Gen times are absolutely garbage (and here's why)
WARNING, THIS POST WILL BE A LITTLE LENGTHY! SKIP TO BOTTOM TO SEE PROPOSED IDEAS (READ FULL POST TO UNDERSTAND WHERE I AM COMING FROM)
Straight off the Dead By Daylight Wiki, here you have the time it takes for survivors to complete a generator (no Ruin, no great skill checks, no toolboxes, no perks, etc.). First things first, I find the single survivor 80 secs gen time to be relatively fair, but some might find it debateable. What I think the real problem is with gens is that 2+ survivors on a gen is not slow enough. Of course the more people on a generator the faster it should be repaired, but how is it that the negative of working on a gen together is so low. I feel the game should promote the strategy of divide and conquer rather than stick together to gen rush.
When just 2 people work on a gen together, you're basically still cutting the time it takes 1 person to complete said gen in half. 4.44 extra secs are technically tacked on as a duo penalty, but that is so little of a duo penalty that there might as well not be one. With 3 or 4 people, you're basically done the generator in 30 secs. While I get the idea here is "well if they are all on one gen the other gens aren't being done", a gen usually never has 3 or 4 people on it unless it's in the very beginning of a match (which ends up just becoming a free gen completed for the survivors).
What the devs need to understand is that their survivor playerbase aren't all potatoes despite what some may say. Most survivors know to do their objective when not being chased, rather than dilly dally doing god knows what else. Survivors also know how to maximize their efficiency in gen completion for the most part, using toolboxes & perks to speed up the process even further. What they also need to understand is that they have made a majority of their killers too weak to even apply enough pressure on gens to counteract the survivors' dominance on gen completion. Their attempts recently have been killers that can teleport or traverse around the map fast enough, which does help slightly but not enough.
Yes, killers have ways to try and slow the game down (Ruin, Corrupt Intervention, Thanataphobia, PGtW, you name it), but yet again these don't always work all that much in favor of the killer. Ruin is the "savior of gen rushing" for this game, when it isn't broken within the first 30 secs of the game. All of these other perks/add-ons to slow the game down for the most part have too little of an effect or take the killer out of action to get any effect of said perk. What is worse is that when a killer is in action against survivors, chasing the survivor usually results in looping. The killer is then tasked with mindgaming & trying to outthink the survivor being chased, while all other survivors are free to do a gen without much of a worry. This is when teams, especially SWF (which seems to be a majority of the survivor playerbase), try to take advantage in double-teaming gens. A killer is not allotted enough time to complete a chase without having gens being completed. The game is now forcing killers to start playing more of a hit & run technique, in hopes the survivors just make a small mistake to capitalize on. And even then, a simple survivor mistake does not cost them the match most of the time. One small mistake from the killer and it could end up being GG.
It should be an alarming issue when there are a lot of matches that are over in under 5 mins because a killer got gen rushed while trying to do his job. And I get it, survivors who gen rush are just doing their job as well which is why I am not blaming them for the issue. But if the devs actually thought about how this is the issue of the gen rush epidemic, maybe there wouldn't be such a need to rework/buff a certain killer and wouldn't hear the killer community complaining so much. The game is meant to be stressful on all sides, not just the killer side where you're having a mental breakdown trying to keep the gens from being completed so fast. As a rank 1 survivor, I can say I feel no pressure when playing since I have so much to keep me safe from the killer at my disposal. As a rank 9 killer I contemplate quitting killer all the time, & I'm sure many other killers in the community feel the same way but choose not to because like me they have a love for this game deep down.
My proposed ideas (could apply some aspects or all, depending on how much they would impact survivor escape rates):
-The game should punish survivors more for working together. 2 survivors on a gen should be working at 75% efficiency each (150% speed total). 3 should be working at 66.7% efficiency each (200% speed total). 4 should be working at 62.5% efficiency each (250% speed total). The idea here is that while working together does complete the task at hand much faster, the work survivors do becomes cluttered and more inefficient. (Numbers & percents are flexible to change)
-The more survivors that are on a generator, the more likely of a chance to trigger skillchecks. Skill check sizes should also slightly decrease, as it is not hard at all to hit one. Skill checks should be more frequent in general, as there are times where I have done 3 generators by myself in a game and didn't even get double digit skill checks.
-The higher rank a survivor is, the more difficult skillchecks become. They should start adapting double skill checks (hitting 2+ skill checks zones on one spin cycle). The sound timing should also decrease slightly to get the survivor better with their skillcheck reactions (hence teaches them how to react faster to Hex: Huntress Lullaby in the event the killer gets that perk to even work).
