Give every survivor a unique passive.

HP150

A long request feature, but for good reason.
There's a reason why Killer mains are a lot more excited for new chapters / characters than Survivor mains. Survivors get new perks, Killers get a new character that plays differently than other characters in addition to new perks. There's just more to look forward to.

Now, the entire game doesn't have to be revamped; this should have been a thing at the release of the game and there are far too many survivors to give them actual "powers" at this point. It could be something as small and simple as a 3% exhaustion recovery speed for Meg or a 5% unhook speed bonus for David or +2m terror radius reading from Feng Min, etc, etc. Anything to differentiate the survivors, really. This could also help so I don't have to run into invisi-cloak Claudettes every other game.

And, of coarse, would probably drive up DLC sales from Survivor-only players.

Blueberry

I think it's better to have more player choice with their character diversity. Everyone just gets to play with the survivor they like the most or relate to. It doesn't feel good to be pushed in a direction for the sake of a passive.

Aerys

Like Blueberry said, giving every Survivor a unique passive that can't be learned by other Survivors would force people to play the one with the strongest passive, even if they don't like the character. If Feng Min had a +5% repair speed you would always see Feng Min every single match, if not 4 of them. Additionally, when you say that each Killer plays differently you're right, but that applies to the Survivors too, most Killers they go up against give them a different experience, Freddy has the Sleep Mechanic Survivors have to play around, Huntress has the throwing hatchets you need to look back/listen to her voice to dodge while being chased, Trapper and Hag have traps to be cautious about, etc. So every Killer provides not only the Player playing them a different experience, but also the Survivors.

darktrix

You see a lot of Claudette just because with the right cosmetic she is hard to see. Now imagine that a survivor had a 'meta' passive ability - you would see nothing but those survivors.

powerbats

You could doa unique passive but one that's not game breaking so to speak and perhaps even take one of their elsser used perks and make it a passive. IT could even be a passive that fits their character so for instance Claudette could have the ability to pick plants to heal 2% faster. (yes I know Claudette but just as an example)

For Detective Tapp he could be better at finding totems/chests.
For Meg slightly reduced exhaustion since she's a track runner so instead of 60 seconds it'd be 45 etc.
For Quentin he'd have a built in Bond type of thing or Empathy and it'd be say 16 meters.

Those are all just examples but you get the idea since it'd be based upon the character and their lore.

se05239

I like seeing some variety in survivors. Giving them passives would only cause a stagnation of variety as certain passives are far more meta than others.

Mister_xD

they already have this.
every survivor has his own 3 perks no one else has. that said, you can however unlock them in other survivors bloodwebs too, so the diversity gets less and less up to the point where they are all the same, the longer you play.

honestly, i would dislike your idea, as this would encourage players to play certain survivors even more, like claudettes for bonus healing speed, megs for less recovery from the exhaustion and lauries for more ability to fight back.
i doubt you'd see a lot more characters than these 3 with your redesign idea...

agony_deluxe

i understand the request, but like it was stated, it will be very difficult to give any bonuses without messing with survivors variety in matches.
Even for very low bonuses people will stay with the most optimised survivor.

So lets say that your bonus is so marginal that it doesn't affect the gameplay anymore: what's the point?

Justicar

@Aerys said:
Like Blueberry said, giving every Survivor a unique passive that can't be learned by other Survivors would force people to play the one with the strongest passive, even if they don't like the character. If Feng Min had a +5% repair speed you would always see Feng Min every single match, if not 4 of them.

That's why you have to carefully balance the passives, so that they're more a matter of playstyle than a meta. I think simply making sure each survivor passive has a bonus AND a drawback would help to keep them from being too powerful.

Raptorrotas

Well if the passive boni are too strong, just add weaknesses to the survvivors too.

Although devs currently want survivors to just be skins so that there won't be favorites (except claudette).

Aerys

@Justicar
Even then there would be optimal Survivors to choose. Let's make up some random passives for a few characters and go over them.

Dwight: +1/2/3% efficiency when 1/2/3 other Survivors are near.
Jake: Footsteps are 20% quieter.
Meg: Walking movement speed is 0.1m/s faster.
Claudette: +5% healing speed.

From just those the obvious choices would be Claudette and Dwight as healing and general efficiency on everything are innately more powerful than being quieter or walking a tad faster. Even if we were to give them drawbacks that would still be the case. For example;

Dwight: +1/2/3% efficiency to self when 1/2/3 other Survivors are within 8m. When no other Survivors are within 8m receives -1% efficiency.
Jake: Footsteps are 20% quieter but scratch marks remain 0.5s longer.
Meg: Walking movement speed is 0.1m/s faster, but crouching movement speed is 0.1m/s slower.
Claudette: +5% healing speed but skill checks occur slightly more often when healing.

As you can see, by giving them drawbacks it makes the good ones somewhat worse but makes the worse ones even worse. In Dwight's case he'd just try to stay near people as often as possible, in Claudette's case she'd be a-okay so long as she can do skill checks. In Jake's case he has a visible drawback to being played quite literally, and in meg's case it's just a trade off that would force a player to walk more often than crouch, but as she'll be sprinting half the time it doesn't really matter in the end. Of course, these were made and balanced by me in a matter of seconds but I'm doubtful the Devs would do much better of a job and in the end we'd be left with Survivors that are more desirable to play as over others.

Rebel_Raven

Nah. I like survivors being purely modular.

If I want to transform my Min from a ninja gen jockey to a rescue machine, a healer, or a methed up decoy looper, I'd like that freedom.

Or turn Claudette into a gen seeking missile with no healing perks.

Customization is better, and I don't want to be forced into some sweaty meta by having to play a certain character. 

Justicar

@Aery's
They would need to be carefully balanced. Furthermore, we want to limit them to things that benefit just that survivor, so that they're not as easily abused by SWF stacking. For example:

Dwight: Locker, pallet, and window noise range reduced by 8m. Generator repair and hook sabotage noise range increased by 8m.
Jake: Generator repair and hook sabotage noise range decreased by 8m. Locker, pallet, and window noise range increased by 8m.
Meg: Run speed is increased by 2%, scratch marks persist for an additional 2 seconds.
Claudette: Great healing skill check ranges are doubled, great repair skill check ranges are halved.
Feng: Great repair skill check ranges are doubled, great healing skill check ranges are halved.

TragicSolitude

Killers can see survivors before the match starts. They can already base their loadout around what items the survivors bring and what perks they think those survivors will have. Right now, survivors are just skins, so while some perks are more common with certain survivors, any survivor could be running any perk.

If survivors each have their own unique ability, not only will you see more lobbies that are nothing but one survivor over and over, the killer will know exactly why that survivor was chosen. They'll have a better idea of that person's play style and a better idea of what perks to counter than they already do.

I prefer having the survivors just be a skin. I like being able to choose what survivor to be based on appearance alone, and even then I'm at the mercy of bloodweb perk RNG. I don't want, on top of the perk RNG, to have to choose a survivor I don't like over a survivor I do just because the one I want to play as has a fixed ability I don't like, and that ability can never be changed no matter how much BP I put into the bloodweb.

Dreamnomad

I've had a similar thought before. My solution was to make it so all players would get one of their perks for free at rank 3. Then that player could have the option to use the original perk in addition to the free perk to make a "super perk". For example: Dwight: Bond - Unlocks potential in one's Aura reading ability. Allies' Auras are revealed to you when they are within 12/24/36 [Dwight only 48/60/infinite] meters.

Here is a link to the thread:

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/21841/free-perks-for-everyone