Deep Wounds Timer is outdated
Personally I believe the biggest problem with deep wound is that since its original version, it's been rendered toothless. Originally, the deep wounds timer ticked down constantly unless the survivor was in a chase, and it even ticked down when they were mending but would stop at 1 second to keep them from bleeding out. Because of this, the timer was set at 30 seconds for the sake of balance and gave the survivors enough time to break chase and find a safe position to mend, which made sense, but the mechanic itself became abuseable by killers via "moonwalking" that prevented chases from initiating while still following the survivors, and while this was an unfair advantage, it also justified the 30 second timer, and pausing the timer at 1 second while mending because the Deep wound status was an actual threat.
The current version of deep wounds however is no threat at all to survivors. The timer can be paused in place by simply holding the run button while moving, or stopping to mend, which means the only time it ever ticks down is when a survivor is vaulting, walking, pallet dropping, or holding still, which really only ever happens during a chase. In practice this makes it so survivors can take all the time they need to break away and find a suitably safe spot to mend, or continue kiting around the killer for as long as possible before getting downed, and it otherwise just becomes a timewasting annoyance to the players without any pressure from the deep wounds timer.
With how easy it is to pause the timer, and the fact that it can be paused almost indefinitely by mechanics that are entirely in the survivors control, I feel that the 30 second timer on the DW status has become both outdated, and excessive. Currently, a survivor afflicted by DW can go on a lengthy chase and only see about 5 seconds of the total DW timer drop before they are either brought down by the killer, or abandoned and allowed to mend, so aside from the time it takes to mend, and the visual effects of DW darkening their screens, that 5 second loss is of no consequence to them. While I understand completely why DW was changed so it couldn't be abused by the killers, they ended up making it far too lenient and abusable by survivors to the point that its no longer puts any pressure on survivors, much less poses any semblance of a threat.
I'm proposing to shorten the DW timer to 10 seconds to compensate for the ease of pausing it. Doing so would put more urgency on mending, and make DW more of a threat during chases since choosing to slow down, pallet drop, or vault would be more costly to the timer. However, if a killer were to chase a survivor until the DW timer ticked down as their strategy, they'd have to rely on the survivor performing multiple time losing actions that ultimately end up extending the chase time, so while shortening the timer to 10 seconds will increase the threat of DW, it won't ensure a quick down or make afflicting a survivor with DW a 1 sided oppressive scenario in favor of the killer either. It will however make the chases and the choices survivors make during them much more strategic, and put pressure on the survivors to escape the chase asap instead of simply trying to stall or kite the killer for too long. On top of that, it would make the Legions add-ons that reduce the timer, or cut seconds off of it a unique threat to survivors instead of being useless wastes of inventory space and BP that they currently are. For obvious reasons these add-ons would have to be reworked to reflect the new timing so that they aren't OP, but overall this proposal would be an improvement to the DW status.
While reducing the timer to 10 seconds won't make DW an oppressive powerhouse, it will make it more of a threat that ultimately puts pressure on survivors to break away from a chase to mend, and make every choice during a chase while afflicted by DW potentially more costly. This will encourage more strategic play as the survivors are put in a race against time wherein they must do everything in their power to keep the timer paused while they focus on escaping instead of kiting the killer around for too long.
TL;DR - DW's 30 second timer made sense when it couldn't be paused unless a survivor was in a chase, or mending with 1 second left on the timer, but since its changes that allow survivors complete control of when the timer pauses, 30 seconds is outdated, excessive, and renders the DW status a completely toothless timewasting annoyance rather than a threat survivors have to work around strategically. Proposing to Shorten the DW timer to 10 seconds so that it's more of a threat, but not an OP or oppressive one due to how easy it still is for survivors to pause the timer.
Comments
I forgot that it didnt tick down while running. Was playing survivor and was blown away by what a non threat it is.
The old BT timer version was fine. Sure, Legion was busted at launch but they should have fixed the chase mechanics over making it worthless
TL;DR deep wound is not massively in killer's favor so I propose to change it because why not.
A killers power should be massively in the killers favour.
How is it currently useful to killers? Its basically just an extra health state you need to heal rather than actually functioning like how it was originally designed.
It's similar to the exaustion timer. it doesn't actually make you move any slower it just makes it so you can't use the ability back to back. It's been so long that I don't even remember what OG deep wounds was supposed to do.
TBH, I highly doubt lowering the timer to 10 seconds will even matter considering how much of its current mechanic is in the survivors control. Every time I've been afflicted with DW recently, I've asked myself how often the timer is even allowed to go down, and the answer has been a resounding "hardly ever", so even with a shorter timer I don't believe it will affect the mechanic enough to be considered "massively in the killers favor". Hell, I originally wanted to suggest shortening it to 5 seconds, because If the timer drops 1 second for every pallet drop, or vault a survivor performs during a chase, survivors would get a total of 5 vaults or pallet drops before the timer reaches 0 and downs them, which any killer will tell you is still a hell of a long chase. However, I know that survivors in general would massively protest 5 seconds because in writing it sounds like a massive buff, despite the fact that in practice all it does is limit the amount of actions they can do during a chase before they go down, so I compromised by proposing 10 seconds instead. That means they still get 10 of those actions to perform before automatically going down, which still feels excessive but I doubt anyone would protest against it, because if a killer has to rely on that to end the chase... then they're just wasting time.
I second this, not many survivors realise this but when you have those that realise they can complete about half a gen with 2 person before having to mend makes it really hard to get any pressure as Legion
I don't agree to making Deep Wounds a chase threat, but I do agree to shorten the timer to 15-20 seconds so survivors feel more pressured to mend immediately instead of doing gens/chests/totems before mending.