http://dbd.game/killswitch
It has been over 3 years already and we still only have 5 boons
What was the point of adding them if you're not gonna expand on the idea or do anything with them for such a long time? You add a general Perk that allows Killers to break boons which was pretty neat, but not add any general boon Perk to Survivors so the Killer Perk could be used at all? So that perk only works on a mechanic locked behind "luck" through the Shrine of Secrets or a DLC…
Then boons get nerfed (rightfully for some), but then the brand new cool general Killer Perk becomes an unusable dead perk in 99% of matches, because nobody just uses those damn boons, and why would they?
I just don't get it, BHVR has so many options to improve upon the Survivor gameplay by expanding on ideas they already have in the game, like boons, breakable walls, teamwork perks, etc…
Anyone can answer this?
Comments
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Boons are a failed new feature, that's the reason why we don't get more I think.
The only good one was Circle of Healing and was nerfed to the ground. The rest are not bad per se but they're too situational to worth a perk slot.
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Yea, if I were to rank them from best to worst, the list would look something like this:
- Boon: Circle of Healing (still the best, which is saying a lot)
- Boon: Exponential (has a chance to be one of the best under very specific circumstances)
- Boon: Shadow Step (always useful)
- Boon: Dark Theory (better with the buff but still kinda mid)
- Boon: Illumination (if you know the maps this boon does nothing)
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I like boons just for something a bit different to do and they can be viable but yes,there needs to be more boons and invocations (but make them better)
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BHVR has a problem with setting special design restrictions for themselves that just render entire concepts needlessly unworkable. Boons, for example, are never going to work that well if every single boon has the exact same set-up time, the exact same radius, works for everyone in the exact same way, and has the exact same thing happen when snuffed.
It's even worse with Invocations, which are hard-locked into all being useless now.
If they gave themselves more wiggle room to experiment, like giving Dark Theory a larger radius, or letting Illumination be set up significantly faster, or shrinking CoH's radius in exchange for a bit of extra speed, they'd have much more space to actually make these perks fit well into the game.
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As others have said, Boons are a failed concept. And I am honestly happy that we dont have any more Boons as long as BHVR is not willing to make Boons actually good. And as long as they dont meaningful improve the current Boons, I also dont want new Boons which are just bad as well. And BHVR clearly does not want to make good Boons after they nerfed CoH into the ground.
IMO the version of CoH before the most recent Nerf was fine. I would say it was a bit too weak already and running around doing Boons was already hurting the team, but it was better than what we have now. (I mean the version which increased healing speed by 50% and let you self-heal with a 50% penalty)
The only thing which Boons needed as a Nerf (on top of Circle of Healing being the version I mentioned) was that they only work horizontally and not vertically. Because Boons being on top floors just double their range basically and it is against the core principle of Boons - that the Killer can snuff it out quickly. If they have to go into one direction to go to some Stairs to then walk some more to snuff out the Boon while the Survivor benefits from it on a different Floor, this is wrong. But this was the only thing which should have been changed.
All Boons across the board need Buffs. And if BHVR wants to do that, they can think about implementing new Boons. But until then, every Boon-Perk is just a wasted Perk Slot or a wasted Perk on a new character.
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The problem is behavior doesn‘t want to reintroduce controversial stuff and boons are exactly that, same with invocations, so they rather abandon them, which is sad.
Shattered hope should have never existed as perk and instead been made basekit, which would have allowed to keep circle of healing and buff the other boon perks.
That are my ideas for boons:
Post edited by Langweilig on-2 -
Boons are best described as a niche perk type best used for SWFs, and since BHVR does not want to make SWFs more powerful but wants to keep them balanced (a 4-man SWF according to their data has a higher likelihood of escape and sometimes even approaches a 50% escape rate if they're one of the rare very coordinated and very good SWFs), Boons gotta be left behind. They're a failed concept unfortunately. Niche.
Hexes are quite similar too - not many Killers can defend a totem well, perks like Hex: Ruin are way better used on Killers with high mobility. Unless you're running something like Pentimento and Plaything together, Hexes are also often not great unless built around. Perhaps they were good when Hag was released, but not anymore.
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Because of how CoH ended up, BHVR started to release perks with really safe and weak values. Every Boon, Teamwork perk or Invocation ended up underpowered. And as such, the community ends up not really caring about them, which then makes the devs not give us more because barely anyone is asking for more.
