http://dbd.game/killswitch
The double standards in survivor vs killer perk design
It appears there is some serious bias inside the dev team regarding killer vs survivor perks.
The norm for survivor perks is to either have an activation condition, an effect that's not terribly bad or good and a penalty for using the perk or just an effect that's bad so no one even uses the perk. Case in point, Deliverance. You have to earn the perk by performing a safe unhook, then you have to use it on your first hook state or it is lost and then you get punished for it. But why exactly? The perk is only useful is your team is potato enough and too scared to go for a rescue - a camping killer still negates the perk as they can down you instantly. Also, you still lose a hook state so it's not like it is a free escape like DS used to be.
I even remember a game designer talking about this perk and saying that "it is extremely situational" so restricting the perk heavily was always the intent. I could make a similar case for most of the perks released after the Huntress DLC, but I don't want to write a wall of text.
Then we have the norm for killer perks. No activation conditions, no drawbacks, powerful effects. For example, look at the new Deadlock perk. The killer doesn't have to do anything, it simply works out of a box, has a strong effect, has no activation condition, no penalty. You don't have to throw the entire game just to get it to proc and then get heavily punished(cough cough MOM cough cough)
Please do not misinterpret this topic as "please nerf Deadlock". NO, it should be read as "please stop being scared of survivor perks and actually create something fun/interesting/useful". Shake up the meta and the gameplay for both sides, not just one. Doesn't it bother you in the slightest that people still mainly use perks you created 4+ years ago?
Comments
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Perk design is all over the place on both sides and the entire mechanic needs an overhaul.
that said:
that killer perks have not conditions most of the time makes sense as you don't have the time to do those things.
Imagine the following:
if you'd have to set hex perks, could you even do that before the gates are open?
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The norm for survivor perks is to either have an activation condition, an effect that's not terribly bad or good and a penalty for using the perk or just an effect that's bad so no one even uses the perk. Case in point, Deliverance
Bruh
Deliverance is a very powerful perk hence its activation condition. In comp, this perk is 99% of the time present.
No1 has to come and rescue you and the killer losses all / most of the pressure.
How about we see the perk (deadlock) on the LIVE version before we address any nerfs / buffs, yeah?
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I tried to shake the meta with Starstruck Oni build and I had salty comments each game. Looks like survivors don't like off-meta stuff.
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Also, killer perks are supposed to be stronger since there is only 4 of them while survivors have 16.
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Idk, to use an example, I feel like some of the RE chapter perks were pretty well designed. Not transformative, but situationally useful and sometimes really fun, Flashbang and Blast Mine in particular. Resurgence and Rookie Spirit aren't bad per se, just a bit boring. Though I agree with you on some of them: Counterforce is outclassed by Small Game and Detective's Hunch, and Bite the Bullet has such a weak effect, that it begs the question why they even made those perks to begin with. I would like to see more one time use powerful effects, or more strong perks gatekept by hard but not impossible activation conditions (i.e. perks like current Mettle of Man, but with a slightly easier activation condition).
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Like someone said once if all survivor perks were super powerful a killer would possibly need to put up with 16 perks. While survivors only need to face four.
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Well there is 4 Survivors,if a Survivor Perk was equal to a Killer Perk it will make the game more Survivor Sided than it is.if you look at OLD M.O.M & DS they had a easy activate Conditions to easy & had strong effects which made them Busted.EX if Deliverance had no Condition,Killers cannot get Early Pressure without Slugging
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You can pick and choose which perks to compare, which will result in your argument.
Case and point:
Take spine chill, works straight out of the box, with no conditions or actions required. Speeds up the survivor and provides information, all for free. Compare that to Blood warden, where the EGC must be active, you need to down and hook a survivor before the others escape and has a limited time that it is active.... clearly the biased behavior of developers.
The fact is that the more powerful the effect the more restrictions are placed on it. Additionally survivors can have them 4x, while the killers have 1 and that to needs to be taken into consideration. The developers are not biased, they consider the flow of the game where 4 survivors and 1 killer are present. It is not an easy task...
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"Then we have the norm for killer perks. No activation conditions, no drawbacks, powerful effects."
Do you play killer? Is this bait?
Any decent/ powerful perk has not only a condition to be met, but also can be countered by survivors -stares at the Hex perks-
Survivors on the other hand have a ton of exhaustion and second chance perks that cannot be countered by the killer and their only activation requirement is to mess up or vault an object.
I am not saying survivor perks are a problem, but saying Killer's have superior perks is kind of silly.
