In Hindsight...
Survivor perks should have been designed to require team synergy. Killer perks should have been designed to require little-to-no synergy.
An Observation...
Survivors possess 16 perk slots, split between 4 survivors, while a Killer has only 4 perk slots. However, the Killer's perks are more dependent on synergy for value than the Survivor's perks.
Of the 101 Survivor perks, only 3 perks require the survivor to bring another perk or item to see value. There are 19 perks that have poor standalone value, while the remaining 79 perks provide survivors with significant standalone value (or, in the case of perks like Technician ...all of the value it can possibly offer).
Of the 90 Killer perks, 17 perks have awful standalone value--requiring the killer to be someone specific or bring a specific 2nd perk to see value. There are 24 perks that have poor standalone value, and only 49 perks with great standalone value (half of which are horrible perks).
For those interested in seeing how I reached these numbers, here is a link to Google Sheets with the break down of where each perk stands. Note: many perks in the Good Standalone Value column are just bad, and no amount of synergy is going to make them better. I'm not here to debate a perk's overall value--just how well it functions alone. If you feel I've miscategorized anything, I'd be happy to edit this post and/or explain my reasonings in the comments below.
Why is this?
With an inferior capacity for perks in a trial, why are Killers being limited in the types of perks they are able to bring each trial? Shouldn't it be the survivors who receive minor buffs to their individual performance, and are incentivized to plan their perk loadout around the team, rather than their individual needs? Or, at the least, dedicate all 4 perks towards being great at one specific task?
The Problem with Boons
Boons break the perk economy.
There are only 3 Boon Perks in the game, but we can assume there will eventually be at least 4.
If one survivor runs 4 Boon Perks, the remaining 3 survivors will technically be playing with 8 perks each--coming to a total of 28 perks on the survivor side, instead of our previous number: 16.
28 Survivor perks vs 4 killer perks.
Is it too late to fix the problem?
I don't think so. BHVR can always shake things up and completely rework the perks in the game. I don't think it is likely they will, so I'd say their best bet is to improve the perks they release for Killers going forward, whilst reworking old perks to meet player needs.
Additionally, they could take a look at what happens when Killers are allowed to bring more than 4 perks into a trial, and decide whether or not that is a healthy direction for the game to go.
What I'd Like to see
In an ideal world, I'd like to see what perks my teammates are bringing before the trial (with the ability to edit & lock my loadout to synergize with theirs), and a massive nerf to survivor perks across the board. While I do believe standalone perks have a place in DBD, the game should be asking me "how can you help your team survive?" instead of "how can you help yourself survive?".
I'd like to see the Boons nerfed, but their range increased to map wide. Specifically, I'd like to see Circle of Healing be a team heal speed buff that doesn't grant self-healing. Shadow Step only effect injured survivors, and not hide aura reading, and Exponential increase recovery speed but not allow one to pick themselves up.
Finally, to end this lengthy post, I'd like to see BHVR recognize their own game's flaws, acknowledge that past attempts to band-aid the issues have been unsuccessful, and make a genuine effort to improve the game, rather than dance around the subject and hope people learn to live with it.
Comments
I always thought survivors should have to select their perks on a shared screen amongst the other survivors with no perk being allowed more than once and only if it is unlocked for that particular survivor. It would ensure perk diversity amongst the 4 survivors it could cause some issues I’m sure but it would allow for interesting games.
good work btw. You put in some good thought into this discussion.
I don't want to see a buffed mapwide Shadow Step for the inevitable Iron Will combo, thanks.
The overall point is good, but "boons could be LITERALLY ANYWHERE and will then affect the entire map with slightly lesser buffs" would only exacerbate their current problems.
It doesn't help that most of the boon totems are 2 existing survivor perks (but better) in one. So the 4 you're spreading to all the other players are actually 8, so each player is benefiting from 12 perks worth of buffs.
Circle of Healing: Self-Care at double speed + Botany Knowledge at 3x heal speed
Shadowstep: Lucky Break without needing to have been hit + Distortion with infinite charges
Exponential: Unbreakable but infinite times AND 3x recovery speed
It's honestly pretty embarrassing from a design stand point.
If they found a solution for players who wouldn't be able to use DS (and maybe BT), I'd definitely want to see something like that as well. Not something I see as essential, but always thought it'd be an interesting way to solve the "all 4 survivors are running the same 4 perks" problem. Worth experimenting and testing on PTB or even live servers, at the least.
I completely understand why you feel that way.
I suppose I'm a bit optomistic about a killer's ability to track blood without scratchmarks after watching a few hours of VHS gameplay. I thought that'd be the main talking point or at least initial gameplay concerns for VHS, but I've been surprised to see everyone playtesting it is managing just fine without.
