zarr
zarr
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@Zozzy said:
So what's the point of this?
the problem with hit reg is that you took the problem away from the side that has a choice on when to use deadhard and when to drop a pallet and put it on the side that needs accurate information to react.
If i walk up to a survivor to try bait out a deadhard then i need accurate info so i know when i can or can't attack. Same with pallets, i know i should get the hit on my screen so i attempt to hit the survivor and risk taking the stun. The problem is i don't know how trash tier the survivors net is that i am attacking so i am not being fed accurate info and i take a stun and waste time instead.
They moved the problem from the side with a choice and multiple options to the side that has no choice or options.
Are you really going to tell me that the validation videos shown on this forum are fine? the ones where they hit the survivor and then there is a delay before they deadhard. Its disgusting.
You are asking what the point of this is while clearly not even having read the actual post.
No, one is not taking the problem "away from one side and putting it on the other", the very point is that validation is server-sided, and as such taking the problem from affecting only one side (survivors) and moving it to the middle (the server), such that it equally affects both sides (killers and survivors). You are not getting DH or pallet stun validated on hits because the survivor has bad net, validation does not favour them for their latency. I can't make this any more clear.
Furthermore, I have already lined out in an earlier post that killers can actually compensate for latency just as well (or, again, unwell) as survivors. You may refer to that post. But I will even go further for you: I would argue killers are if anything more able to compensate for latency, because they can actually regularly just get a little closer to survivors before they attack in order to make sure they secure a hit, because they are faster than survivors. What's a survivor going to do against a killer that is faster than them and is also closer than they appear? Run away faster? Sure you'll say drop pallets early because, of course, there's always pallets around, but with that I again refer you to my earlier post in which I already addressed these very arguments. Here's a new argument that I invite you to take me up on though: A match of DbD consists of 5 players, 4 of which are survivors. Why would it not be objectively more fair to favour the 4 players on latency over the 1? That is of course beside the point that a server-authority hit system does not favour either side, but if we were to actually do what you falsely assume BHVR did do, and take hit authority away from the killer perspective and shifted it to the survivor perspective - why would that not be more fair, given that now 4 players are not being screwed over by latency, rather only 1?
Killers do indeed have options to deal with the problem, and sure they aren't great options, but neither are the options survivors have. The effect latency has on multiplayer games and how you play them sucks, latency sucks. The point is that with regards to hits, currently and for the past 5 years, latency has only sucked for survivors completely one-sidedly. Making things more fair would indeed make it affect both sides, of course changing killers from not being affected at all to being affected, but not only is that objectively more fair (and secure and healthy), but in that reality players at least only have to play around their own latency, rather than the combined total of both their own and their opponent's latency (which is currently the case for survivors).
I do have to say overruled DH/stun hits due to server-side validation are fine, yes. Just like instances of survivors dying despite having actuated DH/stunned the killer in time on their screen are fine, since their latency prevented their action from being validated by the server. Because that is dealing with latency as fairly as possible. Latency is the not-fine thing here, and for all hit interactions that are not validated on the server, it is totally not fine for survivors. Look at the clips I posted. A killer with 400+ms hitting a ~30ms survivor 2m after they vaulted a window or pallet. That is disgusting.
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@[Deleted User] said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2740271#Comment_2740271
Perhaps I come on aggressive, but this is hardly the first time someone has come on this forum with this exact idea. It was posted less than a week ago, and the comments were right full of killer mains bemoaning that SWFs even be allowed to exist in this game, which is already ludicrous to try and demand SWFs be punished, or taken away, or restricted to two people instead of four, but really, you have to actually think about why meta perks are meta in the first place.
So let's say you only let one person use BT. Well they are identified by the killer after the first unhook. The killer can then tunnel that person out of the game, because now they don't have to worry about anti-camping tactics. All you've done is completely validated face camping as a strategy, while rendering BT, the primary anti-camping perk, useless. Because it will only survive one singular unhook.
The only way something like this could possibly work is if it came out alongside a huge shift in the power balances in the game, buffing individual killer strengths while simultaneously adding solutions to camping and tunneling.
I'm not a fan of the idea of outright punishments for those strategies, because they are acceptable in certain times and places, and would need to be addressed in a way that doesn't weaken killers, nor allow room for survivors to abuse it.
Restricting the use of meta perks would basically invalidate the reason they were put in the game in the first place, that's why it's so much easier to say than do.
Mind linking me to a thread like that, genuinely curious to read some of the discussions around this suggestion.
I really don't think 4-SWFs need more than one BT (and one DS) to be able to combat camping, not least because they can also make super good use of perks like Kinship and Deliverance with regards to that, on top of course again of just using their superior basic coordination. Doesn't mean they'll have no issues with camping, camping can be a very strong strategy... but we are of course not trying to delete camping, that would require much more rebalancing work, and might arguably not even be an overall improvement for the game. So it should still be a viable strategy anyway.
Not to mention that we are still talking about the public matchmaking environment; I guarantee that a competent 4-SWF would have high escape rates even when going in perkless, campers or not.
Again, I do agree that camping/tunneling/slugging are issues to extents, and that they should be addressed, but this thread is really not the place for that discussion I don't think.
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@[Deleted User] said:
Meta perks are meta for a reason. Without tackling the reason WHY all 4 survivors need to run BT, just demanding they not be allowed, just breaks what little balance there is. Especially when said perks have been specifically added to the game to tackle and oppose killer strategies.
The devs also can't just arbitrarily start punitive attacks against SwFs as if they are bad gameplay, not when they advertise the game using the appeal of playing with your friends.
They can't attack SWFs on behalf of the killers, not while refusing to attack face camping and tunneling. They need to atleast pretend to be impartial to sides.
All 4 survivors do not need to run BT, and indeed the game is not balanced around that being the case as otherwise matches would almost never be balanced because the incidence of 4 BTs in a match is likely less than 10% of all matches.
And in 4-SWFs (where people could actually only use 1 BT, rather than the 2-3 that can still exist in trio/duo scenarios, due to the other players completing those lobbies) it is even less necessary for multiple people to have BT, because they can just say "Yo, BT guy, do your thing!". Obviously it's not always that easy, but the point here is precisely that we are trying to nerf SWF, to make things harder there.
The appeal of playing with friends is still entirely maintained. I really don't agree with this idea that you would be "punished" for playing SWF due to being limited in the perks you can then use. That's like saying you are "punished" for driving a new Mercedes because it does not have... a USB port to connect your phone to the radio with, which your VW Golf 2 somehow did (disclaimer: I have no clue about cars, probably all Mercedeses (Mercedesi?) these days do have the "perk" of being able to interface with your phone, and Golf 2s originally of course didn't... but I think the gist of the analogy is clear anyway).
I actually agree that the effectiveness of camping and tunnelling should be addressed, and indeed with base game changes rather than perks, but that is general balancing that I separate from the balance issue of the gap between SWF and solo, and if anything SWFs can of course deal with those things much, much better at base to begin with, and as such also are less dependent on perks to do so.
That said, reading stuff like "They can't attack SWFs on behalf of the killers, not while refusing to attack face camping and tunneling. They need to atleast pretend to be impartial to sides." here has me shook. I see tiring amounts of very killer-biased takes and stances here, regularly to silly extents even, of saying stuff along the lines of "killer mains exist in abject despair and hopelessness and evil SWFs literally ruin their lives", and then when I create an in my opinion fairly reasonable thread outlining that I want to nerf survivors' top performance ceiling, I get this. The hell?
Obviously half-joking, maybe your complaint is valid and this would be overdoing it without also shipping certain killer nerfs. Apart from Nurse/Blight/some add-ons I really don't think so, but again, I do agree that camping/tunnelling/slugging deserve rebalancing (albeit not as straight nerfs, but compensated for with buffs to other aspects of killer gameplay).
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@Dino7281 said:
Just no. This is tournament level treatment, which just can't be used for most groups.
Like what the hell should new players do? They don't even have that many perks unlocked and you would just force them to use ######### perks even tho they don't know how to benefit from being SWF.
The way to punish SWF for playing with friends would be really bad for the game. Their approach is just better. With that everyone can be happy, soloQ will get info and we can get killer buffs.
Your change would piss off a lot of people and it would just be bad in general for the game. You don't want to punish players that bring friends to this game, that would be just dumb and bad for business.
There is not enough good perks for anything like this to begin with. You would have to make a massive changes for anything like this to work and you would mainly not do it for SWF only, you would have to do it for whole team -> soloQ too. Then probably restrict killers too, so they can't stack many slowdown perks etc. it would be hell to balance, which they just are not able to do. Anything like this would not be possible with patch every 3 months, just too slow.
This is tournament level treatment, which just can't be used for most groups.
This is "tournament-level treatment" in the sense that we are limiting the top performance ceiling for survivors that can exist in public matchmaking just the same. And precisely because most groups are not tournament-level teams actually stacking 4 DH, DS, BT, Deli, Prove, BNPs is why it won't hurt most groups much.
Like what the hell should new players do?
New players are the least affected by this because they do not even know what the strongest and best perks are, let alone go for coordinated or stacked loadouts across the board. They'll just play with whatever they have. And players at this level actually even just intuitively know to benefit from SWF/voice comms much more than they know about perk power levels and whatnot. I for one really don't expect it will change much about the SWF survival rates at that level.
The way to punish SWF for playing with friends
Personally I really don't feel like this would be "punishing" people. For one thing, they still outright benefit from teaming up in SWFs, so it's still a net-positive to do so, both in terms of overall performance potential and in terms of just having fun with friends. For another, I know I'm not talking for everyone, but I personally would not at all mind having to adjust my builds in SWF scenarios. In fact, I would rather enjoy having to come up with unique builds and coordinate with my fellow players, deciding who gets to use what. Seems interesting and fun to me.
Your change would piss off a lot of people and it would just be bad in general for the game. You don't want to punish players that bring friends to this game, that would be just dumb and bad for business.
Now you're repeating yourself and just repeating "bad". Why are you so upset over me suggesting SWF nerfs?
I actually think most people would get used to this rather quickly, but fair enough, BHVR might also think this would be worse for business, if merely on the basis of being a "nerf" when solo buffs and compensatory killer buffs would be "buffs".
There is not enough good perks for anything like this to begin with.
Big disagree. Finding 16 more-than-good-enough perks to use in a coordinated manner in 4-SWF is super easy.
You would have to make a massive changes for anything like this to work and you would mainly not do it for SWF only, you would have to do it for whole team -> soloQ too. Then probably restrict killers too, so they can't stack many slowdown perks etc. it would be hell to balance, which they just are not able to do. Anything like this would not be possible with patch every 3 months, just too slow.
This part I don't get at all. What massive changes, and why would you have to do this for solo queue and killers too, exactly?
Like I said, one major reason why I prefer my suggestion to BHVR's approach of buffing solo and compensatorily buffing killers, is precisely that the latter is much more time and effort-intensive, and is sure to take years given past development cycles.
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@Murgleïs said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2738914#Comment_2738914
Oh I already tried with a VPN and severals softwares to see if we had the same results I was just curious to know what you personally use for this experiment.
I found that using your power on most killers is a nightmare when you have latency. Can you explain why ?
If latency is so strong for killers, why is it not a thing like stretched res ?
Different killer powers are differently coded from basic attacks, but that doesn't mean all of them are affected by latency in their use. Trapper has no problem placing, picking up and rearming traps regardless of latency for instance. I know Huntress hatchets must be subject to validation in a way no other power seems to be, I have seen decidedly more overruled hatchet hits than overruled general hits (of which I had seen 1 (one) instance total, prior to my experiments). Plague's Purge seems to be affected by latency in that the time before you will actually unleash the attack depends on it, which suggests that it is not predicted on the client.
So yeah, the explanation is that killer powers have code that is not simply basic attack code. Apart from Huntress hatchets I don't think any of them are validated for in a special way, I at least have never seen other overruled special attack hits out in the wild either, but some of the specifics of some of the abilities are definitely affected by latency. One major reason is probably indeed that they are not predicted on the client side, so the handling gets weird with increasing latency. But your question is still good, I should actually do experiments on how latency exactly affects different killer abilities.
Well, if by being a thing like stretched res you mean players exploiting it, then it is a thing like stretched res. People totally do use laghacks and VPNs to artificially worsen their connections. If you mean why isn't it as common a thing as stretched res, well, we would have to speculate on the actual amount of intentional exploitation that's going on with these, but I would agree that stretched res is likely much more common. The reasons for this could be the following: As a killer, you don't actually readily notice that you are benefitting from your latency a whole lot. There are some tells you can look out for such as people sliding into their actual position after you down them, and at ridiculously high latencies it can become rather obvious in other ways too, but hit distances themselves actually do look mostly standard on your screen regardless of your latency as killer. Of course, for survivors hits get more and more ridiculous the higher the killer's latency is, but if they don't stick around to yell at the killer for their McDonald's WiFi in post-game chat, the killer'll perhaps be none-the-wiser. I mean, one of the reasons why I created this very thread to begin with is that many people still do not understand how and why killers benefit from latency. And another reason is that the killer advantage at exploit-worthy latencies is obvious for survivors, so they'll know you have an unfair advantage and are likely intentionally doing it, whereas stretched res of course isn't. Plus stretched res is much easier to achieve than connection manipulation for most people.
That said, "stretched res" (narrow aspect ratios used in order to gain more vertical Field-of-Vision) particularly on the killer side has much less of an impact on the fairness of the game than latency exploits, so I for one am glad the latter are much less frequent of a thing.
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@Impartiality said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2739023#Comment_2739023
Your counterplay to DMS on artist says to let go of the gen when the birds come then go back on it. And how would someone do that with DMS
The idea is that you let go of the gen before the hooking animation plays out and therefore before DMS comes into play. If you let go of a gen upon seeing the hooking animation start (the survivor's aura is already shown to you at this point), DMS/Resonance won't trigger on you. So now Artist will be setting up her crows to shoot at the gens, and you simply wait until she launches them, then go back on the gen.
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@Blazelski said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2739023#Comment_2739023
If everyone left detailed, rational comments like this one and read them, this forum would be a better place.
Ha, thanks for reading. I actually suggested this very buff for DMS on the forums just a few weeks prior to the update (https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2678874#Comment_2678874), and while BHVR likely had this perk and change on their radar well prior to my post, I would like to believe it might have still contributed a bit at least to their decision to actually go through with it.
I think one thing that's particularly cool about DMS is that it changes the dynamic of killers approaching survivors on generators. Usually, survivors in these scenarios can choose to run or hide relatively early and waste a good bit of the killer's time before they find them or catch up to them. With DMS in play, this kinda gets turned on its head: now if the survivor leaves early and triggers DMS, the killer can just leave early too and go pressure someone else, with the survivor's time "wasted" having to do something other than that gen. If the survivor on the other hand wants to take some of the killer's time, now they have to stick to the gen instead in order to make the killer have to actually come all the way up to it if they want to force the survivor off. And of course, sticking to gens comes with certain risks, and generally means there will be a smaller starting distance to the chase if the killer commits, which benefits the killer. All in all makes for cool new situations with a new set of decisions to be made on both sides.
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I would tend to agree, though I do still think the perk sits somewhere between "super good" and "too good".
The big arguments are Class Photo Freddy and Artist, but they indeed do have counterplay: against Freddy, simply stick to the gen through the teleport - he can only actually teleport to 1 gen, so worst case scenario you take a hit (or get grabbed lel, which is however unlikely since you can still regularly react in time); against Artist, simply let go of the gen and wait for the swarms to pass, then go back on the gen - she can't keep her crows up indefinitely, and so even if she delays the launch anticipating that survivors will have let go of the gens, she does have to launch after some time.
