Comments

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  @ColgateAdvancedWhite said:

  Give killers an option to report them during the match. If we think the survivors are doing too well, we can report them for using 3rd party software. We're victims here, our reports should lead to bans without question.

  I actually did try to report them for that very reason. As far as I can tell, nobody cares to ban them for it. Believe me, I tried... a lot.

  I did learn some from talking to people about this. First, there are aura reading perks so if I can tell they're using these after the match I can't just assume SWF. But, honestly almost everyone (back when I played a lot anyway) runs self heal, decisive strike, and the usual perks. Because, well, there is no need to run aura reading perks when they're playing SWF.

  I started the game about a year ago with Freddy and he's the easiest Killer to tell with. When you have half or more of the squad asleep it's really easy to see how well they coordinate. Maneuvers that are just not possible without coordination. Mannuvers solo joiners never make.

  Back when I did debate them on the issues of cheating and fairness in end game chat, it was sadly comical how they would lie and try to pretend they were not using voice chat. I mean, hello, I can see you when you're sleeping and you all run like you're commandos. Every action is coordinated and premeditated. One runs interference, the other unhooks. If most of the team is asleep, all disperse and regroup on the other side of the map to wake up. You can't see other sleeping Survivors. So... if they're not running aura reading perks I'd like to hear them explain running out in three different directions and somehow all finding the awake Survivor at the same time on the other side of the map.

  About half would even admit to it in chat, when grilled hard enough, but say it's "not cheating." Reporting them, even after they admitted to using third party software for cheating, never seemed to matter.

  It's frustrating. There is no real sense of honor or integrity from the Survivors in this game. They enjoy empty victories gained from cheating. And the Devs honestly don't seem to really care at all. This has been the same problem for more than a year and nothing has been done. From what I heard from people on the Steam Forums; the Survivors got tired of lobby dodging to get into the same lobby as their friends; so they review bombed the game until the Devs caved and gave them what they wanted. I hope it's balanced for some day. But, I don't hold my breathe for it. I assume the Devs will continue to allow this because they're financially afraid to balance for it. They might offend the Survivors and that might hurt the bottom line with a drop in active players; as well as players not buying the DLC/customes anymore and that can't be allowed to happen. So, this cheating is allowed to happen because the Surviviors hold the game financially hostage and the Devs are too afraid to offend the money and actually balance the game. I get salty over this to the point where I do have to leave the game for months at a time because of how broken it is on a fundamental level.

  I come back every new and then for about a week to give it another chance. But, it doesn't take longer than a week to realize why I left the game for the last six months to dawn on me again.

  Sense there is no casual mode; everything is ranked. This is bad because the higher I rank, the worse this game becomes. I'd rather stay low rank and have matches that are actually fun. Rather than rank up and have a botched game. I will sometimes play crap Killers to de-rank on purpose so that I can have a few fun games before ranking up again naturally. But, eventually that becomes too much work and Survivor gets too boring to play for how easy it is and I just leave for months at a time again.

  Now, granted, Survivor is not east if you care about your rank and actually try to get all he emblems. But, if all you want to do is pop gens and get out; I'm actually really good at it. Gen popping is just paying attention and good reaction time. As a fighting game player, I hardly ever miss a check and these "skill checks" are trivial to me. I've sometimes even powered through ruin gens with a toolbox and getting great skill checks enough times. Skill checks don't check much "skill." The rest is just learning the psychology to manuver around the SWF players and use their altruism as an advantage. I pop about 2 to 3 gens a match so they save me because they know I'm often the only player popping gens. They're wasting time making hook rescues, rather than popping gens. I'll sit next to someone on a hook and just keep working on the gen. The person on the hook is likely a noob and will just get re-hooked in 2 seconds anyway if I save him. It alerts the Killer when I take him down. I'm better of just letting him die to save myself. If I finish the gen, I'll swing by to get him. But, not before. People play this game way too team oriented. Survivor is easy if you look out for #1 and let the rest rot. I guess their wasting time saving noobs is a bit useful, it keeps the Killer busy while I just keep gen rushing. Unless you play for rank, I honestly don't see why so many people say it's hard to play Survivor. It's really easy and boring to me. I get out about 3 out of 4 matches. Most of the others don't... they died for me to live. I catch a lot of flack in end game chat. But, hey, blood points! And I Survived; so that's what matters really.

