Why Swf is not a problem
Before I start lets keep it civil in the comments. I'm open to your opinions but lets not get vulgar. Swf has been a highly debated topic in the past following months and I want to shine my opinion on the matter. I have nearly 2k hours in dbd and I play both sides frequently enough to get rank 1(not that rank matters).
To start, many people believe that every time they lose it must be a swf but this is hardly the case. Ive had countless games where I solo que and get 4 decent survivors pared together against a killer that might make some mistakes and automatically blame swf. This bring me to my first point that if you have 4 players that know how to play the game well, expecting to 4k against them is unrealistic. Playing with your friends is not the strong part of swf. Its potentially matching good players together instead of getting potato red rank teammates. Keep in mind that most swfs are not very good players anyway and are just looking to have a fun time with friends.
This brings me to my second point that most swf are not the gen rushing flashlight spamming pieces of meanie heads you believe them to be. I know this is going to sound crazy but some people actually enjoy playing with their friends and having a conversation. Trust me most swf are not "TANGO B TANGO B KILLER IS GOING TO ME RUSH THE GENIES RUSH THEM ALPHA CHARLIE HE HAS CHANGED DIRECTION". A lot of people just like having friends to talk to. Top this on the point that most swf are not very good and make stupid mistakes like being overly altruistic and its usually not very hard to kill them.
My final and 3rd point comes to a killers mindset. I will not lie and say ive never had a tough team to go against. But even if I lost I always looked back and said what could I have done better which is a lot of things and this has made me a better player. Many people go into all their games expecting to 4k which is a terrible mindset. You should not expect to be able to best 4 survivors who have more experience than you. Whether they are swf or not does not matter, its if they are good or not. You don't need coms to tell a good player to get a gen when they have nothing else to do. Instead of raging at the fact that you didnt get a 4k to that one good team of survivors ask yourself what could I have done better. It will make the game much more enjoyable and make you much happier rather than bitter if you lose.
In conclusion, this is why I think swf is not a problem. The times you lose against a good team of survivors should be a learning experience to make you a better player. Don't blame it on swf, instead think about how you could of played better and if you played the best you could then be happy with your results. I will not be responding to dumb comments with no thought like swf op. If you give me a valid factual argument ill be happy to read it. These have been my thoughts.
P.S Tofu is bae, best man to ever play this game.😎
Comments
I totally agree with this argument. It makes perfect sense and this is as best as this man is going to explain this whole SWF issue that's been going on. ☺️ ❤️
As a survivor main who exclusively plays SWF (never solo), you're wrong. My friend and I are usually just chatting (like how much I ######### hate the corn fields), but we still go full SWAT when we need to. We tell each other where we are, who the killer is, where the killer is, what the killer is doing, etc.. We run different aura-reading perks, so we basically know what's going on everywhere, always, and keep each other informed. We destroy some killers just because we know when to unhook, where the traps are, who's on gens, who's opening the gate, which gate is being opened, which gens are near-completion, etc..
When we get destroyed, it usually boils down to a few external factors:
SWF utterly breaks DbD's balance. On the other hand, it can't be removed, so we're stuck with it. However, to say it's not a problem is absurd.
Again a good survivor will most likely already know all these things. Many of these thing boil down to game sense. I'm not saying swf may not be a tad bit stronger but to say that its the problem when its not is just wrong. 4 good survivors are going to win against a killer swf or not. Also you seem to be a player who as you say "goes full swat" which is not the majority of swf players.
A good survivor is going to know these things though. If I'm not being chased I can assume someone else is and do a gen. If im injured I can find a survivor by looking around different gens. Does swf give an advantage Yes. But to say its a problem is wrong. The problem would be 4 good survivors who know what they are doing and be efficient. You are also assuming that every swf plays optimally which is totally untrue. Ive demolished groups of players who have no idea what they are doing.
A good survivor is going to know where everyone is at all times and exactly what they're doing, as well as knowing the progression of every generator someone else has worked on, location of every totem someone else has spotted, shared aura reading, and so on? If you see a survivor like that, please report them because they're definitely cheating.
