Overall Thoughts on the PTB
(Yes this is a long one, feel free to skip to the parts you care about)
Now that it's been a few days, I'd like to look at the PTB as a whole after having time to play with a lot of the PTB myself and watch others and their ideas as well. And as a whole, the PTB will be great for the game, and if we get recurring perk update patches like this it will make the diversity of matches so much better. There are definitely some things that could be improved upon, but this patch is overall a welcome change to a lot of the games perks that needed some attention, and the chat wheel is a welcome addition. To go into more detail about my positives and concerns:
Chat Wheel:
The chat wheel is an amazing addition to the game and is a great step towards allowing solo survivors to communicate with their team. However, there are a few things I'd change. One is that, as many people have suggested, we should have room for more messages. I feel like the wheel could fit 10 instead of 8, but even if that isn't possible please add a second page. The first page could be for quicker messages to do in chase, while the second page may be for messages you would use on a gen or out of chase. We also need more messages, specifically changing "Chasing Me" to "Killer's on me" which is much more versatile, and the ability to comm our own perks. I also wish I was able to tell if a player had it muted without having to press tab, but that's not as important.
Killer perk nerfs:
Although there are other problematic perks I would have liked to see here, I think these are some good changes. DMS maybe was the least worthy of a nerf, but I think it's a good change nonetheless. I do think it could be another 5s longer now though. Dissolution is an incredibly unhealthy design so that's a good change, I'd like to see it reworked for a different effect at some point. While not the core of the hex issue, Blood Favour was much more of an issue on higher tier killers (along with the hex builds in general) so I think this is a decent change.
Killer perk reworks:
My impressions of Undone and Shattered Hope's reworks are very positive. I think Undone could possibly contend the meta, or at the very least be a secondary option for certain killers, and Shattered Hope, although not amazing, has quite a decent use outside of just boons now. Bonus points for being a common perk! However, I'm not convinced the Thrill rework will completely fix the unhealthy amount of time hex builds can be up on certain killers. Ironically, it could still be problematic (maybe more so than before?) on killers that are able to get downs very fast, such as Nurse and Blight. I wish we could have just kept Thrill as is, or even revert it's nerf, and just make totem progress regress over time, and perhaps make cleansing a couple seconds longer to compensate.
Killer perk buffs:
My overall impression of the killer perk buffs is very positive, and for the majority of the buffs I have nothing to say because the changes are just straight up good. A lot of these buffs create perks that may contest the meta, almost all of them are at the very least viable, and a lot of them create fun new builds (I love the hilarious Agitation + Ravenous combo). There are a couple that I feel could get even a bit more of a boost, such as Game Afoot (which will still be very niche) didn't get much of a change, I feel a couple more seconds could be added to its duration as well. Monstrous Shrine is surprisingly not that great because the effect ends as soon as the survivor is unhooked, I feel it could have a 10-20s linger. Knock Out also seems surprisingly bad, I think I would rather revert it and simply increase the Hinder by a bit.
However, I do have a couple concerns. With compromised gens being activated on 3 gens at a time, it often practically makes it guaranteed to activate, especially when it's down to 3 gens left unrepaired when it's literally unavoidable for the survivors. I think this should be lowered down to 2 and it would be a nice in-between. On that note, Machine Learning was already decently strong, I worry that putting it back to 10% with this change will make it too much, although I think that can be left for now since we want perks to contest the meta. I'm also a bit concerned with attack cooldown stacking on certain killers such as Clown. Stacking even just STBFL and Dark Arrogance can reduce the cooldown by over 50%, giving survivors almost zero distance especially when hindered by something like a Clown bottle. This could be left for now, but I question if Dark Arrogance having a permanent, unconditional 25% reduction is too much. I'd also like to see Insidious, like I heard someone suggest, become a Lethal Pursuer for Undetectable, staying the same as before while giving +5s of Undetectable (which is a lot less problematic than +2s of aura reading). Although at first I didn't think much of it, as of now the linger effect of Insidious gives on command Undetectable which is extremely unhealthy on certain killers such as Bubba, and also power creeps all other Undetectable perks.
Survivor perk nerfs:
Overall, this was a pretty big miss. The Five Moves Ahead nerf I'm fine with, I think it fits the identity of the perk better anyway and it needed a bit more differentiation from Windows of Opportunity. Self Preservation's nerf I would have understood a bit more if BHVR said that they thought it lasted a bit too long for it's effect or wanted to limit how much Elusive could be used in a match (although I still would think 20-25s is a better spot), but the reason they gave isn't even solved by this nerf. This perk still blocks BBQ and Friends Till the End etc. Plus, is countering perks with perks an issue? There are many killer perks designed to counter exhaustion, and many killers counter so many survivor perks. I don't understand this logic.
