Kill With Friends: The Clear Answer to Voice Chat

Kill With Friends!

Yes, Kill With Friends, the brand new game play mode for Dead By Daylight!

What will Kill With Friends look like? What will it accomplish? Well, it will look cool. And, it will accomplish almost everything.

The Four Sacred Pillars of Kill With Friends!

1: Two Killers join a Trial together.

2:
A: Survive With Friends Survivors are only ever matched with Kill With Friends Killers.
B: Solo Join Killers can slot into Single Killer Games or Kill With Friends Games.
C: Solo Join Survivors can slot into Single Killer Games or Kill With Friends Games.

3: Everyone gets a Solo Join Killer Rank, a Kill With Friends Killer Rank, a Solo Join Survivor Rank, and a Survive With Friends Survivor Rank.

4: The official ban rules are amended to clearly state that voice chat is fair and not cheating for Killers playing Kill With Friends and for Survivors playing Survive With Friends. But, that voice chat is cheating and players will be banned if Solo Join Survivors lobby hop to get into a game together and use voice chat against Solo Join Single Killer Games.

The Wisdom of the Four Sacred Pillars of Kill With Friends!

1: To my knowledge, no other asymmetric horror game to date has Killer Group Join. At least, no major ones come to my mind. This will be a feature plus for Dead By Daylight. Imagine how many players would love to team up with their friends to play Killer. Imagine all the cool strategies that would combine with two Killers using their powers together. New friendships could be made and DBD would have a tight knit community of Kill With Friends groups that are as tightly bonded as friends, and to the game, as Survive With Friends groups are today.

2: Ok, so Pillar two might sound confusing. So, let me break it down. The main point is that Survive With Friends can only join Kill with Friends. But, these lobbies can also have solo joiners. That way, if I want to play against two Killers as a Survivor or play with another Killer, I can still join one of these games even if I’m just joining alone. This will allow the lobbies to fill quicker. There are a lot of Survive With Friends groups that just have three people, for example. This would allow a Solo Survivor to jump in to fill the slot so that everyone can start playing. A Single Killer game should never be paired with Survive With Friends. It’s just plain and simply not fair. Even with voice chat being officially called cheating and able to have player banned for it; it would still be a logistics nightmare for Behavior to enforce. Cutting down that enforcement to being just for single Killer games that single join Survivors lobby hop into to try to cheat with voice chat would make enforcement much easier. In this way, we now have two DBD experiences. The Original game concept, and the new team against team concept.

3: Pillar Three will allow people to really brag. People will rank based upon what type of a game they join, the original experience or the team against team experience. So many times people say, ‘So and so is only a rank such and such Survivor because they voice chat cheat in Survive With Friends and their team carries them.’ Well, now we’ll know who can rank up as a Solo Survivor and who works best in a team experience.

4: Voice chat is no longer cheating and is now part of the new DBD Team Experience! Voice chat only becomes cheating when used against a Solo Killer in a Solo Killer game. This makes the new DBD Team Experience a truly modern team game for both sides. Modern games are expected to have teamwork, voice chat, and group join. But, fair is fair. Voice chat is only cheating right now because it only gives one side an unfair advantage. Right now Survive With Friends are playing a team game on their side while Killers are still playing a Solo Game on their side. A solo game that has been balanced as a solo join experience. But, if both sides can play as teams, and both sides have voice chat, then there is no unfair advantage. The advantage is the same for everyone. Sure, Survivors will still loop and tell their friends where the Killers are and always know where each other are. But, now that’s not cheating. That’s team work. Because now, the Killers always know where each other are and can tell each other where Survivors are. The Killers can now plan attacks with one Killer rushing a herd of Survivors towards the other Killer or traps the other Killer has laid down.

Addressing Concerns:

Q1: Won’t this make Solo Killer Games obsolete? Won’t this divide the player base?

A1: Most likely, yes, Solo Killer Games will become obsolete. It’s sad to say, but I don’t think we’ll have very many Survivors Solo Joining Solo Killer Games. They have had a long time getting used to working as Survive With Friends Teams and most prefer playing this way. The option should still be left open for people who want to try to get enough joiners to play the original concept of the game. But, I do imagine most will want lobbies that fill quickly and that will be the new team experience. I’d rather have a fair game than to hold on to the currently broken model of Survive With Friends having a team game on one side and a Solo Killer on the other. Fairness is more fun to me than nostalgia. Sure, it’s not the original concept for the game. But, it’s a game that will be fair, fun, and balanced. Many perks have evolved as the Devs realized how people have changed how they play the game. This is the game itself evolving in the same way and for the same reason. I don’t feel that this will divide the player base, however, as most Survivors already play Survive With Friends Voice Chat. So, what we’ll see would be a migration rather than a division.

Q2: Hold on a minute! Two Killers against Four Survivors? That hardly seems fair!

A2: I can see your point. While the original concept option should stay one Killer and four Survivors, I do think that the new team game will likely require six to eight Survivors to be fair. A lot of internal testing, as well as PTB or two, will be required to see how many Survivors really is a fair number against two Killers. It should be truly balanced, fair, and fun for both sides.