I'm a way better killer than I am a survivor....but oh my god I love SWFs lol they have one weakness.....they want their friends to live. Use that!
To say a swf can know all that as well is unrealistic. By your logic I can literally but bond or empathy on with object and id have the same knowledge as a swf but nobody cares then? Again as I said in my comment swf does have an edge over a solo but a good solo with gamesense can assume where the killer is and what gens people are working on. You are making it out like every swf is out to win a demolish the killer when 90% of them literally just want to talk to a friend.
From the Dev stream:
"The performance of SWF groups isn't that much higher than solo survivors when looking at stats, despite how it may feel."
So yeah, you're right.
I dont think playing swf is sn issue inherently, but its just a simple fact a swat team can get gens done faster than a killer can do anything about it. What could/should be done about that is up for debate. Ive played against many teams where it was close/fun even though i lost (and vice versa). The issue is if both sides are equally skilled the survivors have an advantage that is insurmountable. The most efficient group of survivors will more often than not win
I have to assume that the people who actually develop this game, with all of the possible stats at their fingertips, are doing a proper and thorough analysis of this data in order to make that assertion. Wouldn't you?
swf isnt fine because they gain extra bonuses that would require other solo survivors to run perks, for example swf can call out hex`s, traps, killers locations, gens nearly completed that they was chased off, other survivors working on gens, which strong pallets they have used, if the killer has dropped chase (very strong against stealth killers), they can share where they are located for healing etc. they also know each others perks, so if someone has unbreable they can remain on gens where in solo even if they do its likely another solo will head over, if 1 person is hooked in a swf they will send 1 person the others sit on gens however in solo multiple people could end up going unless they use perks. the point is swf have so many positives but no negatives, while i will agree alot of people do call swf if they lose but that doesnt go against the fact actual swf is really strong whether theyre good or not, if theyre good though its even harder. i dont wanna stop swf, the games more fun with friends and i even do swf (duo with my brother) and the difference is insane and thats just duo as i can say if someone is getting the unhook or not etc. saying swf doesnt give benefits is stupid or arrogance, having benefits means stronger no matter how you shape it, a bad group of swf will be bad but a bad group of solo`s will be worse. just saying the game is kinda broken when you have a full strong team that all know loops, tiles, while running meta perks, this gets worse if they use certain items, map offerings etc. because ill tell you nothing is as fun as versing a swf on haddonfield all with DS, BT, Unbreakable and balanced landing. not to mention killers dont always want to play the strongest killer, we dont own X amount to play 2... remember how much people moaned because of its a spirit again and again and again...
A good survivor will never know these things, they can make good guesses. They don't know if another survivor is also running to unhook, team has cleaned two totems already and will clean the one in the killer shack he hasn't been to try, knows the killer before they even see them, knows where the killer is in chase.... I'll be here all day.
If you're injuried you meet up somewhere you know where the killer isn't and heal quickly as a team but only after SWF meta DS has finished and gen popped. If you're a good survivor you can run the whole map looking for one person to heal you wasting time or improve with losing perk slots bond or selfcare.
Is SWF cheating? It gives an unfair advantage to players over others so yes, is it stopable? No, so is it permitted, yes.
Would killers wish to avoid paying SWFs? Yes. Why? Because they have been introduced with no attempt to balance their extra powers/perks thus making it an extra step up from the rank the killer is currently.
If many killers wish to avoid SWFs then yes, there is a problem.
If I don't enjoy playing killer then maybe I would also say there isn't a problem as I'd only be playing survivor but then... why don't I enjoy playing killer.
Yes, there is a problem
1) So they admit it's higher, at least.
2) "Not that much higher" isn't an actual quantifiable value.
