Chapter Concept: Shredded Hearts

icemancat

Overview:

In celebration for my 100th post on the Dead by Daylight Forums, I figured I would create 3 entire chapter concepts. However, over the past few months, I got caught up with a bunch of stuff and I only managed to fully complete one chapter concept. I did start a second one, but it's not nearly as in-depth as the one that I am about to share, so I'm going back to work on that one for a bit. On top of that second one, I've got a total of 8 other chapter concepts planned to make so be sure to let me know what you would be interested in seeing an idea of. Each chapter concept will include 1 new killer, survivor, map, and 3 unique perks on both the killer and survivor. I completely understand if some people want to skip certain parts such as the unique perks for each character or the killer’s power, this is going to be a very long post after all. After reading, however, please feel free to give feedback.

Initial Thoughts

When I thought about doing 3 whole chapter concepts, I wanted to make sure that I got a good variety of characters and abilities. However, I also wanted to go back and revisit specifically 2 killers that have the potential of coming into the game: The Feeder and The Dendron. Both of these killers were briefly mentioned as a Payday 2 mask for people who owned both Payday 2 and Dead by Daylight and I even did a whole lore analysis on the Dead by Daylight masks in Payday 2. Because of this, these 2 killers really stood out to me. However, the first pair of characters that I will be going over are Jacob Cross and The Feeder. 

New Survivor: Jacob Cross

Background:

After a day of work, Jacob would come back home to the same thing: an empty house and nothing to do. He was beginning to get sick of this lifestyle, but he was always too lazy to do anything about it. He wanted to do something about it, but no longer had the motivation after a recent tragedy. Jacob collapsed onto his bed, wishing the day away so that he could just go back to work to do something, anything at all. Suddenly, Jacob heard a knock on his apartment door. Jacob picked himself up and walked over to see who it could be. To his amazement, Jacob saw his best friend, Terry. Jacob asked what he was doing in front of his apartment and why he wasn’t back in Austin. Terry told him that he figured he would come visit to check up on his friend and to cheer him up after what happened. Terry offered him to dinner to which Jacob agreed.

Once the two friends arrived at Andy’s, they began to walk from the car to the restaurant. As Jacob was walking to the front door, he thought back to when their whole group of friends came to Andy’s together. Jacob continued to think about those good times he had. His thoughts were cut off as Terry and Jacob entered and followed a waiter to their table. The two took a seat and began waiting for their food.

As Jacob and Terry waited for their food, Terry asked his friend how work was going to which Jacob replied with a casual ‘meh’. Jacob then asked Terry how life back at home with Lauren was. Terry began explaining how Lauren recently got a promotion and how he was planning a vacation with the whole family. Terry then offered Jacob a chance to come with them, but Jacob turned it down to avoid the awkwardness that it may cause. Suddenly, Jacob and Terry’s meals were ready and they began to eat, enjoying the food that they got for so many years. 

After the two were done eating, they left and began heading over to Terry’s car. As the two got in, Terry suggested going back to Jacob’s apartment just to chat for a little while longer. Jacob agreed and they began heading over to Jacob’s apartment. The two were silent for most of the way back until Terry spoke of something that Jacob never thought he would hear again. Terry started discussing open jobs at St. Davids and how he could probably hook Jacob up with a job if he really wanted. Jacob couldn’t believe it, a new beginning and possibly working alongside his best friend. Jacob immediately agreed, excited for this new opportunity to change himself for the better. Jacob and Terry began walking back over to the apartment room, but not until noticing that the apartment door was cracked open. Jacob and Terry looked at each other and whispered to each other to charge in on three to see who may have broken in. Terry began counting down from three and once he hit zero, the two barged in to see a tall figure in a large robe, looming over various tools and equipment. The figure turned to see Terry and Jacob and quickly pulled a gun on the two. Jacob was about to yell out for help, but not until the two of them were struck on the back of their heads by a second figure in a robe. “Get up, the decision must be made now.” said the man with the gun, his voice deep and rusty.

