Players, select your difficulty level!
I've been on a playing spree in DBD lately, and a weird flash-in-the-pan idea came across me. Yes, I signed up to make feedback on the new Ghostface add-ons only. Then it was the Experiment MMR and then a couple interesting posts here and there. But this really felt interesting to discuss, and probably even easier to implement in-game.
Before I go on, I just want to say I know MMR kind of does exactly what I am about to say. And I know that some people may not be honest either (but that will be double-edged). But I still think it is going to be a smashing success.
What if.. every Player in the Lobby, including the Killer most especially, pressed a button or raised a flag to signal the entire Lobby what kind of game they are getting into?
You'd have three levels of Green warning, three levels of Yellow warning, and three levels of Red warning as a Killer and a Survivor to give to the rest of the Lobby. Then, it would be preset as Grey or Yellow for a kind of "I don't care to set it" or "I don't care to give you a clue that you're about to play my Omega Nurse with 8,000 hours".
And the really cool thing is that the Community itself would start to really evolve it and set what the "flags" mean. Maybe in a quick couple weeks, most Killers who are not Nurse, Blight, Spirit, Twins start to raise only the highest Yellow flag or the lowest Red flag every Lobby. Maybe a Killer like Nurse wants their challenge and sets the highest Reg flag.
And then we even have it for the Survivors too. A top Red flag signals, "Hey, get ready Mr. Killer, here comes DS, Unbreakable, Dead Hard, and Borrowed Time from me." "I might even be in a SWF with all the same Perks right now."
But look even deeper at the potential of this Lobby Flag system. What if the Killer signals a Green to Yellow flag? Now, all of a sudden, everyone in the Lobby is getting an idea like "Hey, this Killer might be Pig, or even a Strong Killer but with very, very non-meta Perks." "Now is our first chance of the day for us Survivors to run very non-meta fun Perks too."
And the options of interpreting the Lobby Flags and how the Community evolves the system are endless. And yes, there is probably some "Flag bluffs" and "Flag mind games" but let's be real, that's part of it. And it may be part of the fun too, especially if you won with a lying Flag Killer. Imagine the embarrassment of a pro Nurse player with top Meta Perks, who has the bm to raise a Green flag to trick the Lobby, but then still gets smashed by them and their less-than-Meta Perks (if they even respected the Green flag in the first place!). This would be a loss on a larger scale than normal. :)
So, to finish off the idea I would share my own flags right now. As a Ghostface main in High MMR, I would just raise the lowest Red Flag every Lobby. It'd be my way to tell them, "I'm serious" but my lowest Red flag might tell them it won't be a Nurse or Blight at least. IF I experiment with non-meta Perks like Spies From the Shadows and Brutal Strength, then I would raise the Yellow Flag for sure though. Then, for me, as a Survivor, I'm raising a hard lowest Yellow flag every single Lobby for the rest of my life. Because I am firmly a very average Survivor player who is always Solo Q, haha.
Thoughts and feedback?
Comments
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Issue with a system like that is you'd get people just setting it low to make it easier on themselves by misleading the lobby/survivors/killer before going in with a meta build and a tight sphincter planning to sweat their ass off.
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It definetly worth playing with. Ultimately a lot of difficulty levels would be subjective but any natural system that promotes comunication and puts forward an offer to play a less competitve dbd game is welcome.
Small casual elements like this would hopefully counteract the sbm nightmare of play optimally or lose horribly. Ya its would be prone to abuse but you have to put some faith in your playerbase if you want to create a fun party game enviroment.
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The flags would soon become meaningless, as there would be no incentive in being honest.
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Thank you for the feedback guys! I still think it will work out fairly well, especially in the extreme scenarios when a Killer is raising a lowest Green flag or highest Red flag (as mentioned by Zarathhos). It is also a very small and easy thing to add to the game, I suspect, meaning if there are too much liars or too many people not even using the Flag system, then no biggie.
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Its an interesting idea,
Sadly a system like that requires honesty to work and even I would probably say easy every game just to make the game easier. Even though I might plan to sweat and go for the kills/escapes.
Think of the lobby dodging until you get all the flags you want.
Sadly the solution to a lot of what people call toxic or problematic in game is the removal of pre-conceived notions about how it should be played.
Its random pug, you are going to get people whom play to win at all costs, whom don't care, take it to seriously, want to be immersive, want to vent their frustration, are happy with 4 BBQ staks, want to farm, value your fun too, don't value your fun, will game every mechanic they can, will be lazy about how they play etc etc.
We either have to have a system that forces one style of play only with rigid structure so everyone can predict what will happen, or a system that has a lot of free form variability with the acceptance that some people may not play it the way you want them to.
The other solution is an alternative game format, unranked casual or competitive mode, or custom game bots.
Getting upset about the game but still want to play some DBD? then custom game bots will give you a blander more consistent game experience with no suprises.
Even I get fed up with the online PVP environment, custom game bots keeps me coming back to games I've long gotten sick of online.
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If all dbd players were honest and only had the best intentions, this system would be a good idea.
Unfortunately, what would actually happen is that the toxic bully squad with full meta builds all raise a green flag and the poor baby trapper also raises a green flag. It could also be the other way around. A fully decked out god nurse raises a green flag to fool innocent baby survivors.
What I'm trying to say is: a lot of players would abuse it.
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