Visit the Kill Switch Master List for more information on this and other current known issues: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/299-kill-switch-master-list
Dead by Daylight needs to be balanced around SWF
Until then the game is far too stacked in survivor's favour. It's ridiculous you balance a game around the assumption that one side are random people with no communication, but then allow queueing with friends and communication. It's simply not balanced.
Comments
-
Let's see.
Killers know that.
Survivors know that.
Even some swf will admit that.
The only ones that for some God forsaken reason are unable to see that are the devs.
35 -
Here's hoping. SWAT SWF's the handsdown the worst thing to go against in terms of fun.
6 -
Never gonna happen bud.
2 -
While it can be frustrating to play against a truly optimal SWAT-SWF-team the devs can not balance the game around them as killers would simply become too strong for solo survivors to handle. Besides SWF by itself may have an advantage over solo players but without optimal gameplay from their side they will typically lose to a good killer even WITH the benefit of communication.
10 -
They announced in the anniversary stream that once the new matchmaking is implemented, they'll be able to start keeping track of how much better SWF does versus solo play.
Apparently they've not been tracking that before now...
12 -
I don't like get a swf game too, but to be honest, a great survive with friends team is made by great solo survivors
1 -
But the devs are fine with SWF being too strong for killer?
0 -
It's about the numbers. There are statistically BY FAR more solo players than 4-man-SWF teams. Games are (almost) always balanced around the majority of players.
The DBD devs revealed stats a while ago and if I remember correctly full 4 man teams were really rare.
That's why they can't balance around them. However they want to implement some mechanical early game change according to their latest stream which is going to give killers more time to build pressure.
3 -
Whats going to be scary is those of us killers that do really well now despite the imbalance. When they give us proper balance a lot of these survivors that currently think theyre amazing at the game are in for a rude awakening. That beginning of match portion MIGHT be that balance...
2 -
There is a huge difference between being a good solo survivor, and being able to give my the the position of killers totem, where is the killer, which pallet had been used or not.
It's night and day swf and solos
7 -
But if you make a swf team with only potatos you won't reach something too big
0 -
It's so obvious the devs only care about making this game as easy and accessible to survivors as possible, while leaving killer in an unfun and unplayable state.
0 -
I mean it really depends what exactly that early game change is going to be.
If the devs just make it so all gens are blocked for a minute (for instance) it will not have much of an impact (unless you're a Hag or Trapper main who can use that minute to prepare the map) because survivors will just wait it out (especially teams with communication).
If the survivors have to find randomly placed tools that allow them to repair a gen however (for example) games will look a lot different. Most survivors would probably play more immersed at the start of the match and killers would be a lot more scary early game as every chase before collecting the tools would be a major disadvantage for the survivors.
I'm really excited for all the upcoming changes. I wonder what matches will look like in the future.
2 -
Yeah me too. Whatever it is it should shake things up a bit which will be nice
0 -
But they can reduce the gap between solo and swf. How? Visible perks in lobby, better way of communication. Better ways of knowing what rest are doing.
Trust me, its not true. SWF can eazily focus on gens with the knowledge where the killer is, while also being terrible at chases.
When you are downing survivors one after another, you will completely break down the solo survivors, while for the swf gens will still be flying.
Where? Because in Europe i feel like there are way many more swf's than solo players.
2 -
Here, just found it:
As for closing the gap between solos and SWF teams I agree. The closer solos and SWF teams are in potential the easier it is to keep the game balanced.
3 -
This graph isn't the best.
It is surely a nice curiosity, but it lacks information about ranks and hours.
Also, this graph shows that its more likely to play against swf than pure solo squad. 27% of players play in premade of 2, which means that 27% solo players will be with them, 12% for party of 3, so 4% of solo players go to them.
This leads to conclusion that only around 20% of lobbys will be purely solo squads... which kinda matches my experience.
