In-Depth Feedback on Pig PTB Changes

I know it's like two weeks late, however I wanted to share some thoughts on the Pig changes in the last PTB after some time to fully digest the changes and compare them to the live servers. As a Pig main, I actually really love these changes and hope they hit the live servers with a few number tweaks and some add-on reworks to compensate the change in direction for Pig's gameplay.

I've also put these thoughts into a ~15 minute video if the big wall of text is too much to wade through: https://youtu.be/Grc8Ik6IO7M

The changes proposed in this PTB are all incredibly healthy and exactly what I've been looking for with an update (which admittedly I was hesitant about). Her ambush feels really good now without the need for addons, with it being even better if you do take some; the crouch feels far less sluggish after already being updated (thank you again for this); and the traps are honestly in a great spot.

The changes to ambushing feel very noticeable, where you can make a lot more movement around tiles with the game now feeling a lot more fluid and less clumsy when using this. A lot of hits that otherwise wouldn't have been possible to make are now much easier to land, and Shattered Syringe now being basekit makes this power a lot less unforgiving. This is something I've wanted updated for a while, and I'm super happy to have this here. This is even more noticeable when bringing Last Will. Last Will was an add-on that I always had mixed feelings around compared to just taking combat straps. The extra movement speed is fantastic, but the 33% increased charge time both ate a lot of your time in a chase, while also requiring Workshop Grease to counter this. Using Last Will with the new changes to the Ambush really demonstrates the increased ambush duration and its impact, and will be my go-to add-on going forward. I do however wish the ambush charge time received a very slight change, as Workshop Grease is essential when focusing on Pig's power for this reason, however as it stands the power is overall in a very good position, feeling faster and stronger than it ever has.

The changes to Pig's crouching and stealth are also immediately noticeable. Pig's movement speed while crouched is now on par with Ghostface, with there being far less reliance on bringing John's Medical File. The crouch transition's also been reduced by 23%, almost on par with Combat Straps. A reoccurring change with the PTB is that Pig's addons are either being rolled into her basekit, or they've closed the gap between her base stats and add-ons where these are no longer required as much, which is in my opinion the biggest problem with Pig. Workshop Grease, Combat Straps, John's Medical File and Shattered Syringe are all arguably essential add-ons for Pig to make her crouch and ambush worthwhile, with Crate/Bag of Gears also required to increase the slowdown capabilities of traps, all while Pig is limited to just two of these add-ons. The changes have removed the necessity of a lot of these add-ons, making her much more enjoyable to play. While the Ambush only received a difference of 0.3 seconds, this slight change is incredibly noticeable when you factor in how quick Pig now moves in stealth and how quickly she can enter/exit the Ambush itself. The game, again, just feels far more fluid and fun, and prevents Pig from feeling frustrating to play when using her power. I would have liked to see the transition time reduced even further considering Ghostface doesn't have one himself, however again this is something that already feels better and a change I'm looking forward to trying in the live servers.

I've seen backlash around these changes as they're quite drastic compared to what we're used to, however I feel this is the healthiest spot they can be in.

I personally hate facing Pig when I play survivor as the majority of Pig's I'm against will either try to force a headpop or scout Jigsaw Boxes to tunnel out trapped survivors. I feel this is overall really sub-optimal and unintuitive gameplay and defeats the purpose of the trap - an essential slowdown kit which acts as punishment to survivors for not doing this objective, rather than a win condition that can be forced. These trap changes seem to very specifically aim to prevent forcing headpops through traps and is something I feel is long overdue. Removing Pig's capability to see the Jigsaw Boxes is a change that I feel isn't going to be noticeable across the vast majority of matches you come across. Those who already play Pig should have a good idea as to where the boxes spawn across maps in the first place, and more importantly, you will reveal the location of the boxes naturally by patrolling generators, so this only really changes the ability for newer Pig mains to beeline to boxes to pressure trapped survivors for a headpop, and to prevent Pig from putting too much pressure on trapped survivors at the start of the game where Video Tape is taken - a very fair change considering Video Tape acts as a 'free' Corrupt Intervention which has always been among the most-used perks for good reason. I think this change is incredibly fair, as again the main playstyle this changes is one where killers will tunnel a trapped survivor, or try to interfere with box searches via scream builds such as Ultimate Weapon and Hex: Face the Darkness, one of the most obnoxious ways to play Pig currently and one with very little in the way of countering.

