Generator Rework: Less Gens
I just took the survey and left a message as to why I might not recommend Dead By Daylight to another person, so I thought I'd post my ideas here too.
The game is fun but inherently flawed. The mechanics are too simple to be properly balanced, and it's not scary enough. Stripped down, it's only a game of tag, but if you like tag then it's fun. Chasing/being chased is the best part of Dead by Daylight, but killers will lose so fast if they focus too much on chasing. Every high rank killer knows the significance of running Ruin, which to me says the game obviously needs to be slowed down. If the objective was changed to make chasing more viable, everyone would benefit because that's the actual fun part of the game.
I propose the Devs make gens only fixable with "parts" found around the map, and add more hiding places then just lockers (Yamaoka Estate, while disliked by the community, is a good example of this) in order to slow down the game in favor of killers, but empower survivors who take their time and hide. Slowing the game down without giving the survivors more tools to survive extended games would just be a huge nerf for survivors, which is why I also think the amount of gens should be reduced from 7 to 5 along with these changes. In addition to this, perhaps the timer on hook progression should be lengthened, since the whole game will be slowed down. Increasing the time someone can stay on the hook gives killers even less reason to camp, and gives survivors more leeway to not just rush at a hooked survivor, but actually sneak up to them and rescue them. It might be boring for hooked survivors, so we don't want to increase the time too much, maybe 15 to 30 secs per stage.
For the gen changes, in order for survivors to work on generators there should be piles of scrap metal around the map that survivors can search for a "Spare Part" to carry. Only one part at a time, and it only repairs a gen up to 35-45% (adjust for balance). You can swap for a new part anytime, and Spare Parts stay on survivors even if they move to a different gen. This means players have to first go find a part, and then at least 3 players (or the same player 3 times) must work on a gen to complete it. Toolboxes could be reworked to be less about speeding up repairs, but simply being able to work on gens without needing parts first, or to perhaps only be faster if you also have a part on you. Without toolboxes 4, 5, or more scraps could possibly be needed if a killer regresses the gens which might hurt the game, so in addition perhaps make it that if survivors get the gen to at least 50%, it cannot be regressed below that threshold.
This gen rework would make the game much, much slower however, so that's why it would be good to reduce the number of gens from 7 to 5, only needing 3 completed from the start of the game. Less gens would make it less of a grind to complete objectives, and would mean gens will spawn right next to each other less often, which is good for survivors because they'll get 3 gen'd less often, and good for killers because survivors will then spend more time running around the map. Another fun little thing I've thought of, make it so you can only see skill checks if you're looking at the gen. Usually being on a gen isn't too scary because you can look around you while you're doing it, but if you actually had to work on the gen, you'd need to be looking at what you're doing. Requiring the survivor to look at the gen everytime they hear a skill check makes the game scarier, the gens more interesting to do for survivors, and of course give the killer another small advantage. It would also be a huge buff to Huntress's lullaby.
All of these changes artificially slows down the game, requires more teamwork, makes the objective more interesting and engaging so survivors can have fun more ways than just bullying killers, makes killers who can patrol and chase in certain areas better at the game, and finally it encourages killers to not camp hooks (all good things). Slowing down the game allows more time for suspense to increase the scariness of the game, and it lets chases happen without ruining the game for killers. A hide/chase focused meta is what should be ideal, because then the killers could stop being so sweaty and then survivors won't need to be sweaty back. At a certain level, you won't be able to stop rank 1's from being tryhards, but I think these kinds of changes would be good at all ranks anyway. Gen rushing and hook camping are encouraged with the current set-up because matches go by so fast. Capping how much a survivor can work on a gen will give killers more time and make all killers more viable. It will also mean survivors have to travel the map more, spending even more time, and lets killers do good by simply patrolling certain key areas rather than needing to out perform the survivors for the entire match. In order to keep this from being a huge nerf to survivors, hiding needs to be more viable too, which is something that will really help low rank survivors I think, who often get destroyed because they don't know how to win chases.
I have more ideas, but I think this is a good place to start. What do you guys think?
Comments
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The idea of an extended game being a nerf to survivors... is the idea.
The idea is to make it so more games end in more satisfying games. Where the rate of survivors escaping and dying is close to the Killer's rate of sacrifice with as little middle ground as possible.
Seven gens while looking for parts won't be an issue, if you put it up in Red Ranks.
I proposed the parts idea before, but instead of it applying to all survivors, it applies based on ranking. The higher rank, the more parts required for one generator.
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