Windows of opportunity is damaging the game.
Windows use rate is now at 35% usage rate, meaning that it's guaranteed that minimum one survivor will have it and at worse every survivor will have it. But on average 2 to 3 survivors WILL have windows equipped. This somehow beats out pain res and pop as those perks have 28% usage rate.
you'd think all this perk does is give the survivor information how could this perk have 35% usage rate?
If you only play survivor the reasoning for this isn't going to be obvious and probably think how could it possibly be ruining the game.
Imagine for a second if every match you get into doesn't have a weak link, if every single match you get into every survivor knows EXACTLY where to run to the next resource, knows where the deadzones are and actively avoids them or runs past pallets to window vaults to save resources because they know they will make it to the window, even if it's completely obscured without ever even coming to that part of the map before.
THAT is what windows does, it single-handily raises the skill floor of every survivor you run into with it.
A survivor that without it would be running into the edge map and going down because they do not know where any resource is, since it was buffed has become a survivor that knows EXACTLY where every resource is and all they have to do is run to the yellow aura. If the killer is a hold W killer, like tapper, pig etc. This essentially means trying to break pallets in connecting loops to create deadzones is pointless and only starts actually helping when the distance between pallets becomes so great you catch up to them before they make it to anything.
Originally when it was buffed and even pre-buff the mood behind it was that if you're good at the game you don't need to use it, and most don't. the issue however is that it makes a bad survivor that should be going down quickly, last so much longer and all they have to do is look forward and hold W to achieve this.
(This is probably one of the single most frustrating things for me in the game right now, a clearly low skill player never looking back, only holding W, running me for a whole gen just because they know they will make it to the next yellow aura before I can hit them)
(The amount of times I'm chasing someone and they run directly to the edge of grim pantry and find the one pallet between the trees is starting to get to me.)
The knock on effect of this is that if you combo it with lithe (checks notes: is the second most used perk in the game, only beaten by windows) EVERY chase you start where the survivor isn't exhausted which will be the case most of the time. will run to a loop, vault a window and run to the next furthest away yellow aura, rinse repeat until either you mindgame them or they run out of resources. which just extends the chase by 10 - 30 seconds every single time it happens. which just translates into more gen progress.
And the knock on effect of gens getting done "faster" because chases are artificially being extended, is killers will bring more and more gen slowdown, play killers that have anti chase / anti loop and generally play sweatier and sweatier, which makes survivors play sweatier and sweatier with no end in sight.
In a world where survivors don't know where every resource is and isn't you could break a connecting / filler pallet of a good survivor who's gonna make it to a stronger tile, drop chase and chase another survivor into that area and get a hit because the next survivor wont know there isn't a pallet there anymore, until they visually see it.
However again, because lithe windows has such a high usage rate, half the survivors you chase will just run past areas they know the resource is gone and will always run towards where the resources still are, again and again.
And now that we're seeing nerfs for a bunch of the most used killer perks, especially anti gen perks without so much as a mention for a perk that has a 10% higher usage rate. Do people, including the devs not realize just how strong windows is? Gens are going faster because chases are lasting longer. Do people just think, oh it's a new player perk so it's fine if it has a high usage rate because it's "helping" low skill players?
That is the EXACT reason it is so strong, it's just so much more insidious because you don't hear a long gong when it's used, you don't see it from a distance. you only see it when you see a survivor holding W, not looking back, making it to every pallet on the map. every. single. time.
I don't want the perk gutted, it IS useful perk for new players. It just needs it's old cooldown back, or shouldn't be usable in chase after the first window / pallet. That's all I'm asking for, because as it is. I genuinely think it's unhealthy, chases are lasting much longer, gens are getting more progress because chases are lasting longer, low skill players are getting propelled into higher skill lobbies, and the only current counter to everyone running it is running blindness perks/ addons, which people largely consider the worst in the game, just to disable one perk for 10 - 60 seconds.
Even if you think I'm complaining needlessly, if the devs are nerfing perks with a 9% usage rate, because they're giving the killer too much extra time, they NEED to nerf a perk with a 35% usage rate for the exact same reason.
Comments
On you last point on inflated usage rates, AFAIK percentages dont work like that.
Use Zenshin Tactics and you can use a perk slot for the same exact info, and learn how to mindgames survivors with it. There is literally a killer equivalent perk, making it a balanced info perk. Use it if you think survivors running WoO is what is really losing your games for you.
I would absolutely love a survivor perk equivalent of lethal pursuer personally.
Appreciate the correction mate.
I just learned to work around survivors who are using windows, plus of you play killer just rum zanshin. WoO isn't that bad if you know how to work around people who use it. It's perfect the way it is, personally as a killer main I don't think it needs any nerfs. And as I said before just run zanshin if you wanna try and counter it.
Zanshin is exactly the perk that illustrates the asymmetrical nature of the game. It's worthless for killers because they do not lead chases. They don't need to know where to go because they're following survivors and they know which structures don't have resources because they destroyed those resources.
Windows high usage says a lot of things: it's a free perk to unlock, new player friendly, veteran player useful, chase extender, resource minder, doesn't really directly benefit SWF, etc.
I'd like to see escape rates with & without Windows across the trials, so we have a better understanding of its effectiveness.
WoO is fine.
Honestly the main reason why Windows is annoying is it highlights bad map spawns when it works super effectively (double long wall windows etc) which i feel is more of a map issue
Usually players should not have issues finding tiles, so if the perk extends chases I would also say it is mostly a map issue, because it makes the Broken pieces more obvious, just like you said. And ofc it helps especially well on indoor maps.
I didn't read all comments here, so apologies of I say something that other person already did.
I've started to play without it after two points in all my DbD experience.
1-After trying the 0 perks and escape 8 times trophy.
2-After playing some matches on Chaos Shuffle
Only after the second I've decided/got confident to remove it 100% even in my solo queue matches.
It indeed helps A LOT for you to learn map structures and pallets placements, but I want to improve this even more now.
Learn "how" to look loops efficiently to spot pallets and windows. I did the same with Deja Vu too.
These two perks may make you too dependent of them and you could use another two perks that will indeed give your more value than something that can give you info that can be 90% memorize.
I'm still not using those two even after Vecna's map drops.
TL;DR: WoO is great to use in solo queues, but the longer you use it the worst may be to let go of it and you can use something better after learning the structures and spawns.