Things Solo Survivors Need
Hello, I am making this post mostly aimed at BHVR in an attempt to help out the weakest role in the game: Solo Survivor. However, I recognize that some of these changes will either marginally or slightly buff survivor overall. Much like how introducing the HUD still helped SWFs but mostly helped Solo players, these changes will largely be aimed at making the information gap by communications closed so that the gap between SWF and Solo Survivor can be closed and balancing can then be made for this new group of survivors. Ideally what I suggest here will also make the game more intuitive for newer players, which is a plus in the modern era of DBD with so many perks and maps and killers!
To start out, I'll be focusing on things that I believe to be less controversial. These are:
(edit: seems like my numbering system got messed up by this forum feature and I don't know how to fix it but please enjoy the bullet points anyway LOL)
- Allow survivors to see their teammates' perks and activation statuses in game.You mentioned before you do not want survivors to see their teammates' perks in the lobby, and I agree with that. Once they are in-game however, it is good to know what people are running so they can play around it. Does someone have Botany Knowledge? You can find them for a heal. Does someone have bond? You can teamplay with them better. Does someone have Balanced Landing? You can let them work upstairs generators. There are lots of ways that knowing your teammates' perks is very useful that can only be done by telling people right now. Steam players could tell one another in the pregame lobby, but console and PC cannot talk right now.
Additionally, allowing survivors to see the activated conditions of their perks would be useful. If someone has deliverance active, now they know not to go for the save. If We'll Make It is active but only for a little longer, then they can allow that person to heal them first. There are again lots of ways this will help close the gap between SWFs and solo players and this already is very easily done in SWF so it wouldn't affect SWF much at all while helping solo players immensely.
Ideally, seeing the perks could be implemented in the escape menu and their activation status could be on the hud so we only have relevant information there.
- Update the HUD to also include healing, mending, gate, totem cleansing and blessing progress.This is a simple update to the already-existing HUD and it can use the circle bar that is already used. I think this one is simple but helpful.
- Chat Wheel Commands.This idea was inspired by DBD Mobile where you can use commands similar to telling your teammates to "focus on repairing generators" or "I'm going for unhook." If you think the text will take up too much space since I am asking for a lot of HUD things, perhaps you could instead allow for an icon to pop up. Generator icon means focus on generators, a hook with a question mark would mean is anyone getting that unhook, with a hook with an exclamation mark meaning I am going for the unhook, and so on. This is already very common in SWF communication so this wouldn't be used by them at all, but it would be enormously helpful to coordinate your solo teammates.
- An Improved Tutorial.This one has been long overdue. Many survivors do not learn much in the way of how to break 3 gens, how to loop any killers or any basic structures or pallets, or how to improve from the tutorial. It doesn't even help you look behind you while running, which is something that could greatly benefit many players! Even learning how to take a hit would be a fun experience in a tutorial and encourage more exciting team play. I think many would agree there is room in both Killer and Survivor tutorials to improve the basics for players and this is a just a sampling of things to choose from.
Other tutorial topics could include:
-how to learn map rng
-how does bloodlust work and when does it break
-what do you do when you become injured, and do you always need to heal?
-Alternate ways to play the game such as sabotaging and flashlight/pallet saving
-some fun perk combos to keep people excited about trying them out and exploring the interesting variety in survivor perks
-encouraging teamwork and the idea that people have different priorities in the game at different times, such as a person being hooked twice might be better off playing more carefully, but someone in the same match not being hooked at all can be in the killers' face more.-how to use stealth well. some people only play by stealth, and stealth is good, but it might be useful to highlight some of its strengths(can waste some of the killers' time and also make them lose you in chase) and weaknesses(forces the killer to focus on your teammates who may have already been hooked, and keeps you from getting better at chase if overdone).-etc
- Improved Matchmaking.
