Alan Wake: Perk Feedback

I like the perks in this chapter and I feel like Illumination and Deadline are underrated. Champion of Light is definitely the strongest perk he has, but the others genuinely are useful.

The best way to use Illumination imo is to set it up ASAP at the start of the match and then you immediately know where all the generators are and don't have to look for them later. At that point, it's done its job even if you never use it again. For that reason I think it is a decent perk. It would be nice if it lingered for 4 seconds after leaving though.

As for Deadline, you get more opportunities to do gens faster but in a more fun way (rather than just increasing repair speed). I like the off-center skill checks, it gives an extra challenge but is fun and the perk has excellent synergy with Autodidact.

Big fan of deadline. A lot of good synergy potential. It's weak as a standalone perk, however.

Deadline needs to work regardless of your health state. It already makes the skill checks more difficult, so having a second restriction on the perk feels unnecessary. If you wanted to add another effect to the perk you could grant it an AoE, similar to perks like leader or vigil, for it's skill check reduction penalty. I would like to see the increased skill check odds also be part of that AoE, but I understand that some players might struggle with skill checks and wouldn't wanted that granted to them.

Boon: Illumination must get some sort of buff otherwise it will be another perk no one uses.

I would suggest either one of the following:

• Give it aura reading on survivors outside the boons radius.
• Have the perks cleanse and blessing speed be active at all times and not just when you have a boon active.
• Have the perks cleanse and blessing speed be active at all times and not just when you have a boon active!
  • At the very least make it so the speed increase applies if there are any boons active on the map so it can have some value as a team boon perk.

Without any sort of buff it is just not worth the set up time for the boon or a perk slot. BHVR please consider buffing it. Boons are such a cool concept and it is such as shame to see a new boon released so weak.

Boon: Illumination could increase the range of all other boons by lets say 8 meters. Other than that I'm not sure how else to buff it.

Deadline has good synergy potential, but it's not good enough.

Deadline + Hyperfocus is just too hard - you need to be injured and skillchecks are spawned in random places, which means you won't be able to hit those great skill checks in time given - hyperfocus speeds up the skillcheck.

Deadline + Autodidact is also not great, you need to be injured to get value out of this.

Champion of light: Very useful Perk and probably the best of the three. Using it, not just to get in position, but to slowdown and even improve moving around obstacles whilst avoiding the Killer, gives a good amount of diversity.

Boon: Illumination: It's better than people give it credit for. For SoloQ it's a great way of communicating and planning. It doesn't litter and does exactly what it says on the tin. Regardless of what anyone says, this is a perfectly fine Perk.

Deadline: Not a great Perk. I see how it works with Autodidact and see the meme quality, but I feel this is a bit too plain. I'm all for Perks which are a bit different, but I'd be looking more towards the Nicholas Cage Perks for inspiration for wackier ideas.

just out of curiosity, which ones are these for you? (I would assume Kindred and WoO?)

Gotcha, thx.

imo one out of Kindred or Empathy could be enough? But yeah it depends and having both is definitely great info if you are happy with only one slot for experimentation/variability.

Illumination needs a second effect. Something like: Reveals the Aura of the killer to all Survivors if the killer is inside the boons range. Just like wiretap. Maybe with a 10 second limitation.

Right now I only like it on indoor maps in solo q but wouldn't use it otherwise.

I'm confused about the Deadline perk. So it only makes skill checks harder when you're injured, and you only get a 50% progression penalty if you fail it. But if you hit the skill checks, then the perk does...nothing? 😕

Because the feedback was already very loud and clear. I see the same members having to comment the same feedback again since their opinions weren't considered and no changes were made to these perks after PTB. A waste of everyone's time.

My Two Changes

Buff: Boon: Illumination to see All Totems!

