Thread 723121449

Has DBD ruined any chance of a good slasher game?

Asymmetric horror and its consequences have been dire for the slasher genre.

>>723121658
The idea that DBD is asymmetrical is laughable from what I've heard. Don't Survivors win most matches?

Not really much of a slasher with that in mind.

>>723121808
I mean that is asymmetrical

>>723121992
Yeah, but not in the intended way.

>>723121449 (OP)
I have literally never heard anything good about this game

>>723121449 (OP)
yes, original DBD was really good, it was actually scary and kept you on edge and it felt fair for the killer and survivors

>>723122346
>>723122093
I think a single player slasher game would work well and I'm surprised last time anyone attempted that was Manhunt.

>>723121449 (OP)
I love Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I can't wait to play Halloween next year

Dead by Daylight would have been better if it died after they added Myers. The new community they've attracted are headache inducing.

>>723123776
Are they just going to be DBD clones?

>>723124874
>they
I'm not sure about Halloween. TCM is what DBD maybe wanted to be at some point, but failed miserably, while TCM is awesome.

>>723126263
But they're both asymmetrical horror games?

>>723123776
>>723126263
TCM is total trash now.

>>723126494
Why?

>>723121808
>Don't Survivors win most matches?
Killers have historically been quite strong from time to time, but there's never been a point where Survivors are weak.
The problem is that when 80% of your playerbase doesn't like something they will always get more attention. They have more buying power, they are louder, and they ultimately are seen as underdogs because of the way the game feels to play.
The devs themselves have outright said that the game will always favor survivors more than Killer, and their aim is a 50% killrate. They've also outright said that if something is unfun for survivors they will change it faster than if something is unfun for killer.

>>723126725
>The devs themselves have outright said that the game will always favor survivors more than Killer, and their aim is a 50% killrate. They've also outright said that if something is unfun for survivors they will change it faster than if something is unfun for killer.
That seems to defeat the whole purpose of the game if the game heavily favours the survivors.

>>723126635
The listened to survivor feedback and now the game is basically a tensionless speed-run where all the objectives are too quick. If Killers don't gain momentum almost immediately they will never regain it outside of pure luck and the survivors fucking up royally. This sped-up style also ruined a lot of the mechanics that made TCM good and unique.

>>723126793
NTA but it's because the majority of the playerbase is survivor. They outnumber Killer players almost 7 to 1 outside of certain releases like Legion and the Ghoul.

>>723126843
what are you talking about? what were the changes made to the game that made it be like youré saying? I've played a lot of hours of the game and it's never changed too much, the game only falls apart if one of the teams is in comms and the other isn't

>>723126984
About 4-5 months ago.

>>723127067
Ok, what changes?

>>723126946
I know. But if you're playing survivor aren't you supposed to feel scared and desperate?

It's like with their dumb ass 'prey vs hunter' vision shit that gives survivors way better area awareness. Doesn't that make it not scary?

>>723127129
I don't understand, do you actually play the game or not?

>>723127456
I do. I'm asking what were the changes that made the game "oh so horrible".

All I want is a game where I play as a slasher and hunt people down.

Is that so much to ask?

>>723121808
>Don't Survivors win most matches?
Killers have a 60% kill rate, which is what the devs are aiming for (because generally people call 2k a loss and 3k a win for killers). The problem is that when killers lose, they lose HARD because of premade survivor teams running external comms the game wasn't designed around, and when they win against the type of survivors who make killers lose HARD it's by playing in a way that's unfun for the survivors, camping hooks and hard focusing on the weakest link to get them out early etc. This encourages survivors to try harder and utilize the tactics that make killers who AREN'T camping and tunneling to lose HARD, etc etc.

On paper there's nothing wrong with tryharding on either side, though I think the people using external comms are dickheads, but it fosters an environment where both sides are tryharding and completely stomping anyone who isn't tryharding. DbD is a vicious cycle that drags down anyone who won't or can't stop playing it

>>723121449 (OP)
No

>>723130538
it's like "bad money drives out good" but for games
there's no winning strategy here. the game's irredeemably fucked since the optimal way to play is incompatible with fun

>>723121449 (OP)
this game gets mogged by wc3 custom maps like parasite

>>723130538
>and when they win against the type of survivors who make killers lose HARD it's by playing in a way that's unfun for the survivors, camping hooks and hard focusing on the weakest link to get them out early etc. This encourages survivors to try harder and utilize the tactics that make killers who AREN'T camping and tunneling to lose HARD, etc etc.
>>723130853
Can you tell me more about this severely unfun gameplay loop?

The Halloween game is a lazy F13 reskin completed with reused animations and mocap, and has Myers turning into a literal shadow monster with glowing eyes that flies around.

