Game health changes..
Making a list of things I think would be a pretty healthy change to the game overall. This is an early rough draft so I'm always tweaking things. This is mainly towards game health and mechanics in general, rather than individual perk strength. As always, thought process and reasoning is usually in the changes. And I'm always open to feedback. Also it's quite lengthy, sorry.
General changes:
Map changes- Balancing maps to be a little less one side or the other, and making them feel as even as possible. Reduce the size of larger maps like Red forest, and slightly increasing the size of other maps that are slightly too small. Reducing the pallet counts on some maps, as this can give too many safe options while requiring very little decision making on the survivor's side, as they will always have a safe place to go. Also implementing a system that keeps pallets from spawning within a certain range of each other. This would keep safe pallets loops from being spawned bunched together, where as right now you can have 4 pallets spawn within a small radius, while still being connected to windows and other strong looping locations. The whole idea is to balance out maps and loops to require more actual decision making on both parts, and making matches based more on your in game decisions overall, rather than RNG map spawns.
Grades- Removing pips. In the past this made sense as it was based upon your skill within a match. However, as grades are now a reflection of time played it doesn't make much sense to have a mechanic built into it that's based on skill or how a match was played out. Now instead there is just a simple progress bar that fills as you play. The longer you're in a match the more progress you'll get at the end. But there is a base amount you'll get for simply playing, so even if you're tunneled out, or die very quickly, you'll still get some sort of progress at the end of the match that goes towards the next grade. The more you do in a match the more you'll receive. However, you'll receive very little for killing yourself on first hook, and receive nothing for disconnecting. This change is to make it to where you actually feel rewarded for playing, even if the match goes poorly due to something out of your control.
Perks/grind- Perk tiers are staying. However, all perks of all owned killers/survivors are automatically unlocked, but at their tier 1 version. Buying a killer/survivor automatically unlocks the tier 1 version of their perks on every other killer/survivor. Perks will be removed from the bloodwebs, and any old offerings will also be cleaned up.
Now you will instead increase perk tiers as you play matches with those specific perks. You will receive points at the end of each match that'll go towards the perks used in that match. Each tier takes slightly longer to increase with 3 still being the max.
Bloodpoints will still be used in bloodwebs for offerings/add-ons to use on each killer. You keep any current progression you have. Meaning if you have a tier 2 or tier 3 perk already, it stays that way, you don't have to get them up there again.
This change would immediately fix the grind, while still offering progression for players that would require actual gameplay, as well as a chance for people to maybe change up their styles and builds as they level different perks.
Loudouts- Adding in a search bar as well as a sort option for perks. This would just make finding perks easier. Also adding a set number of loudout pages for each character. It could start at 3 or 4. And you could buy more loudout pages for shards or Auric cells. Nothing crazy, but it'd be a much need quality of life feature, while adding another way to make a little bit more money, which I'm okay with as long as it doesn't affect in-game stuff, which this doesn't.
Practice mode- A mode on different maps, with set stationary dummy targets. No bots required. You could bring any killer into this mode, and practice their powers on the stationary wooden dummies that are spread out. This would allow you to try things like different angles for ranged killer powers like huntress and deathslinger. You could get a feel for timings on blinks and dashes. It would allow you to get a better handle on almost all killers and learn their powers without having to feel pressured. It could even allow add-ons so that you can learn the different things with those.
You wouldn't be able to try different builds and stuff, but it would give you a chance to learn killers and maps with no pressure, and would require very little actual effort from the devs.
Killer changes:
Removed bloodlust 2 & 3. Generally you don't really get to these tiers unless you've been chasing a single survivor wayyyy to long. Most of the time these go unused however and don't really feel needed in the game. If it's impossible to catch a survivor from base kit of even after bloodlust 1, the issue isn't your speed, it's either your skill, or there's an imbalance in safe loops/structure that needs to be balanced. So if you can balance maps properly, this isn't needed.
Moris- Are now basekit if a survivor has reached the 2nd hook state. Certain killers would have their Moris updated to something fresh that gives them more character.
Totems- At the start of the match all totems are protected for 12 seconds. It's nothing too crazy, but would give a little bit of a chance to actually get to a totem to have a chance of defending it if it happens to spawn near a survivor or in an easy to find spot.
Generators- kicking a generator now applies an instant 5% regression and starts the regression process like normal.
It's been pointless to kick generators in most situations for a while now. This would look to give it a little bit more of a payout now to kick a generator, even if you're not running certain perks. It would also buff certain perks like overcharge or oppression without having to actually buff or nerf each individual perk.
More on this with survivor changes below.
Scratch marks: Fixing the spawning of scratch marks and their intensity. Right now they can spawn so randomly that it makes one of the killers main tracking tools kinda lousy to actually track with. And on some maps they can be downright impossible to track. Survivors shouldn't be able to full Sprint and be stealthy at the same time I think narrowing their spawn range and increasing their intensity slightly to stand out more on maps that have snow or large grass would fix this. And would also free up their band aid fix perks like predator to be repurposed into something more useful.
Survivors changes:
Generators- You must now repair a generator for at least 2 seconds to stop it's current regression. This would eliminate the ability to gen tap while in mid chase and would force you to actually commit to the generator to stop it's regression. Any progress made before the 2 seconds are lost if you let go of the generator. This doesn't apply to ruin or generators that weren't already regressing. Generators still need to be kicked or have a perk that starts regression. This would only stop the ability to gen tap to overcome certain perks.
Unhooking- Unhooking a survivor now applies endurance and the haste effect for 4 second to the unhooked survivor.
Not much explanation is needed here, it's mainly just to combat camping/tunneling. It's a pretty basic change that could be built on or changed based on how it seems to affect matches.
Skill checks- Skill checks should be more skillful, as the name implies. Now take the wiggle skill checks that we currently have and the way they move around like the current generator skill checks, And put that together and make them more frequent. This would make doing generators or healing much more interactive and skillful, and require a bit more concentration than what we have now.
Bonus change!: A whole new mechanic that I thought would be interesting. Maybe it wouldn't really fit into DBDs gameplay, but I'd like feedback on the idea.
Fear- as a survivor you have a fear meter. While within active chase with a killer your fear meter fills up. The longer you're in chase the more fearful you get, the more prone to mistakes you are. Mistakes like stumbling, or tripping, or some other type of thing like reduced vision temporarily or random scream. It wouldn't be an extremely fast build up, more of just a gradual build up of fear. Once you're out of chase it gradually guess back down.
While I don't always like the idea of adding RNG to a game, I feel like this would be a kind of healthy RNG that survivors and killers both still have some type of control over. The longer you take to escape a chase, the more prone you are to screwing up and vice versa. The more pressure you put on that single survivor, the more chance you have of them screwing up or making a mistake.
I think it'd add some much needed spice to the game as well as introduce new perks or playstyles to the game.
Anyways that's all I have for now. Let me know what y'all think!
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