Buff: DeadLine: Active While Injured OR HEALTHY. This perk is fun but to niche if you can only use it injured

I made a comment about Boon Illumination and realized it would be better suited here. Boon: Illumination absolutely needs some sort of buff to justify bringing it over any other boon perk. Right now its effects are essentially useless. There are non-boon perks that are better for gen revealing and boon perks that are much more useful. I propose BHVR change it with one of the following solutions:

1. When any boon is active, gain a 10% faster increase to cleansing and blessing totems.
2. When you have a lit Boon Totem, you cleanse or bless Totems 20% faster.
3. When you have a lit Boon Totem, you bless Totems 60% faster.
4. You cleanse or bless Totems 10% faster.

#1: This allows the boon to have some synergy in team use. A team that wants to have multiple people running boons might see some value out of it. Still weak but could be interesting.

#2: Makes it somewhat more useful to set up a Boon and move it around. It is already kind of pointless to move your boon around when it is already active, especially given the time it takes to reset it; it is basically throwing the match. By increasing the speeds when the boon is active, it helps offset this extra time waste and could have some niche uses in a totem breaking build.

#3 This change is just the second option but making it so it only applies to blessing. With such an increased blessing speed, it might actually be useful to bless a totem in a safe area and then move it to a more high risk area. I think this could promote some more interesting boon gameplay and strategies. Personally my favorite option.

#4 just removes the requirement to have a boon totem up first. As stated in option 2, it is usually pointless to bless another totem when you already have one up due to how much time it takes. This change might make the perk useful in general.

I personally would love to see them buff it with option 3 or 4. Those changes would make the boon somewhat useful and tactical even if still somewhat niche. 3 is the more interesting and fun change of the bunch while 4 would be the most useful and reasonable buff.

For what it's worth, deadline does have a benefit that you may have missed in the description. It gives more skill checks which is super good for builds that you want skill checks on, not to mention more chances at bonus repair. I remember otz getting frustrated because he was running the build where your toolbox recharges itself after enough skill checks pass and he could barely get any skill checks to show up to even use the build, lol.

Illumination is underwhelming. I would swap seeing chests for seeing all other survivors. It takes time to find totem plus placing it, so basically survivor must sacrifice the most valuable - doing gens, which is a big trade off (Mikaela smoking in the corner nervously) considering boons are loud and easly removed by the killer.

Boon: illumination is arguably the worst Boon perk to date, even worse than Dark Theory. The info it gives is outshined by other perks and even maps are more practical due to not being a time-sink for such a mediocre effect, not to mention the cleansing/blessing bonus it offers is also not only negligible but also outshined by another perk. The perk only has some semblance of value in a SWF, and even then it's better to just call out gen locations manually.

The perk is simply too inconsequential to be of any reliable value, especially in SoloQ which is the majority of games.

To be better, the perk, as it's name implies, could "illuminate" the Killer and act as a Boon version of Wiretap OR could perhaps reveal gen progress through aura intensity while inside the Boon, revealing totems & teammates as well as chests and gens could also be decent.

Champion of Light is a decent perk, not too powerful and not completely useless, it has decent synergy with Residual Manifest and can be used to make flashlight saves a bit safer. It doesn't really need any changes.

Deadline is utterly and completely worthless, in fact it's a detriment for inexperienced players since, while injured, it's akin to facing an easier version of Doctor when doing gens (and all of us long-time players can freely admit, our early days were rather difficult when going against skillcheck builds). If the stipulation to be injured was removed it would be a little better but it's mostly the "skillchecks appear at random places" that ruins the synergies it could have. Doing Hyperfocus skillchecks with Deadline is tough even for the average player.

Champion of Light - I'm not a good flashlight user, but it seems OK. Flashlight blinds a bonus with Haste and Hindered to the Killer it's OK.

Boon: Illumination - A really nice perk, when I first used it was a "wow...!" effect. But it should be bigger radius or show other totem in the maps too. And at the Endgame Collapse it should show exit gates and the maybe the hatch?

Deadline - Well, I try to think how this perk can be a bonus. :D Not bad, I use the default perks for Alan + Resilience which gives 9% faster fixing, healing etc.