jesterkind
jesterkind
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@Foggyguy said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3980855#Comment_3980855
The issue is that finding other survivors is for two things. Getting heals and avoiding them in chase. So a medkit is instantly better in the first situation and the latter is solved by just going towards completed gens while in chase. That's why keys don't make sense since the value they bring is incredibly low and while they used to have some via blood amber that add-on now helps the killer more than the survivor.
That's insanely reductive, keeping track of your teammates is for way more than just that.
For example, there's knowing who's going for a save if someone's hooked, that's another pretty big reason to keep an eye on your teammates. There's also going to injured teammates so YOU can heal them, which is often an aura you'd want in builds that maybe wouldn't have room for Empathy without committing all your perks to it.
It's also broadly useful to just know who is where, so you know what generators are being worked on, where chases are taking place, and can just broadly keep track of the macro. -
@nakedcat said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3980193#Comment_3980193
I don’t need a key to track other survivors. If I want that effect I’ll bring a perk for it or just use my eyes. I want keys with Blood Amber to track the killer especially when I’m looping.
Well, I guess the stats will bear out on whether maps and keys are worse than before. If they’re better or at least even, then we’ll see them in lobbies yes?
I mean, if you bring a key instead of the perk, you get… to bring more perks that do different things.
That's part of the value proposition of items in general. Bring medkits and you don't have to bring Self-Care, bring a toolbox and you don't have to bring Saboteur, bring a map and you don't need to bring Deja Vu/Visionary/etc, and so on.
Most items do extra stuff as well - which keys do too, nowadays - but they're kinda supposed to be extra perk slots in a sense. The only real exception was flashlights for a long time, and now fog vials too.I get not wanting that, but it not being an effect you'd personally want doesn't stop keys from being significantly better now.
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For licensed, Taylor Hebert from Worm. She'd make such a perfect killer, with the one small tiny sticking factor being that there's no way BHVR would adapt something that small lmfao
For non-licensed, I've always kinda wanted a killer whose 'power' is just moving at 120% + having a basekit Enduring, complete with a set of addons that all revolve around M1 concepts like varying the terror radius, applying certain perk effects, and maybe a very limited Exposed iridescent.
A killer who is the very height of "perk combo M1 machine", who probably wouldn't be very good but that I personally would love tinkering with. -
I'd disagree with Nemesis, he should probably be up in "So Close" just for the few concessions made to make him fit in this game.
He's otherwise extremely faithful to the video game he was adapted from. The absence of certain things doesn't mean the things we do have aren't faithful.
I also think Bubba's pretty damn close, I'm actually curious why you put him so low. Is there something you'd expect him to be doing that he isn't?
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It's probably going to be Relentlessness, unfortunately.
I voted for Torment though, that one sounds like it could be so sick with a divine-like killer.
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@Foggyguy said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3980340#Comment_3980340
Right… so just gonna break down the math. According to the wiki plunderers decreases the chance of getting a medkit which is one of the only two worthwhile items survivors can get. While this information is a bit out of date this has only been made worse by the fact that fog vials are now a thing and got gutted and will soon be executed based on the words of the devs. So you are running around gambling on a approximately 30% chance you will get a decent item.
That's not even going into the opportunity cost. Instead of running a key in hopes of getting a good item you can just bring the good item in the first place. Instead of bringing chest perks to maybe make it less of a waste you could be bringing exhaustion perks, anti-tunnel perks, anti slugging stuff, etc...
It's the same thing as invocations. Technically they could be worthwhile but the base mechanics for them need to be fundamentally changed. Chests need to be reworked on a fundamental level to make them worthwhile instead of making perks and items to make them less bad. If they did stuff like make the new streetwise a base effect, ace in the hole effect, and spawned more chests I think I could agree that chest builds could be viable but they just aren't."Chest build" covers more than actually wanting the item inside, it also covers stuff like Moment of Glory, Hardened, Specialist, Apocalyptic Ingenuity, etc. Not all of these are worthwhile either way, but keys boost the strength of them considerably all the same, so any that are on the borderline (imo this is mostly just Moment of Glory and Hardened, but I could see an argument for Specialist) become viable.
Actually wanting to use the item does make the build a little riskier, but new Streetwise helps offset that quite a bit, so I'd just say any "actually use the item" build will have Streetwise as a central pillar. After all, then the answer to "why not bring the item itself" is "because doing it this way gives me almost double charges".
(For the record, this is what I think is the MOST viable option. It's what I've been doing with keys since the rework.)We have also pivoted hard from "you are throwing the game spending all your time opening chests" to "you aren't getting enough of a benefit to warrant bringing this over something else", which is quite a different take.
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@Foggyguy said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3980010#Comment_3980010
Sorry but chest builds are game throwing in their current state so key buffs are more just a red flag for other survivors telling them to dodge the incoming 3v1 while a blendett spends the whole match opening chests and doing nothing.
This is exaggerated but mostly true without keys. With keys you spend like a second and a half opening a chest, so you're only throwing if you're spending the whole game searching for chests.
A key + Plunderer's and you can make chest builds genuinely viable without wasting any appreciable amount of time.
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Oh that'd be pretty cool, actually. I'd use zodiac charms.
Gotta show off who my favourite Homestuck trolls are, after all /j
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@Rudjohns said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3980210#Comment_3980210
Maximum 7 is pitiful lmao
Well, keys and maps were almost useless, they just needed a simple buff, not what they got
Seven is quite a lot across the trial, especially considering their hefty range and duration.
I'm not saying it couldn't be higher, but the number we have now is perfectly useful. Keys did get a buff, it just wasn't a simple one.
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@Rudjohns said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3980200#Comment_3980200
And you can only do a few times. Sometimes you won't get the value you are expecting and you waste a charge
Holding the button for the desired amount of time is much more convenient
Nobody was complaining about this
"A few" is misleading. Minimum 5, maximum 7, on top of the range being noticeably higher so the chances of not seeing your teammates is very low.
The Skeleton key has a range of 64 metres and lasts for 10 full seconds. There's no way to slice it but your chances of being able to effectively track your teammates with the key going up considerably.People were complaining that keys and maps were useless. While this didn't really help maps that much, it absolutely made keys significantly better at their main niche and added an entire new niche on top of that.
Keys were improved, noticeably, and the new charge system is part of why. -
@Rudjohns said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3980033#Comment_3980033
I promise you buddy, you are in the minority
Nobody likes the new charge system
I do. The person you're responding to is right - a single button press for lingering aura read is considerably more convenient than having to micromanage being able to hold the button.
It's a part of why keys are so much better at tracking teammates now- you can be doing whatever while reading their aura, on top of having more range and more opportunities to use it.
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@nakedcat said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3980010#Comment_3980010
Keys and maps are worse to me. Keys were good for Blood Amber and unlocking hatch. Now, they’re only good for unlocking hatch.
I really liked the old maps and used them quite frequently in totem-based builds. Whatever they are now is garbage. That’s why survivors aren’t using them. Besides you I guess
Like I said, keys currently have three things they're good for. If we count Blood Amber and unlocking hatch as the previous good use cases, keys went from two good uses to three good uses.
They're good for unlocking hatch, they're good for tracking teammates, and they're good for chest builds. That last one is more potent than you'd think, keys singlehandedly make certain chest-perk combos outright viable.
Maps still work for totem based builds, but like I said, I have a lot of issues with their rework. I just don't think it's constructive to say they're worse now, because that's both arguably not really true and inarguably not the problem.
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@Coordi said:
What stats would you be interested in seeing?
Personally speaking, I've always wanted to see the pickrate for survivors themselves.
Not their perks or items, but which survivor is picked. It's practically a pure popularity contest with some variance for paywalled characters, so it'd be interesting to see who the community likes the most.
Willing to bet the OG four are probably up there since everyone has access to them, but the whole list would also be interesting to see. -
I wouldn't say maps and keys are worse than before, not even close.