This one is being asked for often and it is what impacts solo players the most. Because the matchmaking prioritizes speed over accuracy, you get wildly imbalanced matches quite often. Additionally, because MMR is only measuring escapes or kills it can sometimes be quite inaccurate at measuring who is truly higher MMR. It may be worth changing how MMR works or at least tightening the MMR bracket again. Of course, it does not need to be a perfectly accurate system, and the lobby prestige change has shown me that matchmaking can already be okay more often than I expected right now, but still there are many players that I and other survivors get who seem to be newer players and it would be better for their enjoyment and the killers' and their survivor teammates' if they were separated. Even if you made something like a ranked mode(something which I don't know if you'd ever want to do), improving matchmaking in the current mode might still help more players as I have seen stories of new players playing by themselves getting matched up with 4 or 5 digit-hour players, and that's something I think is not very fun for anyone. I highly encourage looking into this in whatever way seems to make the most sense.
OKAY NOW we have things that might get a little more pushback, but ones that I also feel can be very very helpful for the solo experience as well. These are:
A. Making Bond, maybe Kindred teammate aura-reading basekit.The reason for this is much like the reasoning for making old shadowborn basekit for killers: it's a quality of life feature that grants more information but not in a harmful way.
In a SWF with communication, you already can know where your teammates are, so it would generally be a better version of bond or kindred anyway. You wouldn't get much out of this unless you are newer, and that's also not such a bad thing I think.
If you are solo though, there are many instances where it's extremely helpful to know where your teammates are. Does someone need a heal? Do you? Where is the chase happening? What gen is someone working on if you are in chase to either take a hit or avoid the area? Who is going for the unhook? Where is the generator that is being worked on so you can double it? Which exit gate did someone run to? And so on.
As you can see, this information is absolutely vital to playing as a team, and while you can intuit a lot of things even without communication, it makes teamplay a lot more possible especially on indoor maps. This is not something exclusive to DBD either; many games have features which allow you to see your teammates even through walls to coordinate with them.
If we wanted to extend that possibility we could even include a minimap feature that shows where all of the survivors are. This would allow the map item to be able to ping locations and would make the item actually more useful than it currently is, but it is an even greater help to survivors so if you wish to be more cautious that's fine.
Incidentally, this would also buff the blindness status effect because it would guarantee it takes information away from the survivors. I know that status effect mainly hinders solo players and this would continue to be the case if this change got implemented, but it may be an interesting point to consider here as well.
B. Update the HUD to include status effects induced by the killer.This would include things like mangled, blindness, incapacitated, and so on. It would help teammates know which perks the killer has, which addons they have, and/or which killer it is if they didn't have someone telling them. I guess you could also have some sort of search bar in game to suggest a perk/killer to the team so they are aware of what they are playing against but that seems like it may take focus away from the gameplay.
Anyway the "issues" with adding some of these effects are it may take away a useful element of surprise, and it could crowd the HUD. I would assume perks which rely on lack of coordination just need to be buffed or reworked, and if the HUD gets crowded then maybe it needs to be reworked, or more of the on-screen area needs to be used.
Alright well, this is another long post that I hope will be met with fair analysis and consideration. I am wishing for the best for survivor improvements and overall game health, and I thank you for taking the time to read.
(also this post is not meant to try and place survivors above killers, please refer to my earlier comment about balancing for a more informed survivor playerbase.)
Comments
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Basekit kindred for 1v4 and 2v8
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I'm down for that for sure! At least the teammates' auras part. I think we could use even more information than that too =)
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Seeing heal progress would be nice too, so odd since like thats info you can just say in comms with a party lmao
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Absolutely! I think I forgot to mention anti-camp progress as well lol
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Honestly, I would be down for more HUD icons - even extending it to showing the anti-camp meter.
I don't think I would necessarily agree with making perks basekit. I say this as a person who loves to run Bond and Kindred in some of my builds, but I don't think adding this into basekit survivor would be suitable - especially with having to rework or tone down the basekit as those forms of perks already exist.
I do agree that solo-queue needs some love, especially in the form of buffs but I don't believe we need anything basekit that I'm aware of.
