In defense for SWF and why they're mostly fine
There are a few things that'll always pop up in this forum. NOED OP and SWF OP. And while a lot of people have expressed their defense for both sides, I'd like to take a different approach on defending SWF. This'll be based on my experience in SWF. Anyway I occasionally play with my friends and in most days, telling them specific things is incredibly difficult.
For starters, the only time I can call out totem locations is if they're on a landmark (Like a building or a hill) or sometimes next to a gen and even then it usually takes enough time that I sometimes decide not to call out a totem due to how bad the game went. This is mainly because of how many maps there are and most of us haven't played long enough to memorize and pinpoint totem spawns. Don't get me started on chases as I too have my share of leading the killer to my teammates
It has gotten to the point that we just use simple commands such as :
"I'm in chase"
"The killer has Ruin"
"I cleansed 2 totems, how many did you guys cleanse?"
"I'm being camped, don't rescue me"
Now imagine how precise those so called tournament SWFs are. Imagine being able to tell where you're getting chased in Red Forest and have your team understand where they're supposed to go. That takes some good game sense from the entire team.
Anyway my point is, I think I can safely say that tournament SWFs take as much skill as Nurse does. Even though the skill ceiling for survivors in general is slightly lower than Nurse, the fact that your entire team needs to have above average game sense and the ability to understand what each other is saying is what makes me believe that SWF is fine.
Besides, MMR should result in those tournament SWFs being matched against God Nurses so they're still fine.
TL;DR : SWF or at least really competent SWF takes as much skill as a God Nurse and both should stay in the game because I believe in MMR
Comments
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I'm a very average Survivor, who plays with two above average Survivors regularly and I win 80% of my games.
In my experience, you really don't need a ton of skill to dominate most of the Killers you play.
Regardless, Solo's should be buffed to have the same info as SWF because we will not be able to see balance without it. Good Killers (Nurse, Spirit ect) are going to be fine against SWF but impossible with Solo's. That's gotta change.
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I'm not hugely bothered by SWF myself (and I mostly play killer), but you do have to admit that comms is a huge advantage. Even a simple statement such as "I'm being camped" prevents your teammates from leaving their gens to come and check.
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Im no more bother by swf i stop playing killer cause of them the haddonfield offering burn me out of the role im like the mojority of the player base im waiting 5 to 10 minute for my game and i win because i get carry by the 3 man swf with the haddonfield offering now
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Personally, I don't think it's possible to effectively buff solo survivor (Do SWFs get this buff too (so double buff)? Are you also buffing all killers?). I honestly thing the best thing to do is nerf SWF.
If it were me, I'd give any survivor in an SWF only 3 perk slots (their 4th perk is comms). That's it.
I'd also let the killer know who was in an SWF, and I would give them a bonus for playing against them, to try and discourage lobby dodging.
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The problem with nerfing swf is that not every swf is a sweat squad, some just play to meme around with 4 head on builds or something similar. That's why the alternative, buffing all solo survivors and then killers in a way that doesnt really effect swf is what most people want. To me, the best way would be by giving info to the survivors that would be useless to swf (Such as maybe as soon as a killer gets into the first chase the whole team learns who the killer is, something that is useless to swf bc they can just tell each other).
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Exactly this, SWF isn't the core issue, it's the disparity in matchmaking. Good killer players can beat most SWF teams, good killers playing strong characters can do it far more comfortably, and both absolutely dominate solo teams with alarming ease because instead of putting relatively equally prepared opponents together it just throws shite at a wall til something sticks.
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A top tier killer character can be used by a player to beat swf teams. This just leaves the other 80% of the roster obsolete and avoid at all costs.
Even a basic swf will increase difficulty by 2x as just the simple act of deciding who is going to save and maximising gen progression is enough to destroy most killers thanks to map size and horrifically out of touch design.
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But most killers don't want to be stuck in a game with a "head-on, meme-making SWF". Why should any SWF be able to do this at the expense of the killer? Most killers just want to play the game. I know I do. By removing one perk (or essentially forcing them to take comms as their 4th perk), they might be less inclined to all take head-on, and just play the game properly.
Buffing solo survivor and killer to give them this sort of information would essentially change the fundamentals of the game.
