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a suggested rework for distortion that would make it more interactive for everyone
Lately, I have been thinking about Distortion and how it works. To make it clear, it is not overpowered nor too weak, but I believe that it is not fun for both the survivors who don't have it and the killer.
Distortion does two things: it hides you from aura reading for every token, allowing you to play stealthily, and it lets you know when your aura is being read. These two aspects are fine and should be in the game, but the way they are implemented presents some issues:
The player hides from the killer if they have a few aura perks, but against specific aura reading perks, the tokens drain super fast. This means that killers are kind of forced to run specific perks if they want to use aura reading (like Gearhead, for example). It is not good to basically have to bring an extra perk just to avoid having your other perk countered, while simultaneously, Distortion runs out of tokens and becomes useless when facing a fully optimized aura build. This situation makes off-meta killer aura reading less attractive because now you have to build your setup around it.
The stealth it provides, when it works, is a bit too strong and passive. It basically hides you completely from the killer if he is using aura without requiring you to do anything on your part, which incentivizes the killer to tunnel the survivors they can find. It also hides your scratchmarks which i feel is fair but the survivor doesn't need to use that because the killer does not get any info on where he is.
If you are playing solo queue, you cannot communicate the most important part of the perk to your team—the information on when your aura is being read. This kind of forces everyone to run it if they want that information. It would be better if it benefited solo queue in the same manner.
My solution: Remove the token system; now it works for all aura reading (solving the issue of tokens draining too fast against specific perks and builds, thus incentivizing variety in killer builds). Instead of completely hiding your aura for no cost it makes you audibly scream (or better yet just triggers a loud noise notification for everyone, including survivors, so it doesn't interrupt your actions), giving a notification to all survivors and revealing your approximate location to the killer as a loud noise notification. This would allow the killer to know roughly where you are but still give you a chance to hide (especially if the killer is far away and with the fact you leave no scratch marks). This also stops the really annoying parts of aura reading, such as the counter to mind games in chases while not completely hiding you against specific perks(so the killer still gets some value), and it allows your teammates to know when your aura is being attempted to be read, even if you are not on comms with them. This would actually be stronger than the current iteration in regards to chases because it completely shuts down the ability for killers to see your aura mid chase and circumvent the mind game (now you can run out of tokens) while simultaneously it would just help a bit with long distance aura reading without shutting them down (since perks like bbq are basically used to get the rough location anyways) by letting your team know when it happens and letting you hide easier(no scratchmarks and instead of an aura they just get the loud noise notification so you can hide easier but have to actively hide and outsmart the killer). It would be more interactive (no more people just putting it on and hopping to not get found but they would have to actively hide), work better for solo queue and it would stop this rock paper scissors thing where it counters some perks completely but some aura reading builds(usually the strong ones) counter it completely.
I like the stealthy playstyle but i think it should require the survivor to outsmart the killer actively just like the loop based playstyle does. i will say what i said in the beginning again: I don't believe the current perk is too strong nor too weak but i believe it is just not interactive nor fun enough.
I usually play killer, so I might be completely wrong, but I feel like I’ve come up with a decent idea here. This would even soft-counter the weave meta because you have infinite tokens, and the clueless solo queue players will see the constant loud noise notifications and move the item away. what do you think?
Comments
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So, in short, it works every time, but you scream instead of revealing your aura.
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yeah exactly, i just had to also explain why that would be preferable to what we have now so that is why i made a wall of text.
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I personally don't understand the fuss about Distortion given that it actually has went down in usage rate (it's 8.73% usage rate at the moment on Nightlight.gg) and no longer in the top ten most used perks.
I do believe that the perk had an uptick in usage rate when killers would bring aura reading perks, especially because the last few killers we've had (Xenomorph, Chucky, and Vecna) all three came with aura reading perks with the introduction of Ultimate Weapon, Friends 'Til The End, and Weave Attunement.
I think if Distortion does get some nerf, there needs to be more counterplay to your aura being read other than just get better at looping and I say that as a person who can loop at tiles.
Dead By Daylight needs to allow different playstyles and even though there's the idea floating around that Distortion players do nothing but hide all game, I don't find that to be the case in the games that I play. People will rat and do nothing even if Distortion didn't exist and just because you have an aura reading perk doesn't mean you need to ALWAYS get value from it. There's three other survivors in the game and it's already easy enough to find them in plain sight (the game isn't dark by any stretch of the imagination) or finding scratch marks.
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The problem with distortion is that it negates aura reading perks entirely and pushes killers toward more reliable perks.
Let's say I'm playing doctor with lethal and BBQ. Vs a distortion player this is a permanent disabling of two or my perks. There's no way I can burn through the tokens fast enough to actually use my perks on a distortion user. It only takes a couple of games of having your perks not work against 1-4 members of a team for you to say screw it and switch to surge, pain res, overcharge, whatever. Stuff you know will at least do something.
It hurts build variety and perk diversity. The only time I've ever ran out of distortion tokens is vs a wraith with a few aura perks or a huntress with a full aura build. God help you if you want to run a weak aura perk by itself like alien instinct. There's a good chance you load into a game where it straight up doesn't work and will never work on half the team.
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If you want to burn through Distortion tokens fast enough, run Gearhead.
Gearhead has no issues burning through Distortion tokens as even experienced players cannot consistently hit great skill checks to avoid Distortion stacks to replenish.
