Major Addon, Item and Overall progression rework.
First off I want to start by saying that I've never like the idea of Killer's or Survivor's SOMETIMES being way stronger than other times, and that there should be some baseline powerlevel that they can consistently have no problem which is then balanced around. It's ok to have a bit of a progression requirement to get to that point but I've never like the idea of something being balanced around the idea of "oh this one thing is super strong but can only be used in one match so it's fine".
Thus addons and items throw the game completely out of balance, since you can't balance around 4 Survivors with items and 4 Survivors without items at the same time, let alone basekit Killers vs Killers with their best addons and Survivors with their best addons on those items and also Mori's because why not.
Since it's impractical to expect high level addons to only be used against opponents using those same addons, balance is not maintained and no matter what everything is thrown out of whack.
Thus the primary change is this:
Make all items and addons not consumables. You always keep them after every match no matter what so long as you got them from the bloodweb (not chest items). Offerings stay the same as they don't generally provide a major benefit and just alter the games RNG instead although Mori's should be completely removed.
The bloodweb would be altered to be MUCH smaller per web compared to now, however besides offerings all prices would be significantly increased to compensate.
As for the specific addon and item effects they would be altered so higher rarity means the effects are more extreme but with a drawback of some sort. Higher rarity means bigger effect and a bigger drawback.
Now to list out what I'd specifically suggest for each item/addon:
Medkits
- Camping Aid Kit - Moderately increases healing speed. Unlocks the self heal option (24 charges)
Note: This means self heal speed is increased too.
- First Aid Kit - Considerably increases the speed you heal others. Unlocks the self heal option (24 charges)
- Emergency Med-Kit - Slightly increases the speed you heal others. Unlocks the self heal option. (32 charges)
- Ranger Med-Kit - Tremendously increase the speed you heal others. Moderately increases Skill Check success zones. Moderately increases Skill Check bonus zones. (32 charges)
Note: No self heal option with the Ranger's medkit.
Addons
- Rubber Gloves - Moderately decreases the Healing Skill Check difficulty. Moderately increases the Skill Check bonus zones.
- Butterfly Tape - Slightly increases the Healing speed
- Bandages - Adds 8 charges to the Med-Kit
- Sponge - You don't get skill checks while healing. Overrides other addons.
- Self Adherent Wrap - Moderately increase healing efficiency when healing another Survivor and slightly increase healing speed when healing another Survivor. (not yourself)
- Needle & Thread - Moderately increase the chance to trigger a skill check. Moderately reduces skill check success zones.
- Medical Scissors - Moderately increase Healing speed. Decrease med-kit charges by 8.
- Gauze Roll - Add 12 charges to the Medkit. Slightly reduce healing speed.
- Surgical Suture - Considerably increase the chance to trigger a skill check. Considerably reduces skill check success zones.
- Gel Dressings - Add 16 charges to the Medkit. Moderately reduce healing speed.
- Abdominal Dressing - Considerably increases the healing speed. Decrease med-kit charges by 12.
- Styptic Agent - Using the secondary action button will cause you to consume this addon as well as 16 medkit charges and gain Endurance for 8 seconds during which time you glow (the visual effect when you are hit with endurance but the entire time). If you are hit during this time you will gain 20 seconds of the Deep Wounds status effect. Overrides normal healing with the medkit until used.
- Anti-Haemorrhagic Syringe - Using the secondary action button will consume this medkit and automatically heal the target up to 1 health state at the normal healing rate. This requires 32 charges to use and overrides normally healing with the medkit.
Toolboxes
- Worn Out Tools - Moderately increases repair speed. Slightly decreases Skill Check odds. Unlocks the Sabotage action (20 charges)
- Toolbox - Moderately increases repair speed. Unlocks the Sabotage Action (24 charges)
- Mechanics Toolbox - Considerably increases repair speed. Considerably decreases Sabotage speed. Unlocks the Sabotage action. You cannot hit great skill checks. (16 charges)
- Commodious Toolbox - Slightly increases repair speed. Unlocks the Sabotage action. (32 charges)
- Engineers Toolbox - Moderately increases repair speed. Slightly increases repair speed further if the generator is less than 50% complete. (16 charges)
- Alex's Toolbox - Slightly increases repair speed. Tremendously increases Sabotage speed. Sabotaging consumes half as many charges as usual. Unlocks the Sabotage action. (24 charges)
Note: Sabotaging consumes 2 charges per second except on alex's toolbox where it consumes 1.
