Comprehensive Feedback on Distortion Changes
Having played around 5 hours of the PTB while using the new Distortion, I wanted to share some thoughts on the recent changes and their impact on gameplay.
First, Distortion has always been a gamble. You’re investing a whole perk slot based on the assumption that the killer will bring aura reading perks, but there’s always a chance they won’t bring any at all. In those cases, Distortion becomes a wasted perk for the entire match, which already makes it a risky pick. With this in mind, nerfing Distortion just feels like an unnecessary hit to a perk that was situational at best.
On the flip side, the number of aura reading perks killers have is staggering, and more are added regularly. Let’s take a peek at these:
Barbecue & Chili
Bitter Murmur
Lethal Pursuer
I'm All Ears
A Nurse's Calling
Nowhere to Hide
Hex: Face the Darkness
Hex: Retribution
Hex: Undying
Floods of Rage
Awakened Awareness
Darkness Revealed
Deerstalker
Friends Till the End
Weave Attunement
Territorial Imperative
Gearhead
Hangman’s Trick
Nemesis
Eruption
Predator
This list is NON EXHAUSTIVE and doesn’t even include killer powers and add ons, or perks like Discordance, Deadlock, Dominance, Human Greed, Hoarder, Ultimate Weapon, Iron Maiden, etc which give an approximation of where a survivor is located.
Here is the list of current survivor counters to these perks:
Distortion – Currently nerfed into uselessness
Off the Record – Relies on you being hooked and not immediately tunneled upon unhook
Boon: Shadowstep – Relies on finding and blessing a totem, and the killer not snuffing the boon
Sole Survivor – Requires all 3 teammates to die for you to get maximum value
As you can see, there is a MASSIVE disparity here. Killers can almost always rely on having powerful aura reading tools to track survivors, while survivors have very few reliable counters to deal with this. This puts survivors at a disadvantage, especially when perks like Distortion are one of the few that can negate aura reading.
There's a common suggestion of using Object of Obsession as an alternative to Distortion. In theory, it sounds like a decent replacement, but in practice, as I experienced in the PTB, Object of Obsession is easily nullified by any killer that brings stealth into their kit. Whether it’s from a perk, power, or add-on that grants the Undetectable status, Object of Obsession becomes completely irrelevant, leaving survivors with little to no counterplay against stealth killers and a wasted perk slot.
That said, I’d like to suggest a few potential ways to balance the perk, making it more fair without making it overpowered.
One idea is to take inspiration from other perks like Corrective Action, which starts with a set number of tokens and then has a condition that allows you to regain them. Distortion could still start with its three tokens, but allow survivors to earn additional tokens through specific actions in-game. For example, players could regain a token after contributing to a chase (as suggested with the current changes), 50% progress on a generator, healing a teammate, or getting a save. This would create a fairer balance between countering aura reading and gameplay progression.
If three tokens from the start sounds too strong, let’s break down a likely scenario in the current meta:
The game begins, and the killer has Lethal Pursuer. You’ve already lost a token before the game has even properly started. If the killer also has perks like Nowhere to Hide or Barbecue & Chili, it’s very possible that by the time your first teammate gets hooked, and there are still 5 gens left, you’ve already burned through all of your tokens. At this point, Distortion becomes dead weight, and you’re effectively a free target for any killer running aura perks for the remainder of the match- unless you can take the steps necessary to gain another token. Even still, the three starting tokens might give you a chance to pop a gen or get a hook save that the killer may have otherwise chosen to intercept upon seeing your aura approaching the hooked survivor.
By letting survivors earn tokens based on contributing to the match, the perk would remain balanced. Players wouldn’t just get free immunity to aura reading that leads to excessive hiding, but would have to actively work to maintain it. This creates a dynamic where Distortion is useful but not OP. As for the concern about teammates who hide, those teammates will still hide. They'll just do it in a locker instead of at least sitting on a gen, healing, etc. Or they'll throw half the pallets on the map in their first chase. Everyone doesn't enjoy the chase portion of the game and right now it feels like we're being punished for even considering stealth gameplay.
The current nerf to Distortion feels like a step in the wrong direction. Survivors already have limited options to counter aura reading, and stealth killers render those counters even less effective. I hope the devs reconsider these changes, because right now, it feels pointless to even bother attempting soloq if there’s no effective counters to aura reading that don’t involve throwing yourself in front of a potentially tunneling killer for a chance at hiding later.
TLDR; None. If someone doesn't care to read this, they probably have an overall casual level of care about the Distortion perk and its future.
Comments
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I'll keep repeating this as it seems like people forget that killers can only slot 4 perks at a time. Listing the amount of the aura reading perks says nothing, because you're never going to see all the perks in the same match.
