[Buff My Perk!] #1 - Deja Vu & Bitter Murmur
Hi guys, it is my intention to start a series of threads where I suggest reworks for what are in my opinion underwhelming perks. I'll try to post a new thread every 2-3 days with the tag [Buff My Perk!] so bear with me for a while, if you want.
My Rules
- one survivor and one killer perk per thread - let's take out of the way the "survivor/killer main" bias :)
- only one rework per perk
- the description of the perk must be concise and not too convoluted; however, I'll try to explain in detail what is the hidden meaning of everything
- I'll try my best to take into consideration interactions with other perks / add-ons / killer power even when not explicitly stated. However, if Devs failed to understand what was going to happen with the Nemesis and old Deep Wound interaction, I think I'm going to fail hard as well at times :)
- the rework should be useful for both new and experienced players
Today's perks are: Deja Vu (survivor) and Bitter Murmur (killer)
Deja Vu
The auras of 3 generators which are in close proximity to one another are revealed to you for 30/45/60 seconds, at the start of the match and each time a generator is completed.
If you are holding a map that can track generators, generators revealed by Deja Vu are added to the map.
New Definition
Each time a generator is completed, the aura of the 3 generators closest to your current location is revealed to you and other survivors for 20/30/40 seconds.
While Deja Vu is active, you gain 5% Haste status effect and 10% increase in repair speed.
If you are holding a map that can track generators, generators revealed by Deja Vu are added to the map.
Rationale
Deja Vu is possibly the most useless perk in the game right now, since only very new players don’t know how to find a generator quickly (aside maybe for indoor maps). The aura is shown only for you as well, which makes it even less useful and it could exacerbate differences between solo/swf players.
The change aims to add new effects to the perk, enhancing its overall utility, while rebalancing its duration and activation to avoid potential abuses:
- Deja Vu is no longer active at the start of the trial, to avoid early game “gen rush” due to the increase in repair speed
- the generators shown to the players are the ones closest to the generator just repaired. This is an incentive to go the closest one and use the newly added increase in repair speed on it. An implicit counter to this is the fact that the killer now knows your general location, and the generator you’ll pick will possibly be unsafe
- auras are shown to every player, to avoid swf advantage over solo players
- the very slight Haste effect is an incentive for the player to quickly reach a new generator and helping him escape from the killer if found during the travel. It’s not enough to make the survivor impossible to reach, but it should promote dynamic gameplay
- the duration has been greatly nerfed, since 60 seconds of 10% increase in repair speed would become dangerously strong with coordinated survivors + toolboxes (not to mention Prove Thyself / Resilience, Spine Chills..). 40 seconds should generally mean an effective boost in repair speed of no more than 30-35 seconds, depending on how quickly the new generator is reached, which is good but not overpowered.
This change should be well met by both new and experienced players: the former will still have the usefulness of the aura reading and they will gain info from their team mates like in the case of Kindred, while experienced players could introduce this perk in their build to try new very quick but very dangerous plays (because of the risk of 3 genning the team and the killer patrolling).
Bitter Murmur
Unlocks potential in one's aura reading ability. Each time a generator is fully repaired, survivors within 16 meters of the completed generator will be revealed for 5 seconds.
When the last generator is fully repaired, all the survivors auras are revealed for 5/7/10 seconds.
New Definition
Unlocks potential in one's aura reading ability. Each time a generator is fully repaired, survivors within 16 meters of the completed generator will be revealed and become Broken for 5 seconds.
When the last generator is fully repaired, the same effects are applied to all survivors for 5/7/10 seconds.
When Bitter Murmur effect is over, the affected survivors will return to their previous health state if not hit.
Rationale
What is wrong with Bitter Murmur? Well, in the vast majority of the times when a generator is completed two things may happen
- the generator is far away, and 5 seconds are absolutely not enough to gain enough information to reach the survivors. Also, differently from BBQ, the auras shown are of survivors which are most of the times moving to different places (meaning: not being stationary), thus making the aura reading even less useful.
- the generator is very near, meaning that there’s basically no gain from the aura reading: just follow scratch marks and/or literally watch the survivors moving away to track them.
When the last generator is done things may differ, since 10 seconds are now a fair amount of time, plus any survivor can be tracked, catching them by surprise very easily.
The first case aforementioned is difficult to address, since by increasing the time of the aura reading things can become too frustrating especially against high mobility killers, and similarly increasing the radius of the aura reading would be too punishing for the whole team.
The second case, instead, becomes deadly with the new Bitter Murmur (I’ll explain why in a short while).
But the very best part is… Bitter Murmur is now a hard counter to Adrenaline plays! Let’s see everything in more details
- if the killer is nearby an almost completed generator, survivors cannot trade anymore a health state for the gen rush: if they complete the generator, they become broken and will be downed in one hit. This is a direct counter to a very frustrating tactic from experienced players against killers!
- The broken effect is only temporary, and, by coming back to the health state the survivor was in before becoming broken, we can avoid unfair advantages to killers if the generator was too far away from them
- No more adrenaline plays by swf teams! Saving a hooked survivor exactly as the last generator pops to make both the saviour and the unhooked invincible (noed notwithstanding of course) is no longer possible, since Adrenaline will still proc its sprint boost, but cannot immediately fully heal from the broken status effect. That’s similarly true for a survivor pushing the last generator even while injured and with the killer coming.
A few further notes about Adrenaline, downed and hooked survivors interaction with Bitter Murmur:
- For consistency reasons, Adrenaline is considered to have priority over Bitter Murmur. What this means is that the previous health state of the survivor is the one the survivor had after Adrenaline activated. However, this will be noticeable only after Bitter Murmur effect is over.
- A hooked survivor is to be considered as injured, as far as previous health state is concerned.
- Downed survivors will still be able to be revived by Adrenaline even with Bitter Murmur active, and since Adrenaline has priority over Bitter Murmur the previous health state they’ll go back to after the broken status effect is over will be injured, not downed.
- Similarly, downed survivors which are revived by other survivors while Bitter Murmur is active will not go back to their downed state, but just stay injured - this can be obvious from the player point of view but I can see how, programming wise, bugs would happen, so better to be clear, even if this is just pure theory :P. One way to see this, programming wise, is to rephrase "...return to the previous health state" to "...return to the best previous health state", meaning that the previousHealthState variable can change even while broken, but it can only improve, not regress.