Head On shadow changed? (Good, if so!)
Head On appears to have been shadow changed (or am I going crazy?).
It used to deactivate when the survivor had crows. Feedback I gave on the PTB pointed out that the new AFK crow system would deactivate Head On, even when the survivor player is not AFK and is actively playing to save someone else in chase with a stun. I was worried that the new crows would kill Head On, so of course it was the first thing I tested.
Head On now works with crows (hurray!) and so the perk isn't dead, but I can't tell if I'm going crazy or if I just can't find any mention of this change in the patch notes. Was this a shadow change? I could have sworn Head On used to explicitly read something like "crows deactivate this perk."
Comments
It did have that text, so that's an interesting change.
Although, arguably gaining crows by waiting in a locker for 15 seconds or whatever to use your perk is still not a good look for the perk. It doesn't work very well if the killer can just tell you're in there.
This is one of those "hiding is a core part of survivor gameplay" instances that's been overly targeted by this new system. "Excessive hiding" sure, let's try and do something there. Punishing people for "being sneaky" is too far.
The crows honestly seem more forgiving on live than they were on the PTB, despite the text of the patch notes being (I think?) the same as it was on the PTB notes.
You would need to have dropped chase and hide in the locker near someone else being chased for around 2 minutes before you get a single crow, which I think is a pretty generous time to make a Head On play. I do still sympathize with the sentiment that the system IS overly punishing to stealth play.
The scenario I specifically have in mind is stealthing out a Corrupt Intervention for two minutes, which would give everyone crows. But as a Head On main I think this is honestly a far fairer system than the first iteration we had on the PTB, I just don't understand why the changes appear to be undocumented…
Above is the list I created for the PTB, and so far, it seems like it's still good.
Also, crows were perching on lockers in the PTB.
Crows always perched on the locker if there's someone AFK in one.
Crows aren't literally showing up in only 15 seconds are they?
No. It literally takes 70 seconds for the first crow if the survivor is standing still while not being anywhere near the killer, or 130 seconds if the survivor is moving and/or near the killer.
Okay, I haven't played in a while and was like wth were they thinking lol.
Why would you be in a locker if the killer is nowhere near you? And two minutes is indeed what I said.
No, that's hyperbole on my part.
It's a reference though to the fact that it does only take 10 seconds to start giving you "afk" points toward crows. So unless you work on a gen for a bit (I think 15s), fully finish healing someone, fully boon or break a totem, open a chest, or be chased by the killer, you're basically always considered to be afk until you do one of those things to reset it.
If it is truly 70 seconds for crow 1, as someone mentioned here, then the act of walking and starting an invocation will guaranteed give you at least one crow, since you'd have to finish the invocation, which alone takes 60 of those seconds.
It's listed in the patch notes only as "at 90 seconds you have 3 crows". So, depending on travel time, it could be nearly impossible to finish an invocation without giving your position away for free, which, ironically, could also mean you don't get to finish the spell either.
Unless I'm missing something this sounds like a horrible change.
I don't think invocations are a good argument, considering that they have such a low pick rate (less than 1%), that I honestly don't believe they are important enough to overall the entire AFK Crow mechanic.
In order to get 3 crows while performing an invocation, the survivor would have needed to have been AFK for over 70 seconds while running to the basement, then have started the invocation after that. And if the basement chest hasn't been opened yet, the survivor could have reset their AFK points there. And if the basement has a generator above it, the survivor could have reset their AFK points there too.
Because really, if someone is AFK for over 70 seconds, and then performing an invocation for 60 seconds, then that's over 130 seconds of the survivor not completing an interaction. That's really bad. We shouldn't overall the AFK Crows, just to accommodate that.
No, that's not how this works. Invocations do not count as being AFK, they count as an activity.
See video evidence here.
This is not right. The person who said it's 70 seconds (I think that was you, actually?) is wrong, it's 70 seconds plus the 50 second activity buffer which only starts after the invocation is completed. The invocation itself counts as an activity and counteracts the accumulation of crows (now as to why this isn't clearly stated in the patch notes? that's a different issue, similar to the shadow-changing of Head On).
That being said, if all this were NOT the case, it should be stated that the points you lay out are completely counter to the point of AFK crows. A player doing an invocation is not AFK (as the game currently has correctly implemented) and should not, under any circumstances, accumulate AFK points. Pick rates have absolutely no place in this discussion.
That's good if true, but there's no indication of that anywhere. And unfortunately I can't simply rely on common sense since this system does punish you for other things that are also clearly gameplay.
Every other action requires "completion" of the task (chests, totems, boons, heals, etc). Gens are the only activity that counts for "partial progress", and nowhere that I've seen in any dev comments, posts, or patch notes makes an exception for, or even mentions, invocations.
Right, my mistake. I've had instances where this wasn't the case but I think that was due to connectivity issues, I've edited the post to remove this point.
I tested it today and linked video evidence of the invocation despawning crows in the post you replied to, but I agree that this is the kind of interaction that should be made obvious to players in patch notes (and even on perk tooltips, just like how descriptions of exhaustion and endurance were added to perks that induce those statuses).
You don't even need to finish the invocation, just doing it for a couple seconds is sufficient to not accumulate AFK points.
Yeah just make up something like "conspicuous actions". Although, if "using the perk that BHVR designed and I deliberately equipped" isn't "gameplay" then I think the system really needs some better clarity overall.
Especially since people are getting crows from trying to cleanse thrill/face the darkness combo.
It's simply overtuned, to hilarious levels. Which is why it really isn't obvious without someone like you testing and posting video about invocations.
UGH. I knew I should have checked it. The PTB closed before I could check it, and then the Live custom games were bugged yesterday where the AFK crow feature was broken (regardless if the checkmark was checked).
I checked in live, and yes, somewhere between 12 and 15 seconds of an invocation removes crows. I updated the list.
That is incorrect. Healing a survivor for around 12 seconds removes all crows. And being in a chase removes crows before the chase is completed.
And I updated the invocation rule, to my forum post, a few minutes ago. Currently, doing an invocation, somewhere between 12 and 15 seconds, removes all crows. So invocations really aren't an issue.
And the patch notes aren't comprehensive. I had to test the AFK crows myself, and as far as I know, there aren't any other forum posts, Reddit posts, or Twitter posts, that made a list similar to the list I posted on the forums.