Hex: Ruin: The Problem, and How to Fix It
Hex: Ruin (Currently)
A Hex that affects the Survivors' skills at repairing generators. All survivors are affected by Ruin which causes the following:
Good Skill Checks result in a 3/4/5% regression on the generator.
Great Skill Checks result in 0% progress bonus to the generator.
The Hex effect persists as long as the related Hex Totem is standing.
The perk, in its current state, is supposed to solve the problem of Survivors gen rushing through the early game. Ruin gives Survivors an alternate option to doing gens: looking for and cleansing Ruin. This, in theory, slows down the game enough for killers like Trapper and Hag to set up before too many generators are done.
The problem with Ruin is that it is both frustrating to play against and frustrating to use. Sometimes it will waste a lot of survivor time, and sometimes it will be cleansed almost immediately upon starting the game. As a Survivor, it can be annoying to have to deal with Ruin because it happened to spawn in a very good position that can be easily defended or is well-hidden, and as a Killer it can be very frustrating to have to rely on something so RNG-heavy to slow down the game.
Being a Hag perk, it's in the frustrating design position where it seemingly needs to be a Hex in order to fit with the Hag's theme. Ruin is also in the perilous position of being nearly essential to have on certain Killers, and so changing it could lead to many of them becoming much less viable. My proposal is to keep Ruin as a Hex-related perk and to keep its game slowdown ability, but to remove as much RNG as possible.
My proposal: ruin
Your Totems are warded with a powerful effect that slows Survivor repairs.
Survivors start the game with a 10/7.5/5% increase to repair speed. For each Dull or Hex Totem remaining on the map, gain a token.
Survivors get a 5% repair speed penalty for each token.
This lets Ruin continue to be both a Hex-themed perk and an early game slowdown perk, while offering a considerable amount of counter-play and interactivity. Survivor teams who can cleanse every Totem on the map are rewarded with an increase in repair speed, but at the cost of their valuable early game time, which can be taken advantage of by Killers to set up or snowball. This is also less RNG-reliant, as survivors only need to find and cleanse 4 of the 5 totems to completely negate Ruin's effect, and cleansing the final totem rewards them with an increase to repair speeds.
I believe this change is positive for both Killers looking to slow down the game and Survivors looking to actually play it. The numbers could be tweaked with testing but in general I think the concept is good. I'd love to hear opinions on this proposition.
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