Decisive Strike Should Be A Part Of The Base Game!
Put down your torches, pitchforks, and rope! I know you saw the thread title and had a kneejerk reaction ready. All I ask is that you read the entire post before passing judgement. First of all, I am not talking about the current version of Decisive Strike. I'm talking about a modified fair version for killers and survivors alike. At the start of the game, each survivor will have components of a shiv scattered throughout the map. The survivor will be able to see the auras of the components if they are within 10 meters. The items are a piece of scrap metal, duct tape, and a file. When a survivor collects a component they will get 250 bloodpoints in the survival category.
Once all three items are collected the survivor can spend 60 seconds combining the components. The first 30 seconds will be the survivor wrapping one end of the metal with duct tape. This action will have the audible sound of duct tape being used which the killer can hear if nearby. The second 30 seconds will be the survivor filing one edge of the scrap metal. This action will also have a distinct audible noise that the killer can hear if nearby. Completion of the shiv will give the survivor 500 bloodpoints in the survival category.
Once the shiv is completed then the survivor can perform the decisive strike action if carried by the killer. Decisive Strike will no longer have any interaction with being the obsession. However, all players will be able able to see a shiv icon on the user interface to know if a survivor has the Decisive Strike option. If a survivor with Decisive Strike available is being carried by the killer, the killer will not be able to hook that survivor until the skill check is complete. The skill check will no longer be difficult to complete.
So what does this mean for both the killer and survivor? If a survivor wants to use decisive strike they will need to run around the map collecting components for about a minute and then spend another 60 seconds combining components. This slows the game down and gives the killer a chance to do chases early game without being gen rushed too hard. If the killer catches a survivor before they have completed the shiv they won't be able to use the ability. All of this amounts to higher risk for the survivor. As such they also have a higher reward. The survivor doesn't have to worry about a difficult skill check to perform the action and they don't have to worry about being "dribbled" to the hook.
So what happens to the actual perk Decisive Strike? It just makes everything about this process better for the survivor. The survivor can see the auras of components further away. The build process is faster. The stun is longer. Here is what the perk decisive strike would look like. I'll put 4 ranks in the description with the first rank being rank 0 which is the baseline version available without running the decisive strike perk.
Decisive Strike- You can see the auras of components for a shiv 10/15/20/25 meters away. Once the 3 components are collected it will take you 60/50/40/30 seconds to build the shiv. When grabbed by the Killer, succeed an easy Skill Check to automatically escape the Killer's grasp and stun them for 2.5/3/3.5/4 seconds.
So killers, it will take survivors without the decisive strike perk considerable time to hunt down the components since they can only see the if within 10 meters. It will take them a full minute to build the shiv during which they are stationary and making noise. All of this will considerably slow down the game all for the low price of the occasional 2.5 second stun. This is very much in favor of the killer.
So survivors, building the shiv is completely optional. You don't have to do it. At the very minimum, if you are near a component you might as well pick it up for some easy bloodpoints. If things are going well and you have time to build the shiv then you might as well right? Extra blood points and it might save your life later.
In the end, everyone gets something they want and the game is better balanced.
Comments
A good way to balance decisive strike,
you rip a valuable part of a generator as a weapon of last defense: All gen times are increased by 8% stacks per survivor.
Short Version. Survivors can collect 3 items to combine into a shiv. Once shiv is complete they can perform Decisive Strike action.
Base part of game version- You can see the auras of components for a shiv 10 meters away. Once the 3 components are collected it will take you 60 seconds to build the shiv. When grabbed by the Killer, succeed an easy Skill Check to automatically escape the Killer's grasp and stun them for 2.5 seconds.
Perk Decisive Strike- You can see the auras of components for a shiv 15/20/25 meters away. Once the 3 components are collected it will take you 50/40/30 seconds to build the shiv. When grabbed by the Killer, succeed an easy Skill Check to automatically escape the Killer's grasp and stun them for 3/3.5/4 seconds.
PS: i must admit that i came here expecting a riot.
Edit: this idea (crafting a shiv) reminds me of Last of us.
I'm sure some will act like the sky is falling because that is what they do. But if they actually read and think about what I'm proposing they will realize that this is a boost for killers. If it takes a survivor 2 minutes of time to craft an item to escape from your grasp with a 2.5 second head start to run away, how long would it take most killers to catch that survivor? More often than not the killer will have caught them within 10 seconds. That means the survivor spent around 120 seconds to waste around 13 seconds of the killers time. I'll take that trade any day as a killer.
