Reworking Sabotage for Viability
WARNING: This post will be very long and discuss possible game changes. If you want to engage in discussion, please read my current statements where possible. I tried to make sections alphabetized to make this easier to read through.
Other than that, I hope you will enjoy my ideas towards changing the current game state. Hopefully these ideas can also save the developers time on reworks of listed perks they might have been looking at. Additionally, it may help people change up their builds if no changes occur.
Hey everyone, I would like to talk about the current state of game and how it could possibly be changed on both sides. Currently one side may complain about gen rushing while the other may complain about camping and tunneling, but there is a possible solution to the problem. I remember back in the begging days of this game a mechanic that allowed you to sabotage hooks, and once done these hooks were gone permanently. Back then this was extremely detrimental to killers who lacked the tools necessary to kill the remaining survivors. However, with the addition of newer perks that exist on both sides to counter slugging and sabotaging the game could take one reversion back to older days. I have gathered a list of perks, addons, and items that may see increased viability and use that could help some of the game’s current staleness and toxicity.
If permanent hook destruction did exist within the game multiple things would have to occur for any change to gameplay to happen. First off, hooks would have to give survivors more points than the current 500 (maybe 750) in order to incentivize survivors to destroy a killer’s belongings. Additionally, there would have to be changes to the perk hangman’s trick to ensure the game wouldn’t change from the current state, 10 second hook respawns seems a bit unreasonable for the time it takes to sabotage a hook. I suggest a change to give hangman’s trick the ability to respawn hooks after 90 seconds, half of the current 180 second hook respawn timer. Additionally, with this change survivors who have any sabotage ability may want to destroy a Trapper’s traps, so the cooldown on the traps or cooldown that hangman’s gives should be lowered to compensate (I suggest lowering the base cooldown, otherwise hangman’s trick would be a must have on trapper). Regarding a new trap respawn timer I’m unsure on what would be a reasonable time, but any trapper mains may help me out with this.
Killer addons that may become stronger -
- Doctor: Static Field increases – slugged survivors can still progress into madness tier III.
- Freddy: Shirt/Dresses/Ropes – helps to increase game duration with dream world slugs.
- Ghostface: Outdoor Security Camera – similar effect as infectious fright.
- Hillbilly: Begrimed Chain - if the hit survivors get away, they will repair generators slower.
- Huntress: Begrimed Head – if the hit survivors get away, they will repair generators slower.
- Myers: Tombstones – no need to slug or hook when you can just grab.
- Trapper: All Coils – no one sabotages currently, so these addons go unused without change.
Survivor items/addons that may become stronger –
- Flashlights/firecrackers
- Keys: that reveal survivor auras.
- Maps: with red twine or killer belonging tracking.
- Toolboxes: for sabotaging rather than gen rushing.
Newly more viable perks –
- Autodidact – Heal your friends with great precision and speed.
- Bloodhound – better tracking of those pesky culprits trying to crawl away or run away after they get healed.
- Boil over – although the distance a killer can see a hook would remain useless, the killer bumping into more objects along the way could help give a second chance to survivors.
- Bond - reduce the effectiveness of the killer’s knock out.
- Botany Knowledge – faster heals enough said, pair with self-heal for less time corner healing and more time helping your slugged teammates or doing a gen/hooks (I’m looking at you Claudette’s).
- Breakdown – help sabotage those hooks your teammates missed faster.
- Buckle up - a possible reason to promote a licensed character, now you know when a slug can be helped, or if they already left their keyboard.
- Coulrophobia – make those slugs who chose to spend time with you require a little more help.
- Dark Devotion – wait why is that slug so “terrifying”?
- Empathy – reduce the effectiveness of the killer’s knock out.
- Flip flop – a possible reason to promote a licensed character, will help punish those slugging killers.
- Infectious fright – slap that slug back down to find the healing culprit.
- Mettle of Man - a possible reason to promote a licensed character, now you can get slapped a ton on top of your slugged friends and benefit from it.
- No Mither – Wait this perk may finally be useful and not just a meme?
- Rancor – Can lead to a possible guaranteed kill per match late game, if you rely on slugging and not hooking.
- Remember me – with obsession possibly being slugged more and hooked less you can finally stop those pesky survivors from leaving
- Sabotage – Jake mains could rejoice at being useful beyond iron will again, additionally now those daily sabotages would become more of a habit.
- Sole survivor – aura reading denial.
- Solidarity – manage to get your 3 slugged teammates up after your unbreakable and get some self-healing while you’re at it.
- Spies from the Shadows – now the crows can provide better information on that corner slug, or when one of their friends decides to run over and heal them.
- Tenacity – crawl as fast as you can away from a possible hook.
- Thanatophobia – although viable on some killers more than others, this will additionally help slow the game down.
Perks that remain viable, and may become stronger –
- Adrenaline - Nyooooooooom
- Aftercare – You can’t hook me to reset my perk now haha!
- Agitation – Racecar speed to the basement.
