Decisive Strike: A re-balance by considering counter play
Hi devs, great game! I think decisive strike is a good and needed ability for survivors. However, I believe there is a counter play issue that could use a love tap or two to fix for a healthier and better game. I'll break down the reasoning as follows:
DS. What purpose does this perk serve?
a. Anti-tunneling
b. Gives the survivor a rush of empowerment to turn around a hopeless situation
Does DS have counterplay?
a. Yes, slugging, or targeting another survivor
b. Survivor can fail the check. (Trivial)
When is a perk too strong?
a. A perk has large windows of time where it cannot be counter played, or the counter play is minimized. Having situations in which counter play cannot occur, is not necessarily wrong. It is the window of opportunity that matters or effort vs reward of counter play that matters.
b. There is zero reason not to take the perk every game
Why am I claiming DS is too strong?
a. The window in which counter play is unavailable or minimized at 60 seconds, is too long.
b. <-There is not a reason to always take DS, so this is not an argument against it.
So what is the lack of counter window? I'll list the problems below, then the possible solutions after all problems are listed.
60 seconds it too large of a time for a killer to keep track of in a second to second game.
Keeping track of ten seconds in one's head is simple, you might be off by 10%. 20 is more difficult, and you can be off by 15%. This is because you have to divide your attention as a killer between keeping track of a timer, versus your next decision. A killer likely makes a "decision" on average every 5-10 seconds. In that decision, you evaluate gens, player location, perks, and long term planning. Not only that, but every 5-10 seconds this might have to be re-evaluated as gens pop, survivors are discovered/lost, etc.
The issue with 60 seconds of DS, is it is not uncommon that a player may "reenter" the decision process after being gone for over 40 seconds. (Not saying DS needs to be 40 seconds). This is way past the time a killer should be expected to be thinking about how long ago they last hooked someone. Thus a killer could be off by 30% or more. The DS player might run in to take a hit for another player (which is supposed to be handled by its own perk), the killer may well think its been over a minute, so they pick the player up. BAM! DS. From the killer's side, its felt like over a minute has passed. What this forces instead is a killer to leave a body on the ground, even IF its been over 60 seconds because its just too difficult to keep track of in the player's head. This in effect can make the estimate of 60 seconds for the perks effectiveness to be much longer then intended.
60 seconds allows greater leeway for players to make bad moves after being freed from the hook, when the perk is intended to punish a killer play style
a. This may not be an argument against the perk. If the design intention is to allow a player to put themselves at risk again, then that is the intention. It SEEMS like the intention is for the hooked player to get away from the killer, and go do something elsewhere, but that may not be the intended design. Only the devs know here.
If it is the case that DS is intended as a high risk move to take a blow for another player, go to a high risk nearby gen and force the killer to strike or chase that player again, then its working as intended. But if not, the time window is allowing survivor's to use the perk in this way.
DS finds itself in a situation once the doors are open, where it cannot be countered, or its counter hurts the killer more than it benefits them.
a. One gen is left, and you have one hooked survivor with DS. You don't like tunneling, or camping the hook, so you go look for that last gen. Last gen pops, the survivor gets unhooked, but you chase others. You're running to the door and the other player is definitely gone. When, the hooked survivor that was hooked an unknown time ago did NOT heal themselves. They are the last player. So you hit them and down them. They're crawling past the gate, and you're trying to remember how long ago they were unhooked.
So you do the smart thing, you wait until they're JUST to edge of the escape zone and you pick them up. BAM! DS. You never had a chance. They didn't get punished for not healing. There was absolutely nothing you could have done.
This one is probably the worst experience as a killer. DS in this instance excuses a player for not healing. It encourages them to rush recklessly instead of out play by going to the other gate. It removes all counter play from the killer. And I believe it is counter to the intention of the perk. Someone might argue, "Well you should have used their DS earlier." But if you're playing a killer responsibly, and the intention of the perk is NOT to tunnel, why is the counter to tunnel? And isn't the counter to DS, simply not to trigger it? That doesn't seem like a good solution.
Possible solutions to this issue:
What should a solution do? Solve the issues without hurting the intention and value of the perk. Here are a few below that might do this.
a. After so many seconds outside of pursuit, a survivor with an active decisive strike gives some kind of indicator to the killer.
Maybe a sharp object in their hand. It doesn't have to be an obvious color code, something that forces the killer to at least be observant. This would still make it difficult for the killer to know how much time has passed, but give a visual to the killer that they "Need to move on" versus "Its safe to pick them up now".
