Catering to SWF is bound to drive away new killer players
(Controversial sounding title! We baitin' in here, boys.)
We hear about matchmaking a lot here, I know. Still, I figured I'd throw out an anecdote about a recent experience I witnessed.
I play mostly killer, my wife plays strictly only survivor. 100% survivor main, through and through. She didn't even try killer, because it's just not interesting to her. However, she was presented with a "Chase survivors for 180 seconds" daily and figured that'd be no hassle to do, so she'd just knock it out.
Now, bearing in mind that this is literally a new player as far as killer is concerned. Rank 20. Level 1 Billy. 1 perk slot. No addons. No offerings. No nothing. Asking me what button to press to break a pallet. You get the picture.
It took two games to do the daily. (176 seconds worth in the first game, so close.)
First game matchmaking wasn't TOO bad, though there was a rank 10.
Second game was a study in exactly what's wrong with the system. 4-man SWF. Rank 1, two purple ranks, and a super low rank.
This cannot be the experience that's intended for as-new-as-new-gets players, unless the developers simply want to give the middle finger to killers. It cannot be acceptable for groups of high rank players to trick the matchmaking into letting them face new players.
No other game I've ever played works like this. They generally match against the highest rank in a group, because it's on the group to deal with their choices, not on their opponents. I can't just get all my Global friends in CS:GO to lobby with me as a silver and stomp new players.
If you want one thing, one example of a deliberate choice on the part of BHVR that makes killers - especially new ones - feel like developers don't care about that role, this is it.
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I have now played for 1,5 months and the whole time matchmaking has been a pain in the ass. Yes, I can now hold my own because I am stubborn and refused to give up but I believe many do not want to do that. First few matches were against people in yellow and brown ranks and then matchmaking put me against everything between reds to browns and it really wasn't uncommon to face 4 reds or couple reds and couple purples.
I refuse to believe this has anything to do with how many players of each rank group are playing at any given time. I played today my survivor daily and as rank 4 survivor, I was in a match with ranks 12+. After got my daily done, I've been grinding points on killer and highest I've been against is purple rank. So there were enough players online but for some odd reason, matchmaking just fails miserably to put people in same rank groups in match together.
I have high expectations for the new MMR but I don't keep my hopes up...
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Put it this way: as a rank 1 survivor, I encountered a few rank 15-20 killers over the last few days alone.
As a rank 1 killer, I can't remember the last time I had survivors below green ranks in my lobby, period.
One was a rank 20 Spirit on Grim Pantry. I ran the Pantry for 3 gens before she gave up (it's still completely busted btw). I'd even argue the rank 5 Clown I went against was overmatched vs four rank 1 solo survivors. He got 2 hooks the entire game.
I'm not sure what the right balance is between wait time vs MMR/experience level. Because waiting too long for the perfect match isn't the right answer either. There's such an enormous skill gap between most average purple ranks and rank 1 players with over 2k hours. It makes matchmaking a nightmare.
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I'm really glad that the survey asked what would hold me back from suggesting the game to new players...the new player experience is so, so, so bad, both in the extreme grind to get anywhere close to relevant perk wise, and in the borked matchmaking. I've run into some brown killers recently and I'm solidly in reds as a survivor, just feels bad facing up against that level of skill gap. Those two issues pretty much stop me dead in my tracks when I consider recommending the game. I joined when there were 6 killers. My grind per chapter feels like so much less than "yeah, you'll want this perk from killer 19, this perk from killer 11..." when they're just starting out.
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Tbh they need to revert back to the highest player gets killer idky that got changed to cater the low ranks in groups as they just shouldn’t be there if they face higher ranks then them it’s on them for doing it
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Theoretically the match making is supposed to do what you suggested:
But lately matchmaking has been extremely weird, sometimes even without intervention from SWF.
The Devs said that they are working on a New matchmaking, so we can only hope, that it will come soon and fix those Problems.
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The ranks are screwed up too. It is significantly easier to rank higher on a survivor than a killer for whatever reason.
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Indeed, they state that it matches against the highest, but it definitely does not seem to.
Survivors seem to know this as well, because the number of, "3 red ranks and a 16" groups that I encounter is far too great to be some strange coincidence.
I tested it with my wife (Since she's red rank and I'm extremely low rank on survivor) and the results reflected what we suspect - we got mostly very low rank killers.
