jesterkind
jesterkind
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@RpTheHotrod said:
I'd rather them just nerf aura reading all together. That being said, interesting ideas except I don't think speed needs to go up, especially gen repair. Gens already go WAY too fast. We don't need them going faster than they already are. Frankly, I'd simply just make spinechill light up any time your aura is read. That's it. You just know that you're in danger. That alone is incredibly powerful, as in it also helps you know what aura reading perks the killer is using. He kick a gen and your spinechill lights up? He's using nowhere to hide. You're healing and get lit up? Nurses calling AND the killer is near. Etc...
I think most of the speed increases would be pretty benign here, the major potential problem is gen repair. Even then, six percent isn't that much, I think it could at least stay for a PTB testing period.
Aura reading also doesn't need a nerf overall, it'd just be neat to have more choices for answering it.
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@AmpersandUnderscore said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3833678#Comment_3833678
Distortion and what, shadow step? Lockers?
Because we were told incessantly this was to "help survivors by removing the permanent hiding play style" yet that will still exist with those tools. That argument is bs, but now the argument is "well you can still hide if you want to". Pick one.
The reason I brought up those perks and why this helps camping and tunneling is that the killer can basically choose to not engage in chase with anyone else and deny distortion stacks now, while easily eating through existing stacks. That's a choice that killers can make, so some certainly will. You seem to not be understanding that part.
And I'll post this again: The punch line though, is that anything that can be used to camp or tunnel better will absolutely be used by some players for that purpose.
I'll happily pick one: You can still hide if you want to. It's only hypocrisy if the person you're talking to has themselves said both things.
If that even is hypocrisy, anyway. It kinda seems like you could easily hold both of those positions at once without it being contradictory.
As to the rest of your point, you seem to have a bigger problem with camping than aura reading. Sure, killers can choose to make very little use of aura perks by camping, but your initial take was that the aura reading improved the camping, which it really doesn't. It's kind of a "one or the other" situation, you can't be making consistent use of aura perks if you're sticking in one spot and only occasionally even activating them.
Assuming BBQ specifically since it's kind of the only one that applies here, you get a flash of where everyone is at the time you get the hook, which tells you nothing about who's coming for the save, when they're coming, or where they're approaching from. If you can't get that, how exactly is it improving your camping?
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@Anti051 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3833660#Comment_3833660
The blocker will continue to body block with DH as a backup and DS to follow up after you remove collision from OTR, so not taking the bait would be to not chase either the blocker or their protection target anymore and go chase someone off a generator, right? Then you're back to chasing one healthy survivor while the others take their place at the generator.
They will attempt to bodyblock with DH/DS as a backup, but you're not chasing them. You're chasing the person they're trying to protect, because that survivor is as far away as you can get with a protection hit, which may take them to the next loop but certainly isn't far enough to warrant dropping chase entirely.
The "bait" is the bodyblocking survivor. Ignore them, and you're not taking the bait.
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@AmpersandUnderscore said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3833638#Comment_3833638
You partially answered your own question: BBQ does this basically natively. But also weave attunement, zanshin tactics, darkness revealed and probably a couple more I can't think of could also provide information while staying at the hook.
The punch line though, is that anything that can be used to camp or tunnel better will absolutely be used by some players for that purpose.
Right, but the stipulation is that the killer would know how the survivors are approaching, which BBQ doesn't do unless the survivors are approaching from 40 metres away within 5 seconds.
For the others, Weave is getting changed soon and would be really inconsistent for this purpose, Zanshin only applies for a few seconds after a pallet drop, and while Darkness Revealed at least functions in a way where it could do this, it's bad for any purpose, including this one.
None of these perks really can be used to camp, that's my point. It's not that they're better at other things, it's that they flat out don't do this thing at all.
Also, y'know, Distortion and a few other tools still work against them other way.
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@Anti051 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3833643#Comment_3833643
Alright so you don't take that chase and instead chase one off a generator, then the others take their place at the generator and continue repair while you're back in the same scenario of chasing one healthy survivor, and the plan is to repeat the OTR intervention process until the gens are complete.
Protection hits will give you enough distance to get a pallet or window.
You can disagree, but that's where perks like Bond and Empathy come into play, letting you know exactly where to go or making it a lot easier to find people. And if knockout is being used more frequently, then why not just equip a perk that scrubs the problem aspect of having no clue where to look?
Eh? What do you mean chase someone off a generator?
You're already in a chase in this scenario, right? How can the unhooked survivor be bodyblocking if there's nobody to bodyblock for?
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I like it, I think that's a version of the perk that'd occupy a much healthier niche while still being genuinely useful. In fact, it's a version of the perk I could legitimately see myself using.
My condolences for your thread getting derailed, lol
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@Anti051 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3833626#Comment_3833626
What do you mean take the bait? You're being blocked by someone with OTR/DH/DS which is preventing the next hook.
As for the relevance check, examples like what I've illustrated are the reason more killers are switching to a knockdown playstyle.
Also worth mentioning that being forced off a gen by knockout to find a teammate isn't unhealthy, it's a form of slowdown that's just unliked for redirecting agency. Endurance from certain perks, on the other hand, is pretty unhealthy because it allows you to play badly, free of consequence.
The bait is chasing that survivor. You hit them once to remove collision and then you continue the chase you were already in.
Protection hits aren't nothing, but they don't give that much distance, and chances are the survivor wants you to actually play into their full suite of perks so they'll keep following you in the hopes you'll start chasing them. Just refuse to take that bait and you're totally fine.
Also, hard disagree on being forced to hunt for a slug being healthy, it really isn't. Coming off generators to pick someone up could be considered healthy slowdown, but not when it comes with hunting around blindly for a slug you have no idea where to look for. Knock Out, specifically, makes this situation unhealthy where it wouldn't be otherwise.
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@AmpersandUnderscore said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3833617#Comment_3833617
The power creep on aura perks has been steadily increasing over several years now. Distortion was likely the only thing holding them back, so there will probably be a number of changes and nerfs needed to aura reading. The game isn't designed for the killer to know where survivors are at all times.
While I appreciate that your instinct is that this will help the killer spread pressure (it might for some players) that's certainly not the play style we see dominate in the actual game.
What is also certain to happen is that killers know they can burn through tokens and continue tunneling one person while knowing where everyone else is. They can camp the hook knowing where everyone is and how they will probably approach for rescue.
A new excuse for camping and tunneling is now "but I'm just playing around distortion by not allowing their tokens to recharge". Not that those people need an excuse, but some people will justify anything.
…What perks are they going to use while camping the hook like that? I can't think of any that'd work in this context, the only ones they're likely to have at all are things like BBQ, Alien Instinct, and Friends Til The End, none of which allow them to camp and know where everyone is.
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@Anti051 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3833609#Comment_3833609
The third is only occupied for the pickup, then straight back to the generator if it isn't already completed during the extra time created by the OTR intervention, in which case they fully heal the downed blocker and proceed to repair another generator. I definitely wouldn't call it a throw. The same process of intervention with OTR and DH can be repeated in cyclic fashion unless the killer does not play for hooks.
Right, so you've got two survivors occupied by default, then a third occupied to finish a pickup and do a heal.
Compared to the alternative, which is that all three survivors are just doing generators from the start.
All the killer has to do is not take the bait and the survivors are absolutely throwing, they're just doing generators slower for no real benefit because they're not even denying hooks.
Worth mentioning none of this is relevant to Knock Out, btw, that perk is unhealthy either way.
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@Anti051 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3833591#Comment_3833591
It isn't just insta-saving, they will seek you out immediately after unhook with plenty of time to get value out of OTR and DH right after. If you wait out the DH, they just DS. If you leave them knocked down, they just get picked up in short order. You continue after the person they blocked for and have nothing to show for it while 2 other survivors were repairing the whole time.
A complete abuse of things that are meant to combat "tunneling."
Why would a killer player choose to open up the opportunity for something so bogus and frustrating by hooking, when they could avoid such poorly implemented perks by playing for knockdowns instead?
I guess if that happens to you a lot, I can see the frustration. I can confidently say it's never happened to me and the only time anyone tries to abuse anti-tunnel is when I'm already near the hook, though.
It is worth mentioning that the survivors are throwing here, though. You do have something to show for it- you have two survivors occupied, then a third occupied to pick up the person who tried to bodyblock if they force a down. I get that doesn't change it being annoying, but it does warrant saying.
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@Anti051 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3832955#Comment_3832955
Yes you do have to put up with many players using 'Off The Record' to body block for a teammate, backed up by 'Dead Hard,' and if they still go down then 'Decisive Strike' gives them a free escape that they honestly didn't deserve. Even if you catch and hook a completely different survivor, 'Decisive Strike' from a previously hooked survivor will still punish you even though you didn't tunnel, completely screwing you out of tons of time that you don't have.
When stuff like that starts to happen regularly, hooking becomes about as attractive as a screen door on a space station.
That's my point, though, you only have to deal with that kind of thing in the very specific scenario of survivors insta-saving so that the hooked teammate can bodyblock. Otherwise, to be at risk of hitting into OTR or DS, the survivor has to not touch a generator for up to a minute while you're off doing something else.
Does that really happen that often? Occasionally I have to ignore a survivor trying to bodyblock, but it's hardly that common.
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@ĐĔĀṬĤ said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3832926#Comment_3832926
I haven't seen a Skull Merchant since her second rework which is a loooong time ago.
I saw a few of her old iteration, not often but it did happen occasionally. I wish I saw more, honestly, she was pretty fun to face just by default.
Funnily, I've seen exactly one person in my games playing Skull Merchant since her latest set of changes… and it was literally Pixel Bush. The one guy still playing Merchant…
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@Anti051 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3832821#Comment_3832821
Hooking means you'll have to put up with a lot more endurance and nothing is more frustrating for a killer than an invincible survivor.
As a 10k hour killer player and Ghostface specialist, I'd rather lose to good teamwork than lose because my hit didn't count, and if that can't be understood then idk what to tell the folks complaining.
Do you actually have to put up with Endurance if you hook, though?
If we're reasonable and assume the killer isn't tunnelling, that means we're necessarily narrowing the situation down by two separate, noteworthy steps;
- The survivor is actually trying to get in the killer's face with said Endurance, AND,
- The survivors were bombing the hook to insta-save, since you're still by the hook to even be in range of someone trying to bodyblock you.
