The tragedy of Forced Penance, and what could still be
This is a bit of a long post, tl;dr at bottom.
As many others have said at this point, Forced Penance in its current state is a virtually worthless perk and not even interesting or fun to use or go against. Normally this is said about a lot of perks on a PTB release, usually an overreaction and to varying degrees of authenticity, but Forced Penance is frankly one of the worst and least useful perks in Dead by Daylight in its current state, and even Cruel Limits surpasses it. Mainly because Cruel Limits, despite its many shortcomings, does have a mildly useful effect if the stars align. The same cannot be said for Forced Penance.
There are two possible scenarios that occur once a survivor takes a protection hit with Forced Penance active.
1. The broken survivor is ignored in favour of the survivor they took a hit for. The broken survivor is not going to stand there doing nothing for 30 seconds, and if the design philosophy was for this to happen, then I am deeply concerned. No, they are going to repair a generator, as the killer is not applying pressure onto them. By the time the killer finishes chasing, downing and hooking the chased survivor, 30 seconds are very likely to have passed. If not, and the killer finds the broken survivor immediately, there is likely only 10 seconds left at most. In this case, Forced Penance did nothing, and may have harmed the killer by encouraging the survivor to complete the objective instead of wasting time healing.
2. The chase is dropped and another chase is started with the broken survivor. In what way does the broken status effect help in a chase? Unless the survivor has a styptic agent that they planned to use at that exact moment and they are downed within 30 seconds of the protection hit taking place, it does nothing. And the length of that use case should be enough to tell you how often that happens in any game at any rank.
Additionally, there is also the possibility in this situation that the survivor is downed almost instantly after the protection hit takes place. In a best case scenario, Steve runs into a bush after taking a hit and is downed. By the time Steve is picked up, taken to a hook, and unhooked once the killer leaves they area, the timer will have already run out or will have 5 or so seconds left. If they are unhooked immediately, they're not going to heal under the hook, so what was the point of the broken effect?
As is obvious, in either use case, the perk did either nothing, or actively harmed the killer. And this is assuming that these specific instances such as Steve mating with a Badham Preschool bush happen every game, multiple times.
It was also stated by Peanitz in a previous post about Forced Penance that a benefit to the perk is that it works with killer powers, not just basic attacks. However, regardless of the attack, it still does next to nothing. Huntress hatchet? Same rules as before still apply. Feral Frenzy stab? Not only is it difficult to get Forced Penance in this regard, as healthy survivors are prioritised in Frenzy, but the Legion Pin does this literally twice as effectively, and on every hit after the first rather than a niche protection hit. There are ways to apply the effect to more survivors simultaneously, such as a facecamping Bubba or Pyramid Head's Punishment (which sounds uncomfortable saying out loud), but this does not change the fact that the effect is still ineffectual and sometimes harmful. Being able to apply a negligent effect slightly easier does not make up for how weak the effect is. Even under the context of carrying a survivor, Mad Grit does the job much, much better. And Mad Grit is fun to use, while Forced Penance is not.
Now that the uselessness of Forced Penance in its current state has been explained, it's time to talk about what could be. The concept for the perk is solid; applying forced punishment is thematic and a strong effect could indeed truly punish survivors who do this. The problem, herein, isn't the perk's use case, it's merely the effect. And the answer to solve this perk and make it useful without being overly powerful or a "meta perk", while leading to interesting interaction between the killer, perk and survivor, is in the very recent Silent Hill spotlight.
That's right, merely make the perk inflict oblivious for 30-45 seconds or so. This drastically changes the perk's effect; it still doesn't do much if the protecting survivor is pursued traditionally, but if the survivor is left on their own? Then, things start to get interesting. The very fact that Oblivious is active for a long duration, the survivor is injured and the fact that the killer's status is likely unknown if the survivor ran away from the chase, creates an interesting dynamic for both survivor and killer. Did the killer break chase and is coming for the oblivious survivor? Is it safe to heal or repair generators? If they do one of these actions, they will have to be constantly on their guard, as the killer could approach at any moment. This is even shown in the, albeit dated, footage from the spotlight. The possible use and play around this effect is both interactive, fairly strong without being overwhelming, and is most importantly exciting. It even fits with the rest of Pyramid Head's perks, which seem to be geared around stealth and punishment (hence Deathbound's Oblivious for leaving the survivor and Trail of Torment's attempt to create a stealth perk). Surely, this would be a much better and more fun addition for both sides than a meaningless effect that nobody will ever use by choice, even for fun, much like the dark pit of decay where Cruel Limits, This Is Not Happening and its accursed bretheren lie. These perks are being reworked. Wouldn't it be better to change this before it launches on live servers and is added to the "rework" list in a year's time?
The oblivious status effect is criminally underutilised, and I feel this dynamic would be an excellent way to capitalise on its effect without being too strong. And this is just a personal reason, but I'd love to play against and with a perk like this, rather than another perk for the metaphorical scrapyard. And I'm sure many others would, as well. Add a stipulation specifying basic attacks if need be. Although I am loathe to utter these accursed words, add a (small) cooldown if need be. This solution is so easy and straightforward to implement, and would essentially fix the perk, at least in concept. At least think it through.
tl;dr: Forced Penance in its current state does nothing or hurts the killer regardless of whether the killer chases or leaves the broken survivor respectfully. The easy solution to this is to replace broken with oblivious for 30-45 seconds, as it is thematic with the rest of Pyramid Head's perks, actually punishes the survivor, is interactive and interesting to play against and with, and is much better designed. It's better to make this perk useful now rather than rework it in a year's time.
Also, thanks for reading all that; i'm glad that more people seem to be standing up for Forced Penance, as it is just an eyesore in its current state. Hopefully, this might be redirected to the design team. If Forced Penance is released as it is with no plans to change it, I will be very disappointed, as I'm sure many others will.
Comments
Yeah idk why they changed it from oblivious to broken. It makes so much more sense and is actually useful even for that short time it's active whereas broken is going to be useless 90% of the time.
Should've just stuck with what they said in the intro video smh. Another "small change" in the works.
The fact they had oblivious in the stream tells me they changed it last minute...and that one change went from it being an interesting perk with niche uses to totally useless. Half a minute of being unable to heal? As a solo survivor I spend way longer than that not healing myself almost every match seeing as I don't bring items and don't use self-care. Completely useless.