“It’s easy to activate…”
Without going too far into what you think of it’s balance, describing pop goes the weasel as “easy to activate” is an absurd statement. Getting a hook is not easy, regardless of which killer you are playing. You have to outplay the survivor to get the down, and then make sure that no one is nearby for the save. Now obviously noob survivors will sometimes throw themselves at you, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Furthermore, after you get a hook, you have to spend time walking to a gen, hope that it has enough progress to give pop value, and then you have to kick it. In what world does this qualify as easy?
Comments
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I'm pretty sure they meant that it's easy to use when it comes to what you're doing specifically because of the perk.
Yes, you have to invest time and skill into getting a hook, but you're doing that anyway. The unique thing you're doing to activate Pop is going and kicking a generator within 45 seconds of the hook after you get it, and that is easy. How often do you have Pop available but fail to activate it? Sometimes, but not frequently, right?
This, too, is not addressing whether or not it warrants a nerf, to be clear.
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While true, there are survivor perks that do the same. We'll Make It can be argued to have the same amount of work to get to activate for a strong heal post-hook.
Survivor gets hooked > Naturally you unhook them to have a better chance to survive > +100% healing speed.
And I don't think a single one of us wants We'll Make It nerfed.
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do you qualify getting hooks as hard?
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i would say since that is the whole point of the killer role it is the hardest part
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Like I said, I'm not weighing in here on whether or not Pop should be nerfed. That's a very different conversation.
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Yes. It’s a pvp game. Again, there are plenty of cases in which clueless players hand it to you, but the core gameplay is chasing the survivors
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By that logic, why are there so many perks that are “easy” and not being addressed? Hell, decisive is being buffed and the condition for that perk is the survivor failing twice.
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Presumably because of the other half of the statement, which is how effective it is in conjunction with how easy it is. Also because it's one of the top picked perks on top of being very effective + easy to activate, I'd assume.
Also, not the point, but DS is being NERFED and the survivor isn't failing at anything by being tunnelled.
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they're probably thinking of hook trade scenarios when the killer is camping a 3 gen and the survivor at the same time. it's not hard to punish hook trading and activate pop.
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Getting a hook isn't hard and if it is, that's frankly on you barring some freak circumstances.
Pop is easy to activate because it is proc'd by normal gameplay and kicking a gen isn't exactly difficult. In a normal game, you will be getting multiple hooks. You will be able to kick gens.
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….Decisive is being buffed by going from 5 seconds to 4 seconds.
Huh, imagine that.
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It was buffed to 5 after being at 3 for a long time. That’s what I’m referring to.
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I'm aware, just giving an example to your own example.
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Can we pretend there was some time cost to pop? YOU LITERALLY GET IT JUST BY PLAYING THE GAME. Stop pretending like putting survivors on hooks and checking gens wasn't what y'all weren't already doing.
Pop and Pain res were both guilty of this and while I don't think they're bad designs because having killers go on side quests isn't really something you can do with how little time they have it was clear they were too effective for what they did especially considering you could run them together. I think BHVR finally understands all anyone does is run 4 slowdowns and wanna temper how effective that is while buffing killer's basekits which is a choice I support but this is a transition that unfortunately is going to take a lot of time because you can't do this to killers en masse like you can to perks. I wouldn't be surprised to see more killer QoL and basekit buffs over the coming months while gen regression takes another hit or two.
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They failed once when the killer caught them in the chase, then they failed again after being caught off the hook. In fact, you might even say it’s 3 times since basekit BT is a thing. The goal of an individual survivor is to do gens and not get caught. Getting caught means they were outplayed.
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Referring to being hooked as "failing" is stretching it a little bit, but might be strictly accurate. Referring to being tunnelled as failing is definitely just wrong, there's a reason people do it and it's because it's difficult to punish if you aren't exceptionally skilled.
As you might imagine, starting a chase on an extreme back foot makes it far more likely for you to be caught.
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Even still, my point still stands: Pop is being nerfed because it’s too easy to get, meanwhile perks like DS and unbreakable reward you for losing a chase, and generally existing.
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Well, that brings things back to my previous point, which is that it's not JUST how easy it is to get. It's the ratio of strength and ease of use, probably combined with pickrate and overall community sentiment for good measure.
Plus, DS is being nerfed. DS is being nerfed in the exact same patch that Pop is being nerfed in. You literally can't use it as an example of a perk being overlooked despite fitting the criteria because it's not being overlooked.
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We can't pretend it's just those perks that get value from 'literally' playing the game though. We can debate if they're too strong or not, but perks activate and deactivate from 'just playing the game' in general and opens up a can of worms in terms of balance justifications.
I had an example for We'll Make It doing this above, but what of perks like Sprint Burst and Lithe for more examples? Just simply holding shift and running activates them, regardless of the downtime much like how Pop/Pain Res' downtimes are between downs.