On top of this, scenarios where you can see the killer after the hook (and be it due to Kindred or other aura perks) allow you to identify which gen Freddy is actually teleporting to, or which gens Artist is targeting with her crows. Also, the longer Artist delays her crow launch, the more time survivors of course have on gens, and the less time Dead Man's Switch will still be up for once they do get forced off them. Further, the first set of swarms do not even "force" survivors off gens, as they can simply tank them and keep working until the second set of swarms.
Letting go of gens as the hooking animation starts is of course also general Pain Resonance "counterplay" that works against the Resonance + DMS combo as well.
That said, forcing survivors off gens manually is something people underestimate. Not only are there high-mobility killers that can do so rather reliably even over large distances, but in gen cluster scenarios DMS could become very oppressive on just about any killer (with some being paticularly problematic, such as Doctor). Usually in "3-gen" scenarios like this killers can't easily commit to chases if the survivors are smart enough to run away as far as possible from the gens, but with DMS, a single down can turn this dynamic on its head by giving the killer free time to commit to chases while the gens are blocked, and that will of course result in another down, which can trigger another DMS. This is something that might warrant tweaks.
But I hold that the perk is not overpowered. And on the contrary, I am very glad that BHVR dared to come out with at least one notable perk buff like this in the update, attaching no unfortunate cooldowns or restrictions to it. I want a more diverse perk meta, and while the killer perk meta still naturally revolves around game delay, there are now various different highly viable game delay setups, each with an enjoyable amount of differentiation in the playstyles and strategies of playing to their benefits on the killer side and against them on the survivor side. Corrupt, Weasel, Ruin, Undying, Tinkerer, Deadlock, No Way Out, Pain Resonance, Pentimento, Thrill, Plaything, Thanatophobia. That now Dead Man's Switch will join this pool of options is great, and it is particularly so because it has anti-synergistic relationships with some of them (Ruin does not regress blocked gens, Deadlock does not block gens that are already blocked, you cannot kick a blocked gen for Weasel), which will encourage diversified builds. For example, I can see Thrilling Tremors see more play again alongside DMS. Resonance will of course become even more attractive. And DMS also encourages completely different tactics than other delay perks, of going around the map forcing people off gens before committing to chases, or using abilities with the sole intention to do so. Stealth killers can benefit from it because survivors will either be reluctant to let go of gens due to DMS, which can allow the killer to sneak up and get free hits or grabs, or they are scared to stick to gens, so DMS will block them (or survivors just won't be repairing them for some time anyway).
I hope the perk will come to live just as it is now. I would give it at least a month on live before looking at whether it is actually undesirable in this state.
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@Murgleïs said:
What did you use to simulate latency ?
I would rather not share this because it can be exploited by players on the killer side (and by players on the survivor side to lock killers into certain animations).
If you are interested in conducting tests yourself, I suggest you find a fellow player from a far-away region from yours, and then whoever of you two hosts the custom match will have a low latency due to connecting to nearby servers, and the player joining the match a high latency, due to connecting to that far-away server. Alternatively, a VPN can be used to reroute data around the world. I did some of the testing using those methods as well.
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@SuzuKR said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2738193#Comment_2738193
Bullets are way faster than movement speeds in any of those games. This is not applicable to DBD where almost the entirety of relevant movement is on drastically slower scales. Shooter games are not as forced to track ghosts because the bullet fires so fast there would be next to no movement difference possible between fire and hit time (and none technically, in hit scan). In games where it’s essentially a cat chasing a mouse through physically running at comparatively snail-like paces, that would be extremely problematic because of exactly what Peanits said. No matter what it does, it would not favor the killer because all information they receive is late significantly.
I don't really see the issue the speeds of the attacks would introduce here. If the killer has a latency of 50ms to the server, the survivor position is only 50ms further in the past on their end than on the server, which is usually only 0.2m. And movement extrapolation done on the killer client reduces the disparity even more, by putting the survivor slightly further into the future than the position info the killer client has available. Server and killer client here should be close enough for most of all hits to be valid.
At average latencies I can't really imagine that this would lead to many instances where things that look like they should connect, do not connect. Only really in "last-pixel" edge cases, which are fairly avoidable. At increasingly higher killer latencies, sure the killer player would have to account more for their latency in order not to experience overruled/phantom hits more frequently, but that is just fair, because for one thing survivor players also have to account for latency, and furthermore that is making it so that both sides will have to account for their own latency, rather than only survivors having to account for both their own and the killer's latency.
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@Peanits said:
Hey there, thank you for the very detailed write up. You hit the nail on the head with just about all of this, but there is one thing we want to clear up. These days, it's very uncommon for games to calculate hits entirely on the server. Most games will use a system similar to ours that "favours the shooter" (or in our case, the big dude with a machete/club/etc.) This is largely due to the fact that handling everything on the server feels really bad. To use an FPS as an example, you could aim perfectly and shoot directly at an enemy, but your hits may not connect because that's not where they appear on the server. As a result, you have to predict and aim for where they're going to be rather than where they are. This isn't exactly intuitive for the shooter, making it feel like you were robbed when your hits don't connect.
Now, back to Dead by Daylight: DBD is a unique beast since we're typically dealing with melee attacks, and most importantly, your target is running away from you. This is very easy to overlook, but it makes a very crucial difference in practice. In DBD, predicting where your opponent is translates to "get even closer to them before you try swinging"- something that you usually don't have the luxury of doing without having a pallet dropped on your face.
Let's say the survivor you're chasing is running towards a window and about to vault it, but you, the Killer, can juuuust barely lunge and hit them before they make it through. With the system in place now, the server will validate that you were close enough (within a reasonable margin) and give you the hit. But on a purely server based system, the server sees the survivor as further ahead, so the hit never happens.
Is this more fair? Not quite, since the Survivor is always in reality going to be ahead of where you see them. This would mean that any time you can just barely lunge and hit your target, you'll miss. It's not your fault either, it looks like you're close enough, but since the Survivor is (in theory, at least) running away from you, the gap will always be smaller on your end than the server/Survivor's end. This is the main reason why we only validate the hits on the server, not check for them.
For what it's worth, this was actually tested! A system where everything is handled on the server is actually easier to implement than the system we have now. The trouble is, it leads to a whole bunch of rejected hits even with a fairly good connection. This is why we went through the extra work to make it work the way it does now. As long as your connection is decent, your hits shouldn't be rejected, with some additional checks around things like pallets & Dead Hard to ensure that it's operating as fairly as possible in those key moments where every split second counts.
In this upcoming Mid-Chapter, we're also doing some more work to clean up rejected hits. If you've got a good connection but a hit is rejected (whether that's because they used Dead Hard or dropped a pallet on you first), then the game will avoid giving you any feedback that might suggest you hit them. This has zero impact on actual gameplay, but cleans up those weird moments where you see yourself hitting the Survivor and they even fall to the ground only to get right back up and sprint off into the sunset.
Hopefully that sheds some light on why we chose to handle hits the way we do. It's worth noting that we're always looking for more ways to improve hit detection as we go forward, so what you see now likely isn't going to be the exact way it works forever.
And I appreciate the detailed response, very cool to see.
I know you ran this by the team and your response is informed by that, and I won't pretend to know more about this stuff than the dev team does, but I do want to clarify on some things here, and be it to get another response that can clear them up for me instead.
You say it is uncommon for games these days to have the server handle the hit registration process, but above I linked articles regarding two of the most popular FPS games out there, and they explicitly state they use the server to calculate and confirm hits, and as opposed to DbD they don't even let the clients do prediction on that. I could find similar info regarding Rainbow Six Siege, Apex Legends and Unreal Tournament. Am I overlooking something, or are these games an exception?
With regards to players having to predict or lead shots, games usually solve that by employing lag compensation on the servers, i. e. having them roll back game time calculatively according to time stamps of the client info coming in, and checking whether the game state allowed for a hit to happen at the time of the input, thereby taking into account both players' real-time positions and the hitter's view angle.
But even without lag compensation I can't really see that it would be a big issue at normal latencies to have the server decide whether a hit happens. Yes, the killer on their own end still appears ever so slightly closer to the survivor even at low latencies than they are on the server, but at <50ms and with taking into consideration extrapolation on the survivor position, I have a hard time imagining that killers would regularly get overruled hits here. At those latencies it should only at all happen for hits connecting at the very last "pixels" of the attack range, and those are rare instances, instances that can regularly be avoided by the player, and instances in which getting overruled hits if they do happen would not seem very off either, since the player is going for very ambitious attempts. You could also refrain from having the killer client predict hits, such that they won't even get false feedback in these instances, or apply whatever you are doing to make false feedback on validated Dead Hards less frequent an occurence to these instances as well.
And while it is true that killers would have to account for their latency more if they have a bad connection, by making sure they are getting a bit closer to the survivor on their screen before they go for a hit, there are a lot of situations in which that is possible, there's not always a pallet around the survivor can get to just because the killer did not go for a max. range lunge beforehand. And regardless, with the current system survivors of course do have to account for latency, "predicting" how much closer to them the killer is than it appears on their screen. And so even if overruled hits would be a more frequent occurrence even at relatively average latencies with a server-based hit system, I wonder why it is deemed okay for players on the survivor side to have to compensate for latency (and not only their own latency but the killer's as well), and to receive "impossible" hits frequently, but not for killers to have to account for (merely their own) latency and get overruled hits.
I do appreciate the fact that you actually tested a server-based hit system and of course can see and experiment with things in action that we can only theorize about. But I would still like you to reconsider whether making the server the authority on hits isn't still desirable, and more frequent overruled hits simply the trade-off in a fairer system that leads to less impossible hits from the other perspective. Lag compensation might also be something you could look into.
Apart from that, I would like to ask you to at least reconsider whether the current general hit validation implementation should not already be used at latencies below the ~300ms threshold it seems to currently fall to. Players are already experiencing severe disadvantages facing killers with latencies of 100+ms, and as such I think making 100ms the threshold would be more reasonable.
The very least you could consider doing for players is show the killer ping to survivors, either already in the lobby, or in the in-trial match details overlay. This would allow players to at least better adjust to the latency disadvantage in the respective match.
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@JawsIsTheNextKiller said:
This is a really impressive amount of effort you've put in. Often when I get my 35ms ping hit validated, I check the survivor's ping and it way worse than that. I don't understand how that can happen if this is how it works but I can't really argue with your research.
It's important to keep in mind that it's not only network time that matters for these interactions, obviously the timings of the interactions (player input timings) themselves matter a lot. A survivor with 100ms that actuated DH 200ms before your hit happened on your end will still have that DH arrive on the server 65ms before your hit does (if you have 35ms). That just as a simple way to highlight that.
But a survivor with a higher ping will absolutely more often get failed DHs than a survivor with a lower ping would, even at the same actuation timings. The thing is that you as a killer just can't really tell whether they've gotten a failed DH, whereas failed hits are of course painfully obvious.
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@Gwinty said:
@zarr :
Thank you very much, this clears things up.
So the overall course should be to make DbD play completly on a server based system where the server has the final authority over who hits and who misses. This seems like a fair course for me and as for as I remember my limited experience with Overwatch this was not a bad thing and rarely felt bad.
Are there downsides to this system thou?
I imagine that DbD did not choose a "bad system" because they want to. You want your game to be good after all and a fun experience for all players.
From what you wrote it sounds like this will put a huge load on the server capacity which would make an upgrade quit cost intensive for BHVR.
Well, one reason why we have this system is that DbD started out without dedicated servers. The "server" was locally hosted on the killer's machine, which is to say, their game client and simulation functioned as the server, and handled all game functions. Due to that, the killer obviously had functionally no network latency whatsoever and also the authority on all game events, and so they were automatically favoured. It would not have been impossible to make it more fair even then, there are peer-to-peer games that simulate a remote host server environment (I think For Honor did this in the past?) in order to not favour one client unfairly, but either way, for DbD I think it was basically just that doing it this way was the easiest and fastest implementation that posed the least problems in making it work, and originally BHVR of course did not even expect for the game to take off like this.
Why they then never changed the system even when switching to the dedicated server infrastructure is more questionable. But I do reckon it was again a mix of it being the easiest, least cost and effort-intensive approach, perhaps not having the amount of employees with network programming expertise to feel comfortable reconstructing the entire system, perhaps not wanting to potentially pay more for servers that would have to do more work if they were doing hit calculations constantly, and maybe even the opinion that people were used to the killer latency advantage and that the game had been as successful as it had been despite it, and as such not wanting to take any risk on changing that fundamentally. On top of that it's also not like BHVR does anything big like that regularly, it takes them years to tackle things of that and even lesser magnitude, and the hit system cannot even be worked on as a "live" element of the game, the transition would have to happen at-once, and to a system they could only tinker with in "lab" environments and perhaps PTBs.
I will say that DbD is a bit of special case, with only one side doing the hitting while the other tries to avoid hits, and with various different killer attacks. I am not actually a network programmer or intimately familiar with the actual netcode behind hit reg, it is possible that DbD poses unique problems for a server-authority approach on general hit reg. I don't see any reason why, ultimately hit calculations are pretty practical, simple stuff, but it's not impossible that there are issues unique to DbD with that, I for one at least cannot exclude that possibility.
Downsides to the system would be false or delayed game feedback on the clients, since the server is the authority that clients either have to wait for or adhere to if it is in disagreement. However, those things are not actually unfair, they are just symptoms of latency being fairly dealt with. The actual issue is the latency itself. Either way, players do not like to see those things, as has become obvious with overruled DH hits. But it's not a "downside" in terms of a downgrade either, currently survivors of course get lots of false and delayed "feedback" already, by getting hit in ways that are impossible according to what the game shows them, this would only more fairly distribute that.
Another "issue" is that killer players would have to account for their latency, but not only will that not really be the case for most players (since most are below 100ms), and not only can this be combatted with lag compensation on the servers, but it's also not something that is really new, as again survivors currently already have to try and account for latency, and do so much more than players (on both sides) then will.
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@Gwinty said:
Just a quick and very uneducated question: How do other games handle this issue? Like ego shooters with PvP where it also depends on milliseconds?
I only played DbD, a bit of Overwatch and finally a lot of Dark Souls II/III. In Souls lag was serious issue and hits could come out pretty wonky. Players reacted by using weapons with bigger hitboxes when facing lagging opponents...
Basically all the popular games use a server-authority system, where the server has the final or even only say on important game events, most of all of course hit events. See these two articles regarding CS and Valorant, two games that are faster and more precise than DbD (hit scan means shots are basically infinitely fast, and the shot hitzone is obviously much smaller than those of killer attacks in DbD):
Multiplayer games based on the Source Engine use a Client-Server networking architecture. Usually a server is a dedicated host that runs the game and is authoritative about world simulation, game rules, and player input processing. A client is a player's computer connected to a game server.https://playvalorant.com/en-us/news/dev/the-state-of-hit-registration
Specifically:
Then the client compares the server position with his predicted position. If they are different, a prediction error has occurred. This indicates that the client didn't have the correct information about other entities and the environment when it processed the user command. Then the client has to correct its own position, since the server has final authority over client-side prediction.
And:
With respect to hit confirms, the client waits until it hears back from the server on the result before displaying a hit-confirm. In order to guarantee consistency across all users and to prevent cheaters from hacking their clients to give false shot results, shot results are entirely server authoritative.
These games not only use the server as an authority to validate hits, but the entire hit detection system itself is on the servers (the clients do not even predict hit events).
As I've said, doing it on the server is just objectively the best, most fair and secure way to do it, since it is the most neutral perspective, treats all players equally, prevents people from benefitting from their bad connections or from exploiting and cheating to do so (by artificially inducing latency or even injecting hit events artificially), and since it allows for the implementation of further techniques to lessen the impact of latency, such as lag compensation.
