The design issue with Invocations (And Boons too)
So the first invocation to be released was a flop. Now we have the second invocation and I can see the same problem occurring as with Boons.
So the new invocation requires the following:
- 60 second invocation time
- Has to be done in basement
- Can only be used once per match, even if more survivors bring it
- Renders the initiator broken, permanently
In the perk updates, it mentions that Weaving Spiders had its description updated to match this one, and I figure this means that this cements the list above as a baseline for all Invocations going forward.
And that is a problem.
60 seconds of AFK time, in a very high risk spot, with permanent broken on the tail end is a colossal investment and risk. Up until Weaving Spiders, not a single perk had as steep an investment cost as this. The only perk that comes close is No Mither, and it's considered a joke perk for the entire community. These are worse. But when Weaving Spiders inevitably flopped, there was still plenty of opportunity to make something of the concept of invocations.
Weaving Spiders ran into the problem that a 60 second investment + perma-broken is such a heavy drawback and investment that, in order for the perk to not be offensively bad, the trade-off on the other side had to be of colossal value. And the problem with that is, that such a trade-off would likely be horrid to play against.
So Weaving Spiders got chucked in the trash bin. Which in and of itself isn't a problem, it was your first time trying anything like this.
But that excuse doesn't fly for the new trainwreck of a perk because you specifically kept the design constraints that made Weaving Spiders such a nightmare. And worse, you cemented them for the entire genre of perks!
You could have made an Invocation that takes 30 seconds to cast.
You could have made an invocation that slows your gen progress by 20% as a trade-off.
You could have made an invocation that intermittently shows your aura to the killer as a trade-off.
Anything to lower the investment cost and make the perk more balanceable, but you stuck to the wrong part of the perk. You took the thing that made Weaving Spiders an unfixable mess, and set it in stone.
And this is a problem with Boons too. The only one you managed to get any mileage out of was Circle of Healing, and that was just because it offered meaningful value to offset the investment cost. But the parameters of 14 seconds set-up time and 24 meter radius, which worked for CoH, simply don't work for the other Boons.
You could fix things by changing the radius from perk to perk, or giving each perk a different set-up time and making sure that stacked boons always take the worst parameters to prevent stacked perks from over-synergising.
But instead, you set the investment cost and restrictions in stone, which creates design constrictions that render Boons effectively unusable as a perk type, even if it's not to the same degree as Invocations.
No perk you make with the kind of investment requirement that an Invocation has will ever be balanced or healthy for the game. If you do not scrap that list up there, of those four bullet points, don't bother trying to come up with any other idea for an Invocation perk. It will be a guaranteed waste of time.
You have to relieve those boundaries if you want to be able to create any other entries in these categorical perks that are worth the development time.
Comments
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Invocations really feel like they were designed by the Forums Council of Killer Mains and simply released based on the whiteboard that was produced when asked to design a survivor perk.
They're high risk, little to no reward, and solve more problems for the killer than the survivors. These perks are anti gen rush, cut chases in half, notify the killer that they've been used, and seem to be reluctant to give any meaningful benefit for the effort.
The most powerful effect maybe even possible here is gen progress, and weaving spiders is not even mathematically with it in the current state. That perk literally dumps negatives on the survivor and takes up a perk slot… to undo the base kit nerf to gen speed from two years ago.
It's going to be even worse from there as they release more of these because they seem to be terrified to make the perk do just about anything actually useful (for the survivor).
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to undo the base kit nerf to gen speed from two years ago.You have to stop thinking like this.
If something is changed at basekit, that becomes the new baseline that everything else is intended to be balanced around, for either side.
Otherwise what else do we whine about?
"Oh why isn't there a perk that lets you mori a survivor the first time you down them, to undo the base kit nerf to moris from five years ago?"
