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SWF isn't about win rate, it's about how it removes the fun for killers. Devs need to stop ignoring.
Serously, every time the Devs try to brush off the SWF issue, it's always about winrate. Because SWF don't win tons more than solo survivors, it's somehow fine.
It's clear devs do not play against SWF, or you would realize it's not about win-rate, it's about the loss of fun.
There is no fun in watching survivors ping-pong you between a generator because they are telling each other when you damage a gen and who is in a chase so that they can deny all gen regression.
There is no fun in watching survivors pre-emptively run away because someone on a hook is telling them who you go for even if you try a bait-and-switch from far away from the hook. As long as they have line of sight to you, everyone knows where you are.
There is no fun watching 4 people all know where you are because one person has Object of Obsession and is reporting all your mind-games around obstacles, telling everyone who you are going for, and if you go for the OoO, all four will gang up to deny you the chase.
There is no fun in watching people suddenly run out into the open on purpose because they've told their friends to come bodyblock and flashlight stun to completely reset your chase, especially in a time where survivors are so efficient they can do 3 gens in the first 30 second chase.
There is no fun watching survivors run back to pallets that you didn't break because somehow they are all aware of every pallet you didn't break yet, and thus punish you for it.
There is no fun watching SWF all bring decisive strike and abusing it by stacking it across multiple survivors during end game collapse because they know you won't be able to hook anybody at all.
There is no fun when the entire team knows there's no threat and they can strategically stack gens together because their designated chaser on their SWF party is busy with you, and they'll coordinate on where to lead you away so you never get near anyone doing a gen.
It's not about if we actually get a couple of kills. It's about whether or not the entire experience was fun at all.
You need to genuinely deal with SWF. Wait times for survivors are only getting longer with less and less killers. Every killer is just giving up and resorting to insidious-bubba-camping, and your entire system of punishing killers via rank is meaningless since anyone who wants to camp does not care about rank, and you have never come up with a proper in-game solution, not to mention a lack of killers is putting rank 1s with rank 14s and only making the killer situation worse.
Stop brushing this off based on the winrate stats. You've let the entire SWF community hide behind the statistics that <50% of games are SWF, but I bet if you showed us the percentages where the average player in a game is between ranks 1 and 10, the SWF percentage would skyrocket.
It isn't impossible to beat SWF, it simply is not fun in any shape or form. You need to actually begin having the discussion to deal with it.
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The cheaters on comms will come brow beat you in a minute.
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May I ask - and no malice intended, I'm genuinely curious - if we assume that the winrate thing is true, and that you are almost as likely to kill SWF players as solo players, what about that isn't fun for you? I understand that certain parts of the match prior to that might not be enjoyable, but isn't it still fun (some would say more so) if you manage to kill them all regardless? Or is a 4K only fun if everything that led up to it was fun as well?
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The part that isn't fun is the knowledge that you have no impact on how the match goes. If SWF wants to leave, they can leave. If they want to stay and just annoy the killer, they can stay and annoy them. The killer might as well just be an NPC there just for the SWF to push around. 4K isn't fun. It's the interplay of mechanics and seeing your plans have an effect that is fun.
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"what about that isn't fun for you"
I listed reason after reason. Watching people blatantly cheat right in front of us is not fun. Knowing all our efforts get exploited is not fun.
Knowing that survivors get advance warning because a hooked survivor has line of sight on me isn't fun.
Knowing I cannot damage a gen because they tell each other when I do so that they can always bring new people in to prevent regression isn't fun.
This isn't about maxing score. I don't need to kill 4 survivors to have a fun game. It's about the actual gameplay, the other 99% in between start and finish, being fun or not. SWF makes that entire process not fun as we watch them cheat again and again and again.
If a survivor ranks up but after 2-3 minutes they got tunneled and felt like they were screwed, are you going to say it's fine as long as they rank up? Or did something actually cripple the gameplay for them.
When you annihilate 4 solo players, it's a long standing tradition that you try to find the hatch for the 4th if you've had a good game, as long as they weren't being toxic. With SWF, we're being shafted the entire game, right before our eyes, and we are powerless to stop it.
The actual gameplay is not fun, so what happens on the score screen is irrelevant. I can have a good game and see 3 solo survivors make it out alive and 1 die, as long as the actual internal gameplay was fun. 4K and double-pip is meaningless if it was an absolute tedious pain to do it.
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I can somewhat understand that. So are you saying that it feels like you're not in control, and if you get kills it's effectively only because they let you?
