Dead by Daylight should no longer be affected by an outage. Players logging into the game between September 26 3PM ET and September 28th 3PM ET will receive 1M Bloodpoints as compensation.

DS and NOED should both be ubiquitous parts of the game, not perks.

While filling out the last part of the survey today, I had this thought. The game inherently punishes you for not using DS as a survivor, and does so at every rank. I don't feel comfortable recommending DbD to someone without being able to hold their hand in survivor gameplay, because if a new player happens to run into a guy who watches hook or tunnels they don't get to play (EVEN if the rest of the team immediately punishes the killer by gen-rushing and escapes). Meanwhile, when playing killer, many times I feel completely powerless to do anything and the game is over by the time I get 3 hooks. And one of the worst feelings is the sense of failure and powerlessness at the end of a match, where I get to watch 3+ people taunt me with no fear before leaving. It sucks for me, and I've played DbD for years; and as a newbie it legit made me stop playing the game for months. Therefore, here's my suggestion to solve both of these problems in a way that is fair and balanced for both killers and survivors while being relatively simple to implement:

For Decisive Strike:

  • DS is on by default. Every survivor has it, there is always an obsession, and it does not take a perk slot.
  • DS timer is reduced to 45 seconds. If everyone has it buying a full minute of time per person is enough time for 3 generators to be done with DS protection. 45 is better than rank 1 DS now, gives you time to heal if you get away unscathed and enough time to fully recover if the killer slugs you.
  • DS doesn't activate on a grab. Honestly one of the most infuriating and unfun things to deal with as killer is a survivor that knows they have ds and wants to force you to activate it. Personally it makes me unhappy when I see someone dash into a locker or get unhooked and run to the nearby generator. This change does two things: first, it rewards skillful window grabs as killer in the same way that the Styptic Agent and Borrowed Time currently do, and it allows smart survivors to save their DS for later if the killer is on them while DS is active. The reason locker DS's are unfun as a killer is because I am powerless to do anything despite being the power role in the game. This change means that when a survivor makes the locker play I am still rewarded as killer, and the survivor also gets what they want. It also has potential for further killer-survivor interactions later in the game.
  • A potential change to stun length, from the current 5 seconds back to 3, maybe? Interested to hear what people think.
  • DS remains the same after these changes. The Survivor meta would shift completely: the various slug perks would become far more useful than they currently are, as would the Blindness status effect. Unbreakable might have to be nerfed.
  • Laurie gets a new perk, perhaps one that increases stun length if the DS stun is reduced to 3 seconds.

For No One Escapes Death:

  • Again, the perk is on by default. Dull totems are no longer pretty paperweights in matches without hex perks. If Survivors don't clear totems by the time the generators are done, they have to deal with a faster and stronger killer.
  • Unlike DS, I don't think there needs to be many tweaks to the perk itself. NOED is completely counterable if you know that its coming, and many players will choose to bring Small Game or Detective's Hunch to find totems (again, shifting the perk meta in a healthy way). The only change that might be necessary would be a change to the speed bonus that NOED currently provides. Perhaps the speed bonus could become its own perk, with balance adjustments made accordingly.
  • If the speed bonus is kept, everything could be folded into a new status, such as "killer enraged" or "last chance" or something like that to make the difference clearer to new players who don't know how to play very well yet. This change would go along with the design philosophy of the undetectable and oblivious changes, making things easier to code and easier for players to understand.
  • The NOED change would, again, diversify the perk meta for both roles while helping balance the DS change for killers. Endgame builds and characters are buffed, as are defensive killers such as Trapper and Hag. At the same time, since killers can't see dull totems they can't patrol them in the same way as generators, meaning that killers will have to play smart in order to maintain their potential endgame. The impact of hexes are changed: a lit totem cuts into your NOED stock, but depending on the perk can give you the tools you need to defend dull totems (Thrill of the Hunt, Retribution, Haunted Grounds). If anything, Thrill of the Hunt might have to be nerfed as this change would make the perk a powerful game-slowing tool.
  • Both roles are given a secondary in-game objective with a lot of potential for killer-survivor interaction, perk synergies, and counterplays WITHOUT needing to introduce new graphical assets, new animations, etc.

I feel like these changes are both simple in scope and immensely helpful for Dead by Daylight's game-play as a whole. There is comparatively little additional work needed for these changes, and they could be implemented in a single PTB. The perks can simply be turned on for every player and have their values tweaked according to the development team's design goals. Furthermore, vital game mechanics such as camping protection and end-game interactions are built into the game, providing a ton of new material for future perks without needing to worry about whether or not people have DS or not. This will also mean that people are more likely to buy Detective Tapp (for totem detection and slug speed), Pyramid Head (for DS mitigation), Deathslinger (for dull totem interactions) and so on! Most importantly, new killers and survivors alike are given a little bit more power over their circumstances in ways that do not completely screw over experienced players, making recommendations easier for those of us who want to bring their friends into the community but don't feel comfortable. Is this something anyone else would be interested in, or am I just barking up the wrong tree?

Comments

  • ChirpingCat
    ChirpingCat Member Posts: 40

    No. DS does not need to be nerfed, NoED is fine as is except for one change:

    Display the count of Totems remaining on the map the same way the count of generators is displayed.

    Killers constantly say they want survivors to do bones instead of gen rushing and this is the only reason they use NoED. So let's treat totems as an objective like any other and display the remaining totems count. Knowing there are totems left on the map gives survivors the incentive to "Keep looking" despite the fact that two loops around the map haven't found any. The incentive to keep looking takes them away from doing gens and results in a longer game. It also reduces the salt at the end of a game with NoED because survivors can only have made a concious decision ignore totems at that point.

  • Ziazan
    Ziazan Member Posts: 12
    edited July 2020

    Make two of the most annoying things in the game standard? (4DS in every game?! every survivor gets effectively 5 perks? while killers MIGHT get a minute of useful time at the end of the match) I'm sorry but I utterly hate your idea. I think I would abandon the game.

    While we're on the subject, DS should be reworked so that it doesn't work if you interact with an objective or another survivor or anything like that. (I do agree that it should never activate on a grab. Locker DS in particular but yeah just any grab.) If you aren't being tunneled, it shouldnt work. Right now it's just treated as a minute of god mode.

    Also the way it combos with unbreakable is too much too, there's no counter to it.

  • skarsguts
    skarsguts Member Posts: 179

    I never thought of a totem counter - that's actually an amazing idea. I hope they'll implement this.

  • BodamEscapePlan
    BodamEscapePlan Member Posts: 75

    I wholeheartedly agree with all of this. Not only does it allow longer games but there is more risk/reward. Plus, lets be honest... Decisive Strike should be a base perk especially for new players. I've been playing killer for two years and I just started playing survivor a few weeks ago, I can't tell you how many times I've seen rank 20 killers camp hooks and just down the previously hooked survivor. It's puzzling that they haven't made these changes or at least try to get new players to understand the ins and outs of perks and what they do/won't do.


    As for NOED, I completely agree with that as well. Survivors should have to cleanse totems if they don't want to run the risk of NOED. Too often we all see survivors feeling "safe" at the end of the game when most killers can't threaten them in the slightest. It's a flawed system the way it is but we all know nothing is going to change. The devs are too worried about the "backlash."

  • No.

  • Rattius
    Rattius Member Posts: 34

    Really like this idea. And this guy pretty much explains exactly why its a good idea