What is causing the crazy long killer queue times?
Killer queues times are higher than I can ever remember in the years I’ve been playing this game. 2v8 queue times have always been long for killers, but in this most recent version I’ve been consistently seeing times between 30-40 minutes, way higher than ever before. 1v4 mode killer queue times are also much longer than I’ve ever seen them.
In my personal experience, the killer side doesn’t feel overly easy. I regularly get matched against good survivors who know how to loop and coordinate and most of my matches require a lot of skill and effort to have a decent chance of winning.
On the survivor side, my most frustrating matches aren’t due to killers being overly strong, but regularly getting matched with teammates who are just bad at the game. The average teammate often gets downed very quickly and doesn’t have good game sense to know what to do in certain situations. When I have competent teammates, the matches are almost always enjoyable even if we lose. But it has been this way for me for a long time and that is not something that is new that would explain the increased queue time imbalance.
The overall killer vs survivor balance seems to be in a good spot based on my experience playing both sides, so I don’t know how to explain what’s going on. Has anything fundamentally changed with game balance recently that is making the game less fun and competitive for survivor players? Is it still because of Jason bringing a lot more people than usual to the killer side? Something else entirely?
I’m hoping to get thoughts on what is causing this from people who play both sides regularly and not the divisive “it’s because BHVR hates survivor players” type of comments that aren’t helpful.
Comments
It’s because BHVR hates survivor players. - Thats just it. We got a overbuffed Jason, we have several unneeded nerfs incoming, we have a massive amount of tunneling/slugging issues, we still have to deal with Ghoul as is, we have 2vs8 that splits queues even more, and several people just play killer cause its easy as hell.
Are you basing your comment that killer is “easy as hell” on your own experience? If so, can you share your killer hours played as I’m curious how much experience you have. I was hoping to get some thoughts from people who play both sides regularly to see if they feel like killer is too easy and survivor is too difficult.
For 2v8 it's lack of content or quality content anyway. Apparently they're adding Xeno next time which is like lol. Another killer that people won't play because it's gonna be ######### against turrets everywhere and he isn't exactly engaging to face either. So yeah you get the same killers every game (Oni, Nemesis, Wesker) as survivor.
1v4 solo survivor is a frustrating experience more times than not because *insert reason* (like you said bad teammates/non existent matchmaking) so I guess people don't really want to play unless their friends are on. As for the balance. I uninstalled in June so I'm not following what's going on now but the trend is always complaining about x perk, swf, killer, map, pallet density, etc every day. The game is stale and the constant complaining on socials create a nauseating enviroment.
”whats with the long killer queues”
No one wants to play survivor. Survivor isn’t fun or rewarding to play. More games than not feel like the match was over before it started. Atleast when i play killer i know if i lose its my fault and i played poorly, meanwhile when i play survivor i can and do lose matches through no fault of my own and even if i can outplay the killer my teammates do not. We’re expected to just lose.
If killers had to accept that they were supposed to just lose match after match after match they would quit too. But they’re not expected to lose and whats worse they think they should win 90% of their matches. If they don’t win a match it isn’t because they were out played nah nah nope. It was because of perks, it was because of pallet density. Or whatever new excuse they come up with.
Killer is much easier than survivor that’s for sure. Dbd hasn’t been survivor sided since 2022 and yet we got people talking about how easy it is for survivors. They have no idea how miserable the survivor experience is now. This definitely ain’t the days of Old Dead Hard.
Counter question: So analyzing basic gameplay is now a matter of a fair role time distribution?
Isn't 2v8, the mode with the really long killer queues, considered SURVIVOR sided? 1v4 queues normally go up anytime 2v8 comes around... the only abnormal thing here is the 2v8 queues.
right, im sure behavior hates the majority of thweir userbase and revenue stream. why do poeple think behavior hates one specific portion of their users. this is such an absurd nonsense trope to push over and over and act like its any kind of sensible opinion
I dont think anyone expects an even 50/50 split or anything, just that its not a case of the person claiming 1 role is "easy as hell" has close to 0 time playing said role. Often times the first games people play is against newbies, so if you have very little experience playing one role... it can lead to people assuming thats the average game.