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Well, for me and for most people I personally know, killing survivors who play well or optimally is fun, even if stuff happened during the match that wasn't. In fact, the more challenging the match is, the more enjoyable managing to defeat the survivors in spite of all that becomes. I don't need to kill everyone to have a fun game either - I've had plenty of enjoyable losses in the past - but if I do play against a team of flashlight clickers who are great at looping and frustrating or unfun to play against, killing them is way more fun than watching them all escape. For me, getting a 4K in that situation largely redeems the hell that was the match.
I'm not trying to invalidate your perspective, I'm trying to understand it because it's obviously different to my own.
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If you play on console, this is ALL you pretty much deal with. It's very hard to play killer now. Everyone is in group chat (ps4) and knows everything your doing. Then, the matchmaking has gone to complete crap. I'm always put w rank 1-6, yet I'm a 12. How do you compete with a handicap like that? These survs have the best of everything, know the maps like the back of there hand, know how to exploit the 360 glitch, knock out gens in 25-30 secs, and can communicate with each other the ENTIRE time. Tell me behavior, what do we do? I've tried getting good, but when someone's foot is got me pinned down, it's pretty hard.
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I understand that some people want a challenge, and I think that's probably a topic more about how easy it is to get to high rank rather than a more spread out increase in the difficulty ( especially as the playerbase is only growing).
For me, and I think for a lot of people including those I know who also main killer, the problem is that we have no means to get around this.
A smart solo survivor can take perks that help his team, and that can be playing well. A good solo survivor might just be good at giving chase, and that can be fun.
The problem is when you can blatantly see the survivors always perfectly reacting to you in ways they otherwise could never do. As I've said, info from hooked survivors no matter how far away you are as long as there's line of sight, object of obsession being used to ensure all your chases last twice as long due to any tricks you attempt being spoiled, and even stuff like entire SWF teams taking Decisive Strike and stacking it on you during end game collapse, blatantly unsafe-unhooking right in front of you whilst knowing no one can be hooked again because everyone has DS active.
There's no incentive for us to put up with this, we don't get more bloodpoints, we're still eligible to derank (And killers already have a tougher time ranking up compared to survivors), and we're being taken for a ride that we can't do much about. At this point, there's no point playing, and important to the devs; there's no point paying further either. I've no interest in buying another killer DLC just to watch the same crap happen that I can't do anything about.
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I feel like the only reason I get kills on swf's is because they messed up too many times, and it shouldn't work like that. If they play perfect and I play perfect, it's 0k. That's not balance
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I see, so the problem is that regardless of whether you manage to kill them all or not, you still feel helpless while doing it and that's the part that's not fun? Am I understanding that correctly?
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That's a lot closer, yeah.
It's not raw skill that is hindering us, that is something I can appreciate. A survivor who does a good fake during a chase to buy themselves 5 meters and 10 seconds is good and fun. But all the reasons I listed in the original post and likely many more, they aren't fun and they actively ruin the fun of the match. If the match isn't fun, I don't care what my score was, and SWF teams have ways to cripple the fun for the killer and overall hinder the killer in ways that we cannot counter without dev intervention of some kind.
Post edited by Traslogan on5 -
I must admit that I don't have any ideas to combat that, short of removing the feature altogether which obviously isn't really an option, but then again it is 5AM for me so my brain isn't that turned on at the moment. In any case, I'm glad I was able to understand where you're coming from, it's always good to get different perspectives on things like this 😊
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The biggest problem is there is no real discussion on the dev-side on even trying to deal with it. It's always shut with the classic "well they aren't winning that much more often compared to solo survivors so we see no problem". You can read Q&As from them and it's a frequent default response.
One way would be to remove deranking for killers during SWF games. The problem with that is the devs have lazily made all anti-griefing mechanics tied to rank so you remove all anti-griefing measures if you remove deranking.
Otherwise, at the very least they just need to start looking at the problem properly. We get nowhere whilst the devs continue with their cookie-cutter response each time, and more and more killers leave or stop playing unless they have saved up for a mori by playing survivor.
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I'll ask about it next time I get the chance to talk with one of them on stream or something. At the very least, it would be an interesting conversation to have.
