Survive with Friends - BHVR's Deal with the Devil
Picture a horror movie where everyone is in the same call. That is what SWF is.
SWF with Coms is, in my opinion, the single greatest problem in the game because it throws everything off balance.
DBD has a lot of perks that can be broken if timed correctly, but they are limited in effectiveness by that exact same timing. But if you happen to know exactly what the killer is doing at all times, it can be very easy to use these perks to their fullest effect.
As Solo Que, Soul Guard is a perk that will rarely be used. In SWF, it is a very powerful way to deny a down.
Speaking of Perks, SWF can do something so evil and so broken that I consider it to be one of the strongest things survivors can do. They can all play the same character. This makes keeping track of whose who incredibly hard and can easily make it impossible to keep track of which survivor has which perk. Combine this with the aforementioned ability to make certain perks very strong, and you can make the killer have a very, very bad time.
However, it should be noted that not all SWF are like this. In fact, most SWF are just that, friends playing a game together.
This leads us to the reason why SWF is a Deal with the Devil.
On One Hand, players get to play with their friends which greatly increases the amount of enjoyment for many people.
On the Other Hand, the potential to abuse SWF to make the killer's life miserable is now there.
While I don't think that SWF are responsible for all killer's toxic behavior, I do think that it can easy lead to a sort of arms race where killers always bring the strongest stuff because they don't want to have to go up against a fully decked out SWF with a weak build.
SWF, for all of the fun it can give people, completely changes the balance of the game. What is supposed to be four strangers taken from their world and forced to work together despite their differences to escape from an crazed, unstoppable killer turns into four survivors who all have cell phones working to complete some generators in order to escape for a killer that is actually quite stoppable.
Comments
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I just want proximity chat on both sides to make this game fun. That's why people love Friday The 13th The Game.
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SWF doesn't give any advantages though, my favorite content creator told me!
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To this day, what bug me alot is:
Killers: complain about SWF broke game balance
Survivors: complain about Solo is unable to play, demands buff Solo
Killers: its because Solo's skill is low, they dont need a buff
Throw me into a SWF and suddenly I become god like that break game balance?
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Really, its not SWFs as a whole, its the bully squads that make the most noise. The well coordinated bully squads. But really, simply going up against a swf doesn't mean they are well coordinated, and doesn't make them automatically good, or a death sentence for the killer. IDK how many times I've faced what was obviously a swf, but them being super altruistic cost them the game. They always want to body block, take hits, trade hooks, ect.
But yeah, the bully squads who are actually kinda good aren't fun.
I'd be down for in-game coms but only if there was an option to not use them, I really don't want to talk with a good portion of what I see in end game chat. Toxic trash or know-it-alls thinking its their duty to quarterback the game... NEWP... But a good addition for those who would use them.
and I'd also be down for them just putting info in the hud as well as coms. When teammates are working on gens, totems, healing/being healed, ect. Throw in basekit kindred, now we've got solo queues almost up there with SWFs, and thats great for the killer too.
Some killer mains don't like this idea because they think every team will become this "dangerous" bully squad, but really, it will make the game much much easier to balance. They can now nerf perks or othe mechanics abused by swfs because it won't be a hard hit to solo queues, which is why they won't nerf certain things.
And yes, I think basekit kindred should have killer aura included. That only hurts campers, and swfs can easily tell their team a killer is face camping so why not?
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You missed the part where not having an option to play with your friends would kill a multiplayer game.
I really feel like people really overblow how often they face a super-sweaty, tryhard SWF. Is it balanced? No. Can they really do anything about it? Also no.
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This is Pandora's box right here. I'd love to role play and say some goofy stuff but I think this community it too toxic for it. I can imagine most survivors and killers taking nearly everything as a personal insult and threat to their family/
Post edited by Cybil on5 -
Swf communication can only do so much. If the survivor can't run the killer long enough for the other people doing gens.
When people talk about swf they are referring the bully squads. However I'm always skeptical when people complain about them because sometimes what the killer calls bullying is just the survivors playing the game. Not to say they don't really exist they do.
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Then they can have a recording software built into the vc to report these things. I know it's BHVR here but it's possible.
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I'm still glad people play all those other games. No they are not at all dead for those wondering. I go on F13 all the time and still find like level 8 players or something in every lobby who are new.
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We may have to sacrifice some unwilling survivors, but maybe the devs will hear our plea.
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I want to say to anyone playing Legion this one line: "Prove your worth..."
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This community lacks the maturity and is far too toxic for VC. I can already see people being abused in chat for not wanting to mic up, and I can see people throwing because one or more survivors won't mic up.
Also, there are literal children who play this game. I don't want to deal with that.
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What if it was a custom only feature?
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Its really not as much as they think. They just focus on when it does. Same as getting facecamped. It does happen, its not rare, but does it really happen every single game? Not really.
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The issue is, even a not sweaty tryhard swf is stronger than a group of lone survivors of equal level. Communication absolutely destroys half of the killers' ability to cause pressure. The correct thing for BHVR to do is to buff solo queue to the level of swf information and balance around that. Whether they do that through voice chat or some other method doesn't really matter.
