Challenge: Improve 1 perk
DbD is full of perks, some good, some decent, and some... well... bad. If you could improve 1 perk to make it more balanced, more viable, or just better than it's current version... what would it be, and how would you improve it?
As an example, I'll start this with 1 perk that I feel deserves this upgrade from its present iteration:
Spies From the Shadows:
Current: The Crows found in the world can communicate directly with you.
100 % of the time, cawing Crows give you a visual cue when you are within a range of 20/28/36 meters.
Spies from the Shadows has a cool-down of 5 seconds.
Improved:
The Crows in the Entities realm are your allies.
The Auras of all Crows are revealed to you (in yellow) within 20/28/36 meters, they no longer respond to your presence, and Disturbed Crows are 100% louder in volume within this radius,
Explanation: This gets rid of the godawful loud BANG noise the current version has, the silly 5 second cooldown, and instead lets killers see crows as little signal flares leaping into the sky when disturbed as well as being more audible for the killer so they know which direction to look, Plus the killer doesn't disturb them any more so there's no false signals. It's still completely countered by Calm Spirit and Urban Evasion, and a large number of maps don't have too many crows in key locations (Rotten fields for example doesn't have any crows in the corn field despite the lack of a scarecrow) so its not an overpowered tracking tool, just a far more useful one with this change.
Feel free to give your Perk, Current effect, Ideal Improved version, and Explanation below. Remember... We're aiming for balance in the current version of the game above all else with these ideas, so please, refrain from suggestions like bringing old Borrowed Time, Mettle of Man, Unrelenting, or Decisive Strike back into the fold. Keep this in mind when you submit an idea, and have fun coming up with creative ways to either update or rework a perk you feel deserves a change for the better. I look forward to your creative input!
Comments
Hex: Thrill of the Hunt
The perk only shows you that a survivor is working on a totem. No slowdown and no notification for the survivor.
I actually really like that concept of Spies from the shadows. I also agree with a lot of your reasoning.
Here's my suggestion / Changes are bolded
Unnerving Presence
Your presence alone instils great fear.
Survivors within your Terror Radius have a 10% greater chance of trigger Skill Checks when Repairing, Healing or Sabotaging. Triggered Skill Checks' success zones are reduced by 40/50/60%. This effect lingers for 16 seconds when leaving the killers Terror Radius.
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The change for the most part is to get more use out of the perk. Usually when a survivor hears the Terror Radius they either hide or power through the gen if it's almost done or if that's not the case you end up chasing them meaning they won't get skillchecks. If the effect was still there for a short duration even after you've left the area the perk is more likely to get more use and be a potential threat.
Same could apply to Overwhelming Presence and Coulrophobia as well or anything that was applied during Terror Radius.
Monstrous Shrine: all percents are flat percents. This way it would be super strong for basement builds, and not just a joke perk.
No Mither.
First of all, turn off the loud injury music.
Improvements.
-Minimal grunting and noise.
-Survival Bloodpoints bonus.
Diversion
Now
Standing within the Killer's Terror Radius while not in a Chase for 45 seconds activates the Perk. Once the Perk is activated, press the Active Ability button while crouched and motionless to throw a pebble, which creates a loud noise notification for the Killer at a distance of 10 metres.
Improvement
Standing within the Killer's Terror Radius while not in a Chase for 45 seconds activates the Perk. Once the Perk is activated, press the Active Ability button while crouched and motionless to throw a pebble, which creates a loud noise notification for the Killer at a distance of 10 metres. Hitting the killer awards 1 bp
No Mither should pretty much have a built-in Iron Will. If you ‘can’t be mithered’ about having a friggin hole in your chest, why are you bitching and moaning about it?
Also it should not apply Thanatophonia stacks. If I had to make a quick fire idea, Broken status effect should ignore Thanatophobia, but that would buff all Survivor Broken perks and nerf all Killer Broken abilities.
Current Hex: Devour Hope
When a Survivor is rescued from a Hook at least 24 metres away, Devour Hope receives a Token.
The Hex effects persist as long as the related Hex Totem is standing.
New Hex: Devour Hope
When a Survivor is rescued from a Hook at least 24 metres away, Devour Hope receives a Token.
The Hex effects persist as long as the related Hex Totem is standing.
