In-Depth Feedback on Pig PTB Changes
I know it's like two weeks late, however I wanted to share some thoughts on the Pig changes in the last PTB after some time to fully digest the changes and compare them to the live servers. As a Pig main, I actually really love these changes and hope they hit the live servers with a few number tweaks and some add-on reworks to compensate the change in direction for Pig's gameplay.
I've also put these thoughts into a ~15 minute video if the big wall of text is too much to wade through: https://youtu.be/Grc8Ik6IO7M
The changes proposed in this PTB are all incredibly healthy and exactly what I've been looking for with an update (which admittedly I was hesitant about). Her ambush feels really good now without the need for addons, with it being even better if you do take some; the crouch feels far less sluggish after already being updated (thank you again for this); and the traps are honestly in a great spot.
The changes to ambushing feel very noticeable, where you can make a lot more movement around tiles with the game now feeling a lot more fluid and less clumsy when using this. A lot of hits that otherwise wouldn't have been possible to make are now much easier to land, and Shattered Syringe now being basekit makes this power a lot less unforgiving. This is something I've wanted updated for a while, and I'm super happy to have this here. This is even more noticeable when bringing Last Will. Last Will was an add-on that I always had mixed feelings around compared to just taking combat straps. The extra movement speed is fantastic, but the 33% increased charge time both ate a lot of your time in a chase, while also requiring Workshop Grease to counter this. Using Last Will with the new changes to the Ambush really demonstrates the increased ambush duration and its impact, and will be my go-to add-on going forward. I do however wish the ambush charge time received a very slight change, as Workshop Grease is essential when focusing on Pig's power for this reason, however as it stands the power is overall in a very good position, feeling faster and stronger than it ever has.
The changes to Pig's crouching and stealth are also immediately noticeable. Pig's movement speed while crouched is now on par with Ghostface, with there being far less reliance on bringing John's Medical File. The crouch transition's also been reduced by 23%, almost on par with Combat Straps. A reoccurring change with the PTB is that Pig's addons are either being rolled into her basekit, or they've closed the gap between her base stats and add-ons where these are no longer required as much, which is in my opinion the biggest problem with Pig. Workshop Grease, Combat Straps, John's Medical File and Shattered Syringe are all arguably essential add-ons for Pig to make her crouch and ambush worthwhile, with Crate/Bag of Gears also required to increase the slowdown capabilities of traps, all while Pig is limited to just two of these add-ons. The changes have removed the necessity of a lot of these add-ons, making her much more enjoyable to play. While the Ambush only received a difference of 0.3 seconds, this slight change is incredibly noticeable when you factor in how quick Pig now moves in stealth and how quickly she can enter/exit the Ambush itself. The game, again, just feels far more fluid and fun, and prevents Pig from feeling frustrating to play when using her power. I would have liked to see the transition time reduced even further considering Ghostface doesn't have one himself, however again this is something that already feels better and a change I'm looking forward to trying in the live servers.
I've seen backlash around these changes as they're quite drastic compared to what we're used to, however I feel this is the healthiest spot they can be in.
I personally hate facing Pig when I play survivor as the majority of Pig's I'm against will either try to force a headpop or scout Jigsaw Boxes to tunnel out trapped survivors. I feel this is overall really sub-optimal and unintuitive gameplay and defeats the purpose of the trap - an essential slowdown kit which acts as punishment to survivors for not doing this objective, rather than a win condition that can be forced. These trap changes seem to very specifically aim to prevent forcing headpops through traps and is something I feel is long overdue. Removing Pig's capability to see the Jigsaw Boxes is a change that I feel isn't going to be noticeable across the vast majority of matches you come across. Those who already play Pig should have a good idea as to where the boxes spawn across maps in the first place, and more importantly, you will reveal the location of the boxes naturally by patrolling generators, so this only really changes the ability for newer Pig mains to beeline to boxes to pressure trapped survivors for a headpop, and to prevent Pig from putting too much pressure on trapped survivors at the start of the game where Video Tape is taken - a very fair change considering Video Tape acts as a 'free' Corrupt Intervention which has always been among the most-used perks for good reason. I think this change is incredibly fair, as again the main playstyle this changes is one where killers will tunnel a trapped survivor, or try to interfere with box searches via scream builds such as Ultimate Weapon and Hex: Face the Darkness, one of the most obnoxious ways to play Pig currently and one with very little in the way of countering.
