Windows Of Opportunity and Five Moves Ahead Changes
The nerf to Windows of Opportunity is a change made for no good reason. The perk was never overpowered; it is being changed simply because it is widely used. This change will primarily impact new players, and the way it was announced is misleading: even when combining it with Five Moves Ahead, you cannot achieve the original effect. Both perks have cooldowns that disable aura reading, and the reason people chose Windows over Five Moves Ahead was precisely the constant aura reading, that is the difference between the perks, there's no thing as saying that they do the same thing.
Ideally, these changes should be reverted, as they only disadvantage beginner survivors and solo Q; Windows has always been a comfort perk rather than a game-changing one requiring such a massive nerf. If you are determined to keep these changes, you should at least modify both perks so that the aura-reading component doesn't go on cooldown alongside the faster vaulting and pallet-dropping effects; that way, the claim made in the patch notes—that the old effect is still achievable—would actually be true.
Comments
WoO isn't a new player perk. It is one of the most used perks across MMR bands. It pretty much removes thinking while in chase for veteran players. The perk deserves the nerf it is getting.
I'd actually argue Windows remains a new-player perk with this change. With it equipped, new players will be able to learn map spawns through tiles, since MOST** jungle gyms which may be confusing spawn with windows + pallets. For example, Suffocation Pit will still be much more manageable with Windows equipped, as a window doesn't break, despawn, or move in any way, unlike pallets. Five Moves Ahead remains the "upgraded" veteran-friendly perk, granting information as and when needed (at the start of a chase, so you know where to run to) and showing you the location of deplete-able resources. Pallets can be dropped, can be broken, can be reset and even rebuilt; better players in solo queue will get much more value out of it by knowing the immediate safety spawns. The cooldown on Windows could maybe be tied just to the vault speed bonus (or have it be removed entirely, alongside the vault bonus) to stick with it being a new player perk, but overall I think it'll do the job of removing a lot of the reliance that survivor players have on that perk. It's very frustrating facing someone who's obviously just using Windows to think for them, and being unable to really do anything about it because pallet density pre-dropping renders your killer worthless, like clown, ghostface, legion, etc.
Ironically, the survivors who are already highly skilled are the ones who benefit the least from this perk. Experienced and competitive teams are already communicating which pallets have been used, so they don't really need the additional information.
The perk's real value has always been for the players who struggle more: solo queue survivors, newer players, and those still learning the game. In other words, it was helping exactly the group of players who needed that extra assistance the most.
Because of that, I don't think the Devs should look at its high pick rate and assume that something went wrong with the balance. If anything, the popularity of this perk demonstrates that it was addressing a genuine problem within DBD. It helped reduce one of the game's oldest issues: the huge difference in the learning curve between killers and survivors. Its high usage is much more a sign of how useful it was for the players who needed it than evidence that the perk was inherently too strong.
If this was the case, the perk wouldn't have high usage in high mmr. It does have high usage in MMR. Knowing where resources are in chase is huge and something that veteran players will utilize far better than new players. The perk deserves it nerf, because it needs to be bought down so we can hopefully have a more diverse perk meta.
A perk that can't be counters and gave you value all game got nerfed while a perk that can be countered and can only be used in situational events or gutted. Windows vs disso. Windows is fine but disso got gutted for no reason.
If we're talking about high-MMR usage, why weren't other perks like Pain Resonance, which has a nearly 30% pick rate and was recently revealed as the most-used Killer perk across all regions, or other regression perks, affected by these changes? This nerf was just an arbitrary, mandatory decision on their part; you know that WoO doesn't impact matches anywhere near the extent that other perks do. You can't even really tell if a Survivor has Windows of Opportunity equipped until the post-game screen because it doesn't directly impact the Killer's gameplay, there's a huge difference between finding resources and knowing how to use them.
Because you're comparing apples to oranges here. Plus it is unfair to say that Pain Res didn't get nerfed at all. Dead Man's Switch got a heavy nerf that removes the synergy between the two perks.
Pain Res has seen several nerfs over the years and one of the reasons it is still used today is that killers do not have many good options for gen regression. You would see that in the killer perk updates the devs are buffing other options for gen regression.
Meanwhile WoO completely crowds out design space for aura reading of windows and pallets because it's always on.
The point of this update is for a meta shakeup. In order for WoO to be substituted with other options, it needs to do less. In order for killers to substitute pain res with other options, there needs to be better alternatives. And with the removal of working with Dead Man's there will be reason to consider other options.
Ah, I see, now I understand which side of the argument you're on. The point is, they nerfed both perks while promising the effect could still be achieved, yet it can't be. I suggested that the aura reading shouldn't deactivate during the cooldown; that way, they could keep the changes while forcing anyone who wants the old effect to waste two perk slots. Regarding freeing up space for other perks, they had already done exactly that with Five Moves Ahead; the perks were similar, but FMA offered an extra benefit alongside the downside of the cooldown, making it the choice for some players, especially veterans, over WoO. But now, WoO will be essentially useless, because a 10% vault speed boost is negligible when paired with a 30-second cooldown, it’s unlikely to trigger at a crucial moment. That’s why keeping the aura reading active at all times would be the way to give the perk some real value.
I'd much prefer my solo queue teammates to bring Five Moves Ahead rather than Windows. It's always been a much better perk anyway.
The perk must be nerfed. Now or later, it doesn't matter. It's same as nowhere to hide, braindead "follow aura" with no real reward-type interaction.
If they nerf windows I'm never touching this game again. The devs clearly don't play their own game, or at least they don't play survivor. Solo queue is already too frustrating and killer-sided for them to be nerfing ######### like this for no good reason.