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Eliminate endless use.
Had a thought just now about how some games turn into a battle of attrition because of unlimited ability use. Wouldn't the game functionally be much better without functionally unlimited tools?
Now take for example a survivor perk like Self Care. It has unlimited use and can potentially stall a game indefinitely if the killer is in a good enough position to defend, but not to take the offensive. It can also lead to independent action of never needing the assistance of another players help. It has lead to the coining of the term "Selfish Care" and snidely refered to as a killer perk despite its surface level benefits.
Now what if it say had only 1 charge. You could only heal yourself once with the perk, once with a medkit, and then the rest of the match need to rely on the assistance of your teammates? You'd approach games a lot differently than you would have before.
This can also be expanded to other unlimited use perks as well. Sloppy Butcher losing effectiveness after 10 hits. Bond only activating at the start of a match and lasting for a minute. Enduring gradually losing 5% effectiveness for every stun. Exhaustion actually meaning something with 1 recharge between hooks.
Now you're probably wondering about killer abilities. Killer abilities would have their add-ons diminish. If a game wore on too long, their add-ons would essentially disintegrate making them base abilities. Still unlimited use but without their quirks.
I think a massive rebalancing like this is a necessary step towards achieving a more balanced game. Or is there something horribly flawed in my reasoning?
Comments
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Some killers are dependent on their add ons. You're pretty much deleting half the killer cast if the game last too long, while survivors can always repair gens.
Also self care was nerfed to keep survivors off gens longer. If they're not healing guess what they're gonna do~ ...not find teammates lol.
I get the idea, but a lot of unique playstyles are based off add ons and perks. We'd all get a vanilla experience five minutes into the match and that's cool sometimes...but now you're dooming everyone to eat vanilla with sprinkles for the rest of their life.
Also after they die. So vanilla forever.
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Uh ... I really hope u go make ur own game.
I don't want radical changes. I love the game the way it is.
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I think it defeats the point of add-ons and perks if they're all limited usage.
The game might be easier to balance without them sure, but removing them would just make things more boring and samey.
And there's no need to delete all of them instead of just making the problematic stuff better or worse (depending on why it's problematic).
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I really think self care comes in handy for solo plays, since a lot of killers bring FD, so if i bring a med kit and get hit with that I'd have to rely on finding a teammate willing to heal me rather than hiding and using SC. I've had amazing teammates in the past, but there are some who don't want to heal or don't even bother with the unhooks (not that there's a perk for the unhooking part, but self care is awesome if you need a heal when you have nobody)
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I'm not sure the examples you are giving are actually trying to find a more balanced game experience. From what you say I get that Self-Care should work just one time, so that's a one-use only perk slot for survivors, yet Sloppy Butcher you give 10 hits per match of use, shouldn't it be more balanced if it was just 4 hits? One per survivor? Same with Bond, it's a perk slot lost after the first minute of the match, but then again Enduring would work thoughout the whole trial with just a 5% off every stun, like how many times would the Killer need to be stunned for it to actually mean a drastic change (like the ones you mentioned before)?
I'm not saying this is a bad idea though. Maybe a more detailed list could be helpful here, but from those few examples I think it looks more like nerfing Survivors' perks than actually leveling both sides.
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Then those killers get buffed, a request they already get on the daily.
Self Care would have it's number readjusted to be medkit speeds. That's how balancing works.
The point is defining and drawing a clear line in the sand with which the game is built upon. Diminishing resources drawing the game to a close. Gens are a resource. Items are a resource. And perks are a resource.
Tapering off infinity in a game that eventually ends is logical.
And if those aren't enough, a new resource can be freely introduced. Life isn't static, it needs to evolve.
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Those were just examples with ballpark estimates. It was meant to enable thinking on the subject of how removing infinity would change the game, and what applications it could have.
Sloppy Butcher I gave it extra charges in that scenario because even though the survivors would only be able to Self Care once, they wouldn't lose the ability to heal while their other teammates are still in the game. And that proposed idea would be to limit effective times.
It could also potentially have conditional elements like "Only one afflicted survivors at a time" meaning while it has potential unlimited use, it's still limited in scope, making it balanced.
It's my belief that a sure thing has no place in a horror game. Characters get tired. Wounds get deeper.
It was mostly inspired by elements already present in the game. Waking from Freddy's dreamworld takes longer and longer to do the more you do it. It's a brilliant mechanic that enables both active teamwork, and choosing when to use your diminishing resources.
Same with any other perk that is one use or has limited charges. Unbreakable and Decisive Strike are both the most abused perks in the game, but are at their core each one use. It's not a huge stretch.
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This is a point I dont understand:
" If a game wore on too long, their add-ons would essentially disintegrate making them base abilities."
I mean, in general, I dont like the idea and the examples provided are not good (1 time use for Self Care, multiple uses for Sloppy Butcher, as an example).
But why should something get worse when the game takes long? From my experience, long games are more fun than short games (of course only if they dont get too long by endless slugging for the 4K or by hiding and not progressing the game). Because a long game means that the Killer is going for multiple Hooks, the Survivors are decent at Chases and the Killer is also able to apply pressure so that Gens dont pop too fast.
Which sounds like a good game for me with a lot of BPs for both sides in the end. And having Perks or Add Ons become worse overtime (or simply disabled), would just make it worse than it should be when a game goes on for a longer time.
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A necessary step if you just want balance though, you could say just remove perks and that will be the most balanced. Hey let's also drop the graphics down to basic polygons so it's easier to see people and the games more balanced... You can strip away a games systems e.g. perks and make them far weaker in the name of balance but that just kills the game, some things can't be balanced very well but that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't implement them. Without perks or with perks that weak so much variety would be removed from a game that already suffers with repetitiveness thus making the experience worse. This isn't a competetive game and people need to stop whining about balance all the time and saying we should remove good features because they are hard to balance
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I think if you look at the perk "built to last" you'll see that the devs are headed in the opposite direction, and that is probably a good thing.
based on the XP reward cap of 600 per match and a gain of 1xp per second the idea is that a match should last no longer than 10 minutes, and in my experience they rarely last longer than that. degrading perks and killer add ons will inevitably prolong each match, and that would generate either much higher queue times or a significant increase in cost for Behavior in terms of game server instances.
if anything I would say that each side should get a buff every 5 minutes a match goes on just to hurry things along (killer movement speed, gen repair speed in the first 5 minute, expose survivors and halve gen repair time at the 10 minute mark, at 13 minutes start the EGC) as long as those buffs are equal for both sides
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...
Built to Last activates once per trial.
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Self Care comes in handy when teammate wont heal you which happen more times then not.
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thats what SWF already do, breaking the game to the core with their efficiency on gens, leave the game as it is, let the noobs be noobs for longer. let them heal and waste time.- then about killers abilities, that was just dumb sorry, but i think those aspects are fine.
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I agree completely. Longer games really shouldn't affect how it ends. And i definitely dont think self care should be affected. It's extremely useful and can stop a survivor from quick death. Med kits run out fast and aren't extremely common in the web. You have to rely on finding other survivors and getting them to heal you, granted you have time for such a thing. Maybe for some things it could almost make sense but SC isn't one of them. Also agreeing that longer games are more exciting because the stakes are higher and all parties involved get alot of points no matter the turn out. Personally i don't think abilities should be diminished to single use because i also agree your turning it into a single use perk. And the same idea here would pitch survivors healing each other would be limited too
this idea sounds killer biased seeing as survivor perks were the pitch..... Have enough problems in game, leave good things alone I'd say...
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