As I've said in another thread, keys in particular are almost JUST flat out significantly stronger. The only asterisk that goes on this statement is that the Blood Amber in particular is weaker, but keys now do so much more than before that it more than makes up for that nerf.
Keys are still useful for the hatch, but they now function as replacement items for perks such as Bond and Empathy without needing to use addon slots on it, and they also fit into chest-searching builds unbelievably well. They are just flat out a good and worthwhile item that I'd probably put on par with flashlights overall, in terms of strength and viability.Obviously, they don't match medkits and especially not toolboxes, but that's a really high bar.
Maps are definitely more arguable since they lost a lot of functionality - I have a whole thread about how I don't like the rework for a myriad of reasons - but I still think they're arguably better than before. If you want totem hunting, sure, you have to use an expensive purple addon and that sucks… but the map's still just as good at doing that. They now also have the Windows effect, which is fairly middling as effects go but still useful, so they're still doing okay and on average are honestly a little better since their no-addon effects are far more noticeable, at least for the lower rarity map.
It's more the shape of the rework that's a problem than the strength of the rework.Fog Vials I can't comment on, I've not played a game with nerfed Fog Vials in yet.
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@Reinami said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3979650#Comment_3979650
Nobody has been able to explain to me how clown getting 2% more haste on his haste bottles and losing 1% slowdown on the hindered bottles suddenly makes him massively overpowered and a huge problem.
Near-instant activation on the yellows allows him to spam them mid-chase significantly more easily, and also has pushed more people towards actually using the bottles this way noticeably more frequently, creating a persistent problem that, while it did exist before, was less accessible and therefore less popular than it now is.
It's not unfixable and Clown deserves to be buffed in a way that isn't unhealthy for the game, but it's there.
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You have some options, but the main thing I want to highlight is that medkits aren't actually broken at the moment- even with something like Botany a survivor is still setting aside noticeable time to heal, in some cases letting them do that is the better play.
Most of the really scary healing options aren't actually tied to medkits specifically, so other tools work better to counter them. For instance, the scariest healing option in the game right now is Resurgence, especially when paired with a medkit… but Gift of Pain counters that very handily in a way that it doesn't counter medkits on their own.But, if you want to counter medkits, you're generally going to look at making them take longer to heal, since outright preventing heals isn't that easy in general.
Perks like Sloppy are the lowest rung on this ladder- tools that are very passive but provide appropriately low rewards. If you want potent healing slowdown, you do have to work for it. Something like Coulrophobia can make healing up practically impossible in your terror radius, so it's good if you've got the game sense and/or info tools to know where and when someone's trying to heal, and something like Forced Penance will work if what the survivor's trying to do is bodyblock then heal up quickly— these tools have more niche/specific situations they counter, but provide much higher reward to compensate for it.Another thing you can do is mitigate the problem of healing to begin with. Chase perks make sticking on survivors to deny them downtime to heal more consistently viable, Exposed perks make healing up just a waste of time, Broken stops healing outright if you can consistently apply it…
Unfortunately you do have to evaluate what you're struggling with and what your available options are on your killer before more specific answers become clear.However. If you really do want to specifically hurt medkits in a very direct way, especially if you want something fairly passive, there are two basically alright answers:
- No Quarter. This perk seems to be designed specifically around messing up medkits; it gives a chance for any self heal to not be finished, and makes any interrupted heal waste a huge amount of medkit charges if that's what was being used. The first part is the passive part and is less likely to mess up good players, but the whole package is still there.
- …Franklin's Demise. The time it takes them to run back and pick up their medkit severely hampers the efficiency of healing with a medkit to begin with. Remember, their biggest strength is the ability to heal anywhere, anywhen— against Franklin's they're less potent at that. Franklin's still isn't very good overall, but just like before, it's most effective against medkits. Worthless against anything else, but it still does that.
Nothing you have is going to hard remove medkits from the games you're playing, but that doesn't mean there aren't answers. You just have to be more specific in identifying what effect medkits are having on your games.
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Legion's really not that bad, they're a killer you have to put some thought and effort into getting good results from - and arguably maybe too much for what you get in exchange - but they're chilling in the mid tiers for now. People also mention Pig a lot in this context, and the same thing is true of her.
The absolute bottom of the barrel killers at the moment are Trapper and Skull Merchant, so by strength alone we should probably be looking at them for buffs and updates.
BHVR have been gradually buffing every killer that needs it (and a few that don't frankly) over the past few years, so I'm sure we'll get around to them at some point. -
Constantine would be great, but you'd have to be careful what version. Modern DC Constantine is probably a bit too high-powered, but the older Vertigo Constantine would be just the right level of savvy and prepared to have an edge without being too strong.
He'd probably have an Invocation, which is unfortunate for strength but great for theming, lol.Best bet is gonna be horror comics over the usual cape fare I feel - hell, TWD started as a comic - but some stuff from more mainstream areas could work. I've often considered Scarecrow an interesting pick for a killer, I feel he'd fit well enough.
Plus, it'd never happen, but man, Harper Row as a survivor would be so cool. -
@Coffeecrashing said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3979010#Comment_3979010
The lighting from the fire barrel, is causing the fog effect to be massively brighter, which means people can't see the area around the fire barrel.
As in, if the fire barrel wasn't there, then it would have been much easier to see through the fog effect.
I'm not sure, that still looks about right to me. Maybe I'm wrong.
It's definitely not as pronounced as the second screenshot though, that one's really noticeable.
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@Coffeecrashing said:
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/O0WMDDPVASLM/image.png
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/QU4KTZ32IYAM/image.png
Fog Vial Bug #1: A map's natural fog effects, like from this swamp map, effect's the fog vial's fog effect.
Can the fog vials please set the opacity to a certain number, instead of increasing opacity by a certain number? This is the swamp map's natural fog effect, interacting with the fog vial.
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/TDYGSHD4N04W/image.png
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/GYP3QNC7RQC1/image.png
Fog Vial Bug #2: Environmental lighting from the sky is affecting the fog vial's fog effect.
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/1JI9A5RR000G/image.png
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/6PAE5AFY6N38/image.png
Fog Vial Bug #3: Environmental lighting from objects, like this fire barrel, is also affecting the fog vial's fog effect.
Is the third one a bug? I would assume you're supposed to be able to see the fire barrel through the fog.
Is there something else here I'm missing? Genuinely.
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I've thought for a while that there should be more chests in the trial, I'd agree wholeheartedly.
I'd go a step further though, and increase the number of chests to 5, but with a caveat: Both new chests should be in static positions.
Currently, there's a single chest that spawns in a static location - the one in the basement - and two that spawn in random locations. My proposal is to keep the two you'd have to look for, but have two chests spawn in the basement (one for each potential position, because currently the chest in the basement has two spawn locations for… some reason) and one spawn in shack, where appropriate.
For maps that don't have a shack, the third would be in a random position like the other two.Plenty of chests to activate perks or just to search as-is, but two of them require a mild risk to get to and both sides know about the location of at least two to play around.
I also feel there should be two more dull totems in a trial for similar reasons, so both sides can make better use out of multi-totem perks.
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While I see the logic behind needing to balance with the idea that everyone has a reasonably similar amount of information regardless of if they're playing in solo or with friends, comms aren't the way to get there.
If all you do is add voice comms, functionally speaking very little changes. Some people will be able to communicate with their teammates, most people will not, and the people who can't are unable to do so for reasons completely beyond their own control or preferences.
Voice comms are the last layer of information gain a game adds, not the first. DBD would need a much, much more robust system of communication and information gain that isn't comms before they should be in the conversation.Something like a ping wheel and slightly better basekit information would go MUCH further than comms ever could.
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I feel like it's pretty relevant that they DID reduce the visual effect of Clown's Intoxication specifically because it was an accessibility issue.