>>723130937
I don't want to write a full essay but the core, unfixable problem with Dead by Daylight is that survivors have to glue themselves to generators to make progress, the more survivors are glued to generators the faster, and that assuming survivors are good there will usually be 3 survivors on gens while the killer chases a fourth. Generators, despite having their speed nerfed multiple times over the years, go by very quickly when done optimally, and the only way for the killer to slow that down besides perks is to remove survivors from the equation, temporarily or permanently. Failure to do this can lead to snowballing until the killer physically cannot win the match without severe blunders from survivors.

Survivors take two hits to go down from full health, and then the killer can hook them (three hooks kills the survivor for good). A hooked survivor can't do gens, and a second survivor has to get off a gen and hook them, bringing the gen progression rate down from 3 survivors to 2. If the killer gets a chase started during that, it's down to one, but that's not guaranteed to happen. If the killer hangs around the hook they can guarantee they have two survivors occupied for longer.

More powerful still, if the killer goes after the same survivor repeatedly until they're hooked thrice, that survivor is dead and cannot do gens ever again. Now the max possible progression is 3 survivors on gens, which will usually be 2 because the killer is chasing someone. If the killer gets a hook after that and a survivor has to rescue the hooked, that's one survivor on gens. If that survivor gets chased progress is completely halted. The power difference between a 4v1 and a 3v1 is wider than the gulf of Mexico and getting there early can almost guarantee the killer will get a 3k (the fourth kill is RNG based as a hatch opens for the last survivor alive)

1/2

>>723133852
Now, as for why this problem is unfixable, it's because nudging the balance in one direction allows the other side to abuse it and create extremely unfun gameplay loops for the other. Survivors already think generators take too long, not because they're objectively slow but because the survivor has to sit there and wait 90 seconds instead of being proactive, so nerfing gen speeds further is a nonstarter. If chases are made easier for the killer, the killer can use that to get weak links out even earlier and set up a near-guaranteed win, which makes killers camp and tunnel more. Anything that buffs killers' ability to get kills or stall the match will be used by killers who also camp and tunnel to force their win state.

On the opposite end, adding safeguards to camping and tunneling has been tried a good handful of times at this point and invariably gets weaponized and used aggressively by survivors. Years ago the devs added 10 seconds of free endurance (a state that lets you survive a hit that would down you, giving you a debuff that has to be treated instead) on a survivor's unhook, and survivors immediately began using it to put themselves between the killer and the unhooker, forcing the killer to focus on the survivor who got unhooked (either waiting 10 seconds or just hitting them immediately and giving them an on-damage speed boost).

There was a recent playtest build that was going to add MASSIVE punishments for detected camping and tunneling, including a massive gen speed buff if a survivor died before six total hooks, removing all regression from killers if the same survivor got hooked twice in succession, and even longer endurance on unhook. IMMEDIATELY survivors abused all of this in the test, doing generators right in the killers' face after an unhook because getting hooked again would massively debuff the killer. It was so bad that the entire update got scrapped.

2/3 because I can't help myself

>>723134243
So with all of the above, the game's balance is a jenga tower where both sides have already been primed to push the systems as hard as they can to stop the other side from doing so, because whatever side snowballs first is almost guaranteed to win the match and counterplay quickly disappears for the other. Problematic gameplay elements cannot simply be nerfed or given more counters, because anything used for defense or comebacks will be turned into a weapon that forces the other side into a lose-lose situation.

The only thing BHVR could do to potentially fix this is to add more gameplay elements so things can be changed more granually, but the game has been around for 8 years at this point and radically changing the gameplay runs the risk of killing the game outright so they won't. The only major interactable mechanics, the things that progress the game for one side or the other, are generators and hooks, and you can only tweak the numbers on those so much. The game mechanics are too simple to do any kind of nuanced, multifaceted change, and they're so blunt in how they're completed that you can't really add meaningful gameplay incentives that are better than "make pressure impossible for the killer with good gen setups" and "kill someone and permanently cripple gen progress." Dead by Daylight is simply, at its core, a really shit game that can't be fixed.

>>723134580
>been around for 8 years
haha fuck you
but everything anon says is correct. I haven't played in a long time, but fuck me. its just not fun unless you're playing with your friends and the killer is also in chat. but that's nearly every game. And even then, there's absolutely nothing to stop the survivors from bullying the shit out of the killer. maybe not anymore, but back then, none of my friends wanted to be the killer

>>723134580
>>723134845
So how would you fix the genre?

If anything, it showed that this kind of genre will not work with any kind of playerbase.
The closest we got is Friday the 13th the game, but it only works in a casual setting. Making a game like this competitive is a mistake.

i know the whole discussion is "game balance is hard" but going up against a Krasue with Lightborn is just fucking stupid, wesker was bad enough but being able to zip across the map at mach speed, hit people over pallets and animation stun with a ranged attack is just plain fucking stupid and not fun to go up against.