http://dbd.game/killswitch
How To Fix Invocations
The Invocation perk type is an interesting one, and in my opinion it's not too far away from being genuinely great. There's just small things standing in the way, but cumulatively those small things really do weigh the archetype down far too much for them to be consistently worth bringing - albeit not equally across the two perks we have, one is considerably better than the other.
Here's what I think the perk type should get. There are two changes I have in mind for the overall framework of Invocations, and one change for each perk individually. We'll start with the framework:
- Change one: Broken no longer lasts indefinitely, but rather only until you are next put into the Dying State.
I can understand why permanent Broken was settled on for the Invocation framework, especially since the release Invocation - Weaving Spiders - is arguably strong enough to actually justify it, but I think currently that it puts too much pressure and penalty onto players. Reworking the Broken to only last until the next time you're downed still maintains it as an immediate threat if the killer catches you on your way out of the basement, and it still pushes you to play cautiously and carefully (as well as encouraging bringing perks that work while injured), but it doesn't make you as incapable of engaging with any healing or protection related game mechanics after that point.
Since there's also the time investment to activate Invocations, I think a more temporary Broken would add up to a more appropriate level of downside and investment for the effects.
- Change two: Running both (or more, in the future) Invocations only requires one channelling action.
This decision I don't understand. Boons work this way, Scourge Hooks work this way, I don't see any reason that Invocations shouldn't. Stacking the perks takes up multiple perk slots and doesn't allow you to bypass the setup time or Broken downside, with those downsides being the exact same per perk, so why not allow survivors to do both at once?
Simple change that'd make the perk archetype feel a lot more usable.
Now, the changes to the perks themselves:
- Weaving Spiders: Now applies its effect to generators that are blocked when the Invocation finishes.
Weaving Spiders is already a pretty good perk with a very strong effect, so it doesn't need a genuinely potent buff. This is more of a QoL buff that takes away feel-bad moments where you're screwed out of your perk working fully even though you paid the cost for it on both counts.
- Treacherous Crows: Now reveals the killer's aura as long as a survivor is in the terror radius and a crow is startled by any means.
Treacherous Crows is not as good as Weaving Spiders, but that doesn't mean its core effect isn't potentially strong. Map-wide consistent aura reading on the killer for the whole team is damn good, but the perk's currently held back by having too many restrictions.
This way, the perk still requires the killer to have a consistent terror radius, which limits its uptime a little, but ultimately actually provides a consistent reward for the dual price of charge time and temporary Broken.
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With those changes made, I think Invocations as a framework would be in a much healthier spot with far more ability to design newer ones. A defined shared framework, but room for each individual perk to have good variation.
Comments
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they're pretty far from being game-changing perks that warp trial on potency level. The drawback of them is icing on cake for making them border-line terrible perks.
In my opinion, they should make Weaving spiders remove 10 charges from the trial upon completion and every 90 seconds, it will continuously remove 10 charges from generators.
Treacherous crows should reveal aura every 15 seconds for 3 seconds. If a crow is disturbed, the aura is revealed for an additional 2 seconds.
These would make them high rewards+high risk perks. I do not think they would be meta defining. to make them meta defining, they would need lower the risk from permanent broken to 90 seconds of broken. this would make them high reward, medium risk.
I hope these perks never become meta. they would be super unfun for killer to play against. fast gens+stronger looping survivors. no thanks.
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I honestly think the issue with Invocations is that the numbers aren't worth the effect.
Weaving Spiders is pretty close, and it might benefit from a small numbers buff, but the REAL issue is that it isn't always consistent, since the developers have decided it would not apply to blocked generators. This needs to be fixed.
Treacherous Crows on the other hand could do with the Terror Radius requirement being dropped, and the numbers upped to 3 seconds.
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That's pretty much what I suggested for Weaving Spiders, so, yes.
As for Treacherous Crows, I still feel the killer being the one to startle the crow makes it too inconsistent. If it's changed to anyone startling a crow, but the terror radius requirement remains, you've got a much more consistent version of the effect.
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In January, I read another user’s post on the forums that said something like “the developers actually think invocation perks are strong and trial-altering” but this sentiment has never sat well with me. It’s a pretty bold move to accuse the developers of having limited game knowledge. I think they know what they are doing, and they are being mediocre intentionally. If BHVR wants to reduce complaining and backlash, it makes business sense to make meh perks that don’t need adjusted. Playing things safe isn’t always the solution, though.
My genuine conspiracy theory is that invocation perks are mapped to two different buttons because there was a game breaking glitch when they combined together. If I am wrong and BHVR actually thinks they are strong perks, my mind will explode. We know they have a conference meeting just to discuss tomb names. If there was really a conference meeting where Taurie’s invocation was intentionally made to be strong/good — that means a table of people agreed to the idea. If a group of people who hold the keys really thought that — we have much much much bigger issues.0 -
I don't think Invocations should stack, especially if there are more to be released.
I would also like to discard Broken from these entirely.
So, here are my suggestions:
Invocation: Treacherous Crows
• Remove the terror radius condition.
• Replace Broken with Oblivious.
• Now, joining the ritual for at least 15 seconds increases the duration of the aura read by 0,5 seconds instead of speeding it up.Invocation: Weaving Spiders:
• Replace the Broken with Exposed.
• The charge reduction is now postponed in a case of a blocked generator.
• Now, joining the ritual for at least 10 seconds increases the charge reduction by 3 instead of speeding it up.0 -
What's wrong with Invocations stacking?
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We've largely agreed on the invocations for this one, though I do believe they should stack (at least ones equipped on the same person), because their weaknesses are: -
- The time investment to complete them
- The status penalty they inflict.
