Lets have a civil discussion about casual/comp
So we all know that there are plenty of people against SWF. As someone who's been trying to play killer a lot lately, I see why, but I don't think it requires being removed.
Almost all of my matches lately have just been highly toxic SWFs and it's honestly discouraging me from playing at all. I got really excited for the new Silent Hill chapter, so I got back into the game after around a year if not playing. I've never been very active personally in the community, just hasn't interested me, but now I feel I need any form of commentary on this issue.
I say issue, because it is an issue. It's hardly ever fun to play against SWFs, which contradicts what this even is; a game. It should be fun for both sides, people should get to survive together, but the Killers should also be able enjoy themselves without having to dodge lobbies and be hyper-paranoid about whether they're playing against a try hard group or not. A lot of this could be partially mitigated just with a dedicated casual queue, seeing as right now the only online play is considered ranked. Having a rank associated with things encourages people to try harder to earn the higher ranks. Me? I just wanna play the game casually.
TL;DR I have nothing against the idea of SWF, I have a problem with being forced into competitive play on something I just wanna play casually. Hi to any devs that read this BTW! You guys are doing great overall with the game!
As a side note, having a notification on the reporters end when someone who has been reported was dealt with would encourage me a lot more to actually report the toxic behaviour of players, since I'd know for certain it's not in vain.
EDIT: Changed title to reflect what I want to talk about, I realise now I'm attracting the wrong kind of attention in some cases.
Comments
-
Comment left by future me to reinstate that I said I've never been too active in the community, hence why I only just made this account today :P
0 -
we all know SWF is an issue, we all know that SWF is basically cheating, since the core idea of the survivor gameplay was being unaware of what other people were doing, but what can you do about it? You can't punish people if they want to play with their friends, you can't remove SWF because (just like people used to do in the early days of DbD) survivors are just gonna keep lobby dodging until they get matched with their friends. Splitting the game into casual and competitive mode wouldn't work either: you would split the community, making matchmaking even worse than now and most likely nobody would deliberately play against SWF.
13 -
It’s impossible to have a civil discussion because you have stubborn people calling people who play in SWF “cheaters” even though the devs have already come out and said IT IS NOT CHEATING.
Facts trump your emotions.
Also, the majority of players I face are within the potato - decent range, including SWF. If you constantly lose as killer versus SWF, you’re probably just bad.
5 -
The issue is there are two kinds of SWF groups
- The group of friends who want to play together
- The SWAT Team
Group 1 is great to play with. They're fun; they get to have a good time with their friends while I as the killer get to go through my normal Killer Duties and stab people
Group 2 is the problem. While this may be anecdotal evidence, I have found that the SWAT Team is usually not only damn impossible to beat since they are in constant communication with each other but they're always the biggest toxic ######### to play again. If there is a cheap tactic, they'll use it and if they get any chance at all to mock the killer, they will 1000% take it.
The biggest issue that Group 2 causes though is that these are the groups killers remember and these are the groups that make killers quit the game because they're not only frustrating to play from a game-play standpoint, they always seem to make sure to rub it in your face and make the experience as awful as humanly possible.
The problem is that I don't know how you could solve Group 2 without directly hurting Group 1
19 -
Except there are plenty of games that perform just fine with a casual and competitive queue. I'm also not saying SWF is cheating, it's just unfun to play against when the sole purpose becomes to win. I'd be OK with the longer queue if it meant having more fun on the game that I bought to have fun on. Again I've no problem when I play against groups until it becomes a sweatfest.
1 -
I don't agree that it is cheating, and I fully acknowledge I'm not good at the game! That's why I want a separation of casual and competitive. It is possible to have civil discussion, I'm having it right now with you!
3 -
Unfortunately a separation of casual and competitive would result in longer queue times.
3 -
100% this.
I think they should wait to think about the SWF problem until after the new MMR system is in place and working properly.
Changing SWF before players are matched up against equally skilled opponents, grouped or not, won't be a good idea.
The SWF problem could also be solved depending on what the devs do regarding the beginning of the match that they've mentioned before.
4 -
Which is fine. Queue times wouldn't increase hyper-drastically, a lot of games offer casual and comp queues and I can find my matches for either queue in them within reasonable time.
0 -
I totally agree with this! I don't wanna stomp out anyone's fun personally, but I also wanna have fun myself. SWF isn't something I'm thinking needs to be changed, I just think there should be casual and comp queues.
0 -
Thing is I don't wanna be forced to play like that. Nobody should be punished (besides people being toxic), there should just be some kind of line between playing to win and playing for fun.
