Meme'd-on Ex-DBD Dev Makes a Reddit Post and It Actually Wasn't Terrible

[@thebananaman2218]

Mind you, Almo is the same guy who said that ORIGINAL Object of Obsession wasn't problematic because it had a low win rate. His take was so bad that McCote called him out for it on a live Q&A

[@buckiemohawk3643]

it did have a low win rate because killers tunneled out whoever had it. It also gave so many points to the survivor because they would spin half the game chasing the survivor which was the problem

[@elitechaz8440]

Almo also said he hates people that run Object so he tunnels them out. He said that while camping someone that was running Object.

[@WWFanatic0]

Seems like those MBAs that look at data without understanding the context.

[@EUM_NEMESIS]

Almo once got butthurt from hearing the name of the small pp build, continuously abused Iri Head and camped hooks with it from afar, said that Freddy needed a nerf without knowing why, said that Hag was better than Nurse according to statistics and couldn't even remember what recent changes he himself made to PH when asked. He did all of that while live btw. He literally streamed himself failing at his job as the Lead Dev of DBD's Balance Team because of bias. We had to suffer for years with Iri head because Almo liked to abuse it.

[@glaive616]

I’ll always remember the Freddy quote “We know Freddy is OP, we just don’t know why he’s OP”

[@theotherauthor740]

remember when he laughed at people asking for color blind options? like the most basic accessibility feature ever? bhvr will be far better off without him.

[@EUM_NEMESIS]

@@theotherauthor740 He even got really pissed when people kept asking him. Even tough it made sense since since he was in charge of Game Balance it was still pretty shit of him. The least he could've done is say that he puts it forward with the dev team responsible for it.

[@BenjaminHari]

Agreed! Guy was really BAD at his job, made tweaks to killers he liked so he would have easier time to play and relied PURELY on statistic alone even though he got plenty of valid criticism online....he was just stubborn as a bull. There are compilations of him saying that thing about freddy by searching his name on YT lol.

[@klncrtr]

You should be winning 90% of your killer matches at 4,000 Asia: allow me to introduce myself.

[@WandDBD]

Isn't Almo the guy who couldn't even hit the skill checks of the Doctor's madness?

[@NunnyNugget]

yep LOL

[@DekieLabourOfLove]

He is the guy who programmed the Pig and trapper traps escape mechanics

[@devanplays3509]

So dbd devs not playing their own game was true lol

[@Zaggas_]

do nada o Wand

[@Joeysworldtour-y7k]

Yes and the guy who started that whole colorblind fiasco that was covered by Kotaku, if you could believe that.

[@ThePotchili]

Given how this was written out, I can totally see why he was meme’d on

[@zackmash851]

yeah that flashlight/lightborn part made it clear that, after 6 years, he still barely knows what he's talking about

[@izzywn5802]

Someone like THAT was the LEAD balancer for... 6 years? Holy. That explains so much. Thank goodness hes gone. Ill have to remember to steer clear from wherever he goes next too.

[@Peachrocks5]

Yeah. There was once a saying and honestly it's still true. Every DBD player goes through the trial of learning that Almo exists.

[@ThePowerofCutleries]

It will be genuinely hilarious to me if DbD suddenly goes on a consistent path to being better balanced, with better maps and better design philosophy overall. It would confirm everything we already know about Almo in the most satisfying way.

[@MyCrazySideYT]

​@@ThePowerofCutleriesit already is. BHVR arguably handles balance a lot better since around the time he left

[@Antarctide]

More like 4-5. He switched position in 2023.

[@ThePowerofCutleries]

@ That's a generous way of saying demoted after being an ableist prick about accessibility options during his own livestream.

[@Ttjbois]

Nobody remembers that there were alot of people who wanted to Play VHS during their closed beta timeframe. But then with the security breaches they went down for almost 11 months. Nobody could play the game so when they came back there was just nobody left who actually still wanted to play. The biggest fumble of VHS is they did not strike when the iron was hot and had such a massive delay between when the game had hype and when people were actually allowed to play the game.

[@marythiccmas]

VHS went offline for 3 months, not 11....

[@zackmash851]

thousands of people eager and chomping at the bit to get access to it, their server was buzzing every day. then they would trickle in a handful of invites and people would lament not being able to play. they repeated this process until about 95% of people who were interested at first were no longer excited and didnt care before they even had a chance to play. they massively shot themselves in the foot. the security issues and discord being compromised were the final nails in the coffin

[@mintyfoot7354]

I really wish I could've played vhs but it never came out on console sadly

[@redtheyiffer]

They then gave access to many accounts and left the game in early access for a while, they only fixed tiny bugs the average player would never see and when the game fully came out, it was nearly identical to the early access version many players already had for a good while, those same players had no real incentive to play again because it's just the same thing they already had.

[@DivestInnocence]

The biggest fumble is that it sucked

[@Dinkleberg77]

I feel like “this game tried to solve tunneling and it failed so tunneling should stay” is a very one dimensional way of thinking about it from Almo. I personally never even heard of VHS until now, and it’s top concurrent players was 6k on steam, countless reasons the game could’ve failed and I really doubt them trying to solve problems DBD has was a primary reason. Even if it was, they’re two different games and the implementation could’ve just not fit well Also confused with Almo complaining about potentially “gameifying” DBD too much, the abundance of UI elements alone already does that

[@Peachrocks5]

Don't take much stock in what Almo says. There's a reason he gets meme'd on and is well known as an idiot and a large part of the reason why DBD was designed so poorly with base issues that are still a problem today. He is on record for saying 'Basement Bubba is pretty cool'. The guy loves to camp. He is more concerned with 'movie like themes' rather than engaging gameplay because sure, having a guy in a basement you have to rescue with a guy with a chainsaw guarding them makes for a great movie scene but much like many things, it doesn't translate to good game play because the players aren't driven by the plot to do suboptimal things.

[@nick-zd3fk]

He's basically talking out of his ass with VHS, so I wouldn't really pay much mind to it. The real problem with VHS is that they trickled multiple closed betas out over a long period of time. By the time the game was accessible to everyone ( where the most new players would be onboarded ) you had an unintentional gatekeeping force of players who were simply too good at the game already. You'd wait it in queue just to get stomped by someone with a hundred plus hours from all the closed betas. Some of the monster and teen balance stuff is true but it's ultimately something they would have had more time to balance properly had they just let people play at once.

[@Rad_Roxxi_Music]

@@nick-zd3fk honestly, my take on VHS was that no one wanted to play a 45 minute sweat-fest where you could lose the game essentially at any time

[@sapphicseas0451]

​@@nick-zd3fk also they spent all their money expanding the company without actually having stable income. It would have fallen apart regardless due to this, but the fact they didnt add an anti ambush mechanic (spidey sense graphic element around the crosshair) until the final balance patch before they shut the game down did them ZERO favors

[@connorbrooks7501]

i like how someone (around 32:45) asked if he thought there was a relation between 1) the increase in survivors DCing and 2) the trend of killers getting buffed.... and he responded that he thinks flashlights and flashbangs should be nerfed. It's like he didn't even read the question that time

[@Zoulz666]

Think you're missing the point regarding the horror aspect of DbD. It's not that the game doesn't scare you anymore, because as you say, that part goes away pretty quickly (though I do get jump scared sometimes). But it's still horror in the sense that there's 4 survivors fighting for their lives against an imdomitable force that is trying to kill them. You could replace the survivors with cubes and have a sphere chasing the 4 cubes around a map of other 3D primitive shapes. But that wouldn't be the same. The theme matters. I started playing DbD because I loved the theme and that's still part of why I enjoy it.

[@lakthederg]

exactly. flashlights and pallets exist but you can’t actually damage or stop the killers in any way that matters, unlike other games where there is usually a way to directly attack the killer.

[@devanplays3509]

@@lakthederg DS is the only way to directly attack a killer

[@MaeIsOkay]

Even then though I fail to see how a ping system would go against the horror feel tbh

[@Necoter23]

@@MaeIsOkay it wouldn't go against the horror aspect, thats a bad argument from almo. but the ping system would hurt atleast half of the information perks and balancing in the game. like if the chased survivor constantly pings then there would be no reason to run fogwise, or other information perks which shows you the killer's location when you are doing a gen. if someone pings a gen then there would be no reason to run deja vu.

[@shichikayasuri2628]

@@lakthederg yeah but his point is that there's cosmetics/changes/maps that actually moved away from this aspect. At this point its just making the experience(solo) worse for something that doesn't exist in the current game past the first week

[@hallunolla]

Maybe the biggest problem was giving both teams of an asymmetrical game a symmetrical objective, to kill the other side.

