New Mechanic: Sacrificial Runes

Rectal_Prolapse

I'll start off by dropping the SORRY FOR BAD ENGRISH so bear with me.

Sacrificial Runes – A new Killer’s mechanic suggestion

1.Introduction

This essay was written assuming that the reader is well familiarized with the nuances revolving Dead by Daylight on it’s current form. The idea behind the sacrificial runes is to provide killers with a tool to allow them to gain an additional momentum in order to put a stop or even reverse a scenario where the generators are under heavy pressure over a short window of time. 

The idea behind this system is to include new optional elements to the game whose aim is to add new strategic points throughout the map, the potential of increasing the game’s length  and also, providing additional time pressure in favor of the killer while benefiting bold survivors with a mean to score additional blood points.

2. The Concept

**2.1 Interactions**

At the beginning of each game, a number of runes are picked out from an initial pool of five total. The amount of spawned runes will obey the formula: [ number of survivors at the beginning of the trial – 1 ]. So, in a regular game, a total of 3 runes will be active at the beginning of the trial. These runes are then randomly generated over the surface of large enough obstacles or walls throughout the map. Each rune has a total of three stages of empowerment, which are visually indicated by the rune itself, to whomever happens to stumble upon one.

Each runes has a passive effect that builds up as the rune gets powered up. Their progress have two distinctive milestones that will trigger bonus effects and aesthetic changes.

The pool of possible sacrificial runes and their targets of impact are:

**1. Sanguine Rune** – Affects the killer’s ability to spot and track survivors.
**2. Unrelenting Rune** – Affects the killer’s ability withstand (and apply) physical punishment.
**3. Sagacity Rune** – Affects the killer’s ability to traverse the arena more efficiently.
**4. Despair Rune** – Affects the killer’s ability to apply dread through his very presence.
**5. Veil Rune** – Affects the killer’s ability to conceal his means of deception.

As of aesthetics, runes are presented as primitive wall drawings accompanied by candles and other sorts of dark offerings such as shrunken skulls, bones, dead/rotten wildlife, crow feathers, dolls and such. Each rune has it’s own shape and emits a distinctive faint light correspondent to it’s type. Sanguines are red, Unrelentings are yellow, and so on.

A rune will **NOT**:
• Spawn on direct line sight off of generators, survivors, totems and other runes that are closer than 40 meters.
• Spawn on the basement.
• Spawn at the outer walls of the trial.
• Spawn on the exit gates.

2.2 Ascending Runes

All runes have three stages of empowerment, which are easily discernible by survivors through a quick inspection:

• On initial stage (0-35%) – The runes emit no audible cues, the drawings produce a very feint light which is only visible from up closer inspection. Killers have no sight of it’s aura and receive no audio cue when a survivor attempts to cleanse it.

• On intermediate stage (35%-80%) – The runes start emitting a pulsing energy noise that can be heard when in it’s immediate vicinity. The drawings luminescence is much brighter and it’s ornaments begin to interact with it. Killers receive an audio cue when a rune ascends to this phase. The Rune’s aura pulses initially to alert the killer of it’s position, then it remains as a constant aura marker  (much like generators) on the killer’s sight. Killers receive no audio cue when a survivor attempts to cleanse it.

• On final stage (80%–100%) The runes burst with energy, dark fluids start pouring out of the drawings. The sound produced becomes much louder and the ornaments begin to interact violently with the runes. Skulls will levitate and burn, feathers will dance mid-air, dead animals will assume lifelike positions and remain vigilant of their surroundings. Killers receive a distinctive audio cue that a survivor has started cleansing a high rune. 

Runes are passively empowered at a rate of 4%/min as the match progresses, however, killers are able to actively increase their progress by hooking survivors, hence the name Sacrificial Runes. For every survivor that is hooked or transitions into struggle/sacrificed stage, the closest rune to it gets empowered by a flat 15% of their total progress.

