Some Boil Over Maths (and why the upcoming change is bad)
So, we've all seen the Boil Over change by now. Instead of being a flat 25% wiggle, it will now give you 33% of your current wiggle progress. This means that if someone intentionally dies on a ledge, they'll get barely any wiggle progress from the killer dropping down.
On the forum post announcing this change, Mandy had this to say about the perk:
This isn't quite true. The perk is less abusable, yes (and that's a good thing), but the wiggle will, for all practical purposes, ALWAYS be a smaller amount than the current version. This is a flat nerf to an already pretty bad perk, and to prove it, I'm going to have to get some graphs out.
First, let me highlight the variables I'm going to use:
The X-axis (horizontal) will be the current percentage wiggled, and the Y-Axis (vertical) will be the percentage of wiggle that dropping from a great height will add with Boil Over equipped.
The Red line will represent the current effect of Boil Over, since this is a linear value, it will be a straight line.
The Blue line will represent the CHANGED effect of Boil Over.
The Green line will represent the point at which some portion of the extra wiggle effect will be wasted. Once this line is crossed, the maximum value of the perk has been reached and dropping from a great height will instantly free the survivor from the killer's grasp.
Here is the comparison between the current and changed Boil Over:
Hmm, pretty unclear from all the way out here, let's zoom in a little.
As you can see, the blue line intersects the green line BEFORE the red line.
Remember: The Green line is the cutoff point for the perk's full effect. The proposed change to Boil Over will mean that at most, it will only provide up to 24.812% extra wiggle progression before being wasted, as opposed to the maximum 25% current Boil Over gives.
"But ReverseVelocity, that's practically the same as the current version, what's the big deal?"
The issue here is that this is the BEST case scenario. You'd have to wiggle to around 75% and THEN have the killer drop off from a great height to achieve this. This is almost certainly not going to happen.
Currently, this isn't a change, this is an objective nerf.
What I propose is to make the perk add 50% of the current wiggle progress instead of 33%. This is what the graph would look like then:
In this graph, the blue line intersects the red line before the green, meaning in SOME scenarios, it will be better than current Boil Over, but the majority of the time it will still be worse.
"But ReverseVelocity, wouldn't that be buffing the perk?"
Technically, yes. However, for Boil Over to be more effective, you have to be above 50% wiggle progress first, which is 8 seconds of carrying a survivor. A killer carrying a survivor for 8 seconds and THEN dropping off a great height is unlikely, especially when the perk highlights itself when it's active.
For the scenarios where a survivor deliberately runs up to a ledge and goes down to use Boil Over, this is still a hard nerf. You'll still get barely any extra wiggle progress, since you won't have much in the first place. Upping it to 50% will still prevent the perk from being abused, since 50% of nothing is still nothing.
However, this still gives a chance for the perk to be significant. Once the threshold of the changed perk being better than the current version will have been passed, the position of the survivor will be almost entirely up to the killer. Sure, the killer could decide to drop down a hill or the basement stairs after carrying for a long time, and that'd likely result in the survivor wiggling out, but the survivors can't FORCE the killer to do that. The perk would still be unable to be abused.
In Conclusion:
The direction of the Boil Over change is successful in preventing the perk from being abused by survivors who deliberately run to high ledges to become unhookable, but the number that the perk has been given will make it objectively worse in EVERY scenario.
It'll be a shame to see a perk sent to the trash heap after a week, so please, buff the percentage to 50%. It'll still be much healthier than the current version, but will have a chance to shine in certain situations. I really don't want to see this perk fall back into complete disuse again.
Comments
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It might make it a lot worse, and useless again. But I'd rather them release it like this, with it seeing niche play at first, and then buffing numbers as needed instead of just re-releasing it with possibly over inflated numbers and then waiting for them to Nerf it while it gets abused for weeks or months on end.
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Honestly even if they buffed it to 50% that would mean maybe 10 people would run it instead of 5. Aside from devoting an entire build to the perk, and having friends run stuff like Breakout, Boil Over will be forgotten within a couple days of the change.
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The fact that the extra wiggle gained scales with the current wiggle progress would still prevent people from running to a ledge to die and become unhookable in certain spots, regardless of numbers. That's where basically all of the complaints for the perk come from.
