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A way to make Hex: NOED more balanced and reasonable
Playing both as killer and survivor I find Hex: No One Escapes Death to be such an awful perk. I hate using it as a killer and hate when a killer uses it against me. It rewards the killer for playing poorly and proceeds to strip the merit away from everyone (including the killer, assuming they are not a sadistic psycopath who doesn't care about earning the kills - might as well be playing a torture simulator at that point). The obvious counterplay to it is cleansing every totem before finishing the last gen, but that might be very hard in maps like the Yamaoka Estate ones, where totems are completely invisible inside bushes sometimes.
I don't want to only bash this design choice, so here's some suggestions on how to tweak it: make it so that the exposed effect goes away after the first survivor is downed while NOED is active. This way it still has the "extra chance to catch-up" effect for the killer, without allowing completely bad games by the killer to become 4Ks without requiring any real skill. Guaranteeing just one hook makes it so the killer still needs to know how to play around late-game unhooks, which is fair imo. Another option would be adding a timer to its effect, so there's a deadline for the killer to find the survivors before they finally have a chance to escape.
These are my ideas for it, but I'd love to hear what others think about this perk and how to balance it.
Comments
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No way, its fine how it is. Its a high risk, high reward perk. If you need it you have to nerf the reverse perk: adrenaline. (I mean, they're not the same thing obviously, but its a powerful "reward you for playing badly, end game" perk
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I think it should be left alone until the other absolute potato perks in the Killers base set get buffed. You can hate on it all you want, but the fact of the matter is that NOED is the only really strong perk available to new killers.
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I think NOED should be a token based obsession perk, for every time you down the obsession you gain a token for NOED (up to 4/5), the totem is up all match, you get a 1%, speed boost for every token, all match. When you hit someone (once NOED would trigger under normal conditions) they are immediately downed due to being exposed by NOED, you lose a token for every hit including hitting someone on a hook or an injured person.
This prevents NOED from becoming a bad killer's crutch perk that rewards being bad and punishes the killer for not trying if they have NOED (or being toxic, funny watching someone lose tokens hitting someone on hook).
Additionally, people who use DS are gonna be more than likely the people subject to being the centre of this perk which might drop its use rate.
The only issue I see is that the killer may tunnel the obsession, wait for pickup and tunnel again until max tokens, then kill them. But most things in this game are abusable to a degree so I don't know.
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Run detectives and do bones
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same argumentation as always... it does NOT intendedly reward bad play. In first place, it let's you play the game with 3 perks, and when you managed to kill 1 or 2 survivors before it activates, THEN you earned that endgame pressure pretty well and for 2-3 survivors it is hard to cleanse NOED and get the unhook. If the killer did not manage to kill anyone, it should be still possible to get rid of the NOED, there should be plenty of time and enough people to do so. (This last line includes that there is also a counter AFTER it activates). If a REAL bad killer gets a 4k just because of NOED, then the survivors threw the game (most likely because they don't wanna grant the killer a single kill)
I also disagree on the totem spots. I think every map has learnable totem spots, the only 2 maps I can think of are Midwhich and Lerys, as they all have no line of sight, meaning you may know where they spawn, but you very likely will hear hexes before you can see them, as sometimes there are certain spots you have to be to get LOS, it is not enough to be in the same room. Therefore you lose a lot of time travelling around to find all totems.
Your redesign makes it complete trash. You have a chance for it to not activate and then you have a chance to down an injured survivor with it. Besides that, a perk granting a single oneshot is trash anyway. Create a perk that makes your first M1 in the game instadown and then deactivates for the rest of the trial, pretty sure noone will use it. The timer might be an option, but nothing like 10s per tier as I already read in other threads. It should be between 1-2 minutes, so that the other survivors actually have a bit of threat to search for it as someone is dying on hook and the killer has a chance to find them.
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Here's the thing...
That is exactly what NOED is supposed to do. NOED is essentially the newbie killer's insurance policy against this game's terrible matchmaking. When I was new to Killer and was working my way up... I had plenty of games that ended and I was left asking myself "How on earth did Matchmaking let that go through?" Stuff like being rank 12 and going against 2 rank 4s and 2 rank 5s. Or rank 16 and going against a full set of rank 8-9 Survivors.
Now granted I didn't use NOED a ton... but that was more because I got Legion with my first 9k shards. If your Survivors are healthy when you hit late game as Legion, something has gone terribly wrong. So getting insta downs at the end is... not super useful for them. However you better believe I ran it the first few times I tried to make Wraith work. Like seriously... what else are you even going to run on Wraith with no Teachables? Like... Sloppy + NOED + Whispers + Bitter Murmur is basically your only decent option.
