Originally posted by Scarlataria:

GENERAL ISSUES

The game tries to balance new and old players. And solo and 4 man player based teams. This is the root problem and what the majority of posts on the forum are about.

The most unhappy players, tend to be long term solo cue players, And they tend to be most unhappy with long term camp and tunnel players. Those two groups being the biggest gap, and hence why most arguments on the forums are about them.

The game i would assume relies now on a churn of new players, (especially from x-box pass), who face off against longer term killers, who for the most part overplay to grind. Which makes the mismatch issue worse. (In the Lights out event, we saw an exaggerated case, of how long term players for no reason, stand by or between hooks all game, for cheap and easy kills, and grind)

Solo cue has got worse over time, because the average long term solo cue player, is matched increasingly with very low experience or new team mates. And then is asked to play against long term killers, who often have 500 to 5,000 hours in game. And i would guess about half of them are pro-grinders, who camp, tunnel, and slug, and call it skill, and necessary.

As someone who has played killer and survivor from 2016, and played alot of time in teams but also in solo, i can well see the differences, and how they feel.

KILLER ROLE

I think killer is mostly easy, because in fact there are few SWF teams, and few that have more than 2 friends in them. Most teams have at least 1 low level experience player now. Sure if you push up the MMR and play later in the month and at peak times in the evening, (generalisations a go go here), you meet more SWF, and they may be a factor. But most killers for most times, do not meet this. Mostly they meet mixed teams, with at least one low skill players, or a relatively new one.

I strongly suspect that camp, slug, tunnel routine players, (what my friends and I call "CaST", skews and renders useless, most data obtained on the game. (e.g. the CaST grinders, often get 3 or 4k for essentially doing nothing of any real skill. So, to average a 2k for killers overall, the other killers playing "fair", must be getting 1-2k.

*Whilst camp grinders, are a smaller group, my guess is they are also the ones massively overplaying, meaning that they appear in far more games overall, than would be expected by head count alone. (e.g. a typical player maybe in 3 hours a week, where as pro-grinders might be in 30 hours, meaning 10x more).

I would suggest that this means, that much of the bad experience as a survivor comes from meeting pro-grinders, with their CaST routine. And much of the good experience, comes from playing against those who play fair, but at that killer's expense. This also explains in part why the forum includes arguments between killers, about kill ration's, and how hard the game is. They are two distinct types of players, (typical and CaST grinder).

*The irony of the CasT grinder, is that they score very highly because the scoring system is so messed up, and they also PIP (easy and fast - 4k in what are often short games, sometimes of half typical length - more so with afk, and self kill on hook elements in many of the games ruined by this). This means over the month, the low skill grinders, are most likely to rise up to the top of the MMR. They then do meet the 4 man SWF teams, who effectively demolish them, using skill and voice, against a zero skill strategy that works against new players and mixed teams.

SOLO ROLE

Solo cue has become almost unplayable. Increasingly so, since 2021. This is notably worse, i find at certain times of day (on peak), where you meet the try hard over playing killers, who grind, by camp, slug, tunnel. I suspect that this group have done a lot of damage to the game in terms of scaring off survivors, and that includes many longer term players who simply got sick of it. My assumption would be, that the grinders, over time, create a virtuous circle for themselves. They scare off better players, meaning the teams are filled with more and more noobs and low level experienced players, for them to farm.

Over time, this creates a game overall, that is based on matching long term grinding killers with CaST, against players and teams overall with lower and lower skill.

From looking at other on line games like VHS, Evil Dead, Decieve Inc, Hunt Showdown, Texas Chainsaw, i would suggest, this is actually how many games terminally stagnate or die. They get taken over by a large group of perpetual grinders, who scare everyone else off. New players come along, but quickly go. (Leading to low and/or 'negative' retention).

SWF ROLE

Playing as a 4 person SWF is too easy, if you are try hards or if 2 or 3 of your team are good players. My guess is this sort of 4 person (or 3 person), team is rare, and has little impact on the data collected. Most games are made up of mixed teams, with mixed ability, where at most 2 people know each other.

