Good Reasons why should BHVR balance around Solo queue?
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You are never going to close that gap.
A pre-made team will typically always out preform a PUG group. This is true of any MMO.
Anything you buff on solo queue is a tool that can be used by a pre-made. Hence maintaining the gap.
You either bring in a bunch of mechanics that limit the functionality of pre-made groups, which is just punishing people for playing with their friends, not great, or you unbalance things further by buffing up individual player which can then be further leveraged by SWF.
So what buffs do you want that would bring an individual group of players with varied goals, game expectations and potentially experience levels so that it is equal of a coordinated group with a pre-defined purpose?
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I wouldnt call last patch small changes. The killers buffs are subatantial and imo necessary. Blade wipe+ gen time+ gen regression+ a heap of perk changes. Last patch was huge. There are some underutilised under appreciated changes. The haste change is crazy good and bt endurance time + haste increase is pulling serious weight in my games.
That being said the doomsaying of killer op has not affected my games in the slightest bar the inability to play killer. I have gotten more variety of killers and its seen some killers like doctor and pig finally appear in my games as opposed to blight 24/7
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Or just simply relegate swf in custom matches, so you can finally balance around solo q with less troubles...
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Killers got base kit ability to break pallets faster and faster recovery after swing. Survivors should get base kit kindred.
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I'm not going to say that Killer should get nerfed, since I don't believe that by any means- but I do definitely think that doing some more balancing around Solo Queue isn't really a bad thing. I think buffing them up to the point of SWF is a good thing and balancing around that (Specifically with more HUD changes and updates.) is the way to go, and then balancing Killers from there.
But tbh, I definitely think that the actual power of SWF's is very much over exaggerated. In theory, SWFs are 100% stronger then a lot of Killers. However, the amount of Survivors who are actually at that level who also play in those extremely coordinated SWFs aren't actually that high. A lot of SWFs tend to just be friends who are just... having fun, and as a Survivor player, I can't tell you how many times my very bad, meme-y SWF group escaped- not because of anything particularly special on our parts, but just because of the Killer making a series of mistakes. And this was true in a lot of my Killer games as well- I'm not going to say that there wasn't some games that weren't decided by RNG or something, but man, the amount of my games where I lost, it was usually because of the Survivors outplaying me.
Ngl, I just think that even if Killer was stronger overall, it wouldn't really change some of the core issues of Killer. Absolutely stomping Survivors constantly isn't fun. Balanced games are hard to make or decide, since the game is a 4v1 but matchmaking is decided by a series of 1v1s. And that can't be changed unless there's a change to the core gameplay flow and how things are scored. And, even if that was achieved, it doesn't stop the fact that loses for Killer feel harsher, since your mistakes are only yours. You have no one to blame, unlike Survivors who can blame their teammates all day long. Really, I'm not sure how that would even be changed to feel better either. Making losses feel less detrimental as the '1' in a 1v4 game without holding the player's hand too much or keeping the gameplay fun and based on skill isn't really an easy balance to reach, and I don't envy the Devs for having to try to tackle that issue.
So yeah, I just think the issues are deeper then Survivor vs Killer, and have been for a while. Along with that, I don't think balancing some things around Solo Queue is always horrible or detrimental, just due to the amount of people who can actually coordinate things like that well are pretty low, unless it's a tactic that doesn't really require any teamplay to pull off. (A good example being an old 4-Man Sabo/Break Out group vs old 4-Man Boil Over groups on RPD. Old Sabo Groups were annoying, but required a lot of set up and coordination to pull off, along with an entire build dedicated to it, and it could easily backfire and possibly kill a team- so even though it was frustrating, it wasn't game breaking unless RNG was against you. 4-Man Boil Over groups on RPD required little coordination, since even one guy sitting in the old spot with Boil Over (or two) with the full build changed the game and it wasn't reliant on your team work or coordination. It was purely reliant of 'Can you get to corner' and, if you were Solo, 'Did you put up Boon first?'.)
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Well said, I agree with this 100%.
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Why I think "action icons" (who is being chased, who hears the heartbeat, who is working on a gen, who is healing etc) is the only good way to bridge the SWF-Solo gap
Proximity chat problems:
- I don't want to hear any people I don't know in solo games
- It will be abused
- it will destroy the atmosphere of solo games
- There's a problem with different languages, especially in Europe
- Some people will refuse to talk
- Some people can't talk, because they don't have a headset or for some other reason
- If Killer starts chasing you and you are far away from other survivors, how do you signal them that you are in a chase? Same applies to repairing gens etc
- 2/3 man SWF won't share any info with solo survivors
Chat-Wheel Problems:
- Many people are too lazy to use it
- If Killer starts chasing you, you have to press a button and choose the appropriate message, you simply don't have time for that or you will go down
- Each time you start working on a gen you have to press a button and choose "I'm working on a gen" message. Who would do that? And each time you stop working on a gen you have to press something else again? No one will do it.
- 2/3 man SWF won't share any info with solo survivors
- I don't want any additional GUI clutter
We already have state icons in the HUD, they just need to be expanded, why do we need a second system for information sharing? We don't. It's passive, it means the information doesn't rely on other survivor's will to share information, it doesn't require any input from you, so you can do more important things in the game, it's language-neutral, it's always available to all survivors.
