FreshCoal

@zarr said:
Over the last weekend, www.twitch.tv/Wwispy1 held a tournament in which every character, perk, item, add-on and offering was allowed. This makes it special because usually in tournaments there are a various restrictions for these things in place.
I have taken stats on a plethora of tournaments in the past, and every time without fail average kills settled slightly above 2. My experience with and analysis of tournament DbD has contributed to my opinion that the game is actually reasonably well-balanced at the top end, and to my understanding of why the game is statistically killer-sided in public matchmaking. Since killers can evidently compete even against survivor teams composed of some of the very best, most practiced players in the world that are also using voice communications (and do so in very efficient ways) and have highly coordinated loadouts, strategies and tactics, it is easier to understand why in the public matchmaking environment where only around 5% of the player pool even are 4-player SWF groups (of which even less use voice chat, and of which in turn only a tiny fraction is as skilled as tournament players, let alone as practiced and experienced as a team), killers overperform. I think in a scenario of a killer player facing four random survivor players (no voice communication, no prior coordination of builds, strategies or tactics) each equally as skilled and experienced as the killer player, the game is actually favouring killers. I would expect the average result to fall around 2.5 kills. Of course, different killer characters and maps affect things, but we know from public stats that none of them favour survivors universally (even the statistically weakest killer on the statistically strongest survivor map still averages above 2 kills), and so I would assume that scales into the theoretical realm of 5 completely equally skilled and experienced players facing off similarly to how the killer-leaning universal balance scales into the competitive realm. That is to say, I would expect most killers on most maps to still fall within a range of 2-2.5 kills.
One counter-argument against previous tournament stats is that there are various loadout restrictions in place for both roles. I have never taken real issue with that given that the loadouts in these tournament matches are still entirely comparable to those you will see in an average public match (if anything they are much more optimized), and argued that the overwhelming skill, experience, practice and coordination disparity would already more than make up for loadout differences compared to public teams anyway (meaning even with 10 Decisive Strikes the average public group would still not be anywhere near as competitive as these tournament teams are with their 1 Decisive Strike that they are usually allowed to have), but still, those restrictions do make the tournaments somewhat of an artificially balanced realm.
In the tournament I'm talking about now, all those restrictions were removed. So not only do you have some of the most skilled, experienced, practiced players in the world communicating with voice chat and coordinating their builds and plays, but they also get to use the most busted stuff, such as 4 Styptics/Syringes, multiple Brand New Parts, 4 Dead Hards and Decisive Strikes. This is a level of play and coordination and of sheer stacked loadouts that you will never see in public matchmaking. ...And yet, as the following stats show, the killers were absolutely able to compete.
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/D3QJSAMEUAP8/wispy-everything-allowed.png
So, we have an average of 2.16 kills, again as in all other tournaments a slightly killer-leaning result. We can see that 11 of the 30 matches ended in outright killer victories (3k, 4k), 13 in outright survivor victories (0k, 1k), and 6 in ties (2k). If we take into consideration that 3 times players decided to play non-S-tier killers (Pinhead, Huntress, Oni), we can say that outright victories are basically an exact split between both roles; in terms of kills, 40% of the time killers won, 40% survivors did, and 20% of the time they drew. That's a surprising level of balance given the ridiculous loadouts at play. It is also worth pointing out that killers overwhelmingly often lose less decisively than survivors, which is to say when the killer loses they usually at least still kill 1 survivor (of 13 losses, 12 (92%) were 1 kill losses), while survivors most of the time lose with 0 escapes rather than 1 (of 11 losses, only 3 (27%) saw 1 survivor escape).
