zarr
zarr
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@Altarf said:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/2196811#Comment_2196811
That was always a thing - or, at least, was a thing prior to the nerf. I played Twins a lot prior to the nerf, and I've seen survivors try.
Prior to which nerf? I have unhooked people while Victor was on my back plenty of times. I haven't been able to do so ever since the Mid-Chapter Update.
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There was an unannounced buff, too: Survivors with Victor on their back now cannot unhook other survivors anymore. I would say this is a more substantial change than the three others combined, as you can now leave Victor at a hook, get a notification when a survivor is approaching for the unhook, and deny that unhook.
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Basically non-functional Dead Hard if it's not used for distance, ridiculous hits through and over pallets and windows, lunges connect from afar, ... - client-sided hit detection on the killer's PC coupled with servers that introduce more latency but do not run their own hit detection or at least hit validation or lag compensation means the killer's latency advantage has only gotten worse, when it was the one thing I had hoped dedicated servers would finally rid us of. And now players can't even see what the connection of their opponent to the server is like, to avoid players with bad connections.
I really do hope you will sooner rather than later look at handling "hit authority" differently, as you said you want to. The server needs to be the authority, or I don't see why dedicated servers were implemented to begin with.
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I'm pretty sure you are still running hit detection on the killer's machine, from their perspective alone, no lag compensation or hit validation. I was playing on ~50ms servers consistently, and killers were landing ridiculous hits through and over pallets and windows consistently, particularly if they had bad connections. Dedicated servers obviously introduce more lag between any two players than peer-to-peer, and so if you still run hit detection on the killer's client, it is only natural that the killer's latency advantage increases. The very thing that I had hoped dedicated servers would finally rid us of.
If there won't be server-sided hit detection or at least validation, nor lag compensation, why exactly was the switch to dedicated servers made at all? It not only makes things worse, but now you can't even tell what the connection of your opponent to the server is, i. e. you can't dodge opponents with ######### connections.
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I think Spirit is a unique and interesting design that deserves her place in DbD, and despite its "issues", should not receive a Legion-like treatment that half-way neuters her ability. There are however two fundamental flaws with Spirit: she is a killer designed to be about guessing and prediction games, mindgames, yet in-Phase collision and add-ons take away from this gameplay. In-Phase collision regularly means that Spirit does not have to guess or predict a survivor's movements, but can - intentionally as well as accidentally - feel for the survivor, little to no thought required; add-ons modify the specifics and timings of her phasing mechanics, changing activation time, movement speed, duration, recovery - these variables are crucial for a survivor to effectively be able to guess, predict and play mindgames against Spirit though, and since these variables always change with the use of add-ons, there isn't a basis for becoming familiar enough with them to yield consistent counter-gameplay (and some of those add-ons, especially when stacked, are simply overtuned anyway).
In-Phase collision simply has to be removed, it's a glaring design flaw. The add-ons that tweak those aforementioned variables should be toned down to keep Spirit within a range that is accessible to experience, so that the difference between base Spirit and add-on Spirit is within a realm of predictability. Maybe simply making it so that they don't stack would be enough.
In turn, I think the passive phasing mechanic should be made more of an actual, proactive chase tool, allowing the killer player to be able to tell when Spirit is passively phasing, so that they may actively use it to their advantage.
There are also Prayer Beads and Father's Glasses which are both pretty ridiculous add-ons, but it's not like there aren't a variety of other ridiculous add-ons in the game, on both sides. This would be something for a larger game "philosophy" overhaul, I guess, where things such as Iridescent Head and Syringes, Ebonies and Keys (basically "F*** You!" things) are reconsidered on, to an extent or another.
The "tracking" issue with Spirit on the other hand is not a fundamental design flaw, I think. Scratchmarks make for interactive gameplay, since a survivor can control them. Audio tracking is not precise enough to remove counterplay, and also has means of control (walking instead of running to prevent footsteps and panting). Only injured noises are a problem, making chase interactions on tile play turn into 50/50s a lot of the time, since the noises can give away if the survivor does anything but to commit to one side of a pallet or window hoping it's the one Spirit does not end up on. Iron Will exists, and while it is a viable choice against any killer and therefore not a "wasted slot" by any stretch, I would argue killers that actually manage to diversify meta perk choices are something positive for the game. Balanced Landing is a great perk survivors would have no reason to ever not bring - but since it is not very effective against Nurse and Spirit, it is not a clear-cut decision, making it so that Dead Hard and even Lithe are often considered instead of BL (or alongside BL, but that's already two perk slots spent). Same can be argued for Spine Chill, Dance With Me, Quick & Quiet, Poised, Fixated, and other perks. I enjoy stealth-juke gameplay (losing the killer mid-chase), and so I welcome that Nurse and Spirit encourage as much, even introducing it into the meta, leading to more people building and practicing for that skill.