Another worry is the Reverse Bear Trap’s timer now being too long. The timer has been increased from 150 seconds to 180. This change is even more controversial as a lot of players are stating this makes traps meaningless and takes the pressure away, though is another change I personally welcome and one I’ve wanted to see for a while. At higher skill levels, kills through traps ap are already incredibly rare as is, which in my opinion is very healthy for the game. At lower skill levels, Pig is a lot more capable at putting too much pressure on a trapped survivor, rewarding Pig with a kill regardless of hook state. This is something I feel removing auras alone wouldn't have changes, and as this doesn’t impact the direct slowdown from Pig’s traps, is a very welcome change overall, where again the majority of matches won't feel much different after these changes. I feel the biggest playstyle that will notice a change is one where the killer tunnels trapped survivors. I’m very hesitant about Behaviour adding/buffing insta-kill mechanics, as these are uninteractive and not fun to play against, while being incredibly powerful mechanics to have. Pig and Onryo are two killers I enjoy playing, and two with insta-kill mechanics. Both these mechanics I feel should only exist for slowdown, with the instakill being only a punishment to survivor's negligence, rather than something you can guarantee, which is something this change further emphasises. Pushing the focus away from getting kills with the traps to emphasise their slowdown and further buff Pig's chase capabilities overall leads to a more fun and healthy killer, and is something I've seen many Pig mains really appreciate and enjoy.
I’ve seen a lot of discussion worrying that the increased timer might cause newer players to tunnel more, or this allowing survivors to do generators and unhooks before removing traps. For the topic of newer players tunnelling more, either through trying to force headpops, or tunnelling because it’s harder to get bear trap kills, I don’t see this actually being a negative effect. I don't see there being any difference between tunneling a survivor, and pressuring a single trapped survivor. The biggest difference here is a trapped survivor has no counter to this. Where Pig’s do tunnel more conventionally, they will have to rely on their experience as killer to counter looping, with survivors able to counter tunnelling to some degree through their own experience, perks to help extend their chases, or even another survivor taking a protection hit to try and steal the killer’s attention. All of these counters are a lot less existent with the current playstyle of targeting trapped survivors as the survivor has less ability to respond, where they may already be injured or far away from other survivors to remove their traps. While a trapped survivor is still able to respond to tunneling, they're a lot more limited in doing so; whether they’re already injured, suffering a status effect from the trap itself, they’re on the opposite side of the map from other survivors due to Jigsaw Box placement, or they’re killed instantly from the trap. This overall leads to a frustrating and unintuitive experience. This change just makes it harder for Pig to unfairly remove survivors from the game earlier than they should, which is a net positive in keeping the game healthy, especially when Pig specifically has a very bad reputation for this.
In saying that, I do have some points to propose with this change, as I feel a couple things might need addressed that didn't receive any changes:
· With a 30 second increase in the active timer, I feel it may be good to increase the time it takes to search a Jigsaw Box by a very small amount, say 1-2 seconds. Pig is still a fairly weak killer despite these buffs, unable to deal with survivors as efficiently as Huntress, Wesker, or even The Unknown, so increasing the slowdown survivors receive slightly to compensate the generous increase in RBT time would be really nice to see. This increase brings the slowdown in line with receiving basekit Bag of Gears, again dealing with Pig's addons all feeling too essential, while compensating for the increased time on the trap timer itself. I don't think the 1-2 second difference would make the biggest change across most games, however in matches where you play against skilled survivors, every second counts.
