What do you guys think of Diminishing Returns?
As above, what do you think of Diminishing Returns?
Personally, for the most part I dislike it. There are so many perk synergies / combos that got nerfed and became unviable / a waste of perk slots, a lot of which really didn't need nerfing. Like if I want to waste all my perk slots on getting blazing fast heals with no chase/second chance/gen perks then damnit let me do that! The only thing I think Diminishing Returns was needed for was Haste stacking, because on both sides it was insane to go against a 140% killer or a 111% survivor.
That's just my opinion though, what do you think?
Comments
I think it was mostly a bad and lazy idea so far. They have too many perks to juggle and don't want to think about their applications and end up with accidental busted synergies so they just did this. But it didn't touch the most meta perks on either side. Survivor is still a blend of SB/Lithe, Vigil, Windows, DH, DS, and the occasional Stakeout/Hyperfocus and killer is almost all gen blockers and regress with maybe an aura thrown in. Not sure why they wanted to further narrow the meta. I also think it's stupid there's nothing in the game explaining to you your specific build is diminished. I see people running diminished builds all the time and they probably have no idea.
And the fact that it nerfed Babysitter is so dumb.
I haven’t played the game in a few months but does this affect healing builds? For example, if I wanted to bring We’ll Make It, Botany Knowledge, Do No Harm and Empathic Connection would I no longer do a really fast heal? I’m a little lost on what diminishing returns actually does.
Edit: I re-read your main post and realised you did mention heals. So I guess my medic build is dead in the water?
What has been nerfed with Babysitter? I use that perk quite a lot as it seems to really help a lot in solo queue when the killer decides to proxy camp / tunnel.
With the ever increasing amount of Perks and synergies it is kind of inevitable that diminshing returns would have to be implemented unfortunantley. You can still find synergies or Perks that activate at different times, (one at a time) especially on Killer side.
It's an easy way to tone down the stacking. I've grown okay with it and instead of stacking for one particular aspect of the game you can make better rounded builds.
This is the issue. The game doesn't explain it to you at all in-game. But yeah, your build is nerfed. Things that apply percentages like healing speed, gen speed, and haste or hinderd are reduced in value with each subsequent perk added to the build.
The haste in Babysitter clashes with the basekit haste off hook.
Awful. If they don't want perks synergising with other perks stop creating perks that are deemed "too strong" warranting a diminishing effect when paired with other perks.
So many fun unique builds absolutely gutted because of it.
Well that seems like an oversight in regards to Babysitter. It’s a shame I won’t be able to run my full medic build anymore. It could be a godsend in solo queue when teammates were being hard slugged.
terrible all it did was affect gen regression
It's had basically zero observable effect for the most part, but that's fine, it's only meant to be a safety net to begin with.
I think people don't really properly think through the situation when they claim it's gutted builds and synergies, because the fact of the matter is there's a gigantic breadth of depth and nuance for build crafting that doesn't even touch the Diminishing Returns system, and on top of that, once you start looking at combos that are affected, a lot of them are still completely fine.
Basically the only things it HAS affected to a noticeable degree are the gimmick builds where every perk does the same thing, like the all-healing-speed builds. In those scenarios, it heightened what was already true: that's kind of a waste of perk slots and a real medic build (or equivalent) would do a lot better.
Even there, though, it's not like the current end result isn't a fast heal, or equivalent for other variants.
So far, the big problem with Diminishing Returns is that the game should really tell you in the loadout screen when you'll be affected, and the small problem is that we've yet to see any of the potential buffs this system makes much safer to attempt. Pretty minor issues all told, though obviously I'd like to see them fixed.
I was initially excited and thought it showed promise. But their failure to follow-up, or even communicate transparently about follow-up's, means the DR update just gave us the bill but never gave us the food. We get all the downsides of its sloppy implementation destroying build variety but none of the upsides of it creating a more balanced environment. If it did anything it would create an environment in which less intense scrutiny needs to be applied to designing and releasing things.
At this point, we haven't even sniffed a whiff of DR doing something even neutral for the game. As a result of that I've come to just think of DR as a pre-built excuse for poor balancing and decisions to be justified.
I genuinely think they meant well, but after seeing some choices being made I've come to suspect it's all a shell game. Jason by example has basekit haste bringing him 4.4 to 4.6 that can be indefinitely maintained. Why do that? It would actually be easier to code him as 4.6 and be done with it. I suspect (emphasis on suspect) they did this so Jason cannot meaningfully stack haste. They pre-emptively gave him a mild 'good thing' in order to mitigate the possibility of future stackings of haste via DR application. It's indirect design that gives them plausible deniability if people don't like it (think as in how they handled the cake situation.)