[@SolanersRevengee]

FR Like this just doesn’t work for aysemms. The goal should always be to escape, not out do the only role that’s suppose to traditionally outdo you! 💀

[@jonaza2105]

No, it works. Prime example would be Evolve. Unfortunately that game died, which I attribute mostly to marketing blunders and a horrible release time; but the concept worked and was cool. For context, the monster was 'hunted' by 4 hunters but could eat PvE monsters to evolve and upgrade abilities. Hunters could occasionally temporarily put a confining dome around the monster so it was forced to fight; game ended if monster died, all hunters were dead simultaneously, time ran out or monster destroyed the map objective. It made for very varied matches because there were always pretty much two win cons you could go for depending on the characters/early game.

[@Hatecrewdethrol]

Worked in Evolve before the devs got greedy and killed the game with too many microtransactions no one asked for

[@theminusziskey9175]

What Almo said about how it felt to play Monster was very accurate. I don't agree with the core argument (camping + tunneling), Monster was VERY frustrating to play. Their powers were only minor buffs to their idle power state, and were on significant cooldowns. Teens, when they gained weapons, had MASSIVE power spikes, while the Monster was designed to use minimal power spikes, ensuring that they essentially had to handle ALL situations the same with only minor tweaks based on their abilities. Contrast this to DbD, where Killers get a MASSIVE power spike when using their abilities. Their powers keep them on the offensive, and allow them to force the Survivor to have to play around their abilities. In VHS, this simply wasn't much of a thing. There were few Monster Powers that were strong enough to make Teens have to radically alter their playstyle or even go on the defensive. The design philosophy of VHS seemed to be that Teens operated on Power Spikes, while Monster operated on mostly Static Power. This made Monster become the role that had to radically alter their approach and go on the defensive while Teens simply had to hide and farm up their Power Spike. Teens, once adjusted to the general state of the game, could just keep doing what they do, while Monster had to weather the stormbursts of Teen Power Spikes.

[@roarbertbearatheon8565]

It was more like The Hidden than DBD

[@cheesebucket142]

Also it ties into Scott's reason. Matchmaking sucked and made the game ass to learn, and monster being ass to play killed matchmaking even more.

[@sapphicseas0451]

And the fact they didnt address the monster issues like getting ambushed until the very final balance patch after the game was playable for ages sucked so much.

[@Adachifan54]

F13 honestly was the only exception to the "no damaging" rule. Yeah, if you got ganked it was bad, but depending on which Jason you were, you would be able to steam roll people regardless of their skills they brought in

[@SolanersRevengee]

Exactly! it was practically useless to fight back because regardless of the stun or slow down he was always going to get right back up

[@Adachifan54]

@SolanersRevengee another thing to note is the executions. The quick ones you were able to punish people that made a bad hit, and if their friends tried to stun you out, you'd be able to enter the execution animation since the choke ones were really quick

[@Trident_Gaming03]

I don't think "poking fun" is the right term to use for Almo It would be more accurate to say we have called him out on his bs, while validly critiquing the things he says and does

[@maimadeit5579]

I was about to say the same thing. BHVR employees try their best, I get that, but that guy would consistently make the wrong decisions and not listen to anything else. Honestly kind of glad he’s not in the team anymore.

[@BenjaminHari]

@@maimadeit5579 Yup! Guy didn't take any valid criticism and relied PURELY on statistics alone to balance this game...just horrible. I do hope things get better now that's he's gone from the team.

[@OMGWTFROFLCOPTERBBQ]

They say a broken clock is right twice a day, but honestly: all it can really tell you is when it screwed up.

[@aliencreative9360]

thank god i wasnt tripping. i kept saying the devs dont care about solo q. obviously they dont play solo q enough. i was right.

[@Clover_UT]

Remember the Almo

[@Danyboychan]

4:45 Low key kind of miss the atmosphere of older maps. It plus the music was a good combo for a new player to try and get their feet wet.

[@daqpi]

about the atmosphere, im someone that doesnt like filters, i hate when ppl use it, it looks ugly and the game has to look gritty, i just like to keep some scariness in my playtime. i also like it being dark, but thats just me

[@Keygentlemen]

I miss when the maps had real atmosphere bruh

[@dirtgames13]

The atmosphere is so lame now agree

[@SunderMun]

The graphical reworks were one of the bigger factors in me leaving the game from this standpoint.

[@kidninja8331]

Interesting to see at least one developer was so disconnected they thought people still see DBD as a horror game.

[@SolanersRevengee]

Like this went away sooooo long ago. Friday the 13th was really the only game that kept its horror aspect from start to finish because you really felt like you were fighting the scariest most motivated mf and a unless you found a pocket knife you were gonna die 😭 unless you’re playing against stealth killers it just feels like a thriller

[@soulbounddoll1826]

People say this and yet I still get scared consistently by several killers, Dredge popping out of a nearby locker scares me. Xenomorph wandering around or coming out the vents scares me. Chucky lingering around can make me jump at times. Say what you will but it's still scary just because it's theme and characters can be plenty intimidating. I still mentally flinch when I hear Oni roaring across the map or feel my heart miss a beat when Myers hit tier 3. Seeing Devour show up or seeing someone pop the expose totem still makes me go "Oh crap". People act like even if the game has largely become something people are used to, people act like it's completely without any fear whatsoever and yet I still see streamers and what not react with fear or shock when facing such things. This game is totally capable of being scary. And it's not like I'm a new player either, I've played since Myer's first released. Granted I don't play ever day and often take a year off if it grows stale but seriously, acting like it's devoid of any fear factor is just ludicrous.

[@twosoup3252]

⁠​⁠@@soulbounddoll1826 A game having a fear factor does not make it a horror game. Subnautica is the scariest game I’ve ever played and it’s not a horror game. What you’re describing is essentially just par for the course in pvp multiplayer games; all of them have “oh crap” moments and some sort of friction between players that can lead to startling scenarios. Hell, getting hit by an unexpected critical hit in competitive Pokemon feels exactly the same way as seeing the devour hope notification show up in a match of DBD. None of that is horror stuff, it’s just pvp multiplayer games doing what pvp multiplayer games do

[@JustPidgeon1]

It is a horror game lol (for survivors). It's just not as scary anymore when you get used to it. If you played outlast as many times as a lot of us played dbd, you wouldn't be scared at all (besides at jumpscares that you forgot unless you're a jumpy person) but in the first 1-3 playthroughs where you were probably shitting yourself tryna hide from the things

[@CoOlKyUbI96]

@@SolanersRevengeeand even then I’d argue that Friday the 13th lost its horror aspect. It definitely committed to the bit more in comparison to DBD. But not by much

[@RazzleTheRed1]

Personally my issue with the Evil Dead game was the progression system, RPG leveling where you get xp dished out after matches to make your characters permanently stronger coupled with a low amount of players. It means that the few new players were getting matched against players who were not only a lot more experienced but also were much stronger in terms of stats as well meaning the stomps were even harder in that game. I found killer in Evil Dead really fun to play when I did get a somewhat balanced match, but more often than not there was someone on the survivor team who I physically could not kill because my attacks were barely damaging them at all and they could very easily kill my units. (Note it has been a very long time since I played the game so I might not perfectly remember everything) As for VHS... I wanted to try it out, but was never even accepted into the beta at all before the game died

[@Venjamin]

This is what killed me for TCM, too.

[@BowserStrange]

The matches took too long and playing demon was boring

[@Grandleon]

I loved Evil Dead, but yes, having to grind so much just to be on equal footing with other players was a drag. The prestige system exacerbated the entire problem. Car flipping as an optimal strat was absurd. Then book phase was a disaster that badly needed a rework.

[@xLWxPhantom]

Evil dead looked so fun though, really wish it wouldve stayed alive.

[@BowserStrange]

@@RazzleTheRed1 I loved the game but those facts was painfully obvious.

[@jaei6680]

The "the game had something somewhat immersive breaking, so it's okay to go 10000% more" argument is stupid.

[@CursedPersonz]

the reason is that DBD is just simple and easy to pick up. Objectives are clear and easy, but then you get to the hard to master with all the pathing, perks, and add-ons you have to learn. So easy to learn hard to master is the best thing for games.

[@Sydlxia]

Almo by Daylight

[@Rhavin_Damodread]

Dead by Almo

[@Sydlxia]

@ Getting a little controversial I see

[@Jefrejtor]

Almo nuts

[@Rhavin_Damodread]

@Sydlxia Almo by Almo

[@mymop4422]

Dead Almo Daylight

[@madrabidfish]

My quick take why DBD been successful. Survivors cannot fight back against the killers in any way other than delaying them. So it makes it feel like the killer is in the true power role. All other asymmetrical horror game i can think of the survivors, teens, w/e their called are able to fight back against their killer or monster. VHS the worst example I know of if the teens are far better than the monster the roles get flipped. The monster player doesn't feel like an unstoppable force and instead becomes the victim just trying to survive and the teens are the dominate hunters.

[@SolanersRevengee]

This take 😩!!!

