New Player Feedback
A new player's perspective.
The concept of this game is very good. The implementation of the concept feels lacking. The basic premise is that a group of 4 survivors need to use teamwork, stealth and cunning to outmaneuver a powerful killer. As a new player, I have primarily been running as a killer. The killer role seems pretty weak which undermines the tension of the survivor and negatively impacts the presented story. Playing through the tutorial bot matches from both angles, it seems most of the imbalance comes from perks and add-ons but there are a few game elements that I would recommend minor tweaks.
I don't feel I have enough play time to accurately assess perk and add-on balance so I will not be commenting on the perks themselves but I will mention a few perks I've seen to illustrate my opinions. The first mechanic that I feel could use some minor work is the chase. In general, most killers are not much faster than survivors so it takes a while to catch up however that is not the actual issue. The issue I see comes from certain map elements. There are areas on maps that allow for an absurd amount of stall time by a chased survivor. Typically this involves a long passage with a vault in the middle. Due to the speed difference, the killer will eventually close the gap but a survivor that circles the entire length might take 20-30 seconds to catch up to only to use the vault to reset the chase. They can repeat this several times, eating 2-3 minutes. That amount of time easily allows for completion of objectives and when you finally do catch up, that is only 1 of 3 times needed to down that player in order to get a kill. This effectively runs the clock out making for a frustrating experience. Your choice is either engage in the tedious and oft pointless chase or abandon the survivor, either way wasting time and ultimately thwarting the killer. In many matches the killer feels like they are being taunted and toyed with rather than being the threat; this feels like it undermines the presented concept. The options I see to improve this are; to allow a new mechanic in which the killer can take the same amount of time as breaking a pallet to block a single vault point at a time, which would allow the killer more options in the chase and due to the extra time it wouldn't hinder the survivor's escape but merely the tedious ring around the rosie game or change those models to reduce the distances gained by a vault.
The second issue I have, is the collision. When in a chase, a second survivor is able to block a doorway and they become an impassable barrier. They can use this collision to stall for escape time when carrying or to completely halt your chase of a survivor. It's a bit too potent being able to block like that. I would like to see the killer be able to push past with ease or perhaps when carrying a survivor your attacks down in one to discourage this.
This leads to another issue I see with normal gameplay; animation lock. A killer picking up a survivor locks the facing of that killer and a survivor with a flash light can stun based on that lock immediately freeing the carried survivor and stalling for a large amount of time. Even if you see this happening, there is no way to prevent it unless you have a very specific perk. The animation lock is also problematic when survivor's are unhooking. I can still register a hit on the one doing the unhooking but it does not interrupt the action and the unhooked survivor is untouchable during the animation. Being able to cancel the pick up to prevent being blinded and interrupting the unhooking animation when you hit would improve the gameplay from my perspective. The main issue from the unhooking is because in the majority of games, a perk that makes the unhooked survivor immune to damage for a time becomes incredibly powerful. I don't have issue with perk but rather the lack of indication when they are immortal. Another perk allows for a timed dodge to evade a swing and because the killer has to reset, it further adds to the stall time. I don't have a problem with a skill dodge however this actually makes them invincible during the animation but still punishes the killer for missing when they hit. If you truly miss because they timed well then I'm fine with the delay but when you actually hit and it's shrugged off for just as much penalty, it becomes frustrating. For this I would simply like to see a reduction to the penalty if you do hit and deal no damage.
From a survivor perspective, the biggest issue I see is the camping of hooked players. That seems to come as a counter to the aggressive play of survivors that don't generally fear the killer. That being said, if some of the aforementioned tweaks are explored then I don't think it would feel necessary to camp and a penalty should be applied if the killer stays close to a hooked survivor for too long. Whether this is in the form of some detriment to the killer character or simply stopping the countdown of the hooked survivor, I do believe camping a hook should be discourage in the interest of balance. A second mechanical tweak that I think could be worth exploring from the survivor's side, is the ability to hold your breath for a limited time to prevent grunting. Since this would be a short time (perhaps a basic slow recharge bar that depletes while silenced and lets out a loud grunt if you overhold), it would have to be used skillfully by the survivor in order to thwart killer detection and encourage more stealth and cunning actions from survivors.
Looking at killers and powers; I find that while you start with 5 choices, only 4 feel viable and 1 of those 4 takes a lot of practice to master timing (nurse). The hillbilly's chainsaw power is mostly useless and often more bane than boon. It sounds good to have a charge attack with a one hit down but the time to activate is so slow that there are only a couple maps where it is even viable and those still require just the right amount of positioning and luck. I have played several matches with the hillbilly and while it has good perks, the power is effectively unuseable on indoor maps with twisting halls. The best game as Hillbilly I had resulted in a 3 kill but not once was I able to utilize the chainsaw power. In probably a dozen games, Ive been able to use it once. The biggest suggestion I have from this (other than reworking that power) is to allow a bot match similar to the tutorial but allowing you to play with all characters, locked and unlocked. This would allow a player to become comfortable with how a power works before jumping into a match and allows you to try the new killers/survivors before you buy them. Bot matches would award nothing, unless you wanted to tie a cosmetic to trying a new character as an incentive item.
This is merely my perspective as a newer player and any suggestion would need playtesting to determine viability before it could be implemented as I cannot assume to know the full impacts felt by more experienced players. I have far more complaints about the progression system than anything else but for now, I just wanted to pass on my opinions regarding the gameplay. If you made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read through my massive post.
Comments