Game Balancing Suggestion (Core Mechanics)

Beaburd

Warning: All numerical values are arbitrary and used to easier communicate the core idea behind the suggestion. They can/should be tweaked as necessary for balancing purposes.

The Problem:

Currently games go by too fast for many players, which especially puts pressure on killers since they can commonly see three generators pop in a single chase for a single hook. Despite this, it seems unwise to give a basic static increase to generator or game times overall without making survivor objectives intolerable or making certain killers proficient in chases too strong (i.e. Nurse). Additionally, adding too many new mechanics to the game may leave the experience feeling cluttered or unintuitive.

Because of this, I'd like to make a suggestion that implements current in-game mechanics to adjust game times based on the killer, and that may also improve the quality of life of some other perks or features.

The Suggestion:

• Have all hex totems lit at the beginning of the match.
• Make each hex totem increase generator repair times by +50% when active
• Make each chest contain a generator part key item (limit of one, cannot be dropped) that decreases generator repair times by -50%.

Also:

• Make the number of lit hex totems that spawn based on the killer used. I.e. Nurse players may only start the game with three active totems, while weaker killers like Freddy could start with six.
• Make chests re-searchable when open at a reduced search time for players who have not yet found a part (they will not get an active item if one was already taken, however).
  _
  Example of the new system, with 5 totems:_
  Each generator will take 315 seconds (90 sec + 90 sec x 250%) for a survivor to solo at the start of a match with five totems active.
  If three totems are destroyed while a survivor is being chased, each generator will then take 180 seconds to solo (90 sec + 90 sec x 100%)
  If a survivor finds a chest and obtains the part, and a fourth totem falls, generator repair times are back to the original 90 seconds.
  If all totems fall and a part is obtained, that survivor will only take 45 seconds to solo a generator.

Potential Problems and Solutions:

Q: Five minutes to solo a generator!? You're nuts, right?
A: The numbers are arbitrary. However, the prolonged generator times at the start are only to encourage pursuing alternative objectives at the beginning. If all totems are extinguished, and the survivor finds a chest, repair times for that survivor are actually halved compared to what they are now as a reward for completing all other side objectives. Or, that's the original concept anyway.

Q: What about Brand New Part? How are they effected?
A: Their efficiency will be decreased based on the number of totems active. Five totems active? A BNP will, maybe, complete 20% of what it currently does. No totems active? A BNP will complete the same as it does now, whatever that is.

Q: Totems are easy to find and destroy, is making a system based on them a good idea?
A: Tying more core mechanics of the game to totems will promote more people to use them and more data on them to be collected, which could help focus the team on balancing them more overall. Number of totems to spawn, improved totem locations, increased variety of totem locations, times to destroy, etc. These would all be more important to the game and encourage more effort in tweaking these values.

Q: How would hex perks work in this situation, now that all the totems are active from the start?
A: Hex perks would be tied to all of the totems, meaning the perks will only be disabled once all the totems have been destroyed.

Q: Wouldn't tying hex perks to all of the totems be too strong, especially if you slyly recommended increasing totem spawn caps for some killers like Freddy?
A: I don't think so. More players will be actively looking for totems, and being a core mechanic of the game now, people would also have the option to bring perks like Small Game, Detective's Hunch, or even Deja Vu (if altered to give vision on totems/chests for a few seconds instead of generators at the start of the game) and have them provide reliable benefits. Totem numbers would also be adjusted on a killer-by-killer basis, as stated before, so as to not to overpower certain killers like the Nurse.

