The Midchapter Patch Was Overtuned. Proposed 6.2.0 Changes
The MidChapter 6.1 patch has sat with everybody for a while now and I think I can safely say that the patch was a very overtuned course correction to address the weakness of Killer in the past. While I think Killer is in a very good spot right now, I have thoroughly enjoyed most Killer games I have played, Survivor on the other hand, Solo Survivor especially, is miserable.
I feel as if the balance team saw a lot of the proposed changes that they've been receiving over the years and instead of slow feeding them over time like should've happen, they just shoved everything into the game as once and now we have this mess of a patch to deal with. I've had these ideas on my mind for a while and I'm one of those guys that needs to get it out there so I can stop thinking about it so forgive me if this is too long for you.
I'm personally not a believer of the "Wait and See" mentality that plagues a lot of "competitive" games as with a game as big as Dead by Daylight, this mentality makes no sense. We have such a big fanbase that we don't need to wait and see for a few months, we have so many people experiencing the same thing, trying out new things that any reasonable person can see that this patch is awful for Survivors.
We don't need to wait several months to realize that some things about this patch need to change everything I'm going to propose can happen next patch and won't drastically change the meta.
Here's my Proposed Patch 6.2. Nothing here is a rework, we're merely adjusting some of the values of the 6.1 patch that didn't hit the mark for one reason or another.
Base Kit Survivor Changes
There are two things in particular that I don't think hit the mark this update.
Base Kit Borrowed Time Sucks. Turns out Killers are capable of the unthinkable. They can count to 5. 5 seconds is not enough for anything and everybody just waits it out.
I propose changing it to 7 seconds as I believe this will do a better job at protecting the unhooked.
Reduction in distance after getting hit is too much. So basekit Killer got buffed hard and I agree that it should've. Gens take longer, they recover faster kick pallets faster. All of these are warranted changes. I don't believe the reduction in distance was though. It was done to defeat the "Hold Down W" meta, but I think all of the changes I listed above and the Dead Hard change addressed this fine. All the nerf does is make killers like Nurse and Blight stronger as now you can't even break line of sight anymore.
I propose we just revert this back to what it was before the Midchapter patch, with the effective removal of Dead Hard from the meta along with the basekit Killer changes, the hold down W meta is not as viable a strategy as it once was. Giving some power back to the survivors will not ruin the game.
Meta Survivor Perk Changes
In my opinion, a good path would've toned down the oppressive, stale survivor meta while also bringing new perks in as alternative options. I believe 6.1.0 failed in this regard.
Instead of toning down old perks, the patch destroyed them, some rightfully so, but most of them were extremely unwarranted.
Instead of buffing up perks to create a new meta, we have a few decent perks and a lot of extremely niche ones. A lot of downright garbage perks were just left out of the bundle.
Iron Will does not need the 75% nerf. The problem with old Iron Will is that it could be used by everybody with 0 consequence. It went on every build. I believe that with the Exhaustion clause that this patch introduced, this solved the issue.
My Proposed Change:
Iron Will Reduces the volume of Grunts of Pain while in the Injured State by 50/75/100% Iron Will cannot be used when suffering from Exhaustion, but does not cause the Exhausted Status Effect.
This retains the old strength of Iron Will while adding a manageable clause to it's power. This is exclusively a stealth perk now, you can't abuse this perk like before with perks like Sprint Burst, Dead Hard, or Lithe. With this change, if you run into someone with Iron Will you can make a reasonable assumption about their build, Locker Build, stealth build with self aware or something like that. That's not something you could do with the old Iron Will and that's why I believe the exhaustion clause is important.
Spine Chill did not need to be reworked. I have never seen anybody this patch run Spine Chill, please revert this change it is unironically so bad. The problem with old Spine Chill is that it completely shut Stealth Killers down without having any consequence for doing so. It was an all around good perk that just ruined the play experience of other people for doing nothing... So just remove it.
My Proposed Change:
Get notified when the Killer is looking directly in your direction and standing within a range of 36 metres.
While Spine Chill is active, Skill Check trigger odds are increased by 10 % with success zones reduced by 10 %.
While Spine Chill is active, your Repair, Healing, Sabotage, Unhooking, Vaulting, Cleansing, Exit Gate Opening, and Chest Searching speeds are increased by 2/4/6 %.
