http://dbd.game/killswitch
The problem with the SWF teams and the balancing for Solo-Q - a possible solution
We all know it when we talk about possible shortcomings in DbD. Balancing becomes an issue at some point and you can practically set the clock by the time someone brings up the SWF teams, mentions their unfair advantages and a compromise that actually already seemed acceptable from all sides is overturned because it didn't take the SWF advantages into account at the same time, but would only affect solo Q players.
This is followed by an argument or someone points out that SWFs are only a small group within the player base and should not be balanced after all.
Nevertheless, the flavour remains, and unfortunately rightly so - because SWF teams are counted by the game as ‘normal’ players and therefore on a par with solo players, which seems unfair to everyone involved. Especially when measured by the possibilities and efficiency with which they proceed.
My suggestion to fix this: we compensate for the increased stress that killers have with SWFs by awarding a blood point bonus per SWF team member and then ignoring them completely when it comes to balancing. If SWFs are found, they have no disadvantage in the match and the killer knows that he will be compensated after the match for the beating and the stress that participation has meant, while the game and the perks will only be balanced around the solos and their chances in future.
A win-win-win situation for everyone.
Regarding the exact mechanics, I would suggest: per SWF member (and the game can recognise how many players join a round together via the SWF mechanics) the killer receives 20-25% more blood points after the round (so he also has an incentive to make an effort, since a round in which he performs many successful actions brings him more additional blood points due to the percentage gain than one in which he is just waiting for it to end and he can enter the next match without penalty).
This means that if 3 players join a round using the SWF mechanic, the killer will have 100% of his normal blood points after the match as before and, based on these, another 75% will be added on top. This compensates the killer for the significantly more difficult game, the solos have the advantage that the game will be balanced with their game concept (ergo: the significantly worse communication channels in mind) and the SWF have no disadvantage as they can still play normally.
The whole thing doesn't cost anyone anything and everyone benefits. Not even BHVR is disadvantaged because blood points are not a real money equivalent.
So my suggestion: don't give SWFs any room in the balancing discussions, but concentrate on the solos and give the killers blood points to develop their killer team if they take on the stress of dealing with the SWFs.
Comments
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That is how it should be because stressing so much over the game only to be rewarded with nothing seems unreasonable. Killers definitely need an incentive to actually play against survivor friends considering how more difficult the game becomes against them.
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Can I get extra BP if the killer slugs and humps me?
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SWF team ie premade teams are not always comp sweaty players. There are many players who just HAD IT with players who off themselves or do nothing the ENTIRE match and want to have fun. I been playing solo and I can tell you there is a certain amount of rage when both happens because I can't quit without punishment, and I have no hope to win besides a pity win.
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Am not even going to bother no more lol.
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You're basically asking for an indication of a SWF. That would just lead to cherry picking. Without knowing of the BP bonus it would be like now. You're still going to stress.
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Slugging is a valid strategy. You could also ask whether you get extra BP if the killer hits you or puts you on the hook. It's just as nonsensical.
SWF teams have a real advantage - and it's called communication. The fact that they can communicate with each other makes them more challenging (and therefore more stressful) even when they're not playing sweaty. Killer players are more willing to take on the challenge anyway instead of quitting in frustration or not touching the game at all or only playing with bots if they get something in return.
And let's be honest: whether the killer player ends up with a few more blood points or not doesn't really matter to anyone else, does it?I wouldn't say I'm asking for a SWF indicator here. The system knows whether a group enters the game as SWF and then simply adds the template on top for further calculation.
The killer can't influence this any more than any random survivors can influence whether the survivors are added to the list of match seekers as SWF or not. A targeted search for such matches therefore makes no sense.
And the difference to now would be that we would no longer have to worry about the SWF teams when it comes to balancing. We could focus the balancing directly on the solos and that would be that.
The role of the killer will always be stressful because it is a tight one and he can't afford to make any mistakes. But playing against a SWF group is even tougher and there is often the added aspect of humiliation if they are so excellently attuned to each other that they effectively leave him no real chance. ...which is unfortunately the rule when you have enthusiastic players, who are outnumbered and highly experienced, facing a single opponent and want to have fun together by dominating him.
