Fun Buffs to Make Trash Perks Viable - Killer Edition

starpilotsix

I previously did this with survivors (linked here), but now I'm back with some Killer ideas. I try to focus on something beyond mere numbers buffs (though there are times where that's required) but instead fun secondary effects that get can provide interesting gameplay twists and more variety overall.  

Some perks you can tell are trash just from basic game experience. Others seem like they'd provide some reasonable amount of benefit, but I decided that I see them so rarely that they obviously are hardly ever being chosen, so I gave them a little added feature.  

My key philosophy is that ideally every perk should fall into at least one category

A) provide a strong benefit on its own

B) be part of a very strong build with other perks

C) be situationally incredibly useful, providing a great moment when it does work.

D) help counter a specific commonly used perk on the other side.

Any perk that doesn't fall into one of those categories needed to be reworked until it does. Some that did fall into one of these categories still needed a buff. And probably in a few cases I didn't do enough. The idea isn't necessarily to make all the perks top tier on their own, but at least to make them less of a waste if you're taking random perks or doing an adept run. Additionally, with killers, I have an unofficial policy of 'each perk should ideally do at least two things.' For example, Brutal Strength helps loops and chases, and gen control. Devour Hope gives one-shot power, and forces a secondary objective. Some perks provide a strong enough constant benefit that I break this rule, but usually I went with ideas that gave perks a second unrelated benefit rather than enhance the one that exists.  

As last time, I tried to work with the perk name and description as much as possible. It's easy to just add secondary effects, the tricky thing is adding ones that make total sense with the perk name. 

Finally, I tried to choose effects that wouldn't be super strong or weak on any particular killer (though with so many I'm sure I missed some) and, where I could, ones that weren't so much more effective in the hands of killers with high map control, because they have enough advantages already. So, some were given particular conditions that may be a little unwieldy, but were meant to mitigate this power imbalance. 

Perk List

Bamboozle:

Your vault speed is 5/10/15 % faster.

Performing a vault action calls upon The Entity to block that vault location for 16/32/48 seconds. After blocking a new window, you lose your Red Stain for 8/12/16 seconds.  

Only 1 vault location may be blocked in this way at any given time. The vault location is blocked only for Survivors.  

Bamboozle does not affect Pallets.

Reasoning: I just said I tried to stay away from simple numbers-buffs, but I do kind of feel like this perk would be better if it worked on more than one window, and/or for longer. It shuts down loops but usually requiring enough time that they can just get to another one, and there are plenty of maps with enough vaults that blocking one is only a minor help. I went with a longer block time because I figured the benefit of blocking something for almost a minute opens up the possibility of blocking an exit, then later in the chase, switching targets and having the window they go for being pre-blocked. "You've been bamboozled" as opposed to merely blocking multiple windows for very short time.  

However, there is one new thing that the perk could do, especially if we're buffing Beast of Prey later on... the perk's called Bamboozle, and what better way to Bamboozle a survivor than to remove the red stain for a brief time after window vault to improve mindgames... they think you're going one way, but you bamboozle them.

Another tweak I would suggest (but that wouldn't make its way into the description) is removing or greatly reducing the sound. Bamboozle implies fooling, and any survivor who's played more than a hundred hours is never fooled by a killer using this perk, they know exactly when a window has been blocked off and they can't use it, because they can hear it activate and so abandon any loop that requires it and move on to the next one.  

Beast of Prey:

Your lust for a kill is so intense that your connection with the Entity is momentarily lost, making you totally unpredictable.

The Red Stain disappears 10 seconds after a chase initiates and stays hidden until chase is lost for more than 1/5/10 seconds. Your aura is cannot be revealed if you are in a chase and moving.  

Gain 30/40/50 % more Bloodpoints for actions in the Hunter Category.

"Where did she go?"

Reasoning: Merely requiring bloodlust improved the perk but I still hardly ever see it used. So let's make the perk really valuable for mindgames and have it kick in very shortly after a chase begins (actually only 5 seconds improvement) and last the entire chase, even if bloodlust is broken. Survivors still have the advantage in that they have third person view, but they don't get the benefit of seeing the red stain.  

