The real problem with solo queue
So I'm part of quite a few Discord servers where I play with a few different people of differing skill levels. Some of them being very new and inexperienced, others being casuals, and others being sweatlords like myself. I decided to do an experiment recently.
First off, I would SWF up with randoms on the Discord servers, whose skill levels I wasn't aware of, and we would be on voice comms. My main takeaway from this part of the experiment is this: voice comms will never make up for a lack of game sense or skill. One thing still holds true: one weak link can cause the entire team to crumble.
For the second part of the experiment, I played with my usual sweaty SWF, but we played with no voice comms whatsoever. Our performance was near flawless, with us 4-outing nearly every game (except one where we got sent to Midwich by a full aura Nurse, where we 3-outed). While there were definitely a few fumbles, and a lack of coordination on movement where someone may have ran killer into someone else's gen accidentally, for the most part, our gameplay was clean.
But of course, we were accustomed to playing with each other. So voice comms may have not made as much of a difference because we were used to each other's styles. So I decided to take it one step further. I played a few more games with some of THEIR friends, who I had either never - or rarely - played with, and we, again, played without comms. All of them were relatively proficient at the game and we were mostly on the same page. Again, our performance was stellar.
So I realized what the real "problem" with solo queue is. It's a problem that voice comms wouldn't solve. The biggest contributor to a team's success or failure is the lowest common denominator. It only takes one player who's not on the same page as the rest to land the team in an unwinnable situation (getting slugged near a hook at 5 gens, for example). Outside of the MMR soft cap, it's a jungle. You could be getting paired with near-fresh installs, or god-tier loopers. Matching these two groups into a game and giving them voice comms with each other would, in my opinion, do much more harm than good.
Think back to your own experience as a solo queue survivor. Have you ever had one of those games where you matched with a 3-man, and the game felt like it ran so smoothly, despite the fact you were alone? Or even a time where you may have been playing as a 3-man, and queued up with a solo who could hold their own. Ironically, MMR's biggest failing is its lack of actual matchmaking outside the soft cap.
I believe that even without comms, MOST competent players have the tools at their disposal to win most of their games. Between the HUD changes and good game sense, there is very little information that can't be ascertained organically through gameplay without comms. Don't get me wrong, comms will ALWAYS be superior. But I don't believe the gap is nearly as large as many people make it seem to be.
I still think the HUD changes could benefit from an overhaul. Something that gives information to the team about which perks are active (Deliverance, Distortion, Reassurance, Kinship, We'll Make It, etc). Perks that would situationally display if they are relevant (for example, Distortion lighting up next to a survivor's portrait when they lose a stack). But honestly, solo queue isn't as bad as most people make it seem to be. If your experience with it has been consistently negative and you NEVER escape, consider that YOU may be the weak link, and perhaps take a step back and find ways to improve.
Comments
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The fact of the matter is that there will almost always be a weak link.
It doesn't matter if it's not you, it doesn't even matter if the Killer identifies it and tunnels them out. If someone is cleansing a bunch of totems and opening chests whilst you or someone else is doing an optimal play, the Killer will still win if they aren't terrible.
If they do tunnel them out and force a 3v1 as many Killers like to do, good luck, since the game isn't balanced around that.
Basically, you can play perfectly and still lose for multiple games in a row.
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I mostly agree.
When i get decent teammates (close to my skills) , game is really feeling so easy. Nobody is dc'ing, nobody is killing themself on hook. Nobody is wasting time with useless things like chests, dull totems etc.
If they are not in chase, they are doing gens. If someone on hook, they are checking HUDs. And survivor who has not job to do is going to save. So even there time is not wasted.
Games like these makes me feel better and usually ending with 4 or 3 man escape.
But then matchmaking issues happens. There is no guarantee you will get decent teammates again. Or even if you get good teammates, there is always chance one of them will give up cuz map, killer or whatever reason.
Solo-q needs better matchmaking, i am sure a lot issues will be fixed.
And some coordination buffs will be fine too. HUD icons was good step. Add one more, if killer is camping let other survivors know this. You can't have this information unless you bring perk for it.
And another QoL change i want, let survivors see what perks/items they are gonna bring in lobby. This will help some builds. Like they will see i am using healing build. So they will know where to come.
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I agree with most of what you said but you can't deny the advantage that comes with coordination in this game.
Solo queue groups can perform very good as long as everyone is alert and knows what they are doing. Even more so, with perks that actually help to play in a team. But at some point solo survivors have to be so much better than the killer to actually win, that these kinds of games shouldn't happen all too often. I. e. beating Caitlyn 3Genner in a game of chess.
