The real reason Dead Hard needs changes.
It doesn't matter if a survivor is running the perk or not, as a killer you MUST assume they all have it. Any perk that changes your playstyle merely because it exists is bad design.
As an extra this is how DH effects chases:
- Lunges are banned. You can never lunge at a survivor as it is a free boost and health state.
- Powers made useless. Trickster, Huntress, Blight, Plague, Neme, Nurse, Spirit etc. Any killer with power that involves a wind-up or predictable hits are free 3rd heath state material.
- Free mind games. If a survivor is near a pallet or window it is an easy fake and 3rd health state.
- Encourages Tunnelling. As chases are taking much longer, in order to 'win' a killer needs to remove a survivor from the field ASAP as hitting a DH costs you an extra 30+ seconds of chase.
- It's just depressing. Nothing is sadder than chasing a survivor that you manage to mind-game and outplay only for the dreaded 'E' to be pressed and all your hard work is gone. Honestly this is probably the biggest reason I want this perk changed... It's just not fun.
Comments
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I main survivor and stopped running the perk, because even though it feels nice to land a sick DH, it's very much a crutch perk that serves to extend a chase that should have been over. No other exhaustion perks give you the freedom to make mistakes and walk free. It isn't fun playing killer and having to worry about everyone having it, it's the same reason BT got changed - just by existing killers had to play like everyone had it.
I think dead hard would be a lot more reasonable if it gave The Doctor's "pacified" status effect after use. You push DH and for one second after the endurance fades you cannot vault a window or drop a pallet. This is because as it stands DH buys way too much time when used to put a pallet or God window between survivor and killer. Another change they could make is removing the speed boost. Dead hard should be high risk high reward, but there isn't much risk involved in getting the insane rewards it provides. With the gutting of Eruption killers will be struggling more often than not against good survivors. And I fail to see how it's healthy for the game when a fairly good killer can be made into playthings for survivors
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Not sure about Spirit, Trickster & Plague. Dead Hard isnt particularly good against them. And to be fair, its a good thing that Dead Hard is good against Nurse and Blight because it keeps them in check at least for a little bit. But overall i agree, its better for the game that it gets reworked. Dead Hard isnt overly powerful, but its mere existence is annoying. Not fun as Killer to constantly be aware of it. Im often happy to see a survivor use Sprintburst or Lithe, just because i then know, yeay i dont have to wait out dead hard.
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-"Any perk that changes your playstyle merely because it exists is bad design."
In this context I will agree with you but I also want to point out that there is a killer perk that is entirely mitigated by one simple little trick. Remember that perk Bloodwarden? You might not because nobody uses it. And nobody uses it because you can just 99% open the doors and make the perk irrelevant.
The take away here is that the game has two sets of rules- one for killer and one for survivor. Killer isn't allowed to have anything that makes playing survivor feel unfun. The survivor experience needs to be fun so that people keep buying all the character/perk DLC/cosmetics.
You can press "E" at a pallet in a chase and extend that chase by 30 seconds if you are a strong looper. Against the three strongest killers you can press "E" during their power activation and ruin their power completely.
Imagine if a killer could just press "E" to undo a generator's progress that had been kicked with eruption. Wouldn't that be ridiculous? You break the killer's three gen while he is chasing someone and then he just presses "E" and now the generator is rolled back to a state where it needs 30 seconds of time to repair it.
If you're ok with DH in its current state then you should be fine with Eruption being changed to the way I describe.
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