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I'm back and its time for a real conversation about what swf does to this game

2

Comments

  • CorvusCorax86
    CorvusCorax86 Member Posts: 1,072

    From a lore perspective survivors in DbD do not know each other (save for those from a franchise). TCM is different as the teens there represent a group on a - sort of - vacation.

    The purpose of DbD is to create a terrifying situation with a match where unknown people are together, hence the two gestures only as the means of comm.

  • Rulebreaker
    Rulebreaker Member Posts: 2,008

    If they put the work into it then yes. Its like saying your NOT allowed to have that win streak no matter what, even if you work for it.

  • Coffeecrashing
    Coffeecrashing Member Posts: 3,782

    “Punishing people for playing with their friends” is already happening, as the killers get punished when survivors want to use voice comms.

  • SMitchell8
    SMitchell8 Member Posts: 3,302

    Allow killers to bring a friend to even the odds 😏

  • OtakaChan
    OtakaChan Member Posts: 202

    I don't think they will ever be able to bring solo up to par with swf. I honestly think they would rather focus their efforts that bring them currency like appeasing the streamers who bring them money, cosmetics and people's fav killers and survivors.

  • Rulebreaker
    Rulebreaker Member Posts: 2,008

    Well let's specify: What is built in the game that punishes the killer for people playing with friends?

    Most advantages come, again, from outside the game. Being able to coordinate, knowing who's where and when, etc, are from voice chats outside the game. And adding in game voice chat is a whole other problem, but that can be it's own topic.

  • Coffeecrashing
    Coffeecrashing Member Posts: 3,782

    No. I don’t accept that garbage. Voice communications can be a huge game advantage. And it’s not “it’s own topic” as it’s literally the topic I was referring to.

  • JPLongstreet
    JPLongstreet Member Posts: 5,859

    Back when I regularly ran with a SWF the best player on our team would every time we got a Plague spend the entire match chasing me around just to make me sick.

    Fear us! 🤪

  • Coffeecrashing
    Coffeecrashing Member Posts: 3,782

    Someone said BHVR can’t punish players for people playing with their friends. So I replied that BHVR already punishes people for this, because killers get punished when players use voice comms (which is them playing with friends).

    At the very least, survivors should sometimes have separate MMR for solo and SWF. If a specific survivor has a higher win rate when in a SWF, then the MMR system needs to recognize that, and place them in a higher MMR when they are in a SWF.

  • DyingWish92
    DyingWish92 Member Posts: 774
    edited December 2023

    Everyone here knows whether they want to admit it or not. When you go against a team that finishes the gens in 4 minutes it's a SWF. Probably a 3 man. The gen speed in this game totally breaks when you go against these teams. That's the problem.

    Post edited by DyingWish92 on
  • Rulebreaker
    Rulebreaker Member Posts: 2,008

    Playing with friends isn't using voice coms. At this point we know where voice coms are. The killer is not being "punished" by the game, the killer is being"punished" for people using tools outside the box. BHVR isn't "punishing" anyone.

    ....this second idea we wouldn't mind having. Would definitely like to test and see how it goes.

  • Chilli_man2400
    Chilli_man2400 Member Posts: 2,913

    Another thing they can do is just show what perks the other survivors are running on the menu screen. Dbd mobile has that

  • AmpersandUnderscore
    AmpersandUnderscore Member Posts: 1,772

    The biggest obstacle is the technical limitation. DbD wasn't coded with built in voice chat, so adding it after the fact isn't just a few lines of code, it's a complete overhaul to core game systems that won't be easy, cheap, or fast.

    TCM gets away with it because they built the core game with it initially.

    There's also an issue where I believe some regions require in game communication to be monitored and/or censored. With text chat, it's easy to save chat logs. With voice, you're either recording everything (lots of storage) or transcribing everything to text (which is technically complicated).

  • woundcowboy
    woundcowboy Member Posts: 1,994

    I am all in favor of making maps and tiles fairer. BHVR would rather make meaningless tweaks to killer addons than any substantive changes.

  • woundcowboy
    woundcowboy Member Posts: 1,994

    Most games balance around people on comms. DBD thinks it’s special for some reason.

  • RaSavage42
    RaSavage42 Member Posts: 5,549

    It depends on the level of SWF...

    Chilled SWF- They care more for fun moments

    Bully Squad- They care more for using the certain mechanics to put the Killer in a blender (for lack of a better term)

    Sweaty SWF- They care more for using the certain mechanics to "win" the matches they play

    Then you get:

    Duo's- Having 2 Survivors ( or 2 Duo's) are more for fun gameplay

    Trio's- Having 3 Survivors (and 1 Solo) are more for either fun gameplay or letting the Solo die

    Quad's- See above

  • To begin with, the current mix of solo and SWF in ranked matches is wrong, there should be casual matches for users who want to connect VC and have fun with friends.