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Imagine getting 3 Steve Harrington and your the only solo
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Custom only feature would be fine. I think it'd be more beneficial for public games to display information via the hud with distinct icons for different actions.
I'm sure the "self-care in a corner" Claudette mains wouldn't appreciate that, but it'd be beneficial for solos and have no benefits for SWFs.
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so what's your answer to it add another mode make sure you cant play with friends? Lets not play with friends in a multiplayer game = dead ....... Lets get rid of coms = Impossible
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Where is that altar?
I have demands.
Several.
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The "it's not common " argument for the imbalances swf brings holds no substance. It doesn't need to be frequent to still be a problem.
Swf doesn't need to be removed, but solo survivors need to understand that when they get buffed to that level so follows killer buffs to deal with them.
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Going by the comparisons you made, if DBD had any sense of realism the survivors in solo que would all communicate with each other within the match anyway. An example would be one survivor telling another they just saw the killer somewhere and who it is but in the actual game all we can do is point and motion follow because we all forgot how to talk for some reason.
SWF is just how a lot of people want to play this game. I know people who won't play it any other way. Its how I used to play it a lot when my friends played and from experience the fun factor with SWF is vastly different than it is with solo que. I don't think they will ever remove SWF from the game. Doing so would undoubtedly make a lot of people quit and I highly doubt they would start playing killer afterwards.
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That was the majority of the time not the goal of people complaining about swf. Buff solo with aura reading and HUD improvements to a level were communication doesn't give a feasible advantage so you can balance around survivor roughly as a whole.
You don't need necessarily a true bully squad. A group that gets matched with a killer of equal or even lower skill (we know how "good" the matchmaking is) and has plans for some non standard "fun" like group sabo or flashlight locker shenanigans, will already do the trick. It doesn't need a death squad against many casual killers.
Like i said above, make comms obsolete or less impactful by badekit aura reading and HUD improvements.
The coordination factor can then be addressed by finally balancing around only 2 sides and improving the accuracy of the matchmaking algorithm.
But all this is just a pipe dream given how the management and the devs of bhvr work on things.
Wonderfully demonstrated by the upcoming "meta change" by sledgehammering the meta and buffing some other stuff up to the same old over the top level. Instead of tweaking the meta perks and their numbers and elevating a portion of the other perks, all to a level between the top meta and the useless stuff.
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People should probable me made aware of a fact more often:
Any changes to "solo" will also apply to "SWF", there are no game mechanic differences except the lobby. I'm not dismissing the notion of closing the gap, but the difference of good swfs and "bad solos" is NOT game mechanics.
Adding HUD, or more devastatingly Aura reading, is way more spoonfed and precise info than comms will ever provide. Comms' advantage is relaying Info from A to B, not providing it to A in the first place. The more of such info is added to Survs by default, be it the "action icons" or free aura reading (wallhack) of any kind, the less comm users will have to waste time torelay said info and can USE it to strategize instead.
The only reasonable ideas to lessen or close the gap is sadly either adding VC into the game ( 100% closed gap) or add a chat wheel/ message system ( "heal me, focus gens, etc") or maybe some sort of ping tool (that shouldnt reveal auras too much imo, could become stronger than actual current comms)
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I'd prefer a 4man bully squad not doing gens over 4 solos gen rushing, everytime.
All i want is an indicator at the end to see who was solo and who played with friends. Not sure if that's technical even possible with crossplay. But it could give BHVR more interesting data. Remember: Every buff for solos will be a free buff for SWFs aswell. New basekit BT is the perfect example.
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SWF should play against Killer Bots (and killer players who opt-in to SWF mode).
There's no reason why Solo Queue should suffer from the inability to balance killers against 100% solo survivors, which is exactly the problem.
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This would only work for north american servers. I'm in the EU and my matches are full of russian who dont speak english.
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swf will always be a part of the game, removing that is a death blow to dbd. solo queue should be adjusted to match swf in strength, it's kind of weird survivors have no proper way of coordinating outside of comms in the first place honestly. what i worry is that bhvr wants to discourage people from playing solo, the upcoming game changes aren't exactly friendly to solo players.
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TIL People Love Friday The 13th The Game. 🤷♂️
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SWF can't be and shouldn't be removed. Although if solo queue were improved, fewer survivors might see it as the only option.
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If people playing with friends throws things off balance, it wasn't balanced to begin with. Playing with friends on comms isn't something the developer of a multiplayer game has the luxury of choosing to disallow, it is the default expectation of online games.
There's no 'deal with the devil'. It's just the way games like this will function regardless of developer choice.
Complaining about the existence of SWF is genuinely pointless because they cannot be removed, at least not without cataclysmic downsides for the overall health of the game. It'd be better to start (or continue!) advocating for more basekit information tools like the status icons and perkless Kindred so that the exchange of information is equal and the game can be balanced properly around it.
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SWF is annoying, sure, and kind of powerfun in the hands of a good team. But they are kind of an exception. Against most teams you can exploit their altruistic tendencies or the fact they'll be ready for a save.
Once again here, the real issue is the MMR.
