The NOED notification bug should be a feature
A little while back, NOED was bugged in that it would tell you it was in play as soon as it activated instead of on an m1 hit. Now, through its iterations I have become more and more okay with NOED, with my only consistently major gripe being scenarios where the killer can camp a hook next to the hexed totem. However, recently I realized that I was mostly just okay with it because I've been playing since 2021, and current NOED is still miles better than old NOED (and of course, I wasn't even around for the oldest versions of NOED). But that doesn't mean the perk is automatically healthy or fair.
There is literally not a single other perk like NOED in the entirety of the game. People talk about DS being a second chance perk, THIS is a second chance perk. There is not a single perk in the entire game that you can win an unwinnable game simply by equipping this one perk. It rewards you with one of the most powerful effects in the game for losing all the generators. It would be like if a survivor perk rewarded you for being last alive by creating a boon somewhere on the map that has an increasing radius where the killer sees its aura, and until the killer snuffs the boon the survivor can resurrect dead teammates and the entire team has 5% haste or something. It rewards bad players for losing.
There is counterplay obviously, it is a hex after all. However, the aura starts out very small, and you are not notified of its existence until someone has already fallen victim to it, leading to many times where, by the time you've actually gotten the chance to find the totem, the killer has either hooked someone near it and are camping them in an impossible scenario, or has begun or succeeded at snowballing the game. It often feels completely undeserved, as the killer was losing the game yet got kills simply for equipping a singular perk.
The NOED bugged notification should come back. It would inform the person running the killer of how they should play from that moment forth, and it would give survivors a better chance to actually cleanse the totem before a snowball and before the killer can hook someone near the totem. The perk would still have the chance for huge value, but survivors would actually have a better chance for counterplay.
Comments
This bug was a gift to the devs that they didn't accept. It was the rework this perk needs in order to be fairish. Everyone I know said the same thing when it was happening: this is how the perk should work.
I personally don't run that perk but it's consider to be comeback tool and if it's revealed before you can pursue someone then it won't serve it's purpose. It's fine the way it is. Now it reveals the aura and it's good enough.
Why wouldn't it serve its purpose? If you're in chase with someone when last gen pops, suddenly you get 5% haste and instadowns, that's still a really strong endgame perk. It also requires the survivors to delay leaving to find your totem if they want to save, meaning that, on average, you're going to get a good amount of time to follow up and swing the game back. That doesn't require it to be a secret.
The only reason it's not more hated than it is, is because it has been in the game for so long that experienced players can play around it, it's not that common, and - anecdotally - most players running it aren't very good.
No doubt mostly killers who don't do well have it equipped yet devour hope works the same. I mean that change would make already not so good perk even worse. Personally if I should equip endgame perk over noed (I run no way out quite often) I'd chose Terminus instead. Also NOEd isn't that much of an issue as it has straight counter, perks like Rancor gives away it's presence much sooner but in the end you can't do anything about it other than leaving and not even saying you can run it with obsession changing perks. Game afoot + rancor allows 2ks to killer who was afk for whole game.
Every time I used NOED, it's cleansed before even I manage to get a hit, so literally no value, this should be fixed. I think many people overestimate how strong the perk is, in current state without actually using it themselves.
This bug could stay but NOED a shouldn't show the aura of the totem to the survivors in radius, at least keeping the radius only 4 meters. The aura with an increasing radius is balanced around that it only appears for survivors after the notification but it appears instantly.
Rancor is a completely different perk. Rancor is not inherent to how NOED works and most people who run it do not run it with Rancor. I'm not sure how a completely different perk having a giveaway is somehow a reason NOED isn't an issue. I mentioned in the OP that it has a straight counter, yes, and then also followed up by how the perk is problematic despite this because before the survivors can even attempt to cleanse the totem the killer could already be snowballing the entire game. Also, you CAN play around Rancor because it makes its presence known. When I am the obsession and have Rancor I play brazenly because I know I won't be able to do anything in end game. Even if it's Game Afoot, the killer would have to injure you first to make you the Obsession, so unless you're staying injured in end game you'll have chances.