Or just remove the perk from the game and be done with with. The whole mechanic isn't necessary.
That would be a wasted opportunity.
By far only try to accumulate that as fast as you can and do it repeatedly. You should add the total number of pieces you can obtain and there is oer map, how many can be generated, there is a cap per person? Stuff like that, except these details that might be added I like it
I don't like the idea of crafting a shiv....it seems out of place. But I like the idea of earning a DS at the cost of something else, and being usable for all players (it actually prevents a lot of problems with the current system)
I like @akbays35 system. It has a very real cost to it and we stay away from it just being a crutch perk. Anyone can use it (which blows for us killers) but there is a real penalty so there is a solid tradeoff.
Only thing is I hope there is no way to tell if someone has taken it or not because 3 swf would probably crucify a solo survivor who takes it (thus costing them 8% speed)
Otherwise it makes complete sense to me! I really like this idea and it makes DS not seen like such a cheap shot!
When I play killer, I never really know who has ds or not (except a Laurie....especially a bloody laurie) so when it hits,it always feels like such a cheap shot....a crutch.
Making it an earnable part of the game is WAY more tolerable. The generator slowing idea makes sense and fits. DS would still be frustrating, but I know there is a tradeoff so it seems far less cheap when I know a survivor's gen speed is reduced because they used DS.
It goes from being a "cheap shot" to being seen as "ha! you might have cheap shotted me, but now it takes longer to repair gens".
WAAAAYYY less toxic this way. I am all for it!!!
This would result in a lot of lategame DS's.
To that, i say no thank you.
I will be honest with you. Deleting a perk does make the game better.
The game would be much more fun if we didn't have DS and NOED.
I have a special kind of hatred for DS so I don't know what to think about this. I actually liked the idea since it adds more objectives and depth to the game but I have no idea if this is balanced.
This is why I loved locker changes as well. I don't think that BBQ was OP but at least having lockers around you actually means something. I will be more relieved when I am working on a generator near a locker now.
The point of this idea is that you would actually reach a late game! It gives the survivors a secondary objective. It also slows down the survivor side snowball. You would never have to worry about chasing a survivor for a minute at the start of the game only to have them decisive strike out of it and starting a new chase and having 3 gens pop before you even catch one survivor. They simply will not possibly have built a shiv yet.
Also, with this many aspects of the ability if it turns out to be too one sided it would be easy to adjust one way or the other for balance purposes. If it is too easy for survivors then they could adjust it so the components are further away from each other, building the shiv takes longer, etc. Or if it is too killer sided then they could adjust the other way.
I rather have OP's version of DS than the current version of DS.
This is actually a good suggestion with a well thought out execution of mechanics but you know what sucks? The devs don't like good ideas so RIP.
I> @CallMeRusty420 said:
lol
Then that's different.
I simply said what i said based on what you gave at first.
I actually don't like what you said before though.
"You would actually reach a late game."
When i said "This would result in a lot of lategame DS's.", this isn't the response i hoped for.
Then there's 1 more issue...
Survivors seem to generally want another objective instead of more Generator time.
Yet when you give them such objectives like hunting all Totems, they call it the stupidest thing ever.
Your idea can get a lot of backlash if it were to be presented by the devs.
Whether your idea's good for the game or not, i'd bet some money that it'd get criticism.
Though to be fair, it depends on if you even view being their target as an issue.
Another thing they could do is add two crafting tables to the game. The survivors could only build items from the crafting tables. This would increase the difficulty of building the item since the killer could patrol those locations. It would also make it so all the survivors couldn't build them simultaneously. This would also allow the option of future items that could be built by survivors.
Having the survivor need to work for their DS could be a solution to the ds problem BUT I personnaly don't think it warrent making it baseline
It's not about that. At first when I was thinking of this idea, the goal was just to rework Decisive Strike. Some of the feedback I was getting was that it was too much work for one perk. Which is true. That is a lot of work for one perk. But then I started thinking that making a rank 0 version available as part of the base game would actually be really good for the game altogether. The devs have been talking about secondary objectives for survivors to work on and I think this would be a great addition to the game. It gives the survivors something meaningful to do besides generators.
I'm sorry if I didn't make all this clear in my original post. Each survivor would have 3 components that are unique to them. The other survivors wouldn't be able to interact with your components. You can only build and use one shiv per match.