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On The Topic of PERK Types: Addressing ALL The Issues Revolving Groups Of Perks.

NMCKE
NMCKE Member Posts: 8,243
edited February 2019 in General Discussions
Disclaimer: This is not my idea, all credit goes to @AlwaysInAGoodShape since he's the master mind behind it. Therefore, don't upvote/awesome the OP and give them to the person who deserves it since really I'm just the messager. Furthermore, we decided to share his idea since it's worthy of a share as we both read over it thinking this might have some potential to it! So, here we are looking into this idea, long post! :)

Perk Types


Introduction


There are a couple types of perks:

Obsession Perks
-Active Ability Perks
-Very Situation Perks
-Self-Sufficiency Perks
-Heartbeat Perks
-Blindness Perks
-Hex Perks
-Killer Aura Reading Perks
-Teambuff Perks
-Bloodpoint Perks
-Possible-Net-Cost Perks
-Exhaustion Perks (Solved through exhaustion)

This post is supposed to be short on every subject. Perk-Types can of course be split in many more categories, such as insta down perks and so on, but I noted the most relevant ones here.
Since I consider Exhaustion perks solved with the introduction of the Exhaustion Debuff, we'll only cover the ones still deemed problematic by Type-Design, as for you to have an idea on which state every perk-types are in.
We assume based on feedback that the previously mentioned are indeed problematic and will quickly dive into the problem definition and a possible solution.
The topics are written independently of each other. Feel free to skip right to the Perk-Type you're interested in. Arguing and talking about them does not need additional information to what is explained under each Perk-Type headline.

Obsession Perks



The problem:


Obsession perks have such an unequal balance distribution and lack of perks within the category that we are able to most often guess what exact perk someone is running, removing the otherwise mind-game aspect of the post.

On top of that; because of the Perk Decisive Strike, killers are Dis-incentivised to pick obsession perks themselves, as this would remove their knowledge of knowing whether a player (or multiple members within the team) run(s) such a perk.


Solution:


The Devs will release 1 more 6 perk Obsession Perk based DLC introducing 6 more obsession perks. Rebalance among weaker obsession perks is a priority.
On top of that: When the Obsession Icon is inflicted upon a survivor, by the killer's perk alone: The killer will only see the 2 giant fingers surrounding the obsession icon and the 2 smaller ones will be missing.
If either both the killer and survivor are running an obsession perk or only the survivor is running an obsession perk, the killer will see the original icon.
The survivor does not benefit from this HUD information in the opposite way. (To be debated)

Active Ability Perks

The problem:


The problem with Active Ability Perks is that there's only a limited space for their design. For example: Dead Hard while injured. X Why downed, Y when in the healthy State and Z while being hooked...
We kind of run out of options. With only 1 active ability button, we don't want certain perks to awkwardly conflict with each other.

Solution:


It could be said that with 4 active ability buttons and 4 perk slots, we'd have fixed the issue. However, that is not the path we're exploring in this thread:
The way we can solve this is by creating 2 perk categories: The Normal Perk and the Active Ability Perk. Active Ability perks have a slightly different outlook (Be it a differently coloured border), which makes them distinct from normal perks.
Active Ability perks can only be placed within the 1st Perk slot when creating your build and are a 1 of.

With such a change, we can see the free development of an infinite amount of ability based perks without problems and awkward circumventions as mentioned in **The Problem**.

It would also prevent us from having to come up with less optimal solutions like:

Beast Of Prey Rework
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/43685/best-of-prey-rework-but-youd-actually -use-it/p1 when the active ability button is simply more optimal.

Very Situational Perks

The problem:


The problem with very situational perks like Hangman's Trick and Lightborn is that they are so situational that in certain games they CANNOT have value. Since they typically try to address a certain issue with the game, they are all too often more of a forum counter-argument than an actual solution in the cases where they would have been needed.
(Do not inflate situational perks with perks like Adrenaline and Unbreakable, because those do in every game have a chance at providing value.)

Solution:


Very situational perks must also provide general value; value that gained even when the main theme behind the perk isn't being met.
This general value should be estimate to be around 85% of a normal perk.

