And until we fix this issue, we recommend that players with photosensitivity, or who have an epileptic condition or have had seizures of any kind consult their physician before playing.
Designing a workable Invocations Template
The concept of Invocations is really cool, but with this current template they will always be unusable. The current template atm is:
- 2 minutes solo
- Without Invocations (2-4) 80-48 seconds
- With Invocations (2-4) 60-30 seconds
This has the major issue of taking way too long for any benefits it could possibly give, and with this scaling of time based on the number of players who do it, this perk has no chance of ever being balanced while also effective. Time is too delicate a resource to balance with.
Proposed Template
- Invocation perks are standardised to 60 seconds.
- Invocation can only be initiated by a player with an invocation perk.
- Charges are acquired by a player sitting at the salt ring, at a rate of 1 charge per second, regardless of the number players taking part.
- Invocation progress will degrade at a rate of 2 charges per second when no survivor is present.
- Invocation perks have a primary effect (granted to any survivor equipping an Invocation perk) and a bonus effect for other survivors taking part in the ritual (only the bonuses of the initial invocation are granted).
- Each survivor must sit at the circle for 20s to gain the related primary effects of their perks and the related bonus effects of the invoked perk. When the invocation is completed these rewards are granted.
- Once an invocation been completed, the salt ring burns to indicate it can no longer be used.
With this in mind, this is how I would change Invocation: Weaving Spiders.
EDITED: Numbers have been dropped
Invocation: Weaving Spiders
When in basement near the circle, press the active ability button to begin the invocation. This take 60 seconds to complete. Once the invocation is complete: -
- You are granted an Ethereal Toolbox containing 1 spectral spider. (Additional temporary item like Flashbang).
- Each survivor present will also gain an Ethereal Toolbox, and have 4 additional spectral spiders distributed evenly between each survivor, and the remainder going to you.
- While repairing a generator, press the active ability button to trigger a moderate skillcheck to consume a spider and permanently repair 6/8/10% of the generator.
- This Toolbox dissipates after being left on the ground for 6 seconds or escaping the trial.
To clarify "evenly distributed" works using integer divison. The invoker is always considered present for the distribution. As such:
- 0 other survivors at the ring - 4/1 = 4 spiders (+1) for Sable
- 1 other survivor at the ring - 4/2 = 2 spiders for Dwight, 2 Spiders (+1) for Sable.
- 2 other survivors at the ring - 4/3 = 1 spider for Dwight, 1 spiders for Meg, 2 spiders (+1) for Sable
- 3 other survivors at ring (/w 2 Weaving Spider Invocations) = 4/4 = 1 spider for Dwight, 1 spider for Meg, 1 spider (+1) for Mikaela, 1 spider (+1) for Sable.
I can imagine a nice white ghostly toolbox, with little blue spiders (with similar energy to boons) skittering across it. This would be a tell to the killer Weaving Spider is in play... so be careful, cause you're a high priority target carrying this powerful item!
Comments
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Weaving spiders:
The place where fear festers and terror treads is also where those with the gift can reach across the veil.
When in the Basement near the circle, press the Active Ability button to begin the Invocation, which takes 120 seconds to complete.
During an Invocation, your auras is revealed to all other Survivors and they can join in, accelerating the process by +100 %, if they too have an Invocation Perk equipped, or by +50 %, if they have not.Once the Invocation is completed, the following effects apply:
Permanently reduce charges required of all generators in the trial by 8/9/10 charges every 120 seconds.
You automatically enter the injured from any previous Health State, and suffer from the broken Status Effect for the remainder of the Trial.
Completing an Invocation disables all Invocation Perks for the remainder of the Trial for all Survivors.
"I call upon the spirits of the night, to aid us in our desperate flight!" — Sable
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you complete the ritual and every gen gets progress every 120 seconds. i am sure some content creators will attempt to do ritual and hide for 25 minutes for the perk to auto win the game. the perfect stealth Claudette perk.
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Oh god please no. This would drag the game out so much. Don't give them ideas.
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I think this is an interesting rework idea of this perk. Love the addition of the unused rarity.
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why? are you afraid of the invocation meta?
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Not really, i want this perk to be great and used, its just that the option you created would result in this:
• Match starts
• One survivors goes into the basement and does the invocation
• The invocation is finished
• All survivors hide around until all gens auto-complete.
Do you want this?
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No thoughts regarding my template?
In my opinion time is too valuable a resource to be the main viability/balancing factor of multiple survivors working on the invocation. It is too delicate a parameter to use as a means of making a perk scalable, but not overpowered.
I seems time still is a major factor in this suggestion, which doesn't address the issue I raise at all.
I'm all for expansion of ideas, critism or down right objection if the idea if tne argument is well reasoned... but shouldn't this have been it's own thread if it wasn't gonna make use of any of the points I raise in the OP?
