General Discussions
General Discussions
I Feel Like Distortion Has Permanently Affected How People Perceive Aura Reading
Distortion use to be really damn good at countering Aura Reading but it reached the point to where I use to see at least 2-3 per game, and it basically trained me to never really use Aura Reading perks since they were often not even really needed half the time and I didnt want to waste perk slots for something that got easily countered.
In the same regard, Distortion was also bad for the game. While it let weaker Survivors hide and as opposed to being tunneled or repeatedly hooked, more Killers just ran slowdown, or the change in information changed the flow of hook states leading to some Survivors who didnt bring the perk dying early.
But I think Distortion being "meta" has altered how Aura Reading is perceived, since a majority of threads of Aura Reading seem to be asking for nerfs now that Distortion is nerfed without consider why Aura Reading is the way that it is.
Let's take a perk like BBQ for example.
- You can hide in a Locker to avoid it, and is often really well telegraphed based on the Killer's behavior.
- You can use the Aura Reading to your advantage by running one direction for the duration and then doubling back and running the other direction, using the information against the Killer and baiting them into a checking the wrong part of the map.
- It has a range requirement meaning you can counter it by hovering the unhook or by sitting in the Killer's Terror Radius (for most Killers).
- A lot of Killers cannot use the information to its greatest effect.
- Encourages spreading out hooks by giving the Killer information on what chase to take next.
- Tons of counter-play and new ways of playing is introduced for both sides.
And Ive seen people ask for BBQ to get nerfed because "Distortion got nerfed" and/or "it disrupts stealth too much".
As well, I think people forget that other perks counter Aura Reading. Boon: Shadow Step can be an amazing tool for you and your team but it often gets slept on despite the effect for it being really good for stealth playstyles.
Lockers are also a free-basekit way of dealing with Aura Reading. It does not work for all perks and/or situations, of course, but it can help with stealth playstyles without sacrificing perk slots and is not recognized as much as it use to.
Also, Distortion in its current state isnt that bad either. While it is weaker than it was before, you are still able to leverage it to take chases based on your own terms as opposed to whenever the Killer feels like it. The token system does require you to take chase to gain tokens, which isnt the best for new players, but experienced players can leverage it much easier.
Comments
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Yeah, they didn't "destroy" Distortion, as people claim. They changed its activation condition to be chase-based, which forces you to have SOME interaction with the killer to get your stealth perk, instead of hiding in terror radius which was just a perpetual feedback loop of stealth.
I must remind people that most good survivors really don't care if the killer sees their aura. They don't care at all, because they know that if the killer comes they can simply loop them. They might not be invincible, and may go down eventually, which is bad for them if they're on death hook. But otherwise, it's as I say: Just because the killer sees you doesn't mean he gets you (at least not in a reasonable amount of time).
If the devs wanted to introduce the eyeball notification from 2v8 to the main game, the one which tells you when the killer can see your aura, I'd be for that as long as the "Get rid of killer aura reading, full stop!" complaints come to an end. Because you can't justify killer aura being weaker or more restrictive than it is now. I just don't understand why survivors become completely incapacitated in the face of simply being seen. 🤷♀️ What do you do when that happens in other games, exactly?
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distortion is pretty useless now. stealth is like worse state that it has ever been in 8 years. virtually deleted from the game.
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We must be amazing survivors then if we could do stealth before and after distortions nerf
For the topic: probably true. We saw a lot of people say aura reading is weak in our discord before and now they're complaining like the forums about wanting random (to us anyway) nerfs to aura reading. Does this mean we can call crutch and not be mocked?
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Not for me. Information perks are my bread and butter. Distortion wasn't a big deal either. Those token did run out. While auras are nice there are many ways in finding survivors without them too.
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BVHR nerfed early game and mid-game stealth but made end game stealth the most annoying it has ever been for killer. i hate playing games as killer where i win super fast and than you have last two survivors that stop doing the objective and prologue the game 20+ minutes by hiding in lockers or going in obscure parts of the map.
they nerfed the wrong type of stealth. the stealth that was related towards finishing gens is fairely irrelevant while the annoying stealth exists.
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The perk seems like a worse version of OtR now. Kinda pointless for most players. Even Sole Survivor provides more consistent aura blocking.
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Distortion was forver on my self ban list, for creating bad habits and also creating as many problems as it solved.
I like the fact now I can use Distortion to decipher killer Aura Reading perks and add-ons, without simultaneously throwing a middle finger at my death hook teammates unless I do a literal mating dance under the killers nose.
I also like the fact it's value is similar for both SoloQ and SWF, where you need to take chase to reap the benefits, aligning the perks value to similar conditions for both.
