SWF without comms?
I was wondering what the community, particularly you killer mains, though of people swf-ing while not on comms? Do you think it makes swf more balanced? Is it still op to face? I like to have teammates I know will do gens/ bones/ get me off the hook/ not give a free 3k from NOED but also know how annoying it is to face 4 man swfs.
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When I play swf it's just so that I'm not alone and I have someone to talk to and rely on. If there weren't comms it probably would be more fair for killers, but removing swf comms is literally impossible.
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the problem with swf is the comms part, so no there isn't a problem
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SWF without Comms would be FINE. It is the 5th Perk (Comms) which makes SWF broken. My friends and I often play together but our rule is when we aren't doing a custom game, and are grinding blood points, we do not use communication outside the game. We talk; just not about the game.
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SWF without comms would be the ideal matchup in DBD. The Survivors will play like a team but not be able to relay unfair amounts of info. Good for both sides.
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How could the devs achieve this though? Comms are almost entirely out of their control.
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well with out comms is a pipe dream I know people who do it I do it sometime but I'm normal solo player.
I try with comm it so broken.
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It's not enforceable whatsoever. Ideally SWFs would play without comms for the sake of the spirit of the game. Obviously that won't happen.
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I played SWF without comms recently, and I think it was still OP. All we had was 4 fairly-competent players and a general idea of a plan in the lobby/pregame chat.
Having someone you can trust to do gens was usually enough for a 2+ escape every game.
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i would usually play swf without comms so i know im not just gonna die on first hook unless im runnin a meme build or smth where i use comms, but i think swf without comms is what the game should strive to be like just having 4 good players vs one good killer.
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SWF using OOO or head on without coms... it will be like facing single player survivor....
the problem is only ( and solely ) "COMS"
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Swf's advantages dont influence the trial mechanically but rather the lobby or the mindset of the survivors.
- They know each other
- More likely talk about each others perk loadouts
- Care for each other
- Be able to make use of the lobby time to formulate a strategy
- Will more likely make altrustic choices over vulturing the hatch
- Change the mindset from "I escape" to "We beat the killer"
The last point is interesting as it's leaking into the "common sense " of every survivor player. Sudeenly survivors dont lose even if they dont escape. 1 survivor escapes and somehow THEY ALL won. This might be now me ranting or getting way off topic, but SWF is in a weird spot too as the game itself doesnt acknowledge them, no scoring differences and all that, you dont get BP for your mates escaping as example. Yet the game steadily somehow became a team game.
TLDR: Swf's advantages are just in the planning phase in or beforethe lobby and a more altruistic mindset as you know those other survivors.
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Absolutely not. The SWF's greatest competitive edge is having eyes on the Killer for 90% of the match. I've played SWF and know exactly how it is done. Every member of the SWF gets intelligence from every other member via the 5th Per (Comms). They get:
- Eyes on the Killer, and each one calls out the current position where they see him/her at or going toward.
- They report any Totems they see and/or eliminate providing a count.
- They coordinate safe rescues by calling out when the Killers leaves and whether or not they still hear a heartbeat.
- Can can rally together within the game at different locations to do Generators increasing the speed of the Gen-Rush.
- They can give the location of a Gen as they move off, chased by or luring the Killer, so other people can safely finish it.
- The can (and do) trade swag they bring into the game so the best Survivor can use it. (like giving a Tap with right Perks a Rainbow Map)
- They can coordinate body blocks to increase the chance of a wiggle out.
- They can coordinate hook destruction to increase the chances of a wiggle out.
- They can coordinate movements perfectly so just the right number work Gens while just the right number move to rescue.
- Any information Perk possessed by one Survivor is pretty much possessed by all of them due ot the flow of information.
While I think your comments about planning are also true, it is NOT what makes the SWF powerful or gives them a competitive edge. When I play with my friends (and we agree NOT to use Comms) we do all the things you mention and it does not give us a competitive edge. When we were using Comms we could dominate and bully a Killer. It broke the game. That is why I feel so strongly about it, because me and mine tested it. It needs to be addressed.
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Honor system and punish people who testify against themselves by streaming/youtube etc.
Even just taking a stand to explicitly call it cheating and nothing else would have an incredibly impact on gameplay with people having to acknowledge that it's total bullshit and ruins this game.
You don't have to stop all of it to be effective. You just need to set some standards.
Even just knowing its against the rules will prevent many people from using it, or at least using it openly/intentionally/strategically, and the people who still do use it likely won't be as sweaty about it since they know it makes them trash instead of legit a-okay survivor playbook.