It feels dishonest pointing out queue times during 2v8 and going "see? Clearly it means my side is suffering".
This was taken 2 weeks ago. Theres been no change to balance since it was taken. Events toss a wrench into queue times in general and they also normally fluctuate based off the time of day. Blaming queue times off balance issues would lead one to assume the game goes through vast balance changes everyday between noon and midnight.
Behaviour almost certainly makes most of their money off of the purchase of licensed killers. Of the five most played survivors only Lara is licensed, the top 4 are all free and account for around 27% of survivors played, all with free cosmetics so long as you save up the iri shards. In high mmr none of the top 5 are licensed (mostly noting because these players are more likely to play more and spend more money). Meanwhile, three of the most played killers are licensed and if you want other skins for them you have no option but to pay real money, this becomes 4 of the most played killers for high mmr (15% broad, 22.3% high). I'm not agreeing that behaviour hates survivors but no one has any real evidence for who spends the most money but I would bet its killer and killer cosmetic purchases.
i was talking about que times, not suffering or misery. i didnt complain about it just stated it. why did you just do what you did?
Keep in mind that most used doesnt mean people haven't bought the other characters. People still get drawn to buying licensed survivors if they want the perks right away. You have a point for cosmetics, but even then... alot of people will just use the default or prestige stuff for the licenses.
Its pretty obvious from the history of patches that Bhvr does favor killer over survivor. This is an undeniable fact.
I used to queue up as a solo survivor almost every day, now I just don't play the game all that much unless there is an event mode running. As has been stated, why would I enjoy a match that I lost in the lobby? And it goes beyond that, probably half my matches seem to involve a killer with 100+ ping so you can't even have decent chases (I accept that there is at least some negativity bias in how frequent I feel it was). I truly think at least some of the players saying "most survivors suck" fail to realize how much their bad ping is carrying them and never play survivor to see how bad it would be.
Then we get to tunneling. Now I agree with anyone saying its a valid tactic but if a teammate gets tunneled out quickly enough then I just get stuck in a probably doomed match. The survivor team may not deserve to win but I don't deserve to lose unless I had some hand in the tunnel out. I don't give up but unless the entire survivor team is better than the killer you are just waiting to die, not a fun situation except the rare times you do get out. Too many matches follow the exact pattern: killer got a tunnel out early, I get chased, they drop, down a teammate, repeat until we run out of resources, slug for the 4k, get humped on the ground (thank you abandon system). It takes far more skill from the survivors to counter a tunnel out than it does for the killer to execute. I actually think this is a big part of why many killer players struggle in 2v8, you can't tunnel as easily and they lose their easier win tactic.
On teammates, I personally mostly had decent teammates. Perhaps this has gotten worse more recently and if so I would suspect its because the decent players stopped queuing up solo and SWF'd up. Behaviour has been releasing more strong killers like Jason where it honestly feels like you are not meant to win against them solo unless the killer player themself has a skill issue. If the killer player is good then in order for the survivors to win you need everyone to be absolutely on point, on comms with everyone still good, or the killer has to be playing a lower tier killer. I'm not saying everything is sunshine and rainbows on killer but it's comparatively a much better experience.
I don't think I'm an amazing killer and got pushed to try a weaker killer for a bit, Pig. Unless the survivors were hard sweating, got a heavily survivor sided map, or I played poorly I won. I'm not saying some matches didn't feel like garbage (I vividly remember a match on RPD where the survivors brought two BNPs) but it was far fewer matches than it was on survivor and I had much more control over how things moved forward, even in the bad matches. Stats from last 30 days.
For me it all depends on the time of day. During the morning its about 4+5 minutes, midday its 2-3, and around night time when everyone is home from work/school its pretty much instant killer queues no matter the circumstances.
i cant argue one way or another which part makes the most money, nor does it matter to me. but i feel pretty confident that survivor purchases is not an ignorable quantity for behavior even if it was only half of whatever revenue killers brought in.
