Redefining the Scoring System and Win Condition
So after BHVR anounced some stats i have been thinking about Variety and Meta of DbD.
Despite the Nerfs Self Care and DH are still as Meta as ever and there's one very simple reason for it. THE WIN CONDITION. Escaping is the Win Condition. Being able to Heal and Tank hits will help your chances to Survive and Escape. This is why Self Care and Dead Hard are as Meta as ever. Simple thought process right?
It's HUMAN NATURE to want to Win, therefore it's Human Nature to go for whatever gives you the best chances at Winning. This affects Variety and the Meta. This is why simple Perk changes never change the Meta in DbD, because the Win Condition remains the same. Escapes and Kills.
It's also valid for Killers, Ruin and Pop are "gone" but Pentimento, Pain Res, Call of Brine, Deadlock, DMS, Overcharge, Jolt offer the same effect, Slowdown. These are the Perks that offer killers the most chances at prolonging the game and getting their best chance at killing survivors.
The problem Killers have is the exact same as Survivors, their win Condition is ultimatly defined by achieving their goal. The whole process doesn't mean much as long as you reach your goal. It's the same principle that governs MMR.
When your sole focus is Escapes and Kills you paint the scenario where nothing but the Result matters, which means Human Nature kicks in and everyone is using the same perks, builds, play styles because those are the ones that provide the best chances at achieving the Win Condition. This KILLS VARIETY. And it does something else aswell, it promotes individuality to the extreme. Since the win Conditions is Escaping, Survivors become more Selfish and only focus on their individual survivability.
Individuality is one of the biggest issues of SoloQ Survivor gameplay, the other being the overall low skill level (lower MMR for all intents and purposes) of the majority of survivor players, since each survivor is more worried about themselves than the Team as a whole this creates the scenario where it's basicly survival of the fittest or in this case Survival of the Most Meta. The Harder you are to kill the most likely it is that you'll survive. It doesn't mean you are doing enough to Survie, it doesn't mean you're helping the Team it means you and you alone are on a higher chance of survival. This means your input towards Survival won't have to be as big as someone elses who might not be running the things you are and therefore their survivability chances are lower and might require more Team work for them to be able to Escape.
For these reasons i think a change in the Scoring System is needed. Stop treating Survivors as Individual units and start treating them as a Team, have them share the same BP pool, each input from each Survivor goes into a common BP pool that is then distributed among the 4. Make the Emblem system visible to everyone, that way you can see who got the most in each Emblem and you can see who is helping the Team the most. The survivor with the best Emblems receives a bigger cut of the BP and the survivor with the lowest emblems receives the lowest cut. This way you are rewarding players based on their input into the match as a whole rather than just saying that whoever escaped is a Winner.
This will punish people who give up on the game, who DC, who suicide on Hook, aka all the selfish behaviour survivors are capable of. The better the team does the more BP there is to share so even if you have the lowest Emblems you might still get a decent part of the BP because at the very least you stuck in there and tried to play. I'm not one for participation awards and this is not a participation award this is thinking about the players that get tunneled, for the players that get camped. I know this sucks and i know you'd rather get out and find another match but the time you stay there keeping the killer busy chasing you or camping you means you're giving someone else time to do a gen or find NOED or heal everyone so they can coordinate a rescue attempt. A single run in to use the perk that stops your struggle timer is already important so don't give up on hook, stay there, see what your team does to help you and to help them help you aswell. And all those tunneling experiences will gradually improve your pathing and looping, making you harder to get to the point where killers will get frustrated.
My goal with this change to the system is to make everyone understand that the GOAL isn't selfish Survivability like we have now but TEAM SURVIVABILITY. This will ensure that in the long run you have more survivors capable and willing of playing the game, which means the base level of MMR for survivor rises and you solve the issue of SoloQ without doing unnecessary and busted changes like free comms or more free base kit perks. If you want info there's already info Perks, use them instead of just thinking about your own Survivability, this is what it's all about.
