Is SWF really that powerful
I personally always seem to play better when I am playing solo compared to when in SWF. I believe it's because when I'm playing solo I'm more focused on the game, whereas in SWF I'm often talking about stuff unrelated to the game and not really paying attention.
SWF is often related to gen rush, but good survivors don't need to know when to work on generators. If I'm not being chased I'll work on a generator (I ignore ruin). I've already pre-planned my chase route in case the killer disturbs my gen progress.
Where SWF is strong is the location of Hex Totems and saving time when making hook saves. Even with hook saves there's perks such as bond and kindred that tell the solo survivor if there is already another survivor going for the save.
Another factor with SWF is Matchmaking. Since the Strange Things chapter the matchmaking bases it on the highest ranked survivor in the group. The majority of SWF groups I see are one or two high ranked survivors with the rest being of low ranked. I'd rather go against one red rank survivor with three low ranked survivors with comms over four red ranked survivors without comms.
This is just my opinion, people will disagree with my opinion. With the rift challenges I have more confidence in completing them solo then I do completing them in a SWF.
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I've never played survive with friends because I hate talking to people when playing video games lmao
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SWF is most of the time scapegoat for explaining why "i almighty killer main could lose" xd
imo biggest strenght of SWF is not in voicecoms (like most ppl will cry about here, just give them a minute) but you most of the time will have 4 decent survivors so you wont have random running it down, or suiciding on 1st hook
and tbh thats main reason why i play swf just to not have random in team that will solo throw the game xd (i play without comms)
so its not like SWF is strong, not having survivor or 2 that will throw game is strong
edit: and most of the time when i play soloQ and play with 3 decent survs, we're getting called "SWF" just because we're decent and can coop
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I think when people complain about swf, they’re complaining about swf that are playing as if they were a professional team. In that case, there’s not a lot the killer can do to mindgame since they’ll be telling each other everything the killer’s doing, and it winds up just not being a fun experience for the killer.
The average swf group, like my wife and I when we queue together, don’t do that. They’re there to have fun, not be a team of tryhards who want to be optimal. Sure the comms help, but they don’t play as though they’ll die in RL if they lose and that’s very noticable when you’re killing.
The first group are the bane of the game in my opinion. The second are 100% ok and I enjoy giving them a good game when I’m killing.
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Against great teams there is nothing the killer can do.
Discussion closed,lol.
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Some SWF are completely fine, because they talk about other things while playing. But a squad that's 100% focusing on the match and doing constant callouts is just way too op.
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I think swf has the advantage when things ARENT progressing smoothly for survivors. When you can stick to the basic "rush gen or loop killer" plan, you dont need that coordination that much. (Remember the depip trials without voicechat)
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A SWF can be absurdly strong because objective speed is balanced around imperfect information. Some of my more frustrating experiences are against teams that don't even last for one loop in chases and still manage to get every gen done. I've also had teams that camp and drop safe pallets and still win. You should have to outplay the opponent in chases and be efficient with resources to win. But too often certain SWF groups stack every second chance perk possible and then escape with a key if you still manage to beat them. It's just frustrating.
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Objective speeds are balanced around hook time 4head
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Yes and no.
No in that most swf are just people talking and playing together. When I do get to play with my friends we are goofy and don't really try since we are too busy chatting. We are also overally altruistic which gets us killed a lot lol.
I am like you tho, mainly a solo survivor and that is when I am more of a threat to the killer. More focused, more engaged.
The other side is yes, swf breaks this game. It is not often, but when the moon is full and its a weekend night I tend to run into a bully swf group. Sabo, perks that synergize, flashlight stun gods, head on, etc... as a killer there isn't much you can do. Luckily I have a sense of humor and just move on to the next match.
These 4 man try hard swf groups are RARE, but they do make the point that if 4 people want, they can make the killer a joke.
