How to make the game healthy
Quick note, this is not gonna be about an individual killers or perks, but the game as a hole. It's also not gonna contain anything about technical issues or optimization. Because everyone knows those. This is just my personal thoughts on what I think could make the game better/healthier.
1. Removal of red stain/terror radius and scratch marks. I don't really feel like either are necessary. However taking them out of the game offers so many more options of gameplay. It'd be a lot more intense and fun on both sides. More mind games from both sides, without really taking away anything. I can't really see a downside to simply taking it away at this point. Maybe when the game was younger, but at this point in it's life it's not needed. Just get rid of it and rework the perks that revolve around those two things.
2. Speaking of perks as a whole. Remove the tiers. This is another thing that hasn't aged well. Yes, in the beginning when you only had 3-5 killers and survivors, it made sense. But it doesn't really now. We have so many killers and survivors, and so many perks, that having to unlock 74 perks 3 times on 24 killers/survivors is ridiculous and probably overwhelming for new players. Think about it. It takes 7-8 million bp on average to unlock all perks on a killer/survivor. And that's if you're optimizing for perks and not caring about add-ons. The max bp in a perfect match without any bonuses like bbq or bonus weekends or anything, is 32,000. Which means to unlock all perks on one killer/survivor would take 210-220 perfect games. Now you have to do that 24 times. And that's if you don't prestige each one 3 times.
I understand you wanted something for players to work towards in order to keep them playing. But at this point it's more redundant than anything. Most players would keep playing even if they unlocked everything because there's so many builds and things to keep the game interesting. Just make it one perk tier.
3. Get rid of ranks and the pip system. Nobody cares if you're red rank, whether or not you pip'd or what medals you got. They don't offer anything and they don't do what they're intended to do. They're not a translation of whether someone is good at the game or not. There's tons of survivors and killers who are at those ranks that are bad or got carried into that position. I've gotten red ranks easily multiple times as killer and I'm honestly a mediocre killer. All I did was play more that month. They also don't really group people of equal skill together like they're supposed to. I'd much rather do away with ranks and pips, but keep the medals. Here's why I'd keep the medals:
The medals would work much like they do now, giving a rank in different categories depending on how well you played. These medals would then grant bonus BP based on which ones you got, with bronze giving the lowest amount and gold the highest amount. And iridescent medals could be slightly harder to get, but are redeemed for iridescent shards. Not a crazy amount, but it's something worth working for and would actually give them meaning.
Then for matchmaking I'd much rather have it go off of the level of that individual killer/survivor.
Right now, if I'm red rank, if I want to play a brand new killer I have to make sure to save a bunch of bp. Otherwise I'm a level one killer with a tier 3 perk, playing against full build survivors. The odds of winning those games are very slim, but those are my only options. I'm stuck at those ranks not because I'm a great player, but because I play more than others, or because I'm a one trick. I could be a god tier huntress, but bad at everything else. But if I want to get better at a killer, I have to play against fully optimized survivors. So my options are either play against those teams and get face rolled for 5 gens every game with only 1-2 hooks, or playing my main so that I can just play a match longer than 4 minutes.
Or maybe do it off of win/lose across the past 10-20 games. There's other games that do it. If I'm doing extremely well 5 out of 5 games, then I'm probably in too low of a tier and vice versa.
Either way, the current ranking system is pointless and outdated, it needs to go.
4. Adding more objectives or game modes. Killers actually got breakable walls not to long ago, which adds time that they have to take in order to stop long loops. It's just something that slows the game down a little for killers, but nothing has been added for survivors. I'd like to see more objectives than just gen rushing. I hate Just sitting on gens for 5 minutes and then walking out a door. It's boring. Tons of players ask for it, just add more things to do. It sucks playing a match for 5 minutes and then waiting in queue for 15-30 minutes.
I'd also like to see maybe other modes with completely different win conditions. Or like a hardcore mode. No perks or add-ons. Or like a mode where you set your perks but you have to unlock them as you go by completing objectives. Killers gain a portion by hitting, hooking, sacrificing, breaking gens and pallets. Survivors get a portion for breaking totems, doing gens, healing, rescuing, stuff like that. It'd be a neat concept if done right.
These are just a few things I think could make the overall game just a bit healthier. If you have any ideas definitely comment them below. I also have ideas for specific killers/perks, but that's for another time lol
Comments
1. Removing scratchmarks would be one of the worst mistakes in the game, hell even scratchmarks bug from time to time making it harder for killer to track, that would also make running perks like iron will more common, or certain structures would be really strong since there is no way to track survivors other than crows.
