SWF Desperately needs balancing
Now I know there are many SWF players who will disagree from the word go. "just get better" "git gud" etc. and so on. we've heard it all before and will continue to hear it. It's not much of a debate really. SWF makes the already overpowered survivors even more overpowered and often to a very toxic degree. there isn't a single killer in the red ranks who can't say they haven't spotted an obvious SWF and either sighed in frustration or dodged the lobby all together. This is the problem, BHVR, one of the key issues with your game balance is that you allow SWF to begin with, never mind the coms like discord. Obviously, BHVR needs SWF survivors as it is the most popular way to play the game, next to solo survivor queue (because let's face it, almost no killer plays killer for fun, because it simply isn't fun...it's nothing but stress, especially at Rank 1 and 2).
So where do we begin:
1) Remove/rework Object of Obsession. With 3-4 players in voice chat and one running OoO, that's 3 to 4 survivors who know where the killer is at almost all times. This goes from being a perk with potentially interesting applications to nothing more than a simple wall hack. seriously are survivors going to tell killers to "git gud" against a 3 or 4 man wall hack? when one killer does it, it ruins the game for survivors, when one survivor does it, the killer stands little to no chance even with any perks that survivors consider crutches for killers. Alternatively, allow killers a similar perk but with the reverse effect: "killer can see the auras of all survivors when they are looking at the obsession" no range limitation or anything like that, just always on...just like a SWF group. (seriously though, remove this obnoxious in-game cheat).
2) gen regression and time. In one of the recent dev streams the devs gave some advice to killers on how to slow gen progression. the Devs responded by telling Killers pick a few gens ad guard them (translation: git gud boosted killer lolololululolulolul) the problem with this is that even a semi-competent team of 2 survivors can over power this strategy, now throw four into the mix and it becomes an impossibility. All a killer can do is watch helplessly as the doors get powered. In order to balance this, yes, generators NEED to take even longer to complete (80/44/33 seconds isn't enough time) and regressing a gen as fast as one survivor takes to work on it is far too slow. Generators should regress at the same rate as it takes 2 survivors to to complete, by default. this would help mitigate survivors buzzing around gens like flies only to run halfway across the map and come back to a generator with hardly any progress lost.
3) Borrowed Time needs a mega nerf. The fact that Borrowed time can be used repeatedly is simply overpowered. I understand that BT is intended to be an answer to camping and tunneling however BT, in it's current form, is actually the cause of camping and tunneling. Moreover the perk is heavily abused to avoid hook trading when making a clearly bad save. So what commonly happens (especially in upper ranks) is this: player A takes a hit trying to rescue player B from the hook; Player B then uses the endurance status to take a hit for wounded player A; killer sits there and carefully and thoroughly cleans off his weapon before inspecting the shine job while two survivors get a free escape. There are two possible solutions to this problem which will give BT some much, MUCH, needed balance (especially with SWF): the first is option is to make it so BT can only be used once during a match, much like Decisive Strike; the other option would be to make players who take protection his after being rescued with borrowed time are put into the dying state. The purpose of BT was always to allow players an option to make risky saves, however BT's actual usage makes dumb saves under the killers nose safer than ever for nearly everyone. By putting a limitation on BT (again) it would server to prevent well coordinated teams from simply rushing and diving the hooks...constantly. Alternatively, by allowing a survivor rescued with BT to go down for taking a protection hit it would force survivors to make careful and skillful decisions about their rescues, the person getting off the hook will need to get as far away from their rescuer to gain the benefits of BT and the rescuer will have to make more careful decisions about rescues or making a trade rather than diving the hook knowing they too will get a free shield...which was removed from BT because it was too over powered...
4) Invincible hooked survivors. this simply needs to go. again this was to avoid issues with camping and tunneling however the result is an overly abused mechanic that creates a free shield for players diving the hooks, worse, it acts as a bonus free shield for survivors running BT and diving at hooks. If a player is going to use a hooked survivor as a literal meat shield then the BT affect should trigger while they are still being pulled off the hook. Alternatively the survivor on the hook could be made intangible so that the only one getting hit is the survivor making the rescue. All it takes is to catch the hitbox of the survivor being unhooked and suddenly they get a free escape. This tactic is also abused to make it near impossible for survivors to be hit by hiding or glitching near enough to the hooked survivor that ONLY that survivor's hitbox registers the hit making a free shield which killers have no choice but to watch helplessly.
5) End Game Collapse, Great in concept, awful in execution. All it takes for survivors to avoid this timer is to 99% the doors, which is tantamount to a free open if you are chased towards it. SWF groups will very often 99% both doors while they spend excessive amounts of time coordinating 3 man, full body blocking, BT, flashlight assisted, hooked-meat-shielded rescues with no concern in the world for how long they take to accomplish this. "oh just run NOED" says anyone who lacks a functioning brain, the trouble is that NOED can and usually is countered before the generators are complete and when it isn't, if a killer leaves the hook in end game to chase survivors around who are searching for NOED then he looses the hooked survivor...and every other survivor as well. You see, NOED doesn't keep players in the game, the hooked survivor does so once the rescue is made there is no reason for a SWF group to stay unless they are really that concerned with breaking NOED so they can gloat in end game. Simply put, as soon as the last generator is complete, EGC should trigger. That is the killer's last chance for hooks, that is survivors queue to leave. This will ensure survivors spend more time trying to leave then they do figuring out ways to bully the killer once the game is essentially over.
