The Obsession Mechanic is Unnecessary
You've read the title correctly. The Obsession mechanic in this game is completely unnecessary at this point in the game and is an active detriment to the core gameplay and design of modern Dead by Daylight.
I do not make this claim without my reasons, however, as I'm going to showcase several perks that this mechanic affects in a very negative light.
Save the Best for Last, Dying Light and Play With Your Food
I'm going to lump up these three perks from The Shape since they all come from the character who started the mechanic in the first place.
As we all know from the now-controversial Save the Best for Last, these three perks have a detrimental effect on the game in that the Killer will almost never interact with the Obsession aside from starting and ending chases with the Obsession in the lattermost perk (PWYF).
In the case of Dying Light and STBFL, these perks actively reward the Killer player with tunneling Survivors that are currently not the Obsession. In the further case of STBFL, Killers will actively seek to avoid the Obsession at all costs given that they lose stacks of the perk when they hit them (unless they have an M2 attack, which is another problem in and of itself), which makes the gameplay of the Obsession uninteresting and feel less interactive than it should be.
Furtive Chase and Dark Devotion
Another set of Killer perks that I'll lump together due to their similar activation methods, Furtive Chase and Dark Devotion are perks that outright suffer from the Obsession mechanic because they require you to actively go after the Obsession as they activate, rather than just simply activating when you need them.
This limits their usability as Perks and in Dark Devotion's case, you're incentivized to tunnel the Obsession in order to achieve the desired effects of the perk.
These are simply perks that have unnecessary activation requirements put into the Obsession.
Friends 'Til the End
I'll also add a little spot dedicated to the new perk, Friends 'Til the End, which is solely focused on the Obsession and actively changes Obsession. The perk's current effects are lackluster (being an even worse Alien Instinct) and also incentivize the worst parts of the two aforementioned sections; you both DON'T want to interact with your Obsession to gain maximum value and DO want to interact with them to get value on someone else.
Rancor
This perk basically gives the Killer the ability to instantly down and/or Mori a Survivor without even needing to interact with them, so long as they are the Obsession and the Killer knows where they are at all times.
And with the addition of Perks that allow you to change the Obsession, this perk just becomes an unfun version of Devour Hope at the endgame.
"Why Do They Even Have This Mechanic?" Perks
There are many, many perks that use the Obsession mechanic that beg the question of "why do they?", especially since many of these perks aren't actually viable in any sense of the word (even casually, they aren't).
Perks like Blood Pact, Decisive Strike, For the People, Game Afoot, Grim Embrace, Mettle of Man, Nemesis (no, not the Killer) and Sole Survivor have perk effects that legitimately do not need to have the Obsession mechanic attached to them whatsoever, especially since these perks either don't rely on or don't need to rely on being the Obsession to activate.
What difference does it make if Blood Pact and Game Afoot just worked generally rather than to the Obsession? What about Grim Embrace affecting all Survivors and not the Obsession? Or maybe DS, FtP, MoM or Nemesis, whose effects occur regardless of the Obsession?
Object of Obsession (the Worst Offender)
Now none of these perks hold a candle to what is effectively the epitome of this mechanic's bad design: Object of Obsession. This perk is actually the most problematic Obsession Perk due to its effects allowing the Obsession to see the aura of the Killer so long as the Killer sees their Aura, and additionally forces the Killer and Obsession's aura to be revealed every 3 seconds.
This is horrible for a number of reasons, such as the fact that this is an excellent perk for teams who use voice communication (and thus actively gives them a huge advantage), this will give away certain who Killers are when they run Lethal Pursuer (specifically stealth killers), there is little to no way to avoid its activation as Killer and the fact that the Killer will just have another reason to avoid the obsession at all costs if they are running specific Obsession perks.
Oh, and also some of the perk's effects deactivate once you are no longer the Obsession. This means that if anyone just so happens to have an Obsession-swapping perk on them, then your perk might just become useless midway through the game.
The Mechanic Needs to Go
At this point I think you can start to see why this mechanic is so bad for the game, as the mechanic as a whole has glaring flaws such as:
- Some perks incentivizing tunneling the Obsession.
- Some perks incentivizing avoiding the Obsession.
