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Behaviour unwillingness to new ideas of perks and abandonment of old one
I have been playing this game for a while now, and I have seen it evolve ( or devolve ) through various stages. However, out of all the subjects I could discuss, I want to focus on their perk execution. To put it simply, its mostly boring and unoriginal.
Of course, Im not saying that all the perks are boring there are plenty of perks for different playstyles, and some choices feel genuinely satisfying for both sides. For example, perks like Deception, Chemical Trap, Bloodwarden and Trail of Torment are interesting and rewarding when they work. However what I mean is that, it feels like Behaviour just keeps reusing the same flavors over and over again. Finding an interesting new perk is the exception, not the norm.
Most of the new perks for both survivors and killers follow familiar patterns: another aura reading perk, another way to apply existing status effects, or generic perks for generators that feel underwhelming because generators themselves are boring in this game.
What I really want to see is new forms of gameplay, new status effects, and perks that are fresh and exciting. I don’t want yet another aura reading perk that activates after I havent seen any auras for a while.
I realize that the game itself, after many years, is still a bit of a mess ( much more than a bit xD but im being nice), and positive changes tend to happen slowly. I also realize there are more important issues than perks. However, I wish the developers would experiment more instead of reheating the same ideas we have already seen.
Here is my few ideas that shoudlnt be hard to implement as example:
In terms of new mechanic:
For survivors, a wisp mechanic could be interesting. After a survivor dies, a wisp appears on the map, carrying one of the deceased survivors perks. If another survivor interacts with the wisp, they gain a fifth perk. To prevent abuse, if the deceased survivor had only one perk, there would be a 75% chance that the wisp carries nothing (since it reflects one of the four perk slots).
Killers could have a new blocking mechanic. After breaking a pallet or wall, the killer can stand near the broken object and press an ability button to block it for survivors. The killer remains unaffected. A more aggressive version could include damaging spikes, causing survivors to lose a health state or enter deep wound if they attempt to cross affected area.
Quick bunch of ideas for status effect from perks:
Tracked: Survivors always leave scratch marks, even when walking or crouching. While similar to aura reading mechanics, this perk focuses on tracking survivors nearby, as opposed to perks like BBQ and Chili, which reveal survivors at a long distance. This trade off allows for more precise tracking but with less overall range potential.
Guarded: When a killer injures you within a 2-meter radius, they become blinded for 3.7 seconds. (This doesnt work if the killer is carrying another survivor, to prevent abuse.) It wouldnt need to be extremely strong, just confusing. The 3.7 seconds timer was choosen because the killer is staggered for 2.7 seconds after succesfull hit.
Infested: Survivors are infested with an Entity parasite in dorment state. If they are more than 32 meters away from the killer and not interacting with objects or other survivors, the parasite awakens and triggers a mini game. The mini game could be something like “Simon Says” or a series of skill checks. The specific mechanics could vary, but the idea is to force survivors to engage in extra action. The parasite immediatly comes back to dorment state when a killer is in 32 meter radius.
I know I know that some of those ideas may sound simply awful to you but its just few of many options to show you that Behaviour could put tons of ideas in the game not matter how good or stale to spice things up instead of keep giving you something that just work slighly diffrent.
Slowly finishing this thought.
It also feels like Behaviour has abandoned or ignored some of the status effects they have already introduced, such as Deafness. Additionally, the Incapacitated status effect was removed from perks entirely, which seems like a wasted opportunity.
Here are some ideas to make Incapacitated more viable for perks:
Leave it as strong as it is but limit its duration. Another option is to restrict specific actions (like generators, healing, or totems) rather than blocking everything. This could create two versions of that status effect: one that blocks all actions for killer powers like Twins or Pinhead, and another for perks.
Behaviour seems hesitant to take risks with perks and mechanics, and while I understand the challenges of balancing, I believe experimenting with fresh ideas could make the game much more engaging and interesting overall.
