Slow down. Let’s talk about it
Slowdown is a hot topic for good reason, it makes or breaks games. It’s obvious how much payoff you can get from slowdown perks.
Should slowdown exist at all? If no, why not? If yes, in what form? I love the idea of Hex: TotH as slowdown. I love the idea that every Killer (with some exceptions) should come with a secondary objective.
Why do you like/dislike slowdown? A common perception is that players enjoy slowdown because it helps win the game. Is there room for some type of slowdown that doesn’t automatically make the Survivor team lose? Can there exist slowdown that is fair?
What are your thoughts on the topic?
Comments
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Honestly I don't believe game can be properly balanced with existence of slowdown or even progression perks
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Slowdown itself is not that much of an issue. Stacked Slowdown is an issue. And sadly there is currently no way to prevent this, Killers can still stack Pain Res and PGTW and both have the same activation condition. Then there is Grim Embrace, which also just requires to hook a Survivor. And Deadlock, which does not require input at all.
All good Perks which are totally fine on their own, but become too much when used with 3 or 4 of them. Add to this things like Mangled Add Ons and you have even more Slowdown.
And as long as BHVR cannot prevent Killers from stacking Slowdown, the only way to combat this is to nerf the Slowdown-Perks, which makes them less useful on their own, but also lowers their strength when stacked. But ideally there is a range of good Slowdown-Perks, which just cannot be stacked with each other.
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Slow down and speed up are too much of a variable, which unfortunately it feels like always get lopsided attention instead of tackling the concepts as a whole.
Gens can be plus or minus too much in terms of progress speed. They need to be more equalized (i.e addressing slowdown, blocking, and gen speed perks simultaneously) so that a much tighter average can be balanced around. They could do that in any number of ways, but the healthiest would be to break up synergy in the aforementioned three categories.
Until there is a proper baseline gens will go too fast or too slow, with whichever side stacks their advantage the hardest coming out on top.
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In my opinion, slowdown perks are perfectly fine to exist, but the problem comes from the fact that them existing and being very unrestricted means that a lot of killers fall into the bad habit of stacking their build with four slowdown perks and nothing else, or three slowdown perks and a solitary information perk. Not only is this obnoxious as hell to face on the survivor side, but it's also making the killer's gameplan extremely fragile— all it takes is one kind of long first chase or two, and you're no longer able to make up the deficit, because all your perks rely on getting downs and you don't have anything to actually help you do that.
This is a tricky problem to fix, but I do think the devs should seriously consider making direct-regression perks (so percent regression like Pop/Pain Res, or increases to default regression like Ruin or Overcharge) either hard-coded as impossible to stack, or meaningfully limited in a way similar to Exhaustion perks.
With that baseline established, that only one of those perks is likely to be in play, a few things can improve. Survivors get to no longer be forced into doing the same generator twice because of constant regression, those perks get to be buffed where necessary to function on their own, and killer players get pushed into learning how to play without slowdown as well as being freed up to start experimenting with more diverse builds.
(Not that a lot would, they'd just stack gen-blocking, but that's still better than what we have.)
As an aside, there's a temptation to say that "gen progression" would necessarily need to be nerfed at the same time, but that's not really true. The only problematic gen progression that exists is toolboxes, this isn't an archetype-wide issue. Nerf toolboxes at the same time as doing this and that's more than enough.
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Having two objectives I believe has statistically proven to be very effective in slowing down progress in a game, which can help. The kill rates on killers with a side objective tend to perform very well in comparasion to some others that don't, regardless if they are deemed weak by the community or not (m1s). I think it's healthy, and would like to see more of it, because it can provide good slowdown without having to be perk relient, so you can make room for other perks and try more unique builds.
As far as why I personally don't like slow down, I don't mind it as long as it doesn't stack, as then it becomes too oppressive in my opinion just as I believe if multiple exhaustion perks could be used at once, would be too oppressive.
I think overall both can be unhealthy though, as I believe the community as a whole has become much too perk dependent, with both sides relying way too much on perks rather than skill alone. Sometimes it's good to try to run with no perks at all even, just to see how dependent you really may be on perks like slowdown/exhaustion (I think those are flip sides of a near similar coin, both of them are used to waste/buy time).
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Good points, but I don’t like the idea of only being able to use a certain number of perks.
I do however agree with the idea of nerfing them all instead of creating perk type slots.
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I mean the game is balanced around 2.5 kills per game. Means it can go between 2 - 11 hooks, make it average of 6.5hooks. And Gen time is really enough to make ~6.5 hooks most of the time.
I dont see a toolbox is problem, but same to slowdown. Stacking them is. And I really dont know what Devs can do so survivor cant stack the same items.
