I mentioned this idea over on my Twitter (I refuse to call it X, sorry/not-sorry Elon your rebranding is terrible), but in a conversation with fellow streamer Lily from the Convenium we talked about ways to make DBD Survivors a bit more... unique.
Because as it currently stands, most of the Survivors are basically interchangeable once you have the perks unlocked. The only real differences being literally cosmetic (which is technically a tactical advantage sometimes, see Blendette - a Claudette running all dark clothing to make herself harder to spot when hiding) and - if it's still a thing in the game, I don't wholly remember - super min/max stuff BHVR doesn't tell you about like how loud their breathing and footsteps are. Which is good if you just want to play your favorite Survivor but also doesn't provide a lot of uniqueness to your choices beyond the outfits you slap on them (and even that isn't too unique considering there's a couple Survivors who have paired outfits to make them look similar).
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre game just came out recently and - while it has its own set of flaws and questionable design decisions, and my knowledge of its play is limited to watching streams of it - it also includes each Survivor also having their own special ability that makes each one unique. Leland can body-check family members and Connie is the Master of Unlocking, for example. Which led into a conversation of how a bit more uniqueness could be applied to the BHVR Survivors.
My tweet thread gives a general overview of the idea and a stream-of-consciousness thought process on the idea, but - as is my wont - I'm gonna ramblesnek about it a bit more heavily here.
The Concept
The idea at its core is a simple one: allow Survivors to be a bit more unique with each other without negatively impacting their current play-style.
So, say, having one of your perks have to be one of that Survivor's perks would certainly make them more unique but also limits your remaining choices and would suck if you have a Survivor you like the look of but doesn't have perks you enjoy using. Having a certain passive ability on top of the perks could also work and could be worth its own discussion, but Lily and I settled on something simpler.
The first Perk slot for your Survivor is the Specialty Perk slot (with a tool-tip that identifies it and what it does if you hover over it when its empty, of course). With generic perks or perks from other Survivors, it works like all the perk slots do now. However, if you slot in one of the Survivor's perks, it's treated as a tier higher. So as a level 1 Meg, you could have access to Tier 2 Sprint Burst by putting your otherwise Tier 1 Sprint Burst into the Specialty Perk slot.
Where it gets spicy, however, is if you have their perk at Tier 3. Putting one of the Tier 3 perks into the Specialty Perk slot gives access to a Tier 4 perk, which only that Survivor has access to. Colored red/pink to match the coloring scheme, of course.
Balancing Tier 4
Now, the idea would (hopefully) not be just have a stronger version of each perk for this new Tier 4 and call it a day. Already problematic perks such as Prove Thyself and Made for This would likely be that much worse if boosted higher. And I don't think any Killer wants to deal with a whole team of Gabriels with Tier 4 MFT along with Hope.
So the solution here would be down-tuning the stronger perks so that they're only at their most powerful in this Tier 4 state and each previous tier is made weaker to balance it out. Let's use Made for This as an example as it's the biggest issue of a problem perk if just straight boosted for Tier 4.
Whenever you are in the Injured State, Made for This activates and you benefit from the following effects:
- Gain a 0/1/2/3% Haste Status Effect while running.
- Gain the Endurance Status Effect for 4/6/8/10 seconds after completing a Healing action on another Survivor.
Made for This cannot be used when suffering from Exhaustion, but does not cause the Exhausted Status Effect.
Tier 4 can only be reached by using this perk in Gabriel Soma's Specialty Perk slot.
So, basically, Tier 1 Made for This would not give the Haste bonus at all and you would only get the current version if you are playing Gabriel with the perk in the Specialty Perk slot.
Similarly, Dwight's Prove Thyself perk would be a 4/6/8/10% increase for each other Survivor nearby up to 12/18/24/30%. And you could basically down-tune all the other perks if Tier 4 would make them too broken, but it could also be used to bolster weaker perks without them becoming too oppressive. It does raise the concern of how a now-unavailable Survivor (like Nancy) would work as their perks are now considered generics... but just for fairness' sake I would say their perks still count for this slot.
Of course, this new balancing could still be circumvented by doing something like having a full team of Gabriels running Made for This or a pair of Dwights running Prove Thyself. It would still be balanced out a bit, though, by the down-tuning of the other Survivor Perks they might be using in combination with their chosen perk (such as Lithe). And, of course, generic perks like Resilience and Kindred have no Tier 4.