19 -
OOO still lights up when the killer is undetectable, which means it's still announcing when the killer has revealed your aura, meaning that it's still useful against undetectable killers, because it's still announcing when you aura is being revealed, which means it's still helping you figure out which aura readings the killer is using.
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While I don't agree with the tone of your post and find your framing extremely disingenuous, I do agree with you that it was overnerfed and should gain tokens from advancing the objective.
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I think a nice balance would be distortion still gives 3 tokens but instead of getting them from being in the killer's terror radius, you get them from being in chase. 20 seconds of chase time = 1 token granted (numbers can be changed). This would still help against full aura builds while discouraging survivors from hiding in a corner all game because they will not regain their stacks.
As stated in OP, killers have ways of getting around being seen and heard (killer played, multiple perks, add ons) but survivors options are very limited.
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I can't control how others perceive the 'tone' of my forum post, although I invite everyone to write their own comprehensive review of the changes in the style they see fit.
I can, however, say that as a killer main who occasionally runs Nowhere to Hide and no other aura reading perks, Distortion does not greatly affect my 4k frequency. Any killer who is following BHVR's own advice to patrol generators can find survivors without the aid of aura reading perks unless literally no survivors are touching a generator.
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Honestly, if number tweaks were too much to ask, all they had to do was tie token recharge with gen repair.
This would fix the main issue people complain about: Survivors hiding and not helping. Those that already helped but didn't want to get sniped through walls (Pyramid Head/Nurse, imagine them with I'm All Ears and new Zanshin) or found every time a gen was kicked wouldn't be affected.
It would be much harder to hide in endgame since to keep hiding they would need to come out and do gens (and if a Killer finds a partially repaired gen then they know that someone is around even without needing aura, not to mention repairing a gen forces them to be in the Killer's way).
But well, farewell Distortion I guess if the Devs don't change their mind. For the vast majority of Survivors they will get 3 uses per match tops since all their chases will end on a hook. Complainers won.
Goodbye altruist-stealth build, hello yet another gen perk or Sprint Burst.
Good ol' perk variety getting lowered again...
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That still doesn't give any more information than Spine Chill. The core mechanic of OOO is still disabled. The functionality that allows you to make a gameplay decision about a direction to run in based on where the killer is and if they're coming towards you.
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I've mentioned it in other posts but I thought doing a little of both would be fine.
- Distortion starts with 2 tokens
- Distortion gains a token every time you start a chase
I think this would be a fair middle ground.
5 -
Why not distortion recharge their stack with time in chase instead terror radius? like a, after 20 or 30 seconds in chase u gain 1 stack.
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4 aura perks can in fact fit into 4 perk slots. 4 is not greater than 4.
Still doesn't change the fact that you can't run every aura perk at once, so it doesn't necessarily matter how many they add.
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Before I start, I will say I'm a survivor main. I do no use distortion, I do not LIKE Distortion either. Especially when I am solo Q, I find myself taking majority of chases and the distortion gamers not doing gens. When i SWF, I have a friend who runs Distortion, so we can figure out perks and add ons and play accordingly.
When I play killer, I main Huntress. I run an aura reading build so I can plan my shots. Because I do this, I hurt in the gen regression. Majority of my matches always have 1 gen remaining or all gens done. This is the risk I take whenever I run this kind of build and I've accepted that. Of course I run into Distortion gamers. With these players, it comes down to Gearhead eliminating their stacks. I do eventually find them. Lethal is great to figure out who the Distortion gamer is, and majority of the time they are absolutely terrible at chase and go down easily.
Listing off a bunch of aura reading perks is not an issue. Killers using aura reading is giving up gen regression. Me personally as a survivor main, I would much rather go against an aura reading killer than the gen regression. The killer can't chase 4 survivors at once. Using aura to target a survivor gives the other 3 survivors a chance to work on gens. Having my gen get popped 8 times in 3 minutes because of pain res, jolt, oppression, whatever it may be sucks. Quite honestly I find it a boring game. This distortion change is nice to finally have players take up the practice of getting better in chase, which helps the overall team with working on gens while you're in chase.
However I do think Distortion should have somewhat of a token system being gained when doing gens. Like blast mine, wire tap, do so much progress on a gen, gain a token. This helps progress the game. While in turn those who want to run Distortion suddenly have to figure out how to run a killer in chase. Which I'm sorry, THIS TAKE TIME TO LEARN. I have 4500 hours in the game and my chases can either be great, or absolutely terrible. I appreciate the devs taking time to change Distortion but this was a huge nerf to a group of players that all of sudden have to change their play style to accommodate for one perk.
