Comparing the “brainless and unskilled” 3 gen meta with the current survivor meta

The issue here is that you are comparing apples to bananas. Survivor and Killer work inherently different, which means their perks should fundamentally function differently.

Killers should have to work for regression, because it incentives them to progress the game, instead of extending it for a long time and not hooking anyone (which made is possible to take people hostage). With Call of Brine, Eruption, and Overcharge, we saw a meta, SoloQ specifically suffered the most, so much so that I outright stopped playing Survivor because half of my matches were people taking the game hostage and the other half were 20-30 minute matches where the only result would be a loss.

Survivors do have perks that activate passively, and some (such as Made For This specifically) should be nerfed, but they are forced to progress their objective (doing Generators) because the Killer inherently forces them to otherwise they will die. I know someone will mention "you said Killers could take the game hostage, but so can Survivors" but Survivors can do that without perks by hiding, and Im not supporting people that do that, but the current meta does not enforce the idea of "taking the game hostage" at the moment, especially when it is centered around getting the Generators done and leaving as fast as possible.

There are of course nuances to this topic, since Survivors and Killers do have perks that activate passive, that's just how things are, but you have to understand what scenarios do and do not allow for such.

So @jesterkind answers this really well, but there were a few other things I wanted to touch on.

Imo this is very poor game design and I think the devs really need to consider reworking some of the current most popular perks. 

IMO, the exact opposite is true. Earned perks are a bad idea.

Take the perks that trigger off of hooks or downs. The better you are at downing survivors, the more value you get. This means if the killer is better than the survivors, a win becomes a steamroll (which could happen with old pain res). If the killer is not as good as the survivors, the perks are useless and the survivors now steamroll.

New pain res and no way out are meant to encourage alternative play styles, e.g. getting value out of not tunneling.

Or look at the change from old, old DH to old DH. The activation requirement was more challenging and required a game to be played between survivor and killer, but once survivors mastered it they were getting mostly the same benefits. You can't really balance for perks like that - if you balance to the top end there is probably little value in ever trying to use the perk, if you balance to the middle an experienced player will demolish killers with it (current example are the perks that trigger off great skill checks).

Killers should have to earn their regression, or any other benefit that comes from perks. A fair point perhaps, but let’s apply this argument to the current most popular survivor perks:

This is mostly a strawman. Complaints about the 3 gen meta were overwhelmingly about it being a boring, long game. People complained about 'brainless' out of anger, but that wasn't that it was brainless to win, but brainless to put the game in a very boring spot.

The stronger they are, the more limited the use or the greater the activation requirements.

I don't think anyone disagrees with that in concept, its just what you are citing as examples. Staying injured is a big risk. Sprint burst requires a lot of walking. Prove thyself and deja vu aren't that good. Balanced landing is a risky take and limits the areas of the map you want to play around. Lithe, well okay, lithe is probably too easy.

But wait I hear you say- there’s lots of perks that provide killer’s value without them doing anything. Deadlock, Corrupt, Lethal, Discordance to name several.

First, as mentioned, I think you are misunderstanding where others complaints about certain game elements come from.

Second, you are missing the strategy element of the game. Choosing what perks to take, and how the other side responds to that in game, is a really important part about what makes DbD an interesting game. Not everything in game should be boiled down to just chase skill, but looking at what the map/opponent gives you and making play decisions based on that.

Mhm.

So they do actually have conditions that must be met and drawbacks to them?

How curious.

How are Enduring, Bamboozle, Franklins, Lightborn, Tinkerer hard earned? You literally gain extra strong effect just by equipping perk and that's it. Also Im not buying "You’re rewarded for doing your objective" argument bc it means killer just plays normally without additional requirements or additional actions to activate perks. With Pop or not you have to hook survivors anyways but with Pop you gain additional strong effect.

Let's mention Bloodlust that is free haste effect. Free haste effect is bad, right? Maybe Legion should earn somehow their FREE and also INSANE haste effect not just by "press button to outplay".

TLTR: Okay we will earn our regress earn your win so no more safe loops,shrink maps so no full W and thats it.

I really think people get hung up on this “managing exhaustion” thing as if it’s some great demonstration of skill. I said in another post, I agree that balanced landing takes some initiative and clever planning to activate. The idea that sprint burst and lithe require a lot of thought though is laughable. Can these perks be used badly or more effectively depending on the survivor? Of course. But the idea that managing exhaustion takes some masterful ability is wrong.

You use words like 'masterful' that no one else is using. But I'll be the sucker who tries to argue it anyway.

Using Sprint Burst requires changing up your game play and deciding when to activate it is a strategic decision. Is a hard decision? Depends how you look at it. Basic level, easy, wait for killer, sprint, gain time.

On a deeper level, there's a lot going on. Do you run around with a 99ed sprint so you can switch to a walk and perfectly time a sprint so killer misses a swing? That's a lot of time that you could be on a gen. And if you come with this strategy, what do you do if you hit one of the killers for which it really isn't a big issue? And if you are playing a killer who is susceptible to the sprint burst strategy, are you smart enough to ignore the player trying to bait you into chases?

So yeah, it's not hard to use. With very few exceptions, nothing in the game is hard to use. But DbD is a game where using an ability to buy you five seconds of time or seven seconds of time is a big jump. Personally, I'd prefer elements like that were skillful uses gains you small advantages, compared to things like DH, where a single successful or failed use can determine the outcome of the game.

I agree staying injured with Resilience can be risky. But Resilience enables you to both 99 the heal (if haemorrhage isn’t a thing) and pair it with Made for This. I think you’re overestimating the trade off between being injured and what Resilience provides. Good survivors really do not care that much about being injured and there’s good reason for that.

This seems to go against what else you are arguing by saying good survivors. Yes, good survivors are benefitted a lot by that extra 9% vault speed, but it doesn't mean a lot to new players. That seems to be what you are arguing for, perks that are more rewarding when you become better at the game.

I think the best examples of what I consider healthy perks are what the devs did with pain res and dead hard.

If you are talking about the recent change to DH, that was a balance change. If you are talking about the prior change of DH, you are looking at one of the most complained about issues from killers who argued it made certain killers unplayable at higher levels.

I genuinely don’t see how you can compare a perk like pop that requires to you to injure, down, hook and then kick a generator to get value from it with some of the survivor perks I mentioned. I understand the argument you’re trying to make that these perks give you value “automatically” because you get value from them by playing the game, but it’s still very different from survivors getting value from doing nothing but equip the perk to begin with.

As others have said, you are highlighting the things the killer needs to be doing anyway in the game. The only thing survivors 'need' to do is gens. Unless you want gen rush and dozens of perks with the same conditions as flashbang, it wouldn't be a good shift.

I'm really confused by what you think the game should you look like. You don't seem to put any emphasis on strategic decisions, what to bring/how to play, when they are a core component of what the game is.