I want to preface this post by saying I would never say anything/harass anyone about going friendly in qm, its just a game and never worth being actually mean to people!! Also, I love rank friendlies bc ranking up is hard and its a nice to get an easy win sometimes.

With that being said, when I qm its often to try out a new character in a real game and face off with a real hunter. I don’t care much when randoms in qm mess up, as I just assume they’re playing an unfamiliar character and there’s no negative impact if we lose the game (less logic path pts but I would say thats more less-positive than negative). Survivor qm matching often still has a couple mins of wait time, and when I finally get matched I want to actually practice the surv instead of just playing decoding simulation alone while everyone else refuses to decode bc they’re frolicking with the hunter.

I also don’t mind when hunters go friendly in duos; its just a game mode where survs are matched faster, there’s fun quirks and more players and typically on a fun map so I just see the rationale more. Riding the rollercoaster with a hunter can be fun, but running around arms factory isn’t really.

Does anyone agree or am I just being a negative killjoy? Interested to discuss :)

Read before you downvote

With the increasing amount of posts about mechanic needing a buff, i wanted to state my opinion too.

First of all, some of you have some crazy ideas and not aware of mechs role at all. Shes a decoder, not a kiter. Ive seen people saying "remove her vaulting debuff!" "remove her pallet dropping debuff" and stuff but decoders arent supposed to have kiting abilities as their main priority. In fact, the current decoders having no kite aspect debuff is the weird thing to me. This is what i loved in the old meta, a support character excelled at supporting, a rescuer excelled in rescuing and a decoder excelled at decoding. And that was it. They just filled in their roles. Nowadays everyone wants to be a kiter for some reason.

"Remove her bot callibrations" how about no? Why do you guys want every character to be braindead easy and boring? You have to have some trouble while playing them, you cant just put a bot on a cipher and let it decode the entire machine with no penalty. Honestly this might be an unpopular opinion but in MY experience i love the penalty of using a bot. When im playing duos i always buy a bot no matter what character i play.

"Extend the bots duration" i honestly think its perfectly fine. It can decode at least a full cipher and it should be more than enough. Its not an ability you carry to endgame (usually) and its totally okay. Theres a lot of survivors who run out of their abilities by the end of the game.

What i agree on is her decoding debuff is insane. She has potential to decode worse than wildling which is honestly crazy. Shes an out-dated survivor now which is sad since i find her really fun to play as. But this is the only aspect i agree with. This is also a common thing shared among old survivors i think? Seers vaulting debuff gets worse with every owl farmed, mercs time to heal extends everytime he gets hit blabla. But mechs debuff directly affects her role as a decoder which is why this debuff especially sucks.

Im aware most of the current players werent around for bq/dw meta but mechanic literally made the game much easier and winnable for survivors. Im sure she was a traumatic experience for those hunters lmao. I hope they revive the queen a little but i also think she should leave her throne to another character for a while. Itd just be great if she was at least "playable".

Edit: i think people didnt understand that i agree with buffing her decoding because every comment is about that aspect.

I don't want this to be a rant, but it very well could end up seeming like one. Let me start out by saying that if you're familiar or like a lot of these animes/themes, or whatever else the crossovers are coming from (there were some interesting ones if I recall) then you probably don't mind at all. But I'm willing to bet that most of the player base doesn't recognize most or at least some of the crossover costumes, accessories, profile pictures, and graffiti. To be honest, all I know are Death Note, Edward Scissorhands, and (vaguely) Persona 5 and The Promised Neverland. If you're not a huge anime person, like I am, then everything just feels a bit off. I'd take another gamble and say most of the crossovers come from various animes. And of course, I'm not saying that I dislike anime at all, I like a couple shows very much actually; I like good shows, just not exactly anime as a generalization. What I'm about to say next might sound a little weird, but for me personally at least, all of these crossover things, especially the events that they have for them and the costumes that they pump out, really seem to throw off the vibe of the game. I really love the game's atmosphere and Gothic setting, but when I'm in a match and playing as hunter, it's kind of annoying and frustrating when I can't even recognize the Survivor I'm chasing. Maybe I'm being petty, I'm not sure. I wouldn't mind a crossover once in a while, but lately, it just feels like they're pumping them out one after the other, and I'm not sure why.

i already know y’all are just gonna downvote just bc of the title 🤡 but anyway

idv is not survivor sided. idv is not balanced. idv is hunter sided, and here’s why.

let’s start things off by looking at the winrate difference. top survivors are lucky to have a winrate over 50%, meanwhile top hunters have 80-90% winrates. the massive gap alone should tell you something’s wrong.