Another worry is the Reverse Bear Trap’s timer now being too long. The timer has been increased from 150 seconds to 180. This change is even more controversial as a lot of players are stating this makes traps meaningless and takes the pressure away, though is another change I personally welcome and one I’ve wanted to see for a while. At higher skill levels, kills through traps ap are already incredibly rare as is, which in my opinion is very healthy for the game. At lower skill levels, Pig is a lot more capable at putting too much pressure on a trapped survivor, rewarding Pig with a kill regardless of hook state. This is something I feel removing auras alone wouldn't have changes, and as this doesn’t impact the direct slowdown from Pig’s traps, is a very welcome change overall, where again the majority of matches won't feel much different after these changes. I feel the biggest playstyle that will notice a change is one where the killer tunnels trapped survivors. I’m very hesitant about Behaviour adding/buffing insta-kill mechanics, as these are uninteractive and not fun to play against, while being incredibly powerful mechanics to have. Pig and Onryo are two killers I enjoy playing, and two with insta-kill mechanics. Both these mechanics I feel should only exist for slowdown, with the instakill being only a punishment to survivor's negligence, rather than something you can guarantee, which is something this change further emphasises. Pushing the focus away from getting kills with the traps to emphasise their slowdown and further buff Pig's chase capabilities overall leads to a more fun and healthy killer, and is something I've seen many Pig mains really appreciate and enjoy.

I’ve seen a lot of discussion worrying that the increased timer might cause newer players to tunnel more, or this allowing survivors to do generators and unhooks before removing traps. For the topic of newer players tunnelling more, either through trying to force headpops, or tunnelling because it’s harder to get bear trap kills, I don’t see this actually being a negative effect. I don't see there being any difference between tunneling a survivor, and pressuring a single trapped survivor. The biggest difference here is a trapped survivor has no counter to this. Where Pig’s do tunnel more conventionally, they will have to rely on their experience as killer to counter looping, with survivors able to counter tunnelling to some degree through their own experience, perks to help extend their chases, or even another survivor taking a protection hit to try and steal the killer’s attention. All of these counters are a lot less existent with the current playstyle of targeting trapped survivors as the survivor has less ability to respond, where they may already be injured or far away from other survivors to remove their traps. While a trapped survivor is still able to respond to tunneling, they're a lot more limited in doing so; whether they’re already injured, suffering a status effect from the trap itself, they’re on the opposite side of the map from other survivors due to Jigsaw Box placement, or they’re killed instantly from the trap. This overall leads to a frustrating and unintuitive experience. This change just makes it harder for Pig to unfairly remove survivors from the game earlier than they should, which is a net positive in keeping the game healthy, especially when Pig specifically has a very bad reputation for this.

In saying that, I do have some points to propose with this change, as I feel a couple things might need addressed that didn't receive any changes:

·        With a 30 second increase in the active timer, I feel it may be good to increase the time it takes to search a Jigsaw Box by a very small amount, say 1-2 seconds. Pig is still a fairly weak killer despite these buffs, unable to deal with survivors as efficiently as Huntress, Wesker, or even The Unknown, so increasing the slowdown survivors receive slightly to compensate the generous increase in RBT time would be really nice to see. This increase brings the slowdown in line with receiving basekit Bag of Gears, again dealing with Pig's addons all feeling too essential, while compensating for the increased time on the trap timer itself. I don't think the 1-2 second difference would make the biggest change across most games, however in matches where you play against skilled survivors, every second counts.

