The Pig: thoughts on Buffing and Balancing Standards
Hi.
I'm relatively new to dead by daylight. I have about 56 hours in at the time of this post. I'm currently Rank 10 with killers. I recently bought the SAW DLC because I liked the concept of the Pig. I've got her up to about level 25 now and I can safely say she is the least effective killer that I own. Her stealth is useful. Her ambush has its moments, but that's about it.
Jigsaw's Baptism doesn't seem to generate much pressure on survivors. The timer only starts when a Gen is finished, but this doesn't seem to deter survivors in the slightest. The timer only runs when the survivor is safe (as one can be in this game.) Not on hooks. Not on dying state. Not in chase. Not much of a hurdle. Two minutes and thirty seconds? Seems like a lot to me in a game where matches rarely last twenty minutes.
Surveillance IS a good perk but her other two are quite inferior compared to other options. Make your choice is circumstantial and Hangman's Trick is just objectively bad.
Let's talk about add-ons. She has some for ambush and some for reverse bear traps. The add-ons for the traps don't seem to make much of a difference in any practical way I can discern. They certainly aren't more lethal. In fact, as I'm writing this I realize I've never seen one these traps kill a survivor.
I'm sure there is a combination of perks that can be learned from other killers that can make the Pig good (Hex: Ruin with Surveillance stands out in my mind) but the right combination of perks can make just about anything work. I think the Pig, or any killer for that matter, should be able to stand on her own perks (and general perks) and add-ons alone. I don't think she does. In other words, a new DBD player who picks up the Pig DLC and plays them as their first killer is going to have a frustrating time.
I think this should be of some concern for the developers if their wish is to attract new players. The game quite often seems balanced specifically long time players; those tier 1-5 players with all the goodies. Newer players with fewer options and tools are out of luck. The potential for a rank 1 to make a cheese build shouldn't be the balancing standard.
I really want to like this character but right now I have major buyers remorse. I'll probably level her to the point I can teach Surveillance to other characters and than drop her altogether, which really bums me out.
I don't want to be the guy who complains but doesn't offer any ideas to fix the problem, so here we go:
1) Have timers start the second the trap is put on. It's not like it is keeping survivors from finishing Gens anyway.
2) Don't pause the timer.
3) Reduce the time by a lot.
I'm sure given enough time I could come up with more or better ideas, but I've been writing this long enough. If you read this all the way to the end I thank you for your time. Please share your thoughts.
Comments
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She's a pretty good killer, but play against her survivor side where red ranks just pop gens like it's going out of style and you get the same effect. Getting to all the boxes in time when Pig is chasing a survivor around a box is downright infuriating. You will get head pops and you will have had nothing to do with killing them. Trust me.
At her core she's basically an M1 killer. Trapper speed without traps. Wraith stealth without invisibility if that makes sense. She's a lottery killer and you didn't win the lottery on those head pops so she feels weak. Keep pullin' that lever. (but not when I'm playing oh god I hate RNG)
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1 would be good. The entire point of the ability is to stall the match, so they really shouldn't have the option of "do gens and worry about it later."
2 is bad. If Pig can just chase someone and guarantee they die, then that's broken. Yes, it's a big time commitment that would likely throw the game if done from start to finish, but there's no possible counterplay. It's not like camping where perks can protect the unhooked person, you can't MAKE the killer chase someone else.
3 is bad. Traps aren't meant to kill they're meant to stall and not dying is the carrot on a stick. With Tampered Timer and Crate of Gears, depending on the map it can already be physically impossible to search all 4 boxes. Considering you want the timer to start instantly, it definitely doesn't need to be lower by default.
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As a pig main I think her power is fine and should stay as is. BUT THE ADDONS SHOULD BE REDONE. Only power change i would make is Rules set no.2 being basekit. But the Add-ons should be trap focused they should be crouching and ambush related. I dont see her power as the traps I see it as the Ambush and I think there should be a couple of trap add-ons but mostly Ambush and crouch Add-ons.
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I wasn't clear enough. I'm sorry. I wouldn't expect all three. Just one.
I see your point about #2.
As for #3, I've never received a Tampered Timer. It's never appeared in my bloodweb, so I can't comment on it. I can only say that addons I've received so far don't amount to much.
I'd also be happy to just have just 1 or 2 traps if I thought they would pull more weight.
