http://dbd.game/killswitch
Wake Up Is A Stronger Perk Now (Or, Common Community Commentary)
It's not uncommon these days to see people reference, in passing and as part of a wider point or comment, the notion that Wake Up was nerfed, typically with language like "killed", "gutted", or "deleted".
I'm not sure why, though. I've been using this perk more since the last change it got, and it's pretty unambiguously stronger now overall.
While I mostly want to make this a commentary about how the way people talk about perks can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies and dismissal of perfectly good tools for no reason, I do think I should probably back up that Wake Up is a stronger perk now since that's my main example right now.
So, Wake Up used to be a static perk. If you were in a position to use its effect (which for the sake of this conversation we will assume you are- if you don't get to open the exit gates nothing changed about this perk, that isn't relevant), it always did the same thing.
Now, it has four outcomes, for how many survivors are alive. In two of those outcomes - four survivors alive and three survivors alive - the perk is objectively stronger, the number only went up. In one of the remaining two - specifically, two survivors alive - it's exactly the same. Only in the last scenario, with only yourself alive, is the perk any weaker, and it still provides a noticeable enough effect there too.
The perk absolutely got an upgrade overall, providing a more potent effect overall with only one very specific use case weakened. Even if you were to make the argument that the one weakened use case is proportionally important enough to genuinely counterbalance the stronger use cases…that's very, very far from the perk being gutted. Yet, that's the way people talk about it, and I've noticed this is a bit of a trend- people immediately drop most perks that get nerfed, regardless of how good they actually might be.
It seems to me like people aren't willing to give things a chance when a perk gets nerfed (or changed in a way that isn't a simple flat buff, like with Wake Up) and make snap judgements that become set in stone, mentally speaking.
I would like to encourage people to try and be more lenient and more willing to meet tools halfway when gauging this kind of thing. Actually give them a shot, and think about what builds or playstyles might be most served by the perk in question- it's okay to not prefer the playstyle a perk shines in, but that doesn't mean the perk is bad.
There are other examples of this kind of thing happening; on the survivor side especially we have Circle of Healing, Made for This, and Distortion, just to provide a few examples. These perks are all fine - some even very strong! - but you'll see people reference in passing that they've been gutted, killed, deleted, etcetera.
If you go in with the mindset that most perks are trash and perks that get nerfed are instantly gutted, you're going to box yourself in to only a handful of options. In my opinion, the pool of viable perks is larger now than it's ever been, and I'd very much like to encourage people to try out the art of loadout building - not just picking strong perks but going for synergies or specific playstyles. It's a lot of fun!
(Seriously though Wake Up is stronger now it's a pretty damn good perk)
Comments
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Daily reminder it was buffed and then nerfed because "Sole Survivor" exists and instead of simply adding the conditional "If you are last alive Wake up! deactivates" they completely reworked it and made it weaker than it otherwise would've been
I don't disagree that it's still good or worth using - It is, but the fact that a perk that was perfectly fine got nerfed because of the existence of another more problematic perk really really irritates me.
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That's extremely reductive, but even without taking that into account… it wasn't nerfed. There's one slight downgrade in one scenario, that is outweighed by the multiple scenarios where it's stronger or the same.
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It was objectively nerfed.
If by endgame there's only 3 survivors left, wake up's bonus is only 37.5% instead of the 50% it would've been without the rework. This is an extremely common scenario, most matches will hit endgame by the time one survivor is dead
Also idk what you mean by "reductive". The dev's reasoning for changing the perk was, quote:
"We want players to escape together with this perk, rather than leaving the team behind". Now, how is reaching the endgame with 1 person dead in any way "leaving the team behind"?
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I've never really used it since it's rework to comment, most cases I need the gate open faster I'm one of the last alive or last 2… so I just don't see the appeal.
I feel like it's strong in a case where it doesn't need to be stronger, snowballing. I will admit though I don't have the recent experience in 4 man situations where I feel I've needed it.1 -
The perk was 25% before the rework, not 50%.
It's also reductive to say "the perk was nerfed because Sole Survivor exists" when what happened is that the perk was buffed to shine in its intended niche more and to separate it from another perk that has a similar niche. It does genuinely make a difference- framing it as a nerf because of Sole Survivor implies that the perk is weaker, but it isn't.
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No, originally it was going to just be a flat 50% bonus to gate opening speed
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Then it got it's 'rework' from PTB to live
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Therefore it was nerfed.
The sole survivor thing i keep mentioning because some people kept complaining that people would just use new wake up + sole survivor in rat playstyles, so BHVR nerfed 'wake up' to deal with this instead of dealing with the perk that allows rat playstyles to exist in the first place.
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It's important not to only compare PTB to Live. You also have to compare Live to Live, and also give that considerably more weight.
The PTB version of the perk didn't actually exist in the main game, it was a hypothetical. The previous Live version of Wake Up had a 25% speed, that was changed to a stacking incremental speed that works out stronger in two scenarios, the same in one scenario, and weaker in one scenario.
