Core Game Mechanics Rework

Youko

Reworking Hook States and Related Mechanics

Overview

While hooks are a core element of both the lore and aesthetic of Dead By Daylight, they are also at the heart of player frustrations. This rework idea aims to address the most frequent complaints of survivors, including:

-Camping hooks/Tunneling Survivors, resulting in limited ability to participate in the match

-The Struggle mechanic

-Prevent early-game Moris

-Prevent griefing/poor teammate skill from determining death

Removing Hook States for HP

Too often players make a mistake or find themselves in a poor location for a chase, resulting in an early hook. This can be compounding by either griefing or poor teamplay (refusing to make a save/pulling the survivor in front of the killer without a protective perk) and may result in a player only being able to participate in a fraction of the match. This is both detrimental to the enjoyment of the player, and can severely hamper the team. Furthermore, it greatly limits the strategy of both the killer and survivors.

Instead of Hook States, survivors will have Hit Points. Hit points will greatly change how various mechanics work within the game with the hopes of balancing out both sides to have more participation and help to reduce the role that luck plays in deciding outcomes and instead reward skill and consistency.

HP Mechanic and Killer Attacks/Abilities

The following are working numbers, please keep in mind that they are rough estimations that while relatively proportionate, could change greatly in the final ideation.

Survivors will have a base health of 100 HP (this could be vary based on the physical build or toughness, TBD). Killer interactions (attacks and abilities) will interact slightly differently with this new HP bar as follows:

-A basic attack on a healthy survivor will do 5 damage and cause the “bleeding” status (previously injured status, “bleeding” will cause the survivor to leave an intermittent blood trail).

- A basic attack on a “bleeding” survivor will do 5 damage and cause the “hemorrhage” status effect (previously the dying status, players with leave a more obvious and consistent blood trail)

-A basic attack on a survivor with the “hemorrhage” status will do 5 damage and cause the “incapacitated status”, equivalent to the current dying status.

-Killer secondary attacks will be assigned strength of 0 (no state change, usually for a debuff), 1 (bleeding state upon being hit), 2 (hemorrhage state upon being hit), or 3 (incapacitated state upon being hit). Each strength level would do 0 HP, 5 HP, 10 HP, and 15 HP damage respectively (though this number could be flexible for more fine tuning/interesting character builds).

-Abilities causing the “Deep Wounds” status would cause a loss of HP over time until mended.

HP Mechanic and Hooking

While the main concept of hooking is similar to current play in removing a survivor from powering generators and forcing a teammate to make a decision on a rescue, how this is achieved and what it accomplishes is somewhat different. While the idea of helplessness is an important horror concept, it clashes with frustration of players losing agency over their decisions in the game, or worse, removes a player from the game due to decisions completely out of their hands. The following changes returns that agency and creates new strategies:

-When a survivor is hooked, they lose 5 HP.

-The Struggle mechanic is reworked to cause the player to pull themselves off the hook by tapping a button for several seconds, causing them to lose 15 HP upon success, but is guaranteed to free them.

-A Hook Rescue, however, results in no additional loss of HP for the player being saved.

-Players will have to make a cost/benefit decision on whether to save themselves or hope for a rescue.

As a side note, since the Entity’s appearance on the hook is an important part of lore/aesthetics, it will appear upon any hooking, and, depending on the remaining HP of a survivor (ex: 25%/50%/75%/death) it will be more actively tormenting the survivor.

HP Mechanic and Moris

When a Survivor enters a critical health state of 15 HP or less, they will be vulnerable to a Mori if a killer has played one. There will no longer be differing levels of Mori offerings, only a single one. This will prevent situations where a Killer can Mori a Survivor very early in a match,a low risk, high reward scenario.

Alternatively, Mori offerings could be removed altogether, and all Killers could have to ability to Mori a Survivor in the HP Critical state. In this case, it may be more fair to lower the HP threshold even lower for balance.

