Possibilities for a Chat Wheel
There have been a lot of debates over the years how to help solo queue survivors and bring them closer to a SWF. While the gap can never be fully bridged it can definitely be mitigated. One option for that is a voice chat. However voice chats can easily have the opposite effect and make solo queue even worse.
Nobody likes listening to their team mates ranting about whatever it is that got them so upset and telling everyone of the things they'd like to do to your or your opponent's family. There are other reasons why a voice chat wouldn't be ideal but that's not what I want to focus on.
Instead I would explore a different option. A chat wheel. For anyone who doesn't know, a chat wheel is typically a set of commands that can be used to communicate with team mates. The execution isn't quite so straight forward though, which is why I would like to hear everyone's opinions what commands would be useful and how a chat wheel should work.
For example, the chat wheel could feature a set of emotes with different meanings like in DBD Mobile. Another option is for it is to work within a certain range (or map wide) and give either a small sign to your team mates or a simple sentence (no more than 5 words because it's too long to read otherwise).
A list of commands I personally would like to see:
- "Come with me." Straight forward and we even have an emote that implies this.
- "I need a heal." Again straight forward and easy to do. It could be displayed as a small med kit icon next to your character on your team mate's HUD, as an animation or as a short text.
- "Danger!" It could be used in different ways. To warn your team mates, that you saw the killer, that there is a dead zone or even to warn them of traps / drones.
- "Go away." We all know that it's best to spread out but sometimes you'll have a team mate that really wants to spend some quality time with you on a gen. With this you could tell them, that you are opposed to that idea.
- "Stop that!" Solo queue survivors are pretty special. Sometimes you have the god Nea in your team that loops the killer for 20 gens without ever dropping a pallet and sometimes you have a Claudette, that uses Self-Care right next to you.
What other commands would you like to see and how would you implement them (text, emote, symbol)?
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A combination of emotes and symbols would be my choice, as they are usually a pretty good route towards avoiding issues around translations across regions like Europe...
I'd have them flash up for maybe 1s and only be visible within a range of say 16m. Symbols appear above the survivors head, and the survivor play an emote. This symbol is obstructed by LOS blockers, that is important otherwise a lot of aura related perks become pointless.
If I werent on my phone I'd mock something up, but something Metal Gear-edk is in my minds eye:
That list is pretty good in fairness, would hit most things you would need, can't think of extra ones
- Escape Man symbol with an arrow pointing to him. Same gesture as the "follow me" one we have now.
- Red Cross for "I need healing". Gesture of leaning forward and holding their arm.
- Yellow Exclamation Point for "Danger". I'll say Point for now, bit you can fun with this xD
- Big white up arrow for "Go away". Point is pretty... on Point.
- Halt hand in white, with similar gesture for "Stop that!"
If the in game icon is too distracting for immersion, at least play the animation and put the icon quite prominently next to the survivors hud picture.
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Home sweet home has the chat wheel and work quite well. But its mostly for general use.
Your chat is directly to a single teammate.
What if Im doing Gen and see Meg with chat wheel “stop that”? You know what I mean.
Chat wheel should show what youre doing, not tell the others, except Help me.
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What if Im doing Gen and see Meg with chat wheel “stop that”? You know what I mean.
I'm honestly not sure what you mean. Could you elaborate this a bit further? Are you worried, that you might not understand what the Meg in this scenario would want from you or is it that you are worried, she might spam it?
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First i have to ask this question (again) for clarification. This is not a map wide communication, right?
If it is, i am strictly against that, since it would allow them to see their positions all the time. And it would kill the vibe of DBD.
If it is not, i dont see the value of it.
The HUD already shows everything survivors actually need to know. And if a survivor is close by, it is all dead obvious what the other survivor wants, without any form of communication. Want heal? Crouch next to the survivor. Want them to rescure, point at the hook. Want to come with you? Wave your hand. Killer is stealthy sneaking on you and teammate is not aware? Point with finger in that direction. Even running away suddenly is suspicous enough already to tell that the killer is coming.