Spine Chill does not activate when the killer is Undetectable
That wasn't so hard now was it? Having strong perks is not a bad thing. It becomes a bad thing when they ruin other people's play experience which old Spine Chill did. My proposed Spine Chill no longer does this while still remaining a good perk.
If you noticed, I also added back the Vault Speed to the perk. Removing this made no sense. Even leading up to the patch, it was said that this aspect of the perk was removed because it "Didn't fit the perk". This is dumb, I'm sorry. Don't remove this, it is okay to have strong perks.
This also satisfies the people who used it as a hearing aid. They weren't going to hear undetectable killers anyway, so nobody loses with this change.
Decisive Strike got nerfed too hard. Decisive Strike at 3 seconds does absolutely nothing. I don't know what else I need to say, it's just really bad this patch for no reason. People are tunnelling more and more this patch and one of the few anti-tunnelling perks got nerfed to uselessness.
My Proposed Change:
After being unhooked or unhooking yourself, Decisive Strike activates for the next 40/50/60 seconds:
When being grabbed or picked up by the Killer, succeed a skill check to automatically escape their grasp, stunning them for 4 seconds.
That's it, one more second should be a nice Goldilocks between the two perks.
Rapid Fire, fixing more trash perks.
Calm Spirit no longer has a penalty for interacting with chests or totems
No Mither no longer makes you broken at the start of the game
Self Care at 40% now
They're all still bad, but hopefully a little less now.
As a whole though, I completely despise this mentality of needing to rework perks in order to nerf them. Spine Chill is an excellent example of how a rework completely ruined the perk but a simple change makes it balanced. Please Please Please think about simple number changes before developing reworks, this would save you so much time
These are my proposed changes to Survivor for the upcoming patch. As I said before, I believe Killer is in a good place right now and outside of specific killers, the role itself should be fine for the forseeable future. Whatever decision you guys at BHVR make, I sincerely hope y'all take a look at the changes you made in the MidChapter patch as you guys made some wacky nerfs that seriously didn't need to happen.
You guys are stressing yourselves over dumb stuff like fixing how your reworked Spine Chill works when a simple line of text fixes the problem we had in the first place.
Comments
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I'm glad to see Calm Spirit included in the list :D I hope they see all the feedback about it.
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Iron Will - I'll be honest, I prefer the 75% over the Exhaustion downside. I've played with No Mither; 75% means you're still pretty silent. Besides, changing it now is redundant as they're planning on changing all survivor volumes to be more consistent.
I think a good middle ground with the distance is to revert the speed boost reduction but keep the cooldown. It'll help M1 killers while not helping top tiers too much. (Maybe look at stbfl)
Self Care either needs to be 50% or reworked. No negotiation.
No Mither is fine. It's a meme perk. Unless you rework it, keep it as is.
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If they wait until 6.2 there wont be a player base left, the biggest mistake they are making right now is waiting. They really can't afford to wait, at least slap a hotfix on decisive strike or something. Putting out a statement that you aren't doing anything was a huge mistake imo.
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Bruh fr fr. I don't like the perk but some people do and even I thought the penalty to interactions was a really bad change. If people wanna use the perk then let them, don't punish people for using a niche perk lmao, I don't know why BHVR needs to be told this.
Right, Base Kit Killer got a lot of good changes and I think the cooldown they get for successful hits is fine. I feel like BHVR forgot that Dead Hard was such a big part of the Hold down W meta that they thought a speed boost reduction was warranted too when it really isn't.
That's doomsday thinking, people will continue playing the game unfortunately as if nothing is wrong and this is BHVR we're talking about. 6.2 is probably the quickest we'll get an update that addresses these issues assuming they open their eyes and see the problems the midchapter update has caused.
We all know how much they struggle with simple number changes so I'm not holding my breath for a 6.2 course correction, this is probably 6.3 if that, but we can dream
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Agree with Iron Will, Decisive Strike and Calm Spirit and would add:
Dead Hard: When you are affected by the broken status activating Dead Hard causes you to dash forward as well as the usual invulnerability.
Not sure about Self Care but it’s currently a bit too slow.
