dugman
dugman
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I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever bothered running NOED on Wraith.
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I like Franklin’s, I don’t think it’s broken though. Just really good. The two things that can hold Franklin’s back a bit are
- Basic attack only. On some killers you want to use special attacks as often as possible, this cuts into that.
- Survivors who bring in a toolbox and use it immediately before you can make them drop it. Also making people drop flashlights actually can steer them into just doing gens which helps them win more than the flashlight did.
But for sure, if you can knock unused items out of their hands it’s pretty nice. 🙂
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@Xord said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3179895#Comment_3179895
It's 16 seconds to heal another survivor, which makes self healing a "normal" time of 32 seconds.
Which, yes, would be strong.
Trying to make up an exagerrated number doesn't change that being able to self heal is extremely strong yes.
Now, if it took 5 minutes, yes that wouldn't be very strong, what I'm saying is that to bring CoH on par with other perks it would need to actually be much slower to self heal. Which is obviously a lazy route to get to finally give the propre nerf CoH needs.
Honestly, they could simply bring it back to 100% but not make it unlock the ability to self heal.
I actually don’t think it needs to be slower than self heal because its range limitation and set up time and travel to and from totems chips away at it compared to the flexibility self heal provides. It’s actual healing speed is probably about where it should be now, if it still needs to be slowed down it’s not by very much.
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@Xord said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3179858#Comment_3179858
You're clearly in a different MMR bracket, that's true.
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3179870#Comment_3179870
Because you litterally said the same thing he did.
No, I said if you spend 60 seconds per heal you’re throwing the game, and if it happens multiple times its worse. Do you really think if it took 60 seconds to fully heal it would be good strategy to do it?
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@Gandor said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3179844#Comment_3179844
That was response to me. I said that there is no genrushing when CoH is in game as it is huge time sink IMO. But it seems I am in different MMR bracket, because I don't experience that one.
Got it, he had it under my quote but I couldn’t figure out why. 🤷♂️
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Ace’s Open-Handed is great, that perk alone is worth getting probably. I’m surprised more survivors aren’t using it.
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@Xord said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3179822#Comment_3179822
Ive litterally at 18k hours never seen gens NOT fly with CoH, that's litterally the problem with CoH, survivors don't need to lose time finding each other to heal.
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3179819#Comment_3179819
Again, if you're not rushing gens with CoH that's a skill issue.
What does “rushing gens” have to do with what I posted?
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My rule of thumb if I lose is it’s me, not the game. Loadouts and such only really matter when people are already all playing very well and that’s rarely the case in most games. Even little mistakes can cost 15 or 20 seconds of time, player skill is a big deal.
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Your personal Killer characters should have their own personal incentives based on your MMR with them. If the game needs a 1000 MMR killer player, and my Huntress character is 1000 but my Ghost Face is 1800, I should be enticed by the game to give Huntress a go to fill that slot.
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@Xord said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3179788#Comment_3179788
The ability to heal yourself is extremely strong no matter how much time it takes.
It's also one perk slot that works for everyone. it would be bad if it worked only on yourself, yes, but it's 4 perks at once.
That's exactly the reason CoH remained the God tier survivor perk even after its nerfs.
Sorry but if you spent one full minute healing yourself that’s not a strong effect, that’s you throwing the game probably. And if four people did it it would be even worse for them.
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”Good job! 😄👍”
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@ReverseVelocity said:
We need this in the game, alongside a proper vaccination animation against Nemesis.
Lol, now I’m picturing using the Thumbs Up animation for vaccinations. 😄👍
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I win more games from survivors hanging around doing unnecessary bodyblocks after they are unhooked then when they just run away, hide, heal, and do gens.
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@Xord said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3179010#Comment_3179010
I think it's still the most overpowered perk in the entire game because even at 0% it would still be the most powerful perk in the game. It doesn't really matter how long healing takes, the fact that you can hide and self heal is insane.
However, I wouldn't be for nerfing it. Just nerf totems in general, and then buff the other boons.
Healing speed of the perk is everything. Say you could heal yourself with Boon but it took a full minute, it would obviously be so slow as to not even be worth using. But at its original speed it was too fast. So there must be a range of numbers where the perk is reasonable to use but not too fast between those extremes. The ability to hide and heal is strong, weak, or in between all depending on how long it takes.
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@Zolfo16 said:
A half second of animation when you are 6 mt from a camped hook? Maybe not a good idea.
As long as you can move while doing it or cancel out.
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I like Reanimator, it was a decent movie. I wouldn't be against it being in the game, or honestly any Lovecraft based chapter. 🙂
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@Akumakaji said:
I learned from the best, I learned from Bruce Lee!
"Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot."
So I poured my entire soul and being into a locker .. and I became the locker! Works like a charm. They try to hide within me and I go nom-nom-nom.
