Visit the Kill Switch Master List for more information on this and other current known issues: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/kb/articles/299-kill-switch-master-list
Get all the details on our forums: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/436478/sign-up-now-to-receive-a-recap-of-your-2024-dead-by-daylight-stats/p1?new=1
How many SWF teams are like that?
People are complaining about SWFs but how many teams are that strong? How many times you are going against strong teams like that. Ayrun and his team is probably one of the best teams in DbD and it's really hard to beat them but i don't think most of SWF teams are problematic or not unbeatable. You can win most of games without issues.
And the most important question: Should DbD be balanced around teams like that or not? What is your thoughts?
Comments
-
All SWFs are playing with an inherent advantage, but not all of them are great. Or even good. You have to be able to utilize that advantage.
I face lots of of SWFs, but for every well oiled death squad (and they are out there), there are probably like ten groups who are just good-decent, and a handful who are still really bad.
I think maybe once every week (sometimes less often, sometimes more) I'll face a team that I feel I never really had a chance against because they were leveraging their SWF advantage to an uncounterable degree.
So yeah, not as big a problem as many make out.
19 -
4-man squads make up like 2-4% of all survivors, and of those I would think less than half—maybe even a third or lower—are anywhere near the skills of the players featured in the video you’ve shared. DBD should not be structured around competitive teams or players. It’s a recipe for disaster.
9 -
Honestly I don't see that many. I personally think it's those killer mains that don't patrol and waste to much time waiting for a gen to pop to go in that direction. By that time three gens fly by and they finally find a survivor and either they get looped or proxy camp. Or they spend too much time in chase on one survivor and don't drop it. You can always tell a squad and they are rare but they do exist. Most killers in the high MMR that actually do play know how to counter them. Soloq is their biggest thing and they need to focus on that. I play mostly soloq or with one friend and sometimes you get seal team 6 other times you get plain seals.
2 -
Statistically, very few.
Confirmation bias does funny things, though
14 -
They are very, very rare. The Depip Squad I believe is the best example of an elite SWF group, far more impressive than any other team, and since I've first started playing DBD (2018) I never saw a group on that level.
Maybe close, once or twice, but not on that level.
The extremely high level of play is a scenario so rare that I don't think it should be taken into consideration when balancing the game.
3 -
There are very few SWF that most competent killers can't deal with. What you could is if you see them change last minute change to lightborn. I doubt many players need to though.
0 -
I've seen countless SWFs that played worse than your average solo queue group and I reckon most SWFs are more casual than they are given credit for. It's just that the strongest survivor groups happen to be SWFs and that makes it seem like SWFs make such a big difference. If all 4 survivors are bad at the game, then Discord will not change that either. But if they are all good, then Discord becomes a powerful tool.
7 -
So what is your solution for these teams? Obviously we can't balance game around them.
0 -
the point is that killer should not queue up into an unwinnable match because they are playing killer incapable of winning regardless of how well they play. yes I do agree the game for killer should be balanced around SWF. there is also should not be this giant gap between solo survivor and swf survivor in term of action speed efficiency like 2x faster gens and 2x faster healing.
3 -
But the problem is that, not all SWF teams are that good. Most of SWF teams are beatable, even with comms. When people are complaining about SWFs, i am really not getting the point. What SWF teams are we talking about is important.
Casual SWFs are mostly fine , you can win these games without problem.
Strong SWFs are maybe challange but you can beat them too with good play.
Top SWFs are probably the problematic ones. But seriously, i just don't see the solution to make them feel balanced. Because 4 very skilled players will be challange no matter what. And balancing game around these survivors will come with more problems because you will just break game for other survivors.
2 -
as long as you're better in 1v1 than most players in swf, you most definitely are going to do well.
i feel like comp 4mans are just another reason we need competitive/ranked gamemode.
0 -
The actual solution would be BHVR publicly admitting that the game should never be balanced around voice comms, and that survivors should not expect anymore buffs to bridge the gap between solo q and SWF.
4 -
Strong SWFs are maybe challange but you can beat them too with good play.
no that is actual problem. you physically cannot win with some of killers regardless of how well you play as killer. there is reason why killer's gravitated to stronger killers because those killer do have possibility to win regardless what level of team they play against.
these survivors will come with more problems because you will just break game for other survivors.
