Are survivors a team?
You're probably thinking "what?". Hear me out. I made a post yesterday:
And it got people a little riled up about something. 'Are survivors a team?'
@Ayodam commented this:
"Survivors are not a team like in Apex Legends, Overwatch, or similar team-focused games. They’re four players with the same goal. This is why why survivors are graded individually at the end of each trial (MMR and pipping). It’s why survivors are rewarded individually at the end of each trial (blood points & EXP awarded). The devs have repeatedly stated this; survivors can help one another or play for themselves and both are absolutely legitimate strategies this game. Both can lead to individual victory, which is what survivors are graded on and rewarded for by every available metric we have.
What survivors are, are resources for one another. Just like pallets and perks that can be used to help individual escape efforts. At the end of the day, to spell it out plainly, teams profit and lose together; not individually. When you die in trial I’m not punished as I glide through the exit gates. I’ll gain MMR and pip regardless of what happened to you. You will earn less BPs and may not pip at all. When depipping was a thing, you might have that happen to you. But these consequences that you face wouldn’t affect me or any other survivor who escaped at all.
Killer mains have this xK = win or loss nonsense. And maybe for you all it works. But it doesn’t apply to survivors. Survivors don’t win or lose collectively, per the metrics BHVR has established in their game. For survivors trials are technically a ([1v1v1v1)] v1."
Ultimately, most survivors are out for themselves and everybody else is expendable. A survivor, if they wanted, could drop pallets on teammates, purposefully fail skill checks and even blind other survivors with flashbangs to try to get them killed, all so that they can escape. In a way, they'd be working with the killer. Does this mean they're on the killer's team?
In certain scenarios, a survivor's biggest threat is other survivors. Like stated above, Trials are technically a 1v1v1v1v1. At the end of the day, the survivors' goal is to escape, no matter what. Even if that means getting your teammates killed doing so. This all begs the question, are survivors a team?
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I see almost always people go back to safe the last one on hook when it was a good match. And its soloQ. Yes, survivors are very mutch a team.
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Dwight's quote for Bond sums the idea of Survivors teams very well:
"We have to work as a team. I need you to survive so that I can survive!"
You need as many of the others about as you can to improve the chances of escape, so you have to work as a team. However, when things become dire, a more survivalist instinct kicks in, and people may rely on other Survivors' misfortunes for them to survive.
Of course, there are many cases which contradict this. It all depends on the moment. Will a 3-man SWF sacrifice the SoloQ because they are not one of them, or will they sacrifice everything to make sure nobody is left behind? Will someone sacrifice themself to let another escape, or will they decide to deliberately sabotage another Survivor for an earlier discretion? It's all about h9w it plays out.
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No, survivors are absolutely not a team. The levels of pettiness and willingness to bash the weakest performer and stomp them into the ground has always been staggering, not to mention the rank-based elitism.
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They most certainly are not. I think the devs even said it themselves during an AMA about SWF vs SoloQ.
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Conversely you have Yun-Jin Lee’s Fast Track:
”The weak are sacrificed first. It's nature, it's business... it's the truth most refuse to face." — Yun-Jin Lee
And a bevy of survivors in between who support both altruistic and self-focused playstyles.
Whether players want to function as a team is a personal choice, and there isn’t anything wrong with it. Issues arise, however, when people mistakenly present the notion of survivors as a team as if this is a cardinal rule. Survivors are not a team. Can they play as one? In a way, yes. Are they treated as a team? Not by the game’s mechanics or the developers. Is it acceptable for them to synchronize in a team-like way? Sure. It’s also acceptable for them to play in a cutthroat manner where, as Yun-Jin states, the weak are not teammates, but fodder for your own survival.
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No, we work together to live but you should die so i can live another day.
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It just depends on who you’re asking. It’s not a one answer fits all kinda deal. Heck, they can even be your enemy.
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Heck, they can even be your enemy.
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And hearin lies literally the entire problem with the balance of the game.
The game is DESIGNED such that survivors are NOT a team, they are 4 individuals with a similar goal (escape) that need to work together to achieve that goal. But, if you have a survivor on a hook, and you are all powering the last gen and hitting the gate, nothing says you have to go save that survivor. This is fine if this is the only way the game can be played.
