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Multitude of changes that should be in the works
Like probably everyone who plays the game - There is some "bug" or game mechanic change that they want to be worked on. From the ranking system, certain perks and the good ol' Dead Hard reliability, to map design, hex totems and the dedicated server tech. There's pretty much a lot of things in the game that need fixing or changing. Here's my little (not really little) list of things that NEED to be worked on, for the health of the game.
Smaller map design
One thing that the game excels at is huge maps. This is a huge hinderance to killers as it takes a whole generator to walk across one side of the map to the other. There are some maps that do well with their map size (the game being one of them and perhaps even coal tower), but there are more maps that are way too big. It reduces KillerxSurvivor interaction and reduces the amount of skill involved in terms of survivors. Map sizes across the board should be reduced, allowing that interaction without taking away skill on both sides. With this change, you also don't need to increase the time it takes to complete a generator. Which is what a lot of killer mains want.
Hex totems
Hex totems have been a huge problem since their release with the hag. They're way too exposed in most maps (out in the open) and the amount of times totems are taken out within the first minute of the game is a bit ridiculous. It essentially means killers have three perks to work with. Maybe even two perks if they're running two hexes. So how to we tackle the problem and make it objectivly better? Here's my idea on how to tackle the problem.
- Conceal totems better! As I said previously, totems are way too exposed on most maps. Some even in the middle of nowhere. This also falls in conjunction with better map design.
- Change the hex perks entirely. My idea was to allow another slot in a killer's loadout - Hex Charms. They provide the exact same effects as the current hex perks available, but without wasting perk slots when they get taken out. This allows a lot of customisation surrounding a killer's build.
- All survivors receive a notification of a hex being used on the map at the beginning of a game (Using the same symbol as it currently does). They don't know what that hex perk is , which will keep survivors guessing on what that hex is.
- The hex totem should be hidden completely from the survivor's view (Shrouded by the fog or perhaps even cloaked like the Wraith's cloak?) and can't be cleansed until all four dull totems are cleansed. This gives survivors another objective to complete and incentive to actually do something else on the map.
- Expanding on that, cleansing totems should periodically give survivors skill checks, regressing progress if they fail them. Perhaps make the skill checks the same as a DS skill check. Killers get a notification the same way failing other skill checks does.
- Make more hexes! You could also make more hexes for (possibly) every killer. Giving killers more options for which hex to choose.
A couple of changes for certain hexes as well in tandem with the above idea
Haunted Grounds - A dull totem is trapped instead of an actual hex totem. There is no obvious difference between a normal dull totem and the trapped one. The killer knows which totem is trapped and the "hex totem" is actually fake. Once the trapped totem is cleansed, the "hex totem" reveals itself and stays as a dull totem.
NOED - This is a bit of a weird one, as it activates at the end of the game. My idea was to get rid of the exposed effect and keep the haste effect it gives (perhaps even buff it slightly). Make it so it's kind of the same as Beast of Prey. After being in a chase for 15 seconds, the haste effect kicks in until either you hit a survivor or get stunned by/break a pallet.
Dead Hard
We all know how absurdly unreliable Dead Hard is as of late. Ever since dedicated servers came out - You use it, get exhausted, but still get hit. Most actually use it to gain distance now, rather than make the killer whiff a lunge. The change I'd make here is to make the Dead Hard effect an absolute priority once used, instead of killers getting a hit through it. Not sure how that would work but something to that effect.
Those are my top three changes that I would make to the game. It definitely makes the game a lot healthier for new and veteran players across the board. There is a couple more things that could use a change...
The ranking system
I think the ranking system is really bad. It's way too easy to rank up and there's no incentive to even rank up in the first place. No rewards, nothing. Just a number and a colour to (can you even) brag about. What was my idea around ranks?
