Are Devs afraid to make perks strong perks anymore?
I ask this in regards for both sides, it seems like Devs are afraid to make strong perks which means the meta won’t change.
The last Survivor perk you could even consider meta IMO is inner strength from the stranger things chapter.
for killer it would be infectious fright from the plague, maybe thrilling tremors from Ghostface.
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The fact that in perks of Killers are given a lot of cooldown or a negative side is so disgusting. Like i dont understand that one perk of pyramide head making a gen yellow for survivors, the perk even has a long cooldown like what.
Then surge also has a cooldown which I dont understand.
The devs can make powerfull perks but these perks get a too long cooldown or too much downsides.
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just a guess, but it almost seems like they are afraid to make it too strong and nerf it. Like they would rather start it off a bit weak then buff it later... but because of time constraints the buffing part never comes
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Mettle of man I’d consider one of the last Meta-changing perks.
But yeah the devs seem too scared to make any decent perks for both sides. Soul guard is probably the only notable perk in the next chapter and there’s already calls for it to be nerfed.
Many of the perks don’t offer enough benefits to be worth a perk slot, some are too situational and frankly most of the perks are better off being combined together.
A nice example would be combining the perk Wake up with the effects of No one left behind, or WGLF + Babysitter. Lots of good examples that can easily make most of the perks worth using.
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they entirely changed how perks are designed. Every newer perk has requirements to be met in order to gain actual advantage, which isn't the case for the older perks (MoM is the exception, but you know, gotta sell that DLC somehow, right?). No wonder why literally every meta perk is very old.
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Just wait til endgame where you can’t slug, hit recently downed survivor, pickup downed recently unhooked survivors, or hit a recently healed survivor(that was on the floor). Soul guard will bring an entire other level of killers running mori
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They're likely concerned about power creep, which would be especially difficult in an asymmetrical game.
Imagine a game with more insta-downs, more second chances, faster gens, and so on.
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Not really afraid, no. We aren't setting out to make the new best perk every time we add one. We've always been sure to avoid making things pay to win, of course, but we also want to make interesting perks; things that let you make niche builds, allow you to make use out of something you might otherwise ignore, or make you reconsider the perks you'd run against it.
Simply put, it's easy to make the new best perk and ship it, but that is not and has never been the goal.
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I don't know if I'd even say "anymore". I don't feel like they ever really started. Most the meta perks aren't even great, they're just the most passable options we have available.
The few that are great, became great after a couple changes and people complaining over and over. So they weren't even great from the start in other words. There were a couple decent out the gate, but not enough to sway the general sense of my statement.
They hold back so much harder on killer perks than they do on survivor perks.
People don't want the new best perk, they want a new good enough perk to consider running. Something that is general not reached with most new perks. I feel like this strawman is used so often.
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Sometimes it's better to bring out a perk which has room for improvement. That way, if a buff is later implemented, it's usually well received.
Buffs are often much more welcome than nerfs.
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Oh I enjoy the cool perks, I like coming up with combos or more accurately seeing good players come up with unique interactions. I just think once it in a while it would be cool to see a perk and say “this will replace dead hard,” or “this means I don’t have to run Pop every game.”
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The issue is you havent settled on a quality base line for perks..surely you cant believe mind breaker for instance to even be SOMETIMES useful..? If anything it makes sb stronger..as you get to control it after that ..that's what people dont like..obviously making meta perks every patch isnt possible..but you guys have shown way better creativity than some of these
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I addressed this point too, I think it’s their plan but, but, but then it never gets changed because “limited resources,” and “priorities.”
So if you’re going to release things weak knowing that a well timed buff is better than hearing players whine about a nerf that’s great! But you can’t say, “we’ll work on buffing perks someday.”
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You say this but hardly anyone runs anything else but meta perks.
And then you get people asking you to shoe horn everything into one play style due to the fact that no one wants to not use the meta perks.
Look at demo's perks niche huh? No one uses them.
