Meta perks are killing the game.
Okay the title is a bit overreacted, but I still think that the game is suffering under these perks.
I mean how many times do you have the nerves to go against the same perks over and over again?
Ruin+Undyne, Ds+Unbreakable, spine chill+ironfor example.
I'm luckly green ranks were the perks are a bit more...random, but the more I rank up the more I see only the same stuff over and over again.
I have a little idea to make it better, maybe a "Cooldown" for perks.
You played the perk and have to wait 2 rounds until you can use them again.
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Unfortunately, meta is going to be in every game you play. Devs have a hard job to make sure everything is balanced. If they simply nerf the meta into the ground, another one will form. It's present in all games, Magic the gathering, Yugioh, CoD, WoW, LoL, there are literally entire websites devoted to defining the meta. This is not just a DBD problem, it's a gaming problem. The sphere of information is such that we find the best way to do anything in games.
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That's true, if we rated all perks by a percentage, I wonder how much better the meta perks are.
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Creating a hard cooldown for Perks isn't a good idea at all. That kind of hard punishment and lockout of preferred playstyles isn't healthy for the game or fun.
If you want to encourage players to use other Perks, and you're not taking balance changes into account, (which will obviously help A LOT especially for Survivor perks) I would recommend features like:
- Random "Bloodpoint Boons" that attach themselves to Perks every game. Each buff increases postgame BPs by something like 25%, and randomly attach themselves to Perks you own each game, with more boons being assigned depending on how many Perks you own. (potentially, having another boon avaliable for leaving an empty perk slot that comes in every now and then might also help)
- Prestige features for using Perks. For example, having stat tracking features for Perks that track not only specific things that Perk did for you (eg. "Generators Popped", "Killers Stunned", etc) but also how many times you have escaped, and how many Survivors you have killed, with that Perk equipped total between all Survivors/Killers. These could reward points associated with that specific Perk, with BP/Shard bonuses for reaching certain milestones, and cosmetic features like being able to change the Perk's background colour (eg. being able to equip it with a Legendary background) to give experienced players something to grind towards, especially if they're willing to try unorthodox Perk builds and try to Legendary out every single Perk.
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One idea could be to distribute the perks into tiers. Take the perks which are most powerful/meta builds, make them legendary so you can only use one at a time. Kind of like how league is revamping their item system.
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But in good games there is not a 1 defined meta that completely outshines everything.
Also, if you want to give an example of LoL, this game has this nice trick of metaswitch. All the time multiple buffs, nerfs and new heroes makeit so meta switches from favoring certain characters to favor the others.
The problem is this meta switch makes some characters underpowered and some unpowered for some time, behaviour won't do this because they want to see only perfect 50/50 statistics for all.
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The two issues with such an idea:
- Permanently limit perk combinations by developer intent instead of allowing for full player creativity, running a build without Legendary Perks would presumably put you at a significant disadvantage
- Kicks the can down the road for Perk balancing to restart the meta instead of genuinely fixing it. Now, it's just a contest as to what's the best Legendary Perk now.
And that's putting aside the fact it'd need a sweeping Perk overhaul that'd quite likely bugger up the balance. It's honestly especially unsuited to Dead by Daylight thanks to the Exhaustion system already being a thing, too.
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True, in a way exhaustion is a form of limiting perks to one of a type. I don't think my idea would be the best idea, but it's an idea. There's a reason these guys make $$$.
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"But in good games there is not a 1 defined meta that completely outshines everything.
Also, if you want to give an example of LoL, this game has this nice trick of metaswitch. All the time multiple buffs, nerfs and new heroes makeit so meta switches from favoring certain characters to favor the others."
Are you really trying to use LoL as an example of a game that does not have defined meta?
Sure it switches with patches, but it does not mean there is not a defined meta. Look at the tournaments, where you see the same 3 top laners. This time it was Gnar, Renek, Camille, and Gragas. That is one small example, then look at sites like op.gg which have defined metrics and percentages for what are the best runes and items. This entire game is defined by a meta.
Based on your argument if DBD nerfed and changed perks enough to where the meta changed every patch it would not have a defined meta. There would still be a meta though. The only way to not have a meta is to have perfect balance, please find a game where there is perfect balance and no "best way" to choose builds.
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There will always be a META. You can't stop that. BUT I did get two ideas:
- A kind of Randomizer game mode where both the killer and the survivors get a fully randomized, fully decked loadout which won't use up any items, addons or offerings but not allow you to choose literally anything. This stems from the time I played Hearthstone and I really enjoyed playing the brawl where both sides get completely random decks because then it's a game of adaptability, not one side being more META than the other. It would be a more fun gamemode where you can't be sweaty as much, play with perks you never see and just challenge yourself.
- Every day you might get a set of 4 perks that each give you +25% extra BP when you use them in a game for one game or alternatively, have the game set a single "boosted" perk from the perks you own after every match. This alternative might be problematic though if people would go out of their way to only unlock the default and the META perks as the game would boost the META perks most of the time in those cases. Or thirdly, maybe just make the boosted perk last for one day and never be any of the META perks. (This could probably get decided on perk pick rate data.)
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- If the devs won't make a Solo Survivor Mode, where there's no SWF. I don't think they will divide the player base to make a randomizer mode. There's a lot of cool ideas for other modes that they won't do.
- Boosted perks would be interesting, maybe as a reward on the weekly missions. Use "x" perk.
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Uhm... that's the point, there are multiple characters on each lane and there is such thing as counterpick. Not one defined meta THAT OUTSHINES EVERYTHING. The example of a game that had this problem to a ridiculous degree is overwatch, where dive was so powerful, that there was no point of doing anything else, so games were a constant mirror matches.
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it's just a result of both sides sweating, you encourage each other the further up the ranks you climb or you're punished for it. i'll have the occasional round in red ranks where nobody's brought ds so there's no obsession and more often than not killers take that as an invitation to tunnel as much as they possibly can. guess what happens after that round?
to me the problem isn't strong perks, it's how necessary they feel because of the core game design. if killers couldn't tunnel or camp without being punished, if there was a true secondary objective to tempt survivors away from gens, maybe dbd would have a very diff atmosphere at the top. but playing nice and giving the other side a chance isn't what the game encourages so it isn't what happens.
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its not that meta perk are killing the game, its the meta is really stale.
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Uhm... that's the point
Okay, I think we need to define the definition of meta then before we continue. For me, this is how I see the word "meta". A meta is a strict adherence to a certain pattern of gameplay, usually derived from the community via external 3rd party websites, simulations, guides, or from watching pro play.
The example of a game that had this problem to a ridiculous degree is overwatch, where dive was so powerful, that there was no point of doing anything else, so games were a constant mirror matches.
The "meta" for a given time for OW for example could be said like this. The beginning seasons in OWL, dive was the "meta" because it performed the best and it was easier to copy the meta than to try and counter. This is more present in pro play, because we are talking maxed skill levels, however it also bled into the ranked modes because players emulate the pro scene. Then there was Brigitte, who directly hard countered dive, the meta shifted towards snipers and eventually grew into GOATS. This is an over simplification and I may have the timeline wrong but it's a hypothetical. So yes you're right OW is a better example than League for having a meta, but there is a reason. OW does not have a draft, limit each hero to 1 player, or stop players from swapping mid game.
there are multiple characters on each lane and there is such thing as counterpick. Not one defined meta THAT OUTSHINES EVERYTHING.
League does however, still have a meta. If there was no meta, we would not have ten different websites telling players what items to use and which champions are S tier for that patch. There are champions with less than 1% played, while others are banned 75% of the time. In this recent tournament alone, Kai'sa had 100% participation in games, meaning she was either picked or banned for every game of the LEC tournament. Their system has more checks and balances to stop a meta, due to bans and counterpicks, it's not near as bad or stale as OW but I disagree that there isn't a meta.
meta THAT OUTSHINES EVERYTHING.
edit: I would like to be clear here. I'm not defining meta as something that is 100% replicated all the time and is better than everything. There are degrees this and to simplify it to being OP is imo not correct. You are describing a broken system, where there is no real choice. Sure this is the ultimate version of a meta, but meta is not simply OP or broken. Some metas are worse than others and some do outshine everything (GOATS for example).
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Ok, my definition of meta is the same, but indeed, i was talking exclusively on ultimate version of meta, which is the case (at least in my opinion) in DbD and that should change.
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Meta perks are annoying, but the solution has to be a little more nuanced; people would kill themselves on hook until their perk cooldowns finished, and only actually try on those games where they can run meta perks, which wouldn't solve the problem at all.
A more advisable suggestion would be to make more meta perks. Diversion, autodidact, deathbound, huntress' lullaby, etc. are all really, really fun, but aren't meta. Buffing these perks to the ranks of meta perks would let people run interesting and creative builds that aren't repetitive and old.
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I'm a fan of buffing vs nerfing. The thing to watch out for with that, is power creep.
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I agree, stale metas are boring. I'd like some use for the other 90% of my perks and some customization options. Maybe perks for different playstyles, rather than if I don't use X perks I get run over.
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