Make it so there are 50 ranks. Yes. 50. 10 ranks for each colour. Brown, Yellow, Green, Purple and Red. Give both sides rewards for getting to higher ranks, perhaps cosmetics, bloodpoints, Iridescent Shards etc. Maybe even Auric Cells at a push. This gives incentive to actually work towards ranking up. The higher you go, the greater the rewards. Make it so rewards are available from green ranks onwards, say around rank 25-20 and get progressively higher as you go up the ranks.
Matchmaking
The changes to matchmaking as of late are more of a hinderance, rather than a help. It takes ages to find a game as a survivor but as a killer it's almost instant. In conjunction with the above ranking system changes, the matchmaking should work like this -
Pool ranks together by colour. Brown ranks together, Yellow ranks together, and so on. If you're on the verge of progressing to a new colour (Yellow to green for example or rank 31) then those close to progressing up should be pitted against green ranks. By winning/escaping/pipping or whatever, you then get to that green rank 30 and move on. If there is an SWF group of varying ranks, then it should take the highest rank into account for matchmaking. I think changing matchmaking from average rank to highest rank is a decent change, but a lot of red ranks still go up against greens/purples.
So essentially - Brown ranks are matchmaked together from ranks 50 to 42. But rank 41s are matchmade with yellow ranks between 40 - 32. You get the general idea. This will be healthier for new players as well as veterans.
Both of those changes work well in theory, but you have to get the matchmaking working in practice. As currently, it really doesn't work.
Those are what I'd like to see in the game in the future. Perhaps others feel the same way, or even have other changes in mind that I didn't throw out here yet.
Comments
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Nobody has any ideas I guess?
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Two things stand out to me with this
First, you want to change NOED back to how it originally used to be in 2016. Older players and the devs know for a fact that Haste as an effect doesn't have any real effect on the endgame because moving faster, but still potentially needing to go through two health states means you're just giving survivors a free sprint burst out the door. So, this is one of those things people keep suggesting, but never read up on patch history to see we've already tried in live several times.
Second, the secondary totem slot idea gets passed around alot, but we've been told that the devs do not feel comfortable with adding more perk slots. Also, why do you want to revert the most recent totem buff of not having survivors know that a hex is in play till they are effected by it? In general it feels like a lot of individual thoughts when into the hex ideas, but not enough thought went into could the game as it exist with the team that currently exists developing it make sense. Take them around the block a couple more times with that in mind.
I agree with the need for smaller maps, but I don't agree with you thoughts of Dead Hard. Dead Hard's problem isn't interaction with killers that makes it fail, but its interaction with server ticks that makes it fail. Setting it to an absolute priority wouldn't fix anything there and would only serve to take the counterplay out of it. Remember, killers have been able to time a lunge on Dead Hard before servers were a thing. It's intended design for it to be countered in that way and it means that you have to Dead Hard with proper skill rather than just hitting the button. As a perk there is a lot of Dead Hard specific tech that makes the perk very strong.
Matchmaking changes would be fine, but before we can fix matchmaking we need to increase the difficulty at which survivors move up the ranks. For killer it becomes extremely difficult to rank once you start hitting low green to high purple. The climb slows down and you have to draw the game out and toy with survivors more to get proper emblem score. If you lose really fast or win really fast you end up depipping yourself. Survivors can do enough to pip without escaping and in general have lower score thresholds for maximum emblem scoring. If that doesn't change you will still see unskilled players at every rank which is what matchmaking moot in most cases.
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I probably didn't explain my idea with NOED very well.
Basically, it's active so long as the totem is up, not just at the end game. Buff up the haste slightly, after 10/15 seconds of being in a chase, you gain that haste effect (bloodlust stacks with it). The problem with NOED currently is that it gives people an easy way out of a bad game.
The totem idea I had isn't an extra perk slot. It's a totally different slot in the loadout, specifically designed for hexes. Killers still get four perks, but moving the (currently) 6 hexes shouldn't be completely game breaking. As I said, the survivors get notified at the start of the game that a hex is on the map. Survivors have to determine what it actually is. Keep the hex totem hidden until four dull totems are cleased. It means it's an extra objective for survivors to complete and on top of that, it gives survivors something to actually worry about.
