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Why do you think BHVR is scared to give survivors new meta or even just above average perks?
The last survivor perk that made any sort of impact on the meta is obviously Circle of Healing which was released on October 19th 2021, so more than a year ago.
Now let's look at what killer meta perks we got in since and also the perks that you can really see in your matches even if they aren't the most powerful ones
Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance
Pentimento
Scourge Hook: Floods of Rage
Call of Brine
Merciless Storm
Dissolution
Darkness Revealed
Awakened Awareness (you can argue Superior Anatomy is good on some vault builds but I won't push it)
Nowhere to Hide
If we even go before Mikaela that same year we got Starstruck, Deadlock, Lethal Pursuer, Eruption, Plaything
When I play killer I am a little overwhelmed and really happy actually with how many cool new perks we have that work so well with a lot of killers, I really think that they have been doing amazing job with perks for killers for a while now, ever since Trickster we at least got one cool new perk that can be seen in your average matches
For Survivor though, it's really sad, even with the nerf to the meta people are still using older perks like adrenaline, windows of opportunity, prove thyself, kindred and of course, the exhaustion perks which are all old (like 1 in 1000 survivor is using overcome these days)
The way this situation is even worse is when you realize even if the new killer has ######### perks, they are still a new killer with a new power that can be used with older perks, while Survivors are left to use the same old stuff
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I'm not so sure this argument works anymore, considering the two most recent releases gave us Fogwise and Hyperfocus, two incredibly good perks that may even be overtuned. In terms of just "above average", there's also Wiretap and Parental Guidance, and if we go back a little further we get Overcome, which is one of the best Exhaustion perks.
Killer perks have been a little more consistently useful, I'll grant you that - though Wesker's were underwhelming - but I don't think the divide is that stark. If it were, though, there'd still be a good reason- if the last perk that you think affected the meta was release Circle of Healing, then clearly they can't add meta-changing perks, because they'd be completely busted.
Survivors are getting good new perks to play around with, though. Slightly fewer of them than killers, sure, but even killers aren't getting 100% bangers. For every Dissolution, there's also a Septic Touch, for example.
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I think it's been proven multiple times they're not scared, they're just really, really slow when it comes to major changes.
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yeah my mistake I did completely forget about hyperfocus, however outside of that I do think none of the other perks between it and Coh are worth using unless you are dedicating an entire build that may or may not work, we can talk about how useful or not they are but I really rately see someone using anything but older perks with maybe some new perk thrown in, it's really not consitent as it is on the killer end where you most of the time see at least 1-2 perks that are recent.
Like maybe I am wrong but I am just basing this on my experience, I know we have users here who have spreadsheets about their matches and if anyone can jump in to post some stats it would be useful.
I really want to run some new perks but I also do not want to feel like I am handicaping myself (esp since I play solo) when not running kindred or stuff like that
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Well, you're definitely at a handicap if you don't bring Kindred specifically, but that's a whole other discussion.
In terms of the majority of loadouts, I do agree that fewer new survivor perks make it into the meta, but I disagree that it's because those perks are bad, necessarily. Pretty much every character released recently on the survivor side has at least one genuinely good perk that is worth running, but it's hard to compete with a lot of the older perks. Take Overcome- that's a really solid perk, in my opinion one of the top three strongest Exhaustion perks... but even if you take Dead Hard out of the equation, it's kind of hard to beat the simplicity and strength of something like Lithe or Sprint Burst. Nobody actually has much of a reason to try something new there, even if there are comparably strong new options.
While there are definitely bad perk designs on both sides still being released - looking directly at Dark Theory and Septic Touch here - both sides are also still being given cool and effective new tools to try. I really can't tell you exactly why the killer side seems more willing to use their new perks more frequently- it might have to do with the ease of use for new killer perks, maybe? Or possibly more to do with less generally solid older perks on the killer side, I'd have to really go through each one in turn to say with any certainty. I just don't think it's because new survivor perks are bad, or even underwhelming. There's good stuff in there.
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Because of immense outcry. Most survivor perks launch with very safe numbers (Think overzealous and for the people for examples) to quell potential hate and then buff them afterwards when nobody cares
Although recently hyper focused has broken that trend
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Because there are 4 survivors to balance for rather than just one killer
Post edited by JocelynAwakens on3 -
Certainly some truth to this, with how Reassurance was butchered before it could get to live to appease the campers.
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Er... survivors just got basekit BT and OTR was mega buffed. Plus Fogwise and Hyperfocus are pretty strong new perks.
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BVHR creates bad killer perks as well, it's not like they are solely targetting survivors with bad perks. Thing with survivor perks is it's harder to break into survivor meta than it is for killer meta since killers having different powers allows some perks to shine better with some killers.
