Do survivors think?
That's it that's the topic. I guess to explain what spurred this question I've noticed in my soloQ games survivors don't really seem to think about the killer's behavior….like ever. The number of times survivors try to heal me off hook or want me to heal them off hook when the killer has already previously shown the killer is the type to go back to hook is way too high. Or another common scenario is there will be one person in chase one person on hook and that leaves two survivors free one is death hook the other has no hooks, the amount of times the not hooked survivors will stay as far from the hook as possible and force the death hook survivor to save is insane. Or survivors will complete the last gen and just run to the closest door which is fine sometimes but do not do that if you are injured because obviously that is the door the killer is going to check first, run to the farther door or wait away from all the doors and wait until the coast is clear or you can get healed.
There are many examples of this but my main point is I'm sympathetic to how tough soloQ is cuz it for sure is a bad time but many survivors are just actively getting themselves killed and it feels like they wanna play with their brains off which isn't wrong for some games but for a game that for the survivor role requires very little to no mechanical skill and is more like a puzzle than anything that's not really gonna fly.
Obviously this thread isn't gonna fix this problem so I'm more curious about the very questionable things other people have experienced in soloQ or if killers wanna share experiences that made them go "huh? but why?" that's cool too.
Comments
The main reason solo queue is often a frustrating experience is that the average player is just not very good and often has terrible game sense, or they are doing side quests for achievements that don’t do anything to help your team win. After playing both sides for a long time, I’ve come to the conclusion that the frustrations in solo queue are like 90% due to bad teammates and 10% due to broken/OP killers. With competent teammates, I can escape pretty consistently and even if I lose I still enjoy the experience. It’s why I often disagree when I see posts about the game being too killer-sided.
I was a brand new player once so I remember what it was like to not know what I was doing (heck, we all were at one time, right?), but a lot of players never take time to learn about looping techniques, how to pay attention to HUD, how to counter killer powers/strategies, macro gameplay strategy, etc.
The average player is average, unless you can you give a compelling reason why you think skill in this game doesn't follow a standard bell curve. If the average player is average but we consider the average survivor to be bad then we can state that the skill floor required to do decently on survivor is higher than it is on killer. You cannot fault players for the game expecting more of one side than the other. I am not saying this is a bad thing by the way, it is how I want the game to be balanced, I think survivor should be harder to win on than killer but the endless trashing of survivors as bad needs to stop.
You were a brand new player once but I think you have forgotten how much you had to learn and how much time it took. There are 43 killers in the game and that number is going to continue going up. There are some similarities in how to play against some of them but each one does have unique things you should do against them.
There are 44 maps in the game, each one spawning loops, structures, and generators in different locations. I know that Dead Dawg Saloon tends to three gen around gallows and to ignore the main building but that takes time to learn. We again have some similarities with shared gym tiles but to be most successful you need to chain those to other resources and that differs heavily map to map.
the begging for under hook heals or in the middle of the utah flatlands when killer isnt in chase and had left the hook 10 seconds ago is absolutely mind boggling. or refusing to heal when you are in an actually safe location.
Nobody is talking about memorizing the counterplay to every killer obviously that takes a lot of time but people are failing basic pattern recognition of "oh the last two times someone got unhooked the killer went straight back to hook so this third time I'm....gonna demand you heal me under this hook because surely this time the killer won't come back" like again sympathetic to soloQ but there does need to be just some amount of forethought from survivor players.
These are the statements I took issue with, blanket statements that the average survivor is bad and refuses to learn. So yes someone here is talking about memorizing the counterplay to every killer and the layout of every map and expecting it as a baseline for survivor players.
I don't disagree that certain players play in a brain dead manner but I have examples of that on both sides not just survivor. I also completely disagree with the notion that survivor doesn't take mechanical skill, they are mechanically simple but that isn't the same thing.
It's largely BHVR's fault, and my favorite tin-foil hat theory is that they encourage and coerce survivors to be self-destructive to entice killers to play more as necessary fodder.
Every single perk should be more or less contingent on doing generators to force players to actually progress the game, hell as an extreme I'd say items start at 0% and you gain charges by doing gens, similar to flash bangs.
The amount of time-wasting habits BHVR has taught to the average survivor is why soloqueue is so bad, and that's not even factoring oppressive killer gameplay.
