Do you think survivors/SWF need nerf?

Sounds like you went against a very very good team out of your skill level some, but you actually did well with a killer not really currently able to be successful against such teams.

Like a year back they messed around with stricter MMR, and those veteran killers quickly tired of back to back to back super sweaty trials, plus the extra queue times that came with it. I think within two weeks or so the changed it back.

Yes, but also no.

The solution is not to nerf people for wanting to play with their friends.

It is obvious from the way the game is designed, and the fact that SWF was not in the game at launch, that the game was originally designed to never be played with your friends. The game was designed specifically around survivors having a lack of coordination, and communication. It is pretty clear of that. Otherwise, why would perks exist to simply give you information about which generator your teammates are on? Or bond? Those perks are pretty much useless in all but the newbiest of newbie SWF teams.

However, SWF is a core part of the game. Playing with your friends in general is pretty crucial to a game's longevity. So the solution is not to nerf it.

The solution is to split up the queues. Finally once and for all just create a ranked mode. This mode is where MMR actually matters and is accounted for, and you have a ranking that you can see and compare to other players. Maybe even a leaderboard. This ranked mode is for 4 man SWF only.

The idea is you have 4 modes of play:

• Ranked mode
  • This mode is only for killers and 4 man SWF
• Casual Mode
  • This mode is the current mode we have now, but you are unable to play as a SWF of more than a duo. And each match can only have 1 duo and 2 other solos, or just 4 solos. It should not be possible to have multiple duos.
• Modifier Mode
  • These are where the fun modifiers go.
• Custom Match
  • Current custom match parameters

The idea is that if you want to play SWF, you have to go into ranked mode. If you are just casually playing with a single friend, then you can just queue up with that friend in casual mode and still have a good time. They can even balance the modes differently.

For example, in the ranked mode, only brown and yellow items/addons, no map offerings, maybe even a limited map pool (or always the same exact RNG generated map that rotates out periodically) perhaps with limited, or even no RNG. Maybe survivors are limited to 1 perk per team, so only 1 survivor can run DS etc. They can give killers a basekit corrupt, or force the survivors to have a slower game as gens go extremely fast in coordinated play.

In the casual mode, they can give bonus bloodpoints for playing nicely. They can make tunneling completely impossible from a basic standpoint. Maybe a basekit OTR or DS that doesn't need a skillcheck to prevent tunneling. Maybe a better anti-camping measure. Some other thing.

There are plenty of competitive games that have ranked and casual modes that are balanced differently. For example in Counter strike, the casual mode gives you more money between rounds, and free armor and defuse kit. So generally, even if you lose rounds you can usually buy a good weapon for the next one. The matches are more chill and people are just vibing. Whereas in the ranked mode, the economy and how you buy items as a team plays a bigger role in coordinating with your team and determining if you win or lose a game.

Yeah that was what I was wondering too. Also 4-mans are the rarest of the SWF groups, so that tiny portion of the playerbase would be pulled from for these ranked matches?

While it sounds like a case of just having a bad game I will say that attempting to nerf the swfs will only cause harm to the solos. It's nearly impossible to balance around those crazy 4 man swfs when anything that weakens them also weakens the survivors as a whole since they are the only ones who get the full benefit of the role

Your most common answer you're gonna get is "buff solo to swf level". The issue with this is that is never going to happen and is an unrealistic goal. The main problem with solo queue is people being bad at the game and poor matchmaking.

this is not what the player means when they say buff soloq to swf-level". what buffing soloq to swf-level is all about is giving the player equal opportunity to be as effective in soloq as in a SWF.

here is example:

Window of opportunity is a perk that grants ability for survivor to see pallet aura's. When a teammate drops a pallet and killer breaks the pallet. that pallet is no longer there. a soloq player cannot predict precisely where every single pallet has been broken. As a result, they may run into dead-zones when they get chased by the killer.

A swf on voice can just arbitrary say/use clock calls out for what pallets have been broken. as a result, they are less likely to run into dead-zones.

Suppose soloq could see when a pallet is dropped with a red aura. This would give player a opportunity to identify potencial dead-zones created by teammates. This does not mean that player will not go into dead-zones. It just gives them equal opportunity for them TO NOT go into dead-zones as SWF.

Bond is a perk that grants ability to see aura of teammates in 36 meter radius. When a survivor is in the chase, they would like to loop away from their teammates so that their teammates can safely work generator uninterrupted. SWF can call out where they're being chased to avoid running into teammates.

What if a survivor that is in the chase could see yellow generator aura's. This would allow them to avoid their teammates that are on potencial generators. Again, this does not mean that the survivor player will optimally loop to not run into teammates but it gives survivor the opportunity to make correct play.

Healing is another complicated action that is difficult to optimize in soloq. Part of the reason is that knowing where your teammates are vs hit & run can be challenge when you are constantly being split up and pressured. What if survivor could ping a healing location. Again, this does not mean that soloq survivor will suddenly be optimized healing but it gives opportunity for soloq to optimize healing.