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Except that a full solo que team is basically a free win for any vaguely competent killer playing any killer, so...
Edit: No, actually, any character can beat most SWF teams. I really need to stress that, SWF doesn't automatically mean hyper co-ordinated and amazing in chases.
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You don't need to be. I have downed survivors in under 20 seconds per chase as bubba and still lost thanks to map travel time and survivors doing gens without needing to leave.
Organise one guy to save or pick up a slug and always have 2 survivors on gens away from the chase = auto win.
Solo players lose because they waste time leaving the gens to go for a save or check for camping. this is where the killer gains time to make plays and win chases.
I had a game where everyone ran kindred (solo players) the gens got done in 4 minutes and the killer couldn't do anything to stop it.
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Once again swf gives an advantage simple as. And solo only sucks because of the bad ranking not because of no comms. People need to understand that swf gives advantages regardless. Yes there are weak swf but those weaker swf would be even weaker as a solo. So when it comes to good players, hell they dont even have to be good at chases just communicate and be smart about gens and saves and the game will be alot harder. But when a swf can all loop etc. Yeah it's not the most fun and that shouldn't be made the norm. Wait till mmr is out before buffing solos
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You're exactly the kind of person that needs a SWF indicator, I guarantee you'll see that nearly every single trial you play has a SWF team in it and more often than not you either bulldoze them or you could have won but made mistakes.
This is something I learned back in the days without crossplay when I could check profiles and did it (and still do check PC players) literally every single trial.
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I just check profiles. i already know if i am against swf. Generally the PC players are together in my region, but i can't say anything about the console players.
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Kindred basekit, unique notification for totem destruction, being able to view each other's perks in the lobby, an "In-Chase" UI icon, and just general knowledge on how each hex is revealed is enough to give solos the basic benefits of your average SWF
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tactics against a swf vs 2-4 solo survivors are different. They have comms, let me know if they are a swf or not.
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I don't care about going against bully squads or anything like that, the only time I hate going against a SWF is if they actively split up on separate gens and try and make the match end as quickly as possible.
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There's always talk of "buff solo survivors" but that fails to account for the fact that SWF teams are actively ruining the Killer experience. How about instead of buffing Solo survivors, we just nerf SWF and give the Killer +1% movespeed per person in a pre-made group. So, if there's two of you, the killer effectively has Bloodlust I. If there's 4 of you, they have Bloodlust II. And then they temporarily lose the movespeed boost whenever a survivor is on a hook and permanently lose it when one survivor has died.
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Imagine thinking SWF takes as much skill as nurse lol. All you do is hold M1, loop the God loops, pre drop unsafe pallets, and swift W to the other side of the map. You can't compare survivor and killer skills because killers will always take more skill than survivors. Looping does require skill and flashlight saves but not that much. Also good solo players require more skill than SWF imo because you pull your own weight unlike SWF which get carried mostly with comms. Both SWF does need some adjusting im not sure what but it does.
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Do you really think that SWF is balanced?
I hope One day BHVR decides to make 24 test like MM but with SWF separate queue. 90% of killers community Will ignore that queue, Why? Because voice comms breaks the Game, because map offering with specific build for that map breaks the Game and is unfair (Haddonfun with balance landing) Because 4 players Who knows every perk in the Game vs 1 Who doesn't know is unbalanced.
So, no, SWF is not balanced and is going to Kill the Game sooner or later. I am on a killers discord, with 300+ members, last monday they made a strawpool (I dont know the Word in english) and 72% of that members are not playing Since they finished rift due to squads, also me, I finished It on Wednesday and I am not playing anymore untill 5th Anniversary to get P3 on Némesis and leave again untill Next rift.
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But that's the most efficient way to play survivor. If competent solo players had Bond as basekit, they'd probably do the same. This is why Shroud of Binding should be a killer offering and Shroud of Separation should be a survivor offering
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It is the most efficient but if all the survivors split up from the start the killer pretty much loses unless the make a big mistake and you can snowball. It may be the most efficient but it's the least fun to go against, just like tunneling someone out at the start is for killer.
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It doesn't matter how most swf play and if they are good. We should judge swf and killers by the most extreme sample, which in this case is swf with very good players. And they are at the top of the ladder in this game no matter how often you get them or not.
