Survivor Idea: "Judge Macintosh"
Alexander Macintosh was a judge who lived in early America as the country expanded, Manifest Destiny. Macintosh was never recorded in history thanks to his untimely death in an attack by the natives. Gifted from birth, Macintosh grew through his merit, experience, and ingenious law practices, eventually becoming a well-known judge within his community, rising through the ranks. Due to a lack of funding, Macintosh could not succeed in rising to the Supreme Court, stuck in a lonely town with his ever-aging mother. After her death, Macintosh intensively strict—his review becoming more practical and cases being looked into with the finest detail. It wasn't until old age caught up with him that he could not outrun by himself the growing screams and gunshots and flailing of tomahawks whisking by through the air—and as his horse stopped abruptly beside a deep incline—Macintosh was thrown off of his panicking horse and into the dark river. As the cold, dark, winter water pierced his skin—he felt a tugging at his robes—dragged upon to shore, where he woke up in a distant place.
(The map idea I had for this was basically a destroyed colonial town with many, many streams of water and in the Red Forest).
Stratocracy
- For every 3/2/1 pallet stun/s you pull off
successfully on a killer, you gain a token. For every token,
the stun duration on a killer will increase by 0.75 seconds.
Tokens held 2/3/4. Perk will deactivate if hit by killer,
crouching, or you leave the killer's terror radius.
(lvl. 1 - 3 stuns/2tokens held, lvl. 2 - 2/3, lvl. 3 - 1/4).
"I take it you don't understand the point of these."
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Kleptocracy
- When using an item brought into the game
by another survivor, or found in a chest, depending on the
amount of survivors deceased, gain 11/22/34 item
efficiency. Perk effect only begins after the first death.
(lvl. 2 - 22/44/67, lvl. 3 - 33/66/100).
"Cherish, this; To let this rot, and we die."
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Meritocracy
- For each time you finish the equivalent of 50%
in generator repairs, gain 1 token—in your next skill check
while healing/repairing/sabotaging, gain a 1/2/3% increase
in progress if a great skill check is made. Token is
consumed. Can hold up to two tokens at any time. All
tokens lost if hooked. (lvl. 2 - 2/4/6%, lvl. 3 - 3/6/9%).
"My parents were great figures—their merit was something to look up to."
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I have been around awhile despite my less than 1000 hours in Dead by Daylight. As a person who is an on and off fan of the game, I couldn't help but notice the never-ending struggle of balancing within the game. Such as Decisive Strike, Legion, etc..
This isn't recent, but I've been thinking and thinking a lot about some perks that would be unique and offer good player interaction.
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To start out, I would like to talk about "Stratocracy." Too often I and other experienced players find that killers may end up wasting too much time chasing after a singular person, whether it is tunneling or not. Stratocracy offers counter play in the idea that you must choose whether or not staying within the killer's near-immediate grasp is a good option; You can run around and be rewarded for successfully stunning a killer, but waste more and more pallets, and run the possibility that the killer might have the Enduring/Spirit Fury combo, which this perk is a soft counter to by the way, respectively making more areas within the map dangerous and the other possibility that you the killer will respect a pallet.
Killers also are encouraged to make more decisive decisions: is it worth chasing this survivor? Sometimes the better option is to completely ignore the survivor you're chasing and spin around to grab the one disrespecting you on a generator—you must decide. The perk is also counter-able by a killer successfully hitting the survivor, so Stratocracy doesn't end up becoming an unfair and/or unbalanced perk to play against.
A more subtle thing is the fact Stratocracy can only work if you are within the killer's terror radius, and have not been hit within the chase. And a very specific thing is crouching—if you are crouching, you are trying to get away, not t-bagging at a pallet—and also, specifically, the Hag, Huntress, and Nurse encourage survivors to crouch, some perks and/or abilities will alter the terror radius of a killer.
In total: Stratocracy is a perk that involves a fair amount of thinking, rewards either player for making/being able to have good decisions, promotes less negativity and more focus on the chase (no t-bagging thanks), is counter-able by many, many things so that the effect doesn't grow out of hand, and also encourages killers not to tunnel.
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"Kleptocracy" is a perk that touches upon a largely ignored interaction in the game, that is items and how they are used when the risks are higher. What is the point of using anything that is not a key in a game if you are the last survivor alive? Even if you flashlight blind someone, the chances are that the killer has closed the hatch and found you, and it's even more unlikely if that's the case if you've not been near an exit gate.
The perk is largely self-explanatory: use your own customized item you brought into the match, or risk getting better stats on another item. The likeliness of an item being used effectively drastically decreases as a match goes on—are you really going to risk doing a generator if you're the last one alive? Simply put, as long as it's not your item, you will gain an efficiency bonus for every other survivor dead.
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"Meritocracy" is another perk that might turn some heads in a bad way—but I promise it's not as scary as it sounds. Meritocracy is a perk that outright rewards you for doing your job. There are seven generators on each map—three other survivors—and a very unlikely chance that you won't be chased by the killer. Generator speed is another touchy subject in the game right now as statistically, there should be no reason survivors lose in any game with how fast the repair speed goes.
For every 50% of generator progress you complete, dis-including the benefits of when another survivor is partnering with you on a generator, (i.e., your amount of 50% is proportional), you gain a token that allows you to gain more progress when you hit a great skill check. Specifically a great skill check, as it runs the risk that you will click too early and make the generator explode. As much as I want this to work on Hex:Ruin, it will not as Hex:Ruin is a Hex perk and therefore already dependent on RNG. (Everyone hates RNG).
You keep your tokens even if you're injured or dying, but not if you're hooked. And obviously if you're mori'd it's not like you're going to get back up, so that's a given. This indirectly buffs a perk that is otherwise a joke in the game: This Is Not Happening. Since there are only five generators that need to be completed, you can only get ten tokens, (if counting you do the other two without finishing them, 13 - 14), and that is if you're the only one doing any generators. What ruins this perk is if you're not on a generator at all—other survivors as well—never ignore the objective. The only thing that can increase the amount of tokens you receive is if the killer is doing their job and kicking it—but catch 22: that means you lost 50% generator progress required to get a token that at maximum only gives you 9% back on a fishy skill check that you might never get in the first place.
Don't be too scared of this perk, it's more niche than you think. But it does have its benefits, as all perks should.
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I'm very adamant that this is taken into consideration for other players when they are attempting to create balanced perks.