Perk Problems
Any game with perks is going to have a lot of trouble with balance as perk systems inherently create imbalance. This game is a prime example. In addition to having perks that radically alter the game dynamics, the progression of gaining perks is absurd. The biggest issues I see are the bloat and expense. If you create 70 perks and players only use 7 of them then 90% of the perks you've put in the game are just there to give false rewards and further frustrate progression (numbers are demonstrative, I realize the game has more perks). The very fact that some perks are considered indispensable is damning evidence of poor balance between perks even if the individual perks have been well tuned.
The game has a system of teachable perks. Most of the highest regarded perks fall into this category and are generally from paid content leaning toward a pay to win system. I shouldn't be too surprised as EA and Ubisoft have made this common practice. Adding into the real money cost is the requirements needed to unlock them for other characters. You may have to gain 40 levels in a character you hate playing in order to unlock the most useful perks for the character you do want to play. Now that is pretty much a killer issue as all the survivors are primarily defined by perks alone which I find a bit disappointing. It would be nice if the survivors were actually unique by either having a specific trait or having exclusive perks that aren't able to be transferred rather than just unique models/grunts.
My suggestion is trim the fat. If you have to buy perks, then at least have them available when you pay for it rather than buying further grinding. If perks have abysmal usage rates, then maybe they shouldn't block progression and force you to advance levels gaining effectively nothing at all; especially considering the 3 tier system. It would be bad enough if a perk was a perk but having to gain a perk 3 times and still not ever use it is extremely bloated. Even if you wanted to put minimal effort, you could replace the perks on the bloodweb with perk tokens that could be used to acquire the perks you actually want and ignore those you don't.
Comments