I don't blame anyone for wanting to win, but that's just how a developing group dynamic works. You don't deliberately make mistakes just so that your opponent can have fun playing when you can just as easily win and have fun highlights with your friends by repeatedly saving them by a narrow margin or denying your opponent a point.0 -
No amount of BP is gonna make that stress okay. The obvious solution is a debuff to SWF. "You can't punish friends playing for fun!" All kinds of games let players play with friends and play for fun, but that doesn't mean they allow broken stuff for free. SWF breaks the game, because it negates the necessity of info, it negates the usual required game awareness and risk taking, it almost always means vastly faster gens and heals, and what does the killer get in exchange? Nothing. "Face this clearly superior team to what you're usually 'equipped' for (I use that word lightly), and if you lose then it's still a skill issue!"
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That is precisely the problem. But if you try to balance the game around the SWF, you will unfairly penalise the solo survivors.
Hence my suggestion to focus the balancing on the solos and simply compensate the killer for the round with the totally broken balance afterwards. Just a consolation, sure, but much better than nothing.
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I tried posting my ideas on SWF balancing giving Solo players the same tools SWFS have and Killers will toddler temper tantrum it would give unfair advs to survivors. My response was then it would be fair for all players and players like Trutalent toddler temper tantrum even more.
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I think their goal is to make it not really matter if players are SWF or not. To somehow make the game experience roughly the same with or without comms. Not an easy task.
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Isnt it most survivors not wanting the one difference between solo and swf in the game? Comms are the one mechanical difference, the rest is player behavior.
But they dont want comms as tool in the game, that'd be acknowledging the advantage and would make way for compensatory killer buffs. The devs'd need to balance killers against "swf", not "solo" like currently the case.
I see most survivors wanting the RESULT of good comms usage without the mental strain of actually using comms. Bond basekit among other things, which are stronger than comms.
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Communication is a strong advantage in multiplayer games and to pretend that it isn't and that the killers are just acting like toddlers when they don't want to put up with it completely ignores this point.
My approach here was that a real disadvantage that completely takes the fun out for one of two sides and stresses them out in a way that can seriously ruin the motivation to play the game needs to be compensated for somehow if DbD is not to constantly lose players.
Since you can't balance the game around the SWFs without creating a really hard imbalance for the many solo players, it just makes sense not to try, but to focus on the solos.
Because the advantage of the SWF comes from the use of secondary software (Discord or similar), which DbD cannot influence, this cannot be compensated for.Hence my suggestion: compensate the killers with more blood points so that their suffering is at least compensated by a consolation and there is a small reward that restores the motivation to continue playing the game.
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If you want to give the solos the same possibilities as the SWFs, you can orientate yourself directly on VHS. There, the teens (in DbD the survivors) were shown directly where their team members were located by giving the map or the areas of the map names and then the name of the area was next to the team member in the UI.
The result was a bullysimulator where the monster players (killers) simply refused to go into the rounds because they were so outclassed.
This has nothing to do with baby tantrum - it was simply no longer festive what the monsters regularly received in terms of thrashing. Accordingly, the game is dead today.
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Do we have any stats that demonstrate that SWF is having an unfair advantage?
Pretty sure the vas majority of SWF is equal to soloQ, idd like to see SoloQ winrate against SWF winrate over MMR%0 -
The Voice chat system itself breaks the game.
1. You have quasi bond
2. If one player know where the killer is they all do and that breaks stealth killers
3. Their coordination becomes very hard especially with Sabo, Flashlights for the killer to deal with.
4. Gen rushing becomes a very hard to beat especially if you have 1-2 people doing Killer diversions.1 -
If that was true and happened in all SWFs, then all stealth Killers would have a visible disadvantage against SWF in the stats.
But it doesn't happen in all SWF, now does it?
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It doesn't need to be in 100% of matches to be considered a visible advantage - after all, some rounds of SWF can actually play quite chilled out and not give a damn about winning as long as everyone is having fun. It just needs to be a recognisable advantage that can be exploited if desired.
