elusive is an interesting but scary status effect...

[skittlesthehusky]

so i don't exactly know when elusive was added to the game (to be honest, sometimes things that get added just outright get ignored by me lol), but the introduction of some perks that leverage this status effect in the PTB have been nothing short of chaotic. both in a good and bad way.

'cross examination' is currently under fire for supposedly being "one of the most broken perk concepts in all of DBD history" and it makes me realize just how effective elusive can really be if given the power to do what it's meant to do. mainly because you come to realize just how much killer gameplay relies on obvious information from survivors to locate them.

what's impressive about it is the fact that elusive appears to be the hail mary to bringing full-on stealth back into the game after years of aura reading, visibility, and LOS tweaks. and with the introduction of the ideas from the Jason PTB, it's looking like BHVR is heavily trying to reintroduce stealth back in as a viable option.

my main concern about this is by encouraging stealth through perks and status effects like this, how much is it going to disrupt the pacing of games? i worry that games are going to become either slogs or fly by too quickly with less interaction because of how difficult tracking may become.

its 2 am so i can't formulate my thoughts as clearly but i'd be interested in seeing what people's thoughts are on this.

[OnryosTapeRentals]

Elusive is easily one of the strongest status effects DbD has ever seen. It's up there with Endurance and, I'd argue, it even surpasses it in many situations. If used by someone with sufficient game sense, it's basically a counter to everything. Killers can't chase, camp, tunnel, or slug a Survivor who they can't find in the first place. Endurance or Haste only delay those things -- Elusive can prevent them outright. I think the community at large is sleeping on the potential of Elusive, but I've been using it to great effect since they reworked Self-Preservation.

As someone who is very nostalgic for old DbD, I welcome the return of stealth as a viable option, but I'm not sure I like how they're currently going about implementing it. Tying the "all-in-one" stealth status effect to perks with free activation requirements, like Self-Preservation and the new Cross-Examination, seems like a misguided approach. It's so much value for very little player input, and when players catch on to Elusive's strength, will likely lead to frustrating matches where there's little interaction between the Killers and Survivor.

Personally, I like the approach of incorporating it some way into the base game. Perhaps as a reward for Survivors engaging with the game's (currently) subpar side-objectives. For instance, a Survivor who cleanses a Dull Totem or opens a chest will receive X (10? 15?) seconds of Elusive the next time they are unhooked. Survivor players get the stronger unhook protections they wanted from the scrapped anti-tunnel system, and Killers get slower Generator speeds now that Survivors have a meaningful side objective. Seems like it would be a win for all parties, but obviously it'd warrant testing on a PTB first. DbD has a penchant for unforeseen consequences cropping up, after all.

[skittlesthehusky]

Personally, I like the approach of incorporating it some way into the base game. Perhaps as a reward for Survivors engaging with the game's (currently) subpar side-objectives. For instance, a Survivor who cleanses a Dull Totem or opens a chest will receive X (10? 15?) seconds of Elusive the next time they are unhooked. Survivor players get the stronger unhook protections they wanted from the scrapped anti-tunnel system, and Killers get slower Generator speeds now that Survivors have a meaningful side objective. Seems like it would be a win for all parties, but obviously it'd warrant testing on a PTB first. DbD has a penchant for unforeseen consequences cropping up, after all.

i really like this idea. they should've done something like this rather than tying it to perks that refresh so quickly because of how impactful it can be. hopefully it is something they at least consider, but i don't know if they want to tie anything to totems other than perks that can be countered by their destruction. it seems like all they're good for in bhvr's eyes.

[OnryosTapeRentals]

Personally, I like the approach of incorporating it some way into the base game. Perhaps as a reward for Survivors engaging with the game's (currently) subpar side-objectives. For instance, a Survivor who cleanses a Dull Totem or opens a chest will receive X (10? 15?) seconds of Elusive the next time they are unhooked. Survivor players get the stronger unhook protections they wanted from the scrapped anti-tunnel system, and Killers get slower Generator speeds now that Survivors have a meaningful side objective. Seems like it would be a win for all parties, but obviously it'd warrant testing on a PTB first. DbD has a penchant for unforeseen consequences cropping up, after all.

i really like this idea. they should've done something like this rather than tying it to perks that refresh so quickly because of how impactful it can be. hopefully it is something they at least consider, but i don't know if they want to tie anything to totems other than perks that can be countered by their destruction. it seems like all they're good for in bhvr's eyes.

Yeah, BHVR seem to be at least aware that chests and Totems are underwhelming as side objectives because they've been pushing quite hard to encourage Survivors to interact with them. Problem is they keep choosing Perks as a means to do it. It's been a pattern for some time but became kind of obvious when Lara launched with two chest perks (one of which also requires Totems). It's nice to see an attempt to refresh gameplay, but it fails to address the core reasons these objectives are lacklustre.

Chests fail because they're outclassed by the loadout system in every way. And Totems are meaningless without Perks behind them. In order to make them consistently worth engaging with something needs to change with the base game and not with perks slapped on top. Even if these perks were reasonably strong, they still probably wouldn't do a good job at encouraging side objectives because they have to compete for slots with behemoths like Sprint Burst, Decisive Strike, Shoulder the Burden, etc.

[skittlesthehusky]

unfortunately part of that is due to the shallow gameplay loop they've designed majority of the game around while in their pursuit of making it "more". it wasn't until later that they decided to start incorporating perks and totems through perks to give them some sort of reason to exist. i feel like if they hadn't, they probably would've gotten rid of them long ago. it just throws me that they decided to use perks rather than working with what they already had.

in general it just feels like they've designed themselves into a hole they can't seem to get out of.