I certainly get that those situations are annoying, but are they really so common that you'd forgo a major component of core gameplay and give up on all the benefits that come with it to avoid them?
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Holding a 3-gen is something that any killer can benefit from if they know what they're doing, and separately, there's a bizarre number of people who think that Skull Merchant still excels at doing so above other killers even before her latest update kneecapping her.
I'd be surprised to see someone still trying it these days too, though. Frankly, I'd be surprised to see a Skull Merchant at all, and if I did I'd expect them to be doing something more fundamentally effective.
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@MissClove said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3832129#Comment_3832129
I strongly disagree.
There's not much I can say there without you elaborating, I'm afraid.
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I disagree, I think it's overall much healthier for the game for aura reading to be strong. It's better for everyone if the killer and survivors are actually interacting, instead of the killer camping a hook/throwing by patrolling gens or the survivors hiding for the whole match and playing super immersed.
As long as no individual aura reading perk on either side is too good (and two are right now, I fully support nerfing them) and as long as there are ways for defending against it (either by outright blocking the aura, making the aura give you information too, or by making the resulting chase less favourable for your opponent), there really isn't a problem there.
Aura reading just promotes interaction. There are ways around it if you want to play stealthy, and there are ways of tipping that interaction in your favour as well. Plenty of give and take on both sides here.
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@caipt said:
if NTH is to be tied to the gen, it should have a range increase.
I'm not so sure. That perk already has a range of 24 metres, that's pretty gigantic for just trying to ferret out survivors crouching near gens.
A small increase won't really affect its usefulness, and a large increase would just make it way too powerful, at least imo.
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Alien Instinct is kind of just not very good and I'd love to see it tweaked a little, but I'd say hypothetically the killers who'd use it best are the ones who can approach from odd angles?
For most killers, if you see the hook notification and become Oblivious, you know what direction they're coming from- they're at the hook, they're walking towards you. So, killers who have a teleport would probably be the best users, because they could be coming from any direction?
That's just spitballing, though, I haven't tested it or anything.
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@buggybug said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3831481#Comment_3831481
I understand and I respect your opinion. Let me ask this for fun, lets say all aura add ons is gone and all aura killer perks only gets 4 uses( the pain res treatment.)
I make a statement your aura reading perks are still good just not 24/7 free anymore how would that make you think or feel?
I'd disagree with that, certainly. That wouldn't be appropriate.
It also wouldn't be appropriate to add a token system to, say, Exhaustion perks, or something like Botany Knowledge. Nerfing perks isn't always appropriate, and the end result wouldn't always be okay. Distortion is fine after the change it received, the other perks you or I mentioned wouldn't be if they received comparable changes.
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@buggybug said:
Why am I sensing a fear that because no one wanna use the now worthless distortion, its making people fear that the aura rampage perks and adds on may get hit next for gutting. I mean at least now its one less meta that killers complain about survivor meta.
Its as if strangely now people wants survivors to use distortion to not let that fear of my aura perks and add ons gonna be nerfed, but no dont fall for this fellow survivors dont run trashtortion so that we can try get all these aura read perks and add ons trashed. We need to continue threads to nerf them just like the 1 mil nerf distortion threads .
Man, that's some really conspiratorial thinking, I don't think that's healthy.
People aren't out here conniving to stop nerfs to their side by lying about something. I just sincerely think Distortion is still pretty good.
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@Spare_Them_Mori_Me said:
I'm not wanting to argue if the nerf was warranted, etc. I'd like to discuss this here, and only for perspective understanding reasons.
To clarify: Not only do I understand that, I've been arguing from that perspective this entire time.
Distortion does need to be better than OTR at aura blocking because that's all it does.
To say the former statement and then followed up by the latter, this is why I don't believe you really understand, or perhaps misunderstand? All in respect, mind you. <3
I feel Jester doesn't understand the point that, since Distortion ONLY blocks auras, it should do so in a way that outshines the other perks that block auras 'as a side note'. Currently, it doesn't.Distortion isn't outshining any other perk of the ones you listed as viable. This is my own opinion. I feel Distortion is competing with them on equal terms, and that is not good, and is not alright. Again, Distortion needs to be the best choice for aura blocking if aura blocking is all you care about in a perk. This is not me saying it needs to be old Distortion, it is me saying current iteration has not worked for me personally, and does not perform better than the alternatives, but more equally. So I cannot agree with your niche scenarios and even viable alternatives, and this is okay! Old Distortion
I'd like to get your thoughts on the following, because it might help myself understand your viewpoint better.
In a [insert whatever number you feel worthy] sample size of games where OtR and Distortion are used in the exact same game, would you agree there will be times when OtR aura blocking outshines Distortion if used in the same instance?
If yes, how big of a discrepancy? If no, uhh.. well, we might have a new topic later lol.
My guess is you agree there would be times. It's the ratio I'm curious about. I believe it would be close to 60/40 to 40/60 range, with both perks competing pretty neck and neck. This is if we assume full duration of OtR, which we know doesn't happen usually. I hope not anyway lol.
If this is used as a counter point, I'd argue the task of keeping tokens on Distortion without getting hooked too often is pretty difficult for the average player.
Anyway! Thank you for reading and I really want to understand this view a bit more.
Interesting question, I think it's hard to answer without more context, though.
Mostly, what instance are we talking about? Distortion and OTR both occupy the same space as aura blocking perks, but they shine in different niches within that space. For example, if all the killer has is Lethal and BBQ, I think it's generally unlikely for OTR to outshine Distortion. OTR just doesn't do anything against Lethal at the start of the match, and Distortion provides enough information that you can avoid procs of BBQ without even spending a token on it.
Conversely, if the killer's inclined to try and hunt down injured survivors who have been unhooked recently (but aren't immediately there at the unhook), OTR is a little more consistent because of its combined Iron Will and aura blocking effects. Similarly, OTR will allow you a window of time after an unhook to avoid incidental aura reading while you're doing gens and such, but is much less reliable overall if all you want is aura blocking- Distortion is a little more reliable in that niche, and Shadow Step is considerably more reliable in that niche.
I don't think it really boils down to ratio at all, because the perks should ideally be shining in different niches. One instance of aura reading should, hypothetically, be more vulnerable to one perk over the other depending on what that instance actually is. Is it round start Lethal? Distortion outshines OTR handily. Is it I'm All Ears mid-chase? The two are closer, but Distortion is still more likely to be active and far more likely to be active earlier in the match on top of having a more beneficial secondary effect to that instance.
It's more effective and realistic to consider the perks as counter-picks to specific killer tools, rather than percentage ratios of generic aura blocking.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3831112#Comment_3831112
1: Why would pickrate go up based on this? The average player is not unbiased, they're heavily biased, and that's okay. It's not that pickrates have diminished relevance, it's that they have none, at all.
It's one thing to claim they have diminished relevance, it's another entirely to dismiss them outright. The rest of your point basically confirms that… You don't really have a point. It's just wild conjecture apropos of nothing.
That's why I'm not claiming anything surrounding pickrate. I don't care about it
Having to argue that the entire community is one big sheep collective is a rough position to have to take, but you still have to contend with the fact that Shadow Step, again, was judged poorly before any of the comparison you're worried about came in. Even when Distortion was considered bottom-of-the-barrel, Shadow Step wasn't considered to be worth a perk slot. Its current state IS the product of unbiased observation. It was judged fresh, on its own merits, upon its release, and hasn't moved the needle since.
Shadow Step isn't picked for a million different reasons and only one of them will, sometimes, occasionally, be the fact that Distortion outclassed it.
And at this point, it sounds like the nerf to Distortion did nothing to create this 'design space' you were talking about.
If your theory requires you to presuppose that the entire community is incapable of independent thought, and then you have to backtrack and diminish the impact you're describing to 'well, the thought might cross a player's mind once in a million times', I think it's time to let go of the theory.
Balance necessarily must be considered as a separate thing to common perception.
But this isn't so much 'separate to common perception' as it is 'divorced from reality', at this point. And 'it's one of a million reasons that -may- have influenced someone to pick Distortion instead of Shadow Step' certainly isn't a worthwhile 'balance' consideration.
2: While Distortion may have a chance to not activate, it's still obviously possible for something to be overtuned even with the restriction that it won't automatically activate.
Yes, and if it actually was showing any of the issues you have complained about, you'd have a point, but it didn't. It wasn't oppressively overpicked, it wasn't oppressively overperforming, it wasn't oppressing the design space, it was a perfectly okay perk.
It has to have -something- in which it was overperforming to warrant a nerf, but it didn't. The closest you came is saying that it was pushing down Shadow Step and you've already had to walk that back to 'maybe someone, somewhere, sometime'.
Part of the issue here is a general unwillingness, from everyone and not just you, to consider
whatauras you want to block. When you think about wanting to play stealthy, you now actually have to think about which perks you think are most damaging to your gameplan and then pick your counterpick respective to that. You don't even need to be going for active stealth to be thinking about that, frankly.This is just gassing up a point of no substance. Outside of Lethal, all aura blocking perks block the same perks, they just have different restrictions in how they do so. One is restricted by space, the other by tokens, the third by time. No one is going to realistically, meticulously flowchart out how likely each perk is to block each aura because there's not sufficiently significant distinction to warrant it. Especially since the biggest offenders in the aura reading category realistically do not care which aura blocker you are picking up.
And honestly, if you're going to bank your dismissal of pickrates on the idea that the community is roughly incapable of independent thought, you can't then turn around and uphold this as a virtue of the Distortion kneecapping. Either the community is carefully researching such minute distinctions, or they don't care about the actual objective value of perks. It's one or the other.
So, I've sat with this for a bit to make sure my response is appropriate, and I've come to the conclusion that we've both accidentally started circling around an argument that we didn't start with and neither of us actually hold, which is that the nerf to Distortion was necessary because Shadow Step has a low pickrate. That isn't my position, so I'm going to scale back and clarify from square one.
Distortion was nerfed. This is our starting point; I'm not saying it was necessary or unnecessary, just that it happened, and we now have a different version of Distortion to the one we had before.