As for your Deliverance example could you imagine if it had no conditions? When looking at survivor perks you need to look at the big picture. BT, DH, and DS squads are already a huge time sink for killers. If everyone could yeet off the hook first time that would break the game.
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Imagine these two scenarios...
Scenario 1: All survivor perks are similar to killer perks, requiring little or no effort for them to activate. The killer now has to effectively face against 16 of their own perks, while they only have four.
Scenario 2: All killer perks are similar to survivor perks, requiring some requirement/action to activate. The killer now has a side objective to try and gain perk value while simultaneously trying to find/down survivors, and keep gens in check.
I don't mean any disrespect or condescension when I say this, but I think the aspect of asymmetrical PvP may be lost on you OP. This is 4v1, the one needs to have a slight advantage in one category to be able to contend with the four. As it stands, at the highest levels of skill, survivors flat have the advantage over the killer.
Post edited by FentV1rus on4 -
Most Killer perks are designed around tracking, slowdown, endgame, and rewarding 'fair play' - ie BBQ/MYC/DH
Most Survivor perks are based around survivability/positional knowledge/repair/bursts of advantage in chase.
You, like many people on the forum, are trying to compare perks designed to fulfill the specific needs of each side to each other.
They're generally not comparable (imho, of course), and comparisons usually occur when someone's argument is so weak/game view so skewed that they need to resort to strawmanning perks on the other side to 'prove a point.'
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A lot of killer perks have stupidly long cooldowns. With that said, there really is no reason for deliverance to make a survivor broken. We’d see it + second wind a lot more, which would be a fun shake up to the meta. As you said, it already has an activation requirement and is useless if you get hooked first.
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There are plenty of killer perks that have requirements, long cooldowns, and/or weak effects. Look at perks like Dead Man’s Switch, Dragon’s Grip, Furtive Chase or Gearhead.
This is an issue that affects both sides and it probably stems from the fact that the first perks released were typically straightforward buffs to game mechanics, which will always be strong. Sprint quickly, heal faster, pick yourself up off the ground, etc. etc.
There are now 95 survivor perks and 84 killer perks in the game. After a while, perks start having to become more complicated or niche out of necessity.
Plus, a lot of the perks that have requirements, have them to balance the perk. Inner Strength requires a totem cleanse because without it, survivors could hop in lockers and heal over and over with no limit. Power Struggle requires wiggle progress or you would be safe any time you go down under a pallet. If Deliverance had no pre-requisite, you could just pull yourself off your first hook every time, which would be kind of ridiculous in a SWF.
So no, I don’t agree that there’s actually a double standard here at all.
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pfffff... hahaha...
this was a funny read
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"Then we have the norm for killer perks. No activation conditions, no drawbacks, powerful effects"
When someone reads a comment like this, it's getting harder to tell if the poster is trolling, trying to be sarcastic/funny, completely blissfully unaware of anything actually involved with playing killer -- or all of the above. 🙄
Let's see ... some of the most commonly run, powerful killer perks. Pop Goes the Weasel -- requires the killer to actually down and hook someone and get to a gen in time to get the "powerful" effect (an effect that can be mitigated if there isn't a gen worth popping nearby). Hex:Ruin -- no activation condition, but no benefit if the killer isn't actively pressuring survivors off of gens, and a HUGE drawback in it being able to be removed by cleansing the totem (which can happen instantaneously considering the mostly terrible totem spawn locations). BBQ -- requires the hooking of a survivor, and it has the drawback of survivors knowing the multiple ways of countering it, plus the inability of low mobility killers to take advantage of it. Thrilling Tremors -- requires downing a survivor and other survivors not simply letting up on their gen when a player gets picked up, plus the drawback of a cooldown. Devour Hope -- requires hooking of survivors and allowing safe rescues, plus the drawback of that pesky totem problem. And so on.
There ARE killer perks that fit your description -- Corrupt Intervention and Lethal Pursuer for example -- but there are as many survivor perks that you can say the same things about. Unbreakable's activation condition requires the survivor to "fail" and be downed -- then simply be left on the ground. Sprint Burst requires only to be not exhausted, and it comes with zero drawback. Iron Will -- a super-powerful perk -- again requires the survivor to "fail" by being injured, then has no drawback and a super-powerful effect. Spine Chill simply exists and helps completely counter stealth killers. Much like the killer perks, we could go on here as well.
There are perks on both sides that are powerful and useful, and those that have way too many activation conditions or limitations to make them useful. Pretending it affects one side of the player experience but doesn't the other is simply ... wrong.
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This has to be a troll post. No way somebody can say that in good faith.
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Did... you look at the other two killer perks?
