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Long Read: An Analysis of Reward and Punish Perks (And Why Soul Gaurd Adds to the Issue)
To start, this is intended to be a constructive space that opens the door for positive dialogue regarding what I consider "punish" perks.
For clarity we must first define "punish" perks. In this sense, punish perks are perks that penalizes the other side for simply doing their objective. On the opposite end we also have "reward" perks which obviously reward one side for making progress towards their objective. For the purpose of this exercise we will look at four common and often discussed/controversial perks from each side. On the killer end we have Pop Goes the Weasel, Surge, Rancor and No One Escapes Death. For survivors, we have Decisive Strike, Unbreakable, Adrenaline and Deliverance. Soul Gaurd will also be discussed.
The perks Adrenaline, Delievrance, Pop and Surge can all be seen as punish perks in a way. They provide huge benefits to one side. However, they all have prerequisites for activation (finishing all gens for Adrenaline, safe hook rescue for Deliverance, getting downs and hooks for Surge and Pop.) While they do punish the opposing side, they come with some drawbacks and at the same time require the other side to actually make progress to their objective. Even For the People and Inner Strength either require you to do some action to activate it or come with a drawback. If there are going to be such strong perks in the game they should require some sort of action or a negative attached to it. You sacrifice one thing to have a powerful effect.
On the other side of it, Rancor, NoED, Decisive Strike and Unbreakable all reward one side for failing at their job while punishing the other for doing their job. For a note, I will recognize that DS is a defense against "tunneling" killers and it is rather unpleasant to get off a hook and have the killer immediately chase you again. However we cannot be blind to the fact that in the current meta DS is used very aggressively (I.E. going for hook saves, guaranteed escapes and making progress on gens without healing.) These perks are an issue because out of no fault of your own, you can lost a game simply because you were out perked.
The common counter arguments to these perks are oft times unreasonable. You cannot tell killers to just not "tunnel" to avoid DS when survivors willingly do gens in the killers face because they have DS. You cannot tell a killer to slug DS when Unbreakable (and soon Soul Gaurd) exists. You can't tell killers not to slug when that is the most reliable form of map pressure at times, especially at high ranks. A killer can have a game won and one Unbreakable can undo the entirety of that.
Furthermore, telling survivors to scour the entire map to search for all five totems is unreasonable as well. If a killer is exerting even a decent amount of map pressure, it would behoove survivors to ignore gens. Yes totems have set spawns and knowledgeable survivors can find the totem at the end of the game. And what's the counter to Rancor? Just hide at and towards the end of the game. That is it. All four of these perks reward you for failure and severely punish the other side for success.
Soul Gaurd adds to this issue as it falls into the category of punish perks. It gives you two extremely strong effects for failing. Getting a free health state (that includes a 150%) movement speed bonus if hit will crush killer momentum. Furthermore when you combine it with other perks in the "second chance" (D.S. Unbreakable, Dead Hard, Deliverance) meta in turns survivors into strong individuals who don't need their team to help. This hurts because there are four survivors going against one killer. An already strong group is turned into a super team. Not needing help from other survivors and extending chase gives other survivors more time to do what they please. While the killer is punished for doing what they are meant to do.
Mettle of Man was a prime example of a perk that rewarded you for bad play. It was a terrible time for killers, thankfully that perk was eventually nerfed. I would like if the Devs took a heavy look at Soul Gaurd before it is released as it will be a problem especially at high ranks. We should be rewarding good play, not boosting plays for poor play.
Comments
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I agree with a lot of this. But killers have Gens to guard and survivors to kill. Saying that telling survivors to actually do their secondary objective is unreasonable isn't fair. There are viable counters to punishing perks like NoED and Unbreakable. So I don't think perks like these need to be changed because players can't be bothered to use those counters.
Specifically I'll talk about NoED because it's one of the most debated perks. It doesn't punish you for doing your job, like you said. It punishes you for only doing your primary objective. While killers have no choice and have to do both of theirs to some degree to succeed, survivors do not. They can completely ignore totems. And this perk capitalizes on that choice.
Next up is Unbreakable. This perk is only useful like NoED when the killer ignores hooking and instead slugs. I say hooking survivors is a secondary objective for killers because by guarding generators well you make it easier to do this.
Perks that capitalize on the decisions of the opposing team are fair in my opinion. And while things like Adrenaline and Pop seem one sided, they really reward completion of objectives.
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I believe Adrenaline and Pop are perfectly okay. Both reward good gameplay from their respective sides: survivors for doing gens and killers for getting hooks.
