Best solution to SWF everyone seem to forget
I think everyone who knows DBD and is good in this game knows that the power level is:
SWF > Killer > SoloSurvivor
It does not mean that its impossible to win as a weaker role and the differences between each role highly depends on indivudual skill and the set goal e.g. if SWF or Killer want to do anything possible for the win.
I have seen many times that people want to nerf or even remove SWF alltogether but I think there is a better solution to this that most people forget or atleast I dont see anyone asking for it as often as for the SWF nerf:
Solution
Removing Solo
I think the game is impossible to balance in this state. If you buff killer so they compete against SWF solos will have a nightmare time. And if you buff solos to compete against killer SWF will dominate the game!
I think solos needs to go and if you want to play solo you will need to load into a party of randoms that all have ingame voicechat function. They can then decide if they want to play together and what roles they expect from each other. And they can stick together for more then one game if they dont leave the party.
Ofcourse its up to every player to use the communication or to mute everyone and play the game as before (as it is right now for solos). But forcing people into team play and then buff killers on SWF level will motivate people to use communication more.
This system ofcourse already exists in CS:GO and works ok'ish. I think DBD could be more successful with it.
In my defence I dont really know how communication on consoles would work (e.g. if you need a special headset for consoles) I just can hope that its somehow possible to implement it there too.
But dont forget even if you are to afraid to talk as long as someone is talking/giving informations ingame you will get more then before.
Closing words:
We can discuss for ever about the balance of the game but if you are a logical person you know that SWF or Solo needs to go. Forcing solos into parties and making them form bonds or make friends is a nice aspect and maybe a healty step.
BTW: I am a killer main (80-90%) and I play solo survivor (10-20%).
So I am not an SWF guy who tries to defend it, I just dont believe this game will continue without SWF or with a too weak Killer role.
Comments
Good idea, with one fatal flaw:
All forced voicechat would do is open the game up to more toxicity while taking away a lot of accessibility (which the game already has little off)
So. No.
I am sorry but with this mindset people would not build planes because of the fear of falling.
Progress needs sacrifice. Toxic people can be reported or individually muted. Doing nothing will not change anything.
I'm against having in game chat I'm not gonna listen to a squeaker raging because I won't save him from a camping Leatherface in the basement
Well spoken, Icarus. Go on, fly.
The easier solution would be to plainly mark the people already in a swf. plain and simple. It's the difference between building a plane cause you have a vague knowledge that planes fly, and building one because you know why and have a decent understanding of aeronautics.
Also, seriously, you name one of the most toxic gamecommunities (CS:GO) as a positive example? Really?
I don't want voice chat because I hate the sound of my voice. So I'd never use it, and that'd make it unfair for my teammates.
Not everyone wants to SWF.
Some of us prefer the freedom of solo as well the experience.
But I play better solo than with friends.
I probably have a 60% escape rate solo, and 30% escape rate with my friends.
People are still coming up with Ingame Comms? There have been multiple Threads about it already and there have been multiple reasons why it is a bad idea.
Toxicity:
DBD does not have the nicest community, so there will be a lot of slurs thrown around. Obviously, you would be able to disable Voice Chat, but why should you put yourself at disadvantage at this point? If the game is balanced around Voice Chat, players who disable it are at a disadvantage. And this would also be the case for basically every Streamer - you cannot just risk being in Voice Chat with random people who might shoult a slur, which will be heard in your Stream and might get you banned on Twitch.
So either you have to hope and endure other people speaking in your Stream (which most likely will cost Viewers) or disable Voice Chat, which means that you will lose more games, aka the advertisement for the game is worse than it is now.
Language Barriers:
Not everyone speaks English. And not everyone wants to speak English. So there is a problem with languages. And well - if I play Solo and a 3man SWF from Italy joins me, why should they speak English? Why should they even use the Ingame Comms? I would be at disadvantage.
Immersion:
Not everyone wants to play with others. Others just want to have an immersive experience without talking to anyone. You have to keep those in mind as well. Again - they can disable Voice Chat... But to lose basically all the time?
The game was never designed around communications, to begin with it.
What's the point of kindred, bond, terror radius perks, maps, trap killers, stealth killers, visible aura on ground or hook and many others aspect of the game ?
You are basically saying that you want in-game voice chat in dbd. I don’t think that’s what people want though including me.
I wouldn't want to communicate with random players via VOIP or hear them. I'd rather the devs add existing perks like Kindred as base kit and a few other improvements such as :
There's probably a few other things I've missed. But that's the gist of it.
I have no desire to voice chat with people. Everyone has already talked about the closest fix (buff solos by giving them the same info swfs have like base kindred so we can see everyone and a totem counter so we know how many bones are left).
Right now solo has to burn perk slots to get information swfs get for free, leaving solos with less perks (or less information). Buff solos up to swf level (or as close to it as you can) and buff killers accordingly.
I would never play this game with comms and randoms. Don't want to be insulted like crazy for just playing the game.
I deliberately avoid voice chat for this reason. Being forced to use it would ruin the game for me. So for that reason, I'm out.
I'd rather they limit the number of people that can play SWF to 2.
Here in europe, you have lots of people that dont share a common language, like russians who speak only that, french that only speak french, and germans that only speak german. a lot of them speak english as well, but not all of them, not even close. So how would you adress this problem in a forced voice chat? Just out of intrest.
With one of the only killers that can deal with SWFs getting nerfed, that "impossible" is slowly becoming possible.