“bUt sURvIVoRs haVe lOWeR wIN rATeS bECaUsE-”

because of what? randoms? solo queue? no vc? lack of coordination? not being familiar with each other’s playstyle?

ok. sure. let’s assume those are the only reasons why survivor win rates are lower, and it’s not because hunters have an advantage.

now let’s look at tournament winrates.

in case you don’t know, in a tournament, both factions train for months in advance. these people play identity v for a living. the survivors are all familiar with each other, coordinated, in a four-person call, and there are no randoms whatsoever.

in short, all of the reasons mentioned above as to why surv win rates are lower than hunter win rates are eliminated.

if idv was survivor sided as hunter mains love to say, survivors would win more. they don’t.

if idv was balanced, both factions would win an equal amount. they don’t.

Even when every single reason people say why survivors win less is eliminated, when both factions have as equal amount of experience and skill possible, hunters still win more.

don’t believe me? check the coa winrates. here, i’ll link them for you.

“but win rate isn’t important-” wrong. it’s not important when it comes to determining a solo queue survivor main’s skill level, but it’s a huge factor in game balancing. one of the main ways developers check which characters are overpowered and need buffs/nerfs is by looking at their winrates.

“but meta characters-” yes. meta characters on both sides are busted as hell and need massive nerfs or straight up reworks. the point here is that the meta hunters are stronger than the meta survivors. obviously if said tourney players chose to play percy against a full meta team, the results would vastly differ.

“but there are more meta survs than hunters and the ban system doesn’t accommodate-” that’s true. it’s also true that you can’t ban more than one hunter unless you’re champion or above, and there are currently three s tier hunters(4 if you count naiad), meaning at least one or two will always be available, and because said characters are uncounterable, there’s not much the survivors can do. not to mention hunters who aren’t s tier in theory but are still completely broken because of their garbage ability designs (bq and dream witch for example)

which brings me to my next point; ability design. so many of the characters in idv (but especially hunters in this case) have abilities that make me see red. let’s take bq as an example.

the mirror is a guaranteed hit when placed correctly, meaning any character that cannot take more than 2 hits will never kite 60 seconds, no matter how good they are, unless the HUNTER misplays. that’s bullshit. if you are playing someone who can tank hits, bq is garbage, but the chances of someone on the survivor team a) playing said character b) said character getting found first and c) bq actually committing to chasing her counter character are extremely slim, not to mention this is assuming the survivors never get hit by the main body OR blink.

now let’s look at mech. gives a global decoding buff, has a decoding buff herself, can decode two ciphers at the same time, can literally decode while chaired. that alone is fundamentally broken as an ability. both of these characters need actual counterplay. and then there are characters who get rewarded for messing up, like enchantress, wax artist, and axe boy. i don’t think i need to explain what’s wrong with the ability design here.

tldr: hunters have an advantage, however this is largely because meta ability design is garbage and basically uncounterable.

Okey so this is from a personal perspective but I honestly hate the adameil relationship , this maybe because I myself I'm a psychology working on a mental institute but I found really sick the how the fan base portrait the relationship like on God I feel sick when people compere themselves with both of then and do role play and stuff , then again it might be because of my job ( minor note I also dislike that the two need skins in the same essence since it feel like it waste a slot for others that need more ). But then again what do you think?

The title basically, I’m so tired of the community dogpiling on her every single day so I’m here to clear a few things up.