Do I personally care? Not really. But I do find it concerning if that is going to be the primary application of DR in the future, as an extended, double-mobius reach-around version of design.
It does seem so but it's been mentioned plenty of times and they haven't done anything, and it's a simple values changes. That, or they could make the off-hook protections their own status effect (like Bloodlust) instead of two normal ones.
Healing was probably hit the hardest. After that it was mostly haste. Team gen perks like Prove Thyself also are reduced if the other person has something like Deja Vu or Resilience because it also works against teammates' builds.
I was using Dying Light and Thano on Plague but that got nerfed so I switched Dying to Pain Res. Because the game really needed more Pain Res.
I swear it seems as though they are pushing us to Pain Res. Hate that perk so much but increasingly feeling like it's being pushed into requirement territory.
In certain cases it's a positive, haste stacking was obnoxious for both roles, but in most cases it just feels unnecessary
I remember when "Forever Freddy" was a thing. Since they couldn't make you NOT equip multiple slowdowns, they just gutted the parts thereby making said parts do basically nothing by themselves. If DR can prevent another case of THAT, im all for it.
For working against teammates' perks specifically, I personally think that isn't all that big of a deal unless we're in the territory of hyper minmaxing coordinated 4-mans, which I think it's safe to say usually isn't the assumption lol
To showcase why I'll use the example of bringing Leader, and focus on the healing speed. If I bring Leader into a game, I expect to be healed by other survivors 30% faster.
If I'm healed by someone with Botany Knowledge, the DR system kicks in, but we're both still getting more than we expected. I expected to be healed 30% faster, but I'm being healed 65% faster instead. They expected to heal me 50% faster, and got a 15% increase unexpectedly.
This part of the system I'd argue is completely fine. It goes for the example you gave, too- one survivor has Prove Thyself and expects you to repair 10% faster because of it, and you have Deja Vu so you expect to repair 6% faster. Both of you get an increase from your expected numbers to 13%.
Comparing it to before, sure, that's a downgrade, but it's still an upgrade from what you meaningfully expected going in to a match.
The problem is if I knew someone had Deja Vu I wouldn't bring Prove Thyself. Nothing can make me bring a situationally nerfed perk. The fact is that the number it says on the menu and the number you end up with are two different numbers and that's downright deceptive. It feels like they installed this in a way that only a small percentage of players would notice it and understand it and it's otherwise a shadow nerf to builds for regular, casual players who don't obsess over every change in this game.
And, as usual, this is something a knowledgable SWF can avoid and solo can't.
Right, but the number you end up with is HIGHER than the number on the menu, so I would definitely argue it doesn't actually matter.
If you knew, sure, but you usually don't and just get gifted a random higher number than you expected. It's not something you'd choose if you're actively minmaxing with another person, but that's not normally the case.
As implemented I think it is trash that reduces build diversity with little to no actual benefit. It doesn't affect the what is considered the most problematic builds: the genrush builds.
I'd much rather they addressed individual perks rather than a terrible blanket mechanic. It looks like job justification to me. "Look we did something big," when it's nothing-burger.
It turned out #########, because they did not buff all affected effects accordingly and in relation to their previous strength.
Missed opportunity.
It doesn't affect me too much. You just have to not be a one-trick-pony to play around it.
I run Do No Harm and Desperate Measures. Do No Harm is already strong on its own, but I run Desperate Measures for the unhook and self-healing speed, which aren't affected by the Dimishing Returns. My other two perks are Soul Guard for slug counter and Kindred for info.
my main thing is that it’s sitting badly because it’s the first iteration, so of course it has flaws, but there seriously hasn’t been a balance patch since then. my second thing is that i think it’s way too punishing to the point of just diminishing fun builds entirely.
i think the numbers should absolutely be tuned, instead of the current: 1st - 100%, 2nd - 50%, 3rd - 25%, 4th - 12.5%, 5th+ - 5% |||| it should be this instead: 1st - 100%, 2nd - 80%, 3rd - 60%, 4th - 40%, 5th+ - 20%.
but at the same time, for all i know, perks could just be being affected way too heavily so they may just need individual buffs (not like they haven’t needed them anyway).
horrible feature that should’ve been delayed. they should’ve dropped diminishing returns when they were ready to buff perks that would without a doubt be affected by the system. they tried doing this last year with the haste stacking removal which was a half-assed update and barely buffed the haste perks that needed to be stacked in order to get decent value.
it doesn’t take months of stats and waiting to collect data to know that Better Than New, batteries included, overcharge, game afoot, power of two, flow state and many more perks would be affected negatively by Diminishing Returns. those types of perks should’ve been buffed immediately when the system came.
i pray that the community stream tomorrow mentions Diminishing Returns and the dev’s next step with balancing the system. because as it is right now, it’s done way more harm than good to the longevity of the game.
