More Base Game Change Suggestions

Mozic

Hello!

The more I try my own hand at redesigning the top/bottom 10 killer/survivor perks, the more I realize that it's a futile exercise when studied through the context of our current meta - something BHVR is promising will change with some base game changes.

So rather than spin my wheels on the highway of incomplete information, I figured I'd try identifying what the upcoming base game changes are!

Killer Changes:

* After hooking a survivor, you can discern the progress of all generators by the intensity of their auras for 8 seconds. The generator with the most progress gives you a loud noise notification.

Why?: Perks like Pop Goes the Weasel and BBQ provide the killer with enough incentive to make leaving the hook seem like a good idea, when otherwise it would not. This change would introduce a base-kit reason to leave the hook that is informative without being overbearing until the endgame, at which point defending a hook naturally changes from a conflict of interest to an endgame play.

* Obtaining a "Relentless Killer" rating or better will refund your addons.

Why?: Killers have a clear objective, but do not have a clear win condition. While many define a win as a 4k, with BHVR stating that the aim is for the average outcome to be a 2k, there is a clear friction between killer players and the intentions of the devs when it comes to setting expectations for a match. We've also seen that BBQ is one of the most common perks in the game simply because it provides a post-match reward for spreading hook states. Many killer players are reluctant to equip many / any addons while still holding their expectations for consistently good outcomes against survivor players who bring full loadouts - which introduces a behavioral skew in the design where the developers have to consider the potential power of a killer's addons into their balancing, even though there is a portion of the playerbase that is demanding changes while failing to utilize the resources they have available.

Making this change would cement "Relentless Killer" as a sufficient 'win' in the killer's book, incentivize playing to the emblem system, and providing an avenue for addon retention to produce parity with survivor's means to retain addons (via an escape through the gate or hatch with their item in hand).

Survivor Changes:

* When you are placed on a hook, the entity immediately moves you to another, non-basement hook at least 40m away. If the killer stands within 16m of your for more than a few seconds, the entity moves you again to another hook at least 40m away and pauses your sacrifice timer for 12 seconds. Does not apply to basement hooks. If no valid hook can be found, the entity will place you in the basement.

BHVR already recognized that the skill check struggle from Pyramid Head's cages of atonement would be a good introduction as a basegame feature, why not also adopt the way cages behave? While it would rob everyone's favorite slice of cake from some of their unique kit personality, they'd get to retain the ability to skip interactions with hooking (or more specifically, unhooking). This model would keep basements as-is, since the basement is specifically intended to be a dangerous, significantly killer-advantageous area in the context of hooking and rescues.

* You can no longer be grabbed while healthy when unhooking.

Removing the extreme risk involved in unhooking in the immediate presence of the killer will significantly deflate the killer's interest in intercepting survivors coming in for the unhook. It will also encourage survivors to heal before approaching for an unhook, which is a generally good-practice behavior even if the killer is not hard camping the area.

What do y'all think? Would these improve the game? What would you change?

Mozic

I failed to include that along with the proposed change to survivors being moved on hooks in a way similar to cages of atonement, the killer can no longer see the auras of hooked survivors.

Milo

After hooking a survivor, you can discern the progress of all generators by the intensity of their auras for 8 seconds. The generator with the most progress gives you a loud noise notification.

That's, atleast imo, way too much info. Just the most progress one would suffice.

Making this change would cement "Relentless Killer" as a sufficient 'win' in the killer's book, incentivize playing to the emblem system, and providing an avenue for addon retention to produce parity with survivor's means to retain addons (via an escape through the gate or hatch with their item in hand).

This isn't a thing since sometime ago. Well technically. If a survivor has Ace in the Hole then they do keep the add-ons, otherwise they just keep the item.

When you are placed on a hook, the entity immediately moves you to another, non-basement hook at least 40m away. If the killer stands within 16m of your for more than a few seconds, the entity moves you again to another hook at least 40m away and pauses your sacrifice timer for 12 seconds.

Even with ur 1st suggestion, I still think that the killer would lose a bunch of pressure of that (most of the time, cages spawn near other survivors thus removing PH's pressure).

You can no longer be grabbed while healthy when unhooking.

Eh... I'm like half on it, so won't comment further.

Mozic

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2978251#Comment_2978251

Thanks for the thoughts!

To the first:

The idea behind the auras AND loud noise notification is to give the killer a quick visual shortcut on which gen is the most progressed - it would already be discernable from observing all of the generators. It'd also continue to give the killer limited benefit in the event they're blinded when hooking, which is soon to become a thing - which would continue to provide the killer incentive to leave the hook even if they're blind. Some killer players tend to become pretty spiteful pretty quickly in the face of flashlights, so I believe it'd otherwise be too common a situation where a killer doesn't get their new on-hook info reward, cross their arms, and sit by the hook in a huff.

Since the noise notification is just communicating to the killer something that the auras would already communicate, I don't believe it has that strong of a compounding effect.

The second:

I did forget that the survivor addon retention is only tied to ace in the hole - I just run it all the time when I play survivor 😄 nevertheless, I think it'd be a great way to take advantage of lessons learned from what has elevated BBQ so high. Though on further consideration, it'd probably be appropriate to exclude iridescent addons from this refund system entirely (to emulate the way that survivor iridescent addons are consumed on use)

The third:

These two suggestions aren't really being made with the intention that they'd cohabitate. The killer won't need incentives to leave the hook if the hook leaves the killer instead! 😂