Fact is that Weaving Spiders is designed like Potential Energy. It can be a useful tool in the right circumstances, which means it can't be a net positive, otherwise it would be useful in ALL circumstances and would be meta. The positive effect is the instant and unremovable repairs, that's the choice you're making.
60 seconds of investment time where you're theoretically safe (you're not on a gen so the killer won't encounter you on patrols) equals 50 seconds of instant repairs. That's fair. Technically 70 but we know those last 2 gens don't count.
Now I agree the permanent broken is too much of a draw back for most survivors to deal with (although staying injured isn't a problem for some). I'd have though something like 60 seconds of broken would be fine.
But the repair/time investment part of the perk is fair and shouldn't be buffed further.
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You're spending the time to make gens only take 80 seconds. This isn't hyperbole, or even complaining. It's literally the same exact timing. Except now it takes an awful perk to use.
I'm not sure why it takes three paragraphs of sarcastic condescension to meta complain about how I said "10 seconds per generator". That's simply a fact. It's also a fact that gens used to take 80 seconds as well.
It's a terrible perk for the current price.
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I don't think Invocations are nearly as difficult to fix as you claim here, but I do agree their current state isn't quite right.
The way I see it, there's two changes that could be made to the shared basekit of Invocations, and then each of the two perks could get a tweak - hypothetically for Treacherous Crows as I haven't tested it yet, but definitely for Weaving Spiders because it's such a gigantic flaw that I'm staggered it's intentional.
The first shared change would be to simply make the Broken effect last until you're next hooked. That way you've got a burst of vulnerability you can't just wait out (unless you're really good at hiding or looping anyways), but you aren't left extremely vulnerable for the entire trial. The current setup time seems right to me, especially for Weaving Spiders and especially considering extra survivors can lower it, and it being in the basement is the perfect intersection of technically risky without actually being all that detrimental to attempt, the basement is considerably safer than most places on the map if the killer's already occupied. Those parameters are fine, it's just the Broken that causes issues, and you only need to relax it instead of scrapping it entirely.
The second shared change is that having both Invocations should mean a single channel time activates both, like boons. This is second hand information as, again, I've not been on the PTB yet, but if that information is accurate it should change.
For the perk specific changes, I'll do Crows first since I'm less sure about it: The terror radius restriction might make it too inconsistent. The actual effect is great, wallhacks for the whole team based on nothing but someone being generally near the killer is pretty solid, but needing to be in the terror radius might make it kinda killer and map dependent. We'll see about that one.
Spiders, though, is obvious, and it's baffling it works this way. Weaving Spiders should absolutely apply to generators that are blocked when it finishes. Doing the channel time and taking the Broken should guarantee the effect, piercing gen block is totally fair in this context.
Those changes made, and Invocations are in a pretty great spot. It's not that hard, but it would require slightly tweaking the shared parameters, you and I agree on that front.
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I think there’s a big hesitancy when creating invocations in the same way there is hesitancy when creating boons or hexes. With nearly any of the three, you need to run more than one for any single one of them to be viable. They need to be able to provide more value than a standard perk, and right now most of them don’t. The value just isn’t comparable. The requirements are too strict, counters too easy, and their effects are too niche, making it difficult to get consistent value from them in casual play without dedicating an entire build to it.
Would love an improvement to invocations, boons and hex totems all around.
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It doesn't matter what gen times used to be. They could have been 40 seconds or 120 seconds.
The value of the perk is 60 seconds of investment for 50 seconds of instant guaranteed repairs. That's the equation.
Evaluating this value based on what used to be is meaningless. Trying to reframe it as "it ONLY makes it NORMAL again" is obfuscation.
The terrible part may well be the broken status, but the time investment and pay off is not the issue.
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So, one thing that shouldn't be same with every Invocation, is the downside.
For Weaving Spiders, it should be Exposed (same result as the current effect, but without extra easy tracking)
And for Treacherous Crows, it should be permanent Oblivious.