Diversion:
Press the Active Ability button while crouched and motionless to throw a pebble, which creates a loud noise notification for the Killer at a distance of 10/15/20 metres.
Diversion has a cooldown of 55/50/45 seconds.
Agreed.
Permanent 1 stack of pwyf? That's too much mate. 😂
Not permanent, it's a Hex Perk.
Hell, just have No Mither give you a constant exposed effect instead of broken. Then the killer doesn't immediately know about it, and you aren't constantly dropping blood orbs for the Oni.
I've always thought Spies from the Shadows should reveal a survivor's aura when they make a bird crow for 1-2 seconds.
Keep em coming everyone!
Grunts of pain reduced by 100% (at all levels)
Increase BP earned in the survival category by 50%/75%/100%
(Also the music remains normal (uninjured) unless in a chase)
hex huntress lullaby
this totem will only spawn once a survivor gets hooked and not be active without doing anything
Here's another one that's more simple to fix:
Surge
Current: Your eerie presence charges the air and interferes with technology.
Putting a Survivor into the Dying State with a Basic Attack causes all Generators within a radius of 32 metres to instantly explode and regress. Surge applies a regression penalty of 8 %.
Surge can only be triggered once every 60/50/40 seconds
Improved: Your eerie presence charges the air and interferes with technology.
Putting a Survivor into the Dying State causes all Generators within a radius within a radius of 32 metres to instantly explode and regress. Surge applies a regression penalty of 12 %.
Surge can only be triggered once every 60/50/40 seconds
Explanation: "Putting a survivor into the Dying State with a Basic Attack" Didn't work for Infectious Fright, and "Surprise!" its not working for Surge either. By enforcing this requirement, the devs are limiting the killers who can actually make use of it to only a minority of them. Removing this requirement makes it more useful, universal to all killers, and helps those who have a problem providing map Pressure (e.g. clown). Also the current 8% damage that it does to gens can be laughed off and repaired in 6 seconds by a lone survivor, Increasing that damage to 12% only adds 3 seconds to that time, but that 3 seconds is also not something easily laughed off when the killer is nearby, and can mean the difference between a survivor completing a gen, or being stalled long enough that they have to flee before its completed. With these simple changes, I feel that Surge could be a decent perk considering it still has a 40 second cooldown and a range limit.
Hex: Huntress Lullaby
Great Skill checks no longer provide progress. Hex: Huntress Lullaby does not show up for survivors until 5 tokens have be gained Hex: Huntress Lullaby wont have a visual prompt that it's active. Can still be found normally lit up.
Each Skill check failure results in 4%/5%/6% Generator regression.
1-4: Time between the Skill Check warning sound and the Skill Check becomes shorter with each token. Adds 1 second to restarting gens with each missed skill check. When Hex: Huntress Lullaby is destroyed it reveals the Aura of all Survivors who were not touching the Hex Totem when destroyed for X seconds where X is your token count.
5: No Skill Check warning and each failure delays process restart by an additional second. When Hex: Huntress Lullaby with 5 tokens is destroyed exposed is applied all survivors for 40/50/60 seconds.
Hex: Huntress Lullaby wont be active with other Hexs.
To be honest, I for one feel that all Hex perks shouldn't reveal themselves via icons or notifications on the left hand side that tells survivors what hex they are cursed with. Consider Ruin for example: Do survivors really need anything more telling them that Ruin is affecting their gen progression other than the Red Skill checks, the "cursed" icon, or the zappy generator pause when hitting a good skill check? Do they really need a detailed notification on the left hand side telling them that Ruin is active and what level its at? Seriously, a lot of the information that the devs present us unnecessary hand holding, and offensively condescending to our earned gamer instincts. Huntress Lullaby is a sly perk that becomes more and more apparent as the game progresses, but having it revealed when survivors hit their first skillcheck just ruins the surprise, defeats its sly nature/purpose, and belittles our intelligence.
I have campaigned against this over-saturated transparency before, and will continue to do so until the devs finally accept us as the smart and capable gamers we are. We're not idiots devs! If something doesn't feel right we adapt quickly and figure it out on our own... You don't need to keep the "Training Wheels" Permenently on when you could do just fine with it for our first 50 hours of gameplay.
Honestly I 100% agree.