HP Mechanic and Medkits

Medkits would change significantly to work within the scope of the new HP mechanics. Since the goal of the killer is less specifically focused on hooking and instead trying to get Survivor HP down to zero, medkits can no longer fully restore a Survivor. Instead, healing will be more about reducing Survivor health states (bleeding, hemorrhaging, incapacitation) with addons providing limited HP restoration. The medkit will interact in the following way:

-Similar to current usage, medkits will heal 1 health state at a time until the survivor is “healthy” but will not recover HP.

-Addons to medkits will be reworked to grant varying amounts of HP restoration.

Other Considerations to Make HP Mechanic Successful

Random Elements

While randomly generated elements and luck based offerings may have seemed like an interesting way to portray the fickle nature of the Entity, they ultimately undermine the skill of all players. The following changes should happen to improve game health:

-Create maps with pre-determined layouts

-Remove luck based offerings

Game Pacing and Alternative Survivor Objectives and Interactions

With a change in pacing of the game and removing random elements, alternative objectives may prove a valuable aid in pacing matches and using strategy to determine player actions. Some ideas include:

-Finding parts and gasoline for generators.

-New interactions with environment (varying hiding spots, distractions, and obstructions.

Sabotaging and Hooks

Sabotaging hooks would take a greater amount of time (lessened with toolboxes or perks) and be permanent. Since hook states no longer exist and players can be defeated without hooking, permanent damaging of hooks is less detrimental. Sabotaging, instead of removing a hook, would damage it, causing the hooked survivor to still be damaged upon being hooked, but taking significantly reduced damage upon trying to struggle free (5 HP instead of 15).

Map Voting

Replace Map Offerings with a voting system.

Blood Point Merchant

Allow players to spend their bloodpoints as they see fit on the items and perks of their choice.

Trash2

1. Killers are struggling to win when having to hit survivors twice in order to down them, so making it 3 hits makes it basically impossible to play clown, wraith or any other weaker killer (not to mention killers with meme builds would be not a thing anymore). On average 2-3 gens are done by the time you down your first survivor (provided they aren't complete potatoes or the killers isn't using broken add-ons or playing spirit) so now what, 4 gens out of 5 would be completed by the time you downed your first survivor?
2. Guaranteed unhooks is just BS through and through. What is 15 HP when you are guaranteed an unhook whenever you want? If you got downed and hooked you would have 85 HP to spare, losing 15 would put you to 70. It's basically getting saved after being on the hook for 25-30s in the current system. Not to mention this would make "Deliverance" useless and people with DS + Unbreakable would just get off the hook as soon as you got away and hop on a gen instantly. The only way this would be "manageable" is if the unhook would take away like 70HP so the next time they are dead when downed, which again isn't very attractive considering you basically get one hooked with extra steps. But that's just solo experience. SFW will always go for that opportunity because then the others can just sit on gens. It's like knowing your teammate has deliverance and still going to save him.
3. Moris cannot be removed from the game as they are needed for completing daily challenges and archives. If you removed them then you would entirely be reliant on "Devour hope" to get mori kills, and lets be honest, 9/10 times it gets cleansed before you can even get to 3 stacks on that perk. Not to mention that you would probably never get anyone to 15 HP state regularly without slugging (since you would make them lose 5 HP right after they would get up so I hope you like to see more of that, because that will literally be the only way to win with this system).
4. While I don't have much against the luck offerings, I think that creating maps with the same layouts would make everyone a good/great looper and yet again it would make another perk ("Windows of opportunity") useless. Basically imagine importing CS:GO maps, adding few tiles and playing them, because that's how it would feel. You would always know what to do and where to go after ~200hrs of playing the game. There would be no fun in playing the game if it's all the same or at least significantly less fun.
5. With "Alternative Survivor Objectives and Interactions" you contradict yourself. You say we should have "varying hiding spots, distractions, and obstructions" but just a paragraph before you stated that you want "maps with pre-determined layouts". You can't have "pre-determined layouts" and "varying hiding spots" at the same time, it's an oxymoron. Not to mention that "parts and gasoline" would also have to be pre-determined or would you rather they be random so then they can spawn right next to generators like totems do?
6. Permanent sabotaged hooks are just ridiculous. Firstly, with your 3 healthstates you can just tank hits in front of the hook and have another survivor struggle out if they are dead on hook and now you would have all 4 survivors injured but if they have "Adrenaline" this means almost nothing. Not to mention that with THIS change there would most definitely be no reason to go unhook anyone. Just stay on the hook until you want to escape, easy.
7. "Map Voting" = OMEGALUL. Yeah sure, I wonder what the outcome will be, Haddonfield, Midwich or Shelter woods. Totally fair voting with 4 survivors vs 1 killer vote. Not to mention now they would basically have infinite map offerings and would have more of an incentive to to talk to one another on what map they would pick so then they could choose their perks accordingly. If they are going to Haddonfield they will probably take "Balanced landing" instead of "Sprint burst", if they vote to go to Midwich - "OoO". Why would survivors EVER want to go to "Shelter woods" or "Hawkins"? One is basically giant open space with very few loops and pallets while the other has hidden totem spawns and full of unsafe pallets.
8. "Blood Point Merchant" isn't going to be a thing. Not 100% sure but pretty sure that when asked they (LMcLean on his stream, again not 100% sure so I may be wrong) said that there was no intention to have that in the game.
9. "Allow players to spend their bloodpoints as they see fit on the items and perks of their choice" <- yeah, that's gonna be a no from me. Just let people get insta-heals, BNPS, Purple medkits and Commodious toolboxes, what could go wrong. And lets not forget about our favorite perks such as "Vigil", "Boil over", "No mither" and "Flip-flop". Just imagine how many people are anxiously waiting to get their hands on those perks in their bloodweb. <insert sarcasm here>
10. Killer perspective and summarizing thoughts.