Behavior isnt going to go "killers make the most money so we will only focus on that group and not capitilize on the smaller but still significant market"
They are a buisiness, that has to spend alot of money each year to sustain itself. it does not make any buisiness sense for them to not want both player groups to have a good time and so BOTH survivors and killers spend money because if you take away whoever has the smallest cosmetic and character purchases, behaviors revenue and profitibality would likely be in peril. I doubt new game sales are significant enough this far in to its life to sustain its size on its own though i could also be quite wrong.
Im sorry that tone doesnt come across well. I wasnt trying to accuse you of crying... but rather the people who were quick to complain about issues like Jason or Ghoul to explain why there's a change to queue times this week. Somehow they werent an issue 2 weeks ago when I took the picture... but they WERE an issue afew hours before that, lol.
ah ok then i understand now. I give off the wrong tone more often than i would like on any online discussion i have and i come off brasher when im trying to be polite. I hope i didnt seem hostile to you as that was not my intention!
I agree with all of these, we are all ultimately guessing and behaviour wants money from everyone. My concern only comes from the amount of times I have seen the notion that survivors spend more parroted alongside claims that behaviour favors survivors because of it.
What a dick... im jk, im sure its the same for me. I've been on this forum long enough to know that you will have people finding any reasoning to "prove" their favorite side is the underdog. This thread almost felt like bait for it since 2v8 mode ALWAYS does this to queues, but alot of people are pretending this week with 2v8 ISNT causing an anomaly that doesnt reflect things any other time.
Have fun collecting downvotes BTW, lol.
Im pretty sure when ppl say survivors spend more, they arnt talking the individual players. Theres 4 times more survivors, so you can expect 4 times more survivor spending if everyone is spending equally.
I just want to know if you play killer and if so, how many hours you have. I’m not trying to analyze your gameplay
1: Even if both sides were exactly equal in appeal, the 80/20 split requires substantially more survivors than killers.
Okay, that's always been true, what's changed?
2: Play while you wait allows a lot of players who are okay playing either side, or want to play killer but will play survivor if the wait is too long, to throw their hat in the killer queue. This substantially increases the amount of people on the killer side.
3: The above is compounded by 2v8, because the one saving grave of queue times is that SWFs in 1v4 can only play survivor. Now that duos, the most common form of SWF, can also queue into killer, you're getting a lot more people in the killer queue than normal.
4: This is again compounded on that survivor has less variety than killer, but people get to play it far more frequently than killer, making survivors burn out quicker.
Basically - survivor has to be much, much more appealing than killer to keep queue times reasonable. Play while you wait has (as some of us predicted), made it much worse because the huge reason most people played survivor, the wait time, doesn't exist anymore. You need a lot of people playing survivor, and only survivor, in comparison to those in the killer queue to keep times reasonable.
This is why I specifically said in my original post that I wanted to hear from people who play both sides. These kind of divisive comments that usually come from people who only play one side aren’t helpful at all and are purely to stir up “us vs them” tribalism.
I want to hear from people who have a balanced perspective from both sides to minimize bias and try to understand if my viewpoint is an outlier or if others feel the same way that the killer vs survivor balance really hasn’t changed much recently which is why it’s puzzling that the killer queue times have all of a sudden increased significantly
I had only seen very short killer queue times like that in 1v4 mode and only during peak evening times like 9-12 pm. But in 1v4 I also noticed that during off-peak times killer queues that used to be 2-3 minutes are now more like 7-8 minutes. 2v8 killer queue times are way longer than I’ve ever seen them. I’ve seen other comments about this across the community as well so I know it’s not just me.
after reading my message, i can see an issue with how i was communicating. the way i wrote my last sentence seemed insulting to you and i wasnt trying to insult you. and i also failed as i do quite often to make it clear i was talking generally and not pointed to you. im trying to catch myself doing that but when i first write it i am only seeing things in how i see it and dont see how it comes off. So i am sorry for being rude to you there
I’m sorry too I think I was also not clear I my response to you! I saw your response to someone else’s post and I was just pointing out that their response was not helpful. My response wasn’t aimed at you - sorry for the confusion! We’re good 😊
I disagree - I think a majority of their revenue comes from survivor cosmetics. Unfortunately there’s no way to know for sure, but I’m just basing this on the fact that there are always more survivor players than killer players and there are typically a lot more cosmetics available for survivors than killers
The comment about “play while you wait” doesn’t make sense to me. If the killer queues are long, play while you wait is only going to be taking people out of killer queues and putting them in the survivor queues, not the other way around. I don’t see how play while you wait would make the killer queue times worse - it should do the opposite.