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I mentioned it in an earlier thread, but I would have loved to have heard the discussion when designing these invocations. I'd really be curious how they thought games played out that the trade off listed was anywhere close to the reward received. And as the OP kind of mentions, any reward to justify such a huge trade off would probably by itself be game breaking.
I agree its a horrible idea to have a standardized set of costs for all invocation perks. Invocations are a neat concept, but the cost needs to be able to fluctuate with the benefit. The stackability and standardization of boons causes huge problems and BHVR can avoid that problem right now.
60 seconds of investment time where you're theoretically safe (you're not on a gen so the killer won't encounter you on patrols) equals 50 seconds of instant repairs. That's fair. Technically 70 but we know those last 2 gens don't count.If you happen to spawn right by the basement. But if you don't, you have to get to the basement, likely passing gens on the way, and potentially being spotted by the killer, and then suddenly the basement is not a safe space to be.
Now I agree the permanent broken is too much of a draw back for most survivors to deal with (although staying injured isn't a problem for some). I'd have though something like 60 seconds of broken would be fine.This part kind of overrides everything else, because its a huge part of what is being discussed in the thread.
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Crows could easily remove the in TR part and it'd be more fair for permeant broken and 60 seconds of time investment.
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I'm so sorry I put two and two together.
If they released a perk for killers that made hook stages 60 seconds for the rest of the match on the condition that the killer stood afk at an exit gate for 30 seconds, do you really think people would say,
"Oh look, 60 seconds hooks. That's interesting. I wonder how that could affect gameplay, and this perk is definitely worth trying. It could really impact the balance of the game to have this in play"
Or would people just look at it and go, "oh, that's it? We already had this once, and it really isn't worth that cost to go back to it again"
Because apparently you expect the first response, and anyone who says the latter is being unreasonable somehow.
Noting that we already had this effect, but now I have to use a perk and work for it isn't unreasonable. This really smacks of devs "manufacturing a problem and then selling the solution" to players.
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I said it on the PTB feedback for Weaving Spiders that the concept is fundamentally flawed. This kind of huge risk / huge reward perk simply doesn't work.
The effect would need to outweigh the risk by far, which would render the perk overpowered. They can make any changes that they want but as long as the core design remains the same, Invocation perks will never be in a good place.
The solution is not to carefully adjust the risk and reward but to make drastic changes. First off: stop it with the basement. Survivors do not want to be in the basement for any reason. Second: 60 seconds afk is neither good nor fun. That needs to be way less.
To balance that out the effects can't be quite as strong but these perks would be way more interesting, if there were more places around the map to perform an Invocation with smaller yet useful effects. Something like a one time use that would be triggered by running through the circle once it's active.
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Selling you a solution...... two years later? After a certain point you have to accept those changes are just the baseline now. Your logic doesn't track for anything at all.
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We already have exactly this for killers.
Hooks now take 70 seconds instead of 60.
Monstrous Shrine reduces hook time by 20%.
It doesn't matter. It's still reducing hook times by 20%. Because hook times aren't going back to 60 seconds any time soon. 70 seconds is the new baseline. 70 seconds is what we have to work with. Whining and crying and having tantrums about it isn't going to make them faster.
Your entire "argument" is nothing but myopic nostalgia. Repeating the same logical fallacies isn't going to convince me you're right.
You can either play around 90 second gens and 70 second hooks, and use the tools we have available for them. Or you can cry about it. The only person affected, is you. Take this as advice.
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I don't think you quite get my point.
With the 60 second investment and the perma-broken state being set in stone, we already know that future Invocation perks will have the same investment and cost. Whatever invocation comes out next will also take 60 seconds AND renders the initiator permanently broken.
The issue I'm pointing to is that there's no effect that can be put opposite that which will actually make the perk worthwhile, without also royally pissing off the killer playerbase.
So the effect that gets put in will be pretty much guaranteed to be way too weak to pay off the 60 second + Permabroken cost. That's the problem with the design constraints they've chosen.
