Exactly how fragile is the playerbase for this game?
I mean, what are the actual numbers for how many players there are?
- Queue times are broken —— because too many play one side?
- Matchmaking is broken —— because there aren’t enough players of the same rank?
- If we add a new game mode, “queue times would be outrageous because there won’t be enough playing the normal game”.
- If we add a casual mode, “queue times would be outrageous because there won’t be enough playing the competitive mode”.
- If we allow killers (or solos for that matter) to toggle between SWF for bonuses or solos for normal, “SWF would never get a match because the killer base would be split”
Other games add in different modes just fine, and their playerbase remains healthy.
So what’s the word? Is the game dying? Is the player base less than 2,000? Are we too fragile do endure a serious change without dealing a death blow?
Comments
DBD currently has above 30k average players and the queue times were fine before GF chapter, with about 20k to 16k average players. I don't understand how "player base split" is an argument to queue times. It's not like "all the red rank killers would go for casual mode and noone else"
Thank you. Exactly my point! Either the game is sick or excuses are being made when it come to making the hard decisions (which, let’s face it, should NOT be hard decisions as they’d improve the product)
Matchmaking and Queues are just something they broke I think.
In regards to the new game mode, I don't see the point on them balancing and working on 2 game modes when they can't even decide what they want to do with the base game lol
In regards to casual and toggling SWF, I totally believe a majority of killers just want the game on easy mode and they will disable SWF in a heartbeat.
But being able to toggle between swf would help a lot. Because swfs could still look for a killer and do a custom game. But they can only have that as long as they dont insult and haress a killer after game. So i still dont see the problem with it.
This forum could be used to find players for that.
With 2 or more game modes, they don’t have to torture themselves over every decision. “If we balance for SWF, we’ll lose a lot of players” vs “if we balance for SWF, they”lo play a different mode and keep buying cosmetics.” In other words, it’s better to make your changes affect part of the game instead of the entire thing and leaving people with no alternative. Heck, you could even have some perks work differently in different modes! Not saying that’s ideal, just a possibility.
As for the SWF toggle, give people rewards for playing “hard mode” against them. With the right incentive, balance can be had.
@yobuddd It would be awesome, but they already need all the coders they can on the base game. Bugs and dedicated servers need to get ironed out first before I'd like to see that kinda stuff.
I'm fine with Killers getting bonus BP or something for facing SWF, but they should only find out post-game to prevent dodging.
I would 100% support this!
It's not the playerbase that's small, it's the ratio that's skewed. And, in an asymetrical game, THAT is the problem. Other games can shoehorn in game modes because each team has an equal number of players, but because most people DONT want to play killer, adding a second game mode, yes-to-SWF mode, or competitive (lol, #########?) que would fracture that already tiny portion of the playerbase and most would just end up in 1 que, thus absolutely screwing over survivor que times even more (it likely wouldn't change killer ques at all, though). And that's not even taking into account the effect the anti-lowrank-bully-swf-que-change had on the game overall.
So then the solution is to grow the killer base. I think a SWF toggle is the answer. Newbies can go for all solos. Perks like third seal would have guaranteed reliability. And killers choosing to verse SWF get a worthwhile bonus and suffer DC penalties for leaving lobbies, but at least know what they’re getting into.
I don't quite think you understand how few people want to Vs SWF teams/how many people play SWF. A SWF toggle would kill the game, hands down, because for most people double bloodpoints is just not enough (and you can't really give much more than that without ruining the games economy). If most killers are playing in no-swf ques, swf will die and with it the game.
Like it or not, swf is a huge draw for the game (and yeah, a lot of absolute pricks abuse it and the Devs are too scared to stop them because of the negative impact on those who dont). When I play at peak times, almost every team I Vs as killer has at least a 2-person, if not 3-4. (Either that, or my fellow solo's have wallhacks and get super co-ordinated for morons that can barely loop). If they all left, I shudder to think about the playerbase.
Sadly, I think you're right. So what it really comes down to is balancing for SWF, which is one heck of a chore. I've made a different post on exactly this, and I wonder what you're opinion would be. You can find it here. https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/138538/the-imp-this-is-how-we-balance-swfs#latest
Yeah, that could work. Might be better to have the 6th character as bot with preferential targeting. Either way, I am actually unsure just how this would impact que times in a split, swf/no-swf queing system. I certainly know I'd que up as a sandbagging gremlin that exists to purely annoy survivors, but it'd likely have to be only for swf mode simply because solo que is filled with morons that do the job by accident.
I was always able to get into games as solo survivor before the gf chapter very quickly. After the gf chapter, my survivor queue times went to crap.
I gave up trying to queue up as survivor. I'm now in a rank 20 black hole. Why am I going to wait so long to queue up as a survivor, when I can queue up for matches so quickly as a killer.
People not wanting to play killer is real. It's a shame if they are blaming SWF's. Like survivors are allowed to get good at the game. Plus some of these killers probably crush SWF's and don't even recognize it.
BHVR is the cat.
The mug is DBD.
The lady in the background is the community.
Sums it all up!
As much as I hate SWF, if we had a toggle option then every killer would turn it on.
I'm sure this will start a holy war but I think MM really broken when ruin was nerfed. Mainly because ruin kept newbie survivors in the rank they belonged. Now we got red ranks that can't hit great skill checks or even loop the killer. So many people are in the higher ranks that MM throws the first killer available at them regardless of the killer's rank. I feel the way the MM is right now, there is like NO new killers coming in. They get paired against R'1 at rank 20. Why the hell would they want to stick around after that?