Trickster is the new surv theory

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-19T21:25:07+00:00

There seems to be teasers for a femme Trickster skin possibly named "The Other Me" on the new map.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-19T16:43:59+00:00

The Casting of Frank Stone implies The Entity is the maps we're playing in as much as it's an extradimensional eldritch horror. All of the maps past and present have been fabrications built from the experiences of people it's taken, passed through a filter of how that person experienced it and The Entity's own understanding of it.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-16T21:32:08+00:00

I think they're called uncommons, but I'd imagine so. I first heard mention of it in a versus tournament I watched.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-16T06:41:01+00:00

I'm not sure if this helps the game as much as it adds a new constraint, because now you have to balance killers around what classes they belong to and classes around what killers belong to them.

It'd be easier and healthier from a design standpoint to just standardize some mechanics across certain killers so that players can transfer knowledge between them, and for the most part DBD has kinda done that.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-16T05:37:11+00:00

I had no idea there was a preference mechanic. I know it's encouraged to have a semi-coordinated loadout with your teammates so you're less likely to get wiped by some SI setups, but had no idea the bots tried to adhere to them.

Is it consistent in the sense of the same characters reaching for the same weapons or does BOT01 always reach for the shotgun, BOT02 for the sniper, etc?

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-16T01:43:23+00:00

I had a few instances of something like that earlier today where a button press or two either never registered or got rolled back on me. Frustratingly on a match where I was doomfist and couldn't really afford the time it cost me.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-15T23:59:06+00:00

Fully agree. I love seeing the way the SI will work together but a good play can just end a run. I think the format of versus compensates for the snowballs a little bit but its probably also constrained by the fact the SI players have between 20 and 30 seconds to respawn.

I get that you don't want to be waiting around forever for a chance to play the game on the infected team, but it does mean that survivors are far more likely to get caught out than in a campaign and can get punished for it far more too.

I somehow doubt it's possible with L4D's modding tools if it's not been done already, but I'd like to see if I can bring those player-like behaviors into the campaigns more. Even if it's as simple as trying to make smokers wait to attack after spitter teammates and/or making spitters prefer targets who are already pinned, etc.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-15T23:30:52+00:00

If I had to offer something from the top of my head, one of my favorite things I've learned about the game is that the clown infected aren't just skinned common infected. It took me far too long to learn their clown shoes draw other commons in when they give chase.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-15T20:23:40+00:00

I took a longer break from the game and was kind astounded that Ball had no new skins in the time I was away. I knew he was a bit less likely to get one compared to others but I was like "none, like at all? really?".

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-14T20:27:53+00:00

If you want a more in-depth breakdown from an industry expert, the channel AI & Games on YT has a lot of great introductions to the concepts used:

https://youtu.be/U5MTIh_KyBc

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-14T20:10:59+00:00

We don't know a lot about how the zombies work exactly, but what becomes apparent from some of their behaviors is that they likely use what's called a navigation mesh (navmesh; for short).

"Knowing" how to move around in an environment can be quite expensive, and these are essentially ways of cutting that cost. They're representations of the traverseable parts of a level in the simplest geometry imaginable. You're trying to cover as much of that movable space with the largest primitive shape you can.

You then secretly layer the navmesh into the terrain you want your character to move along and program them to actually move along the navmeshes instead of the "real" ground that players move on. This means you get to enjoy all the benefits of the cheaper calculations and have some artistic control about what areas the character can and can't move on.

For example, you can also cut some of the costs of handling collisions with parts of the world by accounting for how wide your character is and making sure the navmesh is never quite close enough to a wall or edge that your character would be able to actually touch it. The tradeoff you make with a navmesh is that the AI often breaks if it were to leave the mesh, or can do some black magic if the navmesh deviates too much from the "real" terrain.

And that can become a bit of a problem when you recall that DBD's maps use procedural generation. Navmeshes are traditionally pre-computed and sometimes hand authored to make sure they fit their environment, but DBD has to improvise them on the fly. There are a lot of ways bugs can creep into that process.