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How about this. If you got to select a designated language to play on, you'd automatically mute yourself to the people that don't speak that and there would be a globe icon to signal to them that you don't speak their language and vice versa if your languages aren't the same. Would that work? You could still play together, just not hear eachother.
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I agree with this
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"Deal with the devil"
Cringe.
"SWF can do something so evil"
Oh wow, even cringier.
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That would put me in the same position I am right now. What if I have 3 people in my team or even 2 that dont speak english?
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As has been said, there's no way SWF is going away, they would lose a massive chunk of their player base. And the biggest issue with SWF (the comms coordination) is usually run through other apps, so there's no way BHVR could regulate that even if they were so inclined.
Is SWF a problem? Maybe, but not a huge one, as most SWFs aren't all that good. That said, a good, coordinated four player squad is the most powerful thing in the game by a fair margin, and even a mediocre comms SWF is going to be stronger than 95% of solo squads. One of the good squads that decides to bully is just a miserable thing to deal with, and the game would be better off without them (though beating one is a great feeling).
And I personally don't feel too affected by it, as I don't run into those all that often (maybe a small handful a week), and I have post game chat disabled, but I am generally bothered by how BM-ish these squads can be. It's like "you brought a machine gun to a knife fight and won, congrats, I guess?"
Have your fun, but have a little humility and perspective.
Solo queue should be buffed, but I would argue that anyone who sees SWF as "the only option" is:
a) Someone who has only really ever played in SWFs and that's their baseline
b) At low MMR
c) Not good at the game
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Actually yes, SWFs innately has dozens perk worth of advantage on top of reliable teammates, throw many solo q players there and most will be godlike.
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Then good luck.
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Players dont get magically better just because they play in a SWF.
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SWF breaks the game for killer.
SWF should be limited by : no character/item/perk repeats.
SWF gives too much information - and you want to buff solo queue to have too much information- Right. What does the killer get? How about 8 perks of their choice.
If we're being real then SWF should only play against Blight and Nurse. Bad swfs will play against the bad nurse/blights and the good ones will play against the ultra try hards.
Being serious - there can never be an "opt out" option for SWF. Nobody would ever play against SWF if they had the choice in its current form. What are the benefits?
1) Less XP
2) More frustrating matches
3) People actively trying to make you angry and bully you
-Gee golly where do I sign up!?
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agree, SWF is why a lot of people wants to play. But at the same time, changes the topic of the game.
Basically, people play this game with friends to troll killers.
Thats the fun of this game. It should be a home alone game whit four kids against one thief.
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"Nobody would ever play against SWF if they had the choice in its current form."
That really is the problem. The game has a mode that gives some members of only one side a tremendous advantage, actively encourages the use of third-party software, and enables coordinated, abusive behavior. AND, the side that doesn't benefit can't choose to disable it, unlike Crossplay.
If you COULD disable queuing against SWF, how much of a multiplier do you think it would take killer players to go for it? 2x? 5x? 20x?
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Or, to recontextualize the struggle: playing against SWF is basically a Die Hard game, where one one hero tries valiantly to battle the odds and fight to take down Hans Gruber's gang of four well-equipped, well-coordinated villains.
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Stopped reading at “throws everything off balance”.
A slight advantage over a solo player isn’t going to convince me that it is in fact “throwing everything off balance”.
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That is the point, swf isnt better than solo because of chasing skill, its because of time efficient from info they have. Which solo always need.
There is something you have to understand that once Solo gets buffed to equal to Swf. Kill rate will drop, and killers will get buffed to get back to Devs' preferred kill rate.
By now what most killers want is just want easy match on Solo because Swfs have easy match on Killers. That only make survivors want to play Swf, the only one that hurt after that are Killers.
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Of course they do, there is countless benefit you can get just by playing SWF.
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This game should play like in silence. First person with the funny flashlight, maybe make killer have a bit more visibility. I think it’d be fun.
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- Picture a horror movie where everyone is in the same call.
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They don't. It doesn't even work in hockey.
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Yes they do lol. They don't all of a sudden learn how to mindgame/loop better but by default they gain access to multiple perks and valuable info that you don't get in SoloQ. Nobody that plays both SoloQ and SWF at a reasonable level can dispute this
For example, a mediocre player will 100% perform better against a stealth killer in a SWF with their friends than they would if they qued up alone. "Pig is committing to me by Shack still, Ill let you know if she drops chase'' is a 2 second callout that makes the entire difference between a nervous player letting somebody die on their 1st hook or not committing to their gens because they're unsure of where the killer is and a player confidently making plays because the information they have is game-changing. Other simple game-changing callouts -
"She has Franklins, drop your medkits somewhere"
"I have GF by schoolbus, Ruin is at the car pallet right next to it so I'm kiting him away. Its clear to cleanse"
"Its the Artist, I have her on me downstairs. Commit to middle gen upstairs"
"Its Trapper. He set up the 2 jungle gyms and main but nothing in shack" "In the grass right next to my hook on your left there's a trap"
"Hag didn't set any basement traps, come save"
"Try to go down at the pallet where you're running to, we're both right here for the save in either direction"
Yeah, comms clearly doesn't make any difference in gen efficiency or rescues/chases
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