And I wont tell anyone anything that isnt useful for this discussion.
Survivors are easier to create cosmetics for, so quantity is a bad indicator. I would assume they make the most money from players that play both sides but would bet those players spend more on killer. I own all killers and all survivors, so they made money on the licensed ones from me on both sides. On killer, I have purchased cosmetics using real money for Huntress, Pig, Spirit, Ghostface, Oni, Cenobite, Onryo, Ghoul, and Jason. On survivor, I have spent zero real money on cosmetics just iri shards and rift cosmetics. Survivors are just skins of each other, you just need to like the look of one. Each killer offers unique gameplay and if you want them to look different than the default you need a skin for each one, on the licensed killers that means paying up.
This is why I specifically said in my original post that I wanted to hear from people who play both sides.So this is a bad starting premise. Most people play both sides. I don't know where the idea came from that they are rare, that's the norm.
Which leads us to -
If the killer queues are long, play while you wait is only going to be taking people out of killer queues and putting them in the survivor queues, not the other way around. I don’t see how play while you wait would make the killer queue times worse - it should do the opposite.So there's not just killer and survivor players logging on, there's DbD players. Now many players, prior to 'Play While You Wait' would frequently end up in survivor because they didn't want to wait the minute or so for killer. But you can select killer and still play survivor? Great, that's exactly what they wanted, the opportunity to play both sides.
I think your response provides the answer I was looking for
BHVR hates survivors, nobody wants to play it.
I doubt that, but it perfectly fits the false narrative youre trying to make up.
I mean, you could prove me wrong if you wanted to
I’d like to hear your perspective on the killer side. Since you say that survivor side is too difficult, are you finding your killer matches too easy?
The game is designed for survivors to escape on average 40% of the time. If you ready up as survivor you're going in knowing you're most likely going to die. If one side is supposed to lose more than half the time then the fun factor of that side needs to make up for it. Unfortunately that's not the case. Instead survivors are getting burnt out from not only dying so often but not even enjoying the time the spent in the match. They either leave DBD or join the killer queue - both things that will increase the killer wait times.
When 2v8 comes around the killer players aren't switching to survivor, they are staying with killer - plenty on the forums will complain about killer wait times and refuse to touch survivor. The survivor swf players can now play killer together so they leave the 1v4 survivor queue (raising killer wait times there) and flood to the killer queue in 2v8 (raising the killer wait times there too). Then you also have the random solo survivors that also decide to play 2v8 killer (leaving the 1v4 survivor queue and raising the 2v8 killer queue). It's not like the other events where it's still 1v4, the swfs will stick with playing survivor together so the killer wait times don't suffer as much. With 2v8 even when adding nothing new the ability to play killer with a friend is unique enough from regular gameplay that it increases the killer queue.
2v8 the gameplay isn't giving survivors anything new. Since the first iteration killers have had 11 killers added and currently have 15 killers to choose from, they have more options even if they mainly stick with Wesker, Oni, Nemesis. In that same time survivors received 1 new class, they only have 5 options to choose from and only 1 brings anything noticeably different to gameplay (rebuild pallets). Adding killers isn't an incentive for people to play survivor, it only draws more players to killer queue. Adding survivor classes, things that they can actually play around with, are an incentive to get people to play survivor.
I can only speak for myself, but I tend to only play the events and ignore the regular mode whenever one is live.
I have less reason than ever to play 2V8 since my Killer was removed (since playing Killer with a partner is the main draw of that mode for me). This particular event will also be returning in a few months, so I don't feel in any hurry to jump on to 2V8 because I know it will return very soon. I've also already earned the event banners by playing the other two modes (not that I am motivated by them anyway, as disappointing as they are). I'm sure there are probably other players who feel the same way or have already unlocked the event stuff. I'll still play a bit, but not as much as I might have.