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i don't think it is good idea as that version of the perk is only good for countering end-game 3 gens where you can instant complete a gen with stacking old BNP toolboxes. use case is too narrow from [effect] stand-point.
In my opinion time is too valuable a resource to be the main viability/balancing factor of multiple survivors working on the
invocation. It is too delicate a parameter to use as a means of making a perk scalable, but not overpowered.48 seconds is too short and doesn't offer the killer much counter-play. you get more gen progression from invocation perk than survivor doing gens.
haha. I was just naming an extreme with the perk. My goal with the perk was to make it a viable perk selection that allows survivor to win with generator progression over-time. In practice, the perk triggers once invocation is complete a single time and then repetitively triggers every 2 minutes. In my estimation, it takes around 6 minutes for the perk to provide positive value to the team.
Triggering the perk 9 times is goofy exaggeration. I am not going to say it cannot happen but your average game is not going to be 25 minutes of weaving spiders.
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I'm not 100% sure of that. It's 48 seconds in exchange for a potential 70s gen progress, 100s gen progress if everyone has Weaving Spiders and everyone goes to basement. As stated already, everyone going does not boost the progress time of the invocation, so everyone going is a much bigger risk of getting caught.
There is walking time to and from the basement which is at least 10 seconds either way out of the way of a generator, and the charges are given to the survivors, not automatically applied, so you uave to make the journey before you can start using the charges to get it back. At best you're looking at best maybe 68 seconds for 70 seconds progress back, but the trade off is it does allow you to break a key gen much easier.
You also have the charhes bound to an item, and you have a luminescent white Ethereal item the killer can see you carrying, that you can't put down for longer than 6s otherwise is dissipates.
Needless to say, you become a target carrying this item, and there is of course perks like Franklin's and add-ons the same effect that could make things really difficult for this perk, or at the very least keep interrupting the usage of your charges to cause some misses.
Tjis also isnt accounting for the existing risk of the killer potentially hearing the invocation and catch the survivor in basement.
There seems to me to be plenty of counter play, and it's certainly better than the current mechanism or other proposals of sitting in basement for 2 minutes a go. That is going to suck no matter what you do.
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48 second is so short that most killer will take about 20 second to just walk from one side of the map to the other side. i have zero clue how you expect killers to ever interrupt a ritual. It might as well be guaranteed at that point and have 200% time efficiency as only 1 survivor is required.
With current system, it takes 60 second finish ritual but that is 2 people. So while it is still hard to interrupt. it is higher time investment for being mostly uninterruptible.
You also have the charhes bound to an item, and you have a luminescent white Ethereal item the killer can see you carrying, that you can't put down for longer than 6s otherwise is dissipates.
What is the counter-play to 4 survivors going onto a generator and instantly completing 75% progression in less then 1 second? It doesn't take long for the gen to be instant complete.
Needless to say, you become a target carrying this item, and there is of course perks like Franklin's and add-ons the same effect that could make things really difficult for this perk, or at the very least keep interrupting the usage of your charges to cause some misses.
Telling killers to run franklin demise in case a random invocation perk triggers that instant completes a gen is like telling killers to run shattered hope vs boons.
Invocation perks are suppose to be high risk, high reward. part of high risk is long time to activate said perk. with Weaving spider's, it has high risk but reward is not there. that is what my change to the perk fixes. it makes high reward perk over-time. It is not best perk for gen progression where you gen-rush killer in 5-6 minutes but the perk win over-time and will provide strong average value in a dbd match.
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You do realise you can argue for 60s you know, instead of just undermining the whole idea?
Regarding what Invocations are supposed to be for... high risk high reward? What is the high reward currently? There is so much risk, it is almost impossible to complete, and you spend 120 or 80s with 2 people to gain 70 charges back on all gens, instead of 80 charges on 2 gens? What's the high reward exactly?
My suggestion isn't exactly a high reward... survivors can get 70s of BNP on a gen for spending approximately 70s in basement, 80s if it is switched to a 60s invocation. They then spend another 20 seconds applying the BNPs to the gen. You can't rapid fire them in 1 shot, there is a cooldown between each usage in line with normal skillcheck patterns. The most obvious point is there are still 4 more gens to be done.... or do you consider a completed generator that can't be regressed broken balance wise?
Explain why using BNPs to recover the time you spent in basement is so broken compared to staying on a gen? Yes it now can't be regressed, but survivors have to take the risk of getting cornered in basement to get the reward.... and ofc they may not even even complete the ritual, which means they get nothing. This is all an option that is compared to working on and getting caught on a gen, and at least they have a partially progressed gen AND they arent hooked in basement... so there has to be a reason to do the invocation and take that extra risk over just doing a generator... otherwise the perk type dies.
