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Solo Queue Is Destined To Be Terrible
I am a long-time killer main of about 5 years, but I do in fact play quite a bit of survivor too, mainly solo queue. In my experience, solo queue has always been pretty bad and anyone that has played for even a month can probably determine that. This is even more apparent after these last couple of updates, but why? In my eyes, it is because the game is unironically in one of its most balanced states - killer being balanced towards 4 man swf.
SWFS are now the standard by which killer is balanced. This is great...if you are a killer or swf. Games can actually feel somewhat fair and balanced when matches are mmr'd correctly. However, there is a big problem here. A solo queue will almost NEVER have the coordination of a swf team. Hell, most of the time solo queue won't have the coordination of a 3 man swf. However, this isn't because you are being matched with babies.
When 4 people are playing together, they will be generally playing to win as is the reason for the game, unless they are goofing (different story). When 4 people solo queue up, their personal objectives could be entirely different.
Dwight might have a "Do 8 totems" Challenge - Meg is trying to get clips for her tik tok (She has 17 followers) - Feng is doing a funny head on build and wants to get value - Leon is trying to play to win
Only the Leon in the situation cares about doing gens and winning. The other 3 are not. They might all have the same amount of hours as you OR MORE, but if you all aren't trying to win, the game balanced around 4 people TRYING TO WIN is not going to be a fun one when you maybe have 2 people playing seriously.
The problem of solo queue in my eyes is the fact that not everyone could be playing for the same "win". Kindred won't fix this in my eyes, and solo queue icons won't fix that issue.
MY SOLUTION: I think this game could really benefit from a "Search for Party" function. Some other games have things like this, overwatch comes to mind. Add a function to be able to create a party with a title, and others (or yourself) could look through a que of these teams and find some people to play with. "Trying to Win" team might appear and hazzah! You found 3 people that similarly want to play the game and actually know how to counter a camping bubba. Perhaps you just want to do your archives, so you still just drop a solo queue so you aren't committed to some team. I wouldn't even mind implementing ACTUAL comms in the game (of course like most games you can just turn this off). Hell, basekit kindred and solo queue symbols WOULD work in my eyes with a function like this, because at least you know your team has the same mindset as you.
Comments
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-"SWFS are now the standard by which killer is balanced"
Nurse and Blight are fair if you are on a large map or playing vs a SWF. Almost all the other killers are at a huge disadvantage. If that's not the case for you then you are either not good at survivor or you are playing baby survivors as killer. Watch the 7-9k hour streamers and they will all say what I have just said in a much nicer way.
-"I think this game could really benefit from a "Search for Party" function"
This game would be better off with 5 people go into a custom game and the killer rotates. If people are farming give them a "BP" debt of 1m or a 24 hr time out or something.
The reality is that SWF breaks the game for 95% of the killer roster. Being able to say the killer is over here - he is doing xyz gives you information you are supposed to only know if you spend perk slots for that. If you want to give the killer +4 perks for going against a SWF - fine that might be fair.
I would love to play against 4 man sweat swf squads if I could bring 8 perks of my choice. The SWF teams would want to play solo. That is the kind of change the game really needs to make SWF fair when compared to solo play.
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Point 1) Maps are still an issue for BOTH sides and saying 95% of the roster still struggles is a blatant lie lmao. The bottom of the barrel killers still struggle in situations that are heavily against them. Again, a problem for perks and maps, not really the killers themselves.
Point 2) Again, even the devs have stated they are accounting for swf being the baseline in balance, and most changes in the past years have been bringing the average killer to that level. Yes, in situations where the survivors are in a team, all using their best perks, and on the best survivor map, they will do better than a Sadako using a meme build. The fact of the matter is the game is balanced towards the side that brought the best stuff. This has been proven for a whie, even before the killer basekit changes which (not even arguably) made killer much less stressful. Completely stress-free? Of course not, you are the killer side and OBJECTIVELY the 1 in 1v4 will be more stressful and harder. The whole "8 perks for me" thing has been spouted for years and I've never seen it not be clowned on lol
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"the devs have stated they are accounting for swf being the baseline in balance,"
Given the way the game works that's insanity. SWF gets 3-5x the information a solo queue team gets without using any perk slots for that information.
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couldn't read after "killer being balanced around 4 man swf"
wake me up in the 10th anniversary when something close to that might actually be true lol.
how can you even look at most of the killers we have + the maps and think killers have any chance against swfs.
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Easy. 61%. Nothing more to add here
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the kill rates, the reality of the matter that not every single map is awful for killer, and the fact that the game was more balanced than people wanted to admit even before 6.1.0. Yes, there are still problematic maps and perks, but those also exist for BOTH sides. Yes, there is obviously weaker killers, but is a given in most multiplayer games after 6 years. People will know what is weak or not. If you are trying to win every single match you play as Myers, you won't lol that is just how it works. You won't win every single one of your matches. What IS problematic is the black and white situations, like how Nurse and Blight can ALSO bring the best perks and map offerings. In fact, I'm sure most people forget as killer you can bring your best stuff every game as well as map offerings lol.
The game isn't out to hurt your ego, I'm honestly surprised there is still this amount of people that genuinely still believe the game is survivor sided lol
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they break 95% of killer roast because 95% of roaster is weak because 95% of roaster is balanced around solo-q.
Balance 95% of roaster around 4 man strong SWF and they'll stop breaking 95% of the roaster.
I think this game could really benefit from a "Search for Party" function.
