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DBD has always and likely will always fail to balance solo que
Behavior developers have some mysterious and unknown reason for allowing solo que to remain in a constant state of disappointment since day one and instead of adding even the most basic tools to allow a reasonable level of coordination between survivors they opt to let them play in a handicapped state which has no logical reasoning.
The reason why I'm confident that solo que will always remain in this state is because even with complete overhaul of perks and mechanics such as the recent big update that was supposed to address "tunneling," the devs just showed their incompetence at providing a more effective counter to it and furthermore completely ignored camping.
In a multiple hour session of dead by daylight it's impossible to not encounter one killer employing tunneling and/or camping in a manner that overpowers solo que players due to their inability to communicate, in fact the only way to counter this playstyle is to have the entire squad on third party comms while equipping the most effective meta perks, something that's never going to happen in a solo que match.
Case and point is that even when the devs "try," to address these issues that cause the community to grow tired of the game they fail, to top it off they stated during that update that they have no plans on implementing any tools whatsoever at helping solo que players play more coordinated so I think it's fair to say that the devs have little concern for the well being of these players which considering how large of the population they make up is quite alarming to say the least.
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SoloQ cannot be feasibly balanced, because the skills of teammates is RNG.
HOWEVER (big however), there are definitely things that can be done to improve the conditions of soloQ and on that I completely agree that devs have been way too lackadasical, if not even opposed, to at least try.
I'll go so far to say that the new icons, while undeniably an improvement, will be mostly underwhelming. Knowing that someone is not on the objective and not in chase doesn't tell if they're going for the save or just bring useless, or they need help for a camping killer, etc.
Kindred basekit, maybe with tweaks, would've been a better solution.
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Agreed that solo Q can't be balanced at the end of the day but you hit the nail on the head with all of those changes which is where the real head scratcher remains, new icons showing basic survivor situations would be incredibly helpful as you mentioned as most losses are based around inefficient play from survivors that have no idea who's doing what.
Basekit kindred is probably one of the most suggested things I've seen by players and it really leaves you wondering why they wouldn't add such a obvious thing to benefit the casual player base. I'm still surprised they haven't added voice comms, discord is a regular endeavor for SWF's so if that's not bannable then why not just implement it in game? If players don't like it they can turn it off.
Overall just leaves you wondering what motivation they have against solo que players from standing a reasonable chance against more skilled killers that just run through the survivor team of dads and 9-5ers playing essentially blind.
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One big problem of the DBD designers is that they think it is fine to have mechanics that are ridiculously cheap and unfun, as long as there is a "counter".
- Tunneling
- Camping
- NOED
- Obsession-related perks (STBFL, PWYF,...)
Yes, all of these have a counter, but the counter is either boring (eg. do gens to counter camping, hide to get hatch...) or it requires WAY more skill to execute the counter than it does for the killer. The problem is that casual players are never going to be motivated to play a game for hundreds of hours just for a chance to not lose against someone who looks like a newbie to them. They are going to be frustrated and DC.
And even when you have 2000 hours, the counter usually relies SO HEAVILY on the execution of your teammates that it's still almost never working in practice, what is the point of learning and trying to become good in chase when the killer can always just stop chasing you and tunnel one of the baby Megs in your team instead?
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I think you can give soloq all the basekit kindred or information you want but it will not balance it out, why? Because information does not make you good at the game, for example, a killer like onryo gives you a ton of info, enough to never get ambushed/surprised by her, yet so many people manage to give her free hits.
Communication will not make your teamates good, so you can even see everything thats going on in the match, if you still go down to an m1 killer without at least wasting between 60 to 90 seconds, no amount of info will solve your problem.
People complained about deadmans+ pain res, a combo that gives you an aura warning when it will proc, if they considered that a problem when it gave them all the information to counter it, then I believe soloq will always be the weakest role in the game, not because of lack of information but because most of them are simply not good at the game.
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I've been telling friends for months, giving solo queue more free information won't help. I often play with friends with no comms, and we are able to make the correct plays just fine with 1 or 2 of us running Kindred.
No amount of free information will get the default claudette to stop self caring in a corner.
To clarify, mmr is a teammate lottery and you rarely win it in solo queue. No amount of information will make up for that skill variance.
