Skip to content

The Off the Record Change is Bad

Clockwork_Enigma Clockwork_Enigma
in Feedback and Suggestions

New Off the Record

  • Upon being unhooked, you are granted the Endurance status effect for 60/70/80 seconds, though Conspicuous Actions will deactivate it.

(Note: I don't know if the new Off the Record has the current effects, but that will not matter.)

The Problems

  • Up to 80 seconds of the Endurance status effect if the Survivor doesn't perform an action that progresses the game by any means. This means that the Survivor can choose to not progress the game and be a teammate.
  • Or, the Survivor can constantly try to force the Killer to hit them while they are in the status effect, even if the Killer is attempting to not tunnel them and go after other Survivors. This creates an unhealthy dynamic.

The Solution: Even Newer Off the Record

  • Upon being unhooked and after getting at least 24 meters away from the Killer, Off the Record activates and grants you the Endurance status effect for 60/70/80 seconds.
    • Conspicuous Actions, gaining a health state, losing a health state or being put in the Dying State before the Perk activates will disable the Perk until you are unhooked again.

After many versions that I've conceived of for this Perk while writing this, this is the best version that I can even throw out for the Perk, balancing its overall duration with a new activation method that encourages the Survivor being unhooked to try running away from the Killer.

The one that's presented in the developer update--and I mean this with no offense--is far too strong or weak conceptually due to how it currently works; you can get hit as early as a second into the Perk, or you can have a Killer trying to play the game in a healthy way and have it until you do anything that progresses the game further--the latter leads into undesirable scenarios where you can simply just body block for the other Survivor and either try to force the Killer to hit you or try to go around and possibly lose the other Survivor.

This version here, however, makes it so that you need to first distance yourself from the Killer so that the Perk can activate, and also grants it the ability to activate even after you've just been hit off of the hook by the Killer. This gives the Killer more time to chase the other Survivor, really discourages them from going after you (especially if you manage to get 24 meters away from one hit), and really discourages you from trying to force tunneling situations.

But what are your thoughts? Do you think this version would balance it out or do you think the one from the developer update is fine, on paper?

And to any of the balance team or developers of this game, if this idea does one thing, I hope it's that it sets a foundation for making this perk more balanced before the Mid-Chapter releases to the PTB or Live game. Because I reiterate: I genuinely think that the developer update version of this perk is (conceptually) bad for the game, and it needs some sort of counterbalance to make it not so oppressive in the long term.

Comments

Categories