Perk is still perfectly good, but people are still trying to boycott it cause it isn't the unga bunga brain dead perk it was before. Players who want to play more stealthily can use it as a perfectly good perk to assist in that goal... if they'd stop protesting it's rightful nerf and refusing to use it... but you know... horse to water and all that.
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Means it's not virtually deleted then does it? :)
Snark aside it's still practically the same stealth throughout the trial. Your just as easy to sneak around mid just like the end and beginning (which is where the distortion nerf is actually felt in our opinion).
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They destroyed distortion as a means of countering the killers who make aura reading really oppressive, mainly nurse but there's one or two others who fit into this category as well
I think they went too far, personally but same time most of the cast can't always capitalise on aura perks and some outright need the info. In terms of trade off, it's not too bad. I just wish aura reading had more counters so Nurse with aura perks had some actual counterplay but that's just Nurse in general I suppose.
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I still consider pre nerf distortion to be one of the unhealthiest perks for the game. Enforced stealthing therefor I go back to hook because clearly you or your team doesn't want to be chased and want it to be a 3v1 asap because I'm not gonna spend 30 seconds at each generator trying to look around while others are being progressed.
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Distortion wouldn't have been a problem if survivors know they are revealed; to be frank, newer age aura perks like Nowheelre to Hide are quite frankly ridiculous.
HHiding Is a bad habit, but so is never using your situational awareness because you can just kick gen. Stealth is the only thing that keeps nurse/ blight in check on bad maps.
It cuts both ways, but it's the survivors fault
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Not that I disagree, but Nurse being only tempered by a particular perk, that not everyone will run, so you end up with the problem she smokes everyone not running Distortion and you lose anyway... is not a good reason to keep Distortion the way it was.
I haven't found many people who disagree that Nurse should be blinded while charging blinks and blinking, since once you have the muscle memory an aura is basically a guaranteed hit on Nurse. Being blinded would ensure she still has to play her unique mind games... which would he the healthiest state overall instead of basically making Distortion mandatory against her, while simultaneously making all other killers have no reason to run an aura perks due since Distortion renders it useless anyway (hello gen regression meta).
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same here broski
i run aura perks on EVERY killer and I actually didn't like the distortion nerf because there was less difficulty to finding survs since they ran into chase on purpose to get downed before they got a single stack
i personally would rather the old distortion AND old dh because its actually very easy to bait it
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- Distortion was never Meta
- 3 tokens were useless against stealth killers like Wraith & Myers with All-seeing blood and scratched mirror because of the constant wall hacking and no token to refill without a consistent terror radius
- 3 tokens were useless against an aura build consisting of Lethal Pursuer, Barbecue, Darkness Revealed, Alien Instinct, Bitter Murmur, Floods of Rage and all the killer aura reading add-ons
- 3 tokens in general were not that great unless a survivor was actively staying in the killer’s terror radius to refill
Aura perks for BOTH killer and survivor need to be removed. It feels cheap to play against. We should not get outplayed because our opponents saw us through a wall. That’s lame asf. Dark Sense, Object, Fogwise, Key-add on, Alert, and all the ones I mentioned above and did not list here, remove em all. The game can still evolve without having to remove the skill value and hand each side a gimme.
Like I said in the other Aura thread- what’s the number one hack (yes even over godmode) when players cheat in a multiplayer game? Wallhacks. Why? Because it gives the best advantage over your opponent allowing you to see them and they can’t see you. Is that fair? No. Cheap as hell. Get rid of em for the health of the game.
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If the Distortion nerf was going to happen anyway, I think the change was a bit overdone. I do like the suggestion that a survivor gets notification if they have been revealed. BHVR might like that just to cut down on the erroneous reporting of hacks.
One option to bring some function back might be to make it operate like Lethal Pursuer - block aura 1st time as it currently does, then afterward shortens aura read by 2 seconds until it has been recharged in chase.
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In my opinion, the Distortion change was the most annoying change ever made but also one of the best change the developers did. Many players said that with the Distortion nerf killers will get a terrible time because now players use different perks but I haven't notice it while SoloQ feels slightly better. Sure there are players who use Sole Survivor to keep their rat life but overall, players use better perks. The next step would be to rework selfish perks like Sole Survivor and Left Behind and turn them into healthy and good SoloQ perks.
