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SWF balancing simply changing some numbers

SWF balancing has been a tricky thing for the devs for a while now. I recently came up with an idea as to how to fix this issue and turn it into a simple numbers game which will allow them an easier time balancing it in the future. Currently SWF must join a group lobby, all rwady up to be placed in que. At this point to change it to a numbers game add a "debuff" or secondary "perk" that stacks for each survivor who joins said lobby. Call is chatterbox if you will. First survivor that joins makes every gen require 2 sec longer to complete in the match due to the survivor being "distracted" from talking to their friend. This would affect a duo only slightly. Again they can adjust the numbers ion the future. Next survivor that joins making it a 3 man make each gen require 7 sec longer to repair (more communication makes more distraction). Then if you get a full SWF make each gen take an extra 12 secs to repair (4x chatterbox debuff). Again these numbers are just ideas, but it allows the devs to turn the balancing into a numbers game for an easier time balancing. The only issue I can see coming from this is with the duos or trios and having 1 or 2 solo survivors not wanted to play with the debuff. If this became an issue, simply give the solos in the lobby a 10% bonus to all bloodpoints earned in the trial. Call it the "lone wolf" or "focused" buff. Like I stated, this is merely giving the devs a starting point to turn the balancing around having 3rd party communications apps available into a numbers game. If they need too they could extend or lessen the buffs and debuffs or even make "chatterbox" apply to more than just gens if thats the case. Let me know your thoughts on this. Id love to hear from everyone. If you agree or feel like this is a great starting point for the devs, upvote so they maybe look at it and consider it!

GLHF to all.

Comments

  • RaSavage42
    RaSavage42 Member Posts: 5,546

    I think that it should be something like this

    seeing as it takes one survivor 80 seconds to complete a gen solo

    Then all 4 survivors on a gen should take longer due to having multiple people doing the same thing (Same thing as what you said "distracted")

  • ZCerebrate
    ZCerebrate Member Posts: 641

    Honestly sometime like adding an extra generator or nerfing gen speed for SWF probably isn't going to be a thing because most people do just casually play with their friends - and never alone because its not engaging for them enough. You're address the sweaty SWF 4 mans that are all competent vs a larger majority of SWFs that are most likely worse than your average solo queue players (maybe alienating the noobs away).

    I would be okay with just having the blood point bonus in general and it showing for everyone involved who was paired together in the post score screen - killers would have a better idea of "How bad this SWF" issue is instead of rage disconnecting and screaming SWF if they see even a smidgen of teamwork among 4 random internet players.

    I would also prefer if solo players were just given ingame voice chat OR set text macros (to avoid toxicity) that could be used in game to convey the same information that SWFs enjoy... THEN consequently buff the killer's powers and perks with the assumption that all survivors are at the same level. How effectively a random group work together and pull off info share is another matter that cannot and should not be balanced for anyway...

  • ZCerebrate
    ZCerebrate Member Posts: 641

    Do you mean 4 survivors doing a generator TOGETHER should take 81+ seconds to do while the killer is masturbating on the other side of the map? Do you instead mean you don't want perks like Prove thyself to increase this speed too efficiently?

    Currently it is most "efficient" for at most 2 people to be on a generator at a time in most cases due to diminishing returns already (in the absence of Prove thyself especially).

    1 survivor = Base 80. 2 Survivors = base 47 seconds. 3 Survivors = base 38 seconds. 4 Survivors = 36 seconds (Meaning having that last person on the generator reduces the total time by a wooping 2 seconds already).

  • mgs2020
    mgs2020 Member Posts: 35

    I hear what youre saying about the casuals and just wanting to play with their friends and have fun. My personal POV on the situation is if they are casual and just shooting the ######### playing the game, all this debuff does is make it so the killer has slightly more time to react playing solo. If they really are just causals and playing the game for some fun with their friends making the game take 1 min longer to do the required task shouldnt be a huge turn off for them. The numbers i proposed were just general thoughts.

    In response to your in game mic with randoms, i had a similar thought, however the in game mic leads to alot more people screaming at each other. When you dont know the person, people tend to not care what they say to them and then this leads to people saying things like ######### and stuff and the devs would have to inplement a new system to try to monitor their voice chats in the future.

    I appreciate your ideas and counter points.

    Thanks for the feedback.

  • mgs2020
    mgs2020 Member Posts: 35

    I didnt leave the comment above, I started the thread. My idea however though, is that the survivors take 2 sec, 7sec, 12 sec (stacking for each person) longer to repair each gen in general. Solo on the gen or together. Then with multiple survivors on the gen, it works the same as normal just the total gen time instead of 88 sec or whatever it is now becomes 90 sec or 95 sec or 100 sec. Again these are just starting points to turn the balacing into some number adjustments for easier balancing. Spitballing though, with these numbers it adds 1 min to repair time for the whole match for a 4 man. The biggest thing for a killer i find is time. Adding just a small amount of it to the game can make a big difference.

  • RaSavage42
    RaSavage42 Member Posts: 5,546

    If all 4 survivors are on a gen it's either at the beginning or the end of a match

    Also if all 4 survivors are on a gen then that means they have Prove Thy Self and BNP's on strong toolboxes

    Also we are talking about SWF's not solos...

    If all 4 survivors are on comms then it would make sense to strike gen speeds when ALL 4 SURVIVORS ARE ON ONE GEN

    either that or increase regression rates on basic kicks and all regression perks

  • ZCerebrate
    ZCerebrate Member Posts: 641

    A scenario when all 4 survivors are on one generator is basically starting the trial together and using Brand New parts (expendables btw) on their first generator together in most cases to pop a single generator (I think the record is like 18 seconds) which is actually a waste of those brand new parts and really doesn't change the rest of the match much even if you lost a single gen before even being able to make it to them from your spawn location. Now instead if that swf was smart, they would do if spread throughout the match to finish out gens that are in danger of being popped... in which case you really can't do anything and that needs to be addressed or nerfed.

