Once again: Distortion is harmful for survivors
I already did post about it, won't repeat all over again, here it is:
Long story short: inability to find other survivors just make killers tunnel. Here is very good example of exactly what I said many many times here:
I have close to Otz's playstyle, I rarely tunnel someone before late game, try to spread hook, but situations like in this video, when go back to hook is your only option, are too common in my games on killers. And I see it a lot in my survivors games too, where 1 survivor was never chased because haha I'm crouching in killer's TR.
Distortion no doubt needs a change, because whole concept "get more stealth for being stealthy" is stupid and rewards wrong things. I don't think Otz's suggestion is cool, I rather it has 3 tokens and recharge only in chase. Want to earn another 3 tokens? Put your butt in some long chase and help to team instead of sitting in a corner of the map as soon as you hear TR.
Comments
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I like how he covered that making aura perks unreliable steers people toward slowdown. The amount of times I've belabored that point is ridiculous
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There's a misconception here that survivors are a group of people that should team up and work cooperatively together to succeed In reality, the developers give a lot of leeway to play however dirty or nice you want.
Spread hooks? Sure.
Tunnel? Go for it.
Unhook someone? Sounds good.
Body block for someone? Alright.
Let someone die for your advantage? If you want to, go for it.The main goal of the killer is simply to kill; whereas the main goal of the survivor is simply to survive.
You're right that stealth is primarily a selfish play-style and encourages more tunneling since an injured and unhooked survivor is easier to find than a healthy hiding survivor with distortion. But that's okay, if the player wants preserve themselves at the expense of their team, it's perfectly valid to do so. There is no obligation to act in someone's else's interest unless you want to - that goes for both killer and survivor.
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If you don't believe me, just look at the Steam page description:
Key Features
• Survive Together… Or Not - Survivors can either cooperate with the others or be selfish. Your chance of survival will vary depending on whether you work together as a team or if you go at it alone. Will you be able to outwit the Killer and escape their Killing Ground?
Or look at perks like 'Sole Survivor', 'Self Preservation', 'Left Behind', etc.
The concept that each survivor can adopt the play style of being out for themselves has been implemented since the game released. As long as you aren't actively trying to get your allies killed (sandbagging, pointing them out to the killer, etc.) none of it is punishable either for that reason.
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The TLDR is:
Behaviour gives a lot of freedom to players to play however they like for better or worse.In this regard, I doubt (and hope) there won't be much traction with wanting distortion and stealth to receive changes to make it less effective for the individual (and therefore decrease tunneling). Stealth players typically know they're selfish and sacrificing their teammates, it's just that they enjoy the play style more than they care about others experience and choose to do it anyway - especially since the game specifically allows for it.
And yes, I do say this as a stealth player who has a penchant for unhooking people then hiding and letting them get chased again while thinking to themselves 'Well that sucks. Good luck, you'll probably need it.'
… though if it redeems me in the eyes of readers at all, I often run Deliverance and use my lower hook counts to body block near end game or when someone's on death hook. I'm not afraid to go down for them either since I can just unhook myself. Basically, I love being stealthy and selfish since it lets me control the game better. I know generators will get done early if I'm doing them, and I know someone will intervene for those on death hook if I'm the one blocking.
As such, I do hope to retain my playstyle and not have it nerfed. Stealth is just so fun, especially if you use it constructively.
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People aren't going to like your post, but I've read few that I agree with more.
The agency and choices DBD offers players is a big part of why it has such staying power. You can play the game in a bunch of ways with perks augmenting those options and that keeps matches fresh. As soon as they pigeonhole people into playing the game in one way it'll start to die. Guarantee it.
You and I are at opposite ends of the survivor spectrum. Avoiding the killer and playing stealthy is terribly boring to me. And that's absolutely okay! I'll defend your decision to be selfish all day long.
However my main issue with distortion is that it singlehandedly shuts down an entire suite of killer perks for zero cost. It makes them not worth running on killers that have a standard terror radius because they cannot run out. You can't run one or two aura perks and get reliable information out of them because distortion tacitly disables them vs. one survivor. That's problematic.
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Appreciate the positive feedback! I also expect it won't be a popular opinion.
That said, I agree with these points on Distortion. I dislike the perk myself because:
- It's uninteractive
- It has little planning or personal skill that goes into it
- It counters everything whether or not you want it to
- Sometimes I do want the killer to see me on the other side of the map
- It's useless in literally half your matches due to either:
- No aura perks on the killer; or
- a lacking terror radius to charge it on
- It's basically the only consistent aura-blocking perk in the game so I feel like I have no choice but to always run it
- Talk about feeling pigeonholed
I'm defending this perk in this thread simply to defend my play style, but honestly? I hate it. I just have no alternatives that I can substitute it for, and it's miserable. My selfish play style is all constantly thinking about my actions in a macro sense, and how to best be efficient with what I've got to try and control the game pace as best I can. Meanwhile, I have to rely on the passive effect of a perk that requires relatively little thought and my control over is minimal - which is counter to what I claim I want to do.