  in What is the Proper Way to Deal with SWF Voice Coms? Comment by EVIL_ED_VAMP April 1, 2019

• @Petraaahh said:

  I think this is really well thought out and I definitely hope we see a casual mode implemented soon. It could possibly be a great idea to put swf there too.

  The only problem I could see arise from this is that killers wouldn't que for casual knowing it would put them in an swf and thus matchmaking in casual would become problematic. Thoughts?

  Thank you. I did try to put a lot of thought into this and it's far from a total fix. Just some ideas that I think might help.

  Honestly, I think the main problem will be the other way around and it might kill Ranked Mode by making its lobby times take too long.

  I think a lot of Survivors mostly only play the game as SWF. Maybe once in a while when they're bored and no one else is on is when they join as solo.

  As such, I suspect most of the traffic to shift to the SWF games in Casual Mode because Killers will know that's the only place where they will be able to get a match going in under five minutes.

  Ranked will be for people who are willing to wait longer for a match; because they want the all solo join experience that this game originally was. They want to, Killer or Survivor, compete for rank so that they can have pride in knowing they earned that rank themselves.

  My biggest fear is that, as popular as DBD is, I'm not entirely sure it can withstand a player base split like this. I really do think most Survivors will play Casual because they play the game to play the game with friends and they will boycott ranked if they have to join solo. Killers will play casual out of getting tired of waiting for lobbies to fill in ranked. I really do think filling casual lobbies will be no problem. I really do think rank will be a twenty to thirty minute wait at best. Longer at worst.

  So, really, rank will be set alone for those wiling to wait for a match that's fair to everyone involved. While Casual will be instant join, instant play; because that's where about 80%-90% of people will move to playing at for the fast lobby load times. The Survivors, I would guess, make up about 80% of the community. They are 4/5 of the players of every game. I assume the split isn't really that even. But, you get my point. They carry the weight and as such; where they choose to play is where games will be played at. They won't give up SWF; so with SWF tied to Casual that means Casual will be where 90% of DBD matches will take place. Essentially making the ranking system optional for super competitive game-play and players; while no longer the main focus of the game for the community as it will be almost entirely abandoned by most people in favor as the faster lobby times of Casual Mode. With that, a large amount of the player base toxicity will die out with the death of ranked mode.

  I would personally rather see both modes get loved and both be an active scene. But, honestly, I would guess that there aren't enough Survivors willing to give up SWF and Solo Join to make ranked mode Viable under a player base this size. Hopefully I'm wrong and both can find games in under 10 minutes. But, I do see Ranked being a Ghost Town and Casual taking over. But, considering the nature of SWF, at least this gives those few people who want to play a fair game a place to do it in ranked if they're willing to wait for it. And it stops SWF from tanking killer ranks unfairly. Essentially, even if this kills ranked mode (which I think it will) I think that in itself will kill most of the toxicity in this community.

  People play this game too competitively. Maybe killing ranked mode is the best thing for this community; at this point. The Devs have never been able to balance it to make everyone happy. And we're all stuck with it; it's the only way to play the game. Now, if the Devs want a quite way to kill ranked mode so that they don't have to really worry too much about fixing it any time super soon; this will be the best and most well intentioned way to do it.

  'Hey guys and gals; we decided to give you all a Casual Mode. You've all said you wanted this for a very long time now. Well, here it is. SWF will be tied to Casual Mode because that's the place everyone plays just for fun. Ranked will be solo joins only so that only those strong enough to go it alone will have earned their rank honestly.'