That said I don't want them nerfed or solo buffed, we need to wait for MMR to see how it plays out first
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And why is it a problem to just do that in a kyf-game? Is it because it might not be fun for the killer, so noone wants to do it?
Edit:
Also, whenever i see a thread about spirit, it is never about the average spirit that you encounter most of the time, its always about the toxic godlike stridor-spirit with the 2000€ Headphones.
Why cant we use the same metric for swf? Its enough that the top teams can abuse it. Or stop the nerf-spirit threads, because most spirits arent sweaty either.
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Well there are some reasone why people wouldnt want to do it in kyf.
- They dont have five people.
- None of them are that good at killer.
- None of them want to play killer.
- Its more fun playing around without knowing who you'll be facing than to play with a friend and know what killer they'll play.
- You play better when you're not having banter and messing around.
- It's not as fun to do meme builds on someone you know (like a breakout build).
These were the ones I could think off from the top of my head in about 2 minutes, there are probably other reasons. Remember not all of these apply to every swf, to some only one applies while to other most/all apply.
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Yes, your points are valid, but should also be valid for others.
"noone wants to play killer" ...against an swf. But a random killer doesnt have the opportunity.
"its not as fun to do a meme build on someone you know"...because you cant behave like you want, and you cant pretend anymore its ok.
SWF abuses the disability of killers to opt out, because they would for the same reason noone does that in kyf.
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Exactly. No one wants to go against swf willingly so they have to force killers into it by not revealing swfs. Just goes to show that swf is fair and balanced
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The SWF boogeyman is real on this forum. The vast, vast majority are pretty bad at chases but get carried by the ability to optimise their time that solo players simply can't. People on here just think everyone who's playing with friends is some obnoxious "bully" who is out to get them.
I personally wouldn't care if they added a swf indicator. I like a challenge and am confident in my killer abilities. Would be nice if at least we got one in the post game lobby or something.
I think its safe to say that solo queue is pathetically weak nowadays and the stats show it, so I personally don't mind the occasional tough match against a good swf.
I'd say nowadays, 1/50 matches is actually a completely unfair 4 man toolbox squad that just completes gens in 5 minutes and leaves.
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SWF is balanced in theory, however in practice Discord and other such programs pretty much break it, survivors were never meant to be able to communicate across the map at all times
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In defense we are comparing good killers against average swf. We arent even thinking about average killers. Killers that have 1000s of hours will find average swf easier, so why do we ignore average killers yet again. Top killers cant beat top swf and their arguments are the top swf isn't common average ones are but then average killers will struggle
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It's technically possible for solos to do the same. It's just unlikely to see the avg survivor team because...
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Lol pretty much. 😂
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Yup, in the rare game I get as a solo where we really synergise and go for bodyblocks, sub hits and such I always get an angry swf accusation post game.
I think its just because the disparity in skill for the vast amount of solos throws a lot of new killers off guard. When they get a team that isn't just bad they don't understand what is happening.
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Because at this point, people can easily tell the difference between solo and SWF. Once solo survivor is buffed enough to compete with SWF, nobody would know the difference anymore and at that point, you can buff all killers to be as strong as Nurse
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Swf is the same mechanically as solo.
The difference is a mental thing like altruism and " we won", even if 3 die.
Oh and theyre more likely to use voicechat. Which is what most people complain about.
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Another argument is that matchmaking is to blame for letting bad survivors rank up too easily
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This is true for both sides for sure. I can't count the amount of killers. I see go in to full blown panic mode the second ruin gets cleansed and just hard commit to tunneling one player and completely foregoing any form of pressure spreading.
Then you have red rank survivors hiding on the edge of the map doing nothing while the killer chases someone 60 meters away
At this point I should know better than to assume someone is skilled because of rank, because we all know its based on playte and not skill.
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You have some really good arguments, but nothing takes as much skill as nurse, that's a fact, but I'll let it slip under the radar. People are annoyed of comp and flashlight squads mostly, they don't really care if they take skill to play. If you transfer information in any way outside of the game, they call it cheating. I personally don't really mind swfs, but if I play a bad killer or someone I don't really play (like nurse or Billy) and find a swf I'll definitely dodge
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Uh, what rank were you when this was taken and what rank were these teammates?
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