My position is, after thinking about it and testing it myself, that Distortion is fine. It fundamentally does its job as an aura blocking tool, but it now has gaps to stop it being completely flawless. I think this is appropriate because Distortion was very passive, making its lack of restrictions or conditions kind of questionable. I initially pitched a way of making it less passive myself, and I still think that'd probably be better, but the version we have is hardly a dead perk. It's totally useable and even still quite strong depending on the use case.
Something I think is a nice benefit from the way Distortion was nerfed is that its specific gaps now can be covered by other perks, like Shadow Step. I think it's overall good for the game that these perks are now operating in tandem with one another rather than one invalidating the other, because there truly was no reason to ever consider Shadow Step's aura blocking when Distortion was it, but better.
Now, depending on what aura perks you're most concerned with, the three perks (really two, but you might only care about the auras that could be used to tunnel or that would stop you resetting in peace, so OTR is in the discussion) could all be considered the best pick. In most situations it's still Distortion, because it's the most consistent and passive, but Shadow Step covers a gap that Distortion has (being more vulnerable to aura reads that happen while you're just off doing a generator or something, since you've not interacted with the killer to build another token), making it plausible to pick in that context if that's what you want.
That's why pickrate has nothing to do with this, there are so many other factors affecting pickrate that to expect this single one to actually move the needle is unreasonable. It also doesn't mean that, before the nerf, Distortion needed to be changed because of Shadow Step. That's just a nice benefit that we get after the fact because of the specific choices BHVR made.
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@buggybug said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3831322#Comment_3831322
Yes all killer aura read needs pain res treatment and all aura rwading add ons is reworked
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3831277#Comment_3831277
Well my friend the thing is that these pity topics are annoying, like the rub it in your face feeling, I am probably being petty or something but I notice iron will(before its buff back to 100) coh, mft adrenaline and now distortion has its still goofrub it in the your face post and yet we know its false unlike nerf killer perks thats actually still good and meta
Ruin,ultimate weapon, eruption, call of brine, and overcharge are all still good just not op.
Last time I saw any of the mention survivor perks cept iron will since its decent now has been months. Distortion since its nerf seen 0 of them on both sides all month.
All of those perks are good, on both sides.
Well, except Overcharge. This may be unpopular as an opinion but I feel like Overcharge has never actually been good itself, it just really benefited from specific synergies in the past. It kinda still has those, but… eh. Maybe I'm just biased there.
MFT also deserves an asterisk because now it's way more niche than it used to be, but if you actively pursue that niche, it is still pretty good.
If anyone were to claim the survivor perks you listed are still good but the killer ones aren't, I'd consider that evidence of a bias. At the very least, I'd firmly disagree with them. Those perks are at least decent, on both sides.
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@Spare_Them_Mori_Me said:
Wow, this has been a fun thread to catch up on. Unfortunately, I don't think @Firellius and @jesterkind are going to find common ground.
From what I can surmise, Jester thinks Distortion is fine as it currently is because it's more in line with the other perks that block auras as a side effect instead of being the best at it. Distortion gave little choice when wanting an aura blocking perk since its all it did.
Fire believes since Distortion is contending with perks that don't primarily block auras, but do so as a side effect while also giving good perk abilities, that Distortion is NOT fine as is.
(If these are incorrect, please correct me!)
My personal take is just from me trying to make Distortion work this last 4 or 5 days. But Distortion fundamentally let me down any time I really needed it. I capped out tokens a few times of the many games I played, but overall I felt like it was just an empty perk slot.
Big aura perk picks were primarily BBQ and Lethal together. Few random 3rd aura perk picks, but it wasnt very common. 2 aura, 2 regression was the usual killer build types.
Overall, reading just the two I mentioned above feels like they are rewrapping the same thing and trying to resell it to one another.
I feel Jester doesn't understand the point that, since Distortion ONLY blocks auras, it should do so in a way that outshines the other perks that block auras 'as a side note'. Currently, it doesn't. And is the reason Distortion isn't viable anymore to a lot of players. It might be decent still, but its only as decent as the other options, which makes it not an option.
This is where I am, but I hope to continue reading this constructive and respectful conversation/debate. Both of you have carried yourselves quite well.
To clarify: Not only do I understand that, I've been arguing from that perspective this entire time.
Distortion does need to be better than OTR at aura blocking because that's all it does. It also needs to be slightly better, or at least more accessible, than Shadow Step because while Shadow Step is another aura blocking perk primarily (split between that and scratch marks being blocked), it has its secondary effect active no matter what. It should probably be about comparable to Sole Survivor, but it isn't and that's Sole Survivor's fault so that isn't too relevant here.
This is about the fourth time I've acknowledged that, and about the fourth time I've pointed out that it is. It's just got some gaps, which the other perks (except SS, yadda yadda) could now be considered more appealing for if those gaps are all that the player cares about.
The debate always comes back, it seems, to pointing out that aura perks are not universal and you should probably consider what you want to block before you bring a perk. Lethal and BBQ, as you mention, is a perfectly appropriate combo for Distortion to block- you block Lethal at the start, you're probably hit by the first BBQ, but the second is blocked by Distortion and now you know to avoid it without tokens. Distortion at worst is faltering at a single aura read and it's perfectly okay to sometimes be seen by the killer.
Another set of perks that would be appropriate to bring Distortion against would be things like I'm All Ears, Predator, and Zanshin Tactics, especially if you want to break chase. Distortion shines in this niche too.
What Distortion's weaker at is keeping you safe from auras consistently while performing an action, like generator repair or healing. That's a niche that Shadow Step fills, though, so if you find yourself wanting that most, you have an option there too. Distortion is the best overall, the others are specialist perks that can cover some of Distortion's gaps at the cost of being less consistent overall. This is perfectly acceptable as an outcome.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3831008#Comment_3831008
1: First, the pickrate issue.
Just gonna snip the quote for brevity and because I can't be bothered with whatever the forums are doing with formatting these days. Quote-pasting has been a mess lately.
Anyway, I understand that you don't want to cling too heavily to pickrates and that's fine, you are right in saying that these are far more complex than a simple figure. But when you want to come in and argue that an unbiased player needs to be able to compare these options and reasonably consider either one, the pickrate does come into play here. Because the issue you are presenting here should logically resolve into extremely lopsided pick rates.
If we do not have such data, then the problem you run into is that… It's just wild conjecture.
So when you posit the theory that Shadow Step is not getting picked because Distortion is that high, and others posit that it's not getting picked because it's just plain bad, well…
Considering its pickrate was dumpstered at a time where Distortion was worse than it is now, after the nerf, my money's on theory B.
2: Next I want to talk about Botany Knowledge
But then you get into the issue of what you consider to be a restriction. Because to my mind, there's something that both Shadow Step and OTR have over Distortion that makes the both of them less restrictive than Distortion, and that's that both of them are always going to be functional.
Distortion already had a heavy drawback/restriction in that it could not fire without aura reading being present. If the killer didn't bring any, the perk is dead. That's another reason I think that Distortion did not warrant any nerf, it's a gamble the survivors take, and its competition, even if two of those three options are terrible, do not share this drawback.
That also leaves plenty of design space to make other perks that grant additional benefits -on top of- blocking aura reading, which could easily have become competitive with Distortion. But now any perk that tries to do such a thing must ensure its aura blocking is considerably worse than Distortion, which is now much harder to achieve considering Distortion's lowered limits.
3: I suppose the last thing I should mention is to repeat that the supposed power creep of aura reading is
notaxing stealth as a tactic,becausethere are tools that counter it.However, the tools we have are OTR (Blocks for a total of 160 seconds max), Distortion (Likely only blocks 5 instances), and Shadow Step (Heavy investment, inert, internally incompetent since hiding your aura indirectly also tells the killer where you are). These aren't strong picks, but without them, there's huge risk involved with attempting to play on stealth. You can't take safe paths, because those are predictable, so you're more likely to end up in dangerous spots. This is a gamble, and one that has a bad cost if it doesn't pan out.
Which would be fine, if an NTH or FoR pop wouldn't effectively give the killer a free hit.
The balance of this tactic is off when the killer can turn it to his advantage as a piggyback effect of normal gameplay. (And that's not mentioning the horrid design decision to buff Dance With Me and similar chase-breaker stealth perks and then making Predator eliminate those exact perks the very next patch)
It's also worth mentioning that aura reading isn't thaaaaaaat popular?
Which would exacerbate Distortion's flaw. It just gives more reason to pick something that is more consistently useful overall.
I just don't agree with this assertion that people would look at Distortion and Shadow Step, side by side, and consider Shadow Step a wasted slot because of Distortion. I think a far more likely scenario is that they use both, come to the conclusion that Distortion often doesn't pull any weight because there's no aura reading, but then they come to the conclusion that Shadow Step also isn't pulling any weight anyway.
I legitimately tried to use that thing, and I had to give it up because it was just not doing enough. It's basically in the same class as my Dumpster Diver David build ("My kingdom for a shirt!"): It's funny, but it ain't winning you any matches. Granted, I didn't pick up Distortion either, but the reason I dropped Shadow Step had nothing to do with Distortion. So I don't agree with the assertion that Distortion was an obstruction in design space.
Couple things:
1: Why would pickrate go up based on this? The average player is not unbiased, they're heavily biased, and that's okay. It's not that pickrates have diminished relevance, it's that they have none, at all.
What I want to see in general, and what I think we're a lot closer to with Distortion, is for the perks to be considered all viable if someone whose biases don't conflict with them is evaluating. There's absolutely no reason to assume that necessarily should be a high enough percentage of players to change pickrates, especially considering the observable bias against anything that's been nerfed recently nine times out of ten. There were people claiming Adrenaline was useless after it was nerfed, people are not neutral, rational actors only approaching perks based on how good they actually are. The "unbiased player" I invoked is a hypothetical, a way of conceptualising perks and their balance without falling into the traps of downplaying, common misconceptions, whatever. It's subjective but it obviously has to be, all game balance is necessarily partially subjective otherwise you're balancing just based on stats.
