Early Game Idea: Variation on Old Ruin

Zeidoktor

I was thinking lately about a way to help with early game issues, primarily the age-old "a generator gets done before the Killer can even do anything" problem, and had an idea that, to me at least, sounds like it could work without being too much of a pain or affecting the rest of the game too badly.

It's basically a combination of Corrupt Intervention and the original Hex: Ruin.

At the start of the game there's a timer. I'm not sure how much would actually be good, so we'll say 2 minutes, a la Corrupt Intervention, to give us a baseline. During these two minutes generator skill checks are red, a la old Ruin. Good skill checks do nothing but avoid a noise alert to the Killer. Great skill checks provide a Good skill check's bonus. Once the two minutes expires, the game proceeds as normal.

The reason Good skill checks simply do nothing rather than cause a loss of progress (like old Ruin did) is in light of the developers' view that old Ruin was too harsh on beginner players. Having it simply do nothing alleviates that, while the incentive is there to hit Greats to progress a little faster or knock time off the early game.

An alternative, rather than a Good skill check's bonus, a Great skill check can knock a second off the two minutes, meaning a team or Survivor can consistently hit Greats can end the early game restriction a little bit sooner. Conversely, any downs and/or hooks the Killer can get during this period can extend the timer. On paper, this can encourage both sides to be active as quickly as possible. Though the fact the timer can be lowered or raised would probably necessitate the baseline timer being reduced.

Having the Killer's ability to increase the timer be based on downs or hooks (I'm not sure what would be better, offhand) can also discourage camping. I'm thinking going by hooks can potentially discourage slugging. Maybe limit the extension to hooking different Survivors (like Barbecue & Chili's tokens) to discourage tunneling.

On the flip side, reducing the time by gen skill checks might just encourage the very gen-rushing that creates much of the early game problem in the first place. But I'm not sure how else to offer Survivors that option. Though one idea that came to mind as I wrote this was offering those time reducing bonuses for other actions, such as successful Pallet stuns against the Killer or Safe Hook Rescues.

The idea is prolong the early game enough for the Killer to potentially get some momentum, but offer Survivors a way to get out of the problem early by having them be active in the game.

This is just a rough idea, so I'm sure there's all kinds of factors or aspects I'm not considering, but I thought I'd put it out there as a thought and see what I got.