Some Feedback and Questions From a Solo Queue Survivor

Tabatha

First up, are there any more plans to improve solo queue? It's been a long time since BHVR has done anything to help with the inconsistent misery that is solo queue. My friends don't want to play this game, so I'm stuck playing solo. Being at mid MMR (I am guessing), I sometimes get good teammates, but often there's one or more new-ish players who can't find gens and go down in about 20 seconds in chase. We have no way to communicate, so chaos ensues trying to keep the poor baby players alive. We all know what it's like to be new and get hard tunneled out at the start, so survivors throw themselves at the killer desperately trying to keep them alive and having fun. It's such a mess.

Solo queue still has no way to coordinate properly. Defeating a killer who possesses poor technical skills is nearly impossible when they choose gen patrol over chases. Beyond that, there are many killers that require good coordination to even stand a chance against. Solo queue (most players) get shafted hard by this kind of design. I don't think killers need to be simplistic and boring, but solo queue players need better tools so that we can compete against them without getting blown up by default.

I was hoping that the 3 Gen Solution was going to have tangible benefits for everyone, not just high levels teams on comms going against the worst kind of 3 gen killer. Even with 8 regressions events per gen, a killer can still keep a match going for over 30 minutes. This is more than enough time to kill off the weakest members of the team and just grind the other two into paste. It's not a 3 Gen Solution, it's an anti 1 hour SM/KN/Hag/Singularity Solution. Those of us at the lower/mid level of play and especially solo queue players still need help to overcome the most painful part of this game. 8 regression events in solo queue is too many. A Herman held us in a match for half an hour and didn't even reach 8 events on any generator, but it was more than enough to grind us down and kill us off one by one. The two weakest players died at around 3 gens and me and the other survivor worked incredibly hard to bring it back, but after 30 minutes or so, we both died anyway. If lowering the cap will impact regular gameplay (somehow), please consider giving us something we can use to beat this strategy. Even if it's just info to help us coordinate better.

I want to speak about the general nerfs to survivor. I think your attempts to limit the potential of high level SWF have done much more damage to solo queue players than anyone else. I wish you could have found ways to nerf high level survivors without harming the rest of us. Solo queue players already struggled and the large sweep of nerfs made that experience even worse with no solo queue changes to compensate. Why not keep shrinking maps instead of giving us loops that are unsafe without a stun? There are some nasty loops on CWF, why not nerf those instead of giving us a bunch of useless loops that any killer can bloodlust a guaranteed hit in about 10 seconds? Nostromo is good example of trash loops that most survivors can't utilise. Most players can't use the cow tree to it's full potential, so nerfing it would hurt higher levels players whilst not really inpacting anyone else. Why can't we have more nerfs like that?

It's no wonder there are so many RQ's. Unless you are playing with other experienced players, solo grants you loss after loss. Even when you play well your team can and will mess that up. It doesn't help that there's no real way to come back from even the beginning of a snowball. The match can be decided within the first minute or two, and survivors are meant to commit to a match that is essentially already over from the start. Dealing with this occassionally is bearable, but solo queue can give you this result multiple times in a row. This builds up, and after you've lost your fifth or sixth match straight with only 1 or 2 gens done due to the hideously unorganised nature of solo queue, you can't do it anymore. That's when you get people going 4% after one hook. It's not getting hooked first, it's a match starting poorly after a string of stressful matches where the survivors have been actively trying to overcome the hurdles that the game has imposed on them, either by design or just bad lack, and failing miserably. Winning requires teamwork and the game does all it can to stop that from happening.

In closing, the mechanics of a solo queue match do not facilitate fun or dynamic gameplay. It's a stress management simulator. I know that many killer players here got very angry when you added the HUD and the VHB for deaf players. But you have to ignore them and keep improving solo queue. The HUD did not turn solo queue into SWF, and any slight advantage that the VHB gives is outweighed by the fact that deaf players are not being disadvantaged by the game systems. Both were great QoL changes that did not trash the game like many claimed it would. It's just hysteria.

Nothing will make solo queue as strong as SWF. Even if you added VC (I don't want this as I lived through the 360 era of CoD), a group of friends will always be stronger and more coordinated. So don't be afraid to keep improving the experience for the rest of us. So many of us have been dealing with these problems for years now and we deserve better.

That's 3 years worth of ranting done. I'm gonna take a nap.