Jacob and Terry got up from the ground with their hands up, looking to see both robed men wearing terrifying masks. The man with the gun asked his accomplice if the bomb was ready to which the other nodded. The man then told Jacob and Terry that only one of them was walking out of here, while the other must suffer. Jacob thought back to him and Terry at the restaurant just an hour ago, his family, his job, his vacation, all of it will be gone if he doesn’t get out of here. Jacob announced that he will give himself up. Jacob continued and said that Terry doesn’t deserve any of this and to let him off the hook. The two masked men looked at each other very slowly and nodded at each other. The man with the gun then raised his pistol to Terry, fired, and killed Jacob’s best friend. Jacob began to shout, until the other man then knocked him out.

Jacob woke to the sound of the bomb that was mentioned earlier. He couldn’t move, as he was tied up onto a chair. He tried to shout, but his mouth was covered. He watched as the bomb ticked down from 60 seconds. Jacob had one minute left to live. He had so many questions. Who were those men? Why were they here? Why did they kill Terry? Jacob thought back one last time to the time when he was with all of his friends at Andy’s. They were having a great time. He thinks maybe, just maybe, those men will be stopped once they find the aftermath of the explosion. With only ten seconds left, Jacob closes his eyes, and takes one deep breath, before his demise. 

It feels cold and it’s dark as Jacob slowly opens his eyes to find himself engulfed in darkness and fog. He takes a few steps in the endless void, thoughtless. Jacob looks all around him and suddenly collapses onto the ground. Jacob’s memories begin to vanish as he once again opens his eyes, not to the darkness and fog, but instead to a campfire in the middle of the woods. He looks around to find himself all alone, only now trying to figure out what he got himself into.

Survivor Rundown

Jacob Cross is an ambitious outsider, wanting only the best outcome for himself and his allies.

His personal perks, Stun N’ Slink, Occluding Risk, and Noble Immolation, enable him to evade the killer, assist his allies, and contribute for the greater good.

Stun N’ Slink

You know how to escape dire problems. After stunning a killer, you leave no scratch marks for 5 seconds. Stun N’ Slink has a cooldown of 80/70/60 seconds. “I never wanted this to be a problem. Never wanted this to become a reality and never want to have to suffer again.” - Jacob Cross

Occluding Risk

For the sake of their own safety, you risk your life for your allies. After taking a protection hit for another survivor, that survivor will receive the Endurance Status Effect for 15 seconds and will activate Occluding Risk. If the survivor who gained the Endurance Status Effect is hit once again while they have the Endurance Status Effect, you gain the Broken Status Effect for 80/70/60 seconds. “This is really hard for me to do, but you guys are what matters most. Don’t worry about me, I’ll live.” - Jacob Cross

Noble Immolation

The greater good is what matters to you. Once at least one Exit Gate has been opened, Noble Immolation activates. In the event that you, the killer, and a hooked survivor are all within 16 meters of each other, gain the Endurance Status Effect. Rescuing a hooked survivor will deactivate Noble Immolation, but will reward you with 100% bonus bloodpoints for completing the rescue action. “It was supposed to be me, not him.” - Jacob Cross

Trivia

• Jacob lived in Malvern, Arkansas.
• Andy’s is an actual restaurant in the city of Malvern.
• The two masked men are, in fact, members of the cult for the entity as mentioned in Arcus 1513 in Tome 1 and possibly in the description of the Devourer Mask in Payday 2.
• Jacob wanting the masked men to let Terry off the hook literally resulted in Terry getting let off the hook. The men killed him and instead chose to have Jacob as an offering to The Entity.
• The order of which you unlock Jacob’s perks tells the story of his past.
• Although it is mentioned various times throughout Jacob’s backstory, it is still unknown as to what tragedy happened.