Finally there's Shoulder the Burden. I already made a post on this specifically, but not only does this nerf completely obliterate this perk for anyone not in a good SWF and also nerf one of the few decent anti-tunnel perks left, but it also does not even fix the issue of making a 2-1-1-0 hook spread go to 1-1-1-1, dissipating any pressure the killer has at that point from having a survivor dead on hook (who is not being hard tunneled at that point). A much healthier change to make this perk still viable for solo queue while also actually addressing the issue is to make the perk deactivate when 3 different survivors have at least one hook stage and reduce the broken penalty to 60s. That means the penalty is still harsher and more obvious than before, the number of uses is still limited, but it's not deactivated off of your random solo queue teammate bringing the same perk, and it remains mor effective at it's actual use of countering hard tunneling.
Survivor perk reworks:
This one is a mixed bag, probably because there were way more reworks for survivor perks. Sole Survivor's rework is actually great, love that it keeps its identity while also becoming a lot less selfish and encouraging participation. Road Life's rework is great, the perk is actually decently strong now. Some people seem to think it's overpowered somehow, and I honestly think that's because they are looking at the perk in a vacuum rather than in an actual match. While testing this perk, I found myself letting myself get healed by my teammates a lot of the time instead because trying to get Road Life would be much too risky and could throw the game. Even now, I'd still take a medkit with Iri bandages and Sutures (2 heals for free, each about 11-12s) over Road Life in the majority of cases.
Adding aura to Premonition is a great change to get a better idea of where the killer is coming from, but doubling the cooldown kills any chance of this perk being used and actually nerfs it from where it was before. At the very least this cooldown should be reverted to 30s, but I think it could easily be 20s and still not be anywhere close to overtuned. Slippery Meat's rework is pretty good, I'm glad it changes this problematic perk. I do think it could use another 5% haste though, 20% haste for 10s off hook is not the end of the world. Bonus points for making another anti-camp / anti-tunnel perk for new players. Small Game's rework is also a very nice change, however I still found it a bit too difficult to find totems on large maps to justify running this perk over a map with Sharpened Flint. I'd like to see the range increased to 14m or even 16m. Spine Chill's rework is also pretty good, the perk is actually decent now. However, the range should be reduced to something like 24-28m, because right now the perk activates so incredibly early that it goes on cooldown before you even get the chance to use it at the beginning of your chase. I think it would create a healthy competition with Finesse and Resilience.
Borrowed Time's rework should not go through, it is fine as it is. The rework only really has one okayish application and it encourages using anti-tunnel aggressively while also not even guaranteeing value. The reason given for Stake Out's rework makes sense and I support that, but this perk is terrible as is. There are too many conditions for a bonus that you could miss or often are forced to waste on a heal. The 24m limit should be removed so it is based on Terror Radius again, making it more possible to actually get value from and would also make it stronger against stronger killers with large TRs (Blight, Billy, Ghoul, etc). Ideally it also wouldn't apply to heals so you aren't forced to waste your stacks. Finally, revert Windows of Opportunity. The perk was simply popular for comfort, for solo queue, and especially for new players. There are people I know with not too many hours in the game that have literally said they will stop playing the game if this change goes through. This does not affect me, it affects the already terrible new player experience. Plus, I wouldn't even run the new WoO since it not only has a cooldown but is also restricted to windows, I would rather run Finesse, Resilience, or even the new Spine Chill (especially if you reduce its range). Reworking a perk for the sake of it, or simply because it's popular, is a terrible reason.
Survivor perk buffs:
The survivor buffs are positive, I'm just a bit disappointed that I don't think there's anything that will contest the meta at all because so many of the buffs were very small, focused on meme perks/builds, or were pretty much just QoL changes. At the very least, it makes a lot of perks much more usable than they were before. Better Than New got a massive buff which it severely needed, making it a decent option. Boon Illumination's massive buff also at least carves out a spot for it in moving your boons around. There are a lot of other nice little buffs and QoL additions. Chest goblins are eating good so that's nice.
