Are boon perks and Scourge hooks a failed concept?
What happened to these 2 perk types? The last time we got a new scourge perk was Floods of rage(I don’t count monstrous shrine cause that was a rework). And our last boon was dark theory. Both of those perks came out March 2022 it’s 1 YEAR later and we haven’t gotten any new perks with them?
If you look at Hex and obsession perks they would get new ones almost every update with killers. But not these 2.
Scourge hooks I don’t think failed but it’s hard trying to come up with ideas to make these perks strong that they need only 4 hooks. Idk why we haven’t gotten more cause there very unique and cool to use.
Boons I think went back to the drawing board cause omg we haven’t even gotten a new one in a year. Dark theory and COH were just so badly designed that I think they were just scrapped all together. We might see boon changes this mid chapter but I think they need to rework boons to make them more fairly designed.
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I don't think they are a failed concepts. I assume we will still have more perks like those to come. For example we had 5 chapters between Hex: Haunted Grounds and retribution.
But, boons need some reworking, with CoH being the only boon people will use, but being so strong that all the other boons are suffering because of boons limitations.
If CoH were to be gutted, like completely unusable, then boons will basically be a dead mechanic. They need to be looked at.
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The issue I see is their running out of ideas for those two
Scourge Hook perks: We have... Gen regression, Aura reading, Gen slowdown and faster hook timers
Boons: Healing, Faster movement, Aura hiding and Picking oneself up from the dying state
What else can they do given the limits they set for themselves
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I mean, even when they aren't limited by those concepts and can do whatever they think.
We got perks like nerfed Blood pact, Prove thyself but infinitely worse, that scratch mark teamwork perk, only last chapter. So they clearly are reusing ideas and perks at this point.
But, honestly i feel like the concept of boons and scourge hooks still offer a lot of possibilities. Just hope they can be a little more creative than those adept perks.
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I don't think that they are nearly out of ideas
For boons you could make a "trap" one like haunted grounds that affects the killer when they snuff it
And for scourges i would like to see one where every unique survivor you hook on a scourge hook you get a token and on 4 some really powerfull effect happens
That's already 2 new concepts that i just came up with on the spot.
It most likely is just spacing things out, hexes also had some distance betwren them on releases sometimes
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Boons, or more specifically CoH, singlehandedly killed hit-and run playstyles, as well as traditional Hex Perks. I wouldn't exactly call that a 'failure' but it's not a balanced addition to the game. The problem is that the base functions of a Boon totem, it's radius, notifications, time to bless, etc. can't be changed between perks, and what's effective for one effect (healing) might not be as effective for another effect (speed boost).
Scourge Perks aren't necessarily OP or DoA either, some of them are definitely well designed, but some don't seem powerful enough to warrant the need for a specific hook, such as Gift of Pain and Floods of Rage, which specifically require a survivor to be unhooked to take effect anyway. I like that they're perks that require a unhook, it encourages killers to let the save happen, but they need to be powerful enough effects that they're worth losing out on a third of their activations.
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Scourge hooks are alright.
Boons, yes, they are a failure.
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Yeah more or less. Scourge hooks don’t really add any new gameplay just more RNG and shadowstep is the only boon I’d consider balanced
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What do you mean by boons destroying Hexes? I don't understand.
Made survivors memorize totem spawns or made survivors look for totems more? Is that the issue?
Because, i don't see how boons counter hexes, if anything it is the opposite. Since hexes slowdown blessing speeds or remove boon placements.
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The Teamwork perks are already a failed concept and they just came out
Nobody uses these perks.
At least COH and Pain Res get used
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I mean which Scourge Hook perk is used most.... Pain Resonance
And which Boon perk is used most... Circle Of Healing
Trying to get more perks for either need to have these in mind
Plus Circle Of Healing is put in a place away from the Killer and/or objectives
And Scourge hook perks are RNG based
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Yes, survivors with boons are seeking out totems to bless.
Boons can overwrite hexes but hexes cannot overwrite boons (with the singular exception of Pentimento when also running Shattered Hope).
Hexes used to be moderately reliable until the Mikaela chapter. Since then, they've been way less reliable.
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Yeah, they overwrite hexes. But survivors would just cleanse it before. They even take double the time if they bless the hexes.
The only hex boons nerf is Pentimento, but Pento wasn't in the game before boons.
Literally the only thing that happened is that survivors got incentives to look for totems. But this would happen with any perk that bhvr would release that incentives survivors to look for totems, it isn't really a boon thing.
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There's still potential for both. I don't think they're failed, but I'm surprised it's been a while since any have been updated as such.
