Should there be a Meta Experiment?
I know I’m probably going to get some unsavory responses in this, but it’s just a way to see how people react or if they like the idea. So, what is this supposed Meta Experiment?
A year back, the devs disabled Bloodlust as an experiment for 3 days to gather data and probably see if it needed to stay in the game or be changed. I think following this, bloodlust did get nerfed? I could be wrong on that though. But, this core principal is where this idea stems from.
I think there should be an experiment on both sides and I think people might like it, might not. This experiment will involve disabling all the “meta” perks, on both killer and survivor side, forcing a new way to play the game and experiment with perks that people rarely use. This has a benefit as survivor complain killers sweat a lot, and killers complain survivors sweat a lot.
Disabled Survivor perks would include but not limited to “Decisive Strike, Borrowed Time, Dead Hard, Lithe, Balanced Landing (can possibly be meta), Unbreakable, Boon: Circle of Healing, Self Care, Iron Will, Head On, Resilience, Spine Chill, Overcome”. These perks are the most common ones and they are just examples.
Disabled Killer perks would include but not limited to “Hex: Ruin, Hex: Undying, Hex: Devour Hope, Corrupt Intervention, Pop Goes the Weasel, Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance, Thrilling Tremors, BBQ and Chili, Tinkerer, Hex: No One Escapes Death, Fearmonger (trust me, this will be meta once Artist releases, it’ll be used to counteract Overcome)”. These perks are also very common on the killer side, also just examples as to what would be disabled.
The devs should have enough data with MMR now that certain perks ARE ALWAYS used more than others. There are 98 survivors perks, and you only see roughly 8 of them. There are 87 killer perks and you only see roughly 6 or 7 of them. Granted, that’s all based on personal experience, I don’t exactly know every build people use. But, with the data mentioned, the devs know these perks over perform, and I think it’s time to figure out why that is. That, is why I propose the Meta Experiment.
This experiment could last as long as the devs like to gather substantial data to actually try and give really healthy changes to both sides. For example, if you do the experiment and the data shows killers are all of a sudden performing better than before the experiment, the perks make a big deal in the trial (which, we all know is true). But if survivors are still escaping at the same rate or even an increased rate, you know there is in even bigger issue at hand that is out of the perk’s control.
I see counter points where killers can camp and tunnel, but there are ways to work around tunneling and camping with coordination, and yeah, solos do get left out, but they can still coordinate as well as someone on coms if they know what they’re doing and how to help in the situation. (But I agree, that can be very hard for them to do).
Besides using the experiment for balancing, it can also be used by the players to discover new perk synergies and new perks they’ll enjoy without ever even knowing because they use the same perks constantly because they have to in order to win.
So, that is my idea for a Meta Experiment, change the meta and see what metas form, by completely removing all the old meta perks for a few days. The data I think would be really interesting to see, as people would start using lesser known perks and possibly even continuing to use those perks if they like them a lot. What do you all think of this? I’m really curious to see how people respond, I kinda expect mixed reactions from both sides, but it’s just a suggestion after all, I think the game could really benefit from it.
Comments
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How do we even know if overcome is meta? But as for the experiment people would just run the next best thing and stick to that
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I definitely do understand people would probably go to the next best thing, though if it really did become an issue so quickly, they could switch that perk off as well if they wanted to. But I don’t know, just some food for thought, would be interesting if they did go through with something like this. And I just have a hunch overcome will become meta once it releases as it allows a survivor to just run to the corner of the map, have the killer hit them, run all the way away from that corner and now the killer is stuck there, very far behind and unable to really catch back up. (Won’t be for a long while until they do catch back up either)
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I'd like them to experiment like that. But why do you think killers use gen slowdown too much? Why does survivors use anti-tunneling/camping perks so much? When you play survivor or killer at an average level (no need to be at high mmr) you can already see two major problems with the game... and what they need is not to disable perks: but to create in-built mechanics to deal with gen speed and camping-tunneling (instead of relying on perks to do so).
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I agree, perks shouldn’t be a counter measure anymore to gameplay, there needs to be other counters to certain actions that can be taken in game without relying on another perk being added to fill that role. I believe the devs did say they had an idea for how to fix camping and people liked the idea a lot, so hopefully we’ll see that soon. I also believe the Mori change will hopefully bring slowdown to gens, the issue is that it needs to be oppressive enough to stall a game, but still be winnable on both sides, but not too oppressive as survivors would see it as too unfair. I think this does help players though since the meta is pretty stale and they can find new perks to play with and forces new ways of counteracting certain actions the other team does without the use of a perk
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I totally agree.
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Would be interesting even thou I am not a fan of disabling BBQ because that perk is mostly used for BP-farming and only Killers like Oni and Hillbilly who are good but not "meta" are using it for snowballing. However I would take the loss of BBQ for a limited time to see how survivors play without Dead Hard and Iron Will.
Experiments like this could be fun as they force you to change your way of playing and thus I am in for them.
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