Author’s Notes On Jacob Cross

I feel as if Jacob Cross can be an interesting addition to Dead by Daylight. His backstory displays him as a relatively simple man who later comes across as someone who has concerns for his friends. There is also a solid amount of mystery for people to decipher from Jacob Cross’s backstory if people were up to the challenge. As for his perks, I think they would all be interesting additions for the game. Stun N’ Slink, although similar to Dance With Me, requires more skill to use by needing to stun a killer instead of simply vaulting a window or exiting a locker. Because more skill is required, I felt that it would be ok for it to have a slightly longer duration for leaving no scratch marks than Dance With Me at the cost of a longer cooldown. Occluding Risk seems like it would be a very interesting perk to use when trying to protect other survivors. The interactions between the player using this perk, the player being protected, and the killer could make for some interesting gameplay. It can also be used as an incentive for the killer to go after the user of this perk if they happen to still focus down the protected survivor. Lastly, I designed Noble Immolation to be a perk to save an ally at the cost of your own life. I’ve been wanting a perk like this to work in Dead by Daylight for some time, but struggled to try and find a way to make it work. In a previous chapter concept I made, there was a perk that had similar effects to Noble Immolation. However, after creating that previous concept, I realized that the effects of that perk were far too powerful. While designing Noble Immolation, I wanted to create a perk to allow someone to give themselves up for their ally at the cost of their own life, but with a little more incentive. Overall, I believe Jacob Cross would be an interesting addition to the game, with perks that are not too powerful, but not too weak either.

New Killer: The Feeder

Background:

The taste of flesh is the reason why Brent Morris loved the work he did: working at the slaughterhouse of the small village he once inhabited long ago. Brent was told day one what to do: grab, then slam. It was satisfying for him to do, to crush the bones of the animals he had so much control over. His boss didn’t mind. He didn’t have to mind since the public never saw what it was like behind the scenes. He admired Brent’s dedication to the job, the way he handled his job, it was perfection in his eyes.

One day, when Brent arrived at the kitchen, he began his work as usual, but wanted to ‘experiment’ with certain things. He wanted to taste the part of an animal he so desperately wanted to try for so long. The anticipation of what the taste could be like flustered him; he couldn’t wait any longer. With his bare hands, he began to rip the flesh of one of the animals, trying to find the one part of them he had to taste. As he frantically searched, he finally found it: the animal’s heart. Without hesitation, Brent began to devour the heart of the animal. Suddenly, his boss walked in to see Brent, hands dripping with blood and with a thrilled face. His boss stared for a while, only looking at Brent and not saying a word. Brent turned back to the heart and continued to feast on it, his lust for the taste of the heart would never allow him to stop.

When Brent finally finished eating, his boss ordered Brent to follow him, to which Brent complied. The two walked down into the basement of the kitchen to several shelves against the wall. Brent’s boss scanned one of the shelves, trying to find something special. Once he found what he was looking for, he took it and handed it over to Brent. Confused, Brent asked his boss what it was to which he only told Brent to give it a taste. Brent looked down once more to what appeared to him as pale pudding. He took a small taste and was astonished as to how good it tasted. Brent immediately asked his boss what he just tasted to which his boss answered: human pudding. Ecstatic, Brent told his boss that he wanted more. His boss told him in due time, there will be more for him, but they must get back to work. Brent agreed and the two of them went back upstairs to the kitchen. His boss, however, told Brent to meet him at midnight that night. Brent agreed, overwhelmed with the anticipation within.

