Boon totems and how this is adding to the problem of Survivors only having 1 objective [PLEASE READ]
Dead By Daylight is a game that features 2 sides that go against each other to achieve opposite objectives.
4 Survivors enter the game with one main focus: Finish enough Generators so that they can power the exit gates, open the exit gates, and escape.
On the opposite end is a lone Killer, whose goal us to hunt and down Survivors before hooking them, and doing so until all Survivors are sacrificed to the Entity.
The problem begins right away with Survivors being 4 people vs Killer only being 1 single person, they have access to 16 perks in total vs. a Killers measly 4 in comparison. All 16 of these perks can be extremely strong and game changing, everyone knows about Dead Hard, Decisive Strike, Borrowed Time, Unbreakable, and many others.
Killer has to juggle 4 Survivors and make sure they are both being pressured/injured/hooked AND make sure they are OFF of Generators. The amount of effort each side has to put in is no contest, Killer has much more on their plate that they have to focus on vs Survivors, and this is massively amplified by both WHICH Killer you are playing and which perks you are using. A Blight running the typical build of Ruin/Undying/Tinkerer is going to have a hilariously easier time compared to Ghostface running weaker perks for the sake of having fun.
The Developers have seemingly noted the idea that Survivors should have objectives besides just Generators, doing a Generator is already relatively boring as is so making it longer would just make Survivor not fun. However, Dull totems are NOT a secondary objective. This is BEGINING to change with perks such as Hex Plaything being added to the game, but besides NOED, there is 0 reason why a Survivor should ever wish to pursue and cleanse Dull totems besides a few extra bloodpoints.
Devs at some point added Doors that Killers could kick down to help deal with very strong loops, but instead created an new secondary objective for Killers to waste their very limited time on instead of... actually making loops less strong for Survivor. You saved Killer time by making them waste time, which is counter productive.
And now we have reached Boon totems, if Boon totems are a Survivor perk mirroring Hex perks where they are very powerful but can be cleansed, this is DEVASTATING for Killer. This means that Survivors can run 4+ very strong Boon perks that IF they are as strong as Hex's, basically demands the Killer abandons defending Generators or hunting and downing Survivors so that they must go and look for MULTIPLE totems, ALONG with having to deal with numerous second chance perks like the ones previously mentioned for Survivor. This is hoping of course that they aren't human and make 0 errors at downing Survivors at loops every single time without error, which also isn't going to be the case.
This is simply not feasible, this is taking a relatively stressful role when Survivors are competent and amplifying it even more by making them waste even MORE time doing things they should not have to be doing. Survivors can afford to hunt for Totems because while 1 or 2 people are looking, the rest are on Generators or potentially being chased. They have the time and the resources to look for them, everyone knows how awful it is to see their Ruin and Undying go within the first 30 seconds of the game.
Boon totems are an INTERESTING idea and I will give them that, but I would NEVER, EVER want to see this implemented into the game until they at least rightfully give Survivors a proper secondary objective like they said they would. Make Survivors be punished by some passive effect the more Dull totems are up, make them find Generator parts, anything really. You can buff SoloQ to compensate by making stuff like half of Kindred base kit so Survivors can at least see their teammates when someone is hooked.
If you want to add new things to the game to make it more interesting, at least do so without wasting even more of the Killers time. This is not fun, it is stressful and feels more like a job. This is supposed to be a game and the goal is to have fun, and this is not very fun.
Comments
Actually, they've confirmed that Boon Totems can be re-ignited again and again without limit. Which is - concerning.
where? I havent seen it in the dev update and I havent seen anyone confirming 1 survivor can reactivate their perk again and again. Note that reactivating 1 kind of boontotem by 2 different survivors running the same boon isnt the same as 1 survivor reactivating their own boon again and again.
A little Heaven safe spot.
Wait until Boon is something like "gain 100% healing speed when youre 8m near Boon.
A selfcare would be far better than a Boon working like that.
Im still afraid about Boon pre-disable Noed.
The face that they go back to dull in theory means you could just rebless them
True, it implies that. However, I misread something earlier too. I thought survivors could only have 1 boon totem active, and thus running more than 1 boon perk each would be silly. However: Turns out that 1 boon totem contains ALL the boons of 1 survivor. Meaning if a survivor has 3 boon perks, they will ALL be disabled when a killer removes it, and the survivor would need to find another totem.
Also, the text implies that blessing a totem might take longer than cleansing it(perhaps based on the amount of boon perks you have).
So all in all, going a tiny bit out of your way to delete up to 4 survivor perks in 2 seconds for the next 14+ seconds of the game? Let alone that we dont know what happens if we kill a survivor who has their boons activated either.(quick note, Dead Hard could be a contender for Boon totems too)
One if my biggest concerns is killers have no tools to hunt totems and wandering around looking for them is a gg ez. To be honest though it say "safe haven" so I think they might be aoe but I still don't think they should be able to just spawn on ruin and bless it out of the game and get a buff.
I mean, either way, that Ruin would have been gone by that point. Let alone that it's going to be quite detrimental for survivors to bless hex totems, as they would give away it's exact location.
There are some reasons to worry about them, but overall? I am not that worried. To disable boon totems permanently, they would need to be worth risking. Considering they can very likely be relit, I am going to assume they would mainly be perks that have quite the powerful effect but cant be nerfed, or would be too powerful if buffed otherwise, so adding an artificial timer to it(finding a totem and lighting it up) that has an off switch if the killer desires to. Aka, perks like Dead Hard, Hope, Adrenaline, Flip Flop if it's a personal effect. Or AoE totems that only work if the survivor is within a certain range(aka, no aura readings to killer, no breathing sounds while in the area, or heck, even being able to use dead hard in a small area around the totem), things that might be worth kicking as a killer if you happen to be close, but arent worth going out of your way for. I feel like that's the general intention behind boon totems anyway.
Let alone that a survivor would need to go out of their way to go back to the exact same totem, or need to find a completely different totem if other totems are already blessed. The biggest questionmark I have with Boon totems, is whether or not a boon totem remains lit and active if a survivor has died. In which case, I actually need to wait on what the effects are to fully finish my thoughts. Because the implied effect is that boon totems affect all survivors in the area(which I currently assume is 16 meters at best? Maybe 24? Maybe it depends on the effect on how big it is?). Similar to how 1 Up The Ante or 1 Open Handed affects the entire team. So if a boon totem remains after death, that could be quite game changing.