Or Windows of Oppertunity, a perk that highlights all untouched pallets/windows in a large radius simply from 'just playing the game.'
You see where I'm going with this?
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No its way to easy. Its like getting a 150% Sprintburst for three seconds everytime you press shift… wait 😥
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getting hooked is failing.
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Being tunnelled isn't, though.
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Still, saying it’s “easy” should not have been part of the justification. And as other people are saying in hear, there are countless perks that give you value for no effort, such as windows and sprint burst.
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You can't really disentangle it being easy to activate from the justification, though. The two halves of that statement both rely on each other to be true.
Which is, for instance, why other perks that give you value for comparatively little effort may not require nerfing. Windows might be as easy to activate as Pop - easier, even - but it's obviously not even close to as strong. The two things in combination make up the justification, not one or the other.
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the general justification for any perk becoming worse is too high-win rate. I would imagine BVHR looking at internal stats like this:
or
where when all 3/4 of the perk are combined, they see higher win-ratio. As result, they're toning those perks.
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I was under the impression that survivors are meant to go down and get hooked after a period of time? If it wasn't balanced to be easier to get hooked then to not be hooked, I'm not sure why 3 hooks states would exist. Things like bloodlust also support the idea that a survivor should go down and get hooked after "x" amount of time. I think survivors goal of course is to survive but getting a hook doesn't mean you failed, as the game is designed and intended for you to get hooked at least two times before you die. If you mean specifically the last hook is failing, then yeah, I would agree with that for the most part.
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So doing your objectivbe as killer is hard? We call this skill issue.
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pop is much more game changing than windows. Sprint burst is debatable. Also getting tunneled isn’t the survivors fault.
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Sprint Burst is a weird one cuz you have a little less control over it and you can actually be bad at using it if you just walk everywhere so it doesn't really compare to Pop or Pain Res which you can't really use wrong.
But sure we'll go with Lithe but here's the thing where Lithe deviates for Pop/Pain Res. You're not activating Lithe then going into balanced landing or dead hard. But you can absolutely Pain Res a gen and then go over and Pop it and it doesn't require you doing anything you wouldn't be doing anyway. It's not an issue of just powerful effects for playing the game it's an oversaturation of being able to get the same effect in a small time period just for playing the game.
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Fair enough, then how about stuff like Alert/Troubleshooter for aura reading combinations, or Distortion/Urban Evasion for stealth, or my personal favorite do-nothing-and-benefit-greatly combo Stake Out/Hyperfocus so I barely worry about hitting great skill checks by playing the game near a TR.
Edit: I forgot to mention my other favorite one for toolboxes, Streetwise/Built to Last.
As to lower more bias toward survivor side, what of stacking aura reading? Lethal Pursuer with any other aura read is 'free x for playing the game' as well. And if we continue the idea that hooks is 'doing nothing' than my favorite combo of Nemesis/Furtive Chase is also just as 'free' as anything else.
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If people thinking getting hooks isn't skillful and is just the game progressing I'd love to hear what criteria they would classify for the killer as requiring skill that can be a metric for a perk activation. If it's not hooks what is? That's about as skillful as it gets, especially in terms of something actually measurable for a perk activation.
Also, this notion of "It's free, you just get it for playing the game". Could literally be applied to like 90% of survivor meta perks as well, so I don't know why this is being used as a point.
When it comes down to it, if you play well you get Pop value, if you play bad you don't. That isn't free, it's good design. "just progressing the game and doing what you're supposed to as killer" isn't free.
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Easy can mean multiple things. In one sense its easy to walk 20 miles a day in the sense that it doesn't take any particular skill, in another its hard because its not fun and can be painful depending on your physical healthy.
On a different note, if you're struggling to get hooks, why would you have pop in your builds?
When it comes down to it, if you play well you get Pop value, if you play bad you don't. That isn't free, it's good design. "just progressing the game and doing what you're supposed to as killer" isn't free.The bigger issue on the 'good design' here is the win harder aspect of a perk like Pop. Getting hooks is the goal, having a reward on top of it shouldn't be necessary (though its kind of baked into the game). It would be like if in soccer/football when a team scored a goal they got to bring an extra player on the field. Getting a sizable reward for what you where supposed to do to win the game, especially when that reward is completely free if you accomplish the thing you were supposed to do, leads to lopsided games.
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Then by this logic you think we should instead reward playing bad or just give it free? Since you're not wanting it to be a win more thing.
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Alert/Troubleshooter/Urban Evasion - None of these are meta and UE is on the borderline of being a killer perk.
Distortion - I really really don't wanna have the distortion discussion in this thread because that will turn into it's own monster so the only thing I'll say it's a perk that has a chance to do nothing if the killer has no aura perks whereas pain/pop will get value every game.
Stakeout/Hyper - I've never used this and I've never really noticed it being used against me so I'm skeptical of it's power level but I can't really comment on it because I have no experience with it.