NOED rewards bad gameplay (a punishing perk) - as in the killer gets a huge bonus for failing to protect gens. It could just be a speed boost WITHOUT giving Exposed status, but the speed boost would be greater and still permanent: 5/7/9%. OR... keep the same speed boost stats, but make it so Gate Progress regresses quickly when not being worked on (to prevent 99’ing gates, which is a COMMON swf tactic).
DS is a bit more nuanced. There are many scummy players who tunnel off hook, so a perk like this is needed. But it could be changed to discourage “dumb, aggressive” plays while it is active. Working on a gen is fine, but going for unhooks is not. Maybe change it so if you get fully healed or perform an unhook action while it is active will cancel the perk for the remaining duration (unless you get hooked/unhooked again, then it reactivates like normal).
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The thing with unbreakable is it punishes the killer for making the right play when there was no indication of it being in the match. This would be fine if the effect of it wasn't so huge and game changing.
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I agree for the most part.
Most of the "problematic" and unhealthy perks in the game are all punishment perks that reward the person for playing badly or punish the other side for doing what they're supposed to.
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First of all thank you for engaging in a positive fashion.
We are in agreeance on Pop and Adrenaline so I will move past those.
I can see your counter points to Unbreakable and NOED, however. My counter argument will stand as they have powerful effects that require no effort from that party. Here I am not suggesting a total rework of these perks but instead cautioning the approach of adding such perks moving forward.
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You actually make some pretty well reasoned arguments. I don't completely agree with everything you said but I can at least agree conceptually. I disagree about Soul Guard though. It doesn't punish a killer for doing his job. It only punishes a killer for slugging. Which is a good thing for the health of the game. This game is pretty permissive in actions it allows the players to perform. Actions in other games that would be cause for banning are openly allowed and encouraged even. For example, if a killer hooks a survivor and then proceeds to beat the survivor like a pinata until the survivor is sacrificed there is absolutely no punishment for the killer. The argument is made that it is a strategic mistake and the other survivors will finish gens fast and likely escape if the killer does that. But what if the killer doesn't care about gens?
The killer just wants to be a jerk and ruin other players experience. There is absolutely no recourse for the survivor that went through that experience. Just suicide on hook (rewarding the killer), wait it out mashing a button pointlessly, maybe send a rage message after the game (again rewarding the killer since this is what the killer was hoping for). This isn't even a reportable offense. But if you send a rage message and he reports you then you can be punished for that.
I would argue that slugging is a similarly miserable experience for survivors. It isn't good for the health of the game for this kind of gameplay to exist. Soul Guard isn't even a hard counter to slugging. But at least it is something. If the killer doesn't slug then this perk is worthless. Just the fact that this perk exists will hopefully encourage killers not to slug as much. Just like NOED helps encourage survivors to actually cleanse totems.
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I agree. Took the words straight out of my mouth. The player should almost always be rewarded in instances of playing good, and punished for playing bad. In rare instances I think perks like Resilience are interesting, because it's not a guaranteed crutch for digging yourself out of your mistakes, but rather spicing up the outcome and choices. Opening new paths and possibly risky choices for a player to decide when they're in deep #########, is a much more favorable perk design concept than just picking the player back up once they've fallen down.
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Well we need to consider as well that these perks aren't active or useful until a killer slugs, or survivors finish all gens and didn't bother with totems.
So you're effectively running 3 perks until those are useful/activate.
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🤦♂️ its not the killers job to stop people from doing gens. Its the killers job to sacrifice survivors to tge entity. Slowing their gen progressiin simply gives you enough time to do that.
This is why everyone is ######### up about NOED, you dont win when you finish the gens. You win when you leave, otgerwise hatch, keys wouldnt be a thing.
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Surge
Huge benefits
Pick one.
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You have it backwards there dude.
Adren, Pop, Surge and Deliverance are all REWARD perks because of the fact they have a prerequisite.
- Adren REWARDS a survivor for doing gens.
- Deliverance REWARDS a survivor for a safe hook rescue and for not having been put on a hook before that rescue was made.
- Pop REWARDS the killer with more time (by adding more time to survivor objectives) when they get a hook.
- Surge REWARDS the killer for downing a survivor near a running gen.
Rancor, NOED, Decisive Strike and Unbreakable all PUNISH the enemy for making mistakes.
- Rancor PUNISHES the obsession for getting caught at end game.
- NOED PUNISHES survivors for rushing gens and not doing totems.
- DS PUNISHES the killer for picking up a survivor that was hooked in the last 60 seconds.
- Unbreakable PUNISHES the killer for excessive slugging.
