My Opinion on the Perk Descriptions Survey
Yeah, okay, I've taken the survey and I've looked at the images and here's my honest opinion about the mock-ups that were made:
- They're way too clumsily-made and don't present the information as well as they should.
- The Survey itself doesn't give enough questions to let people give more informed opinions.
- The only positive thing I would say is the added detail options that would allow people to know what does what.
I'll go with what I liked first; I did enjoy the added detail to the actions that the perk affects, like what basic attacks are, healing actions, etc. Descriptors like these would be great for old players and new players to sink their teeth into to better understand what the perk really entails.
However, the main criticisms I have is that the current way to detail the descriptions of perks is fine, if a little bit in need of some fine-tuning with how they're phrased. If you really want an example of what could be done to make the perks easier to understand while being much more cohesive, let me give you some examples:
Enduring
You are resilient to pain, causing pallet stun duration to be reduced by 40%/45%/50%.
Beast of Prey
Upon entering Bloodlust, Beast of Prey activates and grants you the Undetectable status effect so long as you remain in Bloodlust.
- If you hit a Survivor while Beast of Prey is active, the Undetectable status effect then lingers for 10/15/20 seconds.
Adrenaline
When the exit gates are powered, Adrenaline activates and the following effects are applied:
- Instantly heal one full health state.
- Sprint at 150% the normal movement speed for 5 seconds.
Adrenaline is on hold whenever you are currently hooked and will activate after you have been unhooked.
Adrenaline will activate even while Exhausted, but will reset your Exhaustion timer to 60/50/40 seconds.
Boon: Circle of Healing
Press and hold the active ability button when near a Dull Totem to bless it and create Boon Totem, which has a range of 24 meters.
Survivors within the range of Boon: Circle of Healing benefit from the following effects:
- Altruistic healing speed is increased by 50%/75%/100% when not using a Med-Kit.
- The aura of any injured Survivor is revealed to all other Survivors.
Boon: Circle of Healing does not stack with other instances of itself and you cannot create more than one Boon at a time.
...and for the ones that were on the survey, because why not? (And because I think they could be interesting perks.)
Boon: Safe Haven
Press and hold the active ability button when near a Dull Totem to bless it and create a Boon Totem, which has a range of 24 meters.
Survivors within the range of Boon: Safe Haven grants it a token, increasing its power and allowing them to benefit from the following effects once the requirements are met:
- 3 Tokens: Vaulting speed is increased by 5%/10%/15%.
- 5 Tokens: Movement speed is increased by 3% while healthy.
- 7 Tokens: Gain the Endurance status effect.
Once any Survivor benefits from the Endurance status effect, the affected Totem will automatically snuff itself out and you will have to bless it again.
You cannot create more than one Boon at a time.
Electrophobia
When any Survivor interrupts the repair action within your Terror Radius, that Survivor will scream and become afflicted with the Hindered status effect for 10/11/12 seconds.
Electrophobia has a cooldown of 30 seconds.
(Note: If there was the detailed description of what certain actions are, the pop-up would also display the strength of the Hindered effect.)
These were my thoughts on the perk description survey (as well as a few suggestions...nudge nudge).
Comments
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I really appreciate the specific survey and would love to see more mini-surveys that are more direct/targeted for a specific top.
But I definitely agree.
The very first thing I noticed was in the example perk was that they misspelled "exhaustion" which feels like the main type of issue that should not be present in this survey due to the topic. Any other survey, a typo/misspelled word is a free pass. But not on a micro-survey designed to establish better communication of how perks are explained in-game.
When they ask you to rank the 4x examples "stating" the same information in different ways, I personally would have preferred a discussion/explanation of the differences. Rather than needing to find the differences myself. Since they all are for the same example perk, it makes it difficult to ascertain how well they convey the information.
Alternatively, if they want to stick to not explaining, I think they could have used 4x slightly different perks but varying the style/way the perks are explained.
Perk 1: "When a survivor is hit by a basic attack they suffer from blindness"
Perk 2: "Basic attacks apply mangled"
Perk 3: "Survivors injured by basic attacks suffer from Exhaustion"
Additionally, I wish they provided a place for "response" feedback rather than all multiple choice and ranking. Such as:
1) "Any other thoughts" text box that every other survey receives at the end.
2) Allow comments on the forum post promoting the survey.
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It was a little bit cluttered but I liked the idea of perks having actions or status effects explained next to them.
When I first started DbD, for a long time I thought "Exposed" meant the killer can see my exact location... but the problem is the game never told me and I had to figure it out eventually. So this could help newer player understand the game better.
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I asked for that several times and I am very happy they are redesigning! Clear visual hierarchy separates lore from actual gameplay description. And text is much shorter.
Good job developers! Keep it up! Finally new player or player with long break will be able to read through perks quickly.
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Yeah, I wish there had been a way to leave more detailed feedback. Since there wasn't, I'll put some of it here with examples of what was good and what wasn't good.
First of all, the detailed information section on the right of the perks explaining status effects and mechanics is an excellent addition.
Something like this description is too short and too vague:
This example feels like it tries to use as few words as possible, to the point where it feels rushed and incomplete. This version of the description doesn't even specify who is suffering from the Hindered effect, and the detailed info regarding Hindered on the right adds to that confusion by saying it can affect the killer as well. While it's a fair assumption that the effect is being applied to the survivor completing a generator, a player shouldn't have to make that assumption at all.