2 -
for a 4-man SWF, it's survivor-sided. If you play solo survivor, the game is 100% balanced pretty notably toward killer nowadays, especially with killers whose abilities are as busted as Oni, Deathslinger, Spirit, etc., whom seem to be intentionally created for the people who play killer who don't bother learning how to play killer, so they need killers who can't reasonably be countered.
And no, they should definitely not balance around it, as 4-man SWF is not even common.
3 -
How on Earth could you possibly think Oni, Deathslinger, and Spirit are "Busted"? Do they even have high killrates lol
3 -
I would say I am "curious" about the upcoming changes. Any potential "excitement" is going to entirely depend on the nature of those changes.
0 -
Seriously. My teammates suck in solo, and we still get down to 1 gen pretty much every time. It would be absolute cake for me if I had a SWF group. The killer wouldn't stand a chance.
2 -
Ok... you have just given 3 killers, that are among the hardest to play effectively, as an example of killers for people, who don't want to learn how to play killer...
DAMN
4 -
Well I played my first match in 3 weeks (due to living circumstances) and got 4k Merciless with Legion. Was pretty pleased.
This morning I squeezed in a couple of games...oh dear...matchmaking and SWF...just appalling.
1 -
Every change for a year has been pro-killer to balance complaints about SWF, making solo survivor very difficult. From the survivor side I will say the devs could not care less about the survivor experience. I think they feel that if you have your friends and comms you have all you need, so all other changes should be positive for killers I.E: Nerf toolboxes, med kits, BNP, insta-heal, sabotage, safe pallets, vaults, corn changes, opening up spaces, hooks closer together, maps smaller, etc, etc, etc. So the solo folks, 50% of the survivor base can just go suck it I guess.
1 -
Oni and Spirit definitely do, both of their powers are very oppressive in comparison to something such as the Pig's RBTs. I could imagine that deathslinger also has a high killerate but that's probably more because of his ridiculously small TR and the fact that he can constantly just fake shooting, practically forcing survivors to stop running from him.
0 -
I'd agree but come on... Really? Lol, no... There is no way, when I see swf all I see is meta perks on all four of them and then communicating at all times to feed information to the others. You always have one who loops the killer, one who does the gens, one who stands by and watches the killer and survivor to try for flashlight save if they have to and one who does gens and totems or helps with the killer if need be
Not to say there aren't swf out there who try crazy and wacky builds together and have a blast with it. But from my experience and hundreds of YouTube videos later... I can see in almost every single encounter with swf, there is meta perks and a lot of communication. Solo is mostly bad because of lack of communication and understanding of what everyone else needs. I think really what needs to be done is that the game needs an "in game voice chat" that everyone can use and is limited to distance (VR chat did it, so can this game) where people can use their microphones to talk to the other (if they are of course close enough) to communicate (or at least have like a cellphone to "text" to the other survivors (have like emergency buttons you can press quickly with the number keys: Killer on the way! I'm on a gen! Found a (insert item here)
Something to help further communication but also limit it so people can't just use Discord or something (of course they will continue to do that but if we're really going to make this game a "Competitive asymmetrical horror game" then we need to start looking at things from a fair but competitive stand point
1 -
Killers right now are destroying solo players easily so they can't really buff them anymore.
0 -
Again someone who is not as good on the game as they think they are and blames SWF for it.
Classic.
2 -
Sorry but no.
Devs have stated that SWF don’t perform that much better than solos and all this would bring is solos having an even worse experience!
also, lately I have very often been accused of being full SWF when I was maximum only 2 man SWF and the other 2 were clearly solos.
even if there was an indicator for SWF after-game I am sure there would be accusations of SWF connecting via lobby dodging until they are together. It is not always the reason you are struggling.
1 -
Tbh I play solo and sometimes I get people who are also smart so we play just like swf using some braincells and killers say nice swf lol even though we were all solo.
Problem is when you are chasing if the other 3 survivors decide to just hold m1 there is nothing stopping them from ez 3 man escape. Game designed for people who played 4 years ago was scared of the single heartbeat and didn't know #########.
