Behavior alienating the fanbase. Some thoughts on trying to bring balance to the game

Its a long one but its been on my mind for a long time and I think its important to talk about

I'll preface this by saying that this is one of my favorite games regardless of all the crap I give it. So when I say this it comes from a place of concern. I've got about 4k hours play both sides about equally 40s/60k, but mostly solo q survivor. Reason why I dont play in a swf boil down to my friends dont like this game. I wont go to far in depth with why but it has to do with the balance and the community being nasty.

It seems that sbmm is the big thing people point to when they talk about the game dying or losing people. I believe that It could work in the game but they got their proprieties mixed up. Sbmm would have worked if the game was properly balanced so they should have focused on the outliers causing the imbalance then added it. I would argue they put very little thought into it and its current form isnt good but the concept could work.

One of the main issues I've seen is that they pander to swfs. The efficiency gap between a swf and a solo team is vast. That by itself is something that should be addressed but It goes even further when you go high mmr with the teams who try to seal team 6 the gens and leave in 5 min, or worse yet people who get off on bullying others.

By not addressing it they pander to these people making them indirectly supporting people who do this. Then when topics are brought up valid or not you will always see defenders of it on here quick to gaslight people into thinking its not an issue. This is my issue and I think that the sbmm downturn and cheater issue just amplifies it. Their silence is not justified on the cheater issue and them silencing people talking about it is a bad look.

The current gameplay loop for those who dont play in a swf looks like this. Play killer then reach a ceiling where you play against bully squads, unbeatable efficient swfs, or cheaters. Playing solo q if you arn't face camped, hard tunneled or killed by bad teammates. You hit a different ceiling of unbeatable nurses or blights.

It comes off like bhvr are endorsing cheaters and nasty behavior like bully squads and gaslighting people. Overall the games in a bad spot and recent talks are not helping imo. They were pretty condescending when talking about things. For the record I dont believe this, but it is not a good look.

Even with all that I just want to see the game succeed. So I see 3 major issues with the game. 1 swf imbalance causing killers playing sweaty because they feel like they cant win otherwise. 2 Face camping and tunneling, this doesnt extend to proxy camping or late game tunneling where it could be the difference between wining the match or losing. I mean at 3-5 gens 1-2 mins in. 3 Then killer and main game flow balance, the difference between a high end nurse game and a clown game is crazy, how can you expect to hold the same length of objective times with such a difference in killer power?

My purposed fixes are this.

1 Bring swf down to meet the killer level. It is not enough to just bring solo up even though i think thats needed too. What a good swf can do isnt justifiable in the games current state. The common argument is not all swfs are that sweaty squad but there is no compensation for both killer or solo q for the huge advantage coms brings. I feel this has a bigger impact on the game then people think. I think this fix doesnt have to be that drastic or you could just bring up solo q. If you just fix the gameplay balance.

2 This should be the last one addressed as its the only thing the killer has to combat the really oppressive teams. The actual players impacted by this arent even those swfs. Its solo q. In the early game this kind of behavior isnt justified imo. My solution for camping is already kind of in the game. Its Pyramidheads anti camp cage mechanic. It should work for hooks too but only until 3 or 2 gens are left. That way you dont take away the tactic completely. I think they have a fix for tunneling down the pipeline with the base bt integration.

3 The reason why this is one issue and not two is because i think they are related. Killer balance is directly connected with game flow. I think we can all agree that the gen fixing meta is stale. What I purpose is that there are more objectives then this based on what type of killer you are facing. You could leave the gen meta for killers who can handle it or ascetically makes sense. Then give new objectives to help the killers who cannot. So obviously you'd have to cluster a group of killers together so that they arnt immediately given away who they are.

However some killers could have an objective immediately tied to them since everyone knows who it is at the start. Examples of this are Freddy, Doctor, Plague and Nemesis, Billy and Bubba. I coupled some of them together because I think they couId share objectives. It would be fun to think of different objectives for them. One I thought of is during a Plague or Nemesis match to make it so that the survivors need to progress prayer at shrines for plague, and work on making an immunization vaccine at stations for nemisis. At the end you would maybe insert the immunization at the exit gate to open it or something like that. For freddy you could find a way to escape his nightmare. This opens up the door to balancing different killer matches according to the killer so that the weaker killers dont get left behind. Then also the game wont be as stale anymore.

I hope that something positive comes of this. I really just want to enjoy the game again. What are your thought on this? You have any neat killer objectives?