Can we just delete Boil Over until there's a less annoying design for it?
90% of the time: makes you walk into a rock at best, because your character being literally uncontrollable has always been considered a hallmark of good design or planning (this is sarcastic, in case you missed it); 10% of the time: person gets to second floor, where even if you didn't have to contend with your new wall obsession it would be barely possible (if at all) to get to a hook because you must take the stairs that triple the distance.
Also, guess we can add Borgo to "places with a central main building that can be run to from almost anywhere before you get hit twice and is safe to go down in".
I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim it's a well-designed or balanced perk (in any regard), but at the same time, I also don't think I've ever seen a suggestion for what it should actually do that isn't some facet of its current 'be annoying'. So, anyone got any ideas?
Struggle-buffing perks in general are kind of a terrible idea, for one, and at least flip-flop + power struggle can be played around. Boil Over only has... encourage slugging. Er, not great.
Comments
-
the way you counter it is to turn 45 degrees roughly in the direction you're forced to walk and continue walking a straight path. if you're familiar enough with the randomness you can beat it out by doing this.
it also works against the standard wiggle movement jerking.
if you're good enough you can actually speed up your ability to get to a hook faster.
the only thing that i struggle with in regards to boil over is the drop height struggle meter gain. because sometimes i get greedy and want to put a survivor in the basement, but sometimes there's a small drop that occurs and the survivor breaks free.
i don't mind the mechanic personally. it's better in my opinion than another skill check or button mashing mechanic.
0 -
1) When it can be perfectly countered by M&KB and memorising the perk, it's still terrible for yet another reason (and it doesn't for controller, to add reason #4 to the pile). 'You don't do a stupid look side to side sashay' should not be a perk's success condition (and I REALLY hate doing it).
2) 'better than another skill check or button mashing mechanic' has zilch to do with Killer gameplay. Like, what? How does a perk that makes wiggling more obnoxious have any benefit for gameplay variety?
2 -
To be fair, the whole "second story instant loss" thing doesn't happen anymore, you can just take the drop immediately and it'll only shave the tiniest amount off the overall wiggle bar. You can't take drops towards the end of your path to the hook, that'll break them out much quicker, but if they go down next to a drop you just pick them up and walk over it immediately.
That being said, it is definitely annoying. The aura hiding is fine, and I also don't really have much of a problem with the drop thing since it's no longer abusable and only rarely gives you value, but the side-to-side sway is hardly fun even if it isn't gamebreaking. Some other third effect would be nice if they can think of one.
0 -
If you pair Boil Over with Flip-Flop and Unbreakable, you have enough wiggle that you will get a pretty big boost from Boil Over. The key is to go down kind of in the middle of the building, so you also force the killer to walk some distance and give you even more wiggle.
That being said, usually the only thing boiling over is my blood. Even if the perk does absolutely nothing (which is often the case), it still gives me a indescribable primordial rage deep inside my soul every time I see it.
0 -
Flip Flop and Unbreakable would both require you to be downed away from the killer, though, so you'd be left on the ground to recover first. I dunno how the numbers break out but I doubt you'd get a ton of recovery (only half of which translates to wiggle) from just the weapon-wipe animation.
I can't say I'm that annoyed by it, lol. It's a little frustrating sometimes, that's about it.
0 -
Yeah but on certain maps you have to walk a bit before dropping if the survivor runs to a certain place so you can't necessarily just always drop right away. Overall it's annoying and I think it should just be changed into something else personally.
I think what they could do is remove the drop effect and increased struggle (or at least reduce it) and instead just have it directly reduce the killer's movement speed while carrying the survivor (like a reverse Agitation, but not as extreme, maybe like 4-5%).
I also wonder if the hook aura blocking might be more useful if it was inverted. Right now if a killer misses a hook near their position when they first pick up because they can't see the aura, it's often not a big deal because they can still reach a hook that's outside the 16m range. On the other hand, if the killer could only see hook auras within a certain range of them and there isn't one near the pickup spot, it may become harder for them to find a hook they can use. I'm not 100% sure about this part though, that may be too annoying.
4 -
yes, this is why you often see Boil Over builds in pairs. The killer downs one guy, sees other guy, downs him, now at least one person is guaranteed a wiggle.
