How can we buff killers if we'll buff solo q?
In order for solo to be on the same level to swf they need coms, which I'm surprised we still don't have. Pretty much every multiplayer team game has voice chat. Not everyone uses mics, so adding communication wheel is a must and its not hard to do.
The question is how do we buff killers? I couldn't come up with any solutions. Increasing their movement speed can break the loops, shortening attack cooldown is not gonna let survivors to reposition. Gen kicking and hooking speed are the only things I could think of and they won't be enough. Any ideas?
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It is possible for 4 randoms to even do better than a swf, because there are skill levels as in not everyone is good at looping or efficient.
However, we are not discussing differences between solo vs swf, we are discussing how you are warranting killer buffs based on something that should be in place for solo queue: voice communication. Something that should already be there.
Let's see...
These are just a few things the game would need in order to get SoloQ up to SWF levels of play, and still wouldn't be a potent as telling people precisely what you want to tell them over voice. I get that some people fear that a game with no K/D ratio, no ability to show off your elite navy seal gamer flick shot skills, and no freemium model must somehow have a massive audience of 10 year olds that are just into this game instead of CoD or Overwatch, but... actually no. I don't think that fear is valid in the slightest. Some people just want to play the game without ever talking to anyone. Point being, if you don't want voice chat, a deluge of mechanics will need to be added to even remotely bring SoloQ up to snuff with SWFs intent on winning, and even then, it would still be sub-par. However, the ones I listed would likely be a few of the better methods.
Edit: As for killers getting buffed, that would come after SoloQ is fixed. Each killer would need to be individually adjusted to deal with whatever changes are made to SoloQ.
Yes. But the game wasn't designed with coms in mind. if they added it, killers will need a buff to keep up
And again that was fine in 2016, when things were very different.
DBD is forever changing and it is now easier to play killer than ever before. That was back when there were no aura reading perks, when pallets were super strong and there was probably double the amounts. It was only vaguely designed with that intent, that doesn’t mean that the devs still have that same mind set. Considering the fact that they have openly said voice comms are allowed and even have lobbies in their own discord.
Also while that might have been their early mindset? They did end up adding SWF. Which means that they always intended to have friends communicate and play with each other. Still that doesn’t change the fact that what you are asking is for killers to get an unnecessary buff.
How would you know it's unnecessary?
And btw I never asked for anything
Seems pretty standard for going against a strong SWF. I see it alot, even on my killers I barely play. I can see you're on console using a controller so that explains alot of the opinions you express. If you can, play on PC. The difference is night and day. Controller is so badly optimized for killers.
By having a solo queue only mode.
That was not a solo q buff. That was a tunneling nerf.
It's funny, because every time it's used in my games is when they divebomb hooks before I got a chance to leave or save while I'm chasing them. Also I thought off the record and ds were meant to be anti tunnel
Most killers don't need buffs across the board, they need individual tweaks, add-on passes, etc. Any general killer buffs just make the top tier killers better disproportionately to how well they buff the lower tier killers anyway.
One thing however, would be QoL enhancements like a FoV slider. Not game breaking at all, but it frees up a perk slot for Shadowborn users.
Other things could be removing the recoil on Trickster knives so that he can be used on console, and the implementation of joystick deadzone settings so ranged killers in general are more viable on console. As console killers are disproportionately at odds with PC killers, compared to PC vs console survivors.
I have no problem with solo Q, its SWF that I need a handicap.
This is backwards.
You can't handicap people simply for playing with their friends, and SWF doesn't guarantee an advantage, it only provides the possibility of one.
That possibility is significant, and the advantage is significant, but it's not guaranteed. It's also provided by the innate ability to coordinate via communication, which can't be prevented and is basically the cornerstone of all team based games.
Even if they implemented some kind of tangible handicap for SWF, all players would have to do is lobby dodge until they queue into the same lobby, exactly like they used to, in order to avoid the handicap.
SoloQ needs QoL improvements to provide information, and the ability to coordinate, at a similar level to SWF. That's the only way to balance it fairly. But this would mean bringing soloQ up to a similar level as SWF would result in a decreased kill rate and more sweaty killer games, thus the need for some kind of adjustment in the killers favour. But how much that needs to be likely can't be ascertained until soloQ is closer to SWF level. It may not be much at all.
Then they are free to do that. I think that's a significant enough pain in the ass to prevent a sizeable majority of players from doing it. I also completely disagree with the basic premise of your argument that SWF doesn't provide an inherent advantage. Simply knowing who the best player on your team is provides an advantage, simply knowing that at least ONE player on your team won't hang you out to dry when you're on hook, simply knowing that if your friend isn't doing gens when they should be you can tell them what the right play is. These are all significant advantages, and don't even come close to the level of coordination that high level SWF can utilize.
"I also completely disagree with the basic premise of your argument that SWF doesn't provide an inherent advantage."
Reread what I said.
I never said it doesn't, I said it isn't a guarantee.
My personal experience: I'm far more successful in solo queue, because I'm not bombarded with ######### talk from my friends in one ear that distracts me and drowns out key game sounds, and can actually focus on the game I'm playing. I play with my friends for fun, because they're my friends, but we don't succeed more because of it. I play more cautiously as a solo survivor, and I tend to escape more often than not because I run things like Kindred and Sole Survivor. When I play with friends, like most SWF, we're overly altruistic and end up dying trying to save each other.
If I'm further handicapped for playing with my friends than I already am, then that's going to make me resent playing with them at all.
We (or rather good, competent developers) don't balance games off of guarantees we balance games off of potential, otherwise the skill ceiling becomes unbearable - which it currently is. Ultimately I'm afraid this conversation will devolve into whether or not the game should be balanced for casuals or people who actually utilize mechanics to their fullest. It's fine if this game wants to be Mario Party with killers, it just needs to make up its mind what it wants to be, because right now its "trying" to be both - though if you take BHVR by their actions/game design the decision they made is clear.
You're right, you should balance games for their potential, not an average. But you need to account for the casual player base too, or the average skill level, whatever you want to call it.
There are ways to balance the high end without negatively impacting the middle.
Instead of short-sightedly grabbing the low hanging fruit and 'handicapping SWF', which comes with collateral damage, how about working around the issue to find a solution that does that?
Which is exactly what I've been saying. Buffing solo players through QoL information/communication tools, that don't increase the capabilities of SWF, is perfectly possible, and achieves the same goal. It narrows the gap between solo and SWF. Once that gap is smaller, you have a position with which to balance the survivor v killer equation.
But this suggestion is clearly making the game harder for killers - why should there not be some compensatory changes to keep things - well, not balanced 'cause they are definitely not but in the same balance?
The devs have never released kill rates against 3 or 4 man SWF. Hmm... I can't imagine why. The 60%+ kill rates are purely against solos, book it.
I don't think killers need anything right now. Also the discrepancies between SWF and solo are blown out of proportion IMO. Killers are relatively okay right now and making blind changes, even when theyre as small as you mentioned, isn't the way to go.
We could increase base Gen regression.... and then change all of the regression perks
It's the only thing they didn't change in the "meta change" patch