Gen defence perks: it’s going to get trickier adding new ones from now on.
Eruption is a hint at things to come for future gen defence/regression perks. It has a massive cool down, and future killer perks that are centred around gens are likely to have just as long cool downs as well.
Why?
Stacking.
In theory I can already visualise how frustrating it could potentially be for survivors going against a killer stacking Pop, Eruption, Surge, and Oppression. So although on the surface Eruption may not impress many of you, in a build like this it could possibly be way too much for survivors to handle. (Clarification: this build is purely an example. I’m not saying it’s strong. I’m saying that there’s the potential for outliers that could be far too frustrating for survivors to deal with). As @Bwsted put it: avoiding power creep.
As it stands, these are the current gen defence/regression perks that AREN’T a hex, and can be freely stacked together if a player chooses, without much drawback other than conditions set by each perk.
- Dying Light
- Corrupt Intervention
- Eruption
- Oppression
- Overcharge
- Pop Goes The Weasel
- Surge
- Thanatophobia
To a much lesser degree
- Dead Man’s Switch
- Dragon’s Grip
- Discordance
- Gearhead
- Surveillance
- Tinkerer
- Thrilling Tremors
I’m making a pretty confident guess here that moving forward that any future killer perks centred around gens are going to have massive cool downs, and will seem underwhelming at surface level simply due to the fact that there is an increasing amount of existing gen perks that can be mixed and matched, and stacked.
Except unlike the old Ruin and Pop problem, there isn’t a hex for survivors to cleanse to deal with such stacking.
Comments
So what? If the Killer dedicates 4 entire slots to gen defense perks, they should be rewarded.
The DBD community actively fears doing anything interesting with perks because of specific situations because they hate change, it's honestly impressive on how no other community has this fear and desire for stagnancy.
Surge honestly doesn't work that well with perks that require you to kick gens. You block yourself from being able to kick the gen if you surge it.
Oppression has a long cooldown and can go on cooldown even if you never affect another gen with its effect.
Eruption requires you kick a bunch of gens for only 6% regression. It's a pretty bad perk and I doubt anyone will seriously run it.
Honestly, this will never be an issue as long as devs keep releasing rather weak gen defense options.
Sure, rewarded, but fair. There are 5 people playing, not 1.
4 gen perks stacked together shouldn’t be so strong working in tandem that survivors are just spinning their wheels, and bothering to try to do their objective becomes almost pointless because of the almost constant regression occurring.
It's the same problem that survivors have with perks that give +1 health state. If anything, stacking makes the meta more stale because gen regression = second chance = more time to do anything. And just getting more time has more consistent value then some utility perks.
The issue is power creep. That's why stackability (is that even a word?) is being limited via various conditions, i.e. cooldowns, basic hits, etc.
Except it’s not entirely improbable either for all 4 perks to give rapid regression in quick succession either.
Although the scenarios you presented is likely, it’s also equally possible that a killer could have Eruption active in a well defended area, meaning both Surge and Eruption immediately regress those gens by 14% just from a single down. Now imagine that other survivors were on those gens and try to continue working on them again once the 14 seconds of incapacitated elapses. One of those gens gets an additional 25% regression, and if Oppression happens to affect the other gens already affected by surge and Eruption (and the survivors fail the Oppression skill check), that’s another 10% regression.
So on the one hand, yes your scenario could result in poor luck for the killer whereby they’re not getting much value from the stacking. In another, one gen could be reduced by 39% within seconds, and a small group of others could be reduced by 24%. All from a single down/hook, and one kick.
And yes, the "fair" thing. Anything that could pose a challenge = broken. You didn't say anything original here.
Like I said, the DBD community fears change... also forgot to mention that they call anything that could give a new problem instead of hold M1 "broken" and how it "needs to go" (AKA nerfed so they don't have to think about it) so they can stick to the same safe things. :)
... And yes, I AM saying that none of these are broken stacked together. Carefully go through the conditions for these to activate and what they do in practice and the point falls apart.
My point is that the devs need to consider outliers.
To justify sweeping changes.
This is exactly why we have so many useless perks on both Survivor and Killer btw, and why Demogorgon's perks were unfairly nerfed when leaving PTB. It's the same ultimately unhealthy mindset that leads to seeing the same 4 Survivor perks per game.
(BTW, the devs do consider niche circumstances, they did so with Demogorgon iirc.)
Outliers happen. Regardless of how remote.
Just look at the mistake they made with the Freddy Rework, and Swing Chains, Jump Rope, and Outdoor Rope. These on their own only provided incredibly small amounts of reduction to gen repair speeds. But stacking 2 together with Thana, Dying Light, and Pop became a real big problem.