Enter SWF - SWF by definition ARE a team, and because of the fact that the game is designed and balanced around the survivors NOT being a team, actually BEING a team gives a MASSIVE advantage to the survivors.
This becomes extremely obvious once you take a look at the perks that survivors have access to. 40% of them (last time i checked around a year ago, its probably a bit more or a bit less TODAY, but the point still stands a SIGNIFICANT number of them) simply give you information about what your teammates are doing, or give your teammates information about what you are doing.
If the game was designed such that survivors were a TEAM, you would see far less "show the aura of the gen i'm working on to other survivors"
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Well, everything you said there is correct, so you answered yourself: In terms of MMR and rewards, survivors are not a team. If you die but your other 3 teammates escape, they'll win against the killer, but you still lose.
Ironically, if you want to have the best chance of survival, you have to play as if you were in one.
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It depends on the context but most of the time it is optimal for survivors to play like a team. There are situations and perks that unfortunately encourage a lone wolf playstyle.
The scoring/emblem system and even some archives also encourages some survivors to play more selfishly. There are archives that actually require you to bring troll perks like No Mither for example. The devs seem to be fine with players not caring about team work.
On the other hand In my survivors matches where my team mates don't give up and actually play like a team we usually win or at the very least have a good close match. Similarly, my killer matches are harder when survivors actually play like a team.
There are exceptions though where too much altruism can be bad too. Sometimes you can't really save a team mate being camped in basement for example, and It might be better for the team to just focus on gens instead of trying to save them and giving the killer even more pressure.
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I think survivors absolutely need to work as a team to win. You can't win if you don't. You can play perfectly and loop the killer for 12 minutes, but if nobody is doing gens- you're not going to survive. That being said, when 1 survivor wins, not all of them do. So I do understand how it can be a 1 survivor vs the other 3 survivors and a killer. It's not an easy role. But you can't win alone.
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I am here to have my fun with my friends as Survivor, and judging by the randoms we get, no. Survivors aren't a team unless they SWF up.
I get randoms who sandbag. Randoms who see my style as "detrimental" despite having a reason to go into lockers (Built to Last) and will lead the Killer to me because "I didn't do anything" (I cranked multiple gens while they looped the Killer).Randoms who purposefully grief me. Randoms who give up the second they see a Killer they don't like, they get hooked once, or they go down. Then my friends and I suffer.
I don't give a single solitary iota of a crumb about other random Survivors. I am here to help my team be that people I just queued in with or my friends. If other Survivors wanna be a detriment then no, they are not part of my team.
SWFs are a team. But individual Survs are not to me until they prove otherwise.
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Sorta yes and no. Technically what Ayodam says is correct in that its 4 people sharing a goal. Each survivor is individually scored and theres no penalty or anything for leaving your fellow survivors in the fog while you escape. Survivors are only a team in the loosest sense in that they're reliant on each other to open the doors via gens.
That said if everyone plays free-for-all style the likely hood of all the survivors dying increases…drastically. Hence why normally survivors at least work somewhat like an actual team (or more accurately should as we're seeing questionable actions from survivors in 2v8). There is also a tipping point where selfish crosses into working with the killer which is reportable for what its worth.
We three personally consider survivors a rag tag bunch of misfits but not a true team. While everyone needs to work together if everyone wants a good shot at surviving, once that gates open any semblance of teamwork is at the mercy of everyones mood.
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I believe that survivors are a team right up until the last gen is finished; one person can’t repair all the gens AND distract the killer, after all. When that last gen pops, it’s every person for themselves.
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Yes and no, but no does not mean they are opponents.
DbD is very different than other games. The game does not have a clear "win" condition (compared to say team kill, capture the flag, etc). The game has escapes and kills, bloodpoints and pips, wins are a metric we as the community made up. If as a survivor you want to value getting the other three survivors out, or trying to pip, or maximizing BP, BHVR is cool with all of that as objectives.
Basically, DbD is a little bit of a sandbox in that we the playerbase determine what we want out of it. This does make BHVR's job difficult where the different regions have different playstyles and objectives.
One correction though on Ayodam's post, unless its been changed, the performance of other survivors does impact the MMR gain or loss that a survivor has. So if we're going off the in game metrics there are reasons to see the survivors as teammates, even if they are not as important as the individual.