Mind breaker
While Repairing a Generator for less then 25% of its total repair progress you'll be afflicted by Exhaustion for 40/50/60 Seconds.
If a Survivor does not continue to work on a Generator they touch for 4/5/6 seconds. The Entity will block the Generator for 40/50/60 Seconds losing 15%/20%/25% of the full 80 seconds worth of progress while continue to regress afterwards.
If a Survivor touches a generator for less then 1/2/3 seconds they are affected by the hindered status of 3%/4%/5% until that generator full regression or completion. This can stack with additional Hindered Status.
Completely agree. Permanent exposed would do the same thing as broken amd doesn't put the permanent broken target on the survivor. Bloodpoint bonus' would make this a used perk not a meme perk.
Unnerving Presence:
Your presence alone instills great fear.
Survivors within your Terror Radius have a 10% greater chance of triggering Skill Checks when repairing, healing or sabotaging.
Triggered Skill Checks' success zones are reduced by 40/50/60%. Great Skill Checks success zones are reduced by 100%.
Skill Checks have a 70/60/50% chance to turn counter clockwise.
Reasoning: Unnerving Presence currently does not affect great skill checks, meaning that the perk loses some of its strength if the Survivors can hit greats.
The counterclockwise skill checks are there to catch the Survivors off guard and it makes sense thematically. You’re supposed to be terrified while in the Killer’s terror radius with this perk active. The decreasing percentage is to make it harder for Survivors to predict which direction the skill check will go. What I was thinking is that at tier 1, there’s only a 30% chance of getting a normal skill check, meaning that Survivors could expect a counterclockwise one. At tier 3, you have a 50/50 chance of getting a counterclockwise skill check, meaning that the Survivor can’t expect the pointer to go on a certain direction and will have to look at it closely to make sure they don’t miss the skill check.
Considering that UP is limited to the killers TR, this is a good upgrade to it. At first glance I figured that your change was OP, but because of the nature of UP, and running the numbers in my head, this was a surprisingly fresh breath of air for an otherwise mediocre perk. Bravo my friend! you kept balance in mind and made a change that would work well to making this perk unique and far more useful than it is without being broken.
After being hooked you are affected by the Broken Status Effect until the exit gates are powered. Your thick blood coagulates practically instantly.
You don't leave pools of Blood
Grunts of pain caused by injuries are reduced by 20/35/50 % at any time.
Grants the ability to fully recover from the Dying State.
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Alright so quite a few changes. First you don't start off broken and you won't become broken until hooked. This rewards you for escaping your initial chase or allows you to even take a hit for a team mate and as long as you can escape you can heal back to full health. However, if you become hooked you become broken until the exit gates are powered. I feel that this change is lore friendly, you're not broken just for fun, you're broken because their are more important things to do then heal. It also gives some nice synergies with perks like second wind and adrenaline which would/could trigger when the exit gates open. And finally make tier 1 and 2 just a bit better by reducing the sound you make by just a bit more, but it would stay at 50 percent for tier 3.
I know you said 1 but these kinda go together...
Predator - Increases the sound of footsteps by 20/30/40%. Decreases the volume of chase music by 25%.
Lightweight - Decreases sound of footsteps by 20/30/40%. Delays scratch marks by 1 second.
That music is the worst. Honestly, it's one of the most annoying aspects of any game I've ever played.
The only issue I can see with this is Oni. Maybe make it so no mither still gets you the first hit bonus for blood orbs, then we're golden.
Unbalanced Landing: falling from any height gives the Broken Ankles status effect until death. You will now be stuck in a form of dying state where: your bleed out timer will never go down, your grunts of pain are 50% quieter, and you crawl 30% faster (stacks with tenacity); if the killer finds you, they can pick you up and take you to a hook. Survivors with the Broken Ankles effect can still do generators, perform unhooks, open exit gates, hide on lockers, etc. (Broken Ankles allows you to vault windows and pallets, albeit very slowly; pallets can no longer be used to stun the killer as you can no longer be damaged.
I'd rather have a person down than blood to be honest
iron maiden: the improvement will be increase the Exhausted Status Effect for 10/20/30 second(s).
mindbreaker: the Survivor is afflicted by the Exhausted Status Effect for 5/8/10 second(s).