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Devs' Solo Survivor Experience Progress Notes 2017-2022
2017: Livestream #71
Horvath: "Now, with that being said, I do believe there is a significant mismatch that happens time and time again. Survive With Friends is very difficult to manage and I've seen this in a lot of different games; I've experienced it myself... it's not cool, right?"
Cote: "So what we are talking mostly is about adding maybe a..."
Horvath: "Better balance. Better balance, better matchmaking..."
Cote: "More points. Multiplier, or something. For facing Survive With Friends."
Horvath: "Or maybe even if you play Survive With Friends and majority of your group level is 10, let's say, maybe we'll make you play against a level 5 killer. Something of that nature. There are some things we can do and we are looking into. But I don't think Survive With Friends will necessarily be removed."
2017: Livestream #77
Horvath: "...we are looking at SWF in general as something we love to embrace I believe. Friends are a great thing, as it helps to pass knowledge from one person to another, and one way we can help to balance out the single player experience versus people who actually have this information or know how to use information that is passed on in game, we are going to give more information through the portrait, through the UI, to help give you the same information as someone on a voice chat and hopefully we eventually get to a point where someone is like, 'Yo, the killer is on me' and someone else is like, 'I know.' Like every time, 'I know, I know.'"
2017: Livestream #83
Not_Queen: "The second very... most important thing for them was SWF compensation for killers. So on this point, right there, we are still discussing about how we want to balance this, how we want to approach this, but the best example we can give you guys is that it's probably not going to be a compensation... probably going to be more like leveling the field. So for example, when you play with your friends and you are the obsession, you are like, 'ok guys, I'm the obsession' and everybody knows it, right? Well, giving that information to solo players right of the bat would level the field. And then what? The matches need to be reworked first."
Cote: "Then aren't people going to scream that it was hard against SWF and now it's going to be harder against everyone?"
Not_Queen: "No because it's implied that there's going to changes to killers also, right? ...But yeah, that's what Horvath talked about few streams ago, about how the idea is to level up the solo players and then buff the killers in general."
2018: Q&A #5
McLean: "So was the game balanced for it (SWF) originally? I don't know if I would say it was or wasn't, really... even if it is not the 'intended' way to play, we just got to acknowledge that that's how some people do."
McLean: "I would say that it (SWF) does affect our game design now... where we are not going to put in any designs that hinge on some survivors knowing something and other survivors don't. And now when we work on other mechanics, we always have to ask ourselves, how is this going to work for a solo group versus how is this going to work for a coordinated group, so that's the question we have to ask ourselves now. So we do keep this in mind these days."
2019: Mid-Chapter 3.1.0 #125 Q&A
Horvath: "We're still looking to tighten the gap between Solo Survivors and Survive With Friends. I know we spoke about making Kindred available to everyone by default, but ultimately I don't think this is what we are going to do. The initiative to bridge the gap will continue and we will find solutions on case by case basis."
2019: Reddit AMA (August)
Q: Any info on a totem counter of some sort that would be displayed on the screen? This would really benefit people who solo queue.
A: Hello SP_0101, we have thought about this as this has been brought up a few times. We are unsure whether or not we will put a totem counter in game, or whether a perk such as Small Game might get the counter at the moment. Ultimately, we are looking for the best way to bridge this knowledge gap between solos and swf.
Q: Will the game ever be balanced for SWF?
A: This can be a little tricky: If we just buff killers to be more powerful and competitive against coordinated teams, solo players or more casual teams will struggle. We have been keeping SWF in mind as we design new content to make sure that solo players aren't left behind, and we would like to revisit existing mechanics as well to make them more accessible to solo players. By bringing solo players up to the same level, we would be able to better balance around coordinated groups without leaving solo players behind.
2019: AMA (November)
Peanits: "As for balancing around SWF, this is also a bit tricky. If we were to balance solely around incredibly coordinated teams, we would be leaving solo players at a huge disadvantage. Our goal is to gradually bring solo players up to the same level of info as a pre-made group and then balance killers to match. This way everyone's on a level playing field."
2020: DBD Forum
Peanits: "It's definitely a factor. Any time you make something that affects generator speeds, you need to think "But what about Ruin?" Being able to balance around a single constant speed is much easier to do, and that way you don't have to worry about leaving the people who don't use it behind while making it excessive for those who do. It's the same philosophy we apply to the solo vs. SWF gap, where we're gradually bringing the two closer together so we can better balance around everyone without leaving people behind."
2022: Dev Update for January
If you’re reading this, you’ve been left on the hook at some point. Okay, maybe not, but the chances are very high.
Thanks to Skill Based Matchmaking ratings, we’re able to see the impact playing with a premade group has on the outcome of a match at various skill levels. The data confirms our suspicions: As skill goes up, so does the gap in survival rates between solo survivors and premade groups. In the top end of skill levels, the difference in escape rates can be as much as 15%.
This isn’t great: This difference between solo Survivors and groups makes it difficult to find a perfect balance. If we balance Killers around premade groups, solo Survivors get left behind. Meanwhile, if we balance around solo Survivors, Killers will have a rough time against groups. With that in mind, we’re working on some measures to bridge the gap between solo Survivors and premade groups, which will allow us to better balance Killers as a result.