- Deerstalker – Mr slug can’t hide from me!
- Franklin’s Demise – Who even is Alex and why is his toolbox on the floor?
- Hex: No One Escapes Death – You did hooks but not bones all game? Even with one set of bone’s giving a comparable amount of points to a generator? Shame on you!
- Hex: The Third Seal – no more aura reading for you!
- Iron Grasp – oh boy you chose to run boil over?
- Knock out – Wait where did the Blendette go?!
- Leader - I SAID HEAL ME!
- Mad Grit – oh boy did you try and hook block?
- Nurses calling – Huntress hatchet soars in.
- Object of Obsession – That’s a cute slug your sitting there with Mr. Killer.
- Sloppy butcher – Butchy Slapper, Slupper Botchy, Slappy Butchy. To each their own.
- Thrilling tremors – Wait I gotta pick you up to block these gens, ah there you go back to the ground.
- Unbreakable – you think this slug won’t continue its metamorphosis?
Possible shift from the current meta perks -
- BBQ and Chili – although this perk isn’t strong per say it can be quite annoying watching that immersed Claudette on your team constantly getting in and out of lockers during the match.
- Borrowed Time – Leatherfaces who move before the unhook will become happy, and how can they get that borrowed time proc for their friends on the ground?
- Decisive Strike – where the heck did you find that weapon! Oh wait you can’t pick something up like that from the ground.
- Deliverance – are you tired of that last second survivor flying off the hook in-front of your face and then dead harding out the door? Worry no more he didn’t get the chance to hook save anyone with your slug build.
- Pop Goes the Weasel – less hook opportunities could help reset the amount of debility this perk can give.
- Ruin – possibly more time dedicated to sabotaging, may lead to less issues for people who struggle with skill checks, or are colorblind to red. Killer’s may finally see a build change that leads to more interesting builds rather than having a dedicated ruin spot.
- We’ll Make It – are you tired of checking your hook for those pesky quick healed survivors? Well you may not even have hooks anymore for them to trigger this perk! Let the anti-heal slugfest begin!
- We’re Gonna Live Forever – this could lead to flashlights becoming stronger for those point stacks or lead to less people attempting to farm their teammates for their own benefits, regardless I’d rather see this perk changed for point bonus as a survivor. Perhaps stacks could be based on how many survivors are alive at various minute times within a trial, since “living forever” makes the perk sound time based. A change like this would also result in survivors taking their time in trials (for those who run it).
Perks that could be nullified or much stronger with other perks –
- Bloodwarden – although the premise of this perk is good, I’m unsure how used it currently is? This could lead to a way of punishing survivors late game for not sabotaging hooks, or when paired with hangman’s trick it could possibly be very strong.
- Diversion – throw that pebble at a locker to divert the killer from your intentions of getting your slugged friends up.
- Furtive chase – this perk could be worthless with all hooks destroyed or could become strong alongside other perks like hangman’s and rancor. Additionally, this perk may be entirely unnecessary if Dstrike remains viable for survivors (for obsession swapping).
- Hex: Devour hope – Similar to furtive chase this could remain viable alongside hangman’s trick, or just be entirely useless without it, if destroyed like currently.
- Slippery meat – 3 more attempts on hooks that don’t exist.
- Up the ante – could lead to less kobe’s if there aren’t any hooks
imagine, 4 man swf, with unbreakable and no mither... In pair, with alex TB and hacksaw... I like it!
Dead by Daylight USED to have hooks remain broken indefinitely if sabotaged. It was removed, thankfully, and I'd NEVER want to see it return.
I disagree, old sabotage was extremely powerful in the right hands (especially SWF) and pushed killers to adopt a specific meta (Iron Grasp+Agitation) to be able to do something.
This would be the same all over again: bring anti-sabotage perks/addons or get rekt.
I agree that sabotage is underwhelming right now, but imo it should be reworked from scrap to make it desirable for survivors but not a mess for killers.
"If permanent hook destruction did exist within the game multiple things would have to occur for any change to gameplay to happen. First off, hooks would have to give survivors more points than the current 500 (maybe 750) in order to incentivize survivors to destroy a killer’s belongings. Additionally, there would have to be changes to the perk hangman’s trick to ensure the game wouldn’t change from the current state, 10 second hook respawns seems a bit unreasonable for the time it takes to sabotage a hook. I suggest a change to give hangman’s trick the ability to respawn hooks after 90 seconds, half of the current 180 second hook respawn timer."
This is just ridiculous.
If permanent hook destruction did exist, you know what would incentivize survivors to destroy them? The fact that it makes it nearly impossible to hook somebody. And then, also, making it so Hangman's Trick's only benefit is to make the game only as good for killers as it is NOW, except taking up a perk slot in the process.
You've shown no reasoning why this change would be a good one other than an apparent "I want killers to have a bad time" view.
Sabotage is pretty useless with all the hooks around anyway. The only reason I sometimes do it is to not deny a killer a hook while carrying someone, but to destroy a hook near a gen I am working on so if someone else gets downed nearby or I get downed the killer will go elsewhere to hook instead of right next to my nice, nearly completed gen.
