Hi BHVR. Here's a few things to try out to get food for thought.
- Killswitch Circle Of Healing for a week/end. Gather the data! I'd love to see how impactful that perk is.
- Killswitch the most survivor sided maps in the game for a weekend. Cowshed,Springwood,Garden Of Joy, Haddonfield,etc. Let's see the impact there.
- Killswitch the current meta slowdown/STBFL too. Let's get to see how the Killer performs without slowdown perks.
- Killswitch more things in general as experiments! People won't mind the change in meta and I think the impact will be that the game is changing way more and you have more data to look at to judge the impact of map design, perks and items/offerings.
Comments
They are getting Data from matches without these perks though. I have plenty of matches where the survivor side doesn’t bring CoH for example, they already have access to the data which kind of impact that perk has.
same with maps, they can see the difference of matches based on the maps.
the bloodlust weekend experiment was done because literally every single match has bloodlust enabled on default. I would love to see more of these kind of experiments as well, but it doesn’t make sense on optional mechanics..
I disagree! When players know a certain overly strong thing is taken out of the game, they can tailor their builds around it.
Plus, overall trends and game feel cannot be gathered from the matches where by chance there isn't a perk or it's not a certain map.
Also, it's just going to shake up the game meta without much work on BHVR's part.
1) They know how games without circle of healing go because there are games without circle of healing
2) They already know things like average killrate per map, not that I'm going to complain about eyrie or garden being disabled for any reason at all
3) Kinda the same as 1 but a zero slowdown period would be interesting. You might also just get a load of people just not play killer until they have them back
I'm still gonna stick with the argument that when people know a certain powerful perk is not in play,new strategies and gameplay scenarios can emerge.
and yeah, maybe at the same time as people don't have slowdown,we could killswitch all items as medkits and toolboxes are the things that make getting enough pressure to slow the gens down without perks really tough. the overall message is just to make the game more varied via kill switching,while gathering feedback.
Maybe they want data on how the boon users play without boons?
The kill switch is for game breaking stuff. Crashes, bugs whatever. It's not for data collection.
this also. I think there is inherent bias at looking at the data without killswitching the perk. The people that run it rn and wouldnt be able to run it are the most interesting demographic imo.
None of these things are broken or bugged in an abusable way, so there's absolutely no reason to killswitch them?
Or are you making more of a comparison to the bloodlust experiment? Because that's a different thing too, bloodlust is a base mechanic so it makes way more sense to try disabling it for a while. Just randomly disabling things people like using would only achieve making people angry, it makes no sense to try that.
The only thing that would make sense to try disabling for a weekend would be the aim dressing mechanic, because it's a base game mechanic that might be more trouble than it's worth.
Yeah I'm looking at this as a way for them to utilize the killswitch for more experiments. I think seeing the game in it's current balance state just without CoH would be very,very interesting,along with other perks to be removed temporarily.
I think it's silly to say "this has not been done before" as this is a suggestion for them to try out more stuff.
Who said it has to be?
It's not "this has not been done before", it's "this is completely different and opposed to the function of the mechanic you're invoking".
Still, my points stand. Disabling things people like to use will achieve nothing beyond making people angry- the devs already have the data you're talking about here, because they can see the results of the matches that don't have any given perk or type of perk. It's not like that data would necessarily be shown to the playerbase, so even satisfying idle curiosity for a handful of players wouldn't come of it, it'd only annoy the people who wanted to use the perks that were disabled.
The reason it's relevant that bloodlust is a base game mechanic is because disabling it doesn't remove player agency. It doesn't tell players that they're arbitrarily not allowed to use a thing they may want to, just because there's some "experiment" happening.
I suggested using the killswitch because that's an easy tool for BHVR to use,that's it. "This opposes the function of the killswitch" makes no sense. It's a tool for BHVR to use however they see fit.
They don't really see the data there, I've already made the point that if a player knows CoH isn't in play,they can do hit and run. It's also far more data,when all the players who constantly run the perk can't run it it creates a far different game environment.
Also really? Player agency? "Oh no I can't run "this one perk" or "this one map is not in rotation" I have no player agency anymore". That's so silly.
I will grant you that BHVR have the power to expand the functionality of the killswitch, but that doesn't mean I'm incorrect or nonsensical to point out that it currently has a clear and defined function.
Of course they see the data there. Plenty of games don't have these perks you're talking about, and how players react to those perks not being in play isn't going to change much if they know those perks are disabled instead of simply not present. At best you'd see a handful of new builds, and what's the meaningful takeaway from that? As soon as you re-enable whatever perk you're talking about, we're back to normal. It's only meaningful data if removing these perks permanently is on the table, which it obviously isn't.
And yes. Player agency. Whether you think it's silly or not, people would be very angry if stuff was killswitched completely arbitrarily. That's not a reality we or BHVR get to ignore.
I dunno. If BHVR said "hey we're killswitching this perk to investigate it's potential negative impact on the game,please bear with us" I'd be like "hell yeah! bhvr is trying to look into the perk's effects and are trying to make good design choices. Even if it was my favorite overpowered perk or something,i'd still feel that way.