And here's the kicker: These games are actually symmetrical formats in which all clients shoot at each other, so in those games a client-sided hit system could at least actually be to the benefit and detriment of all players - in DbD on the other hand of course, we have an asymmetry where only the killer client does the hitting, so the already unfair client-based hit system is doubly unfair here, with strictly being to the killer's benefit and the survivors' detriment.
@Pulsar said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2737063#Comment_2737063
My issue is that you can play around a bad connection as Survivor. It'd be like playing Dark Souls.
You can drop things early, Dead Hard early, ect ect.
As Killer, I don't really see a way to play around poor connection if you are constantly having hits revoked, getting stunned at weird times and getting flashlight blinded long after you looked up.
Everyone should be on an equal playing field, but I also don't trust BHVR to not screw it up.
There are things you cannot play around even if you do know what the killer's ping is (which DbD doesn't tell you). Not only are you not at all always in a position to drop pallets, vault windows and actuate DH early, but doing so can even be the very reason you die, because you have to commit to an early action allowing the killer to much more effectively mindgame you. Or just think of trying to dodge a Nurse blink or Huntress hatchet when the info you have on where the killer is looking or blinking is outdated. There are tons of scenarios where a survivor can get screwed over by the killer latency advantage even if they have a feeling for how big that advantage is against their respective opponent's connection. I consider myself to be a very good player, particularly in chases - I am very experienced, practiced a lot, watched and played with and against tournament players, have done well in 1V1 competitions. I did these tests knowing what my opponent's ping is and being able to get intimately familiar with what that translates to in terms of the distance I actually have to imagine the killer at. And yet I still had plenty situations where I just got screwed over. And that was against a Trapper, there's many killers that are even harder to try and compensate for latency against. In these scenarios, holding W into corner map might actually be optimal, because anything else can get you randomly dunked on, lol.
Killers can compensate for latency similarly as well (or unwell) as survivors - where survivors have to drop pallets early, killers have to delay their attack a bit to make sure they are that bit closer to secure the hit is actually valid; where survivors commit, killers predict; where survivors dodge preemptively, killers lead shots. Of course it would sometimes suck, how latency affects games is never nice. The point is that with a server-sided authority, latency would affect both sides equally. And again, it would altogether lessen the advantage/disadvantage latency brings about significantly, because currently that advantage/disadvantage is the combined latency of both players, whereas in a server-sided scenario it would be the delta latency, the difference in latency between both players. That means killers also would have to account less for latency than survivors currently have to. Currently survivors are the only ones suffering from and having to account for latency on hits, and the latency of both themselves and the killer at that; in a server-controlled environment, not only would both sides equally "suffer" from and have to account for latency, but only their own latency, and only if and insofar it is higher than their opponent's.
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@konchok said:
If there's one post that I would make every dbd developer and player read it's this post. It does such a good job at busting myths and lays out exactly where the current shortcomings are.
Ha, thanks. The respective devs that are familiar with or even worked on the hit system/network code are obviously aware of what the killer client-sided hit authority entails, but then again, we have no idea how many people that includes, whether they have any kind of say at BHVR, or whether they are even working there anymore. BHVR were for some time actively looking to hire a game network programmer, so it could be possible that the person(s) responsible for coding the original systems aren't even there anymore. And the original hit system of course was not even a networked hit system, since on the P2P architecture the killer client was the "server", operating at "0" latency.
Why they went and adopted that client-based hit system into the dedicated server infrastructure is another question. Again, one suspicion I have is that they are not comfortable having the servers do hit calculations on every single hit, as they would have to if they were hosting the hit system or employing general hit validation (at actually relevant latencies). That would increase the load on them, perhaps enough such that performance could suffer and they'd have to spend on more/better servers. But it's also possible that they were and are not comfortable coding a new, networked hit system for the servers, due to a lack of experienced networking programmers. Or maybe they are simply scared of changing anything that fundamental about the game after all this time because the game is successful as it is, and big changes that are not guaranteed to make it more successful yet come at the risk of making it less successful are obviously scary, not least because if they end up making it neither more nor less successful, the time, work and money invested into those changes was useless for them as a company that as any other company cares about money above all.
That all said, I still hope they will at some point actually do what they've at least stated on a few occasions they want to do, and take a serious look at hit authority and the hit system code again, to revamp it with dedicated servers in mind. And the reason why I've kept bringing this stuff up through the years and still do now, is that one thing that might actually encourage the devs to do so is larger parts of the playerbase understanding and being dissatisfied with the unfairness and flaws of the current system.
I'm glad the devs did at least implement the event-specific validation we have now, and I do like to believe I perhaps contributed a bit to those things happening with my talking about it through the years.
@IamFran said:
The only thing that pisses me off is that hit validation mostly benefict survivors.
Ok there are some unfair hits through windows, but it's a good trade for most of the rest ones.
Also, I get stunned sometimes with a Pallet while being a bit far away, sometimes it's a simple stun but other times I'm carrying a survivor and he is saved with that unfair stun and mostly the hit validation respect the survivor perspective but almost never the killer perspectve (only the hit though windows maybe). I hope "the window hit validation" will never be released, we have anough with the Dead Hard hit validation and unfair pallet stuns.
Well, validation benefits survivors if by benefit we mean it shifts the state of the hit system from being a completely unfairly one-sided affair (100 killer - 0 survivor), to a more equal one (50 killer - 50 survivor). It does not "favour" survivors however, in a sense of being a "less-than-50 killer - more-than-50 survivor" affair. That's one of the primary things I want to clarify with threads like this, that the server perspective is being used for validation and that it is the most neutral and fair perspective, in the sense of making latency affect the game in "equally unfair" ways for all players, while simultaneously also reducing the impact latency has on the game altogether. It does not "respect" any perspective more than another, its own perspective is the authority.
And again, if it should turn out that actually fair hit reg would non-negligibly affect global kill rates, there's actual balancing tools to use to compensate. Mind you, in the Korean region where latencies are very low and people are as such playing in quasi-LAN conditions, there are still many killer players that win the vast majority of their matches decisively. Of course, hit validation is not the same as an actual low-latency environment, but it does go to suggest that killers do not "need" a latency advantage to succeed. Which of course is again beside the point that many or most players do not even have a huge latency advantage, since most players' pings are not that high.
@Pulsar said:
I wonder why I got DH validated so much. My ping hasn't gone above 35 ms in years.
I think that before BHVR does anything with hit validation, they need more and better servers. Adding in hit validation will prevent a lot of people from playing the game simply because there aren't any servers nearby
Well, the survivors you are facing regularly probably are sub 50ms too, it's common enough these days fortunately. What adds to how common instances of overruled DH hits are is that it is fairly easy to use reactively: if the killer swings at you from max. lunge range, you have 300 milliseconds to react, and even completely average reaction times are well under that. So since the survivor can react in time and actuate DH after the lunge has already started playing on their end, whereas the killer only sees them DH afterwards on their own end, the timing will often be such that on the killer's end they get a hit before the DH plays. So unless the survivor has a sufficiently higher latency than you, that will often mean the server sees the DH before the hit as well.
Just like what happened to grabs when they were moved from the killer to the server authority, validation for DH simply highlights that survivors usually do react in time, and the server overruling the killer in these scenarios is good. But yeah, again, whether a perk that temporarily grants invincibility should exist in this form at all is another question.
As for your second argument, well, while I do agree that more servers would be good, and while there are some regions where the closest servers are indeed at least 80ms away, sometimes 100+ms, for most people general validation would not be very bad at all. Yeah there would be more overruled hits than there are now, but anyone playing killer with <50ms would still basically never have to compensate for their latency and would still land most of all hits that from their perspective should land. Players in the 50-100ms range would have overruled hits a little more frequently if they go for the most ambitious, last-pixel/last-moment hits, but even they still wouldn't have to compensate for their latency an awful amount at all. It's only for players at 100+ms that things would really noticably change on the killer side, and they would have to account for that more deliberately, but thankfully the percentage of the playerbase actually forced to play at that latency is very small.
And of course, likewise it can be said that for all the people playing survivor in those regions, the lack of validation prevents them even more from enjoying or playing the game now as its existence would for killers then, since currently it's a 100% to 0% thing of favouring killers on latency, whereas then it would merely be a 50% - 50%, rather than a 0% - 100% of favouring survivors.
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Hatchets are indeed a beast of their own. Well, as are things like Victor pounces and Demo shreds. The thing with these is that their bonkers attack speeds exacerbate the killer latency advantage. And additionally, in the case of Huntresses hatchets and Victor, their model size to hitbox size ratio. Simple to think about it like this: If the killer hits you 100ms in the past, that will look increasingly ridiculous the more distance the killer traversed during that time - a lunge travels at 6.9m/s, which would only be a hit 0.69m "in the past"; hatchets can fly at 40m/s, which is 4m, in comparison.
@Minecraft said:
killers have the audacity to complain about dead hard validation, when in reality it's survivors who should complain about dead hard and pallet drops being the only instances where the game is actually fair.
having actual server validation would be way more impactful than giving survivors the vault boost from resilience and spine chill. it's not even close
I do find it ridiculous to complain about hit reg in this game from a killer perspective, as the killer enjoys hit reg privileges on multiple levels.
So likewise I agree that people should not complain about Dead Hard validation. However, complaining about Dead Hard itself is fairly understandable, it's a super strong perk and it now working as intended such that it can be reliably used for distance and to dodge hits (if you have a low latency) only highlights how strong it is. I do think adjustments are in order. At the very least, I want SWF restrictions such that they can't use more than 1 DH between them (or more than 1 copy of any perk or item/add-on, for that matter).
True on Resilience and Spine Chill. Together, they speed up vaults by 15%, which is about 100ms on window vaults and 140ms on pallet vaults. Latencies of around 50-80ms are completely common, and since the killer latency advantage is the combined total of both players' latencies, killer latency advantages of 100-160ms are completely common. As I've noted somewhere in the original post, extrapolation shaves off some of it, but it's still fair to say that even at benign latencies, Resilience + Spine Chill at most only make up for the inherent killer latency advantage, and the higher the latencies the less those perks matter of course. And yes, since those perks only apply to vault interactions while the latency advantage applies to hits everywhere, it is not even close.
@Pizzaman said:
Thanks for taking the time to analyze this! @zarr
Given how salty people are regarding dead hard and pallet hit validation, doing it for every "hit" would probably cause an outcry (tbh. I would love to see it), but it would be fair. Currently, a lot of hits connect that just shouldn't, and yet, people think it's "skill", when very often it's just client-side hit registration advantage.
I'm still thinking: not everything in the DBD-P2P-age was bad. All you had to do, was to monitor the lobby ping for a couple of seconds to see if it's good (and leave if it's not). Dead hard was also working flawlessly.
PS: funny that such a core mechanic of the game is killer sided. Think about it.
Showing killer ping in the lobby or at the very least in the match info screen would be at least something. Alas we don't even have that.
@Mr_K said:
Why do all these type of post always compare the killer persective with the survivors perspective? Its not like the survivor has 0 latency to the server. You can go a fair amount of distance before your client gets the "you've been hit" from the server.
Remember that killers are chasing ghosts. Where they see you is not where you actually are. Because of this, survivors are reacting to killers reacting to past survivors actions.
Welcome to online gaming.
You are not saying anything new here, I have explained those same things in the post. However, the point is that the killer benefits from their own latency and the survivor's on hits, while the survivor suffers from their own and the killer's.
Besides, we have killer pings of 200-600ms in these clips, and survivor pings of 20-40ms, so I'm not sure what you think your point is.
@GoodBoyKaru said:
I actually have some information on how grabs work, as confirmed by I believe Peanits himself in an older thread, if you're interested in reading it!
This was, like, 2 years ago when the concept of recoding Dead Hard and Grabs was first discussed. Both were still running on P2P netcode instead of code optimised for Dedicated Servers, and for Grabs this remains the case. Essentially, what happens is:
1) The killer sends a grab request to the server. The server double checks everything is all good, and sends the message back to the killer their grab is all clear for the moment, beginning the animation. At the same time, it sends a message to the survivor client to let them know they've been grabbed.
2) The survivor client, however, has an inbuilt failsafe from P2P days, and upon receiving a grab request will perform this failsafe, which involves checking everyone's positions again- this time based off of I believe their client. The server waits to actually allow the killer the grab while this takes place, leading to the issue of your arm just sticking out into the middle of nowhere, and everything freezing as everything is ran through to see if a grab is okay or not.
3) A lot of the time, the survivor client will reject the grab, as on their side the survivor is actually too far away now. The server receives this, and lets the killer client know the failsafe was activated and the grab has been cancelled.
Now, a fourth step occurs, which causes the killer to swing after receiving this request (although this wasn't always the case).
The same was true for Dead Hard without Validation, as all killer clients had a built-in failsafe perfect for P2P and not for Servers.
I hope this can help you understand how the grabs work a little more, at least until they get around to fully recoding it.
Thanks!
That does make sense, it's close to how I assumed it would function, in that the server confirms with both sides rather than making a call on a first-come-first-serve basis.
I do hope the devs will sooner rather than later tackle the "recoding from the ground up" thing they've talked about with regards to grabs and hit registration, which as they've also said do still contain various remnants from the P2P days.
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The Executioner
- Iridescent Seal of Metatron: Increased survivor aura reveal duration to 8 seconds (was 6)
- Lost Memories Book: Increased Oblivious duration to 30 seconds (was 15)
- Scarlet Egg: Increased Killer Instinct duration by 1 second (up from 1.5)
- Burning Man Painting: Reduced attack range increase to 1 meter (was 1.5)
- Wax Doll: Reduced attack range increase to 0.5 meters (was 1)
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There is some counterplay. At latest once survivors know that DMS is in play, they can let go of generators before the survivor is hooked, wait out the crows, and then get back on the gens. You can't delay your crow launch indefinitely. Plus they can even eat the first set of crows and keep working while your crows are on cooldown.
It will still absolutely be a great perk on Artist though. Not only because survivors having to wait out crows obviously still gives you value (and you will probably still be forcing at least 1 survivor off a gen manually), but also because people will be people - lots of survivors won't employ smart DMS counterplay and so you will still get genlocks galore.
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As meagre as most of all of the other changes highlighted in the dev update are, this one's a banger.
Freddy with Class Photo, Artist, Doc with Calm, high-mobility killers like Blight, Nurse, Billy, Oni, as well as Wraith, Legion and Victor to an extent. Not to mention just about any killer and controlling clusters of gens. This perk will be fairly nuts, and there are some cool synergies like Thrilling Tremors and Pain Resonance.
I won't say yet that it is too much, the perk has a bit of counterplay. What I will say is that it is the only change out of the ones listed that will actually have a notable impact on the game, the other changes are just not enough, far from in most cases. Pinky Finger nerf is welcome.
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@Dino7281 said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2728734#Comment_2728734
Damn, imagine when you walk next to her and she just wakes up in 0,25 seconds :D I have actually done it with insidious few times, that I faked playing as Victor to watch survivors as idle Charlotte, then hit them when they get close. It's really funny to get their response in endgame chat.
I have actually done that myself, and it is super funny if it works out!
I used Dragon's Grip, kicked a gen, looked at the floor as Insidious, Victor-less Charlotte so as to make it seem I'm dormant, and then when a survivor was bold enough to touch that gen, they were in for quite the surprise. Having this quality as a base-game mechanic of Twins gameplay would make for a lot of cool jumpscare situations, and I also think the dynamic of chasing a survivor with both twins at once that the quick-switching would encourage can be super fun. Maybe to compensate they could decrease Victor's hitzone, which would require more precision to hit a survivor, but at the same time make it more possible to pounce around objects without bumping into them.