[@coultersheppard2052]

More than other titles, DbD Killers have more agency. This is sad, because Killers generally don't have that much.

[@ryenard]

and tv licenses

[@liabilitylinda3501]

That's only relevant for mentally ill people who use games to go on power trips which doesn't explain why it's successful

[@MrCole62195]

i miss evolve man. i think it had the best of all worlds, until the awful powerscaling with dlc

[@Grambos2000]

I’m right there with you, Evolve is one of my favorites of all time and that shit died so hard

[@Darkon2050]

It’s a damn shame that the servers aren’t up at all anymore. I thought that game was ridiculously fun.

[@agord7591]

Loved it too. RIP

[@SophiaBadger]

Would really love to see Evolve get a second chance with a sequel or something. Even if they move away from the 1v4 asymmetry and make it campaign focused I’d just like to see the world again

[@Left4Sharkbait]

Evolve was the shit in every way. Genuinely one of the coolest games I've ever played.

[@mizark3]

The Clown main (400 page writer) has a victim mindset, and I'm not saying he is a loser/victim, but the mindset of 'woe is me'. When you watch his matches, he wins the vast majority of them, and his misplays are people 'abusing broken stuff' AKA he tunnels the obvious OTR+DS player when the non-tunnel Survivor was injured and a free down. He often pulls a 'I HAVE to tunnel/camp to win now', when there are 3 gens left and 6 hook stages on Survivors. I've frequently went from 1 gen and 4 hook states to 11-12 stages without losing that final gen, but that is because my mind stays in the game the entire time. I don't get psyched out and blame Survivors for my misplays. I honestly think you could take any 1 hour block of one of his streams, and find him being the victim/'Survivor OP balance whining' despite the match being a free win.

[@Antarctide]

He's well-known for being a temperamental crybaby, yes. They could give Clown 16 bottles and he still would complain endlessly.

[@austinsroche]

timestamp?

[@mizark3]

@@austinsroche The Clown manifesto guy's comment is gone over by Scott at ~20:40 'more frustrating for me in a very long time' (loose quote) made me laugh, that's why I wrote the OG comment. I tend to love my 'D-tier Killers', so I play a lot of Myers (no Tombstone), Ghosty, Legion, Clown, Trapper, and a few more. I checked out mains if they knew any character specific strats (not 'tech', because I'm against bug abuse), and that's how I came upon that guy in the first place. He basically checked out every loop and what you need to win bottle wise (and if the extra hindered add-on is needed), but with 6 basekit bottles you can kinda aimlessly Yellow+Purple every loop nowadays and win macro game without trying (as long as you also use Yellows for map-mobility or carry to hook). Old 4 bottles was slightly efficient to use all 4 for mobility, but 6 just makes it net positive every time. You only need to learn the Yellow distance muscle memory and Clown basically plays himself now (as long as you have M1 basics down).

[@austinsroche]

@@mizark3 yeah I've played against him before and he complained about us being a sweat squad when I was in a duo with my 1000 hr friend (I'm at just under 3000). he definitely knows a ton about clown but I'm honestly not even convinced clown is low tier when he has flask of bleach and the aura read add-on. Especially against solo queue survivors? It's a free win every time.

[@mizark3]

@@austinsroche Yeah most 'low-tier' Killers are actually Killers that require more kit knowledge, thus more skill. You can get far and above the expected 60% KR with all Killers as long as you learn their kit or add-ons enough (in normal gameplay queues). It only is in comp when they have potential win rates dropped, and that is because that is an entirely different world, I mean heck, they ban Haunted Grounds they are so wacky.

[@GelatoGambino]

Here Hey , Scott Guys

[@bonobouare872]

Hey Here, Guys Scott!

[@Rhavin_Damodread]

Guys here, hey Scott

[@Namelessstew]

Scott the woz moment

[@professoremil]

Guys guys, Guys guys. (I am a Pokémon.)

[@bahlahkayy]

Had one bro job

[@darylwerder7064]

4:45 Very true, I remember the first week or 2 I played the game, hearing the TR and being in chase was incredibly tense and scary and stressful, but after a while that goes away

[@Gadtkaz]

Even though I've been playing for 7 years something about trickster's giggles and TR theme still puts my monkey brain on edge, if only a little.

[@coffee8599]

My first game was a Blight. Nearly had a heart attack lol

[@benlittle8137]

That’s kinda the point though, that initial 2 weeks of the game being scary is what gets you hooked, with a ping system that feeling fades much quicker so there’s less time for the horror and spookiness to get you hooked

[@SolanersRevengee]

til this day I’ve always believed that dbd’s simplicity is really one of the biggest reasons it never died or got replaced by other aysemms. the core gameplay is so easy to pick up! Gens-> Perks--> escape VHS, TCM and evil dead just has too many confusing mechanics that discourage you from even trying the game again when you get swept. not to mention their killer rosters are either overpowered or too weak so if you’re getting dog walked on one side the other side not even being worth the attempt doesn’t help. The simplicity and familiarity of a game makes it feel so fun and refreshing (when you don’t play it for 3-6 hours straight everyday lol). It may have its issues but it’s so easy to play and understand and it gives players complete agency over the result of their which constantly reels you in.

[@tallystuff]

As a VHS player you have to understand that solo que Teen also suck so much. In DBD you can at least do gens to progress the match, If you were playing against a half confident monster or after they added danger sense you needed at least 2 teens to take Sigil. Sure pinging is nice but you can't coordinate a pincer attack with it. They tried to fix this by adding the name of the area that a Teen is located to the UI, but this falls apart when you start having 10+ maps. (Outpost-K & Graveyard are so confusing layout wise too.) These problems weren't immediately noted because of how much Monster sucked, So when monster stop sucking as much the game was still in a bad state. In DBD you have sleath & lockers that aren't really fun for survivors but allow newer players to hang on & contribute. In VHS the only one of these was corner camping with a weapon which sucks so much as a monster it got removed, which made solo queuing worse unintentionally. You also couldn't really loop until you had a weapon, so if you got found in the 90 seconds that just really felt bad. I loved VHS but it would take a miracle to save it.

[@revenge3265]

Thank you for pointing out the frustration of Solo Q Teen. The lack of coordination and matchmaking made Solo Q awful at times, especially with characters like Wart who usually requires an coordinated attack another weapon for his shield.

[@spaghetticondo.m9116]

@@revenge3265 a good dollmaster or hell i decent one was so hard to kill

[@sapphicseas0451]

Yup! Solo queue teen and monster both sucked in different ways, and they didnt address these issues until near the end of the games lifetime :(

[@aaron1845]

I think the biggest hindrance to DBD right now is the fact that there is no effective competition. DBD is the only asym horror themed game that has managed to stand the test of time. Consequently, a lot of asym horror games try to just 1 up DBD, which is why they fail and leave DBD with no competition.

[@chime6709]

One of the things I really like about DBD is it's aesthetic. Yea all the silly cosmetics aside, but the maps and just the general look has this gritty, older silent Hill type look and I really like that a lot. Now I wouldn't mind if they improved their models a bit more and animations, but those aren't an extremely important thing. Just a thing I'd like to see in the future (if not that's fine. There's definitely other things to focus on)

[@SophiaBadger]

I just wish the game would get another lighting/texture overhaul. Some maps look pretty good (Ormond mine, Unknowns map and a few others), but others look pretty outdated and overall bland in my opinion. Maps like coldwind farm, Macmillan estate and wreckers yard looked better back in the day imo because the textures were more stylized. But at some point they moved away from stylization and more towards basic realism. So I just wish they’d go all the way. Part of that is making things more reactive, like footsteps in snow (like scratch marks), having killer hits leave wounds on survivors, and stuff like that.

[@Xbob42]

I will say that I disagree with Scoot here about it being necessarily bad if you can kill the killer. Perhaps in a very specific hide-and-seek style of game like DBD, so I guess asymmetrical horror games in general since they all seem to go for the same thing. But for Evolve, that was half the fun. Starting out as a very weak monster, avoiding the hunters, and that power dynamic slowly reversing as the match progressed, where the longer it went on, the bigger advantage the monster had, was SUPER fun. And it was never quite hopeless for either side to boot. Sometimes I'd jump the hunters as soon as they landed at the start of the match and actually win right then and there since they didn't expect it, sometimes I'd get to stage 3 and they'd still somehow bring me down with excellent teamwork while I made mistakes. Game had plenty of other issues, like being absolutely terrible at teaching people how to play effectively, and having a ton of DLC before people started getting weird and liking DLC (the people who quit Evolve over the DLC would probably have a heart attack upon looking at the DBD store) which only got worse when the game rereleased as free-to-play. Man, I miss Evolve. Once you really got into it, that game was fun as fuck on either side.