· With changes to the RBT timer, I feel the addons which apply a status effect when trapped should be looked at. With these changes, there's going to be no incentive to focus on trapped survivors, so applying haemorrhage or blindness to trapped survivors has very little benefit. I think Rusty Attachments (applying Mangled) is going to be much more beneficial now as survivors will now use this time to heal before unlocking their trap, and while niche, Slow-Release Toxin also helps counter survivors using Lithe and Sprint Burst to remove their traps quicker or using this extra time to quickly get an unhook or complete a generator where they would be at risk of the killer chasing them again. Overall these add-ons might actually be in a better spot than before due to the increased timer. The other add-ons I feel have far less use now as they already saw limited/niche use previously. A good alternative however would to have these add-ons reworked to apply on ambush hit. This further encourages the shift in gameplay from focusing on trapped survivors to instead focusing on others while rewarding hits with the ambush, while making these add-ons more interactive and useful overall.
· Tampered Timer is another add-on I think should be reworked completely. This update is pushing Pig players away from targeting trapped survivors, and so changing this add-on to not interact with the timer duration would help enforce this move. Tampered Timer instantly became an add-on I never used once it was both nerfed to -20 seconds, and an additional Jigsaw Box was added, where I instead started to focus on her slowdown and ambush instead. With an additional 30 seconds on the timer, I personally feel this add-on will be completely useless as a result. My only consideration outside of a rework is to change this timer to -40 seconds as a middle-ground to the players upset with the increased timer changes while still nerfing the killer's capability to interact with the timer itself. Preferably, we currently don't have an add-on that applies Oblivious which can be a dangerous status effect left up, and would make RBTs very intimidating for survivors to leave on if they wish to use this additional time healing or doing generators. This would cause the traps to work as a Hex: Plaything where you always see the aura of the 'hexes' to easily remove. While I worry this could be a little too strong as a purple add-on, I also feel this would also be less risky to include now that RBTs have been changed to prevent easy tunnelling of survivors, with the increased timer also allowing survivors to deal with traps a bit easier. This would also remove an add-on that otherwise incentivises Pig for tunneling trapped survivors to force a headpop, making this more chase-oriented instead. (Upon reflection -40 seconds may be too much. I think reverting this back to the old -30 seconds may be a better option, however overall a complete rework of the add-on would be preferred).
· Previously it has been possible for Pig to follow trapped survivors while crouched, allowing the timer to progress while putting pressure on trapped survivors. I didn't see if this had changed in the PTB, nor have I seen any discussion around this, and assume this was unchanged. We should overall see far less of this with these changes, however I believe this specific (problematic) issue should still be addressed, pausing the timer when the killer is within a short distance, or even beginning chase if Pig is crouched while moving within x meters of the survivor for y amount of seconds. Again, this might not actually be an issue as this now requires Pig to follow a survivor for a very considerable duration even with the current Tampered Timer, however I feel having this implemented as a precaution might still be beneficial.
· The biggest change to RBTs that I expected was to perks such as Ultimate Weapon that force the survivor to scream, resetting progress completely on boxes. I feel both knowing where the survivor is, while also resetting this time is a bit too strong. With the increased timer, I have no doubt we'll see a sudden influx of builds which will force survivors to reset their progress instead. I think it's most beneficial to stop screaming from resetting progress, with survivors able to continue their search uninterrupted. This would also provide less risk in any adjustments to the length of time it takes to complete searching the box as well, leaving more room with balancing the killer by opening Pig's design space more.
· As previously mentioned, the other changes I would have loved to see is a further decreased transition time, as Ghostface currently has no transition time to crouch (though may not be needed as much now), a reduction in basekit trap search time to compensate for the increased time survivors have to remove searches (giving basekit bag of gears in terms of slowdown), and slight tweaks to movement speed and ambush charge time to bring less reliance on Workshop Grease and Last Will, with all aforementioned add-ons receiving slight decreases to reflect on any increases and vice versa.
While I wish I was able to post this during the PTB forums, I'm also happy I took the time to experiment with these changes to reflect on my thoughts in more depth. Interested to know how many people also appreciate these changes, as I've so far seen a lot of doom and gloom around the traps which I feel are quite exaggerated worries. Very excited for the 12th, and hope everyone else is too!