You seem to implying that strong killer like blight are game-breaking which I don't think is the case. secondly, the weaker survivor won't notice anything because they are not playing the game properly. they'll just face weaker killer player that do not use killer to full potencial even when facing a stronger killer power. I agree 4 strong survivor should be challenging but there is difference between challenging and not possible to win. for a lot of the weaker killers, it trends towards not possible.
that conversely means they will nerf swf though i have seen no signs of nerfing survivor specifically for SWF. I don't see them putting -action debuff when you swf or whatever.
2 -
The only gap between "solo" (meaning bad players soli) and "swf" (meaning good players on comms) is....
Player skill and voicecomms, two things the devs cant touch. As both solo and swf use the same characzer, any compensatibg buff will also affect swf, result in a moved gap and increased general survuvor power instead of closing the gap.
0 -
Very rare. I've played against a few but 99% of games are nothing like this. Most players are nowhere near this level. Same with killers. You rarely ever see pro level Blight players outside of tourneys.
I don't think the game should be balanced around these players. Instead they should just fix MMR so these types of players don't get paired with 100 hour killers and get paired against killers at their actual skill level. They are way above the skill level of the killers in that video and should not have been paired against them.
4 -
I have seen a full 4-man SWF at competitive level (as far as I know, with hours/team affiliation on profile) exactly once since I started playing in 2019. Balancing around that level would be a disservice to the other 99.9% of players.
Most SWF players themselves are not that much better/worse in skill than 4 random solos in my killer experience, the difference is communication and also they are less likely to give up and abandon their teammates.
1 -
You can try to balance the game against them.
What are things that make these swiffer teams so much stronger than others? Not everything can be tackled, but there may be some aspect that can be trimmed.
One thing I've noticed as a somewhat consistent factor in bully squads is 1v2+ chases, where multiple survivors will orbit the chase with the intention to deny hooks. If you give the killer full immunity to hook denial for X seconds or until they get a hook, after they have been hook denied, that'd trim specifically swiffers without doing much for the solos that aren't likely to coordinate those kinds of plays to begin with.
0 -
most people will never play against actual comp swfs like in that video, but a lot of players will go against players that are simply better than them and look for excuses why they lost because it's always easier to blame something else
2 -
I feel like the whole discussion is a little disingenuous.
Your average public killer won't go up against a team THAT strong with multiple tournament winning players in them, but an average SWF against an average Killer will result in a very similar outcome.
Remember when Spookyloopz got absolutely destroyed while playing weaker Killers against some of the best survivors? Otherwise he barely loses once or twice.
The 10k hour Nurse won't care whether it's a tournament winning SWF or just 4 people sweating, but the 800 hour casual Ghostface player will definitely feel the difference between SWF and SoloQ.
4 -
How you would fix this issue?
And i agree our casual Ghostface should never face teams like that or any sweaty teams
0 -
"...like that?"
Like that here means over 10K hours invested into DbD. That's 10K hours with active play involved. In fact, it's been a while since some of them uploaded a video on this milestone (Ayrun I think a compilation of the most memorable matches) so they are closer to 12K now.
0 -
According to Tru3Talent, 99,9%
5 -
Very, very few. But it's also relative. There's a weird spot killer players tend to reach skill-wise where you can beat most solo teams but struggle mightily against any sort of coordination or efficiency. It tends to happen around the 500 hr mark. The average SWFs will *feel* like the one in OPs video even if they're nothing close to it.
3 -
I don't think skill really matters all that much when discussing this subject. All things being equal, I think a SWF will generally outperform a similar skilled Solo Q team most of the time. If the matchmaking is working, then a Killer with the same skill level as both groups should have a harder time against the SWF. Partly because of the comms advantage, but also because they're more likely to take winning the match more seriously and can bring complimentary perks to the trial.
The Achilles heel of a SWF is their altruism towards each other. I've been able to win plenty of free downs, hooks and end games against SWFs who just couldn't resist trying to save their buddy. Of course, I've been denied plenty of Kills due to altruism as well, so it all evens out I guess.
Weirdly, I don't think I've been up against a very strong SWF since those first few months when I first started playing. My games have generally been on the easier side since those earlier days and I don't think it's entirely to do with improving at the game.
As far as balance is concerned, the game should be balanced mostly around Solo Q. BHVR seem to agree, because I doubt they would have bothered to create any stealth Killers and perks if that hadn't been the case. SWFs do present challenges and make balancing more difficult to achieve though (the healing nerf hurts Solo but is manageable for SWFs, for example).
Side note, how long have BHVR known about that Legion bug and they've still not been able to fix it? Is it just a part of the game now?