Calm spirit is an example; when you aren't playing against a doctor or a clown you still have the general anti-crow mechanic & no yelling when hit mechanic)
Sadly in this case, the strength of that mechanic is not close to being 85% of a normal perk, but it does illustrate how such a situational perk should work.

Self-Sufficiency Perks

The problem:


When people see data on the usage rate of Self-Care they are often shocked; Oh so many pick it, almost as if a law was passed that obliged you limit yourself to 3 free perk-slots as Self-Care took that spot.
Data like that often interpreted as Self-Care Being overpowered, yet perks like Self-Care are significantly less problematic than perks like Decisive Strike. So why is self-care picked so often? Perhaps the data suggests something else; **Nobody likes to lose before they die**. That statement is really the question that challenges whether DBD is inherently a team-game or a Solo game. If it's a team-game then it's not directly obvious that the previous statement should be reckoned with as in team-games, without team-members you should indeed lose. If you are solo then the statement becomes extremely relevant.
(You can have a team-game while still being self-sufficient, but that's a subject for another time.)

So self-care tells us the story that people do not want their win to be dependent on things they don't have control over (strangers in a solo-environment), which is why such perks are highly preferred. 

Solution:


This may be controversial, but: Self-Care should be base-kit, as this perk is so detrimental at making the game enjoyable in it's base state for so many players.
Similar self-sufficient perks like Unbreakable may also see a rework and with more integrated elements into the base-kit, as a lack of self-sufficiency is something that worsen certain design-flaw-aspects of the game, like the extreme Death-Efficiency, being the effect of the loss of a teammate on the overall generator repair efficiency of the whole team, as covered more thoroughly in:

Solution to the Death-Efficiency Problem
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/34870/solution-to-the-death-efficiency-prob lem-solving-the-games-biggest-issue/p1

Heartbeat Perks

The problem:


Heartbeat perks are hard to balance. After all, you are only in their presence a somewhat small duration of the time and dependent on which map you're in, they might either be decent or useless.
It's hard to play around with each individual heartbeat perk to find the exact desired balance-point.

Solution:


@Slicksal proposed a general solution to all heartbeat based perks in

A few killer perk buff Ideas
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/45397/a-few-killer-perk-buff-ideas/p1 in which he proposes to make heartbeat perks to work like Leader, in which the effect persists even after leaving for a certain duration.

This variable alone provides us with the tools to either make a perk overpowered or underpowered:
If Coulrophobia persisted for 3 minutes, then this perk might be overpowered. If Coulrophobia persisted for only 10 seconds then it might be underpowered. Such a simple change to heartbeat based perks would make heartbeat-Perk balancing as easy as moving a slider up/down (and in this particular case more often up).

Blindness Perks

The problem:


SWF's... that's the problem. Dead By Daylight is evidently designed around the Solo Experience. It doesn't matter that the Devs say that SWF's were intended to be part of the game; Perks suggest otherwise and Blindness Perks are the prime example of this.
SWf's can render Blindness perks useless, which disincentives players for picking them. Only in cases like a Marth88's nurse can you expect a perk like Hex: The Third Seal to be ran.

Solution Missing:


There are solutions like separate queue's for Solo's and SWF's, but debates on that subject hasn't been settled yet.
Your Solutions regarding this topic are highly welcome!

Hex Perks

The problem:


1 Hex perks are too easy to find. 
2 You can randomly spawn close to a Hex: totem rendering them useless.
3 Hex totems that only take effect later into the game are significantly weaker due to their likely hood of ever adding value being decreased.

The Devs have been working on new totem spots together with a Light of Sight feature that should prevent you from randomly finding a Hex: totem at the start. However, this has only tackled part of the issue, and the LOS feature does not accomplish too much.

Solution:



**Change 1:**
Hex totems no longer give a notification, neither indicating there to be a Hex Perk and neither specifying which one.

**Change 2:**
Hex perks no longer automatically bind themselves to a Dull Totem at the start of a match. They only bind themselves (if there still is a dull totem left) once they are actively being used; using does not mean getting a token etc. Using means that the Hex Perk is actually providing it's real value;
Hex Ruin & Lullaby would only turn on the moment someone gets their first skill-check. Devour Hope (slightly worked in their tier system) would work the moment the killer receives their movement speed. 