It unecessarily hurts weaker builds like dedicated healing builds on survivor or haste builds on killer while the strong perks remain mostly unaffected. This ends up causing people run the same meta build that are not impacted by it (DMS, Pain res, Info, Lethal, ect for killer, and Windows/Five moves ahead, Exhaustion, Vigil, Resurgence, ect for survivor) and diminishes build variety.
It also unnecessarily limits the perks you can use on certain killers. Clown can't use haste or hinder perks without them or his power being ruined, and any other killer with haste built into their kit is screwed over by the changes by just cutting out an entire category of perk that they can't use effectively anymore. Honestly, its baffling that killer powers are affected by diminishing returns at all.
I know it will never happen, but I hope it gets reverted, or at very least they make killer powers not impacted by it and buff the perks affected by the changes.
Horrible change that damaged build variety under the pretense of future balance changes that are going to take years to arrive, assuming they even do at all.
I like the part where they added diminishing returns in an effort to be able to start making changes to other perks that they have been worried about in terms of stacking, giving us a PTB for that on April 7th and then spend almost 4 months at this point not making any changes to any of these perks as a result of the changes to diminishing returns. Leaving us just nerfing already bad perks without any changes actually happening. While also impacting low tier killers like clown and somehow making them even worse. While killers like nurse and blight can still do whatever they want (i'm a nurse main btw)
Changing how harsh the effects are would help. I would go even further and say that different things like Haste, Hindered or Vault Speed, should all have their own category of Diminishing Returns and have different rates. For example, Haste or gen speed can be more severe but fun stuff like Skill Checks or Vault Speed could have a more gradual start to how much they diminish.
Regarding the posts main question. I hate Diminishing Returns. As mentioned by others all it did was kill build variety but left the meta as is so basically all I see is meta now.
it hurt creative build on both sides and only hurt killers strong build while not really touching survivors strong builds.
Diminishing Returns reminds me of the Orela Rose PTB where they wanted to remove Haste stacking, said they'd adjust perks that relied on stacking, adjusted 4 survivor perks and 2 killer perks that weren't reliant/popular in stack builds, then reverted the removal when it went live.
Feels like they learned nothing from that.
I share the dissapointment. It made so many off meta perks and builds so weak that you kind off don't ever want to run them. You have one of least used perk "duty of care" that gives 25 % speed boost if you take hit for someone who's tunneled? Well if they have at least 0.1s remaining of BT they won't get the full value anyway. They keep releasing killers with high lethality or massive game stale potential yet if you run prove and deja vu or overzelaous and deja vu, you are diminished and I really hoped that this will be step to make perks good on their own without stacking them to crazy value. But it's been out for some time and nothing really changed. I expected the call of brine to be tuned to 200 %, baterries included to be increased to 7 %. Imagine one of worst perk ever "no one left behind" also having it's benefits halfed because of base game. My favourite build - help wanted, save the best for last, tinkerer and machine learning. Which led to occasional 60s fun combo. Now all those perks are diminished and I haven't seen anyone played them since then. I still believe that perks on either side shouldn't be diminished from base game - vault perks on some killers fe., haste perks on others, same on survivor side. Let's diminish the perk themselves but why would you want to lose 2.5 % of battery included just for playing Clown? Why would you run vault builds ever again? Or haste? Or meme builds? Super dissapointed.
The key difference between killers and survivors, is that survivors have no basekit powers - they need to use perks to get special benefits. Killer add-ons often also feature status effects like vault speed or haste - survivors do no have any items that give these kinds of effects (apart from Blighted Serum med-kit).
Kinda bad so far? But I'm waiting to see how it'll improve perk balance in the future. It honestly kind of sucks because you can't do fun silly stuff like running ultra-giga pickup Myers anymore and I'm the kinda person who likesto combo perks together and the new system just kills the fun of it.
I kind of feel about them the way I did when they were announced. Its annoying more than game changing. It was a massively heavy handed and overly complex way to address a few builds were mixing perks could get values to points that the game broke down, and in return if you think of putting two healing perks together and its like 'oh, right, that sucks now'.
I think people are more upset at the concept than the actual results.