... you put a teapot in an aquarium it becomes an aquarium, you put an aquarium in a septic tank it becomes the Dredge....
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@Hensen2100 said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3179081#Comment_3179081
MMR being based off how many people from your team escape or die would be so awful. Consider how every 1/3 or 1/4 game probably has a suicide or a DC in it. And also consider how a survivor can lose games of DBD with ~literally 0~ input as another survivor gets tunneled to death at 5 gens entirely across the map somewhere.
Other games you can play better and win, DBD survivor you can only do gens at a fixed rate. And even if you are a god at looping the killer can just ignore you. That's why it's a party game and never something people will consider very competitive outside a tiny subset of neckbeards who main Nurse
Keep in mind that (as far as I know) the devs already take disconnects into account in the MMR so presumably they'd do something similar if they tweaked it for group changes. Also if survivors gained MMR and bloodpoints as a group versus as individuals it would be extra incentive for ragequitters to stick around longer if they personally are losing but the other survivors are alive to make a comeback. And by treating the survivors as a group for going up or down in MMR it makes it so, like in the scenario you described, if one survivor holds off the killer for a really long time and dies but it let everybody else get out then that distraction running player will still go up in MMR (in fact that's kind of one of the main reasons the devs were talking about making this change in the first place.)
P.S. I don't know where this dumb "Dead by Daylight is a party game" meme started. Yeah, a game that takes hours to actually learn to play and which its player unironically call people who have played the game for a couple hundred hours "potatoes and newbs" is a "party game". 🙄
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@lauraa said:
No they are not, it is a Battle Royale party game.
If it were a team game youd see more Bonds over Urban Evasion
It's actually openly vague (which I don't like). The devs sometimes treat the game as is it's every survivor for themselves, but other times they treat it like they're a team. For instance, when they were testing out MMR earlier this year, they mentioned in their blog that one of the things they wanted to do was tweak MMR so that survivors go up or down as a group based on how many of them escape or die. That's clearly a sign that in this case they are thinking the game should treat them as a team, not individuals. Then other times they have things like Low Profile on Ada which makes it sound like it's every survivor for themselves. On top of which they have no single clear victory condition in the game either, just a series of different things and they "let the player decide if they won".
And I firmly think the game would have been better off from the beginning if they had gone the route of the official boardgame and clearly spelled out that the survivors are a team and win or lose as a group. Ambiguous semi-cooperative game design rarely works.
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I think they're ok other than I have trouble hitting with Victor. 🤷♂️
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Not too much to say on the article or the chapter, I like the perks for the most part. 🙂
One bit I wanted to mention from the article is the section on Hyperfocus
“This one is for the players who think they can hit every Skill Check,” says Aram. “When it comes to Skill Checks, new players tend to miss them a lot while experienced players hit them with ease. We wanted to see how easy it really is. We playtested it, and we had a bunch of very experienced players missing Skill Checks because they were greedy for the bonus – which is exactly what this perk is about. Oh, you’re good at Skill Checks? Prove it. There’s a stacking bonus, but you must chain Great Skill Checks that get progressively harder.”
The funny thing about this is the dev is right, hitting Great skill checks is very hard for average players. But the elephant in the room he didn't talk about was how there's another perk that turns Good skill checks into Great ones that stacks with it. It doesn't matter if the base great check is hard to hit at above average MMR if players in the bracket have easy access to a way to get around the limitation. Not to mention the ironic way that effects which cause more skill checks to happen make Hyperfocus even more powerful, not less.
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- Regarding Low Profile, I disagree that it's not Interesting. Yeah, playing selfishly is typically bad strategy, but that doesn't make it boring for the person doing it. And it's one of only a handful of perks that specifically were designed to work in those last person standing scenarios.
- Also, like you said, it has synergy with other things. Sure, it's not a strategy you personally like, but it's still synergy.
- And for what it does it's good on its own as a way to avoid a last ditch death.
So I actually think Low Profile does fit those criteria they outlined in the article. It's just that meeting all those criteria doesn't ensure it will actually be an effective perk in the overall scheme of things.
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There's no link but I guess this is the article you're talking about?
A conversation with a Dead by Daylight game designer. -
I don't play survivor very often, but when I do I always play Plunderer Ace (Plunderer's Instinct, Open-Handed, Ace in the Hole, and Appraisal). I normally just bring in the cheapest toolbox and addons, use them up right away, and then get new stuff out of a nearby chest and use that up, rinse and repeat.
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@Hensen2100 said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3179031#Comment_3179031
I think it's amazing tbh. Especially with a map offering? On Temple of Purgation the downstairs gen was giving wallhacks on the killer upstairs and i'm sure that will translate well to maps like Midwich, The Game, or other multifloor maps.