3) Would a 5th killer perk cause performance to "not be that much higher"? Probably, so lets just do it.
actually in the dev stream they state they will get a better understanding when the new ranking system is out, they say this because they know the current ranking has issue of bad players being ranks 1-4 that includes swf, but when they fix the ranking they will relook into it and im pretty sure when people are in the right ranks the swf will show a better survival or progression of the game compared to solos in the same rank, i mean is it possible to de-pip unless you get mori`d straight away or camped? i think i have de-pipped five times since the ruin nerf, all to mori`s worst case is a safty pip, most games are a pip
Gonna have you disagree with you for a sec there, Orion.
As someone who mostly plays Killer whenever I get the chance to play DBD, and as someone who almost constantly always plays a SWF whenever I can, the advantages you listed aren't balance breaking.
Knowing who the Killer is and where they are isn't much of a gamechanger. I personally run Alert! most of the time, and I never find myself changing my playstyle or being more cautious after knowing who the killer is. If I hear Alert! go off and I don't see an aura, I at least know it's a Stealth Killer. However that doesn't change anything, I still need to use my eyes if they ever come near me.
Same with knowing where Traps are, sometimes they're in obvious loop locations (which is why I dislike going against Trapper, he is basically the Anti-Chase), other times they are strewn across the map with no rhyme or reason. Which you wouldn't have known it would be there regardless. Even as a Solo player I would know to walk and run with caution if I am playing against Trapper and Hag. This is not some info that is exclusive to SWF only, sure you might give away the exact locations but those locations are still relatively obvious if you've just played the game enough. It's usually always in the most optimal route a Survivor can possibly take.
And, I'm pretty sure as a Killer myself I've seen Survivors work on generators in front of my face despite not being in a SWF squad. While I was in a chase. Some Solo Players are just naturally bold when it comes to working on generators, or they know they are relatively safe so they can give away their location and still get away from the killer. So knowing who is on what gen and which gen to finish is again, not something that is just exclusive to SWF. I know some people who will work in front of the Killer's face is they have to, myself included. Though I will admit knowing which generators are almost completed is something that you can only know if you're playing with a SWF group.
As for exit gate openings, I mean, like I said, Solo Players can take the information in if they're being chased. More often than not, they would be able to see one exit gate. Either being powered or is left unattended, so they would know which direction they have to go to in order to escape. Since you know, you are notified where the exit gates are at the moment all generators gets finished. Of course you could miss one, but that's still the fault of the player, and again, not information exclusive only to SWF groups.
The only thing I would argue is balance breaking about SWF groups is only the fact that they make certain perks effectively obsolete. Which is why I propose those perks to be given more of a buff for survivors, Solo or SWF, to be worth having. That way, Killers can play around those perks rather than playing around SWF groups. There will always be an inherent advantage to playing with Comms, there's just no changing that. But DBD has survived this long despite it, and Killers have won against those kinds of groups in the past back when the game was horrifically unbalanced.
If they truly do break the whole balance of DBD, there wouldn't be a game of DBD in the first place.
Imagine if killer had all the power? Survivors would hardly ever survive :') if not at all. Not everyone is a SWAT team.
Good to know you have zero trust in the Devs :)
The stats are misleading. It is true that the majority of survivors teams are chill/not good at the game- this inflates the kill statistics. The SWAT SWF team totally breaks the balance of the game, which the devs would see if they looked at more than statistics.
It's pretty normal for players to be suspicious of statements from developers, since it's not like developers or community representatives are in the business of publicly admitting to big problems, exploits, mistakes, and so on.
That's not just gaming, that goes for every business.
So yes, when they say, "This thing that the community is concerned about, it's no big deal. Nothing to see here." it's frequently cause for players to question it or dig deeper into the issue. (Which often - at least in games with accessible, consistent data - leads to players discovering the truth of an issue.)
This is the boil down provided of what they said regarding matchmaking:
"it will be able to show a performance increase with SWF groups and change matchmaking ratings accordingly. They'll also be able to change matchmaking depending on your group, for a more balanced match. It's not directly targeted towards SWF vs Solo, but it will have that effect."
Speaking to providing a QoL improvements for solo survivors, which in general just seems to mean that matchmaking overall will be more balanced and increased performance by SWF team will be accounted for in who they're matched with.