That's why I'm not claiming anything surrounding pickrate. I don't care about it, we can't meaningfully sway it with this kind of change unless they're very heavy handed changes. Shadow Step isn't picked for a million different reasons and only one of them will, sometimes, occasionally, be the fact that Distortion outclassed it. Balance necessarily must be considered as a separate thing to common perception.
2: While Distortion may have a chance to not activate, it's still obviously possible for something to be overtuned even with the restriction that it won't automatically activate.
If, say, Unbreakable healed you to full multiple times a match and also gave you a permanent +100% repair speed boost for every time you pick yourself up, it would obviously be way overtuned even considering that there's a very real chance the killer will never slug you and therefore you may never get to use it.
The fact that it isn't guaranteed is why Distortion is allowed to still be good and effective, but it being perfect is still overtuned. As long as it still blocks auras in at least reliable niches, which it does right now, the extra restrictions are not only okay, they're appropriate.
Also worth mentioning that Botany has become completely irrelevant to this conversation all of a sudden.
3: We're circling around the same fundamental disagreement here, but those are strong picks in their respective niches.
Part of the issue here is a general unwillingness, from everyone and not just you, to consider what auras you want to block. None of them are 100% effective against all forms of aura reading and that's completely okay, it's appropriate even. When you think about wanting to play stealthy, you now actually have to think about which perks you think are most damaging to your gameplan and then pick your counterpick respective to that. You don't even need to be going for active stealth to be thinking about that, frankly.
I don't expect that to change, obviously. Most players don't want to think about things at all, and that's okay. It just also doesn't translate to the changes actually being bad because the old thing doesn't work exactly the same anymore.
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@GravityHull said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3831070#Comment_3831070
You'd be making the same mistake BHVR has been heading. Simple and easiest solution is to provide to others what is already being taken advantage of by others at a disadvantage to other players.
That's impossible, though.
It's a common misconception that adding voice chat would give solo queue what SWF have, but it won't. What SWF have is people they know speaking their language and either chatting casually or providing useful information.
What solo queue would get is strangers they don't know, speaking any one of the languages in their matchmaking region, yelling obscenities or playing loud music or broadcasting someone's marital problems in the background.
What solo queue needs, at least that BHVR can give, is more information. Voice chat is at best a deeply unreliable and unpleasant way of doing that; every other game with voice chat, to my knowledge, also makes damn sure players get the information they need without using that voice chat.
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As long as it's not voice chat, some kind of communication could be a good idea.
You'd have to start worrying about the game's tone, but aside from that you could hypothetically look towards quick-chat wheels for important info like "I'm going for a save" or "killer near me" or what have you. Most people still wouldn't use them, but they'd be an actual net improvement compared to something like voice chat that'd be a net detriment by a wide margin.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3830830#Comment_3830830
The crucial distinction here is that Shadow Step is
primarilyan aura block and scratch marks perk, and OTR isprimarilyan anti-tunnel perk. Shadow Step still had a niche for hiding scratch marks, but that alone doesn't make a complete perkThere's multiple perks where the only benefit is hiding scratch marks, such as Dance With Me, Lucky Break and Parental Guidance. Scratch mark erasure is a full-fledged perk effect, and it is actually a good chunk of Shadow Step's value. So similar to how OTR has another benefit, and it does aura blocking on the side, Shadow Step hides scratch marks, and does aura blocking on the side. So this idea that Shadow Step is somehow much more of an aura blocking perk than OTR is not really true.
Next you talk about pickrate, which I'll glide past because it isn't relevant here. I don't care if people DO pick each perk equally, I care if they COULD. Design space, not popularity.
But how are you going to make any kind of argument about whether someone -could- pick another perk if you refuse to look at whether they did, or why they made the choices they made?
You skip past everything to immediately declare Distortion the problem when the pick rates suggest that
A) It is entirely possible to have other aura reading perks that are viable and able to compete with it, since OTR matched its pick rate
and
B) There is no correlation between the buff or pickrate of Distortion and the pickrate of Shadow Step.
Point A suggests that Distortion is not oppressive in that regard, and point B says there's no evidence to suggest that Distortion was the cause of Shadow Step's poor performance.
If your argument is about whether someone -could- pick a perk, then your argument is ultimately about pick-rate. Because barring emergency disables due to bugs, every perk -can- be picked. Even Weaving Spiders and No Mither -could- be picked!
What we
actuallyneed from aura blocking perks, new or existing, is the same thing we need from all perks - they need some kind of restriction, downside, or narrow scope in what they effect. Something that just does the job universally with no downsides is only acceptable if the job is particularly narrow in scope, which aura blocking is not.Who says it isn't?
Reminder that Botany Knowledge exists, which is an entirely unconditional perk that simply gives a fat boost to altruistic healing speed. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. There's zero chance you're going to get through a regular match without having a use for healing speed, but there's a very real chance you get through a game without ever having your aura read because the system isn't basekit and is dependent on the killer's loadout.
I think we can all agree that Botany Knowledge is not a problem perk, and we can also all agree that healing is much wider in scope than aura blocking. So why would this argument fly for Distortion?
People already only pick a handful of perks and ignore perfectly viable ones
A large chunk of survivor perks aren't viable, specifically because they are being buried under restrictions, downsides and narrow scope.
For Distortion being questionably balanced, no, I don't have data. I have reasons and explanations, though, which are just as important from BHVR's perspective and the
onlyimportant things from our perspective as players having a debate.I think the data is quite important too, so you don't end up nerfing underperforming options without cause. But also, these 'reasons and explanations' are really only accepted from one particular group, aren't they?
We're on a more salient point that probably should've been raised earlier with the assertion that aura reading is too oppressive, but I'm not sure I agree with that statement. Certainly if there were no tools for defending against it, the number of aura perks in the game would probably be too high even if most of the individual perks are well balanced, but there are tools to defend against it - both in the sense that you can stop your aura being read entirely, and in the sense that you can react afterwards. In the latter case, there's hiding after being revealed if you know it happened (not universally applicable, but a good few perks have tells), or just being in an undesirable position to chase. Players have options, they just still actually have to deal with their opponent's tools, which is pretty reasonable.
Similarly, killers could be expected to locate survivors by ordinary means, such as crows, sound, and game sense. So it's not like Distortion was somehow impossible to circumvent. In reality, all Distortion did was reset the playing field. Which was necessary, because aura reading crept up and began to eliminate the possibility of hiding from the game. NTH is probably one of the worst offenders, as it kind of spells out in the title.
Finally, for the second to last point - as I covered the final point a bit more in detail above - you're falling into the trap of assuming that stats trump all when it comes to balance changes. They don't. Something can absolutely warrant changing without hitting an excess of pickrate or escape rate, and that's happened multiple times in the past. There's so much more that goes into balancing a live service game than a linear scale of too strong or too weak.
But this is kind of where 'one particular group' comes into play. There's a power creep of aura reading, it's axing an entire aspect of gameplay, then a perk that is designed specifically to counter that and to re-enable that aspect of gameplay comes into full swing, it does not get an excessive pick or win rate, it just exists…
But the 'reasons and explanations' from one particular group are enough to kneecap the counterweight.
Distortion's nerf was unreasonable. There would have been many other ways to deal with it, this was one of the worst. The perk is not in a good state at the moment.
Okay, so, couple things I want to clarify. These aren't necessarily tied one to one with the order of your points, but I'll still number them for ease of reading.
1: First, the pickrate issue. So, there are a hundred things that go into a perk's pickrate which aren't necessarily the perk's strength or design space, and plenty of good perks don't get picked for a variety of reasons. These aren't always even the perk's restrictions- sometimes perks are less played because they're part of less popular chapters and fewer people actually own them, or because they started out bad and never lost the reputation.
What I want here, what I'm saying is good in this specific scenario, is for a player who isn't being swayed by any external influences to look at the available perks and have good reason to potentially pick any of them, depending on what exactly they want. That doesn't mean an equal number of players will pick different perks, one is probably going to end up picked more often because players love to optimise and follow trends (and separately most players aren't actually interested in crafting builds + evaluating perks neutrally, they just slap on whatever seems strongest), but that each perk could be used.
There are two things that might stand in the way of a perk fitting this criteria, and it's lucky we're talking about aura blocking because both of them have applied in the past. The first is the perk just flat out not being good enough to warrant picking over its competition. For aura blocking, that's Sole Survivor. That perk does see some use, there are people in this thread arguing in favour of it, but it's just fundamentally less accessible and impactful than the competition.
The second reason is if the perk itself is fine, but it's heavily outclassed by something that does too much. That's where Shadow Step was, and why Off The Record was never picked for its aura blocking effects. Now that Distortion is no longer flawless, they all - except for Sole Survivor - have viable niches. Before, you'd only be evaluating them on their secondary effects because Distortion made their aura blocking obsolete, and that's why a lot of people think Shadow Step is bad when it really isn't.
One of those niches is probably going to be the most popular one. Right now, it's probably going to be OTR, assuming the drama doesn't pass and everyone just quietly puts Distortion back into their builds. That's fine. As long as an unbiased player can look at all the perks and think "yeah, I could use any of these depending on my build", that's a perfectly acceptable spot. Pickrate has absolutely nothing to do with this because pickrate does not inherently reflect the situation I'm talking about.
2: Next I want to talk about Botany Knowledge, because it's a reasonably good example of what I'm talking about in this regard!
So, what does Botany do? Fundamentally, it exists to increase your healing speed. That's pretty broad, so are there any restrictions and conditions that go on this effect?
Yes! There's objectively one, and I'd argue there's sort of a second.
The first, objective restriction is that it decreases your efficiency on medkits. This is a meaningful downside that exists to stop the perk from getting out of hand, which is especially true when we remember that it was given this restriction while medkits themselves were massively overtuned, and Botany itself increased your efficiency on medkits. That's a restriction and condition that goes on the broad effect.
The second one, the more arguable one, is the percentage of healing speed. 50% is high, but it's not the highest in the game- and the highest healing speeds in the game right now go on perks with more restrictions and conditions, like We'll Make It and Circle of Healing. We can see from this that limiting the effectiveness of the perk is a form of condition and restriction that can be used to balance something broad. This is easier to see in something percentage based like Botany, but Distortion's stacks actually being meaningful now is another example of that.