1 -
Just a little bit of communication turns the game into a sweat fest for killer. All gen pressure outside of kicking them is completely lost
If they jump up to the next level and coordinate which gens they're working on, it's almost impossible to get a 2k because you can't get a good 3gen
2 -
Probably one every month or two one of the three of us will get a group trying (emphasis on trying) to be a swat team if we're being active. Rarely do we get one that meets the standard.
We agree that most swfs aren't the impossible challenge everyone screams, though Edgarpoop brings up an interesting point.
We really don't think the game should be balanced around the best as that sets the bar higher and higher for everything else. While new players should have a (literal) trial by fire, the fire shouldn't be hot enough to incinerate them on the spot for 100+ matches before they cook.
0 -
It's a difficult situation because as you said you can't balance the game around them. There are two different types of SWF. The type that is just players you know are competent at the game but no coms. And obviously the type with coms which are the ones people are complaining about. The devs can't really nerf SWF. They usually just give Solo Q survivors tools like the HUD which doesn't help the killer. The comms are also external programs like Ps Xbox discord etc so the game can't tell. It is a difficult situation.
0 -
There is no solution
why should be a solution for people who play the game well?
2 -
This.
The best possible idea is to leave those teams be. They are so rare that they do not matter.
0 -
So much for the whole "public SWFs are pushover" myth.
These people did an admirable job facing off against the best of the best sometimes being held back by tourney limitations.
And those don't exist on public servers, no reasons not to send some random killer to Garden of Pain with 4 syringes and meta perks.
1 -
I think it's incredibly dishonest to act like these are the typical SWF you will run into. The second one had a combined 35K hours. It also needs to be said that the killers won all but one game while also being restricted. Including 4King with Wraith, Singularity, and Dredge. Killers this forum has told me are not viable against high level SWFs. All this video proves is how overpowered tunneling is when even a 35K hour team can't handle it.
3 -
This is a better video i think.
Oi mate, i play vs comp SWF every game, everyone else just plays vs babies. You wouldnt know cause you arent TOP MMR.
4 -
I've seen that video.
Ti be completely honest, I cringed the whole time. The killers didn't play bad, they just didn't stand a chance. They just can't keep up.
The worst thing for me is, that these groups all play in the least "skillful" way. Pre dropping pallets, because they know they can and shift w across the whole map.
They dont need to loop well and as a result they don't loop at all most of the time.
As for the question, these groups aren't as uncommon as some people claim. I go against similar groups maybe every 3 day.
They all play very much the same.
Is the rarity of these groups justifying the absolute power trip they have? Absolutely not in my opinion. Why is this still in the game? Because it literally can't get nerfed.
1 -
This is what I find amusing. "the best of the best".
The best at what?
Pre dropping, screaming and doing gens.
3 -
This basically only applies to the literal best players in the game.
Everyone else will eventually run into someone who is better than they are at the game and lose. That may not take very long, since most of the player base will fall into the 'average player' (or lower) category.
This also applies to the game whether you're playing survivor or killer btw. Last time people posted about win streaks was in July I think, and the solo survivor record was about 40 games, SWF was about 200, and individual killers were anywhere from 140 to 1200+ (ongoing).
The SWF record was literally a comp team, and the top 4 killers were blight, twins, clown, and nurse with over 750 wins each and in that order. But that seems to indicate that those 4 killers are all too strong currently, so I don't think using a measure of simply 'these seem more difficult to beat' is necessarily the metric to use here. Otherwise we're saying twins and clown should be nerfed too, and that seems silly. Similarly you don't nerf SWF, you nerf survivor... So solo q becomes a free win.
1 -
The answer is, no they are not. Way too many people complain about SWF when it is either they made mistakes which cost them the game anyway or it was just 4 very good players.
0 -
If you really break it down it's quite simple, imo.
You can't nerf survivor around some killers never having a chance against the absolute best of the best trying their hardest.
Conversely, you can't nerf a killer around some survivors never having a chance against the absolute best of the best trying their hardest.
If you want to make it possible for "the average killer" to end a match in at least a draw against those kinds of survivors then any survivor below that level will be absolutely stomped by any killer just slightly above average.
Again: The other way around is true as well. If you want to nerf e.g. Nurse to a point where your average squad can beat Alf's Nurse then anyone who isn't on Alf's level will probably get stomped all the time.
In dbd balancing around the absolute strongest just doesn't work. - Mostly because someone like Ayrun and frens, or Hens and frens (who're doing an escape streak atm) don't get more or less exclusively matched with people like Alf playing Nurse, Knightlight playing Wesker etc. pp.
0 -
???
The killers won all but two of the games: Ghostface and Blight on Lerys.