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slowdown perks only gain value if they're stacked otherwise they're too weak. so it is almost like your disappointed when the perk archetype gains value. Often, the perk archetype also only tends to have great impact when it is the same type of slowdown stacked. that is something i have noticed as well.
This logic also applies to toolboxes where 1 toolbox does little but a stacked team with toolboxes does a lot. This logic is also applied with killer haste perks where a small amount of haste has low impact but a large amount stacked is strong.
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The thing is through the rework of maps and killer powers chase time has been shorter. Does a killer really need slowdown if they can end a chase faster than the slowdown provides.
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Thats why I said: "But ideally there is a range of good Slowdown-Perks, which just cannot be stacked with each other.", basically that the individual Slowdown-Perks can be strong on their own with only investing one or two Slots at max, but cannot really be stacked.
An example like this would have been Ruin and PGTW. When both are up, you can have value of Ruin, but PGTW cannot be used. Obviously those got stacked as well after a while (when Ruin first got reworked, many players dropped either Ruin or PGTW), because you will get value out of PGTW when Ruin is gone, but something like this is way more bearable than having 4 Slowdown-Perks stacked together.
And if the Devs find ways to make stacking Slowdown impossible, Perks which recently got nerfed can be buffed again. But since this is not the case, they basically have to nerf them individually, which sucks for players who used only one or maybe two Slowdown-Perks, but is needed for those who stacked four of them.
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i think that making perks not stack doesn't fix the under-lining issue with people wanting to stack them. with how dbd is designing 150+ perks, i believe every single perk effect is INTENDED to be stacked. Perks that trying to be soft-balanced to not stacked are often finding work around to make them get stacked.
For example
Dead-hard-Decisive strike-Off the record, Adrenaline Alongside red syringe is 4 speed boost perks+an item. How is this any different from Sprint burst+Dead hard+Balance landing+Lithe triggering all in 1 chase? Artificially, the game is placing limitations to curb second-hit haste stacking but the player is abusing game mechanics to cheat the artificial game-system and have multiple health-states in 1 chase. Unbreakable is the other perk that get thrown in the mix instead off the record which abuses the whole pallet-stun →killer needs to slug problem that has no counter-play(Often done with a teammate who is 99% the sprint burst as exhaustion perk aka background player).
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Slow downs are absolutely mandatory on most of mid to low tier killers, thats just the way it is.
The problem is, and always has been, top tier killers that do stack slowdowns. The fact that nurse, blight and spirit exists and are more or less untouched is the real issue here.
If you want to limit slowdown this much, you'd have to either augment gen duration, GREATLY nerf gen speed perk (deja vu, pt, resi), and nerf comodious.
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Slowdown is not the issue. The issue has always been that for every killer you have the same amount of time needed for a gen. It should take max 65 seconds to repair a gen when you are going against a blight and something like 110 seconds against a trapper.
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I think they can be balanced but it would take some very courageous decision making from the devs and would upset a lot of players
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Well, toolboxes are a problem even if there's only one in the match, as long as that one toolbox is a Commodious with the right addons. With that in mind, I think the only reasonable solution at this stage is to just remove the repair speed bonus entirely and replace it with something else.
I've seen a few ideas floated around for what that might look like, but one I like is having it provide a "shield" against generator regression instead of providing extra repair speed. That'd be pretty workable, I think.
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I created a suggestion about items before. Items only have the weakest version that come for free, which survivors can select one of them in item slot.
For Toolbox, give it 24 charges but no speed boost, instead only give skill check (so I think it would give about 6 skill checks). Something like that.
Though commodious with good addons merely overlap a single slowdown perk. I mean a kick with Pop can reset a Commo toolbox with good addon.
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slowdown perks should be categorized and limited, like 2 (gen) slowdown perks allowed in a loadout. this way they can balance each individual slowdown perk more thoroughly and confidently meanwhile gen speeds/progression perks and killers can be balanced around it as well.
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I dont think it work if categories them. Perks that do a single job are now out of idea, most perks nowaday are mixed with little things.
For example, you may prefer 2 slowdown perks that only focus on slowdowns, not 2 weaker slowdown with a little of info and something else. Or if survivors only allowed to use 1 Haste perk, they would only use Exhaustion and never use Hope.
What they need to do is hard limit. How much a Gen can be regressed, and how much total time regressed in a match.
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I’d be okay with longer chases if it meant making the game last longer.
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So….. Gens are 90 charges
Survivors repair Gens at 1.0-2.2 charges per second…. so 45-90 seconds
Killers regress Gens at .25 charges per second…. so 360 seconds
then add in perks and Toolboxes and speeds are eye opening…. pros and cons to it
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Slowdown needs to exist because gens fly like crazy.
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This is a pretty narrow view of regression.
