DBD has a HUGE Perk Balancing Problem...

IHSGames

Dead By Daylight a multiplayer horror game experience that's been running its course for years, dominating the horror asym genre ever since. Since then, DBD has grown one of its mechanics to a ginormous size, which are Perks. These things allow players to do a variety of game mechanics such as speed up generators, decrease attack cooldowns, or even block the exit gates, these perks come in a variety of shapes and sizes, especially since there's 400 of them to choose from.

But with 400 perks comes underlooked ones, some overpowered and some the opposite. And with the DBD community's feedback, the devs, BVHR, will come and balance these perks. But…there's a slight issue in the way these perks are balanced. You see, BVHR always had this issue of just nerfing perks. Overtime, we saw meta perks that's been dominating the game since the old school days gutted to obscurity. And you might think this is a great idea. It forces players to play other perks and not rely on crutch perks such as Dead Hard.

But have you ever wondered why certain perks are used? Have you ever wonder why people used old Dead Hard every game? Why people used old Hex Ruin? Why out of 400 of the other perks only a few pool of them are used every game? Yes, they are crutch perks, but they are used because they are useful and fun. You see, despite there being 400 perks, a lot of them are just not as useful, even the fun ones like Mettle of Man which in order to use, you have to take 3 protection hits. I'm letting you know, it's a 1/10 game chance you'll even be able to get all 3 stacks for it, let alone it be useful for your team.

If a perk like that exists, then imagine all the other ones. Why would I run those when these meta perks both fill the fun and useful role? This brings many to send feedback to BVHR about the overuse of these perks and they get nerfed which in hindsight seems like the right way to go. But nerfing them doesn't solve the issue of why certain perks are used more than others. As a matter of fact, nerfing them only enforces this because now instead of the nerfed perk still being useful, it's just another useless perk. 

Look at how they butchered Dead Hard. It went from a attack dodge, to a protection hit, to still a protection hit, but with a prerequisite that can be easily countered if the killer tunnels the player you get off hook, which in order to gain dead hard, you have to unhook a player safely. Doesn't sound too bad until you see how much running this perk punishes the player just because they nerfed it rather than trying to balance it.

They gotta unhook a player safely, they gotta be injured when they use it, they have a split 0.5 second window to activate it, and once they do, it forces them into the mending state. Oh and it's an exhaustion perk too which means you can't use any other exhaustion perk. You have to do all of this just to take one endurance hit that's not even guaranteed to work. 

Now Dead Hard is just another useless perk. Worse is that it heavily punishes the player using it too. All because they nerfed it rather than trying to fix the main issue with it, which was how unsatisfying it was to play against each game. A shell of its former self for the sake of balance. Wouldn't be an issue if Dead Hard wasn't one of the only fun and useful perks you get value out of. Now it's overturned and doesn't even represent what the perk was made to be. Imagine all the other perks like Pop and DS they experienced the same fate as Dead Hard.

If BVHR wants to shake up the Dead By Daylight meta by balancing perks, what they need to do is instead of ONLY nerfing problematic perks, they need to address the main issue and fix that rather than making it useless.

Speaking of which, let me give you an example. My version of Dead Hard should grant you the dash, but using it causes the entity to block all pallets and vaults for you for 5 seconds. This still allows you to dodge hits like what Dead Hard was meant for you to do, but punishes players who Dead Hard for distance but at the same time, does not overly punishes the player because pallets and vaults are blocked temporarily, and if you as a killer could catch that survivor within the 5 second time window, might be a skill issue. This addresses the issue with the perk, but keeps it fair and useful to an extent.

They also need to start buffing useless perks. Why would I use Spine Chill if it grants me barely any useful info? Why would I use Hangman's Trick when it provides no value throughout the game? Buffing useless perks will actually encourage players to use those perks because it's now more useful and it's on par with the other meta perks so now, people aren't forced to run the same meta perks.

For example: My Version of Breakout buffs the carried survivor wiggle speed to 40% wiggle increase. This will make breakout more useful as there will be alot of wiggle escapes. Too OP? Run Agitation. Or Iron Grasp. Or Mad Grit. But overall, it's more useful and fun and theres a counter to it.

The more BVHR fix core issues with perks without gutting them and make useless perks more useful, games wont be stale with the same 5-6 perks. Then we wont need a meta shakeup every few months. Just my 2 cents.

DEMONANCE

firstly there is a ton of alternatives to dead hard other exaustion perks like lithe, sprint burst and overcome are strong and provide synergy with other perks that make them stronger so dead hard being nerfed gives these perks their chance to shine.

secondly perks should be a nice bonus or should be for fun they shouldn't be too strong or too weak and there is a lot of perks on both sides that offer decent value and a ton of build variety but people seem to only look at the useless ones.

plus bhvr have promised to rework a few perks with every midchapter so hopefully we can expect more good perks with time they have honestly been doing a great job with most perks they rework.

imo tho some perks deserve to be dead cuz of how awfully designed they are and should not require any buffs an obvious case of this is dead hard tho the change didn't really kill the perk it significantly weakened it which is more generous than this perk deserves.