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...Wait, what's wrong with the Obsession perks in this context? I expect to see NOED pop up here despite not warranting it as it has a weird reputation, but this is the first time I've seen someone call the Obsession perks as a whole "ridiculously cheap and unfun", I'd love to hear your reasoning there.
As for the topic as a whole, I think this point probably would've seemed slightly more reasonable before the update on the action icons. Clearly, BHVR are in fact willing to attempt addressing solo queue.
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They haven't outright removed tunneling/camping because most people aren't ready for the amount of significant buffs you'd have to give killers to compensate for that. High mmr games those things are required unfortunately.
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Sadly, I have to agree with you.
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Save the Best for Last's counter involves the Obsession somehow first realizing that the killer has it (while the killer will obviously try to avoid the Obsession at all costs), THEN taking hits for their teammates. Good luck having that level of coordination in solo queue. And without the Obsession drawback STBFL is completely busted.
Play with your Food gives tombstone Myers an easy 4k against 90% players and probably can be used in other cheese strats as well.
At 100 hours a player might not even know what the perk does.
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STBFL is strong, sure, but I wouldn't call it "completely busted". It's a good idea for the Obsession to start taking hits if they suspect the killer has it, but if they don't realise... on a majority of killers, it's good, but not broken. Certain killers do make better use of it (giving a far more hefty hint that they're running it from the get-go), but even on its best user it's still just "above average".
PWYF, similarly, isn't even all that great? Tombstone Myers is its own thing whether he's running that perk or not, and it's almost useless on literally every other killer due to how it loses tokens. Clearly not a problem.
Those are also, for the record, not the only Obsession perks. What about Grim Embrace, or Furtive Chase? Dying Light? The Obsession mechanic isn't inherently a problem because there's one pretty decent perk that uses it, surely?
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I believe devs won't ever make drastic changes to solo q or give survivors any meaningful change because they favor killers. It's already been proven by the mods that killers can do no wrong and everything in this game is valid for them. Illusionary fixes just give you a false sense of hope that they are actually doing anything. I don't think that they will do anything to actually address solo q because then it will have a negative impact on their darling killers. But I guess, why should they? The name implies it all. Dead by Daylight. This is specifically for killers isn't it?
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Let's take a bet, imagine we take a group of 5 random players with 100-200 hours of playtime each, 4 survivors and 1 Tombstone Myers + PWYF, who is going to win? 90% of the time it's going to be a 3K at least. In order to win this match as a survivor you have a ridiculous list of things to be cautious of, you need to have the obsession hiding all match, know that you shouldn't take risk in chase (probably shouldn't even go for chases if he has PWYF), somehow be able to track the amount of stalk even though you have no idea of how your teammates are doing, have everyone getting ready to jump into lockers at all time when close to tier 3, not go for the rescue if Myers proxy camps, etc. any mistake by any of the survivors and it's an instant game over. Do you realistically see these conditions met by casual players? I think at 100 hours I didn't even know Tombstone was a thing, let alone PWYF.
For the killer, the only non-obvious trick to know is that you can 99 the Tier 3, but everything else is straightforward, the perk literally tells you what to do, and it's even a Myers perk. Whereas for the survivors, the counterplay is not only to know all the perks in the game and a list of completely obscure mechanics, but also to have a divination gift to know what your teammates see and want to do.
The other perks you mention just have bad values to be useful, but it does not mean they are well designed. As soon as you buff these perks they will be problematic just like Eruption is today, not because they will be impossible to beat, but because they rely on unfun mechanics and the same problem of "easy to use, hard to counter" as I described above. Obsession is inherently a bad mechanic for solo queue because it usually involves one survivor A noticing the killer has X, then survivor B needs to do Y in reaction to counter it, but in a game where you don't give any ability to communicate between survivors A and B, how does that make sense? This just creates frustration and toxicity towards your teammates.
Another Obsession example, take Rancor. It's a useless perk but that's not the point. Imagine as a survivor, you're the obsession and the killer chases you at 1 gen. If you are in a SWF, then fine, you just tell your friends to 99 the gens until you're downed, and the killer can get literally NO VALUE from it. If you are in solo queue, then now it's the complete opposite, killer gets full value from it, both the mori AND the exposed synergize extremely well in this situation since as soon as the gates are powered it will be 1 hit = 1 dead. Maybe your teammates could take hits for you but they have no way to know, and because of the fear of NOED, it is extremely unlikely to happen anyway. So the perk will get either full value or no value at all depending on an entirely uncontrollable factor. It is inherently a gimmick, luckily it's bad so noone uses it today, but even if it would become viable it would ALWAYS turn on to be a problem.
