On the PTB (Part 2)
Four digit hourcount giga-sweat back again with another patchnotes unboxing.
Now that i've gotten a chance to play on the patchnotes instead of doomsaying before the release, i must admit that most of my fears appear to be validated. Running straight at the killer after being unhooked to go annoy them is a perfectly viable and perhaps even meta strategy. I won't lie, i am having a TON of fun harassing killers on the ptb after being unhooked, but I will stand by my opinion that there are fundamental flaws with the anti tunnel system, as stated in my previous post.
With that out of the way lets get to the numbers.
New perks:
Ravenous | Fine. Not as good as starstruck but its a nice alternative for sure.
Wandering Eye | Good for hard of hearing or players with bad audio. For experienced players who are already used to tracking killers through walls with audio and vice versa this seems a little pointless. Not for me.
Hex: Overture of Doom | Bad. Cool in theory but just not a very applicable or useful perk. I would say i'd rather use eruption... but we'll get to that.
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Road Life | Outclassed by competing healing perks (ex: we'll make it, botany, and ESPECIALLY resurgance)
OneTwoThreeFour | Cool perk! Skillchecks are definitely too easy though. I haven't tested potential perk synergies but this seems good-ish.
Ghost Notes | Sprint Burst + Vigil was already strong enough, so i'm a little concerned about extra synergy. Nerf vigil to 30-35% and this perk is perfectly fine.
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I already laid out my opinions on the universal changes in a previous post. Link if you are interested:
@FrostburnICS said:
Hey, four digit hourcount giga-sweat here.
I know you probably are hearing a lot of backlash for the upcoming PTB changes (especially the anti tunnelling changes,) so I would like to throw my hat into the ring and give my two cents.
I've noticed many people seem to be giving these changes a ton of hate without giving reasoning past "killer is dead," and while i do somewhat agree with their sentiment i would like to give more specific feedback regarding WHY these changes make people upset and potential solutions.
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I will not make the claim that the game is X sided, but it is undeniable survivor has received many basekit buffs that have not been compensated for killer. The best example of this would be 70 second hookstages. I know the stated reason is to make up for 90s generators, but every useable single slowdown was nerfed before that as compensation so I and many others see this as 80 seconds of time to spend resetting, doing generators, or rotating with no compensation.
So, problem one with the upcoming changes is that most killer players do not feel that the buffs are adequate compensation for the extreme buffs to survivor.
Why is this the case? What would cause people to so confidently shrug off basekit pop, bbq, and haste? To answer this, lets take a look at how these perks are used in their live version perk forms.
Pop goes the weasel is a perk that activates on hook and causes regression that scales based on progress.
So, this perk is primarily useful on killers who can both consistently hook and travel to high-progress generators. Lets take a quick look at the killer tierlist. The most powerful killers in the game (Blight, Nurse, Hillbilly, Spirit, Dracula, Kaneki, and Singularity) all have two things in common: High mobility and strong chases. These killers can get hooks quickly and then instantly move to high-progress generators to get value out of pop.
Lets take a jump to the bottom of the tierlist. Trapper, Skull Merchant, Legion, Ghostface, Bubba, and Pig all have very weak chases and little to no map mobility. Therefore, a basekit pop goes the weasel only benefits the already good killers who do not need buffs, while doing effectively nothing for weaker killers. As it turns out, the same thing is true of BBQ. It rewards almost exclusively killers with strong chases who can hook frequently and have mobility to take advantage of the information before it becomes outdated.
As for haste, I would like to see that change reformatted to assist low-mobility killers. I would like to see the haste be be a bit more significant, but to lose said haste upon entering chase with a survivor. This is primarily because haste is just... annoying and unsatisfying as a chase mechanic. It needs to be used very tastefully, as even minor haste effects can become extremely problematic if they become too widespread. (I'm sure we all remember the MFT/Resi/Hope soldiers after all.)
Therefore, any killer buffs should aim to help low tier killers more than higher tier killers. If you intend on buffing killer as compensation for the anti tunnelling changes, then I would suggest at minimum basekit Corrupt Intervention, and the killer gaining 5% haste until they start their next chase. In addition, I would like there to be some other form of slowdown that scales with the number of survivors remaining if there is still intention for adding a punishment for tunnelling. There are innumerable ways for you to go about that, so i'll leave that to you.
Speaking of the punishment for killing survivors early; While i understand the thought process of including both a carrot and a stick for the anti-tunnelling chanes, almost any form of punishment for tunnelling can and will be used aggressively. Whether this be bodyblocking with borrow time or off the record, playing for pallet saves with decisive strike up, or combining anti tunnel with anti slug to force a lose-lose situation, almost every punishment for tunnelling has been and will be used aggressively. Some survivors may not want to be tunneled, but for me and many others being chased is far more fun than sitting on generators.
