BEST and WORST Designed Killers in Dead by Daylight!

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This week we’re exploring the idea of what makes a killer successful in terms of their design in Dead by Daylight. To do this we’re going to discuss Game Feel and “Juice”. We’ll also look at Camera, Character and Controller in regards to the killer design and how they are balanced. Finally we’ll construct a sort of tier list going through the killers chronologically to explore my personal thoughts on each killers design.

References:
Denisova, A & Cairns, P. 2015. First Person vs. Third Person Perspective in Digital Games: Do Player Preferences Affect Immersion? Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280112093_First_Person_vs_Third_Person_Perspective_in_Digital_Games_Do_Player_Preferences_Affect_Immersion [Accessed on 20 September 2022].

GDC, 2017. An Approach to Holistic Level Design. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpOoTAVeEcU&feature=youtu.be [Accessed on 19 September 2022].

Grapefrukt, 2012. Juice it or lose it – a talk by Martin Jonasson & Petri Purho. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy0aCDmgnxg [Accessed on 20 September 2022].

Iida, H, 2007. On Games and Fairness. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309392093_On_games_and_fairness [Accessed on 19 September 2022].

Interaction Design Foundation, 2019. User Experience (UX) Design. [online] Available at: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/ux-design [Accessed on 20 September 2022].

Swink, S., 2008. Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation. London: Routledge.

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18 thoughts on “BEST and WORST Designed Killers in Dead by Daylight!”

  3. I would love to see a deep dive and discussion about each killer in this way with you, Runningman, and John Wolfe in the Spine Chill podcast! I think it would interesting (and hilarious) to hear why one of you might love a killer's design while another one of you hates it. You praise Wraith's overall design, while John thinks Wraith is an absolute drag. On the other hand, you both seem to share similar opinions about Hag.

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  5. This is an excellent video, really well thought out for a tier list! It is hard to disagree with a lot of your placements, given the parameters that you laid out at the start.

    I do question one placement though. Plague, as I feel you could argue that her infection mechanic, while being fair in a balance sense, does not feel fair from a survivor's perspective. What do I mean by this? Well when the Plague vomits on a generator or hooked survivor, she effectively is able to infect, and therefore damage, a survivor through no interaction with said survivor, and very little investment from the Plague. Worse yet these two actions, generators and unhooking, are a requirement for survivors to succeed forcing them to take the damage through no fault of their own.

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  6. I appreciate the work you put into this. Have a few disagreements (twins, wraith and plague being excellent. I hate going against all 3 and don’t enjoy playing them). Also Dredge I love on both sides, yes his darkness can be difficult but it is a highly intense period which I seldom feel on other killers). I think he is a fantastic killer and I love him on both sides, he provides some much needed horror to the game. Finally birb lady I still love to play as, getting a great snipe or mind gaming a survivor into a waiting bird is great. So I’d put her in fun to play as. Plus she feels so much better than other ranged killers on console.

    But yeah, still great job and I do respect your opinion and thought process.

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  7. can i just thank you for using the correct pronouns for dredge and demo? those two arent humans and never were. it bothers me that people just assign them genders especially male ones for no reason. dredge is a creature, it's an IT. never once is he/she/they used to describe it. people get on my nerves

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  10. There's two that I enormously disagree with, but only in the context of this being as objective as an analysis as possible, with community perception taken into account, not just personal preference.

    The first is Plague. While she's interesting to play as, she is probably one of the most unpleasant killers to play against in the game. It's no hyperbole to say that I've never met even one person until this video to say Plague is fun to play against, and I would argue she comes the closest to being objectively not fun to play against.

    A significant number of survivor options simply do not work against her. Anything related to being healthy, anything related to taking hits, anything related to being stealthy, anything related to healing yourself or others, all of them just do not work. Medkits also don't function. This is a problem because you have no way of knowing you're up agains Plague until you've loaded into the match. So your build and your item you brought in might be totally worthless against her. Also many find the constant vomiting and the screen effects to be unpleasant to listen to.

    Then on top of that she's also probably the most punishing to solo queue players of any killer in the game, even more than Pinhead. At least against Pinhead, if you know how deal with the box, you can handle it every time as long as you remain alive. Plague is different, your ally healing at the wrong time can wipe your whole team. She's just all around dreadful, whenever I load in and see one of those fountains I wonder why I felt like playing survivor today.

    The other is Sadako, who you're way too hard on. Her reception when she came out was extremely positive. She received widespread praise for being fun to play as, fair to play against, and for bringing the horror back to Dead by Daylight. Her one limiting factor is that she's currently underpowered, but that could be solved by a few buffs to her kit, which is otherwise fine in concept. The fact I still frequently see her even though I don't even play that much survivor and even though she's one of the worst killers in the game and that Dredge also exists with almost the same playstyle should be a testament to how well-liked she is.

    Also she doesn't get a speed boost when manifesting, only when coming out of a TV.

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  17. I disagree Sadako is poor. Love her sound design and visuals, and it’s great to play her despite Dredge’s similar teleport now being a better version. If she gets a slight reworking I think she could be excellent tier.

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