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I didn’t realize so many of y’all were game devs and know how to run a game.
I would put my money on it, no matter what changes are made, the lot of you will find SOMETHING new to b*tch about or complain about or call the devs incompetent about.
Here’s a fix for you… STOP PLAYING DBD. If it’s THAT terrible for you, why are you still playing?
As for solo q. The issue is skill rng as somebody above me said. I have gotten survivors that were all on my skill level and the killer gets stomped. Then I’ll get the self care, urban evasion gamers, and the game never progresses for us and we get stomped and I have to play for hatch.
P.S. Don’t like solo q? Run. In. A. SWF.
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Everything in your example is a problem with Tombstone, not a problem with PWYF. Take that perk out of the equation and what do you get? The same situation, except the Myers is a little slower. Far more importantly, though, take Tombstone Myers out of the equation and put that same perk on Trapper. Do we still have a problem in that scenario, or is that perk honestly not doing much of anything in the second case?
As for your second point, no you wouldn't, because those perks aren't designed to need countering in that way. They just kind of do what they do and that's it, similar to other perks that just provide some small benefit without being something survivors can counter beyond just, playing around it. The Obsession perks don't require survivor B to notice and counter, unless it's a perk that warrants doing that. Even the ones that do require countering don't require survivor A noticing but survivor B acting- if survivor B notices, that's enough.
Really, I think you're exaggerating this issue. In almost all cases the Obsession mechanic is a hindrance for a killer perk, not a benefit.
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Myers will not be a little slower, no. With full stack he gets 130% speed, without he has 115%. But because survivors run at 100%, that is not just a 15% improvement, but a 100% improvement, because he now gains twice as much distance in the same time. Add bloodlust and it becomes impossible to loop him more than 5 seconds.
If you don't like the Tombstone issue then just look at Rancor. Concretely, as a solo survivor in this situation, what are your options to win, apart from going back in time and queuing in SWF.
I'm not "exaggerating an issue". Something is either well designed or badly designed, it does not have anything to do with its current viability. If we had the conversation 6 months ago, I would have told you that Eruption is a stupid perk, and you would have said "nah it's fine, there are better perks"
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Difference in scale does matter, though. Six months ago if you told me Eruption was a badly designed perk, I'd have agreed not because it was too strong or too unfair for survivors, but because it was just too much finnicky setup for not enough reward. Now that its effects are stronger, it's swung in the other direction, because specifics do matter. Viability isn't the issue, the specifics of what the perk does and how it does it is what matters. Most of the Obsession perks are either too weak, or perfectly fine, none of them are actually badly designed or unfair in the way that Eruption is.
As for Rancor, I'm struggling to see the issue here. If you don't like getting smacked out of nowhere with an instadown mori, that's one thing, but surely the Obsession angle doesn't matter? Would you really feel better about Rancor if it did the same thing but didn't have the Obsession requirement, or is it that you don't like what Rancor does? The Obsession mechanic doesn't make Grim Embrace or Furtive Chase unfair, in fact it's a hindrance on Grim Embrace, and I think that says it all; the mechanic itself isn't inherently unfair, only when it's attached to certain other mechanics.
Hell, from the perspective of a solo queue player, I've always been grateful for the Obsession mechanic. If I see those legs a-wigglin', I know the killer's chasing someone.
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I don't think there is a way to balance solo q, for a variety of reasons. The biggest one that it seems everyone overlooks is that most people play it like a SOLO game. It's not and if you play that way you're going to lose most of your matches. I've gone entire nights of solo q'ing without ever seeing another player take a protection hit, hook trade, pull aggro from an injured teammate, hit a successful f.light/pallet save, team heal, or gen group after the spawn gen. SWFs do better because, in most cases, they will do anything to keep their friends alive as long as possible. Solos hardly ever play that way, but when you're lucky enough to get people that do it's almost always a win. Start playing your solo matches as if you were in a SWF and you'll have better results. BHVR can't fix that. WE have to fix it. Until people realize that, solo q will continue to be miserable no matter what changes they make.
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