Survivor Action HUD to try and bridge the gap between solo and SWF a bit
Basically, there would be a number icons to denote what an individual Survivor may be doing at the time. Like, for example, a gear or a wrench could mean a Survivor is on a gen, and a medical cross means a Survivor is in the process of being healed/healing themself. You could have lots of icons for Survivor actions such as gen repair, healing, sabotaging, breaking totems, being chased, etc. This would allow solo Survivors to have some idea of what their teammates are doing without comms (even if it won't have as much info as a team on comms). Obviously, these icons would only be seen by Survivors; Killers would not be able to see them and would just see the same info they currently have access to.
I think putting this in the upper-right corner would be doable without creating too much clutter. But if people think it would be too messy, maybe it could baked into the current Survivor HUD (again, only Survivors would see all the different icons; Killer would only see the health status of a Survivor). Instead of having an icon for an injured Survivor, maybe whatever icon is currently displayed could be white if the Survivor is healthy and red if the Survivor is injured.
The intent of such a system would be to try and put solo Survivors on a closer level to SWF so that it would be easier to balance the overall game without worrying as much about how an individual balance change would impact solo Survivors and SWF differently (though obviously you would still have to consider that to a degree when balancing things).
Comments
Obligatory killer compensation reply.
Joke/concern aside, it's a good idea thats been around forever.
Killers get Ebony basekit as compensation. :^)
It'd be the survivors rioting that patchday 😂
One of the few things developers consider when attempting to bridge the gap is how much information are we giving survivors here? Will it actually work as intended?
Another thing, something minor and could care less about, is that SWF will also get this information as well. It could in theory, help them become more organized, but I think your suggestions outweigh the negatives. 😁
A lot of problems could be lessened if the Dev team would just, you know, take a moment to put out a news post pretty frequently explaining changes they looked at and reasonings they did not get implemented - instead of just silence as per industry standard. That and a down-to-earth approach at talking to your players instead of this faux-professionalism: getting real when discussing things, explaining that certain changes (slower gen speeds; more stealth-focused gameplay) will never make it into the game because you as Devs do not want the game to actually play in that manner (horror survival), but want the current game (cat-and-mouse, light-hearted, minimal anxiety/tension/stress - aka "engaging" in their terms) instead of the usual "we hear your feedback and are looking into it" HR BS.
This is because the developers can't just tell you everything, information is classified. 😁
Information such as "we looked at implementing X, but discovered that doing so would likely cause Y and Z and isn't something we want to happen." Something simple like that; not a breakdown of their "classified" information. Instead we get silence for months on end; and a "feedback" forum that really is just another companies' "go vent here while we ignore most of it" forum.
Or they could just add voice chat.
There'd still be an issue with Survivors who deliberately opt out of that.
That's their own choice.
Where are you from, if I may ask?
Wakanda
Not the choice of the person who wants to know what they're up to but can't. :P
Yeah ok, then I dont need to be that reasonable when I want to show you that your ideas are stupid in the future:
You cannot force people to speak to Strangers. My guess would have been that you are from the US, because US people are usually those who dont know or believe that other countries exist. So they only know English (and maybe Spanish).
But when you live in Europe, you will have all sorts of players. And why should that Russian 3 man SWF decide to communicate via the Ingame Voice Chat with the British Solo Player? Maybe they would not even be able to, because not everyone has English in school and on a level to communicate.
But yeah, just put 0 thoughts in your ideas, thats great. Very helpful.
@Topic:
Yeah, this is a great idea. I have read it before and still a fan of this. This would actually close the gap between SWF and Solos, because you would know if someone is already going for the Safe (if the Repair Icon changed to normal for example) or if nobody is doing Gens and you are the one who needs to do more then.
I can only imagine it can be a little bit frustrating if you know exactly what your team members are doing at least this is the feeling I get when using Bond.
Unavoidable.
The only problem with the gap between SWF and Solo is that you can't close it unless you give the same tool to Solo to be the same as a SWF. However if you try to find a work around visual or audio way in game to do that, you're only making SWF stronger and not really closing the gap.
The only possible way to close the gap is by giving the exact same tool to solo, and then if they complain (because we already know the entitled f- are going to complain). Then tell them to deal with it.
The amount of xenophobia in your response doesn't even merrit a response. I'm Canadian though since it means so much for you.
I wished things were as simple as you want them to be, but sadly, things have to be taken slow. Perhaps, on the next Q&A they do soon (I'm predicting they will), you could ask a question about the solo survivor and SWF gap, if it relates to the topic, through. 😁