Thoughts on "overpowered" stuff like insta-heals, NOED, etc.
Thinking about my feelings on the "overpowered" items and abilities that prompt so much hand-wringing here. I was going to post this as a reply in this other thread, but I figure I have enough for a good discussion here.
Looking at the game from a macro view, I feel like the design philosophy that makes the most sense is that the killer should have access to powerful abilities that essentially "cheat" baseline game mechanics in ways that directly impact and overturn the opponent's progress, while survivors should not.
Killer abilities like this include stuff like Hex: Ruin, Enduring, Spirit Fury, Sloppy Butcher, Whispers, Pop Goes the Weasel, Monitor & Abuse, Make Your Choice, Blood Warden, and Hex: No One Escape Death. Not to mention each individual killer's power and associated add-ons.
Survivor abilities like this include stuff like Borrowed Time, Adrenaline, Unbreakable, Decisive Strike, Styptic Agent, Anti-Haemorrhagic Syringe, and Brand New Part.
The reason I feel this way is because -- as I have become fond of saying -- the clock is always against the killer. Survivors have the superpower of being able to appear in four places at once, and to make progress toward their victory condition very quickly if they are not being attacked or chased. The killer can only play whack-a-mole within whatever parameters the survivors are able to set for him (that is, unless they are potato survivors, their choices are what roundly dictate the pace of the match).
Individually, every survivor should be very weak and fragile. This may be sacrilege to players who prefer that role over killer, but I believe the ideal balance point is to view every survivor as 1/4 of a person. Together, you are a Voltron that can accomplish a lot. Individually, you're actually not too bad either, because you can interact with pallets and windows, you can run away from the killer and stun them, you can rescue and heal each other, and you have three lives apiece. Even if survivors did not have a single other ability or perk to lean on, that is still pretty good.
You throw a bunch of "cheat" abilities on top of that, and you stack the deck against the killer in a pretty huge way. To make it worse for him, he can't even figure it out in the way that survivors can figure out the killer's loadout. Does the killer have Barbecue & Chili, Nurse's Calling, Hex: Ruin, Enduring, or Sloppy Butcher? Well, you can usually figure that out pretty quickly and reliably by being observant. Same goes for really strong add-ons, like Iridescent Heads or Prayer Beads or Wraith's various tracking toys.
But from the killer's perspective, how is that even realistic? The survivors have 16 perks in play, plus whatever items and add-ons (including what they find in chests). Does that guy have a Styptic Agent? Who's running Decisive Strike? Did that unhooked guy get Borrowed Timed? You can figure out some of this, but not nearly as quickly, and the killer is always operating with majority-incomplete information. Every match is a full-bodied roulette, and there's no telling what hill you will have to climb (or have been climbing, until you see the postgame results screen).
Survivors' deep library of powerful "cheat" abilities put them firmly into the power role, and if the killer has a bad early game, it can often be flat-out unwinnable for them, especially for killers without optimal mobility or map coverage. Overpowered survivor abilities just become "win more" mechanics in these situations.
So yeah, that's where I'm at on this stuff. I suppose I should point out that I am neither a survivor or killer main. I play and enjoy both roles, so I don't really have a horse in the "us vs. them" rat race that a lot of people here seem to be eager to run.
(Oh, and I also had a point about how survivor victory or defeat must realistically be looked at as a "the many vs. the few" scenario. That is, even if YOU die, and the other three make it out, it was still a victory regardless of your own individual fate. Anecdotally, it seems to me that lot of survivor players seem to have an individual "me me me" attitude about their own capabilities versus the killer, when it objectively makes more sense look at survivors as a group in terms of gameplay flow and balance. Not sure where to put it, so here you go.)
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the "team" victory doesn't really apply when survivors don't get bloodpoints simply because one of the others survived.
survivors only get escape points if THEY survive... so... no... it's not really all that team oriented.
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Dude, I agree with all of this. The Killer is alone, against 4 people. Why is the deck stacked so hard in the TEAM'S favor, that the guy on his own is the one racing to catch up. On a pie chart, the Killer should be half of it and the survivors should make up the other half, 1/4th each. An Asymmetrical where the guy by himself is the low end of the totem pole is unbalanced as all #########.
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Maybe try civilization quite a refreshing change. Did you forget about how much more OP moris are than stupid agents and brand new parts
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Styptic not stupid, but with the change to brand new parts and DS there's nothing survivors have that'll tramautically tilt the game with instaheals it's possible and same thing with the brand new parts BUT it's gotta be timed right and MOST of the time there's not 4 survivors using those things.. but all it takes is 1 killer to use a green Mori and kill the 1st guy right off the hook and kapow the game is 99 percent in the killers favor ESPECIALLY if there's 4 gens left with RUIN still up and dont even get me started on Ebony's and op add-ons killers have, stop complaining and get good If you can't learn how counter play simple survivor mechanics and learn how to manage your limited time then killer is NOT for you. What do you want them to do? I MAIN PIG and get 3 and 4Ks all the time dude. I'm in purple ranks for killer but i play killer when I get bored playing RR survivor( I play solo and alot of times the randoms suck and most of the time it's the same killers being played at rank 1)
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Okay, so you use a really stupid argument to counter his eloquent and well thought out post? Good job. Side Note: I've seen 4 BNP teams and I've seen 4 instaheal teams in this Blood hunt alone.... at least 10 times. You really think all of the perks survivors have are balanced? You really think everything is fine? Good job getting 3Ks and 4Ks as Piggy, but that holds no weight in this argument. Also "Get Good" Is not advice. It's barely even a meme anymore. Please, use your intelligence before posting.
