Should a match of SWF be adjusted to help killers a bit when playing against SWF?

Now that’s just cruel

I like where your head is at but I think instead of punishing people for being in SWF they should reward people for solo or duo queues. Give survivors doing solo's or duo's a 5th 'aura' perk slot.

No, instead they should buff solo queue to be as powerful as SWF by giving them a comms system (not voice chat, Scott Jund made a video on this but I can't find it), and then give all killers buffs to top it off.

I mean, I've been in the same boat... that's generally less of an issue with Survive with Friends being genuinely OP, and more of an issue with matchmaking.

Yes, SWF are going to be more difficult to verse. But chances are, they're going to make mistakes too. It's just a matter of realising it what they are and capitalising on them. (It's just harder to catch that stuff out when you're a newer player, but once again, that's a matchmaking issue, and in part it's an issue with the learning curve of the game, as this game isn't exactly the easiest thing to learn.)

I meant like enhancing their kits, like giving them base-kit Corrupt Intervention or an early-game collapse or something.

Yeah, but not on point of “nerf” but some adjust.

Just like.... Showing killer either playing with SWF or not, and instead giving killer playing with SWF some advantage BP boost.

Object is already getting changed into something less "abusable". In the "24/7 surveillance of the killer if they're willing to communicate that much" way at least.

And as far as I'm concerned, get rid of map offerings for everyone. Same reason that I think it's totally fine moris are mostly cosmetic and a cool kill as an alternative to 3rd hook, I don't think offerings should have the potential to have a huge impact on gameplay in general.

Ultimately I feel the only approach with any chance whatsoever of ever happening is the "buff base survivors ("solos") and killers" approach. The devs will never ever do direct nerfs or anything that splits the playerbase, or something that might even feel like disincentivizing people from playing together. But not saying your idea falls under any of that, I just think map offerings shouldn't be a thing in general 😄

I think a lot of SWF problems need to be addressed, but ultimately SWF is important for the game's success. A big problem with the killer population is killer is a super lonely experience, and once you get up to purple solo Survivor also feels really isolating and awful if you get a bad team.

Balancing around SWF is important. I don't think this should come as purely mechanical buffs to solos (like a 5th perk slot) or mechanical buffs to killers facing a SWF team. But you could do a LOT to make SWF and solos have less of a gap so the game could be balanced always assuming SOME SWF style play.

For example? Default voicecoms. Opt out optional, obviously. But default voicecoms are kinda an industry staple and while it made sense to not have them when solo only was the way to play its just strange there is no default voicecoms.

Another big fix would be giving killer more offering slots. Right now a huge problem with maps is SWF can really force realms super hard in a way that isn't fun and killer has so little control over the match. Likewise, reducing the power of any perk that allows 'direct' confrontation with killers or intends to be a general 'reversal' perk that gives survivors all the power in a given interaction would be important. The DS nerfs are a good example, it just *does not make sense* in DBD for a survivor to know they are safe if they just sit in front of the killer doing an objective. No survivor perk should 'lock down' the killer and it was a good choice for them to make the anti-tunneling perk as weak as it is in terms of openly defying the killer while still making it essentially game winning if it 'fires.' Survivor perks should be more 'meta' and 'long range' than 'In your face.'

Stuff like adding some innate totem protecting would also help, as well as adding a totem tracker. With default voicecoms and a tracker, as well as some sort of 'safety net' for totems, you would 'even out' how bad totems are and would fix a lot of the disparity between 'Its gone before I loaded in because its a 3 man in red ranks' and 'They never even looked for the totem despite it beng next to a gen.'

A big problem with these fixes though is DBD players tend to freak out in regards to any 'bounding' mechanic, despite those being normal and important. Like the fact people think Bloodlust is a 'bad mechanic because it gives killers free chases' shows a lot of illiteracy in these sorts of mechanics that create 'upper bounds' or 'lower bounds' on interactions which DBD desperately needs in order to solve the SWF problem. Because a LOT of DBD's large scale issues are issues of bounding interactions and how much value you can get out of X, or know you will get from X no matter what.

Like a big problem of SWFs is that a LOT of mechanics just do literally nothing to a SWF (traps, totems, a lot of stealth mechanics, basically ANYTHING requiring the killer have hidden information) but mechanics can't be designed around SWF coordination or else you get pub stompers like Freddy (Who is fair vs SWF because you can track him and coordinate waking up, but vs solos every single one of his mechanics just makes him a... Nightmare that grinds the game down because you can't track all of his effects and need to always treat being asleep as a threat so you never finish gens).

Yes!

Cleanse them with fire.