Tldr; yes swf is strong, but 90% of swf are just playing and trying to have fun. They are more of a threat to themselves ^^
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As someone who's playtime is 98% solo with hopefully a change coming to play a lot more with friends(trying my damnedest to break my mold) I can safely say that yeah, playing swf is much more powerful specifically because of the communication aspect. I'd also like to shoutout @Unicorn and @Boosted_Dwight for helping me with this.
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Holy crap the amount of entitlement and bs in this post is mind boggling.
Just of the top of my head some things that make SWF completely broken compared to solos.
1 person find ruin (while being chased). The entire teams now knows where it is.
2. If you are being chased, the other 3 can safely work on gens without any risk of you bringing the killers towards them, like solos.
3. Feeding information about which pallet has/hasn't been used, so no one will run to a unsafe area.
4. Is the killer camping? "Yes, gen rush boys, he's here".
The amount of information shared is what breaks SWF.
Don't need to use a perk slot for things like kindred or bond, just run the standard BT,DS,DH,Adre 1 year old build over and over again.
It's ok to prefer one side over the other, bit completely disregarding how broken it is, is just playing dumb.
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@Cornpopers I agree. Voice comm makes it 10 times more powerful. Solo queue is way more challenging.
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What they said. ☝️
SWF is a huge buff over playing solo. Every time I play SWF with a buddy of mine the game is much easier and laid back.
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hahaha you selfburned yourself xd and showed your entitlement xd
i run bond in my every single surv build with solo and when im SWF xd
dont tell me its not buff for you when you know noone of your teammates will die in 15 sec because they're not bots or they will just do gen (without info " killer is on me" because THEY DO GENS why do you need info "killer is on me"? JUST DO GENS)
or you dont have to play 3vs1 because random is afk or die on 1st hook, or DC xd dont tell me thats not happening in at least EVERY 3rd game when you play soloQ xd (and there is no 2/3man swf in your lobby) or random is throwing game because he wants to do archives (edited)
and why im telling youre entitles AF? because you treat SWF like semi professional team xd because its not like ppl play games to have fun and chit chat xd , ofc info about totem will always leak out (even without comms because most likely he will send me text msg where it is) but you know what? i dont use ruin on killer since august 2018, its not my problem, just git gut and dont use ruin, (btw from time to time im using haunted grounds 😈 )
just git gut so you can win and dont blame ppl for wanting to play with friends
Edit: give me perk "youre immune for teammates DCing(3vs1 games)" xd
edit 2: when soloQ players wont have to play games when its literally 3vs1 or someone is throwing game for archive, then there will be less swf, but untill then ppl will play SWF just to have NORMAL GAME without worring about 3vs1
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I don't care if you play with friends or not.
The game wasn't designed to be played with friends. PERIOD.
I play Solo and swf when my friends are online, and the difference is night and day, you care to aknowledge or not.
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this game wasnt designed to be alive after 3,5 years (noone expected that) and this game is alive because of SWF
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That's a silly argument. There's a lot of things games were not initially designed for but added over the years. Games evolve. Often that's how games last. Because they don't remain static.
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A good try hard SWF team on comms makes the game a lot easier and also boring and uninteresting, that's one of the reasons I always play solo.
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In my opinion there isn't much difference between a 4 man SWF group and four good survivors playing solo. The game will probably end the same. Before the Archives I played at high ranks as killer as well.
With good survivors you try not to waste too much time with them, and look for a weaker survivor that will waste pallets. Whereas if you are going against four good survivors no matter if they are in SWF or solo you will have to waste a lot to be able to down any of them. Most killers will have a hard time going against four good survivors regardless if they are all solo or in SWF.
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If you play better solo than SWF that just means your SWF group doesn't coordinate well. It's the coordinated SWF groups that completely overpower killers.
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And there are some killers I straight up won't take against known 4 mans. Trapper? "He's setting up at shack and the jungle gym nearby. Watch out there's a trap near the hook." Hag? "She has a web set up around that building. Run her away from it so I can run through them. I'm hit, someone else set off a trap." You get the idea.
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You don't need voice comms to know if the killer isn't chasing you, you need to be on a generator. I've lost count the amount of times I've been mistaken for SWF when it was just four solo survivors.