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i feel that playing both sides helps you to understand the game as a whole. i play survivor a lot so i personally think that DS is balanced, but i understand why it annoys you. its meant to be an anti tunneling perk to help survivors from being camped and insta hooked or tunneled in general. i don't mind the shout outs about my position personally though (probably because i'm a low rank killer). although playing killer made me realize that my support builds can also be perceived as really toxic even though that wasn't my intention. ever since Yui and the MOM buffs came out i really loved running breakout and MOM together as as anti hooking support build. after playing as killer and going against similar builds i understand why killers get angry about that built because suddenly a flock of squadettes appear with MOM and breakout and it is really annoying. even after experiencing these thing though, i still love playing clown and plague and it doesn't affect my overall experience (unless were talking about the survivors who grind their teammates then i just tunnel them cuz i feel bat for their teammates that they try to kill)
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DS as a standalone perk is balanced, but it is abused. Anyone who advocates for its current state is advocating for abusing the mechanic.
The whole point is it's anti-tunneling. No one has an issue with one-off DS, the problem is that SWF use it intentionally to stack it at the end so that no matter what they get free at the end during EGC.
This thread is not about DS abuse on its own though, it's about SWF cheating as a whole and DS abuse is only a small part of it.
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how is it cheating though? im honestly curious, i just see it as a 5 second enforcement of anti tunneling and think its completely balanced because the only want to activate it is to be picked up. I'm not saying survivors cant be toxic either though and in fact i will give you my five cents about is. I was in a match a few weeks ago and this Steve kept messaging me saying i was being a douche for leaving them when he opened the door against a Freddy who you need to safely amuse has blood warden or you will most likely regret it. he just kept messaging me with stupid salty things like "#########" or "uninstall trash" which is why i think the dbd community itself though is more toxic than any perk in the game. though where most people find teabagging toxic, i tend to laugh and teabag back. again, just my five cents.
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yea dont allow people playing dbd with their friends thats tawxic
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SWF team. All of them have DS and have told each other they took DS.
End game collapse, you hook player 1. He has DS.
Player 2 unsafely unhooks even with you right behind them.
You can't hook player 1, DS will fire and you lose rank progress and will get no kill.
You hook player 2.
Player 1 returns and unhooks unsafely again.
Both have DS active for a mix of 40 to 60 seconds. Exit gate isn't on the opposite side of the map so they can slug-crawl all the way to the exit or you will take derank and pip loss and get nothing if you pick any of them up.
That is how it's cheating.
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No one even called it toxic, just not fun. Your default reaction tells you me clearly read this thoroughly and understood the point being made, of course.
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not to sound rude, but thats assuming not one person died or already used DS, not to mention they might be so far away from a door DS is irrelevant
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I only say player 1 and 2 because it only requires that 2 be alive to do it. 2 can be dead. And the only reason you are that far away from a door in EGC is if they purposefully went the wrong way just to let others get out.
This is an abuse strat I see constantly as killer, but as always players always make excuses for SWF by saying "well it's not 100% of the time guaranteed constant therefore we can keep ignoring it"
Keep ignoring it. More killers will quit and wait times will keep increasing.
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The main problem was this game was not designed at all for SWF, But due to increase demand it was added but they didnt do anything in terms of balancing the game to cope with SWF and now several years later it is a huge issue that is causing alot of issues.
huge changes are needed to deal with SWF as op has stated its not about win rates it how SWF are removing the fun of this game.
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Unpopular opinion: I used to hate playing against a group of flashlight clickers, now I find it enjoyable because it's a challenge to kill them all. It's nice seeing all the tactics people come up with and trying to find counters to them. And often, they're fun matches. The only times the fun is ruined is if they're toxic in the chat after the game ended. There's no need for that.
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So make it opt-in. But they won't , because SWF is a cash-cow.
I still see all the original points as valid. There's an exodus of killers and an increase in wait times for a reason.
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Making it opt-in will only make wait time for people wanting to play with friends even longer. Not every survivor group is toxic or good. I play with friends regularly and we're nowhere near great, but we have fun and that's what counts. I would not want to have even longer wait times because a handful of people act toxic to killers when the rest of us just want to have fun.
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I'm sick of that excuse. Every time on this forum that SWF is brought up, it's the exact same pathetic excuse. "not all of them are bad so we cannot do anything about it at all". You'll happily let killers experience cheating SWF all the time as long as one single SWF team isn't cheating out of all of them.
Wait times are already awful for survivors, the longer survivors keep up this pathetic excuse the worse it will get. More and more killers are quitting or refusing to play without mori.
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So you would rather the game die off because most people who play SWF stops playing the game?
The devs are working to make the Killer experience better, hell they've proven that with the recent map reworks, but they cannot touch SWF because that's where a huge chunk of the Survivor playerbase is coming from.