The buffs to Object of Obsession and Do No Harm feel the most like nothing burgers. The 1 extra second and 4% increase on Object of Obsession make practically zero difference on how the perk functions, but I guess that's fine. Do No Harm's change sounds like it might make a difference, but it doesn't. The faster you are healing the less chances for skill checks there are, and even when you get one, even 6% bonus is still worse than a single suture addon on a medkit. I would rather Do No Harm go down to 40%/80% heal speed and have the bonus doubled, and have the skill check chance increase go from 5%/10% to 8%/16%. Although the flat heal speed would be nerfed, it would be a buff overall and would further differentiate it from We'll Make It as BHVR wanted.
With Friendly Competition, did we really need to nerf the duration? The perk went from useless to usable, which is good, but I genuinely don't see why the duration had to be nerfed. Diminished Returns already hits repair speed bonus perks really hard since they are all low percentages. Change the duration back to 120s and it's a good change.
Conclusion:
Overall, I'm glad we got this patch, and I hope BHVR keeps doing patches like these periodically in the future, as it is monumental for the game's health and avoiding stagnation. I just hope that BHVR also takes feedback into account and adjusts / reverts a few of these perks before they go live.
Comments
I'm glad someone else is talking about the Premonition cooldown nerf being bad. All i wanted for ages was just the cooldown to be shorter than 30 seconds. If it goes through to live in this current state i will be very sad and won't use this perk again.
Yeah I mean they labeled it as a rework in the patch notes, but all they effectively did was slightly decrease the range, add a few seconds of aura reading, and then doubled the cooldown. The range change isn't big enough to make a huge difference either way imo, but the 3 seconds of aura reading is not at all worth doubling / adding 30s to the cooldown. The perk already was very niche as is, only useful for alerting you to stealth killers, now it is objectively worse than before. I understand if they don't want to lower the cooldown because they added the aura reading, but I think if we're aiming for people to actually choose to use this perk then putting the cooldown at 20s would be a good way to do that.
Yup, detecting undetectable killers was it's main use, and helped me and I'm sure others in solo q with not alot of info, where stealth killers thrive because there's less comms than swf. I feel they misunderstood the identity of this perk and its sad to see. Its been the same since dbd released lol and they do this. Thanks, im glad more people agree on this change. Hopefully with enough comments and stuff on it they can change it in live. The 30 second cooldown was already brutal.
I may be one of the few people who believe this - but STBFL + Dark arrogance is actually a non-broken combo. Yes it does offer a 52.5% faster recovery - but that is ONLY a single second. Honestly - I'd be in favor or buffing/reworking STBFL to go from 5% for 6/7/8 tokens to 5/6/7% for 8 tokens.
Even then - the cooldown would not honestly change that much (about a 1/4 of a second). If paired Dark Arrogance then that would then be about a 1 second cooldown, but at that point, you are dedicating 2 perks for M1 recovery that could otherwise be used for gen defense or for zoning (IE bamboozle, pain res, pop goes weasel, light borne, etc)
Yeah that single second actually makes a massive difference for some killers.
As @esarraf said, that single second already makes an insane difference on certain killers. STBFL alone is already very powerful at 8 stacks after it got buffed to 5% per stack, but 7%?? We're sat here concerned about 52.5% recovery from two perks combined, how would it possibly be a good idea to make one perk give 56% recovery alone, and with just two perks 68.5%??? With Hinder killers like clown, survivors already barely make any distance at all after getting hit, but even that tiny bit of distance would disappear further.
Thank you for writing such a detailed post, you've raised some really interesting points and for sure will be sharing this with our Design team!
Of course, I'd love to see this patch be an even more positive change for the game, thank you for taking the time to read my [stupidly long] post!
I wanna call out your suggested STB as its the perk im the most passionate about its change being horrible in PTB
I do like the changes you describe but worry that is too restrictive to have perk go away when 3 people have one hook , Maybe everyone on 1 hook then it disables? most users are not using STB until the second hook state,
I regularly use when hook states something like 2-1-1-0 and im one of the 1 hook people because I feel like i can loop better and take chase better then that person who is on hook. its kinda like "you want pressure, you gotta chase me" (very match dependent but can vibe when killer wants the pressure and will go for unhooked)
I always thought best way to change would be if you used STB you cannot be STB by someone else. that way killer is able to get pressure from the person who just used it without the worry of it being shuffled and limits swf use as they wont be able to shuffle second stage hook between everyone anymore.
I also think it fits with theme of perk, we shouldn't be shuffling around the burden if you shoulder it you shoulder it.