This change is funnily enough also inspired by beHaviour themselves as they originally came up with this solution. This is namely how NOED was treated, which would've otherwise be a nearly useless perk if it bound itself to a dull totem at the start of the game, as would every other Hex: totem. The solution proved itself to work. The only thing people critiqued was the strength attached to the totem, not the fact that it activated the moment it started to take effect (bonus-movementspeed).

Killer Aura Reading Perks


The problem:


They are simply very un fun for a survivor. Balance to this question is irrelevant. Out-playability is only partly relevant.
This game offers 2 options: Looping with pallets or to stealth.
All tools to make looping work are given to you, but most tools for stealth come in the form of perk. In other ways: 1 play-style if given to you for free where as the other has you pay.

The 2nd play-style is what newer players feel this game as about; they are still deluded by the idea behind the game and have not figured out that this is not a horror game. It's an efficient-turning simulator and the killer finding you is generally not a problem.

It's important to know that the 2nd play-style is what survivors feel is very enjoyable. It makes things feel like in the movies.
When such a survivor is downed as a result of such a perk: Healing inside of the basement against a stealth killer / BBQ&Chilied as the last survivor alive, whether lockers were present or not, they shake their head:
Even if it is theoretically balanced and out-playable; it kept conflicting with their original picture of the game; the version that they play the game for.

Solution Missing:


BeHaviour has attempted to tackle the out-playability aspect of it and introduced the new aura-reading locker feature. This was well celebrated as it was a step at making aura-reading less relevant. It also perfectly addressed people's original concept of the locker and what it should be: The ultimate provider of stealth.

That was a version of an actual pretty good job so far, but to our understanding of the inherent problem of people's original perception of this game; the problem still stands, to whatever degree, and I will leave it at that; as an unsolved debate.

Teambuff Perks

The problem:


Teambuff perks are amazing! It always makes you smile there's someone running a perk just to improve someone else's experience as well and afford the risk of not having all strength of their otherwise completely own perk belonging to themselves.

There is a problem though, and that is that they can often be used in great synergy, but lack of communication prevents them from doing so:

What if you run Open handed? It's very unlikely that people will benefit from it as much as they would've wanted had they been aware. 

Solution:


Survivors can see each others equipped Perks + Items + Add-Ons when in the lobby, allowing them to adjust their build when seeing a certain survivor run a certain perk.

For minimal effort, these perks, items and add-ons should always be visible and not hidden until a certain button is pressed. Otherwise the law of least effort and laziness may ruin this mechanic.

The problem:


Bloodpoint perks

Either their Blood-points aspect is used to make the perk useless/weak, or it's creates game throwing (WGLF).
There's also a great distinction between the 1 that only increased BP but is limited to the CAP and the 1 that exceed the CAP.

Solution Missing:


There are various debated regarding WGLF and to prevent farm-like game-throwing. We also see perks like No One Left Behind that barely ever see the light of day.

Most seem to suggest a rework and do not have an over-all disciplinary solution. The debate surrounding those perks seem to be individualistic and can barely be called close to being settled.


The problem:


These are perks like Dying Light, Autodidact and No-Mither; perks that might Harm you more than they help you! The fact that they can harm you more than they might help you already puts a lot of pressure regarding their compensating reward, which creates tenser balancing conditions.

Solution:


We do away with the idea of having perks that can hurt you more than they can help you. Perks that have such elements integrated will have those elements removed.
Their end-buff might be lessened as a reactionary result.

End Note

What do you guys think?

Do you agree with the premise of each topic that the problem is in fact a problem?
Do you agree with the solutions?
Do you have additional insight to share on each separate topic?
Are there Perk-Type's relevant that are missing?
Do you have any of your own particular solutions regarding said perk-type problem?

Let me know in the comments down below!