Built to Last/Streetwise w/ toolbox- This on the other hand I have a ton of experience with using and I don't think it directly compares to Pop/Pain because there's the devil edged sword of if you ever get caught in a locker with it that's a massive tempo loss so it does have a ton of risk attached to it not to mention I don't think I'd say going into a local as normal gameplay per se because going into a locker is so dangerous that taking the chase can be preferable instead a lot of the time. But I will concede it's extremely powerful when it does work if built to last worked only once instead of going 99/66/33 I don't think that would be unfair.
But again you seem to be missing the point with all these which is it's not just one thing of "playing the game and getting benefits" it's also power level. If we look at pop/pain it's two perks that are strong by themselves, do the same thing, and you don't have to go out of your way to use them. The closest survivor equivalent I can think of is prove/deja vu and is that too strong? Idk perhaps, tbh I think BHVR needs to avoid gen related perks entirely for both sides cuz it only ever causes trouble.
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As jesterkind has said, its only one element of the game. The strategy element of which perks are chosen is also important.
But if a perk is powerful it should have some other requirement beyond just doing the main game objective. Boons need to be set up, hexes can be cleansed, pain res requires spreading hooks and deciding whether taking the time to travel to a pain res hook is worth it, grim embrace spreading hooks, etc.
So the logic is very far from 'playing bad', but if a perk has a powerful effect there should be risks/consequences to using it.
A perk can be easy to use, that's a strategic trade off, but in turn it should not be that powerful.
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We aren't talking about power level though, we're basing this on the 'easy to activate' part. There's plenty other strong things in the game that are easy to activate and involve normal gameplay like Pain Res/Pop. Problem with this mindset is it's a slippery slope to weird and unneeded nerfs/changes to things further down the line that aren't that strong too.
We've seen BHVR try to change things in strange ways, like nerfing otherwise balanced addons while buffing things that make no sense to buff because they're already strong.
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I'd argue pop makes you lose pressure and time kicking gens. Kicking gens at base is almost never the right move. The cost by amount of time wasted for every gen you walk to and kick is a high extra cost. It also is giving very little value unless the gen has high progress.
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Killer and survivor aren't the same game mode and shouldn't be judged by the same gameplay standards. It's comparing apples to oranges. Not everything in DbD has an equivalent between both roles.
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That's not the point I'm trying to make either. The point is nerfing things because of 'ease' to activate is a problematic reason.
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I think the point they were trying to make is that the perks were too strong relative to the ease of activation, not that they were simply easy to activate and thus got nerfed. I don't know if it's a French to English translation thing or what, but BHVR tends to have a hard time when it comes to explaining its thought process in a coherent way.
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Everything you described is what a killer should be doing anyway. So it is easy because it just works while not interupting normal game play. Unlike that weird survivor "sit in the basement for 2 minutes" business.
I play more survivor and I think Pop is a fine perk. I do not think it needs a nerf, or adjustment.
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That's a great way of looking at it, however, let's not forget the changes to addons like Billy's up to Adrenaline for similar reasons.
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Perform a backflip while reciting the alphabet in mid-flight whould be a better way to achieve a regression event that was recently capped to 8 per gen.
Meanwhile, we have a perk showing you the location of the 3-gen and giving you a permanent repair bonus with no condition. Another one giving a repair bonus for being injured and for some reason other added benefits, because one benefit aparently was not enough. Another one that gives you a bonus for repairing with teammates or that one that gives you a repair bonus after finishing a gen with someone else.
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The thing is, you were going to down and hook survivors regardless of what perks you have. Personally i felt Pain Res should have been left untouched because it is a finite resource that you have to actively manage, because using all 4 tokens as quick as possible isn't usually going to be the best play. Pop on the other hand, is activated after each hook and there is no "managing" it as you'll get it atleast another 6+ times that match
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I think alot of people forget that killer's gameplay is a loops of action: Find a survivor or Gen - Kick Gen - Chase and hit once - Chase and hit twice - Hook. Then repeat. Thats why their challenges are really easy to be done. Kick 5 Gens, they will get it by playing normally, same to chase for 180sec, hit 6 survivors.
Survivor on the other hand, if you have "heal 3 times" or "do 1 Gen" challenge and killer tunnel you. Good luck on the next match.
Full explaining, I just want to say getting a hook, a down, a Gen kick is literally play the game normally. The only action that break the flow from the loops of action is open a locker, which is also easy.
If getting a hook is that hard to earn, questioning about killer's skill rather than the perk.
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Someone complaining about Friendly Competition? That's a first.
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Actually, all it takes is chasing down a survivor, hitting them twice (typically), and carrying them to a hook. I mean, how hard is that? 🤓
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Getting a down is the skilled part of the game though. To me, saying something “is just part of the game” is a kind of a toxic mentality. You’re basically saying that the skilled part of the game doesn’t really take skill. Downs are earned.
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