I can not imagine a single situation where this might be more then a few extre buttons, sorry. The problem is not that people dont understand whats going on, but rather they dont care.
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First i have to ask this question (again) for clarification. This is not a map wide communication, right?
I am not sure about that yet. Certain things could be communicated map wide but not all of them. The exact range would need to be tested on a PTB anyway but just from thinking about it, I dare not even guess, if map wide communication would become a problem. Not before we have worked out a solid idea of how it should work and what things you should be able to communicate.
If it is not, i dont see the value of it.
The idea is to give survivors not only information but a means to communicate a bit better. For example, you could say that you go for the unhook. The other survivors see that you are not working on an objective but they can't see why. It might be you're the solo queue team mate that hides in lockers or it might be that the killer is near you and you try to stealth. Your team mates won't know that, so from their perspective it's likely you'll go for the unhook.
You raise a good point that we know what is going on based on someone else's actions most of the time but this is something that comes from experience and it is something that can be misunderstood. There isn't an official DBD sign language yet that every survivor needs to learn. A chat wheel would prevent any misunderstandings and allow for slightly easier / more convenient communication.
Another reason why I would like to implement a chat wheel is that it reminds you that the survivor role is still a team effort, no matter how much it might seem like you're on your own. I have seen my fair share of games in which one survivor was afk on gens pretty much the entire match without ever trying to do something for the team. They played a 1v1, which the devs tolerate / support (I don't recall their exact words) but it's obviously not ideal. I reckon this might also be one of the reasons why people are so quick to dc / suicide on hook. They know that they have a team in theory but in that moment that's last thing they think about. It might be I'm reading too much into this but I can only see potential upsides, for a pretty minimal effort on BHVR's part.
I can not imagine a single situation where this might be more then a few extre buttons, sorry. The problem is not that people dont understand whats going on, but rather they dont care.
That is not completely wrong and it's why I said that the gap between solo queue and SWF can never disappear entirely. I only hope that a chat wheel would improve the situation a bit.
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Could be me doing Gen, Dwight being injured and keep running while Meg wants to heal him.
Meg "Stop that"
Me: what? does she mean I stop doing Gen?
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Ahhh. That makes sense but if it was done with an emote it should be pretty obvious whom she would mean because she would directly look at you or Dwight.
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I want this just for a heal me please button
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I think that could help solo que a lot. I'd also like to see some perks like Kindred and Better Together's Yellow gen aura become basekit as well. SWF has access to this information anyway, so it would be another buff that only really helps solo que. This would help make solo que and SWF more equitable, which makes killer balancing a little easier.
As an Overwatch vet (who played a lot of Support) I know one line we'd hear more than others:
"I need healing!"
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I could live with Kindred base kit as long as the killer's aura isn't revealed.
If we're trying make all the information of a SWF base kit, then you'd constantly need to have map wide Bond, gens would need to be highlighted once a survivor has seen them, the killer's aura would need to be revealed as long as at least one survivor has a line of sight on them and there would also need to be an indicator for pallets that were already dropped. It sounds ridiculous because it is.
The goal is to give solo queue the tools to communicate a bit better, not to give them all the information for free.
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Oh, I agree 100%. Kindred only giving the survivor aura reading would allow the perk to still have value.
I don't think all info a SWF gets should be available by default either. I was mainly just suggesting basekit Kindred and Better Together because they're pretty basic effects that are could help solo que players coordinate a little better, similar to a chat wheel.
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Thats in the game just do the "come here emote" and teabag
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I'd say theyd be an useful addition because theyre one of the few additions to actually close the comms gap without buffing comms users.
Identity V version for those interested:
Something as barebone as "do generators" and "heal me" would nearly be enough for the most part. For example if used by a hooked survior those two can also mean "camping killer" or "unhook me".
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