There is one thing that should be changed however: Stridor should not be basically a hard-counter to Iron Will. Maybe it should only make Iron Will-having survivors' cries of pain play at 25% volume, or like No Mither, result in a reduced frequency of the cries.
Also: Spirit currently has what is to be considered a bug, where there are visual cues on her model that give away whether she is phasing or not. That obviously needs to be fixed.
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What is the average time chases last before the survivor is downed, in red ranks?
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Blood Warden is indeed too situational of a perk to be more than a gimmick. It's certainly satisfying when it does work out, but seeing as how situational it is to come into effect to begin with, and how rare it is for it to work out even if it does come into effect, it's not worth 25% of your perk loadout. It can be fun and come in clutch sometimes, but it's gimmicky and unreliable.
For two Quality-of-Life improvements the perk should have always had to begin with: The perk icon should have a timer indicator that tells the killer how long the gate(s) will still be blocked for; The Entity blocker spikes in the gates should only appear if a survivor actually walks up to it, and retract again if they walk away from it, just like it is for the killer - being able to check for whether Blood Warden is (still) up from a distance makes it way too easy for survivors to avoid, and additionally renders its aura reading on exit gates pretty useless.
For an actual buff that would give the perk more reliable utility: Every consecutive hook you get after the gates are opened should add another 30 seconds to the timer.
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@Master said:
@zarr said:
@PigNRun said:
@Master said:
@PigNRun said:
The DS change proposed by Devs is enough. Its honestly still strong, allowing you to give you more time to wiggle out. It may not happen every single time, but being a few seconds short from escaping the killer's grasp because a hook was far away enough is rather common, especially if other Survivors start bodyblocking for you.The point of the new DS is to enable a window where flashlight saves are possible
Pretty sure zarr will come here and call it too situational as well.
I don't have to, as I already did say that. I said to want to stop repeating myself, but here goes:
No, as a one-time-use perk, it will not allow you to be flashlight-saved with any perk-slot-worthy regularity by any stretch. First, your teammates need to have a flashlight. So any lobby that does not have one already nullifies this aspect of the perk. That is, frankly, awfully situational. Second, your teammates do not know that you have the perk. So you need to rely on them running in for saves they would not even get without you having the perk, just gambling on you having it. And then you need to be downed so far away from any object the killer could look at to prevent getting blinded that they can't get there with the distance they can cover while you wait for and then complete the DS skill check.
It would only ever be somewhat relevant in an SWF setting, and even then not nearly relevant enough to see frequent use. Not as a one-time-use perk.
You realize that SWF is very common
I don't want the perk to only be SWF-relevant but meta-relevant, and, as I've said, it would still not be a popular perk of choice even in an SWF setting, as that. Not to mention that the game is designed from the ground up as a single-player game, and instead of adjusting perks etc. for the existence of SWF, it would be better to adjust SWF accordingly to all of that.
But that's another topic. Dev-proposed DS would be too weak to see meta-like frequent use even in SWF settings.and even with solo players you can coordinate in the chat before the game starts
Yes, that totally happens. People already say "I have DS, if I'm not the obsession, please block for me." all the time!
...Right back at ya: "I just wish every player would play survivor and killer before suggesting such stuff"
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@PigNRun said:
@Master said:
@PigNRun said:
The DS change proposed by Devs is enough. Its honestly still strong, allowing you to give you more time to wiggle out. It may not happen every single time, but being a few seconds short from escaping the killer's grasp because a hook was far away enough is rather common, especially if other Survivors start bodyblocking for you.The point of the new DS is to enable a window where flashlight saves are possible
Pretty sure zarr will come here and call it too situational as well.