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I mean... Doesn't everybody knows that this change is a nerf?
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Yeah, it still wouldn't be a good perk, but nerfing an already bad perk is not a good thing either. Considering that they can't just entirely rework the perk overnight, I feel that this is a good compromise.
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Yeah, that's true. Good write up, btw. It's not every day I get to see graphs on here!
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Your maths is sound as far as I'm aware, but I think this is focusing a little too much on that one aspect of the perk- as Mandy said, it's still going to have the buffed +100% stagger and the 16m hook aura cloaking, so I think the abusable portion being worse is pretty fair.
It may definitely still end up being that it'll need something akin to the buff you proposed, but that part of the perk is not the only part and isn't the only thing it's supposed to be doing for you when you equip it.
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Thank you! I put quite a bit of time into this so I appreciate that. Hopefully the developers read and consider it.
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You make a good point, those aspects of the perk do exist, but the increased strafing and aura cloaking aren't that good by themselves. There's a reason Boil Over recieved an entirely new effect instead of just numbers buffs. The point I'm trying to make is that it's entirely possible to have the wiggle part perk be somewhat significant at times without being abusable. I think 33% of the current wiggle amount is far too harsh.
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While I wouldn't hate this, I don't think it'd help Boil Over either.
Whether it's 33% or 50%, Boil Over just isn't attractive. The important thing to keep in mind is that the current Boil Over with a flat 25% isn't attractive, either. You're seeing people run it because it's new, it's making a hubbub, and because it's abusable. But once the first two faded, you were only going to see it in occasional troll squads. It wasn't a good perk to use in ordinary play because it's too situational that the killer will drop off a ledge and have that four seconds make a difference, and the only way to change that is to stop playing normally, cheese, and hope the killer gives up on you instead of slugging you to death. That's still the case, but now running into corners doesn't work.
People were running Boil Over because for once in the perk's lifespan, you could guarantee value out of it. You can't do that anymore, so it doesn't appeal. People don't like unreliable perks. Look at Devour Hope - it's the strongest perk in the game in terms of its effect, and yet it's not a common sight in loadouts. Well, you're likelier to get Devour Hope to 5 stacks than you are to wiggle off with Boil Over (without a friend group and offerings, and at that point, it's probably the friend group and offerings that got you off more than the perk itself.) And if you do wiggle off - okay, you accomplished what's essentially a Decisive Strike with different conditions. Does the killer go right back after you? Can you do it again? Is your team in a position where the extra chase time makes a difference to them? The risk/reward is just way out of whack when you can't reliably make the perk do anything and it starts to hinge on whether or not the killer gets knocked into a doorframe or off a platform by your swaying.
Power Struggle is better at giving you surprise escapes than 33% or 50% Boil Over ever will, and you don't see people running that either.
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isn't that kind of the point? the perk is supposed to be possible clutch, not escape grasp every time
my first question would be why did they make a perk that can completely negate whole chase a killer has to go through
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Yes, but a well needed nerf. Seriously, it's highly abused as it stands now.
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Yeah, unfortunately, this is true. Even in it's current state, it's not a good perk. However, making it 50% might make it work occasionally, having it at 33% makes it even less likely to work than it does now (which doesn't happen often unless you sit in a specific spot all game which is now patched).
Unless you give it a completely new effect, it will never be good. However, making the change not an objective nerf from an already bad state would make it at least useable in niche scenarios. Maybe.
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With my proposed changes, it will still be an unreliable clutch perk.
However, 33% makes it far too unlikely that the perk will do anything significant.
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i mean it's either that, or something like one time use per game
escaping grasp is way too costly for the killer, not even DS or unbreakable are this powerful and both are situational
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Wiggling is something they shouldn't try to mess around tbh, and 100% wiggling is still a thing and pretty strong as is.
I mean why do you even need a wiggle progress when the wiggle effect is THIS big.
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To the point of this change being an objective nerf, you are absolutely correct. There is no instance where the new version of the perk will be stronger than the current version. Best case scenario, they drop after 75% and you wiggle off instantly, but this is the same as it is now.