Im eager to hear your opinions and thanks for reading! ( Somebody read it right? )
Comments
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I don't think it's fair to say that they don't have any new ideas for perks because not much time has passed since they introduced new perk mechanics such as Boons, teamwork and invocations.
I really think they are afraid to introduce new mechanics into the game so that the CoH situation doesn't happen again, which if we're honest really broke the game. This is why perks that introduce new mechanics are usually weak.
You have a point about the status effects. I had totally forgotten that the deafness status exists in the game and I agree that it was poorly explored. It would be cool if there were more perks or even a power that affects hearing.
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Of course, I give them some credit for introducing new stuff, and as I pointed out, there are still some cool perks and ideas. However, these are overshadowed by the many less unique, tweaked versions of other existing perks that are too similar to one another. I really focused on this, which is why I sounded so harsh, but after so many years, there really should be more additional mechanics and status effects than what we currently have. When I see new perks for the killer or survivor, I am mostly just disappointed.
Invocations, overall, I find pretty dull because of the time they take. In my opinion, they should be faster, with smaller benefits, and easily heard by nearby killers. Something relatively quick and risky that offers a handy buff would work much better.
And oh yeah, I remember how Circle of Healing broke the game, but they honestly introduced it poorly. The problem, in my opinion, was that the boon mechanic could be endlessly activated without any cooldown on the perk. It feels like they did not give it much thought.
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more than half the time, the perks do not do what the perk is be good at. For example, Hex:Two can play is a perk that is suppose to flashlight blind the survivor. It is terrible perk and does not flashlight blind the survivor very well.
Residual Manifiest perk allow you to apply blindness on a killer. it does a terrible job at keeping blindness on the killer.
Potencial energy is a perk that allow you to store repair charges. No one uses the perk.
to this day, I still find it funny that Unbound requires you get a hit, lasts a short duration and than requires you to vault a window to lose distance only to get the most mild haste bonus possible. Maybe one day they'll buff this perk to grant 7% haste for 30 seconds.
you cannot say that they do not have unique perk designs but the unique perks design are atrocious in balance.
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The thing is, new mechanics such as Boons, Teamwork or Invocations are not really worth anything if all of the Perks suck. Like, I am not looking forward to them giving a new Invocation-Perk to new Survivors, because the two we have so far are terrible and there is not much hope that it will get better.
The only Perk out of those which was worth running was CoH and there you can argue that it might have been an incentive to buy the Survivor-only paragraph. And since then it got overnerfed (IMO the version right before the most recent Nerf was fine balance-wise and already bad to use).
So I would rather say they should not introduce new mechanics if those are not worth running at all. In fact, I am at the point where they should just not release Perks, because they are mostly clutter nobody will use anyway. So why even put the time into creating unplayable garbage?
Regarding the deafness-Status effect - I think it is the most unpleasant thing (audio-wise) which is in the game. So I am happy they did not use it much so far and if they do, I think they need to make it bearable.
@Topic:
Aside from what you have written, Incapacitated should NEVER be part of Perks again. We had this with Eruption and it was a disaster, so hopefully it never happens again. It makes total sense to tie this to some Killer powers, but the Survivor not being able to do ANYTHING should never be part of a Perk.
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A huge problem is that the game is already overwhelming for new comers. I'll hear people say 'the game starts to get stale around X thousands of hours'. That's a pretty amazing result for a video game and they are likely worried about the impact adding more mechanics would have on new players coming into the game.
Also, asyms are notoriously hard to get to work right. Adding new mechanics really risks upsetting what fragile balance already exists.
But, on to the ideas.
Wisp mechanic - One of the more common ideas is something to lessen the impact of a survivor dying. I think it undermines a core concept of an elimination game. On top of that, I suspect it would be tricky to code. I'm not sure how the game would deal with things that have charges / single use activations / etc.
It could also be a detriment to soloq where the survivors start running to grab the wisp.
Blocking Mechanic - Sounds like a killer power.
Tracked - It takes out the counterplay element and the stealth game, especially if you did it for walking and crouching. Also combing it and aura reading would still be something a killer could do.
Also - Spirit.