The 'aura can't be revealed' is actually a change I've considered as a suggestion for the Red stain in general... the idea that the Red Stain is kind of the killer's powerful aura leaking out... if the killer doesn't have it, it's because their aura is suppressed and can't be sensed by survivors. I'm not sure about that (it potentially makes Insidious camping around Kindred users too powerful), and in fact here I walked it back a little and made aura-hiding only active while the killer is in motion. If the killer is kicking a pallet or generator, Alert still kicks in enough to show where the killer is (but if the killer is in a chase, it fades quickly again so it still partially counters). For a killer that also can lower their terror radius during a chase (whether through power or perk use), this can also be amazingly powerful against Object of Obsession - you see them, they don't see you.

Corrupt Intervention:

Your prayers invoke a dark power that meddles with the Survivors' chances of survival.

3 Generators located farthest from you are blocked by The Entity for 80/100/120 seconds at the start of the Trial.  

Totems are all lit with a green flame, and it is impossible to distinguish Hex or Non-Hex totems except by cleansing them. While protected, Hex totems are NOT active and have NO effect on survivors, but can gain stacks of all types. Hex Effects start immediately after Corrupt Intervention ends.

Survivors cannot repair the Generators for the duration Corrupt Intervention is active. Cleansing a totem while healthy takes 10/15/20% longer and knocks the survivor cleansing them into the injured state upon completion.  

"It shall be known across the land that the Gods curse the unfaithful." (The Tablet of Adiris, 3.7)

Reasoning: Every time I see this perk used, about 95% of the time it's either a Plague, using her own perks for one reason or another, or a Trapper, using it to give themselves more time to set up traps and such. Which suggests that the utility of the perk isn't strong except for killers who need set-up time.

What if, though, it also protected totems? And, although this might be controversial, not necessarily protected them from destruction, but rather it prevented the totem from being lit or active until the perk ended, but it could still gain stacks. This might be complicated to code, but I think it could be viable to make surprise Hex builds. Imagine, say, people hit by the killer, suddenly losing their aura reading when CI turns off... they've been Third Sealed and didn't know it. Or suddenly getting skill checks with very little warning because Huntress Lullaby has been getting stacks. (This effect is the main reason I went with 'makes it impossible to tell if it's a hex or not, and wounds you if you cleanse' rather than 'makes it impossible to do totems'... either it potentially is too powerful if you can keep gathering stacks with no way for survivors to do them, or too weak if it blocks all totems stuff until after but you can't gain stacks... making it so you can cleanse, just at a cost, and don't know if you have to, is the sweet spot, because then it helps more even if there are no hexs)

And in case you're wondering, Haunted Ground, if popped while protected, takes effect immediately when CI wears off, and I picture an entity spike coming out of the earth to take a swipe at a survivor who cleanses a protected totem. The green flame is also just an idea, devs could also just make them all look dull but have something like thorns around them or anything else.

Coulrophobia:

Your presence alone instills great fear.

Survivors within your Terror Radius have a 30/40/50 % penalty to the Healing progression speed, and healing sounds are 50% louder.

Survivors who fall under your Red Stain when not in a chase scream, revealing their position.

"I thought I was hiding right under the killer's nose, but when I saw that terrifying red and I knew I actually was that I cracked up a little." - Kate Denson, Jane Romero's Campfire Interviews

 Reasoning: Look how boring this perk was. Two lines, not even a quote (and one of those lines is exactly the same as a couple other perks). And it has nothing really to do with the name. I bet one of the devs came up with the name Coulrophobia when the clown came out, and some other dev had an idea for a perk that slows healing speed and just threw them together. I hardly ever see this used... most killers prefer to just use Sloppy Butcher for a 20% slowdown at all times instead of 50% in a small area, which just makes survivors get out of range before healing. And, what's more, it breaks my 'every perk should do at least two things' philosophy badly. So it definitely needs something that isn't just making healing even slower