The thing is, NOED is most impactful when the killer is losing the hardest. When the killer is terrible but suddenly gets a 4% speed boost and can now insta down survivors, who wouldn't be able to get a down or two? The perk inherently rewards bad players the most. It doesn't matter if the survivors played incredibly well the entire match and destroyed the killer, one unlucky hit (again, it's not just insta down but haste as well) or one unlucky totem spawn can screw over an entire survivor team that had been crushing the killer. The survivors are not losing to the killer's skill. They're losing to a perk and possibly totem RNG.
Devour Hope also does not work the same. Devour Hope can be cleansed before it becomes an issue. Devour Hope also requires the killer to actually get at least 3 hooks and play around their perk by getting far enough away for stacks. Even when it is activated, the haste the killer receives is not permanent. Devour Hope rewards a player for hooking survivors with a chance to snowball. NOED rewards a player for losing with a chance to snowball. One rewards good plays, one rewards bad plays.
There is no warning with NOED. There is no chance to cleanse NOED until it's already been revealed unless you get insanely lucky. The counterplay is "well now that the game you thought you won is being destroyed by a perk, if you cleanse this totem you at least have a chance to recover." Despite BHVR updating this perk a few times throughout the last decade, the perk still feels extremely dated and unhealthy. If this perk wasn't so old and not too popular and instead was released today, people would riot. Otherwise, where is my resurrection boon?
It's a Hex totem, every one of them inherently run the risk of being cleansed early. The same thing happens with perks like Ruin, the survivor gets on a gen, checks for Ruin, sees it's Ruin, goes around and cleanses the Hex. Sometimes, because Ruin and many other totems (usually the strongest ones) light up at the start of the trial, Survivors accidentally find the Hex early and cleanse it.
Funnily enough, NOED runs less of this risk than most Hex perks. Yes a Survivor could still technically accidentally find NOED, but the chances are much lower. At this stage in the game, survivors will not be searching around the map for generators or totems, they'll be heading in a straight line toward the exit gate. They'll be covering a lot less ground than they were at the beginning or throughout the generator portion of the trial. In addition, what reason do they have to be looking around for NOED? They could run past the same totem that later becomes a Hex totem throughout the game once, twice, thrice, always a dull totem. I should note that the totem's aura doesn't begin until after someone has already been screwed over by NOED as well.
The thing is, I run NOED. I don't run it by itself in every build I make like some people, but I do enjoy an endgame build every now and then. And it is unhealthy. Over the years, more and more perks have come in to assist NOED, it's not necessarily just a standalone thing. No Way Out is often paired with NOED, trapping the survivors in to practically guarantee you value. Silent Shadow makes you a permanently undetectable 119% movement speed instadown killer. This isn't even accounting for the fact that haste, despite DR, can still very much be stacked. You don't even have to go all in, you just need one addon. I often run Foxy's Hook on Springtrap, and now I am essentiall a 126% movement speed killer, I have no TR or red stain, I will one shot you, and you're stuck in here with me. Every game I have run with this build, even if I had a lot of hooks by endgame I would purposely leave all the survivors alive because I knew I'd probably win the game anyway, and in the games where I struggled before all gens were done I would often end up snowballing and winning the game anyway as well.
You don't need to run other perks, it just shows how stupid NOED can be. In fact, running no No Way Out or Silent Shadow can have the advantage of being a lot less suspect and much more of a surprise. I wouldn't be completely opposed to reducing the range of the aura, but I still think for such a powerful effect the maximum radius should be at least 12-16m.
Personally, don't like this, same reasoning as within QoL thread regarding perk revealing themselves.
As of now, there is a counter play for it in the form of getting rid of totems before noed pops. Not optimal, I know, you won't go out of your way to cleanse totems to prevent a perk that might not even be there.
However, there are two, technically three indirect tells as well. First one, if you deduce all 4 of killer perks before endgame. This would naturally eliminate noed as a possibility because well duh.
Second, how the killer will behave once endgame hits. A Demo suddenly discarding his shred even when opportunity is present is a big tell. Doesn't work for all killers though.
Lastly, just play endgame assuming killer has noed right away. I mean, why won't you? It's endgame, resources are no longer to be saved, but to be used to save yourself.
I dislike current showcase of any perk effect, to me it feels like playing poker but some player reveals their card for no reason, though I understand why it's done for some Hexes (not all hexes though)