Yes the majority of the friends I play with are more casual, so I don't play as competitive as I do solo. I've played in a group of 4 SWF where the other three survivors are really good. In my opinion those games would have ended the same regardless if we had comms or not. You don't needs comms to play optimally.
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SWF are pretty easy to spot since they all appear in the lobby at the same time.. lol. That almost never happens with randoms.
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Honestly even as a killer main I don't think Swf are that big of a problem, I think they just make the real problems this game has worse.
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Happened to me twice in a row where I had a killer message me saying "I hate SWF" when I was solo (this was at red ranks), I was the one that caused them the most issues in game.
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The amount of entitlement of listing "knowing when the killer is camping" as why swf break the game HOLY #########
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Coordination and communication is whats powerful. A group that can utilize both of these effectively is powerful.
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Yes is the short answer as they have the ability to coordinate on every aspect of the game and synergise what perks and items they use.
The long answer though is just because they can doesn't mean they do. Swf can do worse than a good match all with solos as individual skill, knowledge and awareness are huge factors in this game.
Post edited by twistedmonkey on3 -
SWF breaks the game, because information obtained by one person will instantly be carried over to everyone else. Basically nullifying any surpsise strategy deployed by the killer.
Callouts like:
"Its Myers"
"He is stalking for ages, incoming Tombstone."
"Spirit Fury Enduring confirmed. Drop pallets early."
"He dropped chase with me, and is walking towards shack."
"He is camping. Pump out gens."
Et cetera et cetera.
You don't even need to be coordinated, to get an incredible massive buff with absolutely no downside whatsoever. Its like old omegablink Nurse. And the worst thing, if they are half-decent, the killer has absolutely no way to counter it.
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The problem with SWF is they always use the best perks possible and they know how to use them in such a way that it is impossible for a killer to win. "Hey guys, stay on the gen, I have borrowed time so I'll go save" It's an unfair advantage. The truth of the matter SWF can win without perks at all so you add on top of that perks, communication, flashlights, map offerings, etc, it's a blood nightmare for a killer.
Instead of nerfing or fixing the situation, the devs in a confused state "we need to nerf the viable killers and make them unfun instead". If the survivors are unable to bully killers, the nerf hammer on a killer is out in full force because they make a million threads a day that killer x or addon x can't be bullied.
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they CAN be that powerful but usually arent so
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Killers get nerfed, because they CAN be too powerful. Why is the same standard not applied to survivors?
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thats not the case, i.e. legion gets more nerfs because he's annoying or frustrating/ boring to go against even though he CAN'T be too powerful
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Nurse, Spirit, and Freddy got nerfed, because they COULD be too powerful.
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so youre saying that you do worse in SWF because...you dont talk about the game?
Well im about to rock your world, if you guys actually talk about the game youll start dominating. Youll have the info of everyone else on your squad at your finger tips, youll know the killer, where hes at all times, what perks theyre running, and what gen you should be on.
I get the feeling from some of these replies that you guys aren't ignorant of how broken SWF is but just dont want survivor nerfs. But the devs are already aware that the system is broken (The game was never made for it it in the first place) and want to BUFF survivors so that everyone will be on equal grounds with communication and then balance the game around that.
I would link that info but im not sure exactly where I read it, I think it was an AMA in reddit that Paulie Esther went through on his channel (Great guy btw check him out if you haven't, pretty sure I was banned from commenting on his live stream for asking if he ever plays killer tho lol)
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To be honest, its in between
I think most of the time if a SWF is looking to bully I usually destroy them because they get really cocky. But sometimes they can be a pain but I think they dont need a nerf or changes or anything its fine as it is.
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Nurse and Spirit got nerfed because they were annoying/frustrating to go against and WERE too powerful. Freddy received his nerf because he was annoying and boring to go against with how slow the addons affected.
SWF isnt geting nerfed because as I said, they usually arent THAT powerful
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SWF is also annoying to go against. Why does it not receive any nerfs?
