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A criticism of BHVRs game design
I'm no professional critic and I'm certainly no game designer, but as a consumer I see a large flaw in how BHVR structures their game. This is very subjective, so chime in on how you feel.
Everything thing in this game has some form of counterplay, something to cancel or counteract a move used by killer OR survivor, which leads to stale and uninteresting gameplay.
An example I would use is crouching to counteract Trails of Torment. If you ask me, this shouldn't exist. It limits how pyramid heads power can be used. There's really no point to blocking off an objective if a survivor can just crouch over it. There are many more examples, like no scratch marks while using legions power, or barring lockers used by dredge. I'm sure that there are examples of this on the survivor side, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
My point is, not every rock needs it's paper, some things should just be strong and force people to play around it. Otherwise you get a hyper-sterile game like Overwatch.
Please leave your thoughts in the comments.
Comments
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You never explained why it's better the way you want it.
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The only reason there is so many counters to counters is because base mechanics where never chanced for past 6 years...
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I did. If everything has a counter, then it leads to boring and sterile gameplay.
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Pyramid's trails are just fine imo. Try preemptively dropping them near some pallets or tight spaces then chasing survivors through them. He can get a ton of value out of them if he has someone in the basement.
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You explained why it's boring to you personally. You didn't explain why it's better for everyone. Are you saying changes should be done based on your personal desires?
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I disagree, things having counterplays makes the game boring and sterile for you because you want to win, but you're not playing against bots and players not being able to counter you would be boring and sterile for them.
Killers with the least counterplays are also the ones survivors hate the most, for a reason. There's no point in playing a game if you can't do anything to help yourself and the game solely depends on your opponent's ability (because it doesn't matter if you play good or not when you can't do anything to counter your opponent).
Wanting to be able to smash your opponents while they can't do anything about it just sounds like easy mode tbh (and i don't mean that in a "just get gud" way, I just mean in a pvp game that's not viable, the vast majority of survivors would simply not play if the only strategy was hiding and holding w)
And even from a killer's perspective, I would really find it boring if survivors had no way of countering my power / add-ons or whatever, like there would be no feeling of outplaying them for me.
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I think you missed my point. I don't want to have blatantly overpowered things with no counterplay, but small changes that actually force players to work around something rather than outright cancel it.
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some things should just be strong and force people to play around it
I'm sorry, but how can you play around something if there is no way to play around it?
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They are good in a chase, I know that, I just mean putting them near generators so they can get some use while you're away
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Finding creative solutions or other pathways to fix a problem rather than outright cancel an ability.
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Then the example you gave was a poor one. Crawling through trails is not a true counter because you lose mobility to make that play and it's also not viable in all situations, for example you can't crawl through trails of torment while in the middle of a chase unless your goal is to go down but avoid having the torment status affliction, which in some situations is the correct play. But that's not the definition of a counter, an example of a counter would be using iron will vs spirit.
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In your example of Trails of Torment, what would be those creative solutions and other pathways? Genuinly curious.
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I’d argue that not everything has a counter… and that things that absolutely need it, should.
To piggyback off of your example, without some type of counter, Trail Of Torment would give PH more opportunities to cage survivors. Which in theory sounds good, but when you add to the fact that Camping and Tunneling are still playstyles that are common and with hardly any counter. It would make perks like BT and DS become even more useless, because now the survivor is guaranteed to be tormented.
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Finding a path to the generator that the killer didn't block, finding a different generator, or doing something else like healing or cleansing. Obviously there would need to be minor changes to the power so it isn't too overpowered.
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Maybe BT and DS could be changed to activate off cages? There would need to be changes to the way some things work so that it isn't blatantly overpowered.
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The only way to remove PH's judgment is to pull someone from a cage. If you remove crouching over his trails to counter it then you need another way to remove judgment.
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In your TOT example Survivors will find another Gen to do... or they'll go through it and run you until that Gen is complete
Pyramid Head's only weakness (in terms of power) is Survivors crouching through his trails... Same as Hag and Freddie
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Yeah, I want that to be the case. Either find a new gen, or bite the bullet and run through. It's not a very effective power if it's completely nullified outside of a chase. I agree with you.
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I don't think his point is that things shouldn't have counter play. His point is that there are a lot of things with counter play that don't need it. They tend to just add a bunch of random counter play to things unnecessarily.
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Have you seen the amount of people who don't crawl through the trails or torment or round the hag's marks? It's much higher than those who do.