So, turn it into a 'scream' perk. But, what's Coulrophobia?  Fear of Clowns. What are clowns known for? Red noses. What do most killers have that's red and in front of them like a nose? The red stain. Okay, it's a tenuous connection, but it's a lot stronger than "clowns are scary, maybe they heal slower." So let's run with it, make it trigger a scream in survivors who fall under the red stain... now, this will mostly help against totally immersed Claudettes and such... hiding will no longer be an option if they scream while they're trying to blend into a wall. However, the red stain also is occasionally visible through walls, which could cause the survivor on the other side of the wall to reveal themselves. You could even make it function like a very low-range Deerstalker by not restricting it to healthy/injured... though this would also make every downed survivor scream when you're ready to hook them which could get annoying. If we want to buff it a little more (with corresponding drawbacks) we could extend the red stain length as well. Because this wouldn't be a strong enough effect for a perk on its own, we'll keep the slow-healing effect, and add a 'louder' effect to it... I considered adding it to totems and chest-searching as well but I think that might be a bit too much. Also worth considering (but I think the drawbacks outweigh the benefits) is the perk making the killer's stain visible to the killer.

Dark Devotion:

The display of your Powers creates a whirlwind of panic that spreads throughout the land.

You become obsessed with one Survivor. Hitting the Obsession with your basic attack causes the Obsession to emit a Terror Radius of 32 metres for 40/50/60 seconds. During that time, your Terror Radius is reduced to 0 metres. The effect goes away the moment you either make an attack or activate a killer power.  

The Obsession hears the Terror Radius they emit for the duration.

The Killer can only be obsessed with one Survivor at a time.

"And terror shall take hold of a defiant non-believer, who shall falsely announce my arrival." (The Tablet of Adiris, 48.9)

Reasoning: Now that they removed the cooldown, this perk is a lot better, but it's still reasonably weak. Why? 30 seconds isn't a whole lot of time... most of it's spent getting out of range of the survivor who's got your terror radius now. And time without terror radius isn't a gamebreaking benefit, considering characters like Ghostface have that all the time and are still fairly low-tier killers. So, let's double the base time, but, add a caveat that it goes away until you make your first offensive action or use of your power. That makes it less useful for characters who are already benefited by having high mobility (Legion being one of the few exceptions, as if you hit a target with Feral Frenzy, your power is already activated).  Arguably this is a bit of a nerf for high mobility killers but... screw em, they're already top tier. However admittedly this is on of the ideas that least counts as a 'fun buff'.

Dying Light:

You become obsessed with one Survivor.

Your Obsession's altruistic action speed is increased by 50 %. This bonus decreases by 15/20/25% after the first time they are rescued from a hook, as long as it's a safe hook rescue, and an equal amount each subsequent time they are safely rescued. If the Obsession changes for any reason mid-match, the new Obsession inherits the same modifier as the last Obsession... it is possible for it to become negative if multiple obsessions are allowed to be safely rescued.  

While your Obsession is on the hook, every other survivor gets a penalty of 19/22/25 % to Repair, Healing and Sabotage speed.

If your Obsession will be killed instantly on their next hook, every other survivor gets a penalty of 8/10/12% if the Obsession is in the Healthy state, and 19/22/25% otherwise. The Obsession is not affected by these penalties.  

If the Obsession dies, all penalties disappear after 30/45/60 seconds.   

If your Obsession is the last player in the match, you can kill them by your own hand after downing them.  

The Killer can only be obsessed with one Survivor at a time.

"This isn't a man..." — Dr. Sam Loomis

Reasoning: Usually I've been trying to keep the basic effect of the perk and just add some secondary effect that adds utility, fits with the name/theme, and is a bit fun. But Dying Light is a trash perk that needed a complete rework. It's not even trash because it's not powerful... it's reasonably powerful once you get it going (though the obsession changing mid-match was a blow to it)... it's trash because in order to get a benefit, you basically have to play with the intention of making the game miserable for everyone else. Even with this rework it's not that fun, probably because I tried to keep a similar 'philosophy' as the original perk (one survivor makes it worse for everyone else if if they're in danger), but just made it so tunnelling a survivor to death isn't as useful a gameplay strategy... hooking your obsession twice and then leaving them out and about is better, generally speaking.  