**2.3 Cleansing**

The process of cleansing a rune starts off in a similar fashion as cleansing a totem: survivor sees rune, survivor approaches the rune, survivor presses then holds the action button. Interrupting the action resets the process – similarities end there:

• It takes 9/12/15 seconds to cleanse a rune (respective stages).
• At the beginning of every milestone of progression (0%, 35% and 80%) a guaranteed skill check is randomly placed within the cleansing process.  These skill checks are not affected by perks and their success zones are similar to vanilla's Doc T3 cleanse. Failing one of these checks will render the target survivor unable to interact with the respective rune for 10 seconds and will empower it by an additional 8%.
• Succeeding the cleansing will immediately revert the rune to it’s previous stage and it’s progress bar will instead regress at a 2%/min rate until the killer interacts with it.
• A cleansed rune will become unusable by survivors in a similar fashion of kicked generators.
• Cleansed runes will become riddled with the entity’s stain as it’s progress percentage diminishes as a visual cue.
• Cleansed runes will cease providing bonus effects, with the exception of their passive benefits that will remain active, but diminishing.
• Cleansed runes will grant the survivor boldness blood points immediately depending on which state of empowerment the rune was set at and additional points at the end of the match comprised of the total amount of applied regression. The formula is 100/200/300 (immediate) + 10*[percentage_regression] per rune.
• The Killer can interact with cleansed runes in order to reactivate them. The activation process triggers a progress bar that can be canceled at any time at the cost of regressing the entire activation progress. It takes about 3 seconds to reactivate a single rune.
• 75/125/150 blood points on the sacrifice category will be given to the Killer as he reverses a cleansing process.

3. The Runes

**3.1 Sanguine Rune:**

Passive: Gradually increases the audible range of survivor’s actions and pain grunts up to a    total of 25% at maximum rune charge (at 100% charge).
2nd Stage: Failing skill checks reveals the survivor’s aura for 1.5 seconds.
3rd Stage: Footprints become much more discernible as the killer becomes able to track  even the most subtle recent actions. Walking survivors leave fairly small blue scratch marks    that lasts for 1.5 seconds.

**3.2 Unrelenting Rune:**

Passive: Recuperation from stun effects are accelerated up to 15% faster at maximum     rune charge.
2nd Stage: The cooldown between successful and missed attacks becomes reduced by 10%    at all times.
3rd Stage: The speed of which blood lust is gained is considerably increased. Blood lust    buildup is only stopped after successful attacks or losing chases.

**3.3 Sagacity Rune:**

Passive: The speed of breaking actions and vaulting are accelerated up to 15% at maximum    rune charge.
2nd Stage: The killer grows more agile, reducing the noise made by his footsteps by 70%     and missed/successful attacks no longer produces any sound.
3rd Stage: The killer’s movement speed is increased by 3% at all times, when not in a   chase, this effect is applied twice.

**3.4 Desperation Rune:**

Passive: Survivors within your terror radius have their repairing, healing and sabotaging   speeds gradually reduced up to a total of 18% slower progression at maximum rune charge.
2nd Stage: The heartbeat rate is always accelerated as if the killer is standing right beside   the survivor.
3rd Stage: The chase track will immediately play alongside the heartbeats as survivors get  caught within the killer’s terror radius.

**3.5 Veil Rune:**

Passive: Totems and other runes become shrouded and are unable to be seen from further  than up to 6 meters at maximum charge starting off at 40 meters. Aura reading abilities and     items suffers only half the dampening.
2nd Stage: Totems and other runes no longer emit indicators of their status. Hex totems     become presented as regular dull totems and runes will appear as if they were at the initial    phase. Survivors that attempt to cleanse either of them will suffer from blindness status   throughout the process.
3rd Stage: The killer’s red stain becomes much harder to spot and successfully hitting a    survivor will reveal his aura to the killer for 4 seconds.

4. Conclusion

Although powerful at a first glance, it takes 25 minutes to passively all runes at a given time, considering no actions have been taken against them by any of the survivors. Runes can be either a bless or a gift for a killer, taking ground to protect a badly placed rune that has no direct hand over the trial core objectives is certainly not the ideal play, which in the end will work in detriment of the killer, undermining his chances of scoring sacrifices. The focus of the system is to indirectly increase the match length and reduce the need killers have for hex: Ruin and other meta perks that usually run alone in their build but must be picked in order not to lose in under 5 minutes while also making the killer more deadly as the matches stretches along in order to deal with hijackers and gatebaggers, which is just lame.