If what the survivors are doing isn't skillful, why do the same two teams win every tournament? Are they pre-dropping and doing gens better than the other teams?
5 -
In Ayruns newest Video?
Wasn't there an infinite t3 Myers that got stomped?
Yes, they win tournaments by pre dropping and sift w.
Because they know they can win by that. They work on gens this efficient, that they can effort to not play around pallets at all or very limited.
The gens are definitely done before the lack of pallets starts to matter.
Dbd tournaments in general are really out of touch with the reality of the game because of this aspect. It's not about looping or chasing anymore. It's about who's the most efficient.
As I said, these guys are good at some things. Pre dropping, screaming and doing gens.
They can play the 1v4 very well. They will out speed the killer in terms of efficiency. That is skillful. But the skill in chase, the interactive and most visible part, is definitely not as present.
I see better chasers in my public lobbies. Sorry, not sorry. I know what I'm talking about.
0 -
This.
1 -
It doesn’t matter if those type of games are rare: killer should never be in an impossible match. I have around 5,000 hours in dbd, so I run into those groups more than most people. It’s the type of thing that makes me not want to play the game.
There is also a double standard in this community. The playerbase has no problem nerfing Nurse, despite that all stats, regardless of MMR, showing that she is not a problem. She is barely top 5 in terms of killrate at top mmr, which shows that there are very few people dominating with her. Yet, people have no problem demanding her nerfed into the ground while the “rare” SWAT SWF is fine because it’s uncommon. Does anyone see a problem here? This game should be balanced around people who know how to play.
2 -
Nurse is killer, you can rework or nerf her power without hurting other killers. But how you will do for SWFs? Each nerf will affect average and solo survivors too
0 -
They need to add communication and teach people how to play the game (looping, connecting tiles.) And even if that’s true, it’s unfair to the killer.
0 -
Extremely rare. I cant rememebr the last time I ran into a genuinely amazing swf. All SWF's have an advantage over soloq by default but it depends entirely on your synergy if its too strong.
0 -
@MikaelaWantsYourBoon is right. Swf can't be nerfed. It's directly linked to the games playerbase. You can't punish people that want to play with their friends.
Therefore we sadly have to deal with this existing.
I personally absolutely would love to see the 4man death squad nerfed, because there is not really anything you can do when playing a weaker killer than Blight or Nurse. These people have the biggest power trip on the expense of almost all other parties in the game.
2 -
I'm talking about the video in the comment you replied to. Those are two separate videos.
It's ultimately subjective, and "comp" isn't a protected term. Anyone can participate. But I played both roles in comp for years, so I'd like to think I have a good idea about the general level of play as it relates to public matches. The vast majority of good tournament players can loop, it's just not a good play when you factor in cross region ping and the level of killer you're generally playing against. This forum absolutely never takes into account that they're used to playing on <70ms ping. How bad do your hits look sometimes on survivor on normal ping? Add 100ms to that against a killer with 5000+ hours. Then tell me if greeding a pallet is a good idea. You learn pretty quickly to pre-drop in that setting.
Beyond that, DBDLeague has a fully functional 1v1 ladder that tons of players participate in. There are great chasers in public lobbies. I think a lot of the community just can't accept that there's a whole lot more that goes into DbD at the highest level than chase mechanics. It's a goofy hang-up the community has. If these comp players aren't good, killers should be jumping at the chance for free money. But strangely, they don't.
2 -
Well I’ll ask again: why should killers be forced to deal with this BS while survivors demand that a high skill killer gets nerfed? Same thing with Deathslinger. His kill rates were in line with the cast, his quick draw took skill to use, yet he was nerfed into the ground.
1 -
So you tell me that these players only play in the most boring and lazy way possible because of ping?
Fair.
I dont have the feeling that these players are that good in chase until I've seen it myself. Until now I haven't been proven wrong from my observations. Most of these players bark but don't bite. They yell at and over the smallest things that dont go their way, treat others very poorly and take themselves way too seriously.
Im very sorry, but I can't find any respect for some of them. Eternal specifically.
1 -
We all deal with bs. It's not a one side thing. Survivors deal with bs and Killers do.
Just because something is (relatively) hard to pull off, doesn't rectify this aspect being completely unbalanced.
This goes for swf, Nurse, Blights addons and much more.
0 -
Part of my point though is that survivors regularly talk about said mechanics as being “too easy”, ignoring the fact that survivor gameplay comes down to pre running and dropping pallets. I agree with the BS thing to an extent, but I think killers are forced to deal with far worse BS, especially in regards to SWF.
0