-Reduce the effects that Items/Addons/Perks have on gen completion. Toolboxes should not be as powerful as they can be (specifically the Commodious Toolbox). This toolbox has no downside & is the best one, yet it is labeled as a green rarity. Toolboxes should all have 1 positive effect & 1 negative (i.e. Moderately faster repair speed, but moderately smaller skill check success zones, etc.). If the multiple survivors on a gen penalty were much harsher than it currently is, I would see no need to change the increased repair speeds that some perks grant. Brand new parts should also have much smaller success zones, as well as DS & Overcharge skillchecks (in my opinion these skill checks are so easy to hit).
-Reduce the amount of people allowed to work on generators. What I mean by this is that there should be more single person gens and less multiple open spot gens. For a basic formula usable on each map: 7 gens on a map in total, 3 of which are single person gens, 2 of which are double person gens, & 1 three person/1 four person gen. There are so many times where I see not a single 1 person gen on the entire map. In these cases I also usually see survivors doubling and even tripling all the gens while someone gets chased (causing me to break chase to try and stop them but then they run to the nearest safe loop).
Again, sorry for the length/rantiness of this post. I am just speaking my mind on the issue. Feel free to leave your thoughts & comments below. (KEEP IT NICE, NOT JUST TO ME BUT TO OTHERS WHO YOU MAY DISAGREE WITH!!!!)
Comments
imo this may seem like a bad idea but if ruin was built into the game itself, it would not only cut down on gen times immediately without effecting the upper ranks much while also freeing up what is usually a hard-lock of a perk
a simple band-aid fix that may have negatives to it, but given BHVR's track record for their content release schedule, it's prob the most likely to be done without taking over a year
(people also really just need to stop being afraid of ruin)
I agree with what you are saying about gens... I can't tell you that it wouldn't work cause I don't have an argument against it
But I can say that implementing the rank based skillcheck is not a change I'd allow for the sake of simplicity
I did make a post how I'd change skillchecks... based off of status effects
And yes map design needs to be rebuilt from the ground up to allow more fluid game play (IMO)
In the end the devs have a lot of work ahead if they want ppl to play their game and enjoy playing it
P.S I read the whole post... I'm going to keep an eye on this topic for awhile to see where it goes... also if you want I can tell you my skillcheck change...
Ok so let me start with this; the game should reward survivors working together,and not by themselves. That's the whole point of the game tbh. I can't survive if you don't survive. Also the idea of the number changes is nice,but still you punish the teamwork of the survivors. Of course the survivors will do gens while you are chasing,that's why I usually hit&run or end the chase quickly because of unpredictability. I believe that if you change the skillcheck sizes,then new survivors will have a bad time,even worse than they have now since they believe that the game is killer sided. Also I don't believe that gens need size changes,they are fine as they are,just shrink the maps a little. The toolbox u mentioned (the green one I believe) should be red (ultra rare) and should have a downside. All toolboxes have downsides btw (the poop has smaller skillcheck zones,the sabotage are good for sabo,but terrible on gens,yellow is mediocre at best). Lastly the skillcheck compine with rank isn't a terrible idea, but I don't enjoy it either.
There are little to no perks survivors can use in order to help with gens.
That's only my opinion. BTW swf fk the game.
I feel the game should promote the strategy of divide and conquer rather than stick together to gen rush.
I feel you have no idea of what gen rush means. 4 survivors each on a generator is way more efficient than having multiple survivors on one, you don't want to divide them by making coop actions even less efficient.
Also skillchecks difficulty won't change anything. Just think of Ruin and how it made good survivors even better at skillchecks, people will just get better at them.
Love it ❤️
Any suggestion to somehow extend Generator time can go get Flashlight blinded.
A new secondary objective on higher ranks or go home. No wants to hold damn left click either but we have to, Ya know?
It wouldn't be considered "FUN" for their top PAYING customers. so it will never happen.
Just like they can edit the engine.ini to make the killer stain larger and brighter and stream it without worry.
If a killer had a way to make survivors loud af and bright white, they would be banned instantly or it would be patched within a day of discovery.
@White_Owl you have a point that I did overlook. To clarify where I was coming from: when it gets down to the last gen or two, survivors have so much power to shut the killer out as they can team up on a gen and get it done lightning quick with basically no downside. The last couple gens is what I find crucial in getting gen rushed. As killer you need to juggle the survivors & the last couple gens while trying to make them regress as much as possible. With how much you are tasked to take on, you basically can't regress the gens enough without the help of perks. Even then, survivors working together is so efficient that it then forces the killer to slug if they really want to keep a generator from popping (if the survivors know when & when not to be on the generator).