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The community is overreacting to this update. It's fine. Let it be. Calm down. Learn what works now and what doesn't. If you should be complaining about anything, it's that Behaviour didn't do anything to fix solo queue. That's it. Anything else is pretty much just unwarranted whining. Get over yourselves.
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Spine chill is still good, wdym? Its better than ever at countering stealth killers since it lights up even if they are undetectable
Granted it probably shouldn't but it isnt completely useless, at least not yet
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I agree with a lot of the things you've said here.
One minor thing i don't agree with.
Adding back the vaulting speed to Spine Chill, personally this is the only thing i wanted gone from spine chill, because i think the perk helping you in a chase and giving you detection is too much, the vault speed is why it was popular in high level lobbies.
Also i think a lot more needs to be done about anti-tunnelling measures. I'm really not sure what but the problem definitely wasn't addressed in the update.
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Actually the data I'm seeing on the aggregate site I'm following is showing about a 56% kill rate or so, up from 49% pre-patch. So it's gone from slightly survivor sided to slightly killer sided. It's not nearly as statistically killer sided as some people seem to think.
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I am actually really glad the vault speed is gone from Spine Chill and I hope it never comes back. There are some nasty loops like Myers' house that are powerful enough without an extra buff from Spine Chill.
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Boy, it's not bad, but the Killer advantages that were there were also absurdly attenuated, and just as Killers need to stop generators, and perks for it, there are 2 perks in particular, which have not even been touched by Survivor, which is Prove your worth, and Boom Totem: Circle of Healing, these 2 current perks, they are extremely strong, at least one is used at least, in each game, Ds, maybe I agree that if they killed that perk, 3 seconds It's nothing, but for the most part, they are trades that are balanced for Killer and Survivor. Normally before the patch, you would put on Dwad Hard, Borrowed Time, and the rest one with Boom Totem, and the rest what you wanted, and throw it there, now Dead Hard, is replaced by Agility or Sprint, which is the new exhaustion perk , that it was obvious that they would be weaker, since Dwad Hard was very oppressive, and as for Borrowed Time, the base borrowed time, you are not interested, whether it is 5 seconds or 7, the Killer will be expected the same, if you want not to be tunneled, there is a perk made for that, and it is Zarina Offtherecords, literally, a borrowed time that lasts almost infinitely, 80 seconds long, which in turn is a Hiron Will while it lasts, if not better than Borrowed Time , it's a lie, it's very simple, you change Borrowed Time for that perk, and that's it, people don't get used to changing builds and perks, but changing is where the strength is, that perk is literally very good, and any Survivor has to wear it, not Borrow Timel, you have to change.
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I agree with most of the proposed changes here. Changes I'm opposed to are self-care at 40%, Iron Will at 100% and Spine Chill vault speed. Everything else sounds about right though.
For Iron Will, 90% sounds like a good compromise. At 90% you're effectively silent but it still allows perks like Stridor to counter it.
Self-Care should be reverted to 50%. Shouldn't have to run Botany Knowledge with Self-Care just to heal myself.
Spine Chill doesn't need the vault speed bonus. It's enough that you get notified and get action speed boosts. Any more and you make the perk too strong.
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I don't understand points like these.
How small do you think the DbD community is? How long do you think it takes a game that on steam at least 30-40,000+ to figure out a meta?
People like to pretend it is, but Dead by Daylight really isn't a complicated game, people already knew what was and what wasn't good changes before the update even came out, and lo and behold what people said is what came true.
I know people we queue with in Solo Queue are dumber than a bag a rocks, but it's been 3 weeks. How long do you really think it's gonna take for people to figure out this patch even more than we already did Week 1?
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I think I wanna clarify my issue with Spine Chill since people seem to harp on the fact that I added Vault Speed back and think that's the only reason I want the revert.
So my issue with Spine Chill and it's only gotten more reinforced as this patch has gone on, is that new Spine Chill is a confusing mess of a perk. I really don't think people have abandoned this perk because it doesn't have vault speed and I'll explain why.
I was a big Spine Chill enjoyer. The vault speed was nice, but the alert was the best part, it killed Stealth killers and overall just let me kinda vibe in game. So the vault speed removal really wasn't a big deal to me, it seemed unnecessary, but whatever. I was willing to give it a try. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say this:
What the actual hell is this perk trying to tell you?