Nightfall also does get brought up as an accessibility issue sometimes, so does Spirit. These are conversations actually worth having + that do sometimes get acted on, I don't like the implied "gotcha" game being played with them here.
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@deckyr said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3978081#Comment_3978081
this is a fun hypothetical but unfortunately in the official kill switch post, they say this:
"The Kill Switch is a recent feature added to Dead by Daylight. It gives us the ability to temporarily switch off any items/offerings/maps/cosmetics/characters that are causing game breaking issues in the game, to ensure continued enjoyment."
'continued enjoyment' implies that it's not just about things that make the game technically unresponsive; it is also about ensuring that the game remains enjoyable.
my expectations are that they killswitch perks that aren't performing as intended if these perks make the game less fun, as bhvr themselves outlined.
so, it's kind of their fault that they forgot what the killswitch was for.
I don't know, they specify game-breaking here, that's a pretty vague term with two general definitions… and those two definitions are pretty in line with the two expectations that are laid out.
"To ensure continued enjoyment" seems like general video game PR speak, which I mean very neutrally here. That's just sort of how these things are written, the part that conveys more information to me is the phrase "game breaking".
In this context I'd personally interpret that to mean "so you can continue playing the video game", not "so the video game continues to be enjoyable to you personally". There are some people who probably were enjoying having access to the bug, after all.I'd also highlight that "make the game less fun" is extremely subjective, that clearly can't be their main criteria here. That'd mean also listening to the people who ask for perks that are just too strong or just kinda annoying to be killswitched, and that seems like a giant overreach to me.
I also think that this very conversation highlights even more that clearly there's some wires getting crossed between different people's interpretation of the killswitch.
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@Rapid99 said:
Most anti-heal perks are god awful, which is the problem and why franklin's is the only real counter.
I don't think that's true, I think they just tend to be designed with a more specific purpose.
For instance, Gift of Pain is a fantastic counter to Resurgence and We'll Make It because it activates after the unhook and, critically, punishes use of those perks as much as it weakens their effects.
By contrast, something like Forced Penance is really good at punishing altruistic bodyblocking because it stops that survivor from being able to heal up afterwards, leaving them vulnerable; this is one use of medkits that it's good at countering.
Then something like Coulrophobia is great for interrupting heals, since being in the terror radius makes healing such a hassle it's not worth doing. If you've got good information tools and/or game sense, it's quite potent.
Things that cause Mangled or something like Leverage tend to be great at delaying heals since survivors are inclined to wait it out, giving you more time to get back around to them.So on, so forth. Franklins' only strength in comparison to these is that it was passive. Hit a survivor, they can't use their medkit as effectively anymore. Low effort, but comparatively low impact too. It's not like they can't heal after being hit, and if they had a syringe they still get to use that too. They just get fewer uses overall.
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@deckyr said:
this doesn't feel like a response to our feedback. this feels like damage control after you ignored us for an extended period of time.
i understand sometimes this community will exaggerate a minor issue and that ignoring things will make them go away in a lot of cases. but YOU need to understand that sometimes, we actually are on to something. you need to develop the skills necessary to look at the problems that are occuring and make an objective decision about how impactful these problems are.
i'm sorry that the streetwise bug isn't something glaringly obvious like "this killer is accidentally giving people seisures" and required game knowledge to figure out the impact of. however, you should have that requisite game knowledge. you should be able to look at issues from the inside, where we are, and examine the projected impact that a bug like this can cause, using your own experiences of dead by daylight.
and if anyone, for some reason, felt like this would not become an issue for any number of reasons, then their game knowledge is lacking, and they need to care more.
dead by daylight IS a video game. it's also the livelihood of you and your streamers. people depend on the quality of dbd matches to be consistent without allowing broken perks to create outlier games that give people advantages they shouldn't have. and you, community managers and developers, need to understand that there IS a huge portion of people who take this game personally, and who will take advantage of broken and rogue elements specifically to try to ruin the other side's day.
i don't want you to tell me that this is a response to our feedback. i want the case where the next time something like this happens (because it almost certainly will happen again), you listen the FIRST time you are told and you DO SOMETHING about it.
also, don't give me that about "your expectations of the killswitch are different than ours". our expectation of the killswitch is that you use it to protect the integrity of the game, and you chose repeatedly not to protect the integrity of everyone's dbd matches (which, need i remind you, now use mmr).
what was the point of not using it? because the game would technically function, so it was ok to have none of the matches be worth playing? these bugged perks are making the game unfun, unenjoyable, and unplayable. all of my friends decided to spend the week (the LAUNCH WEEK OF THE WALKING DEAD CROSSOVER, btw) playing marvel rivals because you would not make the obvious move of killswitching it. and to be honest, i might not even pick dbd back up right away after this.
i'm seriously scorned by how the community managers have behaved during this. if you don't have the requisite game knowledge to know when to take us seriously, then boot up the video game and find out for yourself. hell, just boot it up anyway and look at how bad the problem is yourself. exploit the bugged perks. dbd games are so short, you literally could have had the first hand experience required to say "oh, yeah this is ruining the game" in one hour per perk. this is your job. even if you don't want to do it, can't you at least listen to your fog whisperers and twitch partners to inform your opinions? it's just negligent, and makes me feel like you're phoning it in. you are paid to be our liaisons, you should NEVER be dismissing us without investigating.
do better.
On the topic of the expectations of the killswitch being different - you later in the post say the purpose is to protect the integrity of matches.
IF, hypothetically, BHVR's intention with the killswitch is to protect the game from bugs that affect the game's stability - IE, stuff like release Circle of Healing crashing the game to the desktop when used - would that not be covered by different expectations?
I would agree that it should also cover bugs like this Streetwise one where a competitive advantage can be unfairly obtained, but that seems to me to be the literal definition of a differing expectation.
I expect - or at least think, and would argue in favour of - competitive integrity being important enough to warrant the killswitch in addition to its original purpose.
BHVR expected, past tense, to use the killswitch to protect the game from crashing or trials to become unplayable (literally, not because the opposing team has an unfair advantage).Hearing that BHVR are willing to revisit their initial expectation - if I'm understanding what it was correctly, at least - and bring the killswitch more in line with what I and many others believed it should be used for is a pretty good answer to the community's position and outrage here, in my opinion.
I'm all for criticising BHVR's missteps but what they're doing here is a step in the right direction. -
That version sucked to go against more than pre-nerf Franklin's, and was less useful too.
Franklin's needs a new secondary effect imo, not bringing back an old problematic one.
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@Rapid99 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3978017#Comment_3978017
A halfway decent counter is still better than… no counter at all.
To medkits?
Well, they're used for healing. Any good anti-heal is going to work on them, as is Broken and most chase tools that mitigate being healthy to begin with. You've also got No Quarter which seems purpose-designed to screw over medkits and not do much else, and honestly Franklin's still works for adding time to a self-heal with medkits since they have to go pick them up off the ground.
It's kinda moot though, I'd rather bring counter-picks to the really strong healing tools over medkits. Something like Gift of Pain to catch Resurgence is much, much more potent imo.There's already potentially better stuff than old Franklin's for this, and there was before too. The only real benefit Franklin's had was it being fairly brainless, just slap it on and you don't have to think about it any more.
But, y'know, like I said myself a bit further up- Franklin's should have a secondary effect. It just shouldn't be that secondary effect. -
@Rapid99 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3977970#Comment_3977970
Franklin's was the only counterplay killers had to items lol.
Franklin's was only halfway decent at countering medkits in particular, it's never actually been a good overall-item counter.
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While I do think Franklin's needs a secondary effect to be a complete perk, I don't think it should be reverted and I don't think that has much to do with Fog Vials.
Franklin's Demise has basically always sucked to play against, and it's also never really been all that good either. This is a golden opportunity to change the secondary effect to something hopefully a little more healthy, and a little more useful. Just going back to old problems doesn't fix anything.