Before I start I’d like to say that I’ve been maining her since day 1, and I can agree that release BQ was indeed OP with her mirror outline being invisible, higher mov speed, increased mirror duration and different skill 2. However I am talking about her currently, so with that in mind, my first point is

1. A single mirror can make or break your game

This isn’t an oxymoron as her mirror is all what she has. Placing a bad mirror is literally the worst feeling ever, and although you can make the argument that “just be patient and use it accordingly” that still doesn’t stop survivors from simply transitioning to another area, reducing your skill to a bootleg teleport. This saying is especially true in high ranks, cause without her mirror she’s essentially a bot with whatever talent she has on to rely on, and 15 seconds is a long time to be powerless for.

2. Unlike other hunters, she can’t undo her mistakes

Using Ann as an example, if she feels that her cat placements are bad, she can easily get rid of them and put them in cooldown. Mary doesn’t get that luxury, if she uses her mirror to catch up with an escaping survivor, the 15 powerless second window increases even more. And yes I’m aware her second skill exists, I want you to tell me how many Marys you see use it. Aside from trying to disturb a survivor from decoding, the skill is very unreliable and only works like 10% of the time when you have her full presence.

3. She is her mirror

Touching back on #1, the mirror is her only tool. Unlike most hunters, she has no external traits or separate abilities, her second ability only working in conjunction with her first. When your mirror time is up you basically walk around and pray they don’t make it to that pallet in time. And I’m not saying the solution to this is to increase mirror time, maybe give her a trait or literally anything else unique.

Although I can talk about way more things, those 3 were definitely the big ones, and I truly believe that she’s like a Dream Witch, where if you’ve truly mastered her you deserve all those wins.

It’s getting roughly around the time for deduction voting and I’m going to be completely honest. I’m going to vote for Hermando. YEAH… the shock, the horror! Oh how greedy am I… for wanting the character I main to get a skin… over a character I don’t main? Yeah I could honestly just end this thread there. But I also wanna talk about the blatant hypocrisy when it comes to deduction star voting and how you should NEVER tell someone to vote another character.

1. *You don’t ACTUALLY care about newer characters being voted

Yeah I said it. I have no clue why the narrative that newer characters shouldn’t be allowed to be voted in or be voted at all came from. Last year if you said you voted Richard you would have been harassed bc you are apparently greedy… but let’s look back at 2024. Which Cheer, Journalist and composer ALL got a skin despite all being released in 2023. Nobody complained back then… so what’s changed? Nothing. You lot don’t actually care about newer characters being voted. You only cared because you don’t like Richard and tried to use that narrative to sully reasons to vote him. Which, whilst I don’t like Richard, is hypocritical. Most likely faro will win this year but it’s ok! Bc she was released a year and a half ago instead of a year like archer! Do you see how ridiculous this time scaling thing is? It’s about the popularity to general audience rather than how new the character is. Richard is quite polarising as you usually don’t like him or love him rather than just be neutral. This is why that narrative came up in 2025.

2. Literally none of the characters that won last year “deserved” a skin… besides nightmare.

ALL of the characters besides nightmare got skins in either the season prior to the vote, the season of the vote or would get a skin the season after. (Which we knew about) So yeah, NOBODY “deserved” a skin last year. You cannot say certain characters deserve a skin bc they are older and then vote them when they got 4 skins in the span of 5 months! (Cough cough Annie cough cough (yes I know she didn’t win but she came 3rd in both servers)). If you actually voted character who hadn’t gotten a skin in a year or awhile then that’s fine! Atleast your logic is sound… still pretty dumb but sound! But no. You essentially have a “rules for thee not for me!” Sort of thing going on.

3. It’s a POPULARITY CONTEST

Say what you want about the other points, but I think this is the most damning. It’s a contest for the most popular characters… why on earth do you think Richard, who is extremely popular, shouldn’t get a popularity skin? I just find it so funny that some of you will genuinely act that white boy number 7 is more deserving of a skin than white boy number 16. If they “deserve” a skin they will win. If they don’t then they didn’t deserve it then. This is also why the “wait a year” idea doesn’t work either, Richard would have just won this year, so what would be the point? Delaying it a year doesn’t make sense, if he would win the competition then he deserves to win it. Expecting other people to vote your main by shaming them to not voting theirs is extremely weird and it’s a narrative that should stop being accepted. I want Ganji to get a skin but I don’t play Ganji. So why on earth would I vote him if I don’t have any intention of getting said skin? Because he “deserves” it? But we just went over how none of the survivors (and dw) last year needed a skin and still won? So why am I expected to give up my vote when others weren’t.

