Is rancor good from a design standpoint?
I get from a game standpoint, rancor is pretty underwhelming, but isn't it kind of good, in a wider sense, that it makes you not want to be the obsession?
Perks like object and DS and others that increase your chances of becoming the obsession (or straight-up make you the obsession) have that second clause in as some sort of balance against how powerful these perks were, because of some benefit the killer gets for interacting with you. But since dying light got a renovation, and most other obsession perks that are useful in any way (STBFL, PWYF, dark devotion, etc.) make it so that you want to not only keep the obsession alive, but not down them, or even touch them, wouldn't it be great if we buffed rancor, so being the obsession would put you in special danger?
After all, Laurie's description says that her powerful perks "grant her powerful survival abilities at the cost of leaving her exposed." Why not make that both figurative and literal? What might such a buff look like?
Comments
I don’t enjoy it at all. Especially if the killer is keeping tabs on you and chases you during the final gen it feels like you got robbed
Well that's why it's based on the obsession. Running certain powerful perks will cause you to become the obsession, to counteract that force.
Rancor is a great perk from a lore perspective. Really fits with Spirit's story.
In the Trial, it's pretty meh. There are some builds around it, but not many.
The problem with it is that it is too easy to avoid. As the obsession, all you have to do is keep low after the final gen is done and creep out the exit gates/hatch.
It could use a rework imo, along with about 100 other perks that are very, very average.
But if I randomly become the obsession because someone brought DS?
Most matches that I play I rarely see Rancor. As a killer I never use it because I just don't like it. As a survivor when I can tell it is being used it really never is a big deal. The information it gives the killer is okay, but the fact the obsession knows exactly where and what the killer is doing is a huge downside. Being able to mori the obsession at the very end just feels out of place for this perk, but that's just my opinion. I have not actually had to deal with this perk very much so I honestly can't form a very good opinion on it. If anything this perk is just a free mori, and encourages the killer to ignore their obsession completely until the very end.
I think it's a great design. Survivor knows it's comming so they should adapt their playstyle to counter it and make the most out of the fact killers wants to keep you for the last.
Maybe have it so that the obsession chance modifier for DS and object becomes 100%?
Wouldn't Rancor by definition already designate someone as the Obsession? If anything, someone else bringing DS would help if you were the unlucky Rancor target because there is a chance that their DS activates and makes you no longer the Obsession.
Ds actually reduces the chance of making you the obsession. Especially now with the nerf I feel like I’m the obsession a lot of the time.
You can have rancor follow the steps of its great-grandfather, nemesis, and have it not create an obsession by default. That way, it's a punishment for the agency of survivors (or bringing another obsession perk but hey).
I think it just makes endgame really unnecessarily stressful for the obsession. It doesn't really provide much use to the killer, but it can be fun to run.
It says "Increases the odds of being the obsession" so I'm not sure about that. Is it a bug or something?
Plus, if you buff rancor, you can bring back the most recent pre-nerf DS, since using it makes you the obsession 100%. Maybe have it so that when the obsession heals up to healthy, they scream and are exposed for x amount of seconds as an even bigger middle finger.
Have to say that I liked it more when DS worked on pickup. Because this way, a Killer was able to avoid the DS and simply kill the Obsession in Endgame.
However, since they changed it, I dont like Rancor too much. Randomly becoming the Obsession is just annoying and stressful, when it means that you can die without being hooked once. Also, I dont like that it is a thing with Undetectable. I remember people like to remind Survivors who complain about Rancor that the Survivor gets the information that Rancor is in play. Which is true, except for Undetectable.
I once got rancored by a Ghostface, because he never was out of Stealth when a Gen was done, so the information that he had Rancor was not available at all.
But I also dont think that the Perk really needs changes or anything.
Honestly, conceptually I like it, at least from a killer standpoint. A perk that allows you to use a cool feature you basically never use/need an offering? Kinda fun, it gives information too which I like. I feel like the information aspect though is what makes me dislike it, 3 seconds? Not even auras? Not very helpful. I really want to use it on a Pig build I have planned out (Rancor, Save The Best for Last, PGTW, Knock Out/Remember Me/No Way Out).
Though at the same time, I don't like it, I've never played against someone with Rancor, but it does seem very unfair, especially if you're in a bad spot and get ######### over or just play badly. You can technically get punished by this perk just by being the obsession (though you could argue Rancor discourages the usage of perks that make it more likely to make you the obsession, it too rare a perk to have a significant effect on that), and if you're not using a perk that makes you an obsession, then you literally are just being punished for no reason if you ######### up and especially never got hooked.
Same energy as playing perfectly and never getting hooked then getting downed when the gates are opened.
TLDR
Fun as the killer, seems kinda unfair for the obsession though. Not broken or anything, just kinda like damn that's tough. Buff the information part of it though, then it could maybe become more viable. I think for those two reasons it should be reworked somehow to make it more viable+'fair'.
Can you show me where it says this? I don't have access to the actual game atm, but everything I'm finding so far says that the most recent iteration of DS increases your odds of being the Obsession.
I think it is great design, but obviously still situational and weak. Obsession perks are supposed to choose an obsession which doesn't necessarily mean you have to tunnel them, it just means that you have a perk that requires you to do something to the obsession.
Rancor has two effects though, it shows you where everyone is when a gen is done on top of making the final survivor able to be moried and insta downed. So besides being weak and otherwise situational, the perk is still well-designed aside from perks like NOED.
But wouldn't it be so much better if being the obsession by the killer's perks gave you a debuff, while being the obsession by your own perks gave you a buff, instead of functionally having all of them give you a buff?
Not necessarily a tunnel like Dying Light would have (which would mean more like getting a leg spontaneously broken instead of a target on your back), but a significant disadvantage to make you think twice about equipping obsession perks. The intent behind perks like DS, Object, and For the People were clearly meant to be powerful (in theory, at least), so making you the obsession would fit in as a debuff, no?