The 'mori your obsession if they're the last' isn't a huge benefit (about the only situation it might be useful is if your obsession is downed in the exit zone and you're pretty sure they have DS available from an unhook), but it might add some fun to players who choose to use it for whatever reason. Stacking it with Furtive Chase could make the Obsession virtually unable to do any healing of others which could be incredibly frustrating, but the perk's always been frustrating to survivors.

Fire Up:

The increased pressure of losing your preys fills you with anger and gives you unsuspected motivation. Each time the Survivors complete repairs on a Generator, Fire Up grows in power.

For each Generator completed, gain a 3/3.5/4 % stackable buff that grants a speed bonus to picking up, dropping, Pallet breaking, Generator damaging and vaulting for the remainder of the Trial. Each time a Generator is completed, you also get a 5% Haste Status Effect benefit for 5/10/15 seconds. This temporary benefit is stackable if multiple generators are completed in a short period of time.  

"Now why don't you just ######### die?" — Freddy Krueger

Reasoning: With the existing perk, it's too small a benefit to be worth the downside (that you've lost multiple gens), and even in the endgame you basically get 20% faster vaulting as your only real benefit (most pallets should be gone by then, generators can't be kicked, and picking up's of limited utility), and vaulting improvement which is only a little better than Bamboozle gives you the full match. Even if you combine them, survivors medium vault faster than you and you take almost three times as much time to cross a window as their fast vault. Maybe you get a little better with 3-genning, but that's not much fun. A benefit that might be worth it from a player standpoint is speeding up charge time of killer powers... but that's the sort of thing that devs probably wouldn't go for as it means updating the perk for every new killer. So, instead, the only thing I can think of is make it sprint burst for killers. When gens pop, you get a brief speed burst as you're enraged, letting you finish a chase early or maybe catch whoever's at the popped gen.

Hangman's Trick:

Your ingenious modifications to Hooks prevent tampering and permanent damage and make them harder to find.

Hooks destroyed by sabotage or sacrifices repair automatically after 30/20/10 seconds.

Gain a notification when someone starts sabotaging the Hooks.

3/4/5 randomly chosen hooks around the map are special, and highlighted in yellow when you carry a survivor. Hooking a survivor on one of these hooks makes the hooked survivor's aura invisible to the other survivors after 5 seconds. This effect vanishes permanently from a hook if that hook is broken and respawns.

The automatic repair timer of sabotaged Bear Traps is also reduced by 60 seconds.

"No excuses, no equivocations... No crying." — Amanda Young

Reasoning: The reason this perk is trash is because to get any real benefit of it depends on survivors doing something survivors do fairly rarely. And unlike Lightborn, you can't even really tell in the lobby if survivors might be prone to doing this, because toolboxes are useful for genrushing and the sabo-toolbox doesn't look any different in-game than the others (it'd be really cool if it did though), so if you see a team all with toolboxes, it's still far more worth it to take a generator-focused perk than this one. So if survivors AREN'T saboing, the only value you get is, after sacrificing a survivor, you get the hook back to potentially sacrifice another. Very rarely is that at all useful. Let's give it a cool benefit that the killer can apply on special hooks. What's the coolest 'trick' you can pull with hooks? IMHO, presently, it's the Hex: The Third Seal thing, where people are blind and don't actually know the hook location if you weren't paying attention at the critical five seconds. So wouldn't it be cool to have that effect, but centered on the hooks themselves. It might be too strong to do it on every hook (unless the effect only lasted for a single hook), but I thought having a few 'special' hooks around the map might make for some interesting gameplay decisions... do you risk going for the special hook? The big problem is that the number of hooks varies by map, so choosing the right balance is tricky. With respect to the occasional 'event hooks', even with full offerings there's usually at least 5 non-event hooks so I'd imagine making event hooks chosen first and Hangman hooks chosen from the remainder, so there's no 'highlight confusion' (or devs could make it so just the hook itself highlighted with Hangman's Trick and so it applied on either type of hook)

