Yes, SWFs exist

So, is using a keyboard cheating? Because the game doesnt provide a keyboard driver, you have to use external assets to do so, too.

And before you dismiss this as just trolling, take into account hardware and software macros, and also grafic drivers that are used for color filters, stretched res, montior sided targeting sign, and other things.

People like you and other thousands of users here is exactly why devs do good giving no ######### on listening to player feedback

Its literally the same thing lmao why is this still something that people complain about

Tl;dr (at the top so you can decide to just skip my post if you want to):

• Game rules as written make it sound like using communication apps is cheating
• This can be fixed easily by adding a sentence like "Communication apps are not cheating."
• Leaving this ambiguity where the rules make it sound like communication apps are cheating (that you don't get banned for) adds to growing frustrations of the player base where it feels like developers are ignoring longstanding issues

@xenotimebong and @Rey_512 Please read my post as literally as possible. I am not saying that it should be considered cheating but that, according to the rules as written, it is cheating. This does not mean that this is the intent of the developers: It is entirely possible that they do not consider it cheating but have written the game rules page not clearly enough (in my opinion - if I am reading the rules wrong then please point where in my post exactly I have made a mistake in my argumentation).

By "they" I assume you mean @Rizzo90 - I (emphasis on the I) read their post as their personal opinion, not as official communication from the development team*. Which I will readily admit could very well be the wrong way to read their post, and it is in fact official communication / an official "ruling". Which is why I have also made a suggestion how the game rules page could be clarified: Either update the text or add the following sentence: "The use of communication apps is not considered cheating."

* This is NOT intended to be an attack against @Rizzo90 (or any other of the forum moderation staff) or their qualifications. In the past forum moderators have pointed out that they are not developers and don't have insight into everything that the developers are doing, and as such I think it is fair to assume that they do not have the power to define or alter the game rules. Which is why I, personally, read their post as them voicing their own opinion on how the game rules page should be read rather than giving an "official ruling". And which is also why I have given a suggestion for how the game rules could be altered - if their "opinion" (assuming it is one, and not actually an official ruling / response) is the way the rules should be read then it is a very "safe" change to the rules that does nothing but make them clearer.

Ultimately whether or not using communication apps is cheating or not only comes down to whether or not using them is officially fair (because you do not get banned for using them - the rules are very clear about that). Emphasis on officially - do the developers think using communication apps is fair? This is what it ultimately boils down to.

And I don't think that this is even a trivial question. Basically since the launch of the game there have been complaints about various things that large numbers of players find unfun or unfair. And a lot of those issues have been "ignored" (in terms of efforts being made to change them) - for example camping is one of if not the oldest complaints about the game: That it is unfun / unfair to play against and that the options you have to "punish" it are either not very good or not very fun or both.

Another old example is what this thread is about: SWF having access to voice chat when the developers have said multiple times in various dev streams that they do not want to add it to the game as an option. They can't stop players using voice chat of course, which is why I believe it is a grey area and explicitly listed as something that no bans are issued for but that is still considered cheating, due to the advantages it gives.

Making it very clear and "official" by, for example, updating the game rules page, that it is not cheating is actually important. Many players do disagree that it is not cheating (even if, again, admittedly the intent could very well be for it to be not cheating) - but if it is cheating (as those players think) then frustrations grow because there have been no (major) changes to how SWF works despite using communication apps being against the rules (in those players minds).

None of this really matters because comms aren't going anywhere. They're available, they're the defacto baseline we have to work with. Which is why I make the distinction that it is a disadvantage to solos to not have comms, rather than the inverse.

Higher MMR for SWF wouldn't work. Again this is penalising people for playing with friends. You shouldn't be forces to play on a higher difficulty setting because you're being social, especially if, like me, you play better solo anyway. Plus at the highest MMR bracket, where the real elite SWF squad reside, this would have no effect. You can't increase a SWFs MMR when it's already at max.

Absolutely agree on QoL information for solo survivors, particularly information that is superfluous to voice comms so that it doesn't benefit SWF and brings solos closer to SWF level, and I've posted ideas for that many times in the feedback forum.

But as I said before, I think killers earn more than enough BP already, compared to survivors. Which I think is fair because killer is the higher stress, higher effort role. Basically I think killer is already rewarded for dealing with things like SWF anyway.

