The problem with perks
Long rant incoming
Tl;dr: Devs you might need to skip a chapter or two and just go through all the perks and make sure be feel good to use.
Currently where the situation where the meta is very stagnant.
Nine times out of ten you're almost guaranteed to see the same perks over and over again.
But I can't really blame the player based when there is a problem with a lot of perks survivor side and killer side by just makes most of them unappealing in comparison to the meta.
This can be boiled down to three problems.
1) Unnecessary conditions- these are perks with so many unnecessary conditions for them to come online that they're becomes next to no point using them.
A prime example of this is furtive Chase. ( this is coming from someone who has a furtive chase build)
Requirement to Hook your obsession coupled with the condition that it has to be in a chase with the added restriction of the perk being made completely invalid if your obsession dies this perk actively detrimental most of the time.
For all this unnecessary red tape what do you get lower terror radius when you're in a chase probably the least helpful thing out there.
Now compare this to monitor and abuse something that offers a more useful benefit and that is passive you don't need to do anything to make it work.
Perks with conditions or restrictions are fine however rewards you get from it needs to be worth the effort you put in and be worth the cost of not messing up so you don't you lose it.
A couple of examples of this
Mettle of man
Furtive chase
2) Niche perks that are outclassed
When making a perk that does a niche job it should not be outclassed in that job by another perk at that job. If you're running a build that centred around that job there shouldn't be perks that do better than the niche perk in question.
Perks that have a very niche job are meant to excel heavily at doing that job. It's why niche perks or weapons are my favourite when it comes to video games. Dead by daylight often has a problem with this however.
A good example would be wake up this perk has one job gates. you open exit gate faster and inform other people which exit gate you're opening. Outside of that it's absolutely useless even then if you are not the one who opens the exit gate the perk is completely useless
Now the problem is that leader can essentially give a stronger boost then the perks that's main purpose is to open the exit gate.
The combination of spine chill and resilience can pretty much do the same job and it's useful throughout the game.
Another example of this would be monstrous shrine even on a basement build there are better options.
Forced penance does better as you guarantee protection hits because of how confined the basement is.
Mad grit does better especially when you're dragging people across map to the basement.
Even insidious does a lot better to help you camp the basement.
All of these can be can be useful and effective outside of a basement build when monstrous shrine can't ( mad grit is debatable but it definitely comes in handy more than monstrous)
Niche perks can be great they can actually create a lot of unique and interesting builds however you have to make them excel at the job that they do. They can't, I repeat they can't be outclassed by something that does a universal job.
Some examples:
Wake up
Monstrous shrine
Furtive Chase ( this thing again)
3) No Control with little benefit.
Here we have perks where the user has next to no control over when th5e activate this usually means that they could go completely unused because you are in no position to take advantage of it.
Now are there perks don't do this but have have a strong enough benefit to warrant it. Yes, Haunted grounds and tinkerer I come to mind.
Here I'm talking about things like cruel limits. This perk you have no control over as you can't really dictate when a survivor is going to pop a gen and even if you could there's no guarantee that you will be close enough to the gen to take advantage of it or there wouldn't be a completely safe non vault based loop the survivors can easily run instead.
You have no power or control over when the perk activates and then it's benefit is nowhere near strong enough to even be worth the slot justification.
Now as I said there are perks that have this formula and work haunted grounds and tinkerer are very good perks even if you're not in the best position can still offer benefits that make it useful.
All in all I really feel like the devs need to go through the perks and make sure that any of these three problems aren't evident with them. This isn't going to completely change the matter but it will encourage people to actually use different things because using different things will be worth it
Comments
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I agree with 100% the meta is getting old and the devs just keep on adding situational perks with little to no reward for using it. The last meta perk we got was Dead Hard ( if I am correct) and that was CHAPTER 5 now is chapter 17 the devs really need to realize that a lot of perks on the survivor and killer side are straight garbage. I would rather the devs just go on a perk rework/buff spree on older or bad perks instead of getting a new chapter. Imo
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Every time they do the Shrine, they should randomly buff unpopular perks to shake up the meta. If a buff does particularly well and people really like it, they could consider making the buff permanent. Would really add some hot freshness to the game.