The counterplay to dead hard is either bait it out or wait for survivors to use it before actually swinging for a hit (i.e. right behind them). I've played against Dead Hard pre-dedicated and post-dedicated, and my strat always remains the same. My suggestion isn't taking the counterplay out of it. Using Dead Hard, getting exhausted and STILL being hit I get is a case of latency in some cases. But having that "second chance" perk fail should really constitute some kind of attention by the devs.
The thing is, with a lot of threads I see about gen times/map design, no one actually takes into account the size of the map. If maps across the board were smaller, games would be way more balanced. Then Ruin wouldn't be (and no longer will be come next patch) such a crutch for killers to use. Increasing the gen repair times would be counterproductive as survivors will always bring toolboxes no matter what.
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Smaller maps don't necessarily address all the issues associated with gens and it doesn't necessarily make the game way more balanced. Travel time is actually a smaller issue for gen pressure than the overall simplicity of the objective. The amount of pressure you can apply is finite as a single individual and without some force actively slowing the game down it tends to go to fast. Smaller maps would allow most killers to apply more pressure potentially, it won't do much to help killers who can't apply map pressure to begin with. Nor will it keep people from rushing gens via perks, boxes, and parts.
Dead Hard failing is usually server issue related or player error. There is very little that needs to change about the perk or the way killers interact with it. Until the servers are properly tuned this will be not great for using that perk, but even in the current environment it's still a good perk. It's a high risk high reward tool to begin. It's just unfortunate that using requires you to put you life in the hands of unreliable servers.
It also doesn't matter if you don't call the totem slot a perk slot. The devs have had people ask for exactly what you are suggesting and they said they were not comfortable with the idea of more slots. It would add so much more work to balance out and lets just say that balancing is hit or miss. The game is designed with no more than 20 perks total effecting a single trial and the strength of those effects are also balanced around that space. Should we see an extra slot for totems you can guarantee that totems across the board will start to lose power. There is less reason to make the strong when they don't have to take up one of the 4 perks a killer gets. There is a lot of moving parts to the equation for totems and balance of them.
For NOED, what you're suggesting you could just add it to Beast Of Prey as that is where bloodlust enhancements belong. Especially if you're having to wait 10/15 seconds for it to kick in. This is a game of seconds so that's a significant amount of time. NOED also doesn't turn around a bad game nearly as much you seem to think? It can help, but most times you down one person then the totem gets cleansed or you take the perk get to end game and there are no totems left to apply it to. Even when it does go active the players it affects the most are low skill players. Which most things affect them adversely because they don't know how to play the game well enough to trivialize most situations.
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The suggestion you made for NOED was interesting. I had an idea for it recently, which still involves it being an endgame perk, but takes away a bit of the annoyance. I was considering this:
When the last generator is completed, a hex totem spawns. While this totem in active, the survivors can't activate the exit gate (maybe blocked by the entity). This totem deactivates after 3/4/5 minutes or when the totem is cleansed.
This is an effective endgame perk that gives the survivors one last objective to do. Obviously its effectiveness can be based on where the totem spawned, which goes onto your point about totem placement being trash sometimes. I added the timer so the killer couldn't just stand next to the totem and hold the game hostage obviously. An added bonus of this totem is that it won't allow as many unskilled killers to reach high ranks just because of NOED.
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I also had some ideas for other hex perks.
New Hex Ruin:
As well as the 2x auto regression, should have slow down on gen speed. Say 25/32.5/50% depending on which tier you have.
Hex Huntress Lullaby:
Only spawns once you have the 5th stack. Then this will force the survivors to get off gens and search for it. Prior to the 5th stack, it doesn't have a high impact, so it should have the ability without spawning yet.
Hex Third Seal:
Applies the oblivious status effect to any survivor that is hit for 60/80/100 seconds.
This would be a scary perk to go against and would also be effective against SWF.
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