What the Mid-Chapter changes are actually about
So, while decending into panic and hurling abuse against the devs is always fun, rewarding and constructive, lets take a step back and exermine the intents and effects of the announced Mid-Chapter changes with a healthy distance.
Nobody can honestly claim that healing isn't out of control at the moment, hit and run playstyles are mostly dead, injuries are mostly irrelevant unless they lead directly to a down and the overabundance of self heal means that the need to heal creates slowdown but no pressure.
But far more important is the bigger picture: Both healing and gen regression getting nerfed means that both sides will have a much harder time undoing the progress of the other side. The Survivors goal is to escape, they progress towards that goal by repairing Generators, gen regression sets that progess back. The Killers goal is to kill the Survivors, they progess towards that goal by injuring Survivors, healing sets that progress back.
Having both sides focus on reaching their goal, thereby indirectly preventing the other from reaching theirs, is far healthier than preventing the other side from reaching theirs directly. Endless regression leads to stalemates, boring and drawn out games and cumulated in the rightfully maligned three gen meta. Whenever the upcoming changes are a 1:1 transfer, or if they even should be, will remain to be seen, but the overall direction is good for the games health.
Next we have Perks, where the big changes are Pain Resonance, Dead Hard, Call of Brine, Overcharge and Circle of Healing.
First the obvious ones: Call of Brine and Overcharge. Both not problematic in a vacuum, yet in the actual meta game, the backbone of the three gen strategy and also the prime target when the goal is to weaken gen regression in general, the why was outlined above.
Next we have Pain Resonance, again, not overpowered on its own, but easily the most popular gen regression perk, but another thing to consider: Pain Resonace is also the best Scourge Hook perk. So if one aimes to make general changes to the Scourge Hook mechanic one obviously has to also rein in any perk that standes above the rest.
Then Dead Hard: Dead Hard has been the most enduring perk, both in usage as well as in complaints. I will not inject my own opinion on this perk, but I will point out that just like Pain Resonance this perk stands above its brethren in the same category; in this case Exhaustion. Also when one considers the desire to make injuries more meaningful, a perk which provides additional security while injured is, again, a prime target.
Circle of Healing: The perfect storm of popularity, being the object of complains, healing potential and general match slowdown. All the points raised so far explain why this perk will get changed. Also, just like Pain Resonance, a perk which outshines its category, Boon, to such a degree that it has to be adressed, before changes to the category as a whole can be attempted.
Over all, its clear that these changes carry the desire to be a reset of the meta and establish a new baseline for balancing. And as such should they be seen: Not as a new status quo that will endure for years to come, but as a prune of the aspects of the game that have grown beyond the point of having potential to be part of an healthy meta.
Personaly I wouldn't be suprised if we were to see a big shake up patch in time for the anniversary, with the upcoming Mid-Chapter patch serving to provide insight, and more impotantly data, into what can even be considered the norm.
Either way, there are fundamental problems to the current state of the game and such can not be adressed by chasing symptoms. Changing the meta in a long term healthy way requires that stables and comfort picks change.
One can not operate on a sick organ without cutting throught healthy tissue, one can not fix a pipe without breaking open a wall and one can not fix a meta game without nerfing what is strong.
Comments
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Well put!
It's also worth highlighting that these changes, while necessary, are going to a PTB for testing. They can and likely will adjust some of the harsher nerfs if they turn out to be too punishing, fine-tuning is very much a thing that can happen.
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Now that I think about it, this actually does make a ton of sense, Don't want matches to last a eternity because neither side can make any substantial progress without it immediately getting reset? Nerf the stuff that causes the games to stall.
The main problem I see is that we're going to have to deal with a influx of pre-running Sprint Burst users as well as way too many Sloppy Butcherer users over the next few weeks, which I'm sure is going to be a joy to deal with
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It's a meta shakeup. Like you're saying, this isn't the balance patch to end all balance patches. The devs are looking at a combination of what's popular and what's been complained about most and making changes. These aren't meant as "this will fix the game forever" changes, they're just meant to make a change to the stale gameplay loop. And in nine months to a year or something, they'll do it again.
It's unfortunate it takes nine months to a year. Really, BHVR should do meta shakeups more often. These changes feel permanent because they become annoying and stale long before the devs do their next shakeup. People will ######### and moan about adapting, then they'll adapt, then people will ######### and moan about the adaptations, and then eight months later BHVR will do something about it.
If BHVR were faster about updating, people might (might) complain less. Instead, things that are obviously problematic go live, and many things that go live take a stupidly long time to fix.
Still, as has been said, this is a meta shakeup. It's meant to get away from the gen-kicking meta that so many people hate towards a hit-and-run meta. Will it be successful? I have no idea, and really no one else does, either. And then in about a year BHVR will try to mess with the meta again.
As an aside, I'm just gonna say I hope BHVR leaves Billy's add-ons alone. Being popular is not enough reason to nuke something. You don't want to punish players for having fun, which is basically what this nerf would do, because no one would call these Hillbilly add-ons OP.
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I agree very much with this post. These changes might be not be perfect, but a good start.
I do think they will reduce the healing time to 20 seconds, but I sure don't hope and also doubt that they will revert the healing nerf completely. I think 20 seconds would be a perfect sweet spot. They are probably testing 24 seconds to really see how far they can push the healing times, but I expect them to end up with 20 seconds.
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I'll take 18 seconds at a minimum, working in intervals of 6 instead of 8.
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Yup I agree fully here. bHVR must resurrect hit and run playstyles to reduce the need to tunnel.
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