Gearhead and other baffling perks

cwtfern

Gearhead: Sorta does what Surveillance does, but only if you've climbed Mt. Everest, sung the alphabet backwards, and clicked your heels three times... on a Thursday.

Also it only works for 30 seconds.

Also also it's tied to skill-checks, which are completely random and can now be removed entirely with a brown add-on.

Also, also, also it only works on good skill-checks, not great, and is therefore hard countered by Stake Out or survivors simply being half-decent at the game.

Did I mention it only works for 30 seconds?

Soooo, yeah, what exactly is this perk good for, strategic or otherwise? It's an information perk that requires two M1's to activate and there's a possibility it will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for you. You're surrendering an entire perk slot for some mediocre information that you aren't even guaranteed to get.

Ideally, two M1's means a downed survivor, and you already get way more value out of BBQ or Thrilling in that instance. If you M1 two separate survivors, are you really going to drop the chase on the off-chance you see a generator on the other side of the map turn yellow?

Gearhead is the latest example of an ongoing problem with DbD perks lately. They are getting increasingly niche and circumstantial, and it's part of why you see the same perk loadouts over and over on every Killer and Survivor despite a dump of new ones every three months. They all seem to follow the same pattern too: one useless perk, one situational/gimmick perk, and one "strong" perk.

Good perks need only two things: simplicity and strategic value.

Now every single perk has a cool-down, or tokens, or requires some absurdly specific scenario to play out, and then the payoffs aren't even that good.

Mindbreaker, Buckle Up, Coulrophobia, Camaraderie, Furtive Chase, Autodidact, the list goes on.

I understand that there aren't that many mechanics in this game and there's only so much you can do with the perks. I know not every perk should be incredibly strong and I get the value of niche/gimmick perks to add more variation to player loadouts. Some of these newer ones, though, seem completely useless almost by design. So many perks we already have do the same thing, but better.

The devs are super creative, but It feels to me like they are being handicapped by the need to create a minimum of three new perks every single chapter. It's obvious when they have one or two good ideas, but then just come up with some silly ######### to fill the other slots. I think perhaps they're spreading themselves too thin, or getting lost in the number crunching.

Quality over quantity. I'd be much happier getting ONE decent perk per new Killer/Survivor than getting three weird ones that have all of these variables.

.................

Also, buff Clown. 🤡