Just yesterday I played a very good solo queue game. We powered through the first 4 gens with relative ease but we weren't looking out for a possible 3 gen. It worked as a self fullfilling prophecy. We rushed ourselves into a nasty 3 gen on Thompson House against a Dredge with Jolt and Pain Res. I want to make it clear that this was 100% on us. That Dredge did not try to force us into a 3 gen but he did what he had to in order to have a chance to win.
It took us a bit until we found a rhythm and pressured all the gens at once with special focus on one gen that was a bit more secluded than the other 2. If we had had any means to communicate this would have been a much easier task. We still got 3 people out the gates.
I don't think a voice chat is necessarily the best option for solo queue. In fact, I would prefer they never add it. I don't need to listen to a 12 year old screaming slurs into their vacuum cleaner, thankyouverymuch. There would also be the problem of a language barrier. Most people speak English but some are more fluent than others. Instead I'd prefer a chat wheel with some simple call outs like "Heal me.", "Gen nearly finished.", "I'm running towards XYZ." and "Come to me." (obviously with a marker where you are at).
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People that have played in SWFs (like yourself) tend to do better, even when NOT on a team. You're going to ride the proverbial bike better once you take off the training wheels vs. the player who never had training wheels in the first place. Just because YOU suddenly don't need them doesn't mean they aren't helpful. It's not a fair comparison.
Plus, solo Q isn't necessarily bad because you "can't win". It's more that it's boring because your loadout is hamstrung by the lack of communication. You basically have to run Kindred because none of your teammates can call out, "I'm going for the save." and the player on hook can't say, "Don't bother. Bubba is camping." You basically have to run Deja Vu because having 4 players running around "organically" finding each gen separately (while not technically impossible) is a guaranteed loss. Etc., etc.
Even if the game is unwinnable because someone else screwed up, I would have more fun if I could try out different builds. Instead, I have to run the same crap on every survivor or else I'M the weak link!
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To add on to the 'more information' concept, when you hit escape/start you should be able to hover over any perk to read the tooltip.
Similarly, any Killer perk that is 100% confirmed should show up next to the Killer. For example Dissolution and revealed hexes give a perk tooltip on live, but newer players don't know what that tooltip means. Tinkerer or Dark Devotion could be suspected, but not fully known, so it wouldn't show in the escape/pause menu.
This would also function for the Killer as well, if you proc a DS, DH, or OTR, it would show the perk in the menu, but things like Botany and We'll Make It wouldn't.
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The problem with soloQ is that most survivors do nothing. Try it for yourself, check how long it takes for the other 3 survivors to touch a gen.
I have had many games (most of them) where the other 3 survivors do absolutely nothing for more than 5 minutes. Nothing, they do not do chest, do not do gens, do not do totems.
Sometimes one of them is in chase, i do a gen and the 2 others do nothing at all for minutes.
THAT's the main problem with the game. The matchmaking doesn't help as it gathers trash survivors with extremely good survivors... giving a terrible experience for all players, killers included.
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Questionable decision-making along with throwing for archives are the biggest offenders in soloQ. Like immediately unhooking the first hooked guy or unhooking when no chase is in progress and then not taking hits. It's like they want them to be tunneled out. Also full chase builds on everyone is not helping if you go down in 12s anyway.
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Absolutely agree and I've always said this.
Solo queue isn't as bad as most make it seem, providing you're a good survivor with experience and game sense.
Yes random team mates will provide the chance for weak links to bring the whole game down, but you accept that as a risk.
More often than not I have a whole team of competent survivors, who at the very least don't entirely throw the game and whose mistakes that are made (including my own) aren't unrecoverable.
I've had some amazing solo queue games that have been more coordinated than a lot of my SWF games.
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And it's completely and utterly impossible to mechanically emulate a well! You can at least try when it comes to efficiency and awareness (the status icons), you could try with communication even without voice chat (by adding a ping system or something) but you can't emulate picking people that are compatible with you.
The closest I can think of would be an in-game party finder and people being able to tag themselves with stuff like competitive, casual, new player, just want to hang out, voice chat/no voice chat, language preference and so on. Could work pretty smoothly with the "player cards" they have in the oven. Of course wouldn't actually emulate the non-verbal understanding and chemistry you build by playing with the same people for hundreds if not thousands of hours, but it's be interesting to try at least.
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I may have expressed myself poorly. When I say weak link, I'm not referring to the weakest individual in the team (there will always be one). I'm referring to one individual whose game sense is nowhere near their other three teammates; things like knowing when to go for an unhook/who should do so/if and when to reset/who should bait chase/where to run the killer/which gens to pressure/whether to take a hit may not be evident to them. I would argue that going for the right play at the right time is more important than being a god at looping who always makes poor decisions (and thus for killer AND survivor).
