http://dbd.game/killswitch
Knockout was underpicked by killers, but only triggers on basic attacks post-rework. Why?
Why make a perk underpicked by killers less usable on the majority of killers, or 90% of killers who are good at slugging?
Crawling speed penalty makes no sense considering everyone recovers after a slug, and the blindness is whatever.
Now, with Twins being out, this perk would be pretty gross on them, but the perk was changed around mid-2020. What's the point of making an underpicked perk less usable on killers who would actually get good value out of this perk?
I know this discussion is old at this point, but as the year closed out, I just sat and questioned some of the design decisions that have occurred over this past year when it comes to perk introductions/nerfs/reworks.
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Because they wanted the perk to make M1 killers efficient at slugging.
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You answered your own question. "With Twins being out, this perk would be pretty gross on them". It's not only gross on twins, but basically any killer that wants to abuse it against solos.
Have you ever played against a knockout killer that tries to get all survivors to bleed out?
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It would be useless on the twins anyway because no perk applies to victor once you use him
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I was trying to convey that while this perk may sometimes be strategic for killers, all use cases of this perk promote a unfun playstyle for survivors and when abused a miserable experience no matter the killer.
You're definitely right though - if anything, ironically, the slug-only use-case would work on every killer except for the twins.
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You're talking about Knock-Out as if its this completely game altering perk that suddenly allows the killer to instantly slug all four survivors at 5 gens.
It does almost nothing most of the time. You would be much better off running Haunted Grounds or Infectious Fright to slug hard.
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But was it really a problem pre-rework?
You can say that, but that was never shown to be the case. The perk was underperforming and underused, that was the problem. Not that it was overperforming. The solution to that would be, even if redesigning so it's not awful to play against, making it have more use. Post rework, which intended to give it more use, it has far less use and the added effect of slow crawl speed does practically nothing.
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First of all, I will never understand why people complain about Nerfs to a Perk which was weak to begin with. I have not seen many Knockouts at all and I cant believe that onle the few people who actually used it are complaining. So why complaining about a Perk that would not have been run anway?
Anway:
"Now, with Twins being out, this perk would be pretty gross on them, but the perk was changed around mid-2020."
That the Perk was changed mid-2020 does not matter at all. If they want to do that in regards to the Twins Release, they already knew that they were coming. BHVR plans Chapters with at least 1 year in advance, aka they know what will be cominig at the start of 2022. So when they changed Knockout, they knew that Twins would be released later during the year.
Also, it was during Leatherfaces Rework, aka it made sense to touch his Perks at this point.
When it comes to WHY it was nerfed, I would say that they thought it would be too annoying on Killers who can down people fast (like Nurse, Billy or Oni) so that it becomes harder to pick up other Survivors at this point. But IMO they should look at Infectious Fright for that, far more unhealthy.
And IMO they should change Knockout to something completely different because it is still a Perk which is strong against Solos and weak against SWF, which should not be the case.
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It's not so straightforward. He doesn't have perks because he's a special ability, but perks that work in the background would still proc. If you have ruin and push someone off a gen, ruin applies. If you injure someone with Victor, Thana applies. And so forth. If KO still applied to special attacks, it would work.
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Just wanna mention that Nurse's blink attack is a basic attack, so Knockout still applies. Can confirm as a Knockout using Nurse player.
I think it's valid to complain about a change made to an underpowered perk that was intended to address its issue being underused, and then the change they make to it is making it less usable lol. I actually did use Knockout pre-nerf, and it wasn't really good, but I liked it for slugging here and there (never played like an ass with it, just used it to pressure).
But assuming they'd know the Twins PLAYSTYLE and changing Knockout just for that isn't really realistic. Twins could've easily been the best 12-hooker in the game to their knowledge mid-design (which, might I remind you, this killer wasn't even fully designed ON RELEASE). They just happened to turn into the best slugger in the game that can snowball at any point. I highly doubt they changed Knockout in preperation for the slugging playstyle that players would figure out on release.
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It doesn't - in fact, you may only be able to pull off slugging all four players one in every 5 games. However, that doesn't change that in the right circumstances against solos, you can completely ruin the game for them.