It also meshes nicely with Pig's powerset, because someone might have a trap on their head and be a little distracted when a hooking takes place, or even if they see it, if they're far away locating it's precise location might take time... so do you waste some of your precious time searching for the hidden hook, or worry about yourself? Speaking of which, it gives survivors an incentive to sabo and take the risk of the perk's original ability, because a hook that's been saboed is robbed of its invisibility power.

Hexs in general: 

Should be revised such that they not lit until certain conditions apply, and they do not alert survivors until certain conditions apply:

Ruin: First generator skill check by anyone lights the totem. First generator skill check individually alerts survivors the Hex is in play (as now).

Huntress Lullaby: First FAILED skillcheck, or first skillcheck of any kind AFTER the first hook, both lights the totem and alerts the individual survivor.

Third Seal: First survivor to get hit lights the totem. Survivors are individually alerted after they get hit (as now). 

Devour Hope: Totem lights after first hook. Survivors alerted after first down or Mori after three stackss (as now).

Haunted Ground: As now.

Thrill of the Hunt: As now.

NOED: As now.

Hex: The Third Seal:

A Hex that hinders one's Aura-reading ability.

Hitting a Survivor while the Hex Totem is active applies the Blindness Status Effect. A survivor who has been struck by the totem sees all Hex Totems as Dull Totems.

This effect applies to the last 2/3/4 Survivors hit.

The Hex effects persist as long as the related Hex Totem is standing.

"She touched your skin, you bear the witch's mark!"

Reasoning: Actually, this should be default behavior of the Blindness status effect. In addition, IMHO, Blindness should hide the killer's Red Stain. However, in absence of a greater Blindness buff, then the perk should still have the "hide hex totems" effect for anybody hit by it. 

Iron Maiden:

You open Lockers 30/40/50 % faster.

Survivors who exit Lockers suffer from the Exposed Status Effect for 40/50/60 seconds and their location is revealed for 3 seconds.  

Iron Maiden has a cool-down of 40/50/60 seconds. 

"This is no place for cowards." — The Legion

Reasoning: I felt the perk was okay conceptually, but 3 seconds of stationary location reveal and 15 seconds of Exposed is barely enough time for anybody to get use out of it unless they jump out of the locker right in front of you, and even if someone uses Head On against you there's a decent chance they get away before the timer is up. I always felt either it should expose your actual aura, or your location but make the Exposed time longer. Making it 60 seconds harmonizes it with Make Your Choice (which also reveals your location to the killer, because it's where the unhook happened)... MYC requires the killer to be far away, while this can happen close or far, so you might argue that it deserves a shorter time -- you would be wrong, because MYC has a secondary benefit in that unhooks cannot realistically be avoided, whereas you almost never HAVE to get into a locker (and MYC even if you don't find the one you're looking for, you can still down the one who just got unhooked).

Knock-Out:

The trauma caused by your brutal attacks makes crying for help or even moving painfully difficult.

Dying Survivors' Auras are not revealed to other Survivors when they are standing outside of 32/24/16 metres of range. Survivors cannot crawl for 5/10/15 seconds after being downed, are struck with Blindness for the same time period, and crawl at 80% normal crawl speed thereafter. Survivors with Tenacity ignore all these movement penalties.

"Oh, that gun's no good. The old way... with a sledge! You see, that way's better. They die better that way." — Nubbins Sawyer

Reasoning: While not a strong perk, it can be useful in certain situations, so I didn't do much with this, just made it a little more of a 'stay here' perk. But you know what this does that's, potentially, incredibly useful? Helps in the endgame, if you down someone just before they get to the gate, they can't crawl out on their own (though can still fall out if they were close enough).  

Lightborn:

Unlike other beasts of The Fog, you have adapted to light and grow bolder within it.

