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How do you suggest fixing the balance gap between SWF and SoloQ?

Title. I like hearing opinions on this subject since it helps broaden my view of the game. Generally, what are your ideas to shorten the balance gap? Things like giving solo q more info, depriving SWF of certain elements, etc etc.

Comments

  • TheGorgon
    TheGorgon Member Posts: 777
    edited July 2021

    I agree, Kindred should be base kit for solo survivors. It makes up for the already lacking information that soloQ survivors have.

    Oh and on the topic of matchmaking and closing the gap on SWF’s and SoloQ, I really hope when SBMM is fully out, the developers categorize their killers.

    It’s ridiculous to put a strong pair of survivors against a Pig or another bottom tier killer. I know it’s subjective, but many of the lower bracket killers are agreed upon.

    On the contrary, a competent and good Nurse, Spirit, Blight, Hag, etc… (maybe) should be going against strong stacks and survivors.

    What CMWINTER proposed was great. Make the pool of players tighter for those players that play the best of the best killers, while widening your skill field (to find stronger and weaker survivors) as lower tier killers.


    This is necessary because DBD doesn’t work like other games that have SBMM. It’s an asymmetrical game where some killers are just overwhelmingly better than others, and for those that aren’t as strong as the rest, this would allow them to see an okay pick rate.

  • CausticMisery
    CausticMisery Member Posts: 35

    Kindred basekit, without the Killer aura near the hook aspect.

  • Tsulan
    Tsulan Member Posts: 15,095

    Ingame voice chat is the only fair solution. Everything else also helps SWF.

  • Hex_Ignored
    Hex_Ignored Member Posts: 1,953

    Kindred without killer aura reading (so the original kindred still has an effect) should be basekit

    In terms of balance 3 and 4 man swfs should be matched with killers that have a higher rank/mmr than the swf players. So for example if the swf ranks are 4, 6, 9 and 2 then they should be matched with a rank 1 killer

  • MadLordJack
    MadLordJack Member Posts: 8,814

    Give survivors some serious basekit information and buff killers. Totem notifications, teammate aura's, Insidious/Blindness/Knockout deletion, the works.

    Then rebalance the game around what we currently consider sweaty SWF's.

  • Seraphor
    Seraphor Member Posts: 9,429

    Making existing perks basekit is never the solution, because that's never going to happen.

    But solo players do need more QoL and information that makes up for not being in voice chat with the other survivors.

    • Show survivors each others perk/item loadout in the lobby screen. So survivors know the capabilities of their fellow survivors.
    • Allow survivors to 'ping' their location to other survivors via the 'killer instinct' heartbeat animation, or the option to 'ping' other survivors locations for yourself, probably on a cooldown.
    • Give survivors map-wipe, preset communication options, such as "Killer is here!" "Coast is clear" "Leave me" "Help!", perhaps in conjunction with the 'ping' mentioned above.

    I don't believe any of those would benefit a SWF group, but they would aid Solos, bringing the two closer together.

  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675

    Your first suggestion will just make survivors dodge each other.

  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675

    Why would you be thinking that instead of "I really don’t want to have music blasted in my ear, hear actual literal babies wail in the distance, and continuously be shouted at in a language I can’t even identify"?

  • Seraphor
    Seraphor Member Posts: 9,429

    If keeping your build secret from your own teammates is an integral part of the game, then it deserves to go.

  • Tsulan
    Tsulan Member Posts: 15,095
  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675

    It's an integral part of not having other survivors dodge because I'm not running the same 4 meta perks as them. Sorry, but experience has shown that the more survivors know about their teammates, the more likely they are to dodge.

  • ThiccBudhha
    ThiccBudhha Member Posts: 6,987

    Not only that, but it would definitely just add more toxicity. You don't realize that all the survivors are talking mad trash about you because it is always "us versus them" with killers versus survivors. That illusion would be shattered day 1 and erryone would hate survivor mains, not just the killers. Rofl.

  • SkeletalElite
    SkeletalElite Member Posts: 2,713
    edited July 2021

    If you wanted to mostly bridge the gap but keep a small gap, basekit kindred, totem counter, current action indictaor for all survivors on hud (gen, totem, healing, nothing) and chase indicator.

    If you wanted to pretty much entirely bridge it, either add comms to the game ,which is a pointless ask because they won't do it, or make it so survivors see each other's auras at all times unless they are affected by blindness in addition to a chase indicator and totem coutner.

  • Raptorrotas
    Raptorrotas Member Posts: 3,253

    Voicechat or a basic message system like in IDV, TF2 or CS. Something to move information from Survivor A to Survivor B.

    Anything else is just buffs to Survivors as a whole. Any AURA READING or UI-ADDITIONS will just boost the performance of all Survivors.. The game isnt magically telling you how many totems are done just because your buddies logged into Discord. Comms give you the option to move information, not generate it.

    Its weird everyone has some general idea about the solo-swf gap stuff but it seems we cant agree on whats needed for the survivor-killer balance and the "Killer tier gap". Survivors wont like the sheer amount of "basekit" QOL and BUFFS would be needed to compensate the aura and UI stuff they want inplemented. Personally, I think the "compensation for giving survivors all that CWF advantages" should focus on the Killer Basekit ( Survivor-Killer-Balance) accessible to all killers.