If there's anything the devs have shown us with their methodology to balance, blindly looking at the performance of a perk without looking at the use-cases is bad practice. Otherwise, OoO should not be changed because it is "underperforming". I will agree that the rework was counterproductive and didn't bring the perk more use, however I have an issue with the base perk itself.
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Okay, that's a totally fair standpoint. My post is mostly about why they would make a change doing the OPPOSITE effect of what they want (and if they have half a brain and any knowledge of their game, they KNOW making it a basic attack perk would lead the perk to being less used). Now, the perk itself may be unhealthy, and I totally get that part. The buff wouldn't have had to make it MORE unhealthy, just make it a better perk that is more usable.
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... So we both agree that Knock-Out is not overpowered and that there are stronger alternatives for slugging, so why is Knock-Out a problem?
It seems your interpretation of ruining the game for survivors is 4-man slugging, but Knock-Out has nothing to do with this. You can slug just as easily with Knock-Out as without it most times.
You could complain about instadowns or Infectious and I could maybe see where you are coming from, but even solos understand they need to walk around and pick up their buddies once everyone starts hitting the floor vs Knock-Out.
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I think it has nothing to do with balance. Didnt Almo or another Dev clarify that they use the M1 requirement to have their workload in check? Perks which can activate with killer power needs to be revisited every new killer release. Or when you create a perk which can activate with every attack you need to test it on every exiating killer. So when the requirement is a basic attack its less work for them.
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Also, it was during Leatherfaces Rework, aka it made sense to touch his Perks at this point.
But why add the basic attack requirement to Knockout?
It's a teachable from Leatherface,a killer that normally downs survivor with his power.
First of all, I will never understand why people complain about Nerfs to a Perk which was weak to begin with. I have not seen many Knockouts at all and I cant believe that onle the few people who actually used it are complaining. So why complaining about a Perk that would not have been run anway?
People complain about such perk changes because it's plain bad design that restricts the use of more creative and different perk builds.
Another great example for this is Surge.A perk that is rarely used because it's so damn restrictive.
I would love using those 2 perks but i can't because they simply don't work on my main killers.
Overbalancing perks just enforces a stale meta,which is a huge problem in DbD
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I've stated multiple times, that my problem with the perk is the use-case. While the perk itself may not be that strong, the only use-cases for the perk are inherently unfun for the other side and can be abused.
While there may be other perks that are good for slugging strategies, their use cases are not only to promote slugging. Infectious Fright gives a lot of information and can be used to counter flashlight users. Insta-downs allow killers to generate a lot of pressure and get quick downs. The only purpose of knock-out is to encourage killers to slug.
OoO is a perk that when un-abused and used in solo queue isn't that strong. In fact, the devs main justification for not nerfing it is because OoO users have a high death rate. So if it's not overpowered, and there are stronger alternatives for helping survivors survive, then why does most of the playerbase find OoO to be a problem?
Edit: I'll make one last point and will stop replying to this. What if there was a perk that changed flashlight blind delays from 1 second to half a second? It certainly wouldn't be overpowered, since it would encourage survivors to clump together and give killers free downs. It would still have a ton of counterplay, since a killer could just look at walls or bait a pickup and get a free hit. However - the only use-case of the perk would promote an unfun playstyle for the other side - and I would argue that a perk like this is problematic.
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Well that's the thing:
OoO is one of the best perks to help survivors escape, its just that it moreso helps the team as a whole rather than the user.
People who abuse it are rare so random rank 20 Lauries who didn't even read the perk description probably drag down the survival rate as well.
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First of all, Knockout may be underpicked, but it's a strong perk.
The reason it's not meta isn't because it's weak, it's because SWF kind of screws it over. So the metalords who set trends at the top don't use it because they run into SWF more often than most other players everywhere else.
Try using a Knockout Slug build in the lower ranks solo queue and you'll be surprised how easy it is to 4K. Knockout is strong. Combine it with perks like Third Eye, Nurses, BBQ, IF, etc. and it gets really nasty.
Now why was it reworked to only work on M1 attack? Not really sure. The Devs like to use the reasoning "for consistency" when reworking perks that affect M1 and M2. I remember when Sloppy Butcher was reworked they used that reasoning to restrict it to M1 attacks. Same thing with Third Seal and a few other perks. I'm guessing they're applying the same logic to Knockout.
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