So even if survivors aren't maliciously trying to abuse the system, any punishment for tunnelling WILL be used agressively as many players find playing aggressive to be more exciting. Additionally, this is not considering people giving up and triggering these effects unintentionally or being so bad that it tricks the system into activating similar to the afk crow rework.
As for the anti slugging changes? Twins are probably dead. I think basekit tenacity in combination with basekit unbreakable-minus is overkill, and that slugging isn't a big problem to begin with, but this is one of the least offensive anti-slugging changes ever implemented.
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So, i've givem my opinions on the current direction for changes and their aims, but i'll give my dream suggestion. Survivor feels bad despite being the strongest they've been in years because the average survivor can't abuse the buffs they've been given the same way exteemelt experienced ones can. In my opinion DBD is in a strange state where its public matches are too competitive to be a casual game, but too casual to be a competitive game.
I know it took yall 8 years to add an FOV slider so this is a big ask, but the ideal solution is to add a seperate competitive mode and casual mode. Changes like the ones you suggested in the ptb patchnotes will simply never be able to appease the competitive side of the community like myself and the casual side of the community.
You can see this in the changes being made to killers aswell: Blight J-Flick and Hugtech removal, chucky's 180's, freddy's teleport cancels, clowns recent rework, vecna spell cooldown buffs, etc etc. I will give credit where credit is due to the recent pyramid head changes, but as a whole almost every change to killer just makes them easier and reduces their skill ceiling, and doesn't actually help good killers compete with good survivor teams.
Clown isn't any stronger than he was before his rework, he's just completely braindead to play now. Blight is no weaker with the removal of his Hugtech or J-Flick, he's just significantly less fun and interesting to play as or against. Huntress having seven hatchets is completely meaningless for good huntress players, and only helps the 8 year old little brother playing on a steering wheel who can't land his hatchets.
Remember when matheiu cote got zero hooks against a random group of survivors while playing one of the strongest killers in the game at the time? No amount of buffs to hag's potential strength will change that, but if you make hag easier.... then suddenly that same clueless player can get some hooks on the board.
I don't think the solution to balance problems is to handhold bad survivors or bad killers. You can see that this design philosophy of removing skill expression and making everything easy make survivors extremely mad aswell. If you get obliterated by a 10,000 hour hillbilly who uses his chainsaw as an artform you shrug your shoulders and go "damn. got smoked." If you play against a kaneki playing with his knees then you have the exact same result but suddenly its extremely frustrating because he put in no effort and simply won on the character select screen.
So, in conclusion:
1: Consider how your basekit changes will have differing effects on low tier killers
2: Stop handholding bad players by simplifying mechanics, killers, and perks.
3: Consider how the mechanics you add or change will be abused. (Because they will be abused)
4: Give blight hugtech back and make him lose a token on kick 💔💔💔
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The option to reduce the changes in this patch in customs is excellent. Due to how already survivor sided competitive is this being able to disable these buffs is great! Only thing i'd ask for is being able to disable MORE of these changes but i can understand not wanting a larger divide between the two communities.
------------- Poor dwichael jackson
Nurse's calling getting nerfed is kind of strange. I'd like to at least see the aura reading linger for an additional second or two.
------------ Myers
Myers is dashslop now 💔
Letting him change between T1 and T2 is a long requested feature. No complaints. If i'm being completely honest i do not like the slaughtering strike. I do really like the moonrushes though!
Additionally, removing the stalk distance modifiers feels kinda lame. Not terribly upset with it though.
Sad to see tombstone go. A moment of silence for one of the absolutely worst designed but funniest addons in dbd history.
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o7
------------ Unknown
No complaints about the unknown changes. Great across the board! Increased skill expression across the board is always a good thing for a killer and i'd love to see this philosophy applied to more killers! Incredible work!
-------- Drac
Basekit drac changes are good, no complaints.
As for his addons, medusas hair and lapis lazuli were the only addons that were exceptional by any means.
I see no reason to adjust any of his other addons outside of buffing the weakest ones. Travellers hat and clocktower gear in particular should remain untouched imo.
--------- Clown
Clown changes should be completely reverted. A partial reversion is nice but not enough. Clown's counterplay being changed from prerunning and having good vault-checkspots to prerun him and play 50/50's is incredibly lame game design, and i am dissapointed that his rework hasn't been fully reverted.
