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Should Perks Be Less Impactful?
I’ve always had the idea that nerfing/changing many of the perks to be less impactful on the outcome of the game would address DBD’s longstanding balancing issues.
In a world where for instance, Pop only regressed generators by an additional 10% while Sprint Burst made survivors run at 110% speed, we could really strip away the layers of fat the perks take up from the balance and more closely examine and find solutions for the flaws in the core game mechanics.
However, this would also make perks and playstyles feel a lot less unique, and make the perks more akin to something generic like a Call of Duty mod.
i dunno just some wacky idea i had
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I don't know. It'd feel useless to run a perk it almost did nothing.
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I guess it would be shifting DBD perk play from playstyle defining to granting small advantages.
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It would make it much easier to balance things. They need to sell DLC to survivor mains though.
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Ah, nice. Another 'us vs. them'. I knew I was reading the forum too much today.
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As accusatory as the post was worded, they do have a valid point. Survivor gameplay is almost exactly the same across the lot of them, and scaling back on the power and potentially uniqueness of the perks will make them feel even less distinct.
Maybe a solution would be lowering the price of DLCs? I wouldn’t see them adding in unique survivor buffs for each character (though if they did, it would have to be niche enough to put them all on the same playing field).
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Eh, but we can see what the balance issues generally are by looking at the perks people are running. If you make all the perks mediocre that's not going to change our ability to determine stuff.
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I feel killer perks should impact way more than survivors perk does, killers have 4 perks while survivors have 16 perks, so the killer perks should show real strength instead of giving a tiny boost, for exemple brutal strengt and bamboozle, they give such a small % in speed, both should be doubled, just an exemple, while survivor perks can totally change the game because only 1 of them runs it and the others run other game changing perk, survivor perks impact too much the game compared to killer perk, the only real game changing perk that is trule strong for killers is devour hope, which again can be removed early on, but that's a very powerful perk, there isn't that many truly powerful perks that affect the game in too many ways for killers.
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If perks barely did much, then there d be even less reason to not run the best I think.
I dont think we could touch perks without touching addons, and if killers like Pyramid Head are anything to go by, having weak or insignificant addons makes people burn out that much faster compared to a bottom barrel killer like Myers who just never goes away because there'stons of interesting loadouts for him.
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Haha You really have been reading the forums too much! I meant that killer mains get full killers, with their own abilities that are very different from eachother. Survivors only get skins so without new perks there is not a huge reason for them to buy DLC.
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Well, I imagined it as bringing the general strength of perks down to a lower, but more even level. So while perks like Borrowed Time would be heavily afflicted, other perks like Power Struggle would be lesser.
However, you definitely have a point with boredom and burnout. This however could maybe be fixed on the add-ons side, and therefore extend to gameplay diversity for the survivors.
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The problem in general is not perks.. It's base-kit not being up to snuff and then having that nerf while in return buffing add-ons to make up for it.
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It would never be able to work like that anymore. They had the opportunity to build the game that way, but at this point of critical mass the only path left to them is most likely by creating circular imbalance which is a method of balance mostly employed by MOBA type games.
This is unlikely however, because their design philosophy includes drawbacks for strength when in reality everything needs to be strong in circular imbalance, thats how you achieve the natural progressive desire to exchange a perk for another to overcome the current meta. But due to their desire to balance things with heavy drawbacks it means the perks that for (some reason) don't get any hard drawbacks just become the unwavering meta.
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Personally i feel the game would be a lot more balanced if there was no perks altogether and the bp from bbq and wglf was just base bp gain
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I think that would make the game pretty boring.
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The issue with making perks less impactful is that it would be near impossible to make 90+ perks to both sides with them all being small.
It would also almost completely remove the difference between new Characters, especially Survivors. It's already tough to build hype for a Survivor unless they have a meta perk. Let's be honest, Mikaela 100% would have flopped if Circle of Healing wasn't broken to such a bullshit degree.
I think the idea could work if the game began with this philosophy of perks not being too impactful.
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I'm gonna pass on that.
For me personally, a lot of the fun I have is in tinkering with new builds. Make perks worse across the board? Things are just more boring.
Also, generally it is a MUCH better to buff things than nerfing them.
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The only way you could shift the power from perk selection would be to shift it to actual gameplay changes. But changing core gameplay isn't profitable... DLCs are.
No reason to change the gameplay in meaningful ways if people are still dropping fat cash for DLCs and cosmetics.
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Eh.
Honestly, this would make killer a lot more tedious for me to play. A big reason I enjoy the role is the power/changeups to my playstyle that perks provide.
Survivor? Aside from a few standouts like CoH and DH, the issue isn't so much the power of the perks, it's that so many have almost zero interactions or decision making to them. It's one of the things that makes the role feel tedious to me very quickly.
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Tinkering with new builds would be even better if perks were closer to each other because messing around round with off meta stuff wouldn't be such a down grade to the meta.
This is completely wrong you don't try to trying everything up to meta because you just end up with a bunch of broken stuff that is now impossible to balance you want to bring the meta down making it more reasonable to run weaker stuff.
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Mm.
The issue is that killers have a few 'necessary' perks (BBQ for BP, gen regression and probably something for endgame) and the rest are either incredibly niche, gimmicky or just bad.
