Good Reasons why should BHVR balance around Solo queue?

I could be wrong. I could be right. All i know is, that the information level for both solos and SWF have increased.

Take the exposed status for example. Years ago, before the icons where introduced in an attempt to bring solos and SWF to the same information level, survivors didn´t knew they were exposed until the killer hit them. Even a injured survivor wasn´t sure, if he was downed by a normal hit or exposed hit.

Now everyone knows that they are exposed. Independently if the downed survivor was injured or not. This took a major surprise effect away and is something the devs have to take into consideration for whatever they´ll finally do.

This is a harsh topic.

First and formost because we are dealing with our SoloQ teammates and we all have our tale to tell. Playing like this led me to the conclusion that more information are not the way to go if you want to buff soloQ to SWF level. I took Kindred, I too Empathic Connection, Aftercare, Better together, Blast Mine...and the amount of survivors who used that information was just not worth it.

However I would argue that we should differ between making soloQ able to play at the level of SWF and them actually living up to it. Maybe we should ignore that people do not use the information and just give it to them. Then they can blame their team for not doing anything.

I played a lot of duoQ yesterday. Me and my friend tried out a bunch of different perk combos, did the archives and some more. Most times when the game went south it was because we had a teammate with Self Care or Urban Evasion who did nothing. Otherwise we got 2/3 escapes, mostly with one of us dying.

Now, I am not a good survivor. But the information about how bad Self Care is now is written on the perk. I was even using a healing build with Empathic Connection and Botany Knowledge and those survivors would just ignore me...

Long story short: Buffing SoloQ with information will not do it, because many will ignore it.

Any other approach however would buff SWF.

I would still argue for more information for survivors. At least show them who is getting chased, we already know that the mechanic is there for the obsession. Why not add that for the other survivors too? SWF already know who is getting chased and it would make rescues more easy.

I know a lot of you are going to hate this, but they need to implement proximity chat. Include a mut option for anyone who doesn't want to be on mic. Just communicating with only one person in an swf can be extremely helpful. I often play only with my son, and we are very successful even though we are playing with two randoms. NBA2k has a proximity chat in their game that actually works. Includes is a mute option to silence any toxic players in the game. I honestly don't understand why a lot of people frown on this idea.

I don't think killers should get buffed any further until us solo survivors can do half of what a SWF can without needing to sacrifice an entire perk build only to have one tenth of the information a discord voice chat provides. Removing SWF is off the table, as proven by the many discussions here I've seen over the past year, and completely nerfing all of the killers that are too oppressive for solos would mean they would no longer be able to compete with strong premade groups.

If BHVR did find a way to buff solo queue for it to be comparable to SWF, weak killers should be buffed next, however if the stronger killers continue to be overpicked and overperform, I don't see why they shouldn't go for nerfs.

Ideally, solo queue should be brought up to be equal to SWF in strength by means that won't affect the swfs. Then the game could be rebalanced fairly.

I'd settle for using data to determine the difference in success rate and applying a modifier to the effective MMR used to form the group. SWF's have an extra +100 MMR or something. Or solo's get a -100... you get the point.

Pings should be under your control. You do something to ping everyone else's location, you don't ping your location to other players.

Ideally a base feature where you can hold a button while otherwise unoccupied. This isn't then always available, because you can't use it while repairing a gen, or perhaps even while sprinting, but you can stop what you're doing at any time to ping other survivors and get an idea where everyone is.

On the hook. It leaves him on the hook.

Its just that survivors often ignore Kindred. Having it basekit would mean that killers would have to get a compensation buff. Since, you know, devs can´t buff one side without also buffing the other.

All for something that might get ignored.

First, I don't believe so. Matches with SWF are way more common. Pure solo groups are maybe around the 10%

Second, if the solos have issues (beside the throwers and the MMR putting differently skilled players together) then the solution is to alleviate these issues, not to pull everything down to that level.

There are a few suggestions about this on the appropriate part of the forum.

none, people should just git gud

I think action statuses are a good idea. If you can see someone is repairing a gen you might want to find them and hop on. Likewise if you're hooked and the other three survivors status icons show they're literally not doing anything then there'll be more pressure for one of them to actually rescue. Twice I was left on the hook to die from the first hook yesterday.