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You're doing what all SWF do, playing both sides of the argument.
We say SWF is a big issue, so SWF say "lol it's not even half of all matches"
So we say nerf them, but suddenly they're a big enough share that we can't even dare touch them.
You try to argue that it'll kill the game. The lack of killers is already poised to kill the game. More and more survivors every day, yet less and less killers.
When people are waiting 20 minutes for a game because there's no killers left except the mori killers, do you think the game is going to keep being fine?
Map reworks don't stop the SWF issues either.
If they cannot touch SWF, why are they allowed to cripple killer metas? nurse was the competitive killer, so she got 'reworked' but it was a super-nerf. Hex ruin became widely used because we needed it for low-mobility killers, so it got obliterated. The excuse of the size of the playerbase affected is null and void.
As long as you keep this "we can never do ANYTHING because even to dare discuss this would hurt the playerbase" attitude, killers will keep leaving.
You're not even prepared to look at the potential solutions, keep shafting the killers with gameplay that is the antithesis of fun and your predicted playerbase decline will happen anyway.
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And I'm sick of people complaining about survivor groups on here. Can't have it all, can we? I rather have shorter lobby times against groups than waiting forever. Same thing when I play survivor, I rather not be punished with longer wait times just because I decide I want to play with friends rather than by myself.
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Then keep deflecting the SWF problems, and keep getting more and more killers who've given up and will only play with red mori or as campers who don't care about rank. By refusing to even look at the issue you've already doomed the killer playerbase to decline.
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I don't know what game you're playing but the eboni moris and facecampers aren't as rampant as you make it seem.
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I do agree there is a Killer shortage in the game, but I really doubt everyone is leaving because of SWF Squads.
Also, let me tell you this:
If you think rework Nurse is terrible, then you clearly have only been playing her because she was the strongest Killer in the game rather than playing her because she was your Killer of choice. I used to main Nurse, and I don't think her rework is terrible. It's a welcome change for sure, and my playstyle for her already fits the rework mold. So I haven't had much issues playing her when I play her from time to time.
And if you were dependent on OG Hex: Ruin, I'm sorry to say this, but you were not a good Killer. Hex: Ruin was something you should never be dependent on, because it made the game more about protecting your Hex rather than about protecting Generators.
I knew someone who didn't have to depend on Ruin to play Killer back then, and they mained Freddy, in Rank 1, so obviously it was possible for someone to still play competitively while playing the worst killer in the game, even back then. I even have proof of his build he sent me a while back.
https://us.v-cdn.net/6030815/uploads/781/381210_20181230192511_1 - Copy.pngThe only players who relied on Ruin were the ones who couldn't be bothered to pressure survivors themselves, and Ruin trivializes that by creating a hard skill check for most Survivors to pass everytime that regresses the generator if you can't pass it, while also make them waste time looking for the totem.
It obviously had to go, even as someone who plays Killer more than Survivor I admit it was far too powerful of a perk, even as a Hex perk. Because it's free pressure without the Killer doing anything about it, and it's not something the Survivors can just obviously turn off like reworked Freddy's Dream World. If the totem is hidden in the perfect location, Survivors will never be able to find it, ever. And that's just free pressure. Which is why the devs decided to rework it so the Killer has to work to get it to work.
I am actually a fan of the reworked Hex: Ruin, especially combined with Surveillance. It helps me spend less time kicking generators and it can give me map wide pressure with Surveillance.
The reason I am telling you this is mainly because of something we both know all too well:
The Matchmaking is broken, and you're getting matched with Survivors far more skilled than you are. Organized Teams can be annoying to play against, especially if you as a Killer shouldn't be matched with the kind of players you play against. The players who are way above your skill level. But they definitely aren't unbeatable.
I'm sorry you really have a negative experience with SWF squads, but most people just want to play the game with their friends. That's it. They don't have a nefarious reason to want to bully you (even though some do), and some people, like myself, like to play as optimally as we can when we play this game.
There are a lot of things that are unfun for both sides, but that doesn't mean they need changes. Because what is and isn't fun is subjective to everyone.
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When I play survivor at rank 4-5, they're everywhere.
SWF is still a serious problem, regardless.
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Hex Ruin was something many killers were dependent on for their low-mobility killers. I main shape, never did Nurse as my main, so that assumption is just wrong.
You're focusing on the killer changes instead of the SWF which is the topic of this thread though.