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I do have a few suggestions on changes (in my opinion would help)
but was Dead Hard meta since it's release I didn't play then (I started playing when Legion came out)
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The problem with many perks, at least on the Survivor side, is that BHVR have made quite a few so good that they've been META since they were introduced.. even when some of them have suffered nerfs since. If BHVR was to actually rework them to be less META, they'd be in for a crap show since it'd be an outrage. That's never going to happen, since Survivors are the main revenue source. Happy customers are buying customers and it'd be ######### for any business to disrupt that money flow.
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Agree on the main points.
On survivor said it's also the fact that they have these second chance perks that are just so absolutely insane that they overshadow and make all other perks look trash in comparison. So while we do need huge perk buffs all around, we also need to nerf the perks that are just way overbearing in comparison.
Hypothetically if all the second chance perks didn't exist I think we'd actually see quite a wide variety of perks being used.
All the second chance perks are game swinging effects that really aren't situational, have no cost, downside, skill requirement, or literally just ask anything of the survivor at all.
There's simply no reason not to run them unless you just wanna meme. They're just that good.
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What second chance perks....
What does second chance really mean????
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Honestly if I could suggest one thing for each problem it would be this.
1) If you're going to put a lot of restrictions on a perk make it worth the restrictions. If the perk could easily lose its power make sure that the reward is strong enough to have it worth having it be potentially removed.
Devour hope- is conditions and restrictions done right.
Restriction- being 24 m away from the hook.
Condition- power creep is based on tokens
Limiter- Hex can be destroyed
Reward- insane amount of snowball potential from a speed Boost to insta downs to moris.
2) Honestly this is super easy buff these perks in their specific jobs and make them really strong in those specific categories. It shouldn't be outclassed by a universal perk at doing its job.
It's sad to say but I can't really think of anything that's a prime example of it being done right even though I'm a dedicated user of niche perks
3) Just like with the number two the solution is easy if you don't have any control over whether and activates or not make sure that it's strong enough to be worth it.
Take haunted grounds for example
You have no control over whether someone destroys that Totem however once it is destroyed even if you're not in a position to get it down it put everybody on edge.
Healthy survivors in chases will start throwing pallets down like mad. People go completely immersed the psychological impact of just having that one shot potential can be devastating.
Another good example would be tinkerer even if you're not in the position to get to that gen fast enough your new found stealth capabilities can easily allow you to to get in there and get a sneaky hit
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TL;DR (sorry I'm on moble RN)
Brutal Strength:
Adds bonus regression on kicking gens (like new Ruin but on a kicked fan) up to 200%
Post edited by RaSavage42 on0 -
Second Chance perks can be fairly quickly summarised as
"Whoops I made a mistake. Luckily this perk gives me a chance to make up for my mistake"
Perks that give you a second chance.
Dead hard? Ah I ######### up this loop letting the killer get close enough to hit me before I reach the pallet/window. Luckily Dead Hard can fix that.
Unbreakable, Damn the killer downed me and is leaving me on the ground to go for my team mates. Luckily Unbreakable gives me and possibly my team a second chance.
Borrowed Time. Oops I started unhooking next to the killer (either by mistake, the killers camping or I did this intentionally to "abuse" my perks function because I know the killer either slugs/tunnels the target off hook). Borrowed time gives my unhooked ally a second chance and undoes my poor unhooking "mistake".
etc etc
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Ok... Thanks
But that's not what I'd call "second chance"... I'd say that those are hook delay perks
Except Dead Hard would be a chase extending perk
But to each their own
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I mean you can call them what you want the fact remains that they give second chances to survivors/killers. DS and NOED goes under the same umbrella in the general communities mindset
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