How to fix the game
From browsing the forums, and playing the game a lot in general as both killer and survivor, i've come up with 4 things that i think the game needs in order to reach its potential. Obviously i won't cover even half of the problems, and i'm sure knowing these forums, many of you will disagree with me, but i just want to know what people think.
A fixed ranking system:
I'm sure you all remember the old system based on kills for killers and points for survivors, and it was considered by most to be far easier for survivors (though i didn't find that the case). Then the brought out the emblem system, and after the first few updates, it was clear that it was the killers turn to get their ranks up. Don't get me wrong, it's also quite a bit easier for survivors to pip now, (unless you're camped and tunnelled) but killers on the other hand, are guaranteed a pip. I know there are some less experienced killers on the forums who will disagree, but most of us killer mains who play the mediocre to top tier killers (not Freddy) will pip every game, and double pip very often too (as Billy i double pip around 50% of games at rank 1). However, this killer-sided ranking system isn't actually beneficial to killers, as the newer, worse killers end up at the high ranks where they don't belong, against far better players than themselves. This results in a large amount of killers getting 2 or 1 kills every match, but still pipping. Due to pipping not feeling rewarding due to the lack of rank rewards, many killers are left salty and end up complaining that survivors are overpowered, and countering this with 'strategies' such as camping and tunnelling. These 'strategies' then result in survivors needing to use crutch perks such as decisive strike, as how else will they survive a killer that will target them all game. In result, the game is being ruined for both killers and survivors by a broken ranking system. If this were to be balanced, and both roles were made harder to rank up in, you would get a better balance of skill levels at the various ranks, therefore encouraging more fun play styles and in general a less toxic community. Though it definitely wasn't perfect, i believe the old ranking system would work better in today's game than our current emblem system.
Balancing the killers
It's obvious that some killers (Nurse) are far better than others (Freddy). This leaves us with a dilemma, as no one wants to 'have' to play particular killers, and i'd say around 50% of the player base play the killers that are considered weaker either because they want to get their moneys worth on a particular dlc, or they want to do their daily challenges, or they just don't want to have to learn a higher skilled killer such as nurse or billy. This is fine, however by playing worse killers, the escape rate for survivors is increased, therefore increasing the number of complaints from killers, therefore resulting in numerous survivor buffs (which at the moment have been needed but by the looks of it are soon going to go too far). If instead of further nerfing survivors, they instead buffed the lower tier killers until they are on par with killers as strong as Nurse, the killer community would have far less struggle, and need less to resort to 'strategies' that are considered 'toxic' meaning the same thing for survivors (less camping means less need to bring crutch perks very game). Now i know the devs have already buffed various killers, however some of what they are doing is terrible. Though the hag and spirit buffs were amazing and they are now top tier, many other 'buffed' killers such wraith and trapper received most of their buffs to their addons as appose to their base kit. This left the trapper and wraith as weak killers, who are top tier only when using their best addons. This creates further dilemmas as now if they do want to buff these killers again, they may buff their base kits meaning they would have both a powerful base kit and powerful addons, resulting in a broken killer. They would need far less changes to survivor, if killers could play whoever they wanted with the same chance of winning so the devs need to begin buffing base kits of weaker killers, as appose to their addons.
Alternate objectives
One of the biggest reasons killers have such a hard time, is gen rushing. An objective focused team, can finish a game within 5 minutes and get at least 3 of them out alive. This is both terrible for the killer, and boring for the survivors, as lets be honest, we all know gens are boring to do. We've also seen from this latest event that adding extra objectives as well as the generators has been too difficult for survivors, especially with the recent nerfs. Instead what this game needs in alternate objectives and therefore alternate ways to escape or hinder the killers progress. I've seen this as a very common suggestion lately, often as finding fuel for the generators. Though good in theory, i believe it would just be adding an extra generator to the map in a sense. I believe instead there should be special objectives, that are optional, but if done will affect the rest of the game, but at the cost of the survivors time and putting them in danger of being attacked. A similar concept is already in the game as hex totems. The killer brings a hex perk providing him strength, the survivors can either continue doing objectives but are at risk of the killers added power, or can attempt to find the hex, therefore wasting their time, and risking being caught in an attempt to cleanse the totem. The hex concept however has many problems, as it is largely luck based wether you will find it. Instead their could be pre-spawned objectives, similar to generators, that need no perk to spawn. These would some how buff the killer or nerf the survivor, and when destroyed, would stop doing so. It could also be the opposite, that they do not affect the game until destroyed, and from that point on, they would hinder the killer or buff the survivor. However rather than the challenge being to find them (they would be easy to find) the challenge would be removing them. Perhaps there are various skill checks, that when failed apply penalties to the team, or maybe to be even more interesting, it would teleport you temporarily to a smaller world (like the one in then tutorial) where you would complete a short challenge before being returned to the trial. There are countless opportunities for alternate objectives that would bring variety to game play, whilst bringing balance to the two roles.
SWF balance
None of the ideas above however would work if a survive with friends team was there to plough through objectives. I still don't know what needs to be done to nerf survive with friends, however nerfing survivors in general like what they're doing at the moment isn't going to fix the problem. A common, well-made suggestion is to change the game mechanics depending on the number of survive with friends players in a lobby. By this i mean for every player that is playing with another player in said lobby, there would be some bonus to the killer / hindrance to the survivors. If the alternate objectives i suggested earlier were implemented, a potential idea could be to make them more killer sided (as in they buff the killer more and nerf the survivors more) depending on the number of survive with friends players. Survive with friends is obviously too overpowered, and if fixed would definitely make the game more enjoyable for killers, and as said earlier, this would lead to less 'scummy strategies' and therefore more fun for survivors too.
Feel free to leave your thoughts and ideas on any of the above ideas
Comments
Toxic behaviour of killers , crutch perks lol where d all that sht come from?
Devs need to balance game around swf cause people will find way to communicate anyway. All that genrushing and other sht has a counter ( Ruin and other perks) if all survivors brought toolboxes just take mori whats the problem? People just like to whine about it the same as they whine about legit ways to play such as camping , tunneling
Legit, but not fun for either player. Anyway you don't always know what they're gonna bring, especially perk wise, so how is that a counter. Your simple statement doesnt really cover all my points. SWF can be balanced, i'm not saying it shouldn't be allowed and i dunno where you got that from. As for gen rushing, the entire community will disagree with u