Dead Man's Switch rework

Zakkusy

Hey!

Adding to the pile of just plain ol' Perk rework ideas. I'm sure DMS (Dead Man's Switch) has had multiple suggestions ever since it was released, so there's a chance this isn't very unique, but I'd like to post it regardless.

PERK

[[After hooking a Survivor for the first time, Dead Man's Switch activates for the next 20/25/30 seconds.

While active, any Survivor that stops repairing a Generator before it is fully repaired, causes The Entity to block the Generator for 20/25/30 seconds from the moment the Survivor let's go of the Generator.

Affected Generators start automaticly regressing at the standard rate once the effect ends.]]

OPENING UP THE IDEA

Your first reaction might be reading the description is; "Another automatic regression perk? Oh please". I actually am not a big fan of automatic regression (Or pretty much regression perks in general), but I wanted to think of a way to stop stacking this perk with other Gen regression perks. This soft-counters using it with Pop Goes the Weasel, and any other Entity blocking effect (such as Deadlock or Thrilling Tremors) will remove the regression. It's not mandatory to have this feature be a part of the Perk, but I think it's important to figure out a way to mitigate it's use with other Gen regression perks as a trade-off.

Also why remove the White Aura effect of the original perk? I think changing the Perk away from being an Obsession perk, needs to have it's significance reduced. That's why I reduced the duration by 25% of the main effect too. The White Aura could still be used to pressure generators that were affected by the perk, and would make it too powerful in it's reworked state. Also, the automatic regression part and lack of an aura leads way to using Surveillance for example to cover that weakness.

My main rework of this perk revolves around making it a non-obsession perk. Now that we have some examples of other long duration blocks in the form of Deadlock, I think revamping the rarely used DMS is realistic. No Way Out is a really fun perk in my opinion, that makes the Killer hook Survivors not previously hooked in that match and I think it could work for a perk like this. Especially, since DMS is essentially a Survivor progress hindering perk, forcing the Killer's hand by design to spread their hooks on multiple Survivors gives it the downside of less overall pressure in a given match.

Potential design flaws

Automatic regression. I think this is such an unexplored feature still in the game (with Hex: Ruin only having it so far), that introducing a perk that both BLOCKS and REGRESSES can be overwhelming. It would force Survivors to keep an eye on a Gen unfairly. It wouldn't be out of the realm that Survivors would see the aura of the Generator affected by DMS for it's duration. Could be an interesting downside to using the Perk.

Stacking of other Gen regression perks. Yeah, this is a big issue that comes with designing new Gen slowdown/hinderance/regression perks every time. And I don't have a foolproof solution to it either. The automatic regression might not be enough reason not to stack it with the previously mentioned Deadlock. That would be ALOT of Entity blocking going around. And the reason why DMS currently isn't used that much with Deadlock is, well, because the trigger conditions for it are so hard to make happen.

The automatic regression still doesn't completely negate using things like Pop Goes The Weasel, because it is only applied once per effect, unlike Hex: Ruin that applies it constantly as long as the Totem is up. This is a problem, while not directly the fault of the reworked DMS, that should still be considered.

Consistency. Yeah, this CAN be a flaw in the current game design. Have you noticed how a lot of very popular perks have in common that they bring consistency to the game? I am personally against the idea that consistency could be considered dangereous or flawed design, but I figured I'd mention it since it's still being used as a means of having more powerful effects on Perks that end up being really RNG. Ironicly, that's what the current DMS is.

Underwhelming effect. Yup. It might turn out in practise with real data, that 30 seconds of blocking a Gen (or multiple) a maximum of 4 times a match isn't that powerful. Unlike Deadlock, DMS would block Generators AFTER hooking a Survivor ONLY if they haven't been hooked before.

You know what Survivors most of the time are doing when Killer is in the pick up-carry-hook-seek target phase? Doing generators. You know how good Survivors act like when they know their teammate is on their first hook and not second or third? They take their time and don't rush the rescue. There's a lot of realistic, happens-every-game scenarios that this blocking effect could backfire or do nothing. Mind you, this is still in the realm of fair trade-off for a potentially powerful effect, but should still be taken into account and numbers adjusted if necessary.

End thoughts

I'm a bit suprised at myself for coming to the forums and writing about a Gen hinderance perk, since I'm one of those Killer players who rarely if ever use any. I just don't. But the idea of DMS back when it was released was really fun... until I tried to make it happen and it was horrible. Unlike other Obsession centered perks like Play With Your Food, DMS has way too many sub-conditions on top of hooking the Obsession that it can still backfire IF you find the Obsession and IF you manage to both down and hook them. And all this IF the Survivors let of go Generators, and even if they do, the Generator they let go off had progressed only 5%. You see where I'm going with this?

tldr

Rework Dead Man's Switch into a non-obsession hooking Perk akin to No Way Out, that only works once per hooked Survivor. Reduce duration (from max 45 seconds to 30 seconds) and consider the strength of the effect with other Gen regression perks (especially Pop goes the Weasel). Remove White Aura, consider showing said Aura to Survivors instead.

Thanks for reading!