Should DBD integrate mid-match "level ups" or "tier ups"?
Similar to Overwatch or Fortnite, imagine being able to upgrade your build as you progress through a match. Imagine gaining an additional perk slot and being able to equip one new perk from a selection of three non-equipped perks. These perks should provide three various options, one for Lightbringer, one for Unbroken, and one for either Benevolent or Evader. If the survivors are at an "advantage" their third option type should be for Benevolent. If the survivors are at a "disadvantage" they should be offered an Evader option. Similarly, the killers should be offered 3 unique non-equipped perks; one for Chaser, one for Devout, and one for either Gatekeeper or Malicious. If the killer is at an "advantage" their third option's type should be Gatekeeper; otherwise, it should be Malicious.
You might be wondering how or when the prompt for a "tier up" should happen; in my humble opinion, they should occur every time a survivor is hooked and every time a generator pops. For example, if one survivor's been hooked and no gens have popped, the hooked survivor might be offered the perks: resurgence, resilience, or off the record. If the first generator pops and the killer has 2 hooks and no deaths, the killer might be offered dark arrogance, deerstalker, and grim embrace and he can choose two out of three of those perks. If the third gen pops, and the killer has 3 hooks, and no survivors are dead; the killer might be offered superior anatomy, hex: ruin, and dead man's switch, and he can choose 2/3 of those perks. Of course, it would be up to the killer or survivor to choose which perk of the three to keep, that decision could help change the course of the rest of game. In other words, each time a significant milestone is met, the player at a disadvantage is given a chance to potentially redeem themselves by expanding their build; meanwhile, the player with an advantage would still be offered miniscule upgrades.
I think this type of level up system would help modernize DBD. Not to mention it would pair nicely with DBD's ever expanding perk selection. In my opinion, counterplay is a huge aspect of what makes DBD fun and worth playing. I think this type of system would greatly benefit both killers and survivors alike. I'm sure this type of system is much more ambitious than I think it is, I mean, imagine the chaos. You would constantly have to stay on your toes for any new perks in the killer's loadout; not to mention you would have to be up to date on what every perk does. Another way to balance this system on the survivor side might be to create a "perk pool", every time a survivor adds a perk to their build that perk is removed from the perk pool, and no other survivors can add it to theirs for the remainder of the trial. Now that I think about it, this level up system might be better left for a separate game mode since it would practically be a whole different game, and it would require a different level of skill. If a system like this was integrated into the game, I don't think I'd ever disconnect again.
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My friend made has a killer idea similar to this, where he could upgrade with power with tokens at certain stations around the map. Although, I don't know if this is good for the whole game. I feel like this would be a cool limited time event, similar to 2v8. But always? No, the thing is with DBD is that most matches are really quick, limiting time for cool gimmicks like this. Games you mentioned such as Fortnite have signifigantly longer matches, up to 30 minutes. Matches this long never really happen in DBD unless the survivors are really bad or the killer has the best 3 gen to ever exist.
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I think it's an interesting idea but it's difficult because the nature of the game is that both sides become weaker the more the other has progressed their objective. So the benefits would either be kinda useless or limited to a point where it's not interesting.
Maybe they could make something like it work as an edition of chaos shuffle potentially1 -
I wouldn't call dynamic game balancing a modern design, but I'm not entirely against the idea.
However, I would separate these bonuses into their own category, able to be useless (and/or amplified) if used in conjunction with the Perkslot effect, you can bring the perk to ensure activation regardless of game-state, but there's greater opportunity cost in doing so, possibly might get people to slot meta perks less often.
Chaser/Devout/Malicious/Gatekeeper are poor choices of words to describe the categories you want, and why you want them. You do not describe how each category should function, nor their differences. The typical categories are:
- Mobility - Traverse the map faster
- Information - Know where survivors are
- Lethality - Get survivors health-states down faster.
- Delay - Make the survivors spend more time in the Trial
Furthermore, gatekeeper (Delay) and malicious (Lethality), both contribute to the Killers overall advantage, the only skill-gap in this regard would be to pick the one your Killer is worse at (same goes for survivors, choosing the perk their build lacks, this can be pre-planned). The player(s) at advantage should lose out on the maximum number of choices instead, with the disadvantaged side gaining one, to make a statistical difference.
You never make any mention of what perks should be in the pool: a present set of base-game perks? Do newly introduced perks get added to these categories? What's the process of deciding which category a perk is in?
Overall this reeks of AI generation with little revision.
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Well, survivor is interesting in that depending on how they complete their generators, they've either made their progress harder or easier to complete: see getting gen****** - Killer: all gens are the farthest they can be from one another. Survivor: They're all as close as they can be to one another.
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@AssortedSorting You're right, my original post was made quickly and without much thought; that's because I have a job and a life outside of this forum. Anyway, your explanation seems much more thought out than mine. I especially like your category descriptors like "Mobility" and "Lethality"; that's exactly what I was trying to get at. Finally, I think all perks in the roster should have an opportunity to show up; even if they're "low-tier". My original idea was: if you're at an advantage you should only be presented with low-tier perks; if you're at a disadvantage you should be presented with higher-tier perks to choose from. Yes, that is a vague description and I'm not too sure how to balance nor design it beyond that; but thank God it's not my job to figure it out either. I'm just hoping someone at BHVR will take my free ideas as inspiration to come up with even better ideas of their own. Thank you for your constructive criticism.
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