Small numbers that can be paired with other seeming small numbers in this game matters.
The devs are already considering the outliers. That's why individually these perks (except pop) are on the weak side.
Who is going to run Eruption as their sole gen defense perk? No one. Same with Oppression
Eruption and Oppression solely exist as perks to combo with other gen defense perks, because on their own they do barely anything.
Even Surge is a bit hard to justify as a sole gen defense perk, but it does at least allow you to bypass kicking gens like ruin which is a time save.
We see many of the same survivor perks because of the vicious cycle of killers stacking perks. If these gen perks were made any stronger on their own, it would only reinforce many survivor mains perception that they NEED their second chance perks because of how unavoidably long matches would/could become.
I can’t believe your refusal to accept how potentially game breaking certain stacking could be with perks even WITH their existing cool down.
Yes, outliers happen. I absolutely don't care though, just make things or develop tactics to counter it. And yes, you can counter it. Like I said, this is not broken.
And yes, they do matter. So what? Freddy's add-ons are gone, and you only have one example. With a Killer who has a teleport, and other abilities to make perks like Pop synergize well.
The point of my post isn’t “which build is better”. My point is about how such stacking allows for outliers that could potentially be game breaking, which is why they have conservative conditions.
... Are you serious? "We see many of the same Survivor perks because of the vicious cycle of killers stacking perks"? Did you miss the part where these perks aren't broken when stacked? One of these doesn't even chain well with stuff like Pop.
Dead Hard and BT aren't ran because of gen perks, last I checked, they're ran because their effects are good and no other perk can compete.
Have you ever considered that you are just fearmongering and that YOU are ignoring what I have said so far about these perks not being broken? These aren't "game breaking", you're just scared of anything strong happening.
And I am sorry if my tone is mad here, but this popular mindset makes me very angry because it's some of why the gameplay is stale.
Sorry, I phrased myself poorly.
Yes I agree, the devs already are considering outliers when it comes to perk implementation.
Thats my point. This is what we can expect of future gen perks because they will always from now on be considering “what if it’s stacked with... (insert perks)?”
For goodness sake. I’m tired of blatant ignorance.
I never once said this build was strong. It may even be a poor build example of what I’m trying portray, which YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT OF ENTIRELY.
I’m saying any future gen perks will have any number of conservative conditions to activate because the devs need to consider potential oppressive outliers when 4 perks are stacked together.
This will become MORE complicated as the list of gen defence perks grow.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with stacking perks, or the killer intentionally providing themselves the best advantages as possible, because that’s the most logical thing for any player to do.
I’m simply saying that such stacking shouldn’t ever be so strong that outliers occur that make it impossible for the opposing side to deal with. That’s it.
Now Chill.
I would love for them to release different / original perks.
The perks each time seem to me that they are "more of the same" (not all) and in general the vast majority of the perks you have mentioned seem to me that they aren't good. They aren't very bad, but I wouldn't put them in my build.
Stacking Slowdown-Perks is basically the laziest and most boring way to play Killer. So stacking 4 Gen Defense Perks is not "anything interesting with perks".
Is holding M1 and/or sitting on a gen with another Survivor really that hard? Also, I guess people who run Ruin and Pop are boring.
BTW, TC actually put SURGE on the same level as Pop... they don't even synergize well at all too. Someone else here actually said this already as well.
All it takes is a survivor already on a gen when Surge activates to stay on it, and the killer is free to give that gen an additional 25% regression.
This isn’t exactly uncommon. How often do you come across Survivors that will intentionally think “oh I better not touch that gen again now that Surge has popped”? Particularly if they’ve almost finished the gen.
its works better with ruin
Thank you. You get it. That’s the term I was looking for: power creep.
I use 4 gen defence perks on Deathslinger sometimes and it works like a charm. This is only fair though. The killer cannot make use of these perks unless they actually have skill and can down/hook consistently. And sometimes if survivors gen rush enough, you don't get to use half of them, meaning that you could have put perks in that help with chases instead. It's a gamble going for full gen defence builds. They're sometimes overkill, sometimes useless. My problem is that killers HAVE to run gen defence perks of they want to not get out-genned. Survivors right now don't have to be good at looping, they just have to be dedicated enough to the gens, and they'll win.
One thing to note is that Oppression makes other gens regress but it's not like kicking them. I was looking forward to pairing that with Eruption, but I guess that would be a little too potent if one could quickly stack gens up.