The only aura perk that could be say is problematic is No Where To Hide (needs to be based around the gen and not around the killer) but every other aura perk is healthy for the game. Some players just hate aura reading. They don't really have an objective reason for it - it's just a personal think. They blame perks like BBQ and FTTE which are really healthy perks for the game because they encourage the killer to hook and go for different survivors. I saw also players complain about LP even though this perk only gives you value at the start and the start is the strongest moment for survivors - every pallet is up and it is up to them to go to a safe place when the killer comes close to them. Aura perks just tell you where they are but don't down survivors for you and there are plenty of counters to them.
Also, Distortion in its current state isnt that bad either. While it is weaker than it was before, you are still able to leverage it to take chases based on your own terms as opposed to whenever the Killer feels like it. The token system does require you to take chase to gain tokens, which isnt the best for new players, but experienced players can leverage it much easier.
It is the same with Adrenaline and MFT. After their nerfs, many people called them bad even though these perks are still good - just no longer insane free and strong. MFT pairs really well with DH, OTR, or a Stiptic, is strong against Legion, Deathslinger, and Houndmaster while can come handy in slugging situations. Adrenaline is still useful to greed a generator and to extend a chase by a lot in the endgame which is often the weakest moment for survivors. Distortion is still good to prevent an early chase due to LP when you have Deli and can protect you later in the game.
While it let weaker Survivors hide and as opposed to being tunneled or repeatedly hooked
I've never understood this statement. Distortion does not protect you from tunnling. DS, OTR, Blood Rush, Babysitter, BT can protect you but not Distortion. If the killer wants to tunnel, they will tunnel and also never use aura reading perks. If you tunnel, you use genslowdown to get a fast 3v1 situation with more than 3gens. This situation is only possible with gen slowdown - PainRes and GE for the first hook, then go to a nearby gen and kick it with Pop. Then come back to the hook and wait. I know this is not your statement, but still, I never understood it.
If the devs wanted to introduce the eyeball notification from 2v8 to the main game, the one which tells you when the killer can see your aura, I'd be for that as long as the "Get rid of killer aura reading, full stop!" complaints come to an end. Because you can't justify killer aura being weaker or more restrictive than it is now. I just don't understand why survivors become completely incapacitated in the face of simply being seen. 🤷♀️ What do you do when that happens in other games, exactly?
The main reason why the developers added the eyeball notification in 2v8 is because 2v8 is very chaotic and the developers wanted an easier time for the players. In theory and praxis you don't need it because you know when your aura gets revealed. But I highly doubt players will stop complaining about aura reading if they add this feature into the normal 1v4. I had players who complained about FTTE even though this perk let's you know when your aura gets revealed and it also tells you it is in play due to Obsession switch, screaming, exposing, and notification.
This is not true. Distortion is still a good perk and now healthy for both sides. On top of that, we also have many other stealth perks such as Lucky Break, Iron Will, Bite The Bullet, and Lucky Star. Stealth is neither bad nor deleted from the game. People just are bad at stealth and want it rather basekit than building with it. If you run one of these different stealth perks, many killers will hit off guard because they are not familiar with them. Same goes for survivors when the killer uses different perks instead of Pop, PainRes, or GE. This is also something I noticed during Chaos Shuffle, players get hit off guard by perks they are not familiar with while feeling lost when they don't have their typical perks like WoO. I don't want to say it's a bad thing but rather players need to go out of their comfort zone and test things out because you see the true value of some things no in the text but in the game.
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it's important to distinction between stealth and juking. stealth is avoiding the chase. Juking is form of looping for survivor that revolves around misguiding the killer to go in one direction in order to gain distance.
Iron will, Diversion, Lightweight, Lucky break and Deception are examples of juking perks. While juking can involve stealth within them, it is often not the primary focus. they're like chase perks that have gamble in gaining distance with some risk.
Stealth perk are perks that specific aim to avoid the killer. From winning stand-point, the objective is for killer to patrol a gen, see someone is working on it and than not find them, often look for a survivor to find no one there.
examples of such perks are Low profile, Spine chill, Distortion, Urban Evasion, Calm spirit, Fixated, Lightfooted and Red hearing. it is not that people want stealth perks base-kit but rather stealth perks are bad and stealth is unrewarding.
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BBQ got released almost 1.5 years before Distortion and people knew how to counter it.
People have gotten lazy these days and will blame anything and anyone for their mistakes + asking for Nerfs for anything they personally consider problematic.
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Why even bring BBQ as an example as literally noone ever complained about it cause its not that bad to play against as all those other aura reveals your just have no idea that theyre happening and therefor cant be countered unless you had distortion. The distortion hate was just strawhat arguments of killers to get the perk nerfed by saying "ah yes its really bad if the last to second hides all the time". With this stupid logic they got the perk killed as well as the whole stealth game.