Make your mind up though, you're trying to argue all the changes were good, but then SWF can't be the possible problem too. Maybe it's just pure coincidence that every day we have nothing but threads about the issues of SWF. I listed point after point after point on how they can cheese the game in ways we can do nothing about, and how it ruins it for us.
No one is advocating for the removal of SWF, only proper handling of it. And as for skilled survivors vs me, I sit at red rank 2-4 most of the time as a shape main, it's not about skill, it's about the many many reasons I've listed that you've shrugged as "sorry for you bro but none of it matters". At no point am I advocating for making it easier for killers to wipe the floor with survivors and get their 4K double-pip every game. I'm arguing for the sake of the actual gameplay, not just the score.
Once again, you derail the issue by focusing on what we've already said explicitly isn't the issue; nobody said they are unbeatable! We said it wasn't fun to watch them have such blatant advantages and ruin the gameplay for us. You can kill 2 survivors and still have your game ruined by the whole experience being wrought by SWF scumbag tactics.
Why couldn't we have some basic SWF counters? Why not make it so survivors are blind on the hook and can't see anything visually? suddenly SWF can't report our killer position to their friends. It doesn't impact solo survivors, they can still use perks that show killer aura to their friends, but SWF can't cheat. Stuff like that seems fair and brings back a semblance of fairness.
I confirm for SWF by either asking at the end or checking steam profiles at the start. And constantly, all the damn time, it is just try-hard SWF communicating to create the awful situations that the original post lists and then some.
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There are a lot of things that are unfun for both sides, but that doesn't mean they need changes. Because what is and isn't fun is subjective to everyone.
Some people like to play against SWF Squads for the challenge, myself included.
What is and isn't fun is something that is subjective to everyone, which is why no changes should ever be made on the basis of what is "Fun".
You're asking for a Survivor wide nerf to make Survivors blind on the hook. I have to hard disagree on that just because some people playing as SWF might take advantage of that.
And I'm sure the devs would agree with me on this.
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How does that nerf a solo survivor. Seriously, in all honesty, how does blindness on the hook hurt a solo survivor?
on top of that, if we aren't going for fun, are you honestly going to claim all the cheating advantages of comms-SWF is balanced?
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Hiw can you call out his killer skills when you depend on the biggest cheat in the game?
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... What cheat?
Do you mean BBQ? Because that's not my screenshot.
Also BBQ isn't a cheat.
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You are essentially trying to convince a dead horse. Perfectly logica points get overlooked and countered with straw men. 20 posts a day about swf, same pointless counter arguments. Just let the horse rot and when survivors start getting 30 minute queues and ask why, sit back and laugh.
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Comms
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Comms are not cheats.
I've beaten much more SWF squads than I've lost to them.
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The game wasnt-isnt designed for comms so it is cheating l. And even if you refuse to think it is cheating its still the biggest crutch in the game. You cant talk crap about people who used old ruin and ingore comms.
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It isn't, and I'm sure the devs will back me up on this.
What you consider cheating, is not what the devs consider cheating. So, in laymen's terms.
It's not cheating.
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I don't know if I should humour talking to you. It's clear you don't want to have any sort of discussion and your mind is set with your opinion. Which is wrong by the way, anyone who thinks SWF is a crutch is someone who isn't an experienced killer.
I'll just head off here and now, if you want to continue to reply to me, go ahead. I just won't be responding back, because you're not worth my time, nor anyone elses if you don't want to actually have a discussion.
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So Anybody that disagrees with you doesn't want tobhave a conversation sorry im not apart of your echo chamber. I dont want to talk to cheats anway.
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I'm about to quit the game and I main a killer. When this first came out playing as a survivor you were terrified of the killer and tried hiding and just getting the generators going, now survivors bully the killer in a match with body blocking, hook blocking, endlessly 360ing, endlessly pallet and scenery looping, decisive strike, etc etc.
There's no fear it's no longer a horror game it's basically now a game of people ganging up on and bullying the opposing player then teabagging and messaging them for being run around in circles as the killer. Best of luck getting matches in the future I'm out until I hear there's been changes made, unless it starts getting fair in terms of what survivors are allowed do then the game will die.
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i mean, i understand, but playing clown is still fun
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Just here to derail? What has clown got to do with DS abuse. Just needed to throw in a random statement?
Thread is about SWF, not clown.
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Okay but how would they balance SWF ? Also i'll just say this right now, if they remove SWF, this game will die. Try proving me wrong because it won't work, but if they remove SWF this game will die and people like you that complain about it are gonna regret it because it's gonna lose a lot of a it's player base.
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