6) Decisive Strike should only be usable by an obsession. DS has always been a heavy handed crutch perk subject to much contention, especially when the devs allowed anyone and everyone to use it. There was a time when all non-obsessions ended up wasting a perk slot in the hopes to being the one to use DS. Now, because there is a variety of ways survivors to become the obsession, there is no need to allow DS to be available for everyone.
7) survivor perk meta: generally. There isn't a single killer out there who can say they are surprised when after a match we see the following DS x3/4, BT x3/4, DH x3/4. on their own these perks are extremely powerful tools for any solo survivor...when used in a SWF they become inarguably abusive, and that's not taking other overpowered survivor perks into consideration. The solution is both simple and tricky: impose a class system. Basically survivors will have a limited selection of perks available to their class in addition to the perks native to their chosen survivor. This will ensure that in a SWF, all or most of the survivors aren't running the same combination of overly abused perks in addition to other second chance perks. This will also ensure that choosing a survivor is more than just a "skin" but rather a meaningful choice that affects how they play. This of course would not impact the way solo players can build themselves (unless they want to, in which case they should be awarded blood-points for the self imposed restriction). The purpose of requiring SWF groups to pick a class is to limit the power each individual survivor has in a coordinated group using voice coms.
hose are some ideas to start. the problem with DbD is that the devs so badly want the game to be "fun" and "casual" that the end result is that it becomes abusive and extremely toxic to one side. the end result is that the "fun" and "casual" players end up leaving the game for good, feeling burned by the devs, leaving only the most toxic and overly competitive players left in the game. In their attempts to avoid toxicity the devs have created a toxic community dominated by entitled and abusive survivor mains. I understand that as much as SWF breaks the game, it is also very popular way to play the game and necessary for BHVR to include if they want to make money. at the same time, this very thing is also the very thing that is causing them to lose potential sales due to the imbalance and toxicity created by it. Even if none of my suggestions were to be even considered, the number one thing the devs absolutely need to consider when balancing anything survivor/killer related is not how something affects a single survivor or a group of solo survivors but rather how the change affects a group of 3/4 coordinated survivors using discord or teamspeak. The game is designed around solo survivor play however by allowing SWF groups that inherently affects how the game is played and therefore must necessarily effect how the game is (re)balanced and (re)designed moving forward. The devs want a focus on ensuring the game is fun, but if you're a killer the game isn't fun, there is nothing fun about being stomped by a team who completes the gens and escapes within 3-4 minuets while all you can do is watch as they teabag and laugh among themselves in coms. The devs need to wake up and realize that they need to balance this game around coordinated teams of survivors and not 4 individual survivors.
Comments
I dont read
But no you cant give dissavantage for someone that palys with friends
And i dont even had to explain that its not 100% of SWF that its an fuckyng swat that ######### everyone ass
i have sure that 80% of SWF that you go against you dont even notice that their are iin an SWF
A lot of good points and interesting points. I just want to remark on #2 and #5.
#2 - Generator repair times are ridiculously busted. The 80 seconds solo time is fine, BUT the stupid ability to shave of 36 Seconds just by adding a second Survivor is where the busted design comes in. Times should be 80/65/55/45. Yes, in higher level gameplay it is actually worse on a killer for Survivors to spread out and pop multiple gens in 80 seconds - but that's 80 seconds for usually just 1-2 gens if you're actively chasing/hooking/luring one or two survivors off the gens... not 2 gens in 44 seconds if the Survivors manage to give you the slip briefly and pair up. This is the single most busted point of the game design and it is the one point that the Devs are brick-stupid about because they "don't think the generator times need to be adjusted anymore" and they "like the numbers they are at now". Complete idiocy.
#5 - EGC needs a simple overhaul. Automatically trigger the moment the 5th generator is finished. No longer require the killer to either find the hatch or open an escape path through an exit gate for the Survivors in order to trigger it. This would not only force Survivors to think a little more carefully about their generators and rushing them down, because they could be caught out in the open around the generators when that 5th one pops; but it also prevents the Survivors from being able to 99% the Exit Gates to avoid the EGC timer; gather their team; and then all race back to tap the gate open and leave. This would force the timer and pressure immediately. Of course, once this change was implemented they would need to change Blood Warden/Remember Me to be a shorter duration, because those two perks would become too powerful with automatic EGC active before the gates or hatch close. But just because those two perks would need tweaking does not mean the EGC rework should just be thrown out like many players seem to have the mentality (no we can't change that because then you have to change these perks; and so just scrap the whole idea because it can't be implemented without changing anything else).
That you didn't read says enough about the topic.