0 -
Survive With Friends is not an issue. The information they share using voice chat, information that is not base kit in the game, giving them an unfair advantage over Survivors who don't chat (SWF or solo) is.
- Either remove Survive With Friends from the public ranked matchmaking, knowing that it could potentially be abused for extra shared information via voice chat, or
- Acknowledge that SWF can make use of voice chat to gain an unfair advantage and simply make the extra shared information base kit, removing the voice chat advantage, and buff the killer now that all survivors are on the same page
Sure, not every Survive With Friends group is going to make the fullest use of sharing information, and some might not share any at all while they simply talk about their day. For that reason, they should leave balance-breaking bugs and exploits in the game. Not every player is going to abuse it to their fullest advantage, right?
4 -
How do you define casual though? That they can't play with their friends? I'd probably see that as reversed. SWF for casual, solo for ranked, since solo is what the game was originally designed around.
But yeah, cue times would go up, and people would just avoid which ever has SWF teams unless there was incentive to play it.
1 -
I made a profile just to comment on this. BHVR should let you know who is in a swf with who. People always counter this by saying that killers would just lobby dodge or bring a mori. But isn't this indicating a bigger problem? That swf is such a huge advantage that no killer would face it if they didn't have to unless they had an ebony mori? There's a real problem here part of the bigger picture with balance.
Also you can manually check people in the pre lobby to see if they're on each other's friend lists but it's tedious.
3 -
I never said that people shouldn't be able to SWF, the defining factor of casual is that you're not playing to win some higher ranking. I just have a problem with super competitive players really, but it becomes especially apparent when it's a group of them for obvious reasons. Sorry if I had mislead you.
0 -
The problem is that I don't know how you could solve Group 2 without directly hurting Group 1
My two cents: In most video games, "I want to have fun with X" isn't a very good counterargument to "X is overpowered and should be balanced."
2 -
Then you might as well put a bullet in the game and put it out of it's misery
There are a lot of people who play in that Group 1. That is a lot of people who will abandon the game if you decide to just strip it away or punish it enough that people decide that you've made it too big of a hurdle to overcome if a couple of buddies just want to have fun and play with their friends.
3 -
Well in that case, you'd still get people playing as optimally as possible just because they want to. I don't think it would do much good to have an unranked mode and a ranked mode with no other defining factors. As said already, the biggest issue is just 4 man SWF communication. It's a huge advantage.
I'm not for in game voice comms becoming the meta though. Not sure there is another way to fix it, but I'd probably quit. It's a lose-lose situation for me.
0 -
SWF needs to be a toggleable option for queuing. I can assure you that I absolutely ######### hate it when I face an SWF as a killer main.
it.
Is.
Not.
Fun.
3 -
Yes there'd still be people playing for optimal efficiency, but it would be severely mitigated. Ranked is there for players to show off their skill in the game against one another, casual is for people who just want to play and have fun as a top priority. I understand some people derive their fun from winning, and there's nothing stopping those people from doing so in ranked besides maybe self-doubt of their capabilities, in which case, if I could cheer them on to win I would. :P
0 -
SWF's are the hardest thing to think of things to adjust in this type of game...
And in saying that I think an item (Walkie- Talkie) could be a start... limit call outs to either time and/or range
0 -
I think you put too much weight into people's reasoning for trying hard to win. I guarantee you a lot of people would join that casual mode just to troll what they'd consider easier killers. Its sucks, but people are mean, man. And then you'd have some who'd just be that good from habit. I fail to see how it changes much, besides saying "Okay guys this is suppose to be the casual mo---" "CLICK CLICK OoO DS BT BODYBLOCK" "-_-"
1 -
Solution: Make sure you don't over-do it.
0 -
I swear I've seen you make this exact same comment elsewhere! Do you just have this saved as a text file somewhere to copy and paste whenever there's a new discussion posted about swf?
0 -
I have (I also have the same thing for when people complain about Self Care :D)
I just click on my quotes and go through until I find where I said it last. Then just copy/paste from there, usually tweaking a few things pending the exact thread in question (like my original SWAT SWF thing is longer than what I copy/pasted here but I removed parts that didn't seem relevant to this particular discussion)
1 -
What it changes is having just some mitigation of it, since there are people who will play ranked to win and casual for fun. Those who do the opposite are just mean yeah, I know that and would still expect that, but I've played the ranked and unranked for plenty of games and there is a fair difference between the two playing environments.