This could be in their hand from the moment of unhook. This definitely would discourage tunneling, but it removes the "mystery" aspect of "Do they have DS". This is why I feel this should be an indicator only after a chase has not been engaged for X number of seconds. This would also still allow the full 60 seconds of DS's active status to occur, and allow the killer to make a meaningful decision.
b. Reduce the time DS can be active after X seconds outside of a killer chase.
If the intention is for the devs to use DS as a means to body block or be agressive, that's fine. But there should be a more limited window of opportunity for this. If you want to use it to be aggressive, its a decision that should be made very shortly after being unhooked. Something like 20 combined seconds of being outside of a chase should end DS prematurely. I'll let the devs decide on actual numbers.
c. Have decisive strike be disabled once you pass the gate
We still want DS to be useful prior to the gate. It can make a big difference. But what this would do is tell the survivor to either heal before gate rushing, try to lure the killer out, go to the other gate and play some mind games, or require teamwork at the gate to get that survivor through. But if you walk or crawl past the gate, the entity removes your strength in a last ditch effort to stop you. This should punish a survivor who makes poor choices, removes the lack of counter play from the killer, and can still be used as an interesting mind game to try to get the killer to pick you up JUST outside of the gate.
So, there's my feedback! Your game is fantastic, but DS just currently feels like a perk that has too much going for it in terms of counter play. Thanks for reading, and I hope it at least got people thinking.
Comments
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Interesting, but you could also just make it deactivate once another person is hooked, and/or once a gate has been opened. You could make it last forever in a chase to balance that out, and further prevent tunnelling.
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Sure, all suggestions are welcome.
If it deactivates when another person is hooked or 60 seconds, it doesn't fix the issue of a killer having to keep track of 60 seconds from a survivor's unhook. It also doesn't address the issue of a survivor using DS to put themselves purposefully in front of the killer and absorb a hit for a teammate.
The problem with it deactivating once the gate opens, is there's no reason to punish a DS user at the end game. DS is still a good perk, and it can be used for that clutch escape. That's why I recommended it being disable only when a survivor with DS crosses the gate doors. This also still lets them escape to hatch if its nearby.
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Well we wouldn't need the perk if killers stopped ######### camping and tunneling.
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Oh, don't you even kid yourself. Even if Camping and Tunneling was never an issue, survivors would still take DS into every match.
Just read aloud what the perk does. It gives you a second chance. Why would you ever not take it into a match? It's 60s of basically having an additional health state with one of the longest killer stuns to boot. Add to it, that up to 4 people can have it. Insane.
Technically, you're right. You wouldn't need it, but you would take it into games anyway. Because compare having a free escape to something like aura reading gens or whatever else floats in the bad perk pools.
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i think it was just a mistake to have a perk like this in general, it just needs heavily restricted due to its power level and it will be fine i guess.
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I personally think the idea of DS is good. I think if you lesson the times where it doesn't feel like a killer could have done anything about it due to the situations above, it will be good for the game. Nothing wrong with having a strong perk.
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Well atm, everyone uses it because killers won't stop camping and tunneling. If you killer mains want to complain so much about the damn perk, don't camp or tunnel and we wouldn't need it and it could be removed if people agreed we don't need it anymore. But instead of stop camping and tunneling you decide to just complain and whine about the one perk which can counter it.
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Yes, this is why DS is a good perk. Good perks alter the gameplay for a particular purpose. However, even if killers did not camp or tunnel, DS would still be immensely useful due to some of the points I noted above. The goal is to keep the perk strong for its intended use, while minimizing its strength if a killer does not camp or tunnel the survivor.
After all, if a killer is not tunneling or actively only pursuing one survivor, that's already an incredible boon for the team. The reason why killers camp and tunnel is because, well, its incredibly effective at many ranks of the game. The sooner you can eliminate one survivor, the stronger the killer becomes. So its good that there are some perks available that force a killer to target others. Otherwise, killers would rarely change their gameplay loop, and DBD encourages changing your gameplay loop.
So I really do think DS is a GOOD perk largely in its intention and functionality. I think there are aspects of it that could use some tweaking to prevent it from feeling like its being abused. My tact is to allow better information to the killer, and a eliminate a situation in which the perk cannot be countered.
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survivor main inbound.
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My view of Decisive and the only change I'd make is adding the following ruleset to the end of the perk.
While working on a Generator, Cleansing a Totem, or Healing another Survivor the timer for Decisive Strike ticks at double the rate.