Sort of to guide a killer to go hook someplace else more desirable to me.
The point is to change the game up for both sides, i understand the idea of "perma hook" destroys seems bad to some. But the idea is to increase the viability and utility of perks that remain underused, compared to some perks that most people deem toxic.
Thats the exact opposite of my point though, with this reinstated killers who run slug gain more viability and dont have to worry about "toxic" decisive/borrowed among other things. I believe if this simple mechanic was reworked the developers wouldn't need to focus on many of the listed perks since they would gain more viability doing this. I understand unbreakable is a perk survivors may run however, this is a 2nd chance on the ground similar to how borrowed and decisive are a current second chance among the hooks. With a rework of the hooks and hangmans killers wouldnt have to adopt the "iron grasp + agitation" perkslots it simply lies as a more viable option to killers besides basement meme builds. This would allow more killers to see the viability of slugging to gain pressure, rather than the current walk back to the hook linear playstyle most see currently.
I don't think this would make killers have a bad time at all. If anything it makes it possible for certain killers to use more of their addons compared to the small amount that are currently "meta". The idea that "hooking" is the only way to kill survivors brings killers into this linear cycle of "ooh i downed them back to the hook". Suddenly killers get more and more upset about perks like decisive strike, borrowed time, and the like having "little counterplay" among other things. I don' think this would make killers have a worse time then they already have with gen rushing. Survivors still have to complete gens to escape, if there is another side objective that actually rewards survivors for doing it, killers can get more time in their games aside from their long lobbies. If you're worried about not being able to hook anyone that's why perks like hangman's trick, agitation, iron grasp, and slug perks all exist. All which are either currently unusued, or not used in near comparison to the current meta perks. Playing as a surivor from ranks 20->1 i can tell you the game is fun from about rank 12-8 since this is where the most versatility in killer perks occurs (in my experience). You never know what you will be up against. However ranks 8+ seem to be little if no change in every build. The perks Ruin, BBQ, Monitor & abuse, nurses calling, pop goes the weasel, and enduring/spirit fury, are present in a high majority of games. While survivors typically play with exhaustion perks, decisive strike, borrowed time/we'll make it, and adrenaline.
I believe the change i presented could help break out of this seemingly never ending cycle which causes the game to become stale and boring to play at high ranks, which also results in the problems regarding de-ranking. If every game played is against the same playstyle how long would it take the community to burn out?
I also feel like most of the "killers have a bad time" view you think would occur is based on the current pipping system which seems almost totally reliant on killers having to kill more and more survivors if they wish to rank up. This kind of stress of "oh i didn't get my 2 kills to pip" also seems to lead to toxicity between survivors and killers. Where killers feel forced to camp hooks late game to ensure their pip.
Perhaps a change like this would also need to bring a change to the mori system that wouldn't rely solely on hooking a survivor, maybe it could have a new interaction of "hooking a survivor or landing a successful hit on (that) survivor 3 times". Or perhaps ground bleed out timers would have to tick faster as a means to compensate. However i think if either of these happened the game would just turn into slug fest every game and lead to another stable meta of sorts.
A slug can't be doing gens, sabotaging hooks, rescuing/healing teammates, or cleansing totems while they're on the ground! Additionally, unbreakable only has 1 use and leaves survivors down a perk after that. No mither gives a notification to everyone in the game that its present and is already a perk thats highly punishing to run without reward in the first place. Also, Franklin's Demise won't be going away with these changes so you can still slap those pesky items from survivors hands. Even with 3 people doing gens and 1 person sabotaging, the objective of escaping would still take as long as its current time (assuming you chase the saboteur). What's more detrimental? Having survivors perma destroy a hook and seeing the leftover hooks, or picking up a survivor just to walk to a hook and see it sabotaged infront of your eyes and having them wiggle away. To prevent this issue from still occurring (or happening less) perhaps hooks have to be fully destroyed before points are awarded to survivors similar to totems.
A slug can't be doing gens, sabotaging hooks, rescuing/healing teammates, or cleansing totems while they're on the ground! Additionally, unbreakable only has 1 use and leaves survivors down a perk after that. No mither gives a notification to everyone in the game that its present and is already a perk thats highly punishing to run without reward in the first place. Also, Franklin's Demise won't be going away with these changes so you can still slap those pesky items from survivors hands. Even with 3 people doing gens and 1 person sabotaging, the objective of escaping would still take as long as its current time (assuming you chase the saboteur). What's more detrimental? Having survivors perma destroy a hook and seeing the leftover hooks, or picking up a survivor just to walk to a hook and see it sabotaged infront of your eyes and having them wiggle away. To prevent this issue from still occurring (or happening less) perhaps hooks have to be fully destroyed before points are awarded to survivors similar to totems.
There are too many hooks in the game, and the wiggle is too slow, just remove some hooks and leave things as they are, and both sides are happy.