I'm not sure exactly what it should look like, but one idea I've been tossing around is that the secondary effect reads like this:
- When survivors pick up their item, that item is blocked from use for [X] seconds
This applies equally across item types, isn't nearly as destructive, and is arguably more useful than the old charge-draining effect since it's meaningful for more than just medkits. It'd probably still not be all that fun to play against, but to be fair, your opponent's tools are probably meant to be a tiny bit annoying sometimes.
That or something else, it just shouldn't be any of the old effects. They've never been good for the game by basically any metric.
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Not only has DBD not lost any horror, it's gained a lot of horror over the years.
Horror is more than not being able to see. It's a whole genre with a rich and varied history- it's more than old slasher films and a gloomy atmosphere.
In fact, Coldwind is one of the best examples you could give. Sure, it used to be much gloomier, but they updated it and while I don't remember if they ever said this outright, it's extremely clear that the inspiration for how new Coldwind looks is Texas Chainsaw Massacre, one of the most critically acclaimed horror films of all time that often gets cited specifically as having a great atmosphere for horror.
I would argue that the best maps for horror atmosphere in this game aren't actually the visually dark ones. Coldwind is up there for the evoking of oppressive, sun-baked heat that shows grisly remnants of violence, but there's also Lery's for being a rundown old hospital showing through implication spaces where people had horrific things done to them as a strong contender for horror atmosphere.
There are also really well-done maps that aren't directly spooky but clearly lean in to the storytelling they're part of, like Toba Landing being an alien and unfamiliar location where things clearly went wrong and pretty much the whole Withered Isle realm doing a great job of seeming like a crumbling patchwork of fading memory.We've also had some great examples of horror storytelling that aren't based on this narrow perception, either. Trickster and Yun-Jin's intertwined story is a fantastic example of this, it's a really well done story about a vicious predator getting away with his crimes because of his high status and because of people looking the other way— and Trickster doesn't look visually in line with the OG killers despite this.
Obviously it's fine to prefer the gloomier, visually-darker aesthetic, but I do feel the need to push back when the alternatives are presented as less horror because of it.
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They're different kinds of perks- afaik most survivor aura reading perks, which would be the better comparison, do work when the survivor using them is in the dying state.
IE, if you have Alert and the killer breaks a pallet while you're on the ground, I'm pretty sure it does still activate.
Survivors have a bunch of perks that activate in the injured state specifically, and killers don't have an equivalent because they don't have an injured state. Killers do have perks that only work on injured survivors, though, like Alien Instinct or Blood Echo.
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@oecrophy said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3975199#Comment_3975199
ok. i´m always ready to share my pov.
Marigold was the first person I found. She wasn’t even good — free hit right off the bat.
Yeah, picking up there was a mistake, and the flashy save cost me. (I knew someone was there, but I had to risk it — otherwise she would’ve made it to a pallet.)
But sure — first chase, and nearly 3 gens done already. What now? Defend gens?What am I even supposed to do — try to build up Condemned while they just slam out the last two gens for free?
“Chase someone else.”
“Chase the unhooker.”
“Proxy camp to delay the unhook.”
“Go after the unhooked survivor later instead of right after.”Okay, cool. And what exactly would that have gotten me?
Chase David, who just wanted to show me how sexy the main building is?
Port away and go after Alan, chillin’ by shack?
Or maybe try to actually defend gens against an efficient squad?Please, do tell.
I’m learning.
The big bad tunneling killer is very open to learning.So FYI I've only watched up to the point that Marigold dies because that's, I feel, most relevant and I don't have unlimited time, I do apologise.
The first thing we need to note is that this is explicitly a bad position you should be attempting to avoid. That's not to say this is a bad example - these things happen, it makes this quite a good example in some ways - but it is important to note that a good chunk of any advice anyone would give here is preventative, not reactive.
Y'know, don't be in this position. Don't get flashy saved, don't overcommit to that chase, etc. This is the situation you were in, so this is the situation we'll respond to - it just needs to be noted.The second thing to note is that you're playing a very weak killer. That's not to say you shouldn't be doing that either, but rather to note that there are a handful of killers who just have fewer options. That said, Sadako has options here too, so let's get into those.
While watching this I was initially thinking of a bullet pointed list - feint chasing Marigold and hit David while he's out of position, leave Marigold on the ground and harass whoever's going for the save, proxy camp Marigold to chase David before he gets the unhook - but honestly I think I can sum it up more neatly than that.
This is a hyper aggressive flashlight squad (at least, David is), so use that. They're going to put themselves out of position, it happens multiple times in this video; David was giving you the freest hits of all time, and it's only because of Sadako's lack of collision that it wasn't the best call to hit him and then use Marigold as bait. Broadly speaking, against teams like that, if you couldn't tunnel for whatever reason, that's how you do it. They're going to get cocky, they're going to give you free hits.Slugging is also quite a good call against teams like this. Whatever BHVR's doing about slugging in the future, they've at least said that slugging in situations like this is something they're trying to preserve, so that should hopefully remain an option going forward. They want flashy saves, ergo they'll be lingering around near a down, ergo you can get some free hits on them that way.
You mention defending gens but honestly I wouldn't recommend it. They're not your objective and you can't really stall them that much anymore, it's almost always better to focus on survivors and only use gens as bait.Obviously, these teams are going to be hard to beat. They're good players, they should be. Hard doesn't mean impossible, though.
Also again, a good chunk of playing against teams like this is trying not to be in this situation to begin with. Also also, again, part of the ideal outcome here is Sadako getting buffed/reworked to be better at handling this; multiple other killers wouldn't break a sweat here and that is a problem with Sadako.(As an aside what was the music playing at the start? I liked it)
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@oecrophy said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3975176#Comment_3975176
Tunneling doesn’t just give a small advantage, usually it gives a very strong one. It’s not always the way to go, sure. But often, situationally, it’s simply the most efficient and strongest tool you have.
And… do you think survivors really care about pressure on the hook? If you push that too hard, they just keep working on gens and come back last second. So where’s the pressure when you start chasing a fresh hook? None. The fresh hook is in chase, three survivors feel zero pressure and just laser-focus their gens. Then you get the next fresh hook and… what’s next? The same thing all over again.
Y.. i mean.. um.. eventually all the gens get done, and eventually the exits open if you don’t build pressure elsewhere.
And regardless: y, I get a lot of casual lobbies too for certain hours (which is why my kill rate is very high -because I usually don’t take much consideration for those lobbies ). But you never know what kind of really and even the worst bad players people bring into the game. Usually not because of skill, but stuff like, “Oh, who wants to get chased? I’ll just go down upper main and then let’s have fun with some sabo plays)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6_b8Z-pz9k
And y, even if you’re thinking "survs are super bad", “no need to sweat this one” and letting some bad players slide — you never know what’s coming next. Nah, not on my match.
So am I supposed to just let these “we’re trash but we’ve got our perks” squads go for free, just because I’m not allowed to pressure the hook once I’ve earned it? Or when anti-slugging kicks in? Nah. That’s Nurse time from my side the moment bhvr bring this changes.
(And y — if I hadn’t immediately slugged again, that Ace would’ve sabotaged the next hook right in front of me.)Tunnelling is the strongest and most efficient tool you have because it's unbalanced. If chasing the survivor fresh off a hook wasn't significantly easier, it wouldn't be strong or efficient.
(It's not efficient anyway, it's just unbalanced enough that the inefficiency is difficult to punish.)
As for pressure on the hook, yes, survivors care. If someone's on the hook and someone's in chase, someone else has to go get the save- they could wait it out, but if they do, they're risking you getting the down quicker than they expect, which puts you in an even bigger advantage.