I do also think the game needs to give us indicators when our aura is being shown. I've gotten the "you're cheating" card thrown at me numerous times because survivors lost their distortion and simply don't understand what my aura perk does or add on does. Giving an icon (similar to what we received during 2v8) would help survivors a lot to understand what perks are being used and how to counter them.
With the distortion changes, I think more survivors will utilize lockers more and not take chase as often. Maybe they will run more gen related perks, and in turn we will have killers complaining that gen regression needs buffed again. It's a lose lose situation.
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Spine Chill only works in line of sight, and has nothing to do with aura revealing, so I'm not even sure what that comment is supposed to mean.
And the point is that OOO isn't nullified by undetectable, because the information part that announces when their aura is being read, is still there, and OOO has unlimited uses of that functionality.
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I've gone a scratch mirror Michael while using OoO. While yes I could not see his aura, the perk lighting up helped me so much to get away knowing that he was in range to see me. Not once got jump scared because of it. But I'm also an OoO enjoyer. Spine Chill is complete ass as it lights up for less than a second and gives you no intel as to which direction you should run
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does a single perk making you immune to killer's entire perk loadout sound fair to you? also full build of info means no slowdown, how are you losing to that unless it's a nurse or something?
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The biggest purposes of this rework for Distortion makes it understandable.
- BHVR wants to work on aura-reading more to try and shake up the killer meta(and potentially the survivor meta) so that killers aren't always running 4 gen slowdown perks every game for when it comes to chases and such, but having a perk as strong as Distortion that completely negated this system for the majority of the game quite literally puts a barrier in the way for that.
- BHVR are trying to get the mindset of the game being a "hide & seek game" out of the minds of players to try and encourage doing chases more since many players agree that chases are the most fun part of the game and players getting upset when you have a teammate who is hiding constantly throughout the match instead of helping the team when needed.
- The strength of Distortion was just simply too much for too little effort and threw off the balancing of the game because survivors(as a team) have a total of 16 perk slots and only 4 of those slots have to have Distortion to counter any potential aura-reading perks that the killer brings whereas the killer has a whopping total of 4 perk slots and if they want to use aura-reading then they have to fully commit to using aura-reading perks by using every slot to constantly make sure to drain Distortion's tokens which prevents them from bringing any gen perks and such while the survivors get to have that luxury of having all their gen perks and such.
Now BHVR will likely add more survivor perks that are similar to Distortion down the line with its rework being significantly weaker now so that it balances the game out more where if the survivors never want their auras revealed then they have to give up most of their perk slots to do that just like killers will have to do the same.
3 -
a lot of distortion gamers can't last in chase longer than 30 seconds. so yes, maybe to good loopers this would be solid but to the average distortion gamer, no.
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I don't mind if they want to change Distortion. But this solution is redundant and benefits killers. Killers are supposed to seek out survivors- not the other way around. The point of Distortion is to make it harder to be found, yet the devs want to make it so you have to find the killer in order to avoid the killer. Make it make sense. Killers running aura builds no longer have to rely on the old fashion way of finding Distortion users, they can just keep playing and wait for the survivor to come to them.
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Honestly, I think the nerf to distortion should be a case study on how nerfs are handled. It is still 100% usable but it balances the risk vs reward much better than the previous version. It is still a million times better than having 3 tokens and then it does nothing like the original version. It is often not that difficult to hijack someone else's chase to enter chase and then immediately leave chase to reset the perk anyway. Bravo BHVR on this change.
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That is entirely the point. It is actually a bad thing for survivors in general if one survivor doesn't take their fair share of the killers attention. It turns the game into a 3v1 essentially where you are forcing the killer to prematurely kill your team mates. This change makes it so you can avoid some chases but not all of the chases. Which again is a healthier place for the game to be including survivor game play.
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WIth the way they nerfed gen regression and are buffing gen speed (ie. Corrective action), distortion stacks could be gained by blessing or cleansing a totem(suggestion). This would effectively balance the game by the distortion users not gen rushing and interacting with totems in order to regain stacks. And it could be paired with boon or cleansing perks like inner strength, so it would be more incentive to interact with them.
I think if BHVR did this, it would be fair and bring much needed diversity to perk builds. It's a win win, imo. There should be a push to interact with things other than gens all the time. Cause playing killer, it sucks that if you chase one surv for too long, three gens can pop off cause one bad chase. With the suggestion stated above paired with inner strength, you'd gain a stack and a heal. Everyone's satisfied. Hope this reaches the right people. Have a great day everyone.
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I take it you're good at looping, which is great skill expression, but we also have to remember that everyone doesn't have the skill to survive/escape a 30 second chase. And while I want to say they should just improve at chase, everyone's career and lifestyle doesn't allow for endless hours of pure looping practice.