As far as the hyperefficiency part, I also disagree. I really don't think teams need to be as efficient as they are currently against 95% of the killers you'll play against in pubs. I use solo queue as my time to work on challenges (mostly very stupid and inefficient gameplay, like stalking the killer's TR, or doing every totem, etc.). Despite the fact I waste a lot of time, typically, we'll still finish the gens very quickly if we coordinate to do so. I had a game like this yesterday with some randoms where I did every chest on the map while everyone else was messing around. We had a pretty good Legion as our killer. We had 5 hooks without a single gen done, then we decided to hunker down and start cranking them out. We 4 outed at 5 hooks.
I disagree that survivors need to be "so much better than the killer" to win even as solo queue. A 3-gen SM is a different story, but you'd be surprised how many of them will get overconfident after someone DC's instantly and they finish tunneling out the bot. In fact, I had a SM send us to Midwich yesterday (with the chess grandmaster build: overcharge, oppression, sloppy, eruption with shotgun speakers and the skill check addon). Someone instaDCs because it's SM on Midwich (can't blame them) and she tunnels the bot in 2-3 minutes. I spent the rest of the game BMing her and baited her into a few chases. My teammates were extremely efficient on gens, hopping on every time she left, and they were able to finish all of them and 1-outed. Bit of an anecdote, but no one plays perfect (killer or survivor) and killers will get sloppy if they figure they're playing against solo queue.
Coordinating to avoid a 3-gen is another thing that can happen organically with a little gamesense. This is typically what I'll do at the start of the match: look for the nearest gen and start working on it. Did I spawn with someone? I will point to the gen and signal for them to do it, then run to the opposite side of the map (or any critical gens) and start working on a gen there. You also don't NEED to run xyz on every survivor (and if you feel the need to do so, you may be the weak link). I've had teammates that ran No Mither, and ONLY No Mither, that juiced up killers for 3-4 gens. Again, knowing what to do, and when to do it, is more important than amazing plays or bringing strong perks.
You are literally saying what I said in the OP. Looks like we're on the same page.
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Opening one chest or totem is not that bad thing as long you don't waste time finding them. I have my games doing 3 gens alone, totems and chest because I get bored doing gens when my teammates can't even complete one. They're not even chased they just probably hide in bush.
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The experiment doesn't suprise me, we need more of that. 4 solos with a lot of hours, team perks and gamesense will do better than 4 SWFs on comms when they're all like new to the game. It only gets unbalanced when you have 4 SWFs with a lot of hours, coordinated builds and they're all on a (very) high skilllevel.
It's all about your and the others MMR, gamesense and a bit RNG.
I still think we could learn so much more from the stats, when the game just would told us who was solo and who got invited into a lobby (SWFs symbol in the tally screen). You would be suprised how often it's just good solos (or a 2 man). Setting the soft cap just a bit higher might also help, but they need to be careful due to queue times.
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I play 3 or 4 man swf occasionally with no voice comms. Most games we all escape because all of us can loop and do gens and killers usually figure that too late. We only lose when killers instantly tunnel well or are very good and sadako comdems strat seemed to be our weakness. Most of us were 3K+ hours. I figure my escape rate was 9 out of 10 games.
But when I play with my brothers swb with voice comms we don't do as well, we are 3 man so ramdom fails us often but my other brother is too casual so he is weaklink too. I try to advice them to just do gens but we just never get the same effiency that with the other swf. My little brother though is good looper but 2 is not usually enough to overcome the lack of skill. My escape rate probably 1 out of 2 games.
We still do massively better than soloQ on average ofcourse. Currenty haven't even escape in soloQ last 10 games. Well at least few games I was reason some of my teammates got away.
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Oh, you misunderstood my point. There are certain killers that are way more effective against solo queue. And in these cases, there are only 3 options for solos to win. Either they get lucky, can somehow communicate via pointing and waving (very unlikely) on a level close to a casual SWF, or they are so much better in the 1v1 that they shouldn't play against this killer to begin with.
You do not need to be especially good to beat most killers in the game but SM, Sadako, Pig and Pinhead can become real nightmares to face in solo queue. Because these killers punish uncoordinated groups disproportionally. The same can't be said for Trapper, Clown, Freddy, Doctor, Myers and so on.
Solo queue is completely fine as long as everyone is pulling their weight and you don't go against a few specific killers. But when this happens, the lack of communication becomes a real issue.
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It feels like BHVR does it by design regarding solo queue matchmaking. There is almost always one player who is significantly worse than the other 3 players. It stops feeling like a random quirk of matchmaking when most losses are the result of one player being significantly worse than their teammates. It makes outcomes feel contrived and frustrating.
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Sometimes this is just variance. It is extremely easy to make mistakes in this game. Judging players by their worst game is inappropriate yet wildly popular in every game.