Another argument people may have even if they accept the statistical fact that the game is balanced at the top end in terms of kills, is that it is not balanced in terms of hooks. I unfortunately did not count the actual amount of hooks while watching the matches, but I believe that hook stages can still be used to draw reasonable conclusions in that regard. So, if we assume the typical "the killer can just tunnel one survivor to death and then facecamp a second survivor in the endgame to achieve a "balanced" result of 2 kills" scenario that is often brought up to argue that an outcome of 2 kills does not necessarily mean the match was "balanced" in a "healthy" way, we would expect 6 stages to be the dominant result. Looking at the stats, we can see that of 30 matches, only 6 ended in 6 stages, or one fifth/20%. 22 matches ended with at least 7 stages, meaning 73% of matches were killer victories in terms of hook stages, and they were not achieved simply by tunnelling one and camping another survivor. This is also obvious by looking at the fact that none of the 6 2k matches ended in 6 stages, all of them had more. In fact, as you can see further at the bottom of the stat sheet, the perk No Way Out was used in 66% of the matches, and it obviously encourages spreading out your hooks on all survivors. On the flipside, only 2 matches ended with less than 6 stages, a mere ~7%. It is therefore obvious that in terms of hook stages (and in deduction hooks) the game leans even more toward killers.
Now it of course has to be noted that this goes for Nurse, Blight and Spirit, players didn't usually pick other killers for obvious reasons. Either way, at least those three can provably more than compete with even the absolute best that a survivor side can put up (which is way beyond what any public group ever will). This is something that surprised even myself. I always knew the game was much more balanced than many people make it out to be, and tournament results have always supported that, but I did still believe that given the ability to use the absolutely most stacked loadouts of multiple purple med-kits with Styptics, multiple BNP, 4 DS, etc., average kills would at the very least be slightly below 2 rather than still slightly above. Pretty crazy honestly.
In other tournaments even various of the other killers average out around 2 kills and 6-8 stages with 4-kill matches absolutely being possible, but tournaments do show that only roughly half of the killers are viable at the highest level, with only Nurse, Blight and Spirit viable enough to consistently be able to 4k, Twins being a close contender. It also has to be noted that the map pool in this tournament was limited, and although it included Wreckers' Yard, Dead Dawg Saloon, Rancid Abattoir and Gas Heaven which with few exceptions represent the state of balance of most maps in this game, I do think there are more survivor-favouring maps than killer-favouring maps overall. A variety of killers deserve buffs, a variety of maps should be further adjusted. But those buffs and adjustments are not strictly necessary from a public matchmaking perspective - not only can killer players simply choose to play S-tier killers every single time if they so desire, but good killer players win the majority of their pub matches even with the lowest-tier killers. Public matchmaking even with MMR is simply not able to provide good killer players with equal opponents sufficiently consistently. But likewise, the weakest killers could all be buffed, the problematic maps all adjusted, without it all too negatively impacting public matchmaking balance either.
The perks used here tell some clear stories too. There are only 19 different survivor and 15 different killer perks in the total pool. That shows how limited the pool of the strongest perks in this game is - 34 out of a total 185 perks seeing use. Not only that, but if we look at how often the individual perks are being used, it becomes clear that it's really only a handful for either role that dominate: Dead Hard and Decisive Strike alone already make for almost half of all survivor perks used, with Borrowed Time, Unbreakable, Deliverance and Prove Thyself making up another ~40%. So almost 90% of all perks used for survivors consist of only 6 different ones. For killers it's similar, with Corrupt Intervention, Deadlock, No Way Out, Lethal Pursuer, Ruin and NOED being 6 perks combining for 86% of all perks used.