I understand you don't want mettel of man to happen again but at this point make all perks viable and fun to use or nerf all meta perks because the way perks are being used is there is only use these to win mindset.
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I also think anytime they have a perk that is going to be good they add some arbitrary cool down. Surge is a good example, but that’s still decently strong. Look at the killers window aura perk (name?) it goes on cool down when a survivor is injured... was it going to be OP without that last part? It may barely be playable if they didn’t include that.
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Yeah..I hate to say it but it feels like sometimes they dont even try
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I think those niche builds on killers will be appreciated more after the changes are made to the beginning of the match, assuming those changes put killers in a position they dont feel they have to run meta perks to even come close to having a chance
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like who would ever use killer perks from last 3 DLC @Peanits ? Im sorry but its stupid to ever used them.. you want from killers to create new and interesting builds thats great love it but provide us some new options.. why would I use perk which has like bilion requirements if I have few meta perks witohut negatives and only positives.. thats why people are so fed up becasue of bullshit like this.. and then you are going to nerf our only perks which are useful.. no idea who are approving these ######### killer perks like seriuosly even player with les sthan 100 hours know instantly that all killer perks from like 3 DLCs are absolut trash and not even learn as teachable perks.
last perk from pyramid head when you kick gen you become undetectable.. like why should I be undetectable for ONLY 15 secs which is absolutly nothing in this game and I have to kick gen aaand all of survivors knows im using it ? show me one normal guy with normal intelligence who would use it.. please stop making useless perks.. you dont need to create meta super perks but at least fun perks and not so much punishable .. its so frustrating..
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Eh, that's kind of a moot point. People will always make a "meta" on their own. With the most optimal build possible. There are varied good perk builds out there, but a lot of people pick the optimal build just because its the safest bet, not because every other perkset is a guaranteed loss.
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One man's moot is another I see the same perks on both sides 90% of the games I play. Must be reason for that.... Optimal you said it.
All perks need to be useful in some way and this niche build aka meme build aspect is garbage to me.
Perks have been made useless pretty much right out the gate for far too long.
Throw away perks is what we have been getting.
Use niche builds / lose
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Usually Killers are at the better end when receiving new Perks. I dont consider anything outside of the Base Game (on PC) and the Halloween-DLC worth running. This includes stuff like Head On or Inner Strength, those are ok Perks but they compete with Meta-Perks. This is for Survivor.
For Killers, they usually bring at least Perks which can be used on some Killers.
If we look at Darkness among us for example - Jeffs Perks are garbage. Legion on the other hand has Discordance which is really good and Iron Maiden, which can at least be used on Huntress. Demise of the Faithfuhl - Jane has Head On, which is more gimmicky than good, Plague has Corrupt which is a strong Perk and Infectious Fright which is also strong on some Killers.
But recently this went down, even on the Killer Side. Ghostface had Thrilling Tremors, which is a strong tracking Perk - but not used that much, because BBQ exists and provides double BP. Remove the double BP-Part from BBQ and more people would run Thrilling. As an example.
Demogorgon was...meh.
Oni had Nemesis which is used sometimes and Blood Echo which can be used on Plague or Legion - but again, those have better Perks to use.
With Deathslinger and Pyramid Head I feel they released Perks which are not used, for both sides.
Aside from MoM, which was a pure cashgrab (you need to make a Solo Survivor-DLC good for people who neither want to collect very character nor like Bruce Campbell or Ash vs Evil Dead), there was no really meta-changing Perk on the Survivor Side.
So yeah, probably they dont want to bring strong Perks, which is a shame. I would love to have some Perks which make me think about changing my Build instead of 3 Perks which are like "Ok, I level this Character and afterwards every other Character to have 3 more Perks".
Also, Perks become more complicated - look at stuff like Brutal Strength or Iron Will. Easy, straight-forward Perks. And now we have "Do this to do this. Then this will happen. Cooldown of X seconds".