Resistance to Blindness is increased by 60/70/80 %.

Recovery from Blindness is increased by 50 %.

When generators complete, there is no dark bubble that obstructs your vision.

While you are within 8/10/12m of a completed generator, your lunge is slightly increased and vault speed is increased by 20%. The same effect occurs during and for 10/15/20 seconds after any blind attempt. These bonuses do not stack.

"These monsters... they adapt! They emerge with strange new abilities." — Vigo, Vigo's Journal

Reasoning: Lightborn is, presently, one of those perks that's only useful very situationally or if you get spectacularly lucky. Because killers can see survivors bringing items (unless they last-second switch), it's not a totally useless perk, but it's still one that you probably should only use if you think it's a flashlight squad. For a perk, and particular, one of a killer's teachable perks that players eventually would have to try and adept with, it should have some kind of benefit outside of that. But it's hard to add an effect that relates to light... only two things directly relate to light: Fire barrels (which are not presently interactable and thus might not be easy to code perks around), and completed generators. So, an effect that relates to completed generators seemed like the way to go... maybe something that could harmonize with Tinkerer if it fails to get you there in time, but Bitter Murmur already provides a good effect when around just completed generators. Unfortunately, the only effect I could think of is something that makes looping jungle gyms around completed gens more dangerous, increasing the lunge and decreasing vault times... maybe under the theory that you can see better so you don't have to be as cautious.

Monstrous Shrine:

The Hooks in the Basement are your shrine of devotion to the entity, and completing a complicated ritual there increases your power.

The first time you hook each survivor in the basement, you are granted a token as long as they escape the hook and you do not down either them or their rescuer for 60 seconds.  

For every token you have, you get a 2% bonus to your movement speed and 5% bonus to your vault speed as long as that survivor is in the trial. When the survivor leaves or dies, you lose the associated token. If you have 4 tokens when the exit gates are powered, one exit is randomly chosen to be blocked by the entity until a token is lost.

The Basement Hooks are granted the following bonuses while you are more than 48m away:

3/6/9 % faster Entity progression.

5/10/15 % increased difficulty on escape attempts.

3/6/9 % increased penalty to escape fails.

"Then you will know that there is no escape. When hanging in the depths, you face the dark one, and even a rescue is merely a short reprieve."

Reasoning: Historically this has always been one of the weakest perks, and I know devs are apparently rethinking it already, but I decided to give it a try... I like the name 'shrine' which, to me, implies rituals undertaken, which gave me the idea to turn it into a token based perk for hanging survivors in the basement... if you manage to get all 4, you get the speed equivalent of NOED and fully-stacked Fire-Up (for vaulting purposes only). However, I feel if you did it JUST for hooking in the basement, you'd get campers and people using perks like Territorial or high mobility killers just to ensure basement saves, just rushing back for the basement hooks, so I included the "can't down the rescuer or the rescued" requirement... still allowing you to bait out rescues, but only if you're careful and let one person rescue while you go after a second. I wasn't sure if that requirement swung it too much the other way... so I considered that if you're focusing on getting your ritual complete, you're probably sacrificing your other objectives, so maybe a specific Endgame benefit would be nice... a blood warden effect that affects only one exit but doesn't go away until at least one survivor is dead seemed like a cool thing that would make for a good moment.  

Essentially this makes the perk into a Devour Hope variant that doesn't provide one-shots but is potentially more powerful because it can't be turned off... except that it's much more difficult to stack up.  

Overwhelming Presence:

Your presence alone overwhelms the auras of everything nearby and makes survivors who are too close jittery and prone to mistakes.  

Auras within the killer's Terror Radius cannot be seen by survivors outside of it. Auras outside of the killer's Terror Radius cannot be seen by survivors inside of it. The killer's own aura, as well as auras of hooked or downed survivors, are not affected by these rules.  

Survivors within your Terror Radius also suffer from inefficiency. Affected Survivors' Item consumption rates are increased by 80/90/100 %.

"#########!! I dropped the gauze!"