Survivors have something of the opposite problem. About 6 perks that are so overwhelmingly strong that not running them is basically not playing the game right.
Fingers crossed for the midpatch.
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I will agree with you about that but imo just nuking perks and not adding in basekit mechanics would be the wrong way to go. They would need to add a better base regression for killers and a base kindred for survivors(just spit balling ideas). I think perks should act more like addons and augment the game a little instead of completely dictating the game play. I've heard the devs say that with all the perk and powers it would be impossible to balance and I call bs because I also play a moba with over 100 characters and each one has 4 different powers and a passive and about 100 items to balance around and behavior can balance 26 killers and 200 perks that's a joke.
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I for one would welcome a limited HUD no perks harcore mode. It would at least be a refreshing change of pace from the stale gameplay you constantly get with people running the same perks. Im sure both sides agree that it is not fun to play against the same rotation of perks and killers. Creating a gamemode that rewards players for strong fundamentals rather than relying on powerful perks, tool and add ons , would mean players have to develop great instincts to stay competitive. Perks are fun and necessary but they are getting a bit too powerful and part of the skill required to play this game is being able to play around the other teams perks. New players are hopelessly out gunned by the veteran players who have a whole arsenal of tools that they can use to sway the game in their favor. Not to mention most perks are hidden behind paywalls and require hours of grinding to unlock. It is clear that what is best for the players and what is best for BHVR's bottom line are mutually exclusive. The devs will always keep certain perks relevant to push players to buy dlc. They also artificially extend player engagement with ridiculous grindy gameplay so players feel obligated to play games for the resources.
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Complex games can get away with simple perks.
But Simple games absolutely need complex perks if it's a asymmetrical game.
Without perks, addons and offerings.
You just have Gens, Windows, Pallets, Breakable Walls, Dull Totems, Chests, Closets, Hooks and Healing.
Then with killers they might add 1-2 mechanics to the match.
You can't exactly deviate that much from such a core gameplay feature. It's a very strict gameplay style in fact.
The powerful upside is it's easy to learn it, the downside is you might hit the skill ceiling too early.
Perks that make the gameplay different enough that it's noticeable allows stronger player retention. Kind of like endless replayability.
But the downside to that is you have to consistently balance everything since a single change can cause a chain reaction.
It's now a battle between if we should simplify it enough or keep adding new volatile complexities to the game.
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Nope. Tinkering isn't satisfying if you can't see/feel large differences from the tinkering. You aren't going to get that feeling if everything you are experimenting with is very meh.
Also... In my tinkering, I've honestly not found that large a gap in killer perks until you start really scraping the bottom of the barrel. So like... Unnerving Presence has nothing on Pop... But Pain Resonance, Jolt, and Eruption all have ways in which they *are* better than Pop.
Also... Buffing everything up to the meta *is* better. What would be more exciting... Pop getting cut to 20 or 15% or Unnerving Presence getting buffed to be situationally better than it? Obviously the second. It gives players more options, more choices, and more variety to face off against.
Nerfing the meta continuously causes a far worse problem. It eventually results in a sucky carosel of swinging nerf bats that just results in everything being boring and uninteresting. That right there is a great way to kill a game.
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No game has ever been balanced like that because you just have a bunch of op game braking stuff and that just causes a whole ser of problems. It's actually why the meta is like it is now because they haven't touched the meta perks and tried to make perks meta level(original MoM). Your idea its to make the majority of the perks game breaking and if you don't see that as a problem then I'm done with this conversation.
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I don't see the current meta on either side particularly game breaking. Well... Except CoH and Dead Hard with validation. So... No I don't want the majority of perks to be game breaking. I do however want every perk in the game to be impactful.
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Yes, but this whole game is balanced around the meta perks so it wouldn't really work.
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I agree, although CoH it's really only the self healing that's an issue, imo it should be more the speed of self care rather than a med kit.
The only other two perks I can think of that seem very strong are Borrowed Time, particularly the fact you can have the unhooked surivivor run protection hits on the unhooker and be basically invincible, it seems like it's so strong it's almost a must take and the other perk being NOED just because it seems unfair when it does something even though it's a waste of a perk in many games but that's most because there's not much reason for a killer not to facecamp when gens are done.
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It'd definitely be more balanced but a lot less fun. Perks are suppose to be interactive and offer benefits. My only real gripe with perks, aside form balance, is many of them aren't really that great of interaction for the killer side. Many of the perks that allow killers to interact are ones that leave them getting stunned or revolve around really mundane tasks for the killer (spirit fury, pop, etc).
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If you nerf perks across the board, you're really just nerfing survivors, since that's the entirety of their ''power'' whereas killers have their own legitimate powers that are independent to their perks, which are often, less impactful.
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I think synergies are more problematic than the perks themselves on their own.
One survivor with COH is manageable. Four survivors with COH is absurd.
PGTW, Pain Resonance, and Ruin on their own are fine. But it's next to impossible to lose a game on killer with a build like Corrupt/PGTW/Pain Resonance/No Way Out.
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Nerfing the big ones , personally, is a good idea. Buffing others up to that level (or near to) would cause some major balancing issues down the line. Nerfing the big ones, and buffing the near-useless ones, would be the best way to get all perks to meet around the middle. I mean this for both survivor and killer.
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