Problem is that the blood is sporadic, often hidden by grass on the floor, and super desaturated anyway. Having to fall back on it consistently as your only means of tracking someone would be suffering unless DBD got a lot more vibrancy and a lot less random clutter (but then Trapper pays for it). And if that became meta, Spirit's kind of screwed.
"Boons providing lesser mapwide effects" would only vaguely approach balance if Killers had some possible way to find the things. Otherwise, they're still teamwide shared perks, just weaker ones... but now the entire team is always benefiting, which is a direct buff in some ways? Take Exponential, for instance.
I don't think having people fight over who can bring what perk is necessarily a healthy idea.
One of my biggest gripes with the system in general is this:
All killers share some basic characteristics, but everyone has three unique perks and a very special power, that essentially establishes their identity.
Survivors also all got three unique perks, but once these are unlocked, the survivors essentially just turn into skins, losing any uniqueness they got.
I know that this would be a hard sell to long-standing survivor mains and involve quite some work, but I would love for the survivors to retain some of their identity.
Maybe make it so that one of their load out perks always has to be one of their unique perks, or maybe the "best" perk can only be used by them?
Or maybe give them all some sort of minor passive?
Never know but it would either introduce more teamwork or divide the team further. Part of surviving is how the other survivors interact. It would also let each survivor know what perks were in use. Good info for solo players. This will never happen of course. It was just an idea I’ve had for a long time.
It could work, but a lot of the infrastructure around solo would have to change to support it.
SWFs wouldn't have a problem, but it'd just be another thing keeping solo down, since we're suddenly expecting teamwork and communication in a mode so notoriously lacking in both.
Oh how I've longed for survivors to have something unique about them, mechanically.
I never even thought it'd need to be major. Give Claud a 5-10% healing speed buff, Nea a small stagger reduction, Ace a 5% luck increase, etc.
Anything of the sort would be warmly welcomed.
It would certainly have its issues but just about anything introduced into the game at this point could cause potentially small to huge problems. I play almost 100% solo and don’t run things like DS or DH very often but i could see some fights over my kindred lol
All great points. I played on the new map right before my reply, and chased an injured survivor thru Shadow Step, so recency bias had me saying "blood is so easy to see, I don't even need the scratch marks." But yes, there are absolutely maps that would be horrendous for tracking just blood without Bloodhound--Autohaven specifically would be a nightmare.
With regard to map-wide boons, I think it would be balanced if the benefit is 1/4th as strong as a regular perk. Take Leader for example; it provides survivors within 8m a 25% speed boost to healing, sabotage, unhooking, cleansing, opening gates, and chests. What if we had a boon that did the same exact thing (except for heal buff), but only 7%? Even if all 4 survivors run it, it is still weaker than Leader (21% buff each), at which point all 4 survivors might as well be running Leader. However, its strength comes from the convenience--not needing to be next to someone to give them the buff.
Now do the same thing with Circle of Healing, but make it 1/4 as strong as Botany Knowledge. It becomes a map wide 8% healing speed buff, up to
24%33% if all 4 Survivors are running it.Kind of weak--in fact, you might as well be running Resilience or Leader.If all 4 survivors are running it, they might as well have been using Botany Knowledge. But one or two survivors running Circle of Healing to provide a minor buff for their team feels like a nice compromise.The convenience of buffing your team should be the real strength of a boon totem, not necessarily the buff itself.
Edit: Crossed out incorrect percentage and subsequent thoughts. Additionally, on further reflection, 1/4 might just be a tad too weak. I think there is a case to be made that if all 4 survivors boon a totem then the total buff should be better than singular perks of similar effect.
Oh yeah, blood's super obvious in Eyrie, or Lery's. Most other maps have pretty dark floors IIRC. The Game's got quite bright ones, but it should go without saying that that would be possibly the worst place to be stuck with blood only. Freakin' twisty interconnected mess...
Hm, 1/4 of a perk might then be too weak for anyone to bother? It's a weird balancing act. It needs to be strong enough someone might bring it (especially if on their own), but not so strong that it's almost obligatory for someone to have it.
I think we've had enough play time with boons to see that it's not practical for killers to go out of their way to break a boon totem. I've even seen content creators who think it is a waste of time to snuff a boon totem when they are right next to one (presumably because it is hardly inconvenient for a survivor to boon another totem).
As a killer, I'm fine with boons providing a huge buff--but only if a broken boon equals a broken totem. As a survivor, I'd never run a perk that can be destroyed without any value, so I wouldn't like to see broken boons become broken totems. I seldom use hex perks as killer, because the high-risk high-reward just never pays off for me; it feels very 'damned if I do, damned if I don't' as a result.
I assume BHVR wants to keep boons relatively as-is mechanically, so my compromise is a huge nerf and the ability to stack boon effects.
Killers are frequently in a lose-lose situation right now with boon totems, so anything that provides value without being outright powerful gets two thumbs up from me.