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Anytime I see no mither or innovations perks as killer am happy as a child in a candy store. When I see someone with it on my team all I can do is sigh for the entire match or mmhmm every second. Just delete these innovations perk please scrap them.
On the boon part they simply can increase boon radius abit and reduce blessing to about 10 seconds. Shadow step illumination and expo is great specially expo vs twins omg for once I was glad during chaos shuffle I had got it because these twins was bad at catching people and had crutch ED and was trying to down everyone and expo actually came in clutch and we still got a 4S. Circle of garbage and dark garbage is the two worst boons ever I cant stand when someone brings those two.
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The should scrap the 60 seconds in the basement idea at this point id rather give a hook state for the incredibly mid effect
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This but also it already has another big design flaw survivors moving around the map disturb crows 4 times as much and if the killer is chasing someone the survivor will remove any crows in the area first. Its in incredibly mediocre effect when you think about it
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The design issue with boons and invocations is that they take just enough time to where it's game-throwing as solo if the players don't take advantage of them/use them smartly, but to where the time sunk is inconsequential to an efficient SWF. That's literally it. I haven't thought about it before, but maybe if they ever did a SWF gen speed nerf, they should do the same for blessing/incitation'ing.
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Absolutely not. We would never create a perk that straight-up puts BNP on all gens, or creates permanent, team-wide old Object. They're scared to make these perks more powerful than they are, because they'd probably be broken, especially by SWF, who y'all keep leaving out of the conversation. It's not always a killer dominating over 4 lost solos. If you don't know how to run a killer while injured, then don't try to use the perk that makes you broken!
Btw, reverting the gen time nerf would fundamentally destroy this game for killer in its current state. Killer has to rely on survivors not knowing how to run loops, drop chase with those who do, and tunnel out the weak link. That strategy barley gets good killers (vs good survivors) draws now. There's no time to get 6 hooks (even on just 2 survivors), before 5 gens are done, and still hope to hook/kill a 3rd, unless the survivors screwed up because the math/race against time is totally in their favor. 80-second gens would make it to where any half-decent team could always beat a good killer with meta perks, because the game would be over so fast. We almost have that right now!
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It does get tiring talking about what stuff used to be, even coming from someone who makes those comparisons all the time.
To me, a 10-second "loss" in time to help the rest of the team out on all gens is more than worth it. So the Broken status is the thing that makes it "bad." But if it wasn't there, I think we'd see tons more people using it. Like I said elsewhere on here, just don't use the perk that makes you Broken if you can't handle being in that position. It's why some SWFs still use 1 No Mither person on their team, not because it permanently injures them, but because of the benefit, because of HAVING to be hooked, if not tunneled out, in the case of a killer going for a mass slug.
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I hope you're not suggesting swiffers co-operate on the ritual...
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To be fair, that in particular isn't the worst idea, but only if you're in a four-man.
Two players with the Invocation makes the channel take 30 seconds, during which time the other two players can make sure the killer is occupied. One of the Invocation players can have a build to increase their survivability with the permanent Broken (which would be even less necessary if that downside actually changed), the other can have a normal build otherwise, and the whole team can coordinate to protect the Broken survivor if necessary. Is it a gimmick? Sure, but it does still actually give a benefit overall.
It's solo queue who absolutely should not cooperate on the ritual, they get less benefit and can't coordinate builds to complement doing it this way.
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Boons by themsleves are fine, with Illumination and Dark Theory being outliers.
And Invocations should:
a) Have different drawbacks attached to them based on the reward you get from them ( not broken every time)
b) Have joining in make the effect better, not shorten the ritual.
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Boons were busted because they could be infinitely relit and CoH was a problem, make the Killer boon kick perk basekit you can now freely buff boons again.
Invocations either drastically reduce the invocation time or remove the broken tradeoff.