Suggestion Benefits:

• Games will be slowed down without painfully increasing base generator repair times
• Totem-based repair system allows another method to adjust killer strength without directly altering the killer's power
• Objective-based perks such as Detective's Hunch (if altered slightly), Small Game, Pharmacy, Plunderer's Instinct and even Deja Vu (if altered slightly) will have more meaningful and consistently relevant uses which could potentially diversify the meta.
• Hex perks will remain on the field longer, creating a more lasting impact without (hopefully) being too annoying. Ex. You'll only be dealing with ruin if you subject yourself to repairing generators with the totem repair debuffs, which not many would do. In contrast Third Seal, Devour Hope, Hunter's Lullaby would have more opportunities to be relevant to a game. Thrill of the Hunt would also become relevant as-is even without another accompanying hex perk.
• Offerings related to chest spawns would have a relevant use in-game
• Lengthening the game in general could provide more avenues for future creative ventures and in-game features. An example is maybe a classification and specialization system, where certain survivors and perks could have secondary effects that alter the game experience (i.e. Dwight gets a slight passive bonus to repair speeds, Claudette gets a healing bonus, etc)

SadonicShadow

I like this suggestion. Basically creates a mandatory secondary objective within the framework of the current game. No need to reinvent the wheel so to speak. This would help alot in taking the pressure off the killer and alleviate the gen rush.

m3dicookie

then hex perks would be pretty useless because survivors would just take out all the hex totems in the beginning. so noed dhope hex rune would all be pretty useless because no hex totems would be there . i do like having all the hex totems lit that cool.

Beaburd

@m3dicookie said:
then hex perks would be pretty useless because survivors would just take out all the hex totems in the beginning. so noed dhope hex rune would all be pretty useless because no hex totems would be there . i do like having all the hex totems lit that cool.

Wouldn't be too different from the current hex system honestly, with hex perks commonly being removed within 30 seconds of the game. While the main purpose is to increase game times, I do also think hex perks will last relatively longer even if everyone hunts them more actively, simply because they'll need to extinguish all of the totems to deactivate any of the perks. The killer can also defend these objectives easier with Thrill of the Hunt.

Even in the case where everyone runs totem-hunting perks (altered Deja Vu, Detective's Hunch, Small Game, etc) to kill them off quite quickly, that's removing equivalent perk slots that would have otherwise been filled by Sprint Burst/Decisive Strike/Self Care/Borrowed Time. That should weaken individual survivors somewhat, especially if the killers opts out of hex perks entirely and is unaffected by their totem-oriented approach.

Should hex perks still fall too fast, totem destroying times can always be increased slightly. If the game gets too long as a result, base generator times can be decreased proportionally. Another benefit is that this system would allow multiple parameters to exist to control the length of the game, which might be helpful towards balancing for the development team.

weirdkid5

I think this is interesting an worth throwing into a PTB just to test it out. I'll throw this suggestion at one of the devs for you. +1

Fropps

Just pointing out that this could easily be integrated into the current system without such drastic changes:
Make all totems make gens take 10% longer, forcing survivors to waste time and do some totems. I think I like this more because the penalty for not having totem locations memorized in your suggestion is pretty steep. (I know numbers are arbitrary but a total penalty of 50% is an order of magnitude away from a total penalty of 250%) Escaping is already hard for new survivors. Given that they don't know where totems spawn, it's safe to assume that they won't find 1 or 2 of them. This means that gens will always take twice as long as they normally do.

Another potential problem is that totems are conceptually meant to be hidden, optional objectives that the survivors should probably ignore. If we make the gen penalty for not doing them large enough, they cease to be that. This makes totems a primary objective, something I don't really like.

I think adding a second objective is a good idea, but I'm not sure it should be related to totems. The devs can literally add any new mechanic they want, so I don't think we have to solve the problem of games being fast within the current framework.

Beaburd

@weirdkid5 said:
I think this is interesting an worth throwing into a PTB just to test it out. I'll throw this suggestion at one of the devs for you. +1

Much thanks!

@Fropps said:
Just pointing out that this could easily be integrated into the current system without such drastic changes:
Make all totems make gens take 10% longer, forcing survivors to waste time and do some totems. I think I like this more because the penalty for not having totem locations memorized in your suggestion is pretty steep. (I know numbers are arbitrary but a total penalty of 50% is an order of magnitude away from a total penalty of 250%) Escaping is already hard for new survivors. Given that they don't know where totems spawn, it's safe to assume that they won't find 1 or 2 of them. This means that gens will always take twice as long as they normally do.