Or maybe some Wiretap + Shadowstep on Lery's? That would be insanely safe assuming you don't have to leave the totem to get an unhook or something
For sure!
P.S. Looks like you replied while I added a bit more about my match tonight which had two survivors with Wiretap and Alert, one with Kindred, and I had Third Seal and Undying. I guess they didn't see that coming!
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@Hensen2100 said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3179024#Comment_3179024
Oh really? Guess I was wasting the slot then. It seemed like a pretty big radius
Yeah, Wiretap's radius is actually pretty decent, that's probably why! 😄
I do like Open-Handed though, it's a really solid perk even though it doesn't stack with this one perk.
P.S. I played a match tonight against a team where one of the survivors had multiple Wiretaps and Alerts, and at least one Kindred. Unfortunately for them I had Third Seal and Undying. 😈
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@Hensen2100 said:
I was doing Wiretap + Blast Mine + Open Handed + Red Herring for a while so the entire team could watch the killer get blown up
Wiretap with open handed is honestly nuts
FYI according to the devs Wiretap doesn't stack with Open-Handed.
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Stealth hit and run. Lots of teleporting for pressure and to build up Nightfall more quickly and come from unexpected angles at Night. Don't linger in chases too long, get a hit or a pallet drop, break the pallet if that's the result, and then switch to someone else working on the gens instead. That removes their resources so that by the mid game and when you're in Nightfall and have the edge they'll have trouble getting to safety when you ambush them.
There's tons of possible loadouts you can use for that sort of style, but something to help you track survivors is handy so you know where to teleport to, and something to help you in chase since your chases are a weak point. Jolt is a good perk for hit and run since it allows you to down someone and just slug them rather than immediately hook them if you think you can get a second down or hit quickly by doing that. Devour Hope or Monstrous Shrine or Make Your Choice are good though since Dredge can very easily leave a hook quickly. And avoid perks that don't work if you're Undetectable (duh)
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Circle of Healing is a good perk but it's not nearly as bad as it was when it first came out. If anything I win matches sometimes because the survivors are messing around too much trying to set and reset that Boon instead of doing something more useful.
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Rest of the thread aside, I actually think Ada's red dress and her noir detective trenchcoat costumes are both really good looking. 🙂 If I was making a tier list of survivor costumes they'd be at least B or A tier.
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Secret offerings that allow you to spawn near either the Shack or the main building or the basement for both survivor and killer could be interesting. Certainly it would be nice to have more offerings that have a reason to be kept secret!
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@ImNotBobDylan said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3177541#Comment_3177541
I did not "demand" anything nor "aggress" you. Sorry but I think you are trying to get offended.
About "Sharing a subjective opinion" - imagine you go to a science forum and claim that God is responsible for gravity. That claim, despite absurd, is a valid subjective opinion, in fact it can't even be scientifically disproven. But because it heavily contradicts common knowledge, making such claim will grant you the "absurd" insult and "sarcastic" replies like mine.
Now why I think your opinion here is "absurd": while you're right that most gaming discussions are very subjective, here the topic specifically mentions "optimal", so people who click can expect that, or at least they would not expect a build that is clearly unoptimal. But the build you shared is objectively not good, it does not even include an exhaustion perk, and yet you ambiguously make it sound like this build gives you good escape chances in solo Q, so a "provoking" comment like mine is perfectly justified. While ultimately the definition of "good build" is subjective, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of pro players would pick 1 exhaustion and OtR if they were asked to make a "good" build, and probably nobody would pick Bond or Deja Vu. I'm also confident you would get much higher escape rate yourself by picking at least an exhaustion perk - feel free to prove me wrong by sharing your gameplay.
I'll interject and say, no, I believe you're the one coming off across as a jerk, it's not just the person you replied to thinking it. Just saying. 🤷♂️
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@Akumakaji said:
Depending on your own outlook on life, a pizza is also just an savory Escape Cake. Eat up, Dwight, we survived this time!
I totally disagree... Pizza is a savory Escape Pie. 😋
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Try and stall for seven minutes, he has an appointment.
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The mobile game was developed from the ground up by a different development team so it’s not straightforward to import things from it to the main game. However the devs did mention earlier this year when they were adjusting Spine Chill that they do plan to have a visual terror radius indicator of some sort as a base option in the game. Whether it will look identical to the mobile heart or something else we don’t know, but it’s on their to do list.
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Just to further support your Spike claim, the aggregate site I follow used to have the top most used perks like Dead Hard at up to something 40-50% of players using them. Now the most used perks cap out around 20%, half that value. So the spread of the most popular perks has definitely improved.
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How is being on the ground more boring than being on a hook? At least on the ground you can move around a bit.