Like stated above, Trials are technically a 1v1v1v1v1.So people, even BHVR, are wrong on this as a statement given the game design. Survivors are not each other's opponents. Even if you say as a survivor we're not a team, that doesn't mean we are in opposition. I have no incentive to make survivor another lose. I might have no incentive to help them win, but that's different than being their opponent.
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Survivors are absolutely a team, just that BHVR refuses to make winning/losing condition around it for some weird reasons
Allowing SWF and calling it "no team game" is really stupid design
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You certainly can work as a team as survivor. I think a large number of players want to play that way, being altruistic or even just considering the win condition as a team escape.
I've certainly done this by going back for an end game rescue that doesn't always work, or I've even had games where I die to finish last gen so the rest can escape. That's a team goal outlook, and I think it's a good one.
However, the game (and devs) doesn't work that way, or force people to work that way. Someone can run left behind, sole survivor, low profile, and bring a key to look only for hatch, and this is a build designed for solo escape at the expense of your team.
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When I think about it, both Dwight's and Yun-Jin's philosophies aren't that different. In Dwight's quote, his main concern is that others need to survive so that he is able tp survive. Yun-Jin is harsher, but it's still amounting to the idea that she needs others to ensure her survival. Both quotes aren't so different; Dwight's is just less direct.
Conversely, Yun-Jin's talks about survival is achieved through the sacrifice of other "weaker" survivors. She does state this is natural, but likewise her quote doesn't say they need to be - moreso that it's just natural. I doubt she would throw someone to the wolves if there isn't any need (or benefit) to.
Ultimately, self-preservation is the most common motivation, but without teamwork the Killer would slaughter everyone. It's working as a team towards escape, but not necessarily needing the whole team to escape if it puts yourself at risk. Of course, it's not always the rule.
Ultimately, it's what you make of it. Everyone is different, but the important aspect for me is work together with others to escape, but do not put your trust in others that you'll escape.
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I would say survivors are a team to start with but in many cases the survivors are more brutal to eachother than the killer is and this is the view of many, survivors and killers. They have no issues stabbing eachother in the back if there is a gain. Yes some people do selfless acts to help their teammates but a huge majority of the time survivors are more like mercenaries and will use eachother to do gens, distract the killer or whatever needs a team effort, when the team is no longer required it's every man/woman for themselves. Perfect example, Many many many matches, survivors work as a team, help eachother out, when 2 die and it's down to the last 2, it's very common for both survivors to hide and hope the other gets killed first so hatch opens.
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When there's 2 survivors left, the game takes a dark turn (not that it was sunshine & rainbows anyway). In this situation, no matter what, the survivors can't do anymore gens. The Trial then turns into something like this:
Option 1 - Both survivors will do their best to hide, until inevitably one of them gets found.
Option 2 - One survivor willingly sacrifices themselves so that the other has a chance of escaping.
Option 3 - Both survivors attempt to expose the location of the other survivor.
Typically, when one of the survivors gets hooked, even if they're on the first hook stage, the other will just hide away in a locker and wait for the hatch to spawn.
The Endgame is brutal.
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Or alternatively which is what I do, slug one of them and it gives me 4min to find the other one. I know not a popular tactic but at this point I truly have no sympathy for survivors that don't like being slugged for 4min when they have no issues with hiding, not doing gens and basically slalling the game for a hell of a lot longer than 4min. In a previous post I mentioned this, looking for survivors for over 20min because they would not reveal location, not doing gens, not leaving any scratch marks. 4min is nothing compared to that. It is indeed brutal at the end game for everyone.
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DBD is a version of the Prisoner's dilemma that breaks a key rule and doesn't quite commit. Survivors are not a team but on average the best results are achieved if they cooperate. SWF though breaks the limited communication rule and survivors are not allowed to properly defect (working with the killer, hardcore sandbagging, preventing unhooks) - that gets them banned for griefing.
I believe DBD should start treating survivors as a team because if survivors defected all the time nobody should want to play this game. Example: The 2v1-hatch-statemate is both survivors defecting. Contrary to what some killers believe hiding is playing the game as it currently is. A situation where hiding is the overwhelmingly dominant strategy in a game that is about the chase is at least weird. So to reduce frustation a change should be made.
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