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Bringing back old Undying, as balance for Boons.
So to start this off, I identify as a survivor main. With just about 1300 hours on steam, and about 300 hours on PS4.
I play killer maybe 3% of my games in DBD and I don't have Undying available on my bloodwebs.
I think considering the fact that Boon totems can be remade over and over again lends to the idea that the killers should be able to do the same as well in the spirit of fairness. Though I do believe some perks would be irritating in their current form, I truly believe this would bring back some kind of balance regarding the totems.
Curious what others think about this.
Comments
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Boons and Hexes are not the same mechanic, and shouldn't be balanced the same way.
Boons as a core mechanic are designed around being relit, and hexes are not. There are benefits from the killer's side for boons being relightable, even.
But even if that weren't the case, this is a backwards suggestion. Let's say for a second that relighting boons actually is too powerful and impactful- how is it an appropriate response to add in the same level of OP annoyance on the other side?
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Yes.
Absolutely this.
The Undying nerf was silly, as it was targeted specifically at the Ruin+Undying combo. The correct response would have been to adjust Ruin, but BHVR instead slapped a pretty hefty blanket nerf on all hexes, most of which didn't see much play as is.
If Ruin is the concern, nerf Ruin.
...What on earth are the benefits to the killer's side? I'm genuinely curious.
As it stands, trying to snuff was frequently worse than letting the thing stand, as you'd routinely waste time trying to find it when it's actually on the floor below you/in an unsnuffable spot. Even if you succeeded, you'd probably have wasted as much time as the survivor spent blessing it, and the time of the killer is at far more of a premium than the time of 1 survivor.
Plus, they can immediately relight it.
It creates a zero-risk safezone that hard counters the majority of attrition based killers. I'd love to see a comparison of Wraith kill rates before and after the introduction of boons.
They aren't unbeatable, but if you are playing certain killers, you need to build expressly to counter boons in the expectation that you might be facing them, every game. Which is boring for both sides.
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The problem isn't undying, the problem is that boons can be relit as much as they currently can be/snuffing totems is very often not the correct play for the killer which creates a lose-lose.
The only thing I would change about undying right now is that it shouldn't warn the survivors, ever. Getting cursed when going past a dull totem is like holding up a giant sign that says "Hi, I'm undying and I'm here to protect something else more important". Ruin's not in the game? No other hex is already known about? You can probably figure out what's up.
The developers even said themselves one thing they didn't like about old undying was that it was "unpopular with token-based hexes" yet running it with devour is almost worse than not running it since it can give it away early against a smart group of survivors.
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The benefits - while slim - are that survivors are continually spending time doing something that isn't a generator, and that they're trying to make use of a specific area of the map you know that they're going to be in. The benefits for survivor vs killer aren't equally weighted, but that's fine because they are survivor perks.
Regardless, I actually agree with some of those assessments, but the solution to them is to fix bad totem spawns and, potentially if it still seems warranted, make boon effects not travel through multiple floors. I don't believe in band aid solutions that potentially spoil interesting mechanics- I want to see boon totems work and believe the wider game problems should be fixed around them to help them flourish.
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I think that snuffing out a Hexed Boon Totem the Hex should relite
Or maybe tie it to Undying
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Honestly, the short time investment it takes to get one up may be time away from a gen, but it spirals into a lot less pressure from the killer - ie. more time on gens.
It really wasn't.
It was only a problem with Ruin, which itself was a symptom of the 'you can do your first generator in literally 14 seconds, and 3 before the killer gets their first down' problem. Slowdown was the meta at the time, now it's shifted into either escalating pressure (CI/LP+offensive perks) or gimmicky instadown builds (Starstruck+carry perks, NOED+NWO).
Hexes need some love regardless.
Boons are really a problem, as they can hard-counter a lot of killers. That said, this is BHVR and their balancing decisions can be...bizarre at times.
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That's true the first time, but if survivors are continually blessing boons, that time adds up. If it weren't for awkward totem spots and the ability to literally instantly get back on it as soon as the killer's back is turned, that slowdown would be pretty noticeable. I made a post about it, but my suggested fix for the latter is just to put a debuff on a totem that's been snuffed for a short while that makes blessing it take twice as long.