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@Dreamnomad
How is it a 3v1 if the fourth person is, potentially, the only one doing the actual objective of the game which is completing generators? The exit gates don't get powered because someone is in chase. They get powered when gens pop. This nerf just gives killers unfettered gen pressure with zero extra effort required beyond popping on some aura perks.
And again, if the issue is that the fourth person who isn't being chased hasn't been on a gen while you're running the killer, seems like tying Distortion tokens to gen completion is the healthiest move for the game. Because you're still going to have 3v1s with Distortion nerfed. They'll just locker hop all game.
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I tried that on no less than ten occasions during this PTB. In 8 out of 10 situations, the killer completely switched to me as a chase target. So just blindly running into someone else's chase to grab a token that lets you hide instead of being on a gen and completing the objective is, shockingly, a bad idea.
At that point, you're just serving up multiple targets to the killer for free and giving the killer free gen slowdown by not being on one. The nerf in its current state is essentially just a shadowbuff to all killers who run aura reading.
3 -
I understand the purpose of the nerf (I'm not justifying Distortion in its current state as a 'rework'. Maybe by the end of the PTB it'll be in a state we can call a true rework.)
My point is that a killer doesn't need to dedicate four slots to aura reading to get huge aura reading value. The only aura perk I run as a killer main is Nowhere to Hide and the sheer amount of value I get from it is staggering. Gen chugging away in front of you at 70% and no scratch marks? Give it a lil kick. No auras? Process of elimination… Check the locker next to it. No one? Distortion user. Scout the area. It takes the smallest amount of thought for any killer to counter Distortion and they just don't want to make the effort. Only roughly 2 out of every 10 Distortion users I encounter as a killer leave a trial alive.
Eliminating the option to play stealthily in a HORROR GAME is inherently illogical in this genre. I understand that most players enjoy the chase mechanic, but some of us just enjoy Horror as a genre and like the atmosphere and experience of contributing to the objective and helping teammates escape an oppressive monster alive.
Who, praytell, is going to complete the objective if all four survivors are perpetually in a state of chases and hook saves? Most players don't like sitting on a gen, but some of us do. Some of us actually want some Horror in our Horror game. It's fun to work the objective, look over your shoulder checking to see where the scary dude with the chainsaw is, and worry about your friends dying. So let us enjoy the game the way we'd like. Forcing people into chases they don't want isn't it.
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I like the suggestion of a system that rewards game progression tbh.
I used to be a survivor main and I used to run Distortion at times. Quite appreciated the part where you didn't have scratch marks for a few seconds which was incredibly handy in Lethal Pursuer games where I could dart straight for the middle gen and work on that while the killer chased after someone else. But these days I barely play survivor since the role has become less and less enjoyable and I run silly builds to do silly things while not stressing too hard about winning or losing in a video game.
Which is why these days I am more of a killer main, which feels a lot more chill since I can direct the pace of the game. I don't use aura reading perks at all as I don't need them. I have enough other tools to find/track survivors with. Though- Well. I run Lightborn. But that's for accessibility reasons. The blinding effects hurts my real life eyeballs and until we can turn that one dark, the sunglasses stay on.
Anyway. I keep mentioning this, but the list you posted that only shows the existing aura reading perks and no add-ons or whatever is a good display already of what's the actual problem: The already massive and still growing amount of aura reading tools. Which explains fairly well why Distortion has even become as popular as it is today. And it remains the only real tool survivors have at their disposal - Heck, there is nothing that can be done about Killer Instinct and only so much can be done about scratch marks, crows or the overall sounds a survivor makes. I am tracking A LOT via hearing alone. So I have never perceived Distortion as the big problem. I don't mind it being nerfed somewhat, but what's on the PTB is just another perk slaughter.
I don't think that the stealth part of the game is a problem. It's part of it. And Distortion is a part of steallth gameplay. Once we get rid of that entirely, survivors are left with doing little more than gen rushing and the actual killer mains already complain about that. So how about we don't kill the perk entirely?
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And that is understandable, but it has also caused some problems for the killer side as well because of people hiding really well with stealth builds because it can then become boring. I've even had a game before as Clown with double aura-reading add-ons where I was literally being held hostage because the survivor trio SWF were all running stealth builds containing both Distortion and Diversion, brought me to Toba Landing, and all three, quite literally, refused to do any gens unless I went AFK for a few minutes because all they even cared about was messing with the killer and making the game miserable for them. Even the solo que Jake that was on their team realized what was happening and DC'd from the match because of boredom and not wanting to deal with useless teammates. I wouldn't have had to deal with that situation if this Distortion rework was out by then and that kind of situation is why I'm all for this rework just so that those players can't do that anymore.