Comments
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Interesting read, do let me try and summarise to make sure I've understood correctly: -
Nerfs: -
- Immunity to screams on Jigsaw boxes.
- Chase begins even when crouched within range of a survivor.
Buffs: -
- Decreased crouching time to be similar to Ghost Face's crouch/stand up speed.
- Increase ambush movement speed basekit.
- Decrease ambush charge time basekit.
- Increase Jigsaw boxes searches by 1-2 seconds, adding 12-24 seconds of slowdown overall (144 to 156-168).
Reworks: -
- Status effects removed from head trap add-ons and move to ambush.
Would be a fine direction to go I suppose. I do approve of removing screams from the equation. To my mind, this was the only problem the Pig had. You take away screams as a problem, then pretty much all issues of the Pig go away, and I feel like all the other changes to her RBTs aren't needed at all, since without screams Pig is just like any other M1 killer trying to tunnel (and because her dash isn't especially good, she is throwing the game by not using the slowdown of her RBTs, so this is fine IMO).
Though I would argue these changes you propose pushes even more empahsis on the Pigs dash over her RBTs... to the point the RBTs basically feel tacked on to her weaker (though not that weak anymore with your other changes) dash power in an attempt to keep her somewhat passably viable, and otherwise something you don't even think about. The obvious problem to me, is with the dash changes the Pig gets better at tunneling, and so basically becomes like every other killer in the game
I do find myself wondering why play Pig instead of say Chucky or Wesker, who don't even need to stop/crouch to use their dashes, who's skill expression doesn't need to be artificially propped up by a completely uninteractive time wasting mechanic. Since the head traps are an afterthought that we just ignore anyway, that effectively noone wants in the game, I can't help but feel like my main is becoming a discount dash killer... a weak knock off of other, better dash killers.
I think a lot of the backlash comes from the fact that going this route takes away the uniqueness of the Pig, homogenising her into the camp of dash killers with nothing particularly unique or interesting of her own.
Post edited by UndeddJester on0 -
Thanks for the reply! My proposed feedback overall does emphasise the power over the traps as I feel a passive power shouldn't be something that should be strong to begin with (see: Skull Merchant), versus a more powerful active power. Her active ability is overall still not as strong as say Chucky or Wesker, and one that's still situational and harder to use to tunnel survivors. I think the traps shouldn't be something Pig should think about other than putting on survivors, and instead it's something survivors need to think about. I think it's easy to ignore the fact that spending three seconds to put on a trap that steals up to 48 seconds of the survivors time (more with the Gears add-ons) is still an incredibly powerful ability regardless of whether you get a kill. Regardless, I feel a Pig tunneling a survivor with the ambush, which is an ability the survivor can interact with and try to avoid, is still overall much healthier than Pig forcing head trap kills at Jigsaw Boxes where survivors rarely have time to even heal up.
I think the Chucky and Wesker comparisons are very fair, but Chucky is notoriously strong to the point I feel he needs rebalanced himself, with Wesker being in an overall okay position, with perhaps his slowdown passive rebalanced in line with Pig's passive being brought down. I also think Chucky's stealth capabilities should further be reduced to help retain Pig's identity, as Chucky's stealth and dash are currently better than Pig's. I think it's worth remembering that Pig is one of, if not the original dash killer. While this is 'homogenising' her as a dash killer, I think this instead focuses on buffing her ability to make her stand out more compared to other dash killers which is why I've tried emphasising this. I'd disagree about her having nothing interesting of her own as she's still a stealth killer as well (which is again why I'd like Chucky to see a reduction in his stealth). Otherwise, she's currently a killer who can insta-kill with traps with a weak dash power, which just isn't healthy nor fun for the game in my opinion!
Post edited by RobinVouz on2 -
Is fair points. Though I guess it depends on what you find fun I suppose. A lot of the arguments around this Pig rework tend to fall to the black and white extremes "Pig force head pops" vs. "Pig dash buffs and RBTs purelynfor slowdown". I personally saw it as far more of a grey argument.