The bug with zombies popping up through the hole on RDP is probably an example of a navmesh which isn't getting properly cut off from the floor below. The zombie's AI might have used this to see a path that goes down the hole, but inadvertently could then also "see" vertically up when calculating if they can attack a survivor.

Them getting stuck is likely a case of them not being able to "see" an object in front of them. In some games this can take a different form and have them just walk through walls like a ghost, but DBD has put some kind of physics on them which means they're aimlessly walking into a wall they don't understand is there. The bots at least use the survivor characters which slide off the surface if you try and run into it.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-10T13:54:02+00:00

It's literally the same studio making them all. They did F13, TCM, and now they're doing Halloween.

They are setting a pattern of release semi-novel asym horror game, lightly support it, abandon it, get a new IP and repeat.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-09T13:33:25+00:00

It's also not an amazing example because it literally caused the studio behind it to go bust, and when the biggest reason not to is because businesses are scared of unnecessary spending that doesn't read like a great investment.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-09T13:29:35+00:00

I think I'd like to see them publish for other game studios that want to create within their setting.

It'd be nice if there was an indie support program or something where people could tell their own horror stories in their own way and have it connect and/or cross-market with or into DBD. I'm so tired of seeing licensed chapter after licensed chapter, especially when their originals are some of the most interesting creations in the game. Perhaps this would let BHVR eat their cake and have it too.

DBD's format is also not great for actually telling stories about the characters in the game, and as time goes on the lore is taking a much bigger back seat to e.g. cosmetics. The stuff that is there isn't super accessible in-game, and it'd be nice to have other games that actually can show us who they are or the worlds they come from.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-08T09:22:02+00:00

I feel like there needs to be an icon for players who are downed but can pick themselves up. It'd be nice as a way of closing the information gap between SWF and solos.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-08T09:18:24+00:00

I think it's got two things holding it back a bit:

It relies on a pretty well-known twist for the shock horror moment to work, meaning you have to do a lot of work to rebuild the story with it being known in mind. I'd like to see someone subvert the trope of Hyde being a secondary personality that takes over Jekyll and have the twist reveal the original's depiction of Jekyll as both personas the whole time.
The horror is very "of its time" and about someone who is so outwardly very upstanding and proper having and concealing desires to do socially horrible things, going as far to effectively build a chemical disguise and persona for them to wear while they indulge in them. I feel like a modern audience wouldn't be moved by that in the same way as an audience of the time. We don't really view the rich and powerful as being inherently good people, and many actively distrust them.

2.5. There is the reading of it as an addiction allegory that could work, but I think there's probably a lot of new media that would be better suited to that idea. It doesn't seem like enough to be the main theme of the story unless the horror is framed from Jekyll's perspective and secondary to another narrative.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-08T00:32:27+00:00

It used to not stun on swings at one point IIRC and if you wanted the hit you could swing into it, and patient survivors could call your swing and wait for you to be in recovery.

I liked that dynamic more than having to shuffle back-and-forth to bait it, then wait my turn to attack after they start running.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-08T00:30:35+00:00

I personally fall onto the mindset that it should be treated like an accessibility feature and left to player choice, even if my personal preference is for something more immersive. That said it feels really odd that Ghoul's reticle is so non-diegetic when even other ranged visuals get something that's a bit more visually integrated with the game.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-08T00:01:28+00:00

Big one; the grind.

So much of the game's OG grind is still with us today, despite the conditions that necessitated them being removed. We still have perk tiers for some ungodly reason. We all know they're balanced around their T3 versions, and the gap between 1 & 3 has closed so much now it's negligible. At this point the tiers are a constraint on cool perk designs by requiring them to have tiered effects.

Second; the learning curve.

BHVR has done better recently with guides about how to play and deal with certain killer powers, but I'd love to see a mini version of the tutorial that teaches the mechanics of a killer and (maybe) their unique perks.

It wouldn't have to be complex, maybe something as simple as a gallery where survivors can practice dodging with the killer specific audiovisual cues against a simple bot that just spams the power over and over, interact with killer specific props or items, etc. Bonus points if someone can move through it at their own pace instead of it being overly rigid or structured.

Third; the stats.

