Devs difficulties buffing Survivor Perks
I think the developers did a good job swapping out the killer meta. Good job for them.
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I am curious as to why the developers have such a hard time with doing the same to the survivor side. Not trying to be negative but the developers don't seem to understand how to properly buff survivor perks. I'm going to start from the beginning of the year and list out perks.
For perk buffs that had no effect to insignificant effect on the usage of a perk, I'm going to put a 0 beside it. These buffs could have literally not have happened and had the same effect as the buff did. I'll put a 1 beside buffs that did something. I'll put a 2 beside significant buffs.
Jan 22.
- 0 - Boil Over - Because of how abusable this perk is, it should never have been touched. However the developers buffed it and it had to be nerfed right back to pretty much where it originally was.
- 0 - Distortion - [It changed from 3 tokens to 4]. This perks buff is getting reverted back to 3 tokens in the upcoming patch, so it was a waste of time buff.
- 0 - Buckle Up - Waste of time buff.
- 0 - Power Struggle - Waste of time buff.
- 0 - Wake Up - Waste of time buff.
Jun 22. (Upcoming Patch)
- 1 - Botany Knowledge
- 0 - Calm Spirit - Waste of time buff.
- 0 - Dark Sense - Waste of time buff. (I swear this one seems like a nerf to me)
- 1 - Deja Vu
- 1 - Distortion - This is almost a 0, since the perk was nerfed back to 3 tokens. To be honest it might be worse now.
- 0 - Hope
- 1 - Lightweight - This is almost a 0 also, since Iron Will is nerfed.
- 1 - Lucky Break - Ok change. ***
- 2 - Off the Record - the only significant buff this entire year.
- 0 - Overzealous
- 0 - Pharmacy
- 0 - Saboteur
- 0 - Sole Survivor
- 1 - Tenacity
- 1 - We're Gonna Live Forever
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12 Perk buffs that did nothing. Kind of useless to have even spent time on these.
7 Perk buffs that were slight buffs.
1 Perk buff that is significant (And will probably be nerfed).
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Again, I'm not trying to be negative. I'm pointing out the fact to the developers that there has been time wasted on insignificant perk buffs. 60% of the survivor perk buffs did nothing.
Also, it seems to me, that the developers are having difficulty finding a sweet spot between slight buffs and significant buffs.
I would say the only perk buffs that hit the sweet spot is Lucky Break and Deja Vu (Maybe Tenacity). That's really only 15% of the survivor perk buffs that hit the mark.
Comments
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They seem to only be Interested In buffing killers atm this forum is super killer sided and they tend to be the loudest when it comes to complaining
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Part of the problem is that buffs to survivor perks have to be balanced around the 4 to 1 ratio of survivors to killers. When a perk is made stronger for survivors, it can have 4 times the effect on the killer player depending on the perk.
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Fun fact: A perk does not have to become meta for the change to be valuable.
Distortion was given a way to regenerate tokens, a long asked for feature that helps make the perk usable longer.
Botany Knowledge heal speed is significant.
Power Struggle buff makes an actual notable difference in how long it takes to reach the needed amount in its proper build.
Saboteur gives a way to identify Scourge Hooks so they can be bodyblocked for or destroyed with a toolbox even if not the perk itself.
WGLF became even better at slug recovery by giving them Endurance if you meet the simple condition beforehand.
So on and so forth.
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If you re-read, you'll see I'm not asking for meta buffs. I'm asking for buffs that place survivor perks in a good positions.
Also, if you re-read my post, you'll see that I said Botany Knowledge and Distortion were decent enough buffs to be okayish. I do think Distortion did not need the -1 token nerf. I think it would have been in a healthier state if it had 4 tokens and the terror radius buff (That I would consider a sweet spot).
Power Struggle however was a buff that just didn't matter. The buff didn't increase survivors use of Power Struggle or the usability of Power Struggle. I think you would agree that nothing could have been done to the perk and it would still see the same level of play. In all honesty, the developers could have completely removed the struggle time and the perk would maybe see 1 use in a match (killers rarely walk through pallets and once a kill knew you had power struggle, they would not walk through a pallet again, the entire match).
Saboteur is another buff that just really doesn't matter. Survivors aren't going to take Saboteur into a match because they can now see Scourge hooks. If you are already taking Saboteur in, it does add that, but really, it was just a waste of time messing with the perk for that insignificant of a buff. In fact, the developers should know better than to mess with Saboteur anyway, it's a problematic perk, just like Boil Over.
WGLF is a whatever, they were nerfing it already, so adding another effect to it, whatever...