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DS and DH are still 2 of the most powerful perks in the game, are ran by probably 85% of survivors, have been the Meta for god knows how long, and still not touched or replaced. DS was, but it got buffed to where if you can't hit THAT skill check, this perk isn't for you then. DH is fine,but what about DS? Anti-tunnel perk my ass. At least make a change to where if they jump on a gen, heal someone, or sabotage a hook, it deactivates. Make it an ACTUAL anti-tunnel perk.
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I agree thats most of the problem. To many conditions to make a perk activate for a miniscule effect. Gearhead is a good example. As is the new one where you go undetectable for 15 secs.
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And I disagree on the killer side. Agreed on survivor side, but there are several killer perks that I see commonly. Not on every killer, not in every game, but often enough to say this is a good addon to the game. As you started with Plague, I'll go on from that chapter
- Dark Devotion is also used in several builds to make use of insta down ability for example
- I'm all ears is see sometimes and is a great anti mindgame perk for several killers like PH, Slinger, Huntress or Nurse
- Surge is maybe not the best gen control perk, I still see it sometimes
- Dead Mans Switch can be hilarious on several high map pressure killers like Freddy, Spirit (especially with class photo or prayer beads), Billy, Nurse, Demogorgon, Oni and maybe even Legion. Even more valuable when combined with Nemesis
- Speaking of Nemesis, this perk gives a lot of build synergies with several other obsession perks
- Blood Echo is niche, but can be really powerful on Killers that can easily spread damage like Hunterss, Nurse, Legion, Plague or any killer able to make good use of STBFL. Especially a strong perk because you have most likely 4 survivors with an exhaustion perk in the game
So I think on killer side we are pretty fine.
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A "niche" build can exist without being bad. I agree, all perks should be useful. Some just have more utility/usage than others. Without unique builds, everyone is running powerful top tier perks, and then the game would feel stagnant. I hate that this game has been taken as an E-sport or something for the longest time.
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Yeah the esport peen is real here I am so bored facing the same handful of perks every game.
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Gearhead is a great example, and someone summed it up nicely before. gear head takes two hits to activate which probably means you downed someone so why use gear head if you’re gonna just hook someone and use BBQ or pick them up for tremors.
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If youre running a slugging build maybe 🤷♂️
Ots the 2 hits AND a skill check that mess it up
Like gearhead would be great if after 2 hits the nearest generator being worked on lit up for 4/5/6 seconds. THAT would be useful. No cooldown either :/
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Right - fun can be it's own reward but there's so much emphasis on besting the opposition (survivor over killer or killer over survivor), and rank value that things that might be fun or interesting don't matter to many. but that's all games where there is room for competition.
Same thing in any game - the internet quickly determines what's the "best" setup and woe be unto he who deviates from it. Of course, it's not necessarily the best, hence we call it 'meta'.
Still in all, there are certain perks that I feel I must use to do well and others that seem to contribute almost nothing game after game and that's hard to ignore...
All that being said, it's a brilliant game and has kept me very engaged for months now. Kudos to everyone who actually WORKS on this for all of us to have whatever version of fun or domination we want.
I imagine making games is hard... you might say DEAD HARD.
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Yah, I guess the 2 hits could be a wraith or GF that’s doing the hit and run style too and hits 2 different survuvors. But like you said then it’s a skill check requires too
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You are never setting out to make the new best perk, and I think you really should, the meta is really stale. Get some fresh air into dbd, be it by nerfing the current meta perks or, preferably, by adding actually good perks and buffing the old bad ones.