Also, as I said, they will likely add more survivor perks down the line that hide your aura from the killer, but they're likely all gonna be on the same level of Distortion where they won't be just free value for doing nothing. (For example: Needing to complete generators to activate and such.)
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This comment ironically validates the aura sniping huntress (and other aura heavy killer builds) issue and as you said, gives good cause for Distortion being available and useful (as in your SWF for info). I agree the token system needs to remain and be directly tied to contributing to the objective.
Also, I'm beating a dead horse at this point, but I do have to say the players who are not being helpful are not going to be any more helpful without the use of Distortion. These are players who have already decided not to help the team and they will still be in lobbies. Blendette was a thing long before the Distortion perk was ever introduced, and unhelpful survivors who aren't for heroics are a staple of the Horror genre, however annoying they may be in a team based game.
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The question remains…
WHY ARE THEY RUNNING FOUR AURA READING PERKS?? How does NO ONE see this as an issue in and of itself?? Generators are highlighted for free and the killer just can't be asked to check them I guess.
Also, in running a full aura build you are taking a huge risk as killer. Which is fine. Every perk loadout choice in DBD is supposed to be a risk. What makes anyone feel like a killer should just get to have four information perks with no solid survivor perk that can counter it?
If you're asking how you can lose to a killer with 4 aura perks, I take it you've never played soloq before. I can only control my skill level and performance in a match. Not that of teammates who may choose to not touch gens or go for saves, etc. There's even an aura build huntress in this thread that proves my point.
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Wouldn't nerfing a currently meta perk and buffing a lot of underused perks (which is what is happening with this update) actually encourage perk variety?
1 -
The plethora of perks does, however, mean that there is an aura reading perk (or several) that fits any given playstyle and killer so well they can get maximum value from it (aka enabling them to get the fastest downs possible with their killer and build) while survivors have effectively nothing to deal with it; all the things that are left now are so restricted and conditional that they are so far from reliable you might just as well not bother at all.
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Survivors are a team of 4. Perks to combat killer tracking should be situational and conditional since all 4 survivors can run the same perk.
Distortion needed to be toned down so it could open up design space for other situational/conditional perks to block auras.
1 -
Distortion isn't exactly a meta perk though - and none of the other buffs to perks address the issue Distortion addressed. How does adding perk variety for gen efficiency address aura read? Not at all. - If the devs actually wanted perk variety they'd offer more variety for the category Distortion belongs to and provide different ways in which survivors can use a perk to help manage a killer's aura read. One way is to counter the aura read altogether for yourself. Another way would be a team perk where all survs are informed whenever their aura is read (with an icon just as in 2v8). Yet another one could be an altruistic angle; if an injured surv's aura is supposed to be revealed your aura is revealed instead or something along those lines. There are so many options. — But apparently "aura read" is not meant to be dealt with by survivors. The killer is meant to be able to find survivors at will and avoid mindgames based on LOS blockers if they so choose. That's a design choice by the devs and tbh I don't know what the grand idea behind it is - but hey, maybe it just needs a patch or two in that direction to become clear this is not the way to go.
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hence the qualifier "so". - Looking at the options available for survs, they don't provide an adequate way to deal with aura read. - It's not like Distortion prevented other designs when it comes to dealing with aura reading. And "dealing with" does not always mean "blocking".
1 -
People keep saying survivors have nothing to counter all the aura reading perks and that's literally not true. The original post even lists aura counter perks
and omits Object of Obsession. In fact it kinda proves the point that Distortion is too powerful because people don't even bother using these other perks because they have one that does it all.EDIT: Original post does call out Object of Obsession. My bad. Don't agree with them though that it's useless against undetectable killers since most killers aren't undetectable the entire match. And again, the fact you want a perk to cover EVERY scenario shows just how overpowered Distortion is.
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I think distortion should at least still be able to have multiple tokens, and i really dont think it should have the current changes go live at the same time as predator, which is basically a "screw your distortion" perk. I'm not gonna lie, I've barely cared about distortion, I think reliance on aura perks in general have a tendency to cause people to not develop a proper game sense, or in the case of ptb zanshin, not learn how to play loops. I dont think nerfing distortion will get rid of rats, many rats already run sole survivor which blocks your aura from being read within a certain range for dead teammates. I like distortion for the benefit that it will make you less likely to be caught out of position and it can come in handy to let you push important gens. Object of obsession in its current state is terrible because it feeds the killer very important info on what you're doing, whether you're out of position, etc, and there are a number of perks or killers that have undetectable or cause blindness that will cause this to have zero benefit for you. To make it viable as a distortion alternative you would need to get rid of the periodic aura reveal it has, at least in my opinion.
