So you want a Second Objective?; An Alternative to Pressing M1!
Introduction
A lot of people have asked about 2 things:
-Second objectives
-Collecting Parts
Those 2 themes have come up from time to time and have never seemed to quiver. In this post, we will try to use those 2 ideas and see if we can make something out of it, that both implements those 2 ideas and solves other underlying issues with the game as well.
(For those who want the TL;DR, skip to the orange headline: "The New Mechanic")
What do people want?
People want second objectives to do. But what type of second objectives? After all... aren't there already many objectives?;
-Saving people
-Doing Dull Totems
-Basically everything mentioned by @Hex-Ruin in:
Link: Why do survivors want second objectives?
What people nearly universally point out about it is that they don't JUST want second objectives; they want mandatory ones; Objectives through which they can complete their objective in a more fun way than "holding m1 all game".
As for collecting parts;
Some people often complain; You want second objectives? What other things can you do then progress a bar and grab stuff? After all, if we take a recent look at the history of mechanics in events:
The Blight Event: Just another progress bar.
Moonrise: Picking something up + Searching
Together with:
Sabotaging: Progress Bar
Cleansing Dull Totems: Progress Bar
Healing yourself or others: Progress Bar
Searching for Chests: Searching
Searching for Hatch: Searching
Disarming bear traps: Progress Bar
Getting Items: Picking stuff Up.
The options seem limited: Progress Bar's, Picking stuff up and Searching. Those 3 things are the main things you can do when there is no interaction with the killer. Call it the holy trinity of Objectives in DBD.
We will use use the same ideas as the ones in the Trinity to make the 2 ideas work together and show how collecting parts might be more fun than you think; How it can make the game healthier and how it can help us create more tools for balance.
Collecting parts: A second objective
What will it achieve?
It would be dull to only use the idea of collecting parts for the sakes of a second objective. Why not use it to solve underlying issues with the game as well? With adding the second objective, we'll simultaneously try to use it as an alternative to the solution proposed in:
Link: Solution to the Death-Efficiency Problem
(Which is flat compensation)
Now, before we get into it, I might add that I'm going to slightly cheat: The objective that I'm going to create will not be mandatory despite the requests...
Instead, this mechanic of collecting parts will SIMULTANEOUSLY make doing gens for 80 seconds no longer mandatory either!
Let's find out how:
The new mechanic
Parts
Survivors can now find a new special item, called "a part". Even though it's brand new, that name was already taken. Parts take 5 seconds to install on a generator. Once installed, it will be attached to it forever. Every generator can have 5 parts installed to it maximally.
Parts can be dropped, but when they are, they are destroyed.
Parts can be "crafted" at 3 special locations one of which 1 is always in the basement. (Imagine it as a crafting table/crafting set). It takes 10 seconds to craft a Part.
A player can only carry 1 Part and only 1 player can be crafting at 1 crafting table at them same time.
Both installing the part on a generator and creating a part does not save progression when cancelled.
When a part is installed on a generator, there is something visually changed about that generator (added), that notifies the killer on how many parts have been installed.
Once a part is installed it SETS the charges multiplier to:
At 0/5 Parts: 1x Multiplier to charges and regression on that generator. (+0% = 80 seconds)
At 1/5 Parts: 1.2x Multiplier to charges and regression on that generator. (+20% = 66.67 seconds)
At 2/5 Parts: 1.5x Multiplier to charges and regression on that generator. (+50% = 53.33 seconds)
At 3/5 Parts: 2x Multiplier to charges and regression on that generator. (+100% = 40 seconds)
At 4/5 Parts: 3.2x Multiplier to charges and regression on that generator. (+220% = 25 seconds)
At 5/5 Parts: 8x Multiplier to charges and regression on that generator. (+700% = 10 seconds)
Upon installing a part, it is consumed.
Analysis
So it takes 15 seconds to both create and install a part. Once it has been installed it takes about 15 seconds off of that generator, but now there's walking time in-between, that can range from a perfect 0 seconds (highly unlikely) up to 30+ seconds for every part that you collect!