Later that night, Brent would sneak out at night to go back to the kitchen to meet with his boss. He could only imagine what plans were in store for him that night. He checked outside of the shop to see no bystanders nearby. Brent quickly took out his keys to unlock the front door and quickly let himself in, trying not to make any noise. As he navigated into the kitchen, he looked around and whispered out for his boss. Suddenly, the door to the basement slowly opened with his boss beckoning Brent to follow. Brent quickly followed his boss downstairs, urgent to learn about what they were going to do. His boss began to push an old bookshelf with many different recipes on it aside to reveal a dug up tunnel. Once again, his boss beckoned him to follow. As Brent and his boss walked through the dark tunnel, they eventually reached a large, dark cave. Brent’s boss pulled out a flashlight and illuminated the entire cave, revealing three people tied up on the floor of the cave. Brent’s boss then proceeded to pull out his prized cleaver and handed it to Brent, nodding his head. Brent took the cleaver, and dashed at one of the people tied up, prepared to enjoy his meal. 

Brent proceeded to rip open the chests of all three captured people, frantically eating their flesh as his boss watched. Brent then realized he now had the perfect opportunity to try the food he desired, a human heart. He continued to rip open the captured person’s chest and pulled out their heart. Without hesitation, he tore through it, eating it all. However, Brent still wasn’t satisfied. He wanted more all at once. He took his boss’s cleaver and began to dislodge his own jaw. Brent then continued to the other two captured villagers, now ready for his final test. He grabbed one of the villager’s hearts, and devoured it whole. Filled with ecstasy, Brent didn’t want to wait any longer and immediately ate the final heart that remained. Brent’s boss watched, greatly pleased with the man Brent has become.

However, Brent and his boss’s feast was interrupted by a loud noise upstairs. The two quickly began to flee out from the basement to find that from peeking behind the upstairs door, a few officers had arrived. Brent’s boss told him to stay down in the basement and hide while he lures them down stairs. Brent complied and anxiously waited for the officers to come down stairs. Several minutes later, as Brent continued to hide in the shadows, he heard footsteps beginning to head down the stairs. He saw one officer heading towards the entrance of the tunnel while his boss was in handcuffs with the second officer behind him. As the officers began to enter the tunnel, Brent charged out from cover and stabbed an officer in the back with his boss’s machete. The second officer quickly turned to see his partner bleeding out on the ground and with Brent charging at him head on. The officer fired a few shots, but was too late as Brent had already stabbed him through the chest. The officer fell to the ground, gasping for air as Brent uncuffed his boss. His boss whispered one word into Brent’s ear, and Brent prepared for seconds.

Due to no word from the officers sent out, backup arrived shortly after the first two were sent. The group of officers investigated the shop, the kitchen, and eventually began to head downstairs. They shined their flashlights at the entrance of the tunnel and walked through, to find a cave of five victims with their chests torn open, with Brent Morris and his boss missing.

Design:

(Pictured above is what I imagine what The Feeder’s face would look like. I'm no artist so this is the best I've got. This is the image of The Feeder mask from Payday 2 for people who bought the Deluxe Edition of Dead by Daylight.)

Killer Rundown:

Base Stats

Movement Speed: 4.6 m/s

Height: Tall

Terror Radius: 32 m.

Power: Slam Grab

“All of the years spent working in the village slaughterhouse has paid off now. The Feeder utilizes his skills used in his previous line of work on those he hunts.”

Right clicking will trigger The Feeder to wind up his Slam Grab. When the Slam Grab’s charge meter is full, he will quickly pace forward a couple steps in an effort to grab the survivor. If the grab is missed, The Feeder must go through a missed cooldown. However, if the survivor is successfully grabbed, then Slam Sprint is ready to activate. Slam Grab takes up a slight amount of charges and is separate from Slam Sprint’s power gauge.

Special Ability: Slam Sprint

Once a survivor is successfully grabbed by Slam Grab, then Slam Sprint is ready to go. The Feeder can briefly turn after grabbing and then must right click in a brief window of time. Once you right click, The Feeder will begin his Slam Sprint and will quickly begin picking up speed while carrying the survivor at the same time.