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Waterclogged Hag
- Hex Blood Favour (clogs pallets)
- Deadlock (clogs gens)
- No Way Out (clogs doors)
- Bamboozle or Hex:Crowd Control or Claustrophobia (clogs windows)
- Waterlogged Shoe addon (Hag moves 115% but can’t teleport, traps slow survivors in their terror radius)
- Scarred Hand (Hag traps have collision and clog stuff up)
Run around as a basic killer and just clog everything up. Block doorways, gens, windows, the exits, etc. Not the best build but fun to try. 😄
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@KerJuice said:
Did you guys see that YT video explaining how MMR supposedly works? So after we hit like 1600, we get thrown in a large ass pool of 1600- and ABOVE. So that’s pretty much the majority of the player base. The problem with this other than the obvious, is that you can lose 10 games in a row and not fall out of this pool. So that means the truly bad players that happen to make it up there, pretty much never leave. So decent solo que players (not talking about good or very good- just your average gamer who is a team player, experienced, & understands the do’s and dont’s) most likely sits and hovers around 1600 with the bad players, getting killers of upwards towards 2800. This is why it seems like we are always getting sweaty killers- becuz we are. And this my friends, is elo hell. To put things into perspective, SWF’s (4 man?) on average are in the 2200 - 2400 range.
Now this may not be fact, but this YTber has been pretty spot on with his sources before, warning of things to come and those things actually happened. And the way this is explained makes perfect sense to me. It all adds up, and all the parts fit into the right slots.
Yeah, that video is a little misleading because if you go by normal distribution only maybe 5-6% of people are over 1600 is the estimate we came up with in another thread yesterday.
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@WorthlessBeing said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3178088#Comment_3178088
I meant the add-on, Stab Wound Studies, that reveal the aura of survivors who mended for 4 seconds afterward. Paired with the stylish sunglasses, you can see the aura of them mending AND a few seconds after. And I may have thought it was from Lethal.
Ah got it. 👍
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@WorthlessBeing said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3178059#Comment_3178059
Ah, so it was stated. Then yes, it is indeed a bug. Thanks for the screenshot + explanation. I was just basing myself on what I saw in game.
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3178066#Comment_3178066
It doesn't? Funny, I thought for sure it did. Or maybe I'm mistaking it with Legion's Aura reading of people mending.
I don’t think those Legion mend auras are extended either are they?
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@WorthlessBeing said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3177983#Comment_3177983
Quote from the wiki:
"You have been designed to track down and eliminate targets.
- At the start of the Trial, the Auras
- of all Survivors
- are revealed to you for 7/8/9 seconds.
- Extends the duration of a Survivor's Aura being revealed to you by +2 seconds.
Lethal Pursuer benefits from its own effect."
Where does it says it only works with time duration?
In addition to the above reply, note that you can also tell Lethal doesn’t work on auras that don’t have a set duration because, for instance, it doesn’t make you see Nurse’s Calling auras for two more seconds either.
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As you might have guessed from a lot of the responses above, Windows of Opportunity is a solid perk. What's interesting is that I don't think most people realize how popular it is though, I think it's actually the most used survivor perk currently, just edging out Dead Hard on the stat site I follow. Given its usage percentage I think on average about 2/3 matches have at least one survivor with Windows equipped. And yet when people talk about "meta" perks Windows doesn't usually come up, they talk about other things instead like various Endurance perks or Prove Thyself or Adrenaline or Unbreakable or Kindred, etc.
In fact Windows is so popular that, as a killer, I've taken now to running Hex: Third Seal specifically to mess up Windows users. 😉
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I love this game but, hey, I do have pet peeves (in no particular order)
- Nurse staring at her feet half the match. I refuse to play her in large part because of this mechanic.
- Survivors just sitting around doing nothing the full minute in virtually every lobby. It's really irritating how out of four other people there's almost always at least one not paying enough attention or whatever to click the Ready button.
- Survivors not just leaving the match until I can watch them leave as the killer. I get it, sometimes a survivor is on a hook at the end and the others might be thinking about doing a rescue, or someone is injured and they want to heal for some extra points, etc. That's fine. But I swear almost every game that the gates are open or the hatch is open, even when everybody is perfectly and is literally right at the exit, instead of leaving they just sit there until I decide to come into view so I can watch them leave (usually with the customary tea bagging). Even the last survivor, if they find the hatch, often will stand at the hatch instead of just leaving until I get in view. It's like, stop wasting my time and your time, just go!! I don't need to see you leave to know you got away, you're just making it take longer for both of us to get to the next game or whatever.
- Sore losing in aftergame chat. It doesn't happen all the time, and I've chatted with plenty of friendly opponents after a game, but boy some idiots just can't handle losing. And that's also when you hear buzzwords like "tunneling" and "camping" and such too, regardless of what actually happened in the match. I've had dumbos call me a "camper" in a game where I got 12 hooks and 32k points as Legion, had someone say I was a cheap when I got a 4k with Clown doing a random build that included Deerstalker, had someone complain about NOED when I got a 4k with 2 gens left (so NOED wouldn't have even mattered) and wasn't even using NOED in the first place. Pretty irritating meeting people like that.