So why would you ever do this?!
Well, this is the beauty of the Part-system: Even though it will take longer in total to finish 1 particular generator, it doesn't force you to sit on that generator continuously, and your progression cannot be interrupted.
Having to sit on a generator for a long amount of time is only possible when other players leverage time to you for you to do gens. If those other players are no longer around, then you cannot do a generator, plain and simple.
This is why almost all players in a total count of 2/1 alive almost always lose. They cannot afford to sit on a generator continuously, therefore the Part-System isn't just a slower way of doing Generators; it's also one more RESISTANT to the late-game when your teammates screw up.
It allows you to plan ahead and install parts on generators that you won't yet repair. You keep a few for in the late-game and try to repair part-less generators first.
Because said generators aren't finished, it's also harder for the killer to guess on which generator you will be, since there are still more on the map then there'd otherwise be.
Part of the fun of the Part mechanic is that you have to move while installing your parts: This allows you to run into the killer as he/she is chasing someone else.
Balance
Unlike the flat generator repair-method this way of doing generators gives us a lot more tools for balance:
-Changing generator time is easier without causing problems! We can up generator time while using the part system to balance things out!
-We have the variables of the amount of time it takes to create and install parts, which can both be buffed and nerfed.
-We control where crafting spots will be.
-We control how many crafting spots there will be.
-We control the relationship between multipliers and parts.
-We control whether the crafting spot gives the killer a clue whether the survivor has recently been there.
-We can choose whether the crafting spot makes noice/how much or add other such factors that can give away a survivor's location.
-Unlike Hook-phases and bleed-out time which do not interact with each other or complement each other; the part system does have exactly the type of interplay between the 2 ways of progressing towards the exit gates we want.
Simply, unlike only having flat generator time, we have a lot more tools to balance things out than ever before;
We've addressed several crucial points:
-The idea of a killer closing the hatch and the survivor having to complete a generator for it is no longer ridiculous!
-2 Alive survivor games no longer feel like trolling yourself or waiting each others death out!
-And perhaps most relevant to the criticism of you guys!; you no longer have to hold M1 if you don't want to! (or well... at least for no longer than 10 seconds straight (;
-We made Territorial Imperative more relevant, as 1 crafting spot is always inside the basement!
-Franklins Demise becomes more relevant as Parts are destroyed upon being dropped!
End Note; Personally
I hope this post addressed the frequent desire of players to add a more exciting ways of progressing in the game! It is important to understand that generators are the core of progressing the game. In the ideology of adding second objectives, people have often suggested to add something in between: Do 5 generators > Connect Cables > Exit Gate, but those of course only prolongue the game. There's still only 1 mandatory objective you can do at 1 time.
This is why it's important to create alternatives to doing the main objective; so that you have a choice. The interplay between those 2 (or 3 or more) systems is that they work together to at least some extend, as to not make it so that a failure in path A where you got to 99% forces you to do the full 100% in path B.
I hope you like this proposal. For me personally, I find this the most satisfying solution to the Death-Efficiency Problem. where as a flat efficiency compensation would be less so, as the version just discussed allows the killers to see which generators can be repaired at top speed and which ones wont, allowing for a more complex and dynamic game to form.
Let me know if there are things that I've missed.
Whether you have things to add/build on top of this idea.
What issues that you believe may arise and if so, whether you believe they can be solved through variables already available or whether you believe there to be a structural issue.
Any own/separate ideas using the same philosophy are also welcome down in the comments!
Thank you for reading!
Comments
@NuclearBurrito2
So simply, you want to add another gen. Because you believe the games should take longer.
The problem is, you find generators boring, so you want to transform let's say 2 of those gens into (idk) something equivalent in time. (That action would most likely translate into something of the trinity, which may very closely resemble doing a gen/prolongued progress bar.
On top of that, making the game flat out longer has also made the game very frustrating for a majority of the players in lower ranks, who now have a win-rate that drops even below 30% which is where it's currently is.
You wouldn't have more choice. Every game you would still have to do the exact same.
But apparantly survivors need more objectives to do.