Still, a perk that requires two people to go down to get value is pretty bad lol
0 -
Throw in Tenacity. While the killer is wiping off their blade, you start crawling AND recovering. You can get 5-10% before the killer's earliest chance to pick you up, and they might fumble for a couple seconds due to you crawling a bit away and give you even more.
1 -
The problem is that there's more than enough buildings that aren't guaranteed to spawn a hook close enough, so all they need to do is not go down right at the edge (which is easy, just get caught sooner) and that liiiiittle extra progress guarantees they can't be hooked.
Like, the Borgo one can have basement, and you need to go down two narrow staircases with boil over in the time limit. Or go to some hook miles off which you won't have time for.
And then outside those buildings, it's just a nuisance perk.
1 -
i play exclusively on controller. i wasn't talking about mouse and keyboard. call it a "stupid side to side sashay" if you want, but i like the mechanic - as a killer main and as a controller player. opinion that may be, but then again that's what this post is about. opinions. i was sharing mine as well as providing helpful advice for overcoming the perk's current design - in case you were unaware. after all i don't know how skilled you may or may not be. at 2000 posts you're a frequent poster, but technically my account on here is older so 🤷🏻♂️.
the killer mechanic was already addressed by the above statement. the survivor mechanic is what I was addressing by commenting on the skill check and button mash system. however, if you want i can address it as a killer condition and gameplay element to suit your fancy. that doesn't change the fact that the perk is technically a dual animation perk meaning it affects bother survivor and killer at the same time,
i can empathize with you for your dislike of the forced walk mechanic, but this is actually a mechanic that has been used in older games.
if we're to refer to killer gameplay exclusively then i would still rather have the stumble walk than the insertion of a forced skill check where the survivor causes the killer to have to press skill checks based on the success of the survivor's skill checks. because that would require that i remap my controls since killer and survivor controls are different on my settings. likewise - i do not want to have to be spamming a button when i have only 2 thumb and walking alone takes up both of them to control the camera and the movement.
this is why i'd rather the mechanic be survivor based and the killer element be related to an action already being performed - walking and turning.
0 -
It's been used, but it's never been considered good gameplay. It's generally been the opposite.
I mean, you can summarise my points as:
- If you don't know how to counter it (or can't, and that definitely seems to be harder for controller players--it comes up a lot), it's obnoxious, especially with how hooks tend to cluster around oddly-shaped objects, and how many maps have doors.
- If you know can counter it, it's not only ineffective to outright beneficial, it's still annoying in one of those 'force a silly pointless view wobble' ways.
- There are a number of maps where you can be effectively unhookable if you go down in the main building and not too close to the edge. Not only is this terrible design for one perk, at least two of them happen to be single-map realms, so it's easy to guarantee if that's your plan.
And this isn't even counting sabo play on top of it all. Or the aura hiding, because I tend to forget that's even there.
1 -
boil over is intended to encourage the killer to get slugged(inability to hook the survivor) but the issue is that killing a survivor through slugging is inefficient from time stand point. there is no risk to it. you get a crazy amount of second chances for forcing the killer to slug.
In old wiggle system, they used to make you hit skill-checks for -1 second wiggle time. Now its 20% struggling. It seems that they wanted boil over to be a perk that decreases wiggle timer by -5 seconds since every 20% = -1 second. they're hiding the perk's true intention by making the perk effect less obvious so killer get less upset. I do not think killer have a problem with slugging but with how current system is, perks like this cannot be strong if the slugging system is survivor sided.
0 -
I have zero idea how you came to the conclusion that extra struggling strength equals -5 seconds, especially because Boil Over only affected the amount of movement you got the entire time that beta was going on.
0 -
it is meant to be obnoxious. the whole point of the perk is:
obnoxious movement that forces camera and walking abnormalities - this is base kit, but enhanced.
aura blinding - this increases the duration of the interaction
forced use of stairs - this prevents the killer from traversing large distances and ensures the killer can't guarantee basement hooks or drops to lower levels like the saw map.
this ensures extended interaction with the obnoxious movement to annoy the killer. it's meant to be annoying. that's the whole point. that's why it's called boil over and is the "southern belle's" perk with a bucking bronco as the icon.
again i'll reiterate that i like the current version. it's thematic and purposeful.
but to show that i'm not a terrible sport i'll give you an alternative version:
current version
my new version
edit
think ela's grzmot mine effect. but every time the survivor gets a skill check.