So essentially you cannot do objectives freely and be invulnerable. If you're working on Objectives you're no longer being tunneled but it's still lenient enough to where rare situations could be considered. However if you're working on a generator long enough to make this perk expire you're clearly not being tunneled.
So questions on this change
If you start working on a Generator while there is 40 seconds left then the perk would tick at double the rate only giving you 20 seconds. However if you stopped repairing the Generator when the perk has 10 full seconds left it would resume the timer at normal speeds.
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Ds needs a massive nerf
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Even as as a supposed anti-tunneling perk it gives too much leniency with its 60 seconds.
60 seconds is a huge amount of time. Killers could change targets, losing the first survivor, break the chase and accidentally rediscover the unhooked DS carrier and still get ''punished for it''
Nevermind that no other perk in a meta-sense has such an oppressive presence like DS. At some point killers just HAVE to assume any individual survivor having DS. Even if it turns out they don't, killers are pushed into playing as if they do regardless simply because it is that much of a powerful perk and there is no way of confirming someone doesn't have it unless you decide to eat the stab at which point you have to play around it anyway. No other perk messes with a killer strategy this way simply by existing, even if noone is using it in a given match. And again it can be there up to 4 times for each survivor and with a filthy synergy from BT as well. How is that not messed up. How is anything the killer has even remotely close to such an oppressive perk.
Anti-tunneling my ass, its strength goes way beyond as an anti-tunneling measure, survivors are aware of that and exploit it for that exact reason.
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I think there is a much simpler way to break up DS's power without gimping either the survivor or killer.
Make it so that DS is a per hook state mechanic on a much shorter time. Each time a survivor is unhooked DS becomes active for 30 seconds, if the killer chases the same person after the unhook the timer is frozen. This still allows DS to be active for 60 seconds in total but gives enough time to get away and heal up after each hook. If the killer wants to wait it out then they lose precious time (including chase) for other generators to be worked on. This achieves the following:
1) DS can still be used from lockers in the case of aggressive tunnelling but also encourages the killer to consider whether waiting or eating the DS is worth it.
2) It means that killers who have a hard on for the same target will be penalised harsher for it, thereby improving the anti tunnel mechanic while giving the survivor a fighting chance. 30 seconds is also more than enough time for DS to have expired if the killer goes after another target.
3) It gives a survivor a better shot at not being deleted out the game in 2 mins at 5 generators
Setting deactivation conditions isn't a good way to fix the issue. If you look at some of the proposed solutions, here is the way in which as a killer I could work around it.
Deactivates on hooking another survivor - Great, I can down the slug the unhooked survivor, down / hook the rescuer and immediately rehook the original target. Now DS is gone they can be hard tunnelled in the second hook state
Deactivates on touching a generator or any action - Unfairly punishes tapping a generator if the survivor has distance and wants to spare a 1 second action to prevent regression. Better still, I can make a mental note of where they go, then immediately switch back to them and hard tunnel after 10 or so seconds knowing DS is probably gone.
The only deactivation condition for DS should be one of time and that's why it makes more sense to split it over hook states rather than set arbitrary conditions which are open to exploitation.
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Anyway, DS should not makes survivors invincible. We can talk about problems from DS forever, because it's hard to know technically if the killer is tunnelling, or if the survivor is abusing a mechanism of DS.
A lot of people would like to DS having a shorter timer (45s, hello Pop), but it would stop if the killer is chasing the DS activated survivor. Well, I see a BIG problem with that, especially in SWF where it can be super strong. If the killer is chasing someone else, and you have DS activated, you can't put yourself between you and the chased surv, and DS would be activated forever until the killer can kill / decides to kill you. The first seconds it would be a protection hit situation, but if it lasts, the surv would be the chased surv and DS timer won't stop. And the killer has three options : picks up the surv who has DS but doesn't know, or continue to chase the other surv, or he knows, and wait some seconds to be sure DS is out. That's the current situation of DS, but worse, because it can really makes DS lasts longer.
Personally I'm a Nurse main, I don't know when I didn't have a 4k, and DS is not a problem, Nurse is so strong I can chose who I'll chase to have 11-12 hooks and all the points. BUT, when everyone is down, and seconds earlier there were 2 hooks, and one guy unhooked the 2 others, and I saw them dead in the same spot, and pray for picking up the guy who unhooked, not one of the both hooked guys, it's annoying that I have to wait 50 seconds or play with luck.
Please don't call me a tryharder because I aim the 4k, sometimes I give someone the hatch, but generally I don't give the hatch because- hey, had you already see a survivor let himself hooked because he has mercy for the killer ?
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