I don't have to, as I already did say that. I said to want to stop repeating myself, but here goes:
No, as a one-time-use perk, it will not allow you to be flashlight-saved with any perk-slot-worthy regularity by any stretch. First, your teammates need to have a flashlight. So any lobby that does not have one already nullifies this aspect of the perk. That is, frankly, awfully situational. Second, your teammates do not know that you have the perk. So you need to rely on them running in for saves they would not even get without you having the perk, just gambling on you having it. And then you need to be downed so far away from any object the killer could look at to prevent getting blinded that they can't get there with the distance they can cover while you wait for and then complete the DS skill check.
It would only ever be somewhat relevant in an SWF setting, and even then not nearly relevant enough to see frequent use. Not as a one-time-use perk.
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Triple-post due to permission stuff...
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Double-post due to permission stuff.
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The problem with statistics like this - and equally marth's "depip squad", and the like - is that you are not getting data actually useful to "measure" gameplay balance; this data is only (somewhat) useful to indicatively say a few things about rank balance. Which, most people know that getting to rank 1 on either side is just a matter of time, not of proficiency, and that thus the skill disparity at any rank is "imbalanced".
Similar to marth's squad, there are killer players in any region that get 3 to 4 kills 80+% of the time, at rank 1. Some of them streamers that you can follow and watch 3-4k at rank 1 consistently, hours on end, making survivors look hopeless. How? Because they are some of the better players at the game, with thousands of hours of experience, knowledge and skill, and they regularly go up against players that don't even match theirs when combined.
In order to actually be able to derive from data meaningful things as far as gameplay balance is concerned, you need to have a competitive premise that is met: all 5 players on the server need to have a comparable amount of experience, knowledge and skill; all 5 players on the server need to be aware of what it is you are determining balance by, and try their best to fulfil their side of that equation (which in DbD terms to most people means number of escapes, where the game is considered balanced when two survivors escape and two other survivors do not). I'll ignore other formal and technical competitive premise stuff like latency, framerate, and such.
My guess is, if you do run tests in meeting that competitive premise, the statistics will show the game to be noticably survivor-sided, still, because generators are just getting done too fast, but it will be decidedly less skewed than marth's statistics, for instance. It will also be in dependence on killers, maps, perks and items and add-ons as well as offerings used, of course, but the fact of the core gameplay balance is that gametime as determined by generators is just too limited for killers to consistently get 2+ kills, if the survivors diligently do generators.
The fact of the game reality however is that the majority of players is not that good, on both sides. A lot of survivors do not repair generators diligently, or efficiently at all, hardly last half a minute in chases, make bad decisions in save scenarios. A lot of killers do not utilize tunnelling, slugging and camping properly or at all, do not chase efficiently or otherwise manage time well. There are of course degrees to which players are better at some of these things than other players, but the ranking system just pits them all together. So, as a group of four good survivors you will do well against average rank 1 killers, just like as a good killer you will do well against average rank 1 survivors. To put that into perspective: If even just 1 survivor is noteworthily more or less experienced, knowledgeable or skilled than the killer, the competitive premise is all but out of the window and the game result is not a meaningful measure of core game balance.
Since DbD is not an esport with a distinguished pool of professional players, and since the ranking system pits all kinds of players with wildly varying levels of game experience, knowledge and skill against each other (as well as wildly varying levels of even building and playing to "win" (which is, survive vs. kill)), it's really hard to say what the game should actually be balanced for. The game at its core is certainly survivor-sided, but with the landscape of actual, average gameplay, adjusting the game too strongly with that in mind could very possibly make the actual, average escape rates end up being lower than what is considered balanced. As BHVR's presented stats have shown, the average escape rate is already slightly under two across all ranks, and all killers - to be fair, this is months ago and disconnects factor into this unfairly, but it is still indicative of the fact that in actual, average, day-to-day gameplay, the game is not as severely survivor-sided as people make it out to be, at all. Hell, the statistics they've released have in the past regularly shown that not even 20% of rank 1 survivors even use perks such as Sprint Burst and Decisive Strike - the by far most impactful survivor perks in the game (Sprint Burst certainly was, before the Exhaustion change).
So, yeah, balance is a fickle thing to come by in a game like this, but it is hard to determine what to even balance for, when the competitive premise of the core game is hardly ever met, in actual gameplay.