0 -
To add to this, anyone who has ever played a game like Rainbow Six Siege would be well aware that adding a Casual v Competitive mode rarely fixes things. I play R6:S super casually (like...I get an itch to play it with my buddy once every few months; we basically have the default people and a handful of the Season 2 people unlocked since they're the cheapest you can get with the free currency; for reference, I believe there are 17 seasons in R6:S currently) so obviously we play nothing but casual because we are awful and barely know what we're doing.
Usually after a few days, we get bored of the game. Not because the game is boring but because you are pretty routinely curb stomped by people who have no friggin business being in a "Casual" mode.
1 -
Let it go.
0 -
New MMR system could actually fix the issue with SWFs, if the system works. I assume it would somewhat be based on Glicko elo. And if it is based on that, SWAT teams that most likely win a lot of their games, would have a high rating and would face high rating killers. SWF groups that aren't so good, would be at lower rating and face lower rating killers. Like it should have been already with the given ranks but as we all know, that isn't how it is.
1 -
Basically what @tippy2k2 said. I use to play a fair bit of The Secret World, Ragnarok, and quite a few other MMOs. These all had optional PvP. In these games were always practice areas. No win or lose consequence, besides the ego boost of anyone coming in for these extremely skilled players to stomp. And these folks would sit there for hours, happily killing any new player that stepped inside.
My experience dictates it won't change much.
0 -
They'd win alot when they're grouped up, but then drop back down when either solo Q or with a SWF team their not use to working with.
0 -
Swf is absolutely miserable to play against. They need to add comms for solo then buff the living crap out of killer to compensate. This game was not meant for comms and the people that play swf sure as hell know and exploit that fact.
1 -
The system was always kinda broken. No hope.
1 -
I doubt people who enjoy being a swat team play solo Q but if they do, yeah that could be a problem with ratings.
1 -
They should either make swf groups play against AI unless someone opts in to play against them or make swf groups form in game guilds that other players can rate and leave public reviews of, that way everyone will know who the toxic bully squads are
1 -
The problem with the casual-vs-competative argument is that the game is currently locked into casual mode with a fake competitive board providing win/lose information and comparisons. Let's throw out a question here: How many people would despise deathsquads if the game actually took into account the sheer overwhelming power they bring to a trial and adjust the victory requirements accordingly? AKA, what if the pip system actually WORKED? What if these toxic arseholes were forced to accept that 4 escapes is not actually a victory, but abusing a broken mechanic? What if it rubbed in their face that the killer actually beat them by playing well and NOT bringing in brokenly powerful shite?
0 -
I don't have high hopes but I still have some hope left. I have to.
0 -
I've seen a really great idea from someone on youtube comment on how to balance the swf
It's simply by not having a SINGLE PERK ever be the same as what the other survivor has, meaning if someone has DS, no one else in the party can have DS. (Of course, other groups or solo survivor aren't affected.) By this, the more people there are, the more creative thinking requires for their perk slots, so chances are only one guy can have unbreakable, dead hard, BT, and DS.
Only thing is, I highly doubt the devs can make such system in the game so I cannot expect this come in reality.
0 -
The main problem with a ranked system in any game is that certain ranks have a longer wait time. But on the contrary a casual mode with so rank matchmaking could place a low rank player with a high rank one. Although all of this is assuming matchmaking works at all, currently it seems like it doesn't even matter. Low rank players should absolutely not be in a game with high ranks with a game that has this many players.
0 -
You'd be surprised. I know I play alot of solo Q, but I dont mind joining a pre-made every now and then of competent survivors. Had a match just last night against a Deathslinger where the killer was clear across the map and I was on a hook near-ish a door. The 1 random in the squad opened that very door and just left. Fortunately for me, one of the ppl in my SWF was nice enough to hoist me off the hook about a minute later.
0 -
The issue is that no killer would want to play in competitive servers.
0 -
Yeah I guess it is nice to have at least 1 person you can trust on your team.
0 -
As far as voice chat it happens in solo queue, atleast on ps4. Before I turned off randoms being able to send me party invites I'd get them most matches. I would ignore them because I don't like talking to randoms but I know there's plenty that accept them. In DBD fb group I'm in people talk about jumping from party to party when loading up solo. As long as people are willing to join chat parties sharing info will be an issue, solo or swf. I'd say the solo in parties are probably more of an issue because they're probably taking the match more seriously than the swf of friends that'll spend a chunk just chatting about random stuff.
0 -
I like how I word my posts as well, glad someone is on the same page.
And when I say “you”, I’m not directing that at the OP.
My last statement is true. If you’re a bad killer you will lose to even potato SWFs. If you’re decent, you’ll win most of your games. SWF isn’t as big of a problem... skill is a bigger factor.
1