Tada I made these two usable again without the BS annoyance of the two now they can be improved over time
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Honestly I keep saying it, make the broken last a minute or something, thats more than enough punishment for spending 60 seconds in the most dangerous spot in the entire map LOL
Like why give Sable a healing perk, ontop of that I noticed that originally Wicked was supposed to cleanse debuffs, was this supposed to work with invocations…?
But yes, lose the perma broken, it's already a vulnerable enough situation for goodness sake.
We have had to put up with so many new meta killer perks recently, can we at least have a patch where we get something cool and unique to play around with before we realise it may have been too strong, let these perks fly for a bit STOP UNDERTUNING THEM.
Like you really think the sales of the 4 versus the sales of the 1 are more profitable? LMAO1 -
Swiffers shouldn't either. Every further survivor on that ritual is a further decrease in efficiency, be it in extra perk slot costs, or time. One person soloing the ritual is the best it's gonna get, and that's still godawful.
Boons were busted because they could be infinitely relit and CoH was a problem, make the Killer boon kick perk basekit you can now freely buff boons again.
You can't, for roughly the same reason that Invocations are in the trash bin so long as the 60 seconds + permabroken requirements are integrated for the entire category.
To have a perk that is locationally dependent, requires a pretty hefty time investment to set up, can only be used, at max, five times (With that time investment being further exacerbated every time) on top of running the risk of Pentimento, the effects of these perks would have to be so wildly powerful that killers are guaranteed to practically DDOS the forums to complain. And they likely wouldn't even be wrong to.
The more disadvantages you stack on a perk, the more powerful the benefit has to be to offset it and make the perk balanced. But the more powerful the benefit, the more it twists gameplay around itself, which is likely to lead to unhealthy design.
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This is an example of someone who understands something well enough to point out a issue they have but not understanding things well enough know why they exist first off I'll try to end this argument by stating the obvious no mither is the closest thing you have to an invocation perk as far as risk factor goes and say whatever you want but there is a reason comp players run no mither against certain killers it can give you great value and so can invocation perks they maybe instead of being so survivor minded think about game balance and how broken the perks would be without the risk factor and yes if im playing killer and someone is knocking charges off of every generator on the map I would expect for the interaction time to be at least 60sec like seriously what are you saying make a balanced perk broken?
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It never a dull moment with people always thinking just cause of something bad or niche happens in solo q it dont mean it can be bad or niche and affects swfs too. More funny me and my swfs aint running these rubbish perks.
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This is an example of someone who understands something well enough to point out a issue they have but not understanding things well enough know why they exist
This is an example of someone who is able to read just poorly enough to get haughty about their complete misinterpretation of what is being said.
Seriously, my guy, read it again.
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Invocations are supposed to give strong effects for time investment and a strong downside. Broken is the downside. This one gives everyone mapwide old OoO. Everyone has wallhacks on the Killer all trial. Everyone knows the Killer kicked a gen, all trial. Everyone knows where the Killer always is, all trial.
That's so strong they had to nerf it before. Broken for THIS the rest of the trial is that strong.
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The issue with boons was the infinitely reliting thing if they make the boon kick perk basekit they could buff boons and we could shorten the time to boon as well. Then you can be in the same position as killers except better since you can reactivate your boons 5 times compared to a killer max of 2, pentimento would be an ok risk to boons since killers just force totems cleanses with the perk plaything anyway
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they could buff boons
I don't think you understand.
They couldn't buff boons. Because if these perks are this harshly restricted, the only way to balance that out is to make an appropriately strong effect to counterbalance the drawbacks. But any effect strong enough to balance out those drawbacks would immediately spark outrage in the killer community.
Either the drawbacks outweigh the benefits, or there will be complaints until it does.
Fewer drawbacks makes it easier to balance it out without complaints.
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Literally 1 boon was wildly op and that was COH heck they could bring back old CoH and buff the others as long as the boon kick became basekit speaking as a killer main
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