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Object of Obsession is not a direct counter to aura reading. All it does is give you tit for tat gameplay where you can also see the killer. The problem with that is survivor is not an offensive role at its core. So I know where the monster is. And? I can't down leatherface and put him on a hook. All I can do is pick a direction to run in based on the info that perk gives me. The killer can do much more with this info you give them for free by running this perk. OOO is more of a perk for veteran loopers who want to take chase with the killer. For everyone else, it's a quick ticket out of the match.
While most killers aren't undetectable for the entire match, certain killers like Dredge, Skull Merchant, Wraith, etc all have periodic Undetectable as part of their kit. We don't want a perk to cover EVERY scenario (even though there's a killer aura reading perk for literally every scenario from healing to just walking past a totem), we just want there to be risk involved for a killer who is running 2+ aura reading perks as part of their build the same as survivors risk a perk slot by equipping Distortion. They can make changes to balance it some, but it doesn't need to be 'anti lethal pursuer' and otherwise mostly useless the way it is in the PTB.
And before anyone cries that killers don't use aura reading perks that excessively, let's take a peek at the huntress I faced a couple of hours ago. This is not a rare occurrence, either. I see it often in higher mmr lobbies.
Aura was being read so often I'd lost all my disto stacks in no time.
4 -
Huntress, wraith and scratched mirror Myers are the only killers I've ever ran out of distortion stacks versus. Most other members of the cast running this build will simply lose.
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Every aura perk/add-on is one that isn't gen slowdown. This is good since we currently have 4 gen slowdown as META (as in most effective tactic available META). Currently 4 slowdown is the most frustrating thing to play against, but for a short time 4 lethality was considered too powerful.
Prior to STBFL's nerf, 4 lethality was also a contender for META. STBFL/Rapid Brutality/Bamboozle/Personal Preference would shred through Survivor health states, but pretty much only on M1 Killers. Arguably, that was better, since we had more of the weaker half of the cast in that grouping.
Intel/Aura reads is only as valuable as your ability to run through chase. Aura perks are the most healthy, since the Killer still has to earn the down with their default kit. The only time it crunches into unhealthy territory, is when Killers start to use intel to turbo-tunnel. OTR does a good job preventing this, however its Endurance should stack with all other forms of Endurance ala Mettle of Man. Also arguably it should hide the aura of someone healing you (while active), since the Killer can simply see the heal animation and 2 other Survivors, so they know the 4th is the one being healed.
Currently giga-rats avoid hooks, and prevent the team from having the best chance of victory. If you've ever played a TTRPG or tactics RPG, most games still allow you fight at 1hp just as effective as 100% hp. If a Killer gets 8 hooks, and 4 Survivors are alive, that is the best case for Survivors. If a Killer gets 8 hooks, and 1 Survivor has never been hooked, that means 2 are dead, and the other is on death hook. Since you get Distortion back on entering chase, this allows someone to be safe for a short bit, then take a team hook for the best Survivor chances.
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who even benefits from a full aura reading build other than huntress and nurse? maybe also pyramid head. soloq teammates still continuing to hide behind rocks after killers b line to them "randomly" multiple times is their fault, not aura reading perks'.
WHY ARE THEY RUNNING FOUR AURA READING PERKS??
because other perks are mostly irrelevant. slowdown is nerfed into the ground, many perks are situational/m1 exclusive and some killers don't benefit from chase perks at all.
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If other perks are 'mostly irrelevant' then the killer in question is having an issue where they could stand to practice chase, map pressure, and gen patrolling a bit more. As I've said, the generators are highlighted for free. Using more than one aura perk is a crutch for killers who aren't good at hunting. For the time I've spent with this game I've become a high mmr killer and never felt the need to run perks like bbq.
The difference is that I'm not a hypocrite saying killers should have their aura perks gutted because it makes the game slightly more complex for me to play. But lower mmr or lazy killers feel the ONE counter to their aura perks should be completely gutted because they don't feel like checking gens or looking behind a rock.
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I see so many in this thread who seem to be veteran loopers assuming that every soloq survivor can take the killer for a minute long chase or even 30s. If someone isn't strong at looping, why would you want that person in the killer's face to become an easy down when they could work the objective and let the strong loopers keep the killer busy?
For people who claim chase is 'the most fun part of the game', you guys sure want other teammates to take a lot of chase time away from you. A good Disto teammate will use their extra time to pop gens and do saves/heals. They'll also know when it's time to jump in for a chase, prot hit or hook state. A bad Disto teammate will…. hide. Funny thing is, good and bad teammates will do these things regardless of whether or not they're running Disto. It's just a convenient scapegoat for the larger issue of bad teammates.