Your argument that it ruins killer build variety can be the same argument towards survivor build variety as well.
Like I've mentioned in my previous post, Distortion only rose in popularity due to the introduction of aura reading perks and it isn't in the top ten most used perks.
I'm saying this as a person who doesn't really use Distortion since they've mentioned that they were going to tweak the perk, the only time that I actively use Distortion is when I'm playing with my duo so I'm not necessarily biased in this area.
EDIT: I was in a game, so I couldn't complete my thoughts.... But if you want to run gen regression because it's more reliable than aura reading perks, you're well in your regard to do that. I highly doubt that you're running into 2 Distortion players in a single game that prevents the game from you finding survivors. In your example, as I have played Doctor, I don't know why you would necessarily equip aura reading perks on him as he has pretty much on demand information due to his static blast.
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I run aura perks on doctor..... because it's fun. I run alien instinct because it's fun, not because it's good. It's still nice to get a modicum of value from my dumb gimmick builds. Until it feels frustrating because a single perk disables them.
Gearhead by itself will not disable distortion vs a standard terror radius killer. You'd need at least two other aura perks to do that.
It's not in the top ten but it's up there with kindred and we'll make it, notably good perks. You're gonna see at least one in the majority of your games. If you had a game with 2-3 it's absolutely crippling to aura perks.
Finally yeah, you're right. I can keep running stall perks. But I'd really like to get reliable value on more interesting perks. That's not possible with distortion in it's current iteration. Again harming perk diversity. Distortion is bad for the game. Frankly I don't care about "b-b-but survivors!!!" That's a different topic entirely.
Finally finally I never said it ruins build variety. I said it harms it. You can still run aura perks on stealth killers or ones with substandard terror radii and get good results. It'd be nice if more killers could get value out of the perks though. Increasing build variety.
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I don't understand why you're being confrontational when I used the same argument you said for killer builds.
That's nice and dandy that you like to run aura reading perks on Doctor, but if you really like to use aura reading perks that directly affects Distortion users, go ahead and use Gearhead.
When you mentioned BBQ and Chili and Lethal Pursuer, which ARE in the top ten killer perks for KILLER and say that you want to use "interesting perks" that are undoubtedly META perks, I don't know why you're getting upset about a NON-META perk such as Distortion with it having less than 10% usage rate.
If you don't care about survivor gameplay, then don't use Distortion as an argument that it *harms* killer builds when you're using (#3 BBQ and Chili ((16.03%)) and #4 Lethal Pursuer ((also 16.03%)) as YOUR example.
It sounds like you want NO counterplay to your aura reading builds other than just hide in a locker or go in a different direction but what's the counterplay to Lethal Pursuer??
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Usage rate do not tell the whole story. BBQ and lethal are good on huntress, by far the most popular killer. That skews the rate of usage by itself. Knockout has a pick rate around unrelenting. Is it problematic? Yes. Should it be reworked? Also yes. Trying to defend unhealthy stuff by pick rates is a one dimensional argument. Means very little. You've got this fixation on usage rates because it's easy. Point at number. Make argument. Ignore context.
Like I just told you, gearhead by itself, will not deplete distortion tokens vs standard terror radius killer. I've tested this. Assuming the survivors in my lobbies were being honest they rarely ran out of tokens.
Of course I care about survivor gameplay. What I don't care about is constantly equating one sides stuff with another sides stuff. It's like people screeching for respawning pallets because hooks respawn. It's like comparing Zanshin with Windows when they obviously do very different things because each side interacts with the same information differently.
I don't want distortion to not exist. I've gotta be one of the only people who used distortion when it didn't regenerate tokens. What I want is for it to not be infinite perk denial vs standard terror radius killers. Make tokens regenerate slower. Make them only regenerate in/out of chase. Give one per gen/unhook/successful heal action. Whatever doesn't punish killers for existing on the map.
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It's not infinite perk denial, however? I've given you alternatives, but it's not the perk that YOU want to run, which is the issue that we're having.
If you did care about survivor gameplay, you wouldn't minimize what I'm saying with the "b-b-but survivors" schtick you did earlier.
I bring up the statistics because obviously Distortion has decreased in popularity, since Finesse has came out and people started to use the vault speed build again.
I like how you don't respond to when I asked how to counter a popular aura reading perk, that's not even including Nowhere To Hide which is also number 6.
I wonder why Distortion had/has a high usage rate when the top most used perks are always a combination of two aura reading and two regression perks? 🤔
You acting like Huntress is the main culprit of how BBQ & Lethal are highly regarded when we have full aura reading Nurses, BBQ/Lethal Hillbillies, Spirits, and Blights who utilizes the aura reading combo to create a snowball effect on solo-queue is baffling.
I don't know why you want to add some type of "reward" to earn a Distortion token. We already have enough survivor perks where you have to do x action to earn whatever benefit the perk wants to give you. Additionally, making it so that you regain tokens from being chased by the killer will just put you in a situation where if you're not chased by the killer, you won't even earn the Distortion tokens back.
Like I said, if Distortion gets nerfed - there has to be a way to counterplay the ginormous amounts of aura reading perks and aura add-ons that killers run. Either reduce the effects of these popular perks/add-ons or introduce a universal signal in the bottom right hand screen that your aura was read, but your aura still is shown to the killer. You can't have it both ways where you always get value out of your perks when I run a healing build and get a Plague. 🤷🏾♀️
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