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Sure. But you're ignoring the time it takes the killer to snuff those boons every time.
I'd rather see snuffing a boon put boons on a cooldown.
The issue isn't always 'I'll just rebless the same totem'. It's more 'okay, now I'll just set up a new one where we are now'.
Honestly, boons just don't work well with the mechanics of the game. The killer is always more time-starved than the survivors, if only because there's only one killer.
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A cooldown would work too. As for the time it takes to snuff a boon- I'd argue that if you do it properly, it doesn't waste so much time that it outweighs the benefits. Going out of your way to snuff one instead of chasing or what have you, sure, that's bad, but if you treat snuffing like a downtime action a la breaking pallets or kicking generators it's a lot more reasonable.
Though, again, awkward totem spawns do throw a wrench into that approach, so I still agree those are a problem.
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Undying was nerfed under the premise that cleansing the same hex 4 times (ruin) is unfun.
So they'll either bring old Undying back or nerf boons to the point where they can be used only once.
There is no in between.
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'Doing it properly' is the problem though.
It's not always obvious where the thing is, especially on indoor maps (where it could be behind multiple walls, or below the floor). I've had multiple occasions where I hear it, look for it and by the time I've found it, a gen pops.
However, if I let it stand, all that survivors do is run away and heal in seconds. Probably my most annoying game recently was eating a pallet stun, knowing exactly where the injured survivor had gone, pursuing immediately and by the time I'd reached them, they'd already healed to full. Less than 10 seconds.
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the boons most likely shouldnt be allowed to relit, however u should be able to boon up to 5 times (5 totems) but only once per totem, also circle of healing (multiples survivors doing it) should get nerfed so its actually not that fast... because even after the nerf is still extremely fast.
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Oh yeah, you won't catch me arguing that CoH isn't too strong, something needs to be done about that perk.
I still maintain a better fix is an overall totem spawn pass, and maybe boons only having horizontal range, not vertical range. If you know where the boon is and it's not in a terrible spot (that shouldn't be in the game to begin with) then I really think the intended mechanic can work.
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"Four players have to cleanse, potentially, up to 5 totems to remove Ruin?" Unbalanced!
"One player has to snuff, potentially, an indefinite amout of totems to remove boosted stealth and healing?" Balanced!
🤦♂️ Smh...
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Boons could work, but they have too much of an impact (to the point of hard countering some killers) for the amount of effort required. CoH, yes, specifically.
Beyond this though, I just don't think that killers need any side objectives. With how fast genspeeds are and how ridiculously safe gens/loops are on some maps (RPD, Haddonfield, Badham, some versions of the Autohaven and Farm maps) it's difficult enough to pressure survivors before factoring in something else to do.
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You could go the entire match with Ruin still active, a perk that is really too strong on high mobility killers. Old Undying was so awful. Look at Blight with Undying the way it is, it is already almost like god mode.
Hex perks impacts the entire match, whereas boon totems do not. They help the survivor a little bit but they don't impact the game in a significant way.
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Well, at that point we've changed the topic from boon totems as a mechanic to the specific perk Circle Of Healing, those are two separate topics.
The way I look at the rest of those things, though, is that even if Boon Totems were completely deleted from the game... they'd still be problems that are in dire need of solving. Why slap a band aid on something new that rubs up against those problems instead of treating the root cause?
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When everything is OP, nothing is OP. Balanced
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We have done it many times with old undying, not really hard.
Killer have to get you away from that gen, otherwise Ruin is useless.
And if Ruin is active whole game now, that's on you. Just learn totem spawns...
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As Jester pointed out, Boons and Hexes are not the same mechanic.
Boons being able to be relit does not mean old Undying should return. It wasn't just nerfed because of Ruin. If you remember correctly, you could use Undying with Haunted Ground to have it go off several times. Thus, Undying was the problem.
Boons being strong does not mean the solution is to give killers something even more powerful.
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I also think this would be a great change. Now that I think about the implications, it wouldn't bring hexes back into relevance, but it would potentially slow down boon players.
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so go find ruin if you don't wanna deal with it.
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