Another potential problem is that totems are conceptually meant to be hidden, optional objectives that the survivors should probably ignore. If we make the gen penalty for not doing them large enough, they cease to be that. This makes totems a primary objective, something I don't really like.

I think adding a second objective is a good idea, but I'm not sure it should be related to totems. The devs can literally add any new mechanic they want, so I don't think we have to solve the problem of games being fast within the current framework.

Sure, a simple passive totem boost definitely has the potential to improve things on its own. I just worry about what will happen to hex perks, as they'll likely end up disappearing even faster than they currently do, which I view as a potential problem. That's the main reason why I went a bit more in-depth and vouched for hex perks being tied to all totems instead in this case, which in turn made me want to emphasize their importance a bit more numerically to encourage survivors to seek them out more.

I also agree that many players may overlook a totem or two, especially if totem locations and spawn numbers were ever increased. It's for this reason I added the chest mechanic and brought up perk potential. For people who fear this exact situation the chest's key item, the generator part, would (ideally) negate the generator debuff from 1-2 totems. So once 3+ totems are gone, the survivor would have the option to find a chest to obtain their regular generator repair times unhindered, or they could pursue the additional totems to disarm the killer's perks and (maybe) get a general repair boost as a reward for their efforts. Adding in any objective-oriented perks or items, like Small Game, Maps, Toolboxes, Deja Vu (altered), Detective's Hunch (altered) would also make these tasks infinitely easier for new and veteran players alike. It would also hopefully diversify the meta at all ranks, even if only a little bit, which was admittingly one of my personal goals.

With the chest's part system they'll still be relatively optional, but I understand your point here. They were originally secondary objectives, and some may not like seeing them turned borderline primary. The developers could apply similar concepts to a new mechanic altogether, like you suggested. I personally just don't want to see the game get cluttered with too many new mechanics which is why I tried to devise something using and promoting current mechanics. It would also (hopefully) take less effort to implement and test, and waste less resources if discarded.

---

I will say though, you could probably also adjust toolbox repair values and make them strong enough to bypass another hex totem's worth of debuff. In this case, a survivor would have the option to specialize in repairing generators and experience these effects to much lesser degrees. Never know, it could open the door to diverse playstyles and builds.

This thought actually made me tempted to suggest a classification system for survivors and perks alike, where objective-oriented perks/survivors would get small secondary boosts (like +3% generator repair times) that could stack to up to 15% in this example if used together like, for example, if you ran Dwight with 4 objective classed perks. The other classes would altruism-oriented (+altruism speed), survival-oriented (+exhaustion recovery?), and bloodpoint-oriented (+extra bloodpoints). If games were lengthened enough, I think these small boosts could be justified and make perks/survivor skins more exciting. The survivor-related secondary boosts would be too small to obsess over for casual players, but help min/maxers choose and create new character styles.

Heck, I bet you could classify killer perks in a similar manner with similarly small but interesting secondary benefits...

But now I'm just rambling.

m3dicookie

@Beaburd said:

@m3dicookie said:
then hex perks would be pretty useless because survivors would just take out all the hex totems in the beginning. so noed dhope hex rune would all be pretty useless because no hex totems would be there . i do like having all the hex totems lit that cool.

Wouldn't be too different from the current hex system honestly, with hex perks commonly being removed within 30 seconds of the game. While the main purpose is to increase game times, I do also think hex perks will last relatively longer even if everyone hunts them more actively, simply because they'll need to extinguish all of the totems to deactivate any of the perks. The killer can also defend these objectives easier with Thrill of the Hunt.

Even in the case where everyone runs totem-hunting perks (altered Deja Vu, Detective's Hunch, Small Game, etc) to kill them off quite quickly, that's removing equivalent perk slots that would have otherwise been filled by Sprint Burst/Decisive Strike/Self Care/Borrowed Time. That should weaken individual survivors somewhat, especially if the killers opts out of hex perks entirely and is unaffected by their totem-oriented approach.

