I'm happy haste/hindered don't stack anymore and I think it can make for more fun/stronger perks.
I just don't feel like enough perks were changed in the current PTB. Hindered perks weren't touched at all (I mean really, should Knockout only be 5% when other hindered effects won't stack AND it cannot proc if the pallet is broken?)
Overall, I'm happy with the direction but I feel a distinct lack of execution.
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First of all, Dark Theory at any higher than 3% is an utterly ridiculously overpowered idea. I'm not even going to argue further with you in that vein. 3% speed boost for survivors in an area is insanely powerful and it's exactly where I would have put it after removing haste stacking. Any more than that and it 100% becomes meta. You WILL see four of them every match.
Second, while yes it does remove synergy, it does so with the intention (key word intention, it requires accurate execution) that the perks will be able to stand on their own merits, as haste builds for both Survivor and Killer were gimmicks at best. Removing gimmick synergy that doesn't help you win much in the first place, in order to create more enjoyable perks on their own merits, is absolutely the right direction.
There is a fundamental difference from a design standpoint between perks synergizing and perks requiring each other to even have a viable function. I'm totally fine with "haste builds" not being a thing. I'm excited about making builds centered around a single strong haste perk as the keystone of the build.
Situations where survivors are faster than the killer are an actual gameplay problem.
Those are not actual problems. Those are perceived issues, things that conflict with your beliefs of how the game should be designed. They exist in your head. They are completely different from a gameplay problem.
You're also leaving out the problems that don't affect you personally. Haste stacking created a lot of problems for the developers. 1. It's a balancing nightmare, making sure the haste perks that overlap don't become too strong. 2. It forces the developers to keep haste perks weaker. 3. It limits what new perks the developers can create.
Your statement "it creates SO MANY more problems" is not backed up by the information you've provided. You're putting your desires onto a pedestal claiming they're just as important as the game functioning. The game is designed around killers being faster than survivors, that's a part of the core gameplay and it's more important than desires like build diversity.
I'm not saying this is a good change or a bad change, just that you are attempting to force it to look bad with a faulty argument.
Edit: My apologies if this comes off as harsh. It's just kind of frustrating to be reading a post where it peaks my interest because the person says 'it creates more problems' and then the post doesn't deliver.
So let us get it straight.
Killers stacking haste was not a problem. At the same time. This change is horrible and this is a worrying approach of balance.
Am I right to assume that there was a problem on survivor side then and this change is meant to address it?
The way I see it - there will be no more steroid or hedgehog running around, neither for survivors and nor for killer. I'd say both sides will have to adapt here, as well as some perks will require changes but overall this looks like a fair improvement.
I think it's necessary to talk about what we want to see in the game. It's just inaccurate to say fixing this one problem created multiple new problems when the things you listed aren't problems. The way they chose to fix the problem conflicts with a part of the game you enjoy. That would be the accurate statement. You feel DbD's design philosophy is hurt by the way they've chosen to handle haste/hindered.
I'd have less issue with it if it at least didn't include killer abilities and addons not stacking as well. That kills a ton of perks on most the killer roster.
Very well said. I appreciate your understanding of the game.
I do believe this change will help better dead by daylight's future with both health of the overall game and creativity of new fun perks in our foreseeable future.
You know, my Teamwork: Power of Two and Blood Pact build is gone, and I don't see anything funnier than this :((
I was trying to keep my explanation broad so it could be applied in other situations/discussions. That seems to be falling flat.
You are talking about two different areas of game design as if they are the same thing.
Something like the speed of the characters is a function, it's part of the game's mechanics. Mechanics are concrete elements. When mechanics break, the game breaks. A core part of the game's design is that killers are faster than survivors and will catch up to them in a chase. If killers can't catch survivors, there's no game.
You stated ""Haste perks can create a situation where the survivor is faster than the killer". And this change makes it a non problem." That's a statement of a mechanical problem.
Synergy and build diversity are concepts. They go towards fostering a feeling of player agency. Keeping players happy is important but it's very different from keeping a game functioning.
When saying that fixing a mechanical problem created three new problems, the implication is that it created three new mechanical problems. What you listed weren't mechanical problems. The "problem" is that the change the devs made impinges on your feeling of player agency.
You wrote it like it's a numbers game, like what the devs did is bad because it addressed one problem but created three new ones, but it's not a numbers game, the things you're comparing aren't directly comparable in that way. Also, build diversity and synergy are two sides of the same coin: synergy is what's used to craft builds, and being able to craft different builds is the definition of build diversity. Splitting those up artificially lengthens your list. That wouldn't matter so much if you hadn't emphasized the increased number of problems, but you very much did: "it creates SO MANY more problems."
To reinforce what I said previously, there is nothing wrong with you stating your opinion. It's the manner in which you stated it; it creates an inaccurate picture.
In case it somehow matters… Personally, I'm of the opinion that this change is less about devs fixing a current mechanical problem and more about them unshackling themselves: haste/hindered stacking is a balancing nightmare, and it limits what new perks and add-ons the devs can design in the future. (I include zero haste perks in my current builds. From my POV, the current haste perks and builds are uninteresting, but maybe with the devs free of their current limitations they'll be able to design something I find interesting in the future.) I am interested to know why the devs chose this method (getting rid of stacking) instead of introducing a hard cap: there's no way both ideas weren't tossed around, so there must be a reason why this was the decision they went with, especially when it's probably more work intensive to implement this change (which requires buffing each perk individually to compensate) over a global cap.