Do you guys feel that Hex perks are fine as they are or not?

Hex Totems are a gamble, and you have Undying Perk for those early game finds.

Eh, hex perks are weird. Generally I feel they are overpowered when left alone. But obviously the risk that you lose one 10 seconds into a game could make them even more useless than Lethal Pursuer after those initial 8 seconds or so. High risk, high reward, I suppose?

I use them a lot. So I guess I feel the power is worth the potential that they get cleansed.

The idea of hex perks are fine and in practice they are mostly fine outside of a few instances. What I really dislike about them though is how random they can be. I feel as if they should be way more consistent because sometimes you can be absolutely destroyed by Haunted Ground or it will do nothing at all. Sometimes Ruin will stay up all game and sometimes it will be gone in 30 seconds. And NOED... let's just not talk about that one.

Like I said I like the general idea of hex perks with the high risk high reward but they're just too inconsistent for me to keep in their current state. Who knows maybe boon totems will even out the playing field a little bit but it seems like the devs have been trying to make game mechanics more consistent lately like with the Trapper and Pig trap reworks.

Hex totems are so incredible easy to find, that hex perks are simply not worth taking. Devs won´t change anything about it, since their attempt to create a fair hex protection perk was slammed down by the community that found it to hard to do totems.

So just stop using them.

Nah they are not for me the last two times i ran some where both on hag a few weeks apart for a hag daily.

Both times i ran her 3 teachables and haunted grounds since I don't have much decent t perks on her.

Both times all 4 hex perks where destroyed not even 2 minutes apart overall.

But this is only anecdotal experience from someone that does play "fair", not optimal and doesn't really care about kills or pips.

Totems only add more objectives for the killer to protect, even haunted grounds since the killer doesn't even know which lit totems stands for which perk (if they knew that would make braking certain totems/perks too hard).

There are already 7 gens to protect and 4 survivor to pressure, so totems, should the killer try to protect them, only add to the stress playing killer.

Hex are fine, even Noed.

Just need to hide better. Lery is the best totem spawn. Not being in the middle of no where like open map. But not hardcore like Midwich.

No, not really. They are supposed to be risk-reward, yes, but the ratio between the risk and reward are way way off. Way too much risk for too little reward.

My problem with hexes is that most just aren't strong enough to be hexes or are too slow for being hexes:

Crowd Control would be fine if it wasn't a hex as its a technically more powerful Bamboozle but, the killer lacks any control over it and it lacks a secondary stat unlike Bamboozle.

Blood Favour wouldn't be good even if it wasn't a hex.

Thrill/Retribution are only hexes just to be a decoys. They really don't need to be hexes otherwise.

Lullaby asks you for nearly the same condition as Devour Hope for a much worse effect(Wonky skill checks vs instant downs and moriing everyone).

Third Seal...Just doesn't work and idk what can be done to address its issues other then a full rework. Its both too slow and weak but also stomps solos too hard.

I don't like the concept of hex perks in general. It's supposed to be high risk high reward, but most of the time it's just like: hey here's a ridiculous effect that could have been avoided by sheer luck.

That kinda rubs me the wrong way. But there are people who love using them so....

Maybe if they were something more consistently present, but also more consistently countered it'd be better for me. Like maybe you get 1 slot for hex totems, they're all powerful, the more totems get cleansed they lose more and more power until they're gone or their power is minimal. That could be interesting imo. It would also mean that something like ruin would never stack with Pop, because even when cleansed it's effect would still linger, but in a much much weaker form.

Something like this would be fine. Make them have a 1-2 minute timer OR when a gen gets finished.

As for Hex perks themselves, some are fine. Many others, however, are far too weak to justify their status as a Hex perk in the first place.

There are some good ideas for adjustments in here... and there have been good ideas for adjustments ever since Hex perks were first introduced. I think it is unrealistic to expect BHVR to actually drastically rework the (Hex) totem system, so I'd say we should rather hope that they take how they function currently and improve on that.

In their current form, Hex perks are meant to be "high risk; high reward" elements, so the RNG nature of potentially losing them early on is part of their design. That said, BHVR has worked continually to hide them better, and on a fair few of the newer and reworked maps, totems are actually more than well-hidden enough. It could be possible to think about other means of making their impact more consistent, that is, to prevent survivors from cleansing them very early on: make Hex totems not light up until the first generator has been repaired, or at least only make a survivor see them as lit-up once that respective survivor is actually "cursed" by them; introduce more Haunted Ground-esque after-cleanse effects for existing or new Hex perks (and buff Haunted Grounds itself), to make it less of a no-brainer for survivors to cleanse any Hex on sight; enable killers to re-activate their Hex perks manually; ... but ultimately all of that would necessitate making Hex perks weaker in their impact potential, as otherwise they become "low risk; high reward" elements some of which would prove downright oppressive, as could be seen with the original Undying Ruin meta a few months ago.

So given that Hex totems are hidden better and better with new maps and map reworks, I think the current approach is fine. There are obviously still some totem spawns on some maps that should be changed, but overall I don't think they are problematic in their design as a game element. However, there are absolutely problems with individual Hex perks. A fair few of them are not nearly "high reward" enough to even justify the risk of them being tied to totems to begin with. Remedying that issue is easy though, of course: just buff those individual perks.

Huntress Lullaby, Retribution and Blood Favour are downright awful.

Lullaby - Hitting skill checks even without the sound notification altogether is completely possible for any even only somewhat experienced player, as long as they pay attention. What is actually difficult without the notification however is hitting great skill checks. So make Huntress Lullaby distinguish between good and great skill checks, on top of the notification sound effect. One possible suggestion could be this: Hitting a good skill check under the effect of Lullaby regresses the generator by 1-5%, depending on the amount of tokens on the perk; hitting a great skill check under the effect of Lullaby progresses the generator by 1-5%, likewise scaling with the tokens. This is sort of a version of old Ruin, but it is worse than old Ruin because the killer needs 1 hook before it even does anything, and the regression is only at Ruin's original 5% once the perk has 5 tokens. Additionally, great skill checks actually grant a larger progression bonus for survivors than the base bonus once the perk is at 3 tokens or more, whereas original Ruin cancelled out the progression bonus entirely. And then original Ruin had an additional effect where a generator would not be able to receive progress for 3 seconds after a good skill check - that would not be the case with this Lullaby. On the flipside, this effect of Lullaby would also apply to healing actions.

Retribution - You never even know when, where and if a survivor cleansed a dull totem, and the Oblivious effect is lackluster to begin with. Both of these issues can be solved with a simple change: make it so that a survivor has their aura revealed to the killer whenever they cleanse a totem, with a Hex cleanse still revealing all auras (and making every survivor suffer from the Oblivious status effect as well), but a dull cleanse now revealing the aura of the survivor that cleansed. That way the killer knows a survivor is Oblivious, and they can also actually capitalize on them being Oblivious. Additionally, I think it would be interesting if the aura reveal and Oblivious status lasted equally as long, maybe 20-30 seconds for both, though that would admittedly be kinda ridiculous on some killers, particularly of course Nurse (to be fair, Nurse is still in need of adjustments anyway).

Blood Favour - Remove the basic attack stipulation as well as the cooldown. These things are crippling to a lot of perks that aren't nearly good enough to even need them to begin with. Also, Blood Favour should block standing and dropped pallets, such that survivors can neither pull nor vault them. Increase the effect radius to the killer's terror radius, creating interesting synergies with Monitor & Abuse and other (underused) perks, abilities and add-ons. The time for which pallets are held could also be further increased, though the exact number is something to be experimented with. I don't think even 30 seconds would be too ridiculous. Again, these are Hex perks, they are meant to be high reward due to their high risk. But to balance that out a little, Blood Favour should not be able to proc while already active, putting a less punishing pseudo-cooldown on it. And hell, if BHVR is concerned about how difficult this would be to deal with for newer players, make it so that Blood Favour shows the auras of vault locations within that same range for the affected survivor, and/or of pallet locations outside of that range, such that the survivor knows where to go.

Crowd Control and Third Seal have niche usage and some potential but are still in need of buffs too.

Crowd Control in my opinion should block vault locations indefinitely for the respective survivor, for as long as the Hex is standing. To balance this out a little, only true fast vaults would block windows, not "medium" vaults.

Third Seal needs to have the basic attack stipulation removed again, at the very least. I also feel like this could be one perk where an after-cleanse effect would actually be appropriate - namely, the Blindness status effect lasting another 60 seconds upon the Hex being cleansed (for all survivors, even those that had not been affected by it). I feel like that's important for the perk because it would allow the killer to have time to switch playstyles in that "transition" window without losing too much of the progress they had made playing in the Third Seal style (basically, they have time to pick up any slugged survivors and hook them before other survivors can see and heal them up).

Thrill Of The Hunt is a special case: it's not a particularly strong perk but any buffs to it - similarly to Undying (and especially of course given the possiblity of using both) - have to be made with keeping in mind the strength of the Hex perks it is supporting. If nothing else it at least could have better secondary effects that don't make it harder to get rid of totems, but perhaps grant other benefits based on how many totems are standing, such as a 5% increase in pallet breaking and vault speeds for every totem.

The other Hex perks are mostly in a good place, with some finishing touches left perhaps that I would like to see. I think Haunted Ground's second Hex totem should not be deactivated upon the first being cleansed, it should remain lit and have the same effect if cleansed, or at least another 30 seconds of Exposed. Devour Hope could perhaps actually be a Hex that only lights up once it is active, which makes it stronger as a perk itself but weakens the Undying synergy because if the dull totem tied to Devour would be cleansed before it becomes active, Undying will not keep it alive. I think Ruin could at least have a mini-after-cleanse effect, namely gens that are regressing due to Ruin should keep regressing even after Ruin is cleansed, until their regression is manually stopped of course. Whether this "residual" regressing would happen at Ruin's rate of half a charge per second or the base rate of a quarter of a charge per second is another question though. I think Undying should also reveal survivor auras around Hex perks, which would be a nice buff but also a slight nerf in the sense that survivors will more often know that Undying is in play. For NOED I would actually be interested in making this a base game mechanic for all killers. Remove the movement speed boost and reveal the Exposed status effect as soon as the last generator is repaired, if a dull totem is left standing for NOED to tie to. NOED has a healthy effect on the game in my opinion, it makes the endgame much more tense and dynamic where otherwise killers often have no real opportunity to still turn any tides but are basically forced to hardcamp any hook they can get to try and secure a kill. Plus it gives survivors more of an incentive to look out for dull totems, cleansing them throughout the game or at least making note of their positions more. Totems would just instantly become a more important base mechanic in general. That said, obviously this would be quite ridiculous for some of the killers that are already super strong and already have ample chances to even turn endgame scenarios around, namely Nurse and Spirit. There is a simple solution for that: make Lethal Blink hits and Haunting hits not count as basic hits, just like Blight's Lethal Rush hits for instance aren't. Nurse and Spirit are already more than strong enough without benefitting from the Exposed status effect on their abilities, if anything this is a welcome general nerf for these killers, while the other killers (and especially M1 killers) would benefit greatly from the base-kit NOED.

I've always seen them as a high-risk high reward. You'll have your games where they are cleansed instantly and it will feel bad. Then you might have games where ruin prevents a single gen from going off. I still run them because those moments where they really pack a punch are pretty fun. :)

I've always felt like that there should be some slowdown mechanics in the early game, as too many killers rely on perks like Corrupt and Undying to have any pressure in the early game. Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea for all totems to be blocked for 20 or 30 seconds at the start of the game, but otherwise, Hex perks are fine. They are inconsistent, but that's part of their design philosophy: high risk, high reward.

It also wouldn't hurt to fix totem spawns on certain maps, cough cough, Pale Rose.