Was the Hex: Ruin nerf senseless?

Its still useful, its not OP as it was in the past, but its useful. Why all the perks need to be OP in order to work? Have you seen DH? you need to time that perfectly in order to make it work, most of the time its just a missed slot. We need to stop complaining about this somehow balanced perks and start asking for buffs for the other 80%~ perks slots which now are mostly useless and no one seems to use, both for survis and killers. We have like 250 perks and everyone runs the same 10-15, because how useless the other rest are.

We are talking about a hex perk here. Hex perks always need to be significantly stronger to even be considered an option. It's a perk that can be deactivated in the first 20 seconds of a match. Even then, old Ruin was not good enough without Undying. So you need a hex perk that is so good, that it can basically fill 2 perk slots.

The current regression that Ruin provides is 100% of the normal regression speed which is equal to 0.25 charges per second, with the survivor repair speed being 1 charge per second. Surely you see how little this actually is. In order for Ruin to buy you 30 seconds, the gens need to regress for a total of 2 minutes.

On top of that, it also deactivates once a survivor is dead and it could not be used in end game. So even if Ruin isn't destroyed you only have it for a part of the match. This perk even in combination with Undying is barely worth 1 perk slot let alone 2.

There are a bunch of decently good perks on both sides (probably about 30, each). But as long as they aren't meta, they will never be used as much. Think of Brutal Strength and Bond for example. Both perks are pretty nice to have but why would you use either of them when you have alternatives like Deadlock and MfT?

Sure, it's useful in the sense that it can get value against really bad survivors but the same can be said about pretty much any perk.

Hex perks, in particular, need to be strong to be worth the perk slot. To start with, they can be removed from play within the first 20 seconds of the match. If they aren't strong, then survivors are likely to ignore the hex for the majority of the game. This is the case with Third Seal.

Even when Hex perks are strong, as is the case with Devour, you still run the risk of not getting value out of the perk because it was cleansed in the first minute of the match.

I would be happy if regression was bumped to 150% and the effect of being automatically removed after someone died being reverted

mine last 20 seconds of the match if i dont bring undying with it, dude u are lucky 😅

Although id argue having other stipulations to deactivate a hex perk because "they are already winning" goes against the whole point of hexs as a whole. They can be cleansed thats the counterplay which deactivates them permaently.

I think we could have a middle ground where perks like Ruin lose power as survivors get eliminated. For example, with 4 Survivors it would be 200%, 3 survivors 150%, 2 survivors 100% and then it deactivates when there's only one survivor left since you've basically won at that point.

I'd agree with the sentiment. The Hex has appeared in the odd trial I've been in and it's had some use, but a Hex perk is meant to be strong because of the fact it can be eliminated at any time. It may get no use at all if the Gods of Fortune decide to plonk a Survivor next to it.

Hexes need to be strong. Currently, I don't feel the Hex is powerful enough to warrant it as a Hex.

I wouldn't mind Ruin being meta again. It was annoying to see it every game, sure, but at least it made things more interesting than just sitting on gens.

Ruin was one of the perks that was a "meta shake up" and was over-nerfed solely so the pick rates would drop so BHVR could pat themselves on the back because the meta changed

"Overall, 6.1.0 was a failure, if we just ask "Did the Devs really change the Meta?"... The answer has to be "No"."

WHAT???

Esp. survivor meta is a difference between night and day, with hardly any perk seeing top usage in both metas.

Survivor meta was BT, DH, DS, UB, IW. You don't see any BT an IW anymore, DS and UB is used sometimes, only DH sees some significant usage. Current survivor meta not existent then (some like MFT literally). WoO and hope had only niche usage before 6.1, Adre the only today meta perk that was as strong back then. Even the core concept is different, before 6.1 it's a second chance meta, now it's a stay injured meta.

Killer had gen regression before and after, that's right, but the individual perks changed significantly as well. Ruin totally dead, pop pretty much non existent until they upped it to 30% of current progress with the last change. OC+COB brought Gen kick meta, which was a failed concept. But it was a significant concept change to prior 6.1. Granted we are in a similar state with killer meta now. But still the base kit changes allow for playing more creative builds without totally throwing games.