[@whiterabbit4945]

lmao Almo he never stops being cringe and yeah hes absolutely a sweaty killer main, really bad at the game and compensates it by playing as unenjoyable as possible ive been watching him a bit back in the day to gain some behind the scenes slipups devs utter in an oppsie occasionally

[@MaeIsOkay]

I think scott misread the point about ludonarrative dissonance. The ex dev wasnt trying to say DBD was scarier then VHS, he was saying that it follows the idea of "unstoppable killer murdering civilians" better because Survivors cant fight back like the Teens in VHS can. When you go into VHS expecting to be an unstoppable monster and all the Teens are stomping your shit in and killing you it feels weird to a new player. It had nothing to do with whether DBD was still a straight up horror game but rather that the mechanics support the basic game premise, so stuff like bright cosmetics or nic cage have nothing to do with the point

[@machomurph9299]

Scott misreading something to disagree with a point he already has his mind made up on? Never.

[@oscar3153]

Except he directly addressed that by saying that you can do that in DBD. Which you could with infinites back then. You're not hurting them physically and “killing them” directly like VHS but you're psychology making them accept defeat because there's nothing they can do about it. DBD was even worse then VHS looking back it at actually

[@execuwutie_YT]

Ooh i just saw. Congrats on 200k!

[@ecclecticsayonce5131]

One day Scott will realize he is incredibly good at the game. I’ve been playing since spirit and probably have an 80% lose rate on both sides

[@machomurph9299]

I think a lot of content creators have this issue. Blind to the everyman. You can spout statistics till you're blue in the face, it doesn't account for the average player who has to break their backs for a 2k with the joke that is the MMR system.

[@CoOlKyUbI96]

That’s something I’ve noticed with many DBD content creators. Not only Scott. But also others whether it be Otz, Spooks, Hens, or any other content creator

[@jamestercool4412]

I've been playing since nurse came out, while the game can be frustrating the game also however is no where near as hard as it used to.. The game at that time killer really was difficult. But they've mostly feed any weak killer enough buffs where it's kinda hard to lose with them as long as you know what your doing. If your struggling take time to learn maps/map generation and when to leave a chase

[@roarbertbearatheon8565]

You mean you don't have 8k hours in the game and haven't done every loop with every killer hundreds of thousands of times?

[@ecclecticsayonce5131]

@ my point is that I am someone invested enough in the game to watch discussion videos on it, yet even after years of playing I still have zero idea how to win and lose a vast majority of the time (Im not complaining I have fun regardless) Id like to think im not insidiously incompetent with games as I’m a diamond overwatch player; so what’s it like for a new player who doesn’t know every perk and doesn’t have experience with other games? If DBD was any less intuitive I think it would die pretty abruptly. Riding that line is key and I think that’s Almos point. I don’t really have an opinion on if the games any dumber now because I’m not good enough to notice lol. That being said it feels just as impossible for me to correctly assess the state of a match and make decisions that contribute to a win as it always has. The only advice you get about this game is abstract and difficult to apply in concrete settings, I don’t think I’ll ever understand what I’m doing wrong and scary as it is I think the silent majority of the player base is in the same boat, you’ve gotta take that into account as developers even if you get shit on for it.

[@danielmikula1375]

Playing Texas Chainsaw as primarily Family, I didn't mind the stunning so much as the way that there was no risk involved. If a Victim slammed a door open and missed, they'd just wheel back through the doorway and close it again. In DBD you have things like Head On and flashlight stuns, which can both be used against the Survivor if they mess up.

[@elfkaze]

Remember Almo is the guy that did nothing but play Bubba and basement camp or Play one shot Huntress and camp the hook. All the guy knows is how to tunnel and camp so anything that requires anything more than that he's trash.

[@BenjaminHari]

That's quite obvious, he even said that basement bubba is cool in one of the compilations of funny moments of him. Not only was he subpar at the game but also didn't know the game as a whole and way WAY out of touch that relied solely on pure statistics to balance things.

[@WWFanatic0]

I would love to see a dynamic system depending on killers. It makes sense that certain killers should have more time to set up things (maybe a stealth gen speed buff of -10% early on) or some should have more pallets to churn through due to their power. Knowing BHVR though, you'd end up with 2x the pallets for a marginally strong killer, a 50% permanent gen speed penalty for Skull Merchant, and they'd declare that a win because the data says it is "balanced"

[@thenegativoneify]

12:51 horror games aren't just games that are scary lol

[@highhumdingerdefinition]

Bringing up Deceive Inc. is a good call; helps put in perspective how a similar game in a different genre can experience similar difficulties in development.

[@megatron_1988]

Are we surprised that Almo, who was completely close-minded during DBD's "#@$!" the community phase is still, in-fact, close minded?

[@mrshykid2570]

you can tell scott plays only during the day

[@jinsakaifan911]

After reading this post it finally makes sense why it took BHVR so long to add the survivor action icons

[@MrErizid]

The problem with kill rates are most of my wins are because someone DCs/Unalives on the first hook of the game. Most of my wins are not rewarding at all.

[@deathknight1239]

Also the kill rates data includes all mmr levels and since the majority of players are casual weak killers with high kill rates at low mmr but ass at high mmr never get buffs. They need to separate the kill rate and survivor escape rates between low mmr and high mmr and do the competitive balancing off of high mmr and qaulity of life changes based of low mmr

[@Aquilenne]

This is why it's in our best interests to always give the last survivor hatch/gates.

[@Rad_Roxxi_Music]

@@deathknight1239 they actually do occasionally release data where high mmr, low mmr, and total stats are split into separate categories. The stats really don't change at all, however. I think this is because mmr is pretty much a myth. Far too easy to get to the highest possible mmr, so it's a bloated pool filled with 60% of the playerbase instead of the top 10%. Also way too easy to get to the lowest mmr, you can throw every game for a day and you will be playing against 100 hour Andy for a week.

[@liabilitylinda3501]

I love how y'all always pretend like people are logging in those matches on nightlight lol

[@revenge3265]

10:15 - I don't agree that this kills asyms though. F13th the game was incredibly popular up until the lawsuit and that also let's you fight/kill Jason. Maybe you could consider a negative, but it obviously wasn't enough to kill F13th at the time.

[@ScottJund]

It really wasn't incredibly popular. Idk why people keep saying this. It never even scratched anywhere near dbds numbers and just seemed more popular from a few funny youtube videos

[@SolanersRevengee]

F13 wasn’t really all that popular. Even at its peak the queues were occasionally awful and barely filled with survivors. The fight back mechanics worked because unless you were Tommy they weren’t that strong. Yes You could stun and knock Jason out but he wa just getting right back up and plowing through you lol even with the whole team there beating his ssa it still didn’t matter because that was less time spent on prepping the escapes. idk it just worked for F13

[@Rad_Roxxi_Music]

i remember that finding a match in f13 was literally impossible. people pretty much only played it in custom games

[@DillonMeyer]

This gives some great insight into the thoughts of an Asym developer. And he's 99% right on VHS and other competitors like Evil Dead. The real issue doesn't truly stem from "They want to kill you, you want to kill them" though. It comes from how much power both sides have individually. Each individual Teen on VHS had enough power to hold their own against the Monster, while it should be that alone they stand no chance, together they are strong. So the goal for the Monster should have been oriented to catching the Teens out alone or in pairs and dominating them, while the game's mechanics should have afforded the Monster more leniency on being able to have such a scenario happen. They had in-match missions where it would attempt to split up the Teens, but in reality it just made them turtle together and wait for the Monster to make a mistake. It needed to not be a suggestion, but a forced separation. Something that would truly hinder them if they didn't split up into at least 2s. Of all the weirdest comparisons I can make, Among Us actually does this correctly. When the Impostor team sabotages items around the map, it forces the crewmates to split up and do those objectives or suffer immediate defeat. The Impostor team is also given other additional tools to assist in segregating the herd of crew members by closing doors, turning off lights, and even disabling their tracking tools by sabotaging comms. Among Us is 100% an asymmetrical game, and it proves that the desire for there to be more, well balanced Asyms out there in the market. So how would VHS do best to implement this change? Simply put, give the Monster additional objectives it can do around the map which cause events for the Teens to do, or suffer consequences. An example could be turning off power in the map, causing the lights to turn off and making it very hard for the Teens to navigate easily unless they turn the power on again with *two* different objectives across the map in different locations. There could also be a way for the Monster to permanently disable certain weapon crafting stations, if the Teens don't stop it and this wouldn't occupy the Monster's time other than beginning the process, and it could only be done to one at a time to prevent it from being too much of a strain on the Teens-- this could even be linked to having maximum Rage first so you can expend it on either becoming a killing machine or disabling some of their tools, reducing the safe spaces they have. On top of all that though, there was the inherent flaw that Almo mentioned of the Teens being able to Stunlock the Monster. This never should have been the case, and instead they should have only been allowed to hit you with one Stigma to stun you, and then the other to finish you off-- if they used a Stigma you already lost to try and stun again, it should give you some sort of built in immunity or protection to punish the Teens for trying to bully the Monster. Asymmetrical games should always be balanced asymmetrically. Think of a scale. Normally, to balance a scale you just put items of equal weight to balance it out and keep it level at a 50/50 ratio of weight. In an Asymmetrical game, the scale needs to be tilted to one side, meaning to get the scales to be level, one side needs more weight than the other. DBD and Among Us do this equally as well. In DBD, balance is best when the killer has about 60 to 80% of the total 'power' in terms of balance, with 70% being the sweet spot that it's rarely at. In Among Us, the powerscale can be varied based on how many Impostors there are. When it's one Impostor, the odds are against them with it being up to 7 vs 1. With one or two teammates, their odds go up and their power scaling also goes up, as it doesn't directly adjust by making the crew stronger. The Impostors always can instantly take someone else out of the match, but they run the risk of losing the game for being caught doing it. The Impostor needs to 'win' several times, the Crew only needs to 'win' once, but if they 'lose' when voting out, they increase the odds for the Impostor to win. It inherently builds up power for both sides as less and less people are alive in the match, as there are less people to vote for, and less people to kill. This is what keeps Among Us balanced. One gets the power to kill at any time, the other only gets the chance to during voting, making the scale be in favor of the Impostor as it should be. Evil Dead, VHS, Last Year, and all the other Asymmetricals that let the group side fight back tend to forget the scale is tipped to an angle and just try to keep it level at 50/50 power, when in doing so, the team with more players has the advantage as the scale is automatically already leaning in the direction of the team with more players, so by adding the same weight, the scale is no longer level.