Strangers do not want to talk to other strangers. Your only playing a single match of DBD together. Making everyone SWF does not make everyone a good coordinated SWF if their no communication. One advantage of SWF is that you get to play with them a multiple times and you know who your playing with.
With strangers, you need build team synergy in 1 game. aura-reading perks enables synergy to occur without needing any talking. Icons are enable better synergy. both these are not synergy itself. you need to learn how to use information to make correct plays. auto kindred is not auto-win. swf win more often because they are able to always make the most optimal correct play where as solo doesn't know what correct play to make because there is no information to make the correct play thus you end up making a lot of mistakes in solo without knowing it.
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Exactly. If you're playing clown and do not have pinky finger on a large/safe map you just automatically lost if you are playing against a SWF. Might as well afk in the corner and make sure nobody can pip?
That number would be very different if we removed all the games where people D/C or killed themself on the hook.
People were throwing games when the patch came out to make the numbers look worse.
ALso the devs stated that killer queue times went down by 2:40. I find that my queue times are +2:40 considering that before the 6.1 patch my queue times as killer were almost always instant. Now I wait 3-6 minutes for a game with killer.
Last night there was a 100% killer boost and games were still taking about 2-5 minutes to give me a lobby.
"They break 95% of killer roast because 95% of roaster is weak because 95% of roaster is balanced around solo-q"
Then give killer an option to only play solo queue when not playing Blight/Nurse. The simple truth is that playing alone or with friends shouldn't break the game but it does. SWF needs to get nerfed but can never be nerfed because the community would crucify the developers.
"Strangers do not want to talk to other strangers."
People with a common interest - such as a video game they both love and understand can easily become fast friends.
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I do not think swf needs to be nerfed. its more killer need to be buffed, but issue with making killer stronger is that soloq already has an average of 39% kill-rate with most of the killer powers being not that amazing. If you make all killers have the opportunity to beat strong man 4 swf, the kill-rate for soloq would be like 20% escape rate.
that is not balanced for soloq on top of the annoying self-suicides that people do on hook in protest of "killer favored patch". First you need make soloq closer to SWF before you make killers stronger so they have at least equal opportunity to escape like giving survivors auto global bond like what they have when a survivor is slugged on the floor.
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You are right. The number would go to 80% killrate if they counted DC. But as devs have already stated before - they don't count games with DC
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-"I do not think swf needs to be nerfed. its more killer need to be buffed"
Buff Killers and buff solo queue players so that "SWF is effectively nerfed" because everyone else got better.
Given the choice you would always play SWF over solo queue. They need to be an even choice where they have different but equal opportunities.
Example: give killer +4 perks if the game they are playing features SWF. These perks are chosen ahead of time and only activate "in case of SWF".
Meanwhile give solo queue players +4 information perks that activate only if they are in a game that features SWF. Information perks include : Bond, Emathy, Kindred, Rookie Spirit, Alert, etc (but obviously not dead hard or adrenaline).
Now you get 8 perks if you are in a game vs SWF and the killer gets 8 perks if they are in a game vs SWF and the SWF team only gets 4 perks each.
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well swf did not change. its still same. just that soloq is the same as swf at that point if you can see everyone's aura's. I don't think there would be much of a difference playing soloq over SWF. that is just my opinion. Most of killer though in my opinion would get gen-rushed similar to strong SWF with high escape streaks without killer having very much chase gameplay in my opinion.
Example: give killer +4 perks if the game they are playing features SWF. These perks are chosen ahead of time and only activate "in case of SWF".
killer do not need more perks. they need functional power that provides value when you use it correctly and is versatile. Its just that they won't make killer power any good if your constantly dying as survivor.
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"well swf did not change. its still same"
SWF did change by proxy. Instant regression hurt SWF and solo queue alike. Perks like Overcharge and CoB do nothing vs a swf. Your friend tells you I got chased of mid gen, go finish it while I get chased.
Popping a gen 3-5 times in a game happened all the time before. Overcharge/CoB are just "meh" by comparison.
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I largely agree with your thoughts. If Dwight playing for a challenge and Leon playing for a win are each matched as solo queues, solo queues are terrible! That being said, it is Leon who will be the one to say.
However, it does not mean that I will not be Dwight. This is the difficult part of defining solo queue today.
I built a discussion on a similar topic some time ago. Unlike you, I am not a good writer so no one read it (lol).
I started from the premise that "communication" and "unity of intent" are two different things in my opinion.
The difference between SWF and solo queue is that it is easy to be drawn to the fact that you always continue to get the in-game information sharing advantage by discord, but in fact, the very biggest difference is that at the lobby, you can join a game with 4 leons who are looking to win. Or you can have fun with 4 Dwight players as well.
My idea was to set the playing objective status publicly for each player, but from a matching time perspective, your simplified SWF-based idea seems superior.
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i play over 4 years dbd and 95% solo q and i never feel what i now feel, its say to myself i take 3 weeks a break from dbd, why i am came back ? its the same feeling, swf is a ez mode with mates they have minmum 5k+ hours and solo q (ehm how i can say it, test it ! :)) )
it feels more like work than playing a game... after changing MMR ( far lower Cap then before, u can match with and against hundred hours bots) when the mmr cap changed, dbd really wasn't much fun because swf became a lot easier (because now you can get a killer in the lobby with only a hundred hours) and solo q is a lot worse than before, but since the buff for the killers you can clearly see how much the solo q has suffered
Change from MMR cap: solo q burns, after the buff for the killers and nerfs for the meta of the survivor, bhvr: throws gas on the fire and fans a flaming fire
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