DBD is not meant to balance bad players. it is meant give opportunity for the survivor to play well. Ideally just seeing the teammate aura would fix most of soloq's disparity issues. In my opinion, DBD almost wants this disparity SWF/Soloq teamwork ethic to occur as there has not been much or any attempts to improve it.

deleted. Mistype.

I understand what people mean when they say that. What you’ve pointed out doesn’t detract from my base point. Countering the advantage given by swf is far more practical and realistic than trying to give those same tools to solo which isn’t even going to fix the problem anyway.

Survivors don’t need any nerfs (except for the upcoming sabo change). They can’t nerf SWF because it’ll hurt SoloQ too much. They just need to make it so the matchmaking pairs up a 3/4 man swf against a high skilled high MMR killer.

A 3 men swf has one solo guy that could be weak link and easily tunneled out... I don't think that fits... You could even argue that 2 duos work better than a 3men and a solo, because in that case you have at least 1 teammate that can help you.

Are you genuinely suggesting survivors shouldn't be allowed to try and protect each other? I get it if you're saying they were abusing basekit BT or something (but in that case literally just tunnel and that counters that strategy pretty quickly) but suggesting protection hits shouldn't be a thing seems pretty dramatic and unnecessary.

I'm NGL this comes off as pretty entitled. "I was playing a mid killer and wasn't camping or tunneling therefore survivors should have let me hit them and shouldn't have been allowed to protect each other" like come on you know that's not how that works nor should it be.

I'm more so referencing most matches than yours in particular. Most hooks/kills after the gates are powered are things usually not related to skill such as camping at the hooked guy or the entire team diving for the save because they want everyone out and either throwing the game there or doubling the killers hooks/kills from said play. Not saying there aren't skilled hooks/kills in end game, but just simply that the majority of them usually aren't and they make the end result of hooks/kills imply the game was much more close than it actually was.

I agree with this. Although you don't mention swf as one of the balance problems your explanations elude to it.

" You're usually not going to run into 4 survivors who all know how to
run those types of structures and run there every chase, but it you do,
it's somewhat game breaking. "

Per that.

"Up to the task" would be like going up against very good players, it's a challenge, that's a good thing. I think most people would be fine with that "up to the task".

SWF isn't just a good player, SWF is like saying let's have a boxing match but you get one hand tied behind your back. That's not just a "challenging" match, it's an unfair match. Challenge is good, unfair is not. We say unfair because the game is pretty unanimously agreed on by most the player base to not be balanced around SWF.

This would be like asking survivors if they want to face a killer that's using wall hacks. It's a challenge right? Who doesn't want a challenge? Except the survivors wouldn't like that because it's not just a challenge, it's unfair.

Fair chance against a 4 man SWF would probably be like Nurse, Blight and maybe Spirit. Even most A tier killers it still tilts into unfair, much less all the B tier and below where it's ridiculously unfair.

I don't necessarily think that's a SWF problem. Just a balance issue with the map. That same problem can happen with 4 good solos. It's just rare with the way matchmaking works.

Because its ranked. You get a rank, you get more rewards, you get higher bloodpoints, etc.

How many players queue up for ranked modes in other games despite the fact that they are signing up for a sweaty match where they might not get to play the character they want like in games like League or Overwatch?

Maybe in ranked, but not in unranked modes as far as I know... Otherwise this game would need to gi full comp and not call itself a partygame anymore when you cannot queue as a 3 men swf...

Well that's what many people call it ^^ And since most people agree that it is not a competitive game they tend to put those two as the opposite sides of the spectrum...

DBD has a weird spot in that regard, because it has mmr but way too much rng to be even somewhere near a competitive game... So I don't really know where to put it.

I just played a full SWF of TTV players as Billy on Nostromo. I got 2 hooks no kills and it was frankly not a fun experience for me (They also got two flashy saves because I was playing Chaos Shuffle with no lightborn).

Maybe it serves me right for taking a bathroom break while queuing up because I quickly realised they would be too much for me without Lightborn. But whatever. SWFs will never be enjoyable to go up against because they fundamentally break the game. If the game was balanced around the way that a half-way decent SWF plays the game, every Killer would need to be buffed to a level that would make SoloQ impossible for the rest of us.

Chaos Shuffle has really hammered home how necessary regression is to quite a lot of average Killer players (myself included). Most of us aren't good enough to compete without it. I simply can't dedicate any more of my life or free time to "getting good" at this game. I genuinely think you need to be either very very skilled, or willing to play especially nasty to stand a chance against even a mediocre but gen focused SWF team.

If I could opt out of playing against a 4 man team on comms, I would. Every time.

Right, so those people are wrong. If a game is using MMR, then by definition it is not a party game.