Insane Perk Grind and how to Solve it
There are now 95 survivor perks and 84 killer perks
When the game launched, there were approximately 30 survivor perks and 20 killer perks.
Every year adds 12-15 perks for each.
In another 2 years there will be ~120 survivors perks, and ~110 killer perks.
For established players who have already caught up with the perk grind, this isn't a problem, but for new players (and the game thrives on new players) this is fast becoming an insurmountable mountain to climb.
120 perks, to get on just one survivor, would require you to level all survivors to level 40, and then make your way through an additional ~150 bloodwebs on that one survivor.
27x40=1080, so around 1230 bloodwebs, at an average of around 50k per web = 61.5 Million Bloodpoints
That's just one survivor, and not even accounting for the Prestige system.
This is an insane amount to grind, and it's not necessarily possible to fast track it in any way, as it could be that one perk you're trying to unlock for your main survivor that just won't spawn on the bloodweb, and it takes you the full 61.5 million bloodpoints to obtain it.
So there's two huge issues here, the insane amount of bloodpoints required to obtain the perks you want, and the ridiculously low chances of spawning the perks you want. This is only going to get worse with time, and BHVR need to do something to address it.
One solution, that could solve both facets of this problem without doing too much to disrupt the current progression design is:
All perks, when unlocked, are automatically available for all survivors or killers at tier 1
So when you first begin the game, all survivors and all killers automatically have access to; their own teachable perks at Tier 1, and all generic perks at Tier 1.
Upon unlocking a character's teachable perks at levels 30, 35 and 40, all other characters instantly acquire that perk at Tier 1.
The result of this change is two-fold:
- The insane perk grind is reduced by a THIRD, as you now only have 2 tiers to unlock for each perk via the bloodweb instead of 3. Now you may think "but that's just a band-aid fix, eventually we'll have enough perks that it'll climb to 61.5m again," however...
- The frustration of not finding the one perk you need is almost completely removed. You will have access to all perks that you 'own' on all characters, at Tier 1. This is an immeasurable quality of life improvement, that will massively reduce the urgency to grind out perks for a character. If you need a perk, and you've unlocked that perk as a teachable, you already have it, albeit in its weakest form.
Some perks will benefit from this more than others, for example BBQ & Chilli is not worth all that much as a BP multiplier at Tier 1, so you will still want to grind it out to Tier 3, however some other perks such as Inner Strength, are still completely viable at Tier 1, requiring you to simply wait 2 more seconds in a locker to regain a health state.
The quality of life that this change would bring to newer players is huge, allowing them to play with any of the perks they have, without needing to invest hundreds of hours into the game before they even get a chance to use them. The 'pressure' of the grind is massively reduced, while still providing incentive to grind to 'level up' the perks you have. This could allow newer players to actually consider the Prestige system, which is currently something that is essentially written off for anyone with that huge perk grind still ahead of them.
Meanwhile established players that have already caught up with the perk grind, will be minimally affected, as it will now take them merely 2 bloodwebs to acquire all of the new perks instead of... 3 bloodwebs.
Most of all, this change would be such a drastic improvement, without disrupting the value of items, add-ons and offerings. The bloodpoint 'economy' would still be maintained, with Rare, Very Rare and Ultra Rare items and add-ons remaining just as 'rare' as they are now. There's no need to change the BP values of anything in the bloodweb. The grind will still remain as much of a grind for items and add-ons as it is now.
I see a lot of people suggesting things like; "remove perk tiers entirely" and "increase bloodpoint rewards", and while these aren't entirely unreasonable suggestions either, I also doubt they're things BHVR are realistically going to consider, because they do have their own vision for what the grind should be, and the value of bloodpoints is something they have to consider. Remove the grind too much, and people have less reason to play, and less incentive to play well. But this suggestion is much more realistic in that it shouldn't completely disrupt BHVRs vision.
Comments
I agree it would make things much less grindy to just have everyone start with the unlocked perks at level 1.
Another idea I had was.. when you prestige, keep the perks you unlocked in the previous "round" but all back at level 1. So chances are by prestige 3 you'll have all of them at the start
That was something I considered before yeah, but it wouldn't really be necessary if all perks were automatically available at Tier 1 anyway.