Note that this isn't foolproof. Survivors get to try and outplay you here, which they should, because it's a video game. There may be overtuned tools on either side, but those would need to be addressed either way, they're not relevant here.So, bluntly, of course you're allowed to pressure the hook. I mean, you're allowed to tunnel right now, we're talking in hypotheticals here, but hypothetically, of course! You've got a wealth of options for gaining pressure from a hook. The sole one even in contention is the one that is also a balance problem.
Chase someone else, chase the unhooker, proxy camp to delay (but not prevent) the unhook by chasing whoever comes for a save, hell, you could even hypothetically try to target the unhooked survivor at a later point than immediately after the unhook. People forget that there's an entire video game that is covered by "not tunnelling". -
@oecrophy said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3975130#Comment_3975130
So basically… the first advantage, being able to control a hook at all, is something the killer earns by winning that initial chase. That’s why I always say: folks, the first chase is the most important—no free hits, no pallet greed, better to drop pallets early and play it safe. That’s the point in the match where the survivor team is strongest.
Once the killer has a hook, they definitely have an advantage, but it’s an advantage they’ve earned at that moment.
Is that advantage sometimes too big? Especially with hooks in certain areas? Yeah, I get you on that. Those situations happen, and you can kinda predict where a “sexy dead zone” hook might be, and try to push survivors into those spots. It’s costly for the team when it happens—and yes, sometimes it’s way too costly.
At that point, “too easy?” — I actually agree with you on that.
But that’s the huge issue with generally poor map design (not that the killer plays around the hook) —there shouldn’t be absolute death zones or on the flip side super OP survivor RNG. And yeah, I agree that tunneling is way easier on some killers, and it takes very little effort. But many of those killers are actually pretty weak overall and lack control otherwise.
On most maps, a Bubba (Leatherface) can lose 4 generators in the first chase, and I don’t find that too wild.
And that idea of “the killer doesn’t have to put in much effort just because they’re near the hook” — give many killers ways to play differently and still win, without having to rely on survivor mistakes or slip-ups, and that changes the game a lot.
The thing is, what the killer earned is that hook. If they want more than that, they should have to earn it again- and there are paths to that in the game right now, like dragging a lot of the team off generators by capitalising on the hook and spreading pressure.
What the killer didn't earn is having a survivor out of the match already, and while they can't force that literally the way they used to be able to… they can get there much, much, much easier than by chasing anyone else.
It's not a map issue because there aren't that many maps in the game where survivors have that many resources to burn, and those maps tend to be the ones that are unbalanced for regular play. Bring those maps in line, weaken tunnelling substantially, and we're in a much better spot.
The advantage that's too big isn't based on where you are on the map, really, it's based on the fact that you're getting a substantially easier chase with little counterplay. There are only a handful of maps that make a difference here.The cold hard truth is, you do not have to leverage the easy chase that comes with tunnelling to win. It's just a lot easier to win that way, and can cause trouble learning the fundamentals if you rely on it too much- I have a whole post about that particular topic.
People like to say "give killers ways to play differently and still win", but those exist. They're just noticeably harder, because they're not unbalanced like tunnelling is. -
Definitely agreeing with Trapper and Skull Merchant.
Trapper's weaknesses are numerous- he's slow, he has ridiculously effective counterplay, his power is very simple, he doesn't have much versatility in playstyles from his addons or base power, map design changes over the years have hurt him, and so on. He has some saving graces, like perk versatility being pretty high on him and his capacity to snowball being high, but he's not very good overall.
Merchant's drones practically don't do anything these days, meaning her power against even remotely aware survivors is just on-demand stealth. It's not nothing, but unless you want to try ten times as hard for half the reward as even other weak killers to force her drones to give value, that's all you've got.
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@Brimp said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3975111#Comment_3975111
They were designed to combat camping but also inadvertently buffed the skill needed for macro. Also I said "skill needed for macro became basekit" not "all skill needed for macro". The fact is the hook state changes did NOT match the gen speed increase changes. For every 1 second hook time is 2 seconds of gen time on average especially early game. Not needing multiple people for saves means more people working on gens. Sure you can chase someone away but then they plop the unhook and heal in 8 seconds and walk across the map.
It's undeniable macro has been overall easier for survivor over the years.
I mean… I guess?
But that's still just the balance problem that required two people for saves being fixed. At best, it had the indirect knock-on effect of being able to be more efficient on generators sometimes. Hell, you could argue that knowing to capitalise on that is macro skill, though that is a little flimsy.
I don't think macro overall is all that much easier to execute on, just to engage with. I think maybe the difference between us is that I don't consider no longer needing to handle balance problems as part of the macro skillset.
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@oecrophy said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3975066#Comment_3975066
Ye, sure – if the killer actually manages to sneak up, especially against a coordinated SWF: GG. But... the time they lose trying to pull that off is insanely costly, and the “sneak” usually just isn’t worth it. It’s a massive gamble, and if they lose that gamble, it hurts a lot. And you loose soo much time. And time is one of the most valuable resources in this game.
You say that’s “deserved” in contrast to tunneling – because with tunneling, the killer “gets an easier chase for free.” But the real question I’m asking is:
Is this chase really easier just because you tunnel?Yup, sure, one health state is gone – but now you’re dealing with a ton of perks that only activate post-unhook. You have to work through that first. (eat this ds or otr, or what else they bring) And the moment you tunnel, someone on the team is usually already moving in to help – perks or not.
Isn’t that actually way more the killer has to “work through” than just a normal 2-health-state chase? So is this really "for free"?
That survivor may have one health state less, but they come with a lot of other stuff – protection, buffs, and probably backup.
So no, I don’t see that as a “free” or “gifted” easy chase. Not in my Pov.And back to the sneaking-up example:
The advantage you gain from it often costs you so much time, that the investment in that play can easily lose you the whole match. It’s a high-risk move – and even if it works, you’re often thrown into a really disadvantageous position afterwards.So you pulled off a high-risk play… for almost nothing?
Sure, sometimes you can snowball like crazy from those situations — but I don’t like building my gameplay around hope and coin flips.That’s the kind of stuff for people hunting funny jumpscare-into-team-wipe clips with plays that maybe work once every 20 games if they’re lucky.
But when I load in, I usually play for the win — not for some flashy gamble like that.
and..
I get and agree with your point about the “advantage the killer’s getting for nothing here” — same deal for survivors, too; they get plenty of free advantages from all sorts of things BHVR hands out. So why is it suddenly “big bad evil” the moment the killer gets just a little bit of free advantage?
and y, — you get this advantage u use the hook: you either get a 3v1 or keep multiple survivors busy at the same time.
But.. That’s what you have to do. If you don’t manage one of those, you’re probably losing the match against good players. It is what it is. That’s what you need to do if you want to win, and you can’t just settle for “eh, I don’t need kills, a few hooks are enough, maybe I get two kills the moment i´m lucky.” (Or I end up with a 4K because the team totally messes up (ok to be fair, which happens a lot .. even good players tend to mess up sometimes pretty fast).
So. . sure, other stuff can work too, but then you’re heavily relying on mistakes and misplays from the survivor team (and honestly, even a lot of strong teams do give you those mistakes, so you could easily play differently and win).
But if you don’t want to rely on survivor errors, that’s just the way it is.I don’t want to rely on survivors making mistakes, hoping for misplays, or waiting for freebies. I go in to win.
And yes… about the rest: The killer should be the power role. People should die in the match as soon as the killer plays well, no matter how good the survivor is at that moment. It’s asymmetrical — 4 vs 1, not 1 vs 1. (And still, survivors escape way too often even when the killer played really clean.) But you keep talking about “effort”? Do you know how much effort it takes to beat a strong group? How costly even a single mistake can be, or just one hit that doesn’t connect? You act like the killer just walks back to the hook and everything is handed to them from that point on. That’s simply not how it is.
