A general idea on how to rework perks, offerings and charms (With illustrations)
Mused about these things here and there, and might as well put it into one thread after doing the drawing in another.
So, here goes, an idea on how to overhaul perks, skills etc, which might allow for better matchmaking, more balance, more strategy.
Let's start with the general loadout:
- Items stay the same as we know them. One basic items/power + its addons.
- Offerings are now split into two: A general offering (e.g. for more bloodpoints, whether or not survivors start together, more/fewer hooks etc). And an optional map offering.
- Perks would be reworked into perks and charms (see below). Things like Dark Sense go here (as before)
- Charms: Perks that e.g. increased aura reading ability (Open Hand iirc) go here
- 'Blessings': I mislabeled this a little, sorry. This would be where Hexes go on the killer's loadout, now separate from perks. For Blessings, see the Game Lobby below.
New perk system:
Similar perks are combined into new perks, and characters now get 'lore perks' (perks they should know from their backstory (e.g. David and Ace would know Self Care, Deathslinger and Pig would know Tinkerer)) and 'learned perks' (teachable that don't 'fit' with their lore, but that they learned from others, resulting in their version being a little weaker)
Game Lobby:
The lobby now allows each survivor to throw a 'Blessing' in. Blessings are survivors equivalents to Hexes, either buffing the group or weakening the killer. Killer's can destroy blessings at a faster speed then totems are cleansed. Each blessing can be brought only once.
New Skill System (Survivors)
Survivors now get set stats showing how good or bad they are at repairing, healing or running (and maybe stealth and creating diversions?) Characters with e.g. a good repair rating repair gens a little faster, characters with bad diversion might have a harder time spotting totems.
Further there are stats about how often a survivors has been played, how many matches one escaped from (and how), and how bad or well one does against which killer (and how often one has faced them)
New Skill System (Killer):
Similar to survivors new overview, you get your speed stats and the tr, an overview on how well you use their powers and how often, how many matches played, average killcount and how well you do in chases vs certain survivors.
New Item System:
Items would now appear either in their own bloodweb/shop OR get their own game mode in which you can gather items (you might lose them if the killer gets you/if too many survivors escape) Brown and yellow items would still be on the bloodweb.
I reckon having a skill system like this might make matchmaking easier, even if its much more complicated. It could also easily add more strategical play into the matches, as survivors would now need to pick their role on the team.
Thoughts?
Comments
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This has been brought up multiple times before. Nobody seems to understanding that doing things like this would fundamentally change the game. You're pitching something for a completely different work.
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I believe I did say it would make things more complex etc.
But that isn't the question. Look at the forum alone, or each and every comment sections under whatever the devs post: Rows and rows and rows of complaining how unbalanced things are, how boring, how this and that and those perks, builds etc suck and so forth. How they are wailing that this and that other games is soooooo much more interesting...
and with the current system you CAN'T really fix that. With the current mechanics, you can't balance things smoothly. you can't bring in matchmaking well.
It does need a whole new system.
And... would you still go around repairing gens? yes. but now there's more factors to it, that's all.
So, you want to eat your cake (complain the game is boring and others are more interesting) and have it (not change anything about the system)?
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These ideas are done so beautifully. I love the images you drew!
The revamped loadout and charms are very cool. Not too sure about blessings though. They sound more like effects you’d receive through offerings instead, which is still a welcome thought.
Speaking of offerings, having both a normal offering and map offerings separate would be amazing! My only concern would be that people would always play specific realms, namely the original three, but that’s a separate issue so no need to worry about that yet.
For your ideas about perks, I’ve tossed this idea over many times in my head and came to the conclusion that restricting perks on certain characters is plausible, but not totally welcome. On one hand, I do think that some perks should be disabled (like Distortion on David) to encourage different playstyles depending on your character. But contrarily, this would also force people away from their favorite characters to use certain perks. And if this is done incorrectly, you may not see some characters due to their perk roster.
Blessings sound like offerings to me, but that might just be me misunderstanding. The idea of Killers having to find Survivor-equivalents of hex totems feels off to me. I really think offerings should handle the whole blessing deal. We’re getting more offerings in the upcoming chapter, and I hope there’s plenty more where that came from to fill the empty void that is the offerings of this game.