Another thing is, they really like to dripfeed these perks to us. We still have only 6 Scourge Hook perks, despite the popularity of Pain Res.
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people still want them to be one time use lol
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This is the correct answer. Boons are terrible and there are far better perks to choose from. It’s an interesting concept and I’m glad that BHVR tried it out. I think boons could be worthwhile to run with some buffs, but of course there’s always a delicate balance between making them worthwhile but not OP (as was the case with original CoH).
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Shattered hope should have never existed as perk and instead been made basekit, which would have allowed to keep circle of healing and buff the other boon perks.
Maybe a hot take, but I don't think this is correct, either.
Basekit shattered hope would've made boons as a whole significantly worse, and substantively not worth running. To compensate, you'd have to massively buff boons, but that would likely be pretty awful to play against.
The game just doesn't work well with high investment, high pay-off perks for survivors, because the investment is often out-of-sight-out-of-mind, and the reward would have to be so high that it becomes very in-your-face for killers.
It's the same reason I don't think it's possible to have a good Invocation as long as they're 60 seconds in the basement and perma-broken. Whatever power you put on the other side to balance it out would be way too much for killers.
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Invocations are easy to fix. Make the crow one give you oblivous instead of broken and weaving makes you lose a hook state instead of broken. Then decrease their time a bit and make it possible to do them at the same time at the cost of taking a little bit longer.
Boons are also relatively easy to fix, but you have my discussion linked there if you want to discuss my ideas and I don‘t think my ideas would make boons worse or too op. Just strong and worth running.
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As it turns out, a limited but super powerful effect still is not fun to play against, because it's super powerful, so you can't make them TOO strong or they become really unbalanced. As I pointed out Hex perks have this same exact problem and that's why nobody hardly ever runs them.
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I don't really agree that Boons are a complete failure. I occasionally still run COH/Shadowstep boon builds, and when my solo queue teammates are actually smart enough to play into it, the payoff is really nice. Shadowstep in particular is quite underrated, and it sort of salvages some utility when I get teammates that refuse to heal. OTOH, the other ones are quite useless. I would love to see a lot more experimentation with the mechanic.
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They are either way too strong or useless. no in betwee.
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Boons can be a useful tactic, but I think they need to try something a bit less situational. i feel like maybe having them work in a similar manner to hex's would be beneficial. Like you place a boon that helps give faster healing (circle of healing) another one that gives silent foot steps to all survivors (shadow step) and so on.
They can also work map wide this way so you don't have to run to a select location for use out of the perk, but the effects can be lessened to a general buff instead of a heavy buff in a targeted area.
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Well said, my friend, I agree completely.
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I'm surprised nobody else has pointed this out, but five isn't actually that little for newer perk types?
There are only seven Scourge Hook perks, and that's including the two existing perks that were changed into Scourge Hooks. If we're only counting new releases, there are exactly as many Scourge Hook perks as there are Boon perks.
As to boons themselves, I think people are too quick to dismiss them currently. We have five boons, and three of them are outright good + worth running if you want their effects, that's a pretty damn good hit rate. Sure, Dark Theory and Illumination could use a little boost - and I have some ideas for how to do that myself, though that's a little outside the scope of this post - but the other three are just flat out good perks.
I don't think BHVR really are neglecting them. We haven't gotten a new one in a little while, but that's true of other perk types as well; prior to Houndmaster, the last killer to have a Scourge Hook perk was Sadako, and that's a pretty big gap.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see more boons and some buffs for the two undertuned boons as well - especially a new generic boon - but I don't really think the mechanic's being neglected, really. I'd sooner finger Teamwork perks as the neglected archetype, lmfao.
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bhvr won't give us new indoor levels to abuse boons. I invite people to say boons are trash on indoor levels.
I was really praying that Freddy fazbears was gonna be primarily indoor
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Boons are also Trash on Indoor Maps.
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I'd love to see how you play against an always active Shadowstep and CoH. its annoying enough youll feel the need to keep breaking it.
Healthy survivors breaking LoS under Shadowstep saves as much health states as CoH recovers. if the level has floors like midwich or RPD, even better.
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Regarding Floors - I said in my post that the only change Boons needed (at least CoH before they completely gutted it) was that it only works on one Floor. So I agree on that.
However, if Survivors are using Boons, they are already helping the Killer. Circle of Healing as the strongest Boon is not really worth it the time spend to boon a Totem. I gladly take teams who waste their time doing that, ideally over and over again.