The Feeder’s hold on a survivor works similarly to carrying a survivor in your grasp, making synergies with perks such as Iron Grasp and Agitation a possibility. However, when it comes to base stats, the maximum possible time to escape from the Slam Sprint as a survivor is 25 seconds. However, the survivor can land up to 4 skill checks while in The Feeder’s Slam Sprint Grasp, with each skill check reducing the time by 2 seconds for a possible minimum time to escape reduced to 17 seconds.

Slam Sprint will have a power gauge for the Killer with 4 specific indents in parts of the power gauge bar to show how long they still need to sprint to acquire specific damage capabilities. The bar will decrease as fast as the survivor’s escape progress bar, allowing the Killer to see if the survivor is hitting the skill checks and to show them how much time they have left to slam into a wall or obstacle.   

If a survivor’s wiggle progress is complete while The Feeder’s Slam Sprint is still active, the survivor will escape The Feeder’s grasp and stun him for a brief period of time.

Special Ability: Crippling Slam

Sprinting for a duration of 0-4.25 seconds and slamming into an object will cause the attack to fail and the survivor escaping your grasp.

Sprinting for a duration of 4.26-8.5 seconds and slamming into an object will cause the survivor to get injured and lose a health state and the survivor escaping your grasp. Survivors already injured will be put into the dying state.

Sprinting for a duration of 8.6-12.75 seconds and slamming into an object will cause the survivor to not only get injured, but will also give them the Deep Wound Status Effect and the survivor escaping your grasp. Survivors already injured will be put into the dying state. 

Sprinting for a duration of 12.76-16.9 seconds and slamming into an object will cause the survivor to instantly be put into the dying state and let out from your grasp.

Colliding into a dropped pallet or breakable wall will result in it instantly being destroyed and will not stop The Feeder’s Slam Sprint.

Special Ability: Ground Pound

While not in a Slam Sprint, press the Active Ability button (CTRL) to perform a Ground Pound. Survivors within the Ground Pound’s range of 24 m. will be slowed for a short duration. Ground Pound takes up a considerable amount of charges and is separate from Slam Sprint’s power gauge, but rather shares the same power gauge with Slam Grab.

Power Trivia:

• As mentioned above, Slam Grab and Ground Pound share the same power gauge and are separate from Slam Sprint’s power gauge.
• The amount of charges in the power gauge for Slam Grab and Ground Pound are a total of 20 charges.
• Activating a Slam Grab will consume 5 charges while activating a Ground Pound consumes 15 charges.
• During the cooldown of both of these actions, the charges refill as well as while you are in a Slam Sprint at a rate of 1 charge per second.
• A Ground Pound’s slowdown effect is the equivalent of The Clown’s Afterpiece Tonic and The Nightmare’s Dream Snare, 15% reduction for 2 seconds
• When Slam Sprint begins, The Feeder’s movement speed starts at 4.6 m/s and each second increases The Feeder’s movement speed by 0.1 m/s.
• At 17 seconds, the most likely max amount of time in a Slam Sprint vs. competent survivors, the speed The Feeder will reach is 6.3 m/s while at a top speed reaching 25 seconds, is 7.1 m/s, still slower than The Oni’s Demon Rush speed.
• Various Perks have unique synergy and counterplay with The Feeder.
• Iron Grasp at full level will add 1.9 seconds of time for a survivor to have to escape Slam Sprint’s grasp, technically adding an additional .475 seconds to each timestamp while in Slam Sprint.
• Agitation at full level will add .66 m/s of movement speed while in Slam Sprint. This means that reaching maximum time vs. competent survivors can bring The Feeder at a movement speed of 6.96 m/s. In the event you are able to hit the maximum time of 25 seconds, the speed The Feeder can achieve is 7.76 m/s, only .06 m/s slower than The Oni’s 7.82 m/s for Demon Dash.
• Breakout can cause the survivor to escape prematurely. This ends up cutting the time window for The Feeder to end up getting a Crippling Slam insta down depending on how much time you are within Breakout’s effective range.
• Because Slam Grab functions like a regular Killer Grasp, Decisive Strike can cause the survivor to automatically escape The Feeder’s Slam Sprint Grasp if grabbed by Slam Grab.