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This is incredibly disingenuous.
BBQ has a tell. The survivor gets downed, then the next obvious action is carried to hook. Especially when this was one of maybe 4 aura perks and was a hard meta perk 3 or so years ago, you could pretty easily get to a locker and count out the time before getting out.
Today, there's a ton more aura perks now on a huge list of triggers. Almost none of these newer perks have a similar tell for players. You simply can't predict that the killer is opening a locker across the map, kicking a gen upstairs, or even that your teammate is unhooking. It's physically impossible to both be in a locker and hitting a great skill check on a generator, which is another trigger now.
There's also nothing, except distortion to even tell you that these perks are in play.
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Whew sorry that this may be the longest I ever written but like let us stop pretending that aura reading is not very problematic and does make games for killers easier like 90% of the time. Nurse is not the only one that is a problem with it, any killer can be. This topic reminds me of iron will being 75% only reduction still being said=its still good=no one use it. adrenaline=I see no one use it. mft= I still see no one use this. coh=I see no one use this either. Topics like those or what I call the rub it in your face topics.
Before distortion was even meta it was not run alot even when it got change to being charge. the SPIKE in it started happen when that tin can 0 skill killer call knight came with that no skill perk call no where to hide, that is when it started to begin. After that almost every killer behavior has been releasing aura perks and adds on and its very stupid.
Killers want to talk about rat survivors but at the end of the day killers are the lazy ones who cant use their brain cells and thinking skills to find survivors by themselves. Killers got obsessed being given wall hack information that now something came to counter it had them uproar which highly indicates again that many killers was not as skill as they are without aura crutches. Like how did you guys find people before lethal pursuer?
It was either using your own senses of map knowledge or using two perks spies from shadows/whispers which btw ofc counter distortion but ofc to killers it they too niche or garbage similar how we say unbreakable/expo is niche and garbage to counter slugging but we are told to run them. Now there is aura reading perks that is survivors for doing their JOBS and here it is
floods of rage= I unhook a team mate and now the others get shown(bad if someone is in a chase and trying to mind game killer and gets down because it proc to the killer where they was going
nurses= healing one self or team mate=aura is shown
Darkness Reveal=showing a person by lockers=the very same thing killers keep telling us to use but even that now has a perk to show us being by one
No where to hide= kick a gen aura reveal
lightborn=aura shown and immune to all forms of blind= this takes away one of survivors very few defense and its down right stupid and is literally a killers version if distortion some what
Alien instinct= A perk that is like bbq cept instead it procs a injured person+put oblivious on them=a perk made to tunnel apparently so no that is not healthy
Friends till end= Since distortion death this one really has been in WAY too many games of lately, I did 50 matches today and at 45 of them had it and its very annoying as hell. This false claim this perk is healthy is Baloney, switching obsession + showing a scream, Or if obsession become expose+give away aura, not every map has a locker that is close by fyi so dont gimmie that locker excuse.
Human Greed= a perk that shows a survivor by chests
undying=shows people by dull totems
retribution=you cleanse it and has your aura reveal for doing your secondary objective
weave attunement=using up your item and dropping it procs your aura
Predator=you do your JOB to lose the killer in a chase but now it procs your aura for doing your job of looping and mind gaming.
Am all ears =procs your aura for fast vaulting which is doing your JOB of trying to loop the killer
Notice how all these aura perks is punishing all actions that survivors are meant to do and requires 0 input from the killer except for friends till end,bbq and alien instinct where killer has to hook? BBQ is the only healthy aura reading perk in the game I admit and yes survivors complaining on it is wierd but the rest of above no they are all annoying and unfair in everyway because they are punishing survivors=for doing their jobs.
BBQ is the only perk with fair counter vs all of the other perks that has almost no counter play cause you cant tell me to run from north from my gen to south to a locker to dodge nth. I also got a 10x increased hates for huntresses and lost all respect for them because that is all they run is 4 aura reading with that aura reveal add on when hit by hatched. This couple with the fact they gave her that unnecessary buff makes me hate her so much that even winning vs one does not even feel satisfying.
Survivors yes has a aura perks themselves, but aura reading on survivor is so niche and garbage the only 3 worth ones that still no one uses much or at all is kindred, alert and wire tap(am talking perks that give some killer info not perks like woo that give info on pallets and windows. Shadow step like boons is niche and garbage, its ok on 2 story indoor maps which is usually only indoor maps else its garbage as a killer can hear the loud boon and 1 second snuff it. I say all aura reading and add ons need to vanish off killers and survivors and keep only kindred and bbq honestly. Cause on survivor side I HATE bond, that perk 98% of the time is always use by some troll in solo q to sandbag others. By the way rats still exists=without distortion ^^.
