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The Dead by Daylight update roadmap for 2024 seeks a solution for one of the game’s most powerful strategies: the 3-gen. Survivors must repair five of the seven generators on the map to escape. The 3-gen is a common killer strategy in which the player chooses three tightly grouped generators to defend at the expense of all else, often basing their entire build around this plan. 3-genning is effective, but it’s also boring for both sides. The result is a lengthy stalemate that can last as long as an hour, so it’s no surprise that the community and the developer want a solution. Unfortunately, Dead by Daylight‘s 3-gen solution might make things worse.
Why Dead by Daylight Needs a 3-Gen Solution
Generators are at the heart of Dead by Daylight‘s gameplay. Survivors have to repair five generators to power the Exit Gates and escape, so killers do their best to prevent their repair. Generator spawns are mostly RNG, so the distance between generators changes from match to match. A 3-gen is a clump of three generators close enough to one another that the killer can easily patrol them. Breaking a 3-gen often requires picking away at them, repairing each a little at a time until the killer can’t keep up. Killers can combat this by chasing away or downing survivors or by breaking the generators, often with the help of regression perks such as Surge, Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance, and Pop Goes the Weasel.
3-genning is an excellent strategy, and with the right killer and build, it can get you consistent wins. Unfortunately, it’s boring for both sides. A killer determined to hold a 3-gen will often abandon any chase that threatens to lead them away from their patrol route. That reduces one of the best parts of the game to the barest minimum while forcing both sides to focus on their least engaging mechanics: repairing and breaking generators. There’s no question that Dead by Daylight needs a 3-gen solution because current options like using Deja Vu aren’t enough. Unfortunately, there’s cause for concern about the approach that Behaviour will take.
Too Much, Too Late?
The first problem is one of timing. Shortly after the release of The Knight and The Skull Merchant, 3-genning was one of the biggest problems in the game. Those killers had powers that made them ideal for this strategy. After The Skull Merchant’s rework and the nerfing of powerful regression perks like Call of Brine and Eruption, however, the problem isn’t as severe as it once was. Some killers are far stronger than others, so game-wide balance challenges affect each differently. A 3-gen solution that’s perfect for Nurse and Blight will be far too punishing against weaker killers such as Trapper and Clown, for example.
Two killers are in particular trouble here: Trapper and Hag. Both are territorial killers, with or without a Naughty Bear cosmetic. Their powers revolve around placing traps to lock down part of the map and catch any survivors who enter. If Behaviour’s solution to the 3-gen problem involves tracking the amount of time that the killer spends in a given area of the map or proximity to certain generators, that will unfairly punish Trapper and Hag, who have no choice but to stick to their territory. Dead by Daylight has a sprawling roster, but the number and uniqueness of its killers make the game difficult to balance in these situations.
Possible Solutions to the 3-Gen Problem
Otzdarva and others have proposed at least one possible solution. Limit the number of times that kicking a generator will cause it to regress. Doing so would only punish killers bent on stalling the game for as long as possible with a 3-gen. Killers playing in any other way wouldn’t be affected, at least in theory. Another more problematic possibility is increasing the total number of generators to eight. Doing so would solve the 3-gen issue but destroy the balance in a dozen other areas, given that every power and perk was designed with just seven generators in mind.
One of the biggest risks of any 3-gen solution in Dead by Daylight is that it will further limit the number of viable killer strategies. Camping already received a significant nerf in a recent update. Some 3-gen solutions could leave killers feeling like they have no option but to tunnel, concentrating all of their attention on one survivor until they’re eliminated. If there’s one thing most survivors hate, it’s tunneling. Behaviour will have to be careful to ensure it isn’t trading one problem for another. If the developer isn’t careful, a 3-gen solution could just make Dead by Daylight worse.
Dead by Daylight is available for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5,