SoloQ isn't bad because you don't have BASE KIT KINDRED, SOLOQ is bad because the players are BAD and most importantly SELFISH. A BAD player can improve by commiting, i WAS A BAD PLAYER AT BOTH ROLES, the best players might still see me as BAD and that's ok i don't have to be the best, i honestly don't see myself as a top PLAYER im' not that shortsighted and selfish but i sure as hell am no Potato like what i've seen, i've dedicated plenty of time to learn multiple killers and survivor. I've been here for 3 years now, i have a full understanding of what i need to do even if i fail at it, everybody will fail that's undeniable but that's why you keep at it so that you fail less and less and i've definetly committed and i'm definetly a much better player because of my commitment.
So if the objective is Team Survivability then what is the win Condition? The win Condition becomes doing the best possible. The Tool to measure that is Emblems and Pips. The more input the more Emblems you get the better your Emblems the better chances of securing Pips.
PIPS ARE YOUR WIN CONDITION. FOR BOTH SIDES. 1 Pip you win, 2 Pips you did an amazing match. It's as simple as this. Raise the requirements for 1 Pip if you think it's needed, i don't think it's needed.
You got 8 hooks but didn't manage to get a kill? Well it doesn't mean you have to simply lose. I know it's Odd Winning when you don't get a single kill or if you don't escape. But it doesn't have to be, if you got 8 hooks you've chased everyone twice, how can that not be rewarded? How can that not be a show of skill? If you've chased those people then you broke pallets, walls, found them on gens, kicked gens, what didn't you do? Well you just failed to secure kills but you did everything you could so the system can't just say nah this guy is a loser, he's a scrub, LOW MMR. And again it's not a participation Award it's a point based reward system, your actions are rewarded your inactions punished.
A tunneler and a camper won't get as much BP as you even if they secure a couple of kills...If they aint chasing anybody else, if they aint kicking gens, pallets and walls then they have less inputs, they have less BP, less Emblems, less chances of Piping. A kill or an EScape should be a consequence of GOOD PLAYS.
It's time we stop rewarding selfish behaviour and actually teach players how to play. Teach them that winning doesn't mean simply achieving the objective. If you fail the objective then there's a reasonbut you can't disregard everything you did in pursuit of the objective. You might have done everything plenty of things well besides failing the general objective. YOu might not win a football match but it might have been your best played match and you just got unlucky the ball didn't went in. You have been the MVP in your match but you ended up not winning in the classical term.
This new way of scoring even helps with defining MMR, the MVP of the match gets more MMR even if they didnt Escape. A killer with 8 hooks can get more MMR than a camper and tunneller with 2 kills. IT's a fairer system that allows the game to go into a more Competitive setting because it will have more team focused players on survivor side and it will encourage Killers to see the game as a 4v1 instead of a bunch of 1v1's.
Are some Balance adjustments neede? Maybe. Personally i really think the game is in the best spot it has been. Killers got the help they needed, there's alternatives to just Ruin or just Pop. There's anti-tunneling and anti-camping measure already in place, so the only reason these still happen is because the Win Condition rewards kills more than killers actually putting an effort. Any monkey can face camp a survivor, any monkey can hold W to tunnel. I don't wanna call people monkeys but that's how manny people play.
Treating Survivors as a Team instead of Individuals will help with Perk variety for survivor. Simply Escaping won't be enough. You'll need to help each other out more, you'll need to STAY IN MATCHES to help yourself even. all of this means you can still use "selfish" perks but there's more room for more Team play Perks to shine and offer a bigger reward.
Comments
All valid points... It going from a individual scoring to a team score would in theory be a good thing... but like you said human nature will take over
Seeing how the game is there does need to be change...
But then again once other see the emblems there will be blame placed on to whomever got silver or bronze... so that would be a maybe from me
Plus all of the suggestions of adding things into the game will help in that regard