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@Dino7281 said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2728701#Comment_2728701
Last chase idea is interesting for sure. Maybe give Object of obsession effect when there is only last survivor left, but OoO will be removed when the chase starts. That would be really fun.... Problem with that is how chase mechanic works, killers would try to get as close as possible by moon walking, so chase doesn't start etc. that would probably need a different rules. Maybe OoO removed and chase starts based on range between them instead.
Thing is that letting Twins switch during fatigue is simple change imo and it would help both sides. Right now Twins are basically punished for not slugging, you just stand doing nothing for 5 seconds, then also slowed for 2 seconds as Charlotte, which is just bad to get for each down. It's way better for them to slug survivor and stay as Victor to get extra hit. If they let them swap during fatigue, it would be valid option to switch to Charlotte asap, which would reduce amount of slugging as Twins.
Yeah, getting that chase endgame to work would be finnicky, but it is possible. A user on reddit had an interesting rework idea for the perk Sole Survivor that actually came close to what you are suggesting here, and close to how I would prefer to see endgame scenarios like this function: https://nm.reddit.com/r/deadbydaylight/comments/oelbd4/a_rework_of_sole_survivor
Being able to switch during Victor fatigue seems reasonable, and I do agree that it could be shipped without anything else to "compensate". Would not be opposed.
My basic idea of quick-switching between the twins is outlined in comments I made in this thead: https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/297661/exponential-proves-the-devs-have-forgotten-twins, starting on page 3. Specifically:
I wouldn't be opposed to decreasing the "wake up" duration from 3 to .25 seconds when switching back to Charlotte, same as when switching from Charlotte to Victor. I don't see a balancing reason that would even necessitate this long period where you are unable to control Charlotte. It feels bad and if anything the "surprise attack" quality of catching survivors out that are being bold around a dormant Charlotte is something Twins should have. It would also improve the chase interaction where the killer player can switch back and forth between the two in order to catch a survivor out on tileplay, and this quality of "chasing one survivor with both twins" is pretty cool and something we barely see with the current 3-second wake up duration.
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@Dino7281 said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2728658#Comment_2728658
I am not sure I would like making almost guaranteed hatch play, but gates on same wall should not be a thing for sure. I actually like more when I manage to outplay killer and escape, where I know it's something not easy. It would be kinda lame to have "guaranteed" escape. But it's true that overall kill rates would work better, if most results would be between 1-3.
There was kinda tournament like that in Japan (I think) where they played lower tier killers. I remember lot of Pigs and yeah it was played exactly like that. Hook one survivor, face-camp and then do it again with NOED during end-game to secure 2K. That is just boring to watch.
Problem is that tournaments with scoring that forces killers to try multiple hooks and banned perks for both sides are better for an audience, but they don't reflect actual game at all. It's just completely different game at that point. It would be interesting to see some version of this implemented as alternative mode, but I doubt they will ever do it.
I actually didn't watch all games in that tournament, I just skipped through them to count hooks/kills, but I am going to watch all Twins games, because I have no idea how they managed to get so many 4Ks. Number of banned perks probably helped a lot there... Basically most healing and antislugging perks are banned, so it doesn't reflect actual game again.
I am fine with Twin's power, I just wish they would let me swap during fatigue, so I don't waste so much time watching downed survivors...
My ideal endgame would put the last survivor and the killer in a chase for survival. If the survivor manages to survive for X seconds in that chase (a timer which could scale with the amount of pallets left on the map, as well as the killer that is being played), the Entity grants them an escape; if the killer downs the survivor, they immediately get sacrificed by the Entity. Of course the endgame as it is now has some tactical elements like stealth and whatnot that would not be nearly as much of a factor in this "sudden death chase" endgame scenario, but not only could there still be adjustments to make those elements more relevant there too (e. g. it could still be possible to stealth-juke and lose the killer in that chase, with the timer still ticking), but ultimately the current 1V1 endgame scenario is really not very engaging at all. Even literal hatch stand-offs still exist, where the killer finds the hatch first but refuses to close it, waiting for the survivor to show themselves. So yeah, the game stands to gain much more from an endgame rework than it stands to lose.
Japanese tournaments are actually wild. I follow the Asian scene fairly closely and have for years, and even I still don't always understand what their tournament formats, rules and balancing precisely is. What I do know is that killers do ridiculously well in them, 4ks with gens to spare are super common even with lower-tier killers. But that's also partly due to weird rules like survivors not being allowed to cleanse Hexes until the first gen pops, and more such stuff.
I wouldn't say tournament DbD is a completely different game at all, in concept, but yes, it is a different format, or "mode" if you will. I do actually think the state of balance in restricted tournaments resembles that of average pubs closely enough to make meaningful statements with regards to the latter, and again the fact that tournaments are balanced with 4-SWF voice comm teams in mind whereas pubs aren't leads me to believe they too suggest pubs are killer-sided. But I agree that we shouldn't use tournaments to say the game in pubs is such and such, because pubs are a different realm with a different state of balance and more importantly a different state of the gameplay experience ("live balance"), and that state definitely has issues that affect both roles, and can yield bad experiences for both roles.
Either way, I do think the game is actually fairly well-balanced in the premise of 5 roughly equally skilled and experienced players in a match, playing equally as much to "win" (to kill or escape), and the survivors being randoms that do not know each other, do not have out-of-game communications, nor any coordination of builds and the like. That is the actual base game balance premise, and in it I would even assume a bunch of killers to be overpowered. Of course, voice comms and SWFs with coordinated strats, tactics and builds do exist, and the game in various respects is not balanced with that in mind. Likewise it is not balanced for 12 hooks. Good players can still absolutely get 8-12 hooks in pubs, but that's of course because pubs often throw together players of wildly varying levels of skill and experience, even now with MMR. Against equal opponents, only very few killer characters could feasibly play to consistently get 8+ hooks. These are both aspects of the balancing I hope BHVR will in the future address, by nerfing SWFs and nerfing camping/slugging such that killers can be buffed enough in other gameplay aspects to actually consistently be able to play for 8+ hooks even against equal opponents.
Various means of healing being unavailable or only limitedly available in these tournaments definitely adds to how well Twins can perform, but it's still crazy given that coordination even without considering any perks or items altogether should be such a strong tool against them, not least because survivors can obviously heal each other.
I did suggest some Twins tweaks that concentrated on being able to switch much faster between them, I think it could work to improve them while also making their gameplay more exciting for both sides. But that would have to go along with some nerfs too, such as increasing the time before you can release Victor again after he got crushed.
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@Tdbrown50 said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2728619#Comment_2728619
I’m not wasting my time,I’m wasting survivors time,I have all the free time in the world.I’m having more fun playing this way than any other way.Survivors are always try hard,I’m the opposite,I’m not trying.I dont want them to have fun.If they are not having fun,I’m Having a blast!If survivors showed any amount of courtesy or manners maybe I would do the same and the whole game would be better off.Until then,when in Rome.I tried playing by the survivors handbook for killers,SCREW THAT $@@@!!!!Now I want to raise the misery index!!Thats my fun and I don’t care what survivors think!!I paid good money for this game and I’ll play how I see fit.It’s what they do and their way is just having fun,we’ll do is mine!!!
If you are actually having a blast "playing" that way, you do you. I would at least suggest reading a book or something, and be it while you are standing around in the game.
Honestly it's actually funny, if you are indeed having fun this way I can appreciate the comedy of making those players frustrated with their time in the match. Before the Freddy rework I actually sometimes equipped Rancor and would do nothing all game but follow my Obsession around and swing at them from the Dream World, and only pull them into the Dream World once the last gen popped, to immediately mori them. I did not do that very frequently at all mind you, but I still have to admit it was hilarious to me.
@Dino7281 said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2728619#Comment_2728619
My bad about that Spirit, I actually didn't notice that last game. I thought there are only 3.
That tournament is talked about a lot in different arguements and often with wrong numbers, so I would like to link it in future, but I will make sure to get my opinions about it in separate comments.
It's kinda interesting take to say game is killer sided, because 4 escape is less likely than 4 kill. I don't consider that being killer sided, just because it would be impossible to make this even chance. You would have to somehow prevent anyone being killed before reaching some number of hooks on everyone and balance around that. I am not saying camping is not valid method to get kills. I just value it differently than actually hooking survivor 3 times, mainly because of killer's time wasted on it. Kill with 1 hooks is just different for me than kill with 3 hooks, that's why I usually prefer to track hooks and not hook stages.
High level viability is kinda hard to prove. Teams usually use lower tier killers only when they are forced by rules and survivors are limited hard in those games. It would be interesting to see tournaments where survivors can use anything they want but play with lower tier killers.
There is still high chance for 1Ks even with that, but I don't believe it would be above 2K average. But as I said, hard to prove when it wasn't done and probably never will be.
But I understand that you don't like my opinions and your post linked, so I will make sure to make it separate, so it is just an information to check for others whenever we talk about that tournament. To make sure data are correct.
EDIT: About Twins, I created stats from OhTofu tournament and Twins got quite a lot of 4Ks, which I really didn't see coming. Survivors were limited tho. So maybe Twins are not as bad, but they are clumsy for sure. I hate that long fatigue.
Thanks for understanding. I of course have no right or leverage to tell you to stop quoting me in these contexts, so I do appreciate if you are willing to refrain from doing so.
I'm not saying the game is overall killer-sided because killers are much more favoured to at least still get 1 kill than survivors are to at least still get 1 escape, but that aspect itself is of course killer-sided. It would actually be relatively easy to bring about a state in which survivors are about equally as likely to still get 1 escape even in bad losses, by adjusting the hatch and gate specifics in 1V1 (and 2V1) scenarios. Since killers currently can slug the second-to-last survivor and get 4 minutes slug time (plus hook time thereafter) to find the last survivor without that last survivor having a chance to escape, currently securing a 4k in these scenarios is all but guaranteed. Imagine if the slugged survivor could kill themselves in these scenarios, if survivors had at least equal chances to find the hatch as the killer does, if the gate opening speed would be increased for the last survivor, if gates never spawned on the same side of the map, and so on. Doesn't mean I personally actually want those changes (but some of them could be healthy), I actually am more inclined to want a rework of these endgame scenarios that put the killer and last survivor into a chase for survival, but yeah, from a "balance" perspective a kill/escape range of 1-3 (and 0-4) is objectively more equal than the 1-4 range the game as it is yields.
I agree with you that ideally, the game would be balanced more for the idea of 12 hooking events rather than 12 hook stages, but that is unfortunately not the reality of the game. I do hope the devs will at some point actually pursue a balancing approach concentrating more on hooks rather than merely kills, and decrease the effectiveness of things such as camping and slugging, instead buffing killers' chase strength and map/gen control, and I have advocated for such a balancing approach frequently over the years. But of course, looking at the balance of the game as it is, we do necessarily have to account for things like camping.
It would definitely be interesting to see how all other killers perform in this setting. Though to note, this tournament actually encouraged killers to go for fresh hooks with its point system, so a tournament that actually only weighed kills would be more ideal if we are looking only at kill rates to gauge balance, which is obviously the perspective the devs and most players have, the balancing around 2 kills. In such a tournament you would see most players at least with the lower-tier killers go for hard tunnel and camp plays to secure 2 kills, and I do suspect it would work out fairly often, maybe even enough for lower-tier killers to approach and even achieve 2k averages. Of course it would not be a very interesting gameplay experience or spectating experience, but it is what it is.
Twins perform surprisingly well in tournaments still (it does and always did surprise me, the level of coordination in tournament teams should be such a strong tool against Twins, and yet they have often even outperformed killers like Nurse), but yeah, again, I do agree that they deserve adjustments to the new reality of DH vali and COH. More than that, personally I would actually want a more ambitious Twins rework, of nerfing Victor but buffing Charlotte a lot to compensate. We most likely won't see that happen though, of course.
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It's always perplexing for me to see takes like this. You think refusing to play the game while being in the game is somehow a "gotcha", rather than you wasting your own time when you could be doing anything else, including not being in the game to begin with? That's even a step above people that apparently still play the game constantly despite professing how deeply they hate the experience.
Even if I were to get bodied in all of my killer games (I don't, I win much more often than not), I would still play for even just any singular chase I can get, any singular hook, any second I can prolong the round by, because I play the game for what the game is about, and I wouldn't play the game at all if I didn't enjoy what it is about. To stand around refusing to play the game I came to play because I'm "losing" is a paradoxical notion to me. Not least because a match is never actually lost before it is, so even if I were to care more about "winning" than about playing the game itself, there'd still always be reason for me to keep trying.
@Dino7281 said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2728499#Comment_2728499
Did you just said Twins are top tier?
They already got nerfed hard and they are quite bad now. They have to be basically afk for 7 seconds after each down, unless they get option to slug, which got nerfed by boons a lot.
I am not sure about Artist, she got nerfed a lot before getting live.
Scott made a video about tournament where everything was allowed. Killers had average kill rate around 2,16, which is not bad for a tournament, that's true. Problem is that you can see kill rates are boosted. It's not between 0-4, it's between 1-4. Unless killer gives up, he will get 1k by camping in most games.
Here are data from that tournament:
Problem is that he didn't track actual hooks, but hook stages instead, so we can't reallly prove how much camping was done here.
Anyway, there is something interesting to see. Only viable killers there are Blight and Nurse. Spirit always got only 1k.
This game is balanced for 2 killers. I hate seing posts about this game is killer-sided / survivor-sided. You can't make arguments about killer-sided at all. Is this game killer-sided for a clown? Hell no. You have lot of killers and only few are viable. There are 2 killers viable for highest level. There is more for average, but you still have lot of killers that are not viable even for that.
It's cool that you keep spreading awareness linking to my thread, but I would like to ask for you to stop doing so if you're gonna keep using it to further false talking points that you in the thread itself already brought up but did not want to enter a discussion on.
Kill rates are not "boosted" by 1ks. As I'd already pointed out there, the fact that killers are massively favoured to secure at least 1 kill in much of any scenario is not something that would be "skewing" kill rates in some artificial or unfair-to-killers way. It is a completely balance-relevant aspect of this game. (And also completely relevant to the experience of the game that is being balanced for, it's still an actual player actually dying.) Just like it would be completely balance-relevant if survivors were massively favoured to secure at least 1 escape in most scenarios and thereby make 4ks vanishingly rare. The fact that the game favours killers to win with 4 kills much more than it does survivors with 4 escapes naturally is a killer-sided aspect of its balancing, and as I had also already pointed out, to bring about a more fairly balanced state of the game with regards to this, there would have to be changes that make it equally as likely for survivors to at least still have 1 escape even in landslide losses as it is for killers to at least still have 1 kill. I. e. we would have to strive for a 1-3 kill/escape range. Or alternatively of course, there would have to be changes to make it much less likely for the killer to be able to secure at least 1 kill even in losing, such that the range is actually 0-4. But to use this already killer-favouring balance aspect of the game to argue they should be even more favoured is just perplex.
It doesn't matter how much camping was done in the tournament to achieve those kill rates. Hook stages do prove that killers did not simply camp/tunnel 2 survivors to achieve 2k averages, but even if I had not recorded hook stages altogether, camping is part of the game and therefore naturally inherent to its balancing.
Spirit did not only get 1ks. She was played 4 times, one round of which was a 4k. She averaged 1.75 kills, and 7.75 stages. She is absolutely viable here, and not only that, she has only recently received a fairly big balance patch and players are still figuring out how to optimally play (and build) her. This is especially true for comp players that have been playing and practicing Spirit at this level for years, as now her chase dynamic has changed a lot and takes a lot of unlearning of old habits and learning of new ways to utilize her. She definitely got nerfed, but she's still high-level viable.