Don't get me wrong, Botany Knowledge is not restricted by very much and that's why it's one of the best survivor perks in the game, but your example of an unrestricted, unconditional effect actually does have restrictions and conditions.
3: I suppose the last thing I should mention is to repeat that the supposed power creep of aura reading is not axing stealth as a tactic, because there are tools that counter it.
It's also worth mentioning that aura reading isn't thaaaaaaat popular? The last official stats we got from February only have two aura reading perks in the top ten, both of which Distortion comfortably counter and one of which you don't even need to use tokens on once you know it's in place - that being Lethal Pursuer and BBQ and Chili. While we shouldn't be citing Nightlight with the same weight as the official stats, looking over there just adds Nowhere To Hide into the top ten, which once again is a perk that Distortion can counter + you can start countering without using tokens once you know about it. That perk is a little overtuned, though, nerfing that would be entirely appropriate.
There's always a risk you'll run into other perks, of course, you might get caught out by any number of things you decided not to build against - I always seem to run into hex builds only when I take off my totem perks, personally - but it's hardly an overbearing and oppressive presence in every single match.
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@Halloulle said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3830795#Comment_3830795
mhhm. - Nah, sorry to say. But I don't find your argument of Distortion being usefu compelling (the uses you outline, Lethal aside, depend, at the end of the day, on luck. You can never count on Distortion being available to you to use purposefully simply because you can't reasonably set up tokens or decide when you spend them. - If you could press the ability button and for the next X seconds your aura will be hidden if it is being read - sure, then you could actually use it in the strategic way you outline. But as is? Nope.
The boon isn't much different. Between setting up times and you virtually never wanting to chase around a progressed gen you're actively hindering yourself and the other survivors. If it comes to blocking BBQ, Gearhead etc. it has the exact same issue as Distortion allegedly had: you won't show up for the killer as long as you're on that gen hence incentivising the killer to go after the other teammates. The boon could also allow you to just hide all game in a section of the map with a hard to spot /reach totem. — In other words: the boon has all the downsides of the "bad faith" uses of Distortion with none of the upsides. -- Not to mention you can only cover one tile with the boon - so even if you set it up for chase you won't get value from it, simply because you realistically don't gain more time from having the boon active during chase than you expend setting up the boon. - That is if you even get to use it at all. Or do you think it's at all viable to just bless every totem you plan on somewhat staying near?
— And did you just call the aura blocking effect of OTR cheating? The necessary side effect of that perk because it usually outperforms the two perks that are supposed to have aura blocking as their main function?Two things:
1: I'm not sure why you're bringing up the supposed downsides of hiding all game or encouraging the killer to go after your teammates. I never brought up the former as a plus or a minus at all, and the latter is going to be true of all aura blocking. All I'm saying is that Shadow Step functions as a viable tool for hiding your aura if you want to do specific generators or complete heals in a specific part of the map without being revealed, that's all.
2: I meant that me bringing up OTR is cheating a little bit because it already functions in this area regardless of its aura reading. There's nothing substantially wrong with the perk itself and it definitely isn't cheating to run it, if that's what you thought I meant.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3830789#Comment_3830789
I'm not actually ignoring context here, I'm even acknowledging that Off The Record isn't as susceptible to Distortion being perfect
becauseit is not fundamentally an aura blocking perk.But this only flies for Sole Survivor, because Shadow Step DOES have a different niche on top of aura blocking.
Shadow Step and Sole Survivor are both fundamentally aura-blocking stealth perks
But here you're conflating stealth with aura-blocking.
Shadow Step is a stealth perk.
Distortion is an aura blocker.
If Distortion gave some kind of scratch mark erasure without being contingent on blocking auras, you might have a point, but Shadow Step has a use outside of Aura Blocking, just as OTR does. It's just that OTR is a good perk while Shadow Step is a bad perk.
and they were power crept by Distortion becoming functionally infinite back in 6.1.0.
Shadow Step needed no one's help to find its way to the garbage bin. It was already there before 6.1 hit.
6.1 landed in June 2022. According to Nightlight, at that point, Shadow Step had a pickrate of roughly 2.3%, and it still had that pickrate by March 2023. Distortion's change had no impact on it.
There could not ever be another aura blocking perk that
isn'tlike OTR in primarily doing something else, because Distortion being the way it was meant no aura blocking effect could ever compareeven in a lesser statebecause Distortion was the perfect aura blocking perk. That's not a good design space, it's notgreatfor balance overall, and it warranted changing.But just flat nerf-bombing it didn't fix anything, because now Distortion is headed for the garbage can and any new aura blocking perk has to abide by the same rule as Distortion: It can't block aura perks.
You still have the same constraint: Any new aura blocking perk HAS to be worse than Distortion, otherwise Distortion is gonna be buried. It's just a more tight constriction now because Distortion is that much worse.
If anything, OTR proved that there's plenty of room for other aura blocking perks, it's just that they have to be sideways comparable, like Empathic Connection now is to Botany Knowledge. It's why I said that current Distortion now needs a buff again by giving it some kind of non-aura blocking function to give it life in games without aura reading.
I also do not care about pick rate in either direction.
Bit late to say that at this point, because that is the basis for your entire argument. That is what you rode in on.
It's worth mentioning that Distortion was also a little bit too strong just from a basic balance perspective, too.
You have any data to back that up?
It wasn't the huge balance issue that some other things end up being, but it's worthy of scrutiny if something is such a fundamentally hard counter that it completely shuts down multiple different options without any downside or requirement.
It never did, unless there were four of them, and as a critical point: The things it blocks are all perks that, in and of themselves, are also extremely volatile and oppressive. The entire concept of stealth dies with aura reading. Distortion was effectively a band-aid, and in a way, that's really -good- from a design perspective.
Because with Distortion's value being entirely dependent on the prevalence of aura reading, it basically became an indicator perk for a balancing issue. The higher the pickrate of Distortion, the higher the likelihood that aura reading is too strong or prevalent.
So, to sum up: I
amjudging perks by their own merits.Except Distortion never hit any excess in pick or escape rate, so it didn't warrant any nerf.
That's how I came to the conclusion that it's good for Distortion to stop crowding out other perks' merits and operate in a healthier niche.
Except there's only one perk for which you've managed to argue that Distortion must have negatively impacted it in some way, and there's nothing to indicate that it actually did.
Alright, let's tackle those in order.
So, we'll tackle those first two at once, which is Shadow Step and OTR having second effects. The crucial distinction here is that Shadow Step is primarily an aura block and scratch marks perk, and OTR is primarily an anti-tunnel perk. Shadow Step still had a niche for hiding scratch marks, but that alone doesn't make a complete perk- it's designed around the aura blocking being a main draw as well, and that was outclassed by Distortion having no downsides or restrictions. Shadow Step already has more downsides and restrictions than Distortion, it also being invalidated for a full half of its effects was a bad position for it to be in when it's otherwise a perfectly good perk.
Not that I'm necessarily claiming that is The Reason To Nerf Distortion, to be clear, it's just a positive benefit from the nerf happening. The nerf almost certainly happened purely because Distortion was too effective at its job, the fact that we're in a position where all three perks have a good and viable niche now is a side effect, and a positive one.
Next you talk about pickrate, which I'll glide past because it isn't relevant here. I don't care if people DO pick each perk equally, I care if they COULD. Design space, not popularity.
Your next point is the "nerf-bombing" comment, but that seems to rely heavily on the assertion that Distortion is currently a bad perk, which it isn't. It has several very useful and viable niches, in which it functions pretty damn well. What we actually need from aura blocking perks, new or existing, is the same thing we need from all perks - they need some kind of restriction, downside, or narrow scope in what they effect. Something that just does the job universally with no downsides is only acceptable if the job is particularly narrow in scope, which aura blocking is not.
Next is another pick rate comment, which I've covered. I don't care about that, it isn't part of my argument and never has been. Design space, not popularity. People already only pick a handful of perks and ignore perfectly viable ones, as a whole, and there generally isn't any fixing that, it's inevitable for games with choices to make at all.
For Distortion being questionably balanced, no, I don't have data. I have reasons and explanations, though, which are just as important from BHVR's perspective and the only important things from our perspective as players having a debate.
We're on a more salient point that probably should've been raised earlier with the assertion that aura reading is too oppressive, but I'm not sure I agree with that statement. Certainly if there were no tools for defending against it, the number of aura perks in the game would probably be too high even if most of the individual perks are well balanced, but there are tools to defend against it - both in the sense that you can stop your aura being read entirely, and in the sense that you can react afterwards. In the latter case, there's hiding after being revealed if you know it happened (not universally applicable, but a good few perks have tells), or just being in an undesirable position to chase. Players have options, they just still actually have to deal with their opponent's tools, which is pretty reasonable.
Finally, for the second to last point - as I covered the final point a bit more in detail above - you're falling into the trap of assuming that stats trump all when it comes to balance changes. They don't. Something can absolutely warrant changing without hitting an excess of pickrate or escape rate, and that's happened multiple times in the past. There's so much more that goes into balancing a live service game than a linear scale of too strong or too weak.
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@Halloulle said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3830771#Comment_3830771
Given the other posts in the discussion it does seem pretty clear you're somehow convinced by what you say and that Distortion is reliable, as is the boon. - I think neither is reliable or sufficiently useful and OTR isn't even comparable since it has a different primary function to begin with (and saying a perk dedicated to that function should still not be able to compete with a side effect of another perk… well…). So for the most part I'd say: I guess we just disagree.
"I would (and have, and am, that's what this thread is) argue Distortion is very reliable as long as you have a specific use case for it in mind. The way the game is right now, you do have to think about which auras you want to block and pick your perk accordingly, but once you do that they're all pretty reliable at it. "
This one though… — Please do elaborate on what exactly you mean by "you do have to think about which auras you want to block". Just run me through a scenario of the "if - then" kind to help me follow the thought process that goes into thinking about which auras I want to block.I did already run through that in the main post, but I don't mind repeating it a little bit.
So, generally, there are four sorts of use cases in mind here. There's preventing yourself from being revealed early, there's making certain actions safer to complete without being revealed, there's making chases less risky by blocking mid-chase auras, and there's protecting yourself while you're vulnerable.