My opinion, for whatever it's worth, is that the game should be balanced around rank 1 escape rates, excluding games with disconnects, aiming of course for an average of 2, and keeping in mind that some killers are much deadlier than others (and potentially, hopefully buffing those weaker killers...). The vast majority of the playerbase is not rank 1, but they are also vastly less affected by any balance-relevant changes. The regularly-playing rank 1 minority develops a metagame around the actual, average balance, and are the ones that benefit and suffer from anything that affects core balance at least more-so than players at any other rank.
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@BasementLeatherBoi said:
Being able to stun the killer for 6 seconds every time he picks you up seems even more overpowered than the current version. You’ll just have survivors running to corners of the map where there are no hooks and abusing it to never get caught.Still leaves 10 seconds carrying time, or 36.8m. Find me a corner on any map - let alone every map - that is that far from the next hook. (Also find me survivors that hit great skill checks on DS all the time. The majority of survivors can't even halfway-consistently hit greats on gens. Most players are mediocre at best at the game. It just is that way.) At best you're a free down and slug, with teammates having to venture out to a corner map deadzone for the save. Running to a corner would not be a reliable tactic by any stretch.
I know I have picked the wrong perk to talk balance on, mostly since people's emotions are regularly getting in the way of actual discussion when they even only hear the perk's name, but if people here really can't see that the dev-proposed DS is blatantly weak and would just nerf into obscurity yet another perk that could potentially be turned into something balanced-yet-useful, I guess I have picked the wrong place to talk balance, as well.
We'll see whether popular opinion sways once the DS change does go through and the perk disappears off the face of most of any reasonably-educated loadout, as a result.
Better luck with the next perk I'll try to get people (well, the devs, mostly) to realize is deserving of a buff. There's unfortunately no shortage of them...
As I've admitted multiple times before, I do think this version of DS could still be plenty obnoxious, despite not being nearly as impactful as current-version DS. Especially against SWF teams. So I'm not passionate about it. Not passionate enough to keep repeating myself beyond this point, certainly. I'm not passionate about DS itself to begin with; this was more-so about having more meta-fit perks in the game at all, and DS just so happens to be one that is not going to be, anymore, should it become the one-time-use, skill check, 3-4-second stun ability the devs have stated it is intended to become.
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@PigNRun said:
The meta is supposed to change from time to time.I agree! I would be more than fine with a scenario in which BHVR nerfed and buffed a variety of perks every other month, creating ever-new and exciting environments for metagames to develop in. That's a great way to keep the game changing and lively without the need for a constant flow of content. The reality of the game however is that the perk metagame has been very stale, and still is, because BHVR just does not do that. If DS is nerfed into not being metagame-viable anymore, people will just replace it with another perk out of the handful "age-old" staples. There unfortunately won't be alternate, out-of-the-comfort-zone playstyles entering the meta because of it, as the perks in the game just do not justify those to be viable - at least, not on a consistent enough basis to become prevalent, i.e., metagame-relevant.
As I've said, ideally I would want for every single perk - on both sides, naturally - to be relevant to the metagame in some way. That is why I do not want to see yet another perk land on the sizeable pile of those that are simply not relevant to the metagame in some way, with the proposed DS nerf.
And even if it wont be useful every single match, then, does it matter?
Not useful every single match is another notion than useful one time in ten matches. My "belief" is that DS in the dev-proposed form would simply be without-impact to an extent, statistically, that nobody in their "right mind" would use it over other, statistically (and otherwise) decidedly more impactful perks. The perks you've mentioned are, in my opinion, not only situational in different, less detrimental ways than the dev-proposed DS would be situational in, but the impact they have on the game is also qualitatively on another level… and pretty significantly so.
But this is not a discussion about other perks. I do actually somewhat agree that simply removing DS from the metagame could be a good thing in that it at least changes the predominant builds up in some way, because DS is so ridiculously impactful in its current form that it can be found in essentially any playing-to-win loadout. I also admit that my DS suggestion might be leaning too much to the idea of making it viable in solo play - too much in the sense that it could be positively atrocious to face in an SWF setting. Due to that, the 6/3s; 4/2s numbers might actually be more reasonable.
