The main reason for perks being underpowered, and how to fix it.
I think it's pretty clear that the reason for developers making ######### perks is because they stack, which could easily break the game. That's especially noticeable on the killer side, where perks like Surge, Dying Light or Huntress Lullaby are purposefully made garbage, as to not break the game when stacked. On the survivor side this problem is non existent, since Exhaustion perks are the only perks that could be problematic, and they have the exhaustion effect, so it's ok (with the exception of Adrenaline, since it ignores exhaustion).Either way, I'll focus on the Killer side here, since that's the one Im most familiar with.
My idea for a solution to this problem is simple. Make perks that slow the game down a perk category of it's own, and make it so you can only equip one at a time.
I hear you say: "But that will reduce build diversity and make the game bland !"
My response is that it'll do the exact opposite, assuming that developers handle it well and buff the majority of the slowdown perks, so that they can work on their own on an acceptable level. Imagine seeing Fire Up (since I think i'd be a nice exception within the slowdown perks, with it drawing power from the gens, rather than slowing them, assuming it's buffed to a viable point obviously), Overcharge or even huntress lullaby and moreover, these perks DOING SOMETHING ON THEIR OWN ! (or at all in Lullaby's and Fire up's case) It'd be great. Currently you either feel like your perks do nothing to slow the game down or you stack'em up like a mad lad and make survivor's fun go to hell (Playing against a legion with Thanathophobia, Ruin and PGTW is the worst thing in the world), if developers could balance this well, it'd breathe a new life into killer's loadouts, making them unique and way more diversed.
The issue that would rise is that killers would only realistically have 3 perk slots to play around with, since 1 would always be dedicated to slowing the game down (which is basicaly the case already lol), but since gen speed won't get addressed, like ever, I think it's a reasonable price to pay for a more balanced, fun and first and foremost VARIED experience on both sides. I won't get into the details like presenting certain perks, after they would've been buffed to work in the new system, since balance is touchy and it's the developers who would be making decisions anyway.
Let me know your thoughts and hopefully we can get into a healthy discussion ^_^
Comments
I remember an idea about having a Totem slot. I'm not sure how I feel about having extra perk slots that you can only use X perks in. I'd rather see a fundamental change from the Devs that can be either worked into every killers base kit (such as buffing kick damage/regression) or changing how objectives are completed. While I think a lot of these ideas are good, they're only band-aid solutions to a larger problem.
I know that very well (about the last sentence), but as I said, I think we can give up the idea of developers adding an additional objective or fixing the core design problems in any other way, so that's the best I could come up with that would make the game a lot healthier while also requireing a moderately smallish ammount of work and resources put in it.