Suggestion: Item Overhaul - Skill Tree (Images Included)

Cadpig

I made a post about an entire progression overhaul before, but this time I want to focus just on Items and Add-Ons, and I did some mock-up images this time.

The state of items and chests have come up a lot recently, partially due to the number of chest perks recently coming into the game. Several key issues have been brought up within these discussions:

• There aren't very many chests
• Chests aren't typically rewarding
• Item tiers are inconsistent whether they are strict upgrades or sidegrades
• Many tiers feel redundant or are outright useless like Broken Keys
• Certain items with add-ons brought into a trial make Survivors incredibly powerful - yet finding them during a trial isn't worth the time spent travelling to/from and opening the chest

I think it's an inherent balance issue that optional (and consumable) items/add-ons can make such a difference in power to begin with. That's part of the reason that Michael Myers right now is either useless or broken, and as I already said, the performance difference between Survivors who come in with a perfectly kitted set of Items and ones who look around after it starts.

My proposed solution to these issues was inspired by the Classes in 2v8 mode. I thought, what if Items/add-ons were no longer optional, but balanced around being an inherent part of your build that you can adjust between matches? My idea is to expand something like the Class system into skill trees (or the "Skill Web" as I'm calling it) for both Survivors and Killers.

For Survivors, my idea is that you choose a "Class" like in 2v8, and that determines which Item you will start a trial with. I'd go with a slightly different list though, something like:

• Engineer: Generator Toolbox
• Saboteur: Sabotaging Toolbox
• Medic: Medkit
• Scout: Flashlight

So here's a simple version of what I'm picturing for the Medic Skill Web:

For the sake of creating the mockup, I reused the Medic 2v8 Skills here, but that's not absolutely necessary.

To further illustrate my point, I'll explain what going on here.

Layer 1:
The player has selected the "Team Skill" and "Innate Skill", but has not selected the "Aura Skill" yet.

Layer 2:
Because the player selected the Innate Skill, they were able to select the "Medkit". Now they will start trails holding a basic Medkit.

Layer 3:
The player has chosen the Skill Variant "Personalized Medkit" which allows them to heal themselves with their medkit. The lines connecting nodes here are different because these are mutually exclusive choices. Because they chose Personalized Medkit, they could not choose "Advanced Medkit", which would instead significantly increase the healing speed when the medkit is used on others.

Layer 4:
On this layer, the player can specialize their medkit further. The options here are "Gel Dressings" which add charges to the medkit. "Medical Scissors" which increase the healing speed of the medkit. "Abdominal Dressings" which increase the healing speed even more, but at the cost of some charges. Or "Sponge" which increases the bonus on Great Skill Checks. The player here has chosen Abdominal Dressings. I used the image and names of existing Add-Ons, but these would not have to share their exact numbers. The idea is to just give you a little extra way to adjust your build that can be mutually exclusive with other options.

Now for the Killer mockup. We'll start with the Trapper.

Layer 1:
The Bear Trap node grants the Trapper his power. This is active by default I'd assume. ;P

On the left side, the options are "Bear Oil" which makes placing traps silent or "Tar Bottle" which makes them harder to see. Again, these are based on existing add-ons and don't have to be, but the idea here is that you can make a choice between two similar buffs to your power: Harder to see, or harder to hear.

On the right side, the options are "Spring Kit" which makes it take longer to disarm traps, or "Wax Brick" which increases the time it takes to escape or rescue someone from the trap. Again, the idea here is a small buff that allows you to choose prioritizing between two similar ideas: longer to disarm before someone's stepped in it, or longer to open after someone has.

Layer 2:
This is the big Skill Variant choice. For the mockup, I went with "Trapper Sack" which makes you start with all of your traps, but you can't pick them back up, or "Iridescent Stone" which makes the traps on the map automatically reset after a certain interval. The idea here is again to be able to customize your playstyle, but every Trapper will make one of these choices.

Layer 3:
These are upgrades that all Trappers will choose for their traps, no matter what they picked on the previous layer. "Lengthened Jaws" which inflict Deep Wound. "Serrated Jaws" which inflict Haemmohrage. "Rusted Jaws" which inflict Mangled. "Padded Jaws" which trades out damaging Survivors for a big Bloodpoint bonus. Or "Honing Stone", which downs Survivors who free themselves. Again, the point here is to customize what sort of damage you want the traps to do.

Now, this doesn't address the chests directly, but my idea for that was based on another thread here, where the chests would primarily include new, trial-specific items. With Items being built-in in this system, chests could also include things like upgrades. Perhaps all, or at least some, add-ons could end up exclusively being in chests.

I just think this system would overall be healthier for the game as a whole and add an extra layer of player choice that everyone can engage in at all times (and make Survivors feel like they have something closer to powers that isn't too powerful or character specific). It would require rebalancing in a few places, but knowing that every Myers will have one add-on or another will make it a lot easier to determine how to build those choices without making them too useful or not useful enough. This would also allow Alucard's Shield to be a more consistent part of the game, but still a choice that someone actively makes. ;P

Final Note: Obviously this would have a huge impact on the Bloodweb, but that's a topic of its own scale.

RpTheHotrod

A lot to take in, and I'm not finished reading, but wanted to say I quite enjoyed the amount of effort you put into this. Kudos!

Ohyakno

Aggressively uninteresting. One of the biggest things that makes DBD engaging for me is that I get to decide the stuff I bring and the permutations thereof. Restricting that stuff restricts me for no clear benefit. It would get real boring fast.

Cadpig

I guess I didn't explain it well then.

Nothing on here would be a permanent choice. You could change this just like you can change your current loadout. The difference is that instead of only having two slots for add-ons, you have all the options in this Skill Tree. The Trapper in this example has access to the equivalent of four add-ons rather than two (and this is just an incomplete example).

Yes, some things on this tree are mutually exclusive that didn't used to be, but that's part of a larger balance goal. You won't be able to take two huge things anymore, but that's so each of them can be bigger or more interesting. In return, you can now have a huge thing, a couple of medium things, and a bunch of small things.

Also, these trees aren't "complete", if that's what you're worried about (in part because my mouse is broken right now and it took a ton of patience just to manage this). This was just a quick mockup of the overall idea. I wasn't trying to remove every add-on or item that doesn't appear here. The idea is that all of the existing items and add-ons would be transferred to this system, as appropriate (just meaning some of the more redundant stuff and Broken Keys wouldn't appear, that's it).

My goal was three-fold.

1. Clean up the messy item system by removing redundant items, rarities, and giving a proper place to sidegrades.
2. Dial in balance between players with crazy Items/Add-ons and players going in without them, by building Items and Add-Ons directly into builds.
3. Add more customization beyond Perks, by adjusting Items and Add-Ons into a large series of playstyle choices and giving Survivors psuedo-Powers in class choice.

I intentionally left out numbers because I expect that in general most of these things would have to be somewhere in the middle, but instead of the game having to figure out how to make, say, a Killer perk balanced in both trials where Survivors have overpowered Items and trials where Survivors don't have anything, that Killer perk can now be balanced expecting that all trials will have Survivors with moderate items. The difference will now be in the playstyle players choose rather than a large power level spread.

EDIT:
Here's a more complete version of my idea. There's still a lot rough about it - I reused as many existing distinct add-ons as I could. I paired some that felt similar, but some are just sort of there. I also added an upgrade idea that doesn't quite make sense yet, but this was just a brainstorm. In this version, though, you get 8 choices equivalent to old add-ons.