Game has to evolve with people, they need to find a way to make games last longer that is all nobody wants to wait 10 mins in que to play a 6 minutes game
1 -
I agree that the game balance should be optimized for a strong swf. But it's also important to give solo survivors nearly the same informations of a swf member. Than you're able to treat both equivalent.
Maybe they're already doing this. I think it's a bad idea to change everything at the same time. This can destroy the whole game balance or even the game itself. The change for kindred is something that points in this direction. It's only sad that it costs you 1 perk slot 😢.
0 -
Nice idea, just forget about all the Solo survivors in the process yeah? Because the whole player base of survivors is made up of optimal 4 man sweaty SWF...
If you want Killers buffed to deal with SWF then Solo survivors need a buff as well. In the end this will just create a power creep as each side will see endless buffs and nerfs.
2 -
Well spirit is uncounterable tbh, and before you say oh run iron will and pre drop pallets to trick her, remember this good headset and good killers go very well together a good spirit can find where you are with iron will by using short bursts of her ability and or waiting to see where you go and oni is another killer who can hardly be looped while in his ability if he is good and you make one mistake you go down in seconds. Deathslinger well he is so easy to counter just pre drop pallets honestly when you have to and he loses lots of momentum.
0 -
Sorry but that's b.s. the maps are not that noticeable and it was a real issue and sabotaging is instantaneous so its not that big of a nerf its buffed speed and against a team you still lose hooks but sabo was op before toolboxes werent that useful before at least now I can actually see the speed and medkits are fine all items need add-ons to shine the green has less charges but insane heal and you don't realize that when you can loop and heal with that medkit then fully heal against the killer it is so annoying and time.consuming for killer and insta heals suck now but they were pretty stupid with how strong they were
0 -
Will never happen, because survivor mains claim if they nerfed/removed/opt out of SWF the game would die, because so many people play SWF, while also claiming that almost no one plays SWF, and you just need to git gud.
????
2 -
Nope, instead I get 10-15min queues as red rank survivor to be put against a yellow/brown rank killer. How fun.
1 -
You cannot assume everybody is SWF on comms, while most of them arent. Dont blame SWF for your lack of skill.
0 -
The issue with balancing against SWF is that it drives the meta in one direction, so eventually everyone, and I mean everyone, will be running the same perks. Not because they're fun or even optimal for themselves, but because it gives them the best chance to survive.
0 -
Wait, have the devs talked about a change to the early game or what? In their latest stream?
0 -
They mentioned it briefly. Quote (Fibijean):
"Similarly to last year’s introduction of the End Game Collapse, they will be releasing a new feature along the same lines which will affect the start of the match instead. This is a topic that has been discussed widely within the community, and which the developers themselves also feel strongly about – the beginning of the match can be quite busy and stressful for both roles, so they will be looking into “cleaning up” the start-of-match experience and making it as fun as possible for all parties involved."
0 -
Hmm ok. Thanks for the info.
Theoretically changing the early game to have killer be less stressful sounds fantastic. However, a change like this will also need a change that at least benefits solo survivors. If this would be just another buff for killers to gain more time, than top tier killers would become too strong.
So I'm hopeful solo survivors get some nice changes as well in the same patch in which an early game change would release.
1 -
If you have played this game for a year or more, you would know that devs are balancing the game to deal with SWF groups. This is not currently a survivor sided game, as evident by the kill rates.
0 -
The devs definitely have to keep numerous things in mind. If they just straight up give killers more time by implementing an early game mechanic that slows down gen progression then they will also have to do something about camping otherwise all killers will 4k if they just facecamp first hook which is obviously not tolerable when there's no counterplay. Right now there's the "just rush gens" argument which obviously can't be said when there's an early game mechanic preventing you from fixing gens.
I'm fairly sure the devs will come up with a smart solution, though and I'm curious as to what the result will look like.