God forbid the problem lies with the person playing killer rather than the objective time.
At higher ranks its at 40% for survivors. Only at very high level survivors against very high level killers is the problem that killers (actually!) don't have enough time.
Which is why solutions that simply try to make the game longer would all hurt the game for the majority.
40% is the overall average. The range is 35-45%
@NuclearBurrito2
For PS4 it's exactly 40%.
The other 2 are in between 40-45% I think.
At lower ranks, the win-rate drops to almost 25% and that is terrify if you actually consider that at this point everybody is escaping through the hatch and not the exit gates.
The number of people escaping through gates is a lot lower.
Rank 20 has a 30% winrate.
Higher ranks also actually escape via the hatch MORE than lower ranked survivors. Although it's only a 1% difference so it's probably just margin of error, and my hatch stats are not up to date
@NuclearBurrito2
It's below 30% on all platforms at rank 20 and below 45% on all platforms in rank 1.
This is why I think if they were to add more mandatory objectives gen times would be lowered a bit to compensate.
I know this isn't the answer a lot of people want or feel is fair but when the survival rate is in the 40's the developers just can't justify making it even harder.
Remove NOED, survivors survival rate goes up, devs can justify buffing killers in other ways to compensate.
But no some people just won't hear it.
I'm cool with a NOED nerf assuming counterbalancing occurs. Hell these additional objectives could even BE the counterbalencing.
Anyways though, the issue isn't the 45-30% escape rate, the issue is that the KILLER winrate is only 25%. So either we need to lower the survivor winrate, raise the killer winrate or a mix of both
To lower survivor winrate most effectively you need to make the killer early game easier/longer
To raise killer winrate most effectively you need to make killer end game easier (that means hatch)
But yeah. Specific things that are too strong:
Decisive strike
Insta-heal Syringe
NOED
Ebony Mori
Exactly! it would make bnp consistent in the case of it, though tbh the skillchecks are easy enough to hit that i think balancing it around 25% seems fair for an ultra rare, and maybe 10-15% for a rare (or just getting rid of the penalty on gens)
Wow. This has been excruciating to read.
Lets see if I can get through to him.
AlwaysInAGoodShape, when people are telling you it is a "sidequest" and they are "still doing a gen" there is a reason for that,
This is because "doing a gen" is holding M1 and watching a progress bar go next to a gen.
Your suggestion does not make that any different in any capacity. In order to complete the game a survivor will have to sit next to a gen and hold M1 until the progress bar fills up.
There is no argument that parts make it different. Parts make it shorter but shorter is not different, a short human is still a human, and a quick gen is still a gen.
This is why people think your idea is a sidequest. Because it doesn't actually change anything that matters. In order to leave a gate a survivor will have to hold M1 on a gen for, absolute minimum, 10 seconds, in your OP.
That is no arguable. You can not say that "part gens are different" because they arn't they're faster not different
Atleast I believe that has been the general position. That when people say "doing a gen" they're not talking about how long they do the gen for, just that the action of holding M1 next to a gen is still the same, and thus it is still "doing a gen" 0 parts or 5.
This is why a secondary objective, in order to be an objective and not a sidequest needs to do something other than have survivors hold M1 on a gen. Because feeling is important and how players feel emotionally about a game isn't defined by the META.
Try the stick example. You no longer have to do a gen; you have to do a stick.
How is doing the stick a sidequest if you don't have to do a gen either? Doesn't that make doing a gen a sidequest also?
@AlwaysInAGoodShape I wish the devs would implement this into the ptb for experimentation purposes so that even if it doesn't get implemented, atleast the idea is put across
I am telling you why, in your OP aaand for several pages after, people were telling you they were still just "doing gens" because "doing gens" is pressing M1 next to a generator while a progress bar fills up, which your suggestion still did.
I am hoping to alleviate you confusion and to create a bridge of understanding so you may hold a conversation with the others where you are talking to them rathert than past them.
>No. Listen. Don't try to evade the argument.
No argument is being evaded. Doing Part-Generators is simply just as much of a side-quest as doing flat generators are as demonstrated.
