Anyone else feel like the devs are scared of making strong survivor perks?
I’ve been thinking about this especially since the new patch and it feels like the devs are afraid of making strong survivor perk options.
If we look at killer over the past year we have got Pain resonance, Pentimento, Lethal pursuer, Call of brine and Deadlock as new great options. Out of the three scourge hooks so far only one launched weak being gift of pain but it has now been buffed into a solid position
Now if we look at survivor over the past year we have gotten COH which was completely busted on release and is now a solid option and that’s about it really. Overcome is decent but worse than other exhaustion options and Shadowstep isn’t strong enough to run on its own. Hell they even nerfed parental guidance before release despite it not being incredibly strong in the first place. Perks like overzealous and inner focus are being buffed literally a month and a half after their launch because they released which such trivial numbers. For example how strong would overzealous actually be if the 16% boost happened regardless of a hex totem or not? Encourage side objectives with bonus gen speed that goes away when the killers pressure gens well sounds pretty balanced in my opinion. Boons overall are weak especially in the case of dark theory like when was the last time you saw someone run a boon perk without COH as well?
Looking at the new patch the same problem shows itself. Calm spirit apparently needing a 30% reduction in speed to compensate for its mediocre effect, Pharmacy needing the prerequisite of being injured, Botany having a medkit efficiency debuff and Dark sense having its endgame activation removed. It just feels like the devs want to make a new meta but absolutely refused to make new strong options for survivor players to use meaning we’ll just use the old meta regardless. To me it just feels like the devs are afraid of similar outcry to COH or dead hard when they release a strong perk for survivors. It’s not all negative though with perks like distortion and ITR record but it still feels like they are p,saying it very safe at the moment which feels weird for a meta shake up
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yes
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They're scared of making strong survivor anything. They've been for years.
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If you havent noticed these forums and the subreddit are very killer sided. They make up the minority of the playerbase but theyre the most vocal on the online part of the community and theyve historically made the forums pretty unwelcoming to other players.
Tbf like two years ago the game was heavily balanced towards survivor with the old DS and old keys/hatch, old maps with infinite loops but with each patch over the last 2-4 years theyve consistently given qol updates for killers.
Its gotten to a point where they need to stop catering to the minority of the playerbase because its simply bad business to alienate and piss off 70% of your customers.
Probably 70-80% of killers just want ez 4ks. For them a 2k is not a desirable outcome at all. Even a 3k isnt good enough for them. Many of them dont ever consider that they lost because they didnt play skillfully or because their strategy was poor. Its always going to be something in the mechanics of the game that needs to be addressed, not their own lack of skill.
Theres definitely sweaty survivor players but by far killers make up the majority of players who take the competitive aspect of the game far too seriously. Which is why a lot of survivors for a long time really didnt care about the incremental changes that were happening to buff killers and nerf survivors. The power creep has been slowly been going on for years but now its super obvious that the devs are only listening to that highly vocal minority to the exclusion of anything else. Mostly because theyre super toxic.
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Empathic connection is really strong IMO.
The range at Tier 3 is insane, and the information it gives a survivor-in-need is crucial.
Some might sleep on it, but I personally think its one of the best survivor perks released in the past 3 years.
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More people enjoy playing survivor. They need killers. Do the math.
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Bruh, what do you mean?
Off the Record just got a buff that literally made it the new meta perk
Botany Knowledge and Circle of Healing are still go to healing perks THAT STACK
Hell even perks like Parental Guidance can end chases instantly if you lose the killer.
There are SO MANY good survivor perks.
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It's a hard balancing act. Every strong perk can be run by 4 people in a single game. Hence the DH nerf and all the DS changes through the years.
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You need four times as many Survivors to start a match, so the math isn't hard.
I agree with OP; they are terrified of doing anything compelling for Survivor perks. Even Head On was nerfed when they added the crow condition to cancel the effect. Some perks could become appealing but are often tied to unrelated or ridiculous trigger conditions, are limited to precise moments, and even don't provide great utility when in those moments.
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Its great with the new Lucky Break. People should definitely try it more.
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I think that's the same for killers.
The game is prettty hard to be balanced at this point with all the features that they had introduced.
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They need 4x as many survivors as killers. Do the math. Where do you think most of their income comes from?
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Yes run 2 perks for healing that still give you a weak self healing speed. And the -20% efficiency penalty really really sucks. So even if you wanted to devote 2 perk slots AND your item choice to healing, you get penalized. A big problem in their attempt to break the meta is they still left many solid choices for gen slowdown which are now being abused to hell, and yet nerfed survivors in some specific perks they can’t really make up for with other perks. DS is useless because of the reduced duration. The base kit BT is also not good enough because of the duration. It was a step in the right direction but now though I dont have to endure getting farmed to an immediate down anymore, it’s just delayed 5 seconds. A killer easily catches in most cases. So now healing is a hassle, gen speeds are god awful with 1-4 slowdown perks, and killers have plenty of time to camp/tunnel, which they ARE. This was a big middle finger to survivors.