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This is assuming that it will survive the much expected back lash and possible decrease of people in que. Sorry, but something like this is impossible to be implemented with extreme scrutiny and loss of population. I am one these people who are against something like this since I don’t want to have to sit in silence (excluding the game sounds) while holding M1 or running for 30-60 seconds; I would assume other would too.
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The long and short of it is that there will have to be a Solo Que and a Team Que. That is how you balance one without strangling the other. It would work like this:
Solo Que:
- No more than two people can enter a lobby together (2-Person SWF do not unbalance the game).
- No identifying information of ANY kind is available until the end of the match to prevent setting up Comms on the fly.
- Lobby jumping can be disabled because there is no need for it.
Team Que:
- Teams must be 3-4 person.
- One additional Generator is required to power the gates, so a 3-Person SWF needs (5) and a 4-Person needs (6).
- A 5th Perk Slot is unlocked for the Killer.
- Lobby jumping can be disabled because there is no need for it.
Custom games would remain exactly the same as they are now. Killers will be perfectly happy to take on a Team when the battlefield is leveled. Aside from this there are a LOT of benefits:
- Ques will not slow down because there will be less Lobby Jumping and Disconnects during the loading of the game.
- Solos will get a reprieve from repressive Killer builds because the Killers won't feel the need to use them.
- The Mori will return to its more traditional use levels in that i won't be almost required to take a 4v1 SWF to a 3v1 right away.
- Balancing for Team Que can be adjusted by the Dev as needed to weaken or strengthen it without strangling the Solo Players.
- Perks which were created to deal with the problem can be tweaked as the need for them to stop the SWF Gen-Rush will be gone.
- There will be two different styles of Game Play and now more Achievements.
- There could be new items in the Blood Web that are only available when playing in the Solo or Team Ques.
- Having a Team Que creates the baseline for formal Leagues.
- It creates another cosmetic revenue stream for the company as Teams often want matching, identifying clothing, ink, or whatever.
- It creates another revenue stream for the company if they setup dues for organizing and running league play/tournaments.
All in all, it is a win/win for everyone BUT those people who were using the SWF to gain a competitive edge. And by golly, everyone claims they AREN'T DOING THAT.... NO SIR. They say they just want casual games with their friends. Since everyone claims they aren't doing that, there shouldn't be anyone opposed to this, right? :)
Long story short (too late for that I know) that the DEV are valiantly trying to do the impossible. They are trying to fix the balance problem created by SWF's 5th Perk (Comms) with other Perks (and Powers) which help deal with the Gen-Rush and coordination. The reason this is doomed to failure (in the long run) is that any such Perks and Powers hit the Solo player 3x as hard as it does the SWF. So even if they manage to balance the SWF this way, they will have punished and brutalized the Solo. In the end, breaking the two styles of play into separate Ques is the only logistical option. That isn't a bad thing. It just gives more options for everyone. The only people who will lose something are those who were using it to unofficially cheat. I don't care about them. Right now we are stuck with extreme unbalance that punishes the Solo Survivor more than anyone else, Lobby jumping, disconnections during loading, disconnections during the game, and a general distrust and dissatisfaction with the overall situation. I feel for the DEV. I think they do a good job in the face of a lot of variables, and I think they are trying to fix the issue doing everything BUT split those Ques. I hope they manage it, but I'm pretty sure in the end we will all end up where I'm suggesting.
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I'm not the main Killer, I'm both. Communications can never be nerve-wracking. But it's sure that without communications SWFs all end up on the hook.🤗
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I can bet Steam wont remove text and voice chat.
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Oh it seems I was misunderstood because i forgot to distinguish between Swf and Cwf (communicate with friends) like I usually do. I fully agree that Comms utterly break the game, yet Swf in itself ( 4 friends in the same lobby) only gives minimal in trial advantages over playing solo. The real problem is the real time communication.
Yet "most survivors only talk about their days and cute boys" in voicechat. /s . You're quite right about the flow of information. A grunt of surprise can count the same as" Im in a chase now, you're safe to do gens" or "Omg lol my sister fell down the stair and - oh killer on me - she didnt have a scratch on her". Its like chatting about Rob's dreamy eyes cant be interrupted for a moment to give killer intel.
