What To Do About Offerings?

Out of everything a player can bring into a trial, offerings stand out as very weird items. They are unlike add-ons in the case that offerings affect the match as a whole and unlike perks in the case of their strength not being as prominent in any given match, and the whole system has had its flaws since the games release. Many offerings just aren't worth using or are a detriment to whatever side brings them, but this (hopefully) won't be the case in the near future. In the recent Dead By Daylight Ask me Anything, BHVR has confirmed that they are looking at the offering system as a whole. But this raises the question, what could be done with the offering system? In this post I'll give an overview of the history of Dead By Daylight's offerings and what I'd personally like to see, and hope to foster more discussion about one of the games more forgotten systems.

What even are offerings?

Offerings are an item that can be brought into a trial, similar to add-ons and perks. They're one-time use and unlike anything else are designed to affect the match as a whole. Before we get into the offerings that are still in the game, I want to go over the ones that aren't

Splinters, Bouquets, and an old Travel Guide

Way back in the day, there was a killer-specific set of ultra rare offerings that allowed you to play a single match as a different killer. This let the player test out a killer they didn't have before buying them. The only downside was that you did not have any perks or add-ons when you used the offering, which really handicapped the player if they chose to use one. These were removed because they weren't really that useful and tended to clog up the bloodweb. The bouquet offerings are actually still in the game, but you can't use them and can't be bought in the bloodweb. These offerings would change the brightness of the map and were removed because the developer's wanted more control over the map's lighting. The last type of removed offerings are the old map offerings. These were common and uncommon map offerings that do what the rare offerings do, but worse. These offering's didn't guarantee you would go to the specified realm, and only increased the chances by a little, which lead to their removal.

Bullshit; Fractured

There are many types of offering's that are just bad. The personal luck offerings and the lower-rarity survivor luck offerings are almost never worth burning, the mist offerings just annoy everyone in the trial, the black and white wards are only really useful to new players that only have a few high-rarity items, the hook offerings just clog up the bloodweb, and so on and so forth. Even the newest additions, the sacrificial ward (negates the use of map offerings) and the blueprint offerings (setting the spawn location of the hatch and basement) are kind of lame unless you have an archive that you really need to do or suspect that you might get taken somewhere you'd rather not be (and even then, a sacrificial ward won't counter 4 of the same map offering). Over all, anything that isn't a bloodpoint offering is basically worthless.

Bullshit; Whole

"Basically" is the key word. Because if 3 or 4 survivors can coordinate or are in a SWF, these offerings can become absolutely busted. Technically, mist is also slightly survivor sided. Due to the difference in camera perspective between killer and survivor, survivors can see the killer before the killer sees the survivor in the thickest mist (although this is incredibly map-dependent and also only slightly noticeable). I mention this because the Murky Reagent alone is enough to cause the thickest mist, and doesn't require any stacking. If the survivors all bring the Petrified oak, then hooks will spawn 4 meters further away. In certain maps that have weird hook spawns, this can create certain dead zones that, if combined with a few perks, makes hooking survivors nearly impossible. Even if the killer brings their strongest hook offering, the hooks still spawn half a meter further away. This pales in comparison to Vigo's Jar of Salty Lips, which increases the luck of all survivors by 3% and stacks. If 4 survivors bring the offering and they have the perk Slippery Meat, they almost guarantee a self-unhook. This isn't even accounting for Up The Ante, which can increase luck even further. Of course, killers also had an incredibly busted offering at one point, being the Ebony Momento Mori. This let the killer kill anyone whenever they wanted as long as they downed the survivor first. This was nerfed to requiring at least 1 hook on that survivor, and further being nerfed to only work on death hook. On the PTB for the Finisher Mori system, all of the Mori's were changed to give bonus bloodpoints if you kill a certain amount of survivors.

The Takeaway

The main issue that offerings have is that if you're a solo survivors, there's no reason to burn something that isn't a bloodpoint offering (unless you have an archive). If you have friends and feel like being a little devious, then you can stack offerings which makes a pretty significant impact on the match. With a system this flawed, how do you even go about changing it?

Discussion

There seems to be a few inconsistencies with the offerings that were removed and the ones we still have. The bouquet offerings were removed because the developers wanted more control over the maps lighting, but the mist offerings are still a thing. The common and uncommon map offerings were removed due to not being very useful compared to the rare version, but the luck offerings still come in the lower rarities. The splinters were removed because they weren't very useful and clogged up the bloodweb, but the spawn location offerings still exist. And even if these offerings are removed, nothing would change because of the existence of bloodpoint offerings. And if the developers where to add new offerings, what could they add that wouldn't be worthless/busted but still worth using?

I personally don't have that much of a concrete answer to what could be changed. Offerings ate their core are flawed as a mechanic. They are a way to directly affect the match as a whole, and this really doesn't work in a game where it's 1 versus 4. The only new offering that I think could be useful is an offering to increase the amount of totems that spawn (but this could be weird with perks like Plaything and Thrill). If BHVR adds offerings that affect things such as Pallet and Window spawns, that opens up a lot of ways to drastically tilt the odds in your favor. If BHVR adds offerings that slightly changes the color of the grass, all 3 Trapper mains might be excited before finding the offering doesn't even work. Jokes aside, what would you want out of this potential offering rework? What new offerings would you like to see in the game, or what would you change about the current offering system?