This DS/NOED debate has made one thing clear: we need better balance between SWF and solo survivors
I think it's clear at this point that this game really needs better balance between people who solo queue and SWF teams.
Every time a buff or nerf for one side or the other comes out, you could be forgiven, after perusing this sub or the forums, for thinking that everyone who was negatively affected comes out of the woodwork and says the change is unfair because the game was already balanced against them. I believe this is for two reasons:
1. Survivors who solo queue feel like the game already favors killers (which, at least according to the devs, it statistically does, and I'm willing to bet that a lot of that imbalance comes from solo survs getting absolutely mopped up).
2. Killers who think that the game is still survivor-sided are primarily remembering their matches against skilled SWF teams, who can stomp most killers on most maps as long as they play efficiently (not too much has changed since the old de-pip squad, you could do the exact same thing today to almost the exact same effect).
Both sides are right, and DBD, while far better balanced now than it was in the past, is still sort of fundamentally broken. SWF teams are still very strong, and solo queue survivors are still pretty weak. If we're ever going to agree on what is balanced and what isn't, we need to stop trying to balance the game when it's still separated into two different gameplay experiences, and that applies to both sides.
Take NOED, for example, which many survivor mains want to be nerfed now more than ever. Here's a typical conversation on the topic, which I pulled from another thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/deadbydaylight/comments/at9488/todays_news_in_a_nutshell/eh0s9e1/
"You're not gonna have everyone in a full random lobby clear 2 totems each consistently, SWF is different... [cleansing totems] is a massive waste of time."
"Ofc it's a waste of time, it's a perk from your opponent."
"The problem is that cleansing totems in itself is not hard, but making sure all 5 are cleansed is, at least in solo queue."
This is basically how every single conversation about NOED that has every occurred goes. One dude says NOED has unreasonably difficult counterplay, another dude says that they should just cleanse the totems, and someone else notes that it's difficult to do so when playing solo survivor. And **no one gets anywhere because they're talking about two different games. **And this doesn't apply only to NOED: I'm willing to bet that most of the people who think the DS nerf (or any other survivor nerf for that matter) is a bridge too far are mostly solo players.
So for the sake of future balancing discussions,** how about we ask the devs to set their next priority to be making sure that solo survs and SWF teams have roughly the same experience?** Because I play killer a whole lot, and I, for one, hate going from match to match right now, not knowing if I'm going to play against 4 survivors who have no idea what's going on the entire match and completely steamroll them, or a well-coordinated SWF team that bangs all the gens out in 3-4 minutes and I get one kill if I camp and tunnel like a mofo. It feels like the game is still balanced around whether the survs are playing efficiently, which is, by design, very difficult for solo survivors to do, and very easy for SWF teams to do, but the problem won't be fixed so long as killers keep getting mad when already-strong SWF teams get survivor buffs and already-weak solo survivors get mad when they're made even weaker with killer buffs. To fix it, we need things like letting all survivors know how many totems are left, letting everyone know where spotted totems are, letting everyone know whenever someone is in a chase, better info sharing on where the killer is when one person sees them, letting everyone know when a killer is camping a hook without needing to sacrifice a perk slot to do it, etc.
I know it will be rough for a while when the game needs to be re-balanced to give survs more shared information, but in the long run, I think it will be worth it.
Thoughts and constructive criticism are very welcome.