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I get about as much use from Distortion as I ever did, mainly because it still gives me a heads up as to what aura perks the killer is running. Blocking the reading is nice, but knowing when you're being seen is almost as useful, at least to me. I'm not bothered by the nerf.
But part of the reason (the biggest part) for why people are viewing aura reading differently is that there is undeniably a ton more of it than there used to be. When I started playing killer years ago, there were a couple of aura reading perks that you'd see with any frequency, and the most popular one (BBQ) was easily counterable (and it still is) because you know when it would proc and could just jump in a locker.
Now though? There are 6-8 strong aura reading perks to choose from, and more middling ones. Seeing a killer running 3-4 aura perks in the past was simply not a thing. Now it's not uncommon. Anyone who runs/ran distortion consistently can tell you that you might have lost all your tokens in the first 30 seconds of a match. You could earn new ones easily enough, but it illustrates just how common aura reading has become.
Not to mention we're seeing a wave of newer killer players who can barely function without constant aura reading.
It's not just that people see aura reading as being different, it is different. And much more prevalent.
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People always complain when you take their crutch mechanics away from them. There are people who still complain about the Dead Hard and Made For This nerfs, and the Eruption and Pain Res nerfs, no matter how deserved they were. So people will still complain about the Distortion nerf o matter how deserved it was. Just another entry on the list of things entitled players will hold a grudge over for the next several years.
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Distortion isn't bad Off The Record is just too good. The only thing that should change with Distortion is specifically killers that can avoid building up chase charges which is mostly just stealth killers such as Wraith and then Nurse who just ends up chasing you for a few seconds. Maybe Distortion could get an additional change that if you are being physically looked at similar to old Spine Chill it builds up charges as well. It would solve a lot of issues the perk has with hit and run and killers who somehow do not activate chase. For the majority of the roster the perk works great - it's specifically a few killers who commonly use aura reading that skip chase all together but still maintain LoS. Huntress, Nurse, Wraith are some small examples I'd give but I genuinely cannot think of another killer outside of those three who are really problematic with aura reading.
And again - Perk itself is good especially now that it forces engagement. It's just a few killers ignoring its mechanics which shouldn't be a thing.
A lot of arguments about when aura reading is and isn't an issue are fair but I feel that's a different topic all together.
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What made the Distortion change so unreasonable is that, way back when, the primary aura reading perks were I'm All Ears and BBQ & Chili. The former requires you to be in chase, effectively, while the latter was specifically designed to give a killer generalised information without guiding the killer to an exact location.
This trend of these perks being designed as info-perks rather than 'Let's just kill stealth' perks died off gradually, and then was found brutally murdered in the alleyway behind the Greenville Square cinema with the release of Nowhere to Hide.
The newer aura reading perks are significantly more blunt about simply showing where survivors are, and that just removed the option of stealth play from the game. A fond memory I have is of the generator on the ship overlooking the swamp, where I used Fixated whenever I saw the killer was on his way back to my generator. Due to the increased movement speed while not leaving scratch marks, I was able to hide outside the usual movement radius and I confused the killer multiple times before he finally started looking around in a wider circle and found me.
Nowhere to hide kills such plays off immediately. As would any other perk that I might accidentally trigger, like walking too close to a totem, or a chest, or a locker, or there being an item dropped somewhere on the map, anywhere.
OLD aura reading perks gave info, but expected the player to act on that info.
NEW aura reading perks just tell you exact location, coordinates, starsign, blood type and shoe size.
This became a problem because stealth just disappeared as a potential playstyle until Distortion got buffed to function as a deterrent again.
And then it got nerfed because it was doing its job. So we not only got major power-creep for killer aura-reading, but then a survivor perk whose only purpose was to counterbalance those perks had to be nerfed to make way for this power-creep.
And now there's only two reasons to pick Distortion over OTR: Deliverance and Shoulder the Burden. Otherwise, much like OTR, Distortion is only going to be active after you're unhooked, and then some time later, it'll turn off, exactly like OTR, and your cheeks will be out in the astral plane winds again.
It's just baffling that we had a situation where no one was complaining, and then killers got massively buffed and to accommodate for those buffs, survivors were nerfed. Either it should've stayed with BBQ & Chili, and aura reading perks should've been specified to their own purposes outside of just auto-finding, or Distortion should've stayed a proper counter.
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It's always like this, when something truly broken exists in the game for a long time.