Addons
- Spring Clamp - Moderately decreases the repair Skill Check difficulty. Moderately increases the Skill Check bonus zones.
- Scraps - Adds 5 charges to the Toolbox
- Clean Rag - Slightly increases the Toolbox's repair speed
- Wire Spool - Adds 10 charges to the Toolbox. Slightly decreases the Toolbox's repair speed
- Socket Swivels - Moderately increases the Toolbox repair speed. Remove 5 charges from the Toolbox
- Protective Gloves - Moderately increases the chances to trigger a sabotage Skill Check. Moderately increases sabotage Skill Check success zones. Considerably reduces the sabotage Skill Check failed penalty
- Instructions - Moderately increases the Toolbox's Sabotage efficiency
- Grip Wrench - Moderately increase the chance to trigger a repair skill check. Moderately reduces repair skill check success zones.
- Cutting Wire - Sabotaging a hook does not produce an audio cue
- Hacksaw - Moderately increases Sabotage Speed
- Brand New Part - remove 10 charges from the Toolbox. When you start to repair a generator with a Toolbox consume this addon. You will repair the generator by 15% over 10 seconds. During that time you will receive 2 difficult skill checks. Hitting each Skill Check will result in 5 % progression each for a maximum of 25 % added progression.
Flashlights
- Flashlight - You may blind the Killer. (8 charges)
- Sport Flashlight - You may blind the Killer. Slightly reduces blindness duration and blinding speed.(12 charges)
- Utility Flashlight - You may blind the Killer. Moderately increases blindness duration and blinding speed. Slightly decrease blinding range. (6 charges)
Addons
- Wide Lens - Moderately increases the Flashlight Beam's width
- Power Bulb - Slightly increases the Blindness duration
- Leather Grip - Slightly increases the Flashlight Beam's range
- Battery - Adds 2 charges to the Flashlight
- Focus Lens - Slightly increase Blinding speed
- TIR Optic - Moderately increases the Blindness duration. Reduces Flashlight charges by 2
- Rubber Grip - Moderately increases the Flashlight Beam's range. Slightly decreases Blindness duration
- Low Amp Filament - The Killer does not see the Light beam (he may still be blinded by it). The Flashlight activation sound is muffled
- Heavy Duty Battery - Adds 4 charges to the Flashlight. Slightly decrease Blinding speed
- Long Life Battery - Adds 6 seconds of use to a standard Flashlight. Moderately decrease Blinding speed.
- Intense Halogen - Considerably increases the Blindness duration. Reduces Flashlight charges by 4
- High-End Sapphire Lens - Moderately increase Blinding speed. Moderately reduces the Flashlight Beam's range
- Odd Bulb - Each time you successfully blind the Killer slightly increase the Blinding duration of future blinds. Slightly decreases the initial Blinding duration.
Maps
- Detailed Map - Start with 1 Generator and 1 Exit gate Marked. Unlocks ability to track Generators, Hooks and Exit gates within a range of 16 meters. (20 charges)
- Rainbow map - Start with 3 random items marked. Unlocks ability to track Generators, Hooks and Exit gates within a range of 8 meters. (40 charges)
Addons
- Map Addendum - Start with 2 additional random items marked
- Yellow Wire - The map also tracks items in range of other Survivors
- Unusual Stamp - Increases the map range by 8 meters
- Retardant Jelly - Gain 5 additional charges
- Red Twine - Unlocks the ability to track Killer Belongings
- Glass Bead - Unlocks the Marker Ability on secondary action creating a marker that can be seen by all the Survivors.
- Odd Stamp - Increases the map range by 12 meters and reduces it's charges by 4
- Black Silk Cord - Unlocks the ability to track the hatch
- Crystal Bead - Every Survivor sees the Aura generated by the map when the owner activates it. Decreases map range by 50% and the map starts with 1 less item tracked.