Once you start getting the perks you need to build synergies in your build, NOED use naturally drops off because the things that synergize with it are all... kind of terrible and hidden away on Freddy's teachables. But it being potentially available from the word go and bringing a lot of power from a single perk slot is really good for new killers who don't have what they need to build those strong synergies yet.
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That's the thing though.
NOED is this massive safety net that just holds someone back from actually thinking through what they are doing!
I was a victim of bad matchmaking when I started killer but I pushed through, as much as NOED is strong at face value, it's a stupid perk and that was obvious to me from the start. Just use the killers best two teachable perks and unrelenting, bitter murmur for the other two slots.
Like that saying, you don't learn to walk the tightrope by relying on the net!
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Eh. While I hate second chance perks for both sides. And NOED is very annoying to go up against. I feel like its fine. I would say the speed boost is worse than the 1 hit down. Half the roster almost can one hit down anyway.
NOED has pretty clear, easy counterplay. It really isn't hard to find 5 totems on 90% of maps. It's criminally easy on the Macmillan/Autohaven/Farm maps to find all 5 once you know the general spawn areas. And can be removed from play without ever triggering.
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The difference being that NOED makes every survivor permanently exposed, whereas adrenaline only heals once and gives a boost to speed for a few seconds. It's not the same thing. A better comparison (something that rewards survivors for playing poorly) would be keys - I agree keys definitely require a nerf as well.
I disagree, being a new killer myself. It teaches bad habits, being actually counter-productive for new killers, who won't improve in the game itself by winning with it. "Just waste your time chasing a survivor who is a better looper than you all game long; once all gens are done, wait around their hook and one-shot everyone who comes to rescue them; if they don't, then you only get that 1 kill". That's NOED in a nutshell. A shortcut for people who don't want to improve, but also don't care about taking the fun away for others. That's my opinion as a killer main and new to the game (<1 month, I used this on the first week and quickly saw how unbalanced it was).
A good suggestion as well! It tackles the point: rewarding something other than "welp, it seems like you're about to lose, here's a massive handicap for the other side".
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When something requires the other side to take it into account and bring a response every single game, it's a sign it needs a rework. Imagine if flashlights were so powerful and uncounterable that a killer would need to bring Lightborn every match. That's how terrible that reasoning is.
I'll ignore the passive-aggressive toxic bits there and go straight to the point you make. "It's possible that this won't work given X and Y conditions" doesn't really answer anything I have questioned about. It's possible 2 survivors could be afk, making keys unusable in a match - so what? You're missing my point. About the possibility of overnerfing with my suggestions, I agree: in that case I would suggest removing its relation to totems, since it's not really a Hex perk anyway, and give people another reason to cleanse dull totems other than to avoid this. I do believe that would improve the overall experience for both sides. Of course there are other things in need of nerfs on the survivors' side (keys? DS/BT/Unbreakable on every swf?), but I don't understand why someone would feel the need to mention them on this discussion. This polarized behavior of "us vs them" is not productive at all. In general the game is clearly more unbalanced to favor survivors, and that should definitely be addressed, but I don't think it excuses the existence of this perk how it currently is.
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Who said they were relying on NOED? Who said they aren't playing normally as best they can and only packing NOED just in case matchmaking bodies them? Or because the base set of perks has exactly zero strong generator slowdown?
To modify your analogy, learning to walk a tight rope without a safety net is a terrible idea because you're new to this... you're going to mess up and it'd be nice if you didn't get crippled off of one mistake. Likewise, when you're new to killer, you're going to mess up and it'd be nice if you didn't get absolutely stomped for 1-2 mistakes that maybe weren't even particularly obvious.
Also, Unrelenting is garbage. Meanwhile, you've also got Wraith and Huntress as 2 of the 5 free killers who have basically zero good teachables between them. Lullaby is good against bad Survivors but the other 5 are bad.
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Because people who use NOED rely on it as their safety net that's always there to save them, because most games, survivors don't do bones (for whatever reason, inner strength supremacy anyway).