Talking about high-level viability, it's not really a meaningful point to say that only few killers fall into that category. We are not only talking about the highest levels of performances here, we are talking about the highest levels of loadouts on the survivor side as well. They have to use the absolute strongest perks, items and add-ons on everyone in order to be able to compete at this level. The survivor side conditions for high-level viability are at least equally as limited as those for killers, and arguably they are decidedly more limited since being an SWF team of 4 highly-skilled players that practice together frequently and use voice comms are prerequisites for a survivor side that is competing at this level that killers do not have.
Beyond that, these results are not actually evidence that only these killers are viable at this level. Players mostly only chose to play those killers here, the lack of other killers being played is not automatically evidence that they would not be able to achieve a 2k average here. In fact, the 3 times that other killers did get played, they averaged 1.6 kills and 7 stages, with Huntress getting a 3k. I agree that it is unlikely for most killers to achieve a 2.X kill average here like Nurse and Blight did, but it's not impossible, and there are actually a fair few killers that with the help of certain add-ons could very well still manage to. And regardless, in tournaments where both sides have restrictions and players are forced to play other killers (i. e. tournaments where both sides are not using S-tier loadouts), kill rates still average out to slightly above 2 basically every time, with 3-4ks being completely possible for a whole bunch of killers. Including Twins by the way, who are definitely still a highly viable killer, even despite the fact that yes, they have suffered from recent changes (DH validation, Circle Of Healing) more than any other killer (and do deserve adjustments to account for this, in my opinion, such as Victor being able to snuff Boons).
You can make arguments for the game being killer-sided. At the top level here with both sides using the strongest stuff and playing at a very high level, kills rates did average out to above 50%, they are killer-leaning. Hook stages even more so. And since this is an environment with survivor teams that have levels of coordination and cohesion as well as practiced voice comms that are basically non-existent in the public matchmaking environment, I actually think the game is killer-sided in public matchmaking. Global stats also support this conclusion, as do the kill rates of competent-and-above killer streamers that win the vast majority of their pub matches (with any killer), regularly pretty decisively. Only for equally as skilled 4-SWFs with voice comms pubs are comparably as favourable, which is not even 5% of the overall playerbase as far as we know. But I still want buffs for a bunch of killers and nerfs for SWFs.
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@DangerScouse said:
Get over it people, and those trying to flex some intellectual muscle. Camping is fine. Some killers enjoy it. Move on or go swallow another dictionary.
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2722814#Comment_2722814
Want to minimise camping? Make the game less survivor biased. Outside of that. Some killers enjoy camping. I enjoy it. Don't tell me what I enjoy. Goodnight.
As I've said, nerfs to camping would go along with killer buffs to other stuff like chase strength and gen control. But ship those killer buffs without nerfs to camping and people will only be even happier to camp because it will only be even easier and more effective.
I do want most killers to be decidedly more threatening in chases, for them to go for chases as much as possible and for it to net them many hooks, rather than them standing around hooks playing for downs and kills without any chasing. I do want base gen regression to be more meaningful and for games to last longer on average. So yes, I agree, make the game less favourable for survivors in the relation of chase time to gen time, such that camping can be nerfed. Killers like Nurse and Blight already are in a spot where even at high levels they do not have to camp to succeed. Get killers closer to that and camping can be done away with to a better degree.
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I don't get what's hard to understand about a PVP game being balanced around a tie. That ensures more than any other balance approach that each player has as equal chances at succeeding as possible. Very basic stuff.
Sure it could be attempted to balance the game around not being a competitive PVP format but instead a "cinematic" playing experience of having less chances to succeed as a survivor, but I'd wager the game would not be nearly as successful as it is if that were the case, in fact it would probably not be around anymore for anyone to play and complain about its balancing to begin with. And not just because your average player does not like losing most of the time, but because it would be more boring being favoured to win as well. I'm pretty sure many of the players professing they hate having to "sweat" as killer would grow bored of the game and stop playing it if they would comfortably win most of their matches.
Beyond that, DbD has a unique balancing aspect where the asymmetry of objectives allows killers to snowball in a way survivors cannot. Repairing 3 gens does not make repairing the last 2 any easier, in fact the game dynamic is regularly such that the last two gens are the most difficult to complete. Anyway, killing even just 1 survivor on the other hand makes killing the remaining survivors tremendously more easy. And we don't even have to look at complex game scenarios to understand this, just imagine a situation in which only 2 survivors are left alive before all gens are done - it's incredibly easy for the killer to control this situation and turn it into a 4k. Not only that, but since killers can very reliably secure at least 1 kill in the end game, any scenario that ends with less than 3 survivors alive before all gens are done is already all but guaranteed to result in a killer victory. For that reason, a balancing approach around 2 kills total is basically necessary to prevent a sort of runaway imbalance of more and more games snowballing into 4 kills and 3 kills being all but guaranteed.
Of course, changes to the game aren't unthinkable, and I for one do think the game would stand to benefit from being changed at least to concentrate more on hooks rather than kills, in its gameplay and balancing, such that games on average last longer and see more chasing and hooking and less camping and slugging. But either way, the current balancing approach is also sensible, and we if anything only have reason to assume that the current approach already does favour killers - global stats are above a 2-kill average across the board, good killer players win the majority of their matches decisively and almost never kill less than 2 survivors, tournaments trend toward kill rates slightly above 2. It can certainly be argued the game experience could be balanced better, but in terms of "fairness" the balancing is already pretty good, and favourable for playing killer. In fact, it does seem like BHVR balances for average kill rates of around 60% rather than 50, so it's seemingly already not strictly a 2K2E balancing approach.
There are definitely still specific balance issues that should be addressed regardless of the overall balance approach and state of balance though, of course. SWF with voice comms and coordinated builds is a big one, from a killer perspective. I want there to be restrictions for SWFs to where every perk and item can only be equipped at most once among all SWF group members. There's also some balancing issues on the killer side, such as certain add-ons, or the effectiveness of camping, tunnelling and slugging against non-SWF/non-coordinated SWF survivors.
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@KayTwoAyy said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2722453#Comment_2722453
Fun is subjective, that's true.
But because we are playing a game that people bought to have a good time, 'how fun is this?' belongs in the discussion.
I studied architecture in college at a school that was heavily focused on design.
We talked a lot about the design principle 'Form Follows Function' that emerged sometime in the 19th/20th century. I don't want to butcher the idea, so I'll just share this image I found on the web. The TL;DR is at the bottom of the image.
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/JK6HJ18WKRFE/image.png
Famous American Architect, Frank Lloyd Wright believed that neither form nor function should have to follow each other. Instead, he has been quoted saying "form follows function--that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union."
Now there are architects out there who believe function should follow form (most famous is Frank Gehry), and it produces some really cool looking buildings. But there is a dark side to every building designed that way. For example, the Walt Disney Concert Hall is criticized for blinding drivers in the surrounding area and raising the utility bills of nearby structures with its concave reflected heat. Not to mention, the building suffers from a number of janitorial and maintenance issues all related to its design.
So back to DBD...
The function of video games is entertainment.
Whether you are an idealist like Frank Lloyd Wright or a pragmatist like Louis Sullivan, it naturally follows that the function (entertainment) of Dead by Daylight needs to be met harmoniously with it's form (how the game plays).
BHVR could follow in Franky Gehry's shoes and say "F your entertainment, we're here to design a game that works." They might stumble into success that way, but historically it has proven to turn out inefficient and plague-driven design.
It is not practical to design a game without the audience in mind. At the end of the day you could say "it works," but at what cost? Anyone can make something that works. A good game is defined by how enjoyable it is, regardless of how difficult a metric that is to measure.
To address some of your points more specifically:
- The same can definitely be said about the build I use, and a critique is definitely to be made about how DBD's meta has not changed, you are right. But the reason we can now make a comparison between Overwatch and DBD is because of MMR. Killers are being left with three options:
- Adapt and learn the best strategy to 4k
- Stop trying to win
- Abandon the game entirely
At the moment, people have been complaining about insane survivor queue times and a lot of the talk seems to attribute that to how killers are leaving the game or playing survivor because of what MMR has done to their experience.
Is it all hearsay? Is it just people stirring the pot? Did something actually change? Have people actually quit? I don't know.
But when I get a temperature read on the state of DBD, MMR is pulling back scabs BHVR should have healed a long time ago.
- I think you are placing undue importance on the WHY? I know why you value causality, and I know why you believe it is so pivotal to solving the problem. I agree that it is something to be studied, but I'm not convinced we need to look at player psychology to make corrections on the game. I'll concede that I could be wrong on that front, but I don't think we are making much ground against eachother on this topic (and we have been at it for a while) so it may be best to acknowledge we disagree and put this part of the discussion to rest.
- I don't think there is anything wrong with expecting players to play well. My critique is strictly on forcing players into a narrow peg in order for them to play really well. Epic Games has bent over backwards to make console players competitive in Fortnite. People shouldn't feel like they need to learn how to play with a Keyboard & Mouse to be successful in FPS games (or vice versa--looking at you Halo). That is my argument with DBD--players shouldn't feel like they need to run the same 4 perks to be successful in a trial.
On the CoconutRTS video...
It has always been BHVR's M.O. to release new perks that band-aid their game's problem--perks that try to incentivize new gameplay.
But as you've stated, the meta hasn't shifted in the game's history. 200 perks, and the meta has never changed.
Even if they did manage to change the meta with perks alone, it would be an unwelcomed change for the reasons I've stated above--no one wants to be told how to enjoy the game (i.e. which 4 perks they need to run).
While fun is subjective, the most objective stance on camping definitely is that it is more undesirable than desirable. Camping takes all player agency away from the survivor on the hook, they can only watch as their team leaves them to die or even dies trying to save them, is completely at the mercy of whatever happens, including whether a potential rescuer has BT. Not only that, the basic counter to camping of sticking to gens is also something that takes the play out of the game, leads to matches with as little player interaction as possible, players more so playing against timers than against each other. These are objectively bad things from a game design perspective, you want as much gameplay and interaction as possible, and for that to be as engaging as possible, for player agency levels to be as high as possible.
That BHVR knows this is clear, because they have done various things to combat different forms of camping that made rescues all but impossible, with swivel hooks, reducing collision boxes on basement stairs, removing bear traps under hooks, fixing an issue where Victor could be placed under a hook, where Doctor could grab people in Treatment mode, implementing an invincibility window for unhooked survivors, and more. And yet still "facecamping" (which now refers to various ways of camping) is something they do not like, a "thorn in their side" as game designers, because they still know it's objectively not good game design. And this can be said for camping in general to an extent, because while there are more engaging ways of camping that involve more strategy, agency, interaction, skill, they are still clearly less conducive to gameplay revolving around those things than... chases, for one major game element. So while I don't want camping to be removed entirely and do think it has a place in the game, I think addressing hard-camping and making the game less campy in general, instead incentivizing chase-heavier gameplay flows with game action being spread around more, is about as objectively beneficial as it gets. Making camping gameplay itself more engaging is also a way to go about it.
I think it's a little silly anyway to defend camping on the grounds of it perhaps being something people find fun. Not sure there's been polls on this, but it seems pretty pretty clear most people do not enjoy camping. And while again I do think camping is actually a not unimportant aspect of the game for players even if they don't always realize as much (it can create crazy and thrilling game scenarios, and the fact that it can lead to big shifts in the standing of a match at practically any given time makes the game more tense and differentiates the flow of the game more on a trial-to-trial basis), there are pretty obvious issues surrounding camping gameplay which arguing should be addressed is a no-brainer. I'm sure we can remove Leatherface's ability to completely deny unhooks/trades without it hurting the game. Same for hook grabs. It's also not great game design that perks are used to combat camping, I'm reasonably confident the game would be better off with base-game tools for players to do so. Of course stuff like that would go along with other buffs for killers in other aspects of the game.
- The same can definitely be said about the build I use, and a critique is definitely to be made about how DBD's meta has not changed, you are right. But the reason we can now make a comparison between Overwatch and DBD is because of MMR. Killers are being left with three options:
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@Kalinikta said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2721572#Comment_2721572
The general narrative is extremely looking at it in a black and white looking glass and generally speaks about countering it in terms of face camping. I personally have deviated from speaking in blanket statements and pressed for nuances.
Actually the reasons why camping is effective and/or widely used for that matter is important to determine whether it is a problem to begin with. When identifying a problem you actually need to figure out the core of why that is the case to know whether an adjustment is to be made at all.
The developers made no such claims as you are implying here about the ability to camp, as they specially make a distinction there they want to address face camping without negatively impacting proxy camping! This shows your lack of nuance in the conversation on camping and just want a rough brush to paint everything with. The irony is that while you are trying to claim that all camping is an issue, the developers identified just face camping to need addressing in their view, but that the fix for this shouldn't negatively impact other forms of it; which you are raving about being more efficient.
Game balance has to look at things objectively and understand the correlations. You cannot claim well one side isn't win-oriented enough we need to account for that and change the balance of the game. Killers can be less win-oriented just the same as survivors can be. That is like trying to account for the mental attitude of players in game design... it makes literally zero sense.
Repairing gens is not a problem. Hooking a survivor and sacrificing them to the entity isn't either. A plentiful manner in which they can kill survivors, you have hooking them and a mori? You can do individual gens or stack up? Not sure what your argument is here, because by the very definition of how the game rules are laid out should imply to us an effective manner to do your task? Camping is effective so people do it and splitting up on multiple gens is effective so people do it.
Sorry, but you seem to not be interested in an actual objective take on the matter nor in my stand point.
There's really no meaningful nuance to me in determining whether camping works in pubs or not, it's as black and white to me as going into pub games, camping, and looking at average kill rates. And anyway, as I've said elsewhere, I always knew camping is extremely effective and one of the best killing strategies, the only thing I'm a bit surprised about here is that even facecamping is apparently still this effective even in the MMR environment, and even with LF. I would expect much more mixed results for facecamping, and a trend more toward an average of 2 kills, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I'll see for myself soon enough.
I don't think the reason matters. Again, even if camping would have a simple and clear counter that worked every time and the only reason it ever paid off would literally be that people are too stupid, bored or empathetic to not employ that counter, if enough people behave in ways such that on average camping works, that is all the grounds one needs to consider changing that aspect of the game if one deems it undesirable, even if in a scenario where everybody is equally skilled, smart, experienced, win-oriented and whatnot it would be a non-issue.
I actually said I consider various forms of camping to be worthwhile and did address that the devs have stated as much themselves, and personally don't even have a huge issue with facecamping (which the devs however do; there are forms of camping they consider to be undesirable and there are various things they've done and continually do to combat it, they just don't ever get around to actually "solving" it). There are issues, I think camping is overly effective in pubs particularly when compared against the fact that it does not yield very engaging or interactive gameplay often enough in pub scenarios where people are mediocre, make sub-optimal decisions, aren't coordinated or win-oriented enough, etc., and facecamping specifically causes people to become upset or at least bored. I think the game would be better if it were changed to make camping less effective and thereby less attractive, in turn making other strategies more effective and attractive, but I for one would not want for it to be removed entirely either.
But it would be possible. Imagine that upon downing a survivor, they get sucked up by the entity and respawned elsewhere on the map in the injured or healthy state, and they get sacrificed on the third down. This would obviously change the game in many ways, but it could absolutely work, even without any other larger changes to the game (apart from obviously adjusting perks that rely on the hook (and slug) mechanic), and it would absolutely get rid of camping (and slugging) and make the game much more dynamic (low downtime, more action, more action for everyone) and chase-oriented. It would take out various strategic elements and types of gameplay as well, there could be arguments for and against something like that, and I would be more on the against side, but of course, there's a huge range of things that can be done to make the game less campy without literally deleting camping, and I think there's a better DbD somewhere on that spectrum. And again, even making camping itself a more engaging gameplay element with more skill-based mechanics around defending and contesting hooks would be a possibility.
