Serious question about totems / cleansing
Why is it that most (Not all) I see on here complain about how totems get cleansed too quickly when it comes to discussions about Hex perks?
I ask this question because don't people want survivors to do side objectives like totems to waste their time and take away from speeding through gens?
Now I do understand it's bs when a survivor loads in literally on top of or right next to your LIT Hex totem that is kind of awful and I hope BHVR addresses that problem because it's not okay but otherwise.. I just don't get the complaining over totems being found and cleansed "too fast" otherwise whether this be Ruin a minute or two into the match or Devour Hope once the 3rd token effect activates and survivors start to panic, like I get that you don't want your hex cleansed away but it's still making survivors waste time looking for it no?
Comments
There are 2 reasons I assume
One, people like getting value of their investment. They already risked so much running a perk that can be removed and it's demoralizing to see that it never helped you at all (Which is why Haunted Grounds is amazing. It makes me feel good)
Two, if survivors spread, one will probably get lucky and find the totem, even if it's not out in the open. Remember, there are 4 survivors walking around the map, possibly walking across various totem spawn points. One will eventually stumble upon a totem early on. It's basically probability and because of that, finding a HEX totem early on is not so hard and will probably not a waste too much time.
However cleansing all DULL totems takes good coordination and/or time which is why NOED actually works as anti gen-rush and why I want a totem counter on Small Game.
Ruin making survivors waste time looking for it is a decent trade off. It's a gen defence perk, it's intended to slow survivors down, so it's (usually) doing that no matter what.
Devour Hope being cleansed before you can use it is not a decent trade off. By that point, they likely haven't had to go out of their way to find it, because by then the survivors would have covered most of the map anyway, so they would probably just stumble upon it. And that's the big problem with hexes, survivors will find them eventually, so you can almost guarantee they'll be cleansed. If the perk itself is one that doesn't come into effect right away, or isn't merely a 'slow down' perk to begin with, then that's not entirely 'fair'.
I kinda like the idea someone posted before, about Hex perks that 'power up' having their totems grow in brightness. So Devour would start off a dull totem, because it has no effect on the game at that stage. Once it gets the first token, it gains a little bit of a glow, after the 3rd token it's half as bright as a regular Hex totem, and then the 5th token makes it full brightness.
Simply it sucks to immediately go from 4 to 3 or less perks. If you rely heavily on your perks losing one hurts even more.
As survivor there are so many times I find a lit totem quickly not because I start next to it but because I see the killer go to a spot, abruptly stop and turn around or it's an area without a gen and I'm curious why they're bothering looking around the area that doesn't have a gen. If I go over and see why they were there 9/10 times it's a lit totem they were checking on. I know they're hoping to catch a survivor on their totem before it's cleansed but it's really just leading survivors to it.
Maps are only so big and there aren't many places to hide totems simply because more obstacles to hide totems means more places for survivors to hide/loop - this leaves totems with not too many spots to spawn that are hidden. Once you know where those tough to find spawn points are they are first places you check as a survivor - which also helps in cleansing the totems quickly into a match. They can increase the hiding spots but if someone plays the game enough, which if in red ranks they probably play quite a bit, the tough to find spots will only be difficult to find for a short time - and that's not even counting the use of totem finding perks or maps.
They should introduce a perk similar to corrupt intervention that blocks lit totems at start of match for x seconds. Also make it so lit totems don't appear lit until survivor is close to them, seeing a glow from a distance gives it away pretty quick. Killers also need stop checking on their totems, especially if they're not near gens, I know they want to protect the totem but that time would be better spent chasing someone off a gen.