When it comes to your suggestion, it has 1 glaring flaw... the perk is still trash. There is no reason to run it. Whether its 120s 1 time or 8 times, it's still 120s for each proc. It's a complete waste of time and a throw of the game.
The point here is make invocation perks actually useful, and the main focus is Invocations should be:
- A set time such as 60s or whatever.
- A bonus for the invoker.
- An additional bonus for anyone taking part.
That is how these types of perks becomes useful. Change my suggestions for Weaving spiders, whatever, but the tenets above as a core principle encourages much better perk design that people might actually use.
Post edited by UndeddJester on0 -
the goal is not there to make the perk always best option where it is instant selection. My goal is here to make the perk situational strong. The current iteration is not appealing in any situation in isolation.
When it comes to your suggestion, it has 1 glaring flaw... the perk is still trash. There is no reason to run it. Whether its 120s 1 time or 8 times, it's still 120s for each proc. It's a complete waste of time and a throw of the game.
If you think the perk is that bad, I could consider buffing to every 90 seconds. I went a bit cautious with the perk. In just 180 seconds, every gen goes from 90 second to 60 seconds. i don't think it is throwing the game. it is taking risk in early game to reap end game rewards.
My suggestion isn't exactly a high reward... survivors can get 70s of BNP on a gen for spending approximately 70s in basement, 80s if it is switched to a 60s invocation.
i think it defeats purpose of invocation. you might as well just use Deja vu+Overzealous or Resilience. 15% repair speed saves 13.5 seconds. I am just saying that having burst progression that happens every match makes killer have no semblance of generator control. My version of the perk also removes gen-control from the killer, like it punishes 3 gen but this happens over time.
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For the template:
- 48 is defiantly to short. We say 90 minimum. A gens worth of time to do something with good reward.
- ok
- In our opinion other survivors should be able to help proc it by reducing the time. It also adds more risk if the killer comes and has 4 ducklings in the basement.
- We don't know how many charges are lost currently (and cant seem to find it) so probably ok? For thematic purposes the bar should drop fast since its, ya know, a ritual.
- While its ok for an invocation to have some effect like so we don't think it needs to be the standardized effect if you get what we're saying.
- same as the bullet above.
- and again
- Not sure if this should be permanently burnt, but could add a new item for survivors to allow them to use an invocation again if so.
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That fair, I can agree with the tenet of making the perk situatuonal. Now I look back st it, my version does have the potential to become meta... so cheers for catching me on that.
May as well respond to both of you though as I have the same point:
Invocations will forever be a doomed concept in their current form of balancing around time. Using the number of people working on the invocation as its limiting factor makes them basically impossible to balance.
For the 70s gen progress Invocation saves compared to the same time that could be spent working on gens without multiple perk users:
- 120s is inexcusably long for 1 person.
- 80s is inexcusably long for 2 people.
- 60s is hard to justify for 3 people.
- 48s is never gonna happen.
With multiple perk users:
- 120s is inexcusably long for 1 person.
- 60s is still hard to justify for 2 people.
- 40s is started to get reasonable for 3 people.
- 30s is never gonna happen without some serious SWF shenanigans.
Basically Invocations are only even remotely viable for SWFs, and even then it's questionable, and that's without it even considering the perma broken downside. Making a petk that is only even worth considering using if you're in an organised 4 man SWF is pretty miserable. Invocations need to be somewhat self sufficient to be viable.
The primary goal of my template is therefore to remove time as the balancing factor... if you do that however you need a reason for other people to get involved in the invocation.
My solution to this is give Invocations a set time, and the focus of balance shifts directly to the strength of the effect that is triggered upon completing the invocation, and its related bonus for taking part in the invocation.
There is the issue players can turn up as the invocation finishes to get the rewards, which may need to enforce some kind of minimum participation rule.
However this is the crux of my point. Time is too valuable a resource, and should not be the balancing factor. Invocations will always walk a line of being too strong with a short time for SWFs, thus requiring harsh penalties to balance,(e.g. the perma broken effect), and those harsh penalties will make Invocations completely unusable in conjunction with the long times for solo.
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weaving spiders saves time. It just doesn't save enough time to justify using it. at the same time, you can't just buff the perk to be like -30 charges. I was proposing a skill-component to the perk where you need to survive X amount of minutes to gain perk value.
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Gonna be honest, I actually misread your original post. I thought you were suggesting procs for every 120s you stay on the circle, I didn't realise you meant proc it, and from that point on the gens get 10 progress every 120s.
So that now makes a little more sense... so a lot of my prior criticism is invalid.
This does seem pretty unhealthy though, just take Iron Will and Distortion, then spend the whole game hiding while the gens do themselves. Eventually all gens will be done in a maximum of 32 minutes with no way for the killer to stop it. I don't think that playstyle needs to be encouraged. Even if it was balanced, it'd be as fun as watching paint dry.