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i have noticed that a lot myself tbh.
its an issue i like to call "overbalancing" - whenever they create something strong they make sure to add so many downsides or restrictions to it that its basically useless again - the Nurses add on rework is a great exampe for that.
everyone said that 3 blink Nurse was too strong - so they buffed that add ons rarity from Rare to Ultra Rare PLUS they added a huge negative effect on it, making the new 3 blink Nurse literally worse than an add on less Nurse.
or look at Gearhead. The one perk from the Chains of Hate DLC that actually had potential to mix up some of my killer builds - nerfed uppon release. No one understands why, i havent seen a single person complain about this, in its prime time already gimmicky and niche perk, yet they hard nerfed it.
or look at the Iridescent Coin the Deathslinger has - a 15m shot? excuse me? thats so extremely situational its like you're not even running an Add On to begin with! and thats Ultra Rare...
there are a lot of examples for this, but i think you get my point.
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Scott Jund had some good ideas about this as well, buffing and nerfing perks in a rotation each month or week.
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That sounds like a nightmare to implement and play with. Consistency is important, I don't want my perks to do one thing one day and something different the next because it's, quite literally, not their day. That would also make the grind worse by actively making it necessary; after all, your perks might be garbage tomorrow, so you should get them all just in case.
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Something which came into my mind:
Legendary Skins might be a sign that the ideas for new Perks are becoming less. Sure, Legendary Skins make perfect sense for licensed Characters, because it allows to bring more characters of a Franchise into the game.
But for original Characters? Even if there is someone coming to the game who has relations to an existing original character, they could also do a new Character. But there will be Legendary Skins for original Characters and while this certainly would not increase the grind, it might be a sign that the ideas for new Perks are running out.
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what they should do is start just wildly changing perks to see what sticks
make garbage perks extremely strong for 2 weeks and see if it changes up meta at all, or literally anything that isnt adding a sub-optimal at best perk every 3 months
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Yeah, some of the perks have way too many restrictions surrounding them. But, some on the killer side are sort of ok... like: Spirit Fury, I'm All Ears, Discordance, Hex: Retribution, Blood Echo, and Corrupt Intervention. Infectious Fright, Surge and Nemesis have gotten a lot of use from me. But, by no means are any of them standards, like Pop Goes the Weasel or BBQ.
I don't want to change the topic of the conversation, but Soul Guard sounds pretty broken to me. I haven't played the PTS, nor have I watched many streamers use it... but it has so much potential to be abused imo. I don't know if their intent was to offer up a counter to slugging, or especially slugging with totems, but man... I am not looking forward to dealing with another second chance perk. A double dipping one at that, especially after nerfing ruin.
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@Blueberry I would say that they treat both sides with equally bad perks. For example David king No mither perk contains 3 benefits separated by 3 other survivor perks. The first one is Jake Iron will, The second is bill Unbreakable and last one is Yui's Lucky break perk. Iron will and Unbreakable are very old survivor perks and they get used a decent amount. Yui's Lucky break perk is relatively new perk and it only survivor perk that for some reason has timer. The irony about it is that perk isn't even that good.
None of new killer perks have any potential to be used either because they have bad drawback or the effect isn't worth using. Ghostface has thrilling tremors which is BBQ with cooldown and Furtive chase... which has useless token system. Demo has surge which has cooldown, Mindbreaker which has bad values and cruel limits which is worthless. pyramid head and deathslinger perks are more of the same, more perks with heavy cooldown/conditions with mediocre effects that nobody is going to consider using.
In my opinion, the reason why they don't release usable perk is that whenever a perk looks like it has potential to be used, the other side instantly complains about that perk before it even gets released. Evidence can be shown by newest survivor perk Soul Guard. People are going to try to use it for 1 week, They'll realize that the perk activates one in 1/30 games and than they'll just go back to unbreakable because it is more consistent perk. since neither side is willing to let either side have any good perks without complaints., neither side will ever get good perks as a result.
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Is lucky break the anti bleeding for 2 minutes? That’s another great example, people have been asking for the no bleeding counterpart to iron will for a long time, when they finally put it in game it had a timer
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@johnwarner yeah, I am just using that perk as example. My major point that I was trying to illustrate is that all new perks are purposely made worse compared to original perks.I mean the last good perk that survivors use every game is Halloween DLC which is like 2 years old by now. Its hard to even classify what a good survivor perk is. As far I'm concerned, survivors will only ever use exhaustion perks, perks that grant endurance effect or perks that change your health state if they're competitive at the game. Basically perks that waste the killer's time. It is no surprise that many killers use corrupt intervention(previously hex:ruin) and pop to waste survivor's time. It is a bit hilarious but I guess that is just how the cookie crumbles.