I feel like alot of the killer counterplay issues DO require a minimum knowledge. You dont want your teammates to cleanse against Plague for example, then go right back to touching an infected gen. Thats not Plague being OP, thats a single survivor teammate giving her all the fountains in the world. I remember seeing plenty of clips of ppl playing old Myers with perma T3 and youd always have that 1 survivor having a staring contest with him.
I saw 3k hours / p100 Claud who did exactly the same you typed against Plague. Some survivors are doing it on purpose
I do also see a lot of survivors who looping killers near hooked survivor who has kindered
A lot of survivors who've been chased and running to survivors with 2 hooks states while theyself are at 0 states
But that is exactly my point, a more casual player cannot possibly be expected to know exactly how 43 different killer powers work and how to counterplay them, let alone have faced that specific killer enough times to be able to consistently execute any specific counterplay they may have. A casual killer can fairly easily one trick a stronger killer and expect decent results. All this leads to a very simple conclusion, the skill floor to do decently on survivor is higher than on killer. I do want to emphasize skill floor, obviously things change as we are talking about players who are more and more skilled at the game.
I am not saying this is a problem nor am I asking it to change, I enjoy that the game works like that. All I am asking is to stop with the blanket "the average survivor is bad" because it is being used to dismiss legitimate concerns, is statistically improbable, and has resulted in this community having a culture that is OK putting down survivor players. Unless there is an incredibly good reason to think otherwise a standard distribution of player skill should be assumed and while this game is different from others its not weird enough to think a standard distribution of skill doesn't apply.
I am also not saying make the game easier for them but accept that this is an issue of matchmaking and not the survivors fault. All it takes is a single survivor being below par for the killer to win, as you noted, but I can't blame that player since its likely a match they shouldn't have been in in the first place. Too many killer players will snowball into a win from that one actually bad player and then claim that every survivor in the lobby was bad when it was just that one survivors fault. Balancing in this game would be totally different if matchmaking worked but unless matchmaking actually changes (I wouldn't count on it) this wishy washy balancing feels necessary.
Im not saying everyone should know every little detail. Expecting every survivor to know every hole deathslinger can shoot through is dumb. I DO think they should have some minimum knowledge though about many of them. A survivor can use common sense to determine the blinking party hat that Pig gave them isn't for decoration and once again... to try not to get sick or spread sickness against Plague. If you dont know how to loop Spirit... you get hooked no biggy. If you dont know to try to stay healthy against Oni, you get the whole team killed.
Alot of this info is on the loading screen for these people to read.
The loading screen also tells you to drop pallets as a distraction.
Those hints only come up the first couple of times you face a given killer. If you are facing pig for the fourth time and you are a casual player that doesn't play too often the last time you faced pig or plague might have been months ago. I am playing a different game than these players are, we just end up in the same lobby.
Side note I know that tip sounds silly but I've unironically done that or set off a fog vial as a distraction if someone's died and there's only one gen left to get the killer's attention so they don't go over to the last gen being worked on and it's actually worked out. 9/10 I wouldn't recommend doing it but it's an idea that does have it's place.
And I would say any killer that worked on wasn't thinking.
Unless you want a game where the exact same counter works for EVERY character and they are essentially just skins... people are going to have to learn how to deal with these killers. I dont think its asking too much for people to understand the pig hat is bad and should be removed.
I think the reason for solo queue teammates often being poor is just they have a lack of the need to get better.
They aren’t put through a crucible and forced to improve because they can very easily just go next and go onto the next game and maybe luck out with a weaker killer.
Just look at a lot of the highest kill rate killers, they’re all killers that’re heavily countered by having a brain. Killers like skull merchant, sadako, and ghost face are all relatively weak once you exploit their weaknesses but many just don’t either due to true ignorance to learn, or lack of guidance on the games part on what to do.
Like then you take into account the average killer, they tunnel, or camp, or slug because they were forced to learn and adapt to what works best for a win and learn how to effectively counter the strong things survivors do have. I fully believe the harder the game gets for killers the more they’ll try to improve to overcome that challenge, at least for most people. Like with the current slug meta, killers simply adapted to current situation and started altering their playstyles accordingly.
But when it comes to survivor if you’re not having a good time you can very easily play another without having learned anything, play with friends which is a massive boon, or play whatever Broken event queue bhvr cooked up which on average usually you can play on autopilot.
