New game mechanic suggestion: Entity's blessings/curses
Dbd is a game in constant evolution, players growing expertise, introduction of new killers/maps/perks, had made so that in the course of the last year, year and a half, a lot of changes were made to try to cope, or improve the general game experience for both sides (even if usually killer side seems to be the one that most needed attention).
Every player has a different level of expertise, and some thinks some mechanics were better before, some are glad the way those are implemented now. Personally I think that the actual big problem for who plays killer, is that, if the killer does not keep the survivor under constant pressure, it will get gen-rushed in most circumstances (bare in mind that I’m main survivor, but I’m neither pro-killer nor pro-survivor, I’m trying to be on the game side as a whole).
From a statistical point of view, the more the match lasts, the more the killer has the possibility to succeed in killing the players, and nowadays, experienced survivors, know how to play, being on a team of friends or being with random matched people, when you are good you are good. I think that this is also due to the fact that some strategies that were viable before, are no longer there. I’m taking as an example, being a saboteur, or a rescuer with the flashlight…..please don’t jump on the scream wagon altogether, I’m not suggesting to revert to those times. I’m just saying that when those playstyles were viable, it was rare that a killer would have found 4 people focused on doing generators all the match. If you don’t think so, try and play a game where only you are a saboteur and look at how much the trial lasts (and also which party usually win XD).
What I was thinking is something that could introduce more variance in the matches, and give survivors or killers more things to do, besides repairing/breaking generators.
The entity’s curses / blessings
Let’s assume that in every match, both killers and survivors could find some objects scattered around the map, or maybe obtain them as a consequence of performing some actions or series of actions; let’s call them “entity belongings”.
these objects may be carried by the killer/survivor during the trial, and the player has to still have it at the end of the trial to get it in it’s inventory.
Both parties may try to get it from the opponent, hitting the survivor/or stunning the killer may make him drop the entity’s belonging. The amount of belongings a survivor/killer may carry per match, is to be decided during the balancing analysis
There could be many types of entity’s belonging which may be needed in various proportion to asks for a blessing /curse
Let’s also assume that a certain amount of those objects could be used (as consumable, just like the offerings) to ask the entity for blessing/curses; which basically are temporary modification of the game mechanics, just for that match. (it would be nice to see the survivor throw the offerings into the campfire, for the entity [PRAISE THE ENTITY....sorry XD])
The game is asymmetrical so I was thinking maximum 1 blessing per survivor, and maximum 4 curses for the killer.
As an example a survivor/Killer may need an amount X of entity’s belongings of various type (a vaule that can easily adjusted/balanced) to ask the entity for a blessing, maybe on the flashlight effect, or the pallet spawn, or to block or increase hooks auto repair. On the other side also the killer could make his offerings to make the flashlight even more useless, or to have the ability to close or immediately identify the hatch, or to alter decisive strike behavior (like the example showed in one of the developer streams, where once you used DS you cannot heal yourself anymore).
Since those modifiers are based on offerings, no one could use those at every match (because you need to obtain, entity’s belongings, and both the survivors, or the killer, may not know what the other adversary asked the entity for, before the loading screen (when offerings are showed).
Entity’s blessing/curses should be designed in such a way that they can balance out each other, where there is the possibility
I’ll make just a couple of examples to try and clarify (those are just ideas I came up with to give some examples)
Blessing of the lightborn / Fear of the dark:
Modifies flashlights
Blessing of the lightborn:
Increased probability of finding a flashlight in the chests (maybe with or without addon)
Augmented angle of effect when pointing the light to the killer (basically reverting the flashlight to the old ones, with easy timings and the ability to blind from the side, or when you are followed)
Any other significant buff that you can think about
Fear of the dark:
The angle of the flashlight is reduced, it’s consumption rate is augmented, probability of finding flashlight in chests is reduced, a succesfull blind of the killer overheats the flashlights that cannot be used until X seconds has passed ( or maybe the flashiglht gets overcharged and there are chances that it may electrocutes randomly the survivor in the next X seconds, making him scream and giving away it’s position)
Blessing of courage / course of cowardness
Modifies borrowed time:
Blessing of courage:
Borrowed time as it was before for both player, and with extended time
Curse of cowardness:
You are a coward, you save your fella, borrowed time may apply to you instead of the other survivor and no notification about that are visible on the right of the screen, if borrowed time gets applied to the unhooked survivor the savior is cursed with the exposed effect, you tremble in fear and make noise even slow vaulting for X seconds.
These are just a couple of ideas, that do not take into account all the balancing of the game, are just some things to make an example.
How does blessing/curses works? if both the offerings are played simultaneously, they cancel each other, and everything stays the way it is, if only one of those are played, the described effects gets applied
I think that a kind of mechanic like this could vastly change and improve the game, people accustomed to how the flashlight is, may not be able to play with the old style, if a survivor plays blessing of the lightborn ( which he could not also play at every game), this could also mean that we would not see lobbies full of toolboxes or flashlights, because if a survivors plays a blessing so specific, there should be high chances that the other may think to use other objects/blessing/strategies . I think that this would introduce a lot of variance, making the game more challenging and more competitive. I imagine people thinking about blessings in the lobby to construct a strategy, and so the killer could have to possibility to counter the aspect that he feel more penalizing to his gamestyle.
More importantly this will push players to look also for other things during a trial and not focus on genrushing, and the killer not “abuse” tunneling or camping practices if he wants to be sure to get entity’s belongings during the trial.
If you read all to this point, well, my most sincere thanks for your patience. This is just an idea that I really hope may be taken into consideration, even as little as just a mild ispiration for the devs. I know that it may sound “cool” (or maybe total trash to someone) but I also know that implementing something like this could require many months of developing, but if I were in the devs, I would at least look into this topic.
Cheers, se you all in the fog