>I am telling you why, in your OP aaand for several pages after, people were telling you they were still just "doing gens" because "doing gens" is pressing M1 next to a generator while a progress bar fills up, which your suggestion still did.
Yes, they are doing gens, genius? But doing gens no longer means 1 thing. Doing Gens no longer means that you have to sit still doing a generator. Doing a generator a certain way is literally impossible if you don't move. You cannot complete a part-generator without moving.
The parameter that makes x "the same" is not a word under which is it categorised, but the difference in EXPERIENCE that it creates.
Let's call doing Flat generators doing gens.
Let's call doing Part-generators doing gens.
Let's call going to a swimming pool doing gens.
Let's call breathing doing gens.
Let's call playing DBD doing gens.
Let's call eating doing gens.
See how we can categorise a million things under 1 name, depending on how we call it? If you find doing a FLAT generator boring, that doesn't mean that you find breathing boring, because even though you can categorise them under 1 term doesn't make them the same thing.
Doing a Flat gen =/= doing a Part gen =/= breathing. The parameter of the "boring objective" isn't that someone is "doing a generator"; it is someone doing a FLAT GENERATOR. (Aka a prolonged progression bar, whether is it s generator, or whether it's healing, or whether it's x that takes too long.)
Now, in DBD you are either doing 3 things when there's no killer:
You are walking/searching, you are either doing a progress bar at a certain location (from anywhere to 0 seconds to infinite) or you're picking stuff up.
---
So you mainly have 2 parameters:
A: Doing something with a different name (/appearance) makes doing an objective different.
B: The experience and required inputs is what makes doing an objective different.
If your parameter for a "different objective" is A, then this would be a "new objective":
Instead of having to do 5 gens, there are only 4 Generators and 4 Cankers. Completing a generator or a Canker takes 80 seconds, cause skill-checks and can be regressed after being kicked.
To me, this is doing "the same thing", because my parameter is B. It doesn't create a new experience and required input. You are doing exactly the same thing. To you this is revolutionary, because after all, Cankers are not "doing generators"!
Since my parameter is B, doing a different objective means that they create a different experience through different inputs. This means that "doing a generator" doesn't have to be the same. Instead, doing a Canker and a Flat Generator are the same. Where as a Flat Generator and a Part-Generator are distinct from one another.
(That is what the wooden stick example illustrates. It simply changes up words.)
---
Now, there is a distinction between the main objective and a side-quest; a side-quest is of NO contribution to the main objective, which is both wrong for doing flat gens and doing part gens.
It is wrong for doing part gens since doing and adding a part is basically progressing an unregressable 15 seconds from the total timer of 420/440 seconds.
Through Parted Generators (or call them sticks if you will), you can complete the entire game, without ever touching a Flat Partless vanilla generator, where as in the main game, you can only do Flat Gens.
(The only thing that would make doing the exact same thing doing something different, is when it has a different purpose, like the difference between healing and doing a flat gen, which are both doing a progress bar. We are talking about main objectives here, so their purpose is mainly the same.)
In your OP, did you state that the minimum time needed to repair a generator with 5 parts on it was 10 seconds?
Correct. A generator; not a flat generator.
In this case a Part-Generator (or a stick with beef if you will)
Note that, no matter how quickly a survivor does that action, it is still "doing a gen" as gen tapping consists of instances lasting less than 2 seconds. So a 10 second duration of time in which a survivor is next to a gen holding M1 to progress a bar would still be universally accepted as "doing a gen"
Can this mutually understood phrasing of "doing a gen" be accepted for reference moving forward, please, AlwaysInAGoodShape?
@Free_Hugs
be accepted? This has never not been accepted by anyone. If this was what you wanted to get accepted then you've been arguing against non-existing people.
What I've been arguing about is that in the not vanilla version of the game (the OP) doing a generator means 2 different things (Part generators and Flat generators);
New (hypothetical) OP
When installing the first part to a generator, it transforms into a flower. The time it takes to finish a flower overlaps that of the OP with x parts as variable)
My argument is that in the above mentioned hypothetical case, you'd not be doing generators, neither would you be doing anything different than mentioned in the OP.