- Unclear Semi-Cooperative Victory Conditions. This is the one main flaw in DbD's basic design. Semi-cooperative games rarely work well, they often lead to people sandbagging each other or quitting mid game or throwing games once they think they personally aren't going to win, regardless of whether or not everybody else is treating it like they're on the same team. And then that's all compounded by having this clutter of things that are victory-related but not a single, clear win/loss condition for both sides, which leads to people not even agreeing on who won or lost a match or whether something is a good or bad strategy or loadout, etc. As an example of how clearly this is an issue, note that the official Dead by Daylight boardgame specifically intentionally went out of its way early in the design process to say that the survivors win or lose as a team and there is a single, clear victory condition for both sides. (The boardgame also did away with mid-game player elimination, another problematic area and the underlying source of all the tunneling complaints.) I wish the video game was designed more like the boardgame in this regard, but unfortunately we're stuck with this semi-cooperative cluster. 🤷♂️
- Spies from the Shadows uses Explosion sounds instead of crow calls. The game literally has crow calls in the sound files (e.g. the crows flying away from the Pale Rose), it just seems like it would be a no-brainer to use that sound or something like it for Spies. It would make the perk both slightly better (since you could distinguish the crow calls from explosions caused by other actions) and also be more thematic. This one bugs me mainly because I just can't see a downside to doing it, it seems like an extremely simple tweak, and I'm 100% positive the devs MUST have thought of it at some point and rejected it for some reason I can't imagine. I'm baffled why they didn't just make it a crow call from the beginning.
- No automated recording file for customer tickets. I get it, they didn't put a replay system in the game in the beginning, and now they think it is impractical to do it. And honestly as far as personal recording for fun I have no problem with that. But the issue is that this also means that when someone wants to submit a ticket or bug report or whatever they have to have already been manually recording the game on their own with third party software and then go through the hassle of sending that to customer service through another process. It makes the players reporting something have a harder time doing it, and it also I'm guessing makes things harder to Behaviour customer service since they probably get a ton of tickets with missing or incomplete or corrupted video files. It just annoys me because I know having it would have been a win-win for everybody, but it's just not in the cards at this point. 🙁
- Map offerings. I really wish they weren't in the game. Whatever tiny benefit they give is greatly outweighed by the hassles they cause in exacerbating situations when parts of certain maps become exploitable somehow. They just allow people looking to abuse busted features to force matches into those spots, massively increasing the frequency those sorts of things would happen normally. For instance, when Boil Over was first buffed and it created sections of old RPD where it was literally impossible to hook survivors, it wouldn't have happened nearly as often if there were no offerings because people looking to abuse it wouldn't know if they were getting that map. If I could remove one thing it would probably be map offerings.
- What is the point of the killer moris and shrouds being secret offerings? Would survivors even care if they knew I had a Green mori versus I made them start the match together? If you're going to have secret offerings there needs to be a larger variety of them and there needs to be a reason keeping them secret is useful.
- Luck is a pointless effect. No survivor in their right mind tries to pull themselves off a hook except as a last ditch effort. It really needs a revamp.
- Beast of Prey and Furtive Chase giving you stealth mid-chase. Who was thinking that granting stealth while you're already chasing someone is that useful? Stealth is terrific between chases, it lets you get really close to a target before they react. But once you're in a chase they already know you're there and can see you so the effect is much, much weaker. Both these perks could use a revamp to make them do something else entirely that's not making you "sneaky while chasing someone".
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Interesting poll, and some good choices!
I went with Ash since his chapter is missing a killer, and I'm much more interested in playing new killers than survivors, and I'm pretty sure any number of big bads from the Ash IP would be fun to play here. I'm kind of neutral on the map although S-Mart would be a cool one. 🙂
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Never happening for me, I play one or two games a night.
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@lagosta said:
Scott Jund was mentioning 25% of the interval range, not the total population. We don't know for sure and chances are we will never have those metrics. But if you want some arbitrary numbers, assuming a normal distribution with a Mean of 1000:
- SD 800: P(X>1600) = 22.66%
- SD 600: P(X>1600) = 15.87%
- SD 400: P(X>1600) = 6.68%
My kind of post. 🙂 Based on something Peanits said a while back during testing, I think there were about 1% of players above the old cap which was (I think) 1900. Putting that in, with the same Mean of 1000, a SD of 400 seems to fit. If so then that 6.7% estimate is maybe the closest one.
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@Thusly_Boned said:
I doubt we'll get a straight answer on that from the devs, but the higher percentage we've seen from the cheater/hacker stuff the past few days feels like it is probably closer to the right answer.