You're still abstracting out from the point really heavily here, especially with the sneaking up thing. If you don't think that's doable, alright, I'll cede that point to you - the killer cannot sneak up on good players. We'll take that out of the list of examples of what the killer can actively do to give themselves an advantage, that doesn't change anything about my point.
So, the only thing that's on track here is questioning whether the chase is actually easier, to which the answer is pretty much just "yes".
Your error in reasoning here is that you're imagining the best possible scenario for survivors, a scenario where the killer only gets a noticeable advantage instead of a huge one, and basing everything on that. So, let's take a step back and work from the actual first step here.Someone has just been unhooked, and the killer is chasing them.
Absent all other context, the killer has a massive advantage here. The survivor is injured, being a one-hit down after ten seconds, and they're extremely out of position, the killer's right on top of them. This, unambiguously and with no room for argument, is a chase that heavily tilts in the killer's favour.
There are some pieces of context that may lessen that. For instance, the survivor MIGHT have anti-tunnel perks, each of which individually makes the chase a little harder. OTR forces two hits for a down instead of one, though you still get the first one for free, DS can give them another shot at playing a tile if they're downed near enough to one, and so on. None of these make tunnelling as difficult as chasing the unhooker, of course, but they exist.They could easily NOT have those perks, though. Perks aren't basekit. If we follow that line of logic, we arrive at an unavoidable conclusion - every survivor player is only allowed to have three maximum perk slots or the killer can just tunnel them out of the match. That is, obviously, a bad outcome.
Another piece of context is that they MIGHT have teammates who'll bodyblock for them, but again, that just changes the value. Instead of an easy chase for free, the killer gets to occupy multiple survivors and dramatically slow down generators for free. Slightly better, but still free value for nothing.
They also could easily NOT have teammates that can/will bodyblock for them, though. Even if they're willing - which isn't guaranteed - they might not be in position to do it, if they're clear across the map. It's also heavily killer dependant, since some killers excel at downing multiple survivors grouped up.
If we follow THAT line of logic, we arrive at "The killer gets massive value either way, and if you play against Leatherface, Legion, Trickster, etcetera, they also win outright".It's important to remain focused on what matters in this conversation. The only relevant question is if killers get too much for chasing someone after they're unhooked, and there's no way around the fact that the answer is "yes". Directly or indirectly via the threat of it happening, killers can get massive impact for not actually doing anything to engineer it outside of being near the hook.
Obviously, beating strong survivors is hard. It should be - they're skilled players. While there's a small degree to which that is relevant when talking about how to FIX the issue of tunnelling, it's not relevant to whether there IS an issue with tunnelling.
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@Brimp said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3974850#Comment_3974850
70 second hook stages, free hook trades since no hook grabs so no more 2 manning a save required in a majority of scenarios, survivor UI, basekit BT, gen kick limit, anti face camp with a range that's not really face camping and more to come on the way. The game has never been more "gens before friends" than before because there just isn't that much pressure.
That said, were all of these changes bad? No. Were all of these changes needed? No. Gen kick limit was made after the whole overbrine eruption meta was long gone.I don't really see how any of those are relevant to macro skill save for the survivor UI, personally.
Hook stages being increased, hook grabs being removed, and the AFC system were all to combat camping, not to remove macro skill expression from the game, for a start. Same with basekit BT and tunnelling, plus the gen kick limit and 3-genning. Those were flat balance changes, not aimed at making it so survivors don't need to pay attention to the macro.
Hell, survivors still need to avoid 3-genning themselves, all the kick limit did was change the punishment from "the killer can stall the match as long as they like" to "the killer now has a serious positional advantage from the smaller play area".The UI did make the macro easier to engage with, but not really easier to execute on, if you understand my meaning. That encouraged more survivor macro skill expression, it didn't take any away.
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@LordGlint said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3975083#Comment_3975083
Its a bug that you kinda have to be aware of doing it do get alot of value from it. Unfortunately for ppl purposefully doing it, its kinda gamebreaking. Its kind of like how ppl could use flashlights without being aware of the flashlight locker exploit, but killswitching flashlights til the bug was fixed was still a good call.
For sure, whatever it is I'm sure it's worth killswitching over. I'm more responding to "it's in every game I'm in here", mostly.
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To be fair, I have no idea what you're referring to with "if you know you know" but I am using Streetwise a lot because it's new and I like the new effect a lot.
Whatever the bug is, it's evidently possible to be actively using the perk and not know about it lol
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@oecrophy said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3974976#Comment_3974976
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3974977#Comment_3974977
No, I genuinely don’t understand why it’s considered “gross.” Yes, sure.. when you’re up against a top-tier killer, you do need your team. And you need to trust your team. A good Blight will take you out quickly — that’s just what Blight does. He does Blight stuff. A short chase is to be expected. That’s something you simply have to know and accept.
Decent players know that short chases are to be expected against Blight, and they position themselves on a gen near the chase in case cover is needed or the person in chase runs out of resources.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7YuLUWOq7o
If a killer successfully sneaks up on a survivor, or successfully makes a read on their pathing to cut them off, they get similar value and that's great, it's their skill being rewarded. Just returning to the hook gives them equal-or-greater value for free, and that's suspect as hell on its face.
Cutting off paths, mindgaming, knowing how you deal with certain structures, beating people on specific tiles — that’s exactly what’s happening during a tunneling process by the killer (which, in my opinion, requires more skill than trying to sneak up on people). But a killer who tries to achieve that with “random stealth”? In most matches: nice try, sorry, you lose. In solo queue, maybe… (honestly, that annoys me even more than direct tunneling — constantly switching targets and hoping for an easy dead-zone snack where you don’t have to win a chase against me - and that just goes to show that different people find different things frustrating — personally, I find a full-on tunnel on me way less frustrating.)
so y.. "sneaks up on a survivor?" On some maps you might get lucky, soloq, y maybe, but as soon as you’re in a team, that attempt is completely denied.
Similarly, what exactly can a survivor do about it? Setting aside specific perk choices, which is its own can of worms, the answer is… not much. They do have ten seconds of Haste and Endurance, which is definitely better than it used to be! But, at the same time…
I often manage to reach some decent structures with my free BT. If not? Team? Hello? Where are you? Bodyblock, please?
If that doesn’t happen... I might die. Maybe even early.
Maybe I’ll just be a useless insta-down if I’m not running any 'anti-tunnel' stuff like OTR or DS. Sorry team, I tried.Killer’s fault? I’m more wondering: where was my team?
Especially on certain maps where you barely have any filler to connect structures (hi Coldwind, hi Haddonfield), you just know that the person in chase might need someone to cover them. Gens still fly anyway, usually.And then there’s the whole 'the survivor usually has a harder chase with no advantage' thing…
Well… I am the only target.
I know exactly where I’ve been.
I know what resources I’ve used.
I know what’s still up.
I know which pallets are gone.If they were to have more options available, if it were closer to a regular chase with only one of those three bullet points being true, then it'd be different- they'd have agency and it'd be down to who the better player is and/or who plays this particular chase better. When they're tunnelled, the degree to which they have to be better than their opponent is pretty exponential, and that's not exactly fair or balanced.
No options available? uuw?
Having the map to myself is a massive advantage – I don’t have to guess whether randoms have already created dead zones.The trade-off is: one less health state going into chase and being a bit out of position.(For the first part, I’ve got DH. For the second, ye… sometimes I just need my team.)
and yupp… sometimes, you just don’t get away.Things fall apart really fast, no matter how hard you try. It happens.Sometimes you die at 3 gens the moment the killer wants you dead.Sometimes it's just because I completely mess up my chase. (Sorry again, team.)
But come on? I expect escaping to be hard. I expect the killer to be a real threat.And I expect every single mistake I make to be brutally expensive.
So, to recap: The killer gets a much easier chase, and the survivor gets a much harder chase, for zero effort or skill on the killer's part and with the survivor's only defence to be significantly better than their opponent in chase. That's a pretty clear balance problem.
y? I’m not buying that.
