So explain to me this --> Hex Totems & Boon Totems
So a thought came to my mind about Boon Totems and Hex Totems.
Why is it that Hex Totems can be cleansed and completely removed from the game, but Boon Totems can be re-blessed over and over again?
It's like a buffed up Survivor Hex Totem on steroids that never goes away and you can't ever get rid of it? But a Killers Hex Totem can be?
Does this make sense to anyone at all?
Comments
It makes perfect sense- they're not the same mechanic, they're not designed to do the same thing, and so they're not designed with the same downsides.
A hex perk is high impact and effects the core objective- generators, or shortening chases. (Hypothetically. I know some of them suck, but that's a problem with those perks more than anything else.) It's set immediately and, barring ones that need to gain tokens, is in effect immediately. The idea behind hexes is that survivors do need to break them or they're at a serious disadvantage.
Boons, however, have to be blessed actively by survivors, do not affect the core objective, and are only effective in a radius, not map-wide. From the killer perspective, it's supposed to work like this: A survivor finds a totem in an optimal spot, and is generally near that area to make use of it. You chase them, you down them, and then you snuff the totem- meaning that if they want to make use of their perk again, they have to not be on generators and they have to be in a spot the killer knows they want to be in.
You don't want boons to be breakable, trust me. Either they're single-use and nobody runs them, or the totem is broken when it's snuffed and that means survivors go scurrying off like rats into a dark corner of the map instead of wasting their time in one area where you can interrupt them.
Hmm, it's interesting that it would be terrible if totem is destroyed for Boon totems, but perks like Clairvoyance or Inner Healing are fine with that system...
I am really not gonna trust you on this one... I would still use it, because I used Inner Healing and CoH would be still way better than it even if killer could destroy boon totem.
Yet that's never the case with all Survivors. Some don't run to corners to hide until they Bless a totem again.
And I do get what you mean with impacting the core objective- generators, or shortening chases and so on, but in the majority Hex totems are removed almost instantly within the first 1-3 minutes of the game before it can even get value and effect the game in a meaningful way.
And the radius of a Boon totem is large enough on its own that it can cover an entire building and a little further more. With both Boon blessings on one Totem.
And DBD is a game where information such as blood marks, scratch marks and injured noises/and other noises is so crucial to find anyone.
So, two things here- first, I am not saying the Hex system is without flaws. In fact, I'm on record saying that I think one of the biggest necessary fixes in DBD right now is totem spawns, no survivor should ever spawn in sight of/in the same tile as a totem, whether it's lit or dull. There are also some totem spawns that can be problematic from the perspective of the killer snuffing it when it's blessed, and that should be fixed too. Hexes are gone too quickly, we agree on that- I'm just taking the mechanics as concepts here.
Which leads me to the second thing: I do think that the specific boon perks could do with tweaking. I think self healing should be capped in general, and while Shadow Step is easily the more balanced of the two perks (you're right that the information you listed is crucial, but Shadow Step only masks one of those), it could cause some issues in the long run and needs close monitoring.
The post was just about boons being blessable over and over, which is what I was responding to.
You keep bringing up Inner Healing in these conversations, multiple times doing it directly to me, and my answer is always the same: That perk is not very good, specifically because of that requirement. It's already a weak healing perk, most of them are stronger than Inner Healing if you use them right.
Also, it would be terrible if the totem was destroyed for Boons from the killer's perspective. Not just from the survivor's perspective.
How so? NOED and Plaything will work less? They already are worse because of boon totems, so it wouldn't change much.
I know I have said it to you several times and I disagree that Inner Healing is not good perk, if you know totem spawns.
Your main argument is usually that "it's just how that perks were designed." Which I think is not really valid at any point as an argument for a balancing issue.
Lot of killers and perks were design in some way and got changed. It just doesn't mean anything.
CoH is broken atm and need to be changed. I believe that breaking totems would be good start and way better option than just nerfing that effect. Nerfing effect will make it boring, I would rather have high risk high reward. Right now it's low risk high rewad...
You’re focusing on the specifics of the healing speed and radius of the totems, but note that those are independent parameters that can be adjusted to balance the perks. Slow Circle of Healing’s healing speed and it becomes weaker, slow it enough and it becomes worthless. Reduce the radius of Shadow Step and it becomes weaker, reduce it too much and it’s worthless. In other words both Boons can be balanced up or down simply by changing those particular specific effect parameters individually rather than changing the overall way Boons are placed, snuffed out and generally function.
