What a "Casual Mode" might look like
Since before the advent of a formal MMR, people have been asking for a "casual" mode of DbD (with the volume increasing after MMR went live). But one thing that rarely comes up is what exactly that entails. How do you define the parameters of "casual" and how do you change the rules of the game to make it less "sweaty?" My proposal is that you identify the main complaints that both sides have and simply alter the core game rules to accommodate both sides.
So, it would look something like this:
- 4-man SWF teams will not be able to queue for Casual. (EDIT: Let's compromise and say max of a group of 2 for SWF)
- Purple, Iridescent, and Holiday tools/addons won't be selectable for both sides.
- Post-Game chat is disabled and player names are hidden.
- To solve only seeing the same perks: Every survivor perk that hard-counters a specific killer power cannot be selected (iron will, circle of healing, spine chill, etc). On the flip side, every killer perk that constitutes a massive power spike is disabled (all hexes including noed, BBQ, Tinkerer, etc).
- To solve only seeing a couple killers: In the Casual Mode interface, all survivors may select one Killer they do not want to play against. Once a group has been formed, the game will randomly select 2 of those from the assembled survivor lists to disable. The killer player, likewise, can select up to 2 killers they do not wish to play as. Then, the killer player will randomly be assigned a character to play as from the remaining cast (that they own).
- To solve slugging, all survivors will benefit from and infinitely reusable Unbreakable effect, but self-recovery on the ground is reduced to 50% normal speed.
- To solve camping, after a killer hooks a survivor, they are teleported to a random 'killer starting point' on the map.
- To solve tunneling, recently unhooked survivors are teleported to a random 'survivor starting point' on the map.
- To solve Gen Rushing, no more than 2 generators can be repaired at once. Once two are being repaired, all the others are blocked to survivors.
- To solve survivor BM, any survivor action that is repeated more than twice in a short time period becomes disabled for several seconds (tea bagging, spam-vaulting, flashlight clicking)
I think that covers most player complaints
Comments
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Ah. Boring mode will be a hit, I'm certain.
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Boring and sweaty players will still play it to go against easier opponents, making the entire mode entirely and utterly pointless.
Casual mode fixes nothing. Changing the broken stuff in this game will fix things.
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Every nitpick about this, randomly assigned killlers, banning killers, removal of camping and the perk that incentivizes you to go elsewhere with information after each hook (bbq) at the same time rather than one or the other. Killers lose all of their pressure after every hook, unhook, and most of their pressure from slugging. It just seems like a mode targeted to make a boring experience for killer with not too much hinderance on survivors and high chances of facing low tier killers for free bullying in a 3man swf.
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Your casual mode seems more ranked-like than the one we have now lol.
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Well, IDEALLY you'd disallow ALL SWF for a Casual Mode. But the Devs don't seem to think a 10-20% higher escape rate is worth putting any kind of limitation or hindrance on them, so that probably wouldn't fly. But I certainly agree: while SWF exists, the game can never probably be made fun and casual.
If you don't pull back on the most OP stuff in some way, you get people using nothing but the OP stuff for 4-minute games. The fact that there AREN'T restrictions of some sort is why players have managed to squeeze the fun out of the game.
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What you're describing is far more like a ranked mode? We have a casual mode, it's the one we have.
In a ranked/casual split, typically the ranked mode is the one with more restrictions, a pick/ban phase, and more efforts made to correct for 'cheap' or unfair gameplay. The casual mode, by contrast, is the one where anything goes and there are no restrictions on characters or tools.
MMR does not make what we have a ranked mode. Casual modes in other games use MMR too.
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That's why I asked, at the beginning, 'what IS a casual mode?'
Because "no restrictions" does not make the game loose and fun. It makes the game "you play to win or you play to lose."
My definition of 'casual' is "Putting limits into the game to remove the parts of the game that players hate."
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I'm... pretty sure that just makes your definition wrong, though.
