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Pop and Pain Res are More Problematic with Base Regression Buffs

The recent regression buff has made Pop a slightly more ridiculous in regard to the total amount of regression on its kick. The current Pop used on a gen at 60% does roughly the same as it did pre-6.1.0 in terms of repair time. You can get up to 34.67% (not sure how it rounds) on a single kick which, while fringe, is kinda ridiculous. A more realistic 32% or 29% (90% and 80% progress respectively) still feels WAY too high. This compounds with the loss of gen tapping in a way that makes regression as a whole fundamentally more effective in a range of scenarios, particularly when dealing with more unsafe generators.

These are the current pick rates for Pop and Pain Res. Made For This had a peak pick rate on the site at 29.87% at its release with the second highest peak being 27.75%. Not to say pick rate matters a whole ton balance wise, but it can be a good metric to corroborate the strength of any particular perk. I'm not suggesting that the perks should be gutted or reworked, but rather that they should have their numbers lowered by some amount. With how much tunneling has really come up as a fundamental issue with the game, Pain Res' front-loaded regression gives you a LOT of time early on to target someone out of the game, heavily punishes hook trades, continues to work as just effectively after that survivor is out the game, and only conflicts with very few perks. There's a little too much going for it and not a lot of opportunity cost, if any.

P.S. I'm a killer main, I'm just not a big fan of overly strong regression and I hate seeing the same couple perks every game on either side. It bugs me just much as it bores me.

Comments

  • Aoltre
    Aoltre Member Posts: 39

    No, my numbers are correct. I said it was in terms of repair time because gens were made longer in 6.1.0 and so naturally the current 25% regression would take away more progress than it did before the update. Yes, the percentage is lower but the current 23% is just barely more than the old 25%. My post is quite valid and sensical in regard to my comparison between new and old Pop.

    I agree that pick rate isn't the best indication for a balance issue, but these two perks are overly prevalent despite killers naturally having a bit more variety in perk choice due to the limitations and strengths of each killer. The issue I'm getting at is that they are universally two of the best picks across the entire roster, Pain Res in particular only have one or two exceptions. The pick rate naturally reflects. Other slowdowns are also quite strong so it's not that we're short of other solid alternatives.

  • Aoltre
    Aoltre Member Posts: 39

    Definitely the ideal state of the game, at least from the killer side of things. Make regression perks not so impactful, but at the same time not nearly so needed.

  • Skitten56
    Skitten56 Member Posts: 383

    Pain Res is strong but fine overall. However, it should only really work as long as all 4 survivors are alive. It should reward spreading hooks, not tunneling 1 survivors out and then making the game miserable for the last 3. I would even be okay with a buff to it as long as it deactivated when a survivors is out of the game.

  • Aoltre
    Aoltre Member Posts: 39

    It's 25% total compared to 30% current + 5% total. Assuming we're dealing with the same base gen time of 90 seconds (90 charges), they are roughly equal at 67.78% or 61 charges on the gen, measuring to 25.33% regression.

    Pop's damage is just this: % progress * 0.3 + 5 = % regression

    So to figure it for 67.78%; 67.78* 0.3 + 5 = 25.4 | 20.33 + 5 = 25.33

    with the base number being rounded, you'll get 25.334 in your calculator.

    That means at roughly 70% or higher, Pop literally out damages Pain Res (as it should) in the current patch. I'm arguing that both these numbers are high comparative to 25% pre-6.1.0 which equated to fewer charges.

    25% in the current patch takes 22.5 charges, 25% pre-6.1.0 took 20 charges.

    Simply do the math before calling someone out.

  • VomitMommy
    VomitMommy Member Posts: 2,257

    or you can read it again...

    25% total is way better than 30% current


    I compare effect of perk alone, not effect of perk at the time when it was used.

    Current pick rates have simple reason, other regression perks are either bad, or killer specific. You want lower pick rate? Then BHVR should give us new regression perk. Last good regression perk is Pain resonance. That's a long time ago...

    Jolt and Eruption just get nerfed, so there is not really a reason why it should lower it.

    Those perks are good and any killer can use them. That's it.

  • Aoltre
    Aoltre Member Posts: 39

    ok...

    I read it again and you're not making much sense. I literally described why 30% current can be better than 25% total. If you take out the 5% base, then the breakpoint becomes 84% which would make sense if kicks didn't regress a base 5%. You need to look at the context of the game to judge the value of something. I'm judging its previous value compared to its current value and back it up with numbers. You certainly did that with Surge and Eruption since the perk itself says nothing about the regression event cap.

    Also why is a nerf to one perk grounds to not adjust an entirely different one? Btw I haven't played with either of the two nor seen them as a survivor for even the last several patches so I can't say anything about the current Surge and Eruption yet.

    New regression perks will just be ran alongside these two, not in their place. Most perks have Pop and Pain Res in their top #3 perks ran alongside it. Some exceptions like Grim Embrace, DMS, or Thrilling Tremors (not very good tho) exist, but the perk that isn't conflicting is always their #1 (I couldn't find an exception to this, correct me if I'm wrong). My point being that they have too much going for them without many reasons to not run either of them on every build.

  • GrimReaperJr1232
    GrimReaperJr1232 Member Posts: 1,705
    edited February 12

    "The current Pop used on a gen at 60% does roughly the same as it did pre-6.1.0 in terms of repair time"

    Wanted to fact check this. 5% is calculated first, so that's 4.5 seconds. Take 30% of the remaining 55%, and you get 14.85 seconds, up to 19.35 seconds vs OG Pop's 20 seconds.

    So yeah. Math checks out.