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I just had a match where it was me, prestige three Haddie, with three baby survivors, two with zero perks and one with a single yellow perk vs a prestige four Wraith, running All Seeing Spirit and Blood. This is the problem with solo queue. Guaranteed wipeouts because the matchmaking is absolute garbage.
Why even match the killer off with brand new players when they have that much experience and are running the sweatiest build possible?
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There's always a weak link, though. Good or bad players, some will be better than others. You're saying there'll always be a bad one, but not always. I pay attention and I often see a teams blend and play well. That's how you meet your fourth swf.
Calling me terrible hurts my feelings, but survivors don't have to play a perfect game against me to get out. I'm reclined in an easy chair, too lazy to put my headphones on, playing on a controller. One mistake won't cost you a game against me, it'll take 3 mistakes or a team all making mistakes together to cost you the game.
Any survivor that's able to evade will do fine against me. I'm not wearing my headphones so I'm guessing a lot.
You're a self-confessed sweatlord, you play hard, making killers play harder, then you assume every trial is like that. I'll try harder, I don't want you to be disappointed or bored, but that doesn't mean I'm going hard in every trial. I play the team I'm against. You bring a challenge to the killer, you're not seeing average games because you're ramping them up a little. Some of them play like that all the time, but some are just sweating against you.
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Oh no, I only "sweat" on Killer. Me sweating on Survivor might get me to, eh, average levels of skill? I just haven't put much time into the role, comparatively so I'm not very good at it.
You taking it easy on Survivors shows that your highest value isn't winning, it's having a fun and chill match. That is fine, better than fine even. I'd go so far as to say that's what we should all strive to do, but, that doesn't mean that my point isn't still valid for killers who ARE trying to win.
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That was a very nice thing to say. I have a good attitude and like to lecture about it, so it's nice to hear. Thanks!
I guess I did mostly misunderstand the situation, though. That happens. Still, by playing hard, the MMR should be throwing you up against the same. I dunno, though.
See you in the fog, my friend.
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Comms helps when coordinating things like FTP Buckle Up, heal tech at gates, calling out Killer perks.
Calling out a Killer has bamboozle means the remaining three players immediately know what to do when they see the Killer start the vault animation at a tile.
The greater the skill disparity between the Survivors and Killer, the fewer mistakes the less skilled side can afford to make. Comms while not game changing, help to minimize the impact of some mistakes or prevent them from occurring even on a casual swf
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This is what it feels like to me as well. I've noticed the matchmaking will usually pair me with at least 1 or 2 low prestige survivors and 1 survivor like me with a high or mid tier prestige.
Most likely this is by design to keep the kill rates where BHVR wants them to be because they know 4 good solo players can perform just as well as a good SWF with no comms needed.
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I disagree that survivors need to be "so much better than the killer" to win even as solo queue.
if you beating killer without good efficiency on generators than your playing against killer that does not know how to pressure a survivor team.
I've had teammates that ran No Mither, and ONLY No Mither, that juiced up killers for 3-4 gens
the killer player has zero clue how to play the killer. it is brand new player. the other problem could be that your playing a extremely survivor sided map in loops against a weak m1 killer with a crap ability such as freddy on badham preschool.
I'm referring to one individual whose game sense is nowhere near their other three teammates; things like knowing when to go for an unhook/who should do so/if and when to reset/who should bait chase/where to run the killer/which gens to pressure/whether to take a hit may not be evident to them.
what your describing is information perks on survivor. the info perks give swf-level game-sense to soloq.
knowing when to unhook = kindred
knowing where to lead chase away from teammates = bond
finding teammates to heal quickly leaves you injured = bond
knowing what gen to pressure = visionary/deja vu
not running into deadzones where teammates have used pallets = window of opportunity
most of these issues would easily get solved by just showing aura of survivor teammates. strong swf on com already does all these actions perfectly anyway. that is why the game is so easy. basically every game is like 5-6 minutes long. soloq is not nearly as efficient as strong swf but strong solo can still win.
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I would love to add a ping system, like nothing insane like CoD or anything, but small simple ones like pinging where the killer has a Hex (if it's super well hidden) or, as you stated "I'm being camped, do gens" or "Get the gates open" etc, just small things to help survivors coordinate.
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I've noticed this too, I was playing DuoQ with a friend and we were getting baby survivors for a while. Then we got a second duo for two matches in a row, one was on par with my friend's looping skills, while the other was clearly newer to DbD but trying their best. Both of those games we had a draw with the killer (2K & 2-Man out) genuinely the most fun I've had with DbD in a while. Defs helped the killers not try-harding and a Blight we were against was a bit of a meme lord.
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