The best and easiest way to balance solo and cwf is sadly to just add comms or a ingame message system. A button press for " Focus Generators" is so powerful as it can mean both " I'm chased" and " I'm being camped", depending on context, the same as we currently do the hook gymnastics. Obviously followed by a rarely discussed killer gameplay compensation (not abilities, basic mechanics)
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I have found the best counterplay to swf comms are add ons that allow the killer to see the survivors like the pig or the wraith have. If that got enabled when the killer was going against a team swf it would definitely increase the pressure on the swf team
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I thought the devs do not consider comms cheating, and that SWF was always intended to be part of the game but it wasn't quite ready for launch.
I'll look around for quotes, but I bet a mod could find em much quicker...
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They don't and that's the whole point. They very much should consider it cheating when it de facto destroys the game balance, or actually do something with regard to balance to change that.
The matter of SWF being planned or not isn't really relevant. Whether playing with friends was intended or not, they sure as hell didn't (and still don't) balance the game around voice-communication existing. The only other even remotely reasonable alternatives are to (A) suck it up and bend to the other concession they've made by actually implementing voice-communication in the normal gameplay, or (B) at least attempt some other means of adjusting the game to account for SWF by buffing killers/solo survivors, although that's easier said than done and liable to create new issues.
These are the only means they'll ever even hope to somewhat balance this game. Everything else they do is an exercise in futility when any given match that's actually balanced when the players have voice communication literally cannot be balanced if assuming the same circumstances but the players don't have voice communication. One can be balanced or the other, but never both. Not while every other variable remains the same.
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I made these posts awhile back that really sum up everything in my mind, and I'd quote them in here directly. but this damned forum won't let me post things beyond a certain length without mod approval, Or I'm posting them too quickly back to back? I don't know, it happens when I edit too. Drives me screwy.
They're back to back comments anyhow, but that second one there is the one that dispels the common counter arguments that people post as for why voice comms can't be resolved.
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/1636990#Comment_1636990
EDIT: Oh, okay neverminded the one I tried to make here quoting it shows up about 3 posts down now 😋
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I cannot ever see the devs splitting up queues for 1-2 mans and for 3-4 mans either. They have consistently made changes to both not hurt queue times and not split the community up. It is the whole point of Crossplay, and hopefully full Cross Progression as well. Even if the queues were split, after a week at most nearly all killers would only head into the 1-2 pool, as would I.
So that leaves adding comms of some fashion globally. Getting that up and running will be insane indeed!
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Whenever I play kill yours friends I don't use comms to balance the game. It works and it's more fun for everyone.
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I played SWf for the first time in over a year with a friend (no voice chat) recently and we did about as well as solo no comms. Its nice being able to see your teammates perks. I think that would be a good solo buff.
The main reason Voice Chat breaks the game is because of the sheer amount of risk-free info the survivors gets. They know where you are at all times, what killer you are, what state your power is in, etc. SWF itself is fine, even coordinating perks/items. Its the in-the-moment info that breaks it.
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I think it will make things a hell of a lot better actually and players will actually start coming back instead of being run-off all the time by the toxic elements and extreme unbalance that voice communication exacerbates wildly.
I made this post awhile back that underlines exactly how FUBAR voice coms is and this game being FUBAR until its resolved https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/1636983#Comment_1636983
And this one I'm just going to quote entirely because it's going to be relevant to arguments that haven't even come up yet.
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/1636990#Comment_1636990
From that thread:
II. The justifications used to excuse VC all fall apart on scrutiny.
"OH BUT SOME PLAYERS ARE JUST WEAK!" isn't an excuse. To measure change you hold the other factors constant. The relevant comparison is that any given match otherwise balanced under NORMAL circumstances is now inherently UNBALANCED with overwhelming adjustments. The fact you can still beat a SWF that you'd already have crushed anyway is immaterial. The fact any unbalanced matches exist according to the SKILL of those players doesn't validate the de-facto cheating a torrent of outside information breaks open under an umbrella of "if you (and, largely, as much as you) want" adjustments. For players, it only makes it even harder to tell where skill levels really begin or end. For developers, it makes it harder gauge actual factors and statistics they should be balancing around.
"OH BUT MOST ARE X-MAN TEAMS & BARELY TRYING!" isn't an excuse. That's just inline with what studies show about cheating anyway: people mostly only cheat "a little bit" for that edge. Something like "for the fun" helps excuse the advantage while they get to distance their standards from how much it distorts their performance compared to that match that would exist. It's negligible that only 50/75/100% of the other team are effectively cheating and how hard; the only material comparison is the game that would've existed WITHOUT THAT EDGE. That discretion is both the very problem while also the mechanism that lets players feel snug and safe in exploiting it. That choice is just as in-line with cheating as it exists everywhere; that's your CSGO player who's okay with aimbots, but thinks wall-hacks are too far.