I do think a ton of perks should be buffed to get them to a level where they are even approachingly able to compete for slots with perks the likes of those mentioned, but I don't think that the limitedness of perk usage at the absolute top level is necessarily all too problematic. In games there always are a fairly limited amount of S-tier characters and items, and it's no different in DbD. Ideally there would be more for a more varied top-level meta, but in public matchmaking you can already get pretty creative with your loadouts without giving up much. However, the perks do tell us a bit about the gameplay and parts of it could be seen as problematic: The prevalence of DS, BT, Unbreakable and Deliverance show that camping, tunnelling and slugging are the most effective killing strategies that survivors have to combat. Maybe the game could be better if it was reworked to concentrate more strictly on getting as many hooks as possible rather than revolve around these strategies at the top end. On the killer side, Corrupt and Pursuer highlight that the early game is crucial for killers, they have to get pressure up as soon as possible. It could help to introduce an "early game collapse" phase after all, such as simply by blocking all generators until the first chase has begun. No Way Out and NOED on the other hand highlight the fact that killers are at a disadvantage in the endgame - healthy survivors hit with a basic attack can regularly make it to a gate even over large distances, and killers regularly cannot defend gates unless they happen to spawn within close proximity of one another. I personally would not be opposed to the idea of having NOED be a basekit mechanic, without the movement speed boost, giving survivors a totem counter at base at the same time. To bring Nurse and Spirit in line with a NOED basekit reality, I think making Lethal Blink hits and Grudge hits not count as basic hits would be a welcome adjustment (it would be even without basekit NOED).
Some other notes: No Way Out's popularity shows that even the best killer players expect to get into an endgame scenario regularly in even matches. I think there has to be a change in mentality of players to not consider a game lost just because all generators have been completed. Given a desired goal of 2 kills and 2 escapes, a balanced match obviously has to see all generators get finished. Not only that, but since killers can almost always all but guarantee 1 kill in the endgame, a balanced match much of the time is expected to see all generators get finished with at least 3 survivors still alive at that point. Food for thought.
I was surprised that Circle Of Healing didn't see more play. It goes to show that other perks are more valuable if you just bring a med-kit. The standard build for most teams was: 4 DS, 4 DH, 2 BT, 2 Deliverance, 2 Unbreakable, 2 Prove Thyself, with everything else being "tech" variations, and Circle not even being a popular tech (only brought in for 3 matches of the 30).
The problematic add-ons are definitely still problematic: Nurse's range add-ons, Spirit's Mother-Daughter Ring, Blight's Alchemist Ring, Brand New Parts, Styptics, Syringes - these are all blatantly overtuned, and particularly the survivors' ability to bring 4 overtuned add-ons is ridiculous. I would even say it's precisely the ability to bring multiple that makes them a problem - if random survivors only bring 1-2 of these (which is already fairly rare), their impact potential is mostly alright. I think SWF groups should have perk and item limitations in place, such that they can only bring any perk or item/add-on at most 1 time. The killer add-ons should simply be rebalanced.
Moris are still the most balance-relevant offering in the game. Without map offerings, survivors in this tournament usually burned Petrified Oaks, and their impact on the matches was moderate at most. The Ebony Memento Moris that killers usually burned on the other hand consistently made much more of a difference. Bypassing any and all rescue mechanics (DS, bodyblock and sabo plays, pallet and flashlight saves) as well as saving time and holding positions particularly in the endgame turned out to be crucial at various points in these matches. That said, I still think moris are in a fairly good spot now.
Final note: The finals of the tournament are actually still to be played out. They will happen next weekend, so keep on eye out on the stream I linked.

