Just a few thoughts about patches, SWF, solo survivors and killers

IWantCandys

While reading through the forums here yesterday and today, as well as the steam forums, I've noticed that most of the complaints about basekid unbreakable have come from killers concerned about swf abuse.And honestly, as a solo survivor, I understand those concerns. SWF abuse quite a few things. I see it if I watch streams. However, I don't see how this update does anything to help us solo queue players. It's basically useless to us again. I think it makes our experience even worse.

I know I'm stinging a hornet's nest with this opinion, but the existence of swf is getting on my nerves more and more.

No I'm not saying I don't want anyone to be able to play with their friends anymore, I know BHVR would ruin their own game by doing so. I don´t know a solution either, I just feel the need to speak about my thoughts and feelings. I've noticed for months that whenever a change happens that could be partially good for survivors, killers complain en masse out of fear that SWF might abuse it. But no one thinks about us solo players, like we don´t exist in this game.

And yes, it´s the truth .... anything that helps us makes swf stronger. And killers (rightly) don't like it if swf keeps getting stronger. But what is the solution to this? Let solo queue starve at the outstretched arm just because swf exists?

Coordinated SWF teams on comms ruin the game not only for killers but for solo survivor as well. At least that's how it feels to me. Of course, when I talk about SWF, I don't mean the casual squad that just plays together and talks about movies, music or everyday life while doing so. And I'm sure the killers don't mean this kind of swf either.And no, saying "just play swf" is not a solution. Not everyone can or want to play SWF, some people don't have friends, or don't have friends who like DBD, or have social anxiety and are unable to voice chat with strangers.

And many players (like me) just don't feel like hardcore sweating and/or bullying the opponoment. 1 year ago I played with 2 people with competetive mindset and another casual player. Both of them were so serious the whole match and yelled at their teammates for the slightest mistake, after that I started playing solo. That´s not fun for me at all. Like I said .... I don´t know a solution. I just want to have casual fun again in DBD and not to be forced to grow a competetive mindset.

It bugs me so much that there is little BHVR can do to help us solos without buffing these competitive squads to the moon. And ofc killers try everything to prevent that, and in the end solo queue will suffer again and again.

I'm not looking forward to the new update at all and tbh .... bots are what I want most of all at this point.

danielmaster87

SWF has probably caused more problems for this game than anything else. I don't have anything against people playing with their friends, but they need to understand they need to be taken down a notch, because the ones who are queueing up together with the sole intention of winning and playing serious are benefitting from having no downside whatsoever whilst the killer is having to think 3 steps ahead just to keep up. I've suggested a gen debuff for SWF, because the people who are supposedly "just playing with friends" are playing for fun and shouldn't care, while the ones who want to win and walk all over the killer will have a slightly harder time doing so.

We need to bring the strength level of solo and SWF way closer together, and the easiest and most obvious way of doing that, besides what I've already suggested, is making solo matchmaking consistent. I'm tired of having baby teammates, awesome teammates, then baby teammates again. It happens every time I play solo. You have no clue what build you need to bring, because you don't know how dire or chill the circumstances of the match are gonna be. Obviously the killer and their perks/add-ons as well as the map are big determinants in that, but teammates are moreso. Should I bring Adrenaline because we're barely gonna get the gens done and that's the slight edge I need? Should I bring a gen rush build because my teammates aren't gonna do gens? Should I bring anti-tunnel, -camp or -slug because I can't count on my teammates to help me out there? You haven't got a clue.

Those are the problems you have to address. The game is easy as heck for survivors when everyone knows what they're doing. What is so difficult? You hold a button on a gen and drop pallets and hold forward. But because of matchmaking, only 1/2 of the survivors will know what they're doing. The solution isn't to give BT and Unbreakable for free. Those are abusable and not at all thought-out. It's the matching. Kills and escapes do not directly correlate to skill.

Akumakaji

Maybe a SWF debuff could work something like an inversed Thanatophobia. This is just brainstorming, but what if a 3 or 4 SWF could only do gens in pairs, until the first one dies or some hook/gen ratio becomes tilted too much in the killers favor, so no splitting up or just swarming and harassing the killer while one or two slam gens.

In a casual game you would not matter too much, as they still get their gen done, but the specialisation of hard-core SWFs will be blunted a lot.