Feedback on the livestream stuffs
Hi! First of all, the livestream was really cool! I know the community can be a bit…harsh sometimes, but I really appreciate you guys hopping on a stream, and having more of the devs speak about what you plan to change and I especially appreciate the insights on what the logic behind these things is. Super cool. W stream.
Now I'll address my first impressions of the things mentioned in the stream. Specifically the changes to the game.
Opinion on players uninstalling:
I can understand players uninstalling the game due to things they perceive as annoying like tunneling, slugging and camping. However, I will say this. These are more of an issue because of how the community reacts to them, than because of the actions themselves. And the same can be said for killers. So many times i've seen killers get furious over survivors going for flashlight saves, which are just survivors playing good as a team. This is an attitude problem, not a game problem. And it should not be encouraged. When players have to adapt, instead of being catered to, they eventually do. I do sincerely think this community has an attitude issue.
As much as we should try to mitigate some degree of player frustration, and we should absolutely consider when things are unhealthy, or poorly balanced regardless of how players feel, the more we say "you're valid to crash out about this" the more crashing out about things slowly becomes people's default response to frustrations, however minor or preventable. And this goes for both killers and survivors. There is a point where you, as the devs can, in fact, say: well this is the way the game is and you have the tools to deal with it. You've done it before.
I will say, as well. I think if survivors actually got properly rewarded by helping their team, even if they themselves die in the process, it would probably go a long way towards making some of these tactics be perceived as less of an issue. A survivor should ideally not feel frustrated if they die and their whole team escapes. They should consider it a win, and they should be treated as if they won by the game and rewarded accordingly.
Now to the changes themselves:
FACECAMPING CHANGES:
People have said that the anticamp meter is almost like base kit kindred. And I think that this is mostly fine. However, 20 meters is waaaaaaaayyy too much info. This is more info than SWF can provide in a lot of cases. Survivors will know you're near the hook, meaning they can stay on gens, or make other decisions because they know your position, which is really bad, especially for stealth killers. Like, you can always tell when a ghost face is 20 meters from the hook, for example. This is too much info.
I don't think this is okay. I think the distance should be reduced. 12 meters max.
TUNNELING CHANGES:
A Few Observations:
Yes, at higher MMR survivors are more efficient and you have to tunnel sometimes.
Also, I don't think all instances of 2 hooks on the same survivor should be considered tunneling for statistics, nor should you use this term for it to the community. It warps perceptions, and the attitude of players.
Here is the only instance of tunneling that should be problematic: You see a survivor at the beginning of the game, and hook that survivor 3 times, while going after them immediately after they get unhooked.
That is THE only problematic type of tunneling. Everything else is just players responding to each other and to the match. (Note that if it happens when 2 or 3 gens are done already, it also should NOT be problematic tunneling).
Protections:
The anti tunnel protections are mostly fine. The only one I have a problem with is the survivor seeing the killer's aura, and it's only the distance that they see the aura that I find problematic. 32 meters is WAAAAY to much. If you're being tunneled 8 meters is more than enough to help you at loops.
Unique Hook Rewards:
This is a bit of a shame. The BP bonus is great. Love that. There is no amount of BP that will make me throw a game if I think tunneling is the better option at a particular moment.
Also, the bloodlust on unique hooks is just too small of a bonus. It's useless for a lot of killers. Hag, for instance comes to mind. She gets no use out of this. You want to give a fair bonus to killers for unique hooks? 10% gen regression on the gen with the highest progress, which does not count towards the max gen regression event count when getting a unique hook. This helps ALL killers. No matter if they're mobility, set up, stealth, whatever. Then I dunno, make it not stack with Pain Res, or change the effect of Pain Res, or something. I would rather lose pain res, and have the game be better at base, than neuter the game because of one perk.
SLUGGING CHANGES:
Observations:
Why do people slug more in "The Game"? Because there are so many pallets, that survivors getting downed at pallets is just too easy. When a survivor is downed under a pallet, you might have to slug them because of a potential pallet save. This goes for any map that gets more pallets, and this SHOULD be something you consider when thinking about how to resolve the issue of slugging. Survivors can, in fact, force a slug like this, almost for as long as they want.
The changes themselves:
The most important thing is: ANTI-SLUG SHOULD DEACTIVATE AFTER ALL GENS ARE POWERED
The changes seem more reasonable than before, but there are a few situations where I still think allowing survivors to pick themselves up might be a bit strong:
Picture this: 3 gens are done and the killer has 2 hooks. Slugging everyone is the only thing the killer can do to try to bring back the match. Survivors at that point don't have much of an incentive to pick each other up, because they can just let their teammates be on the floor, they'll pick themselves up eventually. This discourages team play and it kills killer pressure, for no good reason.
How would I fix this? I think the most important thing is that anti slug should deactivate when all gens are done, just like DS, OTR and the tunnel protection. I think at end game everything goes, and if the killer thinks the only thing they can do is try to slug everyone, then the killer should be able to. It's endgame. Ideally, the self pickup should only happen ONCE in a match and never again. But if you want to keep it, at least turn it off during end game.
AZAROV'S CHANGES:
I actually love the new look. Can't wait to try it out on PTB.
SCRATCH MARK COLORS:
This is excellent! Love it. It'd be great if we could preset the scratch mark color for each map, just so we don't have to fiddle with it mid match. It'd be good to be able to do this per realm and if we want, per map.
SKULL MERCHANT CHANGES:
I don't have an opinion on the balancing of the killer, because I don't play her or like her. But I think it is extremely unfair to her players, people who bought her, purchased cosmetics for her, etc, that you gutted her for a year, and then you come back saying that the rework for her is just too much work for you to do. I am sorry, I don't like being mean to you devs, but I think this is not acceptable treatment of a section of your community. I only hope that you listen to the her players after they test the buffs and actually do right by them.
And these are all the opinions I have at the moment. We'll have to test them during the PTB. Overall, I like concessions made for some of the changes, but I think you can do even better. Thank you so much for doing this stream and being more transparent with us. I know I appreciate it, and I think the community probably does too.