Distortion is still the king of stopping you from being revealed early. It stops Lethal Pursuer from activating at the start of the match, and even as late as the first hook or so, you can be safe from aura reading if the killer doesn't have Lethal. Distortion also works against something like Nowhere To Hide or even Undying, random situational auras that also let you avoid them if you know they're there.
When it comes to making certain actions safer - generally referring to generator repair and heals here - Distortion still functions but is somewhat less reliable. That's where Shadow Step comes in, because with a little setup you can have a zone where you're safe from aura reads. Set up Shadow Step near a generator and you can be reasonably sure the killer won't snipe you with BBQ or Friends Til The End, as well as being safe from Nowhere To Hide until the killer snuffs your boon.
Blocking mid-chase auras like I'm All Ears, Predator, and Zanshin Tactics, Distortion and Shadow Step are roughly equal, with Distortion being more reliable due to the lack of range restriction but Shadow Step having an extra effect that helps in that area. Both valid choices, both useful.
For protecting yourself while you're vulnerable, all the perks work, but Off The Record is the best because it's the most potent when you're the most vulnerable. This is slightly cheating because OTR is already an anti-tunnel perk, but some people have legitimately expressed concern about auras leading to tunnelling after the Distortion nerf, so it's worth mentioning.
In short: What perks are giving you trouble? When do those perks activate? Answering those two questions can help you figure out the best counter pick.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3830777#Comment_3830777
why ever bother even
consideringa different perk even if it has some extra effects?Again, this is complete context blindness. You're judging it solely on this one aspect, and you're dismissing everything that goes against it, or that goes in favour of its competition. And that just kills your entire argumentation.
OTR skated by because the anti-tunnel is just flat out more valuable than aura blocking
But that's exactly the point! OTR has immense value outside of aura blocking, AND It has aura blocking that is now functionally comparable to Distortion's. So why on earth would you now ever want to pick a perk that ONLY does aura blocking and does nothing in any case where the killer doesn't read auras, versus a perk that grants endurance off hook AND blocks aura reading?
OTR is usable in 100% of matches, Distortion isn't. And that also disproves that
Distortion was perfect
because it wasn't. It becomes an empty perk slot in a number of matches, which is a problem none of its competition had.
but Shadow Step and Sole Survivor were dead in the water. Granted, SS is just bad, but Shadow Step isn't, it was just massively outclassed by the perfect perk it was in competition with.
Except Shadow Step was already dying before Distortion hit the scene because Boons are terrible. The second the novelty wore off, Shadow Step went in the bin because it's just not good. It's in the same boat as Sole Survivor, just not as deep. The solution here isn't to dump Distortion in the gutter, it's to buff Shadow Step, otherwise you're just going to play whack-a-perk with whatever hits the highest pick rate.
Except of course with OTR, because that's inconvenient to your argument.
It's also terrible argumentation for nerfs, too. Imagine if, instead of giving Empathic Connection +20% additional healing speed, they just nerfed Botany Knowledge by dropping it to 15% so it's no longer the 'best pick'.
Even now, judging by Nightlight, the mass exodus of Distortion users doesn't appear to be translating to an uptick in Shadow-step usage. If they're all flocking to OTR, should we gut OTR as well, to make room for Shadow Step? And when Shadow Step is the top-most picked aura reading perk by a margin of a percent, should we gut it too so Sole Survivor can enter the playpen?
Or should we judge perks by their own merits, rather than by doing half-comparisons to side effects of other perks?
I'm not actually ignoring context here, I'm even acknowledging that Off The Record isn't as susceptible to Distortion being perfect because it is not fundamentally an aura blocking perk. That's the one that still looked good in comparison to Distortion, I've acknowledged this multiple times. It still now has a niche that Distortion isn't quite as good in for aura blocking specifically, but that's less relevant because it occupies a separate design space too.
What I'm saying is that only applies to OTR because OTR is the only one that has a full other niche. Shadow Step and Sole Survivor are both fundamentally aura-blocking stealth perks and they were power crept by Distortion becoming functionally infinite back in 6.1.0.
It's also not just the current perks, the design space for aura blocking as a main component of a perk was completely filled. There could not ever be another aura blocking perk that isn't like OTR in primarily doing something else, because Distortion being the way it was meant no aura blocking effect could ever compare even in a lesser state because Distortion was the perfect aura blocking perk. That's not a good design space, it's not great for balance overall, and it warranted changing.
That's what I mean by "perfect", to be clear. It was perfect at blocking auras, obviously it didn't do anything without aura reading in play.
I also do not care about pick rate in either direction. I don't care how high or low the pick rate of any specific perk is, I care if they are capable of filling their role without undue obstacles— whether that's because they're actually too bad at their job to be reasonably appealing (Sole Survivor) or because they are heavily overshadowed by an overtuned perk in their same niche but with no meaningful downsides (Shadow Step). I am not saying that Distortion needed to be killed or gutted because of its high pick rate, and that's for two reasons: I am celebrating the fact that it WAS NOT killed or gutted but rather was changed in a very healthy way that preserved it being a strong and useful option, and because my complaints are based on design and not popularity. I don't care if people do swap to other perks, I care if they could or have reason to.
It's worth mentioning that Distortion was also a little bit too strong just from a basic balance perspective, too. It wasn't the huge balance issue that some other things end up being, but it's worthy of scrutiny if something is such a fundamentally hard counter that it completely shuts down multiple different options without any downside or requirement. Just to head off any whataboutism from whoever may be reading, yes, this applies to Lightborn too.
So, to sum up: I am judging perks by their own merits. That's how I came to the conclusion that it's good for Distortion to stop crowding out other perks' merits and operate in a healthier niche.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3830766#Comment_3830766
If they are 'in line with', or 'comparable' on the subject of aura reading, you can't turn around and say that distortion is 'definitely better', because then it's not in line with, or comparable.
And again, they shouldn't be! Picking up OTR as an aura blocking option should not be comparable with Distortion on that aspect alone, because OTR delivers 100% of an anti-tunnel perk.
Distortion is supposed to be 'not comparable' to its peers, because all of its peers have a different primary function and only do Distortion's job on the side. If Distortion is comparable in aura blocking to its peers, then it means Distortion is a terrible pick, period.
I can say that, because it is.
"In line with" and "comparable" do not inherently always mean "equal". Distortion isn't equal, it's better, proportionally.
It used to be so much better that there's no point in other aura blocking perks existing, either in terms of the ones we currently have or in any future aura blocking perk. Distortion was perfect, it blocked 100% of auras in most scenarios; why ever bother even considering a different perk even if it has some extra effects? If you want auras blocked, there's a flawless perk right there. OTR skated by because the anti-tunnel is just flat out more valuable than aura blocking, but Shadow Step and Sole Survivor were dead in the water. Granted, SS is just bad, but Shadow Step isn't, it was just massively outclassed by the perfect perk it was in competition with.
Now, though, Distortion is just "very good" at blocking auras, but it has gaps. Gaps that can be covered by other perks, now, but those perks have gaps too, that Distortion would cover. Now there's more of an appropriate spread where Distortion is the best overall but lacks in certain niches, which other perks can pick up the slack for if those niches are what a specific player wants covered the most.
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@Halloulle said:
Distortion is not in a good spot right now. With the slight reversal of the nerf where they adjusted the numbers it's not entirely useless but it's way too unreliable and yielding way too little value to justify using a perkslot.
Which I suppose is why it has dropped from 9-10% (which made it a popular but not omnipresent choice) to 3-ish%.
The message from the devs is clear: Killers are supposed to have a way to read aura any time they need, offering enough perks to do so to fit any killer's playstyle. Survivors on the other hand are not supposed to be able to get away from chases or hide from the killer.A questionable choice, in my opinion, but it is what it is.
Now, the other way to deal with aura read is "to play around aura read perks". However, for that you need to know which aura perk is in play (which is extremely anything-but-vets-unfriendly) — which given the myriad of aura perks is impossible at this point; there are too many potential activation conditions being met at nearly any given moment during a match. This makes it effectively impossible to "play around aura reading perks" or "adapt how you play". That is what makes it feel so miserable.
At the absolute very least survs need to know when their aura is read and by what. (You know, like how hexes work in that regard)There are three viable ways of blocking auras in the game right now, so I think the message is more that you should have tools to help against being revealed, but none of them should be so perfect that you never have to be chased if you don't want to. It's also worth mentioning that aura blocking is just as much for making the chase you're currently in more favourable, as it is for hiding from chases outright.
I would (and have, and am, that's what this thread is) argue Distortion is very reliable as long as you have a specific use case for it in mind. The way the game is right now, you do have to think about which auras you want to block and pick your perk accordingly, but once you do that they're all pretty reliable at it.
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@ErebusSurge said:
I think ultimately we can safely say distortion is not fine and it’s pick rate has sank to the bottom as a result so it’s only time before it gets buffed.
the devs excuse which was feeble, was “it’s too easy to hide during a match” the obvious answer to that was tie tokens to productivity. Doing gens, totems, unhooks… but instead they tied it to a situation where you will be gaurenteed to get hooked.
The irony of them saying it’s too easy for survivors in a patch where they changed predator from scratch marks to 6 second aura reveal if someone has the audacity to escape a chase is further evidence of how killer sided the game is.
if you have escaped a chase which isn’t easy you should not succumb to another wall hack perk that means you can never escape.Do you have any specific disagreements with my arguments, to lead to that conclusion?
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3830306#Comment_3830306
Yes, it is the best form of aura blocking, and it's definitely better than OTR.
That's kind of contradictory to what you were saying before, where you asserted that the nerf was used to make the other forms of aura blocking competitive with Distortion.
But now you're saying that it's not competitive at all.
And I'm not sure it's 'definitely better' than OTR. If the killer doesn't drop chases, realistically, Distortion is going to block auras a maximum of 5 times in a match. OTR will block for 160 seconds in a match. It depends on the killer's build whether it's going to be OTR or Distortion that's better. The more aura reading the killer packs, the more likely it is that OTR is going to come out on top.
And again: OTR does this on the side, while for Distortion, it's the entire purpose of the perk.
It's closer to Shadow Step now
And Shadow Step is not viable, so what does that say for Distortion?
I've been very consistent about this, it's not contradictory.
