Feedback over the update/ Perception and Fun
I want to express my opinion and try to do it in the most respectful way possible towards the devs. Over the last few days after the announcement i have felt really disappointed and even a bit angry over the changes that were suggested for the next PTB.
I will be trying to explain my perspective and feedback, while i know that we still haven't played the PTB to truly see the effects of the changes. I want to explain why i don't agree with many of the announcements and my issues with them.
- Healing changes: I understand nerfing the self heal speeds, i understand the issues that was creating when survivors stacked multiple speed boost and removed pressure. While i agree with nerfing the self heal speed to 24s. I don't agree that altruism needed to suffer the same change. Altruism already gives the killer two survivors occupied at the same time and already was less time efficient then self healing, while also giving the killer the opportunity to ambush two survivors at the same time. I agree with nerfing med kits self healing, i agree with removing CoH self heal because it gave free resources to survivors. But altruism was in my opinion in a fair spot. And nerfing that heal speed will create pressure for the survivors in not fun ways like camping, tunneling and 3 gens. I think that if survivors are grouping up to reset they shouldn't be punished by heal speed nerf.
- Perk changes: While i agree with some of the perk changes, i have an issue with DH and PR. Yes these perks were really strong, nobody will deny it. But i believe this perks were popular also because they were most important fun and rewarding for the people using it. PR was a fair perk imo, rewarding regression for a hook and downing a survivor i a chase feels like a fair a nice reward. Yes PR was strong, but the concept of the perk and promotion of chases and progression of the game made the perk good to be a top tier perk imo. DH, while i understand the frustration that DH makes killers, i also don't believe the perk was in need of a nerf or not this nerf. DH promotes and rewards survivors in what they find the most fun, extending a chase with the killer. Of course for the killer that is not fun, but i assure that for survivor the most fun moments are being chased by the killer winning mind games and managing the waste so much time that you basically become the hero of the match. The other exhaustion perk are not chase extenders like DH. SB, lithe are really good, some might even say better then DH, but they are perks that help you get away from a chase, same with balanced landing, overcome, smash hit. While Head-on and Background player are more support and assist exhaustion perks. DH was the only perk that promotes extending chases and prolonging them, it was also the most risky and hardest to use. In the end the perk gave the majority of survivors fun and even if the perk needed some nerf to make it more tolerable for killer like a cool-down to drop pallets after using DH or something like it, the nerf that you propose feels like a restriction for the fun of the perk and an incentive to tunnel someone if you didn't see an exhaustion perk yet.
- Hillbilly: Hillbilly wasn't the strongest killer in the game, me and my friends love going against hillbilly because he is so rare. Most of the community agrees that most of billy's add-ons do not help him. Do not nerf the engravings, they were not oppressive and they let way more experienced billys have more fun with the character. The nerf was not necessary.
- Flashlight interactions: This is more controversial, but i like that killers have niche interactions to mess with their power. I think it promotes interaction and can even limit some powers if they are too strong. While toolboxes were not good for trapper because it removed his power. Flashlights are much more momentary and i think give more value to an item that is not as safe and efficient as toolboxes and med-kits. While i don't believe a flashlight should be necessary to deal with a killer power and i don't believe flashlight should also shutdown a power completely, i like that these interactions exist. I like the depth and gameplay possibilities that they introduce. And i wouldn't want them removed
- Tomes: I want to see old favorite characters get tomes. I understand wanting to promote the new content, but i don't want characters to be left behind or get smaller stories then what others got in the past.
Why did this update create this reaction. If anyone on the dev team reads this, this is the only point that i want to be really listened, the most important. This update felt bad not because of the changes being good or bad, not because one side got it worst or not. This update felt bad because it was focused on removing fun tools, interactions and making both roles weaker. In the end, i am not excited for this update, because this update doesn't give anything new to do, any new toy or tool. Some people say that nerfs hurt twice as bad as buffs, you can't be always buffing, i know, power creep is an issue in a ton of games. But when the update was so focused on nerfs. Well it's not an exciting update, at least for me, doesn't matter how big or important. My perception and receptivity of the update is gonna be low and be much harder to accept.
I don't know if i just wasted 30 min writing this, but i hope i managed to express my points in a respectful way.
Let's just see how this PTB goes.
Comments
Altruistic healing speeds need a nerf so that injuries can feel like they matter.
This has nothing to do with evaluating the different types of healing, to determine if some types of healing are more problematic than others. The goal is to make injuries feel like they matter, and this requires altruistic healing speeds to get a heavy impactful nerf.
If teammate healing is reverted back to 16 seconds, then I want medkit healing to be doubled that to 32 seconds.
DH promotes and rewards survivors in what they find the most fun, extending a chase with the killer. Of course for the killer that is not fun, but i assure that for survivor the most fun moments are being chased by the killer winning mind games and managing the waste so much time that you basically become the hero of the match. The other exhaustion perk are not chase extenders like DH.
And this, all of this, is exactly why DH needs this nerf.
Nerfing Billy in the same page as Artist and Nurse buffs is ludicrously out of touch. Everyone (being honest) knew unearned gen kick perks and self-healing was a problem. I can understand DH nerf, but I would much rather it provide Endurance exclusively against Special Attacks as the change. That way you won't hurt the Myers or Ghostie or Clown, but you will hit the Nurse or Blight or Artist.
Altruistic healing is definitely getting needlessly nerfed, and they aren't fully addressing the medkit problem sadly. There still will be 2 self-heals available at double the speed of altruistic healing. I would be fine with medkits still providing some extra value at a 2/3rds heal, but I wouldn't complain at a full 50% speed to be equal. Medkits imo will always be a problem as long as altruistic healing with them is not worth the charges compared to selfish healing.