How about this: The timer starts immediately and finished Gens speed up the timer. This would be capped at one increase by default. Any further gens don't speed it further. Perhaps an very rare add-on might add a second speed boost. This has the potential to get survivors frustrated with each other while trying to save themselves. This would fit thematically with the film series, since it's largely about awful people screwing each other over to increase their own chances of survival.
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The issue with that is exactly what you said, it makes other survivors the source of your frustration. A power shouldn't ######### players over because there's not communication. SWF will always be able to play better around it, and it would always suck being solo and having people popping gens because they don't care about you in the slightest. It's problematic to put so much of a player's ability to survive into decisions made by other players cutting their life shorter.
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If the addons were redone I'd certainly reconsider. I still think Make your Choice and Hangman's trick are severely lacking. I tried them once or twice and then quickly replaced them with more reliable options.
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Don't survivors know when someone gets head trapped? As for screwing each other over, I see survivors do that all the time regardless. Usually to their own detriment. It's still in their best interest to keep other survivors alive; certainly in the early and mid game. I'm of course open to alternatives. Another commenter suggested just seriously overhauling her addons, which I'd be happy to try. I just want the developers to try something.
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If she is a lottery killer, as you put it, then the odds are quite poor. My pig is level 25, which means I've played at least 30 games with her. Not one head pop?
And like I said in my original post, I don't think red rank players should be the only concern when balancing.
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A year or two ago I'd think an add on rework would be perfect for her, really get some effects that actually benefit her and make her ambush more fluid. These days their philosophy of add ons is to be utterly useless, with 1-2 game changers IF any.
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Hmmm... I play DBD for about 2 months as killer, about 2 days a week. It isn't much, but Pig is my second most leveled up killer (still have a long way to go, but I've already tried combinations of add ons quite a few times).
And I must say that:
1 - It's ok that trap activates only when generator are done. And this is why: if the survivors gen rush anyway, regardless of their teammate, you'll be putting extreme pressure on the trapped one. He will absolutely not do any gens until the trap is off: so you'll have more time to do your chases. Sometimes the traps are removed sooner, sometimes later. I think that's the most frustrating part... but I must say, on the weekend I got a game against a streamer and, after the game ended, I went to his stream and watched the match from his point of view. 2 out of the 4 traps were only taken off on the last box. And I was running the add ons that granted me 2 extras boxes, so they lost around 2 minutes each just trying to break free. Besides, they were doing gens regardless of someone having a trap on their head. So what happened? I had 2 people with traps with the timer on and when I hooked a third (that was on the second hook), they didn't go for the rescue afraid there wouldn't be time to save their own lives (that was a bad decision), and I was already chasing the fourth one thanks to bbq.
The traps force the player to make a choice: do gens and put themselves at risk, or stop for a while and play it safe. That's the whole point of the traps and it usually works for me if I'm able to put a trap on before the first gen pops.
Also, yesterday I had a game in which a head exploded. Why? Because the survivors kept doing gens, regardless of the person (Nancy) on the hook having a trap. So the trap activated and Nancy went looking for the boxes. But unfortunately, in the middle of a chase I found her trying to take it off: not in front of me. I hit her, forcing that survivor to look for the boxes on the other side of the map, then I bumped into her again a minute later, chased and hooked her from the way I saw her coming from. When she was unhooked she had not enough time to get the trap off. So, although the traps don't kill people often, when activated they do A LOT of pressure. And it's a mistake to let it activate before the survivor tried at least half of the boxes. So you can punish the survivors for not caring for their teammates.
The thing is that you really have to get out of one chase and go to another, to make sure that you'll have a second trap on someone before another gen is popped.
2 - The timer has to pause, otherwise you can just follow the survivor for 2 minutes and kill them without any counter play. The goal of the trap is to put pressure on a survivor without being in chase with them. If you can chase someone else right away, you'll have 2 people pressured at once. So you should be discouraged to chase someone that already has pressure on.
3 - I think the time given is ok... you can reduce it by 30 seconds with the tampered timer if you really want it to go super fast. And even use the other purple add on that spawn one more box to trigger the maximum despair.
I love the pig, but I think she needs reworking on her stealth a little bit (I think she moves too slow with it) or improving her ambush. Besides, half of her add ons just don't make much sense.