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@PigNRun said:
being a few seconds short from escaping the killer's grasp because a hook was far away enough is rather commonI suppose it depends on your understanding of what constitutes "rather common", but it's really not common enough to justify spending a perk slot on such a perk (if you want to build to win). Sacrificing an entire perk slot of the merely four you get, for a perk that maybe, potentially allows you to wiggle the one time out of ten games that the killer actually has no hook available in a 58.88 - 14.72 = 44.16m range (assuming a 4-second stun), is asinine. There are other perks that will have an impact practically every single game.
And then, even that one time out of ten games, the killer can simply just drop and slug you if they realize they can't get you to a hook. So the perk has still not allowed you to wiggle out of the killer's grasp, just gotten you slugged.
It would be strong enough for your tastes, maybe, but certainly not strong enough to be relevant in the metagame. At the very least, it needs to be a multiple-time-use perk, especially considering that the time for the skill check to pop up plus the time for the skill check to be completed allows the killer to move, after the pick-up, which makes DS stun pallet saves practically impossible and DS stun flashlight saves nigh-impossible, against any halfway competent killer.
The only reason that the devs could actually go through with the one-time-use, 3-4-second stun nerf for is that they are very apparently willing (determined, even?) to have a plethora of objectively subpar perks in the game, for some reason.
I apologize for my tone; I guess it's my general disappointment with the amount of mediocre perks in the game speaking. In my mind, ideally every single perk would be metagame-worthy in some form, or at the very least viable at what it is the perk is intended to do.
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@Hillbilly420 said:
TLDR?tl;dr: The Decisive Strike nerf as proposed by the developers would make it all but irrelevant in the metagame. My idea for a perhaps workable, but definitely viable nerfed version of the perk is this: The player using Decisive Strike gets a DS-sized, two-zone skill check every time they are being picked up by the killer. Hitting a good skill check stuns the killer in place for 4 seconds. Hitting a great skill check stuns the killer in place for 8 seconds (50% of the wiggle time). Non-obsession numbers would be 3 and 6 seconds, respectively.
That's a terrible idea.
8 seconds only for the obsession, and only if they hit a great skill check. It currently already stuns for 4 seconds, on top of literally giving you a health state and free escape. Even for non-obsession survivors. And you would need to hit a great DS skill check, which is rather difficult (for one reason or another, hitting even a regular DS skill check is more difficult than hitting great skill checks on generators, and this holds true for many players, as I've regularly seen on streams).
I presented this as a workable suggestion; while I do think these numbers are necessary to have the perk be as relevant in the meta as I'd like it to be, the numbers are up for debate. The crucial thing for solo play (what the game was intended for) is really that the perk is not a one-time-use. Maybe this could however be tied to some condition. Maybe you would need to do something to collect counters for DS.
Another thing of note, that I just now really realized: pallet saves will be practically impossible with DS, anyway, since the skill check takes a while to pop up - the killer will almost never be standing inside a pallet while in DS stun. Not if they don't want to. This is also relevant for flashlight saves, as the killer can not only pick a survivor up looking at a wall, but walk towards a wall after picking up, too, in order to be stunned in a position they can't get blinded in. Considering this, I would argue it's even more important for the perk to have larger numbers, and be multiple-use, in order for it to have a perk-slot-worthy impact at all.
hope you can look around [...] to avoid a flashlight
So you want to nerf the nerfed version of DS that would already nerf it into obscurity? Then it would only, exclusively, give 3-4 seconds wiggle time, which, again, is basically useless. At that point it's about as worthy of a perk slot as Boil Over (read: not at all worth a perk slot).
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@azazer said:
All of this can be done outside of SWF.Can be, but regularly won't be. Survivors that don't know that someone is running the perk will regularly not run in for pallet or flashlight saves they know they couldn't possibly get without them running the perk. Because in most cases, they would only be wasting their time. And even if they would regularly run in, you need to be under a pallet or for your teammates to have a flashlight to begin with (plus new pallets make pallet saves iffy, and "new" blinding angles make flashlight saves a rarity, if the killer knows what they're doing). Outside of an SWF setting, a one-time 3-second stun is basically-useless, in that it will hardly crack the two-digit percentage mark in times it actually does anything for you.
My proposed DS would still only very rarely allow the survivor to wiggle, just by itself. Only the obsession, if they hit a great skill check, and even then it's still 8 seconds to carry, which translates to ~30m the killer still has, to get the survivor to a hook.
I understand it could be seen as too strong, that people just want to see it go, but I want more perks with meta relevance, and in order for the perk to still find a spot in common loadouts, it needs to be more than it would be in the form the devs have proposed.
@Master said:
8 seconds? are you insane?My argument is that 8 seconds are "only" half of the wiggle time - 30m is still plenty to carry someone to a hook. That hitting a great skill check on a DS is not easy (how often do people hit DS under Unnerving Presence? It happens, sure, but it is not the norm, and that is still roughly twice the size of the great skill check). That there exist counter-mechanics (slugging, dribbling, looking at a wall, blocking new pallet prompt) and counter-perks (Enduring, Unnerving Presence, Agitation/Iron Grasp, Lightborn).
I know 8 seconds would feel rather ridiculous and have pointed out as much. But that alone is not an argument that convinces me. Especially because it only goes for the obsession, and only if they hit a great skill check. Which I really do believe would be rare for survivors to hit. As in, even the most experienced survivors would not hit it more than half the time, at most, while your average survivor would maybe hit it 30% of the time, at most. Of course always risking missing the skill check entirely, by going for the great skill check, and not getting any stun time because of it. Maybe a workable version would indeed be obsession-DS 6/3 seconds, and non-obsession-DS 4/2 seconds, respectively - as long as it is not a one-time-use. I just presented the numbers I think would actually make the perk strong enough for good players to use it, i.e. for it to be relevant in the metagame.
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"Getting stunned by a pallet lasts literally two seconds. Why would you need to reduce the stun duration?"
Yet, still, Enduring is a perk. A rather good perk, at that. Resilience and Spine Chill are - compared to other perks you could be running instead - rather bad perks.It should be kept in mind that a Killer is stunned the moment the pallet begins to fall when a Survivor interacts with it.
This is not true, and especially since patch 2.0 hasn't been true - to an extent where registering hits through pallet drops is commonplace. The new pallet drop interaction takes longer than it used to, and this allows killers to get some pretty ridiculous hits through pallet drops, especially if the player is aware of the fact that lunge duration is controllable.
Resilience and Spine Chill take up two slots (50%) of your perk loadout, and they combine for a measly 15% speed increase while injured and in the killer's line of sight (which regularly means: in chase; you will hardly be able to benefit from Spine Chill's 6% action speed increase outside of chases - only worth of note might be the odd Hex totem you cleanse while the killer is running straight to you, and even then it's still not significant (14 seconds cleanse duration / 1.06 speed modifier = ~800ms faster)). For a 1-second fast-vault, that 15% modifier amounts to a reduction of about 130 milliseconds (1 / 1.15). This is subtle, but it can make a difference in intense chases. Mind you, it can only, potentially, make a difference between getting hit during the vault or not getting hit, if the killer swings. Those 130 milliseconds will not give a survivor significant distance by any stretch, after the vault.
To further ease your concerns: As I've said, Resilience and Spine Chill already do affect window vault speeds, and the devs have actually included this fact into Resilience's tool tip (proof of Resilience increasing vault speed (the perk is stacked 4 times here, resulting in a 36% speed modifier):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHP63TKifHY). So if those 15% interaction speed increase would be broken when affecting vaults, these two perks would have been broken ever since they've been in the game (which is... from launch, I think?). And they really aren't broken. Like I said, they are painfully underused and definitely candidates for buffs.Making pallet interactions 15% faster would, equally, be a subtle yet viable buff. It would not make pallet play fundamentally different, it would just improve it slightly, for players who are good enough to play pallets more riskily. And as opposed to windows, killers can actually break pallets, removing that resource from the game - so if those 15% would actually be overpowered, they would be so on windows more than pallets. Which, again, they aren't: it is in the game and has been used plenty, by myself and others, and the perks are really not worth spending half your loadout on. There are a lot better things to use. If anything I would say both perks should be buffed to 10% each, combining for a 20% speed modifier. Even in the case that they should get buffed to affect pallet interactions, I can't see too many people actually spending two slots on them over other exisiting perks. But they would at least be viable picks.