The Hex perk requires the Killer hook a Survivor and it can only activate 1 time per Survivor.
The Scourge Hook perk also requires the killer to hook a Survivor on 1 of 4 hooks.
Deadlock is an anomaly.
Also... I don't think you realize just how powerful Deliverance is. A lot of Killers are dependent on Hooks taking at least 2 Survivors off of Gens for a significant amount of time so they have enough time to chase and hook more people. Deliverance flat out robs them of nearly all that time that they desperately needed. That's why it has so many requirements to happen.
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I just wish survivors had a perk for BP the way killers have always had BBQ. WGLF is not even close, even after the buff that came more recently. And now that survivors are punished by losing add ons, with all the killers who are afk to derank or farm for challenges, it's BS
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Mettle of Man - When the cosmos align on a summer solstice and you manage to take three hits next to another survivor you might live long enough to take an extra hit.
Breakout - If you happen to be in the right place at the right time (not doing gens) you can follow the Killer who, hopefully isn't using a "carry perk" to try to help your teammate wiggle out, at which point the Killer can just drop them and chase you.
Sabotage - You have to be in the right place and time (not doing gens), predict which hook the Killer will go to, drop it, hope they aren't running "carry perk", at which point they can just drop the Survivor and chase you or walk to another hook.
When any of these perks actually pays off, it feels pretty good but, mostly you just throw the game.
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The best perks on both sides have "activation conditions", e.g. BBQ requires a hook, Pop requires a hook, BT requires an unhook, Dead Hard requires you to be injured. I don't really see what your point is. Also plenty of Killer perks have punishing cooldowns and are weaker or useless because of it, e.g. Surge, Blood Echo, I could go on.
And then you have plenty of survivor perks which have no cooldown or limitation to them at all, e.g. We'll Make it works every unhook, Spine Chill works all the time, Kindred works all the time.
So yeah rubbish thread but 1/10 cause you got me to reply.
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Killer perk have condition too. Just to name a few Bbq,pop,stbfl,surge, etc... Both side have perk that require a condition to activate. You said deadlock for example that perk can activate max 4 time per trial imagine if you could have DH a max of 4 time per trial that only when you get hit by the killer and you have a window of 30 sec to use it the perk would be trash. That example is far fetch but it can work like that too i honestly dont think deadlock will be meta its a good early game perk because survivor spawn on gen so you can deny 2 gen of poping in the first minute but at that point i think you are better with corrupt
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This is off topic for the thread, but may I ask why you’d use it on Oni? I’ve seen some others use it, and I don’t know why. I personally wouldn’t use a one-hit perk on a one-hit killer, but maybe I’m missing something
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WGLF is superior to BBQ in every single aspect.
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WGLF just needs additional ways to earn tokens:
-repair the equivalent of one full generator
-heal the equivalent of one full health state of another survivor
-cleanse a totem
It should be pretty routine to earn all 4 stacks as survivor just like it is for killer.
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Bite the bullet is self cares new best friend.
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You got it backwards, devs have stated many time that to much synergy for killer perks is a concern. Survivor perks have solo synergy and team synergy, and team coordination on top of that.
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I do agree that the average new killer perk has been rather underwhelming, but it's not that much different with killer perks either. There is certainly no bias going on here.
This is the first chapter where all three new perks actually seem at least decently good out of the box. Though some of the last few new killer perks did recieve buffs as well, which was nice.
Still, there is no bias to such things, definitely not. And to be fair, Jill and Leon each had at least one decent perk as well, even if they aren't on the level of meta perks.
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Because you use it on Renjiro glove Oni, who's not that one-hit
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The norm for survivor perks is to either have an activation condition, an effect that's not terribly bad or good and a penalty for using the perk or just an effect that's bad so no one even uses the perk
See team leader, unbreakable, Spine chill, or the many other perks that have almost no activation condition or the activation condition is just something you are gonna do anyways like DH. All of which are also strong perks. If deliverance could be activated with no condition to gain it first and could be used in either first or second hook state it would OP as hell and we both know it.
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Killers have tons of situational perks that require activation conditions. Generally speaking, I feel they should overhaul most perks to make them all relatively useful. There are some perks that I would LOVE to use, such as Make Your Choice, if they had a bit more consistency. I am afraid to use it because the unhooker can be gone with the wind, or I might be busy chasing someone else. A longer exposed status such as 2 minutes might make it a decent passive perk, or a shorter duration like 30 seconds with vision on the person so I know where they went, would make it a more useful active.
Just some ideas that would make me personally use the perk. As it is now? I would literally never use it on anyone.
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