Playing against coordinated SWFS is a miserable experience
I've been sitting here for ages trying to find the right way to word all this so that it doesn't come across as whiny or anything like that to explain something that has plagued me about DbD for ages: It quite literally makes me feel physically miserable.
I don't expect to win every match but going against a SWF is one of the most stressful things I experience in gaming. All the pressure is on you as the Killer and a coordinated SWF is a nightmare to deal with and they just make me want to quit the game and not play due to the stress it puts me under.
I do not think survivor mains realize just how insanely stressful being the Killer is, especially when you are going against a full four man SWF that are communicating over voice comms. Those matches make me physically anxious and stressed out. That is the primary reason I hate playing against SWFs: How can I enjoy the game when it is stressing me out and affecting me physically?
Now you may ask "How can a game stress you out that much?". The answer is simple: I suffer from both a major depressive disorder and a generalized anxiety disorder and thus I have a hard time disassociating from things that I logically know shouldn't be stressing me out and making me anxious but still do. Furthermore, when I am in a match that isn't stressful and I don't feel like I'm struggling to do anything, I can have a ton of fun and the stress isn't really well. Even if a few survivors escape, if I had fun it was still a blast.
There I times I have to wonder if BHVR themselves know how stressful they have made things for Killers at high tier play due to the prevalence of SWFs and how so many Killers simply are not viable at high MMR play.
I do not enjoy playing against Seal Team Six as they get generator after generator done and I struggle to get hooks or win chases because they are somehow god tier loopers and body blockers. Games are first and foremost are supposed to be fun and playing against a SWF is not fun. There's a reason I keep hoping to either see how many survivors in the lobby are part of a premade or for playing against SWFs to be a matchmaking choice I can opt out of as a Killer.
Comments
You went to high in the mmr brackets. Now you're gonna suffered like the rest of us.
1.) you definitely aren’t facing 4-man squads ‘more often than not’. They’re less than 4% of 700,000 players.
2.) it’s 2v5. There’s no way a group of four survivors could handle five killers—even if those survivors had one killer ally. That single killer ally would basically need to protect every survivor and fend off one of the killers at nearly all times to give the team a chance.
1, I started asking post match and a lot of the time, there are 4 man squads more often than I'd think considering how downplayed it is around here
2, one of the proposed game modes was a 5v5 on the survey recently.
1.) It doesn’t bear out. I don’t know what “a lot of the time” means to you but per BHVR, 4-man squads make up less than 4% of all lobbies. Duos however make up 40+%. It’s possible you’re facing two sets of duos in these games but even that seems unlikely given that solo queue itself makes up like 52% of all survivor player lobbies. Every killer main believes they’re constantly facing 4-man SWFs. It’s just hard to believe most of such a small percentage of something can be so common.
2.) Oh the 4 + 1 vs. 4 + 1 thing. That makes sense
Are these statistics BHVR has put out recently though, or is this more outdated information from years prior? As I understand it, BHVR doesn't put out these stats very often.
Close matches are fun even when they are against SWFs. But when you get your ass stomped and they finish all the gens in 4 minutes and sabo, blind, and use cheap second chances that they don't even need because the deck is already stacked in their favor yes it sucks and its not fun. You can picture the 4 people laughing there ass off at you on the other end of the game.
They shouldn't get a game or even deserve to get a game. It's a 4 man on comms with all broken perks and second chances in a 4 man trying to stack everything in their favor at the killers expense. Killer stands no chance against these teams unless they throw. There are a certain percentage of these teams who go in to make the killers life miserable and as far as I'm concerned those teams can take a jump. They ruin the game for everyone. They ruin it for solos and they ruin it for killers. It's OP as hell and no one wants to admit it.
They don't deserve get a game? Lmao.
I don't even want to know in what state the game would be in if this mindset had prevailed all the way through.
The game would probably be dead.
Improving the player experience should always be top priority. Right after pleasing the feng mains with another cosmetic.
Playing against a really good swf with a less optimal loadout is as OP states a miserable experience. Same as going against a competetive slugging nurse as a soloq team. These extremes hurt the overall enjoyment of the game and SHOULD be looked at.
Able to see you the entire match???
One simple fix: let SWFs of any kind have only one instance of any perk. This will mostly hurt the strong, coordinated SWF, where you will see things like "4 MFT/DH, 4 Resilience, 4 Head On" etc. while only minimally impacting SWFs of friends who just wanna play together and goof around.
SoloQ would be totally unfazed by this ruling and anyone backfilling another lobby could bring any loadout they want.
This simple rule alone would also cut down the power and grieving potential of coordinated SWFs massively, without cutting into the other players fun too much or punishing people for playing with friends. This rule would just moderate the most outrageous forms of SWFs power plays.