[@Zaggas_]

I've been thinking about how BHVR could do an "Operation Health" for DbD, and I honestly think it could work if they released fewer full-on Chapters per year and released some Paragraphs instead. That way, the game wouldn't slow down too much on content, but the main focus would be to fix blatant outdated gameplay aspects and problems that are visible to the naked eye. We already only get 2 new maps out of the 4 Chapters released annually, and it's been like that for ages. On top of that, most new perks are underwhelming, and some killers just don't hit that fun zone that makes buying the Chapter feel worth it. Focusing on quality over quantity would be a solid start for an "Operation Health."

[@whorcares123]

Honestly, the game doesn't even need more maps either. There are 49 maps across 20 realms. That is way, way too many. Sure, it sucks when your favorite horror franchise gets added, but you don't get to see iconic locations from that horror franchise as well (looking at you Chucky). Ignoring outliers due to map offerings, how often do you even see every map? Since it is a random chance how long do you have to play as a new player just to see each map once? It took me 30 games before I saw the new Ormond map during the Christmas event. But everyone has complained about map balancing since the game came out, and we expect them to also make new maps and balance them? There are 5 Badham variants and they all suck and people with 13000 hours can't tell you what is different between them.

[@Zaggas_]

@whorcares123 No, no, I agree with you. My point is that since only half the chapters come with a map, and there's already so many maps, they should just stop making them, allocate the resources to another place, and release new maps only every once in a while.

[@DaikoruArtwin]

My take to the balance of an asymmetrical horror game is that there needs to be agency on both sides, regardless of the skill level of the players. You need to be able to reflect back on a lost game and think "Had I done this instead, I could probably have won the game". However, that level of agency really changes for both roles: - Killers: They're the one in control, so they have a lot of agency, but it's more about what to spend each second on. Of course, there's decisions that could have been made to end a chase sooner, but it's also decisions about how much you pay attention to your surroundings, where do you apply pressure, if you should focus more on secondary objectives like kicking gens, etc. For example, a classic bad decision for Trapper is to chase people in early game before setting down traps. But on the opposite, if you leave a game thinking "Yeah, I played optimally and still lost due to some nonsense", that's where the role starts feeling horrible to play. Of course if survivors can stunlock you and there's no way to avoid it, it feels horrible, but more relevant in DBD, it's when you feel like you've been completing chases super quickly yet somehow gens get completed before you even have time to move on and apply any pressure. - Survivors: For them, their level of agency should feel more like a dialog tree, especially once you're in chase. Make one bad choice, and you get punished for it. Do you try to hide or do you run straight away to the closest loop? Do you use the pallet or keep it for later? Do you keep running forward or do you try to fool the killer and run an illogical direction. And the main thing is that the right decision should never always be the right decision, which means eventually you'll always misread the Killer and get punished. And that's fine: the goal is to buy as much time as possible. That's where Counterplay is important, there always needs to be some sort of good decision that allows you to live longer. The attempted Twin Rework was horrible because there was no correct decision to do most of the time. And that's also why hard-tunneling and camping feels very awful, there's no decision that you can take that allows you to survive the match if the Killer decides he wants you dead specifically. And on the opposite, that's why the options of stunning the killer with an unlimited resource is bad, it's a decision that's always correct to make. So yeah, I don't agree with camping and tunneling being a reason for the success of DBD. Sure it makes it easier to play Killer since it allows you to win or at least secure a kill with a single simple decision, but it makes the survivor role more awful. Accidental tunnelling is fine, these are the result of the survivor making bad decisions that caused him to get found over and over, such as always returning on the same generator. If the balance is such that tunneling and camping are always the correct decision, or that not doing so is always a bad decision, then there's just a huge problem in the balance of the game. And as I hear from the DBD-likes, it really feels like that's the case, except even camping and tunneling aren't even possible decisions.

[@AmsterdamHeavy]

2 minutes chases bad, 1,000 win streaks as killer, just fine. Im glad that idiot is gone.

[@randomguy6232]

The only time flashlights and flashbangs get to be kinda problematic is flashlights can come through incredibly bizarre angles or cracks where it doesn't look like it should work, or flashbangs being able to stun you no matter where you're looking if they place it right

[@AlsoMeowskivich]

I feel like Almo might also only have experience with early VHS. The devs did slowly (emphasis on slowly) add stuff to make Monster role more tolerable, as well as new player experience things like trial matches where it has you play against bots to learn the game before dropping you into the deep end. But Monster got things such as Danger Sense where it has a little effect on your screen when a teen with a weapon is near you (because there was a heavy ambush meta at the time), a scream on return that disables teens from using weapons on you when you respawn, and a hard cap on how often teens can heal themselves (because beforehand they were just free to run away as soon as they're hit, heal in a corner, and go in again). Unfortunately, these quality of life improvements came too little too late, and by the time everything was in the player pool was down to double digits, and with no sign of new life coming to the game, there was a vicious cycle of new players being scared off before any sizable pool could form to allow the MMR to even kick in. I loved VHS to death. It wasn't a horror asym as much as a goofy B-movie inspired asym deathmatch. I sincerely hope some day that the game can get revived officially, but only after the devs get their shit together.

[@spaghetticondo.m9116]

I think i stopped playing right before they released the robo killer i had so much fun though good memories

[@AlsoMeowskivich]

@@spaghetticondo.m9116 their last killer was based on The Thing and it was so dang fun, and there's nothing in DBD like them where you can imitate survivors to get close undetected or make everyone second-guess things. It was so great.

[@sapphicseas0451]

I wish they had added danger sense sooner, but sadly given how they expanded the business side way too big way too early the game would have fallen apart anyways due to business mismanagement

[@AlsoMeowskivich]

@@sapphicseas0451 yeah, tragically. and it was frustrating for people who weren't just brown-nosers that genuinely wanted the game to succeed because there were a good handful of us calling out that they needed to steer the ship and they just ignored every one of us until it was too late.

[@Tufticles]

Why do upper level DBD devs cling to the idea that the game is remotely horror anymore. It's holding back what the game actually IS. They need to get over it if they want DBD to survive All this post shows me is how out of touch the people controlling DBD's development were and are. Their heads are in the sand

[@SissypheanCatboy]

Its very clear if you think for .5 miliseconds his point is the horror themeing and atmosphere. Almost every other asymm is infinitely uglier and less visually interesting than dead by daylight, they tend to look like a mishmash of unreal engine asset packs or 2 dollar Unity horror games. I think the vibe of dead by daylight is one of the only redeeming qualities, and people like you saying they need to "move away from the horror to survive" genuinely have no clue what you're talking about, because people have been blathering on about the same thing for years now, and they are continually proven wrong.

[@Tufticles]

Okay bud, sure, the "vibe" is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the developers holding onto 2016 era DBD's philosophies when 2025 DBD doesn't operate the same way at all. I'm talking about them clutching onto outdated designs that no longer serve the modern game's best interests. And your statement about its "vibes" is laughable given the bubblegum clusterfuck of skins that are available now. DBD already looks like a cheap mobile game, how it looks has nothing to do with how it plays anymore. There are QoL features like a ping system that would be FINE but are constantly shunted because the game wouldn't feel "horror" enough. And like Scott said, the game is horror THEMED. It's not scary anymore and it hasn't been since skins were introduced. Letting its supposed genre interfere with improving upon mechanics and accessibility for new players is actively hampering its growth. I can't in good faith recommend this game to anyone when it still hasn't addressed fundamental issues that are at times based on whether it's "horror" enough or not. Developers like Almo refuse to acknowledge what modern DBD is.