A killer getting 2 kills is not a win buddy...

I also had a great laugh when you said that killers were overpowered in public matchmaking.

in Statistical evaluation of an interesting tournament Comment by FreshCoal December 3, 2021

@lethargicsauce said:
(Based on the scrapped concept for a teacher killer)
Time in-game when I started this concept: 273 hours
Time in-game when I finished this concept: 337 hours
Chapter #??: Suspension
The Teacher:
Name: Edith Holsburry
Terror Radius: 32 meters
Speed: 4.6 m/s (115%)
Height: Average (5 foot 8 inches)
Difficulty: Easy
Weapon: Razor Ruler (a crude, yet effect way to punish mistakes made)
Successful Basic Hit Animation: The Teacher daintily wipes the razor clean
Mori: The Teacher riddles the survivor with multiple slashes from the Razor Ruler, ultimately summoning a mini-Impeding Wall, splitting the survivor down the middle.
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Power: Detention;
Allows The Teacher to summon murky, orange and brown Impeding Walls. Each Impeding Wall is 24 meters long and reaches 20 meters upwards. A maximum of 5 walls may exist at any time. The walls have collision and cannot be passed through by survivors, although The Teacher can move through them freely. Said walls will fade away after 40 seconds, or will shatter if a survivor is hit with a basic attack during these 40 seconds.
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Special Map Element: Time-Out Chair;
Up to 8 Time-Out Chairs spawn on the map. You can place survivors into these chairs while carrying them, which counts as a hook state. Upon being rescued from the chairs, survivors suffer from the Oblivious and Blindness status effects for 16 seconds. The auras of the chairs are shown in dark orange.
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The Teacher‘s Teachable Perks:
Actions Have Consequences: Every time you’re stunned, the generator with the most progress explodes and regresses by 12%/15%/18%. After exploding, it becomes blocked for 7/13/19 seconds.
Teach Them a Lesson: Every time a generator is completed, Teach Them a Lesson activates. While active, all attacks inflict Deep Wound on healthy survivors. If a hit survivor is already deeply wounded, they will be put into the Dying state. This perk lasts for 40/50/60 seconds.
Underperform: When a survivor fails a skill-check while repairing, the generator they’re working on will explode and regress by 15%/20%/25%. If a survivor fails a skill-check while healing, they will lose 50%/60%/70% of their healing progress. Increases the frequency of skill-checks by 20%/30%/40%.
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New Survivor: Haddie Kaur (from the tomes)
Character Model: Average
General Noise Volume: Low
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Haddie’s Teachable Perks:
Boon: Mind’s Eye: Anything that can show an aura within the range of a totem with this boon applied will have it’s aura shown to all survivors. If the killer passes through the range of this boon, their aura will be revealed for 2/4/6 seconds.
Boon: Dreamcatcher: While in the range of a totem with this boon, any and all auras that a survivor can see will be revealed to all other survivors. This effect ends 10/11/12 seconds after the survivor leaves the range of the boon totem.
Sixth Sense: When the killer is within 30/37/44 meters of you, Sixth Sense activates. During this time, the killer will leave bright orange scratch marks and the sounds they make will be louder by 30%/50%/70%.
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Second New Survivor: Benedict Baker (from his journals)
Character Model: Average
General Noise Volume: Average
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Benedict’s Teachable Perks:
Seasoned Survivor: After being injured or Deep Wounded, reveal the killer’s aura to all survivors until the killer either stops chasing you or downs you. Upon being downed, reveal the killer’s aura to all survivors for 5/6/7 seconds.
Careful Observation: When within 40/50/60 meters of a Dull or Hex totem, the totem’s aura will be revealed to you for 3/6/9 seconds. Only one totem can have its aura revealed at a time. Careful Observation then goes on a 80/70/60 second cooldown.
Documentation: Every object that you interact with will have its aura highlighted to you until it cannot be interacted with anymore (for example, an exit gate until it’s opened). The objects’ auras will also be visible to all other survivors in a 10/14/18 meter range.
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New General Killer Perks:
Thinning Their Options: Every time you hook a survivor, gain 1/1/2 token(s). Consume a token to destroy a standing pallet. After destroying a pallet, you gain the Undetectable status effect for 4/6/8 seconds.
Hex: Dead in Their Tracks: After hooking a survivor, any and all healing, cleansing, or blessing actions are interrupted, causing the ones performing said actions to scream and become Incapacitated for 10/12/14 seconds.
Fill Them With Fear: Every time you hook a survivor, gain a token. For every token you have, your terror radius is increased by 1/3/5 meters. Additionally, any time a survivor reads your aura, they will scream.
Hex: Payback: Once this perk’s associated totem is cleansed by any survivor, it activates. Any time you extinguish a Boon totem, the person who applied the Boon is injured if healthy or Deeply Wounded if injured. Said survivor’s aura is revealed for 1/3/5 seconds.
Unstoppable: All fatigues are reduced in length by 0.6/1.2/1.8 seconds.
Follow Their Tracks: Every time a generator is completed, reveal the auras of all survivors who worked on that generator for 1/3/5 seconds.
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New General Survivor Perks:
Practice Makes Perfect: For every great skill-check you hit, increase the great skill-check zone by 5%/10%/15% (with a cap of +105% size) and gain an extra 1%/2%/3% progression on great skill checks (the amount of extra progression gained is flat and doesn’t increase).
Brace Yourself: After cleansing a totem, Brace Yourself becomes active. While active, press the Active Ability Key to gain the Endurance status effect for 4/5/6 seconds. After activation, this perk inflicts Deep Wound and 60/50/40 seconds of Exhaustion.
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The Teacher’s Add-ons:
Brown Add-ons:
Crumbly Chalk:
Impeding Walls fade away considerably faster (-12 seconds duration).
Gain 100% more Blood Points for usage of Detention.
Shredded Textbook:
After summoning an Impeding Wall, your terror radius is map-wide for 10 seconds (and is played as if the killer were approaching the survivor)
Faded Globe:
Survivors within 16 meters of Time-Out Chairs suffer from the Blindness and Oblivious status effects for 20 seconds
Jagged Letter-Opener:
Survivors who walk within 5 meters of Impeding Walls are inflicted with the Deep Wound status effect
Yellow Add-ons:
‘Missing Person’ Posters:
When you put a survivor into a Time-Out Chair, gain the Haste status effect (+5% speed) for 6 seconds. For every additional survivor in a Time-Out Chair, gain an extra +5% speed with Haste for an additional 6 seconds.
Clay’s Bloody Tooth:
Survivors hit within 32 meters of an Impeding Wall are inflicted with the Mangled status effect
Charred Evidence:
After a survivor is freed from a Time-Out Chair, they suffer the Mangled status effect
Stained Shackles:
Detention no longer summons wall, and instead blocks downed pallets and windows
Elias’ Ear:
Survivors within 16 meters of an Impeding Wall suffer from an 80% reduction in volume of all sounds
Green Add-ons:
Nolan’s Eyes:
Survivors within 16 meters of an Impeding Wall suffer from the Intoxicated status effect
Gnarled Awl:
After a survivor is rescued from a Time-Out Chair, they are inflicted with the Deep Wound status effect
Funeral R.S.V.P.:
When a survivor dies in a Time-Out Chair, gain a permanent 4% increase to your movement speed
Class Photo: 1957:
For every survivor within 20 meters of an Impeding Wall, gain the Haste status effect (+5% per survivor) for 10 seconds (10 more seconds are added per survivor)
Clipped Headline:
When a survivor reveals the aura of something through an Impeding Wall, they become Oblivious and are afflicted with Blindness for 50 seconds
Purple Add-ons:
Aria’s Severed Foot:
After being freed from a Time-Out Chair, survivors suffer from the Exhausted status effect for 16 seconds
Deceasement Notice:
Survivors put into the Dying state within 8 meters of an Impeding Wall lose a considerable amount of their Dying timer the first time they’re downed (-50%)
Crematorium Bill:
Survivors progress through their hook states tremendously quicker (+150%) when in a Time-Out Chair
Battery Charges:
For 6 seconds after spawning an Impeding Wall, your attacks put survivors into the Dying state
Iridescent Add-ons:
Discharge Letter:
After an Impeding Wall disappears, all survivors in your terror radius suffer from the Exposed status effect for 25 seconds
Apple From Naomi:
If your obsession is in a Time-Out Chair, the repair speeds of all other survivors are decreased by 25%. However, the obsession’s hook-timer is paused and they will be granted a fourth hook state.
Lore: (Might write later)