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The existing survivor meta perks are so strong that even BHVR isn't incompetent enough to make anything more busted.
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Uh...Fogwise and Hyperfocus are insanely good perks. I run Fogwise baseline now, it's almost as strong as prenerf OoO.
Also - what?
PR, Penti predate or are from a similar time as COH.
FoR is niche as hell.
Merciless Storm is a meh perk.
Dissolution is a bad perk.
AA got nerfed, and now is a niche pick that requires LP, only really worth it on Nurse.
SA is inferior to Bamboozle in nearly every situation.
Darkness Revealed is decent, as is NTH - but hardly meta changing and mostly a niche pick on certain killers. About the only perk on that list I'd agree with is CoB, and that's more about most other regression perks being nerfed.
Survivors have plenty of viable options. More so than ever. You're forgetting how much stuff (OTR, for instance) was buffed out the wazoo during the meta shakeup.
Yes, survivors are just skins - but on the other hand, the new killer could be bad, buggy or just difficult to learn. The different roles are different.
Post edited by JocelynAwakens on4 -
Most survivor perks are not as strong on their own. However, you have ways of combining them to create builds that are incredibly strong in specific situations. That might be the main issue as a coordinated SWF can abuse that and dial it up tenfold. Also survivors have a total of 20 perk slots (base kit BT included) that can be used to create special builds.
Have you seen what Wiretap + Open Handed can do? Imagine that kind of information shared between all 4 survivors with the cost of only 2 perks.
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I think one of the reasons survivor don't get as much flashy cool perks as killer is because you can't have perks for survivor that do to much because the devs always need to expect it gets brought four times a match and they also need to consider what happens when every one brings it and then they can coordinate cause they are swf
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I don't even need new meta level perks on survivor, I just want them useful. I'm surprised fogwise even launched with no changes, considering the amount of fear mongering people did about it.
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They're rightfully hesitant to crank up numbers on "do X faster" style perks, because then you'll have 4 instances of that perk in every trial. It doesn't leave you with much left do design around though, so they end up adding mechanics like Boons.
Somewhat on topic: Hyperfocus is weird to me. Have people actually tried running it? It's a dead perk slot half the time. Biggest placebo perk in the game.
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Because you have to take into account that 4 survivors can bring in the same perk, so when a single survivor brings it, it probably won't be that good.
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I understand what you guys want to say but here is my problem with this, we already can be in this situation even with the current perks we have, 4 survivors with lets say 4 sprint burst, windows, off the record and coh / kindred / prove whatever, and all of these are 4 good perks on 4 survivors, but I would not call any of these perks broken, sure if the survivors are good even in solo and killer did not bring his best stuff or is not that good at the game they can roll him, but actually in this current gen kicking meta and strong add ons and camping and tunneling all 4 survivors should bring these perks if they even want to have a chance (I am talking about all these scenarions in relation to solo q, not SWF which is a different problem)
If we had more good perks to choose from there would be a variety of builds based on the fact that survivors simply have a bigger choice
this was the problem with the old meta, there was 0 reason to run anything else other than dead hard / iron will / decisive strike / unbreakable / borrowed time if you want to win because these perks were too good and miles above the rest, and rightfully BHVR decided to change this and honestly after bunch of nerfs COH received as well I honestly do not think that we have anything on the survivor side that's super powerful (without coordination / in solo q - so most matches) anymore to stop them from giving us more good perks that can be part of the current post survivor nerf meta, because I feel like nerfing bunch of perks even stuff like spine chill / self care which you could argue were also meta perks really hurt the choices you can have these days as a survivor that can reliably help you
People mentioned hyperfocus and fogwise, I personally think fogwise is just okay - once again useless with SWF since they get it for free and worse than kindred in solo - sure you know where the killer is but it does not matter because you are on the gen and you cannot tell this to the rest of the team and I only got value from hyperfocus when I dedicated my entire build to it (so stake out / tool box / built to last)
And people who mentioned off the record - sure OTR was buffed but DS was nerfed to the ground - and both perks don't even work end game
Basically what I was trying to say I feel like after the deserved nerfs survivor meta received we should at least get some new decent and reliable non niche perks to compensate for it other than buffed OTR
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But that's the problem, how do you even make perks that are as good as Sprint Burst, Dead Hard, CoH, OTR, Windows, etc? The line between a perk being useful and OP is very thin and devs need to be careful with it, especially on the survivor side where people can repeat the same perks. Just for example, Eruption went from a meh perk to being insanely broken just with some number buffs, and that's a perk on the killer side which is easier to balance.