Distortion is still the best overall, but it's now more in line with the other tools. There are reasons to consider the other two on the merits of their aura blocking now because they have niches in which they are actually better than Distortion, but those niches are more specific and restricted than Distortion. Before, Distortion was better than them at their niches, because it was flawless and had effectively 100% uptime on the aura blocking effect unless very specific conditions were met.
All of this is in the main post, where I run down the use cases for the specific perks.
Shadow Step is completely viable and has been since it released, it was just overshadowed by another perk covering its niche better and with no setup time.
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I like the buff to Plunderer's Instinct, for sure. That perk could definitely use some love, it's pretty underwhelming.
Wicked definitely doesn't need the buff. I don't think it'd be game breaking, or anything, but the primary effect of Wicked is the aura read no matter which order they're listed on the card, and that effect is more than strong enough for the perk to stand on its own. Basement Deliverance is a nice gimmick and potentially game-swinging, but it doesn't need to be better than it is because the perk's main effect is enough already.
As for Circle of Healing, self healing only isn't game breaking now, and it only stopped being game breaking… because medkits and Circle of Healing were nerfed. There are already good ways of healing yourself (Strength in Shadows being far and away the best, but Inner Healing is also pretty viable, as are medkits both on their own and as part of a build), so we really do not need to play with fire by risking bringing back broken self healing. It might be doable without medkits also being broken, but there's just no reason to risk it. CoH is a good perk right now, and separately there are good sources of self healing in the game, so it just isn't necessary.
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@buggybug said:
Everytime a survivor perk is gutted to garbage someone make these the perk is still good pity posts yet you see how said perk just falls off fully of the board and mot even in top 10 picks anymore. Coh, Mft, Adrenaline and distotion. I still to this day seen 0 distortion as survivor/killer.
Anyways w.e OOO have been making me make killers mad and wasting time since I can loop, dcs are plus too that I been getting and I am like haha yeah I bet ypu regret asking distortion nerf.
Hope people wake up and all 4 people run OOO as even if your not the obession any aura reading stuff killer have procs and you not being the obsession wont proc showing your aura or killers so its a win win without tokens.
People drop perks that are perfectly good just because they were nerfed all the time, it doesn't actually mean those perks are bad. You listed two of them; Adrenaline is still a top three survivor perk and Circle of Healing is still very good in its niche, neither of those are garbage perks.
Distortion is the same way. It's still good, it just isn't overtuned anymore, so people are dropping it.
Pickrate does not correlate one-to-one with strength in general.
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@Spare_Them_Mori_Me said:
Didn't know this was still being discussed! :)
After playing with things a bit, I currently feel Distortion has been shelved as it doesn't give enough uptime on aura blocking, the one thing it's supposed to do. Thats really it. It doesn't, and this is one thing Im sure we can all agree on. If you get lethal'd, you're vulnerable to add-ons, perks, and whatever else might come before you get into a chase. That's the whole point. Its also why starting with 3 tokens mattered.
It heavily outclasses OTR at aura blocking, because it does so as its only function and OTR does so almost incidentally.
Sorry mate, but If the killer has even light aura read, OtR will very likely have more aura block up time than current Distortion. That is not outclassing. Distortions current token's starting and conditional generation are what has killed it, for me personally. OtR does aura blocking better now.
I play with Sole Survivor very often as it synergizes with my name, and it's great if someone gets tunneled, unlucky, or I'm just lucky enough to not get killed first lol. If there's aura read and I make it to end game, Im probably getting out. Its more amazing at its job than Distortion and OtR is you have 2 or 3 dead (if even 1 is dead). But the activation just kills it for me. Machine learning and Sole really bother me with design. Shouldn't have perks that require sacrificing of objectives/team mates, imo.
Again, Distortion doesn't just need to slightly edge out OTR in order to be competitive with it, it needs to -dominate- OTR on the subject of aura blocking, if it wants to bridge the gap of how much more niche Distortion is.
@jesterkind If you could, I'd like your thoughts on this. Please weigh what it being presented here against your current reply. I just don't feel this was replies to and I'm very curious. :) Ty
Well, I laid out my reasons for thinking that OTR is weaker than Distortion in terms of aura blocking. I think OTR is the better perk overall and was so even before the nerf, but that's because anti-tunnel is very valuable at the moment.
Distortion is just far more reliable. It blocks Lethal, which itself is a very noticeable bonus over its peers, and as long as you aren't trying to hide all match and you're actually taking chases, you're likely to have it up again next time there's an aura to block even in that scenario.
If being more reliable and flexible isn't being better than the competition, I'm not sure what is. I tried to avoid specifically responding to the word "dominating" because it kind of implies that the only way Distortion can be worthwhile is if it has 100% uptime, but that's obviously not true.
Basically, it boils down to this: Do you consider aura blocking useful because it allows you to make chases more favourable by either stopping you from being revealed in a bad spot to start a chase or by stopping your aura being read in chase, or do you consider aura blocking useful because it prevents you from being chased/revealed at all? Distortion is currently a great pick for the former, it's great at helping you avoid being caught off guard, but it no longer really does the latter. That's where I'm at, that's my outlook on the perk.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3830274#Comment_3830274
Well, I think it's probably most relevant to take a step back here and remember that Distortion, in its current form, is
stillthe best form of aura blocking.Is it? Because I don't think it functionally differs all that much from OTR, unless the killer has a tendency to drop chase often. But at that point, you're dealing with the rather critical difference that OTR packs anti-tunnel on the side. Or rather, OTR packs Distortion on the side.
Again, Distortion doesn't just need to slightly edge out OTR in order to be competitive with it, it needs to -dominate- OTR on the subject of aura blocking, if it wants to bridge the gap of how much more niche Distortion is. If Distortion is going to be useless in any match without aura reading, then it needs to not be merely 'okay' or 'a bit better' in the matches WITH aura reading to offset the risk survivors take in bringing the perk along.
This is the same issue that people ran into with DS: It requires very specific circumstances to come into play, and those are completely disregarded during balancing discussions. But they do impact how the perk functions and performs because they are part of the whole picture.
It's just not
perfectnow.It being perfect at the one niche job it was supposed to do was not a valid reason to nerf it. Especially considering the perks that it combats are also kinda perfect at what they do. And those got a huge collateral buff now that the only reliable counter to them has been kneecapped.
Yes, it is the best form of aura blocking, and it's definitely better than OTR.
It's available immediately, it has no timer to block auras during, it recharges through regular gameplay with no functional limit other than how long you're in the match at all and it blocks scratch marks so it's more useful in chase. It heavily outclasses OTR at aura blocking, because it does so as its only function and OTR does so almost incidentally.
It's closer to Shadow Step now as it doesn't have effectively 100% uptime anymore, but the balance still favours Distortion because it has no setup time nor does it have a restricted range. Shadow Step applies to everyone and offers the benefit of blocked scratch marks no matter what, but the setup time and range are still a factor. It's good, don't get me wrong, Shadow Step has been underrated since it launched, but if you just want to block auras and don't want to think about it, Distortion is better. You'd mostly bring Shadow Step if you want to do certain actions safely, whereas Distortion is better at evading early aura reading and chase aura reading while still being fairly useful outside those two contexts.
Flat out, no ifs or buts, Distortion is a very solid perk at the moment and will absolutely work in most of the scenarios you'd have brought it for before. A little thought and preparation goes into using it now, but that's hardly reason to claim it's not worthwhile anymore.
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@AmpersandUnderscore said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3829966#Comment_3829966
Setting aside pretty much this whole thread of trying to pan this nerf as a "good thing for survivors". I'm just gonna say, no it's not. It's a survivor nerf and a pretty big boost for killer. Let's just call it that and stop being disingenuous about it.
But about this:
If you want to block auras, specifically, that specific effect, there are reasons to bring any of the three current viable choices now.
No, there's aren't "three viable choices now" there are zero.
Of your three perks, only one works at the start of the game: distortion. You can't block "checking for weave attunement" or lethal pursuer with off the record, so let's stop trying to imply that you can. There's only one perk that can do that and it's getting gutted.
The boon is useless, unless you're only trying to hide all game and never interact... Which is what we've been told the distortion nerf is for. So people trying to actively avoid chase can keep being useless in the boon, but people playing the actual game have no option now. Removing options from survivor while giving killer more and more aura read options is not a good thing.
Going back to hook is meta, so OTR's only real benefit here is the endurance. The unhook notification is a pretty big reminder to the killer of exactly where you are and that you're ready to be tunneled again.
This nerf is, was, and always has been a killer buff. Let's just call a duck a duck here.
I have never claimed this change is a good thing for survivors, I'm legitimately not entirely sure where that comes from. Is it because I said the change is good overall? I meant that it's good for the game as a whole, not specifically for survivor players. It's obviously still a nerf to a survivor perk.
To the rest of your points… I mean, checking for Weave and blocking Lethal is what Distortion does. If you want that effect, bring Distortion. Not only have I not implied that OTR or Shadow Step work for this, I've literally said multiple times that they do not and Distortion is the perk covering this niche.
The boon is not useless, but it serves a different niche that Distortion is now a little weaker at. If the main auras you're worried about are things revealing you while you're repairing/healing, like BBQ or Friends Til The End or such, Shadow Step is good because it just gives you a bubble of permanent aura blocking. Now that Distortion doesn't just also offer you permanent aura blocking with practically no restriction, that's a more worthwhile choice.
OTR is still fundamentally an anti-tunnel perk, yes, but it can also be a layer of protection while you're vulnerable if the killer's not returning to the hook. It's the weakest in this context because it's mostly an anti-tunnel perk, but if aura reading enabling tunnelling is your concern, OTR is (and has been since 6.1.0 tbf, it's the one people do actually bring) viable there.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3829966#Comment_3829966
OTR being an anti-tunnel perk and Shadow Step being a better overall stealth perk is
relevantbut it's not the thing being directly compared.No, but it needs to be considered in overall perk balance, and in judging the value of Distortion.
If Distortion does only one, fairly conditional thing, while its competition does that, AND has a universally applicable use on top of that, then that means Distortion -has- to blow its competition out of the water on the one thing it does, otherwise there's no point in bringing it.
Perks being laser-focused on one specific function and then not being allowed to excel in it, is really bad perk design.