A SWF of 3 friends, will typically get 2 or more out, without too much effort, if they are reasonably experienced players. They can mostly carry one rando

Similarly, If you are a group of 3-4 friends, purely out of for casual fun, it usually is fun, even if you die. (Assuming of course, you don't get one of the try hard camp, tunnel, slug, pros) Which make the game dead boring and a chore at best. A fun seeking SWF of 3 or 4 friends, will still in my experience typically get 2 out, without try harding, if they are all reasonably experienced players. And by happy with that.

DO I HAVE FUN?

I have fun, playing killer for the most part. But i don't sweat and don't use regress builds, meta builds, and/or CTS routines. I get mostly 1 or 2k, but 8 hooks. I find the game in this "zone" is a lot of fun. It is probably more akin to what it was meant to be. The feed back is usually really good in chat. Seldom get anything toxic. I use Nurses, Nowhere to Hide, Ultimate Weapon and Trail of Torment.

So, I get jump scares, and often can pick who i am after. To get the 8 hooks. Ultimate scares them in general. This merged with torment, and Nurses and Nowhere, all help to get jump scares out of nowhere, which seem to be a big part of survivors enjoying the game. I kill one player per game, to keep the sense of threat. Sometimes more, if one or more is notably good. (I try to note anyone over P10 in the lobby), to let newer players be the ones who get out.

Most of my friends and others i had met online and played with, stopped playing in 2021. There was quite an exodus after the big changes tin July 2021. For me, those changes, seemed to lead to a hoarde of campers, with meta perk combos, taking over far too many games. (e.g. we had Cheap BPS blood webs, we had the rank to grade change, that led to grinding, and we had the auto transfer of perks to all characters, which also led to widespread meta combos). So, i can't really play SWF much now. Except at things like the Xmas event or lights out event, when some come back. Thise SWF games though are a lot of fun for the most part, because we don't take it serously, and for a few hours, you can just sigh at the chore bore CaST grinders, you have tp put up with. You standard;y will get 2 or more out, and its fun for us, and I suspect mostly for the killers

But, for me, solo, mostly now sucks real bad. That is due to the imbalance across the typical team you are put in on the one hand, and on the other, because you and that team, often face one of the hoard of pro-camping killers, who grind every month, while overplaying lots.

Again, for me, the 2021 changes, were a great and necessary idea on paper. But those changes led to the grinding and CaST plague that has build since in my view.

CHANGES?

1. Go back to the Rank system of 1-20. It was easy to see and understand. Bring back the floating rank system, that used to operate month to month. Amend it In this way: create essentially two Tiers. Rank 1-10 (upper), and rank 11-20 (Lower). Anyone at the end of the month at Rank 1-10 drops to rank 10, on reset. Anyone in Rank 11-20 drops to rank 20. This keeps a broad separation of serious from new/ casual.

2. Penalise serial hooking. If you hook the same person twice, then give no score for the second hook, and no score for a death, if that person was hooked three times in a row. Add a bonus end of game score for hooking everyone once and everyone twice, to reward this more interesting game play.

The game will need re-balancing around these changes. But I think it will make a game more playable for new and existing players. A killer should not PIP for camping over and over. The act of Camping, needs to be invalidated in terms of score and PIP.

A more radical idea, is to change the game over, so that killers put survivors on random hooks, through a process akin to the Pyramid Head cages. That is to say, survivors will still go on hooks, but which hook they go on, on the map, is random.

If anyone says playing killer is easy - they need to join my MMR. Gens get done in 4 and a half minutes, (lost 4 gens) happened last night on Prenn. (As pig) They had resilience and Dejavú.

I love killer and this is not a complaint, but is not easy. I rarely tunnel and almost never proxy camp, but it’s frustrating when gens fly. I try not to use a ton of regression because I know it’s annoying to survivors.

I had lethal, sloppy, surge and brutal. I’m sure some of it is a skill issue but I was getting hits in left and right, my chases weren’t too long either. I never over commit.

@radiantHero23 I need help with my pig game. Oink oink.