide this, nightlight only provides what people want to upload. Saying that BHVR should grab data from nightlight is kind of strange, since apparently you dont understand the difference between BHVRs data (ALL games played) and nightlights data (whatever people decide to upload).
Yes, in BHVR's data (Which is all games) the Kill Rate is probably higher than the Data you are seeing on NightLight. I wouldn't be surprised if the higher tier Killers are actually sitting at 60%+.
I wish people would stop bringing up Nightlight for balancing reasons. A site where 1% of the player base inputs data is not and never will be better than bhvrs own internal data that tracks every match across all platforms.
I think that the data on Nightlight is useful to look at, but unfortunately people like us are a very small minority on this forum. Seeing the average kill rate on Nightlight holding steady at 49% or lower over the last few months should make people pause for thought.
But most forum members here consider Nightlight's data flawed and completely disregard it and to ice the Torte, downvote posts citing it into oblivion.
It's unfortunate.
It's not like BHVR has perfect data either. There are new survivors in the game that don't escape because they have no idea what that the killers they're facing are capable of. Survivors who don't even know how to mend. Survivors who hear a Nurse screech or whatever and just give up seconds into matches. Survivors who let their teammates die on the 1st or 2nd hooks. It all skews the data.
No data is perfect.
Yeah and since when we got some solid data?
All they share is just friction of ig picture just one piece of the puzzle. They share only top 5 in two categories average mmr and top mmr but we dont see the opposite like top 5 worst from each etc. last time we got global data was 2021 (bet you forget it as you do) but now its just top 5 x2 categories for each role which doesnt tell that much in comparison I would say nightlight isnt much worse of a information than what devs gives us like one who has best data gives you one piece from puzzle board and another one gives you whole different but very simular puzzle board thats just it.
So to all nightlight haters here yeah devs gives us like top 5 characters from two categories for both roles and theres 43 killers now so its bit less then 1/8 of a info thats less then 12,5% so we only know the top but whats the bottom then or middle??? We dont know and we can just all guess.
Where knightlight just gives very close data to devs ones, not that accurate but its whole bigger picture and its more close to theirs then any other.
nitelite- whilst imperfect is the only real source us killer/survivors have to see how each individual killer is performing. It is sad that literally any post that references nitelite is downvoted (usually by what I suspect are survivor mains who simply want to nerf killers) (but you did not hear me say that :P).
I was going to say exactly this. Two problems here: 1) Nightlight is not a valid data source; and 2) BHVR share almost no useful or interesting data about game balance
It’s a zero percent valid data source because it’s selective reporting. We have no idea how much bias there is from people who want to report only their wins or only their losses or anything in between. It’s literal garbage data. That’s why references to Nightlight get rightfully downvoted.
Saying Nightlight is the right place for BHVR to collect data shows a complete lack of understanding about how anything works. BHVR has all the data for every bracket, every killer, every player. They're just not showing it to us. People who use Nightlight can just choose to upload their bad matches if they want to keep this very common narrative going. There's also zero indication that they're upper MMR, and even if they were I'm not sure why that matters. Upper MMR isn't made up of lords and princes who decide how the game will be for the peasants below. They don't get any more say than anyone else.
But wow, this community has hit a point of delusional where they think the average player has more knowledge of the game than those that make it.
BHVR excludes any match with a DC from the stats and those are usually killer wins, so the killer rates are likely even higher than what little they show us.
I'm sure the amount and detail of the data they have on every aspect of the game is more than we could possibly imagine.
I don't really buy the 'BHVR has better data' argument. They've been asked, repeatedly ad nauseum, to share their data transparently but refuse to. As @cogsturning pointed out, we also don't know how they are adjusting the values and what they consider 'valid' or 'invalid' data.
Nightlight is, as a result, the best data metric we have. Flawless it is not, but it is far better than the mythical data that may or may not exist and may or may not be skewed due to how it is handled. I'll take flawed data over the possibility of data any day: no god of gaps in this house thank you very much.
I agree that the data can be useful when comparing Killers relative Power. The Killers sitting at High 50% in NightLight data are probably the same Killers that are sitting at 60%+ in BHVR data.
The OP seems to think that Killers need further buffs because the NightLight data is all below 60%. The problem is this is a small subgroup of players and doesn't reflect the larger casual experince.
I can only speculate why BHVR doesn't give us some data from their end. I suspect because Killer is being largely hand held but, that's just my opinion.
Agreed, it doesn't reflect the larger experience. But without stats on that experience, I find it hard not to side with OP. Mind you, I don't particularly like the OP's argument here but without more stable reporting to scrub I don't know how to hold a position against it. It becomes my 'feels' versus their 'feels' and I despise operating on that methodology.
If we had some reason to believe that what BHVR told us was raw data and not altered, I would be more inclined to disagree with OP.
the whole "hand held" argument about anything killer or survivor related just goes nowhere and only works to dmg the arguments about buffing or nerfing survivors/killers/etc b/c it is effectively a straw-man argument or an adhominem attack (depending on the circumstance)
My opinion is that certain Killers probably have a Kill rate well beyond 60% and that's my theory as to why we dont get to see BHVR data.
That's my theory, maybe I'm wrong.
This has not been true for a long time. Their data has massively contradicted Behavior's data in recent stats.
It probably goes both ways to some extent. I do not imagine Ghost Face or Skull Merchant having a high kill rate. Though I do concede that most are probably where they should be or even above. It does strike me as a way for them to avoid people asking questions about why certain killers aren't being buffed/nerfed. I would LOVE to see what Jason's kill rate is right now.
While I don't view Nitelight as official the thing I do disagree is the devs knowing more about the game.
Data wise? Maybe. But not every dev group knows everything about their game, where as players and fans will go the extra mile to know so.
Examples being, some people finding glitches that have been hidden for ages in other games.
Long story short.
The desparity between Kill rates on the classic M1 Killers and the Power Creep newer Killers is probably so wide that it cause a community revolt if BHVR actually showed us what is really going on.
Nightlights representation probably skews to higher skill players though (or at least more experienced players) by definition as they not only need to know about its existence (which is something you would learn about over time) but also have enough care to actually upload their matches to it.
Therefore while i agree that it isn't a representation of the overall balance of the game, i feel it is likely a decent representation of higher level play.
And is precisely why i say the things i do on this forum, because playing the game for thousands of hours, it becomes painfully clear that, i would never stand a chance against an organized comp survivor team without comp rules protecting me.
BHVRs own data often shows pig and sadako as having very high kill rates, and killers like nurse having very low kill rates, with blight often being in the lower half. There is obviously a disparity happening.