The 4 Perk Stack Exercise
I may not be the first person to have the idea, but I've had an idea to determine if a perk is problematic or weirdly designed. This can be used for things such as deciding which perks need to be looked at the most, or when creating new content. I don't know if the devs already do this when creating survivor perks, but I think it would be good to consider if they don't. This could also be useful for fans creating their own chapters.
This isn't a catch all though. Some perks still can have questionable design choices that aren't made super apparent just by the effects of 4 people using it at once. It's simple one of many ways to determine if a perk could be oddly designed.
A few examples of what the 4 stack exercise pointing out some weird/problematic survivor perks.
Deliverance: Up to 3 free hook escapes, but one person is guaranteed to get no use out of this perk.
Addrenaline: All survivors are playing with 3 perks for most of the game, but once end game hits, if all survivors are alive, the killer loses all their pressure instantly.
Flashbang: 4 Survivors running this perk severely limits the amount of times each survivor can use this perk.
Blast Mine: Again, 4 survivors running this perk severely limits the amount of times each survivor can run this perk.
Sole Survivor: One survivor is guaranteed to get no use out of this perk.
Up The Ante: While all survivors are alive, the chance of unhooking yourself is boosted to 40%. With how luck works, this could still hypothetically do nothing though.
Comments
Um your wrong about deliverence at most you can only get 2 self unhooks
Also I might have misunderstood but I don't see how any of these perks you listed are problematic
Oh so that's even worse. If a full team runs deliverance, only half of them can actually get any use out of it.
I'm using the term problematic as an intentionally vague term. The kiler losing all their pressure instantly once all gens are done and only half of survivor being able to use the perk they brought are both problematic in very different ways.
I get what you're saying, I just don't know how much sense it makes to apply such logic. Stacking 4 of the same perks can show some weird interactions if all survivors ran the perk, but I don't necessarily think this automatically points to weird design flaws or problematic situations.
I agree out of the perks you listed, Adrenaline could be considered the most problematic in a 4 stack, but adrenaline is basically a dead perk until end game, so I feel like it balances out.
I don't think it's really a problem for a perk to be designed where if 4 survivors used it, each survivor has to be able to get value out of it. Realistically, this wouldn't ever happen in soloQ, at most I've maybe seen deliverance on two people in one lobby, and even when only one person runs deliverance, a lot of the time they don't even get value out of it. Interesting exercise though, it could maybe help show major balancing problems when designing perks.