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I think what you missed about my post is the developers are wasting a lot of effort on things that don't even matter from a play perspective. 12 different changes were made to perks and there just wasn't a point to them at all. It wasted the developers time to make those changes.
And again, not trying to be negative. I'm hoping the developers see this as constructive criticism and when they do make changes to survivor perks, they can learn from their past mistakes and make the buffs significant enough that the buffs actually do something and don't make changes to problematic perks like Saboteur or Boil Over.
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As a person who uses Saboteur on almost every build I have, I wholeheartedly disagree that the Sabo buff is meaningless.
The rest, yeah they're meh at best. I'd even argue that Off the Record is meh because it only matters if you're getting tunneled.
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I agree. Off The Record is just a replacement to Borrowed Time. Because Borrowed Time is meta, Off the Record will be meta. Plus, it has a big advantage in the fact that you know you will have OTR, while as you can only hope someone has BT.
The long time on OTR really doesn't matter though. If someone is going to tunnel you, they'll hit you off the hook, then just down you. If a survivor tries to abuse OTR, it just means they aren't doing gens. So I do agree that the 80 second time frame it has, although it looks long, it really doesn't do anything other than prevent someone from tunneling you and people are freaking out about it for no good reason other than to screw survivors even more this patch by taking away the 1 meta perk survivors are gaining from the 6 that were nerfed.
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Distortion with 4 tokens and the ability to regain them via TR is kinda bonkers. You might as well just ask for the perk to be the iron will of aura disabling. It would basically eliminate any killer info gathering perk from the entire trial unless the killer is running some meme info build and bringing like 4 aura reveals or they're scratched mirror Myers.
Also hard disagree with you that OTRs long duration doesn't matter. You can be unhooked, healed, and go body block and annoy the killer with 3 health states twice a game if you want to be annoying with it. Its also the best anti tunnel perk in the game at the moment. I don't think it will replace BT as BT is now the only perk that will allow EGC camp counter (killer camping on hook -> survivor runs up and plays grab game/killer messes up and hits survivor -> survivor unhooks -> survivor just unhooked body blocks for the unhooker
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I didn't realise Distortion got taken down a token. That really sucks. Last time I used it was for the bloodhunt weekend and my 4 tokens were all gone within like 2 min of every game. Now it's 3 tokens and I have to pretty much throw the game by following the killer around just to get 1 extra token? That's not a buff
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Distortion with 4 tokens and the ability to regain them via TR is kinda bonkers. You might as well just ask for the perk to be the iron will of aura disabling. It would basically eliminate any killer info gathering perk from the entire trial unless the killer is running some meme info build and bringing like 4 aura reveals or they're scratched mirror Myers.
If you played survivor and used distortion, you would realize that isn't bonkers at all with all the aura reading perks. You can lose all 4 Distortion tokens by doing a gen close to a totem or even just hiding close to a totem within the first minute of the game because of Undying.
Plus, there is a Boon totem that stops aura reading permanently that hardly any survivor uses. So that alone will tell you that 4 tokens and gaining them back in the TR is not bonkers.
Also hard disagree with you that OTRs long duration doesn't matter. You can be unhooked, healed, and go body block and annoy the killer with 3 health states twice a game if you want to be annoying with it. Its also the best anti tunnel perk in the game at the moment. I don't think it will replace BT as BT is now the only perk that will allow EGC camp counter (killer camping on hook -> survivor runs up and plays grab game/killer messes up and hits survivor -> survivor unhooks -> survivor just unhooked body blocks for the unhooker
Annoying the Killer means you're not doing gens or anything to advance the game. I wish annoying the killer would win you games, but it doesn't. It's the same reason that flashlight teams almost always fail. They annoy killer and don't do objectives. (Also the reason flashlights are the second worse survivor item behind keys).
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Off the record should have just stayed an immersive perk. Why they have to add endurance to it?
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Boil over should never be strong. You need another survivor with body block, Sabo, Breakout to help one out of a hook. You cant slap a single perk on yourself and ensure escape. I would prefer Boil over increase stun by 1sec if you escape from grasp, thats it.
Selfcare & Botany were fine individually, suddenly they nerf Selfcare and buff Botany to force using Botany with Selfcare, then nerf Botany because its too strong. What?
I prefer to instantly get a Green medkit early game with chest build and give to other, now I have to be injured.
Calm spirit mute is something no one ask to have a debuff on chest/totem speed
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You need another survivor with body block, Sabo, Breakout to help one out of a hook. You cant slap a single perk on yourself and ensure escape. I would prefer Boil over increase stun by 1sec if you escape from grasp, thats it.