    If you want to hope in a competitive VCPT, there are weekly DbD tournaments.There you can enjoy a competitive and fair game with restrictions and bans on each of the killer survivor elements that are considered unbalanced in the game and the use of bugs is prohibited.

  • I encountered a killer in the main building!Ghostface! There are some killers, both competitive and casual, that can make a match difficult just by the SWF uttering this one word.There are also killers like Trapper, whose abilities are nearly nullified just by sharing the location of a trap.With or without malice, VCPT is destroying the balance and the very foundation of this game.

  • Rudjohns
    Rudjohns Member Posts: 2,135

    And they are already balancing it around SWF from what I can see

    What was the last actual survivor quality of life changes? To me it was the new HUD info

    Since then it has been only killer sided changes

    Don't even mention anti-face camping mechanic because that doesn't help survivors at all

  • Coffeecrashing
    Coffeecrashing Member Posts: 3,782

    SURVIVORS...

    1) Survivor HUD

    1.5) Additional stuff added to the Survivor HUD

    2) Easier flashlight timing

    3) Removed hook grabs

    4) Anti face camp

    5) Upcoming 3 gen "solution"

    6) The entire Mangled mechanic being updated in the future, to be less frustrating for survivors

    7) A possible FoV slider (the roadmap doesn't say "killer FoV slider" so survivors might get one too)


    MEANWHILE, KILLERS...

    1) Upcoming FoV slider, that might not even count as a killer only improvement, because survivors might get an FoV slider too

    2) LITERALLY ZERO OTHER THINGS ANNOUNCED

  • woundcowboy
    woundcowboy Member Posts: 1,994

    This game is 100% survivor sided if the survivors know the game. There’s a reason killer diversity stinks: no one wants to play a powerless killer like trapper or pig so that survivors can feel good about themselves.

  • appleas
    appleas Member Posts: 1,126

    I think even if solo queue players were given a 1% gen speed boost and 1% increased vault boost, some people would see red and cry that swf players are being punished with some of these comments

  • Eelanos
    Eelanos Member Posts: 434

    "What you proposed to add a disadvantage to people playing in SWFs (didn't specify duos, tris, or the full team) which IS punishing playing with friends (you can word it all you like, but this IS what it is). As others have pointed out numerous times, that's gonna go poorly. While we love a good experiment, we don't think this should be tested (this is our opinion though)."

    Let's flip that around, shall we?

    As it currently stands, the game is punishing players for not forming SWF groups. There is an innate, unquestionable disadvantage for queuing by yourself, and what people propose is to let the disadvantage remain for solo players. People need to form groups, or accept a lower, nigh abysmal escape rate.

    Unlike other games which get around the lack of solo voice communication through either pings, an in-game chat or both, this game doesn't have tools like those, so the gap is massive between a solo player and a premade group. What its being proposed is to either beef up solo-q somehow, which could be more or less effective depending on the method used, or bring down premades to solo-q level.

    The problem is that whatever happens, people will insist it's punishing premades because they want to have their cake and eat it too. If SWF gets a penalty, we both agree they're getting punished for playing with friends, but if solo survivor gets ANY buff to make up for the lack of communication tools, people will STILL complain that it's punishing SWF if they don't get their equal attention cake.

    So in the end, it's an equality vs equity problem. You have 100 coins, I have 10. If I get 10x my amount of coins to keep up with you, you'll complain that that's unfair because you didn't get 10x your coins, willingly ignoring that the increase was given to me precisely to fix the discrepancy.

    You (people, not you in specific) assume that SWF should, by the inherent nature of being a premade, be stronger than solo-q, and you will not accept any changes that will put them to SWF's level without SWFs being equally buffed, perpetuating the advantage SWF has over solo-q.

  • Gabe_Soma
    Gabe_Soma Member Posts: 276

    Puahahahaha are you joking, aren't you? Have you been living under a rock for the last year and a half or what?

  • jmwjmw27
    jmwjmw27 Member Posts: 413

    It's a party game, not a competitive one. There should not be any restrictions or punishments for playing with friends.

    As for your argument that "These same people are ok with punishing people for not playing with friends", that's a completely false strawman. Nearly everyone everywhere on this forum will tell you how bad solo queue is and that it should be improved, it is very weird to put these words into the mouths of people who simply don't want restrictions on playing with friends.

    If you want to improve solo queue (which should be done), bring them closer to SWF. Then buff weaker killers where necessary. Give solo queue the ability to see each other's perks. Try out some form of set communications or more info in a PTB. Anything.

    Weakening SWF does nothing but hurt people who want to play with friends (which will make a decent chunk of the playerbase leave) and does nothing to address solo queue's horrible experiences, and doesn't help killers against good survivors who are paired together by chance. Good survivors do not need comms to win. If you really want to reign in the extremes, target the strongest items, add-ons, and maps for both sides, as well as the highest tier killers.

