My thoughts of the upcoming changes now some time has passed
Some drastic changes are coming. I didn't want to make a kneejerk reaction so i spend some time thinking about how these changes could affect the game. Now that i have here is my probably very controvertial thought
This is potentially the best update we can have in years. Baring a few bad outliners
Here is my thought process behind that, it's going to be a long one
Bloodweb changes and visual heartbeat
excellent, nothing much to say here just good all around
Healing and perk changes
Going to put these together cause i think it's very important to not look at these changes sepperatly. These are extreme on their own but there is a promising pattern if you put them together
What is the one thing that killers have complained about for ages? The fact that they feel that regression perks are needed to stand a chance. Nobody took regression perks cause they are interresting or they wanted to play with them, they took them cause otherwise they felt like they didn't have a game
Everybody wanted to not have to rely on them anymore and that is what is happening here. The ability to slow the game down is being shifted from perks to your ability as a killer to pressure and score hits on the survivor team. One hard to swallow pill everybody wanted to ignore is that in order for such a shift to happen the regression perks needed to be toned down. Pain res might have been fine in todays DbD that has superfast heals and ways to migate the vulnerability of being injured. But it's not hard to see it could become overbearing in tomorrows DbD where scoring hits matters.
To stop relying on regression perks the power creep needed to be cut short In this suggested theme of injuries matter the nerf to dead hard also makes sense. No matter how you feel about it in todays DbD a shield that regenerates every 40 seconds out of chase doesn't belong in a DbD where injuries matter and want to be spread out.
Likewise tunneling is also weaker now (slightly). A killer who focusses on one survivor is not going to benefit from the increased healing time as they are not spreading injuries. And where now a killer can tunnel someone out losing 3-4 gens in the progress and then hold on the the last couple cause of strong regression perks, with them being weakened that isn't really a obvious best way to play option anymore.
I'm not going to pretend this patch will remove tunneling but i don't think it will be the clear optimal way to play it is today. This is the incentive to not tunnel people out but spread pressure we asked for. Now i don't think it's perfect yet, it is a step in the good direction i feel.
If you look at the changes individually and put them in today's DbD they are terrible. Put them together and they point towards a much more healthy DbD. This is the first step to finally be rid of the shackles of slowdown perks and be able to run other perks without feeling like you handicapped yourself.
I know people are upset and scared to have superquick games all the time but be honest here. Who actually likes slowdown perks? Wouldn't it be better to eventually have a DbD where you can opt to take more fun perks and still have a way to slow the game down with your skill to injure survivors fast?
I'm not going to say that this patch will instantly make that transition but it is a promising direction to go in i feel
This was the biggest point i wanted to make so i'm going over the rest pretty fast
Addon changes
Pretty meh overall, the small number tweaks won't change why a lot of these were bad/too strong but i get it. Only so much bandwith and these are easy to sneak in and it's atleast something
Billy changes
... okay always start with something positive. I like the overheat changes. One of my biggest gripes with it was that it made experimenting with your power much harder and that made Hillbilly which is already a hard killer to learn so much more frustrating, so that's good
The engraving nerfs were a early april fools joke. You meant that you toned down these addons cause you moved it part to base kit. Notice that these aren't questions
Bright Light interactions removal
Good changes as well imo. Facing flashbangs as a wraith was very annoying.
Only controvertial ones are nurse and hag i feel. Nurse's removal does make her stronger but she probably is going to need a nerf after these changes anyway so better to be concistant. Needing an item to stand a better chance against a killer is just a feel bad mechanic
Hag's change is good. She is going to need some buffs after this most likely but this finally fixes the "trap under hook thing" soloq struggled so much with at the cost of my sanity. Happy to see her get buffs next midchapter if needed but this is good
Those are my thoughts, the longer i think about it. The more promising it looks. We as a community wanted change, now that we are getting it we shouldn't be so afraid of it. We need to stop looking at these and comparing it to the DbD we have today but looking how DbD tomorrow on a whole will look