Im not a big fan of the killers power. If I understand it correctly, he can just place walls to block off vaults and pallets that only he can walk through, which just forces survivors hold w and not loop. And his secondary power is pretty much just a built-in scourge hook.

The killer perks are also terribly designed;

Actions Have Consequences: Every time you’re stunned, the generator with the most progress explodes and regresses by 12%/15%/18%. After exploding, it becomes blocked for 7/13/19 seconds.

The problem with this perk is that it will exacerbate the pre-dropping pallets issue, since survivors no longer want to stun the killer if they have this perk.

Teach Them a Lesson: Every time a generator is completed, Teach Them a Lesson activates. While active, all attacks inflict Deep Wound on healthy survivors. If a hit survivor is already deeply wounded, they will be put into the Dying state. This perk lasts for 40/50/60 seconds.

This perk not only rewards the killer for losing the game, it will also lead to a very boring legion type gameplay where they force survivors to hold m1 and mend.

Underperform: When a survivor fails a skill-check while repairing, the generator they’re working on will explode and regress by 15%/20%/25%. If a survivor fails a skill-check while healing, they will lose 50%/60%/70% of their healing progress. Increases the frequency of skill-checks by 20%/30%/40%.

For the last time, NO GOOD SURVIVORS ARE MISSING SKILLCHECKS. This perk would be worthless.

in New Killer Concept - The Teacher Comment by FreshCoal December 3, 2021

@IrishLuv said:
Yay y'all fixed it! Appreciate it so much. Had xbox gamers dming me, mad that i gave up struggling, when really my hands just stopped working.
The new method is doable. Thank you.

Props to you for sticking to this thread for so long

in Accessibility feature request - fast tap assist Comment by FreshCoal December 3, 2021

@Brimp said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2672146#Comment_2672146
Then you went agains better than average twins that rarely use charlotte for interesting plays.

So I went against 99% of the twins players? What twins player even prefers to use Charlotte?

in Exponential Proves the Devs Have Forgotten Twins Comment by FreshCoal December 2, 2021

@PixelBush said:
We warned you from PTB, that Exponential would make Twins unplayable if neither the perk nor the power were changed. And now the newest Boon perk makes it so that Twins can't pick a Survivor up because their fatigues are so long that Survivors can pick themselves up faster than you can.
This is something you should be testing for in the perk design stage. If a perk makes a Killer power that's only useful against injured Survivors incapable of downing and hooking them, then that's a problem with either the Killer or the perk and something needs to be addressed before the perk goes live.
The fact that Exponential went live in this state without changes to it, or to Twins to allow them to handle Exponential, proves that the developers have literally forgotten this Killer existed.
They came out a year ago today and the developers didn't even tweet about their birthday like they did with Blight a few months ago.
If you don't want me to play my favourite Killer any more, just come on out and say it. Don't leave me with the hope that you might actually sort them out someday because it's been exactly a year and every single set of patch notes with some shadownerf or new bug or new super-recovery perk feels like a punch in the mouth.
Just buff their fatigue times so we can pick up Survivors without taking 5-7 working days to get to the down, okay? That's all we need, that's all we EVER needed. And now it's gone beyond an irritation to "you can't play the game any more if a single Survivor brought a single perk."
Bon anniversaire, my wonderful French children.

Im very glad this perk destroys twins. Twins is the most unfun killer to go against, they just slug and face camp someone with victor. Incredibly annoying.

in Exponential Proves the Devs Have Forgotten Twins Comment by FreshCoal December 2, 2021

@Nun_So_Vile said:
Interesting, but Jason gets kinda OD with his powers. I also feel like "teleporting" as it already is in this game gets complained about with the limited number of killers that do have some type of TP in their kit (i.e. nurse, hag, Ceno, and spirit).

I was thinking it being more like a demo teleport, where it takes some time to travel, and not just an instant teleport.

in Basekit buffs for every killer Comment by FreshCoal December 1, 2021

@ThanksForDaily said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2670498#Comment_2670498
120% speed is not gonna happen ever because it's ridiculously strong. So there is no point to discuss further.

It is not even close to that strong. Are you out of your mind?