Perks

The Feeder is a savage killer, able to get a powerful hold on survivors using his Slam Grab and Ground Pound, then sprint into obstacles with his Slam Sprint.

His personal perks, Urgent Helpings, Satisfactory Strike, and Feast, give him extra abilities to help save time and to punish survivors who get in his way.

Urgent Helpings

You’ll waste no time getting on with the kill. The speed at which you pick up, drop, and hook survivors is increased by 10%/20%/30%. “If you want to taste the flesh, then finish the job.” - The Butcher

Satisfactory Strike

They’ll have to learn the hard way to stay down. After successfully attacking a survivor with your main weapon, gain a token. These tokens will only increase for each unique survivor attacked. Once you reach 4 tokens, Satisfactory Strike will activate. For each token you have, your successful attack cooldown is decreased by 3%/4%/5% and after each attack you make, you lose one token. You cannot replenish tokens until all tokens you currently have while Satisfactory Strike is active have been used. “They are so brilliant, yet they still persist. Next time they fight back, kill them.” - The Butcher  

Feast

It’ll be too late for them to learn from their mistake, they’ve made mistakes plenty enough as it is. Each time a survivor takes a Protection Hit adds one token to Feast. Once Feast reaches 12/11/10 tokens, all survivors suffer from the Exposed Status Effect until the next time you land a successful attack on a survivor. You are now granted the ability to kill one survivor by your hand. Killing a survivor by your hand will deactivate Feast for the rest of the trial. “Eat.” - The Butcher  

Trivia

• In The Entity’s Realm, he shares the same home turf with The Hag in the Backwater Swamp.
• The Butcher was Brent’s boss, another possible killer that lurks in The Entity’s Realm.
• The human pudding that Brent consumed is where the origins of the Survivor Pudding Offering could be from, suggesting the possibility of where the Survivor Pudding originated.
• Although The Feeder dislodged his jaw on his own, it still serves as a sign that he may have been partially tortured into doing The Entity’s bidding, but not even close to other characters such as The Doctor and The Plague.
• It is possible that The Feeder was featured in Arcus 1032 from Tome 2. 
• The Offering, Grandma’s Cookbook, was likely on the bookshelf in the basement of The Butcher’s shop, another unlockable which references cannibalism.   

 

Author’s Notes On The Feeder

When initially designing a concept for The Feeder, I tried to picture what people who play Dead by Daylight would be interested in. Since tracking is becoming relatively second nature for most players and since slowing down the game is mostly incorporated through the use of perks, I figured I would first go for a killer who would have some sort of dash mobility and a tool to assist with the chase. I understand that we already have multiple killers in the game with similar tools in their kit, but I really felt like if I got creative enough with the design of The Feeder, then it could attract more people to playing as The Feeder. There are currently 22 killers as of the release of The Twins and more will surely be coming soon, so in order to have killers in this chapter concept and in future ones of mine to have a chance, I need to pay extreme attention to their power above all else since a killer’s ability is what makes or breaks them.

Since I initially planned this post to have 3 chapter concepts, I would focus on 3 individual designs to make all of these killers stand out from each other. For The Feeder, I wanted him to be an aggressive killer, but different from the type of aggressiveness that we already have with The Hillbilly and The Oni. After doing some thinking, I thought “What if the killer could grab the survivor in their base kit?”. That is when I thought of The Feeder’s main ability. 

With The Feeder able to grab the survivor and then charge to a location with them to perform a Crippling Slam, I want to make sure that the survivors can still have a chance for counterplay, so the mechanics of The Feeder isn’t unfair. Therefore, there is a little windup as mentioned above that The Feeder would have before being able to grab a survivor. Despite having this windup, survivors would still be able to dodge the grab if they 360’d correctly or if they managed to throw down a pallet or vault a window in time. With this in mind, I needed to come up with a secondary ability to help aid in landing grabs. This is where the Ground Pound comes in.