Just because things have counter play doesn't mean it gets used: these are two classic examples of this. But that's doesn't mean people shouldn't have a chance.
The dredge's example is also flawed in my opinion as survivors also need to make themselves more disadvantaged to counter Dredge's teleport. Unless he bursts out a barred locker you cannot unbar it and use it to hide and thus deprive yourself of perks based around lockers like built to last. It's actually an excellent example of how things should be done.
I argue that a lack of counter play is more of a cause of stale and uninteresting gameplay: Pyramid Head is a good example of how one side seeming to lack decent counter play can create an experience that many dislike.
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Or they could just wait for it to go away
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I can see where you're coming from, but I just prefer wacky ######### you have to play around rather than counter. But I respect and understand your opinion!
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I got your point alright. I think I just don't understand what you consider "working around something" v "cancelling that thing", because utilmately if you work around something and it still happens (therefore not cancelling it), you're not actually doing anything about it.
For example, you can avoid triggering Hag's traps by crouching, which is an easy counter that cancels her power, but without it Hag would be a camping machine. Same thing for PH's trails of torment, putting it around a gen, hex or hooked survivor while the others can't do anything to not trigger it would be no good and very frustrating for the survivors.
Like, all of these things aren't counters:
"Finding a path that the killer didn't block": the survivors shouldn't depend on the killer failing to fully block the path, it goes back to what I said about the game depending on your opponent's abilities.
"Find a different generator": not an option if PH blocks one gen and patrols the two others, or manages to block two and camps the last one to only go back to the other gens when ToT gets triggered. Also technically not a counter, survivors aren't doing anything about ToT they're just coping lol
"doing something else": wasting your time because you're not able to do the objectives is simply not a counter in any way, shape or form
This would lead to stale gameplay where survivors would hide and wait until ToT is gone, or get picked off one by one everytime they trigger it. Not to mention ToT around devour hope, which would basically be a free win for PH as long as he isn't terrible at the game; but overall yea the games would depend mostly on wether PH knows how to use ToT effectively with this change or not (effectively basically meaning camping 3 gens in this scenario, which isn't knowed to be a fun strategy for either side).
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In regards to just the PH example, the issue I see people running into is if PH puts down trails around a hooked survivor. They already have it where you can't put trails right next to the hook, but if you get far enough, you can put a circle around the hook. A survivor isn't able to get to the hooked survivor without alerting the PH that they're approaching and the unhooked survivor becomes vulnerable because they'll have to run through the trail and could get tunneled fairly easily. I don't think the PH example is the best for your argument because having to crouch through the trails wastes time and usually isn't too problematic in normal gameplay.
I do get your point though at having certain mechanics that creates "counters" for killers that might not be necessary or needs to be tweaked. Like billy overheating could take longer than what it currently takes or getting rid of the delay for slinger's gun. I wouldn't want them to take away counters for certain killer abilities where killers can exploit it so that survivors can't do anything about it.
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The issue in DbD isn't so much that things have counterplay. It's that the counterplay often feels like a reverse card and there's no way to counteract it. It's not a back and forth exchange most of the time. A lot of the gameplay feels like rock paper scissors and much of that is done from the loadout screen or from map RNG itself.
I build my loadouts on both sides to account for as much of the other side's meta as I can, knowing I can plug the other holes with my gameplay itself.
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Sounds like OP wants a one dimensional game where stuff just happens and you can't do anything about it. Hard pass.
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Definitely needs less counterplay for everything and less counter play added just so something counters something. Especially if it's a counter towards a killer
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I think the opposite. Look at a game like Overwatch. Fun, but it got extremely boring because everything was hyper balanced. There was no room for experimentation because everything could be cancelled by everyone. Now look at Team Fortress 2. Everything in that game is crazy powerful, do you can do more experimental things and still have a good time.
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You worded exactly how I feel better than I did.
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I agree completely about the downfall of Overwatch. I think it was most fun right after the release of Sigma who was bonkers strong.
But he had counters. Roadhog could tear him up. The soft rock paper scissors aspect is what kept me playing that game for years. When they started watering down every hero starting with Mei is when my interest waned.
Now look at PH's trails. There's a risk/reward evaluation there. You can crouch through the trails, remain stealthy and untormented and get to your objective more slowly. Or you can just walk/run through them and get there quickly. I like that. It adds texture to the game, to have that choice.
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if something is strong and has no counterplay it becomes the default which is when things get stale like the current meta state.
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