And yes, it is very possible to depip as survivor.
When I play in SWF I don't know half of the stuff you're talking about even with a 4 man. I can't describe every land mark and so on and I don't know many who can so that level of information is an incredibly ridiculous thing to say even for a 4 man. Most people don't use aura reading in general anymore either. The only information I usually get is "He's on me", or information about where a specific totem might be in very vague detail.
I always get a kick out of this argument.
"Advantage? Well when we do it, we don't really use it! I promise! No big deal. Nothing to see here."
yeah but majority of people are red ranks unless they just got the game, its why queue times are longer the closer to rank 20 you get as killer as you cant find many survivors that rank and hense why you get red ranks because they dont want you waiting 30mins odd for matches, i also think its fair to say swf gets alot of built in bonuses from coms, sure there are bad swf but theyre bad survivors and if they are solo theyd do even worse, but both a high skilled swf and a meh swf can still be red ranks, im sure most people playing killer or even survivor see a survivor go down so fast its like they never looped or anything, i had a ran 3 that would get hit and just run, she went past so many pallets and just kept running, easiest chases ever but thats a rank 3... when the new system comes out they will see swf do better, may not always be by alot but of the same skill level the swf will beat the solo, if they dont they arent the same skill...
Sure, you don't need coms to tell someone to do a gen when they're doing nothing else, the issue with coms is that they give teams borderline unlimited intel. There's no need for perks like alert or kindred when somone can say "oh yeah, the killers near me, over at X".
Say you're playing against Freddy, you can straight up tell people "shack pallet is fake"
Say you're playing against trapper. You see him set down a trap and he starts chasing you. While you run away, you can tell someone "there's a trap by the window"
Same thing applies if you're playing against hag.
And the thing about gens. Its not about telling someone who has nothing to do to do a gen. The issue is at any given moment you know exactly what your teammates are up to, and you know how many people you can spare for a rescue. You get in a chase, you can tell a teammate, I'm in a chase, I'm leading him away from your generator. If he stops chasing you, you can tell your teammate he may be headed for your gen, which could negate the power of perks such as tinkerer.
When this game started off, there was no swf. The game was not designed around the idea that people could use third party software to communicate.
Saying that you don't need coms to do well is totally fair, and so is saying that you can do well against players that have coms. However, saying that swf, and by extension, coms, is not a problem is straight up incorrect.
Hmm, let me ask you all some questions.
Would you agree, that the perfect balance in a game would be if you got the same survivors and the same killer randomly matched against each other, and you can´t tell beforehand who is gonna win, and the statistics were about 50% for win or lose, that the game would be balanced?
If so, if the 4 player were "only good survivors", it would still be balanced, right? Do you think those chances would change if those solo survivors suddenly had voice chat? In other words, do you think solo survivors would perform better if they were an swf instead? Please give a reason for your answer, because that is the point.
The ops first point is true: there are solo survivors that are good. And there are swf that are not. But what happens if they are matched against someone of equal skill? And what about the fact that there are swfs who actually have skill to match those of solo survivors?
To handle an swf, the killer has to have a higher skill than the swf group. At least thats my believe.
Second point, i played my fair share of swf, and the amount of information you get is insane. And it really has an impact on the tension/Stresslevel you have if you always know if the killer might be a thread to you, and you are just not knowing it. To downplay the impact of freely shared information seems to be made to fit the argument.
A lot of arguments you use are also true for moris, for example. They dont happen that often, and if survivors had a different mindset and would just go on to the next game its not a big deal. But Moris are actually balance-shifting, so those arguments dont hold. And that is true for swf-communication as well.
I like you being civil, I hate people that go directly to the "mean" part, but whenever I play survivor I do a 2 man, and we talk normally and then a precise point to where the killer is, we don't use OoO, just gaming senses and visuals, but even then it just feels unfair, 2 out of 4 knowing where the killer is, it's an advantage over the killer, "you do a gen I will try as much as possible to loop him/her" and "I did this totem on X place, if you want to be safe find another ones" but I agree, some survivors just like to SWF for the fun, others go for the competition imo.