Killer gets a slightly easier chase? Sure. But hey.. I mean… why not?
But look at what survivors can bring to make "things easier for them": DS, OTR, Shoulder of Burden, Unbreakable, Dead Hard, (other exhaustion perks) Vigil, For the People + Buckle Up, Soul Guard + WGLF, Hope, Background Player with flashy or sabo box, red syringes...
Survivors are loaded with tools to make things easier.
So nah, nope. nope, nope, big NOPE. I’m not buying that argument.And yes… I play survivor enough too (super important to play both sides ):
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/JH2XIUN8D3G3/4545454.jpg
(in case you don’t believe me)
And y, still: as a killer, I still go back to the hook. I proxy camp if I think it makes sense, I slug if needed, and I tunnel hard when necessary or simple just when survivors make it easy for me.
I play my role as best as I can.
And as a survivor, I fight back and don’t make tunneling easy for the killer.
defence to be significantly better than their opponent in chase.
DbD isn’t rocket science. There’s a point in most matches where everyone is roughly equally stacked and has a decent understanding of the game. Sure, there are players who master their ability to the max — but DbD isn’t really a game that consistently rewards high-skill plays.
Like, what’s the point of pulling off something really hard and impressive with your power if most of the time things like DS happen at a distance where the survivor just gets away again anyway? It´s fun, its meme. But nothin more.If, however, the same thing can be engineered to not go your way across multiple matches in the same way every time
kay… but at that point, it’s really not the killer’s fault anymore.
If players are consistently dying without being able to do anything, or feel completely helpless, then that’s not just a killer issue — that’s a matchmaking issue.
It’s on BHVR to finally improve the MMR system and create fairer matchups, instead of putting all the blame on the killer.Because if going straight back to the hook/tunneling consistently feels that strong, the problem isn’t just that it happens — it’s who it happens to.
But it can't always be the killer player's responsibility to compensate for or balance out every single in-game situation — at some point, the game itself needs to provide a fair foundation.
The killer already has enough stress during the match. Even after a quick down, they have no idea how strong the rest of the team is (even the best players can have a bad first chase). They don’t know what second-chance perks the survivors are running or how coordinated the team really is.
He doesn’t know what’s coming once he gives up the pressure he could have had. It’s not the killer’s job to make sure everyone else can keep up — that's simply not how competitive pressure works in an pvp game.
You're missing the forest for the trees with a lot of that.
This is the issue with the "quote a sentence fragment" approach, for the record. I had a coherent point that everything I was saying was attempting to support, not a series of disconnected statements that stood on their own.
For instance, you talk at length about how sneaking up on someone isn't possible against good survivors, but that's not exactly relevant to my point. That was one example of a scenario where a killer had a similar advantage to tunnelling but actually did something to earn it- unlike tunnelling, where they return to the hook and get an easier chase for free.
You can't dismantle a cohesive argument into component sentences like that. It doesn't really matter how feasible it is to sneak up on survivors when the point is that hypothetically, doing so would give you a fair advantage because effort and skill went into obtaining it, which is contrasted against the unfair advantage you get for free when you chase someone immediately after an unhook.Now, you're on firmer ground talking about the team coming in to help, but you're missing a few very important things there. Primarily, you're missing that this still doesn't address the advantage the killer's getting for nothing here; they're now managing to occupy multiple survivors without actually having to do anything other than take the easy chase in front of them to get it. They're still getting inflated value for what they're putting in.
In addition to that, and building off it - this isn't a separate statement - this means that the counterplay to something the killer gets for free is locked behind coordination, which is something not every survivor has access to.At best, the conclusion you can draw here is "people on comms can overcome this balance problem fairly consistently but at significant cost to their efficiency", not that tunnelling isn't a balance problem to begin with.
For everything else, it really feels like you're attempting to argue that tunnelling isn't a balance problem because you're personally fine with dying early because the killer tunnelled you out, and it doesn't really work that way. The relevant thing to consider is how much of a benefit is the player getting versus how much effort they're having to put in + how much effort the opponent is having to put in to stop them.
For tunnelling, the answer is the killer is getting a lot (an easier chase, which leads to either a much easier hook or occupying the whole team for extra slowdown) for basically nothing (walking back to the hook when the unhook happens) while the opponents have to pull out all the stops to try and prevent it (massively outplaying in chase, pulling in teammates for coordinated bodyblocks, preparing ahead of time with specific perks).
That's the important part. How much are they getting, how much effort does it take to do it, how much effort does it take to stop it.
Saying "You might die early, them's the breaks" doesn't really support that tunnelling isn't a balance problem- at best, it suggests that it doesn't really matter if the game's unbalanced or not.
Which, certainly, nothing wrong with that perspective, it just doesn't contradict my statement. I'd disagree with it, of course, but that's how it is sometimes. -
@oecrophy said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3974967#Comment_3974967
I have a hard time understanding the point here. Where exactly is the supposed balance problem?
I absolutely get that certain situations in the game can feel frustrating. But just because something didn’t go your way in a specific match doesn’t automatically mean it’s a systemic balance issue — and just because it bothers you doesn’t mean it’s objectively a problem.
If we start labeling every subjectively frustrating experience as a balance problem, those terms start to lose their meaning. Not every (maybe for you) uncomfortable situation in the game is a design flaw — sometimes it’s just part of the core mechanics, part of the dynamic between two opposing roles.
Happy to explain.
When the killer chases someone immediately after they're unhooked - which is typically what is referred to with "hard tunnelling" but imo is just what tunnelling in general should be defined as - the following things are true:
- The chase starts with the killer right on top of the survivor
- The chase starts with the survivor already injured
- The chase has a good chance (but not a guarantee) to start in a place that has fewer resources, since someone did just go down there
These are all pretty big benefits, if you get to start a chase elsewhere in the match with one of those things being true it's a chase that tilts in your favour. All three (or even just the two that are guaranteed) and the chase is just noticeably easier than it would be otherwise.
This, of course, doesn't inherently make it a problem. It's a problem for two main reasons: The killer didn't have to do anything skilful, smart, or even really anything at all in order to put themselves in that position, and the survivor player has extremely little they can do about it.If a killer successfully sneaks up on a survivor, or successfully makes a read on their pathing to cut them off, they get similar value and that's great, it's their skill being rewarded. Just returning to the hook gives them equal-or-greater value for free, and that's suspect as hell on its face.
Similarly, what exactly can a survivor do about it? Setting aside specific perk choices, which is its own can of worms, the answer is… not much. They do have ten seconds of Haste and Endurance, which is definitely better than it used to be! But, at the same time… there are a lot of killers on the roster for whom that is barely a deterrent, and a lot of maps with spots where that's severely lessened in its usefulness- think the average basement, or any building with a chokepoint.
If they were to have more options available, if it were closer to a regular chase with only one of those three bullet points being true, then it'd be different- they'd have agency and it'd be down to who the better player is and/or who plays this particular chase better. When they're tunnelled, the degree to which they have to be better than their opponent is pretty exponential, and that's not exactly fair or balanced.So, to recap: The killer gets a much easier chase, and the survivor gets a much harder chase, for zero effort or skill on the killer's part and with the survivor's only defence to be significantly better than their opponent in chase. That's a pretty clear balance problem.
Put short: Something not going your way in a match doesn't indicate a systemic balance issue. If, however, the same thing can be engineered to not go your way across multiple matches in the same way every time, that does indicate a systemic balance issue.
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@oecrophy said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3974939#Comment_3974939
What I really don’t understand is:
What’s so bad about accepting that in some matches, the killer… does killer things — comes back to the hook… and sometimes that results in a hard tunnel?
What’s so wrong with accepting that at a certain point in the match, someone has to die?"Hard tunnel" is a balance problem and also, separately, sucks to go against.