1) i'm not calling for people playing with each other to be disadvantaged. I'm asking the devs to rework the balance of the game AROUND players being in a swf and using 3rd party voice chat. it wouldn't punish players but it would obvious and significantly reduce the overall power of individual survivors. Currently,. two out of 4 players is all you need to destroy a killer from start to finish, one player can do it alone and still get most of the others out. but that's not the issue, the issue is that the game, even today, is developed around solo play even though the most popular, ranked, mode is with others and with the ability to communicate from anywhere on the map. if anything SWF puts the killer at an inarguable and obvious disadvantage on it's onw, a problem made significantly worse by many perks being ripe for abuse by coordinated players.
2) the point of tweaking swf groups so they aren't overpowered is to offer them a simple choice: you can benefit from the full range of what the game offers you OR you can benefit from the full range of coordinated voice chat, but you can't have both. this would be a significant way to improve the overall quality of the game rather than it being a damn stomping ground for those at red ranks. I was in rank 1 earlier today, 10 games later I'm rank 3 with no ability to stop myself from de-piping no matter what I do or how perfectly I play. the game is in a broken state as is, coordinated teams with voice coms just makes it worse and encourages abusing the killer.
3) something we didn't even talk about, the state of the game is so bad with SWF that the emblem system actually demands SWFs who've already stomped a killer into the ground to then go and abuse and harass the hell out of them so they don't de-pip for trouncing the killer. And yes, SWF is a major player in this. this is also why match making feels broken to survivors. survivors are, without question, overpowered. In teams they just end up beating high ranking killers down into the low ranks (not accounting for de-rankers) which results in rank 1 killers going up against middling survivors. admittingly this may be more fun and less stress for the killer given all the survivor tools, but it becomes incredibly stressful and unfun for survivors who are still learning the game. In other words BHVR is causing the very thing they want to avoid because they refuse to balance the game so it can be competitive and fair; match making isn't broken, the game is just so one sided that great killers are forced into the lower ranks by coddled survivors who need 3 minuets or les to beat a killer who requires 10 min or more to win (pip). That 7 minuet disparity, combined with the very very low skill ceiling for survivors (especially compared to the killer skill curve), combined with all of their second chance perks and other protections, it's impossible to expect high ranking killers to be able to maintain their own rank.
I do agree 100%
to your point about the gen speed: I think here one of the main issues is the distance between gens, not even map size. let's say a killer picks and guards 3 gens early looking around I usually see another possible 3 gen opportunity...that i know will all pop in a few seconds because I run whispers and lo-and-behold there are no survivors around my (sometimes) less optimal 3 gen, at that point, that is 2-3 gens completed in under 2 minutes m(1 at 44s and 2 at 80s-ish because of possible assistance). The devs say they expect at least 2 gens to pop early on a killer but because of the default regression speed a coordinated 3/4 man can easily beat a 3 gen even when the gens are stacked on top of each other (i've seen it). I agree the benefit of multiple survivors needs to be reduced, 100%. but perhaps the devs should consider not spreading the gens out so much or adding another gen to the map and require survivors to do that one more gen. the other issue is that the game only has two phases: survivor/killer on offense followed by a brief period with survivors on offense and killer on defense (if that). I think this could be resolved by the devs adding a mid-stage to the match. after generators are repaired, survivors have one more task that complete that is much more centralized and gives the Killer a greater opportunity to play defense rather than running between three gens they can't stop or face camping a hook.
To your point about EGC, I'm am totally down for changing a few perks for an all around better end game mechanic, and I run remember me.
Honestly - for generators, another method of fixing and slowing them down is allowing Killers to inflict immediate regression on generators that they damage and then trigger normal regression - not only would this punish Survivors sneaking around generators and just immediately going back to them only to have them kicked again; but if you also change it to where regression can only be stopped by working continuously on a generator for 2 seconds or longer, you remove Survivors 'chase-tapping' generators to stop regression also. A simple - damaging generator causes regression similar to the missed skill checks; and then triggers natural regression.
As for Remember Me, it honestly isn't even the problem perk in that scenario - Blood Warden would be. 16 seconds on a gate timer is nothing compared to 60 seconds of Gate being sealed. If that change was implemented, Warden would need to be something like 10/15/20 or 15/20/25 seconds at the most.
actually I really like your suggestion about damaging gens. you really wouldn't have to change much, would make brutal strength a bit more meta (not much though) and would give a decent response to the incessant gen tapping that does complete gens, albeit slowly. I still think the regression should be at least a little faster as it would make survivors have to make choices over which generators to prioritize rather than mindlessly putting their grubby mits on everything, like a child in a toy store.
Even if remember me didn't get a nerf, I do fully agree that Blood warden would also need a nerf, I run that too on some killers and it would be way too overpowered if EGC triggered immediately at the last gen. alternatively, what if blood warden just prevented the door closest to the hooked survivor from being opened so long as the killer stayed so close to the hook (say 32 meters) it would really allow for some counter play, killer now can't leave if a door wasn't opened but survivors can't just open the closets door and get a free 4 man, they have to choose rescue or leave. I think that could be a great rework with some excellent counter play since the killer wouldn't know if the further door is open or not and it would offer two potential effects: blocking one door and letting unhooked survivors out OR trapping all survivors in for a limited time. thoughts?