I did change my original suggestion, though I think we're still gonna disagree. The story of getting a strong item to use to help break central gens, especially when you have the early game gen regression killer meta seems like a better route to me, and as stated before the killer gets an audible warning regarding a completed invication and can see the Ethereal toolboxes, they can continually harass the survivor with it to counter play it. This seems far more interactive to me than encouraging a hard stealth strat, where a survivors literally can just hide and never take any risks to show themselves as the gens progress themselves.
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Reading @SoGo reaction should gave you the hint. In my opinion, that is the level of power that an invocation perk should be at. a game-altering effect. they can justify said effect by saying, 120 second channel time. survivors are doing secondary objectives MR. killer main.
This does seem pretty unhealthy though, just take Iron Will and Distortion, then spend the whole game hiding while the gens do
themselves. Eventually all gens will be done in a maximum of 32 minutes with no way for the killer to stop it. I don't think that playstyle needs to be encouraged. Even if it was balanced, it'd be as fun as watching paint dry.I am going say same thing as I said to Sogo. The average game is not going to last 32 minutes. I am not saying this is not possible as I joke about otz and content creator making a video on the perk but the average that I was going was about 3 activation per match with 120 second window. the killer gets a decent chunk of time to kill the survivors before the perk starts to hurt the killer.
Post edited by Devil_hit11 on0 -
Hi again!
So, while this version of the Invocation would be more powerful than the one we have now, and yes, the extreme scenario I mentioned would be rare, it would be annoying and boring as hell.
I can already see people complaining about Blendettes running this perk and doing absolutely nothing except the ritual and hiding around the whole game.
While it is an interesting concept, this wonderful community would start to despise this perk if it went live in this form. Skull Merchant kind of despise.
We already have people who are willing to harass people running this perk and make them miserable. This version would dial it up to 11.
Still, I don't hate the idea, it's creative, but there are too many ways it can go wrong.
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"Invocations will forever be a doomed concept in their current form of balancing around time. Using the number of people working on the invocation as its limiting factor makes them basically impossible to balance."
Wouldn't say that as we currently only have weaving spiders. If/when more invocations come out and depending what they do, having a build stacking them it could be a game changer. Currently, our only gripe with the current weaving is we feel the 120 second is way to long, but 90 would be more of a sweeter spot especially if/when they make more.
Your stated goal is to remove time as a balancing factor but that seems…odd? [We probably are misunderstanding something] Balance around the time it takes to finish? It seems more your trying to balance around making it something solos would be running too, which is all well and good, but time is something you need to balance around for strong effects. 48 for a strong effect doesn't seem like a ok idea, especially since time is also a valued resource to the killers. [Looking at your edited weaving spiders: 48 seconds for up to 80% of permanent gen progress should everyone have and bring the perk at lvl 3 and doing the bare minimum participation (not in the version edited but taking into consideration of: "There is the issue players can turn up as the invocation finishes to get the rewards, which may need to enforce some kind of minimum participation rule.") with each survivor individually choosing which specific gen 20% goes on. And no drawback baring the 48 seconds of sitting.]
That said we also don't like the fact that it requires the survivors to do things after the invocation, but this is all just our opinions anyways.
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Ah cheers, you caught an error, I should have updated the template as well to 60s. Corrected that now.
I was thinking about a minimum participation requirement. Like you have to be in the invocation for your invocation to count, and this is indicated by the usual red charge in the perk icon. Maybe 20-30s or so?
I've added this to OP, and reworded some stuff to make it more clear:
- Each survivor must sit at the circle for 20s to gain the related primary effects of their perks and the related bonus effects of the invoked perk. When the invocation is completed these rewards are granted.
Time is something you need to balance around for strong effects.
This is effectively my point yes. If you balance around time based on the number of participants, then you will forever dance with this problem that an organised 4man SWF can shorten that time to where the perk becomes problematically strong (and therefore requires a harsh penalty to offset it), and anything outside of a 4man SWF, the time investment and perk penalty is too harsh to even consider running.
Even with 90s, this would still be a 4man SWF perk and nothing more. It's very design is that of teamwork scaling, either the whole team commits to the invocation, or the whole team doesn't… which is antithetical to a perk you take on 1 person. For Invocation perks to gain any traction, they can't be limited to SWFs, to my mind you MUST get the time scaling per person off the perk, it's the most vital change to the life of the perk type, however you do it.
That said, getting the impression this thread is basically dead, so I'll probably leave it now. Though I will be surprised if we see more invocation perks. The current template is just way too hard to balance; it is only viable for 4man teams who are specifically going for it, so the perk will never be even remotely popular, so the incentive to pour dev time into more of them will be drastically reduced.
Post edited by UndeddJester on0