But yeah early game having survivors separate to do gens would be very efficient, which is something I kinda let slip my mind when thinking about this. I guess in my mind I was thinking about how I break chase to take on new survivors or find a new survivor mid gen after hooking someone. This at least allows me to potentially isolate a certain gen that could've been completed already with 2 survivors and try to regress it back. With 2 survivors on a gen, you can't chase both at the same time so once you start chasing one the other hops right back on the gen (most of the time). At that point, they would have most likely already gained a lot of progress on that gen very quickly, and the survivor that remains can now sit there and finish the gen having most of the work already been done with their teammate.
And guess what? DEVS NOT CARE!
A quick band aid that DEV can put into the game is leave 3 ITEMS in random place that Survivors have to own it to able to repair Gen. Get hit and that ITEM will drop. (Survivors can see Item aura at 16m)
Since Gas as 2nd objective is impossible for now
I think reducing the effectivness of multiple survivors on gens is indeed an easy solution that shouldn't really be that hard to implent
In real life work times also don't just cut in half if you keep adding more people, you are constantly getting in eachothers way
The skillcheck idea seems a bit reduntend to me though
A certain cap to gen repair speed would also help toolboxes in check
Kinda like healing speed is capped at +100% bonus
This would a false change!! Exactly like the healing nerf, which leaded to the no heal meta and even more genrushing.
What do you think people will do when it punishes working on gen together even more? They will all split up and work on separate gens. Splitting is already the current meta, it's more efficient to work on gens alone. But this change will make it like a must do.
That Legion perk wont activate at the start and hostage doctor will be more pain in the ass.
No, Bad idea. Probably worst idea I have heard
I don't know what survivors you are playing against/with but discordance is constantly going off in my matches because prove thyself is such a frequently used perk. Also other people constantly run to be on gens with me when I'm playing survivor. Minor changes wouldn't create this huge change you think would happen, at least not for long. The only things that have majorly changed from the past 3 years are sabo percentage drop, bnp usage drop, and some perk usages as new helpful perks have joined the meta. Things shift but core things never really change in gameplay. Bring on less efficient duos and trios on gens, it doesn't change overall time on gens in solo situations, and also puts more pressure on survivors to not put themselves in 3 gen situations. (I'm a rank 1 survivor and rank 7 killer so that doesn't get asked later)
Yeah. The game is balanced around people being bad. It's frustrating and it causes things to become really unbalanced when people play efficiently. They have their balance target, for better or worse.
Delete
What this says is it is more efficient to work on gens separate than together.
If you punish it more gens will go even faster.
3 x 33.3 averages out at 99.9s to so 3 gens
2 x 44.4 and 1 on a gen alone averages out at 84.2s to do 3 gens
Now if they all separate each gen takes 80s.
The only thing I personally think needs looked at is tool box add-ons as they can be stacked. A hard cap of speed may also be a good way to go so certain perks and items don't speed up a game as much but are there to help more with slow downs.
I highly oppose to all these changes. Maps are the issue because the infinites and badly designed loops are what allows a bad player to loop you for 20 minutes, and the top tier killers dont have gen issues. When you look a Freddy vs swf for example, gen times aren't a problem because the killer is opressive and balanced
I said discordance WOULDN'T activate. This means AFTER the change. How can you compare your example to a whole new scenario?
I think that your suggestion to reduce coop efficiency could backfire quite badly. Probably the worst feeling I get as killer is hook someone and see 3 people working on 3 different gens on BBQ. That's when I know I'm in trouble, as my opponents are pressuring 3 different parts of the map and I can only interrupt 1 at a time. Survivors stacking on a single gen is actually a good thing and more often than not works in favour of the killer. That's why perks like pop are so powerful. The only reason I would ever stack on a gen as survivor is if I'm trying to farm Bloodpoints and want the co-op points.
Now with your suggested change, youre introducing even more of an incentive for survivors to split up and work on different gens. I hope it doesn't become a thing.
You said in your original comment that splitting up is the current meta which is what I was comparing my killer and survivor experience to. I was merely saying that discordance still activated a lot currently considering we're supposedly in a splitting meta and I still think it will. As I stated nothing changes that drastically for long.
Meta just means it's the strongest thing.
Meta does NOT mean everybody does it by default.
However, when the punishment is to big then EVERYONE will split up and the meta becomes "mainstream"
So it takes a solo survivor 80 seconds to repair a Gen... but it takes 320 seconds to regress the Gen from 99 to 0 with no perks or items... that needs to be changed
In my opinion the real reason gens feel like they are done so fast is the fact that the killers don't have any real regression options
And saying to apply map pressure is asinine maps are flawed on both sides and then add on map and shroud offerings CI only gets real benifit if the killer finds a survivor in 30 or less seconds