With everything that you listed this is nothing short of hell for both sides. Killers like trapper and hag would be played even less because no one would go to save people they hook (why risk going down yourself when they can unhook themselves) making the time they've spent setting up traps pointless. If I decide to play clown what can I do? I have nothing but m1 attack so now in order to down 1 survivor I have to give them 2 sprint-bursts after I hit them? Why would I even hook survivors if they get free escapes and I get the middle finger? Why wouldn't I play Oni and Spirit, slug everyone and then hook them 1 by 1, camping after the hook to make sure they don't escape. If they have unbreakable I slug them again. I have no problem letting survivors bleed out on the ground. My job is not to let survivors have fun, it's to kill them (by any means necessary). And when I earn BP, why do brown and yellow add-ons and offerings even exist? They have no purpose in the game since I can just get party streamers over and over again. Why would I get a brown add-on when I can get a better version of it as a purple? You complain about moris being low risk-high reward but nowhere do you mention that keys are equally as low risk-high reward as moris are. This game is supposed to be a horror game (though arguably it stops being one after the first 100hrs of playtime) but if you want to put in an HP mechanic then this would become more of an arcade game and even less of a horror type game. Why do you think killers use moris in the first place? It's mainly because they get screwed by the game mechanics and survivor perks over and over again. What can you do when they bring DS + Unbreakable and are doing a gen in your face while still injured? What about all the players that use exhaustion perks to give them another chance? A dead hard can be the reason you win or lose the game. A DH (or any other exhaustion perk) can give you enough time to get to a safe loop and prevent the killer from downing you, giving your teammates more time to complete gens and possibly even making killers "Pop goes the weasel" useless. Hwo many second chance perks do killers have in comparison (and no NOED doesn't count since it's an endgame perk that can be gotten rid of before it even activates. Until killers can do something that gets rid of DS f.e., NOED is an endgame, not a second chance perk)? Reading all of your proposed changes it's almost like you don't care that much what happens to the other side. It's already difficult at high ranks and you want to make it even harder? How is all of that fair?

