Of Flesh And Mud: High Tide (A "Comeback" of Of Flesh And Mud)
Yeah, All-Kill: Comeback really left an impression on me. This is the second Comeback Chapter I've done, which is basically just a massive Rework of everything found within a Chapter. I did Tools of Torment first, but now it's time for Of Flesh And Mud, the Chapter that brought in The Hag and Ace Visconti… as well as Hexes!
In this post, not only are Hag and Ace getting a little something, something, but the Backwater Swamp and Hexes are also being changed due to this Chapter being the one that introduced them!
This is where I make a change to Totems. It's an attempt to make Hexes a little bit stronger because they're only as strong as the Totem spawns… and they're not good! So, there's now an actual logic to how they spawn to limit the amount of Survivor interactions when it wasn't planned. If you're looking for a Totem, you actually kinda have to go out of your way for it.
Pale Rose
Am I insane for making the Pale Rose 4 floors? Yeah a little bit, but I wanted to expand the boat itself and make it a massive piece of the map. It's now a proper paddle boat, with a massive hole in the hull to allow access from the Lower Swamp and two entrances on the sides from the Upper Swamp, making the "dip" that comes with Backwater Swamp maps a part of the map design itself.
Grim Pantry
Grim Pantry is also getting reworked, and now most of the map is a dock above the swamp floor. I wanted to make Grim Pantry a section of a larger village built above the water line. If you've ever played Left 4 Dead 2, Swamp Fever was in my mind for nearly the entire time I made this rework to Grim Pantry. The Lower Swamp can be accessed from the natural "dips" in the map or from the Docks itself by finding stairs or a drop down.
Hag Rework
This is the main Hag Rework! I went the route of multiple types of Traps along with buffing her to 4.6m/s and adding the ability to directly Curse Survivors. While the main gameplay of placing and teleporting to Phantasm Traps is roughly the same, these new Traps can offer some new gameplay both as and against to make her a lot more interesting.
Hag Add-Ons
What most of the cosmetic changes to these Add-Ons were mainly just making them a part of Lisa's backstory. Her Add-Ons legit are just a bunch of garbage found on the floor of a swamp.
Of Flesh And Mud Perks
Here is an intro to what I've done to Hexes! I've really just changed a majority of their lighting conditions from "Start of the game" to "LITTERALLY ANYTHING ELSE." No more cleansing within the first 30 seconds of a game! You're gonna get actual use outta them without rolling the dice and hoping it spawned in a good place!
Anyway, Devour Hope and Ruin are practically unchanged, although Devour Hope did get a new effect for 4 Tokens, and The Third Seal got a major buff because Blindness by itself is not very strong, especially if the Survivors are either in a SWF or not running any Auras and remember where people are Hooked.
Ace is now a proper gambler! ALL of his Perks are now about gambling! For those eagle-eyed guys out there, yes, I've combined several Perks in this concept! Plunderer's Instinct's main effect is now a part of Ace In The Hole. Why I did this was for simplicity. Both PI and AITH are now very incredible Perks. Open-Handed now has a Lucky Crit mechanic! Its original effects you'll see later on! Up The Ante is now an ever shrinking Skill Check for those who like to play high stakes! Run it with Hyperfocus and you'll be a REAL high roller!
Here are the "Smooshed" Perks. These are Perks that have been combined. Plunderer's, as mentioned, is a part of Ace In The Hole, and its new effect is similar to Human Greed but on Survivor. Eyes Of Belmont has the Aura range increase combined into its original Aura duration increase. Slippery Meat has higher luck and something to do in the Second Stage. Also, yes, it does create Great Skill Check Zones for the Hook!
Hex Perk Changes
First batch! Huntress' Lullaby no longer tells Survivors it's in play! It's for them to figure that out and/or gaslight themselves into figuring it out. Thrill is practically unchanged, but I did edit the Lighting Conditions. NOED has gotten the Rework it desperately needs. It's not fun to get skill issued at the end of a Trial, so now, it's a Perk to make sure those who are on Death's Door actually meet him!
