Actually balanced and usefull rework of Buckle Up

This is a bit broken, but I do think the perk should get some love

~

The recovery progress of Dying survivors can be determined by the intensity of their Aura.

When in the Dying state, other survivors see the progress of your recovery by the intensity of your aura.

After healing a survivor from the Dying state, you both gain 10/20/30% Haste for 5 seconds.

(This perk is revealed to survivors that you are actively healing while they are in the Dying state)

Description: “If they’re expecting you to be a hero, they should prepare themselves.”

~

Primarily in concert with these - but in addition, it overshadows both other perks that function to the same ends (We're Going To Live Forever, For The People, We'll Make it, etc.) but it also circumvents the conventions of the game.

Unbreakable is strong, and Exponential is strong - but Exponential takes 14 seconds to set up and can be removed, and is highly circumstantial.

Gaining the ability to basically grant Exponential at will an unlimited number of times can be devastating. One survivor with this incarnation of the perk would be able to revive 3 allies with only ~3 seconds of healing between them all.

For The People can bring a single person up from the Dying state instantly, but it costs: 1 Health State, Broken Status, Can only be used while healthy. To pick up 3 people it would take the player over 3 minutes of using the perk and healing up after being broken.

Boon: Exponential can bring numerous people up from the Dying state over several consecutive seconds within its area of effect, but it costs: 14 seconds of setup time, location specific, can be removed by the killer, survivors still take ~15 seconds to pick themselves up. To pick up 3 people, the player must find a well placed totem and spend 14 seconds blessing it - and the boon must not be destroyed by the killer for over 15 seconds per person downed in the area.

Unbreakable can allow a survivor to pick themselves up once in a trial. Once used it is ostensibly a dead perk slot such as DS.

The proposed incarnation of Buckle Up would be able to allow another player to pick themselves up from the Dying State after healing them for a second or so - which means it would take ~3 seconds to apply this perk to three downed teammates. So this already obliterates the economy of the game by preforming a vital and pricy niche for unbalanced value. In addition to its implied separation from established economy, the perk also compounds the usefulness of other meta perks making them even stronger (We're Gonna Live Forever, Unbreakable, Etc.) but it also has another major faculty to the design that would make it broken: Deterrence.

Not only would the deterrence offered become a massive buff to the perk that breaks it beyond convention, but the deterrence offered is the antithesis of healthy gameplay for survivors.

Whenever a killer approaches a survivor that is healing a fallen ally, the killer must now behave as though this perk may or may not be in effect; if they choose to chase the 'healer' survivor away, the one on the ground is highly likely to self revive and make a clean escape. If the killer has even the slightest doubt that they can put the healer on the ground in ~16 seconds or less, they must now pick up the fallen survivor. Instead of participating in conventional gameplay, the killer must now act as though this perk is in play - even when it isn't.

This is a double edged sword.

On one hand, it can destroy a survivor build around it, because - like 99% exit gates to combat blood warden - killers will become weathered to simply picking up fallen allies and hooking them rather than leaving them to be revived. The prospect of such lose-lose situations will rapidly cause killers to play their matches with even less interesting methodology. All to say - if this incarnation came to light, slugging would decrease across the board, but moreover - players will find it even harder to distract a killer or pull them away from an ally to make room for daring rescues. This incarnation of the perk would make incredible saves obsolete over night.

On the other hand, it has the ability to put killers into lose-lose-lose situations at high MMR. Bully squads would abuse the nature of this perk and its implied existence in a trial to force killer players into no-win circumstances. Survivors can intentionally down themselves on a pallet, or survivors will lurk with flashlights - and killers will become unable to defend or stave off aggressive survivor players, as even allowing a solitary second of healing to transpire can steal any momentum to the survivor's side anew. Killers will lament this perk's existence and the threat of its potency as they lose hook state after hook state to bully squads that will force the killer to pick up at a pallet, leave their friend to self-revive, or waste time trying to wait out a perk that may or may not even exist.

Basically, not only is it itself broken, but it would have the opposite effect of what it is intended to do.

Buckle Up is the perk that survivor players should look to if they want to sweep in for a daring save, and use boldness and cunning to turn a desperate situation into a powerful escape.

This incarnation is broken, because unlike Unbreakable or Exponential - which adhere to economy and service niche purpose - this Buckle Up version would obliterate daring escapes and bog the entire game down into dull hook-state games, and would see diminishing use at lower MMR as its effects are deleterious and self defeating where they are not powerful to a fault. All the while, killers will pull their hair out as survivor players use this perk as a means to play even safer than before and extract incredible value from a perk with limited conversion rates. Instead of making games faster and more fun, this perk would make them stale and more frustrating.

A perk for gutsy saviors that is so unbelievably strong in prospect that it will doom anyone that you touch to the hook, all while promoting a sense of safety and conservative playstyles that defeat the thesis of the perk's inception.

Maybe the activation time could be tiny bit higher, but I like the concept a lot.

Perhaps. Making it require 4 seconds of healing to activate and give a 32 second cooldown may be nice.

But in all honesty, it doesn't change anything - because the deterrence factor still remains.

I love the creativity, but I honestly think that this perk needs a diifferent approach