Keys
- Broken Key - Reveals your aura to Survivors within 32 meters. (30 charges)
- Dull Key - Reveals Survivor auras within 32 meters (30 charges)
- Skeleton Key - Reveals the Killers aura within 24 meters (20 charges)
Addons
- Prayer Rope - Adds 10 charges to the Key
- Scratched Pearl - Increase the range by 4 meters
- Prayer Beads - Adds 15 charges to the key. Reduces the range by 4 meters.
- Eroded Token - You may channel the key while preforming other actions.
- Gold Token - Revealing a players aura also reveals any auras they can see. Does not reveal the Killers innate aura vision of generators and totems.
- Weaved Ring - Decreases channel time by 0.5 seconds
- Blood Amber - Revealing a players aura also reveals other player aura's within 8 meters of them.
- Unique Wedding Ring - You may see the obsessions Aura during the entire trial. Decreases your odds of being the obsession. Reduces the keys range by 8 meters.
- Milky Glass - You may open a closed hatch. Makes the Key brightly glow at all times. Shatters if you are ever downed, destroying the addon. Removes 10 charges from the key.
Comments
tRAPPER
Wraith
Hillbilly
Nurse
Shape
Hag
Doctor
Huntress
Cannibal
Nightmare
PIG
CLOWN
SPIRIT
LEGION
PLAGUE
GHOSTFACE
DEMOGORGON
TLDR: Make Addons and Items permanent like perks rather than consumables like offerings. Rework all items and addons with this in mind. Specific reworks are listed one by one.
Why did you leave Amanda's Secret the same? :(
Cuz it has plenty of drawbacks to counterbalance the upside it has.
It's weaker than an ultra rare should be but for the most part I'm trying to make the addons the level of current yellow rarity addons so that isn't a problem here.
Yes there are some exceptions to that. But in the majority of cases the yellow addons feel the most balanced.
Oh wait you said Amanda's secret not Amanda's letter.
But same deal. Bad for it's rarity but fine in general if you are ignoring rarity which is the whole point of the rework
It's, like, arguably the single worst add-on in the entire game. I would actively avoid it in the Bloodweb if it were a common.
Na. It has it's purpose. Doesn't show you were people are after they take off the traps? That's useful if you have a built that cares about it.
Plus not being able to see where the box's are isn't that big of a problem in the long run since you can just memorize where they are as you patrol.
It's a gimmik, which means it's the best kind of addon. It's not making you better but it is making you different.
How about this.
If you could change it in accordance with the function of this post how would you do it?
If they are across the map, having the aura and notification doesn't accomplish much because they have time to throw you off after the aura wears off, and you are wasting time going across the map to get them in the first place. If they are close, you probably would not have needed the aura because you would have just known to check if you could see the box. The upside of seeing one person's aura at a random point not of your choosing is both pretty negligible and a worse upside than just knowing from the very start where the Boxes are.
It's basically Bitter Murmur but way worse because at least Bitter Murmur doesn't erase generator auras and at least Bitter Murmur can potentially reveal multiple auras at once (and will reveal everyone near the end of the game).
It is not making you better. It is actually making you worse.
I would scrap it completely and make a new add-on from scratch because I'm not sure there is a way to effectively balance it as an Uncommon.
You could make it like ToTH where the notification is at the start taking the hat off instead of the end.
I've thought about that, but that creates an unfortunate potential where someone can just wait until the fourth notification to catch the person at the last box and just make sure they never get a chance to properly search it. Even with the inability to see the box auras, promoting Box Blocking is not a very good idea IMO. It's the same reason why I am against Amanda's Letter removing two boxes (because you have a 50/50 shot of being able to do that instead of a 25% chance).
That's a big part of why I want the traps to come off after a fixed number of box searches depending on the total number of boxes rather than based off RNG.
But even ignoring that it's the equivalent of just camping them to death. If your plan is to camp the box then just skip a step and camp the hook. At least there you might have randoms foolishly going for a save.
Also also, while it doesn't prevent it being unable to see the box aura's does make the strategy much less likely to work, since you will often not be close enough to the box in the first place in order to reach it before they've searched it.
And in the worse case scenario we can just give the perk additional downsides to compensate for or prevent the strategy.
I personally don't like the idea of a fix number of boxes because it kinda just makes the traps less interesting because they would likely set the number lower than what is currently the default (four at most), which means that the Traps would NEVER go off instead of "not very often." Yes, the traps are stalling tools first, but they still need to be killing tools second in my opinion (even if they are a distant second).
The difference between camping the box and camping the hook is that you can absolutely 100% foolproof guarantee that they can't get the trap off by just standing in front of the box so they can't search it, while Survivors can theoretically coordinate freeing the Survivor from the hook.
The thing is that once they have failed searching three boxes, you already have a general idea of where the fourth box probably is based on how the boxes tend to be spread out. From there, it is mainly about hanging around that general area and dealing with people who also happen to be in that area until that fourth noise notification goes off. Assuming you haven't botched it up then, you can probably get to that last Survivor and pretty much seal their fate.
Maybe I am wrong, but I am not convinced that it is possible to thread the line between "garbage" and "problematic". The way I see it, if you're going to take away the box auras completely, there needs to be a sizeable upside for it. Auras for a few seconds don't cut it by a long shot, and notifications at the start are too problematic IMO. I personally think you'd have to either find a completely different payoff or just start over from scratch.
BTW, I do apologize for derailing this thread into Pig discussion. I know you had WAAAAAY more ideas than just one simple add-on change.
Well the obvious solution is bigger numbers.
That tends to solve most of these sorts of problems.
6 seconds won't help you.
Forever is obviously OP AF.
Thus there is some time between 6 seconds and unlimited which is balanced.
Btw I'm going to update the Nurse section to use the new addons as a base once her addon rework is implemented
I have done so
Any other feedback?
OMG gimme those key changes <3
Thanks!
What do you think of everything else?
I understand the logic you're working with, but I think it would have the opposite effect you're seeking. I think the game is would become much more unbalanced if you just always had add-ons. The best balancing factor is the fact that addons are these fleeting edges of power that you have to acquire on a regular basis and manage when you think it is worth using. The fact they are transient also gives more design room to try out new things. Like Add-ons that alter how a killer players for a single game is great boon. It makes certain builds objectively top seed, but still rare enough that it doesn't throw the entire game in the trash.
Take, bodyblocker Hag for instance. Objectively, that's one of the best builds in the game. Having collision on phantasms is such a huge boon that it changes the way both killers and survivors respond in the game. Always being able to choose to have that in some for or fashion would start to very much outstrip doing other things. Also, in terms of scale you're asking for a monumental overhaul of the game that would take multiple years of work. It just doesn't seem feasible.
You have posed a very interesting take on how the game could have potentially been though. Which may have made things better off in the long run.
Body blocker Hag is not a straight upgrade from normal Hag. She has weaknesses that the normal Hag doesn't, most important of which is that her map pressure is much worse due to the fact that her Traps don't do anything if she isn't already there.
This puts Body blocker Hag on a similar level strength wise to the normal Hag.
Regardless though the point is that Rarity ISN'T a balancing method. Things like Mori's, Key's, iridescent hatchets ect are unbalanced regardless of how many games they appear in.
And while it's not nearly as obvious, even things like Cold Dirt and basic Toolboxes are unbalanced as well, not because the effects are super broken like the ones I listed a second ago are, but because they exist in a game which is balanced around them NOT existing.
a team of 4 Survivors running toolboxes or medkits requires stronger Killers to beat than a team of Survivors with nothing. And vice versa for Killers with their best addons vs Killers with brown or no addons.
So long as this is the case balance is impossible, no matter how many changes we make to curb extreme examples. Because it's not just the extremes that cause these imbalances but even little numbers changes from medium tier addons can require a Killer to be bad at basekit and then let the addons boost them back up.
None of this would be an issue if addons weren't consumable. Killers would just always bring their best addons to counter the tools that Survivors are also always bringing, but just doing that without any other changes would obviously break the game. Hence... the entirety of this thread defining those other changes.
But regarding feasibility: Most (but not all) of the changes here are to numbers. For example with the Doctor addons the only new thing that needs to be implemented would be the mode changes taking variable amounts of time. The rest is just swapping around existing effects.