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Literally the only thing that happened is that survivors got incentives to look for totems.
Yes. Exactly.
Before the only real reasons to look for hexes were:
- You're running Inner Strength.
- You are doing a tome challenge.
- You know the killer has an active hex.
- You are anticipating NOED.
These were all rather situational and are collectively overshadowed by arguably one of the stronger survivor perks in the game (CoH) that requires a totem to work.
But this would happen with any perk that bhvr would release that incentives survivors to look for totems, it isn't really a boon thing.
The argument was never "boons are the only thing that make survivors look for totems." The argument is that boons are the most consistent thing that makes survivors look for totems -- particularly because of how prevalent CoH is, there's almost always at least one person actively looking for totems in matches now, compared to before boons.
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Still, if they ever release other meta perk that incentives looking for totems, it will be the same. It's not a boon thing.
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Even if they never made another scourge hook or boon perk I don't think that means they're a failed concept. It's not really something that needs to be done with any regularity. If a good idea comes, they should make it. I don't think they should go out of their way to say "ok we are in desperate need of a new boon, the next character MUST have one."
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Though I will add I do think they are running out of ideas for perks in general. I think they should stop doing 2 survivor chapters and maybe only release 1 or 2 new perks per character. Killers especially come with their own new gameplay and a ton of add ons, there's no reason they need to continue to have 3 new perks every single time (especially when 1, 2 or even all 3 of those perks suck).
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People downplay exponential so much, it's A tier at worst.
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At worst, you never get slugged during a match and Exponential does literally nothing. So, F-tier at worst.
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Not only that but you need to go down in the boon’s radius and hope the killer doesn’t hear it & snuff it. CoH is the only boon that’s really good. Shadowstep is OK depending on map RNG. The rest stink.
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Unbreakable is S tier for a reason, it's about redundancy. I have seen quite a lot of games where snuffing the boon will = everyone getting out instead of a 2-4k. If anything it's a perk that shines in the end game, it doesn't find all that much value mid match. The range doesn't matter when the team is actively playing around it.
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CoH is a good perk, but all other boons are useless. There is definitely opportunity for more good boon perks - devs just need some new ideas. Boons don’t necessarily need to be area of effect. Scourge hooks are fine.
Hex totems - now that is a failed concept (except Plaything which I think is actually pretty good).
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I mean they're not gonna be releasing new ones every single chapter, there's only like 3 new perks on each side usually.
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All hooks could be scourge hooks and none of the scourge perks would be overpowered. To me that's failed. The entire point is that they're "supposed" to be strong enough to warrant the only 4 hooks. It's essentially the same issue with hex perks. The payoff doesn't warrant the risk. High Risk/Low Reward.
Boons are bad design in concept. The killer is already behind is time yet instead of giving the survivors more objectives it's giving the killer more objectives. Backwards design.
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There are so many different ideas for both of these mechanics that it's ridiculous to say otherwise. They haven't even scratched the surface.
Boon examples:
- One that reduces your volume of grunts of pain and hides blood
- One makes you immune to the effects of any non-killer power related status effects while in its range, but also pauses the timer of any timed non-killer power related status effects
- Blast Mine in boon form, but it takes double the time to bless
- Surveillance in boon form (boon turns yellow if the killer is in its radius)
Scourge Hooks:
- On hook, you become undetectable for 60 seconds
- On hook, the current obsession becomes hindered until the next time they lose a health state, and their aura is revealed for 5 seconds. The obsession then changes to a different, preferentially not currently hooked, survivor. If the obsession is hooked when this perk would activate they will not become hindered
- On unhook, every survivor becomes oblivious, blind, and unaware if they have screamed (i.e. no audio or animation is played from the survivors' perspectives) for 45s
- On unhook, all pallets and windows within 20m of the killer become blocked for 20s.
- On hook, all remaining generators begin to regress at 50% regression rate. Regression rate increases to 150% over 20s.
I'm not saying these ideas would all be perfect as is or meta, but the fact of the matter is that the current dev team is just shoveling out nonsensical garbage these days when making perks, and it's really quite sad. I've played well over 100 games since this newest killer went live. I've only seen perks from the new chapter used against me twice. One was a duo using the teamwork speed perk, the other was a guy who used Blood Rush unsuccessfully. I'm so incredibly frustrated with the people who are okaying most of these new perks.
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The issue is that the game doesn't restrict any perk combinations. So when looking at new boon perks they have to take into consideration not just what it does on its own, but how it could potentially combine with all existing boon perks. A misstep and you create a broken situation.
If survivors/killers were limited to one boon or one scourge it would be much easier to add new perks/enhance weaker options, but that isn't the way the game is designed.