Considering the most popular and most powerful forms of regression take large chunks out of a generator, and base kit kicks take 5% of total, this ignores all of that. If pain res and pop both hit the same gen, that's about 40+ percent of the generator completely gone in a matter of seconds.
Since BNP rework, there's literally nothing that adds a chunk of gen progress like this. It's all gradual and over time. And this doesn't touch on perks that make gens take longer, or block them completely.
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i mean there is a way to prevent this just not one players would like aka perk limitions theres enough perks in the game now to seperate them into categorys Killers: Slowdown/Regression/chase/exposed/info Survivors: Second chance/healing/progression/exhaustion. If Devs ignore the player backlash and just make perks not allow perk stacking the same category it would solve it.
Why not make chaos shuffle basekit? Everyone loved that gamemode then people cant purposely stack just pray for good rng
I kinda agree Mostly cause Trap killers like Trapper, Hag ,Singularity need prep time or slowdown to get value from their kit
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When people mention about progressing speed and regressing speed. Survivors make 1 charge/sec, while killers make 0.25 charge/sec.
Everyone forgetting that survivors have to sit there for 40sec to progress 40 charges. Killers dont sit on Gen 40sec to regress 10 charges, but instant.
There is also multiplying in time. If Dwight goes back to a Gen 20sec later than Jake, most of the time people think "Dwight only need to work on Gen 5sec more than Jake because of 0.25c/s regression. But they never think about those 20sec lose that Dwight was busy on something else and not able to work on Gen. Given the same time stamp, Jake progress 25sec of Gen more than Dwight, not 5sec.
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Making endgame much more viable while nerfing gen regression and progression perks would give choices to Killer playstyle. If endgame becomes more viable to play in, Killers would be encouraged to pick more endgame perks instead of stacking gen slowdown.
There are more perks related to gens in some way than Endgame, is it any surprise why people are stacking slowdown?
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I get that but I would've preferred if they didn't add that 5% instant regression and changed the .25 regression instead
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But then we would see more complaints on NOED, No Way Out, Remember Me and Hope
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The 5% is only 4.5 charges
Pop does 20% of Current progression (so it matters more onhow much progress the Gen has)
SH:PR is 18 charges on the most progressed Gen (and there's only 4 times that can Happen max... but I do see the problem with it)
If the Killer is able to get PR and Pop on the same Gen the that's on the Survivors not the Killer
2 separate Gen regression actions can't happen on the same Gen
I'm not trying to make excuses but trying to gauge the base kit for the game at this point... as if there needs changes for it
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Also what if that Dwight finished another Gen while the Jake was repairing that Gen
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And it's not like Ruin is basekit either so the 20 seconds Jake was repairing isn't being regressed
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Just a visual about 1min timeline between Dwight & Jake.
The funny part is, though it requires the same effort from killer, the progression on their Gens are greatly difference,
If killers want to get more benefit on Gen kicking, make survivor busy like Dwight. Killers can not go forth and back just kicking Gens and expect the regression completely reset the long progress.
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Slowdown and progression perks were a mistake, imo. The gens themselves should have been balanced for each individual killer. That could mean the gens being slower to repair against some killers and faster against others, that could mean killers having what is currently a slowdown perk built into their basekit, or that could mean the killer having a secondary objective. Instead, we have a war between slowdown and progression perks/items and it's boring. The gens are the least interesting part of the game, yet so much focus is put on them because they can determine the length of the match.
There could be so much more leeway with killer powers. BHVR knee-capped themselves by using perks as band-aids for problems in the game.
Post edited by TragicSolitude on2 -
Well the game is balanced around running some variation of slow down. It’s not balanced around zero slow down. So in the current state it’s required to varying degrees depending what killer. To even consider the game with zero slow downs the game would need drastic changes. Most slow down with any meaningful value requires skill for hits or down so if they’re getting tons of value from them then they’re playing well, it’s not free.
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Fair enough... but just a small nitpick
.25 charges per second so any regression is minimal it's the 5% and gaining that back does take time
So IMO getting rid of the 5% on kicks and adjusting base kit regression (.25 charges per second)
And maybe changing the repairing a regressing Gen to a base of 1 second of repair
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I believe that the game is built around having some form of slowdown. However, the 4-stacking of regression perks is the problem. It keeps individual regression perks from being strong, but then more players start running multiple regression perks to get the results they used to, and the problem becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I wonder if some kind of perk class system would help the game. Then, restrictions could be placed on how many perks of a certain class would be in a build. Ex: "You can only have 2 regression perks selected." It might also help with adding new perks to the game, given that BHVR could add new perks for classes with fewer options. Same would go for gen progression perks, of course.
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I'd base slowdown/ speed up based upon how many survs are alive. % based on how many survs are alive/unhooked.
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