Overall, the 6.1 patched changed the meta significantly, esp for survivor. Claiming otherwise is just delusional, imo.

A nerf yes absolutely, an over-nerf that hasn't been tuned down since ? not really no

Considering the problem was usage, yes, it is very much balancing around usage.

The problem they wanted to fix is that the meta consisted of the same perks for multiple years. The complaints they were acting on were about how this was stale.

The way you fix that is to nerf what is currently being used and buff things that aren't being used.

Wesker hasn't even existed for as long as the stale meta that people were complaining about, so he's not an example of something that would also require this drastic effort. When we reach four straight years of Wesker having a crazy high pickrate, maybe, but we're not there right now so he's not analogous to the situation 6.1.0 aimed to address.

There are two big problems with the way people talk about 6.1.0, in my experience.

First, we have what I've just gone over: People have very much forgotten why it happened and what it aimed to achieve, which leads to criticisms revolving around how the devs "arbitrarily" decided to nerf things just because they were popular, missing the wider context of the actual not-at-all arbitrary reason why they felt compelled to do that. 6.1.0 was not a normal balance patch and the reasons for its choices are not broadly applicable to the game's ongoing balance, it was a specific solution to a very specific problem.

Second, we have a bit of a hardline stance about what counts as changing the meta, which is where we're at with your last few sentences. People seem to think that a meta only counts as changed if the kind of perks people run radically change, which is a bit silly in my view. Killers are always going to run slowdown even when it isn't the best option (which frankly I'd argue is the case now) because it's just easier + more convenient than the alternatives, and survivors are always going to run primarily chase perks because conventional wisdom is that chasing is the only fun/skilful part of the game.

(There's a secondary fallacy in your post about how killers MUST run slowdown to stand a chance, which isn't true, but I don't want to derail too much. Same for the survivor side.)

To try and pin the success or failure of a meta shakeup on this seems like a doomed venture. It should be enough to look at the specific perks, and how they're used. So, let's do that: Did 6.1.0 change the specific perks used, and is there a clear distinction between how they were used before and how they're used now?

Yes. Moreso on the survivor side, where only a handful of perks are even literally the same and there's a distinction between the ultra-heal meta and the stay-injured meta, but even on the killer side there's a difference. That difference isn't entirely positive in all situations - the CoB/Overcharge/Eruption meta was pretty miserable, after all - but it is very easily noticed.

Personally, I'd go so far as to argue that the killer shakeup was still a success because far more perks and builds (and even killers themselves) are viable versus before, but it's fair to keep the bounds of conversation just to what people are actually choosing to use rather than what they could use.

You're right that people are always going to gravitate to slowdown and chase perks. You are wrong, in my opinion, to identify that as a problem or a necessary component to alter for a meta shakeup. The game is more nuanced than that, and not all examples of slowdown or chase perks are equal in experience or usage. Metas are more granular and specific than just 'slowdown' and 'chase'.

It was nerfed to bring it more in line with the “high risk, no reward” design of nearly every other hex.

It did need a nerf, but it was nerfed a little too much. The regression speed should be just a little higher and it’d be fine.

I addressed that. I think that at best what you're talking about is a wholly separate endeavour, not a necessary component of any meta shakeup. There are different metas - that feel different to play, that are differently healthy for the game - within the concept of players gravitating towards one type of perk.

What you're arguing for is a completely different goal than the goal of 6.1.0, which was to change the specific meta explicitly because people were sick of seeing the literal exact same perks constantly. The Ruin/Undying meta was meaningfully different to the CoB/Eruption/Overcharge meta, which was also meaningfully different to the Pain Res/Pop meta. They're all slowdown, but you can't say they're all literally the exact same in terms of experience quality and game health.

Funnily enough, the Thana nerf happened because it was to strong on Legion and Plague. Now after the nerf, it is still almost way to good on Legion and Plague and useless on any other Killer.

They change Perks in the most stupid ways possible.