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Make Your choice is a great perk but Hangmans Trick is horrible. You did say your fairly new so you probably don't have alot of teachables so what I'm gonna say is upgrade some other killers and get some perks then come back to pig then she will be great. I dont know if your willing to buy other DLC's to get perks but if you are you should get BBQ & Chili, Nurses Calling, PGTW, and Corrupt Intervention or STBFL. All great perks on pig. I agree that the addons are fine but don't go off a killer based on their perks to decide if your gonna play them because you should look at powers that suit you best and play with them and upgrade other killers for Bloodpoints and since you are fairly new you should look in the shrine of secrets every week to see if there is a perk you want there. But Make Your Choice is a better Perk with Surveillance unless you run Surveillance with Ruin but if Ruin gets broken your just left with an eh perk.
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Disagree about Surveillance. The fact that it gives you easier and further detection of repair noises is actually makes the perk much better than a lot of people give it credit for.
As for the OP, I've made it to purple with her with a bit of trial, error and more importantly, practice. You can't think of Pig as anywhere near the same type of play as other killers. Forcing survivors off generators and keeping them locked down is priority. Hooks and RBT's are nice, but not something you should risk generators for.
If you have concerns about survivors quickly getting RBT's off, then the Gears add-ons should be something to look into.
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Yah But there is better gen perks than surveillance to run especially on pig and though both are good make your choice is better on alot of killers(Mostly high mobility killers)Also quick question what's your build because this is the 2nd discussion I've seen you on,mine is BBQ Nurses Pop and Corrupt.
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Ruin, Surveillance, Nurse's, BBq. Same since pre-Ruin rework. Preferred add-ons are the Dash ones.
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ok i will try your build but i used ruin before and used sloppy over corrupt and ruin got broke in 15 seconds-1 minute so i was always left with 3 perks and with your build your pretty much down to 2 perks because surveillance really isnt very good by itself as the only thing i like of it by itself is the louder gens but that isnt good enough for a whole perk slot but i will try it
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I should also mention that my killer rank did slide down dramatically lately due to several games and WORK demanding my attention, so I get easy slaughters at lower ranks.
I do alao play differently to a lot of killers, focusing more on generator defence than straight kills.
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I like a variation of Scorpionz' (the best Pig in the world) build:
BBQ, Brutal Strength, Enduring, Pop
I prefer the extra trap/box add-ons the most personally, as they're easy to get value out of - but combat straps and the like are great too.
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oh because i have been playing red ranks since i was rank 20 only maybe 3 matches they were worse than green rank. Im currently a purple rank and face all rank 1's and 2's. I almost never get worse than a 3K but i dont only play pig. I also play Huntress Plague Freddy and Legion ALOT. Before i strictly played Pig but got fed up of having so little Ambush and crouch add-ons that i started playing a more diverse range of killers. Im thinking of playing more Bubba and Trapper because i have played them both after leveling them and loved them. I should mention that i started playing around February or March 2020 took a break from the game from June 3rd to August 2nd so i slipped from rank 9 to 20 again and now im back to rank 8. I am fairly new to the game but since the beginning i have watched Tofu's and Scorpionz's streams every time they streamed all the way through and have gotten great at killer.
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I have destroyed teams of 2 reds, a purple and a green before as a rank 16, but I am als I assuming they are solo.
Co-ordinated SWF will still screw over a Pig pretty hard.
I also think that Pig solves a lot of the "Secind Chance Meta" problems of today, but In dkn't see anyone else talking about that.
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yah only times i get less than 3 kills are SWF but ive also seen a SWF were 1 kid was good and the rest were rank 20 he probably just got them into the game and they were trash did a full squad wipe in like 3 minutes lol
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Stealth killers (I also think about Ghostface) became useless because of Spine chill... walking in moonwalk is also taking the risk to miss the survivors (no sense) ! I don't understand how stealth killers can be spotted by a perk and warn the survivors 36 (36) meters in advance ! I'm not talking about Amanda's breath in stealth mode, and Ghostface's footsteps... for discreet killers it's really FUN !
Amanda is probably the second useless stealth killer in the game (with Spectre).
Her trap is ridiculous, because usually all you need one puzzle box to remove her... I think her helmet is only good for the tunnel, or maybe to slow down the game but with SWF I doubt it works... moreover it doesn't activate at the end of the game, and I find it ***.
For the rest, his ambush is quite fun but not easy to use. Addons really need a rework (like Amanda, like all stealth killers) !
Ps: Myers is the only stealth killer capable of the best, even if he doesn't have the undetectable status in P2, he's still powerful with the Doctor's perk.
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