And that's exactly the case. So the fact that it doesn't occur in all rounds is more an indication of the existence of statistical outliers rather than that this advantage doesn't exist. To prove the significant advantage, it is sufficient that there are rounds that run like this and that cannot be explained otherwise.
And since there are these rounds happen... quod erat demonstrandum.
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Logical reasoning alone isn’t enough to prove a claim like this—especially one that involves a complex, variable system like a multiplayer game. Just because something seems true based on anecdotal experience doesn’t mean it holds up under scrutiny. Empirical data would be able to demonstrate the scope and size of the problem, we don't have that, so merely the potential that this could happen isn't enough to cause alarm.
Your core claim—that an advantage exists and can be exploited—is likely true, but the argument overstates its universality and significance without strong supporting data. It dismisses counterexamples too easily and assumes that isolated cases prove a broader systemic effect. To make the argument stronger, it would need statistical data on win rates, coordination effects, and how often the advantage meaningfully impacts the game.
That being said BHVR, We would love to see that SoloQ against SWF over MMR.
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Because not all SWFs are comp heavy but I am willing to beat Comp Swfs have a much lower kill rate than any others.
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grant base-kit bond to everyone. Bond perk increases radius by 12 meters(Similar to base-kit BT increasing endurence). rework knock out to reduce bleed out timer by 8/12/16 seconds every time a survivor heals from dying state to the injured state. Blindness no longer affects teammate aura reading effects. only grants you immunity to wall-hack aura reading perks such as Object of obsession, Scene partner, Wiretap etc. Third seal now increases bleed out rate by 15%/20%/25% while the hex is active.
i don't think BVHR wants to improve the problem. When they were asked. how long will it take for soloq to be able to see their teammate perks. It will take YEARS. Otz made a video on it and he was like…. what do you mean years? that is pretty much says everything.
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Focus on the balance between killer and SWF, and only compensate for solos in rounds where the balance is completely off. (25% increase in BP gain per solo survivor)
This is one way of thinking, but it is similar to your suggestion.
Do you think solo players would be convinced by this proposal?
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Post deleted because the forum save here still displayed the original post more than an hour later. I love it when forums have a holding pattern as to when they show posts and leave me guessing as to whether they have taken the post or I can re-post it. -.-
Post edited by WolfgangGarou on0 -
Let me get your point straight - you're saying that my statement that the ability to coordinate can be there and can make a significant difference. But at the same time it is irrelevant because there is no evidence that SWF teams would use this advantage to make the game easier for themselves. And in the absence of this evidence, there is no reason to assume that the game is sufficiently difficult for the killer side that one could say that the game is sufficiently difficult here (beyond isolated, anecdotal experiences) that it can be assumed that killer players would be deterred from playing by this thing.
Correct?
With respect, if you're asking for this amount of evidence from statistics (and I have my doubts as to whether BHVR themselves could recognise this because their statistics don't note match progression and the effects of third-party software on progression, only results and participants), then you can literally dismiss anything that anyone can put forward on the subject as being without merit.It's just another way of bluntly shutting your dialogue partner up by accusing them of not having enough knowledge and therefore not being allowed to take a position in the conversation because they can't make an objective statement.
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Not quite.
SWFs could coordinate to different degrees, Im saying I recognize its possible that some could coordinate to a degree that shifts the balance. It would have to be demonstrated that such SWF are a prevalent enough problem that requires major reworks and compensations. Most SWF who play hard in my opinion are full of hot air and playing smartly and efficiently will beat them, but only BHVR would know how big a problem this is.
Let me explain why I ask this.
Because im not shutting down your dialogue, nor am I requiring you to provide objective statements. I'm asking for this discussion to be tempered in what we do or dont know from statistical data. Its clear you are frustrated by some SWF teams, anyone could take that away from this thread, perfectly valid to think this way, but not immune to questioning in a discussion, if we’re making claims about broader trends or game balance, it’s fair to examine what evidence we have to support them and talk about what we think is fair to be in the game or not.
like if this is 1 in 10 then it isnt bad in my opinion. what about you?
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