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On occasion they come close, but then they have a tendency to tie it down with so many drawbacks that the perk becomes unusable. A lot of survivor perks have really stringent conditions that could stand to be alleviated. Like Deliverance only working on first hook, or Reassurance only working once per hook. Potential Energy could've been interesting too, but not only does it already cost you 33% of the progress stored, you ALSO lose ALL progress if you get hit while carrying it around.
A lot of perks are close to being fun, interesting picks, but most of them just realistically don't work at all.
EDIT: Also, some perks require other survivors to be aware of them and their function (For the People, Power Struggle, Empathic Connection), so they could very quickly buff a TON of under-utilised survivor perks if they showed ally survivor load-outs in the pre-trial lobby.
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The problem is this. It's a 4v1 so 16 perk slots against 4. And if you add in the fact that communication exists in dbd, you have a system that allows you to run stacks of strong perks with communication in terms of pinpointing a killer's actions and give early warning. That's the strong part about survivors.
The way DBD balance works is if you give a side strong assets to win, you have to make appropriate changes so that the top killer and coordinated survivors can't actively abuse.
If you want an example of what I'm talking about look at CoH's two nerfs and Awakened Awareness' nerf before it hit live servers
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As far as I remember wiretap doesn't work with open handed, unless that recently changed.
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It's why I haven't bought the last few DLCs. They probably have data to show that new killers are the primary draw for DLC sales, hence why latest survivor perks are either lacklustre, situational, or require a higher skill window to get maximum use of. Plus too many get nerfed. I still play with the same small handful of perks (none are meta afaik) as I have since I started playing 2 years ago, the newest one I added to that rotation was Jonah's Overcome. But all that really does now is take the hit distance to what the normal hit distance used to be pre-mid year update.
I'll add that I'm a solo player, so swf perk coordination isn't a thing for me.
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They don't work together lol so i'm curious what the person you're replying to has seen them do together
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I would say the reason why survivor perks do not get strong perks is because survivor perks can be multiplied in many cases. Dead hard is an example of a strong perk and look how easily this perk multiplies itself in every single match. The other reason is that do not need better perks because most of what is available is already the best it can be.
Killer perks do not multiply themselves but most of the time, bvhr restricts any creative synergy in their killer perks so the perk barely do anything. If the perk does have strong synergy with x killer, it gets complained about to death. An examples were Spirit & Stridor, Nurse & starstruck, Blight with original Undying+Ruin+Tinkerer. The current survivor baby rage perk is eruption, so I guess we will see how long that perk survives.
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Merciless Storm, Darkness Revealed, Dissolution and Awakened Awareness are not meta. They aren’t even that good, especially Dissolution and Merciless Storm. I guess Darkness Revealed is on Huntress and Trickster, but that’s it.
Survivors recently got Hyperfocus and Fogwise, 2 really good perks. Overcome is also a pretty good perk. They also recently buffed OtR to meta levels and Windows and Distortion to become pretty solid perks now.
The problem I think is that they keep adding gen related perks for killers which always seem like good perks.
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It's because the survivor meta perks are so highly tuned that to be able to break into that the new perks have to essentially be way overtuned or "OP" to be considered.
The issue isn't survivor perks being bad, it's more so some outlier survivor perks that are way over tuned and prevent anything else from being considered and those make the rest the perks "look" bad in comparison. The outliers need to be brought down to allow others to be considered.
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Woah woah woah. The speed burst from getting hit has been minimally affected. I think you lost a meter in terms of distance, overcome is under rated especially with lucky break. It's no dh but I would say its better than lithe.
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I think it's also the standards to which survivors are held since the game is being balanced around those outliers, and not the other perks. Wouldn't be surprised if not bringing Prove Thyself, or an exhaustion perk, or OTR all massively decrease your escape chance.
With the old survivor meta, I'd say the only real outlier for power was DH. The rest of the perks were a kind of 'mandatory pick' because they didn't have any competition in their purpose, but that purpose needed to be filled.
I want to experiment more with different perks, but I think match quality will plummet if I do. That said, there's also a ton of survivor perks that are just not worth using at all.
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People already forgot the Boil Over rework?
Or how blatantly OP CoH on the PTB was?
Nah, the devs are not scared, but our community is great at finding ways to use perks in ways that the devs never imagined.
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What exactly are you wanting to see from a “meta” perk?
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In my opinion, if one perk is overwhelmingly good for a single player, this might lead to less altruistic gameplay. I'm guessing this is a reason why the perks remain plain and boring.
Same with chase perks, It's tricky to buff these perks without making it overpowered in survivors' hands.
The Killer meta is pain to play against and if Survivors get new perk buffs, I'm afraid DBD will become the most annoying game to play.