If there were actually a pool of only 1-2% in an MMR level, the queue times would be eternal. I am pretty sure that's the way it was when SBMM first dropped, and then again for a minute during the testing rounds, but having the "top" pool being like 25% of all players would explain a whole lot of the matchmaking variance we've seen.
I guess those streamers who slap "AT TOP LEVEL" on all of their YT thumbnails are gonna probably have to back off of that a little, lol.
Just for reference, here's the fairly detailed dev blog on the matchmaking tests and results from earlier this year
@Peanits said:
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/B9SDLMUAF5CG/mm-test-results.png
Over the past few weeks, we’ve run a series of short matchmaking tests based on various feedback we’ve received. These ranged from making the matchmaker faster, stricter, various combinations in between, and yes, even disabling Skill Based Matchmaking and reverting to the old Grade Based Matchmaking.
We want to start by thanking everyone who took the time to share their thoughts about each of the tests. While we’re able to track things like queue times behind the scenes, your feedback is invaluable when it comes to finding extraordinary cases and for getting an idea of how these changes feel rather than how they perform. Thank you!
We’ve kept the details of the tests a secret until now as to not influence feedback, but since the tests are over, we’re ready to dive in and share some details on what was tested. But first, we need to explain what each of the changes mean.
Fair warning, this is going to be a long and very technical one!
Variables
We have a bunch of settings which we can tweak behind the scenes. Here’s a quick rundown on the ones we changed during the tests.
The first is maximum range. When you search for a match, we try to find other players who are close to your rating (within 50 points). If we aren’t able to do so, the search gradually expands until we’re able to find you a match. By default, this is set to 500 points away from your own rating. This is so you’re guaranteed to get a match after waiting a while, though it may not be the fairest.
The second is expansion time. This is how long it takes to reach the maximum range. By default, this is set to 5 minutes.
Then we have a few switches we can toggle. These are:
Bidirectional matchmaking: Normally once one player has been waiting long enough, other players can be pulled into their match (as long as they’re within the maximum range). Bidirectional matchmaking requires both players to have expanded enough to encompass each other for them to be pulled into the same match. By default, this is off.
If this sounds confusing, don’t worry, it’s complicated. Here’s a little chart to clear things up:
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/6C9DPL3ANQZK/bidirectional.png
Each player’s actual rating is shown in red, and their current matchmaking search is shown in blue.
- In Example 1, Player A’s search has expanded to cover Player B, but Player B has not yet expanded to cover Player A, so they won’t be matched together.
- In Example 2, both players have expanded enough to cover each other, so they can now be matched together.
- When we use the default (unidirectional) matchmaking, both examples would be eligible for a match.
Grade visibility: This one’s nice and simple. We can switch off grades in the post-match screen since they typically aren’t used for matchmaking. This doesn’t actually have an effect, but we were curious to see how people feel about it and how it affects their perception of matchmaking.
Grade Based Matchmaking: We can switch off Skill Based Matchmaking entirely and instead use Grades for matchmaking. For folks who joined us recently, this is roughly how the matchmaking worked before the introduction of Skill Based Matchmaking.
The Tests
And now, the part you’ve been waiting for: Just what exactly was tested each day? We’ll also share our expectations and how they matched up to the results. Quick disclaimer: We’ll be talking a lot about averages in this section. If this doesn’t line up with your experiences, don’t worry, we’re aware that things can vary depending on a bunch of different factors (time, region, role, rating, etc.).
For the first three tests, we did not expect much of an improvement. These three were meant to test individual variables and see the effect they have on matchmaking. Afterwards, we started to mix these variables to see the impact they would have together.
March 28
Test:
- Expansion time decreased to 1 minute (from 5 minutes)
Expectation: Faster matches, particularly for players in off-peak times, though the quality of matches would be lower.
Results: As expected, wait times dropped significantly across the board (faster than any other day), especially for the players on the extreme ends of the rating spectrum. The quality of matches on average did not change a whole lot, though some players may have noticed a larger gap in skill levels.
Kill rates noticeably changed on the ends of the spectrum, with high rated Killers becoming more deadly and low rated Killers having a harder time. This is likely due to players on the ends of the spectrum being paired with more players from the middle.
March 29
Test:
- Maximum range decreased to 250 (from 500)
Expectation: Slower matches, especially for players with extraordinarily high/low ratings and/or in off-peak hours, but higher quality matches in general.
Results: Like we predicted, wait times did increase for players on either end of the spectrum, although players in the middle did not have a noticeable impact on matchmaking times (on average). Overall, this test only slightly reduced the average rating difference compared to a non-test day, though curiously, players on the far ends of the spectrum may have seen an increase.