Now BPs in general I think are a tad on the low side, especially with the exponential perk roster maling the perk grind increasingly insurmountable. But the rstio of survivor to killer is fine.

None of this really matters because comms aren't going anywhere. They're available, they're the defacto baseline we have to work with. Which is why I make the distinction that it is a disadvantage to solos to not have comms, rather than the inverse.

True, they're not going anywhere so it's useless to argue about in anyways. I agree.

Higher MMR for SWF wouldn't work. Again this is penalising people for playing with friends. You shouldn't be forces to play on a higher difficulty setting because you're being social, especially if, like me, you play better solo anyway.

As I've said - other games do that too. Why wouldn't it work in DbD? If you think that matching SWF versus slightly higher skilled killers is "penalizing" playing SWF then by that logic the whole MMR/SBMM system is penalizing highly skilled players and getting better at the game because it's matching you against increasingly stronger opponents.

Matching SWFs against slightly higher MMR killers isn't penalizing them, it's part of a Match Making System which is supposed to balance the match making experience.

If we want to get nitty-gritty we could also say that SBMM already is penalizing you for playing with your friends if your friends in some cases.

Suppose your friends MMR is 1000 and your MMR is 1900 then the MM should get you into a match of around 1450 MMR. Which is too low for you but too high for your friend. Meaning your friend gets fudged over while the killer will grind his teeth because of you and if he's smart he probably won't even chase you more than once.

Plus at the highest MMR bracket, where the real elite SWF squad reside, this would have no effect. You can't increase a SWFs MMR when it's already at max.

That's true but that's just because BHVR limited the MMR cap. This is literally the first game I've ever seen introducing a capped MMR system which just furthermore shows that this game was never been ready to have anything like a SBMM/competitive match making system.

Absolutely agree on QoL information for solo survivors, particularly information that is superfluous to voice comms so that it doesn't benefit SWF and brings solos closer to SWF level, and I've posted ideas for that many times in the feedback forum.

That'd be the most sensible thing to do, yes and I reckon this will happen sooner or later, seeing competitors introducing such ping systems like HSH and the upcoming VHS. That being said, those things will bring the solo experience closer to SWF but it still won't match the efficiency a SWF could have. Though, not even a real ingame voice chat would be able to achieve that anyways since random strangers are way less inclined to really communicate with each other by nature.

But as I said before, I think killers earn more than enough BP already, compared to survivors. Which I think is fair because killer is the higher stress, higher effort role. Basically I think killer is already rewarded for dealing with things like SWF anyway.

I agree, killers already earn enough BP and increased BP also don't really do much for veterans. What are people who already have unlocked everything they wanted with those BP?

That plus increased BP would also naturally increase the amount of super rare add ons. Some add ons are too strong to have them equipped in every single match.

Now BPs in general I think are a tad on the low side, especially with the exponential perk roster maling the perk grind increasingly insurmountable. But the rstio of survivor to killer is fine.

I think that's not as much of a BP problem as it is a general Perk/Blood Web problem. BHVR should, imo, look into re-designing that. Either just flat out remove Perk Tiers and automatically have T3 unlocked by unlocking a Perk for the first time or make the player able to decide what perks they want to learn instead of randomly tossing perks into the BW.

Perk tiers are a legitimately bad concept. They don't really add anything to the game, they just limit design (every perk needs to have some value that changes across tiers) and can even introduce new bugs: Tinkerer 2 used to give infinite Undetectable at one point last year or so for example.

Bonus points for playing against SWF: Yes but actually no.

- Do I think it's warranted? Yes

- Do I think we should have it? Actually no.

Players are asking for it because it often feels worse to play against premade teams. Bonus points would be compensation for having less fun.

But here is a crazy idea: Instead of giving a compensation because the game was (potentially) less fun, we make those games less unfun. If playing against SWF is not less fun (sometimes, I am not saying it always is less fun!) then there is no need for a point bonus anymore. Makung the game more fun overall is a better solution than just giving out bonus points.

No. Bp is overrated value. And since noone want's to discuss it, mb it's time to close topic?

I wanna have fun not bp or exp

Tl;dr for this wall of text: No. 😉

I am quoting all three of these posts because I think you all actually want the same thing: More fun.