What you're framing as a nerf is instead a hypothetical buff that would've been bigger not making it to the main game. In terms of the actual game, Wake Up was buffed, not nerfed. That is more important than a hypothetical third version of the perk we never got to use in regular matches.
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Objectively Wake up is better now than it was when it was 25% only. Fact.
But on the same page.
It would've been even better had BHVR not nerfed it from the PTB version, which would've made it to live if not for the existence of Sole Survivor rat playstyles. Fact.
They didn't need to 'rework' it, all it needed was a "Wake up deactivates if you are the last remaining survivor" and the whole 'rat playstyle' concern goes away.
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I mean, sure, I guess, but is that really relevant?
We still have a version of the perk that is stronger than before. The version that hypothetically would've been even stronger than that doesn't really matter here? We're still looking at the perk as it is now, the PTB version wasn't ever a "real" version of the perk so it's pretty unreasonable to say the perk was nerfed because that hypothetical version had a larger buff than the one the perk actually got.
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…Yes?
Your thread is talking about people dismissing Wake Up because they think it was nerfed or is weaker and it factually was nerfed. Just because it was on the PTB that doesn't make it not 'real' because the only reason the PTB version was changed was due to factors that had nothing to do with the perk's actual strength
I said in my very first post Wake up is good and still worth using, but the PTB nerf was completely unwarranted. Nerf sole survivor instead, the rat playstyle enabler.
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But that's my point- framing what happened as a nerf causes people to think that it is now weaker.
It's also just kinda really misleading on its face. A perk getting buffed in a different way to the original plan is not a nerf, it's still a buff— just a different one.
We never had a version of the perk that was stronger than it is right now except for on the PTB, which is not part of the main game. If anyone thinks the perk was nerfed and is weaker now because of this framing and they don't know what actually happened, they've been deceived- the perk was buffed and is stronger now.
For the record, yeah, rework Sole Survivor, that perk sucks and is badly designed. That's just not actually relevant to the current Wake Up, which is stronger than the previous Wake Up.
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I think I've made my point clear ultimately.
Wake up's PTB version was completely fine and I'm still really irritated at the nerf it got. I hope in the future they just rebuff it back to what it was.
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wake up is better in hairy, somewhat even matches but wake up was traditionally always a perk to take for when matches go belly up. or yknow...average solo q games.
no amount of buffs matter when the reason you take it is to have a sliver of hope in hopeless 5 gen slaughters. not everyone wants to just run up to the killer and abandon
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Wouldn't Sole Survivor have always been the better perk for that? I don't know that +25% makes that much difference in 1v1 scenarios.
I do grant that's the one use case where it's weaker, but I firmly believe it getting noticeably stronger basically everywhere else outweighs that. I can understand not liking its new use case as much, but the perk's still noticeably stronger overall.
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Although it's overall still a bit better than the previous 25% version (as long as you're not the last survivor), the problem is it still FEELS terrible knowing the reason it got nerfed was because of Sole Survivor (which is a problematic perk) and the selfish playstyles that it enables. It would've been much better to just have Wake Up deactivate completely when being the final survivor and then left it at 50% in all other scenarios.
With the 12.5% stacking system, the nerf didn't just target selfish survivors, it ALSO targeted situations with 2 or 3 survivors left when that was never the issue. Why is it 37.5% with 3 survivors left, or 25% with 2 survivors left, and not 50%? There's no good reason for it and that's why the change got such negative feedback, at least from me.
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As I've already mentioned, it's poor framing to consider that a nerf. Remember, it's still a buff compared to the actual version we used to have in the main game. It wasn't nerfed, it received a different buff.
As an aside I also feel it's reductive to say the change happened solely because of Sole Survivor, pun not intended. The devs' stated goal of wanting it to stand in its intended niche better would apply either way.
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Imo it's a nerf because it's weaker in the scenario you need it most. It's better if the majority of the team is alive but at that point it's just a win more kind of perk. I'm not saying it's terrible as it still has it's uses but it's definitely overall weaker imo.
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I'd disagree, upwards of two survivors including you being alive isn't necessarily a win-more scenario. I've been using the perk myself a fair amount recently and there have been a fair few down-to-the-wire situations where not being able to get the gate open that quickly would've left the killer able to down someone.
Everyone being alive doesn't mean they're in a great position, injured and on death hook is a situation where you want the gate open ASAP so the killer has less chance to chase you down and finish the job.
It's definitely a buff overall.
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From live version to live version, yes it's still a buff, but it's far less of a buff than it should've gotten.
I'm criticizing the fact that BHVR was fully prepared to buff Wake Up to 50% (which is where it should be imo), and then when it became apparent there was one small problem with it, they overcorrected the issue and nerfed it from the PTB version by more than what was necessary. If they had kept the PTB version mostly intact and only nerfed the scenario with the last survivor, I would've been perfectly fine with the change. Sure, it's still a net buff from its previous live state, but it could've been handled much better is all I'm saying.
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Over the pre-PTB version, maybe.
But it is kind of a win-more perk now.
The only thing where it's good is playing against a Haywire Singularity, and the odds are not that good, so...
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