I ran Disto yesterday in a 4 man out game. The teammate who I saved from a camped endgame hook refused to give me a prot hit when they were healthy and I approached the exit gates. Their reason? I was running disto and crouch walked up to their hook (so wesker couldn't get a trade). The killer ran ZERO aura perks and I essentially wasted a whole slot. But the sheer fact that I was running disto immediately led to the assumption I was a bad teammate, even though I outscored everyone on the board.
This witchhunt of a valid perk needs to stop. Balance is needed, but the PTB state of it is abysmal and unfair.
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I agree everyone on this forum keeps pushing OoO. It is not that good, in some situations it can be but not worth the downside risk where it essentially becomes a killer perk. The only time I find it to be worth taking is if I'm running a full wallhack build.
A lot of the survivor players praising this distortion change seem to be those who want to force their teammates to play a certain way. The whole campaign against it ia very strange from my perspective because I have never.noticed "distortion rats" as a problem in my games. I was wondering if this is much more of a problem in certain regions or mmr that's all I can think of.
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distortion gamers could still just hide, take a while to lose tokens, gain after being found repeat. They wouldnt have to progress the match for value, which is why the gen-token suggestions is so common.
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I am still on that opinion that better system would be. That you start with 3-4 tokens and you have two ways to get them back. 1. You get unhooked giving you the 3-4 tokens back 2. You get one token back if you do save unhook. You can't go over the maximum tokens so most you can have at one time is the 3-4 tokens. This would highly limit the perks potential and if you get hooked while having tokens they get discarded when you get unhooked as it resets back to 3-4. This would give you base top 9-12 tokens and any safe unhooks you do. This would make you danger yourself to unhook and maybe get chased if the killer comes back. You also could not hide forever as that 3-4 tokens get eaten up quite decent speed if killer runs any good aura perks.
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Do people want some people to never take chase? - The issue is you always want someone to take a hook if A: the time it takes to unhook them is less than the time it took to down and rehook them and B: that hook on someone else would kill them. If this isn't the case, they artificially inflated their MMR to even get into that lobby. (Or to be fair, it could be macro resource destruction around the hook.) Once they get to an MMR that fits their looping skill, they can run the Killer for, at the minimum, the ~15s it takes to run in a straight line.
I never claimed chase is 'the most fun part of the game'. Mostly the terminally online who Kobe to go next are in that camp. To be fair, also streamers. You can't show your audience your skill effectively when it isn't Micro chase decisions. So they also have cause to love chase the most. A bad Distortion teammate is sadly 10x more common (in my matches on both sides) than the good one.
In the Wesker game, they disliked you long before they knew you had Distortion. That means they didn't make that decision based on Distortion, but your actions up to that point. Sometimes you get people who throw because they wanted to heal themselves, sometimes you get people who 'retributively' throw due to some perceived slight (real or imagined).
Also the scoring system isn't necessarily the best metric. If someone gets stuck in chase the entire match say player 1, and players 2 and 3 take turns giving them a Bloodlust 2/3 Protection hit, and player 4 sits on gens, co-oping with 2&3 as they cycle in and out, player 1 did the most for the match and had the least points, where player 4 gets maxed co-op gens, maxed co-op heals, and presumably got some endgame chase points for bodyblocking to the exit. Points isn't an accurate metric for team escape value. It is an accurate metric to see if someone 'even got to play the game', as anyone with sub 10K BP (when trying) is clearly a victim of bad design.
People aren't witchhunting the perk, they rage at bad teammates. Bad teammates whose MMR is inflated by Distortion (or more accurately the playstyle empowered by Distortion), are sadly, the most common users of the perk. The PTB Distortion is fine, because you block an aura, then you can take a chase/hook and get it back.
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I'm a staunch advocate for Distortion, but anything more than a maximum of 3 tokens is definitely going to be unfair. No matter how they're earned.
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First of all, you're making a lot of assumptions for someone who wasn't in the match and didn't see the egc or scoreboard. So feel free to relax on judging my playstyle which you've never observed.
Second, when I spoke on people who say 'chase is the most fun part of the game' I never specifically named you. I just happened to be quoting you at the time to make my other points. As I said above, I can't make that assumption until you say so. On the subject of taking chase, you aren't even beginning to factor in how soloq typically functions, or a tunneling killer.
The idea that the scoreboard doesn't matter is an entirely separate debate I won't get too much into as this thread is about Distortion. Someone hiding in a locker for 20 mins isn't going to get 25k+ points in the match. Someone with less than 10k better have been tunneled out, and early. That says all I need to say, considering the stereotype of Distortion users is they do nothing but hide.
