Why buff solos to get stronger as SWF?
Imho, SWF are a necessary evil. You cant avoid ppl from playing with friends, but it totally brakes the game mechanics (in-built Empathy, Kindred, Bond, and a looot of other data perks), team mindgames and tatics for killers.
So, why should BHVR buff solos to get them as strong as SWF? I mean, you cant nerf ppl just cause they wanna play together, but some kind of rework should be done about SWF and the forum has some good ideas.
But, if they buff solo, it will make things harder for killers. Its like that: "SWF is a huuuge problem. Lets make Solo a problem from the same side?".
I only play solo when playing survivor, as much as they are more exciting to play and i can dive in the game, no chat, just match rythm reading. I dont see a need to buff Solo, but to rework SWF (wich will result in a balanced and fair reduction of its OP).
Well, yeah, why? (Topic question in title)
Comments
-
Well, buffing Solos to SWF-Level and buffing Killers accordingly would be the best plan. Because you cannot simply buff Killers to SWF-Level, because this would totally screw over Solos.
But doubtful that this is ever gonna happen.
9 -
Before they buff solos, they really should just tweak some things about SWF. Start with limiting the perk stacks or adjusting percentages for the combos. SWF will still be strong AND fun without meta builds for all.
2 -
A long road, than. :)
0 -
Thats some of the suggestions we can see thru the forum. And they may work.
0 -
I think the obvious solution is to provide in-game comms and tune the game for SWF. Because this method of continually tuning the game to make it easier for killers to deal with SWF, while ignoring the fact that MOST teams are not that, is creating a big disparity for the solo-survivor community. So if they want killers to be more competitive against SWF - give every team the main advantage that SWF teams have: communication.
0 -
Absolutely no. I don't want to have to mute rando's raging in their mics every single match because the killer found them urban evading around the edge of the map instead of working on gens. Seriously, imagine how much babyrage you'd hear every time someone gets hit through a window or a dedicated hard doesn't register yet still uses the exhaustion?
0 -
There have been a lot of really good suggestions over the years, including everything from perk and synergy limitations to simply having an "opt in" system for queueing to allow or disallow SWFs as either killer or solo survivor. The best we can hope for tbh is that solo gets buffed to near swf level, and that killers get buffed to balance for both. The Kindred change was a step in that direction, and the new kindred is so good it boggles my mind more solo survivors don't use it.
0 -
I don't disagree with you. And there would obviously be the option to opt out of voice chat or mute people, like every other game. I dont want to hear the baby rage either. I stream occasionally and would undoubtedly run into people who cause TOS violations. But this is how other major, team-based games deal with balance, and this is the only reasonable idea I've heard that would allow devs to tune the game to provide killers the balance they want against coordinated teams, while not continuing to completely alienate solo survivors - the largest segment of the games base.
0 -
I have a topic on this in the feedback section of the forums where me and some others have been having a really constructive conversation on it.
That aside, I don't think Solo + Killer should be balanced to SWF for the most part. I think SWF should be balanced to Solo. Though I'm open to suggestions, I find there's more problems with balancing Solo + Killer to SWF level than the other way around.
0 -
tbh you really don't need comms to do well as a solo survivor. You just need to be able to perform each aspect of the role (actually working on gens, wasting time and position in chases, making smart saves) to at least pip nearly every single game, even at rank 1. There will be times where things beyond your control happen, but at worst that's just a -1. If you go into every single game expecting to escape, you're not thinking in terms of balance any more than a killer who expects to 4k every single game.
That said, again, the kindred change gives me hope they could come to a better way of narrowing the gap. Even with the gap where it is, however, a single solo survivor could easily assure the other 3 escape just by being enough of a thorn in the killer's side, its why a lot of killers recognize when a survivor is good at looping and ignores them for easier marks.
0 -
I disagree with you there. I am a red rank, mainly solo survivor and random matches, especially between the last patch and now, just continue to get more difficult. Also, the idea that one survivor will be able to play with the killer for long periods of time is ending with the next patch and the closure of pretty much all major loop points. The intent is for chases to result in hooks sooner, and it will happen with the changes to tiles, loops, palettes and dead space. So teamwork will be more important than ever and that is an area that random teams understandably are lacking in.
