Revamp Gestures to Bridge the Solo Queue-SWF Gap

It's no secret that playing as a SWF with the ability to communicate offers a significant benefit compared to solo queue teams, who are only able to coordinate indirectly through the use of the in-game HUD and intuition of other players' behaviour. This might be enough for a well-matched, competent team of solo Survivors to get by with, but DbD's matchmaking rarely pits people of equal skill level together — resulting in frustrating misplays that could've been avoided if you had a better way to communicate or coordinate as a team. It's clear that improving the solo queue experience would involve bridging this gap somehow.

Community suggestions of ways to improve coordination in solo queue are common, but often flawed. My thoughts on the common suggestions, and why I don't necessarily think they're the right fit include:

• Basekit Kindred: Would be easy to implement but errs into the territory of buffing Survivors across the board, including SWFs. Providing real-time positions of the entire team, and potentially the Killer, exceeds the level of information provided by callouts — which only relay a player's location for a brief moment.
• Text chat: Complex new system to implement, impractical to use on console, and would require time away from objectives to engage with.
• Voice chat: Complex new system to implement; introduces a new medium that requires moderation; changes the tone of the game; and relies on players having microphones, speaking the same language, and actually engaging with the system (which is uncommon in my experiences of asymms that have voice chat).
• Quick-callouts wheel: Not actually a bad idea, as proven by DbD mobile, but it's an entirely new system to implement, meaning it'd likely take a long time to ever make it into the game. Potentially worth exploring in the future, but I'd like something we could reasonably get in the near future.

With that said, I think there's an option that would offer information of a similar level to callouts, be quick and easy to implement, and fit with the tone of the game (since it entirely uses pre-existing mechanics): add brief aura reveal to Survivor gestures. Something like this:

• Pointing, come here, picking up an item, and dropping an item are now classed as gestures.
• Gesturing reveals your aura to all other Survivors for 6 seconds, and is accompanied by an icon on the Survivor HUD.
  • Where the gesturing Survivor is carrying out another action that would normally be shown on the HUD, the regular action will take priority. Alternatively, a sound cue could be used instead to avoid having to resolve conflicts with the HUD.
  • The aura reveal triggers at the start of the gesture, and persists regardless of whether the full animation is performed so you can tap the button and get on with what you're trying to do immediately.
  • The number is tentative — it could easily be upped or lowered if needed.
  • I don't think it would be necessary, but you could implement a cooldown should the system prove to be overbearing.

I think this would cover most of the common scenarios when I'd want to coordinate with my team. E.g.:

• Found a Hex? You can point it out and start cleansing — your teammates will see your position (and by extension the position of the Totem).
• Injured and need a heal but don't know where anyone is? Gesture to "come here", and someone nearby can either come over or gesture back so you can come to them.
• Want to call out the approximate location of the Killer? Gesture on the other side of a pallet or window so your team can see where the chase is happening.

This also provides a new framework that could be used in perks going forward. Consider the following:

• Additional effect for Head On: Entering or exiting a locker is classified as a gesture.
• New generic perk:
  • Skilled Conductor: You "point" and "come here" 50% faster. Fully completing a gesture animation reveals your teammates auras to you as well, and extends the duration of the aura reveal by 100%.

Just an idea that's been floating around in my head for a while that I wanted to put out there. Maybe there's a flaw here that I'm not seeing, but this seems like such a simple and elegant way to add improve solo queue coordination without offering too much additional information compared to a SWF callout. Thanks for reading.