Guarded - Needs something more to it. Make the blind longer, but require some condition to it. Perks that cause direct interaction between the killer and survivor need more than just a straight impact.
Infested - Sounds like a killer power.
It also feels like Behaviour has abandoned or ignored some of the status effects they have already introduced, such as Deafness.This is true, but I think its because certain status effects just aren't that healthy for the game.
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Overall: On perks, killers have powers which is where their uniqueness comes from. This was one of the problems with Ultimate Weapon's original design, you basically got to be a mini-Doctor. It's not that the Doctor's power is a problem, it was that now any killer could have a version of it plus their power. If a Killer perk is broken on any killer, even if just 1 killer, its broken (like I mentioned above, Tracked would overwhelming on Spirit).
Totally new mechanics are tricky because people enjoy the overall game design. I hope that we'll be getting changes for the most commonly complained about issues (first hook kobes, slugging for bleedout, 2 survivors hiding out) before worrying about new mechanics.
Finally, new, radical ideas seem to be what they are using the new modes for. If you're bored of the base game you have totally different modes of play they are trying (some of which failed, which indicates lots of people are quite happy with the base).
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Alot of killer perks are designed to be niche because of how various killer powers are. A perk that's not very useful for 1 killer can be QUITE useful on another. It's always fun to see when new perks come out and people making new builds like "I wonder how _______ will be when used by _______".
Your example of Unbound is one such perk. It's pretty meh on alot of the cast, but it fits GREAT on Legion. Not only can you proc it to get from 1 FF stab victim to the next, letting you get abit further than you normally could... you can also activate it when you go for the actual down.
That's not to say that there isn't perks that are just straight up bad... Hex: 2 can play being so short essentially guarantees the survivor will recover before the killer can utilize that time unless you pair it with enduring and Spirit fury. At that point, it's basically just enduring/spirit fury doing all the actual work and getting a hit that 2 can play didn't really contribute to.
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I'd definitely avoid adding a bunch of new status effects each update. It's rough enough having to remember killer specific status effects and what all they do (Doctor's madness for example), it would be WAY too much to remember if we start tossing them on perks and expect people to remember 50 different icons on the side of the screen. The whole point of status effects is they can be reused for multiple perks. This game is enough of a knowledge check with people having to remember the effects of each perk and addon. We don't need to make even MORE complicated by having new status effect icons with every update.
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Most of these could be improved with simple number fixes and tweaks, tbh.
Except Potential Energy. But that perk was a solution to a problem that doesn't exist anymore, much like Shattered Hope.
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the forum does not allow inappropriate language but this is one post where i would use some. In any case, i do not agree. the perk that are bad are often bad on all killers. i do not believe that there is any conspiracy theory behind killer perks and synergy. BVHR has no interesting in releasing killer perks worth using. BVHR is purposely balancing new killer perks badly to have little to no effect on gameplay.
BVHR now a days is like releasing perks to bandaid fix older killer perks. for example undying+face the darkness+thrill is 3 attempt fixes for hex perks. Rapid brutality is fix for STBFL. Scourge hook: Jagged Compass is fix perk for Flood of rage and Gift of pain. It is like half-baked fix for Scourge hook perks. So instead of buffing the perk/mechanic, they're making you spend extra perk slots to get some use out of older killer perk. what i mean by that instead of giving you 15% cooldown reduction base for stbfl, you run rapid brutality. instead spawning more scourge hook, you equip jagged compass. Instead of making totems take longer cleanse, giving 2nd life to all hex totems to improve lifespan, information when a survivor begins cleansing totems you have equip a bunch of plaster fix hex perks.
The upcoming perk for Fire-up is getting a buff. They're plaster fixing Brutal strength. they probably figured that 20% pallet break isn't very good or not good enough so they'll up number on Fire-up. I have no clue what number will be but they will likely up the numbers in attempt to make those perks worth using.
TL:DR Killer are not getting new perks. they're getting plaster fixes on old ones.
Post edited by Devil_hit11 on0