In the case of the match I mentioned, the first gripe the teammate had was that they couldn't wait for Distortion to get nerfed. And aside from them 'not liking the way I saved them', all they cried about in egc was Distortion. They didn't even glance at the scoreboard to see my overall contribution was MUCH higher than theirs in points, and that the killer also had ZERO aura reading perks.
This is what's called irrational hatred. As with many who want to see this perk completely gutted, there's rarely any solid, verifiable logic to back it up. The logic to back up the existence of this perk can be seen by anyone in the neverending slew of aura reading perks that keep getting cranked out. There are so many apologists for killers being able to read auras all match long and how they're missing a chance to bring gen regression, etc by bringing an aura reading perk. The chances of a killer getting zero usage out of an aura reading perk are incredibly low. Very rarely is an entire squad running Distortion simultaneously. But in running Distortion, a survivor has a HUGE chance to get zero value for an entire perk slot they could have used for chase perks or gen progress perks.
As I don't have access to BHVR's stats on the MMR of Distortion users (or anyone else's mmr, for that matter) it would be disingenuous to assume a single perk has artificially inflated anyone's MMR. So I'm not even going to touch that talking point.
Anyone taking a glance at the PTB Distortion can tell this isn't balance. Jumping in front of the killer in order to have a chance to hide one time later isn't stealth gameplay. PTB Distortion is basically just 'anti lethal pursuer'. Very rarely were the subsequent tokens I earned in chase very useful. One use of Nowhere to Hide and the perk is just gone until I magically win a chase and disappear, or take another hook state. It's a joke.
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I think it should start with three tokens, the same as it does now. In the span of two minutes you can have Lethal, NTH and Gearhead proc and be completely out of tokens.
That said, I still think chase is the least healthy and logical way to recharge a stealth perk. 50% gen progress is a better way to get teammates working the objective while they're off the killer's radar.
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I have enough hours in the game to have a taste for how many types of matches shake out. Neither of us can 100% know how each other's matches turn out without video evidence though.
For taking chase and soloq tunneling, I very much was taking that into consideration. When 1-3 People have Distortion, it makes it all the easier for Killers to tunnel, since they go 'well I guess I didn't see anyone else, time to go back to hook'. Turbo-tunnelers will tunnel regardless, and the 8-hook chads will throw to find their 8 hooks, but most normal Killers have increased rates of tunneling in matches with Distortion.
You were using scoreboard as a counterclaim against hiding, and all I showed was that it is still possible to play in a manner that tops the charts while providing minimal value. It is also possible to be the theoretical 17 chase, 800% gen progress, 6 unhook, 35 heals, top the charts while doing everything. It just isn't a good metric for anything other than lack of game participation.
In the match, is there text or voice chat? So the first gripe was likely there long before you had a chance to hear it. It could have been 'garsh darn Killer is being a meany pants', then they falsely or accurately assumed someone else was the cause. If you had 0 hooks and everyone else was death hook, they would have good cause to not like the probable playstyle imparted by Distortion, or alternatively shared by many users of Distortion.
It isn't necessarily irrational hatred, it can be basic stereotyping. We developed pattern-seeking brains for our survival. We stereotype frequent occurrences to act similar ways. I don't re-analyze a chair each time I see an object with 4 legs and a back, or a gas powered vehicle with 4 wheels, I see a chair and car, and utilize that information. There is a reason the phrase 'Distortion Rat' exists, and while it is possible that 4 legs + back is actually a folding table instead, or 4 wheeled gas powered vehicle to be 5ft long and likely a go-kart, most times it is simply a chair and car. I do think the excessive calls to its nerfs are silly, and the PTB proposed version still works very well (and better in some cases). Distortion being a wasted perk is the chance ran with nearly all perks. Exhaustion into Mindbreaker, UB into no slugging, OTR/DS into no tunneling, healing into Plague, and so on. It isn't unique to Distortion.
You don't honestly believe the MMR inflation bit is false do you? You think a Killer using the strongest gen slowdown perk isn't going to win more matches than the (equal skill) Killer who didn't? You think someone running Sole Survivor and/or Wake Up doesn't have greater chances of getting a gate escape? Distortion makes that Survivor among the last to die, which highly increases the chances of a gate escape over everyone who didn't bring it.
Distortion now serves a different role in a stealth kit. It basically protects you from 1 normal event, or a chase event. With Zenshin Tactics and I'm All Ears both getting buffed somewhat recently, this still provides that valuable counter to them. Plus OTR is still available for off the hook aura protections. Shadow-Step is still available to protect the entire team against aura reads. Sole Survivor still helps when someone is turbo-tunneled.
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