Feedback on some things (long read, sorry)

Vixxie

As a seasoned player who's spent a lot of time and at least $400 on this game lol, I'd like to take a moment to leave some feedback/constructive criticism in hope that maybe some things can be kept in consideration for future changes.

First I'm going to start with something that will probably bring a lot of disagreement.

Aura reading. This is way more beneficial for killers than it is survivor. The only survivor perks that are truly beneficial for seeing the aura of the killer is Object of Obsession, Kindred & Wiretap. If surviviors were able to see the killer's aura as much as the killer see's their's, there would be rants over it from killer mains. With that being said, killers lean way too heavily on aura reading. Especially Huntress players who have builds completely surrounding aura reading. A killer having a full aura reading build is an unfair advantage. Especially when survivor perks that would counter aura reading are being nerfed or only of use late game. Sole Survivor requires your team to die to have value, and Distortion has been nerfed to the ground requiring you to be chased to have it. So with survivors needing to "earn" the counter, where are killers earning the aura reading?

BBQ & Chili is one of only aura reading perks that is truly earned, along with Blood Warden, and the one where you see auras while carrying survivors (forgot the name). But opening lockers? Kicking gens? Survivors completing gens? The start of the trial? Literally just loading into the match earns you aura reading? Survivors walking past a totem? Survivors vaulting? Killers being blinded gives them an aura read? And the plethora of add ons that killers have that are aura reading and not actually earned.

You want to change up the meta? Rework aura reading. This game is supposed to be like "hide and seek" but how does that work when the killer see's auras the whole match? Aura reading could be traded for screaming instead with killer's instict to show where they screamed from. Or maybe make it so they need to earn it too. Must kick 3 gens to gain a token. Must open 3 lockers. In my opinion, aura reading shouldn't have ever been brought to the game as heavily as it is. I do however understand from the killer's side how some may struggle with finding survivors. But its overkill at this point.

Distortion should not have been changed with how heavily aura reading is used. If anything, make it so survivors need to be doing gens, healing or even going for saves to earn the tokens. This way people aren't hiding the whole match and need to participate in order to get value from the perk. The power of altruism is able to protect you from being seen! (But again, why do survivors need to earn tokens and killers don't need to earn the ability to see auras?)

My next topic is slugging.

Slugging is great for when you need to apply pressure and maybe slow things down. But leaving all 4 survivors on the ground and refusing to hook? Why are we forced to endure that? We can't disconnect to leave, so we just lay there on the ground. This is tedious and boring from the survivor's perspective. This goes for the end game mori as well. Slugging is at an all time high right now because of it. No one wants to lay on the ground and wait for their teammate to be found and/or die.

My suggestion to balance this is if 3 or 4 surviviors are being slugged and none have been hooked for 40 seconds, a survivor at random gets the ability to pick themselves up. This will discourage slugging the entire team and refusing to hook. If the survivor that got up gets slugged again, the timer restarts and someone else gets the ability. This keeps Unbreakable in good standing too, because the ability to get up will be granted at random, where Unbreakable is guarenteed (if you haven't used it yet). And as for killers slugging when there are 2 survivors left for an end game mori: If a survivor is left on the ground until they've bled out half way, they should have the ability to get themselves up once. This encourages the killer to make the choice of hooking the survivor or letting them go while they find the 2nd survivor. No one wants to just lay on the floor and wait to die in a video game.

My next topic is the anti-camp.

The range of where the killer is standing to "counter" the anti-camp is way too close. The anti-camp stopping if someone is nearby also sucks, because it encourages people to not go for saves, thus forcing the hooked survivor to unhook themselves and get tunneled.

My idea of a solution for this is to increase the range a killer needs to be for anti-camp to not progress. Killers are standing pretty close and the meter barely moves. It should fill up faster with how close the killer is to the hook, and a survivor nearby shouldn't stop the progression of anti-camp. Maybe change it to if two survivors are nearby it stops. But if one is nearby and the killer is very clearly only 10 feet away, it doesn't make sense for anti camp to stop, because that is still camping.

My next topic is about No Way Out.

This perk feels kind of punishing as a survivor. Survivors did their objective, they finished all gens and they survived to the end, just to be met with No Way Out. The gate is blocked for entirely too long for a killer who lost the match. It should be blocked at maximum 30 seconds with no "additional time". 15/20/30 seconds for the 3 tiers. Enough time for the killer be alerted that someone is at a door and to try to find them and hook them.

Next:

Maps are feeling way too small and crowded. I understand some maps being larger can be overwhelming as a killer, or even as a survivor to have to run across the map for a save. But hooks and generators are entirely too close together now. A lot of the maps are feeling way too killer biased. Tiles with pallets being used create too many dead ends for chases. Maybe spreading gens and hooks out more and putting better tiles would help with how small they feel?

Last:

Flashlights. They're great for saves, but chain blinding is ridiculous. My idea of a solution for this is to make flashlights have a cooldown timer after a successful blind. Like 10 seconds or something. People do straight up abuse the ability to blind. I know Lightborn exists but if you don't run it and you end up in a match with people who are click happy? It sucks. As for flashbangs, the ability to basically have two should be removed. If you're already holding a flashbang, the perk needs to stop refilling until the flashbang is used. The option to place flashbangs down for survivors to stock up on so they can locker stun and flash bang them 4 times in a row, also needs a change. That is straight up bullying the killer. If the flashang is placed down instead of thrown, make it so it depletes after a certain amount of time to avoid abusing the perk.

I love this game, but there are things going on that are truly making the experience very negative and frustrating. I hope some of these ideas help in some shape or form.