Survivors not quite as unique as killers

Morfedel

I feel certain that this has been brought up before, but I find it odd that each killer has a unique ability, but survivors all just have perks that eventually anyone can learn. Seems to me that survivors should have one unique something that only they have.

Just a thought anyway.

Onionthing

Then welcome to Survivor Tier lists and people DCing unless you run the most optimal survivor. Then look forward to the text or voice chats of "please switch to X survivor, because Y survivor sucks." Also expect 4 mans of said survivor if the personal power is considered endgame superior. No one will care about how much time you farmed to get the character you like to look cool. Whey will only want "the best." As it is, you survivors have the freedom to be who you want to be once you level a survivor or two. Killers have tier lists, nerf wars and all of that.. to you REAAAAAAALLLLYYYY want that extra layer of toxicity on your survivors?

Denson381

You have a point. All characters should have some sort of passive ability attached. 

GodDamn_Angela

As @Onionthing has stated, this would cause certain Survivors to be considered "optimal" and will create more problems then it will solve.

I have heard multiple people talk about Survivors needing a "passive" ability, or something, but they don't really stop and think about what this means in the long run or how this will affect who YOU personally play as, or who your teammates will WANT you to play as.

Not only that but there is only 1 Killer. If they were all the same what would even be the point? Every game would be the same for everyone.

Rebel_Raven

No thanks. I like survivors being completely modular and not have to deal with the bullshit of people demanding I play a certain character. 

Shraar

Personally I would like it if they added baseline advantages/disadvantages to playing certain survivors. For those worrying this will make tier lists and "optimal" survivors, relax, these will be very very VERY small tweaks, almost unnoticeable, just enough to differentiate the survivors. And it's not like we don't already have an optimal survivor already: Claudette. Small, and dark, makes her the hardest to see whereas other survivors (David, is a good example) are impossible to hide with. So, if anything this will encourage diversity.

I think it would be great if certain survivors were "categorized" into different classes with different specialities.

Some Survivors would focus on stealth, like Jake Park and Nea. Their tracks would disappear slightly faster.
Other would be bruisers, like David or Bill. If they stun you with a pallet it's a slightly longer stun, and/or they unhook others faster with their strength.
Others would be technical, like Claudette or Feng or Dwight. Their skill checks would be more often easier instead of instantly as soon as the rotation begins.

So, ideally these advantages would be so minor they wouldn't make or break anything, but someone playing David wouldn't wonder why Claudette is just as athletic as he is.

Aven_Fallen

The problem, as mentioned, is that this would result to metas. Even now you see many Claudettes, Neas and Megs (in general female characters have a better camo). But lets say you would give Kate a unique ability, which is better than the unique ability of all other survivors (even when it is only a little bit better). That would result in 4 man Kate-Survivor Teams or at least an increase of playing her.

And honestly - I feel that the variety is great. You can run every character you like and you can customize many of them. Some people even spend money on skins to customize their character, and when they differ and their character is not as good as others, they would either need to play with a "bad" survivor, or need to switch.
And this would happen even with minor advantages, because aside from Camouflage, every survivor is 100% the same. They all can have the same perks, they all repair/heal/sabotage/etc. the same and so on. So even a minor advantage of one survivor over another can create a meta.
Some survivors even DC when they go against a certain killer. And I doubt that anyone wants to have killers who close lobbies, because they do not want to play vs 4 times the same survivor.

If you like to have your survivors more unique thats the way I go for it:
I use 3 perks which I like and then add one perk from the survivor to it. Which means that Dwight has 3 perks + Leader, Ace has 3 perks + Ace in the hole, and so on.
Of course this results in some characters being better and some being worse, but it gives a little bit of variety for me. You can even go further and use the 3 Character perks + a fourth perk of your choice.

But adding differences between the survivors would not be a good idea tbh.

Zarathos

Im all for small passive buffs sounds to me like a fun way to differentiate survivour. I get crap anyways when i dont pick a smaller character, this wont change a thing.

Players telling me to pick claudi even tho i have crap perks. Call me lucky but as killer i rarely encounter 4 man of the same survivours and when i do their wearing different cosmetics.

Beside why would you not spread out the expertise of your team by having different characters. One powerful character constantly picked for their benefit would be bad game design not a strike against the idea of giving survivours unique traits. 

Raptorrotas

I wont go into much details but identity v has passive skills and starting items and the "nurse" starts a trial with an infinite medikit to selfheal, while the 'gardener' has an infinite toolbox to sabotage "hooks".

You mostly see only this two survivors out of the 18 survivors.

It would happen i. Dbd too.

HeroLives

Water is wet 

Morfedel

tell me, how does it differ with the meta thing when you have killers at different tiers of capabilities, with nurse and billy rated top and, say, freddy rated bottom? they all still get played.

Granted, they also don't have to deal with a team, though, who might be raging at you, so there's that.

DocOctober

@Morfedel said:
tell me, how does it differ with the meta thing when you have killers at different tiers of capabilities, with nurse and billy rated top and, say, freddy rated bottom? they all still get played.

Granted, they also don't have to deal with a team, though, who might be raging at you, so there's that.

You're comparing apples with pears here. Killers are inherently different due to their unique Powers, they can't be the same by design.

Zarathos

@Morfedel said:
tell me, how does it differ with the meta thing when you have killers at different tiers of capabilities, with nurse and billy rated top and, say, freddy rated bottom? they all still get played.

Granted, they also don't have to deal with a team, though, who might be raging at you, so there's that.