0 -
This is an impossibility, since numerous game changes over the last 12+ months have been made in favor of killers specifically to address the SWF/Killer dynamic.
0 -
most of the difficulty in red rank survivor comes from other survivors either sandbagging or just straight up not belonging there. And you're right, thats exactly why that change is happening: because right now I can get a chase to last for anywhere from 1 to 5 gens on most maps, especially if abusing a god loop. reducing that possibility is a killer half of the issue QoL improvement, much like the recent ruin nerf, kindred buff, and 2 second sabo changes were solo survivor QoL improvements. Nerfing ruin was what was apparently needed to give them the concrete data that the map changes were necessary, so that would follow that if solo survivors start doing very poorly the counterbalancing will commence.
the priority gap for survivors is more of a variable than comms. If survivors would rather pick their noses than complete their objectives, that hurts themselves and their teammates to a pretty absurd degree. If you're constantly on an objective and your teammates aren't, then you did what you could. thats just how the game goes, its not 1v1 nor is it supposed to be,
0 -
In some regards I agree, but the most powerful thing SWF has is unrestricted communication. Knowing where the killer is and what they're doing is the most basic thing all SWF communicate. You cannot make a perk to balance that since that perk will have a counter perk available to survivors.
0 -
Again, I disagree with you. The most difficult part of solo surviving in the current environment is lack of comms. Ruin was only a QoL 'improvement' for low ranking survivors, if any. It's also still a very viable perk for killers adept at gen pressure and is routinely used in its current form at high ranks. The hook changes, including quick sabo, were not a QoL improvement for survivors either. Solo survivors have been progressively struggling all year, and it's resulted in nothing but continual tuning for SWF with complete disregard.
Obviously there are many variables for solo survivors besides comms. Match making. The points system. Player's actual skill level. Objective focus vs. Daily/Tome focus, etc. But the one universal thing that could bridge the gap create by SWF tuning across any match, regardless of those variables, is comms.
Having people not on objective is much more common in random matches because of a lack of information, even when they are actually trying to stay ON objective: example - someone is hooked and multiple people go for a save. At least one person's usefulness is going right out the window. The argument that this is remedied by running perks like Kindred has to stop being the solution to every query about every unbalanced aspect of the game for solo survivors at some point. I currently run DS, BT, Iron Will/Unbreakable, and Kindred to deal with camping, tunneling, slugging, and communication. Wouldn't it be nice to have at least one perk slot you could use for a fun perk and still maintain a build capable of countering the game's most common and objective-ruining game play?
You are right, this game should not be viable as a 1v1 - nothing I've suggested eludes to the idea that it should be.
0 -
Yes, and killers are more powerful than individual survivors, as well as are provided an arsenal of perks and add-ons that reveal survivor location. They don't need to be in the conversation to have very much the same advantage, and now maps are becoming easier to traverse and gens are slowing down to make using that information more valuable against coordinated teams. This leaves solo survivors in the lurch, who lack the luxury of communication.
0 -
I mean I main solo survivor and get rank 1 pretty regularly so I don't know what to tell you. Strap on Spine Chill and Kindred and enjoy getting at least a black pip pretty much every single game i guess. As for lack of information, that is 100% the survivors fault and comms are not needed to aleviate that. you're not SUPPOSED to have information, and it doesn't exactly excuse playing like a coward. I do agree that dailies and challenges can be pretty toxic at times, especially the key/hatch/mori/EGC/protection hit ones.
also, if you think "just run kindred bro" is a bad argument for survivor, boy you must hate to be on the killer side of things. According to most survivors, you're expected to run 20 different perks to counter the amount of "maybe" situations that are hopelessly exploitable. Now that maps are being addressed, "just run bamboozle bruh" is finally being addressed. So once again it all comes back to the fact that comms are what creates and capitalizes on those unfair situations, not exist as an answer to them.