- Some perks having effects that occur regardless of if you're the Obsession or not.
- Some perks having effects that reward losing and can create an unfair loss to one side or the other.
- Some perks not even needing the effects, just better design, to make them function.
- Some perks being incredibly inconsistent with their usage.
It's just not a mechanic that needs to stay in DbD and it would be better if Obsession perks were completely overhauled to fit a much healthier gameplay design and this archaic mechanic of the past was just...
Removed.
Comments
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The whole point of obsession mechanic was invent more powerful perk effects but to limit consistency of said effects by making the perks in question unable to trigger consistency.
They invented two perks mechanics for this. First was Hex system. The idea was that a killer would equip a hex perk and this hex perk had game-changing effects but survivor could cleanse the totem to remove said effect. This turned out to be terrible idea because.... if you look at all hexes on killer side, they're not game-changing enough for killer to run them and end result is that survivor generally end up finding hexes leading to no perk value. The other system is obsession system which involved a perk having strong effect but having a risk associated to the perk.
they later invented a 3rd perk category. this perk category is called Scourge hook perks. These perks are also perks that supposedly have strong effects but their effects are limited by 4 unique hooks on the map.
Scourge hooks, Obsession and Hex system are perk categories to self-nerf killer perks. The idea is that these perk would be "too strong" if they were consistently spammable.
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The obsession mechanic creates an interesting gameplay dynamic imo. Trying to change most of the perks you mentioned to work more generally without an obsession mechanic would just be taking away a lot of those perks' identities and what makes those perks different from others. And in some cases it would likely require nerfing some of them which would overall just make them boring and less fun.
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While I agree the perks are most of the time a little lack-luster, I think the idea of obsession perks is important themetically. While BHVR have evolved from just basic slashers as their killers, the idea of a sadistic/evil thing being obsessed with you is creepy. It fits incredibly well into the theming and vibe of the game, imo.
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Was a lot said, but @Devil_hit11 sums it perfectly. Obsession perks provide a new avenue for different perks to exist. With 3 perks a go per character, the game is pretty saturated perk-wise, as there are only so many ways you can modify gameplay meaningfully... and removing the obsession mechanic limits you further.
I personally don't think there is anything wrong with obsession mechanic inherently, its down to the perks themselves on a case by case how bad it is, and with that in mind there are a few statements I disagree on:
- STBFL/Dying light you can't really call targetting 3/4 survivors tunneling. Also if the obsession works out what is going on, survivors have counterplay.
- You can't call Dark Devotion tunneling the obsession, as it only works putting the obsession in the injured state. To get value from the perk, you actually don't tunnel, as you've only got 30s to get to another survivor, otherwise you're only using it to get rid of your red light vs. 1 specific player, which isnt really needed.
- Furtive Chase used to be garbage, but now has a pretty potent effect, that would be busted if it was always granted, but ties to the obsession mechanic to make it a perk that needs additional perk investment to get good value (obsession switching and aura read).
- Friends Til The End is pretty decent to my understanding. If you hook anyone other that the obsession you get a long 10s aura read on them, that isn't affected by distance, and will punish survivors not paying attention or playing risky. If you hook the obsession, you get a scream so you still have a heading. This almost always give you a target to go for unless survivors use lockers/perks to prevent it, and synergises well to improve a lot of the previous perks... e.g. Furtive Chase, Dark Devotion.
- Rancor gives plenty of warning to the obsession, and can even be used to a survivors advantage if they know what they're doing. I wouldn't call it unfun personally.
- OoO seems like a reasonable trade off vs. Lethal Pursuer. Lethal is a strong perk, so having this counter it is reasonable. Undetectable makes the stealth reveal a moot point. Stealth killers like Myers and Wraith don't care, and GF/Chucky don't care either if he's fast to use his power. Pig cares, but Lethal on Pig is a bit quirky. The switch is actually beneficial to you, as now you get the aura reading and repair buff whenever revealed, without constantly getting ot proc when you don't want it. The comms reveal is an issue sure, but this does come with the risk of being tunneled, and if you have OoO vs. a Nurse or Blight especially... Good luck.
Not trying to rubbish your post or anything, but these are the flaws with the arguments to my mind.
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