By making it weaker at lower wiggle progress, it effectively adds counterplay when a survivor goes down in certain locations. If your only choices are A: Drop, or B: Carried them the long way all the way down the nearest stairs/ramp, you end up with a lot of situations where it becomes outright impossible to hook someone. The only other option you have is to slug them for 4 minutes, and I think we can all agree that isn't the most exciting for anyone involved.
This way, finding the closest ledge and letting yourself go down doesn't work. You need to put some thought into it and either use teamwork (take hits, sabotaging) or combine it with other perks to get full use out of it (e.g. Flip Flop, teammate with Breakout). Alternatively, the Killer may have to take the long way around hills, drops, and the basement stairs to avoid the penalty, but that's still more time for you to wiggle.
That graph is great for showing when you'd instantly wiggle out, but what it doesn't do a great job of showing is how long it would take to reach a hook after dropping. Very rarely is there a hook directly under a drop (and it's absolutely criminal that the Space Jam theme doesn't play when you dunk a survivor onto a hook). Most of the time, you'll still have to walk a bit before you get to one. It doesn't really matter if you're at 80%, 90%, or even 99%, if the Killer can't get you to a hook before that bar fills up, you're still going to wiggle free.
To give an example, if the Killer drops at 50%, that's an extra 16.5% progress (about 2.6 seconds). That may not sound like a lot, but that leaves them with only 5.36 seconds to get to a hook. Toss in a teammate taking a hit for you and you're golden.
In short, is it weaker? Yes, absolutely, and that intentional. Is it practical? Remains to be seen, but it should still have some utility. Will you reliably be able to get value out of it every single match? No, but dare I say that being able that being able to reliably do something as impactful as wiggle out on your own just by slapping on a single perk and dying in the right spot is way too powerful on a fundamental level. (And apologies, I don't mean to make it sound like you're suggesting that it should. Not trying to put words in your mouth!)
That said, would 50% make it overpowered again? Who knows. Probably not, since you still won't get a ton of value just by going down near a ledge, but it's better to err on the side of caution and start with a safe number rather than a high number and risk not fixing the issue to begin with. We can always revisit it and fine tune it down the line if need be.
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Omg my cameo 💅
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That extra stagger is really undervalued and underrated.
Any indoor areas can be a hard to navigate by default, that boosted stagger makes them a right pain in the ass with you getting caught on everything. Not just indoor maps either. Anywhere that has some clutter or a tight area can cause the Killer to be stopped dead by that wiggle stagger for a second or 2 and that's for each bump. It adds up over a game.
But, the real problem is that Boil Over is compared to the likes of DH or DS. Those perks are so WELL BEYOND most other Survivor perks that nothing can compare to them and so everything else looks like crap.
That's why most other games change meta by taking a taking away from it instead of building on.
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Hey Peanits, thank you for the reply!
I understand making it weaker at lower wiggle progress, making it so that you can't immediately run to a ledge and become unhookable just because you have the perk isn't the most fun thing for the game (even if those spots were few and far between).
However, considering how rare it is that a killer will drop from a great height while carrying a survivor unless you specifically force the killer to do so, and the fact that the perk explicitly tells the killer that it's active, I don't think it'll be practical at 33%, and should be made more significant considering that the perk now has counterplay for people throwing themselves at ledges. Boil Over wasn't a reliable perk if you weren't going out of your way to die in a certain spot.
That said, I can see the reasoning behind wanting to start at a safe number, considering the situations Boil Over could cause. I just hope that it'll be tweaked sooner rather than later if it isn't useful. Boil Over was a pretty bad perk for years, and it'd be a shame if the new effect it was given was useless for a while after this.
Again, appreciate the reply, it's always nice to hear the dev's reasoning on things.
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Holy crap this.
I really enjoy Pain Resonance, and Boil Over effectively hard counters it.
Indoor maps...I'll actually lose people sometimes because I get completely stuck against a doorway.
This is sort of the key.
It was a weak perk, but (like Trickster) has a certain design quality that makes it annoying even when weak.
It's the sort of thing that, buffed, becomes a problem.
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It's refreshing to see math being used for a compelling case instead of arguments.
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"Wiggle out perk" shouldn't be "practical" because that gonna break the game.
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