    Edit: When Pop was first reworked in 6.1.0 to be 20% of Current, people asked if the 20% was calculated before or after the base (then) 2.5%. The devs stated that the 2.5% was calculated first, meaning the 5% comes before the 30% of current.

  • Skillfulstone
    Skillfulstone Member Posts: 791

    I mean, the new, and hopefully still changeable, gen system basically threw nearly every regression perks and non-regression kick perks in the drain since they take away regression events for too little payoff, especially for weaker/M1 Killers. What did you think would happen?

    Of course perk variety would go down even more, what's the point of bringing Surge or Eruption if you end up with gens that are almost out of regression events at the end which makes the endgame harder? Why not bring the regression perks that have the biggest regression per proc instead?

    Lots of people predicted that outcome. If the system only activated during the last gen (or at least when there's only 2 gens left) then Killers would have more options.

  • sizzlingmario4
    sizzlingmario4 Member Posts: 6,926

    This is something that's been on my mind for a while. Especially seeing Pop and Pain Res combined on survivor it can often feel like doing 7-8 gens per match.

    My main issue with Pain Resonance is that while it encourages hooking different survivors to get maximum value from it, you can still get full value without doing that prior to just tunneling someone. I use Pain Resonance often as killer and it can give very good value by hooking different survivors and that’s typically what I do so it fits well with my playstyle, the issue is just you don’t actually HAVE to do that. If it deactivated once sacrificing or killing a survivor it would be a healthier perk.

    As for Pop, I think trying to balance it around current gen progress (instead of total progress like it used to be) was a mistake. It was a change I liked at first but over time started to dislike it because it feels like it's not impactful enough on gens without much progress, but at the same time it feels too strong on gens with a lot of progress. For example:

    • A generator with 20% progress gets hit with Pop and loses 9.5% progress (5% basekit + 30% of the remaining 15% which is 4.5%) which isn't much more than just a normal gen kick - that extra 4.5% likely isn't going to do much. In this scenario, Pop feels inferior to other regression perks.
    • But a generator with 90% progress loses 30.5% progress (5% basekit + 30% of the remaining 85% which is 25.5%) which is too big of a reward for 1 perk and is stronger than the old version of the perk - not only is it a higher percentage, but each % means more because gens take more charges to repair now than they used to.

    I think they should revert Pop back to total progress the way it was before, but then reduce the regression to something below the pre-6.1 version (maybe around 15% - this would really be 20% regression, 15% Pop + 5% basekit so overall it’d be a slight nerf compared to the pre-6.1 version). This would make it more consistent overall and would make it better on gens with not a lot of progress again, but would also eliminate its current best-case scenarios where it's actually much stronger than the pre-6.1 version (ie. there will never be scenarios where you’re losing upwards of 30% of a gen from a single kick).

  • Aoltre
    Aoltre Member Posts: 39

    Oh, wow, Pop uses the current % following the 5%! I really should've looked into how it was coded before going off like I knew what I was talking about.

    So it goes following: (current progress - 5) * 0.3 + 5 = percent regressed.

    Thank you for that deceivingly big fact check, it's more between 62% and 63% where it equals out to old Pop, which can be a rather huge difference in terms of its overall value over the course of an entire match. Even a single difference percent can add up.

  • Aoltre
    Aoltre Member Posts: 39


    To add to that idea, I think that maybe removing the scourge hook limitation and necessitating that you use a different hook than the one used previously in addition to the anti-tunneling nerf could make it feel better for both sides. I may have been a bit overly negative about the perk considering that its high impact and ability to seamlessly fit into any build is something that could easily be weaponized to adjust player behavior.

    Gotta be honest, I really like your take on Pop. I really failed to consider the worst-case scenario, and, hilariously, I actually got kind of frustrated when I decided to use it over a number of games and got extremely little value in one game. I came to the realization that my issue likely isn't to do with the numbers per se, but rather that it's far too feast or famine to feel all that good for both sides when in use.

    Encouraging healthy gameplay and creating fewer points of frustration would be a good shift for these two perks.

  • Zakon05
    Zakon05 Member Posts: 218
    edited February 17

    I absolutely love this idea. So many new killer players don't understand what a bad idea it is to drykick generators. I've shown people the game and the first thing they ask me is often why I don't kick generators.

    In the current state of the game, drykicking is mostly a trap option. It seems like a good idea but it wastes a lot of your time, you need a lot of time spent in the game to get the game sense to know when you should do it.

    Buffing baseline regression and then nerfing regression perks is something I never thought about before and if done right I think it would be extremely healthy for the game.

    In the past I would not have thought this was a good idea, but now that gens have a cap of how many times they can suffer a regression event, I think it opens the door to implement this idea.

  • canonjack001
    canonjack001 Applicant Posts: 67

    It wouldn't help any build variety as long as other perks either work in very limited situation or have very limited effect.

    I cannot find any useful perk even though i have all killer perks.😂

  • Adrien
    Adrien Member Posts: 93
    edited February 17

    First, only compare perks to its raw value, not side value, we look at what a perks on it's own bring on the table.

    Comparing current pop with older pop is like comparing the price of an object two decades apart without taking into consideration inflation.

    Older was 25 % max.

    Now 30% current.

    The older pop was far more consistent.

    KICKING a gen at 40-50% progress is very common thus the perk on itself is weaker than pre 6.1.0.

    And even if we take into account the basekit 5% max progress, which is a stretch IMO, actual pop is rarely as efficient as the former one % wise.

    Before nerfing perks that seem necessary, address the problem at the source. Nerf gen speed/buff gen slowdown basekit.