I never said there WAS NO advantage, I said that half of the so called advantages that Orion mentioned were not something the average SWF party has. The only people who memorize every tile and every location and have a name for every location are the so called "SWAT" players. This isn't an AVERAGE SWF thing. As I said, the only knowledge I generally have is if the killer is on someone, or not, and if there's a totem in the game that's lit and someone knows where it is, there's that also, but that can also be taken advantage of with things like Thrill of the Hunt or Haunted Grounds, and there are perks that basically tell you where all totems are if you want to check them. You're putting words in my mouth, it's not that "I don't use" things, it's that I can't relay every single thing in one single instance to other players, especially not knowing how to, in particular, relay location information aside from "Killer Shack", or "Main building".
1) I think part of this mindset stems from players own miserable solo experience. I know personally, I rarely get a decent survivor group. Maybe every other game I'll have one or two players that know what they're doing. To have four? That's amazing. So when i play killer, and I'm getting stomped, it's hard to equate my luck with theirs. |
2) I strongly disagree with you on this. You don't NEED to go tactical to do well. Simply telling your buddy 'there's a trap in the patch to the left' or 'I'm behind shack, need a heal' can be game changing. The game is not made for comms. It's based on building your information pool through out a match, and working it to the best of your ability. Comms simply bypasses the premise of the game, and gives a supreme advantage when there shouldn't be one.
An example. I went against a streamer group a few months back, as Trapper. It wasn't a fun match, as they kept outplaying me. Out of curiosity, I watched the stream a few hours later, when I had cooled down. It was enlightening. Four man, of course. They were laughing, joking, having a good time. One guy was talking about a stain on the passenger side leather seat in his car, and they were talking about ways of cleaning it off. The streamer was talking about a douche she saw at the clothing department in Kohls. Normal friend stuff. At the same time, though, they would throw in comments like 'he trapped the window,' 'going for the pallet stun, crawl under it,' and 'hit the T wall, I'll body block.'
Do I have anything against friends playing with friends? No, of course not. Do I have something against free information being handed out at my expense, something I can't counter? Yes, I certainly have a problem with that. Simple comments of map awareness and progression are all that's needed to shaft a killer. No Desert Storm level SWF mentality needed for that.
3) I agree with this. Mindset is important. Yet you can't help but feel the frustration at being outplayed by a SWF, knowing that if they were without their comms, it may have turned out differently.
The landmarks aren't complicated. Logs, bus, shack, hut, hill, harvester, gate, and so on.
People don't use aura reading because they'd rather stack every second chance perk there is, just like they've been doing since "forever". Fact is, with aura reading split between SWF, you can all know where the killer is at all times, as well as all the survivors, because you can just share information. Aftercare is especially good for this.
If your SWF doesn't know how to properly give information, that's on you guys. The fact that you can't do it (or choose not to do it) doesn't mean SWF doesn't break DbD's balance.
So they're lying about their data? Pretty sure they said it doesn't give them enough of an advantage for them to worry through their statistics.
What does that mean, exactly? How much of an advantage is it?
"Eh, we're not worried about it." isn't exactly saying, "Nah, no advantage."
No one said there was NO ADVANTAGE.
Neither did he.
The words in his post literally had "no advantage" in them.
Did you actually read what he wrote, or did you just see "no advantage" and immediately replied?
I read what he wrote, reading comprehension suggests that what he said was that the devs did not say there was NO ADVANTAGE, which suggests that he is saying that people here are saying there is NO advantage, when no one suggested that. Otherwise he's saying it for absolutely no reason. His post to me even suggested that I said there were no advantages, or that I wasn't using any. If HE wants to argue against me, let HIM argue against me, there's no reason for you to argue FOR him.
Reading comprehension actually suggests he's saying that what the devs said is so ambiguous, it could mean anything.
There'd be no point in him saying that if he was suggesting anything other than "There are advantages to being in a SWF", which no one suggested otherwise.