Players knew how to heal > CoH introduced > CoH nerfed > OMG healing was destroyed into the ground absolutely destroyed no way to play like this!!!!!
Players could define aura perk and choose how to deal with this information > Distortion buffed > Distorion nerfed > OMG aura perks are so unfair there is no way to avoid them!!!!!!!
Players who was good without old DH were in the same place after its nerf, but remember what happened after first nerf? For two month majority of the players learned how to loop. 1k, 3k, 5k survivors, all learned the game all over again. And then picked up DH again, when understood, that it's still one of the best perks.
Kinda same you can say about killers after first Pop and Pain Res nerf, but honestly not so much changed. I mean, there is no better option to slowdown the game anyway.
I swear, if only MFT had lasted longer than 6 months, we probably could see forum full of complains that killers are too fast.3 -
Distortion is about the only real thing that holds back the dam of all the aura reading they've added. OTR helps, but let's be real: the unhook notification and scratch marks pretty much mean you're going to be found off hook if the killer is intent on tunneling you anyway. And that's assuming they aren't already near enough to the hook to just watch you directly.
Aura reading had the issues you mentioned, and is probably the most egregious example in the past couple years. But something similar happened with healing and gen speeds too. Anti-healing had a ton of power creep over a couple years (supposedly to counter CoH), and then CoH got nerfed, and so did medkits. The only change to reign in Anti-healing was the mangled/hemorrhage timer.
Gen speeds were also complained about and Prove and BNP were both nerfed/reworked. At least gen speeds also came with some nerfs to killer regression perks, but holy cow are people upset about that. It's like they wanted gen progress to be nerfed while still having the Cobruption gen kick meta as an option. I'll also point out that things like gen blocking have been buffed, and all of the changes to maps that make map pressure so much easier (if only people understood how map pressure actually works).
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It sounds like you played in a way where the Survivors thought it was worthwhile to make the game long and miserable for you. Maybe reevaluate how you play.
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right. i end up finding the survivor but it's complete waste of time. Stealth in the game works when the game is 100% loss for the survivor.
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I was replying to a comment talking about people complaining about BBQ and how people used to counter it instead of complaining. I wasn't talking about any other Perks.
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Notify players (both surv and killer) when the other side can see their aura.
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All i got to say is- get better at looping. I read in multiple streamers' chats that the ones who talk about aura reading, or complaining in general are just bad at chase. The only ways to get better are watching someone being chased, or to be chased yourself. Its a core aspect of the game. You cant avoid being chased forever. The killer should find you. Thats the reason why distortion got nerfed in the first place because you could hide all match and gain stacks with the old iteration.
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Players could define aura perk and choose how to deal with this information > Distortion buffed > Distorion nerfed > OMG aura perks are so unfair there is no way to avoid them!!!!!!!
Let me correct this timeline a little bit…
) Biggest aura reading perk is BBQ & Chili. It has a clear warning that it's about to be used, it doesn't work on anyone too close to the killer at the time, doesn't last long enough for most killers to go from aura reading to direct LoS.
) Floods of Rage gets released that does the same as BBQ & Chili except survivors can't see it coming unless they're a full 4-man SWF and it has no range restriction.
) Distortion gets buffed.
) Nowhere to Hide gets added, making hiding near gens impossible.
) Friends 'Till the End is added, making stealth impossible for the obsession.
) Weave Attunement is added, giving the killer huge AoE aura reading with no limits.
) Human Greed is added, giving the killer aura reading around chests.
) Distortion gets nerfed.
You missed that a bunch of killer perks were added that massively escalated the power of aura reading. One before Distortion got buffed, and four between that and the subsequent nerf. Killers got a massive power-creep in aura perks that were simply covered up by the existence of Distortion. So is it really any surprise that, upon gutting Distortion, people are frustrated by the overwhelming abundance of aura read?
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You also missed several in between, which only makes the power creep worse.
Alien instinct was also added in there. But also many perks got aura reading added:
Eruption added aura reads in the rework, gearhead buffed, predator now shows auras, zanshin now shows survivor auras as well.
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True, I only looked at new releases, since there's no easy chronological overview of everything. I just know that Distortion got buffed around the release of Dredge, and nerfed shortly after Dracula's release, so I focused on the perks released in and around that time.
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SStealth Also works if thr survivors know you are targeting one in particular (not even necessarily tunneling)
Stealth is technically still superior to looping as stealth uses 0 resources and can be done infinitely if the killer doesn't give it up. Why make noise and loop when you can just gen tap and walk away repeatedly, for example. That way the killer thinks it's their own great idea
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can't stealth when killer has detection perks… a reason why distortion was utilized. stealth has inverse relationship to pre-running. if you pre-run the killer before chase begins, you waste time in looping with certainty. stealth is risk. I am not so sure that pre-running is worse than stealth. Maybe vs killers that counter pre-running like Blight but for most killers, looping is stronger than stealth.
