Alternative Skill Trees
What Led Me Here
Alucard's Shield Add-On is a really neat idea, but it bothers me that it's an add-on. I've never been a fan of add-ons. They're like an extra set of Perks that sometimes change a character drastically. Playing without them can sometimes be a huge disadvantage, but they're also consumable. I never feel good about consuming an item like that, especially in a game like this where you have no idea what sort of match you might get into.
They're also a way that Killers get to be way more interesting than Survivors, as Killers already have unique powers, but Killers also get to have what amount to character-specific perks in their add-ons.
What doesn't help is the Bloodweb. The Bloodweb relies on random consumable stuff of different rarities like items and add-ons in order to have options to begin with, so the system can't really change without rippling throughout the game.
So I started to think, what if perks and progression were completely overhauled?
Obviously it's a big ask, and the game's been around so long it might be a better idea to set aside for a future game, but I thought it couldn't hurt to brainstorm some ideas.
The Idea
The basic premise of my idea is inspired by World of Warcraft's current talent trees, which are now split into two trees: A generic one that applies to everyone of your class, and a second that's specifically for your specialization.
For Dead by Daylight, my idea would be for you to have two separate perk or skill trees. One that applies to all Survivors or Killers, and one that applies to your specific characters (and they could still be called bloodwebs)
This way Killers would no longer have to be balanced around the option of interesting consumables (like Michael Myers), as they would be part of a selection specific to that character, and could easily be made into mutually exclusive branches of the tree (swappable between rounds). This, in turn, would open up the possibility for more unique things like Alucard's Shield without having to worry about its accessibility.
Survivors could now have something specific to them as well, as these wouldn't have to be defining on the level of powers (though having Survivors be interchangeable right now is nice for other reasons).
Alternatively, the "character specific" skill tree for Survivors could be based on the 2v8 classes, so you have a "Generic Survivor" tree and a swappable "Survivor Class" tree. This way, the Medic class, for instance, could have some really powerful healing perks, but be balanced by not being able to be combined with perks from other class trees.
I think this could open up some more options by giving the balance team more dials to adjust, instead of having to worry that any new thing can be combined with absolutely everything that has ever come before it. It also means that a new Survivor could come with a new "Class" in their patch that everyone can use to make their update especially interesting.
This could also offset concerns about the "pay to win" aspect of the game where new players can potentially have a ton of DLC to catch up on to access "all the right perks". That system can also be extremely confusing for new players, deterring purchases. The skill tree could potentially still be affected by DLC, but I think it would be more straightforward and easier to understand.