  • CornHub
    CornHub Member Posts: 1,864

    They have it on mobile & people don't dodge regularly.

  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675

    or make it so survivors see each other's auras at all times unless they are affected by blindness

    That's a straight buff to SWF and would widen the gap. For SWF, blindness is a mild annoyance. Furthermore, no SWF knows exactly where each member is, just their teammates' general location from time to time (because it's not like we're constantly giving away our exact location, only when it's relevant).

  • Tsulan
    Tsulan Member Posts: 15,095

    More information than you would lose without any communication? The other 3 players still can interact.

  • SkeletalElite
    SkeletalElite Member Posts: 2,713

    Comp SWF teams do know where each other are at all times

    They use a numbering system that goes clockwise around the map to divide the map into 12 sections and use the numbers to call out locations. This is how they are always able to bodyblock for each other so efficiently and avoid sandbagging their team mates.

  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675

    Regarding the totem counter that's been proposed, here's the rub: SWF does not know how many totems are left on the map. We can't know, there's no way for us to know, even if we tell each other how many totems we've cleansed, except if nobody outside the SWF is cleansing totems. If nobody else has cleansed any totems, then, sure, the remaining totems are the base number minus however many we cleansed. However, if that happens, whose fault is that?

    At best, we may run into a cleansed totem and extrapolate that none of us cleansed that one, but that's still not something we magically have access to.

  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675

    Even taking you at your word, that's still 12 sections, not exact aura reading.

  • SkeletalElite
    SkeletalElite Member Posts: 2,713

    12 sections is precise enough. In a given section you already know where someone is going to be because they will either be on or going to the nearest generator or being chased by the killer at which point it is easy to find the chase using a terror radius or a slightly more precise call out. For example,

    "In the long wall at 6"

    "Going to need a hit at the filler near 12"

    "Only loop at 3 is a TL wall"

    Here's a match full of good examples

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3sO-BAgom8

  • Orion
    Orion Member Posts: 21,675

    Two of those examples presuppose that everyone knows the entire map's layout by heart, which is absurd.

    I'm not watching that video because I find such things to be boring. Sorry.

  • Johnny_XMan
    Johnny_XMan Member Posts: 6,432
    edited July 2021

    Given the fact that many times Kindred has been brought into a match only to have teammates still not go for a save. I’d argue that more information is not what is needed.

    More information is not going to make them better at looping, better at making conscious decisions, better at doing gens, better at making basement saves.

    People on here overestimate how much SWF really know about where each person is at. Even when I play with my friends, some of us still bring bond, because we understand how easy it is to sandbag each other as we are not going to know where each one of us is 100% of the time.

    You are never going to make solo q survivors better unless you break them of the habits they already have. Many of which is just basic survivor 101 knowledge like staying efficient while someone else is being chased. There is nothing more I love than running a killer for a straight 30-40 seconds only to go down and see one of them was at basement for no apparent reason, one already coming for save and another one getting into a locker after I’m hooked. I.E. No one on any objectives.

    That is just one of the many examples I’ve experienced and what is more sad is that it is very common in red ranks.

    Post edited by Johnny_XMan on
  • gibblywibblywoo
    gibblywibblywoo Member Posts: 3,772
    edited July 2021

    Add a pinging system and an icon that indicates what a survivor is doing by their name. genschased/totem, etc.

    Home sweet home was super fun as a solo player compared to dbd simply because of that system

  • Katzengott
    Katzengott Member Posts: 1,210

    They try to buff solo closer to SWFs instead of just nerfing SWFs. Without thinking any buff to solo is a buff to SWFs aswell.

  • DelsKibara
    DelsKibara Member Posts: 3,127

    Ping System helps a ton.

    Just saying this as someone who plays Risk of Rain 2 multiplayer a lot, just pointing at something helps SO much without saying anything.

    "Get this."

    "Objective here."

    "Hide here before they kill you."

  • JPLongstreet
    JPLongstreet Member Posts: 5,987
    edited July 2021

    Ive played much more of my surv life in this game within a 3- or 4- man group on comms, with a revolving door of at least 60 other players . We have never divied up the map into pizza slices and labeled them out. It might be our skill or not, but that is beyond our coordination, even with all of us rank 6-1.

    Most bodyblocks are a surprise to us still, outside of endgame conga lines out a door or deliberately peeling a killer off of their tunnels. Believe it or not the second one pisses off the killer far more than the first, although I expect both when I play killer and feel their coordination.

  • GentlemanFridge
    GentlemanFridge Member Posts: 5,789

    Because, if I have it turned off, there is potential information I miss out on. The constant idea that I could be missing out on a match-deciding piece of intel is enough for me to turn it back on.

    FOMO, I believe it’s called.

  • edgarpoop
    edgarpoop Member Posts: 8,440

    Kindred baseline would really be the only thing I'd do. I think most players are just...not good, and for some reason they can't accept that and think it's a solo queue vs SWF issue. They think they lost because the survivors were SWF or they died because they were solo queue. Four good solo players are going to seem a whole lot like a SWF.

  • Troman
    Troman Member Posts: 264

    Show who is being chased in the HUD, who hears the heartbeat, who is working on a gen, who is opening the exit gate, who is sprinting, who is healing another survivor. That will be enough to buff solo.