  • NekoGamerX
    NekoGamerX Member Posts: 5,288

    just get rid of de pipping and make it so we safely pip if were not going to pip I mean this game to random to be really competitive

    I mean they not going to do anything to swf or make new game mode and remember grades are time play and what we working for more BP?

    that way some people wont care if they get a bad game here and there.

  • jmwjmw27
    jmwjmw27 Member Posts: 413

    I'd also like to ask what this theoretical, "not a punishment but a nerf to bring them to the same level" would be?

    A long, long time ago, I memed around with a survivor I found in one of my lobbies, they were a console player. After the game they sent me a friend request. I've never been on a voice call with them. Sometimes when they are online, they will join my lobby and invite other friends of theirs too, and we play some games. What advantage am I gaining in this scenario? I don't communicate with them at all, and aside from knowing they are a good player who loves altruism and kindred, I know nothing else about them. Their teammates don't seem to ever be on comms either. Despite this, now if I want to play with a friend I made, I am punished because of this system you are proposing. Why should this be the case? If MMR and matchmaking actually worked, I should be paired with survivors around my skill level anyway, so it's not like inviting similarly skilled players into my lobby is an advantage. If there clearly isn't an advantage here, then it would obviously be unfair to punish me for playing with a friend. There's also no way to determine if survivors are actually using external communication like voice calls, which are explicitly allowed by developers anyway.

    Another scenario, I have a group of 2 friends who I introduced to this game, both of them are very casual. It is already hard enough to get them to play because of the disparity in our MMR and the abundance of tunneling right now. If this change is implemented why should I even invite them to play with me, knowing I'm not only giving them a sweatier killer, but debuffs on top of that?

    It is not realistic to look at this game and conclude that using the in-game feature to play with friends should provide a nerf or debuff.

  • jmwjmw27
    jmwjmw27 Member Posts: 413

    Has nothing to do with SWF. Depends entirely on survivor mindset and items.

    If you've ever played the day after a tome level releases with challenges related to generator repairs, you will get very fast gens every match.

  • NerfDHalready
    NerfDHalready Member Posts: 1,749
    edited December 2023

    for balance reasons they would go for such changes, but that doesn't seem like a good idea; punishing people for playing a video game with their friends that is. they might make them pick from a shared pool of perks but even that wouldn't solve most issues and doing anything harsher than that would push away swf players. as killer i'd be completely ok with at least some extra bp for facing swfs. i know i won't be winning against a 4 man that's playing serious, you know it, everyone knows it and it's not a big deal. this game isn't for people that's overly competitive, way too unbalanced for that.

    Post edited by NerfDHalready on
  • Akumakaji
    Akumakaji Member Posts: 5,449

    It's a touchy subject and of course you shouldn't punish people for playing with their friends, but even a casual SWF group can do some callouts that give them big advantage, like "careful, killer went to main" or "I'll try to loop him towards shack", that don't require comp level clock directions.

    My vert simple fix is twofold

    1) show killers after the matcqhq who was paired up with whom. This would show killers how often they actually face SWFs and how often they stomped them unknowingly. A lot of duo SWFs go down go altruism, trying to save their friend, while a lot of 3 or even 4 man SWFs wil try to gaslight the killer in post game chat ("no, we never ß

    2) in a SWF, don't allow any duplicate perks, but just a single copy. Yes, this would make playing with friends slightly less fun, as it intrudes on personal expression, yadda yadda, but it would also give highly competitive SWFs something to ponder and figure out, while only minimally affecting casual players.

    In my regular SWF we only have a couple of duplicate perks, as most players do their own style. But it would prevent 4x MFT, 4x Resilience squads of the past, or 4x Head On bullies sending the killer to Dead Dogs. And of course, soloQ could bring whatever they like, as they are indeed solo.

  • radiantHero23
    radiantHero23 Member Posts: 4,194

    They did make maps smaller?

    They did change tile Rng on maps?

    They are going into the right direction. It just takes a good long while. Dbd is like a group project. A 7 year long group project at this points.

  • Rulebreaker
    Rulebreaker Member Posts: 2,008

    We're going to want a definition of "destroying the balance and the very foundation of this game". Is it difficult and a bit unfair? Yes, but we think the foundation is fine here.

    We'll give a free point: an advantage a SWF has over solo is that it's more unlikely that your teammates throw (aka swinging on hook) at the start. At minimum a quarter of our matches (between 3 of us) has someone throwing for some reason or another which we're going to assume others have similar experiences (we've seen complaints on the forums here) which helps out this abysmal escape rate.

    If we had to choose between buffing solo or nerfing SWF, we're choosing buff. We are aware we can't and shouldn't please everyone, so the best thing is to ignore the voices from the fog and test to see what works best. People will whine about anything and this may be an us thing but we're out of Fs to give about it. At that point it's a people problem and not the game.