A killer has a lot of variance in game design then survivors passive stat bonuses that specilaise in an area will have significantly less moving parts to deal with. Jake cleansing totems faster will be handy against hex builds.
A claudi with heal bonuses vs mangled/debuffed targets will be more useful against slug and anti heal builds.
Were not talking about giving survivors full blown powers just minor bonuses that can have a huge impact.
Don't give a survivors some stupidly powerful bonus and you shouldn't have a meta tier list. Its not complicated if you keep it simple.

Shad03

I've had a similar idea actually, but just a sort of buff in general for ALL characters. My idea would be to give survivors that run their own perks a sort of boosted version. I dunno if I had posted this suggestion on another persons post or not but I'll give my suggestion here. I'll give two examples, for Dwight and Trapper.

Dwight: Running his three perks on himself.

Leadur: Grants survivors within 8 meters of you a extra 1/2/3% action speed.

Prove Dwighself: When x survivors are within 8 meters of you, you gain x/x/x% / x/x/x% / x/x/x% extra action speed

Blond: See survivor auras a extra 4/8/12 meters.

The Trapper: Running his three perks on himself.

Brutally Strengthened: You break pallets and generators a extra 5/10/15% faster.

Agitated: You transport bodies x/x/x% faster. Your terror radius is increased by 4/8/12 extra meters.

Unnerved Presencing: Chances of a skill check occurring outside your terror radius is increased by 6/12/18%. Skill Check success zones are reduced by 10/20/30% when out of your terror radius.

You can use any perk as your fourth slot but it will have it's normal effects.

I also came up for David King so No Mither could be usable on him.

Boosted No Mither on David:

You start the trail injured, however you start off with the Endurance effect. When hit you enter the bleed out timer which you can mend from. You regain the Endurance effect after 75/50/25 seconds.

What I hope my idea would do is have everyone want to play a role in a match. The only way to get these boosted perk effects would be to run the survivor with their own perks. And of course be able to run Self Care if they were anyone but Claudette. It'd give survivors more variety and hopefully (not holding my breath) stop people from running one go to survivor with a inherent advantage.

I know this was long but this was my own two cents. Let me know what y'all think, and please let me know if I flew way over the edge with my idea.

Zarathos

Shad03 said:

I've had a similar idea actually, but just a sort of buff in general for ALL characters. My idea would be to give survivors that run their own perks a sort of boosted version. I dunno if I had posted this suggestion on another persons post or not but I'll give my suggestion here. I'll give two examples, for Dwight and Trapper.

Dwight: Running his three perks on himself.

Leadur: Grants survivors within 8 meters of you a extra 1/2/3% action speed.

Prove Dwighself: When x survivors are within 8 meters of you, you gain x/x/x% / x/x/x% / x/x/x% extra action speed

Blond: See survivor auras a extra 4/8/12 meters.

The Trapper: Running his three perks on himself.

Brutally Strengthened: You break pallets and generators a extra 5/10/15% faster.

Agitated: You transport bodies x/x/x% faster. Your terror radius is increased by 4/8/12 extra meters.

Unnerved Presencing: Chances of a skill check occurring outside your terror radius is increased by 6/12/18%. Skill Check success zones are reduced by 10/20/30% when out of your terror radius.

You can use any perk as your fourth slot but it will have it's normal effects.

I also came up for David King so No Mither could be usable on him.

Boosted No Mither on David:

You start the trail injured, however you start off with the Endurance effect. When hit you enter the bleed out timer which you can mend from. You regain the Endurance effect after 75/50/25 seconds.

What I hope my idea would do is have everyone want to play a role in a match. The only way to get these boosted perk effects would be to run the survivor with their own perks. And of course be able to run Self Care if they were anyone but Claudette. It'd give survivors more variety and hopefully (not holding my breath) stop people from running one go to survivor with a inherent advantage.

I know this was long but this was my own two cents. Let me know what y'all think, and please let me know if I flew way over the edge with my idea.

The passives should be unqiue not empowered perks. That would definatly create a tier list. Empowered ds, empowered sprint burst, empowered adrenaline would fundamentally make meg and laurie the best survivours in the game. The bonus needs to be a passive bonus not a perk that will distinguish the character. 

MegMain98

I’d love for survivor passive abilities. Why complain that some are more optimal than others? Certain killers are more optimal than others, Huntress > Wraith for example. Certain survivors are already picked more than others. You see MANY more Claudettes and Megs than Jake or Dwight.

Just can’t make the passives too OP for a certain survivor. Such as making Meg slightly faster than the rest, you’ll see nothing but Megs running around like Usain Bolt.

Morfedel

if the passive benefits were very small, it wouldn't be game breaking. Like, for instance, of Dwight were to give an extra 1% speed bonus to nearby allies, or if exhaustion on meg reduced by a couple percent. Or something similar.

Shad03

@Zarathos I mean, I know plenty of people who'd run David more if No Mither could have that empowered effect on him. And remember Meg would still suffer from Exhaustion and Laurie could only use her Strike once. Empowered would not mean faster uses (Okay, so maybe Meg would be able to recover slightly faster when using her Sprint Burst. She is described as Athletic so it shouldn't be hard to imagine she could recover from running faster then someone like Feng, David, or Nea). Laurie's Empowered DS would either have a easier skill check or it lasts a few seconds longer.

I doubt people would just choose Meg or Laurie all the time if my idea were to be implemented is what I'm saying. Maybe a tier list would be made, but I would hope my idea could incentivise different roles to play. I.E Meg could be the distraction or some such, initially.