This is the description of the perk in-game:
An unnatural tingle warns you of impending doom.
Get notified when the Killer is within a 36-meter range. If the Killer is within range and is looking at you with a clear line of sight, your speed while Repairing, Healing, Sabotaging, Unhooking, Cleansing, Blessing, Opening, and Unlocking is increased by 6%
The effects of Spine Chill linger for 0.5 seconds after the Killer looks away or is out of range.
Spine Chill's icon indicates the the strength of the Killer's Terror Radius
Now, not only is this a massive wall of text, it also lies to you because that's not how it works in game. Rather, it doesn't tell you the full story. So when people equip this perk for the first time and see how it actually functions in game, it's extremely confusing, hard to understand, and seemingly worthless.
What's even worse is that, it really doesn't look bad here. But remember this is a forum where I can press Enter, we have a nice textbox to fill out. This garbage is like 5-6 lines in game all squished together, it's a mess.
This is the description of the perk on the wiki, which clarifies the actual functions of the perk:
An unnatural tingle warns you of impending doom.
Whenever the Killer is within 36 metres of your location, Spine Chill activates, lighting up its icon.
If there is a Terror Radius present, Spine Chill will reveal its intensity using its icon.
If the Killer is within range and looking at you with a clear line of sight, you benefit from the following effect:
Increases your Action speeds in Repairing, Healing, Sabotaging, Unhooking, Cleansing, Blessing, Opening, and Unlocking by 2/4/6 %.
This effect lingers for 0.5 seconds.
You may think it's the same thing, but believe me it's a world of difference on how someone interprets a perk.
Nevertheless, tell me why the perk needed to be reworked, if the rework just does the same thing the old perk did, but in a more confusing way?
If the perk works so well as an alert and it still shuts Stealth Killers out of the game, why don't people run it? Because of no vault speed? I really doubt that. I genuinely believe the vast majority people who run this perk have no idea what it's trying to tell them. Instead of trying to figure it out, they rightfully abandon it because nobody is trying to be confused of what their perk is trying to tell them in the middle of a game.
Basically, it's a stupid rework that killed a perk by being over complicated to do the same thing. Even if it doesn't have the vault speed, just revert it, I guarantee more people will run it.
I get how the new perk works, but when I'm playing the game I'm not trying to stare at my perks trying to interpret what it's trying to tell me. People want simplicity, and if you're just going to shove a bunch of crap onto a perk and bloat it up then people won't run it unless it's absolutely busted which Spine Chill never was.
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If you honestly believe Spine Chill needs the Vault Speed Buff, you dont understand how to balance perks.
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People complain that Spine Chill with Vault Speed is strong.
I ask what is the problem with strong perks. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with having a perk that is strong, there is a problem with perks that are overpowered or ruin the game for others.
Dead Hard is an overpowered perk that needed to get nerfed.
Decisive Strike was a game ruining perk because if you got unhooked during the endgame you essentially got out for free.
I think you'd be hardpressed to make an argument that Spine Chill with vault speed is overpowered. Strong? Yes, but like I said, there is nothing wrong with strong.
I will take to my grave that Spine Chill with vault speed was not overpowered. I will take to my grave that the vault speed build was only strong because of the threat of Dead Hard which no longer exists in this patch. Many popular meta builds before the midchapter update weren't even vault speed builds simply because better options were available.
The broken part of Spine Chill was the fact that Stealth Killers auto-lost to this perk on top of the fact that it was just a generally good perk. This update did not change this, but instead made a perk so difficult to understand that nobody bothers running it.
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I think this a great list, thank you for taking your time to propose such in depth feedback! :) I hope they listen
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lmao...I am literally not playing until stuff gets better. I tried to give the changes a chance, and it is just awful. It's not overreacting, it's just not fun. You can say people are being dumb all you want but if it kills queue times or ultimately hurts the health of the game... you (or at least BHVR) should probably listen.
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yeah, after the Mettle of Man change, i'm literally waiting for the next MAJOR PATCH to change stuff back or better. i mean, remember, we also SupaAlf's current 327 4k win streak going on as Nurse. Game needs more survivor players than killer players to even WORK.
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vault speed build was always a band-aid on how terrible DBD'S networking is
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