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I have seen some opposite situations too: I'm a red rank survivor and sometimes there are low ranks (the lowest I have seen was 18) in my Lobbys against red rank killers, because they are queued with a red rank. Also I've seen someone post a picture as Rank 12 killer, who faced three Red ranks, that weren't SWF with the other rank 12 surv in the lobby, so sometimes the system ######### up without odd SWF pairings.
My guess would be, that the system has trouble to find lobbys for the 3 or 4 man Swfs and therefore ignores the ranks, but if you had the same Problem with a duo-SWF... Maybe they indeed turned the matching to the highes rank of or maybe the matchmaking is so ######### at that point that it just matches however it likes.
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It's definitely not doing that anymore, I've been playing with a couple newer players and the killers have, with a single exception, been from their ranks, not mine.
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Devs aren't catering to SWF. They simply ignore SWF. It isn't a priority to them. Why do you think we have had only one balance pass, and that was with the Kindred change?
The new MMR system in the works, however, is going to struggle with SWF. I don't see it really changing anything in the long run.
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How are they catering to SWF exactly?
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yeah this was absolute hell for me between the ranks of about 15 to 8, three rank 1/2s and a rank 17 is not at all balanced when you're rank 12, and that was most games i played. made me not want to play and i left for a while until deathslinger came out. then after a while on those rare occasions i got to go against survivors that were roughly my level, i absolutely slaughtered them, because i was used to fighting red ranks... now i'm rank 4 though, but if i get a team of full rank 1s they will still often beat me, and it's a frustrating experience. when i check, they tend to have several hundred if not thousands of hours more than me in the game, and there are four of them. the new MMR system cant come soon enough.
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The problem is not because of SWF, but because how many people play SWF and when they play.
At peak playing hours, is when all the SWF groups play. All it takes is 1 survivor in a SWF being red or purple rank for the whole group to be matched against a high rank killer. Or that's what should happen.
The thing is it's much easier for a survivor to rank up than a killer. And since the game is not balanced around voice chat, SWF has the habit of boosting players. Plus surivor has always been the most popular role. There are a lot more people who have never touched killer than there are those who have never touched survivor.
Now what this means is that for our average SWF group with a mix of high and low ranks when they are waiting in a lobby for a killer with a similar rank as the highest ranked survivor the game gets into trouble. It can't find said killer because there is not enough high rank killers required for how many people are being matched against one. So the game after a peiord of lobby wait time will say screw it and match the survivors in that lobby with any killer. Hence why when in peak hours, during non-events, the killer queue time is quick. While in the days when less SWF groups are playing the killer queue times are longer.
So to solve this problem the devs need to do the following:
- Make it easier to rank up as killer or harder as survivor.
- Convince more survivor only mains to play as killer and stick to the role long enough to rank up.
- Convince people who only play in groups to play solo survivor when their friends can't play.
- A new MM system that somehow accounts for SWF boosting and the disparity between solo and groups.
- Adding some kind of social interaction to the killer role to make it more enticing for people who only play DBD with friends.
- Balancing the game to close the solo-SWF gap and buff killers.
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Its pretty hilarious that you still complain about a broken matchmaking thus exactly knowing that theyre working on a New system and nothing will be changed til the new system is released. Ah and you know that SWF isnt the issue here but the matchmaking. So dont talk big if youre that biased.
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Every comment that comes out of your keyboard is biased towards SWF, hypocrite much?
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I'm pretty sure it's intentional.
If people were actually matched against people in the same skill level then it would be less competitive and less toxic. I'm pretty sure the devs and marketing peeps want to keep it the way it is.
When I first started playing killer for the first few matches I was placed against other yellow rank survivors and half the time I took it really easy on them since I'd played quite a bit of solo survivor prior to that.
Then the mm system !?@# itself and started dumping red rank teams on me sometimes several matches in a row. I'm talking all red. And I mean toxic red.
The devs don't want this to be a fun casual game. They want people to be salty AF
It's part of the design
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Says a biased killer main in a killer biased forum. LOL
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The only comment I have made in this post was to you. But okay, disregard what I said and keep spouting things as if you are better than everyone and correct in your biased opinions.
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The devs aren't biased towards SWF, they just don't know how to nerf it without making survivor unplayable, so they're trying to buff perks like kindred into being very useful. In doing this, they can appropriately nerf all survivorsif necessary if the gap gets closed enough. But for now, that isn't the case.