    Once again if you have 4 survivors running around with zero idea where any of them are... and they manage to come together and do a generator together then that's not a game mechanics problem but yours.

    However I agree with something from you post - I would reexamine BNPs and Prove thyself with the current gen power when multiple folks (2~3) are on a generator... honestly a 33 second base reduction on gen time from having a SINGLE other person on a generator with you a bit too much a lot of where the issues stem from in my opinion... which is then further compounded by BNPs (though the toolbox nerf has also curbed this a bit).

    Prove Thyself is powerful as well but really if the base numbers were adjusted to something like 80s-65s-52s-42s for working together on a generator then the perk itself would already be adjusted to close the gap back towards the current gen speeds especially against stacked slowdown perks+addons on killers.

    If you want to target SWFs specifically (which once again should require that post-game scorescreen displaying who was paired together to the killer too) then nerfs to their healing/repair speed might be a bandaid fix to them but it'll probably end up turning people off from playing with their friends which consequently might deter some from playing the game at all. Feeling like you are "less" than the players around you just to play with your wife for example isn't exactly a "good time" for the casual player that might still be dropping money on this game's cosmetics.

  • RaSavage42
    RaSavage42 Member Posts: 5,546

    and Shroud of Binding makes all 4 survivors spawn together

    Plus if they're on comms then they will eventually meet up

    I like your times for gens... a lot better then mine

  • Sluzzy
    Sluzzy Member Posts: 3,130

    The last time they were brave enough to release stats, SWF had survival rates marginally higher than solos with both being less than 50%. Penalizing SWF when the greatest percentage is already disadvantaged wouldn't make sense. Maybe killer should have a slight debuff right now against solos would make better sense.

  • mgs2020
    mgs2020 Member Posts: 35

    i feel like you are missing the point entirely lol. I'm allowing the devs to balance the SWF with a normal solo survivor. Then it allows them to balance killer vs survivor when the survivor itself cant gain advantages outside the game (comms). An SWF basically gets to have a passive Kindred active at all times. This unbalances the solo and SWF making it harder for the devs to balance the game. Implementing this mechanic to even out SWF and solo then balances survivor side and makes it so if things are slightly out of balance in the future all it takes is some number tweaks. Your point in the post is SWF have marginally better escape rates. The proposed "debuff" allows them to balance out that marginal inbalance and then they can look at a killer vs survivor from there.

  • YehBoiGoku
    YehBoiGoku Member Posts: 248
  • YehBoiGoku
    YehBoiGoku Member Posts: 248

    I thought this was going to be a fun or a somewhat decent idea but... it's pretty bad tbh. All i'm hearing is "gEn RuSH TOo PowERFul". This isn't by any means absolutely horrible just belongs to an whole other topic. Guessing you think doing the objective is too strong as well. Ok nevermind, hearing myself say the idea out loud, it's really bad.

    As Maperson stated "just limit they're perks" this should be the SIMPLE numbers change instead of this whole slow down the gen progress bull #########. I can't stress this enough on how EASY!!! It is too slow down gen progress.

  • Pawcelot
    Pawcelot Member Posts: 985

    There should never be a punishment for wanting to play together with your friends.

    Twist it on its head and add reward for those willing to play together with SWFs instead, and here's my suggestion;

    1. Add a lobby indicator for SWFs. Who's with who etc.
    2. Add BP bonus to Killer and solo survivors depending on SWF size;
    • 2 SWFs and 2 solos. 25% Bonus BP to Killer and 50% bonus BP to each Solo survivor.
    • 2 groups of 2 SWFs. 50% Bonus BP to Killer.
    • 3 SWFs and 1 solo. 75% Bonus BP to Killer and 100% bonus BP to the Solo survivor.
    • 4 SWFs. 100% Bonus BP to Killer.

    Yes, there will be dodging from Killers.. but only in the beginning. No one wanna dodge each and every game and the sheer percentage of SWFs overall will make it a futile effort to try it. Things should be working as before within a few weeks.

  • DerFan
    DerFan Member Posts: 42

    adding a debuff is wrong in every way. a good matchmaking system would fix it cause it would match strong SWF vs strong killers.

  • Momentosis
    Momentosis Member Posts: 824

    Players shouldn't be punished for playing with their friends.

    It's a tough thing trying to balance for SWF when the game wasn't balanced for it in the first place. How can you buff solo without buffing SWF or punishing SWF and weakening Killers in the process?

  • mgs2020
    mgs2020 Member Posts: 35

    limiting the perks is a terrible idea too. Thats limiting the diversity in game play reducing the number of possible builds people can do. I personally feel like tweaking numbers is alot less detrimental to the game than limiting the number of possible builds a person can use. To each their own though

  • mgs2020
    mgs2020 Member Posts: 35

    Reducing the number of perks and reducing variability in builds in a game like this is far more game breaking than simply adjusting a few seconds on the time it takes to do a gen. I dont know how you could even argue that one honestly lol

  • YehBoiGoku
    YehBoiGoku Member Posts: 248

    with this idea you might as well add more gens for the survivors to do. It also wouldn't be to bad to limit the perks. Oh I am in a 4 man swf and one of them is running ds and unbreakable, well then we will limit it so only one other guy can run that same build. Or like a 3 man or 4 man swf can only have 3 perks at all times idk.