For your game balance argument, you make the common mistake of not differentiating between base game balance and "live balance", where the latter is what actually happens in the game when people play it. And that live balance part is completely affected by things such as player attitudes and everything else that "in theory" should not matter, and if those things in practice do affect the game enough and often enough such that it skews global balance, they have to be included in the balancing approach if one wants to balance for the actual game experiences actual players are actually having most of the time. I didn't even invoke balance arguments though, as I've said, camping can be deemed undesirable even if it weren't effective or at all balance-relevant - the fact that it is effective only adds to the merit of the argument that changing it would be worthwhile if it is deemed undesirable, because being effective makes it attractive for people to do, meaning undesirable gameplay happens more frequently. I don't think camping and the gameplay it yields is undesirable through-and-through, but I also don't know what your point is invoking balance. I mean, you do already agree that camping is very effective, you don't actually think it only works if survivor players are stupid, bored or feel like throwing. So yeah, why should we even argue whether the ridiculous results in this thread are indicative of a base game balance issue with camping.
Gen-rushing actually usually includes people stacking up on gens, regularly with Prove Thyself, that is not a meaningful distinction. What I was getting at is that camping is not objectively or let alone by definition the best way to win the game, whereas repairing gens as fast as possible is. Camping is just one of various strategies, such as tunnelling, camping, slugging, 3-genning, playing for endgame kills, just chasing and hooking whoever you happen to find. Again, "camping" could literally be removed from the game without at all altering the basic functioning and premise of the game.
Your actual point with that of course wasn't about gen-rushing itself, more so that you again wanted to highlight how the differences in "win-orientedness" would affect stats like this, but I still can't see a meaningful point in that. If players in fact aren't win-oriented enough on average to deal with these things well, and if these things yield gameplay that one deems undesirable, then that is absolutely showing a problem. So say killer players on average aren't used to 4-SWFs actually playing with breakneck efficiency pumping out gens, and so they don't usually play hard themselves, don't camp and tunnel from the get-go all the time or at all or otherwise play as efficiently as they could, and therefore they get rolled by such a team more often than not. If it can be shown that this usually does happen, then "gen-rushing" is a problem, at least if the gameplay it yields is deemed undesirable (which it often arguably is - quick games with few chases and little general player interaction). I actually do think this is a problem, even if a very win-oriented killer player is still able to compete with this, and I do think SWF nerfs are in order for that reason (and other reasons).
My take which I consider to be fairly objective is this: Camping is a highly effective and in pubs arguably too effective strategy, and that is problematic not even necessarily just from a balance perspective, but from the perspective of anyone that considers camping to be undesirable to any extent, as its effectiveness makes it more attractive and therefore more common an occurrence. Doesn't mean I'd want to delete camping, nor that I want to nerf killers (nerfs to their camping capabilities would have to go along with buffs to other stuff), but I think it's pretty clear camping often sucks in terms of gameplay, that tons of people dislike the "camping" experience, and that there's a lot of things that could be done to make camping less effective (or more engaging) and the game less "campy".
I was indeed not very interested in your standpoint, I pointed out that it seems mostly reasonable to me and I agreed with you that camping can be punished to extents and does have merits to be in the game. But that wasn't what I wanted to address, I originally only replied to point to the disconnect in the discussion between you and KayTwo/Munqaxus, where you were concerned with whether (face)camping can be punished and they with whether it is actually punished (again base balance vs. live balance). The thread as far as I can tell was also never outright concerned with whether camping is a balance or game experience issue, so arguing about that would be a secondary concern at most. If I didn't miss something, the people presenting stats at no point actually said the stats show that camping is absolutely OP or would be OP even against equally skilled, coordinated, win-oriented, etc. players, and is always absolutely undesirable. Attacking them on those grounds seems uncalled for. They just set out to show that it works more often than not, contrary to popular narratives. Don't think they made the distinction between it being "broken" or just "good".
Not everything I said was directed at you specifically either, I just got into talking about the different points. It probably is for the best for the discussion to return to the actual stats. I will probably just try 10 facecamp games or so, will likely become too bored of it at that point or perhaps feel too bad for the players I'm facing. For what it's worth, in my region and at my MMR, I would be surprised if I get as high kill rates playing like that as they did so far.
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@Kalinikta said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2721445#Comment_2721445
Read the posts by the original poster, he uses the term facecamping all over when talking about the playstyle used to collect the data, it is mentioned in his original post and ones directed at me. You and @KayTwoAyy are on a totally different wave length than the person that initiated this discussion and that is something I have been trying to point out. I have never disputed any of the results, just the premise of the tests conducted and the manner in which it is being represented.
As you pointed out I am aware of the fact that the manner in which they are camping is one of the valid strategies even in high-level competition. The concern is about the efficiency rate of the strategy in the game, yet to determine whether that is truly worrying means that one should analyze the causality of the outcome before conclusions being drawn from it.
You bring up win-oriented and I think there is much to that, as the people conducting the test are extremely win-oriented. As I have indicated previously if one side brings the best of the best and the other doesn't, the game starts off with a discrepancy. Is the tactic used the final determining factor or is it simply the fact that you are playing as optimal and efficient as possible to secure the win while the opponents aren't? I think we all agree that it can be punished, so why isn't it in practice? Is it the strategy or is it something else? If you want to analyze this objectively you have to be more nuanced and determine causality, rather than what people are trying to pass here as objective data. There are more aspects in play than just you are camping and there is no accounting for it.
It is like testing gen rushing strategies with a 4 man swf, I bet they will win a vast majority of their games - is it because it isn't punished enough? Blight or Nurses or any killer really with the most powerful perks and add-ons doing their outmost best to win, how efficient are they? The manner in which the tests are being conducted as I have pointed out is very close to what type of play you see in competitive play... yet using those type of plays in the general public match is that truly showing anything other than; if you try hard to win using valid strategies and combinations of it, in many games you will actually win?
Trying to show that something is good or broken are two different type of beasts. As the developers stated themselves, to figure out actual any problem areas, it is about the why and causality of the results seen.
Regarding the premise of the thread, I really can't see that it would be about facecamping. The original post clearly talked about camping period, and while the tests were then later pointed out to be conducted in employing types of facecamping, again, if facecamping is effective it if anything has to be assumed that smarter ways of camping are only even more effective. I only ever understood the premise to be about camping in general and specifically to counter the narrative that camping in general is not effective because it doesn't usually work out in the killer's favour (and would therefore not be a problem). I for one don't think the distinction that facecamping specifically is effective and therefore problematic is very meaningful - for one thing it is stll camping, and for another it is the form of camping that should be the least effective, so if even it can be shown to be effective, I wouldn't bother to question whether those results can also be applied to camping in general (not least because it becomes increasingly difficult to define different types of camping, and because in the actual matches many different "types" are regularly utilized simultaneously). I admittedly did not follow your discussion with the thread's author very closely, it is possible it transitioned into something where the point of distinction is more valuable.
I don't think the reasons as to why camping is so effective are necessary for the conclusion that it is problematic. If even after years of the game existing and even now with MMR in place even relatively primitive forms of camping still work out as ridiculously well as these stats would suggest, it doesn't really matter why it works so well; if and insofar camping is seen as undesirable (and many players and even the devs do see it as such), it is a problem that it is so attractive. The reasons why it is would only become relevant in an argument as to what can be done to remedy the problem.
And even if the only reason that camping is so effective would be that survivor players in this game on average are not win-oriented enough, it would still be a problem that one might very well deem worthy or necessary of addressing, because again, you really do not have to account for any of these factors since the game itself doesn't. If you play the game (queue up into public matches) and camping works this well, it does work this well, and that is the game reality one has to balance for. Besides, as you know, even in the most win-oriented, competitive environments of tournament play, camping is still effective.
I don't think the comparison to a gen-rushing 4-SWF is very apt. Completing generators as fast as possible is the prime objective and objectively most effective way for survivors to play by the very definition of how the game rules are laid out, whereas camping is only one of a multitude of approaches a killer can have to killing survivors. An argument about the "problem" of camping can be qualitative, in as much as one can conclude that camping could and ideally even should be removed from the game altogether. Arguments about the "problem" of gen-rushing can only be quantitative, meaning one might argue gens can go too fast if you have 4 survivors that each actually play to repair them as fast as possible (I'd agree, with different caveats), but obviously one might not argue that the ability to repair gens at all is a problem.
I dunno, if your point really is that these results cannot be said to show with certainty that camping at large is a problem but only the specific type of camping employed to achieve the results, I do not really have a problem with that. Again, I think it'd be a fairly moot point because other types of camping should if anything be expected to be even more effective (and I personally am pretty confident in that since I see it all the time, including in tournament play), but it would be a valid point in terms of attacking the scientific rigour of the "tests" or its stated conclusions, and be it with regards to ones made in consecutive posts. If your point is that it matters why camping is so effective in determining whether camping is problematic, I disagree. Not only did the thread never set out to answer the why nor did it even say that camping is problematic, but whether camping is a "problem" is subjective anyway, and depends on how designers and players perceive and experience the gameplay that camping yields, and that would be true even regardless of how effective it is. I think it is easy to argue that camping has undesirable, "problematic" aspects, and that most people would agree. While I for one also see various desirable and "healthy" aspects to it, it's still a problem that camping is as effective as it actually is, and not even from a perspective of competitive balance (I agree with you that at the top level camping if anything is necessary to be able to compete), but from the perspective that people will more often camp if it is effective. And that's all the more true if even the arguably least desirable and most problematic type of camping is this effective and therefore attractive.
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@Kalinikta said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2721015#Comment_2721015
No, you want to have your cake and eat it to and you are putting words into my mouth I never said.
I stated that its efficiency is dependent of who you face and that it can be countered but in many cases isn't. Literally saying it can pay out for a multitude of reasons and the causality of the success rate is to be considered.
You claim it is an objective test about the efficiency of face camping for all players, while you are acknowledging that you are combining multiple strategies in one and making decisions to maximize your gen pressure. The original premise was about face camping, while you clearly are expanding it into a proximity camp situation and an area denial rather than the overall agreed upon definition of face camping.
The fact of the matter is that the developers themselves have stated that proximity camping is very much so a valid strategy within the game and one that is supposed to work if executed well. It can also be countered by well executed plays by the survivors. I complimented your gameplay and acknowledged that you are good that it seems similar to competitive play.
I am not the one twisting the parameters here, that would be you. Expanding the parameters to include anything that will benefit a positive result for you, while claiming it is just a subset of the aspects used. When I play I use a variety of different strategies as well and it might surprise you, but I am not above camping to get a result if I deem it necessary. I even stated previously that I believe at high level play camping is a necessary tool at times to ultilize when facing good survivors in order to get the win.
If you want to come at me for my stance, don't try to twist them to suit your narrative.
I won't comment on the different points you developed in your larger discussion, there's various things I'd concede or contest but overall it seemed reasonable enough.
But there is one issue that as far as I can tell, steered the direction of the discussion past each other's talking points from the get-go: You want to argue about whether killers can be punished for camping, the thread however was about whether killers are actually punished for camping. If you go to the first post, it does not say anything as to camping having no counterplay whatsoever, as if it would work out perfectly every time against everyone. The premise was that as opposed to what many people say, on average camping works out more often than not, and is not "punished" by getting sub-50% kill rates. The argument was not that the sky is always blue, but that it is much bluer or much more often blue than people claim. The thread's author directly pointed this out in the discussion with you too if I remember correctly, saying that in theory camping might not be expected to be this effective, but in practice it provably is.
You do seem aware of the fact that camping is still one of the most viable strategies even in high-level competition, but even if that weren't the case, the point of the thread would stand because it is concerned with the success rates of camping in the main game mode that 99.9% of players actually play. Sure, camping is less effective the better, more coordinated and more "win"-oriented the survivors are, and while it can still regularly be highly effective even then, of course players would not see as much success (as high kill rates) playing like this against top coordinated and skilled teams exclusively, as those teams can actually "punish" camping to extents, certainly if it's one of the more primitive variants like outright facecamping. But that's completely beside the point of the thread, which never asked why or when camping is effective, only if it is effective in the actual game against the actual opponents one actually gets, often enough to be something killers actually are not punished for, but indeed rewarded. And their results clearly show that it is. Surprisingly they didn't get less than 2 kills even just a single time - which is definitely something that can happen, again you are right that camping can be punished to extents - but even if they had lost a dozen times, if the average kill or win rate would be above 50%, it would still go to show that camping is not punished.
I also don't know why the discussion switched to facecamping specifically. Again the original post did not make that distinction, and neither does the common narrative it sought to counter ("camping is a bad play, you usually won't get more than a kill, and at best two"). That they actually do employ a facecamping-type strategy for these stats might open up some basis for arguments about the definitions of types of camping and which type of camping is the most consistent, but there's really no "gotcha" there because not only was the premise never about facecamping specifically, but facecamping is the easiest type of camping, both for killers to do and for survivors to counter, and so if even that works out as often and as well as the author seeks to demonstrate, it goes to show that camping is ridiculously effective, as smarter, more skilled ways of camping can only be expected to be even more effective.
I agree with you/the devs that camping in general is a worthwhile and even "healthy" aspect of the game that should not be removed entirely. Facecamping is at least "punished" by being boring for the killer player as well, but since that does not prevent people from doing it, I do think changes are in order to remedy it, and I would think so even if facecamping weren't also as effective a strategy as it apparently still is. In general I think that while camping has its place in the game, adjustments to incentivize killers to go for more chases and hooks and likewise making the gameplay around hooks more engaging would be a good direction. Hook grabs for instance are such a bad mechanic, they incentivize hard-camping, lead to awkward and silly dancing around the hook with survivors being scared to commit to the unhook and killers not wanting to hit them, they are subject to randomness to a significant extent not least because they are affected by latency, and they have been bugged forever since the hooked survivor cannot be unhooked for as long as the grab animation lasts. Removing that mechanic from the game would already go a long way to make hard-camping less attractive and enable survivors to contest camped hooks more reliably, and the killer would still stand to benefit a lot from survivors contesting hooks. Of course, that change and other such changes that seek to make hooks more contestable would have to go along with compensatory killer buffs in other gameplay aspects, such as chase strength or gen control.
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@Munqaxus said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2720080#Comment_2720080
- So your argument boils down to a video showing you how to counter camping that hasn't even been proven to work. You talk about confirmation bias, isn't the the height of confirmation bias. You are basically saying facecamping doesn't work because "this video". And completely ignore the fact that @KayTwoAyy and I have both proven that facecamping works flawlessly in 46 games. There's a difference between theory and practice and in practice, in practice facecamping works and rewards the killer. In theory it doesn't.
I have laid out clear and in a civil manner how the data set being created is not accounting for causality and is setup to create a confirmation biased data set - you are dismissing data that negatively affects the numbers, but include data that heavily skewers the numbers in your favor; while hiding behind determined by the developers... while they actually exclude any data that is spoiled by DCs for instance. Instead of actually engaging with me on the subject, all you are doing is placing now demands of providing contrary proof and trying to push through your opinion simply because people are pointing out flaws of the metrics being used.
- What are you wanting. To throw out every game that has a DC? We can do that. Our numbers will not show loses if we facecamping, while throwing out every game that is a DC. I have yet to drop below a 2 survivor kill rate, even without DC games included. @KayTwoAyy has a 4k kill rate without DCs.
