The technician change and other new player perks
Alright in this post and pretty much going to underline the main reason I feel like technician has been so underused and why I feel like the upcoming change isn't really going to change that.
This is going to be a long post so if you want a tldr: If you want a new player perks to be more used you have to give them points that new players will need but also aspects that more experienced players can still fit in their build. The technician change isn't going to do this.
Before this point gets brought up I'm going to address it right away. Yes I'm very much aware that technician is meant to be perk for new players. No I don't find new player perks to be a problem if I do have any issue with them it's that they shouldn't be teachable they should be part of the base perk pool. This means new players can gain access to them without having to commit to a grind and still be able to play whatever character they would also not have to worry about a bunch of teachables clogging up the pool before they can use these perks to learn.
Now with that out of the way the main problem with the technician change technician as a perk is based around skill checks this is a core mechanic of the survivor gameplay and is probably a mechanic that survivors are going to become adept at the fastest as a lot of aspects revolve around skill checks.
1) Healing
2) Gens
3) RTB - Jigsaw boxes
4) Cage of Atonement
5) Demo portals
6) Snap out of it
Decisive strike and overcharge also technically skill check factors as well well but I'm just sticking to things in the base kits.
Now because of this it means that unless new people initially pick Min ( this is more unlikely on PC as she is grind or paid DLC) they usually going to be adept enough at the game from playing and leveling up other characters that they don't really need technician.
So now you're already running into the problem of it not being very open to new players and most likely becoming obsolete by the time they get around investing in it
I'm going to talk about to new player perks that I feel like hit the mark a little better. Fixated and windows of opportunity. These two perk teach survivors scratch mark management and looping skills respectively.
These two to however can also appeal to more experienced players. More experienced players can use fixated for mind games as they can take advantage of seeing their scratch marks and the increased walking speed to trick the Killer by doubling back or walking a different direction. With Windows of opportunity more experienced players who are good at predicting pallet and window spawns based on what they can see can use it to figure out the most efficient way of keeping safe pallets unused and resources conserved so late game doesn't become so dangerous.
Technician sadly doesn't have these advantages because skill checks are pretty much hit or miss (literally) either you hit the skillcheck or you'll miss it outside of that there's nothing and experienced player can really do that separates them from a new player.
As someone who often puts technician in their builds the stealth aspect of it was actually a really decent part. Allowing you to do generators in much more risky situations but with the new change there seems to be even less incentive to actually use it because of the missed skill check penalty.
Now as I said before because of how prevalent skill checks are new players are likely to have already become decent with them before they gain access or start investing in technician and experienced players again aren't really going to find any benefit as they normally don't miss skill checks.
Again this is my own personal opinion so take it as you will but I do feel like increasing the stealth benefits of it it was the way to go rather than the skill check benefits.
This would help new players be more comfortable with doing generators rather than running away at the slightest sound of the terror radius and more experienced players can also find uses out of an expanded stealth bonus to do a lot more beneficial plays or mind games.
Comments
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Replace RBT with Jigsaw Boxes seeing that the boxes are where you get the skillchecks on
Newer players (should be) more concerned about hitting skillchecks not overall progress... so the increase missed skillcheck penalty shouldn't matter (as much)
I do agree that the stealth aspect of the perk should've been the thing to be buffed but (whataboutism) then Surveillance should receive the same sort of change
Also from my experience survivors (myself included) run away from a missed skillcheck about 75% of the time for fear of getting the killers attention and getting hooked in the early to mid game... So I feel like Technician would be viable
And everyone misses some sort of skillcheck... so even more good thing the new Technician will do
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Thanks the Jigsaw boxes suggestion I made the change.
Also while yes everyone makes mistakes you got to realise how many people how many people are willing to sacrifice a perk slot for something they only do on occasion. Especially with the add regression for those occasional mistakes.
Let's take another Min perk for example Alert. Now this used to be just awful had a stupid cooldown and range limit. When it was buffed to remove both these negative aspects the fear of it being meta and overpowering was prevalent. However when it was changed even though it was a lot better in fact it was even really good no one really swapped out out any perks for it despite having no downstairs.
This is just an example of something having a strong advantage with no downsides but just not being impactful enough for people to consider it worth a perk slot. Technician is even in a worst position even right now it's not even considered by some people worth a perk slot on a meme build. Buffing one of the least interesting and useful aspects of it whilst adding a negative is definitely not going to bring it up in usage
As I said before technician has been a solid part of most of my builds for the longest time. Even now I consider it an underrated perk because of the stealth advantages however the direction is going in I don't see it rising in usage. Hell best case scenario it stagnates, worst case scenario it drops in usage even more which is sad because it's already probably considered pretty low on the survivor perk tier.
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First... That's good (avoid confusion later on)
Second... I understand where you are coming from... the First survivor I played was Feng Min... So I used Technician a lot early on...
But I did change it out for another perk... My current build is: Kindred/We'll make it (or others depending on what I've been facing)/ Lithe/ and Spine Chill
Again I feel like a change to the repair noises would be better in the long run (but we'll wait and see)
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I'd be perfectly happy with a slight increase to the range for Surveillance and Technician. Not only are they severely underappreciated parts of those perks, but they offer something outside of the norm of just stat increases or auras.
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True... I'm all for it
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Honestly I agree if this so much. The increased sound range is an aspect of surveillance that often gets slept on despite it being really helpful.
Honestly my favourite aspect of technician has always been there are quiet repairs it's a very underrated aspect but it definitely allows you to pull off some plays and the increased sound from surveillance has helped me find survivors who think it's safe to work on a gen because I'm distracted in a chase close by
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