That's a good thing, it means players have meaningful choices to make instead of auto-locking the overtuned best in class, while still having the value they'd want to get from each perk.
But people were making a meaningful choice. If they brought in Distortion, they were willingly forgoing all the additional benefits that OTR and/or Shadow Step provide because they specifically wanted to block aura reading and nothing else. They were consciously making the decision to gamble on the killer having aura reading perks. They were looking at their options and said 'I want to take that risk in order to get better aura blocking'.
And indeed, they did! If you check the usage history for OTR and Distortion on Nightlight, they're actually pretty close!
Just because there were sufficient people choosing a specific option, didn't mean they didn't get to make that choice. Distortion always had its one-trick-pony status as a drawback that needed to be considered and weighed when deciding to pick it up. It was never the obvious best choice unless you decided that aura blocking was such a high priority for you that you were willing to give up on additional benefits.
But that was a decision for the player to make. You can't say they didn't have any reasonable choice in the matter.
Well, I think it's probably most relevant to take a step back here and remember that Distortion, in its current form, is still the best form of aura blocking. It's a little more niche now, as before it just blocked practically all auras for free with no input from the player, but it still fundamentally serves as the "I just want auras blocked and don't want to think that hard about it" perk.
You have to think a little because token management matters now, but if you just don't want to be revealed by Lethal or you just want to avoid mid-match auras like NTH or BBQ, Distortion does that. I've said this a hundred times in this thread but it really is the most important part: It's just not perfect now.
Distortion is allowed to be good at its job in exchange for not doing anything else. What it's not allowed to be, we must assume, is flawless at it. That seems pretty fair to me.
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@Toystory3Monkey said:
I feel like people severely overrate plague.
This killer is classic old dbd killer design where their power is entirely in the hands of survivors and without it they're just more resource efficient powerless m1 killer.
Even after her buffs she still relies way too hard on corrupt pools rng and survivors' actions to have the necessary consistency.
killers like her arent strong, they're just a knowledge check for survivors.
the only way plague can be consistent is by getting a lucky hook to camp when everyone is infected to maybe try to force cleanses and then MAYBE capitalize on that. which isn't even that realistic with the anti camp system they introduced.
mid killer that looks strong because people get scared and feed her infections. plague is one of the few supposed high tier killers whose mains I see lose games in public matches way more often than such players should.
The thing about Plague that I think gives her such an edge over other killers is that, while she is dependant on survivor actions to get value, she's unlike other killers with that restriction because either action survivors can take gives her value.
Either she gets to be a massively empowered M1 killer because survivors are constantly instadown-able and easier to track, or they cleanse and give her access to one of the stronger chase powers in the game. The only time she's at a serious disadvantage is if the Plague player is outclassed by the survivor players so landing even that one hit with an M1 is hard. Even in that scenario, though, she starts with a free corrupted pool, so she at least has a chance other killers wouldn't have.
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@GeneralV said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3829873#Comment_3829873
For the most part I agree with the your list here, though I think Freddy will always be slightly better than Trapper simply because of the teleport.
The mobility you get with Dream Projection gives him an advantage Trapper just doesn't have.
It's definitely true, Freddy has more going for him at any given point in the match, but it's important to rate a killer on their strengths as much as their weaknesses and Trapper really can snowball a losing game that Freddy would struggle much harder to win.
Ultimately I wouldn't object to putting Freddy above Trapper, I kinda just threw them together based on the order they were listed on the tier maker. They're pretty close.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/430888/distortion-is-fine
It still does the job well enough, though it has been downgraded to be comparable to its peers instead of clearly superior to them in every aspect
That's a very misleading way to put it, considering you're only looking at one singular aspect: The aura blocking.
Its peers couldn't beat it at that, but in all other aspects, they were superior. Shadow Step works for everyone in the radius and wipes scratches regardless of aura reading, and OTR grants Endurance off hook.
Distortion had to be significantly better than its peers at aura blocking, because that's all it did. It's dead weight without aura reading, unlike its competition, and now it's much worse at the one job it is supposed to do.
If it wants to be comparable to its peers, it needs an extra function that doesn't depend on aura reading.
Well, yes, I'm only looking at that aspect because that's what is being compared.
OTR being an anti-tunnel perk and Shadow Step being a better overall stealth perk is relevant but it's not the thing being directly compared. We're talking about people who want to be able to block auras in their matches, and in that context, Distortion is comparable while still being better. It's better because it's dedicated at doing that one thing, but it's not so much better that it invalidates the aura blocking even existing on the other two perks.
If you want to block auras, specifically, that specific effect, there are reasons to bring any of the three current viable choices now. That includes Distortion, it's still in the running and it's still the best at it. It's just not perfect anymore. That's a good thing, it means players have meaningful choices to make instead of auto-locking the overtuned best in class, while still having the value they'd want to get from each perk.
Y'know, except for Sole Survivor. That's kinda the asterisk on the "there's reasons to consider any aura block perk" take, that one still sucks.
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@Marc_123 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3829927#Comment_3829927
In theorie yes, practically not.
As @TheSubstitute wrote it would have been better to tie the tokens to repairing gens not chase.
I think you might simply play at MMR levels where this doesn´t matter.
My games are widely spread between really new (or bad) players and really good ones. The good ones make the game a lot easier.
That's still MMR being a problem and not aura reading, though. If you're matched with really new players when you're not one yourself, nothing about the balance of any perks or addons or what have you is going to change that you've got a gigantic advantage.
Distortion functions well in practice in any other context than the MMR hiccuping. Even then, Distortion works fine, it just doesn't overcome the bigger problem.
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@joeyspeehole said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/430888/distortion-is-fine
To me, the nerf to Distortion makes it as useless as Spine Chill; there's no point in using it. I get that the whole idea behind nerfing it was to help killers when there's only one survivor left, but it still seems insufficient. It was great to be able to open the exit door a bit and then hide when the killer approached, before finishing the door. The killer is already in a really strong position once the hatch is closed.
I don't think the nerf was intended for that situation, personally, I think it was really just to reign in a perk that was a little too good at what it does.
Though, I guess if all you want is to be able to hide as the last survivor, you might be the one person to make genuine use of Sole Survivor, lol. Then again, what aura perk is even going to reveal you in that situation?
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@Marc_123 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3829891#Comment_3829891
In my experience not.
If new players would play against new killers it would be ok. But the MMR often don´t work well enough.
As i said, it is not distortion only. It is the sheer amount of aura reading and it is getting more and more. And it hurts newer and not good loopers the most.
Hiding opportunities are shrinking which i find sad. I think aura reading may ruin the game in the future.
I mean, that's MMR being a problem, not aura reading.
As to the last part, aura reading would only ruin the game if there weren't reliable ways of blocking it, which there are. If you want to play stealthy, there are perks that help you do that, including Distortion.
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@TheSubstitute said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3829831#Comment_3829831
One issue with new players that I was referring to is that an experienced survivor will look around while working on gens in order to see an approaching Killer. A new Survivor may not and will then take a hit from the Killer getting too close and may very well drop in less than 15 seconds. That means they have no protection in that case.
To add to that a new player is more likely to be tunnelled if a Killer is targeting the weakest link. It is quite possible to determine with aura reading which character model is who so the Killer can then beeline right back to the just unhooked newbie survivor and tunnel them right out. That's not an engaging game experience nor one that is likely to retain new players. With the large plethora of aura reading available it's very possible to get a read on where a recently unhooked survivor is. That wasn't the case back when the main aura reading perk was BBQ. However, with the current power creep that aura reading perks have undergone it is pretty easy to track people off hook. That's why I mentioned 30 seconds of generator repair would have been better for new players; the new player can't stay hidden and would have to engage in the game experience to recharge tokens.
It would also cause better game habits if it were tied to generators as the most consistent counter now to aura reading for new survivors is Sole Survivor but that only works if your teammates die. I'd rather new players work on gens to get aura reading counters instead of hiding players letting their teammates die and, with the MMR being as wildly varied as it is, there is no guarantee a new player will last 15 seconds in chase.
I don't really think that's addressing the power creep that aura reading perks have undergone though. I don't feel that the current level of counters to aura reading perks is commensurate with the power creep that aura reading has gotten now that Distortion has been nerfed but that's a subjective opinion anyway so not worth mentioning it anymore than how I feel.
What I question with BHVR though is why make a change that could impact the new player experience when Killers have the highest kill rates and more advantages than at any other time but the new player experience is abysmal? Killers as a whole (as opposed to individual Killers) don't need any help but new survivors certainly do.
I think you're perhaps supplanting experiences onto new players that they aren't actually likely to experience here, at least a little bit? I don't think many brand new killers are running strong aura perks that they use to tunnel people out, because they're probably not even going to know what the strong perks are or that tunnelling is a strong strategy. Besides, even if they are- that's tunnelling, not aura reading. Something that still needs to be conclusively addressed, but also has its own counter perks.
For average use of aura reading, the current counters are absolutely good enough. None of them just shut off aura reading entirely, and nor should they, but the three viable aura blocking perks all have a strong and useful niche that'll help survivors who struggle with the respective form of aura reading.
The three viable perks include Distortion, by the way, I feel I need to make that clear. Distortion in its current form is a good, consistent, reliable perk.
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@Marc_123 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3829833#Comment_3829833
I know you want to help but you need to help new and bad players which is a problem.
I play pretty often with new players. They try to hide, of course - which is completely logical. They often don´t understand how they get always found and think the killer is cheating.
Aura reading is sadly counter intuitive. Imo the game would be better if it was gone like old times. BBQ was fine but the new stuff is not.
I have two issues with invoking new players in this context.
The first is, Distortion obviously still works for them and will help protect them from aura reading. It isn't flawless for them, as it isn't for skilled players, and that's fine there as it is anywhere else.
The second is that I genuinely do not know what is actionable about that. New players shouldn't be able to hide from all auras for the entire match because of one passive perk, and aura reading existing is not a problem because it pushes for more interactions between players, so it's kind of just a nothing statement. Besides, new survivors go up against new killers, so the threat of the chase they're in is proportionately lower anyway. They're gonna have to be chased at some point, and they're not gonna be better at chases until they've started practising in real matches, so… no real issue here.