Giving Survivors stats is, excuse me, not a good idea. In a game where your team is counting on you to buy them time to finish the objective, your performance shouldn’t be determined by stats. Not only would that screw people over in situations where they’d normally be fine, but it’ll create a new Survivor meta that isn’t just perks, which sounds like a nightmare. Don’t feel bad about it though. We can certainly build off of this idea with something akin to passive traits or something of the like.
The Killer stats screen looks very nice in that template. It’s pretty much the same as it is now, showing movement speed, terror radius, and power. Something the devs should definitely invest some time into is the explanation of Killer powers, because some (like Freddy’s) consist of a huge wall of text that’s super intimidating to look at if you’re a beginner.
I’m assuming you started to get worn out by the time you hit the items section, which is totally relatable writing long posts like these. The bloodweb and bloodmarket are passable, but flawed in their own ways and need touch-ups. The progression system in this game needs to be less of a grind, which is a discussion for its own post.
All-in-all, I like your thinking. Your ideas aren’t bad at all, but they’re not perfect either. After all, there’s always room for improvement! 😁
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Survivor stats are the thing I'm most on the edge about myself, truth be told. But I do think that having an overview on how well one does with certain objectives might be a good idea?
As for perks: I did muse about how it would play out if teachable perks in general would be weaker on a character, think that would work (instead of disabling them entirely?)
And as for items: No image there cause I am undecided if I'd personally prefer a separate shop/web for them, or a whole new game-mode where you can gather them.
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I think Survivors shouldn’t have stats, but traits instead. They’re basically passive abilities that the character has built-in. They’re directed at assisting in that character’s nature without being intrusive. I personally think Urban Evasion should be Nea’s passive, and Steve’s Camaraderie should be his own passive, or something similar to that perk that buys people time on the hook. Those things are helpful, but not totally game-changing, which is the direction I believe we should be going in when we talk passives.
Weakening/strengthening perks doesn’t sound so bad. I dunno. Same deal. This would need some field testing for a concrete answer.
The Bloodmarket for items and add-ons like they have on mobile seems okay to me. We could definitely experiment with different game-modes or milestones or something crazy like that. Let’s just make sure it fits the theme of DbD.
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We'd have to define what the 'theme' of dbd is. because i've seen people argue against modes or things like dlcs that'd give us the roleswapped versions of the characters on account that it 'wouldn't fit the lore/theme/mood'.
I'd argue that a 'scavenger' mode to get items would kinda fit, as it'd give the survivors a hope boost? which is what the entity feeds on?
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I’m not an expert on the lore of the game, but I do know that hope is very important to the Entity. A hub world for scavenging items is an interesting idea. A lot of games have something similar, so I could imagine DbD following suit.
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Pushing this back up, because i think especially after the 'tournament' the point that the system needs a complete overhaul stands stronger than ever.
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I like everything but the survivor stats, I'm just not a very big fan of meta survivors, especially in a competitive environment. Also, are these lore and learned perks the only thing these characters have? Or do they just start with them? Cause I might have a problem with exclusive perks as well. Aside from that, I actually really like this.
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I was thinking 'lore' perks would be perks that 'fit' with a characters lore and become 'automatic basekit'. E.g. Deathslinger would automatically have Bloodhound, Pig would automatically have tinkerer, David would automatically have self-care etc. While 'learned' perks are similar to how it works now, just that they'd be a little weaker.
(it's an idea, not set in stone)
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The idea of having survivor stats has been brought up before, and the biggest argument goes something like this: "I want to play aggressive and run the killer but i just really like claudette who is only good at healing and that's just horrible." And to an extent i agree. Survivors are purposely created as skins just to give the playerbase a wide variety. However, Ive always felt that there should be things to differentiate the characters.
What i would suggest is that in addition to perks, survivors would also have to pick a role. Be it healer, fixer, sprinter. These roles would dictate perk choices to a degree, with perks being grouped in catagories and each role able to use certain catagories. There would be some overlap and as a healer, choosing say an exhaustion perk, that perks effects would be diminished slightly.
Only 2 of the same role could be picked at the same time to avoid too many of the same perks.
Killers i dont think would need roles as there powers already determine how they play and what perks work best.
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I think looking back at the original four survivors, the idea of roles has been there at/from the start, and I agree it would be a good thing.
I mean, look at the original four and the four main items: tool box, med kit, map and flashlight. this has 'specific roles' written all over it.
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