[@IbnMesud]

Horror doesnt mean "scary". Yeah no shit the game is not scary for a guy with a gajillion hours. Horror is all about vibes and themes. One of the biggest horror game series of all time, resident evil, is so ridiculosly not scary that it wouldnt make any sense for it to be a horror game according to your definition of horror. Halloween, Saw, Scream and many more are not scary in the slightest yet they are icons of horror

[@liabilitylinda3501]

Okay and? The point is that no one is scared of the game and the balance changes should not be based on it being a horror game

[@IbnMesud]

@liabilitylinda3501 I agree on the balance part but to say this game is not horror is just silly

[@morganjacob1195]

Play both sides Best advice ever my first thousand hours was on killer. But once I started learning and trying to play survivor I became a lot better killer. And I understand what it's like and how hard it is to be a good survivor. Everyone always said "survivor is the easiest thing to ever play" it is easy to play but very hard to master or even be good at it.

[@pkpvptheminer]

One thing I gathered from this video, is that in DBD, survivors run out of ressources as the match progresses, where in a game like VHS, teens gain ressources as the game progresses, which maies for a totally different game dynamic. That's one of the reasons I think (and might be wrong) that TCM worked better than than the others (and the fact that killers aren't killable).

[@sapphicseas0451]

Yeah VHS's gameplay loop was very different, there were things you could do to use up their resources and they can only have one item at a time that loses charge or sometimes can only be thrown once. It took a lot of getting used to but I enjoyed both sides, I wish they'd addressed the ambush issue before the final months of the games life :(

[@Cold_0311]

What's so complicated about VHS? As a Survivor you build a weapon of each type and kill the monster with it. As the Killer you literally just hit everyone until they die, it's not rocket science.

[@ScottJund]

As a viewer I had no idea what was going on. When I watched dbd for the first time I immediately understood it. That's it

[@Cold_0311]

@@ScottJund I had a different experience. I first watched the game by my friend streaming it to me on Discord and I picked up what was going on fairly quick. We learn at different rates I suppose... but I still don't think it's as complicated as you're making it out to be.

[@SolanersRevengee]

⁠@@Cold_0311 if you can’t determine the objective of a game after watching a 10-20 minute video on it, it is definitely complicated. There are a good 3-6 ways to kill the survivors and stun the killers and that’s not even including the individual abilities and weapons of each character. it was literally just too much going on and the humongous maps with no familiar layouts didn’t help..

[@Cold_0311]

@@SolanersRevengee Not to sound like a stuck up prick, but I just didn’t have this problem. I found it a very easy game to learn.

[@starbreeze7249]

@@Cold_0311 Generally people did not share the same experience. It's like if I told someone Huntress isn't hard, you just throw a hatchet.

[@ender8425]

I strongly agree with the point of "DBD's core is that survivors can slow but not stop the killer", I think that's a strong philosophy to have and something DBD's always done well, but a lot of his other points are just like... what? It's like he had some good points and then took them way too far lol. Like flashlights are too much??? Huh? Part of why flashlights work is that they're a fun "fighting back" mechanic that thematically and functionally don't work against the theme or power fantasy of playing killer that much.

[@cesrai]

Just because it goes away fast doesn't mean the aspect of horror isn't true. I got into DBD because of it selling itself as horror game and me actually getting scared and adrenaline rush, when playing game at the beginning. It locked me into the game :-D

[@flakdampler11]

I miss the creepy foggy atmosphere of old dbd. Wish they’d bring that back a bit more

[@hompa1670]

Wow I feel special my comment got read. Anyway about the VHS point with journeys that encouraged lengthening the game to bully the killer, that's kinda harder to do in dbd because you can't really force a killer to chase you and end up getting pallet stunned or blinded a lot, or you at least can't do this to extend the game like you already won now you're just going to stun the killer a lot. The equivalent would be if dbd had a killer challenge that was kill X survivors by bleeding them out. That would be annoying because it would be intentionally extending the game to get points.

[@ochocordell8432]

Always been curious if the kill rate/ survival rate could be shifted more evenly if they did a better balance with the hidden MMR. (Expand the range higher than 0-2100, make it harder to reach the .1%, make lower mmr killers face higher mmr survivor if meta seems killer sided, etc. ) there’s 1000s of ways and things to try Instead of trying to update/balance in-game mechanics and perks into the ground.

[@Bodyknock]

Personally I think a bunch of the things people complain about in DbD stem from its use of player elimination. Player elimination in a game can often be problematic for a variety of reasons. - If the game is a long one, the first player eliminated has nothing to do other than spectate for an extended period of time. This isn’t too much of a problem in DbD in solo queue, at least, since a solo survivor can just start a new match right away if they want. If someone is paired up in a SWF, though, and they get eliminated early then they’re not going to want to go into a solo match while their friend(s) keep playing so they end up just stuck on the sidelines. This is a reason why you’ll often see swfs quit a game early if any one of their members is killed early on, they don’t want to keep playing without having their friend involved. So one swf survivor goes down, another one or two just immediately give up, and the game is basically ruined at that point. - Player elimination also means that the game often becomes more boring for everybody involved once a player is gone. One player gone early on often means the other survivors are probably just playing to see if at least one person can get out at the end. (If the first death is later in the match the others still have a good chance to get out, but if not much gen progress has been done by the first kill it’s very difficult for more than one survivor to get out). So when Almo says in the video that “having different ohases of 4 survivors, 3 survivors, 2 survivors, and 1 survivor add variety” he’s vastly overestimating how fun those 1 and 2 survivor phases actually are for all five players. (Half the players are just spectating or have left, and a lot of the time that last phase is just a drawn out game of hide and seek with one or two survivors that isn’t as exciting as the 4 and 3 survivor phases.) If there is no player elimination then it makes it easier for the game to maintain the same energy level as when all five players are active. - Player elimination being in DbD directly results in the devs including artificial ways for a last survivor to escape and for the game to not stall out when the last survivor or two realize they can’t win so just try and hide. The whole reason for the Hatch and endgame collapse is because of the issues when three survivors are eliminated. If there was no player elimination you wouldn’t need those design artifacts in the game in the first place. And without a hatch you wouldn’t have those games where there are two survivors and the killer leaves one of them sitting on the ground while they scout for the last survivor to try and secure a 4k, for example. Just as an example for comparison, the official Dead by Daylight board game has no player elimination for some of the reasons I mentioned above. (When you play a 30 minute game with your friends at a table you don’t want one eliminated and sitting around for 20 minutes twiddling their thumbs.). Instead the killer wins when they get enough total hooks, and rather than killing survivors the killer gets bonus hook credits if a survivor is left on a hook for more than a single turn (which means the other survivors can’t just safely ignore their friend hanging there, if they do the killer’s hook counter grows more rapidly!) This system keeps all five players actively engaged the entire time but still steers the killer toward hooking survivors to win and survivors rescuing each other off of hooks. So in the end I think it’s DbD having player elimination that is a root cause of a lot of things players complain about. Swfs quitting early when someone dies, slugging for 4ks (and excessively slugging rather than hooking in general), the endgame often being less interesting on all sides than the early and midgame, it all comes back in part or in full to players being eliminated. Of course it’s way, way too late to change that now, we’re stuck with player elimination (unless hypothetically the devs decided to experiment with a “12 hook match” special mode or something where survivors don’t die but the killer wins based on hook stages earned. I don’t see that ever happening though.) But I do think it’s something other games can learn from. So I believe Almo is wrong about the lack of player elimination being the reason VHS failed, indeed it failed DESPITE the lack of player elimination! Had they found ways to keep matches a bit shorter and boost the killer’s power levels a bit more to increase their chances of winning it could have done better. That the game did poorly in those areas is not because it chose to not have player elimination though.

[@SolanersRevengee]

Honestly. tcm would’ve been dbds biggest competitor if you weren’t completely doomed after one chase. Even though it would’ve struck comparisons and plagiarism allegations I always thought tcm should’ve had survivors be downed or captured so that if you died you could atleast have another chance to make it feel like the game was even playable

[@DeltaEntropy]

I disagree entirely. As Almo alluded to, player elimination is the only way for the killer to challenge an equally or better skilled survivor. If they can either loop for the entire game without penalty for getting hooked or allow their teammates to get hooked over and over again without losing, there’s no check on their power. With eliminations, they have a hard limit on the amount of risk they can take, but also have to take some risk or else their less skilled teammates will get stomped out and they’ll most likely lose the 1v1 unless they get lucky with hatch. As for your 12 hook idea, you seem to be forgetting that DBD is a game, not an exercise in making the most fair and balanced system. It needs to be fun, and a good amount of that fun comes from the drama and adrenaline of tight situations. Saving your teammate right before they die on hook, opening the gate seconds before the killer returns, hitting a long shot right before the survivor vaults to the hatch, etc… Also, either allowing one player to get hooked over and over again, or making it so that a player can only be hooked so many times but can then continue to play in the match without threat, are equally disastrous, either making it so that one bad teammate can throw the entire game, or basically forcing killers to slug, both making the experience worse.