Comments

  • HatCreature
    HatCreature Member Posts: 3,298

    First off, honered I got mentioned :)

    So I came up with a thing in a random thread where Blindness was talked about. I mentioned that Blindness should have an aditional effect similar to Clown's bottles where your actual vision was distorted slightly and shakes, on top of the Aura Blindness. The intensity of the distortion and shakes would have to be tweaked because it will be there until the effect wheres off or until the totem is destroyed. Though this doesn't help with Knockout, just with Third Seal and add-ons.

    For the Net-Cost Perks, now I get that a general solution is desired so all of them can be fixed at the same time but I don't think it's possible without completely destroying the perk. Those perks have negative effects to counter the super powerful benefits. I think each one needs needs to be looked at individually.

    I came up with a Dying Light change: every time the Obsession is hit or hooked the other Survivors recieve a penalty towards their repair,healing etc, and the Obsession is healed/unhooked the penalty goes away. When the Obsession dies the penalty is increased to maximum, I think it's 25% and it's permanent. So Injured is -15% hooked is an additional 5 and then those go down when healed and unhooked then increases to -25 when the Obsession dies. This gives Survivors counter to the perk and also gives the Killer a benefit for the entire match. But that's Dying Light, no idea how to fix Autodidact which I love but can never get enough Skillchecks, or No Mither etc.

    I think these are amazing solutions, this is a great thread and hopefully the Devs can get some ideas from this because the community is getting better and better and trying to solve problems. Some of us might might as well get together and make a game ourselves, I'm a writer so I can come up with the story and characters and such :D

  • Raptorrotas
    Raptorrotas Member Posts: 3,254
    Selfcare should never be basekit in its current state. That one alone would warrant killers to get all %-bonus perks like BS,SB,Enduring,Unrelenting etc to be made basekit too.

    Whenevervi see that death-effiency-"problem" I wonder why survivors should be compensated for another person failing. Killers have to use perks for that.
    -As a solosurv who doesnt care about random, why reward him with buffs?
    -Swf's who failed to protect, why the reward? 
    Nothing btween those statements deserves  some buffs for letting other survs die.
    Imagine that happening in a deathmatch team shooter.

    Cant wait for the "TR-perk is OP" posts after the lingering effect is tested in ptb, really.

    For bloodpoint perks/offerings Im of the opinion that there should be a rework of postgame bonuses or something like that.
    Like remove !escape and !nooneescapes bp-scores and replace them with a 30-50% (or 15%per kill for all those"killers just want 4k idiots") bonus on everything. Like with other perks, you dont need it as perk if its in the base.
  • AlwaysInAGoodShape
    AlwaysInAGoodShape Member Posts: 1,301

    @Raptorrotas

    Selfcare should never be basekit in its current state. That one alone would warrant killers to get all %-bonus perks like BS,SB,Enduring,Unrelenting etc to be made basekit too.

    Whenevervi see that death-effiency-"problem" I wonder why survivors should be compensated for another person failing. Killers have to use perks for that.
    -As a solosurv who doesnt care about random, why reward him with buffs?
    -Swf's who failed to protect, why the reward?
    Nothing btween those statements deserves some buffs for letting other survs die.
    Imagine that happening in a deathmatch team shooter.

    This is the art of balancing: Things have to be 1:1. Each 1 represents 1 side: killer/survivor. What isn't apparent in this "1" is that there might be a lot of toxic elements that generates a lot of negative player-experience.

    You can use whatever tools you have to change that inherent toxicity. What will end up happening as a result is; you might change 1 to 2, or 1 to less than 1. meaning you might end up with something like: 2:1, which of course is an imbalance!

    The trick is that after you have solved something inherently toxic, you make the other side match the change in the number; in this case: 2:2.

    Now understand that:

    -As a solosurv who doesnt care about random, why reward him with buffs?
    -Swf's who failed to protect, why the reward?
    Nothing btween those statements deserves some buffs for letting other survs die.

    is not true. This would only have been true if we had never changed the second 1 to 2.
    We aren't dealing with 2:1, which would've made your statement correct. We are dealing with 2:2. As much as we "buff" survivors for dying, they are also "nerfed" as much in their base-state.

    With that in mind, you'll quickly discover that there's no such thing as a buff in the increasing of their generator efficiency upon death, because we also expect them to die more often.

    I wonder why survivors should be compensated for another person failing.