Should hex perks still fall too fast, totem destroying times can always be increased slightly. If the game gets too long as a result, base generator times can be decreased proportionally. Another benefit is that this system would allow multiple parameters to exist to control the length of the game, which might be helpful towards balancing for the development team.

Question how does one balance a game by making it longer the reason some people play the game is it something you can play before you have to go to work, making it longer would just make people less likely to play because game play might be to longer to the time they have. its pretty useless why not just make this change to hex rune and make it the 10% per totem still up then nothing would have to change and you still get your longer repair time. and have them all lit and help Thrill of the Hunt be better.

Beaburd

@m3dicookie said:
Question how does one balance a game by making it longer the reason some people play the game is it something you can play before you have to go to work, making it longer would just make people less likely to play because game play might be to longer to the time they have. its pretty useless why not just make this change to hex rune and make it the 10% per totem still up then nothing would have to change and you still get your longer repair time. and have them all lit and help Thrill of the Hunt be better.

I have no idea how I deleted my original response to this, but I'm actually quite sad.

Dead by Daylight, in its essence, is simply a time management game.

Kill and survivors rates?
Strongly, but not solely, time based. It wouldn't matter if survivors were strong enough to loop a killer for an hour. If a game lasted an entire day, the killer would probably come out on top eventually. Likewise, if games lasted 20 seconds and chases lasted 15 minutes, the killer would have little chance.

Emblem and blood point gains?
Strongly time based. So what if you gain 1 points per action if games lasted a day and you could do a million actions in that time, whatever they were?

Horribly extreme examples, sure, but they should get the point across. Even the most often complained about and overpowered perks, items, and add-ons are simply time savers of some sort. Insta heals, BNPs, Sprint Burst, Self Care, Decisive Strike, NOED, BBQ? They're all just fundamentally time savers in some way or another for their respective side.

Now the length of each game is actually something I considered, but didn't mention. You're right, one of the best parts about DBD to many people is its convenience to play, I'm sure. You get in, get some kind of rush (hopefully not of frustration with the current system), and get out to start again or take a break.

My suggestion may make things incredibly difficult for gen rushers originally, but the pace of the game hastens remarkably once totems go down, you find the key repair item, and/or you prepare a toolbox beforehand. Heck, generator repair times are actually shorter than their base times once your team has completed all of these side objects (if you decide to). The point and hope of that system was to mainly increase the minimum amount of time games last for, but then allow for the pace to increase so the average and maximum game times remain fairly static to whatever they are now. Something that I think is necessary considering games at high (and even some medium-low) ranks can be less than five minutes long. That's not enough time for the killer to do their job, or even for either side to get enough emblem points to pip! For me at least, it's a wholly depressing and disappointing situation. With terms like "gen rushing" being thrown about by killers, and survivors defending themselves by saying they have no choice instead of defending the pace of those games, I hardly doubt I'm alone in those feelings either.

Now we could just simply slap on a 10% repair debuff to each totem, but let's be honest, the current totem system is pretty horrible as it is. Hex perks are notorious for falling within the first 30 seconds of a game in some cases (I've experienced this on both sides, many times). If totem focus is increased without a slight buff/revamp of the system, hex perks are only going to become increasingly worthless. That's why I suggested them a bit more oomph by attaching hex perks to every totem instead of just one. It gives the killer more opportunities to protect these objectives that are only going to grow more precious and fragile in this system.

Another alternative that was mentioned before is that the developers could just create a new mechanic for this entirely. Let's say we slap that arbitrary 10% gen debuff to a whole new set of mechanics similar to totems. Now, essentially every game players are going to have to worry about generators + totems + obsessions + crows (though few remember this mechanic) + chests + killer/survivors + doors + this new mechanic. While it may not seem too bad yet, the game would undoubtedly start getting cluttered with new mechanics, and that might rob the convenience and ease each game provides for some users. While it's completely up to the developers how many mechanics they want to add, my concern for this led me to a suggestion that stuck with current mechanics to prevent such clutter. I also feared adding a new mechanic entirely might take longer and use up more resources, whereas I'm hoping tweaking current systems would be cheaper and faster.