Second batch! Haunted now can activate twice and, because of the amount of Perks I made Light a Dull Totem when the first Gen is finished, it can actually mess with people! Blood Favor is now a combo of its current and previous self, having the longer range of the now and the Basic Attack condition of the old. Undying technically doesn't exist, as it never Lights a Dull Totem, and the Aura reveals are permanent, but the effect itself is very weak. Other than that, it's the exact same, but the Auras may come in clutch every now and then.
Third batch! Retribution grants BOTH Oblivious and the Auras upon cleansing a Hex Totem. Crowd Control has the vault speed increase and besides that, really nothing is different. Pentimento I've given a SIZEABLE buff to! You can now just destroy a Totem if you have no Hex Perks! Trust me, that's HUGE! It makes this Perk not NEED other Perks to function. Oh, and the 180s timer doesn't start the Trial full, it has to be accumulated.
Fourth batch! Buffed Wretched Fate and notably, only the Obsession can actually cleanse the Perk! Face The Darkness is the same, but I lowered the scream countdown and buffed the Aura readings because 2 seconds is nothing! Two Can Play is now INSTANT and Blinds for longer should you wish to destroy the Pallet.
Final batch! Plaything has had its blocked timer increased and I put an emphasis on cleansing Totems that aren't yours. Namely, stop it! Nothing But Misery has an additional 2% of Hindered for 1 second longer… Yeah, nothing happened. Overture Of Doom I reworked. It's not a good Perk whatsoever, and it gets outclassed by both Trail Of Torment and Unforseen. It's now a Stealth Hex with some Aura on the side should Survivors let it marinate for too long. Hive Mind has also been changed because gambling the ENTIRE match for 10% on all Gens is just terrible. Now, it's a proper hive mind! All Gens will regress at the same time!
End
And that's what I've done to Of Flesh And Mud: High Tide! Most of the reason why this is so big is because the Hex Category is a lot fatter than the Teamwork Category. It's kinda funny that two Chapters that introduced new Perk types happened to be some of the weakest in the game's history, but I'll chalk it up to a strange coincidence.
Comments
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First, this is an excellent idea, I do really feel BHVR should do more followup chapters and using them as an excuse to rework features/Perks related to that Chapter is a good pitch.
The Totem change is common sense bad luck protection, I'm in favor.
I like the map rework ideas on a thematic level, I can see the vision for both of them. Map design wise it is difficult to judge off floorplans, but my instinct is that the Pale Rose being a main building that's only accessible from one angle, even if there are multiple entrances, could be a problem, but maybe I'm wrong about that.
I sadly do not like this proposal for a Hag rework. I think Eye/Feeble traps sound a bit too annoying to play against, especially because Hag could in theory corner Survivors and just drop a Feeble trap mid-chase for example. Esp. with Waterlogged Shoe
The Curse system also feels like it's convoluting the Power, and its limits aren't clear, surely I can't just pop Curse of the Eye at the start of the match for a free Lethal Pursuer, right?
My own counterproposal for a Hag rework:
- Under certain conditions, Hag will draw a trap in blood instead of mud. Blood traps are stronger than Mud traps.
- The conditions in question are shortly after a hook (still only good for one trap), or during a basic attack cooldown.
- Blood traps have an infinite teleport range, can be teleported to on command like a basekit Mint Rag, have Phantasm collision, grant Hag 5% Haste for a while if a Survivor trips them, and take something like 2-3x as long for Survivors to wipe away.
I don't think this on its own would immediately put Hag into a good state, maybe 4.6 does need to be considered or some kind of other buff needs to be implemented, but this is the pillar I'd build her around, I think it'd give her a unique skill compared to other trap Killers, give her web a bit more organicness to trap placement while allowing it to be much larger, but still play into her core gameplay which already exists.
Re. Hag's perks, I personally think it shouldn't be on individual Perks to escape cleansing at the start of the match, it should be done through basekit mechanics. But if there is one Hex that should not be given a specific feature to stop instant cleansing, it should be Devour Hope, the whole point of that Perk is to be super high risk, high reward.