  If the community is big enough to handle the split; we have two active scenes that everyone enjoys. If not, casual wins, rank dies, and the community can be a little less toxic and one more balancing fire put out for the Devs.

  'Hey guys and gals, we want to focus on other ideas rather than balancing Ranked Mode's Emblem System right now because our data shows us that about 90% don't really play Ranked Mode anyway once we added Casual. So, one day we'll get back to it. But, for now, we're just going to focus on making the game play better balanced over all and adding exciting new content.'

  See? Even if the split fails, it succeeds in a different way. And, the option is given to the community to decide how much it's willing to support Ranked Mode. If enough people play it, the Devs can keep working on balancing the Emblem System for it. If everyone just leaves it; the Devs can just can their work on it and focus on other ideas for the game. It's a win either way.

  I guess the other issue is how DBD Devs handle matchmaking if ranked is essentially abandoned by most players.

  Street Fighter 5 handled matching the casual players under the same ranking system as the ranked players. So, let's say you start of Rookie and make your way up to Silver in Ranked Mode. Well, you could just stop playing Ranked for a while and coast in Casual. Everyone you fight in Casual will be around Silver; because that's the rank you earned in Ranked Mode. So, Ultra Copper and Super Silver. In the ballpark of your rank from Ranked Mode. So, that's how matchmaking is handled in SF5.

  The problem with DBD using this type of system is that rank resets with each new chapter. As such, what's really stopping a skilled Killer from simply only playing Casual and never playing Ranked? Then, there will be no baseline on how to fairly match that Killer to other equally skilled Survivors in Casual.

  About the best I can think of is to consider Casual to be a free for all in matchmaking. Or, keep a hidden rank that players don't see and stress out over (hence Casual Mode) but actually does record how you're doing separate from the real rank of Ranked Mode so that matchmaking has something to operate off of.

  The other options is to do the Street Fighter 5 system. But, to make that work, you'll need to incentivize people to play ranked if not enough are doing it on their own. Maybe reward ranked play with more shards or special outfits for that Season that only people who rank up high enough are allowed to buy. That way, people will have to play ranked mode to get cool outfits exclusive to Ranked Mode and then the rank from Ranked Mode can be used to match make in both Ranked Mode and Casual Mode; just like how Street Fighter 5 does it.

  These are just some ideas I'm spit balling.

  But, to address your concerns, I will do think SWF groups will stay together and the Killers will fallow them for games. Is playing SWF unfair and sucky? Yes, yes it is. But, not as bad as a ten to twenty minutes wait time for a single game. So, considering Survivors carry most of the weight in this community; they'll decide to move the matches to where SWF is allowed. If that's only in Casual; then the matches will move to Casual. They will wait out the Killers and this bring the game over to Casual Mode.

  That, or if I'm lucky and get my hope, enough people will be willing to give solo Ranked Mode a try and we can have two active and alive game play modes. I doubt it, but it would be awesome and I hope it happens. This is why bribing them with exlucsive outfits to play in ranked for each season might work if the Devs want to try to keep Ranked Mode alive.

  Otherwise, like I said in the beginning, this idea was to decrease toxicity. Whether it ends with two great game play modes or an abandoned Ranked Mode and an active Casual Mode; toxicity will be decreased either way. Because I feel the toxicity comes from people taking the game too seriously over their ranked combined with being expected to play perfectly all of the time and getting knocked down unfairly in rank by SWF Com Squads.

  If we are mature enough to keep Ranked Mode alive; then the toxicity of SWF gets shoved to Casual where we can laugh it off as just for fun mode. If Ranked dies for Causal to live. Well, at least when SWF are kicking our butts we don't have to worry about rank anymore, no one does, no one plays Ranked anymore...

  See? Either way, toxicity defused at least a little.

  in Balance Proposal to Help Mitigate Toxicity Comment by EVIL_ED_VAMP March 28, 2019