Re-Lightable Totems
Hex: Two Can Play is a Chucky perk which has a unique trait, or at least so I've heard but not confirmed first hand: Even after it's been cleansed, it can re-light if you once again meet the activation condition of being stunned/blinded so many times.
Whether it actually has this trait or not isn't strictly relevant to what I'm about to suggest; it's mostly to show what gave me the thought: Could any existing totems benefit from such a mechanic?
The idea I have is that, in the event a Hex is cleansed, it could be reactivated if the right conditions are met and/or after a set cooldown, provides there's still a dull totem for it to go to.
I mostly had this in mind for the token totems, so I'll use that as an example. You're using Devour Hope or Huntress's Lullaby, get a few tokens on it, but it gets cleansed. After it's cleansed the next time it would gain a token (A hook for Lullaby, a rescue for Devour) a dull totem in the map relights with the Hex, but at zero tokens (similar to OG Hex: Undying). You still gotta build it up again, but you're not left with an empty perk slot of it's taken out at the start.
Other totems, like Blood Favor or Crowd Control, might have a cool down before relighting, probably a couple minutes or so to give some breathing room to survivors that got the totem. This would not apply some, like Plaything, NOED, or Haunted Ground, whose triggers aren't repeatable (hooking survivors the first time, entering Endgame, or being designed to be broken).
It offers Hexes more longevity, (hopefully) isn't too oppressive, still encourages use of things like Undying (which would keep/reactivate the Hex immediately) without requiring them, and gives Pentimento something to pair with besides Plaything.
Does this seem like a viable idea?
Comments
That... is actually a very interesting idea...
Actually gives survivors value to cleansing totems and using boons to block hexes from spawning, making totems a more legitimate side quest in general.
Makes hex perks much more viable as an individual perk for build synergies rather than having to go hard on hexes to get any use from them. It also makes Hex:Undying no longer mandatory for a hex build.
Hex: Undying still has a purpose as you can use it to preserve tokens and obviously assist defending your hexes.
I see a lot of potential in this idea...
Whilst it's an interesting thought, I have concerns over the increasing strength of Pentimento. If you cannot truly cleanse the totem without it eventually returning, and the killer brings pentimento, they benefit from both perks at once.
Penti is already very strong, I worry that making this concept more common would further it's strength.
I love this idea for Devour/Lullaby. I'm not too sure it could apply to many other Hexes though due to how they work. Maybe Third Seal, but that would be a legit buff as it's not building tokens, but Third Seal could do with a buff anyway, it would be resetting the number of affected survivors rather than tokens.
I think this effect for something like 3rd seal would be great. I think it would be directly too strong for devour and devour + pentimento would be a super strong combo as a result. I think if you had it so that devour only lit after gaining 1 token and once cleansed could never relight would be fine for it; this would actually fix the problem of it just getting cleansed before you even got a single hook. So I think we could have your idea on quite a few hexes, but some stronger ones I think should instead have an effect where they only light up once but its delayed to prevent an instant cleanse.
Pentimento wouldn't benefit from this idea directly/from the relighting itself. Pentimento totems don't spawn into dulls and the perk is designed to be manually used by the Killer, so it wouldn't auto re-light. The buff to Pentimento comes from other totems re-lighting and needing re-cleansing.
In Third Seal's case the number of tokens is also the number of affected Survivors, but yeah it would benefit from this idea, too.
You're right that the majority of totems besides the token ones wouldn't be able to use this idea as they are since either their triggers are either not repeatable (hook for first time, gens completed) or they are designed to be broken (Haunted Ground, Undying, Retribution).
The remainder would either need some specific requirement (ex: Blood Favor would re-light after you hit a Survivor X times in proximity to a pallet) or some kind of cooldown before relighting. There should be something to reward/ give breathing room to Survivors who successfully break the totems to incentivize breaking them over just putting up with them. Basically if you take the time to break a Totem you earn time to not have to deal with it.
Thank you.
It's not a bad idea at all for Hexes with stacks, because for them you need to both protect the totem and earn the stacks to get the effect.
However for other Hex perks I'm not sure it'd be suitable, even with a cool down. Hex perks are breakable because they're supposed to be strong, having them be re-lightable would basically nullify the risk & reward aspect of these perks. As for the Hexes that are too weak, I think their effect should be buffed rather than their viability.
But again I do think it would be really cool for Hex totems with stacks.
If boons was worth to bring
Like all of them are so garbage
Maybe exception of CoH being a bit better than being garbage
Indeed, this is also true. I love the concept of boons, and even run them for fun sometimes... so would definitely like to see buffs to boons as well.... because yeah... they do generally suck.
Larger radius' for Dark Theory/Exponential/Shadow Step would be a start. You have to spend time (and/or perks) finding them, can't choose where the hex totems spawn, and then have to spend time actually booning instead of doing gens; the problem then is the purpose of these boons is to be useful when the killer is chasing you or slugging you. The small range however means, IF your boon is nearby, to get the benefit you have to stay within it's small bubble. Worst case, it doesn't provide you any value, you get downed and that means you completely wasted your time... or you do get value, but the boon is found easily, so all that effort goes in, just for them to be found and snuffed immediately, making the time/reward basically moot.
Given there are comparable perks that guarantee similar effects with no need to set up, it makes them very unattractive, and while they can be good in their niche scenarios, they're not really consistent enough to warrant the investment even if it all goes your way.... All of them feel like they should be at least 32m before you even start looking at their effect... Dark Theory would probably have to be closer to 40m to even be worth considering.
CoH at least has a sort of "Healing Station" kind of effect, where survivors can set it up somewhere relatively safe (like near a completed gen) and see the auras of one another to heal... though I don't see harm in giving it a larger radius either.
Maybe for Huntress Lullaby.
I think the rest are too strong to have this mechanic and weren’t designed with it in mind. Two Can Play is one of the weakest hexes in the game, so the respawn is fair.
I primarily had the stacking totems in mind myself (Lullaby and Devour mainly, I'd honestly forgotten Third Seal until it was mentioned) . I mostly extended it to others since the inspiration for the idea (Two Can Play) isn't a stacking totem and part of the concept was mitigating one of the big issues with some of those totems (getting cleansed early and leaving you an empty perk slot)
Lullaby would definitely get more out of it than Devour or, more to your point, Devour would get to much out of it.