Theory on Why Visible Ranks Were Disabled
So we all know for a short while we were able to see each other’s ranks in the lobby as survivors. This was a great way to get an idea of your teammates possible experience and what rank their survivor was. For example, say there was a Red Rank 4 Survivor in the Lobby but his character Jeff was a level 21, then it would help the other survivors prepare more with perhaps running perks like BT or We’ll Make It.
However, this feature was disabled rather soon with the reasoning of, “it was causing survivors to dodge lobbies due to being paired with lower rank survivors.”
The theory I propose is that, the only way a Rank 17 (yes I’m picking on Rank 17 as an example) would be in the lobby would be if they were SWF with another Red Rank Survivor (assuming matchmaking is working). If this is the case, it would often cause other survivors to immediately exit the lobby upon noticing. This type of behavior caused BHVR, to take action and remove the rankings visible to others, so that they may continue to cater to SWF groups. I say cater in the most positive way, as it is better marketing to have more people play with their friends, than to have them be turned away due to their inability to hold a lobby with other high rank survivors, more people playing = more revenue.
In conclusion, no I do not believe it was, “an unintentional bug” that caused the disabling of this informative feature, rather, a business decision on behalf of the company to continue to build customers through earned media/word of mouth.
Id like to hear your thoughts, do you agree or disagree, if so why?
Comments
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No they said it was to stop lobby dodging from survivors even though that affects the queue time zero compared to killers lobby dodging.
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Yes I covered that, please reread my theory.
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Swf is definitely not the only case of high ranks mixed with low ranks.
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Yes, but my point stands. People want to play with their friends, if they can’t make other people play with them (cause higher rank survivors keep dodging lower rank survivors) those people will have to either play solo or go play another game. No company in the right mind would want you to go play another game with your friends, it’s bad for business.
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I miss when you didn't have to play with people ten ranks above you because of ######### matchmaking
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I disagree mainly because the survivor ranks used to visible to killers and was removed due to the same reason of It causing too much dodging.
I think it spossbile once it happened they may have thought about leaving it as a feature and why it was left it in for a time but when the results came back the same as before they patched it out.
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Wasn't this back in like 2016-early 2017?
I feel like I've seen visible ranks in old videos and images during that time...
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Some people just stop playing for a long time, some others are just new to the game but want to have fun alone or with friends.
For me, It was a great decision, so no one blames you before the actual game happens or you don't wait too long, because it happened that I had to wait a lot because i was playing with low rank friends.
People takes this game too seriously that sometimes forgot it's just a "videogame".
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Why make a conspiracy theory out of something when you already know the truth? Your theory is essentially what BHVR already said anyway. Players were dodging lobbies. Does it really matter why? There is no mystery here. And even IF and that is a big if, even if you are right... what difference would it make? This isn't a make or break issue for anyone. There is no reason to lie and even if they did it for whatever nefarious reason, no one would care. Which doubles back to my original point. Why lie about something no one cares about in the first place?
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Yeah It was a good while ago and was removed as it didn't add anything and just caused lots of dodging.
There were numerous complaints about players being dodged over and over on the Steam forums at the time.
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Understandable.
It makes sense to remove it, doesn't add anything, causes more dodging, it makes total sense. If a product or feature doesn't add anything and only brings negatives, than why have it at all?
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It always comes back to SWF no matter the topic its amazing....Imagine being a low rank survivor(14-20) and having to sit in the que until matchmaking reaches all the way into the red ranks to find you some teammates.
Then have to sit there and watch them dodge you one after the other because they see your low rank. Or hell even the killer thats in that lobby that never fills up because of people leaving. Thats the reason they got rid of it.
Look at how the matchmaking is now on live just making a rainbow out of rank colors. Now imagine if people could see rank before the game how many would just dodge until they got teammates that they thought were worthy. Sure not everyone does it but enough people did it that they decided to get rid of it.
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