We’re aiming to strike a balance between making the solo player(s) feel like they’re a part of the team without being overbearing. For example, we want to share key pieces of information, like “What are my teammates doing?”, but not too much info, like showing everyone’s exact location. To put it simply, the idea is to bring solo Survivors up to the same level, not give people excessive information that makes even premade groups stronger.
We want to share a very early peek at one potential way of closing this gap. Before we do, we want to stress that this is in the very early stages; we’re curious to hear what you think, but please keep in mind that it may change or even be scrapped entirely.
One feature we are experimenting with is a status icon next to each Survivor’s portrait in the HUD that lets you know what they are doing. This way, solo Survivors can base their decision around what their teammates are doing, and partial groups get a better idea of their solo teammates’ contributions, making everyone feel like more of a team. This is something that can already be easily conveyed with a quick callout over voice chat, but is currently not available to solo Survivors.
Once again, this is a very early preview- so early that we’re still discussing this internally. Feel free to share your thoughts, but please keep in mind that none of this is final or confirmed. Depending on how things go, this feature may be changed or scrapped entirely before it ever sees the light of day. We wanted to be open about this and keep you in the loop: The gap between solo Survivors and groups is not going under the radar, it’s something we’re actively working on."
If there's any other specific quotes from the developers regarding Solo and SWF gap and the killer buffs that would go with it, I would be happy to include it here. Overall, it seems like they've been talking about it a lot for the last five years, but not much progress has been made in that front at all, despite the fact it's ALWAYS been a problem for this game and its overall balance from the very, very beginning. Hopefully that's actually changing this time around.
Comments
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It won't change no offense but swf has been overpowered for years and solo has always sucked in 5 years nothing's changed
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Just going to say this one time: do not buff solo queue survivors to the level of SWF. Even the dev remarks say they don't want to buff solo queue survivors, but are doing so...
Put more bluntly: most killers are unhappy with the game due to SWFs. Buffing solo queue survivors to SWF level means all killer will quit. That is the long and short of it.
Bring SWF down to solo queue survivor strength. They are already stronger with friends and comms. No more, no less. Then Killer will be enjoyable again.
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To be clear, they've made plenty of changes:
- All survivors can see the obsession
- There is an obsession every game (even if nobody brings Decisive Strike)
- A large number of killers have been changed to provide loud, auditory cues that they're using their power across the map, to alert all players.
- A hook counter that shows how close to dead all survivors are, that all survivors can see (but killers only get a total hooks count).
- For that matter, a large number of killers have been explicitly nerfed BECAUSE they did well against solo queue, even if they were extremely weak against SWF groups (Pinhead, Pyramid Head, Deathslinger, Legion, Freddy, etc).
- Borrowed Time buffed to work against all killers, even Stealth Killers who previously ignored it.
- Boons: One player can buff all players so solos don't need to coordinate team perk loadouts. Additionally, all players can see the boon totem aura, get a ui overlay when they're affected, and get a status icon when they're affected.
And that's to say nothing of the Quality of Life changes, like hooks going to skill checks instead of button mashing (and the upcoming wiggle change).
But, and I'm wracking my brain here, the only All Killers change they've been looking at was REMOVING bloodlust. I can't think of one single non-perk thing that has been introduced to the core game and that affects all killers in a positive way, to help killers keep up with SWF groups. Please feel free to let me know if they adjusted some stats or introduced some core gameplay shift that helped keep up with all the solo buffs.
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Its good they aknowledge that there are limits on what to give survivors. (permanent aura reading and others)
In itself, adjusting the solo gap isnt inherently bad, but there are a lot of things that will simply not close the gap as much as intended.
Everyting available to survivors is also available to swf, and will most likely be used more efficient by those.
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No.
Solo Q needs to be buffed so killers can be buffed after.
Killers already have a 60%+ win rate against solos.
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Its interesting that 5 years later, not_queen statement about obsession mechanic is about to being fulfilled in like next 5 days? Matchmaking was fulfilled few months ago. They also technically fulfilled by giving small game a totem counter.... but I almost never see anyone use small game where as 4 man swf have totem counter.
Kindred on other hand gets used quite a bit after its changes. you could almost say that kindred is now perk tax for solo. as for buffing killers.... well that I think went other direction.
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This is a classic:
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They've made changes to survivor vaults (there wasn't always a medium vault), made exhaustion not recover while running, sped up killer vault speeds as well as when picking survivors up, breaking gens and pallets, they introduced the EGC, they've made it so killers can hook from any direction, got rid of the pallet vacuum, etc. They might not have said it was to keep up with swf but these are a few examples of gamewide changes that have benefited killers.
As far as bridging the gap from solo to swf, the devs have made it so many killer powers give information around each survivor's portraits, such as Freddy's sleep, Doctor's static, Nemesis' infection, Pyramid Head's ... I can't think of the word but etc, etc. They also made the obsession entity claws move while the obsession is in a chase.
And for that last part I've said in the past that they should try it so that all survivors have the claws around them that move when in a chase (maybe on a delay or within a certain range), and the obsession's claws can be red.
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Ok then, enjoy a game with no killers 🤷♂️
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I love numbers pulled out of nothing...
There is not a killer with kill rate higher than 60%.
It's not true that all 4ks are against soloQ, as 4 escapes are against SWF, so that will create that 50-60 average. You have good soloQ players that escape a lot and you have SWF players that are not really trying, or new / bad players that are dying a lot.
Your 60% is not based on anything, it's just your guess.
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