March 30
Test:
- Enable bidirectional matchmaking
Expectation: Longer queue times for players in off-peak hours & players at the extreme end of the rating spectrum, but fairer matches for players that get matched quickly.
Results: Longer queue times were an understatement; some players were experiencing exceptionally long queue times (15 minutes+). This is because there weren’t enough players to match them against in their region & skill level at the time they were playing, and players who were ‘close enough’ to their skill level would not get matched with them unless they also were unable to find a match.
This is longer than we’d ever like anyone to wait. To play it safe, we cut this test short and altered it a few hours in. A hard cap was added to switch back to the default unidirectional matchmaking after someone had been waiting for 5 minutes. This cap was used for all future tests where bidirectional matchmaking was used.
Of all the tests, this one reduced the average rating difference the most, cutting it by roughly a third. However, the long queue times make this a fairly unappealing solution.
March 31
Test:
- Maximum range decreased to 250 (from 500), expansion time decreased to 1 minute (from 5 minutes)
Expectation: Players who already get quick matches may notice a slight drop in quality, but players on the far ends may find matches quicker. On the other hand, the lowered range may limit the pool of players to match with on the far ends of the rating spectrum.
Results: Queue times for Survivors were faster across the board, but Killer queue times had no noticeable difference. In terms of kill rates, on the mid-high end of skill groups, kill rates dropped slightly (closer to 50%) while the lower groups remained mostly the same. This test also earned the second biggest reduction in average rating difference of all the tests.
April 4
Test:
- Maximum range decreased to 350 (from 500), expansion time decreased to 1 minute (from 5 minutes), enable bidirectional matchmaking
Expectation: Matchmaking may be slower for some players, but the quality of matches should be improved.
Results: Survivor queue times were faster across the board, while Killer queue times remained mostly the same (with the exception on the far low end of skill ratings). Kill rates, meanwhile, climbed slightly at the highest skill levels and remained mostly unchanged at the lower end. The average rating difference didn’t decrease noticeably with this test.
April 7
Test:
- Maximum range decreased to 350 (from 500), expansion time decreased to 1 minute (from 5 minutes), enable bidirectional matchmaking, grades hidden
Expectation: More or less the same results as the previous test, as all the variables are the same.
Results: We were curious to see what kind of impact hiding grades would have on the feedback we received, since grades are no longer used for matchmaking (though they can give the impression that they’re a measure of skill). For this test, we ran all the same variables, only we hid grades as well. This way we could compare feedback to the previous test to see how grades affected the sentiment.
To our surprise, the overall feedback appeared slightly more positive with grades hidden. When directly comparing opinions from folks who left feedback on both the April 4th & 7th tests, we discovered that the feedback was usually the same if not better when grades were hidden. We opted to leave grades hidden over the weekend.
April 11 - 12
Test:
- Switch to Grade Based Matchmaking
- (April 12th only: Show grades)
These tests were added later as we started to see more speculation about the tests. Occasionally someone would predict that one of the things we were testing was the old matchmaking system, and we figured hey, why not give it a shot?
Expectation: Matches would have a lot more variety in player skill, very similar to the old Rank Based Matchmaking. We also expected to see the average grade difference to fall dramatically.
Result: As we suspected, reports of one-sided matches started flooding in. We can also confirm this on our end; the average kill rates for this day saw the most dramatic change yet, with the highest skill levels rocketing up to roughly 80% (>3 kills per match on average) and plummeting to around 20% (<1 kill per match on average) on the lower end of the spectrum. The average grade difference, however, decreased significantly, as expected.
Now to be clear, this is not quite the same as the old Rank Based Matchmaking. For starters, grades reset all the way back to Bronze I while ranks only reset one colour tier, and it’s not possible to lose grades anymore. We wanted to give it a fair shot, so we specifically set this test as close to the grade reset as possible to give people the largest window to settle into their grades. (This is also why the last day was cut short: We didn’t want to leave the test running over the grade reset since that would have everyone matches against anyone.)
Furthermore, a 1-2 day test is not the same as leaving it on for an extended period of time. Given more time (and the ability to lose grades), we expect that people facing far too difficult opponents would eventually have their grades drop to a place where they’re more comfortable, while folks who are consistently overperforming would climb.
Ultimately, though, this highlights a big issue with using grades (or ranks) for matchmaking: A very experienced player who just hasn’t played a lot lately can very easily be paired against players that are new to the game. As we’ve learned in the past, grades/ranks are a stronger indicator of playtime than skill.
This test was very polarizing, but interestingly, we started to see more positive feedback when we started showing grades again. This indicates that there’s definitely a strong connection between seeing grades in the post match screen and the sentiment about a match.