We don't have to prove anything to you, neither do you have to prove anything to us... yet you are the one wanting to conduct a test. I don't have an issue with camping, if that is how one wants to play feel free to do so and I have even stated my stance on the matter.
- @KayTwoAyy and I don't have anything to prove to you either. You are very biased in wanting to keep facecamping, any data @KayTeeBee or I put on here, you will come up with some biased reasoning as to why it is meaningless. You are basically using what-ifs and maybes say that the sky isn't blue, while I am showing you that it is blue.
- However, the takeaway here is that I can in practice (Not theory), take a Killer and win practically every game by facecamping.
Let me ask you this. Did I not just play 20 games as Leatherface? Did I not get a 3.4 Kill rate with Leatherface while facecamping? Out of 20 games, facecamping as Leatherface, was there only 3 games, where I only got a draw? Out of 20 games with Leatherface, did I lose a single one?
No data will ever mean anything unless it shows the game to be hopelessly survivor-sided. Because that is obviously the truth that everyone just naturally knows (unless they are a stupid survivor main) and which does not require any evidence whatsoever to support it. At least, that's what I've gathered from most "forum killer mains" engaging with stats in this game. Global kill rates always having been comfortably above 50%, even at rank 1 in the past, even for the "weakest" killer on the "strongest" survivor map, even when excluding DCs? Doesn't mean anything. Tournaments having kill rates above 50%, even when everything is allowed? Meaningless. Killer streamers winning 90% of their matches decisively day in and day out, year after year, and even now with MMR in place? No. Meaning. Survivors OP.
It really is funny what kind of "scientific" standards people are demanding when looking at stats like this. Look, it's not rocket science, you queue as killer, you camp, and you record how well you do in terms of kills. You do not have to control for a single thing because neither is anyone that plays this game, they just queue up. If camping works often enough, it works, there's no great mystery here, to merely say it works we do not have to figure out why it works. Sure maybe a large part of why it works is that most players are too bored or stupid or feel too bad for the hooked survivor not to play into it - but if enough players are like that such that camping works out more often than not... it works. Sure if we go into KYF and play against tournament teams drilled to counter camping it won't work as well. Who cares? Talking about this game, we have to talk about its actual reality. And in 99.9% of cases, that reality is people simply queueing up in pubs. It may be interesting to do tests on how well camping works in other environments (it's still a bread and butter play in tournaments so we know it scales well into the top levels of skill and coordination), but that is wholly irrelevant when asking whether killers actually benefit from camping in this game, because this game has one relevant mode, and that is public matchmaking. There is no better or more accurate way to conduct tests than... queueing up and logging results. We can make distinctions about which killers and loadouts are particularly conducive to being successful at camping, but not only is that another thing to look at, but since it is possible to play the same killer with the same build every single time, even just showing that camping works in that scenario is meaningful.
I will say that I would much prefer having actual video evidence, not least because it would help with people that apparently want to move goalposts to now argue about the centimeter specifics of what facecamping is (which is even sillier given that the topic at hand is simply camping). Also, I'm actually surprised just how well you guys are doing with outright facecamps, and LF facecamps at that. I mean, I know even the most primitive ways of camping work out more often than not in pubs, and that's especially true if you get an early down. But at least some people should be smart enough not to contest an LF facecamp, so much so that I would even expect other killers to get more value out of outright facecamping because survivors will more regularly contest and go for clown fiestas around the hook. Either way, even just showing that you average anywhere above 2 kills would have of course gone to show that camping is not "punished" in terms of kill rates, I'm surprised you are averaging 3+. Would be "interesting" to see. Then again, I have seen years worth of video evidence that goes to show that camping is super effective, from streamers and tournaments, as well as just from my own gameplay. I for one don't need any tests to convince me of this fact.
I think next week I will join you guys and go for facecamp streaks for a while. I don't enjoy that gameplay, but I'm curious now whether even the most primitive camping is actually that effective in pubs still, with MMR and whatnot. I have been doing perkless Legion 4ks for a while now, and while I mostly use tunnelling to get there, camping is of course integral part of it, so going from that to facecamping won't be too grating of a transition.
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Monitor & Abuse, Enduring, Whispers, Knock Out, Fire Up, and Vigil, Desperate Measures, Dance With Me. I would argue they are not actually weak, but most of them are of course pretty far away from being top tier.
Monitor enabling you to get closer to survivors before they notice is cool in and of itself, but I also particularly enjoy its synergies with Nurse's Calling and Infectious Fright. Enduring is a great chase perk on a few killers and at least still one of the nicest Quality-of-Life perks on various others. I particularly enjoy it because survivors regularly are forced to stay at a pallet rather than being able to use the stun time to make it to another tile, and outplaying people on dropped pallets is fun. Whispers is a solid tracking perk that as opposed to most others requires more smarts and experience to get the most value out of but on the flipside has no counter. I enjoy low-downtime slugging playstyles with Knock Out a lot, unfortunately it has been bugged for ages now and survivors can still see fellow survivors for a split second as they enter the dying state. Please fix. Fire Up is definitely the weakest out of the bunch, but there's a few builds where I enjoy it, such as in combination with Brutal Strength and Bamboozle on Clown, where you throw Antidotes at pallets and and windows before breaking or vaulting them and catch up to survivors very fast, or on Wraith alongside Brutal and Shadow Dance plus Serpent, or yet Myers with Bamboozle. It's also funny making survivors mess up their flashlight save timings. Still think Fire Up should be buffed though. At the very least it should also apply to successful hit cooldowns.
Vigil is fun in combination with Sprint Burst and trying to stand and walk as much as possible in chases so as to get SB back mid-chase. Fixated obviously helps with that. Desperate Measures is cool for speedier Self-Care heals, but I mostly enjoy it in combination with BT and DH - the faster unhooking speed allows you to more reliably be able to avoid a hook trade by DHing behind the unhooked survivor, forcing the BT hit. Resilience helps a bit as well. Dance With Me is great with Quick & Quiet and Lithe, and particularly against Nurse and Spirit. Lucky Break has pretty much eclipsed it, but DWM is more fun.
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You can combine Blood Echo with Fearmonger to fairly reliably "hard-counter" Exhaustion perks, but yeah, that's not worth 2 perk slots. Still sometimes funny to combine them and not have to worry about Dead Hard much at all anymore.
On their own, I do think Fearmonger is better even on killers like Plague and Legion. Echo is not bad, but its ridiculous cooldown is ridiculous, and while Fearmonger is only really effective if you regularly break off chases after a survivor has used their Exhaustion perk, there are definitely scenarios where doing so can be beneficial to begin with.
Echo's cooldown should be removed, Fearmonger's innate Exhaustion timer should be 10 seconds (this would make it actually require skill to get rid of Exhaustion mid-chase). But perhaps the better route is reworking Exhaustion perks, or maybe the Exhaustion mechanic as a whole.
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There's definitely a false and sometimes likely deliberately false narrative regarding camping and its effectiveness. Camping is a staple strategy even in tournament play where some of the very best players and more importantly some of the absolute most coordinated teams of survivors face off. In public play with its groups of random survivors that much more often than not are not particularly good or smart at the game (to say the least) or at all coordinated, camping is a devastatingly effective strategy.
In tournaments survivors all communicate via voice chat at all times, and they are also players with tons of experience and skills and coordination, worlds above 99% of pub groups, and yet securing struggle stage or death on hook by camping are still immensely impactful. Contesting hooks is very risky even in that environment, and there are smart ways of camping that make it difficult even for these teams to get meaningful gen progress on the board, with killers controlling gen clusters and entire areas around hooks. If a survivor goes down in the vicinity of a gen or let alone multiple gens with progress on them, that can be such a huge setback that even these tournament teams not seldomly cannot recover well or at all.
In pubs even the most primitive ways of camping like Bubba facecamping work out much more often than not, with survivors literally playing into them by wasting time staring at the hook or throwing themselves at the killer, often even seconds after the hooked person went into struggle stage, then also not at all always having perks like BT and DS or otherwise managing to protect the unhooked survivor. Camping is a pretty sure-fire way to kill most survivors in pubs.
Of course, a lot of it comes down to player skills and smarts (and perk choices), but random teams without voice chat or any coordination often simply cannot deal with these scenarios well even if they are solid and smart players individually (and these are things that should be balanced at a base-game level, not with perks that players may not and in fact often just do not equip). Without communication, survivors first have to each check and identify whether a camp is even happening, which costs a lot of time. Then it's not like it's always obvious whether the killer is camping, a proxi and patrol camp can lure survivors in and keep them occupied around the hook. But even in cases where a camp is obvious, many survivors will stick around to wait and see whether a window for a rescue opportunity won't open up or whether other survivors won't arrive to try and contest the hook together with. This is especially true because players usually feel bad about letting someone else die on hook, and about having run there without even trying. But even if they do end up not trying and instantly go back to gens, a lot of time was lost, time in which the hook timer ticked down and little to no gen progress was made, and this is ignoring that survivors might still have to search for gens to begin with, that perks like Corrupt, Deadlock, Ruin might very well have made that time even more costly. Then there's the fact that killers can regularly contest gens and survivors while still keeping a level of control over the hook at the same time, depending on the killer and how close the gens are. And the fact that players that are getting camped and seeing that nobody is going to save them will not seldomly attempt on hook and even let go. And of course, if survivors do try to contest the hook, there's a myriad of scenarios that can happen that can quickly lead to rounds falling apart for survivors, with killers injuring and/or downing/grabbing multiple people, and often still being able to secure struggle/death on hook and/or simply tunnelling if they do manage to get the survivor off the hook.
Camping is objectively one of the top most effective killing strategies in this game, it works at the top levels of skill and coordination and it demolishes most random groups. This has to first be acknowledged before one can reasonably discuss the balancing of camping.
I for one don't think camping is a bad gameplay aspect through-and-through that should be sought to be completely removed. Camping has its merits, there is some skill and advanced decision-making involved in it on both sides, it adds a significant layer of strategy of its own to the game, it can even be fun and thrilling to play for and against camps, and the mere fact that camping can create dangerous, crazy situations that can spiral rounds out of control at practically any moment means it makes the game more exciting and tense and creates more diverse game states and therefore experiences, round-to-round.
But there are definitely problematic and undesirable aspects to camping gameplay remedying which I do think would only benefit the game. One should not be forced to "12-hook" every game, that would get samey and boring, but encouraging chase-heavier, more dynamic matches with more hooks happening and everyone getting some action is definitely something that would be good for the game, and that would have to go in hand with buffs for killers in gameplay aspects such as chase strength and gen control, but nerfs to their strength in defending hooks. There are many suggestions for such changes I and others have made throughout the years. It can be extreme stuff like removing hook timers completely, or more moderate like removing hook grabs, basekit Kindred, and such. Compensatory killer buffs could be decreasing gen speeds while in chase, increasing base gen regression rate, changes to movement speeds, vaulting speeds, pallet-breaking speeds, and so on. There is definitely a balance to be found in making camping less effective without taking it out of the game altogether and without hurting killers' overall chances to succeed, and I agree with other people that this would also ideally revolve around strong incentives for not camping, rather than strong punishments for camping.
Leatherface camping specifically is absolutely a problem, and it's a ridiculous state he's been in ever since release. I hope MMR will have highlighted this issue for BHVR too. He's basically the personification of how effective even the most primitive and easy forms of camping are, and it likely shows by how disproportionally common he has become in higher MMR brackets. But I think general changes to camping might already be enough such that there won't necessarily have to be specific adjustments for LF.
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They've recently nerfed Pinhead, he's overperforming in public matchmaking and therefore it's unfortunately unlikely we'll see buffs anytime soon. But from a "high MMR" perspective I'd agree that he deserves buffs. Maybe if they could identify what it is most players struggle with when facing him, there could be buffs to his chase strength compensated for with nerfs to those other aspects.
Here's a few things I think Pinhead should have:
Not breaking chains with his own body, as you say.
Chains that break in the environment should keep respawning until the survivor actually manually breaks them. Respawning chains are fairly easy to dodge, and manually breaking one chain at a time happens quickly. I don't see why they couldn't keep spawning until manually removed.
Alternatively, make it so chains don't break in the environment altogether, instead the breaking free speed on chains in contact with the environment is increased.
There should be a reward for hitting chains from afar. There's two aspects to this: hitting survivors at the max. gateway range (16m) barely gets you closer to them; hitting survivors at the max. range of the possessed chain (24m) does nothing despite being increasingly difficult. What this leads to is that good players almost never use gateways at long ranges, and almost always spawn the gateways as close to the survivor as possible so as to get an easy chain hit. But long-range uses of the power and trick shots with the chain projectiles are such cool parts of his kit that should be actively encouraged rather than discouraged. An idea could be this: for every meter of distance between Pinhead and the gateway and between the gateway and the chain hit, the chains take longer to manually break.
The exact numbers for this would have to be tinkered with, but here's a few thoughts on it: It's obviously much easier to get to full gateway range than it is full chain range, therefore gateway meters should reward less added manual break time. A full-range shot at 40m is so unlikely and difficult to get, it should guarantee a hit. 40m take Pinhead 8.7 seconds to traverse, so the survivor should be breaking chains for 9 seconds here, which is 3 seconds per chain or a 200% increase over the default breaking time of 1 second. Gateway meters could make for 1/3rd or 66.6% of these 200% - that's 4.16% per meter of gateway distance. Chain meters would then obviously make for the remaining 2/3rds or 133.3%, which is 5.5% per meter of chain distance.
At 16m max. gateway range, a survivor would spend 1.66s breaking each chain, so a total of 5 seconds. Pinhead can traverse those 16m in 3.47s. However, a survivor can still move while chained, so they would make some more distance in those 3.47s, plus they can break chains in the environment. I think these numbers could be alright, but yeah, one would have to see it in action and tinker with it, not least because I did not account for survivors still being able to move when coming up with the 200% increase for 40m.
I also think Engineer's Fang should be rebalanced with this in mind. That means rather than giving it any downsides like it currently has, simply make it so that the chain hit will only injure a survivor if it's at least a 16m shot, meaning you need at least a full gateway range, or a combination of gateway + chain range. Note that this doesn't mean the survivor has to be 16+m away from Pinhead, just that the distance between Pinhead and the gateway and the gateway and the chain hit have to combine for at least 16m. Or maybe to encourage trick shots even more one could make it so that the chain hit injures at any distance above 5m with this add-on.
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@Oiry said:
I am amazed that people run Pop so much... Why? Its so weird on pphead.
I run BBQ but just for the BP, usually get like 2-3 tokens. Sometimes I run No way out, because2-3 tokens is enough for it to be worth it
Deadlock. OP
Corrupt or Ruin
Old-school version can be Run Undying, Tinkerer and +1. Then again, deadlock is incredibly strong
Skin: P3 all the way
Agreed, it's rather odd to see multiple people opting for Pop and even Pain Resonance. You already often want to be caging people rather than hooking them, and then Resonance is even more situational.
Go-to slowdown perks for me on PH are Corrupt with Ruin and Undying, and the last perk can be Deadlock, Tinkerer or my personal flavour pick Enduring, which is a great chase perk on PH. I get more consistent value out of it than I did I'm All Ears. Enduring enables you to play around pallets recklessly and get them dropped as soon as possible, and where otherwise a pallet stun is the worst-case scenario because the survivor can use it to leave the pallet, with Enduring they are regularly forced to stay, and PH can basically guarantee hits on dropped pallets.
Here's some ideas for possible add-on effects:
Make trails last indefinitely in the map (up to the maximum, upon which new trails replace old ones) - this is something I would want to be a basekit thing honestly, the add-ons that increase trail duration would then be freed up for other effects.