If anything, I would potentially buff some of the changes that were introduced in 6.1.0 — stuff like the distance a survivor makes when being hit, which could help a survivor in chase as we get less distance now, which I think was a terrible change for solo-queue and makes chases shorter.
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When making perks basekit, of course we need to be very careful. But the reason for example old spine chill was turned into the heartbeat mechanic is because it helped for accessibility reasons. In a similar fashion, making these perks we mentioned at least partly basekit would not buff survivor overall, mainly solo queue because they have less information than in a SWF. This is why killers sometimes say SWF have several perks basekit, so really what we are doing is just giving it to everyone, not only those who are playing with others. If we do this we can make survivor more even overall and then balance for that if it's an issue.
Your suggestion to buff distance gained on hit would help with chase, but it also buffs survivor overall. This would not close the gap between SWF and solo, as in a SWF you could likely make even greater use of this distance gained to know exactly where to run and also die outside of 3 gens and such. It might make solo queue better as it may buff individual players somewhat, but if one player isn't informed then they won't be able to use this information.
To put it another way, injured solo queue teammates often run to open chests to hopefully find a medkit to heal instead of going to a teammate because they don't know where their teammates are. What if we allowed them that chance to coordinate with their teammates which you would have in a SWF? Now solo queue is better, and SWF is the exact same since they could just tell you where to go.
To address your other point differently: I think survivors could use help in chase(sometimes anyway), but I think that comes more in the form of killer power design and map design, not in those basekit things.
I hope this seems reasonable.0 -
I get your point and it's a reasonable take on the idea of bringing solo-queue closer to SWF.
I'm not inherently against the idea of it, but I don't know how they would implement a Bond/Kindred being basekit while either reworking Bond/Kindred or buffing them — it's a very thin line to address when you add perks into basekit survivor. My addition with making survivors get the retained version of the speed boost prior to 6.1.0 would address a chase issue that solo-queue got affected by. Chases are much more short due to the reduced speed boost and the buff that bloodlust got when it was reduced per tier. These issues highlight a problem that solo-queue would benefit from, yes - a SWF will benefit from this as well but you could argue that any buff a survivor (aka solo-queue) gets would buff SWF.
If you add basekit Bond/Kindred into the game, that's less information that a SWF team needs to communicate amongst themselves anyways.
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To me it's like when they made shadowborne basekit on killer. The perk may take on a more niche use(like shadowborne did), or it can buff the existing stuff. So bond as a perk could be map-wide instead of 36 meters, and kindred could show killer aura by the hook and maybe do another small thing like slightly buff base bond or something. That way you only really need to run one of them to get more information if you really need it. You would also need to rework empathy if that is the case but I think it's pretty manageable. Maybe you could make it the reverse where everyone has map wide aura on teammates or something lol.
I do agree that changing chase mechanics to be longer would be healthier for survivor, but my current thinking is that buffing chase through making killers have more possible counterplay and making maps have more usable resources would be fairer overall and wouldn't really be any more abusable by SWF as compared to solo. Of course, I wouldn't MIND a bloodlust nerf either with how many killer powers have gotten buffed lol but I think bloodlust is more of a bandaid fix and lessening it is more likely to be pushed against since there are still some weaker killers that benefit more from the mechanic.
And absolutely I 100% agree that buffing survivor at all benefits SWF as well as solo, but I also think the largest gaps between SWF and solo are information and skill. So if you give more information to everyone and improve matchmaking then many solo problems will reduce. I don't pretend to think the information gap will close, but it would be reduced a lot which I'd love!
Thank you for taking the time to read, let me know what you think of this when you can.0 -
I agree that more information definitely helps solo-queue and I don't necessarily disagree with the points you've made.
Hence why one of my favorite builds before gens were pushed closer together (they reworked maps to make them smaller) was Bond, Open-Handed, Kindred, and Sprint Burst.
