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Key Rework/Total Overhaul Idea

jesterkind jesterkind
in Feedback and Suggestions

The nerf to keys' effectiveness at ending the game prematurely was sorely needed, but has the unfortunate side effect of leaving keys as kind of a useless item in the bloodweb for the majority of players. Speaking anecdotally, I've only really ever seen keys in my lobbies when paired with a hatch offering from someone who's attempting an Adept achievement, and that's a pretty niche situation for a whole item archetype.

So, to remedy this, my fix is twofold.

1: Keys no longer open the hatch at all, and are no longer called Keys. I'm not sure exactly what to call keys in this rework, but I'm leaning towards "fetish", or something else that evokes minor magical charms which offer insight and knowledge to the survivor who uses it. They would no longer open the hatch, with that effect being given to Left Behind instead. What they would do is...

2: Keys lean harder into aura reading. What I think the core, base mechanic of a "key" would be now is that you can hold down the Use Item button to see the aura of any teammate that's within the base radius- a variable I think would scale with item rarity, so the green item would have a pretty low radius and the iridescent a pretty large one. This would be somewhat similar to the Eroded Token and Gold Token addons now, though I think the radius would have to be tweaked somewhat. Other addons would be reworked to allow you to see more auras- injured teammates outside of the base radius, the killer's radius within the base radius, teammates performing specific actions (repairing, healing, blessing/cleansing, etc) outside of the base radius, as well as the requisite addons for increasing charges and the like.

What these changes would aim to achieve is to give survivors, especially those who play solo, a more easily-accessible method of gaining information without having to sacrifice a perk slot. "Keys" would be more equivalent to maps- though while maps track static, interactive objects, "keys" track other players for a shorter duration without the need to scout them first.

One of the bigger problems on the survivor side of gameplay is the sheer gulf between Solo Q and SWF, after all, with most proposed solutions being more easily accessible information for solos without giving much of an advantage to the SWF on comms who already has that info. This would be a good start, in my opinion, though it likely won't be enough on its own to fix that issue.

What do you think? Would this give keys a respectable niche in the item arsenal, or would it go too far in the opposite direction and become overpowered? Would you suggest any tweaks?

Comments

  • Faulds Faulds

    @jesterkind said:

    The nerf to keys' effectiveness at ending the game prematurely was sorely needed, but has the unfortunate side effect of leaving keys as kind of a useless item in the bloodweb for the majority of players. Speaking anecdotally, I've only really ever seen keys in my lobbies when paired with a hatch offering from someone who's attempting an Adept achievement, and that's a pretty niche situation for a whole item archetype.

    So, to remedy this, my fix is twofold.

    1: Keys no longer open the hatch at all, and are no longer called Keys. I'm not sure exactly what to call keys in this rework, but I'm leaning towards "fetish", or something else that evokes minor magical charms which offer insight and knowledge to the survivor who uses it. They would no longer open the hatch, with that effect being given to Left Behind instead. What they would do is...

    2: Keys lean harder into aura reading. What I think the core, base mechanic of a "key" would be now is that you can hold down the Use Item button to see the aura of any teammate that's within the base radius- a variable I think would scale with item rarity, so the green item would have a pretty low radius and the iridescent a pretty large one. This would be somewhat similar to the Eroded Token and Gold Token addons now, though I think the radius would have to be tweaked somewhat. Other addons would be reworked to allow you to see more auras- injured teammates outside of the base radius, the killer's radius within the base radius, teammates performing specific actions (repairing, healing, blessing/cleansing, etc) outside of the base radius, as well as the requisite addons for increasing charges and the like.

    What these changes would aim to achieve is to give survivors, especially those who play solo, a more easily-accessible method of gaining information without having to sacrifice a perk slot. "Keys" would be more equivalent to maps- though while maps track static, interactive objects, "keys" track other players for a shorter duration without the need to scout them first.

    One of the bigger problems on the survivor side of gameplay is the sheer gulf between Solo Q and SWF, after all, with most proposed solutions being more easily accessible information for solos without giving much of an advantage to the SWF on comms who already has that info. This would be a good start, in my opinion, though it likely won't be enough on its own to fix that issue.

    What do you think? Would this give keys a respectable niche in the item arsenal, or would it go too far in the opposite direction and become overpowered? Would you suggest any tweaks?

    Yeah, that's what the keys should be headed towards: maybe you could just remove green keys from the game, make the purple 15/20 seconds of use, and enhance the aura reading add-ons (range and capacities). But i'm not sure that giving left behind the ability to open hatch would be good gameplay wise... i'm afraid that it will give them too much of a free escape (and all the bad selfish behaviours that could come with it).

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