Fast Track and perk activation requirements

Of course you're allowed to feel what you feel, but there's so much nuance lost here. "Punishment" is very vague.

Imo, as long as a perk has realistic counterplay I'm personally okay with it activating upon the other side completing part of their objective.

Fire Up doesn't need any extra counterplay due to the opportunity cost of bringing the perk. It was pretty bad on its own pre 9.6.0 but now it's even worse because of diminishing returns if you try to stack it with something else.

If a killer has Coup stacks, they can't lunge without wasting a stack. Force them to lunge as best you can to waste their stacks.

This ain't rocket science. You're obviously just being obtuse to try to fit your black and white thinking onto nuanced situations.

How many years did it take to get that minor feature added to the game compared to how fast Fast-track was changed?

I think theres a fairer reason they probably could have gave. The one they did give was not consistent at all with how they operate with perks. The reason they coulda gave (since they alluded to it before) was its value in stacking. They've had this problem with any perk that like stacks with itself (48 meter kindred because 4 open handed) or stacked vigil. In this case it was perma progress so why not bring it if you have a 4 team to quadruple the perks effect for basically free? Each hook was 6% perma progress if I recall correctly so 4 hooks split would be 24 but quadruple that and ya had 96. (Since the person hooked doesnt obviously get a stack). 96 charges is over a gen of perma progress just out there on the gens they choose to put it on. And its not like this insane skill thing its still just hitting a great. And thats only hooking everyone once so you could double that if the killers 8 hooking. Which isn't a problem with the new one because it doesnt go to everyone when a person unhooks just that person that unhooks. Making it unable to stack up to x4.

I don't think there's much of a double standard here, BHVR were pretty plainly speaking about Fast Track specifically and not making an overall point about perk design.

Their argument in that quote isn't "survivors shouldn't get benefits for their opponent progressing the objective", it's that "a passive activation condition was too strong for permanent gen progress". Personally I never really saw an issue with Fast Track at all, but that isn't really what's being evaluated here, just thought I'd mention it.

Your list of killer perks that activate on generator progress is definitely the start of a good comparison, but you also have to include the opposing side.
Sure, BHVR made the judgement call that the killer getting a hook wasn't an appropriate activation condition for Fast Track, but they've yet to make that decision for perks like Kindred, Desperate Measures, Do No Harm, Low Profile, and Self Preservation. These are just the perks that activate based on other people being hooked with no other action required on your part, to be clear, zooming out to just being based around the opponent's objective progression gives far more examples.

Rather than it being fine when a perk is unpopular, I think the constructive takeaway from this regarding BHVR's mindset is that activating upon your teammates being hooked is seen as a variable that must inform other parts of the perk, and permanent objective progress was deemed to be too far over the line relative to the accessibility of that activation condition.
EG, the other perks are fine because they provide bonuses that aren't generator progress, meaning their contribution towards winning the game is more indirect and more up to skill/gameplay.

Whether you agree with that or not, it's how I interpret BHVR's comments here.

I suspect that the only people still following this thread are irrationally angry at the Fast Track nerf and are downvoting completely rational takes. If there's no good faith discussion to be had then why is this thread even open?

Well, that's my point - the problem isn't any of those things, at least not according to BHVR's wording in the screenshot you shared.

What they're saying there is the problem, at least as I interpret it, is the combination of activating on any hook action and providing permanent objective progress.

Now, again, personally, I don't really agree that was a problem, but we're evaluating BHVR's position here and that's the part they're saying is an issue, not any of the examples you gave there.
That's why the other perks are relevant. They share the activation condition, but they don't share the effect, so evidently they're fine - or at least aren't being weighed in on yet. Similarly, other things provide permanent generator progress, but they have different activation conditions, so it can be inferred that BHVR have decided permanent progress needs a less passive activation condition.

Whether you agree or disagree with it, I think it's always important to evaluate what is actually being said about any given change.

I think you're right: people need to do more listening and less speculating, because when it comes to perk balance, BHVR doesn't have a lot of incentive to lie about their reasons. It's a very low stakes situation despite how passionately people can feel.

In regards to the stated reasons for the change, even older devs realized how bad of a design that was when dealing with original Hex: Ruin. In spite of Ruin's ability to be cleansed, Killers were getting a great deal of passive slowdown without interacting with other players just for equipping the perk, which was bad game design, so they changed it, giving nearly the same justification as these devs did now for Fast Track.