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Devs release the first killer sided patch in years and this kind of post shows up not even a week in?
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Idk what Ash 4 players you're going with but my solo queue teammates often do fine.
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I wish wed get a steady stream of decentish perks rather than constant garbage with the occasional God perk.
Like, release Boil Over was literally apocalyptic levels of terrible. I'm glad that's gone forever. But I dont hate the fact that survivors have strong perks. I want even matches where we both try our hardest.
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Good points. They promised some response to camping and tunneling and implemented a mediocre change that rarely works. Camping is still not addressed; base kit BT doesn't help with rescuing - which is mainly an issue with Bubba, but in general, camping is stronger with the CD change. Base kit speed reduction encourages perk variety and eliminates the necessity to run slow-down perks but has only amplified the problem with sometimes more synergized and more substantial slowdown. Killers aren't using other perks, they are stacking slow-down perks.
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They do something compelling, and people complain. Decisive 1.0, Decisive 2.0, Mettle of Man, Luck Break + Iron Will combo, etc.
This community specifically does not like dealing with things that have effects. That's the actual truth, it's not the devs in this case.
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I mean… none of the killer perks you listed are exactly meta or anything. They’re all decent perks you can throw in certain builds with certain killers or throw onto any killer if you want to play a certain style. Just like all the recent survivor perks.
Personally I think CoH is very strong. And Overcome is a top tier exhaustion perk. I run Overcome with Lucky Break and it’s amazing how easy it is to lose killers. And now they even buffed Lucky Break.
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Eh, I feel like it's just harder to balance for 4 survivors, because if one survivor brings a strong perk, it works well, but if 4 bring it, it's probably gonna end up being overwhelming
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Killer players are the most vocal and these forums apparently favor them. Yet look to the front page here. It's plastered with complaints from survivor-favored folks. Do you have such a need to be a victim that you disregard reality?
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CoH, the most recent survivor meta perk has gone through 4 nerfs(2 on PTB and 2 live) and is still an amazing perk. I think devs are doing ok with making strong survivor perks
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Pain resonance, no way out and deadlock are all definitely meta options imo just not used as often since people enjoyed the old meta more (And BBQ for BP)
COH is still pretty strong but overcome is just an alright perk, it has more weaknesses than strengths imo and pails in comparison to sprint burst
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This has been an issue before this patch. Anyway I’m happy killers got the buffs I just wish survivors got some cool new strong options as well and more consistently good perks every chapter release
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Because the constant exaggerations and demands to control the game from *entitled* killer mains (I always specify entitled, because not all killer mains are entitled) have finally spilled the water for many people. You can only push a side so much before they end up pushing back.
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Which was the last super strong survivor perk though? It was dead hard released in July 2017
Off the top of my head killers have got pain resonance, hex undying, no way out, Corrupt intervention and pop goes the weasel in that same time frame.
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Well the problem with strong survivor perks is that there is 4 survivors and each one can bring the perk. Meaning that it becomes difficult creating strong survivor perks that don't become overpowering when multiple survivors are running it.
That said the devs do underpower a lot of survivor perks for no real reason and I think it's because they really over estimate how strong certain effects are.
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Considering Bottany Knowledge, one of few getting a buff, in this killer sided patch needed a huge downside proves they are extremely scared to give survivors anything good.
And that's only one example in a huge sea of evidence.
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Thing is, up to this patch, it didn't matter what cool strong option would get released for survivors, nothing they could ever release would come close to the game breaking potential DH had, so we would still only ever see the exact same 5-6 perks in every survivor in every single match. Maybe from this point on they'll release new stuff, if the tears of the E widows don't drown the devs into going back and un-nerfing it.
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I agree that the 5-6 meta perks needed adjustment but that shouldn’t have stopped them from making other strong options. Again buffing 2/3 of haddies perks only a month and a half after launch perfectly shows this
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I would argue that has more to do with the fact that they already released some of the best survivor perks in the game based on the games framework and nothing could compete unless you openly embrace power creep. For example, how can you make a sound based perk better than old Iron will? When OTR released people(rightfully so) asked, "why would I ever run this when I could just run Iron will and not worry about a timer or condition?"
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No. I feel like it's more so that the few strong perks survivors had were really strong, why would you give them more. Now I think they can maybe start adding stronger perks for survivors but back then it was kinda obvious that wasn't a good idea.
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Survivors' perk should be strong, but limited use like DS, UB...so its like their resources rather than something permanent. Something like
- Selfcare is 24sec with 72sec use (for 3 heal). After that they cant use it anymore.
- Botany can be the same with 33% speed buff that only work for 50sec or something
You get my idea.