The reason you have a problem with these perks (Rancor and Surge though???) is because you are looking at it backwards. DS does not reward a survivor for anything (unless they successfully bait the killer into picking them up), it's there to punish killers that just pick you up like a bot. The kind the refuse to change tactics. Just like NOED punishes survivors for not changing tactics to do totems. Neither of these perks "reward bad play", they punish bad plays for the opposite side.
Soul Guard is a punish perk. It punishes killers for excessive slugging. This will be more common if they are running Devour or NOED, and therefore those killers get punished EVEN MORE for it.
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It doesn’t change the fact that NOED punishes survivors for doing their objective and for the killer not doing his objective (hooking survivors) efficiently.
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The survivors objective is to escape the trial. You know noed exists, if you didnt do bones knowing that then you werent doing your objective. Which is what its punishing you for.
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Cleansing dull totems does nothing to contribute towards escaping. Aside from bloodpoints and the possibility of NOED, there’s zero reason to work on finding totems which can be insanely difficult to locate all 5 now that devs are placing them in obscure spots. This task becomes even more burdensome in solo queue where it’s impossible to communicate totem callouts unless you have a rainbow map with crystal bead. Even then, your teammates might not even bother helping with cleansing them. If it’s a decent killer putting constant pressure then it will become near impossible to work on gens AND totems.
NOED is just a poorly designed perk. Unbreakable also offers a massive game changing benefit with no downside to the survivor, so this perk could be argued to fall under the same category.
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"Cleansing dull totems does nothing to contribute to escaping" are you serious? Were literally in the middle of discussing NOED and I have to explain to you that noed exists? If the killer had noed and you cleansed all the totems, then cleansing the dull totems contributed towards your escape...obviously.
Yeah you know why they put them in harder places to locate? To slow the freakin game down. 4 people focused can have all 5 gens done in less than 3 minutes. Theres 3 reasons it takes longer than that, the killer, chests, and totems. If someone runs a Hex perk it creates a secondary objective because now both the generators and the lit totem are between you and escaping.
I think unbreakables fine too but thats not really the point. The point is noed doesnt "punish the killer for doing their job poorly" it punishes the survivors for doing theirs poorly. Its not even really punishment, its just part of a damn video game.
Tldr; just do the damn bones and stop whining 🤷♂️
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Triggered NOED user? You probably think Moris are in a good spot, too.
Regardless of whether it’s a punishment perk or not, only bad killers run this perk as good ones don’t need an endgame perk to help them win. All NOED does is help bad players secure kills that they otherwise would not have.
That’s all I have to say on the matter. Good day to you.
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No, i dont run noed because i dont like the mindset, I just dont see anything wrong with it. I also dont moan when I die to Noed. I ran a test the other night as im doing a project with another forum member. In 15 games NOED only got me a handful of kills and in all of those games all of them totems were not broken. You know what else didnt happen (suprisingly), I didnt get a single survivor in my dms bitching about it. One guy (and literally just one guy) died because of NOED + Bloodwarden even sent me a ggwp. Point is, its not even that effective.
Bhvr built into the game end game perks like NOED + Blood Warden and remember me. Keep in mind too that killer has been running that whole match with just 3 perks. Yeah, some killers run it cause theyre bad at the game, some killers run it on weak characters like clown, and some run it as part of an endgame build. And the same can be said about a lot of ds or unbreakable users.
Good day to you too
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Bro your whining about a perk that exists entirely to be used after gens are done and you get points for cleansing totems so taking the short amount of time it takes to cleanse them isnt gonna kill you and lets integrate this this perk is only good if the killer knows how to play properly, this is why juking is a thing also pallets and windows if so its not a bad perk its just us survivors don't tend to think about anything but gens and doors so I'm not gonna complain about it
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I kinda disagree with Unbreakable.You say that this perk punishes killers for excessive slugging,but you have to consider that slugging is sometimes the optimal way to use the killers power like Myers,Oni and Plague (with corrupt purge).And with unbreakable you punish the killer for using their powers optimally.
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Yes you PUNISH them. It's not rewarding survivors, it's punishing killers. It may be the optimal way to play some killers, but that just means it's even more necessary to stay as it is as a means of countering this tactic which will be MORE common against these killers. Not to mention it's one time use, and they can get their powers multiple times.
Plus of there 3 you mention, Oni is the only one that actually wants to slug because they completely lose their power. Myers and Plague don't, they just get less value out of their power. In some cases they would want to slug, in others they would want to hook. Oni doesn't get that option, so he is different.
Slugging Oni is WAY strong, especially if they run Infectious. There needs to be a counter to that, otherwise it would be too easy for Oni's to just win every game in 30 seconds.
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