On a sidenote, showing a killer SWFs before the match is silly, but telling then afterwards would be massively beneficial: it would help alleviate the stress and bruised egos that they "lost because they played against a 4man premade" and not allow those players to gaslight the killer "lol, no, we're just soloQ and never met before. You are just bad.", while also showing killers how often they stomped not so good SWFs teams or how many of their last-minute-turn-arounds where against SWFs and probably due to altruism instead of strictly playing for the win. It would have more benefit then drawbacks and help improve the mood and atmosphere surrounding SWFs.
I feel like the first quote is said mostly by survivor players in the forum, while the second is mostly killer players
So it's not like they exclude each others. Obviously the solution is to hide prestiges only. At most, it could be shown who was in a party in end game screen, but that's it
just tell us who was in a group in the end screen also get rid of depipping make it so we safely pipping if were not going to pip or double pip.
I think the other issue is when does a 'little' information become too much, especially when it's one sided? Killers can already see all 4 survivors and their items. While I don't think prestige is a great indicator of skill, it is somewhat representative of play time at least. They can also potentially view profiles.
So let's say the Killer gets, in addition, an indication of SWF. Should they know if it's a 2, 3, or 4 man? Playing against a 2 man and 2 solos probably won't the same as a 4 man, after all. And if that information doesn't relieve stress/allow the Killer to be properly prepared, what's next? Total playtime? Total playtime as the SWF as a team? Should they get an indication of item rarity and add-ons? Perks?
All which will then invite the reverse - why can't survivors know that they're about to get thrown into a game with 10K hr nurse on a 150+ game win streak and prepare accordingly? Or that there about to get into a match with a Plague running massive gen regression and should probably take off the healing build for something more gen focused?
Personally, I think such a feature would be overall detrimental. There is already too much lobby shopping and this would make it worse.
How does losing to a well-coordinated SWF make you feel physically miserable even with MDD (I have it as well and I know it comes in massive waves often, but gaming genuinely helps you get your mind off of the thoughts and feelings you're experiencing; you just chill and have your rant moments which makes you forget a lot of the time what you're feeling)? Is it the feeling of losing that affects you physically? If SWF debilitates you that much then I'd definitely take a moderate break from DBD, or any game that is similar (if not 1000x better) with team comms.
It's annoying playing as killer and everyone already knows your next move before you even put it into motion; a few days ago I played vs a SWF as mirror Myers on RPD and there was always a scouting Feng watching my every move from far away and telling their team everything I was doing and I couldn't jumpscare anyone because they'd always run off a gen when I was within 20 meters or so. It was WILD, not debilitating, but it is what it is for the Killer I was using in his current state. But even then, low-tier killers shouldn't feel that underwhelming when playing against SWF.
But I enjoy challenges, win or lose, and if you honestly really want it, you will get it, but playing by camping and tunneling may not be your thing as it's deemed "dishonorable" apparently, but you do you, nobody can tell you how to play the game. Playing against sweat will provoke sweat from the opposite side, honestly.
So I have read all of you comments on this and I will be honest I don't think the issue is 4-man SWFs but people that act very well coordinated. BUT given that you are stating you are upset with 4-man SWFs specifically here is my sincere suggestion. When you enter the lobby if in the first 5 seconds all 4 survivors are there, dodge and reenter. You can guarantee that you are not in a 4 man SWF. You are going to have a bit longer of queue times to ensure this doesn't happen, but that's the trade off for avoiding this. This may not seem like a fair trade and if so you don't need to do it but if its really 0 fun to play against a 4-man and youre sure that's the issue an extra couple minutes between games seems like a nice trade off.
When did I say that the killer should know the survivors load out?
It's just about a little icon that shows: "these 2 are friends and loaded in together"
because a barely coordinated team with a basic amount of map knowledge kills ALL killer gen pressure unless they can teleport around. you can not defend gens with basic location callouts because survivors will disappear before you can ever see them
you can not proxy gen pressure because gens fly too fast, and commiting to any chase will lose you the game, you can't drop chase because the survivors will heal 10secs after you drop it
it's a miserable experience with just a 2 man that requires you to super sweat at every single level. it's not fun for 1/2 of the player experience and you can't leave. the killer is stuck not having fun till the match is over making it even less fun
They always release stats around the game’s anniversary. I’m not sure if the ones I referenced were released this year or last but the stats are at most a year old.