Again, look at other games that have a Ranked/Casual split. The one with the limitations is almost always the Ranked mode, at least off the top of my head. If there are things that make the game that unfun, they just need to be fixed, there doesn't need to be a whole second queue devoted to limiting them.
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The core design of this game relies on things that make the game less fun. And being afraid of a second queue to add new gameplay options is why DbD gets so incredibly stagnant and loses new players so constantly. DbD needs MORE game types, not Less.
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I'm not saying a new queue is a bad idea in general, I'm saying that if you think there are things that need limiting, they should just be limited, or they should be fixed at their core.
If you want a casual mode, you've got one. If you want a mode with more restrictions, that's Ranked. I'm not passing judgement on those concepts (though, for the record, I do think a Ranked mode isn't a great idea), that's just how it is.
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You're missing the main point: The game, as it is, ISN'T set up to play casually. The perks, buffs, nerfs, items,, and so forth have next to zero internal balance to the point that they would have to overhaul nearly every aspect of the game to fix things. And, like it or not, the game with MMR always-on is Perma-Ranked Mode. There is no option to opt-out of Ranked, but there are also no limitations that make Ranked actually balanced.
Perhaps your mind is too set in what these kinds of differences look like in other, better balanced games. I'm describing a "Fun Mode" or a "Just Relax and Play" mode. Something that can be done CASUALLY, without feeling like going easy is going to leave you blown out of the water.
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So first: what we have isn't Ranked. What we have is a normal Casual, without a Ranked to compare it to. Ranked would have limitations, pick/ban, and a connected ranked ladder with seasons that reset. We do have a ladder and a reset, but it's not based on queue, it's just your account's level-up system. Maybe the game would be better with a Ranked mode - grades would definitely make more sense then - but we don't currently have it; it's more than a technicality, it's about how those queues function.
Both use MMR. That isn't, and can't be, the distinguishing factor.
As for the game's balance, I don't agree fully but I do agree that currently the meta is such that if you want to go easy, you're almost certainly going to get stomped. Something to fix that would be great, and it'd probably look like a lot of basegame and perk changes, as well as maybe something like different modes or more robust custom game tools - what it wouldn't look like is a "casual" mode that functions more like Ranked, which just slaps bandaids on some problems.
I feel like your view is a little too narrow in scope. The problem isn't fixed by just adding in a second queue that puts heavy limitations on things some players don't like, the solution has to be more far-reaching and nuanced than that.
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This sounds like the opposite of “casual”. Casual implies “play how you want”, not having a bunch of tournament style restrictions for balance purposes.
On a related note, the upcoming mode where you can form custom matches against bots is actually a version of a casual mode. Bots won’t care what your loadout is or how you play, it’s the epitome of being able to win while “playing casually”.
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The fact that you need a longer list for rules than tournaments highlights just how ridiculous the whole notion of a "casual" gamemode is. I wish the devs didn't waste their time on something that's doomed to fail even if they force it through.
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You should see the list of rules they have for Actual Competitive DbD play. It's a laundry list of survivor limits across the board, and even then only about 6 killers actually have any chance of winning.
The core gameplay is busted. The best ways to win for killer are no fun for survivors (tunneling, slugging, camping), while the best ways to win for survivor invalidate 75% of all possible killers (CoH, gen rush, SWF comms).
And then you get people like the commenters in this thread who see any attempt at fixing the busted core gameplay failures as some kind of personal attack. These kinds of players don't deserve a less sweaty game mode.
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And then you get people like the commenters in this thread who see any attempt at fixing the busted core gameplay failures as some kind of personal attack. These kinds of players don't deserve a less sweaty game mode.Oy there, hold up. There's a diffrence between fixing mechanics and trying to make a new mode that is supposed to be more casual. Restricting the ability to play with friends, restricting perks, restricting killers, restricting add-ons - all of these scream "competetive rules".
The only thing that's making this seem casual is you using word "random" in almost every rule. Because randomness is actually something fun in casual games. (also, your solutions to camping/tunneling and gen rushing could be the opposite of what you're trying to accomplish imo)
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