Have you ever played against a blendette with IW and Lucky break on a map like dead dawg? They can just disappear.
2. Agree, there is no way people would disagree with this one.
3. Same as #2, no one really cares about rank.
4. We all thought that breakable walls would've been made by survivors, like they would have to make them then the killer has to break them but yeah really good point.
On the extreme mode you are talking about, that is exactly how I play most of the time, addonless with exceptions like trapper.
Also this brings up a great point and exactly why I don't want mmr in this game, how do you know if you win? What is a win? A game that doesn't tell you if you won or lose doesn't really need mmr but we do need a better matchmaking system.
This is also because of rank reset, people think that they are extremely good just because they are in red ranks, if we get actually reset like before then probably people would play with other people from their skill level.
These are all too drastic.
Yeah you'd have to change some perks around to be able to actually get rid of scratch marks, but following the blood trails would be fine and makes more sense than imaginary scratch marks that only a killer can see for some reason. But you're right, a blendette who builds just to hide all game sucks. But they can do that now and there's no difference. They already do it lol but you can't get rid of terror radius and not scratch marks. It'd make it too one sided.
As far as ranks and MMR, I don't mean that exactly, even though that's what I explained. My point was just that the ranks need to go and a new system brought in is all. But yeah, thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it.
I do like some of the ideas I would like to add to your rank/pipping suggestion, I would love if this game and the community would stop playing this game so competitively. I think to make this game more fun and healthy is to go as over the top and be as bombastic as possible.
Funny enough it actually might be easier to balance things out if everything chaotic and more focused on the fun aspect instead of being some super serious comp game.
As for adding more objectives my friend and I talk a lot about what other objectives but there is one we both think would make a great idea. Did you ever play the one event where players had to collect those Chinese Lanturns? If you didnt the event was just both killers and survivors collect a set amount of lanturns to unlock event based skins. But the idea is after the last gen pops survivors would need to collect a lanturn before they leave to help navigate the fog past the gate, make enough lanturns spawn so killers wouldnt be able to block survivors from grabbing them. This would easily add extra stuff to do and prolong the endgame for killers a bit more.
But this is just my opinion on things but I do feel some of these changes would benefit the game a lot more than what we have been getting as of late.
I actually really like both of those ideas. I agree that people take this game too serious and really go out of their way just to win or bully the other side.
And I love the lantern idea. As the exit gate opens the fog closes in and gets denser the longer you're in it. And the lantern helps light the way so that you can escape. It actually makes sense and would be fun.
I was distant from this post from as early on as the first suggestion. What a horrible 'thought'. Removing scratch marks would be the death of the game...
The only thing I can agree on here, remotely, is ranks, and perhaps more objectives if it's tied into specific Killers' kits.
Why would it be though? I'm not understanding. Do you spend all game looking down at the ground? Lol what would happen if you removed scratch marks??? You can still follow blood trails, which are way more reliable than scratches anyways. I could understand it if I had said just remove scratch marks, but I didn't. So said scratch marks and red stain/terror radius. Why remove one and not the other?
Scratch marks are far more important than blood trails. If anything, I'd say clip those. With scratch marks, you gain a general direction of where Survivors have RAN to, whereas blood marks a spot where specific, INJURED Survivors have travelled. The only superiority that blood trails have is that they can be seen through most patches of grass or thick ground coverage. And, there was no need to be an aggressive arse about it. Everybody here understands, spare you, that scratch marks are a vital component of tracking Survivors. As a general rule of thumb -- because it sounds like you're really challenged with coming to terms with this stuff -- you follow scratches first and blood trails second. If you're tracking an injured Survivor, the two usually come hand-in-hand, but that doesn't mean that you should apply all your focus into following those dark-red spatter stains everywhere. Thing is, scratch marks are far more noticeable, and extremely effective in their job (although there are some bugs that hinder that). What you've suggested would be a travesty. And a travesty that you would want implemented.
If you seriously don't understand scratch marks, you may want to revise those baby tutorials in the menu screen. Enjoy. :D
Yeah I wasn't being an ass about it. I really wanted to understand your point of view. Which you still haven't explained. Just how scratch marks work. Which, everyone understands already. You haven't explained how it would be a "travesty". Yeah they're used to track, but so are blood stains. Yeah scratch marks are bright red and easier to track, sometimes, but so is a bright red visual and audio heartbeat on a killer. Why nix one but not both?
If you had read it, I explained my point to removing them, and why I think it would be healthier for the game.
Red Stain and Scratch Marks are like the only healthy mechanics in this game