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Why is BHVR so terrible at designing Perks lately?

Out of the 2 most recent chapters, there are like 3 out of 12 perks great or at least usable, what is happening?

Comments

  • MarylinMonhoe
    MarylinMonhoe Member Posts: 190

    The Dracula's ones still haunt me to this day

  • I_Cant_Loop
    I_Cant_Loop Member Posts: 2,276

    There are about 300 perks in the game now. A game with a limited amount of mechanics can only have a limited amount of things that perks can do to affect those mechanics. I think it’s just simply tough for the devs to come up with new perk ideas given how bloated the game content has become.

  • BlackRabies
    BlackRabies Member Posts: 1,383

    The game is becoming a bit too bloated with perks we're getting to the point where it's becoming even harder to make decent perks without making them to strong with what few mechanics this game has.

  • jesterkind
    jesterkind Member Posts: 9,799

    I don't think it's that bad. I would say most new perks fall into the "usable but unexciting" or "usable but flawed" camp.

    We've definitely had more perks with requirements or some other kind of activation, but I think that's fair. There's only so much perks can do, and most of the passive "just do X" perks already exist.

    We have, admittedly, also had some real duds lately too. Apocalyptic Ingenuity is probably the best example there, since that one has so many requirements it's actively weak, but Road Life deserves a shoutout for being a potentially strong and fun perk that just requires too much to access.

    It's worth pointing out the good perk releases too. Orela was pretty solid for perks all around, Taurie had two genuinely good/interesting perks and one stinker, Springtrap had Phantom Fear and the at least usable Help Wanted, Kaneki… bottom text, Houndmaster had Jagged Compass and No Quarter…
    We get good perks too, it must be said. Especially perks designed to synergise with others for specific builds.

  • Fuzzycube
    Fuzzycube Member Posts: 316

    I agree, although I think a lot of current mechanics need a complete rework, the Teamwork perks for example should be made strong enough that solo queue players can find them useful and Invocations seem like a huge waste of time given that you also permanently lose a health state.

    Even Boon’s post the Circle of Healing nerf seem weak, with the exception of certain multi-floored maps (And only if you’re good at finding totems) it feels like you’re better just taking passive perks like Deja-Vu, Windows of Oppertunity, Botany , Resilience, etc or extremely easy to activate exhaustion perks like Lithe.

  • Langweilig
    Langweilig Member Posts: 3,238

    It‘s not that difficult to come up with good and unique perk ideas if you are creative. I‘ve seen a post from @Blueberry from a while back and he had so many great and unique ideas, that the devs could copy for the next two years at least. It‘s either the devs are afraid of creating potentially strong perks or they simply don’t want to.

  • SoGo
    SoGo Member Posts: 4,551

    They are definitely afraid of creating something overpowered, and end up doing mediocre perks instead.

    Or alternatively, they release strong SWF perks.

  • Nicholas
    Nicholas Member Posts: 2,159
    edited September 2025

    The issue is excessive or time consuming activation conditions for perks that provide a very limited, narrow and mediocre effect. Then there are perks that deactivate too easily, or are no longer available. Then there are some perks that have a use limit that doesn't always make sense. And then they are so slow to change, it takes them months to research whether they should add one additional second to a perk.

  • ohheyitsbobcat
    ohheyitsbobcat Member Posts: 1,836

    If I remember right, they said in an interview or maybe a post that they design the three perks so that one is niche, one is a general use, and another is more meta-ish.

    This a was couple years ago I wanna say so who knows if they still follow that or not. Some perks are certainly questionable; that basement crow perk being a top contender.