NOED isn't even that strong

dictep

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2964770#Comment_2964770

Well, same happens with boon totems and the new perk. Killers have counterplay now, and you can see a lot of posts complaining

dezzmont

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2964783#Comment_2964783

Sure, I always had ideas on this.

NOED is in an abstract way a good perk to exist. It is a Blue Turtle Shell, a mechanic that forces one side to not get too far ahead, which is important in a game where specifically survivors pulling too far ahead too fast is very boring for everyone involved (This isn't to say killers should be stronger mind, it is just that killer stomps are better from a raw 'is this remotely interesting gameplay' than survivor stomps). If your really thrashing, you might want to slow down to handle bones to avoid getting NOED'd. It also forces you to treat the killer like a threat even in EGC, which is currently a huge problem for EGC: By default it is a massive anti-climax because its a point in the game the survivors have a truly ridiculous level of advantage over the killer, and NOED changes that.

The flaw with the design is that its way too all or nothing in multiple ways. In most cases, the killer doesn't have NOED, so the best choice is almost always to not play as if they had it. When they do have it the punishment for not respecting it is titanic. On top of this, trying to counter NOED by doing bones is a double edged sword because if you don't get every bone you kinda make the problem worse.

So: The desired behavior of NOED is to:

A: Make the EGC more dynamic and more of a climax to the game rather than a limp teabag fest unless the killer can camp out another kill.

and

B: Encourage the survivor to actually do side objectives, and reward them for every bit of time they spend on bones rather than gens.

So instead of a binary instadown vs non-instadown effect, I would propose that NOED interact with a new base kit mechanic: Haste and attack cooldown for each unlit totem at the end of the trial.

By making this hypothetical mechanic basekit, it creates a scenario where you always are rewarded for being a bone build: If no one does bones, EVERY game the killer will be very spooky at the EGC. So your not 'caught out' when you fail to work against NOED, you just chose to be risky. NOED could pump your attack cooldown to the point where you are basically oldschool machinegun able to double hit without cooldown at 5 totems left so it still is a pseudo-instadown, and each totem removes some of that cooldown so it gradually goes from 'killer basically instadowns' to 'killer is like someone with 16 STBFL stacks and thus the hit boost is only good for getting immediately to a defensive structure' to 'killer is normal or slightly above average.'

NOED's main 'sin' is that EGC is a total joke without it, so the main way to make it fair is to make it so EGC is a proper climax to the game: A mixed blessing because the survivors are about to escape but now the killer is much more dangerous to help compensate. If you don't feel like you are immortal by default in EGC, the killer 'subverting' that is no longer a massive 'feels bad' problem.

This also has some ancilary benefits: Small maps are easier for killer to patrol gates on, but also are easier to find bones on, while large maps are both very survivor sided in general and have supremely weak EGCs. With more distance between bones and a harder time finding them, combined with a haste boost to help gate patrol, it 'normalizes' map size a bit more and makes it have less of an impact on which side the map favors.