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Oh, and Moris are the "counter" to Keys, which you didnt mention. Also, please go LOOK at the add-ons for Killer before you start saying they are OP. Here: https://deadbydaylight.gamepedia.com/Dead_by_Daylight_Wiki
Please get some correct information.
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I've done 3 man escapes when one guy quits straight after loading in. It isn't impossible and based on the skill of the players. It's not always so obviously a win.
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@VNGNCE I believe the Mori mechanic is grossly un-fun and counter-intuitive to everything else that is currently in place. That is, it throws a random bomb in the room that arbitrarily cuts one unlucky survivor's game much shorter, and it also punishes the killer by not awarding BP or emblems for the death. So, the killer actually sabotages themselves by using it in the first place. I think this specific mechanic is a whole different can of worms than the stuff I brought up in my original post, though.
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All I´ve seen in this blood hunt thing is Nurses, Spirits and Freddys.
5 blink nurses, Spirits with ultra rare silent addons, and you think 4 BNP teams are too much?
4BNP teams are not common at all, and in the long run its just a dumb way to get a depip.
When you say balanced perks I can only use 1 balanced landing and Im out of Dead Hard or Lithe, however Nurse can blink all the time, Adrenaline ¨IF¨ I get there, BT is lame and it should be included in the game without perks to eliminate the stupid tunneling.
So if you cant counter those things with your unlimited addons, perks and no dying then its on you.
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NOED isn't overpowered imo. Mainly noob killers use it. When you play killers in red ranks you don't see NOED that often. You see it a lot in green ranks and some in purple but not so much in red. The two perks the killer almost always has is ruin (pretty much universal regardless of rank) and B&C (It's a strong perk plus you get all those sweet bloodpoints.) The other two perks vary depending mostly on the killer they are playing.
The two type of strongest perks are ones that slow down gen speed (Ruin, Thano, dying light, pop goes the weasel) and perks that help the killer end chases faster if you're not playing Spirit or Nurse (Spirit fury, enduring, brutal strength.)
Perks that help with aura reading and tracking survivors are generally pretty weak since you can find survivors pretty easy just by patrolling gens. They are good for newer players but not so much for experienced ones. Whispers, B&C and nurses calling would be the strongest of these.
End game perks are the ultimate noob perks (NOED, blood warden, remember me). If you run one of these you're essentially admitting that you're not very good and that you're probably going to need help at the end when all the survivors finish the gens and head for the exit gates.
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Or, just throwing this out there, you run end game perks cause you expect gens to fly by at mach 3. NOED is a very bad perk to run as a noob, because you learn wrong.
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Noobs run NOED to not be completely embarrassed and hope to at least get 1 kill. A more experiened player would use a much better perk like dying light or pop goes the weasel knowing they can probably get multiple hooks fairly quickly and slow the game down.
Once you get to playing a lot of red rank killers NOED pretty much becomes a non factor. Most red rank killers don't run it. Very rare.
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@Steve0333 Maybe my original post isn't clear enough on what I set out to describe, but I lump NOED in with other abilities that let you "cheat" the default game parameters in some substantial way. NOED gives you an infinite one-shot; Blood Warden lets you re-lock the exit gate; Pop Goes the Weasel overturns generator progress; etc.
I am not trying to make a case against NOED or any other specific mechanic/ability here. This is more of a big-picture observation about survivor and killer capabilities overall, and why I think it makes sense for a substantial disparity to exist.
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In once sense you are correct but that would make it an entirely different game with the same overall mechanics.
The game has always been about help other or don't as there is a need to keep others alive but you can also put yourself in more danger so its a choice. Making DBD more team orientated would not be a great idea imo as it then removes the "I want to escape" factor.
The perks you mentioned for survivor bar DS as I have never liked that perk were all introduced to lessen the way some killers chose to play, make it more engaging and well less boring much like the sabo change when hooks were perma destroyed. Certain mechanics are just not great for a game people play for fun afterall.
Now some of the survivor perks you mentioned.
Borrowed time only works if you are close enough to he hook so its to negate camping.
Unbreakable was to aid in being slugged as lets face it no one likes crawling around for minutes on end.
Adrenaline well that can only work when you have the gens done and is a one time use.
Now take your comment regarding having a bad game early on. Should someone be rewarded for this? If you played badly at the start the outcome is you will and probably should lose if the others play better and that goes for both sides.
The problem isn't inherently with perks but with the synergy of them with certain groups of players. Adrenaline for example is stronger when you can coordinate it's use and let them know how far along gens are but then you have NOED to negate any extra heal along with more speed.
The game is designed for fun and not to be taken too seriously and I do believe the matchmaking as it pits all skill levels in one large pool is a major factor as you will verse players a lot lower or higher skilled than you regardless of rank. This I believe is a factor that makes some think they should be more competative within the rank bracket they are in.
Personal knowledge and skill has a huge impact in the game and when you have 1k hours and someone has 6k hours it can make a huge difference to the outcome more so than any perks.
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