I love using this perk to help soloq team mates who are struggling in chase and legit "shoulder their burden" even tho its not a new player perk like windows, Ive been able to use alot in soloq to I feel like match for that person who is not as experienced match feel a lil better,
so for me it goes into bucket of "less ways to help and support struggling / new players" when they have changes they can do that can address the pressure and hook shuffling esspically that can happen in a SWF while not gutting the perk but they went with gutting it.
Fair. I think WOO bandaiding solo q isn't issue of the perk itself. I do understand that if you have no knowledge (where the rng spawned the pallets and what been used) you can literally run into deadzone and die in matter of seconds. But that's issue of the RNG and lack of solo q informations. While I love the comm circle it's still not enough to gap team on comms and solo q, I can see this wheel to be used only for "Damn!" meme. If you play survivor you know that pallets even on indoor maps don't always spawn and while chaining pallets together simply by perk is equally as skillfull as having nowhere to hide or noed, it still causes frustration on the bottom roaster who can't deal with them. I believe that nerf of WOO will have much higher impact on the game than STB or BT rework themselves. Maybe Any Means Neccessary might see some more use as it pimpoints where the chase happens and what pallets been used.
I understand where you're coming from, but the current nerf to StB is way more restrictive than my proposed change, especially because most people do not choose to use StB when they already have a hook since either way someone will be death hook. The only time that's decently common is in coordinated SWFs when they want to take advantage of / make use of a certain teammate's perks. In 2-1-1-0 scenarios, StB is problematic when used to spread all hooks evenly because it is punishing a killer that is not hard tunneling and could need a survivor out at that point in the game.
StB purpose is supposed to be countering tunneling, ideally countering hard tunneling. The current PTB version not only severely weakens the perk by limiting it to one use overall (which also is awful for solo queue, where you have no idea if someone else is bringing the same perk), but also makes the user so incredibly vulnerable that it weakens the effect even more and punishes the survivor for trying to help a teammate who is presumably being tunneled. Ironically, StB can still be used in a 2-1-1-0 scenario to evenly spread all hooks.
In the case of my proposition, StB remains strong being able to be used up to 2 times in a match if one teammate is being very hard tunneled (which is literally it's purpose) while deactivating at a point where either it has caused a significant delay in the tunnel or the killer clearly is not hard tunneling, as they have 2 other survivors with hooks. The punishment also isn't nearly as harsh, although you still will be more obviously vulnerable and need to heal after 60s. But hey, if you're in a scenario where you have 1 hook and a teammate has 2, you can still do what you use StB for then and take chase for the teammate.
I agree that the WoO change will probably have a bigger impact on the game than even StB's change, but I think for different reasons. At high level of play, it might make absolutely no difference since survivors are capable of learning pallet spawns and planning routes, but at lower levels of play I think we'll see kill rates skyrocket. Inexperienced or casual killers don't have to know where every pallet is on the map, they can just focus on running behind the survivor and reacting to where they go next. Inexperienced or casual survivors without WoO will only have what they've been taught from the tutorial to go off of, which is drop the nearest pallet immediately and run with no clear direction. Ironically because of that, FMA won't be a good replacement either because it will immediately be in cooldown as soon as they're chased. An info perk that gives killers aura reading on survivors will be useful no matter the level of play.
Well, rework to maps may become handy in the end.
Maps as a whole need to be balanced better and I think that would help the health of the game, although I'm not sure that would help lost new players much. Most people don't have hundreds or more likely thousands of hours to memorize pallet spawns, so the only thing I can think of to help them with the maps themselves is to make pallet and window spawns extremely consistent, however I feel that that eliminates some of the skill expression in the game while also making the game feel more stagnant.
It's reassuring to know we're being heard, I don't know how this site works that much in terms of what gets sent to the devs so, I hope you've read My replies too on the Premonition perk, thank u, also just assuming if this is the best place for dbd opinions to be heard or not
From my understanding, posts in categories with "Feedback" in the name are the ones that have a chance to be read by the community managers and relayed to the dev team, more so in a PTB Feedback category like this one. If you post it anywhere else there's still a chance Mandy or Balrog will see it and leave a comment, but the Feedback categories are specifically for Feedback you'd like to see in the game.
That being said, I'm not sure how many posts the team reads and obviously they're probably very selective with what they pass on to the devs, and posts in the Feedback categories are just as much community discussions as ones posted in General Discussions. I'm glad to know my post got read though, especially considering it didn't get much traction (which usually is the case for super long posts like this one).