Conclusion

Vote who you want to win! People who obsess over characters getting skins in a video game are weird. Don’t feel bad for voting a character you think deserves a skin or a character you play! It’s your vote and you get to choose how to use it. Nobody should tell you otherwise :)

Priestess, ever since she’s been released, has fundamentally broke the game. Map design has basically revolved and been balanced around her and her mechanics, along with a few other survivors; there is virtually no map she is bad, or even considered average on. She’s good on all of them. All of her debuffs virtually mean nothing, and there is absolutely no meaningful downside to using both of her portals (you gain an incredible amount of distance either way). And on top of that, her ability is unlimited. How can we rework, or at least nerf her, and why has Netease refused to fix her for so long?

That’s is such an obvious survivor sided feature that gives them blatant map control? I feel like that’s one of the most op map features that so many people have complained about yet for some reason devs refuse to at least need it.

Honestly the man is so OP, people are just thirsting over his design. The way I see it one of three things needs to happen: distance of his attraction needs to be shortened, radius of his collapse needs to shrink so they don’t take up entire buildings, or he needs to have a cooldown for that thing. Some players who are exceptional kiters can do it but the average player can’t kite him ok I think I’ve baited every Norton defender into just giving me tips how to counter Fools Gold now thanks for listening lolololol. For real though, for truth, thoughts are he needs a nerf, ye, but also woowee who knows if that would ever happen I could use some tips man its not fun playing against the man sometimes. Running in open spaces and looping him there can only work for so long hsjnhfjfjdjs I can only git so gud

1/ this thing? make the range wider than 2/ it has timing for transforming the chair and a timing for the rescue? the hunter could easily get there its actually useless if they just delete the rescue timing im okay with everything else

Man I'm genuinely tired of new survivors getting released. NetEase should really focus on developing new Hunters... There are more survivors than hunters. I know the latest Hunter is Emil, but these constant Survivor releases have to stop. Two survivors and a hunter have been introduced, but how about two hunters and one survivor?(At least for once?) Don't get me wrong, the designs of all released survivors are truly peak and their abilities are very interesting to see, but it's just a shame that hunters are getting neglected. It feels like survivors are NetEase's favorites. That in turn makes sense, since nobody wants to play as a hunter because there are so few options to pick. I know Hunters are very complicated to create, especially the animations and so on, but pls... NetEase is a very big company.

Like I don’t wanna say skill issue but this only affects dream witch, Wu Chang and Joseph as well as arguably bq? But for the rest of the cast it’s not that deep. And for those three I genuinely don’t think it’s a big deal either. Dream witch mains are just upset they now can’t get a ts 10 seconds into a match and Wu Chang mains are worried that they can’t surprise attack survivors, Joseph mains are worried about hiding as if “xxx is the hunter” hasn’t been a ping for awhile. My problem with these is the fact that if a survivor is paying close attention to the game none of these things would happen anyways… So realistically their problem is the fact they can’t use survivors that aren’t paying very close attention to get easy wins? I genuinely cannot tell how this isn’t a skill issue. Although I don’t particularly like the change bc once again Netease is just coddling survivors.

Can we please normalize non-toxic emoting? I want to use my emotes for fun and not being toxic! I was just emoting at a hunter because I wanna use it for fun and not trying to be toxic and they targeted me the whole match. It's kinda sad seeing a hunter getting offended thinking a survivor is emote mocking them even though some of the survivors wanna use it for fun! :(

This is literally insane but I have NO IDEA why they are not touching these characters!! Theyve been horrible ever since release like are they doing this on purpose 😭 any buff literally with ease I can say these are the worst characters in the game like nothing where theyre good at. Netease help like someone may like playing them but competitive wise no reason for them to be touched! Change it

What happened? Do they take away the dice you gained in that specific season?

Has anyone else encountered this issue?

I had played Idv for 2 months last month casually before I decide to stop, today, my cousin gave me his idv account, is this account good or maybe I should just restart?