By stacking them, you are removing the time investment penalty, but you still have the status penalty.
The issue you have is with the time penalty, you have the same issue you have for chests/totems/glyphs, etc, where you are not advancing generators, and thus you are not making your time on Invocations worthwhile. Weaving Spiders gets a bit more of a pass because the time spent directly advances the survivors objective. The cost might be steep, maybe too steep, but the time you've spent is time that hasn't been wasted NOT doing the survivor objective.
Other Invocations will always suffer with the problem that the time investment is not worth it. Even if you made Treacherous Crows have no penalty at all, and even buffed it considerably… it'd still not be worth 60s off of gens to attain without the perk (and any future) being made utterly broken. Alternatively you could made it much shorter, and remove the risk of being found in basement as an element of the perk… but that in of itself is betraying of the deal you're meant to making with Invocations, as it big risk and cost for a potentially big reward. Weaving Spiders existing and stacking is what would make Invocations still worth considering.
Also from a practical standpoint, having Invocations not stack, means you keep the current problem of having to "assign Invocation" to the ring, which is current done with the active ability buttons… What happens when you equip 3 invocation perks? We've run out of buttons for controller :S
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Weaving Spiders is almost fine the way it is, it just needs to work on blocked gens. I realize the general rule is that blocked gens can't change their progression but given that this is a unique effect and comes with a hefty time investment + downside, it should just work regardless. But when it does apply to every generator, you can really feel the difference in gen speeds the rest of the match, it's not a negligible bonus at all and in the right situation I do think it's worth it.
Treacherous Crows on the other hand needs a more significant buff, the terror radius requirement limits it too much and 2 seconds is too short, sometimes you barely even notice the aura reveal. I think it could also gain an additional effect where the survivor who is Broken also gains the ability to not disturb crows (like Calm Spirit) making it more likely the killer would instead. Weaving Spiders makes up a lot of its time investment by reducing the end goals of the main objective, but Treacherous Crows doesn't, and it somehow needs to be worth that time investment.
I do not think invocations should be allowed to stack/all be completed with one ritual. This wouldn't be an issue with the current state of the perks since Treacherous Crows is far too weak in its current form, but I do think it could be overbearing if there were (eventually) 4 invocations that were actually as strong as they should be. With boon stacking it's different because the killer can also put them all out with one snuff action and disable a large chunk of your build at once, but invocations are permanent once completed and share the penalty of being broken (ie. being broken a 2nd time changes nothing) so I think stacking would be overkill if the individual perks were all actually good. If all invocation perks were as strong and potentially game-changing as they should be, there would be little reason not to stack multiple and complete them all at the same time if it were allowed.
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That are some good ideas and hopefully they change those perks sooner than later.
I would probably change the downsides differently and according to their strengths.
For weaving spiders I want: You lose one hook state after completing the invocation and if you are already on death hook, you are “lucky”.
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So, about the "core framework" of Invocation Perks.
What I gather is this:
- Must go into The Basement
- Must Perform an Action for a significant duration of time
- Interruption can significantly impact overall time-efficiency
- "Powerful" effect impacting the rest of The Trial.
- Only one Invocation can be applied to a Trial at a time.
What does this do to gameplay?
Pros:
- It gives a novel incentive for a Survivor to enter The Basement
Cons:
- Depending on overall metagame usefulness of Invocations, its Ritual will nearly always be completed without interruption, or Perks like Territorial Imperative will feel like they become "mandatory" to combat the Ritual.
- Only one Invocation effect allowed can result in SoloQ redundancy.
I personally would have suggested that invocations become more of a "flavor" of existing effects that just require the player to interact with something in The Basement.
EG:
Self-Care ⇒ Weaving Spiders
—Invocation time is 20s
—Invocation Perks are Inactive until an Invocation is completed, activating all Invocation Perks of assisting Invokers.
—When you're Injured, become Hindered by 90% for 3s and regain a Health State, this perk then becomes Inactive.
Treacherous Crows
—Invocation time is 20s
—Invocation Perks are Inactive until an Invocation is completed, activating all Invocation Perks of assisting Invokers.
—This Invocation gains 3/4/5 Tokens upon activation, and becomes Inactive upon using all Tokens.
—The next time you startle a Crow, consume a Token and reveal the Killers Aura for 5s.
Stake Out ⇒ Weaving Spiders ⇒ Auric Hands
—Invocation time is 20s
—Invocation Perks are Inactive until an Invocation is completed, activating all Invocation Perks of assisting Invokers.
—This invocation gains 4/5/6 Tokens upon activation, and becomes inactive upon using all Tokens.
— Good Skillchecks become Great Skillchecks and consume a Token.
Bond ⇒ Beckoning Beacon
—Invocation time is 20s
—Invocation Perks are Inactive until an Invocation is completed, activating all Invocation Perks of assisting Invokers.
—Your Aura is permanently revealed to all other Survivors.
etc.
But pertaining to your changes:
- There needs to be a trade off for using an Invocation as they are now, being significant permanent Trial modifiers.
- I agree that adding progress to blocked generators would be a nice QoL for Weaving Spiders.
- I don't agree that Invocations should stack, as if they did, the time benefit of stacking them all on one person (60s instead of 240s) would be too massive to not do so if Invocations are your jam. Boons at least are limited by radius, Invocations as they are, are a permanent modifier
- The above being said, it would be nice if players could see the Perks others bring in to help reduce accidental redundancy.
- The Aura read on Treacherous Crows could certainly be a bit longer, but for the remainder that a Survivor is within the TR is inconsistent between certain Killer Powers and could potentially allow coordinated players to utilize it as a permanent Blood Amber effect in-chase.
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