In order to "rework perks" in a meaningful way, the SWF/solo gulf will need to be at least mitigated

Given that there's a "big perk rework" coming up, I thought I might bring up one of the more "low level" issues that a lot of the "stale meta" and "balance problem" complaints seem to stem from.

What may be the largest balancing challenge in DBD is the gulf between SWF players and solo queue players. It's hard to balance survivor perks and abilities (and killer-side designs, too) when there's such a wide potential for an informational power swing between the two sides. For example, a controversial recent addition, Boons benefit from both pre-game planning and coordinated in-game behaviour, and they're hurt by a lack of pre-game planning and a lack of in-game coordination. This makes them stronger in the hands of a coordinated group, and weaker - even potentially counter-productive - in solo queue.

Now, of course, removing SWF isn't tenable - it's a crucial feature for a massive portion of the playerbase and it would be much healthier to instead try to reduce this information differential between the two play-types.

This is unfortunately not easy, as massive portions of DbD's design are based on limited access to information.

• Many Killer perks and add-ons are based around Survivor information:
  • Perks which deny info to survivors; e.g. Knock Out, Dark Devotion, anything involving the Blindness or Oblivious status
  • Perks which have a reveal that's only visible to survivors who are interacting with or seeing the killer; e.g. Franklin's Demise, Enduring, Coup de Grâce, Bamboozle, Starstruck, Tinkerer, Unrelenting...
  • Hex perks. Between splitting up and searching more effectively, communicating the locations of totems and communicating when to break totems (is the killer far away? is everyone out of chase in case it's Haunted Grounds?), Hexes are massively information-based.

These perks have unreliable power depending on the level of Survivor communication, which makes them harder to balance and can discourage them from being picked, making the meta more stale.

• Many Survivor perks, items and add-ons are based around Survivor information as well:
  • Perks which require you to be "in the right place at the right time" are stronger when you're able to communicate to more reliably hit that right place and time; e.g. Vigil, Saboteur, Prove Thyself, Leader, Head On, For the People
  • Some perks which grant information are weaker or unnecessary when you already have that information externally, giving you room to run other perks, while others grant you information that is more useful because you can pass it along to your team. "Does that Meg have Spine Chill, or is she just running away for fun?"
  • Many perks are more useful if your team knows you have them and can plan and play around them, including pre-game planning; e.g. Unbreakable, Wake Up, Soul Guard, Slippery Meat, Open-handed, Head On, For the People

A lot of these issues aren't just bad because of the power differential they create or their sterilizing effect on the meta, but also because they create conflict between Solo Survivors. "I'm running over to get an unhook, but you had Slippery Meat, and I got into a chase with the killer for no reason!", "I was going to finish this gen to get Adrenaline and I put Blast Mine on it to buy time, but you kept trying to heal me instead of helping, had Spine Chill proc and then used Repressed Alliance to stop the killer from popping the gen!", "I wanted to use Residual Manifest or Pharmacy or Ace in the Hole, but everyone opened the chests before me!"

And here's where Boon perks come in: suddenly there's a new power differential and a new source of Solo Survivor conflict - a prepared team might bring one or two Boon perks on one character, where a solo group might bring a boon on everyone, 'wasting' potentially several perk slots. This is a mistake that a premade group is mostly only going to make on purpose, but which solo groups might make inadvertently and frequently.

Worse, consider three Boon players and a player with some combination of Clairvoyance/Counterforce/Inner Healing/Overzealous/Small Game. Encouraging negative interactions between solo survivors by creating perks that actively interfere with each other is a recipe for toxic behaviour. "You're breaking bones and making it harder for me to boon, I'm going to leave you to die on hook!", "Everyone on my team is booning instead of doing gens, I hate this team!", "I thought you brought Circle of Healing and wasted time walking to your Shadowstep, you got me killed!"

I'm very excited for the upcoming "big meta changes" and perk reworks, and I'm really, really hoping that they take some of these deeper design challenges into account, rather than exacerbating them further.