"Action icons will also buff SWF": They will, but not nearly as much as soloQ, that's the main point. Solo and SWF will never be the same, we just need soloQ to be much closer to the level of SWF. It will make it easier to balance DBD the proper way and make more fair games for solo and killers.
"Survivors will be too strong after such a buff": no one is talking about buffing survivors here, if survivors will become too strong DEVs can buff killers or nerf survivors in a general way.
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I honestly don't know why it hasn't been implemented yet. Most team games have them (OW, Valorant, R6Siege, the list goes on) and they work more or less. I definitely see the downsides to in-game voice chat but there are a lot of positives too and like most games, there should always be an option to opt out of VC or mute specific people, etc. Overall, I think it'd be a nice experiment.
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Ok ok, i admit i expressed myself a little bad here. What i was referring to, was the basekit changes. That are small changes. But according to our community had a big impact.
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Yes, but our community is afraid of this.
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I have never understood this vague hand wavey "buff solo to swf then buff killers!!". We have seen what just adding 10 seconds to gens has done. Do you really want to trade another 10-20 for base kindred? Or an action wheel?
We already hear tons of unfun complaints about chase times and anti loop so you can't make killers faster and we have also seen how .2 seconds off survivor sprint and .3 seconds has brought solo survivors to it's knees. Want to add another .2 in exchange for a voice comm system?
We can't have strong 1v4 powers(pinhead), we can't have strong mobility(blight, nurse, spirit), we can't have anti loop(nemi, pyramid, dredge, artist). So to everyone saying "buff solo to swf then buff killers", I have to ask how? Even the most miniscule of changes has collosal backlash and knowing your bad Claudette is self caring live vs when you get out on a hook probably isn't worth another 10-15 seconds on gens.
Solo queues real problem is getting randoms who have completely different goals and skill levels from you. 'im cleansing all 5 totems this match'. 'im running a silly meme locker build'. No amount of info in the world can make up for these players.
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Or bring swf down to solo levels and limit their numbers or give them a handicap.
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That would be the best step. But watch how that idea gets instantly smashed.
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MMOs and Asymmetrical Multiplayer are two very different beasts, and your logic doesn't really apply. The idea is to bridge the gap between solo and SWF by giving Solo the same level of information a SWF has. How they use that information is determined by their skill as a player.
If A, B and C all have free information via comms, but D doesn't, then it only makes sense that D gets the same information without having to be on comms to get that information. A, B and C don't benefit from this because they already have this information.
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Your last point is funny in the context of the current patch. "Let's buff survivors, killers can wait a while" is exactly whats happening just role reversed. And people are loosing their goddamn mind over it.
Also: SWF WILL USE ANYTHING BETTER THAN SOLO, because they actually care about each other getting out, or have weird mental gymnastics that make 3 dying to get 1 out a "win for the team" somehow.
As for the chat wheel? Does anyone here say it should be implemented INSTEAD of the icons when the devs already did mention those are in the works? Its just a middleground between nothing and real comms, just with predetermined sentences instead of "squeaky teen screech". The basic callout "Focus Reparing" or "heal me" are so useful. The game or survivor doesnt have to stop to activate a button and flick your cursor in a direction for a moment, IF its to clunky or slow, then thats on the implementation, not the concept.
The whole "wont use it" is stupid. "We have those tools but decide not to use them correctly or at all" is actually on the players, not the devs to balance.
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Sadly survivors have proven already, back in the days, that they be willing to lobbyhop till they're "4 strangers who happen to be on each others friendlist and in the same discord-chatroom". Depending on the restrictions, it'd happen again.
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Let’s not get distracted by semantics. Any scenario no matter the game type a pug group will always be out preformed by a swf.
The lack of information is kinda part of the game it’s a survival horror. Fear the unknown and all.
You aren’t a coordinated seal team on a mission, you are a bunch of camp counsellors at crystal lake.
I like the lack of information and the unknown as it fits the game thematically.
Sadly it’s online pvp, which means there are a bunch of players who want a fair pvp experience rather than a survival horror. These are the people who’ll ruin the fun in the name of competitive fairness simply because their ego can’t hack losing.
The lack of information is part of the asymmetric survival horror. Embrace it.
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What happens if some random solo tries to tell me what to do via a chat wheel, and I think it’s a bad idea, and they decide to just spam their demand over and over? What happens when people disagree with each other, but the chat wheel doesn’t give enough options to properly explain why people are disagreeing?
Why do we always assume random teammates are going to be rational and team players?
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The most obvious incentive is that the stronger solo queue is the more likely people won't feel like they can only play DBD if their friends want to play SWF.
The downside is, of course, it can make SWF even stronger if done incorrectly.
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Make messages non spammable, duh? Common sense in current gaming? Even tahxic LoL or DotA have that?
As for the assumption part. Its not the devs nor killers fault or responsibility that survivors dont want to work together unless theyre in a a discord call. If theyre not doing what you want them too, do as survivors have been doing forever: call each other idiots.
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Solo queue should be brought up a bit. More info. Icons telling what your fellow survivors are doing. Chase indicator for non obsession. And basekit kindred. Maybe make the killer immune to kindred and only kindred for 10 seconds after a hook to make it more fair. Those would be massive help to solo.
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Common sense is that if voice communication is what is unbalancing the game, that we should throw penalties on SWFs as a counterbalance. It’s not “punishing people for playing with friends”. It’s “balancing out the massive advantages these people are getting by using voice communication”.
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