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I like how people comment on hyperfocus and fogwise - two perks I have never seen in my games. Yes these perks are so good no one is using them.
Hyperfocus was made for youtubers to make that video of "fast gens" with shocked face and nothing else.
I actually had to google what fogwise does because no one is talking about this perk. And kindred(when it's not bugged) seems to be 10x better perk to use.thi
I think every strong survivor perk was already done. If bhvr realeased something better than CoH or dead heart killer mains would riot in streets. Remember mettle of man?
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Well, Reassurance was nerfed from PTB not bc of killers but for the fact it was used to bully a survivor on a hook by other survivors. There were cases in the PTB where survivors used the perk to prima keep a hooked survivor on the hook with no ability to escape or kill themselves. Those survivors didn't even attempt to save the hooked survivor either and just keep them on the hook the whole game. That is why Reassurance was changed.
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No, it was absolutely done for the killers, as evidenced by what they did. They didn't just make it 'once per hook stage' (60 seconds off a single perk), or 'once per perk per hook' (Max 90 seconds over 3 perk slots), they didn't give a compensatory duration buff (60 seconds off one perk), or any other solution that would've put a cap on it, they literally nerfed the perk in such a way that the damage to its anti-camp potential was maximised. (30 seconds and not a second more)
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We both know devs don't work like that. When ppl complain about a perk or a perk being used in a bad way, they take the simplest route to nerf the perk. Look at Thana, when it was over buff with the 90sec gens and was being used on every killer their solution was to nerf it to ground and have it be useless on every killer. Eruption going to get the same treatment also I firmly believe. Anyway no I really don't think they changed Reassurance for killers. I was changed bc ppl used it to bully others believe it or not. If you don't that's fine, put your Lil tinfoil hat back on and continue to believe the devs are out to get survivor mains like yourself lol. Have a bless day sweetheart <3
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They didn't take the simplest route though. They invented and coded a whole new conditional to restrict this perk. Actually, I think it's two new conditionals.
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I think there's mostly two reasons.
First, no survivor perk should be game defining. There are 4 survivors. It would be too hard to balance an already hard to balance game. The best survivor perks (Dead Hard, BT, Deliverance, etc) can be game defining from a single individual. It's really hard to make another perk that beats those without it being off the charts busted.
Second, I think a lot of the better perks from survivor really only show themselves as good in situational circumstances. The two best perks from the most recent chapters, Potential Energy and Reassurance, only come up if the killer is playing very sweaty and, despite what people on here act like, most players just play chill. I don't get a lot of value from Reassurance if the killer is just going to let me unhook easily because they're being polite and that happens much more often than the hard camping killers.
I also think there's been some real gems recently. I don't think Wiretap is meta defining, but it's pretty good itself. Fogwise is good although I think it's too situational. I think I also prefer most of the meta defining perks being older ones that are on free characters to avoid pay to play locks on the meta. I'm a bit disappointed the killer meta is so heavily favored towards licensed killers at the moment.
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I'd actually argue that bar a couple perks the survivor meta is largely unchanged for the most part.
In a hypothetical scenario of those perks being gone I agree the escape would probably lower. However, I'd also add that I think there are quite a few survivor perks that artificially carry people to more escapes/wins then they actually earned/deserved.
We can look at some killer perks as an example. Surge, Pain Res, Pop, Ruin ect. All of these perks do not carry bad killers as they require the killer to play well in order to get value out of them. If he gets destroyed they barely do anything.
Prove Thyself, "most" exhaustion perks, Off the Record, BT, CoH, DS, Unreakable ect. Notice the difference? These perks don't require any skill nearly at all, they just give value even if you're a bad player.
There are some exceptions to what I'm talking about here obviously but in general the trend I'm pointing out is pretty accurate. Most survivor meta perks can carry games even if you're bad at the game, whereas for killer most their meta perks require skilled play, they don't just give free value to bad killers.
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Prove Thyself, "most" exhaustion perks, Off the Record, BT, CoH, DS, Unreakable ect. Notice the difference? These perks don't require any skill nearly at all, they just give value even if you're a bad player.
I don't know if I agree with that in full. The exhaustion perks certainly apply, but OTR, BT, DS and Unbreakable do require some skill to get value out of. They'll give you -some- value at least if their situations arise, but how much you get out of it is proportional to your competence.
I guess it's also a point of where the balance plateau is currently at, because if the game is balanced -with- exhaustion perks, then they become somewhat mandatory, as you're simply underpowered without them.
It's just a generalised mess. But there's a TON of perks that can do with some buffs, and I feel a lot of non-threatening survivor perks would benefit from being communicated to other survivors.
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