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Boons completely outshine hexes. So nobody uses hexes except without some cheese angle like using the Whistle on Demo so you can literally always know if someone touches the totem.
Make core games changes to make boons more equal to hexes:
- hexes can be rekindled on any totem location bones have not been broken. Any totem with charges has its charges reset when re-kindled
- Give the killer the option to kick dull totems to break them "base kit". Change Shattered Hope to do something else.... how about : the player that started the game as the obsession plays the game broken.
Every time you bring another scourge hook you should get +4 white hooks. Monstrous shine already does this but if you have 3 scourge perks then you should get 12 white hooks.
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I say they were a success because even without any new Boons & Scourges, the current ones are still popular (looking at you CoH, SPR, & SFR).
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I would say that Boons are a failed concept. Outside of Circle of Healing the other Perks are not really useful because they are either too weak (Dark Theory, no chance to buff this Perk unless they give it a second effect) or too specific (Exponential).
I am also more annoyed by Circle of Healing as Survivor than anything. Because Circle of Healing can be strong IF the Survivors are decent. But in SoloQ (or Dou, what I play) you can get awesome teammates and then teammates who dont know if they are playing DBD or Minecraft back to back. And if the latter are using Circle of Healing, you will probably lose the game because they waste so much time setting up their Boon again and again instead of doing the actual Objective.
Recently had a Dwight who instead of doing the last Gen searched for a Boon and healed. This took him around 2 minutes in which I was constantly in chase with an Onryo (we were the only Survivors left, so she probably took her time as well) while having Adrenaline.
But in general, Survivors are really inefficient with CoH and it shows. Sure, Killers love to ######### about CoH (because there has to be a reason they lose games), but it is not that good anymore. It is strong on multifloor-Maps and this should be changed. But another direct nerf to CoH will probably kill the Perk entirely.
And since there was a mention of Circle of Healing in some German Dev-Update a few months ago, I would totally expect it to get another nerf and at least at this point Boons are clearly a failed concept. (And as I said, I think they are already)
When it comes to Scourge Hooks I would not say they are a failed concept. I just think that they dont have many ideas what to do with them without it being repetitive. But all Scourge Hook-Perks we currently have (at least the ones added, I would exclude Monstrous Shrine from that) are at least decent. You can run Gift of Pain, Floods of Rage or Pain Resonance and you will have a good Perk in your Loadout.
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Boons, yes.
Scourge Hooks, not so much a failure as much as unexplored.
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I think only floods of rage and Pain Ressoance are strong enough to justify the 4 hooks thing. TBH, i think scourges need a tweak, like making 5 hooks instead of five + basement, with some minor nerf in the %. Its stupid having to equip another perk to make basement scourge hooks. Basement should be a advantage to the killer, not a disvantage. Also, they should work on hooks RNG, so you can't have 4 white hooks in one side of the map.
As for boons, i wish they rework Circle of Healing (make a boon about any other thing, but not healing) and make the other boons stronger (maybe only Shadow Step doesn't need a buff). I also wish they gave killers basekit Shaterred Hope, as boons in some maps can become quite a nightmare (RPD, The Game, even Lery's).
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Yes, it's incredible how obsessed both sides are with CoH. There isn't a single game of me playing solo or killer, were at least one surv isn't constantly booning totems, even if no one is injured. They spend an incredible amount of time to run all over the map, boon a totem and then heal at a ridiculously slow speed, only to get a M1 hit again after a 10 second chase. Those survivors are a blessing for every killer, but the killer mains think this perk is the sole reason they lose games. Coordinated teams who refresh in some corner or survs with Adrenaline who do gens injured are far more dangerous than this.
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Scourge Hooks are an amazing concept, rewarding the killer for repeatedly hooking survivors is a far better game design than many of these other perks that just promote stalling the game with little to not effort.
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Yeah, exactly. Against coordinated groups, Circle of Healing can become an issue. However, those are really rare and those would do well without CoH as well.
The only thing I want to see removed is the multi-floor range of Boons. The entire concept is build around the fact that it is a certain radius and the Killer will snuff it out quickly. But multi-floor maps remove that. A Totem put in the middle of one of the Hallways on Midwich is not snuffed out quickly, the Killer has to spend quite some time to change Floors and get there.
That being said, if this would be changed, the weaker Boons become even more pointless.
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I think they also had to make sure that all totems could be accessible by Killers, which narrows down the number of awkward corners they could go into where they might be harder to spot.
On top of all the 'spawn in the open right next to a generator right next to where a Survivor starts' ones.
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