-------- Ghoul
Kidnap tech removal is good. It was *technically* balanced and counterable but it was incredibly unintuitive and kind of stupid. Didn't add much depth to him anyways and mostly served as a knowledge check. No complaints.
------- Oni
Still deserves more orbs given basekit anti slug. I would give him 7-8 personally. I like this change conceptually though and it shows a solid amount of foresight.
------- Perks
BT is really good now. Welcome back buddy.
Hope getting nerfed is kind of crazy ngl. Literally no one complained about this perk outside of release MFT. Any problem that exists with hope solely exists because of haste stacking (which should be removed.)
All other survivor perk changes are fine.
Eruption is pretty much dead now. Halving its effect is really really harsh when it already got nerfed by proxy because of generators not being able to be kicked if you """"tunnel"""" a survivor. No one complained about this perk, and it is one of the fairest slowdown perks currently available alongside corrupt. I would like to see this change reverted.
Ruin getting buffed is just another S tier buff.
Leverage got nerfed for some reason even though its outclassed by sloppy and gift of pain (?)
Pop was a mediocre regression perk before the change and its only going to become more popular due to the nerfing of other regression perks, rather than for actually being a good perk. This perk did have its synergy with eruption going for it but yknow what happened to eruption.
Pain res nerf is kind of silly when its main strength (tunnelling someone and then trading pain res hooks in the 3v1) was removed. This perk was pretty much necessary on low tiers if the survivors has a pulse, and at risk of sounding like a broken record, these changes just serve to make low tiers worse while not really mattering to S tiers.
As it stands, basekit slowdown is there to compensate for anti tunnelling changes, but pain res/eruption/corrupt were used by pretty much eveery weak killer because they were so crucial even while they could still tunnel. It seems like an overcorrection to assume basekit pop makes up for this in my eyes.
DMS nerf is deserved though ######### that perk lololol
Everything else is fine or good. No complaints.
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"Fixed an issue where The Hillbilly could completely turn around when breaking a door while using the LoPro Chains add-on."
This is tragic!
Lopro flicks have been in the game for six years and have existed as a niche, counterable, incredibly cool, and very fun tool in the hillbilly's arsenal. This is an incredibly lame change which only serves to reduce his skill ceiling. Very very very dissapointing change, which i hope BHVR goes back on.
Just because something is unintentional doesn't mean its bad. Dribbling in basketball was an "unintended exploit" which many argued made the game worse and advocated for its banning around its inception. Despite that, it is one of the core appeals of playing basketball today and one of the most exciting and dynamic parts of the game.
I would strongly recommend finding a good reason beyond "it's unintentional" if you want to remove things like lopro flicks. It makes me and many other veterans very sad to see stuff like this go.
If you want to make the argument that controller players can't use it as well, then I don't think thats enough of a reason. Controller is just an objectively bad way to play killer, and it has much more significant downsides than niche tech (especially on hillbilly of all killers.) The ideal solution is not to nerf MNK to controller's level, but to make controller better. I would advocate for gyro aiming and flickstick being added as options (similar to counter strike or team fortress 2,) as that is an input system that is equivalent to mouse and keyboard.
I sympathize with controller players (being an ex controller player myself,) but I think it is much better for the game for mnk exclusive techs to exist than not as they enable so much more nuanced survivor counterplay and strategy. While you're at fixing console inputs, please let them see and use end game chat. Its really a shame they aren't able to nine years into dbd.
All other bug fixes are good, no complaints :) You done good there bhvr.
I would like to see priority be given to Spirit Bubble Bug (the one which prevents you from hearing double backs) and... whatever the hell is going on with houndmaster's dog. Honestly might be a ghost in the machine so maybe hire an exorcist?
If the ~40 paragraphs of feedback i've submitted are any indication, my opinions of this ptb are.... mixed...
I really do love dbd and I only want this game to suceed. Much love from your local rebecca/blight main. (Please give blight hugtech back 💔)
Comments
The moment it becomes normal for survivors to "harass" killers while invincible or protected by the game is the moment this game dies.
I know the focus of this thread isn't on the universal anti tunnelling changes, but i would like to say that i found a post with a very elegant solution to tunnelling that doesn't involve a million compromises.
https://www.reddit.com/r/deadbydaylight/comments/1n8axps/hear_me_out_the_best_fix_for_tunneling_already/
Oh yeah, please stop changing maps that are already good. Macmillian does not need ANY changes. I'm not sure why we're buffing water tower (already one of the strongest structures on the map) and adding the horrible terrible awful no good coldwind gyms