I really wish the developers would increase the time a Sabo'ed hook stays broken to 3 minutes so you can use it preemptively instead of it only being a help-a-survivor-escape-only perk.
It's just too niche right now but has potential to have other uses. Also, there's so many hooks everywhere that sabo'ing one hook is pretty useless.
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Undying is basically the only perk that can counter distortion rapidly and you will know that it's in play fairly quickly if you lose 2 tokens back to back while working on a gen or near a totem. You are correct that it can chew through tokens quickly though
I was thinking more of a build with BBQ(won't be useable until hook #4) or I'm all ears or darkness revealed. If a killer is just running one of those info perks distortion basically deletes them until mid/late game possibly depending on token regeneration.
I would also argue that with ruin getting dumpstered you will see significantly less undyings in your games. The only other totem worth running it on is devour and devour games are pretty rare.
The boon is bad because it is limited to a very specific area of the map. The effect is strong but the use case of knowing a killer is about to have an aura read moment and then somehow getting into the boon radius is unlikely to ever happen.
In my opinion OTR is significantly stronger tool offensively than a flashlight. Tons of people mess up saves, standing in shack door after your teammate runs through it is something anyone can do and basically not mess up. There's no timing to worry about or specific animation or anything like that. Plus if done correctly you should have ~40-50 seconds left on OTR which the killer cannot wait for to just expire.
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OTR might end up being a problem and the only time you would be able to tell is once the patch hits live.
Personally, I just can't think of a common situation where someone with OTR sitting around not doing gens in the hope of maybe getting a save will ever be a good thing on average. Maybe once in a while someone somewhere will do something aggravating with it, but it won't be common.
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That’s not true. Almost every survivor perk affect only 1 surv and killer perks affect all of the survs
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That's a fair point. I agree with you that in the vast majority of matches it will probably never be used in that offensive manner and will instead be defensive to just try to save the survivor from being tunneled
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All these buffs are extremely significant. If you can’t see that it is a loss on your part. Power Struggle is a good second chance perk. Buckle up is good for solo queuing so that buff is great. Boil over got too big of a buff now it is in a balanced state to where it is fair for the killer but can still be powerful. Distortion the 4 tokens without a way to regenerate tokens was weak but now with the regenerative token ability three is a balanced but strong amount of tokens so that change is welcomed. Off The Record was perfect the way it was before and the added endurance status affect is an overkill buff to it. I don’t understand why people don’t get that they can’t make the perks for survivors to oppressive. Because at the end of the day it is a 4v1 and the killers are getting hardly any great changes to perks. The numbers on most of the killer perks are so minuscule that it is really bad.
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Except that many of the best and thus most run survivor perks are those that do effect other survivors. Kindred, Borrowed Time, Prove Thyself, every boon, all of these have a direct effect on the other 3 survivors, and as a result way more effect on the killer. In addition, the individual perks have 4 times the effect of a killer perk because killers have to spread their time among all 4 survivors. Any perk that requires the killer to spend more time on any individual survivor means the survivors have that much more time to do gens, heal, or do totems. That's why dead hard was so strong, because it allowed survivors to prolong almost every chase, costing killers huge amounts of time.
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Botany Knowledge was more of a nerf than a buff. Sure, heal speed is faster, but it used to give us 33% on an item. Now, if you pull a brown med kit from a chest but happen to be running BK, you can't get a heal out of it. So why run it at all?
Oh right, because everything is done with SWF in mind, and screw Solo Q. I run Botany all the time. After this "buff", I won't be able to. It won't make any sense. It was a completely balanced perk before. One you don't see too much. So they had to crappify it like everything else.
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Because survivors shouldn't have to rely on other survivors bringing a perk to protect them from a tunneling killer - at least prior to the end game. This buff helps keep the survivor immersed from the killer after being unhooked. Perfectly fits the theme and fills a need.
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Power Struggle is a good second chance perk. Buckle up is good for solo queuing so that buff is great.
LOL!
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Then swfs would stack it and half a map would be a deadzone/ slug/camp fest.
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seriously, its choices like that make me question the direction of the dev team...
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Killer main, aren’t you?
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All the Aura reading perks? Most killers have room in their loadout to outfit 1. Who's killing your distortion that fast? Additionally, if you're proccing Distortion that much, you're literally getting value.
If you're losing it to Undying in a way that you're not getting value, you're not paying attention. Besides, now you can get them back.
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Killer mains understand Survivor perks better than Survivors as shown by his complex understanding of how overpowered Power Struggle and Buckle Up are.
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