Like Jester said above, you don’t need to have Hexes and Boons operate the same way. In fact, having them operate differently makes things more interesting in the long run. Hexes are supposed to be active at the start of the match, Boons need to be specifically placed on totems. Hex effects are map wide, Boons have limited radius of effect. On the flip side once a Hex is cleansed its gone forever, while Boons can be potentially placed again. Different systems, and that’s perfectly ok, provided of course the individual Boons are themselves tuned with how Boons work in mind,
My guess is that in a couple months, once the devs have finished their three month or so review of the new perks, they’ll do a balance pass and possibly slow down Circle of Healing and maybe adjust Shadow Step’s radius of effect. There’s no particular reason to change the fundamental basics of Boons though if they do that, so unless there’s something broader they need to address like killers being unable to easily snuff totems they are next to, etc, I don’t know that they’ll change Boon placement basics,
My argument is not just that it was designed that way, my argument is that it was designed that way because designing it that way has more benefits. You, as the killer, want the survivors to be wasting time blessing totems over and over again, that's part of how they're supposed to function. It's part of the counterplay. That's why it would be terrible from the killer's perspective- you want to know where the survivors are and you want them to be doing anything but generators to slow down the game. That's part of the point.
CoH isn't broken, in my opinion. CoH exposes problems with the rest of the game- you don't need CoH to get broken fast healing speeds, that's just the easiest way of doing it. I don't think it should be nerfed directly, I think healing speeds in general should be looked at and that self healing should be capped.
Something needs to be changed, because I saw the power of Boons personally when there were 3 gens close to eachother and Survivors had a boon on the other side of the map and went back and forth just touching the 3 gens, getting hit and running off to the Boon to heal back up and rinse and repeat that was the case, until I followed one long enough to snuff the boon totem, go after the injured survivor, but I lost my last gen.
Not only did I experience this, but I see red ranked Killers face off against this same playstyle over and over again.
The part that makes CoH broken imo is that it's basically free perks for other survivors. It would be fine, if it was only for you, but it's not. Survivors have basically 23 perks total whenever you have boon active. The fact that you don't need anyone else to heal is just so good and it's 16 second heal, you just gave everyone infinite medkits. How is that not broken?
I don't want them just waste time blessing on same totem over and over again, because it means that I had to waste my time too and my time is little bit different as solo player vs 1 of 4 players.
The information doesn't really help me when they can change boon location and only 1 survivor is doing boon, rest is doing gens. It's not like I can see their aura, yay I know they are somewhere on this part of the map, it doesn't do anything, because I don't know it for sure, I don't know where exactly, I don't know how many. I would rather have them waste time actually healing normally -> two players, than everyone self-healing while everyone else can do gens.
It's not really good counterplay, it's kinda pointless counterplay. Only counter-play it does have that boon totems are removed when that survivor dies, so tunnel is best option... Also some killers are good against some boon totems, Only killer that is good against both is Plague.
It's not a waste of your time if you're doing it properly, at least outside of a few specific totem placements that kind of are too much of a time investment. As I've said before, snuffing totems is a downtime action- CoH does nothing in chase and Shadow Step can be played around in chase, so you don't need to break chase to go snuff the totem, you do it after you get a down/hook. Or maybe you don't- maybe you'd get more pressure by doing something else. Pick your moment, don't feel like you have to do it as soon as you're aware of it.
As for how it's not broken, it's because it's only in a specific area. They have to go somewhere that may be out of position in order to use it, that's information you can play around.
The only thing you've said that I agree with is that survivors being able to just go somewhere else and place a boon after it's already been set, I'd support some kind of cooldown before you can re-place it elsewhere or something. A boon should be slightly more of an investment than it currently is.
Do people think that "counterplay" must always mean "completely disables the thing in question", or something? Of course it's counterplay, it's the thing you do to answer the perk being there.
I didn't say it's not counterplay, I said it's pointless. How is breaking totem "completely disables the thing in question"? It just limits maximum amount of use and gives killer motivation to search for it. It would still be really good perk.
Shadowstep is not really an issue for me, unless used with map offering and SWF tho, that is supper annoying.
My problem is CoH.
Snuffing is a downtime action. It's worth to do only when you actually have to do only that animation -> next to hooked survivor, or gen.
I often hear it, but I know that I just don't have time to go around wall etc. to snuff it, multilayer maps are even worse for it.
Tactic I use most, find totem -> finish gen that is close to it -> use boon. When there is not gen nearby killer doesn't get any extra value from going there, so it actually often waste his time more than mine. What a nice counter-play he has against it...
Best counter-play against CoH is to tunnel, I believe that's main reason why you see so many killers tunnel lately and so many survivors crying because of it. Well, SBMM is not helping too...
You're not gonna hear me arguing against totem spawns being busted. I agree- they need fixing.
Not sure where the rest of this is coming from, though.
I played a game of Legion with Thantophobia (4 stacks) at Red Ranks and one of the survivors who died typed what a pussy I was for running Thantophobia and making the game un-fun for the survivors.
Damn straight I'm gonna run Thanatophobia because it's 10 times better than Ruin because it can't be cleansed and removed from the game!
There is not a single point in using any Hex Perks because thanks to Boons, Totems are being farmed more than ever.
Totems no longer belong to Killers, it belongs to Survivors.
Pretty much this.
As a Killer you have to work extra hard to get the full benefit of some of your Perks. And while they are strong, it still takes time and when you are getting looped for 3 minutes straight by a single Survivor, yeah goodluck!
And absolutely no point using Hex Perks, going from 4 Perks to 3 Perks is just heart breaking...