The Ground Pound is able to slow down any survivor within its effective range, potentially allowing The Feeder just enough time to get a grab. I know that killers with an ability to slow down survivors may be unpopular for both sides since some people see it as a boring playstyle, but I think it’s built into The Feeder’s kit in a way that takes a step away from The Clown spamming bottle throws or Freddy able to set down so many snares in such a short amount of time. It takes 15/20 charges available in The Feeder’s basekit to perform a Ground Pound, requiring more skill with learning when to use the Ground Pound and when not to use it. 

As for The Feeder’s Slam Sprint ability, I believe it is fairly balanced. All of the numbers were mentioned above, so I’ll try not to repeat myself with that information, but will still discuss multiple other things revolving around Slam Sprint. I’ll start with counterplay. Survivors do have multiple ways to counter this, the first being to obviously not get grabbed. Know when The Feeder is about to Ground Pound and get somewhere safe, like a pallet. If you do get grabbed, pay attention for the 4 skill checks that will occur. Landing all 4 of these skill checks could be what saves you from getting injured or put into the dying state. Also, consider what map you are on if you go up against The Feeder. Contrary to the usual benefits for survivors, large and open maps will be The Feeder’s best maps, since there are not too many obstacles to run into on accident while small maps with a lot of obstructions could cause players playing as The Feeder to struggle landing Crippling Slams.

Another thing that I would like to mention is that The Feeder’s Slam Sprint speed is less than The Oni’s Demon Dash speed. Something I feel like is an important factor when trying to make a new killer is if the new killer is going to have an ability similar in a way to a killer that already exists, make sure to adjust the strengths and weaknesses to still keep the new killer different from previous killers added into the game.

In closing for The Feeder’s power, I think it is a solid ability that gives players a killer with good mobility and tools to end a chase quickly, but with fair downsides, in that The Feeder does not have a tracking tool or a game slowdown tool in his kit.

The next thing I’m going to talk about are The Feeder’s perks. When designing perks, something I learned is that in order to spice up the meta of the game, you need to add perks of equal caliber so that some players can shift over to the newer perks, resulting in the meta expanding. Limiting a game to only having a strict list of things that can be considered meta has the potential of making the game stale, with players becoming bored and wanting new and interesting options for them to pop up that suits their playstyle best. I understand that no matter what kind of perks you add to Dead by Daylight, there will always be someone who will run nothing, but the best of the best and not everyone will run niche and underrated perks. Despite this, I thought about what three new killer perks would be interesting.

The Feeder’s first perk is Urgent Helpings. It’s a perk made to save yourself time, not just with slowing down the game like everyone talks about now, but in a different way. It speeds up the rate at which you pick-up, drop, and hook survivors, things that killers rarely even think about anymore. Although the bonus may seem small, Urgent Helpings can assist with not only saving time in the areas mentioned above, but also makes flashlight saves more difficult and has synergy with Fire Up. 

The Feeder’s second perk is Satisfactory Strike. This perk, once again, helps you save time by reducing the cooldown on your successful attack animation by encouraging you to go after different players and not just tunneling down one person. In my opinion, this is The Feeder’s best unique perk. A popular combo for killers some time ago was called the machine gun build, using both Unrelenting and Save The Best For Last. By using both of these perks together, players would have a cooldown reduction of 55% for successful attacks. The devs looked at this and thought it was too strong and rightfully so. The killer using this combo didn’t have to do any work to receive this big bonus. With Satisfactory Strike and the new STBFL that we currently have, players must work to gain the new best cooldown reduction of 60%, bigger than the old machine gun build. Although the cooldown reduction is even bigger than the machine gun build, I think it is still fair since the killer is always required to have to work for gaining the tokens on both perks. 