[@Bodyknock]

@@DeltaEntropy Player Elimination is definitely not “the only way for a killer to challenge an equally skilled survivor”. I already described how the board game, for example, puts checks on survivors to get off gens to rescue each other from hooks without any need for player elimination at all. Also I’m confused why you think a game isn’t “fun or adrenaline producing” if there’s no player elimination. That’s objectively not true, as evidenced for example by the multitude of multiplayer shooters like Overwatch and Marvel Rivals, etc, where getting knocked out has a fairly short time out from play before you are back in the action and the bulk of the game has all players always active. If anything player elimination in DbD is most definitely the cause of certain phases of the late game lacking tension!

[@Renegade-re4vs]

As a killer main, Skill issue

[@Crackgearson]

Almo still has a very very old mindset for a developer that needs to think of the future

[@BrysonLeigh]

"One could argue that Lightborn is too powerful" is a quote that will echo in my head forever now.

[@AlsoMeowskivich]

you could tunnel and camp in vhs, you just had to be more pro-active about it because if you just sat there then you'll get shat on, and you had to make sure you were ready to tunnel out a player with your power economy. Some monsters were easier than others. Dollmaster was the infamous sweaty one since he could remotely camp and tunnel everyone with his dolls. It just wasn't free like it used to be in dbd.

[@sapphicseas0451]

Yeah dollmaster played entirely differently from the others like how playing against nurse is way different, when you got used to it it was fun but not easy to learn off the bat.

[@AlsoMeowskivich]

@@sapphicseas0451 was always torment to go against too. My favorite was The Anomaly :)

[@sapphicseas0451]

@AlsoMeowskivich I never really got to face much anomaly, too close to the game's end of life sadly

[@Lazo4200]

So I played DBD 2 days this week. One day I got nothing but the most comp sweaty teams bringing map offering and meta perks and OP med kits. The whole time. Then I played the next day, I only got baby survivors that had less then 200 hours. Like make it make sense

[@Mercer526]

You couldn't handle the salty spitoon so they threw you into weenie hut jr

[@DarknessAmongUs]

I think he said a handful of things in this thread that were quote insightful. There was one comment in particular he left that I felt myself going "this is the smartest thing you've ever said"

[@FruityViolet]

I personally use LB as a perma-perk. There are times where blinds are unavoidable, as you said, and when I'm blinded in-game, I'm blinded irl. This ruins the game for me, and there's literally nothing I can do. I feel like LB in its current state is needed until we get the accessibility features we need for people who have photophobia like me.

[@IsThatKris]

DBD stopped being scary when they removed the ability to affect the moon

[@gusnd]

Almo always showing how connected he is... to another reality

[@flowerboy9611]

I think your reason and Almos reasoning have some alignment. I play fighting games, and one thing most fighting game players will do when learning a new game is fall back on the strengths of the old game they came from. Tunnel and Camping is a fallback, damage control maneuver Killers of most skill levels will go too when shit starts going wrong, make the playing field smaller asap. VHS had a LOT of new rules for the small Asym horror genre, and no real way to camp or tunnel when getting your ass kicked by knowledgeable players means they fall off all the same.

[@sapphicseas0451]

VHS failed because they refused to address the gameplay issues with monster (getting jumped by 2/3 weapons when you go around a corner) AND also spent SO much money expanding their staff immediately when they got decent numbers, and ran out of funding fast as fuck. The new player onboarding was also a rough spot that they did end up addressing along with the getting ambushed issue as monster, but NOT UNTIL THE FINAL BALANCE PATCH BEFORE THEY SHUT THE GAME DOWN. If they had actually addressed any issues on the monster side sooner the game would have been more fun, but sadly it wouldn't have saved the game since the business side was so horribly mismanaged.

[@heartscaless]

It didn't help that there was extreme toxic positivity with the community, where they would constantly glaze the devs and their decisions, and anytime someone brought forward criticisms they were immediately shut down and called "dbd fanboys"

[@sapphicseas0451]

@heartscaless yeah the toxic positivity did not help things and honestly was probably bc they spent too much too soon and couldnt afford as much moderation as they needed

[@AvatarOfGames]

I'm just coming back to the game after 10 months away and most of the gripes are pretty minor. But as somebody who isn't an expert on map layouts, the most miserable experience is playing vs Dredge. Thematically it's a great killer. In practice, I hate not being able to see anything and being chased face first into a wall because I could have sworn there was a window there just makes me not want to play.

[@SolanersRevengee]

I agree with hating playing against him but I think killers like dredge, Freddy and other killers that visually impact the game give you even more of an incentive to play carefully and avoid slacking (unless you’re solo q) it adds to the fun and horror aspect for me but i definitely agree it sucks knowing you’re cooked during nightfall unless you’re at shack or some familiar infinite

[@AvatarOfGames]

@@SolanersRevengee Ya, and truthfully I can still have fun vs Dredge but it's moments like that where I feel less like I got outplayed and more like the game itself is teabagging me 😆

[@brais5001]

I recomend you that the moment the nightfall warning,you try start memorize a zone of escape in that exact moment,the best way to play vs him in my opinion is to have a plan of escape Also,close only one locker is one are close to other

[@GhostelFaceMan]

10:53 a Roblox game called "forsaken" just about perfected the balance between the survivors being able to kill the killer and still having you be a considerable threat. The killers can theoretically be killed as they have health, however they have so much health that unless the killer is messing up and not dodging or doing things right and everyone is constantly attacking them it's not possible. Not only that but matches usually only last 2-4 minutes and in that time span it's very rare you get to low health on killer. It's a very good system and suprisingly a majority of asymmetrical horror games done right reside on Roblox, examples being the formentioned "Forsaken" and "Pillar Chase 2"

[@Nivomi]

I think I see what he's trying to say - In a 1v4 game, if the "4" party has the same amount of skill-expression-reward, they're getting four times as much of a reward for their skill expression as the "1" side - this means that the "4" group ends up at a very strong perceptual advantage, especially against teams that are all skilled. This leads to that "getting bullied" feeling that kills games at low playercounts (especially if their primary play mode is matchmaking)

[@etoyoshimura1118]

I was here. Nemesis has some good points ngl

[@spiritupgrades]

It also didn't help that their servers could not keep up with the demand, and also, they were very weak in security. If they had done an open beta before all this and never done this, limited keys only really hampered their test results.

[@sapphicseas0451]

And they also spent so much money on the business end expanding MASSIVELY with no return on investment in sight, which sucks so much because even if they had addressed the monster complaints, the business end still would have fallen apart :( Near the end of its life the gameplay was actually in a decent spot! But the game died a couple months later because they ran out of money.

[@oicmorez4129]

the topic of the feeling of hopelessness is very interesting. 2v8 mode has a mechanic where the more one side is winning, the more generator speeds are affected to counteract that. I wonder if adding a similar mechanic to base dbd could at least partially obviate that feeling

[@aroace7913]

I guess smart survivers would just 99 % gens to circumvent such a system.

[@electrium3556]

I still think the biggest issue for DBD is the lack of map types and game modes. If every match wasn't just focused on fixing generators, it wouldn't be nearly as frustrating for either side. Survivors could get to do something other than hold M1 on an objective for like 80 seconds, and there wouldn't have to so many perks based around generator slowdown. I think having more search type gamemodes would be better because survivors would actually get to move around and do something, and I think it would be better for killer because you would get more chances to have more chances to just stumble across survivors instead of always finding them at a gen, or having people begging to chased following you around because they don't want to do a generator.

[@aroace7913]

It is 90 seconds now btw. also more gamemodes could lead to quite longer queue times for both modes.

[@Mist3rLemon]

I checked the comments and found Arinad the cringe clown main with his weird guide crying about the camping self unhook and longer hook timers. This is the dork that advocated running Deadlock/Rancor for months because you could guarantee you would have time to tunnel one and then pick up a second kill in endgame and never lose. I'm glad this dork is upset at the state of DBD now it means balancing is better

[@ED11169]

39:17 I can comment on evolve. Basically my order of important roles went like: Tracker>Assault>Medic>Support. I stomped pubs by basically only ever using Assault and ignoring the need for the other 3 roles through use of tracking mechanics and tier 3 perks. New players always struggle with tracking and dealing damage, both as Hunter and monster, so a monster that only hides cannot fight against a decent Assault unless they are stage 3 with full health. Meanwhile a team of noob hunters either follow their tracker who themselves follow base mechanic footprints, and they get steamrolled because they can't fight or they get killed by a noob monster at stage 3 who didn't realize the hunters can be just as easily killed on drop. Also new players didn't start with tier 3 perks and had to grind for it, and since there was no mmr, 90% of the matches were 12 hour accounts going at each other like what Elmo described, or like a single 300 hour junkie destroying the competition .