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They can pretend they are not intentionally making terrible perks all they want but no one can look at the recent killer perks and pretend that's actually true. Survivors still get good perks sure but killers? Definitely not
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Imagine you can't use fixated when injured. It would clearly be op if you could use it always!!
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I agree, I can’t believe would look at any recent perks outside of 1-2 and think “yeah people will use this willingly.”
Another great example lol
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I like the idea of niche builds. But currently niche builds aren't played often for a reason, and that's because they're so dependent on certain conditions. So while you're making very cool and interesting perks, anything that fits into a "niche" will be widely unused after people are done playing with it.
Perks don't change how you play a killer, they simply augment it in most cases. The same is true for most addons, but there are more addons that change part of how you play. Soul Guard is a good example of a really cool perk, which offers unbreakable for leaving hex totems on the field. But there's really no incentive to leave Hex's on the field because the trade off is again very niche. Most games the killer picks you up immediately, so there's no time to heal back to full.
I like the new perks, but only ever getting situational perks shows me that devs aren't ready or prepared to shake up how we approach the game.
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i dont think there is much more to invent to be honest. specially for survivors like punishing for free, a lot of second chance perks, amazing items wich luckily some of them got nerfed because they were literally a joke, the reason why they are not inveting more is because in the past the game was like u want fdull of second chance meta perks and they had to nerf all of that and items but it took years of complains in order to get to what we are and still there is a lot to improve and change.
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We don't want you to release a new best perk every time you add new content in the game.
We want you to create perks that are worth looking at and that we can use them and say: ah-ha this one is useful or I can make a good combo with another existent perk. Sadly, no...The new perks are so bad that you won't even bother looking at them for one second because you know how bad they are.
Let's take the last 3 killers that you released: Demogorgon, Oni and Deathslinger. 9 killer perks. Out of those nine I'd pick 2 of them to make certain combo's, the other 7 are so bad that I turn my head away and say no, you freaking suck. And those 2 perks I'm talking about are Oni's Nemesis and Deathslinger's Dead Man Switch. And even these 2 perks I'd use them in just 2 situations:
- Nemesis with Play with your Food on Cannibal. This combo is an absolute beast for this killer. And that's pretty much the only place I find Nemesis useful.
- Dead Man's Switch with Freddy using Class Photo add-on. Another great combination. But that's pretty much the only place I find Dead Man's Switch useful.
So 2 perks out of 9 from the last 3 killers and even those 2 in 2 circumstances I find them useful. The rest of them and on other killers complete waste...
Let's move to the survivor's perks from the last 3 DLC's. 4 Survivors, 12 perks. Out of those 12 perks I can find 3 of them that are useful in certain situations: Inner Strength, Fixated and For The People. Let's put these 3 aside and see where they are useful:
- Inner Strength - GOD-like perk for solo survivors, it's an absolute blast, doesn't need any further explanations.
- Fixated - Works like a charm with Sprint Burst so that you move faster across the map but not running to trigger the Sprint Burst. Also works quite good with Quick and Quiet if you wanna be a sneaky sneak and go faster without leaving any scratch marks.
- For The People - Against killers that tend to slug, but very situational...
That's it. For me, personally, out of the last 21 perks that have been released with the last 3 chapters, 5 of them have the capability to be useful in certain situations, the other 16 I won't even bother to look at them..
And from seeing the new perks that come out with Silent Hill chapter 2 out of 6 can be useful, both coming from the survivor side: Soul Guard & Repressed Aliance.
- Soul Guard is basically a weaker version of Borrowed Time, but it works against killers who slug, which is great!