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Back in the days I started to play Nurse's Calling was by far most popular aura thing. It didn't have "clear warning" and we sadly had to use our brain to define it :( Like, you know, killer constantly come to us while we are healing, so he probably has this perk and we probably should not heal at least in his terror radius. I know it's really inappropriate to ask current survivor players to use a tiny part of their brain to actually play the game, take all pros and cons, but it was a thing back in the days, I swear. Currently yeah, got forbid killer's perk makes me uncomfortable and puts me into position that forces me to make some decisions. Immediately nerf!
I'm not that great survivor, but I think I can give you some really helpful advises, if you struggle that much even with perks like Human Great or Weave. It's some old school boring gaming, where you need, you know, build a strategic thinking, play around something instead of run on forum and cry it's uncounterable, accept that perks of other side CAN change the way you need to play in one situation or another. Probably sounds hard, but it's not that hard, when you will start trying to do so, I promise.
NtH: if you hear killer's TR, then run and seat behind your cozy big stone, but killer suddenly comes right into your direction after kicking gen, there is a big chance that killer has this perk. So pro tip here is next time not seat behind your cozy stone, but start preruning as soon as you know that killer goes to your gen. He will kick that gen anyway, so by the time he will use this perk, you already will be outside of its radius.
Friends: It maybe can catch you after first hook in the match, but I will help you with further. Look, if killer hooked obsession and after hooking other survivor screamed and became new obsession, you can with no doubt say that Friends is in play. So if you are obsession and you see your teammate went down, just sit in the locker and after hooking count to 10. Congrats, you just denied value of whole killer's perk! So much on the way!
Floods: this one is a bit harder, but still is not impossible. Remember I told you about Nurse's before? It's kinda the same, but your suspect activation will be if killer comes to you as soon as someone was unhooked. Floods is most popular option on Huntress, so when you assume it's in play, make sure you don't stand in the open space after unhook.
Weave: I honestly don't know where you saw this perk, because it was in matches for first week or two and then everyone learned counterplay and killers stopped to pick it. Now it's on 53th place on NL, right behind Bitter Murmur (another pretty popular perk back in the day without "clear warning", if you need pro tip on this one, it's pretty similiar to Floods, but with another activation. I believe in you! <3 ) But no worries, I will help you with this one! So in 99% you will see this perk in pair with Franklins, because by itself this perk does close to absolutely nothing. So when this perk in play, you can see a little red icon near your perks, and what really useful, devs added aura of item recently, so you can deal with it easier. And after this you should pick this item and put it in the place, where this aura doesn't matter or there will run nobody. Corner of the map, part of the map, where you already did gens, for example. You did it? Great, you waste 15 seconds to deny 2 killers perk!
Human Greed: it similiar to Weave, really. But if there is still a chance you can see Weave into your match, there is more chances to meet Sable player, who look behind in chase, than this perk. So basicly zero. It's on 85th place on NL and it's probably one of the worst perks in the game. But if you still struggle against it, again, no worries, I'm right here for you! Like I said, it pretty similiar to Weave. You see red icon on your screen, when this perk in play, and can just open the chest to deny this aura. But don't really worry about this, there are 3 chests on the map and 1 always in basement, so it's easier to ignore it, you won't be near this chest in this match again probably.
Here we are! If you need help with some other aura perks, please feel free to ask me to help you with it. And don't worry, if aura perks deny your option to stealth, it's fine, whole game based on one side need to take decision based on perks and decisions of other side, this how this game works.
Better question is if killer has so much counterplay to all survivors aura perks like Alert, Troubleshooter, Forwise, Scene Partner etc. But I think it's enough for today, pretty sure it was a lot of new info for you, so I won't complicate it with another hard topic. Hope it will help!6 -
The problem is, thye had to nerf it because too many people were abusing it to just sit in corner and hide and do nothing all round. It became a huge issue if the person had it and they were one of the last two alive. it was also super awful if everyone decided they wanted it as it countered way way too many perks and addons and powers.
Distortion was cool to have, but it was too much and people were not using it properly. So BHVR dd the correct thing and nerfed the thing that made it obnoxious to face.0 -
Your argument seems contradictory. On one hand, you say the perk was beneficial for new players because they often get tunneled or hooked, but then you claim that the nerf hasn't ruined the perk as it just made it chase-based.