Dying isn't the issue, it's having your agency severely diminished or outright removed because of a balance problem your opponent is leveraging.
As far as things to get annoyed at in video games goes, that's one of the big ones.
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@sizzlingmario4 said:
Agree with reverting Hindered linger duration.
Just revert the antidote activation back to 2 seconds. It was fine the way it was and it shouldn't have been touched. It was short enough that it was consistently useful but just long enough that you had to be a little more strategic with it (and also wouldn't accidentally give it to survivors if you threw the bottle far ahead of you). It really should not have been lowered, at all.
If 12% haste stays in basekit then the addons that increase the haste percentage should be lowered back to PTB values. It should never be over 15% even with addons. The current 17% is too high.
Further nerfs to the Hindered percentage are unnecessary imo, nerfing Bleach was enough. 14% basekit with 2 second linger is fine.
It really wasn't fine. It wasn't weak, but it was awkward, finicky, and annoying to use- if you're going to weaken solely using purple bottles, then using yellow bottles needs to be less of an obstacle than it was prior to the changes.
Which, for the record, I approve of. Making Clown take a little more skill (or more accurately, pushing people towards the skill expression that's already there) is an actively good idea, I'm very on board.
I could see nerfing the Haste addons, though, I hadn't thought of that. I could agree with the max w/ addons being 15%, that seems fair.
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You scream and reveal your position because it's not a stealth perk for you and everyone around you, it's a perk for taking aggro off your teammates and getting the killer to chase you instead— hence the name "come and get me" instead of something referencing hiding or not being seen.
I don't think it's that great, but I also don't think it's terrible either. That and his Teamwork perk are very solidly in the "sure, these are fine" camp, and while that's not great I also don't think it's worth getting worked up over.
Apocalyptic Ingenuity is MUCH worse, and actually does need some kind of fix.
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Returning to the hook in and of itself isn't necessarily the problem, in my opinion, it's if they chase the person that just got unhooked instead of the unhooker that we see problems. While I'm not against removing the unhook notification, per se, I don't really think it solves any meaningful issues.
If anything, sometimes the killer kinda needs that information if everyone's stealthing or their chase didn't work out somehow. As long as they're chasing the unhooker I think that's totally fair gameplay.As an aside-
@Brimp said:
I'm sorry but I can't take "killer role is being babied" seriously when survivor skill needed for macro has been given basekit several times over the years.
When you say the macro has been "given basekit", what are you referring to? I can think of a few small ways survivor macro has been made easier to engage with, but I can't think of any examples where it's been made basekit to the point of no longer needing the macro skill at all.
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I wouldn't agree that new perks are, on the whole, outright not worth running. I went back and checked on the wiki, and in order to find a survivor whose perks are all genuinely not worth running I had to go back to Haddie, and that's only with the caveat that it was on release since two of her perks got buffed since then.
On killer things are a little worse - you could honestly argue Kaneki's perks all aren't worth running, but prior to that I'd say Skull Merchant had the most recent all-bad crop on release - but there's still a good chunk of viable, decent perks across recent releases.Most new perks are actually in that camp. Most new perks are "fine", "decent", "worthwhile but not flashy". There's commentary to be made about that, sure, but it's important not to drift into acting like the perks are worse than they are.
Skipping TWD since those are very new and thus more contested, let's look at previous releases. Starting with survivor:
- Orela doesn't have any outright bad perks, though Rapid Response can feel a little middling. Her other two perks are just good, though- good with an asterisk or two, like Duty of Care only really being strong in SWF, but still good.
- Taurie does have one outright bad perk, her Invocation, but her other two are very solid to make up for it. Shoulder the Burden is a very situational perk and hard to use, but undeniably has the potential to swing matches if used correctly, and Clean Break is just flat out a really solid and worthwhile perk.
- Trevor has three perks that don't quite clear the "decent" bar, but none of them fall under it either. Eyes of Belmont has good synergies and a solid effect on its own, Exultation imo wasn't buffed in the best way but does undeniably provide a noticeable benefit, and Moment of Glory can be finicky to use but isn't outright bad.
- Lara may have released with the very mediocre Specialist, but Hardened is a perfectly decent perk and Finesse is outright strong.
- The Troupe I considered over Haddie for "all of these are bad", but really I think they're all just middling. Still Sight now is a lot more usable, Mirrored Illusion is more of a meme perk like Blast Mine so that one's fine, and Bardic Inspiration is… fine, too, really. Nobody really runs it for its effect though, I feel like.
- Sable's perks are all very solid now, though it's worth mentioning Weaving Spiders was bad on release. Wicked and Strength in Shadows have both been solid upper-mid/lower-top tier contenders since release, though.
I'll stop there so this post doesn't get too long, especially since I'm tackling killer next, but you get the point. If you stop and evaluate each perk over the past six survivor releases, you only really get two outright bad ones— though admittedly you do also get a good chunk of just "okay" ones. These are all perks that'd hit the "good but not OP" bar in terms of strength, they're all just unpopular for a variety of other reasons.
Briefly, let's look at killer too, because while I do think it's worse over there I don't think it's that bad.
- Springtrap has Phantom Fear, a deceptively good perk that has a pretty solid set of use cases. Haywire is okay but not incredible, and Help Wanted is… synergy fodder, not great on its own but not terrible overall either.
- Kaneki, as mentioned, kinda does have bad perks. I like Forever Entwined and it doesn't do nothing for you, plus Nothing But Misery does at least do something useful once it finally does activate, same with None Are Free, but let's face it. None of these perks are good.
- Houndmaster released with the potent Scourge Hook support perk Jagged Compass, and her other two perks aren't bad either- All-Shaking Thunder is finicky to use but potentially very good, and No Quarter is a perfectly reasonable self-heal counter.
- Dracula does, undeniably, unfortunately, have Wretched Fate. I think that perk is badly designed but it's not because it's bad. His other two perks in my opinion hit the "decent" bar, but I could see arguments for them being actively weak.
- Vecna does have Weave Attunement, and the strength of that perk is fairly debatable (I think it's still very good, but I can see the counter arguments), but let's not forget Languid Touch has been a pretty great perk since launch and Dark Arrogance, while weirdly designed, is still useful.
- Unknown, bottom text. Well, Unforeseen is pretty good, at least…
In short: I don't think perks are released intentionally underpowered. I think BHVR skew weaker because they're worried about another MFT or CoH situation, but even then some slip through the cracks, see release Weave Attunement or arguably Ultimate Weapon— and even outside of that, skewing weaker doesn't mean the perks are actually outright weak themselves, it just means they're not meta-busters.
Which, imo, is a good thing. You don't want stuff that challenges meta perks on strength alone, that's how you get power creep. Right now we have the largest pool of viable perks we've ever had, most of them just aren't all that popular. It's a difficult problem to fix, from BHVR's perspective. -
Not as a mechanic, no. I would like to see them tweaked a bit, but that wouldn't be a flat buff- I'd ideally like to see "much less vertical range, but more horizontal range" tested, for example.
It's mostly just Dark Theory and Illumination that need buffs. Dark Theory should get a secondary effect, and Illumination should just reveal more things, especially your teammates when they're interacting with revealed objects.
Boons are unpopular but that's for a variety of reasons that aren't just their strength in a vacuum. They're not doing that bad in terms of design space and balance.
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@CrypticGirl said:
With the insta-sacrifice happening if all players are hooked simultaneously (even if someone has Deliverance), it removes the possibility of a comeback even more. And with the return of the go-next prevention system, no one will ever want to play Survivor again.
I don't know, I think that's a good change. I've had a lot of games over the years where we're all just sort of stuck there waiting until someone's hook stage updates and we all actually get to end the match.
I could see coding in an exception for someone having a specific tool for leaving the hook but other than that, this is an outright improvement on the survivor role imo.