Now that they've made maps smaller, I've made Deja Vu a permanent place from my builds but I digress. The only issue that I could see that you brought up is how the perks would be changed, IE reworking Empathy as in your suggestion making Bond map wide — even putting Open-Handed in a list of perks that would need to be reworked. I don't disagree with a small radius around you to show a Bond. I don't even think Kindred is needed as it would just be a weakened version of Kindred and we all know about the dreaded black bubble that doesn't show the killer due to a bug or whatever reasoning Behavior gave for needing it.
The only reason I brought up basic changes like I've mentioned would be simply that they're easier to implement rather than making a whole list of perks that need to be reworked/tweaked to make it playable for people who do run Bond/Kindred. Again, I don't disagree with what you're saying and I think you bring up good points but just know that if Bond/Kindred basekit was brought into the game, it would make SWF stronger as well as they have pinpointed information which would help in the comms they use. My suggestion was an overall buff to both to help people survive in chase longer, which would help alleviate survivor gameplay as a whole.
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Here is my steps
1. Kindred is basekit
2. Bond is basekit
3. Increase the range of bond and kindred if the perk is used with it.Here is the reasonings for it
1. SwF teams already do it already
2. It allows BHVR to be a better reading how good killers are really doing and balance accordingly.
3. Solo won't be as lost and hopeless against killers.1 -
Or … hear me out.
You bypass all of that reworking which would only buff SWF (none of whom would need to run any of the aforementioned perks that you want to have base kit ) and just add communications to the game for SoloQ. Boom, on par with SWF without buffing SWF.
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I used to think comms for solo-queue would be good, especially in cases where you can simply go on mic and say killer has x aura perk.
But in that case, I feel like it defeats the purpose of the game and I say this as a person who duo SWFs (rarely). I doubt Behavior would implement voice comms because then you would have people who main killer complain about the unfairness of the games as this a huge buff to survivor. Adding voice comms is a double-edged sword as it significantly nerfs killers like Trapper and Hag, who are already weak by allowing people to announce in the game where the killer traps when the random comes for an unhook.
I really don't think comms is necessary for a game like Dead By Daylight, perhaps a small radius of Bond but eh.
I say this as a person who has more hours on survivor than I do killer, BTW.
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I dunno what sort of seal team six swfs you're playing with, but I've never played with people who have perfect, infallible callouts on where they are at all times. Or perfect, infallible callouts on where the killer is or going after hook.
At that point you may as well give constant aura reading on where the killer is at all times. Swf calls it out, right? Aura reading on where generators are. Swf know it, apparently. Basekit Windows. Don't swf call out every pallet they drop and structure and window location?
Realistically speaking, the swfs you're talking about that wouldn't benefit are very rare. A boogieman that lives in killers' heads. This stuff would benefit uncoordinated swfs way more than solo. You can shove information down the throat of the Claudette crouching in the corner all day. Making her act on it is a different thing entirely.
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Sorry look at anti face feature and the fact they know where the killer went also bond is nice so there isnt the entire squad going to get one person. Swf groups usually one person goes get the player hooked.
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I think that, if it's worth it for the health of the game, then changing a handful of perks minorly isn't so bad. Consider that now new players won't have to level up characters to have basic info in the game too, so even if they just make the perks kinda useless like they did with shadowborne then that's still a win! They don't need to put a lot of thought into that and make the perks better if that's a hangup, and they've even been making changes to groups of survivor perks at a time. Who is to say they couldn't do an update where they implement this and just change some information perks? I think it would be well-received.
I think this could be an interesting experiment, but I also think from watching games such as TCM that solo queue comms has as much potential to be toxic as it does to be helpful(perhaps even more toxic than helpful lol). So while that would be most ideal, I don't think it is the best solution for DBD.
Also, I don't really understand your other point. Isn't my change good then if it's something only solo players need and SWFs don't? I feel like you're just agreeing with me there lol.0 -
I'm glad you're having good games! I do not think that everyone that is playing solo survivor is doing so and that is why discussions like this will continue to pop up.
Making perks more useful in many situations would help solo queue, but perhaps at the expense of SWF having many more tools. That's not to say those perks can't be added, but they must be considered carefully.0