Reasoning: Rarely used perk, and it can be completely nullified by survivors just not using items in range - which, granted, turns it into a 'survivors do not use items in your range' perk, but if survivors simply don't have items at all, it's useless, and all it does is encourage them to use their items as quick as possible when not in range. So I thought of making it a counter to Empathy and Bond. However, making it block all auras (or a blindness aura) was too powerful IMHO, and completely countered Windows of Opportunity which is already a fairly weak perk... so, I came up with the idea of the Terror Radius being like a barrier that blocked people from seeing auras beyond it. That way it partially counters Empathy and Bond, and maps and such, but not completely (and in particularly, it blocks the benefit of Empathy where you basically can see where the killer is after they've hit somebody as long as they continue the chase). Might be tricky to code in, but I think it could be used to interesting effect in game. The idea being that the killer's presence is so powerful that it's a bit like radio interference, it blocks out other auras near it for those far away, and blocks out all but nearby/strong auras to those close by.

Predator:

Your acute tracking ability allows you to hone in on disturbances left by running Survivors.

Scratch Marks left by Survivors will spawn slightly/moderately/considerably closer together. Areas where Scratch Marks from multiple survivors intersect will gain additional, yellow scratch marks.

"Never stop moving and hope you're always two steps ahead of the beast." — Unknown, Notebook

Reasoning: Predator is a decent but boring perk, for particular types of killer/gameplay styles (and useless or near to it for other types). While it's not a huge buff, being able to tell if scratchmarks are from a single survivor or multiple seemed like an interesting benefit.  

Remember Me:

You become obsessed with one Survivor.

Each time you hit your Obsession, you increase the opening time of the Exit Gates by 5 seconds up to a maximum of 20/25/30 seconds. If the End Game Collapse has started, this time is halved.  

The Obsession is not affected by Remember Me.

If all generators have been completed, incomplete exit switch progress regresses by 1% every second a survivor is not working on it.  

The Killer can only be obsessed with one Survivor at a time.

"You don't remember? You must. You're my number one, and you'll never wake up again." — Freddy Krueger

Reasoning: This was nerfed because it made situations where the Hatch is closed to be virtually unwinnable by survivors (it already almost is, but this just made it even worse)... but the old benefit of Remember Me was about the Endgame where all gens are powered, there are multiple survivors and give you a last chance at defending your gates, and 16 seconds is almost nothing. So, let's just buff it up to the original time, but make it so that if the timer's already started (either because one gate's already been opened or the hatch has been closed) the benefit is halved (which makes it just slightly worse in those situations than it is now).

And, since I try not to include 'just numbers' buffs, I threw in the 'regress exit gates' to battle the 99% strategy, although this should be standard for gates IMHO (the 'all generators are completed' requirement again makes it less punishing in single-survivor situations where often the only way a survivor has any chance is to partly complete the switch and then come back for it when the killer's been lost).

Spies From The Shadows:

The Crows found in the world can communicate directly with you.

100 % of the time, cawing Crows give you a visual cue when you are within a range of 20/28/36 metres.

Survivors who disturb a large number of crows at once have their aura revealed for 5 seconds, regardless of your location on the map. 

Spies from the Shadows has a cool-down of 5 seconds.

"In the shadows they torment, scarring our minds with each scream."

Reasoning: Spies is an okay but not that great location perk. It's hard to buff it in a way that fits in with its description and not make it too powerful. But crow bombs, which only exist in a few maps (but could be put into others) could be a cool thing to build a secondary effect, where if a survivor triggers a spot where a huge number of crows fly off and make noise, it doesn't just reveal their locations, it specifically gives their aura. Still going to be a weak perk, but it has a situational use allowing killers to monitor a specific location on the map.

Territorial Imperative:

Unlocks potential in one's Aura-reading ability.

Survivors' Auras are revealed to you for 3 seconds when they enter the Basement and you are more than 32 metres away from the Basement entrance.

If the item is taken from the Chest in the Basement, it causes the aura of the survivor holding it to be revealed every 30/25/20 seconds for 1 second.