In addition, this would provide information to the Killer about potential perks being used by the Survivors. There's nothing keeping you from not utilizing the Specialty Perk slot and that allows for a mix-up so it's not 100% free information. That said, if you see a full team of Gabriels, you might be safe expecting them all to be running Tier 4 Made for This and prepare yourself accordingly. Same if you see the example pair of Dwights I mentioned above.
What About the Killers?
Now, I stated that this idea was originally designed around the idea of being for Survivors. However, there's nothing keeping it from also being applied to Killers - providing similar benefits to the Killer.
Of course, Killers are already pretty unique since they have their own Powers and Add-ons that interact with said Powers, so they don't really "need" this to add uniqueness. In addition, some Killer Perks are sort of in direct conflict with how you'd want to play the Killer - such as Monitor and Abuse with Doctor. Which is a bit more impactful compared to the currently very replaceable nature of the Survivors.
That said, considering there's nothing forcing the use of the Specialty Perk slot on the Killer's perks so there's nothing keeping you from just sticking with your current load-out of Perks. The only concern would be if any of the Killer perks get down-tuned like the Survivor perks, which could hinder Killers who very much rely on those perks to supplement their Power set. That could be mitigated, however, by simply trying to avoid down-tuning Killer Perks unless them in combination with their Killer would be oppressive (Plague and Corrupt Intervention is the only one that readily comes to mind here, though).
Demogorgon would be treated the same as Nancy as identified in the previous section in this situation, so it'd be able to use an improved version of its perks despite all its perks being considered generics now. It's only fair.
Can It Go Further?
There's other ways that this idea could be further expanded to engender more variety in choice, primarily in the case of the Survivors - since there's four of them to the one Killer, after all.
The harshest option would be, of course, a singleton system like Texas Chainsaw Massacre uses (which would also, I feel, require an implementation of its "trade" system as well) so that the above example of four Gabriels or two Dwights can't actually happen. It would also further help distinguish which Survivor the Killer is chasing - though the addition of the chase markers to the HUD already helps some with this - to ensure you're going after the Survivor you want. But it would definitely suck if you have a Survivor you like to play (or are trying to Prestige, especially when a new one gets added) and someone's already insta-locked it and refuses to give it up. Which, given how toxic some of the player base can be, would likely result in a lot of sandbagging and selling out a teammate to the Killer.
A lighter option for this would be that the singleton rule applies only to what perk is in the Specialty slot. It would likely need more nuanced coding (something that's dangerous with the seemingly spaghetti-code nature of DBD), but the idea would be that you could have 2-4 Gabriels but only one of them could have Made for This in the Specialty slot. The others would have to have one of his other perks (or a generic perk) there instead. So if you see a pair of Dwights as a Killer, you could rest easy knowing only one of them could have the boosted Prove Thyself. There is still the drawback of if someone is playing the same character and has the same perk in the Specialty slot that you want, but that's a much narrow happenstance.
... Would just suck if you have four Survivors all trying to Prestige a new Survivor, though. Since the fourth wouldn't be able to use the Survivor's own perks in the first slot. Very unique use case situation, but not one that can be wholly dismissed out of hand.
Of course, these are just ideas to further push variety and uniqueness in Survivor team compositions if such a goal is desired. If it isn't, then just the Specialty Perk slot alone as suggested could be enough to add a bit more spice and thought into what character you use and what perk load-out you put on them. And it does it without horribly reducing the freedom of choice for the players themselves, which was something that I wanted to maintain with this thought project.
And perhaps the information garnered from Two Dwights or A Team of Gabriels is good enough to allow a Killer to make a more informed decision on what they want to do without restricting options.
Afterword
I always have fun thinking of new/modified ideas for games I enjoy playing. Though I suppose that's obvious given my previous ideas post for DBD. Or any of my unit ideas for Gundam Evolution. But it's also more fun when you can bounce the ideas back and forth with someone else. So a special thanks again to Lily Goat Demon for being the launching point and co-designer of this idea.
But, as always, what do you all think? Would this add enough of a choice to Survivor selection that we'd see more variety? Are you worried that BHVR would fumble the ball on the required perk re-balancing to account for the Tier 4? Do you think Killers should get it too or are they fine as they are perk-wise?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter!