Bring Back Distortion
Aura, aura, aura, aura, aura, how i am supposed to hide? every single killer every time know wherer u are because the killers have a lot os aura reading perks. Honestly why distortion was nerfed? just 1 perk for a decent counter to aura reading. Im tired
Comments
How?
Even with 100% uptime, Distortion is not overpowered. It is a counter-perk whose power is limited by the build opposite it. It only ever blocks aura reading and returns the game to the default state.
Why would 'free' stacks of distortion be a problem if they're contingent on survivors actively engaging with the game?
'Perk functions if you play as normal' doesn't read like a problem to me.
Not really. A perk whose only purpose is to keep the killer from finding you with zero effort requiring you to let the killer find you in order to function is essentially an oxymoron of game design.
seems like a lot of people here love to defend the idea of having wallhacks in a video game while being in a horror game where there should be no wallhacks, wallhacks ruins the element of surprise, it also remove skill from the game, there is nothing skillful when u just scan walls and following people behind them, before all of the aura perks, people used whispers/spies to detect survivors and it was fine and actually more engaging than just having aura perks, also maps are really small in the most part, i dont like the idea of having wallhacks in any sort of game(not just in dbd), bbq was acceptable since u could counter it and risk time wasting not doing a gen by doing so, while aura reading wont benefit weaker killers as much, it still benefit the strongest ones which cause a lot of problems in the game, for example pick a nurse, give her aura reading build, she will just flat out stomp u, there wont be mind games, there wont be skillful plays, it will be u getting 2tapped due to the fact that she can see u behind walls and can teleport on ur head, i will always be against aura reading perks, no matter which side of the coin it is for, aura reading is basically cheating but with certificate.
I'm not the person you're discussing this with overall, of course, but I do have something to say about the idea about the idea of Distortion charging on Conspicuous Actions instead of chases.
My issue with this suggestion is that I don't think there's a satisfying middle ground for anyone there. Tokens charging via doing generators means each token has to take a pretty long time to grant, otherwise we run the risk of being right back where we started with Distortion being a perk that just flat turns off aura reading permanently.
The issue with old Distortion in my opinion wasn't rat playstyles, I don't even think that's really the reason BHVR nerfed it. The issue was that it was a completely passive perfect counter to an entire class of tools on the opponent's side, and that's just not great game design.
It wasn't meant to be as perfect as it was, that's why it had the token/recharge system to begin with, but the token system was so lenient and the recharge trigger so passive that it functionally did just disable aura reading completely.
Let's take a step back and ask a question. What is Distortion actually meant to do? My answer is that it fundamentally does two things: It provides some protection against aura reading, and it provides some information about what aura reading the killer brought, being currently the only aura blocker that does the second part.
Aura blocking (and indeed any stealth effect) should never be considered a way to avoid the killer for the entire match, just delay chases or perform specific actions safely, so I don't really see the issue with Distortion activating from chases. You should expect to be chased in an average match, so you will get tokens back, and Distortion will delay the first chase to allow you breathing room and the ability to position, as well as giving you information about what the killer's running.
Sure, you could balance the perk around gaining tokens from generators, but I don't think that regeneration speed would be particularly satisfying for survivors. I think the perk's in a better spot right now.
That's not to say I wouldn't buff Distortion, though. I've maintained for a while it'd be fair to give it both tokens at the start, so you've got a bit extra breathing room if the killer brings Lethal Pursuer.
The tools in question being insanely passive perfect counters to an entire playstyle, mind you.
I mean. No.
There's no way of arguing even the overtuned aura reading tools in the game at any stage were passive at all, let alone insanely passive.
I think the only passive aura reading in the game right now is Lethal Pursuer, and coincidentally that's the one Distortion hard counters. Every other aura reading tool in the game has a trigger.
You could maybe make the argument for something like Undying being passive, but I'd like to do you the courtesy of assuming that isn't what you're saying here. Any relevant aura tool has both a trigger and a timer, often having a distance requirement as well.
If you want a killer tool that actually represents the same idea and is problematic for the same reasons as old Distortion, it's Lightborn.
Weave Attunement is pretty passive, too, and still pretty busted even in its current state.
Sort of? There are definitely uses of it that could be considered passive, but I would personally argue the passive uses are the weaker ones, you kinda have to go out of your way to make Weave Attunement busted with something like the Franklin's synergy.
Still, it's a problem, and I don't think it's well designed at all in part because of how it at least can be pretty passive.
For posterity, problematic aura reading also includes Nowhere To Hide. Both these perks have meaningful triggers the killer has to engage with beyond equipping the perk, but both are also very accessible, very annoying, and warrant changes.
Sure, with the strictest reading of passive, it would be only Lethal Pursuer, but the others' triggers are baked into the normal game loop. It's not like invocations, where they require you to go out of your way to enable them. Most of them occur automatically in the process of the killer going about their gameplay without any deviation.
If the activation requirement is doing something you were going to do anyway, that's not really an activation requirement in any relevant sense.
If you like, I don't mind that reasoning.
This does unavoidably mean Distortion is also still passive now, since being chased is a regular part of gameplay that doesn't require any deviation.
That is part of why Distortion's current design is fine, because it's now in line with how a lot of activation triggers work; it's something you do have to do, but that something is part of regular gameplay. It isn't passive (in my opinion), but it's accessible.
That's not true, actually. It's a natural consequence of the game, but being chased is not beneficial to the survivors. It's not something they 'have to do'. It's more akin to getting aura reading when a gen is completed.
That's why conspicuous actions would be more logical, because those are actually things that they 'have to do'.
It's the same difference, in this context.
Being chased is as natural and unavoidable a part of the game as doing generators. Sure, there'll be the odd game where you don't do one of those two things, but they're very much outliers.
Same for killer. Going on chases is as natural and unavoidable as getting hooks in the average match. Sure, there's some outliers (and some more problematic ones too in this case), but they too are outliers, not the norm. Hooks are a reliable accessible trigger, chases are a reliable and accessible trigger.
In the context of activation triggers, they're identical. You're going to be doing both.
This depends a bit on what you mean by "passive".
If you mean "equip the perk and nothing else to get auras" then lethal, weave, undying, bitter mumur, blood Warden, Rancor, discordance, and territorial imperative would all count.
If you mean "equip the perk and do nothing different than play the game" then almost everything else is included, since most of the "trigger requirements" are things like hooks (bbq, gear head, Allen instinct), injuries (nurses, face the darkness), chase (I'm all ears, zanshin), downs (deerstalker), damage actions (nowhere to hide), pickups (awakened awareness).
In fact, I think the only auras that would require "playing differently than normal" on to of the perk itself is grim embrace, since you'd have to hook each survivor once to reveal the obsession. Which is kinda laughable because I forget it even has this feature if the game gets that far. Floods of rage, which requires specifically a scourge hook. Or darkness revealed, which "opening lockers" still could be "normal gameplay" for at least 3 killers. I'll add eruption, which takes a specific sequence of events (kick, then down) but, let's be honest, people don't run this perk for the "aura read" potential.
I'll admit to being more selective with what I was talking about than I should've been, but I do stand by the comparison to Distortion absolutely not working for any perk other than the one Distortion still hard counters.
To start: I do personally carve a distinction between what I'd call passive, and what I'd call accessible. Perks which do have an activation trigger, but ones that you're very likely to hit as a consequence of regular play, I would call accessible rather than passive. You still have to be engaging with the game for them to trigger, where passive perks are just equipping the perk and they function.
(Distortion, to keep on topic for the actual comparison, is now accessible where before it was passive)
Where I should've been more specific and did misspeak is in the rest, because yeah, there are some passive aura perks other than Lethal. I do still stand by discounting perks that have like, incidental aura reading, like Undying, but something like Bitter Murmur does count as passive aura reading.
What I meant to say is that nothing hit the level of "perfect hard counter" of Distortion, which is the claim I was responding to. None of the passive tools are even close to perfect, and even the accessible ones are still meaningfully gated; BBQ does not perfectly hard counter stealth and it's a very silly claim to say that it does.
Aura reading, as a class, tends to be meaningfully gated and restrained by its numbers. Comparing that to old Distortion is what I meant to say had no basis, because there's a world of difference between "you get auras after a hook, which is normal gameplay, but only on survivors further than forty metres away and only for four seconds" and "you block all meaningful auras for existing in the trial."
BBQ is admittedly a little more restrictive than some others, but most relevant aura reading is far more restricted in its effect than old Distortion was— even the ones you listed are more meaningfully gated than the literal action ascribed.
A Nurse's Calling, for instance, is gated by a survivor action and a distance alongside injuries, same with Deerstalker having a distance and requiring slugging instead of just activating on a down (to contrast with a non-aura tool like Infectious Fright for example).
Distortion was meant to be restricted (with its token system), but meaningfully wasn't, it effectively got to be a perfect aura block for no real engagement. Aura reading tools just aren't on that level for the most part, and any that approach it tend to be the problematic ones that get nerfed.
…Though admittedly I'm still waiting for Nowhere To Hide to be nerfed.
TL;DR the point is that aura reading is gated with meaningful numbers + systems keeping it in check, and Distortion wasn't, so the comparison just did not make any sense.
the fact that distortion got nerfed because cry babies couldnt find people AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
This is where I really disagree, and I think this is also where Distortion's history is relevant.
Distortion got updated to its 'problematic' form in 6.1, in July 2022. It did not get marked as problematic until very shortly before its nerf, which is two years later. Up until that point, it was a complete nothing-burger.
So if Distortion didn't change, what did?
Well, we got Lethal Pursuer, we got Nowhere to Hide, we got Floods of Rage, we got Weave Attunement…
Up until then, the primary source of aura reading was BBQ & Chili, which has a universally telegraphed use condition and ONLY works on those who are far away from the killer. You can also argue I'm All Ears, which only works in chase.
But Lethal Pursuer is free and uncounterable at base.
Nowhere to Hide reveals all those nearby and it's untelegraphed. Floods of Rage reveals all in disregard of their distance to the killer. Weave Attunement reveals all within item radius in disregard of their distance to the killer.
The old aura perks were heavily restricted with specific uses that left room for play. The new aura perks are just autopilots. And that led to the rise of Distortion. In a way, this also neatly ties in with the following:
Distortion is entirely contingent on the use of these aura reading perks. It only works in the exact same situations that the perks it counters do, so it really carries the same restrictions. If the aura reading doesn't fire, neither does Distortion.
But more importantly than that, Distortion can only ever barely do more than reset the game to base state, which is by definition, not overpowered. Its power and prominence scales with the power of the perks it counters since that is its only function. That is the restriction that it faces. It is not a stealth perk like Lucky Break or Dance With Me, which do something of their own and provide an actual advantage.
It just sets the game to default and nothing more than that. That is Distortion's restriction.
To be clear, what I am referring to when I say that aura reading is more restricted than old Distortion was is that there is always something other than its activation trigger keeping it in check, whereas Distortion had the activation trigger of "aura reads are used against you" and nothing else to keep it in check in any meaningful way because the token system didn't matter.
As to the rest, yes, Distortion is a counterpick. It resets the game to neutral when it activates by disallowing the use of your opponent's perk.
It being able to do that with effectively 100% uptime was bad from a balance perspective and an experience perspective. Being able to hard shut down an entire archetype of tools with zero requirement or tradeoff is just not good design even if the perk in question only does that one thing. It's better for the game overall if hard counters like that are more restricted.
In short, you shouldn't be allowed to turn off an entire class of tools without some gesture towards limiting that effect. The best comparison is still Lightborn, which is the killer version of this concept and similarly unhealthy for the same reasons.
After thinking about it some more, it can still get abused. If progress it measured purely from time spent doing conspicuous actions then somebody can just cleanse a dull totem to 90%, stop and redo it again to get stacks which would quite literally be a case of somebody doing nothing useful to use a perk. You either have to ratchet the requirements up so you'd have to have to do generators to gain stacks making everything else moot or you leave it at chase time which is a far easier measurement to balance around.
Or, in the case of totems, only make them give you progress on your stack when you complete the action.
Which I seem to recall is already the case for AFK detection?
You can absolutely do that, however it's just a lot easier at the end of the day to keep the activation to just a single action for the sake of balance and intuitiveness. If you don't want chases then I propose gaining stacks off soley repairing generators. 30-40% of generator progress to gain a stack of Distortion, that way it still requires a substantial enough cost and prevents any potential cases of perma-removal of your aura.
Unless the rules changed, its still…
8) Repairing a generator for 12/13/15 seconds = removes 1/2/3 crows
9) Repairing a generator when it reaches 100%, regardless of seconds spent repairing = removes all crows
Old distortion was so unhealthy it either
A) If the killer brought 1-2 aura perks and no aura reveal add-ons it turned off aura reading entirely
B) If the killer hard committed to aura reading the the perk couldn't regen tokens fast enough and it basically did nothing
It was a binary either turning entire perks off or not and was extremely strong for the value it gave. It's weak right now but the old version was stupidly strong/did nothing which is awful(note: there's also killer perks that fall into this exact same camp like lightborne for example)
This ain't even getting into the metagaming of distortion allowing you to pick apart the killers perks by virtue of watching stacks for trigger events and swf.
Eg.
* Match starts and distortion count goes down? Call out lethal
* Killer kicks a Gen and distortion count goes down? Call out nowhere to hide
* Killer hooks and count goes down? Call out bbq … etc etc for every aura reading perk and 1 dude in a swf on coms.
Could we maybe not try to make the "aura reveal" perks useless?
This would end in even more Gen regress….
And if someone says all Killers do is running gen regress… than you won´t need Distortion because nearly no Aura read is in play except some addons and they are limited to some specific thing a Killer has to do.
If survivors can have one perk that turns off the whole set of killer abilities, how about giving the killer a perk that ignores Endurance or stuns completely as well? Not just "making stuns shorter, and only from pallets", but completely turns off the ability to stun the killer, just like the old Distortion completely turned off every aura reading perk and ability of the killer.
To be fair, killers do have a perk that's equivalent to old Distortion, and it's Lightborn.
Both are silly and the game would be better if Lightborn gets changed too.
Buff Distortion with more tokens but also give it a weakness if there are concerns about certain players being TOO stealthy. One idea is perhaps the perk also reduces the time until you start getting afk crows from 90s to 60s; or whatever the default number is to reduce non-participation from the user. Another is Distortion delays your aura being revealed but it will still happen regardless (unless you enter a locker), so you still get the sound notification / token usage that your aura was attempted to be read, but you have additional time to react; so however many seconds it is (I forget the duration).
Honestly, if Lightborn was changed to have a strict timing window and replace the blinding effect with a subtractive one instead of the associated brightness, I feel that would be a fair compromise. Make it so it'll pretty much always work if the survivor is lazy with their timing, but give a window for it to be able to be overcome with skill. Good players can adapt, bad players don't get to bank on how forgiving the blinding timing is, killers who use it for photosensitivity reasons are taken care of, everybody wins.
The issue of course will be on how strict it would be, as I feel like nobody would ever agree on that, and BHVR would most certainly monkey paw it into a value nobody is happy with.
I don´t see the comparison between Lightborn and Distortion to be fair.
Yeah both shut down a part of the game play. Thats right but one says you aren´t allowed to eat choclate cakes with nuts while the other says you aren´t allowed to eat cake at all.
Let me explain.
Distortion reduced a quarter of Killer perks and addons aswell. If 4 Survivors picked it it could demolish whole builds by only sacrificing one perk per survivor and they still got 12 perk slots left to use. If only 3 Survivors picked this perk well… the last one will have a funny time to be found all game and most likely get nuked before the others. So it will become a must have perk and since this forum showed me that no perk should be a "must have" perk even if it counters strong Killer tactics which are hated… well… you get the drill.
Lightborn is a fourth of the Killers perk load out and deactivates one item (I won´t count firecrackers because most Survivors won´t go into the match with the intend to save with these while they still could take a flashllight) and some perks which aren´t meta as well.
If you compare these two over the point of "They both take something out of the game" than you can compare oppression with technician. Because both perks give you gen regression when you won´t hit a skill check.
Not a fair comparison. One's basekit material, the other is in perks.
Plus, as mentioned, Lightborn exists.
Well let me put it another way.
If the Killer has Lightborn and you got a Flashlight. You shine at him at the first pallet and see. "Well he got Lightborn" so no use to blind.
If the Killer brings Aura perks and Survivors run Distortion, "well I guess I can just stop using my perks."
There is a huge difference.
And as we have seen in the time with the old distortion and as many others in this discussion said. It was a staple perk for rats and became mendetory to equipp if you didn´t want to be found every single time as the only Aura shown to the Killer.
There was a reason Killers AND Survivors wanted changes to this perk.
I like a good discussion so no problem on that front :D
Yeah both things Lightborn and old Distortion took parts out of the game. The difference in my opinion is the importance of that part. Myself only picks Lightborn if I see 3 to 4 flashlights in a round and I am suprised how often Survivors can´t react to this.
I mean if I use my flashlight (not for the first time) and the light doesn´t get smaller while I shine at the Killers face I run before the pallet breaks. (Yes the Killer gets an Aura read for this but I still make distance.) But many Survivors are really standing there what feels like a good year and do nothing while you are out of the break animation and still shining at you. JFYI Lightborn could be a really strong perk if the animation would play out normally and even give you points for the blind althrough nothing happend.
Would the game be better without Lightborn and Distortion. Well I am not sure about this. The Devs buffed lightborn to this state for a reason because it was much worse before. The change for Distortion is most of the time a good change maybe give it more tokens when you get chased longer but to claim that it is unplayable is not true at all (like OP did) You are more hidden against chase orientated auras like I am all ears and such while you can still stack it against Nowhere to hide but you aren´t immune to auras for just existing.
Mhhh nah I wouldn´t say that its the 4vs16 perk thing why I think it is okay. (Yes I think that Killer perks should be stronger than Survivor perks but it isn´t my top argument)
My point is more like this. If you bring an Item, Medkit, Toolbox, Flashlight. The Killer can take perks to counter these. Thats the reason why the Killer can adjust their build in the Lobby. Sadly if you would say make Lightborn so that Flashlight saves takes longer you can just readjust your timing and the perk becomes useless again.
The big problem with Distortion was the following. You got rewarded by refusing to interact with the Kill by getting something what helps you to refuse to interact with the Killer. Thats the reason why I like the new Distortion. You get rewarded to deny the ability to read your aura in chase while getting chased. The thing is, most of people who enjoy chase don´t want to lose the Killer because that means the chase is over and so you get better perks to aid you, while someone who wants to hide wants to stay hidden.
Can I ask you a qustion and get an honest answer of you?
Did you play much soloque while the old Distortion was out?
@Terror_Misu
No no just fine. But it is much easier to discuss with someone if they are on the same level of information. (I hate the "You are just nostalgic or you are lying because you can´t prove your claims, while I try to explain something that happend in the past)
The time of the distortion meta was one of the worst times in which I played DbD and I tell you that as Survivor main. If I went solo I was suprised. It seemed that every game I was found first by lethal pursuit and I tell you I like a good chase. But its getting suspicious if the hardest tomes for yourself are the repair Gens or hit Skill check ones because you get found first and after that tunneld out.
So I looked for the reason for the increased tunneling and I came to the conclusion. Ofcourse it seemed that the Killer found me first all the time because I was the only one they could find.
I got really frustrated when my two mates which I played with started to use Distortion aswell and most of the time me and the random were dead while they didnt got a single hit all game long while crouching behind a stone next to the gen while I got found by no where to hide 20 miles away.
So… conclusion either they drop the perk or I join them. Well… they didn´t want to drop the perk so I joined them and boy… I can tell you it was a disaster. Either we faced a full slow down Killer and our perk became useless or the Killer dced the second their lethal pursiur didnt went off.
Yes I had Dcs over Lightborn aswell but to be fair. I can understand the frusttration in a Killer more if he plays a build to stack and finish quick chase after quick chase and his whole build becomes useless because of a perk over a survivor which only started the game with the intend to run behind the Killer to blind him. (Just for Information I don´t have much respect against dcs for what ever ingame reason, except hostage holding cheaters as I don´t like to give up.)
Strong argument for nerfing the crap out of the post BBQ aura reading perks because if 'handholding' is such a crime, the aura reading perks are the godfather.
Well I don´t understand how my teammates rat me out with a perk, to be a reason to nerf a Killer perk?
The problem was everyone could take it and it came to the point that everyone has to take it or you have to suffer for selfish choices.
Aunt Edith says: If something is so strong that you have to take it or you have to suffer than it must be op.
They don't.
The default is that the killer doesn't get to see your aura and has to look for you.
The fact that you pin the blame on Distortion for returning the game to its base state is indicative of how much aura reading has been power-crept to be the new standard, to the point where you think someone NOT being high-vis is the actual problem, rather than the killer getting a live feed of your location.
Your entire perception of how the game works has been shifted because aura reading perks have escalated so badly that they foundationally change how the game works.
So… it would be better if all Killers just ran 4 slowdown perks?
Running Aura peerks is nice to get information ofcourse. But you will realize pretty fast that you miss other things. Full Aura Huntress is strong but the Gens fly left to right.
Now you could say… that the Killer could run Hexes… but Thrill + undying + Devour + Penti is hated aswell.
So… we go for an Endgame build? But most people hate noed because it is Skillless…
Aura Perks need to be strong or they will be just not worth it to equip when you could take slow down perks.
Yeah, that's kinda the point of buildcrafting. You give up on some things to gain other things.
Both of these are whataboutism that don't fix the problem with aura reading's power creep. Not to mention that boiling Endgame build down to just NOED is incredibly disingenuous.
Also, these builds are fixable with proper design so if you really care about that, bring that up in their own threads.
BBQ & Chili gives aura reading but won't just light you up right next to the killer, and it has clear and effective counterplay. Lethal Pursuer has none of these guardrails, neither does Nowhere to Hide.
BBQ & Chili, by all accounts, should be F-tier compared to those two. It's still, according to Nightlight, the 7th most popular killer perk.
If LP and NtH were removed overnight, BBQ would be the 5th most popular.
They don't need to wreck the game's core functions to have a place.
@Firellius
Most players run BBQ with Lethal. Thats why it is up there.
So I will kindly ask. What build would be okay for you to go against.
Honestly, they should add the revealed mechanic to survivors once they've been hooked once. It would also help detect cheaters. I've had to actually inspect a few maps before sending a report through for wallhacking once, because they changed the location of some lockers, causing me to be revealed in a spot where I was certain I would be safe from aura's and it REALLY felt like they were cheating and hiding it with perks.
Or they should give Survivors the token that their Aura is being red like they got it in 2v8 althroug… most people don´t use this information at all.
honestly just nerf Aura. Buffing distortion just creates games where you get tunnelled if you’re the one not running it, old school dbd had less aura and was better for it. Killer gets spoon fed now.
As I said earlier… if you nerf Aura Killers will tend to more Gen Regression and if you belive me or not more to tunneling. Since they know as soon as the unhook sound appears that two survivors are at the hook.
I have to say, whenever I see these comparisons pop up it feels a lot like the only "older" aura perk being considered here is BBQ, not the others.
BBQ, sure, had a minimum range and clear + effective counterplay, but that's not really true of other older aura perks. A Nurse's Calling lit you up right next to the killer and did not have particularly clear counterplay (if you knew it was in play you could play around it, but not to the same degree as BBQ + there was no way of really knowing), same thing with I'm All Ears.
Even Retribution used in hex builds has been just distance-agnostic aura with no real counterplay this whole time. Gearhead too, more likely to reveal you further away but there's never been counterplay to it even when it was bad.
I also feel that "newer" perks are largely being only represented by Nowhere To Hide here, which is certainly overtuned and not restricted enough - there's no excuse for it still following the killer instead of being based around the generator - but I don't know that's true of most others.
Looking at some other newer aura perks, we have a very clear comparison in Friends Til The End and Alien Instinct, both of which have the same trigger and thus the same counterplay as BBQ and that are also restricted by only revealing one survivor at a time.
Lethal Pursuer trades the more normal guard-rails for being single-use, Darkness Revealed has awkward spacing and a cooldown to gate it, and frankly isn't good at the same time, Floods of Rage is very similar to Retribution in being a burst of mapwide aura reading on a reliable trigger in exchange for a low duration, Face The Darkness requires survivors to be outside your terror radius and is a Hex so it can be disabled, Awakened Awareness requires you to be carrying someone so your ability to act on the information is restricted…
These perks all have the same kinds of guard rails as older perks did. The issue with Nowhere To Hide is that it is lacking proper restrictions to dictate its use, not that newer aura perks have fewer guard rails than older ones.
If anything, more newer perks than older ones have tells and giveaways to play around. The only real power creep of any kind with aura reading is just numerical, there are proportionally more newer ones than older ones- the design philosophy hasn't really changed.
You say that as if I have personally agitated against these builds.
You can run any build you want, so long as it is decently implemented and fairly balanced. New aura reading is not. If you want to keep them as broken as they are, that's fine, but then Distortion needs to be up to the task of levelling the playing field again.
You don't get to keep the nonsense on your side but then get mad when the opposing side gets a counter to it.
And if you want to argue that Distortion shouldn't exist, that's fine too, but then aura reading will need significant nerfs to be brought back in line. It is ridiculous to nerf survivor perks for the explicit reason that killer perks are proving too effective.
While Nurse's Calling is indeed a solid pick for a less restricted older perk, it is still contingent on a survivor action, which made it a bit more niche, and gave survivors control.
I do realise that I should be a bit clearer, because I'm All Ears fulfils an entirely different function. Nurse's Calling, BBQ & Chili and all the rest are perks that help you locate survivors so you can start a chase with them. I'm All Ears is wallhacks during a chase, it is not used to locate survivors.
Again, contingent on a survivor action, giving the survivor control. This is probably the closest thing to new aura reading, but then, Retribution is a hex. Which shows how heavily the ability to reveal aura with such little restriction used to weigh.
Same thing as Retribution, contingent on a survivor action, can't hit a hiding survivor.
And that's the specific thing: If a survivor is crouching in a corner somewhere, trying to stay out of sight while the killer stalks nearby, the only two of these perks and BBQ that could hit you are Nurse's Calling (Only if you're healing) and Retribution, which is a hex.
I'm All Ears can't hit you, Gearhead can't hit you, Nurse's Calling can only hit you if you're healing up, and at that point, the noises would give you up too.
You absolutely can hide from I'm All Ears and Gearhead and Nurse's Calling and BBQ.
You cannot hide from NTH, or Ultimate Weapon, or Friends 'til the End, or Darkness Revealed, or Weave Attunement, or Floods of Rage, or any of the other options. The only one of the old perks that did not allow you to hide from it is Retribution, and that one was then considered so strong that it had to become a hex to compensate.
But right now, it is assumed that the killer can just see your aura 24/7, and, evidently, that there should be an expectation that they will. That's why the aura-tunnelling blame was shifted from killer perks giving way too much intel to Distortion blocking it.
It's a paradigm shift. It's power-creeped so bad that the game's fundamental perception has changed.
I'm not okay with that. Either Distortion needs to make a comeback, or the aura reading needs to be curbed. Hiding should be an option.
Oh yeah, that is the "revealed mechanic" I was talking about. But it would be too strong if done from the start. Hence why "once they have been hooked". I also generally feel like aura perks, especially killer ones, do need cooldowns on their aura triggers. And have their aura reads being bound to location rather than to the killer (I loved Nowhere to Hide originally, because it only revealed aura's surrounding the gen, I dont know why they didnt keep that).
I'm really not sure that's all that much of a relevant distinction here.
Assuming we're talking about the survivor crouching near the killer, and not just in a corner of the map somewhere, the only things they're really at risk from here are NTH (which if it's appropriately nerfed is the dedicated pick for this exact purpose), Darkness Revealed (which may become a problem if that perk ever becomes good; I could see a world where it's fairly changed to have much better numbers but only affect lockers other than the one you opened or something), and maybe Floods of Rage in the same general way they'd have been at risk from Retribution from sheer bad luck in timing.
You can hide from FTTE for the same reasons you can hide from BBQ, you can hide from Weave Attunement because you always know when it's affecting you (altho I will agree that perk's design is frustrating), and you can hide from most of the other auras we've both generally not mentioned. They have specific triggers, only two of them are on demand and one of those two sucks.
This is also only looking at that very specific kind of stealth gameplay, and stealth gameplay is already a specific subset of playstyles. Not to say it shouldn't be an option - it should and still is - but that anyone who isn't specifically trying to crouch near the killer was always going to be revealed by any era's aura perks, which I do feel is relevant.
After all, Gearhead and Retribution may be survivor actions but that doesn't mean the team actually has control. You have to do generators, and in a hex build you have to go cleanse Devour or what have you, that means you're going to be revealed even if you're trying to play stealthy overall.
Even speaking to stealth playstyles, too- it should be possible, but legitimate parts of the game will have answers. One or two dedicated "catch the person crouching near me" perks isn't inherently a problem, it's only an issue now because NTH is capable of doing way more than just that.
Auras should have answers too, of course, and while they do have answers right now I do feel it's not enough. Distortion, Off The Record, Shadow Step, Object of Obsession, and now Eleven's new perk We See You are all good in their own way but there's room for more variation in answering auras I think, especially since most of those are fairly specific in which auras they specialise against. Not a giant problem but more of an open design space.
I didn't have any issues with the old version. Maybe it was the issue with hiding and not doing anything on purpose that caused the changed. In which case their are better ways in solving that issue.
They still are, the rats just found other ways….. as like 500 people predicted here, but no one from bhvr cared..
that being said, its still not too bad if you take chases.
for fans of distortion, Eleven is gonna be super popular ain't she? if I'm reading it right, she has an elusive effect when she's using her aura reads? are we back, bois?