Did you ever see the feedback in the PTB section from was worked on collaboratively with the Pig mains in this forum?
There is a link to the backup version:
But to keep it short, the Pig was a more tactile killer to my mind, with the weaker chase meaning she has to get downs purely via mind games, but the RBTs gave her the time to do so, while also providing a mind game in of themselves. Any good Pig player will tell you don't tunnel a head trapped survivor with Pig, as you aren't using the 3vs1 and slowdown it gives you if you do.
The more advanced way of playing around RBTs was to keep a mental tab of roughly how long it took a survivor to get a head trap off, and use that to determine your longer traps.
With this you could track where the boxes were and predict where survivors would likely path to get RBTs off. You can't bank on this, cause its still RNG, so you still chase other survivors off gens, but if you do keep tabs on it and you end up chasing into that part of the map, you will be finding yourself with more opportunities and pressure.
The main strength of RBTs was that they can lead to an easy down if a survivor runs mindlessly into you while on a time crunch, or if their teammates run you mindlessly towards them while trying to save themselves, only to mess their teammate up further. This is why coordinated teams tend to run rings around the Pig, these opportunities become quite rare. Deapite that being ready to capitalise on these opportunities is what separated good Pig players from really good ones. This more tactile way of looking at it was interesting, and certainly not as black/white as "force a survivor with a headtrap to die with no counter".
What has undeniably become a problem though is you can artificially create these scenarios currently with scream builds. This is what we highlight in our feedback post, and why we suggest tackling scream builds, not tne tactile play around her RBTs.
Ultimately your take would result in the Pig being decently strong. It would to my mind though remove all the above nuance from her RBTs and make her a relatively meh dash killer with a pretty uninteresting slowdown to compensate. I personally see more value going the anti-scream build route, as the Pig's slowdown is by far the most unique trait she has, while dash killers are a dime a dozen. The dash buffs are nice, but I'd be against jacking these up much further and making her a dash killer first and a slowdown killer second.
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Oh a point I forgot to add!
If we're gonna continue on with the current nerfs to her RBTs as in the PTB, then yes 100% agree with your changes. If the goal is to make her RBTs lethality non-existant, and purely for slowdown, then yes, absolutely, go all in on her dash.
The scream change needs to happen, cause that is the problem playstyle, even with the changes. So nuke that, then jack her dash up. Won't be a fan of it myself, but at least she'll be somewhat viable, so thumbs up for that! ^^
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I don't think my suggestions takes anything away from her slowdown however. You're still able to track where boxes are, as you actively find boxes through patrolling generators, and can still time how long a survivor takes off traps. I disagree with this being an unnecessary annoyance (re: shared forum) as it's not going to be difficult to remember where these boxes are. Compare this to killers such as Pinhead, Wesker, Nemesis and Singularity who can interrupt survivors countering their power, but don't have auras for these counters. This change brings Pig in line with every other killer, and I believe is the only killer able to track these counters until now.
This update simply stops holding your hand and makes it more difficult to do so (and arguably increases the skill required in doing this). People used to Pig won't have an issue with this, as they'll generally know where boxes spawn from playing as Pig across difficult maps anyway. I also don't think this will be as detrimental to newer players as suggested (re: shared forum). Her slowdown is also still the same as it was and untouched - she still has that unique slowdown. The only thing this stops is forcing headpops, where forcing insta-kills isn't healthy for the game for any killer. You're still able to do the above, you just don't have the auras to do so at the very start of the game, nor are you able to have a survivor die in front of you. While +15 seconds is enough to deny a headpop (re: shared forum), I think it's worth remembering the vast majority of games are also solo queue where survivors won't delay generators, nor will they consider this. I think it's very important to look at this across skill levels and scenarios the most effective counters to Pig all require consistent teamwork and communication. Regardless you're still able to interrupt the box searches, it's just no longer right in front of you.
