Dev Update - Preliminary Thoughts + Feedback
This'll be a long one, there's a lot in this update. Overall, I feel very positive about these upcoming changes, with a few concerns and a few things I'll have to test before I can form a proper opinion on them. So:
Progression System changes: These are good! I don't think that the grind is necessarily done with, in regards to making it less of a chore, but I do think it's now in a spot where other things can be focused on for a while. Not having to grind for a chance at getting one level of the specific perk that you want in the random bloodweb is a gigantic improvement, especially for those of us who are only concerned with getting specific perks for specific builds to begin with-- but also still a huge change for those who like to get all perks on all characters. It's good, I like it.
I'm not fussed about the pre-prestige "reward" because I always understood what it was for, no problems there.
Getting the character's perks as charms is a cute detail and I like it, since you don't have to go out of your way to get prestige levels anymore it means you can show off your dedication to characters you really like. Not a huge bonus, but it's nice.
Matchmaking Incentives: Great change, no notes. I'm curious how it'll handle MMR for killer, or if it'll just be a blanket "please play killer" so the system has a wider variety to work with, but the answer to that isn't gonna change my opinion much in either direction. Looking forward to it.
Generator Speeds: Decent changes- generators taking ten seconds longer definitely gives killers more breathing room without (hopefully) making the game a chore to play for survivors, and better basekit kicking effects are always nice- though these seem more to dissuade gen-tapping than to make kicking a viable option on its own for pure regression. Either way, I like it, nothing really to say here beyond one point I'll address later.
Base Killer Improvements: Goddamn, I was not expecting anything like this! Mostly I like these a lot, though I share some other people's concerns about how well some of them are going to stack with the strongest killers. Blight and Nurse may not give a damn about kick speed or M1 weapon wipe, but they will care about the shortened sprint duration on survivors- might be something to keep an eye on.
Bloodlust buff is fine. The mechanic is there to serve two important functions; protect against the possibility of infinite loops + to make sure that survivors do eventually get hit and no chase lasts forever. Since tier 1 didn't get buffed and good killers already rarely see that, I'm fine with this.
Camping and Tunnelling: So here's where I start having some doubts- tunnelling I see, it's being addressed here and I think these measures have the potential to help a lot of players out, especially solo players. I'm just not sure what here is supposed to combat camping? To bring back that point from earlier, if generators take ten seconds longer and downing a survivor again after they're unhooked is harder, that almost makes camping more effective. Some have said that hook timers should be increased by ten seconds to compensate, and I agree; that won't really affect anything except for camping, so I think it'd do a little to curb that tactic.
(Also, I'll raise it here too: now that everyone gets Endurance when they're unhooked no matter what, I think Bubba's chainsaw should stop dead when it hits that status effect. Then he'd only be able to trade, not completely prevent unhooks.)
Perk Changes: I'm not going to go over all of these individually, but rest assured I like them. Some I think are a little meh even after the changes, but that's fine- even the perks that got nuked are fine because they were the meta perks, and the entire point of this update is to remove every meta perk. Some perks, like Deja Vu and Lethal Pursuer, got very nice little buffs that make them a little more attractive, and that's great- they were already good, so a buff only makes them better. Everything else is fine.
Yes, even Self-Care's nerf is fine. That was a meta perk, that needed to be nerfed; that's the only thing that these changes wanted to achieve. Don't run Self-Care. Run something else. That's the point.
There is one that I want to highlight, though- Off The Record. I like its new effect quite a bit, but I'm concerned that it would be monstrous in the endgame if its still active then. If DS deactivates after the last generator is done, I think that Off the Record should too.
The only other perk to highlight is Dead Hard. I'll have to test it on the PTB, but it is categorically not a buff and people saying it is are being very, very silly. It'll only be useful for tanking a hit now, and none of the other ridiculous stuff it used to be able to do, and that's a good change.
All in all, I feel good about these changes! The game's going to be in a healthier spot after this for sure, even if there's still work to be done.
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