See how you're BOTH "not doing generators" while ALSO doing the exact same as in the OP? Strange isn't it.
Do you notice how you can do the flowers and escape without ever finishing a generator? Meaning that generators are optional? That means that doing generators is a "side-quest". Weird isn't it?
(now replace flowers with Part-generators and replace generators with Flat generators)
(and if you understood that example, notice how you committing to that answer makes you directly state that: The difference between a side-quest and a main quest is DECIDED by the COSMETICS of an object)
@Paddy4583
No Paddy. The parameter for distinguishing a main objective and a side-objective is not the cosmetics of an object.
If your point is that you still have to do a progress bar at an adjusted model of a generator for 10 seconds, no, that is not what makes it a side-objective, which means your "point" isn't even related to your claim.
Because in the end, you're still doing the same thing, "doing a gen" that we agreed upon. Standing beside a generator, holding M1, watching a progress bar.
Your idea is not different enough. That is what everyone has been trying get through to you for the past 8 pages.
Your idea isn't different enough to not just be "doing a gen" still.
When people ask for a secondary objective, they want it to not be doing a gen.
@Paddy4583
Since you clearly need extra explanation. Chances are that you still don't know what a flat gen is.
Well, hugs. I see your point, but this is not what me and paddy were arguing about.
We were arguing whether doing parts was a "side-objective" or not, and I've been trying to explain him/her that in any system through which there are 2 ways to complete the mian objective (to escape) neither of the 2 (or 3/4/5) are mandatory, but all are main objectives as through every route you can complete the main objective.
What is mandatory is that you have to pick from those 2(or/3/4/5) options to finish your main goal, which makes it a main objective.
It is that basic fact that we've been arguing about.
@Paddy4583
You dropped the ball there.
The flat generators weren't necessary when you could do the stick with beefs.
In a multi-route through which you can complete the main objective, neither route is mandatory. Only the mix or sole use of 1 of the, in the pool of routes is mandatory.
You tried to weasel out after I replaced the word, since you couldn't answer it. Then you tried to say that you "said different things", while everything you typed is saved xD
This was your argument:
"Nobody would be doing it since it's a side-quest."
Then I showed you how it's a main quest with the 1000 second gen example, showing there are 2 routes and everything is determined by META.
No matter how much you try to distance yourself from your own claims, it's saved. Everyone can read the blatantly false claims. xD
Have you asked Paddy why they consider your idea a "side quest" instead of a secondary objective?
It is because, by definition, a "secondary objective" can't be the same objective as the main objective. That just makes it an alternative path, a "side quest" as Paddy refers to it.
No matter what you argue, it will be impossible to convince anyone you've been discussing with that what you suggested is a "secondary objective" because "doing a gen" is still what you are doing and a "secondary objective" is something different.
Ergo, since your suggestion is not a secondary objective as advertised in the thread title, Paddy refers to it as a side quest, in lue of alternatives that came to their mind.
More understandable?
@Free-Hugs
You're making a mistake here; when people talk about doing the main objective, they mean doing that which LEADS UP TO the main objective. It's kind of a collective word play; the main objective of course always is escaping (and to the degree the pip system/BP).
Paddy claimed that people wouldn't use the route since it's inherently a side-quest.
I showed them that it wasn't because it's purely defined by meta.
If I changed that gen to a flower, would it be doing a secondary objective then, if your parameter is A as we discussed a moment back?
This has nothing to do with preferring. If you can complete the game through parts and flowers alone, then either doing flat generators are also "side-quests" or neither of the 2 are.
@Free_Hugs
Imagine it very simply: The generator gets transformed into a flower, meaning you are no longer doing a gen. All you're doing is a progress bar similar to healing, doing gens, sabotaging, etc.
Now would you call this doing a second objective then, since by your quoted reason it would be?
If you collect 5 flowers for a gen, is it completed? Does it light up?
If it does not then it is deceptive to say that parts complete gens.
No, parts and flowers. That's all you need. Now would you consider this to be a secondary objective?