You´re all making very good points. Thank you for the discussion. Devs will probably introduce some icons that show what every survivor is doint at all times. Which... knowing our community... will result in great endgame chats full of accusations. Because someone did one thing instead of another.

Yeah after having some reconsideration about our community. Uhm... i´d say we´re doomed 😅

In 2021 it was 54% solo players, even if we assume that solo players have dropped since SBMM it's probably still between 40-50% solo players, I doubt that pure solo groups are only 10%

Thats an interesting chart. Especially since its from 2019.

It's just something I've measured during the night games. So of course there is some discrepancy with global numbers : groups don't form easily during the day. Solos were usually with and SWF3 and and SWF2 and very rarely as four single.

If you look at the graph, it kind of makes perfect sense.

The SWF3 has to be completed by a solo, so you can remove their height from the solo one, that's about 10%

Then there is almost 30% that can go in the SWF2: statistically, only half of SWF2 will be fitted together 15%, times two for the solos obviously.

Which means that globally there are (50 - 10 - 15 * 2 = ) 10% of purely solo groups.

When I did that night-time measurement, what I got was: SWF4 : 20% SWF3 : 40% SWF2 x 2 : 10% SWF2 + solos x 2 : 10% Solos x 4 : 6%

My solo number of 6% is lower than the 10% I've used in the previous post. Since it was night-time I was assuming the number was higher for a whole day (when friends were busy at work or something) so I've doubled and rounded it for safety.

Yeah they could.

Solo queue needs to have most if not all of the advantages that an average SWF has.

This is info on everyones whereabouts and activities, some way to comunicate, preferably with an extended "buttons" system AND optional built-in voice chat. Definitely basekit kindred.

This would not only make solo queue closer to SWFs, but it would also encourage casual solos to partner up with randos they feel an affinity with in a much more organic and straightforward way, without all of them needing to use 3rd party apps they might not want to use.

The highest echelon of SWFs definitely has more info than this, such as killer location on demand, but honestly, it's not free. If a group of players can coordinate on this level they definitely deserve the reward for it

Once this is achieved, game can be balanced around this much more leveled play field and lead to fairer, more enjoyable game for the majority of players and scenarios

Well, i think saying 50% being solo queue is not generous, because we know the statistics.

i dont share your opinion at all, because i like the lack of information in this game as solo survivor. You can never bring solo up to swf, because bespite the information advantage, which you cannot get with icons (nor with a chat option, because here in europe i often play with people i dont share any language with). But even if you could, you cant make random teammates as reliable as swf. You cannot make them do gens to help the team instead of hidding, you cannot make them not dc or hook suicide because they dont like the killer.

The solution is to have one queue for solo survivors, and one queue for swf, both balanced around the information (or lack of) the team has.

As long as you dont do this, there is a power difference between solo and swf, and the further you buff killer to be able to handle swf, the more solo got thrown under the bus. If you nerf the killer to give solo a fair chance, you are back where they cant keep up with swf.

I really don´t think there is a solution other than splitting it up and balancing both queues differently, so both are equally fair, giving killers no reason to dodge swf.

I'm not going to offer specific suggestions on what should be done, but I will say that solo queue should be a priority.

People should be able to buy the game and play it without having to get on Discord AND have a decent experience. If being in a SWF is truly required, we should be using in-game systems for comms so that it becomes apparent quickly.

Otherwise, attention should be paid to balance for solo queue.

It should be fairly easy to make things function differently (if necessary) for solo queue and SWF because the game clearly knows if you are in a group. Now that assumes that the group is using comms, which is not necessarily the case. Still, it can be reasonably assumed.

People act like the SWF experience is always a joy. There are many reasons people might not want to play with comms . . . anxiety, hassle, bad connections, toxicity of some of those on comms, etc. We can't balance around only SWF.

something as simple as a chat wheel would be a buff to Solo Q without also being a buff to SWF

I fail to see how it would benefit SWF in any way whatsoever given that it's information they already have via comms, and to just exclusively rely on the icons would defeat the purpose of being on comms in the first place.

Splitting the queues is a terrible idea and has been discussed to death about how it would kill the game. SWF would never get any games because why play against a team that can communicate when you can just have easy games against solos?

SWF would quit the game altogether, while Solos would suffer even more, and the only ones who are happy in the end are killers. SWF is not the problem.

What's aftercare? Joking. Bond, kindred and other aura reading perks would need reworks.