As a preface I came from DBD with high mastery of the game (maxed out blood points for both survivor and killer each season), and I got to Alicorn via solo ranking only in 1 (last) season and having switched gears this season, am already almost at Ogre (monster with the club) while being matched up with even higher tiers, so I feel well qualified to give critique.

The problems mentioned also apply to Dead By Daylight which is not in a good spot with widely complained about toxicity in gameplay, so I will only refer to IDV moving forward. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I have to get this out of my system: allowing multiple people to queue as a team, in ranked, creates a unique, negative gameplay experience that ruins game balance and enjoyment of the game. I understand that people want to have fun with their friends, and so I completely endorse that in quick match, but believe it ruins the experience for both competitive solo survivors and hunters in ranked.

The flow of IDV gameplay is theoretically simple. The hunter has to locate their first chase, down and chair the survivor. Survivors attempt to rescue and depending on the timing of the chases and rescues, the majority of games will conclude with all ciphers popped with either 4 survivors remaining, or more commonly 3. At least one survivor is expected to go down during this final period, so survivors commonly win with 3 escaping, or draw with 2 escaping.

For the majority of hunters (non meta), unless you force or catch a survivor making a critical mistake, you will need either a terror shock or completely failed/mistimed rescue to result in going to the final phase with only 3 or 2 survivors remaining. These kinds of scenarios mostly result in hunters winning, although again, they rely more on survivor error than hunter skill. The few meta hunters are so strong they have a real chance on seeing the endgame with only 3 or 2 survivors remaining.

Now the problem arising from queuing with teams becomes apparent when you see how ranked solo players act. A noncomprehensive list to illustrate some commonly seen differences:

1. A coordinated team of players will immediately begin cipher rushing and selecting positions to protect their weaker members. Solo players waste huge amounts of time not decoding, whether silly things like a) waiting for another player to take chase before even approaching a cipher, b) immediately running away from their zone - despite being an unlikely chase target - to try to steal another player's cipher, and c) overly making distance and running away from a cipher that needs to be completed when the hunter is within visual distance chasing another player, but far away enough to not be a threat.

2. A coordinated team of players will have vastly improved communication (voice comms), resulting in uniquely favorable situations for the survivors that is near impossible to setup solo. So for example as a solo player, even as a harasser, you will need to have the person taking kite route to your area, or at least meet you halfway, as well as have confidence/luck that they will survive long enough for you to begin your assist. You could argue that you could immediately get off your cipher to help them, but again, if a random solo ranker you have never met gets injured when your cipher progress is 30-40%, you have to run farther to reach them due to suboptimal routing, and you run the real risk that you arrive too late and they already are downed while you wasted cipher progress by prematurely arriving. A coordinated team of players know exactly when to send help, when to abandon, and how to delay because of their improved communication. They can and will send 2, even 3 people to rescue, and the goofy combinations they can make with characters like forward, priestess, barmaid, etc., can cause significant delays in your ability to secure downs.

3. A coordinated team of players is almost never going to deliberately troll you. Meaning they will not deliberately kite into your decoding area - especially if it's not a particularly strong area - and ruin the game by falling next to your cipher. They won't just get ready to "go next," and give up after getting chaired early. They won't start hiding in the corner of the map just waiting for you to open the exit door first because they're "scared the hunter is going to get them." They are not going to run and die next to the basement despite you calling it for them multiple times earlier in the game. The list goes on and on. A big one is that they will properly use borrowed time, and not pop the cipher at the wrong time.

4. A coordinated team will relay information faster, more efficiently, and accurately as compared to solo teammates. A coordinated team can tell their teammates over the phone that you the hunter are headed toward cottage, and the survivor there can do some variation of running way in advance and wasting a huge amount of your time, or even switch to walking to hide blood trails and waste time in a similar way by hiding so far in advance you can only rely on tinnitus. Solo teammates may run in suboptimal routes (maybe even accidentally toward the hunter), or too late, since you can't just drop your cipher at the first sound of a heartbeat and expect to win ranked playing solo. Solo teammates often fail to timely update their location, as well as notify their teammates the hunter has changed targets. All of these little mistakes add up and result in real problems for solo teammates.