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maybe you dont use the perks very well or you don't think theyre strong because they're not extremely useful every single match like dead hard was
repressed alliance, second wind, deliverance, inner healing, off the record buff, overcome, smash hit, soul guard, camaradeire, fast track. yeah these perks are not very recent but they are not very old either (maybe except for deliverance) and still very relevant. these are all non-meta perks that can counter the meta, yet nobody uses them because it's too 'niche', even though slugging, tunneling, camping, and 3 genning are extremely frequent as they are all part of the optimal way to play killer. they can still quite literally change the outcome of a match when used correctly
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2 days ago conspicuous actions was not on off the record. Yesterday it was put on the perk because killers complained about it. And like always they got there wish granted. The game is dead. All killer sided thanks to devs
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If I developed an asymmetrical pvp game I would be extra cautious about empowering the 4 people in a 4v1 too. What is the point someone's trying to make with this very, very obvious design observation?
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Conspicuous action was on otr since ptb.
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the devs are killer mains.
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Probably because they don't want another Mikaela with CoH not only shifting the entire meta towards healing, but also breaking the game by handing zero risk free 8 second heals to anyone for the cost of a single perk slot of the survivor team. What took either time, planning, or cooperation to happen suddenly required none of these, and the game became miserable to play as anything that didn't have instadowns or wasn't Nurse. And before Mikaela, again, no one would ever run any Exhaustion perk that would be released after DH unless said perk made you actually invulnerable. No one would run any stealth perk that wasn't Iron Will unless it made you invisible, which would lead to people running both to be 100% undetectable. Why run any other unhook support perk when Borrowed Time gave you a free meat shield to protect you from unhooking without even thinking twice? Why run anything other than Decisive Strike when it allowed you to bodyblock a door after being unhooked and that alone would punish the killer no matter what he did? There's no reason to ever run anything if what already exists is already broken.
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Deadlock is a good perk if you want slowdown and PR is not bad but just got nerfed. No Way Out is a pure endgame perk and definitely not meta.
I would put Overcome on the same level as any of those and CoH is definitely still higher than all of them. CoH wrecks so many play styles. I have given up on killers like Wraith or Nemesis because hit and run play styles are pretty much dead thanks to CoH.
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The point of the game isn't to make survivors powerful. In fact, they are supposed to be weak. But if they work as a team, they have a chance of getting out alive. That's your objective. This isn't supposed to be a competitive game. It's supposed to be survival, and survivors have to do just that. Survive. If you guys want to be all powerful, then play killer. Or a different game that let's you be powerful. No horror game let's the player be in control, and guess what, that's the point of being a survivor. The devs aren't scared. They know their game better than any of us. So let thr mass exodus happen if you all hate this game so much instead of constantly complaining like 3 year olds in the forums. It's exhausting to be around such negativity all the time here.
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Hasn't it been this way for a while... They can't really make balanced perks or at least according to a certain minority in the community where they run something if its good or else its "useless".
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But then why not just run Aftercare?
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Stop crying and get good. If you were boosted by your perks, lose some and your MMR will adjust.
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Game was survivor sided for too long until they started to lose so many killer players they had to change things. Let's see if they will lose survivors now instead, or buff solos fast and make both sides happy.
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the problem that i saw everytime a new perk got released was when the perk wasnt dh iw coh level strong it was "useless" and i get where this comes from because why would i run otr when iw gives me 100% silent for ever. now we got the really strong meta perk more in line but many people say every thing is now useless wich is just wrong. they lost power they shoulnd ever had the big problem with this patch is that first survs need to adjust to the changes wich is hard enough on its own because suddenly you cant take that extra round in a loop or you cant vanish after a hit because iw now has some sound left but at the same time they over did the killer buffs and didnt adress facecamping.
why dont we have an slowdown cap? why did thana needed a buff?
they overdid it and that makes adjusting to the new meta and the new playstyle for the survivor harder. i would say they did a good job on the surv changes in regard of taking away a bit of power from them to let them have more of a survivor feeling and i actually have already faced survivor that got down in chases because they still tbagged at every pallet and tryed to pull of some yt creator look how hard i can play that killer stuff but with the base changes and the perk nerfs they got down quiet fast and thats a good thing.
bhvr needs to look at the killer buffs again and tune down some of the perk buffs again and really think about some general caps for everything that can stack
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Sorry, but the last 3 patch are killer sided as hell
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Nah, seeing the scratch marks of survs or move 2% faster in the boon totem aura seems op perks. But 15% regression and seeing survs auras for 5 secs (7 with LP) without seeing them for 25 secs (23 with LP) are barely good
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Not really, most perks has been awful for both side anyway.
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By nature killer is competitive, it's 1 vs 4, and to say that changes are made based solely on forum complains is just stupid, they have the data, the have objectives that the devs want to achieve.
Yes this patch most likely (judging by the reading ive done) is killer "sided" but the last major patch gave us Boon of healing, so to say every patch since keys and hatch nerf has been killer "sided" is just b.s.
There will be changes made remember it took them time to make healing boon "balanced" i personally would have left it alone and just made stomping bones a ability rather than a perk.
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Can you blame them? The speed of Gens before the new patch was so fast. How can killers play without perks like Resonance or Thana or Ruin
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