And you mention this would take years? I agree, it probably would. So here's how you could implement this gradually:
Each item on this list is intended to be roughly equivalent to an exiting combo of a yellow item + 2 brown addons. For Killers it's 2 yellow addons with a few exceptions depending on the strength of the Killer's basekit. Since brown addon usage is sustainable this part wouldn't throw off the games balance
Cold Dirt has next to no effect after having been gutted. Like pretty much every Legion addon.
Could we not achieve the same level of balance by increasing the killer basekit and removing their addons altogether and have the killer's bloodweb be mainly perks and new offerings? Also why increase the prices of things? The game doesn't have an economy between players so changing the price still keeps the grind. Which is the whole point is to lessen the grind why add any extra inhibitors.
Cold Dirt was my example specifically because it's effect isn't very large. Even a small effect like that can throw things off balance when it's absence is what's used as the baseline, either because it becomes required or subtly overpowered (the former in this case)
We could remove addons entirely, but then we would lose any potential benefit we could have gotten from them, and we'd need to do the same for items not from chests (which to be fair would make chests far more important). This would be identity V's approach so it could definitely work. I just think we can do better than that.
And the reason why we would increase prices of stuff is because there is less stuff to get. Currently the majority of each bloodweb is items and addons. But if only one of each item/addon can appear per prestige then that won't carry you for 50 bloodwebs and you'd quickly end up with only offerings and perks.
While I'd love to also add more offerings along side this (and have a separate post on that) it wouldn't be very good for the bloodweb. So we'd need to have each web be much smaller to ensure that the addons can be spread out throughout the entire thing. So thus to ensure that it still takes time to complete the bloodweb the prices of everything but offerings would need to go up to ensure that the total cost of a bloodweb stays about the same.
1st off, if you removed moris, you also have to remove keys, and toolboxes because they both allow survivors to complete their objective quicker. Enjoy off, you seriously nerfed legion, again?
I reworked keys here and toolboxes don't have quite as big of an impact.
They do have a big impact don't get me wrong, but it's such that we can balance it to be equivalent to other items and Killer addons (unlike Keys which required more drastic changes)
And what do you mean I nerfed Legion?
If you plan to remove one item which allows one side to complete the objective faster, the SAME must be applied to the other side.
Also you nerfed his add-ons and literally made most of them useless. (Duration/Gauge refill)
(Legion main)
Like I said, this includes a Key's rework. You don't need to tell me to remove them as we have them right now because I already did that on my own.
If anything you should be bugging me about not removing the Mori's because this thread doesn't cover that.
As for his addons... that's kinda the entire point of the thread. Make all addons for Killers the equivalent of most Yellow addons (with some addons being disproportionately weak or strong for their rarity being kept as is) and have rarity effect magnitude rather than strength with downsides to accomplish this. The end goal being that this allows us to make the addons not consumable and thus they can be used indefinitely as a form of customization rather than for a power boost.
So for Legion that means you can use Mischief List to get the existing Yellow duration addons effect. You can increase the duration further of course, but doing so means you can't use Frenzy as often to compensate.
But you need to understand that for this to work most items and addons needed to be nerfed. Not just legions.
Having the option to use the current iridescent button every game would make him broken. This is still a problem even now since the addon instead just makes him SOMETIMES broken.
Now there were a lot of addons to change with this so I'm sure you could fine addons that are still OP/UP with this in mind. But remember that the goal is to make most Killer addons to be equivalent to the strength of their yellow addons. So addons like Cold Dirt or Stolen Sketchbook must be nerfed.
The exception is Spirit who's addons are balanced to be the equivalent of their brown addons in terms of power for the most part due to her power only working within a narrow range of values. The addons that don't deal with her ability to catch you in a chase can be a bit stronger due to not effecting those values in the first place (such as fathers glasses or the passive phasing addons).
I'll edit this with the toolbox rework in mind once it comes out.
Has now been updated with the toolbox rework and doctor rework in mind
This must have taken ages to do. Mad respect for the effort 👍️
It did. This is my longest post considering it took 3 posts just to fit the OP in.