Q3: What about Generators and Hooks?

A3: Once the number of Survivors needed for fairness is locked in, the number of Generators and Hooks spawned into the map, as well as the number of Generators that need to be completed to open the Gates, will be determined. There will need to be more Hooks to hook the additional Survivors on and a larger number of Generators will need to be completed to open the Gates. More Generators will need to spawn to make completing the new higher generator goal fair to perform. More chests may need to spawn as well, to make sure there are enough items to go around for fairness as well. There will be more Survivors, so the chests spawned should increase to match the new number of Survivors.

Q4: That sound like a lot of stuff spawning into the Maps. Are these Maps big enough?

A4: If the number of Survivors needed for fairness turns out to be six, then maybe. If it’s higher than six, then probably not. The maps may need to be extended to provide a larger playing field for the larger number of players, hooks, generators, and chests.

Q5: What about lag and Server Cost? Won’t this be expensive?

A5: I wouldn’t think so. I’m no expert, but Friday the 13Th on its model has one Jason and seven Campers. I usually don’t see any problems with lag there. So, two Killers and six to eight Survivors shouldn’t be that much of an additional strain.

Q6: Lobbies will take forever to fill up!

A6: No, they won’t. It won’t take long to get two Killers together and Survive With Friends groups will branch out and start working with more people. Whatever doesn’t fill natively will have solo joiners slot in looking for a fast game very quickly. This will improve lobby fill time because Killers will be far less likely to lobby dodge when they have an ally they can voice chat with. No more reason to avoid Survive With Friends and that eliminates most of the lobby dodging right then and there.

Q7: Can’t we achieve fairness concerning voice chat another, maybe easier way?

A7: I don’t think so. The beauty of Kill With Friends is that it’s a feature plus that also legitimizes voice chat by making it a fair feature for both teams. No need to build in voice chat, people already know how to use third party tools. All other options are a feature negative, not a feature plus, punishing Survive With Friends players. Taking Survive With Friends away would be unfair for those who purchased the game to play it with their friends. It’s a feature Survivors have learned to enjoy. Spreading that feature to the Killer side as Kill With Friends is a feature plus, rather than a feature negative of taking Survive With Friends away. Also, penalizing Survive With Friends with a built in Perk granted to a Single Killer from the Entity that does not take one of his or her Perk Slots is not enough. Think about it, voice chat for one side and not the other is a massively powerful perk. What could possibly be strong enough to combat that? The closest I could think of is being able to see everyones’ auras at all times, kind of like Freddy, but without the need for putting them asleep and they can’t get out of it. But, that would be unfair to Survive With Friends players who are not using voice chat. It would also be unfair to solo join players. Even if solo join players get excluded from the punishment, they often still benefit from playing with a Survive With Friends group that is better capable of fixing generators and unhooking other Survivors. There is really, honestly no fair way to feature negative Survive With Friends Voice Chat Cheating out of the picture. The only fair thing to do is give group join power to the Killers as well; so that the use of voice chat becomes fair play for both sides.

Q8: What about Emblems?

A8: Emblems will need to be adjusted for the team experience and for the larger number of players. This shouldn’t be that difficult. The same concepts will be at play.

Q9: Is this really needed? Can’t Killers just sit down, shut up, and be happy with what we have?

A9: Yes it’s needed. No, we won’t. The reason that voice chat is currently cheating is because it gives an unfair advantage to Survivors. The advantage is so clear that people have made laundry lists of every aspect of how it completely ruins the game.

Many of the Survivors I meet don’t care. They care more about unskilled hallow victories that make them feel good more than a victory that is earned by actually using skill. It’s like when a child clears a level of Super Mario using the pity leaf that appears if you die too many times in the same level; but being either too ignorant or too immature to realize that their victory means nothing, as it was completely unearned, and thus celebrates it anyway.

These Survivors’ lack of care runs so deep that many openly admit to cheating with voice chat when probed enough in the end game chat. They have the audacity to claim that it’s not cheating, and the security to know that they will never be banned for it. So, they proudly laud their hallow, empty, meaningless victory over the heads of the Killers as if it is worth anything. Flaunting it in our faces.

In the short term, this has won DBD a sizable and financially profitable horde of Survivors with the mentality of children that they can milk for that sweet, sweet DLC money. Which is why I think the bad behavior goes unpunished. It’s like working at a grocery store. If the customer throws enough of a fit, they get the item for the price they want. It isn’t logical. It isn’t ethical. But, as a loss leader for keeping the customer coming back, it is profitable.

As such; we, the Killers of DBD, are the loss leader for Behavior Interactive. Our time, our money, our patience, our sense of fairness, our pride, and our fun is the loss leader. So long as the more lucrative faction of the player base is happy, then all is, “well.”