·        With changes to the RBT timer, I feel the addons which apply a status effect when trapped should be looked at. With these changes, there's going to be no incentive to focus on trapped survivors, so applying haemorrhage or blindness to trapped survivors has very little benefit. I think Rusty Attachments (applying Mangled) is going to be much more beneficial now as survivors will now use this time to heal before unlocking their trap, and while niche, Slow-Release Toxin also helps counter survivors using Lithe and Sprint Burst to remove their traps quicker or using this extra time to quickly get an unhook or complete a generator where they would be at risk of the killer chasing them again. Overall these add-ons might actually be in a better spot than before due to the increased timer. The other add-ons I feel have far less use now as they already saw limited/niche use previously. A good alternative however would to have these add-ons reworked to apply on ambush hit. This further encourages the shift in gameplay from focusing on trapped survivors to instead focusing on others while rewarding hits with the ambush, while making these add-ons more interactive and useful overall.

·        Tampered Timer is another add-on I think should be reworked completely. This update is pushing Pig players away from targeting trapped survivors, and so changing this add-on to not interact with the timer duration would help enforce this move. Tampered Timer instantly became an add-on I never used once it was both nerfed to -20 seconds, and an additional Jigsaw Box was added, where I instead started to focus on her slowdown and ambush instead. With an additional 30 seconds on the timer, I personally feel this add-on will be completely useless as a result. My only consideration outside of a rework is to change this timer to -40 seconds as a middle-ground to the players upset with the increased timer changes while still nerfing the killer's capability to interact with the timer itself. Preferably, we currently don't have an add-on that applies Oblivious which can be a dangerous status effect left up, and would make RBTs very intimidating for survivors to leave on if they wish to use this additional time healing or doing generators. This would cause the traps to work as a Hex: Plaything where you always see the aura of the 'hexes' to easily remove. While I worry this could be a little too strong as a purple add-on, I also feel this would also be less risky to include now that RBTs have been changed to prevent easy tunnelling of survivors, with the increased timer also allowing survivors to deal with traps a bit easier. This would also remove an add-on that otherwise incentivises Pig for tunneling trapped survivors to force a headpop, making this more chase-oriented instead.  (Upon reflection -40 seconds may be too much. I think reverting this back to the old -30 seconds may be a better option, however overall a complete rework of the add-on would be preferred).

·        Previously it has been possible for Pig to follow trapped survivors while crouched, allowing the timer to progress while putting pressure on trapped survivors. I didn't see if this had changed in the PTB, nor have I seen any discussion around this, and assume this was unchanged. We should overall see far less of this with these changes, however I believe this specific (problematic) issue should still be addressed, pausing the timer when the killer is within a short distance, or even beginning chase if Pig is crouched while moving within x meters of the survivor for y amount of seconds. Again, this might not actually be an issue as this now requires Pig to follow a survivor for a very considerable duration even with the current Tampered Timer, however I feel having this implemented as a precaution might still be beneficial.

·        The biggest change to RBTs that I expected was to perks such as Ultimate Weapon that force the survivor to scream, resetting progress completely on boxes. I feel both knowing where the survivor is, while also resetting this time is a bit too strong. With the increased timer, I have no doubt we'll see a sudden influx of builds which will force survivors to reset their progress instead. I think it's most beneficial to stop screaming from resetting progress, with survivors able to continue their search uninterrupted. This would also provide less risk in any adjustments to the length of time it takes to complete searching the box as well, leaving more room with balancing the killer by opening Pig's design space more.

·        As previously mentioned, the other changes I would have loved to see is a further decreased transition time, as Ghostface currently has no transition time to crouch (though may not be needed as much now), a reduction in basekit trap search time to compensate for the increased time survivors have to remove searches (giving basekit bag of gears in terms of slowdown), and slight tweaks to movement speed and ambush charge time to bring less reliance on Workshop Grease and Last Will, with all aforementioned add-ons receiving slight decreases to reflect on any increases and vice versa.

While I wish I was able to post this during the PTB forums, I'm also happy I took the time to experiment with these changes to reflect on my thoughts in more depth. Interested to know how many people also appreciate these changes, as I've so far seen a lot of doom and gloom around the traps which I feel are quite exaggerated worries. Very excited for the 12th, and hope everyone else is too!