"OH BUT IT'LL DESTORY THIS GAME!" isn't an excuse. It's not even true. You can't even begin to isolate what elements are solely due to being a bully simulator from all the game's other factors that pushed its popularity as it grow/changed over the years (ie, the reasons why some people keep playing DESPITE the incredibly toxic and destructive SWF experience). The big streaming stuff isn't exclusively death-squad communication sets over voice-coms... players only watch one of those four anyhow. The popular stuff isn't even just survivor-sided, if anything I image its the opposite w/r/t the bigger names. On top of that, voice-communication & SWF aren't even inherently inseparable. You can allow SWF, but make it clear where the lines exist & punish anyone dumb enough to uploading the evidence against themselves. And--EVEN IF they were inseparable--then that just means time to nut up and include VC as a given mechanic in the game normally & BALANCE AROUND IT PROPERLY. You cannot keep your escape cake and offer it up too.
"OH BUT YOU CAN'T ENFORCE IT!" isn't an excuse. That doesn't stop good developers from banning things like stream-snipping in their games when that's even less evidenced or enforceable. It's about setting a precedent of attitudes and behavior. Most people will at least attempt to float within that realms of acceptable conduct where SOME standards exist. Yet, this community is anything goes and paralyzed by developers who are--quite frankly--cowardly about either protecting their vision or adapting it to the other concessions they've made. It turns such an otherwise fun game (and brilliant idea) into a miserable slog.
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I agree -- voice comms are the thing that makes the game unbalanced. Having people silently play with their friends wouldn't be a big problem.
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It would be perfectly balanced without comms. Dbd is built around the survivors not having information, suddenly giving them all of that info is what makes the game so unbalanced.
They know what you're doing, where each other are, which gens are done, which totems are done, when to body block, when to flashlight or pallet save, etc.
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SWF with comms is only really powerful on really good teams with a lot of experience. If you have less experienced players, comms makes a much smaller difference. I've faced and played with SWF teams on comms and while they're a bit more effective--I don't think it makes as much of a difference as everyone thinks. Exceptions for teams running OoO.
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That is a load of crap, sold by swf teams. I got a 4 man swf, they were terrible in chase, I would have decimated them in solo, but because they were instantly back on gens, the second I chased someone, and knew exactly where I was, they got down to 1 gen remaining before I slugged them all down for the 4k.
Bad team facing a killer that was way better than them, nearly escaped thanks to comms. If they had been my own level, I wouldnt have stood a chance.
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They probably get all 4 gens done even if they were solo. Sounds like the average solo game. Not like people don't get right back on gens when they play Solo. Survivors don't tend to get off generators to mess around, and if those are the survivors you need to be able to win then maybe you're not as good as you think.
I mean what you basically said here is: "I would've stomped them at 2 or 3 gens if they hadn't gotten on gens."
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You're hearing the minutia and not the message. What he's really saying is that ability to coordinate and communicate ######### dominates everything. You grossly underestimate the change in dynamics that even the most casual communication offers. You don't need to actually try to break the game over your knee to reap huge benefits in time gained and resource allocation.
I was literally just playing a solo survivor match where I was on the hook wishing I could just say "yo they didn't trap the hook" and shave at least 10 seconds off the crouch time alone there. That's a lot... I mean there are perks that don't give you near that much lead time, especially per interaction. Not to mention the difference "there IS a trap right there" makes, as something easily avoided that easily could snowball into a series of downed players. We're talking powers equivalent of any number of perks, even multiplied by ten, and just from those sorts of interactions.
The most casual "oh #########!" tells you someone is in a chase on the other side of the map before they've ever been hit---that could mean a good 30 second lead or more. The very fact you get to know where the killer is also means you get to advance to whatever objective that much faster too, literally sprinting in the open secure in the knowledge no one will see you or your tracks. It's can be the difference between a 0K and 4k just being able to say "hey I saw the NOED totem" as you're being dragged to the hook.
Each little interaction adds up, and this isn't even CLOSE to what TryHarding changes. Dismissing these differences as negligible is damn near certifiable.
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My rank 1 and 84% kill rate speaks for itself. And no, when youve done this as long as me, you can spot the swf from a mile away. Injured people dont abandon a gen outside to finish shack gen while you have a slug and someone going on basement hook, not without comms telling you that its 99%.
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