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because its usually not
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SWF isn't strong or weak, it's a tool that allows the Survivor side to reach its max. potential.
And that max. can be really strong.
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A tryhard SWF group can thrash any killer, on any map. The only counter is nurse, like, peak nurse. The nurse that turns DbD into an idle game. A lot of people talk trash about SWF to help their ego, but there's a reason the SWF is so intensely upsetting for many killers.
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It’s insanely strong. You get so much information and a lot of free perks. You don’t need to run, for example, Bond, or Kindred, or Self Care etc etc. You can coordinate saves and end game plays that utilize your perks and make it very tough for the killer.
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I recently saw this youtube video, and I feel like I came to the exact same conclusion you're describing here. This kind of stuff is simply ruining the game.
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Because survivors aren't supposed to have that kind of information without certain perks.
As a solo, survivors will waste time going for the unhooks at the same time or finding the killer chilling by the hooked person.
SWF completely negates this aspect of the game without sacrificing a perk slot for kindred.
You seemed annoyed by camping (which is technically the killer throwing the game), thus I don't expect you to understand how broken SWF is compared to solos.
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No, I said I do worst in SWF because I'm not concentrating on the game as much as I do in solo. In solo rather than talking to friends I'm just focusing on planning my next chase route.
As a killer I've played against a group of four mediocre survivors be really strong due to their team work. Generally good survivors don't need comms to play optimally, like you don't need to comms to know that if you are not being chased by the killer, do a generator.
To sum it up four good solo survivors will be just as challenging for the killer as SWF.
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Your inability to concentrate has absolutely nothing to do with SWF.
There are people who can concentrate on the game while playing SWF.
There are people who can't concentrate even while playing solo.
If you and your opponent are both of equal skill level, and your opponent is fully immersed in the game, concentrating to his maximum potential, and you are not focused on the game at all (for whatever reason), you should get destroyed every single time. You choosing to play in non-optimal fashion has nothing to do with SWF. That's on you. You playing worse in SWF than in solo is all on you.
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I'm still a good survivor in SWF, in fact a lot of my friends rate me as one the best players they've played with. I'm in a more of a competitive mindset when I play solo, when I'm in SWF DBD becomes more casual.
I've played at high ranks as both killer and survivor (despite being a bad killer) since last year, I don't think SWF is currently as strong as it was. Survivors play a lot more optimal then they did in the past. As I said quite a few times in this post, you don't need to have comms to know that if you are not being chased by the killer to work on generators.
SWF is strong with mediocre survivors as they need the coordination to play optimally, but killers will struggle against four good survivors regardless if they are on comms or if they are all playing solo Q.
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Again, you choosing to be in a "competitive" mindset as a solo and you choosing to be "casual" in SWF is all on you - it has nothing to do with how people can play in SWF.
Ok, how about when someone else is hooked? Do you rescue or hope that someone else will take that risk while you work on the generator? In a game where every second counts and can determine whether you live or die in the end, are you saying that 4 good solo survivors would be able to make the same optimal, most efficient decisions (and as quickly) as 4 SWF survivors without relying on luck or good guesses (or wasting a perk slot)?
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I use bond. So I have a rough idea whose going for the save. If the hooked survivor is too far away for bond to read what the other survivors are doing, I'll just hope a random is going for them and I'll continue working on my generator.
I use bond when I'm SWF anyway, as it's a very good tool for avoiding running into loops and jungle gyms where the other survivors are working on generators.
EDIT: I have friends who like to play competitively in SWF, I'll probably play with the same mindset as I do solo when I play with them. Again they are pretty good at the game, so in my opinion the match would result in the same way whether we were on comms or not. We may have an advantage in knowing where hex totems are and be more efficient in going for hook saves. As I've said before it survivors don't need communication to know when they should be working on a generator.
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"hope a random is going for them?"
What if the randoms, like you, determine that the hooked survivor is too far away from their curent position? Your decision just now has cost the survivor-side one hook stage which wouldn't have happened with a competent SWF.
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