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Survivor is playable without SWF, you go to the main menu then choose play as survivor and hit "Ready".
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I didn't say it's not? Read again what I said. Although it really is a horrific experience solo queue.
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They arent fixing it. Theyre just hiding the ranks.
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They've been testing their MMR system, so sometimes you'll get very very off matches as they are trying to figure out how to get the system to work. (seems like a fools errand due to the nature of the game, but we'll see)
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Because currently you can queue as 3 rank 1s and a invite a rank 20 friend and have them be lead and queue up, and you will more than likely get a new killer.
Also the matchmaking is doing a horrible job for 3 man SWF groups in red ranks, and instead of making them wait longer for a red rank opponent, after a certain amount of time it just puts them in a free group with 3 survivor spots.
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Of course, its totally messed up in the name of saving time. Thats so wrong in my opinion.
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You can, yes, but that's a separate problem.
The MM seems to widen the search range when queues are long. That's a common thing in games, I get it.
But additionally, it also pairs killers with SWF groups based on the lowest ranked person in the group very often. This happens even when queues are fast for both sides, because it's not a function of a broader search, but rather an intentional matchmaking mechanic.
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So long as they keep releasing licensed killers to attract more meat for the grinder I don't think they care.
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learning how to play as a particular killer is painful.
grinding out all the killers to at least level 40 for their teachables is painful.
grinding out the killers you actually want to play until you have the perks and addons required to make them viable is painful.
having to deal with the absurd amount of toxicity in this community while doing all of the above is painful.
and then having to repeat most of those steps for every single killer you want to play is downright torture.
Why would anyone do any of that, if they have the option of playing with friends over comms in the power role? And none of that is even accounting for the frequent and VERY long lasting bugs that many killers face. I decided to exclude that part in memory of Dead Hard and breaking ghostface out of stealth, may they rest in peace.
Point is, it takes an exceptionally thick skin and a lot of determination to start playing killer at this point. You don't feel it as much when you've been playing the role for years, but every patch makes it less and less accessible for newer players. If nothing else, a sandbox practice mode to learn how killer powers work is years overdue.
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Their system is completely busted then because that's not how it works at all lol. I only recently got to rank 10 killer (play mostly survivor) and I get matched with at least one red rank most of my games, especially when I was in yellow ranks, and it's sometime's SWFs as well. The game can't be telling me when I was Rank 14 against a 4 man SWF that I was the closest killer in Rank to the 3 rank 1's in that lobby (they had one Rank 17, which is what I'm pretty sure threw the matchmaking for a loop)? Lol.
So it's completely not working as intended, probably got borked by their spaghetti code and has had the opposite outcome as a result for damn near everybody.
(Not upset at you btw, just sharing my thoughts)
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First match of the night. 4-man SWF scumming the MM, just like every match, just like every night.
Yeah, pretty good job so far, devs. Well done. You're all completely silent on this because you know it's intentional. As long as it keeps survivors happy it's whatever, I know. Sure. It's intentional on the part of the devs, it's intentional on the part of the SWFs. That's why every group does it, that's why I can usually count on the above being every single game, every time I log in.
Like I always say, I wouldn't be annoyed by it if it was just buggy, or if it was due to extended matching criteria due to long queues. I don't mind just taking a loss if it's just "the way it is". But when it's a system set up just to ######### on one group of players to keep the other group happy, and that second group abuses it endlessly, that's not acceptable.
But hey, you keep swimming in your money from those survivor skin sales. We know who your real bosses are.
Top kek and all that.
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There's a very logical explanation for why you get SWF groups of 1 1 1 + 20 alt vs 20 killer. The matchmaking most definitely IS using the greatest rank number in a group as a basis for matchmaking. Some knuckle-dragging neanderthal thought to himself, "1 greater than 20" and coded it that way, when the program correctly interprets 20 as a greater number than 1.
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So weird how the pug in this group (the rank 14) was my rank. Almost like the MM does just fine, except when the scumbags (the bottom 3) do what they do.
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But you see, this is how it is supposed to be. If they get rank 4 killer, those poor lower rank survivors would actually have to play. That is a no-no.
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Ha. The grind and matchmaking will do that before they evdn know what swf is 😂
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