Ideally, there would be a way to block out all comms from the game, including third party, but that would hurt the health of the game too much and BHVR knows that. That said, you don't patch a hole in a boat by making more holes. If you can't patch the original hole, all you can do is keep displacing water out of the boat to prevent it from capsizing.
0 -
buffing solos is definitely way to go BUT nothing will match SWF (i pretty often play 2men swf but without voicecom) and let me tell you this how can you give me as solo reliable teammate that i know he will do gens if killer isnt on him, or he will unhook me before 2nd stage
biggest problem in soloQ are 4Head teammates that wont do crap urban evade in corner, selfcare vs legion, cleanse vs plague (mainly i mean before buff), etc for me main advantage SWF gives you is good teammate xd that wont afk in corner while watching me being chased
about voicecoms i have double NO!!:
1st not everybody should be allowed to speak (TOS stuff, annoying kids THAT SHOULDNT PLAY THIS GAME BTW) and i highly doubt urban evading P3 claudette would ever listen to me or gave me good info,
2nd ppl that are telling "just add voicecoms" IMO are mainly from USA or countries where English is their 1st language, im living in central EU and i can tell you with 10000% confidence amount of players that would be using English on VC is less than 50% and adding to that certain country that is famous because of tryhard players and being unable to even type in english...
0 -
I highly recommend they need to slow down SWFs as only buffing killer and solos is not the answer.
Solos can't match communications with perks.
Buff killers without slowing only SWFs down and solos will suffer still
0 -
"Strap on Spine Chill and Kindred and enjoy getting at least a black pip pretty much every single game i guess." I don't know what point you're trying to make here. Again, perks - IMO - are not the solution. Having to the run same counter meta all the time because you solo sucks some of the enjoyment out of the game.
"As for lack of information, that is 100% the survivors fault and comms are not needed to aleviate that." - So anyone without three additional friends to play with every time they play DBD should just accept the consequences of having much harder matches, and losing most of the time, because the game itself is being changed so that killers are competitive with SWF teams? No. That's unacceptable, as most survivor groups are random. I might agree with you that comms would not be the best solution if you came up with a suggestion that would balance the disparity between SWF and solos, but I have to see a suggest better than continuing toward that SWF balance and leveling the playing field within the survivor community.
"So once again it all comes back to the fact that comms are what creates and capitalizes on those unfair situations, not exist as an answer to them." - If you're saying that comms creates an advantage for SWF when it comes to perk selection, you are right. Just another reason solo players should have comms, since the game continues to change to accomodate SWF. If the game changes that have occurred and are occurring werent repetitively trending in that direction, I might agree with you that comms would not be the solution. But they are. So as long as the game continues to improve things for killers, their abilities, and their interaction with the environment to efficiently tackle SWF and balance that dynamic of the game...the change needs to occur in the disparity between SWF and solos. Comms would satisfy this. Again, I welcome a viable alternative suggestion vs. opposition.
The fact is that the game has been changed significantly over the last year+ to make playing against SWF easier for Killers. Taking away communications would negate all the work BHVR has done in the last year+ to help resolve that pain point for killers and create an even greater imbalance in the other direction. Continuing to make these balance changes and forget the fact that the majority of survivors are random and these changes put continual strain on QoL for random teams would be a huge misstep as it alienates the biggest part of the player base. Thus, the easiest and most logical approach, IMO, is to level the playing field within the survivor community in a way that lifts those on the low end of the disparity up to the level at which the game is being tune: SWF. What is easily the biggest advantage to SWF: comms.
0 -
Well, a lot to think, indeed.
0 -
I mean you're typing words but all i can see is "I want my games to be as easy as a 4 man swf!" so I'm not really seeing a balance argument. You're not even acknowleding there would be zero killer equivalent to the bonuses that comms provide, just that nebulous vague changes to improve killer QoL were made to target SWF but apparently made solo completely and utterly unplayable.
That said, saying that BHVR is ignoring the largest part of their user base is laughable, this game has been survivor sided in almost every patch, there was even points where killer was considered straight up masochistic to play. Most of the reason I'm a survivor main is because of how easy and less stressful it is (the other half being accessibility for things like colorblindness, but they've made it very clear they refuse to address that.)
0