Idk those are my sleepy thoughts. TLDR: the average survivor is ‘bad’ because they’re aren’t encouraged/aren’t forced to learn and adapt.
I literally went out of my way to say I don't want that. My only ask is that people stop painting all survivors with the same brush because of certain players.
I get a single survivor like that in the same lobby as me and I get labeled bad because of it. Why is it so hard to understand that I just want that to stop and for this community to stop being ok with putting down survivors. I don't care if you call those specific survivors bad but "the average survivor is bad" isn't true.
I dont think ppl DO think all survivors are bad. A large issue is 1 bad survivor can cause the whole team to lose. This is why its much easier for content creators to make KILLER winstreaks rather than to try to do the same as survivor. 1 crappy teammate can RUIN you.
Then I thank you for being reasonable and understanding my position. However, there are tons of people that DO think the average survivor is bad. Someone saying exactly that is literally the only reason I bothered responding to this thread.
I have nothing to go on about what they actually think except what they say and it's exactly what they said. I can easily find multiple content creators saying exactly the same as well, perhaps they don't actually believe it and are only saying it for their audience but that audience absolutely believes it.
I think alot of the hiccups people have is the personal play vs team play thought pattern. Often times people dont wanna take chase, even if it would help the team. They try to avoid getting hooked themselves as much as possible... which results in their teammates having to do things like go for an unhook while on death-hook.
As a killer main, when I DO play survivor... im not very good in chase which is the micro gameplay, but I generally am using the macro gameplay thought patterns I develop as a killer to do things like acknowledge when I need to go for an unhook or what gen I should prioritize. I feel like if we're talking about a "bad" survivor or teammate, its someone who hasn't developed the macro gameplay which often times is pretty universal no matter the killer.
Alot of the complaints im reading even in this thread is about people who dont notice patterns, or lack situational awareness. Insisting to heal under hook when the killer has made a habit of returning to hook, or failing to pay attention to the hud falls in with that.
Heck, quick personal note I JUST saw from a team I was planning on 2 hooking... 1 survivor is on hook while all 3 teammates is on the same gen on the opposite side of the map. I would say all 3 of them were bad survivors since they didnt pay attention to the hook timer to know they should probably send someone to get the unhook. I purposely didnt interfere with the unhook and they STILL were too late.
A quick example from a game im CURRENTLY in, lol.
Who do you think id say is the "bad" survivor? Mind you, if I wasn't planning on 2 hooking cuz they brought me cakes they'd be screwed, but... when I dont see you all game, your teammates have to carry those hooks. These 4 all escaped btw...
The only conclusion anyone should draw from that image is that the matchmaking system made a mistake. There are five gens remaining and all but one player is on death hook, you are clearly more skilled than these survivor but that doesn't make any of them bad necessarily.
You could just have easily ignored the sable all match. I've had plenty of killers ignore me after a single good chase. I'm not saying you did but hook states like that can be achieved in multiple ways.
A 'rat' is a survivor who is better than you, someone you can't find or catch. In the first place, because they’re good at looping, they get the time and experience to naturally master everything else—like repairing, rescuing, and stealth. No one actually thinks 'rat' means a bad player... right?
Nah, in this case the sable basically wasn't doing anything. I think she had like 14k BPs on the score sheet at the end after they all escaped, which tells me that she wasnt going for saves or anything. Im not gonna judge people too harshly about how they do in chase, ESPECIALLY against a new killer, but being unproductive outside of chase is rough.
Rat isn't synonymous with bad, I don't think anyone claims that, and the description you gave is not of someone 'ratting' as far as I've experienced.
A rat is a survivor who relies on stealth to preserve their own escape at the expense of everyone else. Think like, only doing corner gens when it's absolutely safe, causing a late game 3 gen, hiding even when their entire team is on death hook instead of trying to take the killer's attention and prolong the match long enough for gens to be done, or playing for hatch even when the match is still ongoing and there's a chance for a 2-4 escape.
It's just a difference in perception—you know, between a low-tier rat and a high-tier rat. So don't worry about it! Maybe some of the others got what I meant. Sorry, my English is just terrible.
For sure, since posting that I've had people tell me they see rat as someone 'ratting out' their teammates, working with the killer to a degree, so there are inconsistent meanings everywhere.
If a stealthing player is better than me and helping their team win, I wouldn't call them a rat. I'd just accept they're better than me.