Why you should Empathize with "x perk as basekit" ideas
Many of you must've heard it; "Can we have x perk as basekit?". These suggestions have been around for a very long time, and in some cases have even made it into the game; Basekit Borrowed Time. For some of you this must've gotten tiring and feeling like such posts lack creativity, and making you wonder whether they at this point should make every single perk base-kit or not. Today however I am going to make you sympathize with such suggestions
The perks that have and are being suggested often don't change too much. Perks like Corrupt Intervention, BT before it was implemented, Decisive Strike, etc. Never perks such as Inner Healing, Built to Last or Dance with Me.
So what makes those perks different?
It is very clear here, that there are 2 perk categories: Perks for Builds, which aim at facilitating a specific and unique playstyle and Perks that address Core Gameplay problems
It is no secret that DBD's core gameplay loop has had its issues. From infinites, to vacuum pallets, to the lack of a hatch and more. With that comes our first acknowledgement; Dead by Daylight's core gameplay loop is imperfect and in an ongoing process of polishing
So how do we go about it? Before we start there and address the core gameplay loop, let me first suggest 1 thing; It does not matter how fixing the core gameplay loop affects the killer side vs the survivor side or whether it benefits certain killers more than others. As long as it fixes the gameplay loop at its core, any other elements can later simply be rebalanced and you end up with a permanently better game. That is why, for example, for me, it would be irrelevant if the perfect solution concluded that killer should get 4 free base-kit perks with the survivors getting nothing. If that was what is needed to fix the core gameplay, we could simply rebalance the game to have gen times reduces to match the new power balance, etc.
With this mentality I want you review the core gameplay problems that the game has, and why, that perhaps the "make x perk base-kit" mentality isn't as lazy as an idea as you thought it was, so lets begin
So we have core gameplay problems, and many ways to fix them, so why should we resort to perks that we already have? After all, bloodlust was a simple and unique mechanic, as was the hatch and the self-unhook bar. Many of these problems didn't need a base-kit perk to be solved. Instead they came in the form as a unique mechanic, and left the other perks where they already were, so why should we resort to base-kit perks?
The simple answer: Mentality; beHaviour loves playing it safe.
Remember how I reminded you that there were 2 classes of perks? Exactly. There is a class of perks that back in the days were designed at addressing certain core gameplay issues. It's a great and safe way to try something out and see if it works. After all, releasing a new perk doesn't affect the game nearly as much as instantly making a new mechanic part of every single match. And hey, I can't blame them for playing it safe. However, there is a problem; some of these perks were never meant to be perks; they in fact came forth out of complaints surrounding the core gameplay of DBD.
One of the best examples is Shoulder The Burden. For those who parade under the mentality of "beHaviour never listens to their community", you'd be wrong. You might just not know which part of the community they are listening to at a specific time. Shoulder The Burden in fact, was originally the brainchild of a popular Youtuber, named Otzdarva, who suggested the idea that to prevent tunneling, survivors should transfer their second hook stage if the unhooker still has 0 hook stages (along with some other details). A genius idea perhaps, and definitely indicative of a long term player's knowledge and deep understanding of the game, however; this was never meant to be a perk~
In classic beHaviour style they played it safe. And as a result could safely see what the impact of such a perk would be on the game overall. This approach is actually very similar to an idea in software development, called "staging", where you get to see the effects of your ideas in action as close as you can possible get before you fully make it public. Now here's the problem; when do we ship to production…?
There is a very clear issue in this "core problem solving pipeline". We find a core gameplay problem, we come up with ideas to solve it, but instead of implementing them to fix the core gameplay of DBD, we instead release the ideas as perks to play it safe and then we get stuck; now faced with a community that instead of building for unique playstyles, is required to run a big part of their build fixing core gameplay problems, 4 Decisive Strikes in every lobby and a community that is unnecessarily stuck in a mentality that any gameplay change can only happen if it so happens to buffs whichever side, killer or survivor, they believe to be weaker at that time, while throwing gameplay fixes that are attempting to fix the core gameplay loop under the rug, because they simply think it's lazy.
You are the problem
I want to invite you to the idea, that perhaps, we've gotten the order wrong; It is not the people who are suggesting us to make x or y perk base-kit who are lazy with their ideas, but it's sad that the strive by our community's best thinkers, most of our ideas, targeted at fixing the core gameplay of the game, will instead first be implemented as perks, with no real pipeline or plan to ever make it to the main stage, where they were meant to make an impact.
With no real awareness by the community of this silent state of affairs, it is very likely that we will be stuck with the same problems for a very long time, as we can only dream of the success stories of Borrowed Time to once again show it's beautiful head once again.
Maybe one day we can witness an adjusted base-kit Corrupt Intervention help equalize the playing field between high and low mobility killers and prevent generator progress without gameplay
Maybe one day we can have an adjusted base-kit Shoulder The Burden and have a game balanced around a non tunnelling playstyle, which the community seems to enjoy a lot more
Until then, we will be stuck with great ideas and a broken pipeline preventing such ideas of ever making it into the core gameplay of the game, simply because they already exist as a perk and don't know how to move beyond. So for now, the core gameplay loop of Dead By Daylight remains a work of further polishing, but hopefully you will be able to sympathize more now, when you see one of the problem solving perks re-suggested as base-kit, because you know which angle they're coming from
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