NOED
This perk is so controversial, but I think people focus on the wrong aspect of this perk when criticising it. I'm personally not a fan of it, but I don't think it's overpowered or that it needs to be nerfed.
The problem with NOED is the totem aspect. When you're playing with an organized SFW, NOED is weak because if you're smart you'll cleanse at least one totem per gen (5 gens, 5 totems).
If the killer is really good and applies a lot of pressure, you might not be able to cleanse the totems in time and do the gens, but at that point... are you really entitled to an escape anyway? I don't think so.
The biggest problem for me with NOED is solo queue, because your teammates are less likely to cleanse all 5 totems.
There's no totem counter, there's no way to know for sure if there's at least one totem left on the map. And sure, what I'm saying right now has been said so many times, but I think it would benefit this game a lot if more information was given to solo queue, so things like this can stop being an issue.
It's not fun to be chased all game, then go down and get facecamped because your teammates didn't cleanse any totems. So, to reiterate, the issue with NOED is not the perk itself but the fact that players don't play around it well because they lack the information they need in order to do that.
My two cents.
Comments
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I think a lot of people will agree with the points that you've made there.
I don't have a problem with NOED, I don't use it as killer because I don't have space in my build for it as I prefer perks that will help me out during the earlier part of the match - information and chase perks basically. I'm not a big fan of being down a perk right the way through the match - which is part of the reason that I think NOED is balanced.
I don't personally think NOED needs the speed attached to it, but that's only my opinion and I am not a Game Designer so have less understanding than they do with what the perk needs to be effective.
Cleansing totems is quite random, some games you find them all some matches you might find one - it does seem to be quite map and team dependent...if you have other survivors who are just focused on the generators, then I tend to get off gens and go and hunt totems in anticipation of NOED so even in solo queue you can play against it. Of course, that's a lot harder if you're the one that's being chased a lot which again does happen.
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Oops, this was meant for General Discussions. Could you move it there?
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"There's no totem counter, there's no way to know for sure if there's at least one totem left on the map. And sure, what I'm saying right now has been said so many times, but I think it would benefit this game a lot if more information was given to solo queue, so things like this can stop being an issue."
This is just a criticism about this statement in your post.
Detectives Hunch, Inner Strength + map = Totem hunter build.
These perks + this item are useful for finding totems, incentivizes/further rewards cleansing them, and keeps track of how many there are, so to me, that sounds an awful lot like a direct counter to totems.
Hell this is one of my favorite builds paired with DS and Lithe, Because it ensures I Max out the Objective category and never have to face NOED, plus it only takes about a minute and a half to cleanse all 5 totems on most maps myself since my teammates are usually too lazy to do it, so that doesn't really distract me from helping with gen progress in the long run. Even if you don't want to do the full build, Detectives Hunch or even Small Game alone are typically more than enough for experienced players.
With these as an option, there's honestly no need for More information to the solo queue, and their existence proves there is a totem counter.
Otherwise, I agree with everything else in your post.
Edit: Oops... Re-reading it, I just realized you meant a totem icon with a count for how many are remaining in the map... I guess I'm an idiot... but again with a Map and Detectives Hunch, there's definitely a way to tell how many are left in the map, and I still see no reason to add a Totem count Icon for solo when we already have these tools available.
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I would like to say that I have tried the Detectives Hunch + map combo and even though it is really strong, it simply does not work in solo. I waste so much time cleansing totems when nobody else is. My experience is that most of the time by the time the last totem has been cleansed by me, we've already lost so much pressure NOED wouldn't trigger anyway.
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I don't outright dedicate myself to cleansing all totems right away. I do a gen, see the totems, cleanse 1 or 2 closest, go back to gens, etc... I just have to make damn sure that they are all cleansed by the time there's 2 gens left. This keeps the pressure going pretty strong against decent killers, and most high rank killers don't actually bring in NOED, but its better to be safe than sorry. Even if its a losing game wherein your team is getting swatted like flies, and barely any gens are being done, you can still max out your objective BP before you either bite it yourself or escape via hatch, so you can at least take some comfort in your point gain over the rest of the team.
The primary problem I see with a totem icon with a count for how many remain is that it's the last bastion of misinformation killers have when it comes to protecting them. Lets face it, if there was a counter, and the killer brings in a hex or even is suspected of having NOED, all the survivors would have to do is check to see how many are left, and wipe them out. This leaves no air of mystery to how many have been cleansed and how many need to be, so survivors would never get surprised by that one they missed, and NOED would go the way of the dinosaurs. NOED and many other hexes existences rely on survivors lack of information, and when you consider that every hex totem announces itself already with a notification on the left side of the screen, a cursed icon on the right, and some even have their icon remain in the lower right next to your own perks... do we really need a "Tell all" Totem Icon? To me, that uncertainty is half the fun, and honestly I don't really care for the way the devs "hold our hands" by providing so much information that it feels kinda insulting to my gamer instincts/intelligence.
Hell, I don't even pay attention to most of those icons anymore because if Ruin is up, that becomes obvious by the gen immediately regressing the moment I stop working on it. If Devour Hope has reached 3 stacks, the fact that a teammate just went down in one hit and all of us got the audio and visual queue that we're all exposed is not hard to mistake for anything else. Whereas perks like BBQ&C or Nurses Calling have no notifications or icons appearing on survivors screens, but we all know/figure out quickly if the killer has them based on their behavior.
I guess what I'm saying is that we already have too much information forced on us in the game by the devs coddling that it feels insulting and leaves hardly anything for us to figure out ourselves with the tools provided, so the idea of asking to add even MORE to that makes me wonder if anyone even has gamer instincts of their own anymore, or if people like me are just a dying breed.
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I understand what you're saying, and to a certain point I agree. But lack of information is exactly what causes solo to be so weak compared to SWF. I think sometimes you might have to sacrifice stuff like the uncertainty to make the game more balanced. If solo was on par with SWF, killers could be buffed accordingly overall leading to (what I think) is a healthier game.
As for totems, so do I. But cleansing a totem after each gen when only one person is doing it is still inefficient, again I'm speaking from experience here (Which is why I don't quite agree with "just cleanse 4head"). Even if I cleanse a totem per gen in solo, a lot of the time that's still enough pressure for the killer to steamroll.
I just wish my teammates would put in an effort to cleanse as well.
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