There's also a possibility that more Killer players are playing 2V8 than normal and pushing up queues that way, since it will only be here for a week and not the usual month that it typically lasts for.
My guess here... You have plenty of ppl who hop on SWF when their friends get on. During the day, ppl are at work or school which leaves alot of solo players. That can be both SoloQ AND killer. In the evening when ppls friends list fills up, they hop in a SWF which fills the survivor queue. During 2V8 you have an alternative option for a game mode to play with you friends than just SWF so the ppl who would've jumped in a SWF end up joining the 2v8 queue, many of whom join the killer side with a buddy.
I agree with you on the first point about survivor role needing to have more incentive to make up for the fact that on average you only escape 40% of the time. But it has been that way forever. Something has changed recently to drive the killer queue times way up and it’s definitely not the 40% escape rate issue
I know there's already a billion other comments and I can't be bothered to read them all, but it's primarily because of two things:
This is coming from a survivor main that's been playing more and more killer recently because of these exact reasons. No, killer isn't easy, both sides are difficult to win especially when the other side is using everything they can (although I'd argue survivor is much more difficult to learn because of the amount of killers you face). But killers do have ways if they want to that can make the majority of games a cakewalk, and I think that's what people think of and mistakenly use it to blanket the entirety of killer. No, winning more than 60% of your games as a Clown or Springtrap (think B tier or lower killers) is not easy when you are playing pretty normally, and using a strong but not insane build. But when you're running the Unemployed build on Jason, or something similarly sweaty on Blight or Nurse, and you hard tunnel, it's like you switched on easy mode. This is part of the reason why thousands of games long winstreaks are possible. The only time you will have trouble is when the survivors are particularly good / coordinated (in a SWF) and/or have super sweaty builds on as well. You will win like 90% of your matches playing like that, I promise you. My theory is that the killers who play like this are also often the ones complaining that survivors are too strong or way too toxic. It literally just saps all fun and intensity out of the game because unless you are in a good SWF and/or you have the absolute sweatiest build imaginable, these are games you go into knowing you're going to lose.
Burn out takes time. It may seem sudden but this has been building up. Survivors are starting to hit their breaking point for how much they'll deal with when only escaping 40% of the time. While the 40% escape may have been around for awhile the survivor fun has decreased over time. Survivor morale is pretty low and there's also 0 indication it's going to get better for survivor, things like nerfing basekit BT only make it feel like it's going to get worse.
I'd imagine rather than people not playing survivor it's probably that so many people are queueing killer in 2v8. Since it's not around for long and with play while you wait pretty much everyone is running 2/3 survivor games while queuing killer in the background. If you're doing 2v8, unless you're actively averse to playing killer, with PWYW there's not really a reason to not queue killer in the background.
Because playing survivor sucks. Terrible matchmaking with no consistency. Constant stream of recent killers that require significantly more effort to counter than they do to play. Lower rewards. Why would anyone WANT to play survivor in the current state of the game? Unless you have a regular group then I can not see any real reason. I don't think that releasing another strong killer while also nerfing BT and several survivor perks will do this any favors. I also have no doubt that the new killer will be dumbed down and turned into another monstrosity that any brain dead goof can easily win on. Otz already seems determined that the killer should go down this route.
-Survivor side looks incredibly ugly, breaking faces, shoulders hands, long torsos on males who also have short arms. (the new announcements put me into maintenence mode while I wait and Claire my main is still broken for over several months her finger claws when pointing) Male survivors fingers cross while healing too, its not comfortable to look at.
-Laggy VPNing killers can completley ruin the mood with how terrible latency is handled above 100ms
-Slugging on high mobility killers is also a buzz kill.
-New perks are never META defining, or items, always made useless, this isn't just a survivor problem tho.
-Matchmaking is ass
-2v8 I'm not playing as often as I'd like because of how boring Oni is to face and as soon as it hits peak hour its Oni o' clock
Lights Out was last week, and it was the first time we've seen it in 2 years. Perhaps that brought some people back to the game and they're sticking around for 2v8 too, so there's even more folks queued up for killer than previous iterations. My theory anyway.
I think we need to optimize and have more lobby servers added