The Feeder’s third and final perk is Feast. This perk is made for punishing survivors that are overzealous with bodyblocking and becoming too altruistic. With Feast, if the survivors take protection hits too many times, then the moment you reach the required amount of tokens for Feast is when they realize that one of them is not making it out and that they made a mistake. I can see this perk at the biggest risk of being claimed to be overpowered out of all of The Feeder’s perks, but think about the prerequisites. At optimal tier level, Feast requires you to land a hit on 10 survivors that take a protection hit for a teammate. Not only can this be situational, but landing 10 protection hits in the first place is no easy task. Also, as a fair reminder, I really do believe that expanding the meta for games like Dead by Daylight keeps things interesting.

Finally, I believe The Feeder’s lore is also pretty good. I made sure to try and add multiple connections and explanations as for the origins of a couple of in-game unlockables. Also, I think there are still a few mysteries behind The Feeder’s backstory as well. Only time will tell!

New Map: The Butcher’s Slaughterhouse

Once the shop of The Butcher, now the murderhouse for dozens of victims. This slaughterhouse was on the outskirts of the village, where only people willing to take a risk with their life would show up. Shady business happened each corner you turned and if you happened to live in the area, there was no guarantee you would wake up the next day. One day, the authorities investigated the slaughterhouse to finally confront the ones behind the murders, but only found dozens of victims with torn open chests. It is unknown to this day where The Butcher and any of his subordinates are.

The Butcher’s Slaughterhouse would be set in an outdoor map, similar to that of Grim Pantry and The Pale Rose. This map would have similar obstacles like any map would in the Backwater Swamp, but would have a large Slaughterhouse either in the middle of the map or on one of the sides of the map. The size of The Butcher’s Slaughterhouse map would be roughly 10,000 m^2, similar to the other 2 Backwater Swamp maps.

Thank You For Reading:

Thanks a bunch for taking the time to read this chapter concept. Even if you only happened to read a part of it, it makes me happy that I got to share that part with you. If you read the whole thing, then many thanks to you spending your own time reading this. Any feedback would be appreciated. It lets me know how to do better with future chapter concepts and also lets me know what people are more interested in.

See you in the fog,

icemancat

Critical_Fish

As I'm reading this, I love how much work must have gone into this. I won't comment on anything non-gameplay related, but good job with this!

Jacob's perks are all really good and well balanced in my opinion, and would all have a niche as well. I like them!

As far as the Feeder comes into this, the power is very interesting and unique. However, the grab will heavily rely on the specific time it would take to execute it, which is not listed here.

The Slam Sprint's exact damage isn't listed either from my knowledge, but from what I've gathered the first bar makes it do 1 health state, while the second makes it do 2, which works well. After reading further, I understand better on how the power works. It's very well made and the times work well!

The ground pound having a slowing effect definitely helps land a grab, as well as maybe some add-ons allowing you to detect Survivors in its radius, which could be incredibly helpful.

Urgent Helpings works fine enough, but the numbers for such fast actions, as well as it only affecting these actions, does make it underwhelming. It would have it's place in its current form, but that place would be so slim. I would recommend a second effect, though I can't think of one right now.

Satisfactory Strike is perfect. It offers a good alternative to STBFL, and is also very unique!

Feast is good, but it would require a build around it (i think), and the amount of tokens it requires is incredibly harsh, but makes sense for how powerful its effect is. I like it, but it isn't nearly as generic as Satisfactory Strike or Urgent Helpings could be. This isn't a downside at all, just something to point out.

All and all, I really like all of this! Only really Urgent Helpings has any problem I can think of, and even then it has a purpose and serves it well. The trivia for the Feeder is incredibly interesting, as well!

Saltjar34

At first I thought this was a Dead Space chapter due to the killer's nickname being The Feeder and the survivor's name (though I soon figured out that my memory somehow combined the names of Jacob Danik and Nolan Stross). This is a really detailed chapter which is great.