Youko

1. You're math is off. Way off. Each hit to down is -5 HP x 3=15 (85hp). Hook is another -5 HP (80hp). A self-escape after that would be 65 HP after a single hook IF the killer chose to hook. At that point, they could slug. That is part of the point. Now 1/3 of the player's HP is gone after a single chase. Not only that, you don't even HAVE to down with this system. You're still thinking in terms of hook states where a chase is successful when a player is downed. Downing also become a choice. You could instead break off a chase at any time and still be rewarded for the hit. This is absolutely unlike the hook-based mechanic where, in essence, if you lose the survivor they can heal up and you gain nothing. In this scenario that HP lost is lost, period (with the possible exception of gaining a very small amount back through add-ons).
2. Guaranteed unhooks are not BS because they are no longer the main focus of the killer. Not only that, they come at a huge cost, the equivalent of chasing long enough to do 3 hits worth of damage and what would amount to a long period of chase.
3. I didn't say they had to be removed, but they could either be only a single Mori rarity or that they could instead become an inherent ability of all killers, similar to Pyramid Head's Final Judgement. Then, they would only be available at a very low HP threshold to prevent knocking people out of the match so early. Please also understand, this is a starting point. Lots of things would have to be looked because every change affects everything else.
4. Plenty of games follow this. I don't know CS:GO, but I play Overwatch. All the maps are consistent and knowing which characters' abilities benefit different paths to objectives and learning map layout is a skill. Random maps could become a Casual Mode, which this game so desperately needs for variation anyways, with Ranked Mode being presets.
5. Let me clarify, because you misunderstood me. New ways to hide or traverse the terrain, such crouching through tunnels under walls, building new locker assets that match maps, etc. For example, when Dead Dog Saloon was introduced, the new sage brush asset became a new way to hide. These items would be in pre-determined locations, but they would be new ways of interacting with the map. And yes, those new items would also be pre-determined. That concept may not be perfect, but it was a start of an idea. There are other ways you can change pace too, but I'd have to sit on that a little bit longer.
6. Again, hooking is a bonus...see other points...
7. I don't know why you are being so rude about this point, I literally just put a bullet point up. There are all kinds of way to create a voting system. There are ways to not get repeats, let's a single side dominate, etc. The point of leaving it up was for discussion.
8. Circumstances change.
9. Ok? Again, you've got a really narrow view that "because 'x' happens, everything else stays the same and therefore its awful." I don't agree with the band-aid approach of Behaviors game dev theory. The idea here is fundamentally changing the structure of the game. With it would come a ripple effect of changes. Some features, perks, and mechanics could go away. Many things would have to be reworked in response. Some might be added. I'm not sure what to say about your sarcastic remarks. I just know I've seen posts of new players who feel frustrated at the level of grinding just to get close to having what they would like on their character.
10. A: There's a lot here to address...But my playing as the Hag is part of what inspired this rework. Some of the most even paced matches come from playing her, often getting 2 hooks on most or all survivors and everything coming down to the wire at the end. That's the feeling I'm trying to replicate across the board for all players, regardless of who they are playing. B: You would hook survivors because, while they get an (not free, but 15 HP cost) escape, if you did your job, they might be too low of HP to get off the hook (if they don't have 15 to expend, they stay there till rescued or no longer able to be rescued, though this may need tweaking). C. Bloodpoint offerings could be earned through good gameplay instead of the bloodweb. Brown and yellow addons are already nearly useless and are mostly just filler for burning through your web. Heck, you could have a whole new character written into the lore who, instead, teaches the characters the skills and fortitude needed to survive in the Entity's Realm. D. Yes, I failed to mention keys. I'm a human being who occasionally omits things. It happens. E. It's almost like you don't have any idea how to have a respectful conversation with another human being.
11. Some Final Thoughts- I posted this because I thought it would be fun to have a discussion and exchange of ideas. I worked on a AAA title as a debugger so I thought my thoughts and opinions might have some value or perspective. But apparently no one in this community can actually talk to another person with any level of respect. Almost every time I engage with the community I come away feeling horrible. It's depressing enough what the world is going through right now, god forbid I just want to kick around ideas about a thing I like. Thanks. Hope this made you feel good about yourself. I'm done with this community.