This has lead to longer waiting times for everyone due to lobby dodging, the Killer’s only real defense in the game against voice chat cheating. It has also lead to many Killers outright abandoning the game. Finally, it remains a key bar preventing DBD from expanding into being a real competitive game. One that could form real leagues, have real tournaments, and perhaps could even one day grow even bigger on a free to play model like Dota 2; should the upcoming in game market place prove sustainable enough for Behavior to wave the $20 entrance fee. This might lead to an even larger player base and more profit in the long run.

In short, the long term well being and sustainability of the game hedges entirely on customer retention. And customer retention is not held by DLC alone. The core game must be balanced and fair. I hesitate, at this stage of development, to call DBD a game; as a game is something that people come to play for fun. Fun comes from fairness; fairness comes from balance. Fun, fair, and balanced should be motto, nay, the very bread and butter of Behavior. Yet, it’s clearly not. And, it’s clearly holding this game back.

Nobody wants to sit at a game of Chess where you have normal pieces and your opponent has one King and all Queens. Yet, that’s what Killers are facing with voice chat. We’re told we suck if we loose. We’re yelled at if we somehow manage to win, very hard to do. And they say we’re scared if we lobby dodge. Who would actually want to sit down to this voice chat cheating Chess game willingly? No one.

So, why do we come back? We come back because, aside from this gaping unfairness, the rest of the game is really fun. There are other issues with Perks and other things; but those can always be tweaked and fixed. The Devs are always working on making everything, aside from voice chat cheating, better and fair for everyone. But, the voice chat cheating is the largest issue because not only is it horrible in and of itself, it makes all the other issues the game has multiple times worse.

Tired of infinite loops? Well, if that wasn’t bad enough, now the Survivors always know where each other are and if one of them sees you they all know where you are too. So, the other three know you’re being looped so they can safely pop three generators without punishment. Break the loop? Don’t worry, that will be reported to them as well; along with what direction you took off in so that the Survivor there can go hide while the Survivor you were chasing goes off to work on yet another generator. Did you bring Knock Out? Why? It doesn’t matter that they can’t see the aura of the other Survivors, they are simply told over voice chat where to go to be save them. Completely pointless perk to ever bring.

Again, the list goes on and on with how many ways Survivors exploit voice chat cheating to their advantage and how many perks for both Killers and Survivors and totally useless because voice chat completely nullifies their use.

Yet, this issue remains the elephant in the room that nobody at Behavior ever talks about. And it is our love of the rest of the game as Killers, that fuels us coming back to this current mess of a game, that is the biggest loss leader for Behavior. Unrewarded loyalty. So much so, that the Game Lead told us that if we don’t like it we should play Survivor or a different game. He recommended Civilization 3. I’ve heard the phrase, “Tell me how you really feel.” Well, I think that day he did.

The Killer is not able to apply pressure in this game. The Killers relies entirely on Survivors making mistakes. The balance is already off center right there. But, this is only amplified when the Survivors can work like a hit squad against the Killer with voice chat. The Killer is then reduced to nothing more than a rodeo clown to be looped and a pinata to be smashed with pallets. We exist in the game, for no other reason, than for the customer retention of the Survivors. So that they keep coming back to spend that sweet DLC money so that they can look cool while they run around with their friends, stomp us, and revel in their hallow victory that they are too immature to reject. This is not a game. It’s a play pen for babies.

Which is sad. Because, the game played fair actually is a game; and a fun one at that. The game has great ideas, fun mechanics, great graphics, and amazing audio. Every other aspect of this game is addicting and fun in all the right ways. It’s so frustrating for me, and the other Killers as well, to have what is otherwise such an amazing and fun game be held back by voice chat cheating.

From talking with people, I gleaned that SWF was added in haste because Behavior was being held hostage by the Survivors’ “review bombing” of the game. Coordinated thumbs down votes with lines like, ‘In this day and age a team game with no group join? No voice chat?’ To save the game, they had no choice but to cave to their new masters. Which is why to this day changes like the Killers being able to close the hatch have to be tipped toed around. They have to ticker it with warning tape that, ‘It’s only an idea. If too many people don’t like it, we can roll it back.’ Essentially, the Devs have to ask permission from the Survivors if it’s acceptable to them for the Devs to make the game more fair. Where is the Killer’s voice in all of this? Well, I’m often convinced we don’t have one. That’s the story I’ve been told when I’ve asked how Survive With Friends came about.

So, all of this considered, Kill With Friends is what I suggest be done to save this game. I bothered writing all of this, as well as continuing to play this game, because I do enjoy this game; aside from the rampant and unchecked voice chat cheating that the game was clearly not designed for and everyone in charge is turning a blind eye at.

Your fans, your customers, are asking you, begging you, and demanding that you to do something to save this game and make it fun, fair, and balanced for everyone!

The team keeps telling us that everything they do is done with fairness in mind for both sides. The game is anything but fair in its current state when Survivors have third party voice chat through group join and we do not. Please transform your words into actions and you will earn the respect of your community that truly and deeply loves this game. They love this game so much, that they have stayed around even through the hardship that group join for just Survivors has caused those of us that play Killer often.

Don’t tell us to play another game or take a nap! Fix this game so that we, as a community, can carry it into greatness! Make this truly, “only just the beginning,” for this game.