She's still able to get kills via mindgames, and if anything this is still the optimal way to play her (mindgames through concealing her terror radius, through her ambush via flicking or heading one direction only to head back, and of course remembering where box locations are). Survivors will still be running mindlessly into you, and I'd argue there's going to be more cases of trapped survivors running into you due to the increased timer making them risk the odd altruistic event here and there which overall leads to a more reactive game.
I do agree about how problematic scream builds are however, though feel I'm sitting on "keep the changes and remove scream interruptions", as the timer is unfortunately too low when it comes to playing against newer survivors who haven't had experience playing against Pig, which is also likely where this change came from. I think this is something important to keep in mind.
Regardless, I really do appreciate your engagement and even just taking the time to sift through the very long post. I really like the healthy discussion, and it's nice to see different perspectives on these changes 💜
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Indeed it's been pleasant ^🐽^
Regarding your points, I suppose where I sit is I don't see any value to tracking boxes at all now. Yeah you can do it, and interrupt survivors on jigsaw boxes... but why would you? Your time is more valuable than the survivors time, which means if a head pop is impossible, even if you see a head trapped survivor, there is basically no point to doing anything related to that survivor unless they are giving you a massively free down, or literally picking their nose and wasting huge swathes of time. Literally you just ignore a head trapped survivor, period, almost without exception.
On old Pig is was rarely profitably to go after survivors with head traps outside of forcing it with scream builds (at least since her RNG got locked to 12 searches guaranteed with 5 Jigsaw boxes, which was a great change)... but occassionally, it was profitable, and being able to identify those opportunities (especially if you accounted for that possibility coming up) was very satsifying, even if overall the Pig is weak... Like Trapper, it feels good when a plan comes together, even if more often than not you're eating pallets and teabags to the face 80% of the time.
There is a truth, that some players actively threw the game jsut to ensure a person died... I can't deny that... and I guess the conclusion of this debate is, if this nuanced part of her play has to be sacrificed on the altar to ensure that noone can be a jerk, then so be it... but... make sure you actually make it so that noone can be a jerk via nuking scream builds too and then go hard making her a viable dash killer.
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I think the only thing I can contribute with is "this is why we can't have nice things". The fifth jigsaw box, the 10s nerf on tampered timer, and this change all exist purely due to the length people are willing to go to exploit the insta-kill mechanic. I very much agree that playing her tactically around jigsaw boxes, tracking timers, and sometimes getting a headpop was rewarding, but unfortunately these mechanics overall damage the health of the game where they are easy to take advantage of.
I do think the reaction to the changes was very overblown and should be tested in the live servers - one point I don't think I emphasised well in the post vs the video is the importance of raising the timer first and making changes second. Due to the nature of the traps, it's very difficult to balance a killer with insta-kill mechanics (much like Onryo too). The safest way you can improve these killers is to really nerf their ability to outright kill first to be able to increase the overall design space, then play around with additional numbers, then slowly bring the timer numbers down - much like exploring an increase to search times only really being a viable option if the timer wasn't constricted. These changes aren't necessarily set in stone, so it would be nice to see them explore nerfing screaming, and then readjusting numbers after. I'm also however very excited to see the general opinion of Pig post-changes first too.
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I'm glad to see a Pig main actually embrace moving more towards a chase-oriented playstyle. Every other Pig main I'm seeing on here is throwing a huge fit that they can't abuse her miserable tactics anymore.
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You think so? Most of the Pig mains I've seen have been pretty reasonable, level headed, fair, and quite accommodating to others point of view, regardless of whether or not they agree with each other or not. There is only 1 instance I can think of (outside of obvious trolling) where the discussion boiled over to being quite uncivil, and it was posts like this one that stirred the pot in that direction.
Most examples I saw in the PTB were similar to this thread, where both sides of the debate took the time to respond at length to arguments put forward by people and generally been reasonably strong at presenting arguments with pretty strong evidence and sound reasoning one way or another.
If that's how you represent those discussions, I'm afraid I have to call you out and say it kinda seems like everything Pig mains in favour of RBTs say is just white noise to you, and just gets straw manned into "tunnel for head pops, toxic pig main".
Thankfully there are quite a few people on this forum one can have a solid conversation with.
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