0 -
"Obnoxious and often ineffectual" is not good design. Purely being annoying isn't good design. If anyone ever designs a game and thinks 'something that only really exists to bug other people and irritate them is good!', they should quit game design and go be an accountant or something, because they clearly don't understand the point of video games.
Flavour is not important. If all something does is vacillate between being annoying and being uncounterable except by slugging (and slugging being something that is supposedly discouraged, not to mention just punitive in general on the BP and pipping front), it needs a redesign. It's stupid.
And what it doesn't do is act as a preventative measure against Basement hooking specifically (anyone doing that is probably running agitation and/or iron grasp and will manage that if they really want to, or find some other hook--the people that want to do it are least affected). In The Game and Midwich it just exacerbates the hook RNG, but where it really shows up is, again: second floor of main buildings that don't generate hooks up there. Because what really needed to be prevented was... the Killer hooking people whenever there's an easily accessible main building? Don't think so.
1 -
i provided an alternative that addresses your concerns. you failed to comment on it.
edit
also - i forgot to say this.
if you truly feel that way then maybe asymmetrical games line dead by daylight aren't for you 🤷🏻♂️
this entire game is designed to be a griefing simulator. from start to finish your job as a killer is to grief people trying to grind for upgrades. you technically lose nothing as a killer when you finish a match, but survivors can technically spend 20 minutes trapped in a match for no gain.
0 -
I didn't fail to, I just didn't have anything to say.
Still terrible design, tbh. Blurring is another 'completely pointless and just kind of annoying' mechanic, but slower movement goes back to the 'easy to have unhookable situations' flaw. Anything that's predicated on 'makes the Survivor harder to hook without reason' is bad. Flip-flop? Pick up immediately. Power struggle? Ditto. Also don't walk through pallets. Boil over and that proposed variation? "Don't down Survivor in a bad area"... which you have no control over because 'bad area' can just be where they held W to. It doesn't reward the Survivor for playing well or punish a mistake on the Killer's end or reward teamwork.
0 -
okay. then let me try again...
how about this:
"survivor no longer has to perform skill checks. will gain maximum progression as if the survivor had performed all skill checks."
0 -
Counterpoint: Gary Gygax was one of the most successful game designers of all time. A lot of his level designs revolved around trolling the player with ridiculously obscure and bizarre progression requirements, and rage game levels of difficulty.
Players actually like it when stuff is obnoxious or frustrating, it gives you a sense of meaningful accomplishment when you succeed. Why else would Dark Souls and Mario Maker be runaway smash hits? Not to mention we are all gathered here to talk about Dead by Daylight, a game that is famously stressful to play.
0 -
The perk is in a weak spot. On most maps it has 0 impact so the current purpose of this perk is mainly to annoy the killer. Maybe this perk should bring back the effect of the beta wiggle where you get a boost in progression if you hit the great skillchecks (the great skillchecks should be as hard to hit when the wiggle mechanic was in beta). They can also keep the side effect that you get a huge progression boost when the killer falls from a high place. On the flipside it shouldn't have the annoying increase in wiggle like in the current version. This makes the perk actually stronger for certain builds but not as annoying anymore.
1 -
People like challenges to overcome. The most famous example regarding Gygax is, obviously, Tomb of Horrors, which was what he created in response to players telling him that things were too easy. And then the first time it got ran, people found a loophole anyway (that later got closed). I think it might've involved the Sphere of Annihilation? Can't remember. There was also an issue with people stealing the doors when they were actually made of Mithril and XP = treasure.
Same thing with Dark Souls. It's hard at first, and it's frustrating, but people enjoy the challenge and coming out on top. The least popular parts of those games are always the 'and then RNG kills you' things, something which genre copycats don't get.
Frustrating and annoying only to be annoying, not because it's a challenge, is what's bad design.
(Also, my most played games on Steam, after modding the everloving daylights out of Skyrim and DbD, are FromSoft, so... xD)
1 -
honestly, probably better. That plus the idea of inverting the hook aura hiding so that it's more difficult to actually wander off to a more distant hook.
0 -
Yeah. That could be included as well.
0 -
Indeed! Fighting the Four Kings is fun, and figuring out how to deal with a poison swamp is fun.
...but dodging 100 lightning bolts in FFX or having your controls reversed every other minutes is just annoying without meaningful challenge.
0