You are the only person changing the scope to fit a narrative, I’ve remain consistant in my view and point.
Im aware of what I have said and I’m fine with people reading it as I don’t think or believe I’ve changed my oppinion since the first comment
@Paddy4583
Yes, your referral is wrong and you've not been consistent with anything xD
What I quote is literally the first things you've said. That was the part we were arguing about.
Your claim that by virtue of it being a side-objective it is not necessary, and rejecting the idea that in any system where there are multiple routes to complete anything, neither route is mandatory.
You've only been trying to distance yourself from your own claims since in the 1000 gen example, you admitted that you'd never touch a flat gen xD
@Free_Hugs
You hold m1... at a crafting table, where you basically "repair" generators. (aka the 420/440 bar)
Also, if you'd install the last part for 15 seconds instead of 5 seconds and doing the gen, then it would be the same result; same gameplay, yet you'd recognise the same gameplay to be containing a different objective 1 time, but not in the other.
I feel it is not in your best interest to, in ernest detail, explain how pointless your suggestion is to alleviating any kind of problem the game currently has, so we'll just pretend you didn't do that and actually have two working braincells.
**Ahem**
Yes, if your idea is different enough such that it is distinct from "doing gens" it would be an acceptable suggestion to put forward.
Your OP was not that, thus the blowback you've been experiencing.
@Free_Hugs
You can basically see doing a part at doing a generator at another location. Basically you have more locations to do generators! Is that a second objective?
That is my point. In DBD everything translates into something else:
For a main objective: Holding a progress bar at x location >>> x = generator/x = crafting table/ x = whatnot >>> filling the 420/440 second bar >>> escape (win-condition; the actual objective was to escape.)
Yet, you state that being able to work on generator progress in more locations is a secondary objective.
Parts are basically finishing 15 seconds of a generator that cannot be regressed.
The things that makes it different/an actual new objective is that it introduces aspects of shorted time/different sounds/mandated walking for that route, etc. Which are all elements the OP also has.
@Free_Hugs
Then again, answer:
Turning the Gen into a flower, does this make it a second objective?
So. No. this is why your suggestion is bad.
@Free_Hugs
Define what you consider
Off the top of my head, for a secondary objective, the killer has a gate key in their back pocket. A survivor must move behind the killer for at least 1 second to grab the key, which is then held as a secondary item.
A survivor must have a key to open an exit gate.
Your proposal is
DO GENS or DO GENS with additional side step of collecting parts first, the part of collecting the parts I refer to as a side quest using the following reason Side Quests are additional or extra quests that a player can attempt. Side quests are not necessary to complete a game.
you then took this and twisted it to fit to fit a narrative, by trying to make doing a gen and doing a gen 2 separate things within the same outcome by referring to them as flat gens And part gens.
I still stuck to my Original oppinion that doing a gen is the main objective irrispective of the option you use to do it but one option involved the side quest of doing something else first.
You then tried to make out these gens were totally different by removing them from gens altogether and making it a different way to escape, and to that I agreed that it would be a different objective, but as I said that’s not what your idea was.
Ive agreed with you 3 times in this string, but only when you have changed your whole idea to fit your narrative.
I meant the definition; not an example.
I second this.
A "true" new objective should be something that does not obey to the triad @AlwaysInAGoodShape arbitrarily defined as m1 / searching / picking up. There are other mechanics in the game as it is, like chasing (or hiding), staying in terror radius, blinding, stunning... , others may be created, or evolved from those. Perks already use this (think about the charging of Diversion, or the one of Deliverance), objective may as well.
The vast majority of the players which is complaining about the game being "a m1 simulator" don't care if it's a flower or a steak, they see the problem as intrinsic in the m1 holding. Splitting the m1 holding in shortest timing (that is: build a part - install it - fix gen) may not be what they want.
...for example in this topic a lot of the people participating feel this way.
You @AlwaysInAGoodShape can discuss semantics, meta-narrative and what not all you want, but you'd still be missing where they are criticizing you, and that's your loss - you won't be able to improve your idea by being so adamant in your way of thinking.