It's just such a confusing feeling, since it both enables and hinders what I want to do every game, but I have no choice but to use it.
I really just wish they would introduce more active, conditional aura-blocking perks that take planning and skill to utilize. Imagine if Still Sight gave aura blocking when standing still for 4 seconds, or there was another similar condition for aura blocking. The player gets control over their perk, there's likely a secondary effect they can use (in this case, gen/chest aura reading) so its useful every game, and killers still get value from their perks when you can't fulfill the condition (which includes start of game vs lethal pursuer).
That's honestly the dream, if only more active and conditional aura blocking perks existed that could solve the problems with distortion, then it could be changed as well to follow suit - that would be ideal. But until then, I'll defend to the death the current iteration of Distortion simply because I have no other alternative.
3 - It's uninteractive
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If you think that a perk that works throughout the match is not good then guess we will also have all exhaustion perks removed as well.
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It’s not only the killer who hates it, but your team mates do too. Nothing more annoying then getting unhooked and the person who unhooked you doing nothing to try and help keep you in the game.
The number one reason I DC is selfish stealth team mates who don’t help spread pressure and give up hook states. You are entitled to play how you want, I am entitled to leave the match because I don’t like your play style.I really don’t care if distortion gets nerfed at the end of the day honestly because I’ll just tunnel if I can’t find anyone. I use aura to find new survivors and ahead hooks but if you don’t want me doing that then I won’t. Simple as that.
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otzdarva's video the problem is not the distortion, the problem is in the MMR that put bad players in the veteran players' lobby. It's a joke to suggest recharging distortion tokens in chases, as killers ignore players in 99% of matches to tunnel the first one off the hook and killers also ignore experienced players to tunnel bad players. Distortion should have 6 tokens, nurse and blight shouldn't be able to use lethal, nurse shouldn't be able to use nowhere to hide, these are stupidly broken perks on these killers that guarantee free hits and the only counter to that is distortion. My SWF always 1 uses distortion to avoid these two killer free hits using these two perks. The damn MMR will always be responsible for 90% of DBD's problems
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Having it recharge in chase defeats the purpose and honestly seems like a way for killers to keep getting value from their aura perks without worrying about them being countered: cant find the survivor with your aura perks, that's okay, they'll have to come to you sooner or later. So you can use your aura perks to find those without Distortion, then either way wait until all tokens are gone to find the Distortion user/s or else just wait for them to throw themselves in front of you.
I don't use Distortion and ultimately don't care if they want to rework it, but this whole 'recharge in chase because it's unfair to your team mates' argument just comes off as kind of manipulative. The person who benefits most from this is the killer. If my team mate needs Distortion to stay in the game then so be it. If they're useless then they'd be useless with or without that perk.
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A fair argument, though my counterpoint would be that if Distortion recharged in chase, it would mean it becomes a perk that is more about scouting aura perks with the safety of not having your aura revealed in the process.
Once you know the aura perks in effect you can use lockers to avoid aura perks. This is quite easy to do normally, but the problem a lot of the time is you learn the aura perk is in effect by being caught because if it...
So with this change the avoidance playstyle is still viable, but needs the Distortion user to use their head if they want to commit to that selfish playstyle and completely avoided chase by making use of lockers to hide their aura instead of just having a brain dead passive that gives it them mostly for free.
Edit: This change also makes it so those of us who do want to take chase, while using Distortion to figure out the aura perks in play can do so without having to run under the killers feet to get their attention.
So I think the trade off is very much worth it. (I also want Otz's buff to reveal the Distortion users aura to survivors so they can figure it out too if they pay attention).
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I'm running builds with or without distortion. The problem is that survivor who are not dodging aura perks blame you with their 6 second chases. While you're trying to finish your regressed gens. As thank you they're trying to expose you to the killer.
But Otzdarva is not talking about the selfish and toxic stealthplayer. Pls, dont mix this up.
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They've still got three tokens to work with which last a good while. Then if they're gone and they inevitably get chased they will get some back. I don't see a problem with this. It's also a good incentive to actually get good at chase.
I've gotta be one of the only people that ran distortion before it recharged. It was kinda bad but this was also in full BBQ meta and I got pretty good value out of it most of the time.
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