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Boons Rework - Charges
Boons are in a weird spot balance wise.
Put simply, their design benefits survivors greatly especially when compared to scourge hooks which are not consistent for killers.
These unique design benefits are
- You can choose when and somewhat where you want it
- Other survivors can benefit from your boons
- Boons don't tell the killer what boon they are dealing with
- They stick around forever
These benefits create a problem. As long as it is worth blessing a totem initially, you will get huge value from the perk because it sticks around so long. Either the killer snuffs it and wastes their time, or it sticks around and gives more value.
My solution is a charge system.
Every boon when blessed is given 100 charges. These charges are consumed anytime someone uses the boons benefit along with a This cost changes depending on the perk. I also have a couple of other changes added to each boon as well.
- Circle of Healing consumes 2 charges from every 1 healing charges along with a 20 charge cost if someone completes a self-heal on themselves. Circle of Healing only has a 12 meter radius to make it harder for survivors to heal.
- Shadow Step consumes 1 charge for every scratch mark suppressed and 10 charges for any aura hidden. When shadow step hides an aura, the totem aura lights up instead. This gives killers the warning that shadow step is blocking the aura so they still have some information to work off of.
- Exponential consumes 1 charge for every 4 percent worth of recovery. If a survivor picks themselves up, that consumes 16 charges. When a survivor picks themselves up using exponential, the killer gets notification that states that they got up because of Exponential. This is done to make keeping track of unbreakable easier.
- Dark Theory consumes 1 charge for every second you run in it and 5 charges for any fast vault. I would also make it so that when a survivor is under the effects of dark theory, they have some particle effects on them. This is done to make more clear to the killer that the survivor is not hacking.
But what happen when the charges run out? First off, as the boon runs out of charges the boons chimes become more frantic and off, trying to warn any survivor to not use it. When the boon finally runs out of charges, three things happen.
- The boon is extinguished
- Any survivor in the range of the boon screams and has their location revealed
- The survivor who blessed the boon screams and is inflicted with incapacitated for 12 seconds
Luckily for survivors, there is a way to stop this from happening by using Maps. If you have a map and a boon, you can use the secondary action button to reinforce your boon with 50 charges at cost of 8 map charges and a loud notification. You can also re-bless the totem back to 100 charges but that requires you to be there and go through the whole process again.
These changes make boons into something that survivors have to commit to in order to keep up, along with giving the killer enough information to be able to play around them. The numbers can switched around interchangeably.
TL;DR
Boons now consume charges which force survivors to have to actually use resources to keep them up unless they want to get their position revealed and Killers can figure out what boons you have by attention to a couple of signs.
Comments
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I appreciate the effort and thought put into this, but I find it unnecessary to implement a new mechanic for boons when CoH is the sole reason for the boon rage.
Exponential and Dark Theory are already underwhelming so a charge system would hurt their already low viability. An argument can be made for DT in conjunction with Shadow Step, but even then, this change would hurt a possible meta-changing combo. Don't we all want to see the meta change and see a bit more diversity?
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The idea is that these changes would let you buff those two perks a little bit without making them too strong. Dark Theory could make fast faults easier and Exponential could stop a killer from picking you up for a couple of seconds. It also gives more room to create new boons and make them fair.
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I feel like CoH won't be much of a problem after the midchapter update. At 50% healing speed the survivors would be spending 32 seconds to heal themselves. At that point they're hurting their team more than they're helping. Plus survivors could easily play around the 20 charge cost by healing to 99% and then having someone else finish the heal.
And the other boons already aren't much of a problem. Shadow Step is really only a problem on indoor maps when the survivor has a big lead on the killer. Even then, after the first hit the killer can track them using blood and / or their grunts of pain. Exponential requires the killer to slug the survivor and for the survivor to be in the boons range. It's so circumstantial that it doesn't usually effect a game in any meaningful way. An argument could be made against Dark Theory but a 2% speed boost is so insignificant that it won't help much at all. It can get you that last bit of distance you need but most of the time the effects are inconsequential.
I feel like these changes would gut boons to the point where they wouldn't be used just about ever, and when they do get used it would really only be CoH.
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Buff all the boons to make them broken. Make the blessed totems brittle and risky.
Survivors should feel free to bring the perks and use them - but they should know that they are assuming a form of risk along with it.
Hex totems are high risk high reward. Boon totems are no-risk eh reward. We can either do what a lot of the community is asking for and make them low-risk low-reward, or we can make them worth bringing into the trial, while requiring a small amount of awareness within the confines of its inherent risks.
· Boon Totems – Remove the blessing action. The first totem you cleanse in the trial becomes your boon – applying all boon perks available. There is no thunderous sound. Audio changed to very faint and intermittent chimes. Original audio cue is only broadcasted in a 6m range. When snuffed, the totem shatters with a crunch and all perks associated with that boon are deactivated for the rest of the trial.
Make the boons worth bringing and worth snuffing.
Make that perk slot a volatile survivor-Hex that can crumble apart woefully, or determine the fate of the match.
A good boon can supply infinite fast heals, easy chase escapes, wiggle and slugging deterrence, and nearly infinite looping potential.
But if the killer breaks away to find the boon totem in the area and break it apart, it's only fair.
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I agree with Mazoobi, the main problem people have with boons is Circle of Healing. Fix that perk properly.
Charges is a bad idea because it ######### up other boons that aren't problematic.
What boons need is a cooldown, not charges.
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