5. A coordinated team will decode the appropriate ciphers to avoid 3 gen endgames. I am not sure if this term is commonly known in IDV as it's more of a DBD problem. Basically you do not want to have an endgame where the last 3 remaining ciphers are close in proximity to each other, resulting in the hunter easily guarding all 3. So for example if we are using the Red Church as the map where each of the 9 quadrants can be visualized as a number pad (rose garden is 2, cottage is 8), you want to avoid the last 3 remaining ciphers being 1, 4, 5. This is a horrifically bad "triangle," setup that boxes the survivors into one corner and further delays the ability to open both gates upon popping the last cipher. I have seen countless survivors (Centurion? The helmet) as "high rank," completely ignore the macro aspects of the game and mindlessly decode so the endgame results in terrible positioning. Or they will tunnel vision and not adapt to decoding 2 or all 3 ciphers to force the hunter to misposition. Even when coordinated teams make this mistake, they usually can get away with it since they still will send one survivor to an exit gate to be ready upon cipher pop so it minimizes the impact of making such a mistake.

There are many more examples. And this ruins the game both for ranked solo survivors and for hunters. As a solo survivor, even with Alicorns, Centurions, and better as teammates, you are rolling the dice with your victory counting less on whether you make the right plays, but praying that your teammates don't misplay. I suspect the solo teammates you get are often boosted in the pure definition of the word, as in they got to their rank primarily through teams, but are playing a couple of matches by themselves on their own time, resulting in them being your teammates despite having wildly inferior skill and fundamentals. On the hunter's side, being matched up against a group of competent, yet random solo survivors is fundamentally different than being matched up against teams of 3 or 4 survivors. The matchmaking in this game "evens the odds," by throwing almost exclusively teams of 3 or 4 survivors against me as a hunter. Survivors can be rewarded for deviating from the number one priority of decoding, to coordinated plays only possible as a premade team. Which leads to a major gameplay problem:

90% of the hunters of this game are not meta because they cannot deal with premade coordinated teams. When you read online about "tie hunters," this is basically the result of ranked teams. Against solo ranked players, almost any hunter will have an advantage over the survivors, with the situation reversed against a team of players. The meta hunters are so strong that they do well even against a coordinated team. To use Goatman and Ivy as examples, they have such strong tools that they can bypass a majority of coordinated strategies that a weaker hunter such as the spider simply cannot do.

So you end up with 2 completely different games. The 1st game is the one I enjoy, with players queueing up solo and I believe the survivor/hunter balance is far more easily adjusted through this route. The 2nd game is one I dislike, with players forming teams. The contrast is especially large when playing solo survivor ranked, and then alternating to hunter. You receive the most questionable teammates (despite "high rank") as survivors, yet face nonstop 3 or 4 man premades as a hunter against strategies that are impossible to coordinate by solos. It's an ugly reality that makes it very clear why newer hunters are released "so OP," because the balance is split between 2 completely different games and you punish solo players and hunters by doing so.

At a minimum if teams are still allowed in ranked, the game needs to provide a true "solo bonus," to all ranked matches queued as a solo ranker and not just have it pop up on occasion; if you are queued up by yourself it needs to apply regardless of how your teammates are queued. And the bonus needs to be far greater than the current +1 or +2, closer to +4 or +5. Similarly, hunters need to receive a substantial bonus to facing any premade team. The bonus can be similar, close to +4 or +5, maybe even higher if you are facing a team of 4. Finally matchmaking needs to stop giving high level hunters only premade teams to face off against. If the game is unplayable with solo teammates then it needs to be balanced so it is.

Edited to correct for number pad reference as inadvertently described some coordinates per the numbers on a clock.

I really need to know how many people didn't check teammate persona build icon before match start?
I am a decoder without "Borrow Time".

Most of the time I ask to"Focus on Decode" many times, but teammate still wait till I go down then only pop the chiper.
Some even telling me that "You are dumb not to bring BT" or said "I cost the match for not bring BT".
Like dude, my character icon clearly was show I didn't bring BT in my build.

To be fair , Duo Hunter can be excuse. But Rank and QM.
I really don't understand that how it is my fault that player didn't pay attend to your teammate persona build when I can memorised within a minutes?