0 -
The map changes are actually quite noticeable. A lot more dead zones, palette placement changes, more unsafe palettes, doors directly next to windows. These are highly noticeable when you're in a chase. I don't know how many maps I've stopped in a spot and looked around pretty surprised at the utter lack of resources. It's not a catastrophic problem - but it's definitely noticeable.
No survivors asked for the sabo changes. They are in no way a buff when the previous method of 99'ing and (actually) instantly being able to drop a hook is far superior to having to guess/perfectly time a sabo that takes a couple seconds and highly risks being injured. I have seen far less successful hook sabos since the changes. Two, to be exact.
Toolboxes are pretty useless now. You have to be incredibly careful about when you use them, especially against Killers with Ruin or Pop who can render your entire toolbox pointless fairly easily.
Med kits themselves are fine - but their rare/ultra rare addons took a huge nerf. In fact, all iri addons for survivors outside of flashlights have been significantly nerfed. The only REALLY viable iri item survivors have left that havent taken a significant hit are keys.
Alaenyia is not wrong - the majority of the changes implemented in the last year and a half have definitely benefited Killers more than survivors for the reason the OP posted about: SWF. They are also right that solo survivors have been sort of left in a lurch as a result. That doesn't mean the changes were necessary or good for the game...but ignoring the fact that tuning the game for SWF to benefit Killer's experiences while doing nothing to bridge the solo survivor/random team gap is a huge mistake. The image in this thread clearly displays why - solo survivors/random teams out number SWF and lack all of the advantages the game is being tuned to help account for.
0 -
Killers need to be power role bottom line yes there are lack of resources but thats rng sabo was too powerful before this was needed killers stopped playing because of swf devs favor survivors so much before and That's why they need to give killers advantages so as to keep a healthy player base and insta heals were broken as all hell we should give killers an add-on to instadown one person per game then without hitting them then of insta heals were so fair they weren't they were just broken. I used to be a surv main now I play both and I mever thought insta heals were fair the game right now is actually balanced more than it ever has been
1 -
In a 1v1 situation, killers ARE the power role. There is no disputing that. They have every advantage.
Sabo was not remotely too powerful before. Especially since the devs had already patched in more/closer hooks long before the sabo changes.
I won't argue the game used to be more survivor-centric in its release, but it has been scaling killer-centric for the better part of two years now.
Lots of Killers have built-in insta down - they dont even need an item to do 50% of their job... in addition to slew of very useful/valuable iri addons they have for their powers. Comparatively, Killers have MASSIVELY better iri addons than survivors. By a HUGE margin.
Insta heals were fine and an ultra-rare addon, meaning they weren't all that frequent. Not any more frequent than a tombstone.
Im not saying some of the changes weren't needed/warranted to improve the game for Killers, but tbh - massive changes have been made over the last 2 years to make SWF vs. Killers more competitive, that have really been a detriment to solo survivors and random teams, and Killers aren't even remotely satisfied despite having the superior win rate even before the latest patch. Idk about your platform, but I play on PC. I wait about 60 seconds for a survivor queue. I wait 15ish minutes for a Killer queue. Continuing to alienate the largest group of people on your biggest platform is not the answer to improving your game.
0 -
Yeah having a swf group be able to communicate to their friends after dieing acts like an additional perk that killers don't have access to. Maybe cut off the communication if you're just spectating?
1 -
There's no way to "cut off communication". The only way you could do that was to straight up disable spectating itself.
0 -
Surely something can be done though. I'm no programmer, but I like to think that you could incorporate something that would prevent friends from being able to feed information back to the players left standing.
0 -
Sure you can do that, but enforcing it and preventing people from (easily) circumventing it in a myriad of ways? Or even getting permission from the platform owners (Valve/Steam, Sony, Microsoft) to interfere with communication when they all have built-in ways to communicate? That's a different story.
At least they made it so the killer's perks/addons aren't visible until all survivors are dead and/or escaped, that was a good change with a similar motivation that could be done fairly easily.
0
