Dead Hard rework idea
I thought of an idea for how Dead Hard could be reworked a tiny bit while still allowing it to be an incredibly strong perk.
Part of the reason why Dead Hard is incredibly annoying is that you get both distance during the most critical time a survivor has (when they are injured) and you get invincibility during that time too so the killer has no counterplay other than bait it and hope you aren't near a safe pallet. At lower and mid levels of play, this isn't that big of a deal. At higher levels, it's a free third health state. It's also just annoying.
I think they key part is it's a "free" third health state. What if it wasn't free?
If Dead Hard is going to act as a third health state, maybe it should be reworked so that using Dead Hard automatically puts you in the deep wound status effect. This does a few things.
- The perk is still very powerful. If you use it at a time when you would normally be hit, it's a free styptic. This is undeniably powerful and would still keep dead hard as one of the strongest perks in the game.
- Styptics are still more powerful. If you use a styptic and aren't hit, you don't have to mend. With this, using dead hard at all puts you in deep wound.
- It's a bit harder to see when you are in deep wound. If you continue a chase after using dead hard, it's slightly harder to see the killer.
- If the killer whiffs their hit, they don't get nothing out of the chase. The survivor successfully outplayed them (they don't go down and get hooked/slugged), but they still have to spend time mending. They can't just dead hard and immediately do whatever they want if the killer drops chase. If the killer drops chase after a survivor dead hards somewhere safe, then the survivor will lose their exhaustion and the killer just spent a bunch of time to get outplayed by a single key. Now, there's an actual cost to the perk.
- As just an added bonus, if you whiff a hit due to dead hard, you'll see the survivor is in deep wound. Right now, you'll sometimes just go, "Did they dead hard or did I just miss?"
The main component is that when dead hard is used in a skillful way, you still get a ton of benefit out of the perk. But, if you need to use it, you have to spend time mending instead of doing some useful action. A ton of people would still use it, but it would make the other exhaustion perks look more attractive and make some kind of penalty to using dead hard when there is currently none.
It also fits the general atmosphere of the perk. You're injured and you exert yourself further to dodge an attack. The extra exertion causes you to go into deep wound.
Comments
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So dead hard gets the same distance, the same iframes, but it just puts you in deep wounds when you do it?
You're aware this doesn't actually change the issues the perk has in any substantial way? It just adds a nonsense penalty to using it.
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I actually don't hate this idea.
I mean, I don't use the stupid perk anyway so I couldn't care less. The community would still complain it's too strong but ya know, maybe it will only be 97 people complaining instead of 100 🤷♂️
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I mentioned this. It's still undeniably powerful, but it has a penalty to using it. If you only remove the iframes, you don't change the part where the perk gives you free distance. If you remove the distance, you don't remove the iframes that allow you to dodge every attack. If you remove both, that's the entire perk.
I'm not sure I would describe it as a nonsense penalty. Again, it would still probably be the strongest exhaustion perk. But, it would at least have a tradeoff. The other exhaustion perks wouldn't require you to mend and waste 12 seconds. It wouldn't allow you to dead hard and then get adrenaline because adrenaline would only heal deep wound. And it would still undeniably be a survivor perk that gives the survivor an advantage.
And it would still have the same counter play from the killer. Bait the dead hard and they go straight to the dying state.
Personally, I think you could also remove the iframes. But, if you only remove the iframes, it's still a free extra loop at high MMR. Dead hard's not really a problem at low/mid MMR because it's most commonly a panic button that doesn't get used anywhere useful and has easy counterplay. At least with this it gives the killer some minor slowdown. Now, it's still really annoying at low/mid MMR but it's not actually a balance issue.
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If they just removed the distance element and provide the deep mending element also; then I will be fine with it. But really, I would be more down with just removing distance aspects, as it makes going for a risky another loop easy to achieve, especially when they should not be able to make it to the window and Pallet in time.
The fact that Dead Hard gives you a 3rd health state, by pressing E or action buttons; should be the most iconic aspect of the perk; but it should not have extra meter of distance gain when activated.
Your proposal to add a mending change it not really going to matter, since mending timer doesn't go in chase as you constantly run all the time. (Which in my opinion, it is also kinda of stupid; since you are bleeding out and the best way to have a infinite timer is just keep on sprinting?!?) Until deep wound gets more punishing, I am more interested in just removing distance aspect, and it does a dodge animation that allows you to avoid the hit entirely.
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1st off - I 100% agree with you. You took the words out of my mouth in many ways!
Your idea to make DH use Deep Wounds though... Clever, but a bit overkill, IMO.