Territorial Imperative can only be triggered once every 30/25/20 seconds.

"We're not safe anywhere..."

Reasoning: It's a perk that, generally speaking, under the present rules, may find you a survivor early on if they check the basement, but other than that, it's for camping the basement from a distance. Making the basement items, if survivors go for it, 'cursed', adds a little more fun and lets you mind-game a little... do you reveal you've got the perk by rushing to the basement the moment someone enters? Or do you play it slow, hoping the survivor won't realize that the basement items has cursed them?  

Thanatophobia:

Their courage fades in the face of their undeniable mortality.

For each Injured, Dying, or hooked Survivor, all Survivors receive an action speed penalty of 3/3.5/4 % to a maximum of 12/14/16 %.

Survivors who are themselves Injured have a 5% chance every 30 seconds to hear a false Terror Radius approaching and then disappearing. This false Terror Radius does not have any effects that normally come from being within the Killer's Terror Radius.

"She plays with us and revels in our pain."

Reasoning: Honestly, I hesitated giving this a buff at all because it's one of those ones that are annoying for survivors already, even though it's not super strong. But just being slower doesn't really work with the description, so I thought making a false terror radius would be a cool way to simulate that effect and make them think twice about whatever they are doing. It's still going to be more annoying for survivors, but at least it's something that's potentially a more fun type of annoying, because of the chance of a moment of genuine fear if the TR turns out to be suddenly not false.

Unnerving Presence:

Your presence alone makes survivors more prone to panic as fear builds within them.

Survivors within your Terror Radius have a 10 % greater chance of triggering Skill Checks when repairing, healing or sabotaging.

Triggered Skill Checks' success zones are reduced by 40/50/60 %, have a 10% chance of appearing in an unexpected place or with a reduced warning time, and great skill checks do not give any additional progress.

Within your terror radius slow vaults and locker interactions by survivors have a 50/66/75% chance of becoming rushed actions instead.

"Its presence befalls us."

Reasoning: It's a perk that doesn't really have too much use once you're decent at skill checks, except if you've got an 'annoying skillcheck' build, and even then, reasonably limited. This buff doesn't really make it super powerful (I deliberately kept the 'appears in a random place/low warning time' chance low because it could get too frustrating if it was higher), but it has an added secondary effect that IMHO provides fun, particularly since it doesn't just make a noise like a rushed action, but actually makes it a rushed action... making things like Lithe or Quick and Quiet proc when a survivor may have intended to save it for another time. But they're unnerved and moved too quickly. I considered making it a flat 100% chance, but then some survivors simply wouldn't do slow actions when in the terror radius and the icon alerts them... making it a chance means it's more likely survivors will take a risk and try it in a desperate situation.  

I also took a suggestion from a thread started by Toxicboii to remove great skill checks (or at least, remove any added progress to them - this makes it less punishing combined with Ruin and prevents a strategy of building a huge terror radius and just guarding a Ruin totem to make it impossible to get progress, but still allows survivors to gain extra points for hitting it, and doesn't require having to code in alterations to the interface and rebalancing the numbers to account for the missing skill check size).

Unrelenting:

You don't give up when you set your mind to something, despite setbacks.

You recuperate faster from missed attacks made with your main weapon. The cool-down of these is reduced by 20/25/30 %.

If a carried survivor escapes your grasp, you see their aura for the next 5/7/9 seconds.

Reasoning: The perk is one of the few that specifically mitigates failure rather than gets a benefit. So why not lean into it, and work with the perk name, by having it mitigate another type of 'failure'... the survivor escaping your grasp. Because of the stun associated with that, the benefit is less than it might seem, it's mainly long to keep the aura reading effect through flashlight blinds and DS stuns... it's not meant to be a super long time, just enough that you're unlikely to completely lose track of the survivor just from the escape, and, thus, you're unrelenting.  

Anyway, that completes my effort at adding fun buffs to perks. I doubt devs will implement these changes, but it's fun coming up with them regardless. Hope some of you enjoyed my ideas, at any rate.