How often do you really play with SWFs though? I can't imagine it's that often. I don't mean to throw salt into the wound, but killers have had it tremendously easy over the last several months (since probably around the time of the healing nerf). I play both sides fairly evenly and playing killer is just so boring now with how easy it is to kill survivors. Yes, it's quite obvious when you play against SWFs and sure, it's frustrating when you get "bullied" sometimes by them, but at least it's a challenge and you shouldn't really be up against them that often. Playing survivor now is just a horribly un-fun experience now with the amount of nerfs. Now we're hearing about nerfing what few viable perks remain to counter killer builds (Made For This--yes already nerfed, Distortion, Prove Thyself--again, etc. etc. etc.). Sorry, but it's hard to feel empathy for people that solely play killers now since it's really just so easy. There does not need to be any nerfing to SWFs at all. Just learn to counter them. There's always a way.
Actually, the biggest imbalance is how large the gap between SWF and solo-queue is. I know of probably 15-20 contacts that play DBD amongst my circle of friends, their friends, and their communities they hang out with. NOBODY will solo-queue anymore. When I play survivor, I will not play solo queue because of how awful the experience is. I only play with friends, ideally with a full four-stack because that random 1 or 2 survivors we get just always seem to be the least experience player ever. So if there is a way to lobby-dodge or toggle something to no longer player with SWFs, you're basically indirectly banning people which someone pointed out earlier. It's not an issue with SWFs being too good either as my party has faced a lot of issues with the many survivor nerfs over the last few months. It just comes down to adapting your playstyle as a killer to combat them. It's incredibly easy to get a 4K as a killer these days, SWFs or not.
Killers don't need more information. I agree SWFs have more information than solo queue so realistically, solo queuers should gain the added information to bring it more in line with other async-horror survival games.
Let me introduce the 4man death squad to you. Against these people, you barely get downs.
In not complaining about you and your four friends that want to have a good time.
I talk about the people that load into a match to play for 4 minutes maximum and get out. Those that stack strongest loadout to absolutely stomp everything that isn't a Nurse or Blight. They exist. And they are the strongest role, dbd has to offer.
What's so bad about that though? If they get out in four minutes, great, you move onto the next. Saves you a disconnect penalty. But again, how often does this even happen? I play killer a lot as well and I probably get this once a month IF THAT.
So the slugging nurse is also fine? The game is super short.
I get them once or twice a week.
They are rare, but not as rare as many peoe claim they are.
I don't think that just saying: "yes, it's busted and overpowered, but at least you lose fast" is the right way. If the game is supposed to go into a better direction, these extremes need to change.
Accepting it is accepting defeat.
They do exist, yes, but they are extremely rare.
The best SWF team I can think of is the Depip Squad, from all the way back when Marth and others did that experiment. But I have never played against a team like that.
Perhaps close, those 3 Claudettes and 1 Meg on Racid Abattoir really gave me a difficult time, but never on that level.
Most claims about facing a SWF death squad aren't exactly true. But if the non-existent SWF isn't there to take the blame, then who is?
I've had a 4 p100 swf last week. I could not even get a down against these guys. That's saying a lot.
Loadout was as expected. Garden of joy offering, 3 syringes, one Styptic and 6 different perks spread throughout 16 perk slots.
I got stomped in 5 minutes at most.
In post game chat, they said I did way better than the last killers they had.
I asked how many dcs the get.
They answered :"many"
And some say they go against these types of survivors every single time.
You see my point? I remember one match on Rancid Abattoir, you remember one on Garden of Joy. One trial each.
One.
We might remember a few more if we try because, sometimes, bad memories are easy to remember. But the average trial isn't like that.
The vast majority of trials aren't like that.
While I agree with that, the one I mentioned was last week. I have these kind of games once or twice every 2 weeks.
Do t get me wrong, these types of teams are rare, no doubt.
But is that enough to justify their existence? Not if you ask me.
Killers not wanting to face a SWF premade is a problem, and should be taken as such. But forcing them to take the game by ignoring their reasons is not the solution.
Balance the game around SWF and stop using SoloQ as a excuse, that's the solution. If you play alone in any other team game, you will not have the same winning chances as the others, it's a reality. DBD should be no different, you can't expect the balance of a game to be decided by those who at will play at a disadvantage. It would be like pretending to receive help in LoL when your SoloQ team is unable to beat an organized premade.
I think you are getting way too deep into it.
It shouldn't really be that stressful in anyway to play a game.
Tense sure, exciting sure, maybe even a lil annoying but stressful to the point of feeling physically miserable no.
Not to be harsh but even with a depressive or anxiety condition its neither BHVR's job or your opponent's to "soften" the play just to account for your sensibilities.
The only solution to this is to take a break and work on yourself. If you want to play DBD but can't muster the resilience to deal with an online environment then kill the bots offline for a bit.