Shadowstep is not really an issue. You can still hear Survivors and most of the time you will have at least some form of line of sight. At least I never had an issue with Shadowstep.
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Boons need some love (as do all of the special perk types), that's for sure.
Here is how I'd change them:
General changes:
• Reduce the noises that the boons make to make them not as loud.
• Increase the general radius of the boons to 32 meters
• Reduce the time needed to bless a dull totem to 7 seconds.
• Now, totems automatically break after being snuffed.Individual Perk changes:
Boon: Circle of Healing
• Injured survivors now can see the auras of survivors inside the Boon.Boon: Shadow Step
• Add an effect of muffling footsteps of survivors into it.Boon: Illumination
• Make it so that it also shows the auras of totems, pallets and windows.
• Replace the cleansing/blessing speed bonus with a 4/5/6 second lingering effect.
• Make it so this perk ignores the Blindness status effect while inside the boon's radius.Boon: Dark Theory (Full Rework)
Your obsessive study of the paranormal has given you unprecedented knowledge of other realms and planes of existence.
Press and hold the Ability button near a Dull or Hex Totem to bless it and create a Boon Totem. Soft chimes ring out in a 32 meter range.
When in the Boon's radius:
• You can see the auras of all regressing generators in light blue.While the Boon is active:
• Generators regress 10/15/20% slower.
• When a generator starts regressing, the blessed Totem is blocked from being snuffed for 15 seconds.2 -
killers actually can't break boons they only break the totem which is still a problem since boons can be placed infinitely but hexes can't
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Boons are great in theory but as others have stated, they’re really tricky to balance, and the time/effort it takes to find a totem and set the boon often don’t end up worth it. I feel like the only way to get a chance at decent value is to dedicate the entire build to Boons. And as someone that’s tried many times to play around with them, they’re often found really quickly. Exponential is great but in order for it to work you have to be in the radius— and if you’re in the radius that means you can hear it which means the killer hears it too. The recovery time just wasn’t enough to pick up before the was snuffed.
But yeah, I would love for boons to be better but they’re tricky.
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Hexes are generally stronger and are map wide tho, that's why they're one time use, boons should be weaker hexes that can be relit with some time investment, but as of right now, they are just way too generic / limited, pretty much not worth running since you have Perks that do pretty much the same thing and better in some cases without the need to invest time into boons.
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To be fair almost all the boons in the game are trash and not worth it. It takes 14 seconds to even set up a boon (28 if its a hex) just for it to get snuffed in 1 second lol. That's 14 seconds you could've put towards a gen, not including the time it took to search for dull. Lets go through them shall we
Boon Circle of Healing: Got nerfed to ######### and honestly isn't worth running, I'm not about to run across the map to heal somebody in a boon
Boon Illumination: HAHAHAHAHA
Boon Shadow Step: Decent perk but not worth running a boon over especially if I'm only using it to hide my aura or scratch marks
Boon Dark Theory: Decent Perk and honestly the extra haste makes a difference
Boon Exponential: Its infinite UB and arguably the best boon perk currently you'll very rarely get value from it at least in my experience
I believe that's it. My honest opinion/suggestion for boons is to increase the radius of them and give some of them some buffs. COH could be self care for everyone again but give it a long time to self care maybe equal to selfcare and keep the bonus of it being faster to have someone else heal you.
Illumination could be buffed to make it also show chest and totems
Shadow step is fine, Dark Theory is fine, Exponential is fine
These perks just need an increase in range some of them (I don't feel like renaming them again) but a lot of them can stay at 24 while some can be increase to 24-42 meters
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I think having boons at 28 metres would be fine as a base line, the issue with boons having different AOE ranges would be the question of how would they stack? I mean, they could all just work with different ranges on one totem right? But that would kinda give false positives and would be quite confusing: "I was in the boon radius why didn't X Perk active?!" or "Is X Perk 28 metres or 32 metres or something else???", it would just be confusing tbh.
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I don't think it'd be confusing it can activate the same as it does now. Bottom right showing you what boon you have active
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If Circle of Healing just gave everybody the ability to heal at self-care speeds with no additional benefits, I think it would be enough to make boons worthwhile.
Going from completely overpowered to useless seems like a wasted opportunity.
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Agree. That‘s the main thing I want. Give us self care on circle of healing back. Just make it very slow.
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