Learnings
We’ve learned that the strictness of the matchmaking and the quality of the matches is without a doubt linked. Looser conditions had a notable effect on kill rates, opponent variety, and also the feedback we received. While the larger variety in opponents was appreciated by some, there was an opposite reaction from others who were now struggling in tougher matches. Simply put, on the other side of any casual match- where one player can win without trying- is a person who’s having a bad time despite trying their best.
On the other hand, the inverse is also true. Stricter matchmaking brought the kill rates closer to the middle, but many found the matches to be too competitive to enjoy. While folks in the lower groups of skill rating would have fewer unfair matches, the higher end of skill groups ended up in tough matches filled with meta perks & Killers.
These tests overall highlighted two distinct groups:
- High skill players who want more variety in their matches
- Lower-mid skill players who, understandably, don’t want to get destroyed by high skill players
The biggest takeaway here is that going too far either way is never a one-size-fits-all solution. What we’d often notice is how some players loved a particular test because they were seeing more variety in their opponents, but at the same time, those same tests were also frustrating to a lot of people who were suddenly getting matched with people way better than them. Neither person is wrong in this scenario: Each of them just expects something different from matchmaking.
Lastly, we have discovered that hiding grades on the post-match screen definitely influences the feedback we receive. We suspect this is for two reasons: 1) Long time players who may have missed the matchmaking changes could still thinking that grades are used for matchmaking. And 2) Some players still feel like grades are an indicator of skill in spite of not being used for matchmaking. Most importantly, however, we found that there was a lot of support for hiding grades, so this is something we’ll be considering as a permanent change going forward.
Next Steps
With all these learnings in mind, we have a solution that will improve matchmaking for both groups of players. We will be making the following changes shortly:
- Reducing the maximum range
- Reducing the expansion time proportionally (so it’s no faster or slower than before)
- Lowering the effective cap for skill ratings
- Removing grades from the post-match screen for the foreseeable future
Why these changes?
As mentioned in the learnings, we found two dominant groups:
- High skill players who want more variety
- Lower-mid skill players who want even matches
In order to make both groups happy, we first need to isolate them from each other. To do this, we’ll reduce the maximum expansion range. This will help keep players of similar skill levels together, reducing the number of one-sided matches. The majority of players fall in the middle of the spectrum, so there is still plenty of people to match with. Additionally, since it seems like the expansion is happening at a good rate, we’ll be adjusting the expansion time proportionally.
Next, we need to consider how this will affect the high skill group. Reducing the range would mean less variety. Fortunately, we have another variable to tweak that solves this issue perfectly. For the purposes of matchmaking, we have a “cap” for skill ratings. Although your rating can continue to climb beyond this cap, you’ll be treated as if you’re at the cap for the purposes of matchmaking. This is in place to prevent the best players out there from climbing to a point where there’s simply nobody to match with.
By lowering this cap, we’re able to expand the pool of players in high skill matches, leading to more variety in the opponents you face. One match may be very close and competitive, but the next may be a little more laid back. This will also ensure that queue times don’t grow longer at higher skill levels.
Lastly, we’ll be removing grades from the post match screen. When we originally hid grades during the test, we saw a lot of people asking for this to be made permanent. Additionally, long time players who may have missed the news could often think that grades were still used for matchmaking, leading them to feel like the match was less fair than it actually was. These, combined with the generally more positive feedback during the tests while they were disabled, were enough of a reason for us to disable them for the foreseeable future.
For the future, we’re still hard at work implementing various improvements to the matchmaking system. These include making Survivor ratings team based rather than personal (so dying heroically to save everyone else isn’t as punishing) and improvements to backfilling lobbies to prevent players from outside of the acceptable range from being pulled in. These improvements will take longer to implement, but rest assured, work is already underway on them. You can find a full list of changes we’re looking into in our January Developer Update.
Once again, we want to thank everyone who took the time to leave feedback throughout the tests. Understanding not just how the matchmaker performs, but also how it feels is incredibly important for us to make improvements. As always, we’ll be keeping a close eye on the matchmaking system moving forward and making small adjustments as necessary. Please keep the feedback coming!
The Dead by Daylight team
The main takeaways are
- The original acceptable bracket was +/- 500 points of your MMR for a match. That was reduced after the tests to I think 250. (The article above just mentions it being lowered but not the new number.)
- They lowered the soft cap (the article doesn't mention the number, but I think it was something like from 1850 or 1900 to 1600? Basically they lowered it by about the same amount as the bracket narrowed.
The main thing, though, is the old version had a pretty similar setup but didn't have "eternal queue times" because you don't actually need 1/4 of the total overall playerbase to be in your bracket to avoid having a long queue time.
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@Nun_So_Vile said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3177085#Comment_3177085
I genuinely almost spit out my water reading the Title. Who exactly is that? Mikey?? The Scatman?
Cue Scatman's Theme!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U5Ep9CnHNg -
Sorry, Cat Food Man?