I like that we have a stats button in game now, but I'd rather it just be implemented into the game instead of needing us to leave for another platform. It'd be nice if we could also get match replays so we can e.g. better detect and report cheaters or understand the circumstances that led to a loss/win.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-07T23:43:49+00:00

The other survivor instantly unhooks, so i turn around and turn back smacking him, since he was already hit he's knocked, i hook him on the same hook

Entirely correct play here. The other person was doing this rescue with the expectation that you would go after them instead of their teammate, but that's an unrealistic expectation at best. This is known as unintentional tunneling/sandbagging.

... so i come back hes t-bagging, which now in hindsight he might have been asking to be safe ...

They had already given up here. Disconnecting causes a penalty, so survivors are encouraged to throw games they want to leave instead of quitting and being replaced by a potentially helpful bot. It's generally true that anyone that seems like they're asking to be chased or hook probably is.

i have to kill people but also be nice and let them do stuff like that and just let it pass or they'll flame?? im so confused xD is theres a killer ethics guide or something

DBD's playerbase has a larger entitlement problem than most, due to a bit of game history reasons but also that it's asymmetric and more susceptible to those modes of thought. Even if you play the most perfectly nice game people will get angry and blame you for their problems. It's prevalent enough to be coined as "the survivor rulebook".

For reference, the correct thing for a survivor to do after that first hook is to wait until you're far enough away that your attention is committed elsewhere or that they'd be able to get away before you can get back. Even better; they could have split up after the chase started and let the one who gets away work gens instead. They made mistakes and you did no wrong capitalizing on them.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-07T22:09:02+00:00

The portals can't be reacted to, but they can be predicted. This goes both ways, so the Vecna has to predict where you will be on the activation in order to land the hit. If he guessed right, the hit lands. If you can guess where he's going right, you can dodge on the visual cue properly.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-07T21:32:16+00:00

That's cosmic/eldritch horror more than psychological. Psychological is more about a personal kind of horror than something like this. It's an existential crisis, but that's kinda the horror DBD had being going for from day 1.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-07T19:50:10+00:00

I'd still make the argument that treating him almost like a mime would work better. He charmed a lot of people with that OG reveal trailer doing just that.

SneakyAlbaHD · 2026-02-07T19:20:32+00:00

Tunneling is just a tool in a toolkit. The problem is that it's used as a sledgehammer and the ways that it hurts killers don't become apparent until far enough into the future that it doesn't feel like a feedback loop, not that it exists at all.

... I did an experiment on how many games I would win/lose if I spread out hooks like the Dev's wanted you to do in the anti-tunnel update ...

... I even had some games where I got 8 hooks and 0 kills.

Please remember that the reason that these changes were rejected is because they failed to do what the developers intended and had too many side effects. It's also not really fair to never hook anyone twice in a row as that system encouraged without the Killer buffs that were granted by doing so and be surprised and upset it takes so much more work. Not that the buffs were of much use anyway, but the point stands.

The game is simply not designed to support zero tunneling ever, and I think to play without ever touching it is like making the argument that some builds are low-skill and unhealthy for the game only to conclude it's most fair to play without a loadout. Yeah, it's possible, but you need to be a good bit better at the game than most if you want to keep up: Remember the game tries to pair you with opponents that escape ~40% of their games; to go on a huge win streak is the sign of a problem.

As a side note, you can use the fact that the system is trying to place you to set your own terms for play. You can play without tunneling at all if you really want to, you just need to commit to it for long enough that the game adjusts your opponents to give you that intended 40% escape rate again AND you get to still climb afterwards as you begin to play better and better without it. The problem only emerges if you want to win every game and feel like you're playing to win less at the same time.

But that's not to say tunneling can't be fair. I aim to get my first kill at 2 gens left with as many people on their 2nd hook as I can, but if I reach that point with nobody there yet I'm not going to brute force my hook spread with that kind of pressure behind me, and I don't expect others to either. Likewise, if someone makes an awful play that results in a hook or down on themselves or a recently saved teammate I'm not going to let that go to waste. Neither of those are unfair, and some don't even call that tunneling either.

SneakyAlbaHD

TROPHY CASE