On a separate note: now that there are at least 4 separate ways to reduce a generator's maximum charges, it'd be a nice quality of life base kit feature for killers to have some way to see if a generator has had its maximum charges reduced.

What they're saying there is the problem, at least as I interpret it,

I don't know, maybe I'm just way past the point of giving BHVR any benefit of the doubt, but the message reads to me like its just a litany of the killer arguments about this perk that are divorced from any overall view of the game.

The 'period of observation and assessment' - if they think the perk is overperforming after having it live, just say that. If they think the perk is a bad design, then having a period to assess it isn't really relevant unless they are seeing it be used in some way they didn't predict.

The 'too great a source of permanent progress' - if this is true, it calls for a nerf, not a rework. Less progress and/or removing the permanent nature.

The 'responsibility' portion - is this meant to be unique to survivors (and I can live with that if its BHVR's perspective, I don't think both sides needed to be treated the same, but as gets pointed out there's lots of perks like this)? Because if the concept is that perks need to be earned by the player equipping them, there's a lot of perks that need to be reworked.

The 'incentivize' portion - well, this is just a bad argument. It creates an incentive to have a dedicated unhooker, which is much easier to do as a SWF, when many of the complaints about old Fast Track where its abusability by SWFs, but we've made it worse (presuming the perk is even worth running, possibly its just another dead perk).

And none of this helps that it comes off a PTB where we didn't even get the perk change for discussion given the seeming rushed nature that BHVR took to address this.

the problem with fast track was that it was basically 2v8 catchup mechanic added as a perk. playing around that creates for some unfun counterplay

perks activating on a losing contingency has never been a bad thing.

They could've taken it back to non-permanent progress…. but that version of the perk was bad, so some rework is probably more appropriate even if you don't feel this one hits the mark.

I think there's a lot of middle ground they could have tried. 1%, but its permanent. 2% but its not permanent. Lower token maxes so it can't be stacked as easily and then applied to a 3 gen. If its just a power issue, lots of ways to adjust it.

That carries over to the other parts. If the perk was performing too well (very easily possible), why wasn't it just nerfed? But given the statement here, and Mandy's earlier forum comment, on top of what the focus of lots of complaints had been (their reference to the community which is always problematic because we have no idea who they are listening to), they seem to be viewing the activation requirement itself as a problem. Which naturally brings up the question of 'well, what about all the similar perks on the killer side?'

Basically - given the rush, what they've said, what they seem to be responding to, and their past actions, it feels extremely selective.

Other perks that give permanent progress require more, and other perks that require just the opponent playing the game give less, or at least less direct benefits.

That doesn't go for Rancor, though, which permanently auto-completes up to two hookstates for the obsession and is done by survivors completing their objective.

Again, the much more likely explanation is that they just copied the complaint verbatim, put no thought into it, and just nerfhammered as demanded.

I know I'm repeating myself here, but it's not JUST the activation requirement they're talking about here. It's the activation requirement FOR THAT EFFECT.

We probably both feel like we're repeating ourselves, but here goes.

Yes, for that effect, but they didn't modify the effect. Old, old Fast Track at 1% per token was too weak, let's presume BHVR thinks old Fast Track at 2% permanent per token was too strong, well then they should test out a middle ground. But they didn't change the 'effect', they changed the activation.

There are not just similar perks on the killer side, there are similar survivor perks too.

I don't think anyone disagrees with that, it's just the way the discussions have gone that tend to turn this into a 'this would never exist on the killer side' that leads to a focus on the killer perks. Yes, its a pretty normal game element.

Other perks that give permanent progress require more, and other perks that require just the opponent playing the game give less, or at least less direct benefits.

That's why it wasn't just nerfed. They're talking about the effect and activation combined.

I don't think that follows. One of the easy ways they could have nerfed it was by removing the permanent effect. Its not like there was a rule that the perk had to be permanent progress.

There are other ways that the perk could have been nerfed to make the reward more commiserate for what the survivors were doing, but they went in a different direction. Which again, by itself wouldn't really be an issue, except how they've phrased things here and before really seems like they are knee jerk responding instead of making an informed decision.