Better afflictions for coming into contact with trails, such as Hindered (while in contact with a trail), Blindness until no longer tormented, Obliviousness for 60 seconds, Mangled if injured, Exhausted for 5 seconds (useful if you chase survivors into trails), revealing survivor auras while in contact with a trail (even while crouching) and for 5 seconds afterwards, ...
Maybe an add-on that prevents survivors from being able to crouch through trails without it affecting them (could be basekit too, although not if trails would last indefinitely basekit).
Add-ons modifying the width of trails as well as punishment could be cool. Those that make punishment wider would make it shorter by the same amount however.
Obviously there could be add-ons to further tweak punishment mechanics, such as increased speed of the attack and shortened cooldowns and such, but I don't really think this is needed and would also mess with muscle memory on both sides. Still worth considering though.
As for the Ultras, Obsidian Goblet could grant Undetectable when coming into contact with a trail until you use rites again. Metatron should just reveal all survivor auras no matter whether they are tormented or not. Including the caged survivor. The relocation trigger radius of cages should be increased though, and the time before relocation takes place reduced. Relocating cages is such a cool mechanic, yet we barely ever see it because even if PH does find a cage, he can still easily camp it from outside of 5m, not least due to being able to hold rites aiming at the cage (punishment at base has an 8m reach).
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@Pulsar said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2712152#Comment_2712152
Dead Hard was changed in that patch. Blight used to be able to swing through Dead Hard, since he had so muxh momentum and speed.
Now it will cancel his lunge as if he hit something.
Blight can still swing through Dead Hard. Again, hit validation only applies if the killer actually hits the survivor on their own screen, which is only possible if they do so before they see the survivor DH. In the past those instances would have simply resulted in the survivor ending up "Exhausted on the ground", the killer player would never see them DH in the first place, at most they saw them teleport once already on the ground. The instances where in the past killers hit survivors through DH by "riding" on their back during the dash still exist now just like they did then, for those same timings.
Here is one example clip showcasing as much:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk62trjhAbU -
@Chordyceps said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2712152#Comment_2712152
You may be right, but I still think this was supremely stupid.
Dead Hard can make for silly scenarios like that, it's an exceptionally silly perk anyway because it is a literal exception for which they created a wholly new game action. In the past this action was even affected by generic action speed modifiers, so Resilience and Spine Chill made it "faster", effectively shortening its duration, and its unique, hitbox-disabling i-frames still lead to funny/BS interactions of course. Its speed curve also scales from the actual movement speed, which in the past allowed people to fly off if they actuated it during a hit sprint, and now still makes it so actuating DH when slowed down (fall stagger, Hindered) will have funny results, while doing so when sped up (Haste) increases its reach slightly.
DHing into a pallet like this is a good play, but it can end in a scenario where the vault prompt is blocked for the survivor by the killer collision, so they are trapped and get downed anyway. Blight's rush lunge is a bit special, pretty sure its damage cone is different from a regular lunge and so it will probably scan for the pallet behind the DHing survivor even if you steer it right into the survivor. But I do have one tip for you: You want to wait until the last possible moment before actually swinging during rushes. You likely already know this, but it will secure hits survivors can otherwise potentially dodge. If you slow down this clip of yours, you can see that your "Attack" prompt disappears well before you'd have to actuate it; if you had waited until you are closer and to see whether she actually goes into the vault, you would have likely been able to play around her DH, either hitting her late, bouncing again to then hit her, or at least blocking her into that corner.
Either way, this was caused by DH, not validation, and that's a point I would generally want to make: Hit validation is good and fair and it should be implemented for every interaction, it's DH that's problematic.
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There's no validation happening here, validation only comes into play if you actually hit the survivor on your screen. She DHs before your swing reaches her even on your screen, upon which her hitbox disappears, so your swing registers on the only valid target, the pallet, breaking it, letting the rest of her DH dash continue forward instead of getting blocked by the pallet.
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Clown is a much stronger killer than most people assume. Some of the best Korean players that I watch consider him to be A tier, and with the right add-ons he definitely is rather oppressive. It is trivial winning most pub games with Clown using Pinky Finger, Bleach or Cigar Box. They do so frequently, as do I. Doesn't mean he needs nerfs, at all, but I do think Pinky Finger should be changed.
Pinky Finger is a problematic add-on in my opinion. The biggest problem about it is the same one that Iri Head and Leatherface pose: they enable hard-camping that is effectively impossible to counter. Not only is this an undesirable gameplay aspect in general, but if an Iri Huntress, Leatherface or Pinky Clown gets an early down, a hard camp can very often guarantee them easy wins and everyone involved boring games.
I do think limiting his available bottles would be a much more apt nerf for the add-on than it was for Iri Head, but ideally both of them would simply be reworked to have different, more engaging effects altogether. Direct bottle hits for Clown are a great condition for the add-on, and they are if anything something I would want to be rewarded more at base too (something like an extra few % more Hindered on direct Tonic hits, and Antidotes activating a second earlier on direct hits). But rather than become Exposed, the add-on should have a different effect. Here's an idea I find cool: Pinky Finger now makes it so the gas cloud from direct bottle hits intoxicates the survivor but invigorates the Clown. This would turn direct bottle hits into actual hits much of the time, and you would still also benefit from using it when right behind a survivor because their hit sprint will be slowed down and you will catch up faster thanks to invigoration. For Iri Head, I would find this change cool: Now doesn't limit your available hatchets at all anymore; Whenever you successfully hit a hatchet, you automatically get +1 hatchet back. You would basically never have to reload anymore. Hell, maybe the add-on could even simply make it so you have infinite hatchets, I would still much prefer that over its current effect, very much so playing as Huntress myself too.
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Simply reverting the change would make it a ridiculously strong perk again, as there are still various setups that would be very problematic with a constant stagger reduction.
However, you are absolutely right that it is an objectively worse Exhaustion perk than various of the others, and since Exhaustion perks cannot reasonably be used alongside each other, it barely sees any play whatsoever.
My suggestion would be to turn it into a regular perk. Make it reduce stagger by 100% and suppress falling noises, on a flat 20-second cooldown, like Quick & Quiet. No sprint, no Exhaustion. That way it cannot be abused to loop elevation setups since the cooldown forces survivors to go elsewhere, and without the sprint it also doesn't make survivors in elevated positions untouchable because they won't get far if you actually go up there. On the flipside, now it can sensibly be used alongside Exhaustion perks, which already puts it on the map much more than it is currently, and at 20 seconds of cooldown good players can still benefit from it by planning and leading their chases well. I do think there's a balancing leeway between the current 75% stagger reduction and the suggested 100%, as well as between 20 and 30 seconds of cooldown. I do believe 100%/20s would be fine, but those values would have to be experimented with.
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If this is why killers call the game survivor-sided, can survivors use all the matches in which tru3 dominates with multiple gens left standing to say the game is killer-sided? I have actually taken stats on him more than once, and he averages well above 50% kill and win rates (more toward 70%), even with MMR in place. What gives?
With regards to this match specifically, the most remarkable thing in it is that of the few things Legion can do, hard-countering this locker circus is one of them, and that yet, tru3 as a killer main veteran with years and thousands of hours of experience has next to no clue what to do. One doesn't even have to consider any of the various other mistakes there certainly were being made here, it suffices to look at the fact that he finds no solution to people jumping into lockers despite Legion having an obvious means of dealing with this inherent to their ability: survivors afflicted by the Deep Wound status effect bleed out if they are inside a locker, upon which they will automatically jump out of the locker and enter the dying state.
I'm sorry if this will upset any of his fans, and I don't mean any offense to tru3, but I just don't think he is a very good player. He's solid, fairly solidly above average, but he's not outstanding... by much of any stretch. The fact that he can have as high win/kill rates as he does if anything goes to show how favourable a place for killer players this game is, how rewarded experience and skills even just anywhere above average are. And this is especially true when considering that he wants to play for a goal of getting many hooks, while tunnelling, camping and slugging are objectively the most effective killing strategies. That he to an extent wants to avoid those strategies is something that I respect and appreciate about him, not least because I do so myself, and if I were to watch him, that would be a major reason why his gameplay is more interesting to me. But yeah, it is not "optimal" killer gameplay in terms of getting as many kills as possible as consistently as possible, and so while it is more fun and engaging to play as and against and also to watch, it does not make for good arguments about the game being survivor-sided, and rather more goes to show to the opposite, as again, he still wins decidedly more often than he loses despite not playing "optimally".
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@Brimp said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2704795#Comment_2704795
I wouldn't say its anecdotal when its been shown on the survivors and killers side that they turn 180 and still get blinded. At that point there's no point in putting any research into it when its happening on both sides.
It hasn't been shown to me, anyway. Are there videos? If you just say it has been shown, that by definition is anecdotal.
And again, just because a killer turned away in time on their screen doesn't mean a blind couldn't still go through if handled by the server, would just require the survivor to have a lower latency.
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@StarLost said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2705269#Comment_2705269
Yes, because SC2 MMR is very different to DbD MMR. A Grandmaster isn't going to be matched against a Gold because their queue was too long.
I'm still not seeing your point here. You just don't want any killers reworked or buffed ever, because it's possible for a good enough player to succeed on them sometimes?
Yes, indeed, the reality of DbD is a different one - one that allows even worse players to perform better than the best SC players. That is the reality we have to balance for, not some fantasy realm where you actually face 4 "Grandmaster" survivors on comms and stuff with any frequency.
I think public matchmaking is killer-sided, everything I have ever seen only supports this conclusion and I have never seen any actual evidence to the contrary. I also think high-level DbD is worlds more balanced than people make it out to be, and again I have a lot of stuff supporting that conclusion (stats of 20+ tournaments) with nothing evidence-based to counter it. That doesn't mean I think the game is in a perfect spot. In actual high-level play with experienced teams of good survivor players using voice comms and coordinated builds, roughly half of the killers are indeed not strong enough. Some maps are ridiculous. Some survivor perks and items/add-ons are overtuned once they come in multiples. Voice comms are something the game in many respects is not balanced in mind with. There's also balance issues on the other side of that coin, but anyway, with regards to pubs, I don't think addressing all of those things is strictly necessary, since they are already only rarely an actual problem; average killer players still average above 50% kills, good killer players still get 70+%, the best killer players still have absolutely ridiculous rates. I would like to see various killers be buffed, to see problematic maps addressed, SWF receive loadout restrictions, and have "advocated" for those things frequently over the years. But I also don't think the game is in a terrible spot whatsoever, and if anything it is much more rewarding practicing and improving killer play where this can allow you to consistently and decisively win with even the "weak" killers, like Wraith.
My point ultimately is that it is much more worthwhile to concentrate on getting better at the game than hoping for or trying to effect changes to it. Not only because BHVR will do whatever they do anyway no matter how much one talks, but because it is evidently possible to overcome most of all base game imbalances - perceived or real - with skill and experience, certainly in pubs. And it's super fun and gratifying becoming better. So I would rather convince people of the fact that there is hope, that they can stand a chance as killer, that they can even possibly become good enough to win the overwhelming majority of their matches.
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@StarLost said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2705235#Comment_2705235
*rolls eyes*. Ah yes, the 'git gud' part of the discussion commences.
Yes, good players will be able to do well on any killer, especially pre SBMM. The first winner of the GSL was a Zerg.
This doesn't mean that killer balance is fine, much as the GSL win didn't mean that Zerg didn't need any help.
MMR exists now, people still 4k all day. The best Korean Starcraft players in high MMR have winrates of 60-70% at most, and yet they are much better at SC than many of the killer players getting 80+% winrates in DbD are at DbD.
Public matchmaking is frankly laughably easy for good killer players most of the time, you can complain about standing no chance as killer or you can try and get better. And I assure you you don't need 5k hours to start killing more than 1 survivor on average, even as Wraith. Yes, I do believe a lot of people should embrace the idea of "gitting gud" and spend time practicing and improving at the game, something that is rewarded and rewarding and the only reason why I would ever even want to play the game to begin with, rather than spend that time complaining about how the game should be easier for them. I'll leave you to it.
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@StarLost said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2704763#Comment_2704763
Ah. I think I misunderstood what you meant by 'data'. I thought you had access to new kill rates for him.
Games played by people who play the game semi-professionally in random matches isn't really evidence of anything besides 'if you play killer for 5k hours, you'll probably be able to beat random groups on most killers'.
Hell, Otz did a 50 win streak on pre-rework Trapper.
Could have fooled me since we were literally talking about those streamers and their performance with Wraith.
Good players have no issues winning the overwhelming majority of their matches with Wraith or indeed any killer. They didn't suddenly only start doing so at 5k hours either, not least because Wraith's ceiling is pretty easy to reach. Even average players do well with Wraith more often than not. Wraith is not bad, the players that always lose are. And they won't get better by complaining either.
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Definitely. I also think killers should have the authority to kick gens that survivors are working on, forcing them off.
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Familiarize yourself with the map using this (from: https://nm.reddit.com/r/deadbydaylight/comments/np9ma8/quick_and_dirty_map_of_the_racoon_city_police).
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@Brimp said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2704088#Comment_2704088
Literally every 95% of the time i get flashlight saved I am already looking the opposite direction when the blindness ends. Also not to mention you hear the flashlight burn way before the right timing, but they still get it.
That's not actual evidence, just anecdotes. Again, my anecdotal experience is that I (as a low-latency player) basically never get blinded despite looking away in time.
I'm not saying that blinds definitely aren't survivor client-sided, I would just like to see actual experiments/evidence because I do not know that. I've always assumed they are handled by the server and never seen anything that suggests otherwise, but they definitely should be handled by the server if they aren't.
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@StarLost said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2704240#Comment_2704240
Sure. Link away.
Went through their available VoDs, which are for the last two or so months' worth of streams. I expected to only see a limited amount of Wraith games because he's obviously just one killer out of 26, but with Otz it was surprising just how little variety he seems to play - survivor, Trapper, Plague and Pinhead matches (and then Artist once she released) combined for like 70-80% of his gameplay in this time.
Anyway, here are his Wraith games (you can use the video bars to quickly find them):
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1206402019
3k (let last person go)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1218410510
2k 8 stages
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1225947677
3k (let last person go)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1230565353?t=2h44m4s (bar preview doesn't work on some VoDs for some reason, so I marked the time here)
4k
Tofu often plays Huntress and then started almost exclusively practicing Blight for a while, but he did play Wraith more often too:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1236581683
2k 8 stages
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1228290970
4k
4k
3k (let last person go)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1219837317
2k 10 stages
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1218929141
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/121528278
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1196292178
1k 7 stages
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1190791908
4k
Overall:
Wins: 10 (71% winrate; 78% kill rate (83% if we include the people they let go))
Draws: 3
Losses: 1
I think this is a fairly good result, not least because the "draws" had 8 and 10 stages, which in my mind makes them killer wins. I also want to point out that Otz and Tofu usually play pretty "nice", that is, they don't camp, tunnel or slug very much at all, and those are the most effective killing strategies. They also not seldomly use gimmicky builds, definitely aren't on the best loadouts regularly. Here's the Wraith results for two examples of players that use those strategies on a consistent basis:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1234013682
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1225705782
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1198600783
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1188301236
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1184647456
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1184414516
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1207024451
3k (only 1 gen got done)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1216218484
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1224176449
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1222960833
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1221808224
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1225706185
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1227538738
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1232327840
4k
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1236980926
4k
Not the biggest sample size, but I think you get the idea. I've been watching players like this for years, and yeah, good players really have no issue performing well with Wraith whatsoever. And of course, "performing well" is a tremendous understatement here, considering we are looking at 100% win and kill rates in an MMR environment that is supposed to make people approach 50%.
Wraith isn't bad in pubs.