Everyone is gonna be bodied by matchmaking, but the people who learn from it aren't the people who use perks that reward them doing bad. A baby killer could go into a game against all purple and red ranks, get a lucky down then camp the hook after being ran all game with NOED, they get a lucky snowball because some claudette decided the killer wasn't good enough to knock her down whilst she was rescuing in his face. Suddenly he gets a 3/4k and takes that away that he played well and NOED is a good perk. Being bodied by matchmaking should be a learning experience before it should be an excuse to use #########, broken perks (not just on the killer side, survivor side as well).
Unrelenting is the poor man's STBFL, whilst not as good, if you aren't running other obsession perks you know if someone has DS, and it isn't nearly as niche, providing a constant bonus, better than the learning curve obsession perks have at lower ranks.
Shadowborne is an amazing perk and is actually really useful! As a colourblind person, if bloodhound can fit in my build its surely welcome, and when I first started I found tracking scratch marks very difficult (not including my colour blindness, I can vaguely see fresh scratch marks on dark maps because they glow, on light maps it isnt as bad, there predator is useful.
Lullaby is actually surprisingly good up to about green ranks, good starter perk as it makes skill checks difficult. Iron Maiden is an amazing perk, it isn't given enough credit, at low ranks way too many people hide in lockers, good starter perk. Beast of prey is outright useless I can't argue there.
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"rewards the killer for playing poorly"
What? It rewards the killer if survivors played very poorly.
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NoED is in a good spot. It punishes survivors for holding m1 the entire game and don't do bones. I mean, for the entire game, you're playing with 3 perks at best until the last gen gets popped, so it's a fair tradeoff. Play with 3 perks the whole game to possibly get insta-downs to apply pressure and punish overconfident swf teams or very altruistic players, and even then, your totem can still get cleansed even after being popped, so it's a massive risk-reward situation. Personally, I don't see it all too often because there are better perks to run and it's bad to be handicapped to 3 perks the whole game, but all in all, NoED doesn't need a nerf or a buff.
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it's playing poorly because survivors got all 5 gens and now the killer needs them to become killable in one hit in order to not let them escape. That's a shortcut to the main game loop.
Your statement is based on the fact survivors didn't cleanse all totems, which is not part of the main game loop. It's like expecting a killer to break every pallet in every game. It's a side-mechanic. Imagine if survivors had an OP perk that could only be cancelled by breaking every pallet.
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It's a good perk when you get gen rush.
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Doing totems is part of the main game loop clearly? It's not that hard to do totems when you face a killer with 3 perks all game. If you have such a problem with Noed run small game or detectives. How can you complain about a perk you can just rob the killer of? As survivor if I die because of Noed in end game I can only blame myself for failing on totems. There are stronger perks than Noed out there that is for sure.
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It's fine the way it's now. If the 4 survivors can't take out a few totens during the match then your fault.
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That first paragraph is hardcore generalizing. You literally have no idea whether the player who's bringing NOED is doing it because they hardcore rely on it or if they are doing it because they have zero viable perks to stop generators. Seriously the options for Gen slowdown for new killers is very poor. There's basically only Unnerving Presence which isn't great, Lullaby which falls off hard, and Thanatophobia which doesn't function on most killers.
That second paragraph is assuming that anyone using NOED is just about incapable of introspection. I've never once had a game where we got to Exit Gates powered where I thought I played particularly well, whether I am using NOED or not.
Unrelenting is not the poor man's STBFL. Unrelenting works on missed hits, STBFL works on hits that connect which lets the Survivors get less distance off of getting hit. Completely different. In theory, Unrelenting never ever helps you because you never miss. Granted theory is different than practice and you do sometimes miss, but it isn't often enough to make Unrelenting good.
I can't comment on how those perks help or don't help people with colorblindness because I am not. I am however going to say how they help (or don't help) me personally. In all honesty FoV should be an option slider and Shadowborn reworked to be something else. Blood Hound isn't terrible but I wouldn't call it fantastic. There's at least 3 tracking perks in the base set I'd pick over it. Predator on the other hand can actively hurt you because it makes it less likely that scratch marks will splash up onto trees and walls where you can see them from significantly farther away.
I'm aware that Lullaby is pretty good for awhile. When I started out as Killer I'd play Huntress with Whispers, Thrill, Lullaby, and... something else don't remember exactly. Problem is that Lullaby falls off and when it does, it falls off hard. Iron Maiden is a Legion teachable and not relevant to the current discussion. Huntress's other two perks are Territorial Imperative and Beast of Prey. TI could potentially get you a down in the basement which isn't bad, but it is 100% dead weight if the Survivors don't go in the Basement and kind of Dead Weight on low mobility killers. Beast of Prey is honestly hard handicapped due to being tied to Bloodlust 1. Having undetectable during chase is actually really good... but it getting reset whenever Bloodlust does makes it useless.