[@BestDarnPumpkin]

As far as people in DBD throwing during solo q to finish challenges… maybe it’s because I’m not the highest mmr, but I don’t feel like I experience that too much. Generally people save me off hook, try to do gens, etc. Maybe it’s because DBD is the only team games I play, but I kind of enjoy the chaos of not knowing what kind of team I’ll get, and trying to work with that (especially since hatch is always an option). I’m altruistic to my team no matter what, and trying to help ‘clueless’ survivors/teams is lowkey kinda fun for me. For this same reason I don’t get mad about play styles like slugging. That can be countered by a team that works to save each other, and it feels so sweet when you succeed against the odds! It’s like saving someone from the hook during the end game collapse. So much more fun than just leaving through the gate. I’m not trying to say anything is wrong with criticizing aspects of the game, but the game is way more fun if you just take every round for what it is. If your team leaves you on hook until 2nd stage, play selfishly and go for that hatch 😂 The solo q is fun to me because it’s always a surprise. I also counter ‘bad team mates’ by making sure I focus on gens throughout the match, and healing people (bringing empathy, botany, Deja vu, and sometimes deadhard, and a tool kit for sabotages).

[@vector4606]

Almo is so off on VHS failing it explains a lot about them and DbD's design. Not being able to camp/tunnel was not even remotely the issue, it was fundamental mistakes with design. Survivors should not be able to attack/kill the monster/killer. Theme is critical, playing as existing horror characters is much more substantial than playing random concept enemy 81. I am so glad Almo is off DbD, I think it goes without saying the reason it was so bad for so long was directly due to their decision making.

[@Dustaroo]

Almo would come into the Vhs server a lot and was the most condescending person there by a mile. even when he was right he always came off as ''listen to me I get it, you don't''. So much of this post is getting close but never actually hitting the mark which tracks with my interactions with him a lot. Monster failed because it was hard to learn, not a straight up power role, did not have as much quality of life teens did until very near the end of the games life, and the longer time went on the more sweatsquads you had to deal with.

[@lukesimpson1507]

I feel like the only thing that can save solo queue is to have a flashing promt when someone is in chase saying, "Do gens!"

[@Zagrid]

I was the guy that made the video about Almo. Don't really like it anymore but im glad he is moving on to something different. Nearly all the old DbD devs and faces I knew from back in the day are gone now.

[@whywright2663]

Another case for dbd court: Since Patch 4.4.0 Cannibal reaches his Chainsaw Sweep maximum movement speed after 60% of his first charge. It means Bubba reaches maximum speed after 1.2 seconds without any Add-Ons only geting worse with chilli add-ons up to 1.65 seconds. Before the Patch 4.4.0 Cannibal was reaching maximum speed after 0.6 seconds always. Already at Base Kit Bubba could reach maximum speed 2 times faster. Additionally, Carburetor Tuning Guide was bugged until Patch 7.1.0 and, because of bugged acceleration Bubba needed 4.5 seconds (60% * 7.5 seconds) to reach maximum speed with this Add-On. Currently a well known issue amongst bubba mains with research done by other people. Yes, yes bhvr "recent" Bubba buff was done on bugged power they didn't even notice......

[@Hybrid_Guy23]

Random idea: rework Bloodlust to Impatience While chasing a survivor a small bar will build up while chasing That particular survivor. It would world similarity to bloodlust now but maybe build up slower, grant other buffs and would remain on the survivor until they are hit/hooked. Example: You start chasing a survivor and he looks you around for a full minute and gains Impatience 1( a 5-10% speed increase). You follow the survivor and he leads you to his teamates, and you begin chasing the other survivor instead in which you lose chase with survivor one, losing impatience 1. You down and hook the second survivor, afterwords you run into survivor 1 again and begin chase regaining Impatience 1 and building towards Impatience 2(10% speed and 15% faster recovery on missed swings). You get lucky and get an early hit on them which takes a large chunk from the bar where you lose 30 seconds from the bar in which pits you bellow impatience 1 for a few secs. But this survivor is a god and manages to loop you around for 2-3 minutes, in which you regain impatience 1 and go into impatience 2 and part way to impatience 3(15% speed 20% faster swing recovery, 20% longer lunge duration and 20% faster kick/ vault speed). After being Uber charged you finally manage to down the survivor, and after hooking the the survivor loses 2 tiers of impatience on them. This is just essentially Longer building bloodlust with benefits that’s semi permanent per survivor until they are hooked. And after being hooked resets the impatience Completely in most chases, unless they managed to get to impatience 3, which still allows the killer to gain a small advantage again so they don’t have have run them for another 3 full mins to build it up again. Numbers can be changed of course this is just a rough Idea I had while watching, and the name change isn’t necessary, just a change to get peoples to think about it differently

[@stikmc]

@5:47, I've been trying to get people to see that forever! Even when I play no perks, I win 52% of my matches, and that SHOULDN'T be a thing.

[@billyburnett2638]

I’ve noticed the average dbd player is not very good at the game, the mechanics are simply a bit too complex combined with perk knowledge etc. but it causes a majority of people to complain about the game and hear an echochamber about it because they’re all kinda garbage

[@Porifirion]

aT 40:40 mark, having the map rng be different for each killer would probably help the disparity. but that would require to mark each with different "weights" for each killer, or categorize killers in groups. A Long wall against a nurse doesnt have the same strength as if it were a pig or a myers. Making the maps more cluttered against a billy nurse spirit blight would help reduce their overall strength

[@agentmustache]

Am I the only one glad Almo isn't on the balancing team anymore? But I wish him well in the future.

[@akasunanosasori6385]

He might be a good guy, but good that he is an ex-dbd dev. Good riddance

[@LMCRedBush]

On the topic of feeling helpless - it's worse for killer because of how long it lasts. If you get wailed on as survivor (tunneled & camped), the pain is over in ~4 mins (with like only 1 minute of that being actual gameplay, the remainder being on hook or carried). If you get wailed on as killer, you are getting continuously wailed on for like ~5 mins non stop (10 mins if the survivors aren't gen efficient, which is very likely if they realise there's a big skill gap)

[@radon_slp]

about emotes, I really don't understand why they haven't done this yet, not only would they be popular but they would also help solo q, solo q is in desperate need of communication methods, and it would be really easy to add like 2 more base emotes for saying things like yes or no or pointing at yourself.

[@SolanersRevengee]

I like this. It’s harmless and would actually improve the game outside of the inevitable BM’ing

[@ElConio]

If you move the camera up and down, you're saying yes, if you're moving it left and right you're saying no, and you can wave towards yourself as an alternative to pointing at yourself, so you basically want emotes for things we can already do?

[@radon_slp]

@@ElConio the wave towards yourself could also be interpreted as "Follow me", furthermore moving the camera so much to convey such a small amount of information feels inefficient. I'm not saying add these specifically but adding the framework for more emotes and adding a few base ones would be easy but very positively received by the community. I don't see why they don't do it.

[@froggychair7732]

I know it’s not very related but when he started talking about the failure of vhs and how it was because new players were going up against sweats it got me thinking about how marvel rivals uses bots. so perhaps rivals devs knew that would happen so they added training wheels to the playerbase which if that’s the case props to them.

[@VetriVade]

Evolve was the best a symmetrical game. If 2k didnt refuse to sell the IP to Turtle Rock theyd still be working on it TR made the IP but their original publisher went out of business and sold their properties- 2k outbid tr on their own IP and it was either work on the game or let another studio do it. 2k saw TR's continued production as a liability despite working out of the studios budget and not 2k's. Thats why it was a huge deal behavior bought the rights to dbd from their publisher, starbreeze couldve crushed the entire game to work on a sequel if they wanted to (just like 2k did)

[@buckiemohawk3643]

TCM Im a killer in my own basement that is so dark I cant have to take 20 minutes to get out. heres a survivor oh he stabs me even though I have chainsaw and hit twice with it. Oh survivor escapes in 2 minutes wtf.

[@SolanersRevengee]

I never got the appeal with tcm. played the beta all the way up until release and it was just miserable after the hype. No health bars or specific health states so you’re just spamming attack until the animation played. no ui or good information for your team and after 1 person died the game was practically over for survivors. the killers just went from frightening to annoying like man there’s a lot of personal and technical issues I have with tcm but it’s literally just such a miserable experience to play. Wins don’t feel rewarding and the progression is weird like honestly the fans of the movies who wanted to give it a try are the ones keeping it alive