    This is what good games do. Take Age Of Empires for example in the form of a team-game: When 3 team-games are competing with one another and 1 person in team A gets killed, what'll happen? person i team A will Gift all his resources to another member in team A.
    So why does person 2 in team A deserve resources for the death of team-member 1 in team A?

    It's pretty easy really; Microsoft understood Death-Efficiency and was way ahead of its time. This is why we can say:

    "Age of Empires is a Game that stood the Test of Time"

    With tournaments even in the year 2019.
    The beautiful thing is: Even in AoE, you don't want your teammates to die, even though they will gift you resources, for the fact that you have a population gap and a need time to micro manage everything. The DBD equivalent is: Even if you buff survivors so much upon the death of a survivor that they, as a lower-survivor-count would be faster at finishing all generators, then you still wouldn't want your team-members to die since it's a loss. If only 2 people were alive and you had more than a 200% generator repair speed, then you are still in a disadvantage as the amount of targets for the killer have drastically decreased and the pressure on each individual one has significantly increased.

    Thus what happens in both AoE and DBD is not that you celebrate the loss of a member, but that you try to do everything to prevent it from happening. Whenever it happens though, you grow in strength and the opposing team will increasingly have to deal with your power, which slowly matches theirs.

    For this reason in AoE even after the death of a team-member may you possibly see 1 player coming back against the other 3 players. Not for the reason that he got stronger from the death of his team member, but for the reason that he got a boost in resources, which now highlights his skill.

    That is the effect of solving Death-Efficiency:
    Your incentive remains to save your teammates, if not for the reason that a whole team still has a higher total of repair speed/can more dynamically reposition themselves, then it's for the reason to have more targets on the field and ensure your own life.
    In the beginning your skill is less relevant; the killer can avoid you, but with the effects of solving it, as people die, the killer has to increasingly deal with the talents of the remaining other.

    Imagine that happening in a death-match team shooter.

    It's really easy to imagine it in any game. Death-Efficiency as related to DBD is a comeback mechanic.

    I can name you lists of games that have come-back mechanics, to prevent a game from being a "settled" before its over.
    League of Legends rewards you after killing someone who has killed your team-members! Why should that happen?
    Very successful game companies know the answer; because that creates compelling gameplay in which the game is never "over" before it ends; which translates to our statement:

    "You don't want to lose before you die".

  • thesuicidefox
    thesuicidefox Member Posts: 8,223
    edited February 2019

    This is a known issue in game development, it's called feature creep: where you add so much stuff to the game it becomes overwhelming. Generally it refers to the practice of the developer just wanting to put every new idea into the game instead of just refining the stuff that's already there leading to situations where you waste development resources on new content that should be allocated to simply improving the product, but it can also refer to the situation we face now in DBD where we just have a LOT of "stuff" in the game and it becomes harder and harder to both balance that stuff and come up with new original stuff.

    We have 1 more killer that is coming out, as we were told that 4 were in the works when BHVR acquired the rights to DBD before Clown. Hopefully that means that after this next chapter the devs take a bit of a break from new content and instead focus on adjusting the current content to balance things and give everything a unique purpose to the game. I'd be fine with not having a new killer for 6 months while they work on that, we have a ton of stuff already so every time they add more it just makes that job that much more difficult.

  • BlackReaper
    BlackReaper Member Posts: 134

    These are not good ideas, these are what the game need desperate. Some changes that shift the game in a more skillful way, giving to both parts better and new weapons to create a flat-balance game, where the difference is by your own, what you do, how good and experience you have.
    I really want this game to be kind of competitive, but highly prefer a balance game, and after think about all the current problems and his solve, i have to say this is the best way i can imagine.
    Solving the death-efficiency is the key to fix this massive gen rush, im main survivor and even me, i hate it, games just fly away in few minutes and you cant even archivent some point to get rank up, but in the current state of the game, if you slow the generator you can only makes a unwinnable games for survivors. Thats how important are this changes.
    Devs really should look for this, the players are the best to suggest ideas for the game they play and love.
    A pretty good job as always @AlwaysInAGoodShape
    I hope your voice is heard. :+1: