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Survivor Perks vs Killer Perks Conversation / Questions
So... I'm sort of sure I'm not the only person to consider this... but I wondered both what other people thought of the current dynamic as well as making several suggestions on several perks that I generally find aren't working for me or as intended.
I play both killer and survivor, so I see sort of both sides of this conversation (or at least I'd like to), so let me explain.
I think Survivor Perks are significantly weaker than Killer perks, and I think this is a bad design decision. I think that the issue of them being weaker is a band-aid to resolving the problem of skill expression in the game - how to make a perk that impacts the game with more skilled players deriving more value from it - for a majority of the perks.
I can think of some very specific examples.
Boil Over
The wiggle component seems to not be very effective at really any skill level without a lot of input from other players. The not seeing hooks in 10 ft doesn't apply often, because the killer can still just hook you. I think a simple fix / improvement would to make the nearest hook unuseable instead, and maybe increase the efficacy for the first attempt using the token system. You could do two tokens, the first attempt is improved a lot, second attempt less, then third it's useless. The perk becomes more impactful immediately - as the game goes on it becomes less effective.
The complaint I could see with this is that it makes it closer to decisive strike... it doesn't. It still isn't guaranteed, which is how decisive strike works. But it also makes the perk go away... which I think is a better model for survivor perks overall.
My reasoning is simple - all perks serve the purpose of giving survivors more time from being killed, i.e. more time to work generators. Perks that are impactful early mean they give survivors a strong early lead, but then trail off when the killer gets further / closer to the generators being completed. So it creates a natural power curve downward as the game goes on. Additionally, skilled players that don't get hooked as often will STILL get the benefit at the end of the game, just less often because they don't need it.
I think there's a fair amount of similar perks that could use some similar touch ups with similar intent... just in a different direction.
Self-Care
Maybe this has tokens and can only be used X times. It is a strong perk, very highly taken, and takes away skill reflection since you see it so often in games. Taking away from this perk gives more flexibility to improve other perks equally. Which I think should be the design goal.
Anyway, soapbox over, just some ideas my friends and I were talking about and I was curious what the community / developers thought. Hopefully people give some neat input!
Comments
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id say that survivor perks SHOULD be weaker than killer perks and heres why. theres 4 survivors and 1 killer. The killer can only bring 4 perks to the game while having to deal with 16 survivor perks. if survivor perks were more impactful and stronger compared to killer, killer would have no chance juggling 16 strong perks with his 4 measly perks without some sort of compensation.
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I think Survivor Perks are significantly weaker than Killer perks, and I think this is a bad design decision.
It's actually necessary because there are four survivors and only one killer. If every survivor perk were on the same level as every killer perk, each individual survivor could be very close to each individual killer in terms of power, completely ignoring the concept and point of an asymmetrical game.
10 ft
It's 10 meters at tier 1 and 14 meters at tier 3, not 10 feet. 10 feet is something like 3 meters.
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I don't disagree with this, just that there are perks that could be potentially improved without negative game impact to the balance of the killer v survivor dynamic. I think that a numerical perk (like x% chance to wiggle out) is generally less fun than say a perk like decisive strike - my design suggestion is "maybe we should make more perks like Decisive Strike"
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I think people are missing my point. I don't disagree that survivor perks SHOULD be weaker. But I'm saying some survivor perks are outright useless / not impactful to skill expression in a way that isn't fun.
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i agree 100% here. Theres a ton of perks that are absolutely worthless on both sides, survivors especially. Id like more unique niche perks that isnt just stat ups.
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Perks exist because people have different playstyles. Just because a perk is useless to you doesn't mean it can't be useful for other people. For example, Red Herring is perceived by many people to be useless, but I find it can be quite useful, if you use it right.
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Okay, so like a pure numerical perk is better than a perk like Red Herring? There's some perks that their impact is low because the playstyle is less effective. Like there's going to be a specific meta developed in every competitive game - my argument is changing perks that are used less will reflect and change the meta... and that's a good thing.
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tbh, there are useless perks on both sides. In fact, the Killer version of Boil Over (Iron Grasp) is also terrible.
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