So, what exactly happens when someone is being tunneled? What I dislike about the entire Dead by Daylight community is that whenever someone points out the flaws in making the learning curve so steep for survivors, the response is always to watch streamers. I hope those streamers are paying you for all that promotion because they certainly aren't teaching anything.
Post edited by joeyspeehole on3 -
I'm sure you thought you were cooking with this patronising post of yours, but let me turn it on its head for a bit:
Once upon a time, killers were competent enough to find survivors without having them light up like christmas trees all the time. So maybe serve the 'git gud' spiel to the other side of the isle for once, huh?
The problem is, thye had to nerf it because too many people were abusing it to just sit in corner and hide and do nothing all round.
Pretty sure that's something that was invented by killer players who wanted the perk out of the way to make it sound less biased. Think about it, if you want to sit in a corner and do nothing all game, would you rather:
Bring a perk that hides your aura but requires you to be near the killer in order to keep it online
OR
Just pick a pair of lockers at the edge of the map and swap between them?
Because one of the two is more effective and reliable than the other.
Distortion was cool to have, but it was too much
Distortion could only be as much as the aura reading it was blocking, so if Distortion was 'too much', what does that say about aura reading?
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This seems to explain why distortion was essentially removed. Survivor perks are viewed as nerfs to killers, which is why overpowered killers keep being introduced while survivors don't gain much in return.
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I almost never use more than 1 info perk. Same with killers in my games, except some Huntress. But I will take full aura build over slowdowns in any day, when I play survivors, because it's free win, if all survivors don't afraid of chase. Next question?
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Killers who are lazy and have no awareness are also bad at the game thus they relay on aura reads to find survivors same concept.
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Old Distortion basically full-countered entire aura reading builds unless you were a stealth killer or a killer with a small terror radius that made recharging the perk more difficult. It was a one-size-fits-all counter to dozens of perks and addons and was generally able to recharge enough tokens to last all game and never run out most of the time. People got used to being able to hard counter aura reading with just 1 perk that never should've been as effective as it was, which I guess as you mentioned is why aura reading gets perceived differently now.
Even after Distortion's nerf, most aura reading is still completely fine, just as it was prior to Distortion getting buffed into its previous state. There are a few exceptions (I think mainly Nowhere to Hide is a bit overtuned along with a few addons, Rat Poison being one of them until its recent nerf, Black Incense and Cigar Box are also ridiculous), and Nurse in general comes into the conversation too here (aura reading in chase is far too powerful on her, but that's a problem with Nurse as a killer and not the aura reading perks themselves).
Also, you're right - while Distortion is nowhere near as strong as it was before, it's still a decent perk. It just requires you to interact with the killer now in order to continue using it and that's the best change it could've received imo.
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Old Distortion basically full-countered entire aura reading builds unless you were a stealth killer or a killer with a small terror radius that made recharging the perk more difficult. It was a one-size-fits-all counter to dozens of perks and addons and was generally able to recharge enough tokens to last all game and never run out most of the time.
The huge problem with this justification for the distortion nerf is that a nearly identical, but even stronger argument can be made for Lightborn.
You already mentioned that there were situations where Distortion could be played around: stealth killers, lower terror radius, or multiple aura perks that could eat up tokens for examples. Lightborn is also a one-size-fits-all solution to all forms of blinds, has no tokens, and has zero workarounds. It's one of the only "hard counters" that exists in the entire game.
While I think you're right that the distortion nerf isn't as bad as I thought it could be initially, this isn't an argument for why the nerf was justified imo. Or rather, if this is the reasoning the devs used for the distortion nerf, then they really need to take a good, long look at their design philosophy and whether or not they want hard counters to exist in this game.
For clarity: I personally don't see an issue with Lightborn as a perk, but if people are arguing that "one perk shouldn't counter an entire class of perks, items, and abilities" like this, then Lightborn also has to be on the list for consistency.
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By reminding them that Distortion doesn't hard counter any aura perks at all.
Four distortions do. One person not having their aura read 24/7 doesn't mean you're getting zero value from your aura reading perks.
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Got a devils advocate argument if you want something different.
Lightborn stops players from trying to/easily bullying the killer via repeat blinds and progressing the game (in a "timely" manner). When a killer downs someone in the open against a squad of lights, the killer has to chase off (or often enough down) whoever else is nearby. Without lightborn newer killers who are miss matched for whatever reason they can't effectively get hooks while experienced killers have to be slugging (and this time it would be a fair reason) via whack-a-mole in this scenario. Distortion does not do a job like this before or after to our knowledge.
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