Playing against a SWF is demoralizing, because it feels unfair that they are getting an unintended advantage (<-- I am not saying communication apps are actually unintended, but that it feels that way to most players - partially because, and I will stand by that, the rules do not make it clear enough that using them is not cheating).

I don't think it matters whether or not SWF using communication apps actually gives an advantage, the effect might be entirely psychological, as suggested by an old quote from Mathieu I believe, who said that the survival rate of SWF is not much higher than that of solo Survivors. (Note: This was long ago, maybe 2 years or so? So well before we got MMR, which might have changed that).

It just feels really bad playing against someone who has what feels like an unintended advantage. Even if not all SWF use communication apps at all, and not all of them might even use it to talk about the game, it might just be casual talk, it still feels bad to play against it.

A bloodpoint bonus would help alleviate that a little because then at least you might feel better because at least you get a point bonus, but for a lot of players it's still going to feel unfun.

I honestly think the best way to deal with this is to just add voice chat to the game. Genuinely, just do that. Now it doesn't feel like SWF has an advantage anymore because now everyone has the advantage. The biggest argument against voice chat in the game that I have seen from the developers is that in games with voice chat there are always people who are extremely annoying (spamming music, screaming, etc.) and then you just want to turn off the voice chat as soon as possible. And yes that is a problem, but there are going to be at most 3 other players who are using it in a match, and then you can just mute voice for that one person who is being awful and report them after the game. If someone is being consistently awful with voice chat then eventually they will be banned.

The biggest / most common argument against voice chat from the players is that it will ruin the balance of the game. Which I mean, yes, it will cause balance problems, but, and I think this is a very important point, and also why I have pointed out that the rules TO ME read as if using communication apps is cheating (<---- I am NOT saying it is cheating. I have not said that this at any point, I was explaining why I think the rules say that's how it is), is this:

Actually before I continue let me make this even clearer:

I AM NOT SAYING USING COMMUNICATION APPS IS CHEATING. I WAS EXPLAINING WHY I THINK THE RULES SAY THAT USING THEM IS CHEATING

Okay. Carry on:

• Nothing, and I mean nothing, is stopping you from being matched about against 4 man SWF with communication apps from now until you stop playing the game.*

* This could be wrong because we don't know how the MMR works, but I have never seen any post or comment or anything from the devs or in any of the developer insight posts that suggests that if you get matched against SWF repeatedly eventually the matchmaking assigns you only solo players.

The balance problems that communication apps cause? They are already a reality. Why is it okay for a mechanic to exist that in some games gives the Survivors an advantage? Why are some games allowed to be unbalanced? It would be better to have this advantage in every game, and then balance the game around the mechanic properly.

And because I know this will come up: If you think that having voice chat does not give an advantage, then adding it to the game means that the balance of the game doesn't change. Which means the only downside to having voice chat for you is that you need to deal with people who may be annoying on voice chat. This has a simple solution: An option in the settings that lets you turn off voice chat at all times.

Aaaaand this brings me back to why I have argued that the rules say that communication apps is cheating: This tells us what the developers think.

• It is cheating (debunked by @MandyTalk, thank you for clarifying that!): If you add it to the game you are basically allowing cheating in the game and balancing around cheating.
• It is not cheating (confirmed by @MandyTalk): You can safely add this to the game. The developers think that the advantage it gives is not big*. It is a "safe" option to add it to the game, outside of concerns about people abusing voice chat to harass other players.

* This is just a guess. I think it is fair to say that voice chat gives an advantage, but because the developers say it is not cheating the advantage can't be that massive (this is also supported by the quote from Mathieu I paraphrased above in this wall of text) which means that it's safe to enable it from a balance perspective. Any unbalances that it causes should be relatively simple to fix by just adding a bit of power to the Killer role.

So, in summary, this is what I think:

• playing against SWF feels bad on a "psychological level"
• giving a bloodpoint bonus can help with that, but I don't think it's a great solution
• instead voice chat should be added to the game as a feature for all Survivors, including solo!
• adding voice chat likely will not upset the balance of the game by all that much, and it should be fairly easy to "fix" the balance
• people who abuse voice chat can be muted, in which case your game experience doesn't change from how it currently is
• people who really abuse voice chat can be reported and banned -> eventually you get rid of all of them and everyone is happy