Deep Wounds is a very VERY good place to start. It means a survivor has a little 15s 'time out' before being able to do much else, and means that if they gain any health states mid-chase from Adrenaline or anything along those lines, they are not restored to Healthy. It also means that the perk cannot be used if you already have Deep Wounds - which makes it completely useless against particular killers in and out of certain circumstances.
Clever, and strong. I like it.
However, I don't think it solves the problem of cost. 15s is a very short time to pay for using such a powerful perk. If a survivor extends their chase by 30 seconds if you commit, but if you leave, they take a 15s mend (or less with help) it still beats the power of everything else.
It's hyper strong in some cases, but barely a consideration in others.
So - it's balanced and good, why do I disagree?
Broken.
If the perk made someone Broken for 60 seconds, it could also insinuate the following:
You can't use the perk again until you're healthy.
Making a survivor live with the consequences of a miniature and temporary No-Mither (Without the buffs) is super strong for good killers, but is also something that is evenly costly across survivors regardless of skill.
In a coordinated high skill SWF team, Deep Wounds is a cakewalk - it's gone in 8 seconds and the person is back to full health within 16-20 seconds of leaving chase. But noob survivors that try to use this solo are going to get wrecked by it - mistiming their Deep Wounds is going to make them accidentally kill themselves - make them take longer than 11 seconds of mending only to be interrupted due to bad positioning. OR the 'drawback' is nullified because the killer predicts the ability and knocks the user down. No true drawback if you got knocked into Dying anyhow!
With broken, you can't use other Broken perks like Deliverance or Second Wind/Renewal. In the current healing meta, you can't run to a Boon and get topped off. You can't make a daring getaway with a medkit and be good as new in under 10 seconds. You cannot Heal for 32 seconds with self care then hop on a generator for 8 and have the perk back and ready to use the next time you see the killer. With Broken - you have 1 SHOT and you have to make it count. And if you do or don't succeed, you have to live with that choice.
Why is broken less 'overkill'?
Seasoned survivors know how to play while injured. Newer survivors have a hard time.
By making this perk trigger broken - it creates a soft incentive for the best players NOT to use it, but also teaches newer players to make the most with what they have if they risk taking the perk.
New survivors get into lobbies where nobody does generators, and where the greatest enemies in the match are teammates that fail to tackle objectives. Giving those kinds of players dozens upon dozens of Mend timers can obliterate them. Making this perk useless against Killers like Legion or Deathslinger - while also rendering Soul Guard useless and turning Borrowed Time into a mutual exclusion kerfuffle - seeing as how the DH bringer has no control over it in match. Deep Wounds eats up newer survivors and doesn't do much for experienced ones - but also is completely stomped out by the worst DH offender - SWF bully squads.
Broken makes it so that survivors cannot heal - which limits the perk's usage. Newer survivors are encouraged to get back objectives instead of using Self Care in a corner, they have nothing better to do than to tackle objectives. Being Broken does not fight against itself, which means although the ability cannot be used against Plague or while carrying Victor - it is generally a lot more open to being played with killers while also only being exclusive with self-controlled perks - aside from Forced Penance, which would instantly be soft buffed by this.
The best thing of all, while top level players are the most comfortable being wounded - they are also the most valuable while healthy. Denying SWF bully squads the ability to quickly recover and tank hits for one another is devastating. Having this escape perk compete for perk slots with For The People, Deliverance, or Renewal/Second Wind makes it a tough choice for bully teams that heavily prioritize gaining and swapping health states with Broken perks in a more direct way than gambling it in chase with the killer.
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TL;DR:
I love your idea.
I think it should just cause users to be Broken.
Deep Wounds hurts new / average players a lot but hardly phases high ranks.
Broken can be managed by new / average players and makes it a lot less attractive at high ranks.
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I like broken too but I think it runs into a similar problem as exhaustion. One difference between broken and deep wound is you can dead hard, become broken, but get to a really strong tile. The killer now says "f this I'm not dealing with this tile" and leaves. You now sit on a generator and broken goes away and there was no cost to using such a strong perk. This is a similar problem to exhaustion. You can just sit on a generator and it goes away by itself. Deep wound forces you to do something else for 12 seconds as a time out so you get a very strong perk but you give the killer slow down.
Broken means they can't heal but they were already probably not going to do that. Deep wound forces you off of generators even if it's for a shorter amount of time. It's 12 seconds where the survivor can't do anything useful if you choose to drop chase. CoH also doesn't affect mend speed. If someone dead hards and then has chase dropped, it'll take them at least 32 seconds to heal due to mending + self-care in a boon. That's a lot of time where they can then be interrupted in a bad spot.
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