I actually do like the change to Ruin though, proccing after first generator allows Survivors to potentially strategise around it and I think would make it kicking in feel more memorable. Less a fan of The Third Seal, I think you've overcomplicated it a bit and on principle I don't love the idea of it applying permanent blindness to a Survivor that they can genuinely do nothing about until the Killer chooses to attack a different Survivor and light the totem.
Combining Plunderer's with Ace in the Hole is a neat idea that does make sense. I do also like that this shifts a very niche/gimmicky playstyle out of the general pool and onto Teachables where they should be, and the new Plunderer's might not be that bad.
Overhauling Open-Handed into a luck based rare effect on a variety of interactions is very thematic, and I like rolling its old effect into Eyes of Belmont. I think you missed what it should do for Exit Gates though, and I do think 2x Stun duration would probably cause too many rage scenarios for it to be worthwhile as a Perk design.
Up The Ante unfortunately would synergise far too well with Stake Out/Hyperfocus IMO. It does have something of an anti-synergy with Stake Out but I'm a bit worried about this kind of Perk design. I do think shutting down Slippery Meat gimmick builds in favor of Slippery Meat just being a better standalone Perk is a good approach though.
Finally, the Hex reworks, I will only talk about highlights as I have already said IMO it should not be on Hex perks to avoid start of match cleansing, it should be fixed through base mechanics:
- Not against trying to make NOED more healthy, and I do like the idea of it being a severe punishment for death hook Survivors in endgame but I think this proposal inadvertently encourages slugging maybe a bit too much.
- Lullaby not revealing itself is IMO unthematic to the Perk and not friendly to new players, on a Perk that is already pretty bad for them to play against
- Being able to manually apply Pentimento, even with a 3m cooldown, is nuts IMO, it allows a Killer to apply almost a full Survivor's worth of generator pressure with a lot of immediacy.
I think this is a mixed bag of ideas overall but there's a lot of good stuff and the amount of work put in is excellent. And in general, I also agree that Hag being the next target after Trickster's encore would be an excellent choice. Great post!
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Genuinely wonderful to receive actual, tangible feedback! I won't mention everything here, but yeah, I did need to clarify some things with Hag, such as not being able to Curse right out the gate, but the reason why her power is more "convoluted" is because I needed to update her Add-Ons. Most of her Add-Ons are just copies of each other with different numbers, which is an outdated system, and limits unique builds.
Anyway, thanks once again, and there is also a Retooled Torment concept (Tools of Torment) that's on my profile, and I'm currently torn as to which Chapter I should look at next. I'm thinking either Spark of Madness (Doctor and Feng), Roots of Dread (Dredge and Haddie), or All Things Wicked (Unknown and Sable).
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This is a lot to unpack, but I still want to contribute here.
I will start with Totem logic. I WISH BHVR would do something like this, even things like not spawning totems in direct LOS of generators would be great. I also noticed you delayed the moment when a totem spawns for most Hex perks. Mostly, it's fine, but I think that Hexes should light up when they are in play. Not sooner, since that makes them weaker, but also not later. Additionally, is your version of Undying just… permanent? It reads like it is, since it does not spawn a totem.
Map-wise, I have very little to say, it looks very interesting, and I will gladly see a swamp redesign. Though, 4 floors on the Pale Rose would just not work in DbD. Terror Radiuses not taking verticality into account, chokepoints, long time to get up, ect., those are all big balancing problems that would have made this a nightmare.
As for Hag herself, this rework is very interesting. It raises her complexity to that of The Lich. The curses seem kind of strange, but I like you can practically do two playstyles, passive with curses and a trap focused one. Addons seem fine, mostly.
Ace's perks are a bit of a mix. Ace in the Hole is good, Open Handed seems really fun, and Up The Ante seems too ridiculous number-wise.
The updated Eyes of Belmont and Plunderer's seem alright, and as for Slippery Meat, I would maybe slightly tone down to unhook chance numbers, as they stack very unusually. (The odds with it + 4 Jars of Salty Lips are about 75%).
I will look over the hexes someday later.
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