Perk bloat
Why does it seem that one way or another, 75% of the perks for both killer + survivor are either super situational or just outright awful? I understand wanting to bring new killers/survivors into the game but why do they 1. always have to come w/ "unique" perks (even though 1/2 the time they are similar to existing perks" and 2. why not simply get rid of a lot of the relatively unused perks or buff/rework them to actually be useful?
Comments
It doesn't seem that way. It is that way.
What do you mean? Can you elaborate?
nvm i see what you meant
No sweat: I'll elaborate all the same.
There are 282 perks in dead by daylight, IIRC. Around 50% of them are either sub-optimal to the point of worthlessness, niche to the point of being suicidal to use, or just outright bad/outcompeted. The most used perks (via nightlight) for survivor are [Windows of Opportunity], [Lithe], [Resilience], [Deja Vu]. For Killer they are [Scourge Hook: Pain Resonance], [Nowhere to Hide], [Pop Goes The Weasel], [And Lethal Pursuer.]
The least picked for survivor are (barring new entries as they corrupt the data) : [Teamwork: Toughen up], [Teamwork: Collective Stealth], [Road Life], and [Rapid Response.] For killer they are : [Scourge Hook: Hangman's Trick], [Shattered Hope], [No Quarter], and [Wandering Eye.]
Of the 173 listed Survivor perks, 89 of those perks have a less than 1% pick rate. That's 51%~ of the perks in the game for survivor. The top 10 perks for Survivor are all at pickrates 9% or higher. The top 5 perks for Survivor are all 16% or higher. The top perk for Survivor is at a 24% selection rate. The next is 22.8%, the next is 20.5%, the next is 19.3%.
Of the 142 listed Killer perks, 56 of those perks have a less than 1% pick rate. That's 40%~ of the perks in the game for killer. The top 10 Killer perks for Killer are all at pickrates 10% or higher. The top 5 perks for Killer are all 12% or higher. The top perk for Killer is at a 31% selection rate. The next is 15.1%, the next is 14.8%, the next is 14.2%.
Now!
All that icky math aside, what these numbers tell us is that 145 of 315 perks in the game combined, that's 46% of all perks in the entire game, are picked less than 1% of the time. I did all this icky icky math to back an assertion I will now make, and I will do so bald-faced and directly:
Half the perks in Dead by Daylight suck.
They may have niche purpose, they may have some particularly limited usage, but at the end of the day when your playerbase elects to use half the perks in the game at a 1% or less pick rate, they did not do that because the perk personally offended them or they had a rough break up or something like that. They didn't pick it because it doesn't work, its numbers are too weak, its trigger conditions are too undependable, the payout isn't worth it, etc. In short, they suck.
This is made significantly more problematic when you remember this is a PVP game and you are entering a prisoners dilemma. That is to say, if you elect to use sub-optimal perks, you also do so while knowing the general selection rate for more effective perks is very high, meaning your opposition is likely to take powerful perks whilst you are taking bad ones. This reinforces a meta, or in laymans terms, it further punishes you if you take a bad perk making selection of sub-optimal perks even less likely.
TL-DR:
More than half the perks in this game are bad, and everyone is aware. Maybe over time it can be corrected for. It's not all that bad, there will always be a meta, but it does lead to a total lack of diversification and boredom.