Suggestion: Killer Ban Feature & Map Offering Repurposing
Currently the game feels like a vicious cycle of similar matches over and over. 1 in 4 of my survivor matches this week has had a teammate disconnect, either in the first chase or once they saw what map they were playing. 1 in 6 of my killer games has had a survivor disconnect, sometimes the entire team. Perhaps the cause is just monotony?
Idea 1: Allow survivors to personally ban a killer of their choice to never get matched against by the matchmaking system.
Reason/Benefit: Encourage survivor players to not feel forced to play against the same killer (often with the same build) repeatedly or consecutively. Will discourage survivors from disconnecting against a killer they don't like, because then they'd have an option to ensure their least favorite killer can never end up in their lobby.
Idea 2: Rework map offerings into a map ban rather than a 20% chance of being sent to a specific realm. This feature would be a 100% chance of removing a realm from play. Assuming every survivor and the killer brought map offerings to ban their respective realms, there are 21 total, meaning at least 16 realms could still be picked from.
Reason/Benefit: Reduce killer/survivor chances of frustrated feelings and disconnecting from a match due to a wholly unfavorable map. It would also give map offerings a purpose again as they currently feel like placebo, the 1/5 chance being entirely too low for the rarity of the offerings.
Alternative Idea 2: Make a map ban feature similar to idea 1, so that both sides can pick a map (or realm) they don't want to see anymore. This would still allow for 16 other realms to be chosen by the matchmaking, assuming all 5 players chose different realms as their bans. If it is only individual maps, then the pool of potential maps picked remains higher for the system. However, this could cause issues with map offerings, as bringing an offering for a realm that a player has banned would negate it… Well, if anyone used map offerings that is.
Meta Solution 1: Force the matchmaking system to not allow duplicate maps or killers for players when finding a match. Difficult, most likely, but a solution that would solve both problems without adding a banning system or reworking offerings. The game would need to check and remember what every player's last killer and map was, and account for that when selecting players for their next match.
Meta Solution 2: Rework matchmaking to consider all maps of equal chance rather than entire realms. 5 maps under one realm have equal chance of being selected as a single map realm currently, I believe. If this is true, this could easily be reverted to increase map variety again and reduce the chances of duplicate map selection. Additionally, reintroducing other variants of maps like Coal Tower 2 or the different Badham Preschools, for example, could also alleviate the repetitiveness currently felt in public matchmaking.
Let me know what you all think, if you have any suggestions of your own to this issue!
Comments
Killer ban system should never exist as would be just abused by preventing the top killers and causing anyone who playes them to have longer queues. It would not be healthy for the game
I like the map offereings to give better changes of to get the map never liked the idea of changing them to be ban the map in question as don't like that kind of features in games anyway.
If I paid money of something I want to be able to use it.
Maybe it would encourage BHVR to reconsider the balancing and play-state of killers who are mass banned by survivors and lead to a healthier balancing, especially since BHVR almost looks exclusively at stats to make those decisions.
The "if I paid money" argument kind of falls apart when you consider that survivors paid money too, for their perks, their cosmetics, etc. Why should they be forced to play against the same killer 5 times in a row, get tunneled out in an absolute sweat-fest just because the matchmaking system refuses to account for repeated killers and maps? I provided two options here, the killer/map ban features are just one.
I play a lot of killer and the ban feature is actually something I would support. No sense in playing Cenobite if people are going to full-team disconnect every third match I try to play. No one wants to face bots in 33% of their games.
Stuff like the above image cannot be healthy for the long-term of the game. 3-man abandon in the bottom match, try-harded in the next three matches just to be tunneled out another two times, teammate got tunneled out at 5 gens in the match I didn't, then I played a joke match with no offering/item on Jeff just to—you guessed it—get tunneled out by a fifth Jason player. Its just miserable. I DON'T want to play killer, although I win almost all of my matches on killer, even in the anniversary event. Its boring, I want something intense, and different. I like the breakup of gameplay from doing gens, healing, getting saves. With killer its just constant chases, and I've grown tired of it.
Getting escapes feels great because its rare. I'm actually okay with dying as a survivor, I don't get as mad or frustrated like some some might. Escapes have become too rare for me though. I'm sorry but when my escape rate drops from over 60% to under 30% because one killer came out, who is either wholly overpowered, or I and everyone I play with just has a massive skill issue, then I want to ban that killer. Its as simple as that. Or at the very least I want the matchmaking system to guarantee I get one match that isn't Jason like, every 3 matches? Is that too much to ask for?
Also, for the problem of repetitive maps, I've gotten Eyrie of Crows 3 times in the last 30 matches but haven't seen a single map from the MacMillan Estate realm once. I got The Game 2 times, Dead Dawg, 2 times, but I can't remember the last time I've gotten Greenville Square. I've gotten the Freddy Fazbear's map once in the last week, Garden of Joy once I think, but I get the stupid Walking Dead """map""" at least once every 30 matches of course, because they're all in the same realm the chances of getting any of its 4 maps are a 25% chance of the already 5% of getting that specific realm. Its just not fun.
So can we also then remove killers abilities to see survivors items and who they are in the lobby to prevent them from dodging and creating longer ques?