These 2 versions of Electrophobia meanwhile, both clearly explain exactly what it does in a simple manner:
This version of the Hasten Healing description has a couple of issues:
One thing I'll point out here: I like that it uses the actual image of the E button instead of "Active Ability 1" or similar. That aside, 2 things stand out here:
- This version of the description isn't clear on when Exhausted is applied. While most experienced players would probably assume it's applied when using the ability, a newer player could easily interpret this as becoming Exhausted as soon as you begin the healing action, regardless of whether you press E or not, because that part isn't explicitly tied to pressing E in the description.
- This description doesn't specify whether the perk can be used while Exhausted. Every other Exhaustion perk for survivors specifies that it can't be used while Exhausted, except Adrenaline which specifies that it can be used regardless of Exhaustion.
This version of Hasten Healing fixes the first issue, but still has the second issue:
I'd also like to compare these two descriptions:
The first one simply says "This perk does not stack" while the second one says "Survivors can only be affected by one instance of Safe Haven at a time." These are 2 very different things. "Does not stack" I would generally interpret as not stacking with anything, even other perks, but that doesn't seem to be the intention here as the second version just says that it doesn't stack with itself. If the intention is to limit the perk stacking with itself but not with other effects, simply saying "this perk does not stack" is too vague.
This Harming Hands description only has one minor issue and it's that it doesn't specify how the cooldown works. Is the cooldown 40 seconds beginning at the time Exposed is inflicted, or is it 40 seconds after Exposed is removed? If it's the former, can multiple survivors be Exposed at the same time?
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This example feels like it tries to use as few words as possible, to the point where it feels rushed and incomplete.I love how short description is. Doesn't feel rushed. I read it in a second. The only question I had was about who gets Hindred.
"Does not stack" I would generally interpret as not stacking with anythingThey wrote "THIS PERK does not stack". And it makes it perfectly clear for me. I understood it as they meant.
Otherwise I think I agree with the rest that you wrote. Detailed info is perfect.
Cooldown of Harming Hands is not clear and description too long. No need to write "on themvselves or another survivor". Just healing action would be enough IMHO. I would write:
Obsession completes a healing action AND is not in 32m radius from you:
- the healed Survivor is Exposed
- Exposed can be removed by healing other Survivor or being put into Dying State
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Hasten Healing -
- 1. +50% healing speed, does it just mean 150%?
- 2. Does it stack with other buffs and debuffs? Does it stack with itself?
- 3. What constitutes "physically demanding feats"?
Electrophobia -
- 1. How much does '5% Hindered' actually do? If they normally run 4.0 m/s, then what are they at '5% Hindered'?
Boon: Safe Haven -
- 1. If this perk doesn't lose its tokens, does that mean once it reaches 3 tokens, it has 5% Haste and 15% increased vault speed until the end of the game? If that's true, does that mean once it reaches 6 tokens, they gain endurance permanently until end of the game (unless they perform a Conspicious Action)?
- 2. Why isn't 'Conspicuous Action' defined in the 'Detailed Information' section? How are people supposed to know what that is if they don't even know what endurance is?
- 3. Does this perk only gain tokens when inside the Boon Totem's radius? Or activates its abilities (5% Haste, 15% increased vault speed, endurance) only inside the Boon Toten's radius? Or both?
- 4. "...does not stack" mean it doesn't stack with other players' Boon: Haven in overlapping areas, or it doesn't stack with other 'Haste' activating perks?
Harming Hands -
- 1. Definition of 'Exposed' under Detailed Information - "...can be downed with a single Basic Attack..." but that isn't true if the survivor has 'Endurance' buff, correct?
- 2. Definition of 'Dying State' under Detailed Information - "...downed by The Killer." But that isn't true for Nicolas Cage's Plot Twist perk, right?
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I found the shorter the better. But I'm very experienced. I think they are trying to make the descriptions for newer players, in which the tooltips are very helpful, and still unintrusive even if you already know what Exposed does.
The only question I had was with Hasten Healing, which does it give a universal bonus or an altruistic only bonus? It would make sense and be a fair perk if it gave +200% altruistic heal speed (allowing for a 5.33s heal at the cost of exhaustion), especially since Botany already gives 50% universal heal speed without exhaustion. Plus it would be a weird perk design to start healing an ally to instead swap and selfishly heal yourself faster.
Some of the perk descriptions (with and without the changes) still require 'wiki-level' knowledge, like heal speed boosts affect the charge rate, which also lets you know additive and multiplicative stacking. (1 charge/s to 1.5 charges/s for example with Botany, or We'll Make It active plus We're Gonna Live Forever 100%+100% on a dying Surv heals at 3 charges/s) Additive vs multiplicative examples such as Haste being additive, but multiplicative when applied to speeds. Eg. 3 PWYF stacks gives 5+5+5% haste for 15% multiplied by the Killer 1.15/1.10 base speed for 1.3225/1.265 total, or Hope+MfT (+10%) and Clown Bottle (-15%) applying Hindered multiplicatively, then Haste multiplicatively, for 4->3.4->3.74 instead of summing together for -5% at 3.8.
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tooltips are hard to write in games. a big challenge is that you want to summarize what the perk does in least amount of words. if the perk is too long, someone might not read it. if the perk is too short, then it might omit key information.
I think survey is just experimenting with tooltips.
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