My Hope
Just me giving my speculation on the reasons for the Ruin changes and the future of the game.
Obviously a lot of people are upset/confused over why Ruin is getting such a major change despite that it was used so much because there is a problem with gen speed. It feels like the devs are catering to one side instead of addressing a core issue. I'm pretty sure BHVR isn't trying to sabotage their own game, so what would be the reason behind such a controversial decision? I think it was actually a very hard call for them to make and a lot of it can be tied to the Stranger Things chapter.
Getting Stranger Things into the game has been a huge milestone for DBD. Whether you love the show or hate it, it's easily the most well-known depiction of modern horror they could have brought into the game. It's doing for the game now what the Halloween chapter did a few years ago, but on a larger level. The makers of DBD want to capitalize on all of the new players coming in as much as possible and I think it affected some of their decisions on priorities for the game.
Ruin is a perk that been accepted by the community for a long time. Most veteran players can just work through it or they know where the usual totem spots are. But to a new player, I can see how it's frustrating. They're either blowing up the gen or they're not making much progress because of the constant regression, which feels unrewarding. They probably don't even have the opportunity to get better at skill checks because Ruin is such a common perk that it is weird seeing a killer not run it.
BHVR wants to retain as many of the new players as possible and I think it caused them to make a hard call. They wanted to do something about this commonly run perk that turns off a lot of new players, but they didn't have the time to address the survivor's objective as a whole on top of the Lery's map rework and the Doctor update (a killer many new players also find frustrating to go against).
I sincerely want to believe the devs have plans to do something about how fast the games go without ruin. Whether it's gen speeds, another survivor objective, or buffing killers, I don't know. But with ruin skill checks no longer stacking with other perks such as Pop Goes the Weasel, Corrupt Intervention, Dying Light, or Thrilling Tremors, I think that will provide a better baseline for the devs to balance the game.
That is my hope. I would love to hear if you agree/disagree.
TL;DR I think the devs made the controversial ruin change to make the game friendlier for new players b/c of Stranger Things and they didn't have enough time for this update to balance how fast gens go. Hopefully they have plans in mind for future updates to balance gen speed since old ruin is no longer a thing.
Comments
I really appreciate that and I wish more comments would have been about the main discussion as well.
They're doing the kellyanne conway thing. Like you ask them why the couch is on fire and they tell you bc it's more cost efficient than heating the house. And hey, didn't you want a new couch anyway?
I would really want to see another survivor objective
This thread has their streams.
Another example of a relevant, well worded and polite thread asking the developers about the intentions of certain, impactful, decision where the main post is completely ignored in favor of meme responses to other irrelevant posts.
You've been called out on this before, are you really just going to keep doing this?
If you have anything close to 1000 hours with some of the things you've said regarding balance... good god..
Then maybe they should make a functional matchmaking system that doesn't pair up new players with veterans.
You're a dev and only have 950 hours?
I think the sarcasm in these threads, as well as peanits titling one of his streams as "DBD Dev doesn't play their own game" honestly shows how little they care about the game and the members of the community that disagree with them for that matter.
It isn't a "myth" that the devs don't play/aren't good at their own game, as peanits title suggests, at this point it's quite honestly fact. But more importantly even if it wasn't true, a community manager (not even Dev if we're being honest) to take it to this level and actively take the piss out of a member of the communities opinion is atrocious. How about instead of making stupid jokes and comments in an attempt to retort these comments, you actively try to address them in a functional manner?? Or at least act how a community manager and Dev should behave regarding a member of the communities opinion, if you are to be taken the least amount seriously.
Maybe you launched it in the wrong app
Sometimes Steam isn't enough
All this "frustration for new players" is forced attempt to ruin ruin (lol). Who even gonna pick MID-LATE GAME TOTEM PERK, which almost useless, comparing to old one? Like, I just watched random Tru3 video, where Ruin was destroyed at 50 secs. Yup, hello there, lategame.
This perk is terribly desighned. I'd said that it's bad, if it stacked with pop and other gen-defense perks. But, well, this perk isn't bad, it's counterproductive.
Like, for example, new ruin could have been something like this:
The way I would reworked it is to simply slow repair speed while it stands by rougly same amount of percentages as the average amount of skillchecks / 2 (that's assuming that survs hit 50% of skillchecks and don't suffer regression). So, let's assume that survivors had 10 skillchecks while they repaired gen. They hit 5 of them and suffered 25% regression. That's 20 secs. That means 0.25% penalty for repair speed.
I understand, my solution isn't really perfect, since it's requires a lot of math and statistics. And tests. Also, probability of skillchecks is different if multiple people do gen. But I believe, that roughly same amount of average regression could be achived with correct numbers.
So, it still could give early slowdown, but more consistent and more friendly for new players, since they don't have to worry about hitting great skillchecks and blowing up gens. This also gives killers early pressure, cause, let's be honest: killers have enough perks for midgame. And also, there is no guarantees that new ruin gonna survive to mid-late game, where it's most effective.
By the way, devs, buff DS. Skillcheck is too small, it gives frustration for new players, lmao.
Holy! I honestly thought they were kidding when they said they streamed the game. Now they actually went the extra mile to try to call me out online. I feel honored that i would bother them that much with my comment tbh.
I think i'll actually watch their stream sometime when I can to get an idea of where that disconnect happens where devs think that there isn't a problem with killer atm.
This