    An aside, but when we started years ago, we quickly learned that assuming anything leads to either the prey escaping or our death as survivor, so we shrugged that habit quick.

  • H2H
    H2H Member Posts: 743
    edited December 2023

    e: I was misremembering what BHVR said about SWF escape rates, please disregard this.

    Post edited by H2H on
  • NekoGamerX
    NekoGamerX Member Posts: 5,288

    believe it or not but solo can be as people in a swf group

    you can't fix stupid tho.

  • Gabe_Soma
    Gabe_Soma Member Posts: 276

    That's why SoloQ should first be brought up to the level of a SWF first and then the game could be balanced accordingly.

  • ironligma
    ironligma Member Posts: 119

    I've played with people with no comms after they just add me, play a couple with them, then get off. That's not a swf. How would the game track something like that?

  • HamsterEnjoyer
    HamsterEnjoyer Member Posts: 713

    You: people playing in a SWF will always grant an inherent major advantage because even if they're not trying to be a comp team they still have large amounts of communication which otherwise isn't available to other survivors without several perks. Being in a SWF allows survivors to never need aura perks as well as have co-ordination and strategy which just isn't available to other players regardless.


    Everyone in these comments: So you want people to never be able to play with their friends?! NOT EVERY TEAM IS A COMP SWF BEING IN A 2-4 MAN SWF HAS NO ADVANTAGES IF THE TEAM ISNT PLAYING A COMP TEAM!!!!!!!


    Like its common sense even a 2 man swf and 2 solos has an insane advantage over 4 solos and again even if they're not playing to be sweaty, being able to communicate the killers exact location, what objective you're doing, what actions you're going to take throughout a match is an insanely huge advantage and ignoring that is so silly

  • Atsuka_Anarchy
    Atsuka_Anarchy Member Posts: 380

    SWF shold have a limit of which perks can be used. Having the same busted SWF perks (perks and combos like FTP + BU; Adrenaline, WoO, etc.) makes more situations insane when in a SWF. Perks gain a marginally large increase in value when with SWF and shouldn't be used in multiple builds. I always liked to have a team comprised of a Runner, a Gen Jockey, a Healer, and a Jack of All, that way it can be more fun and require more teamwork and accountability.

  • Rudjohns
    Rudjohns Member Posts: 2,135

    Not only good survivor perks are getting nerfed, now if you wanna play with your friends you wont be able to use the "good" perks

    Gee, some people here really wants the game to die, no?

  • Atsuka_Anarchy
    Atsuka_Anarchy Member Posts: 380

    Limiting the same overused perks in a SWF makes it more creative, fun, and less bland. Using the same carbon-copy strong builds is what kills the game, not diversity.

  • woundcowboy
    woundcowboy Member Posts: 1,994

    This. People in this thread are trying to distort the argument. No reasonable person is saying to delete people playing with their friends- we just want the game balanced with the power of SWF in mind. I’ve said this 100 times, but all other games balance around people communicating. DBD isn’t special, so I don’t get why the devs act like it.

  • Fools_gold
    Fools_gold Member Posts: 8

    And what if, while in the lobby, the killer knows which of the survivors is with whom in the party and how many people it is (for example, the nicknames of these players will be connected by a thread, or a chain, well, you understand).I think this is a great solution to the issue of fun games and serious ones.

  • Rulebreaker
    Rulebreaker Member Posts: 2,008

    Then please make a suggestion that doesn't add a negative to playing with friends or in game voice coms. We're all for buffing survivors if it's reasonable but many (ourselves included) do NOT want to add in game coms for previously listed reason.

  • woundcowboy
    woundcowboy Member Posts: 1,994

    So because you are afraid of people talking on the mic (which you can mute), killers should have to suffer through SWF gen rush? Do I have that right?

  • Alice_pbg
    Alice_pbg Member Posts: 6,556

    why?

    why can't it be a negative? just in general. a buff just to solo q will get the same hate as swf won't get the buff.


    if solo q and swf end up on the same level, and the game is properly balanced around it, what does it matter if we got there with a buff or a nerf?


    in a specific, why can't it be a negative in the same vein as the anti face camp mechanic? where it only triggers in the more extreme cases?

  • Alice_pbg
    Alice_pbg Member Posts: 6,556

    knowing the general skill level of who you are playing with, what they usually bring, their playstyle, how altruistic they are, etc...

    and of course, you know they aren't likely to quit on first down/hook.


    all of this is an advantage over solo q. do you disagree?


    we can argue over how much of an advantage it is later if it matters...

  • edgarpoop
    edgarpoop Member Posts: 8,362

    No, they stated that some players in specific MMR ranges increase their escape rates by as much as 15%. That is absolutely not the same thing as a flat 15% increase just from being in a SWF.