- Repressed Aliance can stop a generator from regressing if the killer has Ruin and you have to go for a save, or if the gen is almost done and you want to prevent Pop Goes the Weasel from being used(although a lvl 3 Pop has a 1 minute duration, while Repressed Aliance has only 30 seconds of blocking the gens, leaving 30 seconds open for the killer to use Pop on a gen...Good killers will know how to speculate this).
And that's pretty much it, add new perks that are WORTH of using in a way or another, not a new best perk with every chapter...I miss the old times when every new killer and survivor had at least 1 decent perk that you'd be looking at and you would take into consideration when playing survivor/killer...
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I've never heard a single person ask for this. We just want perks worth using compared to previously released perks. Let me give you an example of what I would consider playable perks using Conehead as an example.
Deathbound - this actually isn't too bad. Easily his most playable perk. If anything, I would reduce the range to 24 meters. Or possibly tie it to the killers terror radius. That could make for some interesting interactions with stealth killers. But I wouldn't be disappointed if it went live as is.
Forced Penance - this perk is just too narrow and doesn't really punish survivors enough for doing the one thing it's trying to prevent. Protection hits aren't super common to begin with and 30 seconds isn't enough to dissuade survivors from taking protection hits. What I would like to see happen for this perk is for the killer to get some kind of bonus for each character with broken status. For example if the killer got 1% bonus move speed for each survivor with broken. This would give a handful of killers capable of causing broken status by other means extra incentive to run this perk. For example, if Plague had this perk then it would give survivors real incentive to cleanse. This wouldn't in any way shape or form be game breaking but it would add an extra element of strategy and synergy. If a 1% move speed turned out to be too much then the number could be reduced or some alternative bonus like 8 meter lower terror radius per broken survivor could be used.
Trail of Torment - this is the biggest disappointment for most players because the potential for a great perk was there. But there are far too many restrictions. Either increase the duration, remove the generator aura, and/or lessen the cooldown. I think you could make pretty good arguments for any of those choices. Personally, I think removing the aura and reducing the cooldown to something like 60 seconds would put it in just about the right spot balance wise. Good enough to use but certainly not game breaking. Really, this is all we are asking for. "Good enough to use".
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They do it for survivors ( inner strength, head on, for the people, soul guard, repressed alliance). For killers we got nemesis (for Bubba mostly) and that was it
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I remember when Destiny first came out and everyone was using the same gun until they patched it. They would move onto the next uber gun until they patched it. This went on and on. One person in a youtube review said it best. People are going to use the best tool for the job. Don't necessarily nerf that tool. Add more tools that are just as powerful so there's options. That way you won't see the same stuff in every single game.
However in that game you couldnt stack 4 uber guns like you can with perks in here.
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I think the thing that people tend to forget is perks combined.
In fact mettle of man had to major problems with its core design
1) it was way too easy to get is it only required a basic hit this needed incredibly punishing for M1 Killers as they had no counterplay
2) in combination with other second chance perks this perk was disgusting and can extended chases to ridiculous amount of time even without any skill on the survivors part.
The problem with adding powerful perks is that you have to take three things into consideration
1) The combination with other perks it doesn't matter whether it's a new Killer perk or new survivor perks how the interacts with the other perks needs to be taken into account.
It can't be way too powerful in combination or completely invalidate too many other perks. For example perks like in a strength invalidate sloppy Butcher nurses calling (and that one Crown perk that nobody uses)
2. How interactive The Killers power powers are basically the backbone of dead by daylight you don't want too many perks that completely make a killer invalid.
For example calm spirit counters to doctors tracking but it doesn't remove any other aspects of his power.
Spine chill seriously counter stealth killers but it doesn't remove anything else Amanda can still bear trap goes face and Michael can still stalk as for Wraith yeah sorry buddy ( I guess you could still go fast whilst cloaked)
3) it has to be able to be run someone competently by itself if it needs extra suckling for it to work then it's not exactly succeeding as a perk.
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