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You know what the problem is? Too many players think they have to save everyone... they will literally blame a killer for running NOED as their friend is hooked and they can do little about it. How about this? Noed happens, you accept it. Open door, leave?
Killers lose an entire perk spot to run this, and the only possible nerf I "could see" is a limit on when it procs depending on how many players are alive. However, I honestly think the perk is fine. As someone who plays survivor a lot, I went from HATING this perk to understanding the many reasons it is there. And if I am hit by NOED.. i want my team to leave. If I am being camped with NOED, I do the shirty thing and let go off the hook to spare my team from just being picked off (solo q vibes)
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Did you respond to the correct person? I did not mention anything about keys or BT or something.
If so, regarding the "balance of the perk how it currently is", I gave a pretty clear reasoning why I don't think it is unbalanced but survivor playstyle that causes the frustration
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It IS part of the game, same as endgame is part of the game. Or do you say Devour Hope is also a massive design issue? Btw your statement of "rewards bad killer play" is based on the fact that the killer is simply performing bad and having ALL survivors get to endgame. This only reflects like 10% of all scenarios.
Your comparison does not really work as there are way more pallets than totems and they need to be dropped before the killer can destroy them.
Just some additional examples:
- if the killer is really performing that bad, there should be 1 person max if at all on death hook. Giving you plenty of time to take care of totems before you finish the last gen. So it is survivor's fault if they don't care and just take the risk.
- having 4 survivors alive should mean that 3 survivors have about a minute to find the totem, before the first downed guy dies. if the killer instead chases the next rather than protecting the hook, you can easily unhook and have again 3 survivors searching the totem
- regarding those 2 points above, you could argue with "not everyone is SWF" but I would counter with general game sense. there are enough perks and tools and LOS and whatever to get information what the killer is currently doing.
- in every case, you could always chose to let that guy die and have 3 people get out. antimate? I'd rather say, if you're not confident in your team, don't grant that 'bad' killer unnecessary hooks and kills
- I could also list several scenarios where the killer pretty much earned it, just one example: having 2 survivors killed before last gen is done with only 3 perks is pretty solid. NOED gives you a cummulated power boost. I regard that mechanic a bit like Myers. Be weak in the beginning, but at some point you get a deadly boost.
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How is Adrenaline a “powerful reward for you playing badly, end game perk”? I’m sorry but there’s a huge difference between NOED and Adrenaline when it comes to end game. Adrenaline is a perk that reward you for you and your TEAM completing the gens all together whilst giving you an automatic health state and 5 second SB. NOED gives you a 4% increased movement speed and exposed status effect until the totem is broken. It’s busted in solo que especially since totem spawns can be a pain and there’s no communication.
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just do bones
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Honestly fair enough, I'll reply in full when I get up tomorrow, but just wanted to say idfk why I thought Iron Maiden was a Huntress perk, my bad lmao
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Honestly, it's probably because Iron Maiden is almost only used on Huntress. Doc can also use it well but you don't necessarily see that very often. That's probably what got you a bit confused. Whatever the reason, that's not a big deal.
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I've made this suggestion before, and I'll do it again. NOED isn't a problem as it is now. However, if you want to really drive home that people should do Totems, I would make the following change.
- NOED activates the same as now.
- Anyone who has NOT cleansed a Totem suffers Exposed.
- The exit gates are blocked to anyone who has not cleared a Totem.
- Killing the now lit NOED will end all effects as normal.
Why do I suggest this? It should make it clear to people that Totems are an objective and you SHOULD do one.
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I like this idea, but then you'll still get the team mates who don't bother because they think they are too good to get hit with NOED or just don't care and want to depip, and then what indicates to the killers who's expose and who isn't
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NOED is a situationally useful perk that can be hard countered.
- Once the gates are in play, it becomes a LOT more difficult for the killer, as survivors can stealth bounce between the two gates
- You can take out the perk entirely by doing totems
- If the killer camps his ONE hook, ok, let him have it. It took an entire perk that didn't help him during the game to stop the gens from popping. Go to the next game.
- If a person leans on the perk, to get a kill at the end game (If they find a survivor), let them. There are plenty of perks that people lean on to compensate for basic skills.
A situationally strong perk with strong counter play is in no way overpowered. Sorry, I just don't see it.
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Ah, yet another "NOED rewards people for playing poorly" thread.
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