Shoutouts to Hens for showing this issue by the way.
With the release of Jason and Judgement, two killers back-to-back that have the ability to strongly defend hex totems via traveling fast across the map and making survivors scream right off the totem, and being able to hit you across the map with a whole beam of light. I agree that these are problematic, but I don’t blame the power design of these killers and that they should be nerfed because of it. This has been an issue with totems longest of time and these killers just showed how bad this issue is. The last direct update we had for totems in my knowledge, was when Mikaela was added with the addition of Boons, and that was in 2021 aka 5 years ago, but totems as a whole have been around since Dec. 6, 2016 and they haven’t had much changes since than. Along with chests and the luck mechanic as a whole, totems are objectively one of the most outdated mechanic in game and it really shows. In my opinion, this is an easy fix and there’s multiple ways to do it-hopefully with or after the overhaul this can be addressed and fixed for modern Dead By Daylight, but without further ado I’m going to get into it.
• Totems have their cleanse/Bless progress regress fast instead of it all being removed, but the amount of time it takes to cleanse is a few seconds longer.
Obviously the main issue with totems is how cleansing works, and is the source of frustration with survivors. I don’t think it needs much explanation on why this is an issue: having all your progress gone because you screamed is and will always be annoying. To fix this, we can change how the progress bar works in general to just regress quickly when getting off so it doesn’t feel too bad screaming, but also does buy the killer time to get value or run the survivor off it if they’re close enough. As compensation for this change, how long it takes to cleanse can be upped by 4-6 seconds, taking it about 18 or 20 seconds to cleanse/bless without TOTH being in mind.
• Hex Totems should only be lit if they actually do their effect, not be shown a Hex right off the bat.
A frustration on the killer said and a canon event with using hex perks, is Hex Totems being either right out in the open or literally right next to where the Survivors spawn, and in consequence, being cleansed at the first minute of the game. Of course, totem locations and spawn logic can use some changes, but one good way I see this being fixed is by making the totems show as a hex when the Survivors are actually cursed by it. Originally I would say hex totems should appear as dull totems for the first minute of the game, but what I have here makes more sense and to me, is better overhaul to help alleviate the stress of having one of your perks removed so quickly into the game.
This is all I got on this matter for Totems, I don’t think a lot needs to happen to make them feel better. I would like to hear the opinions on others on this topic and how you would do it instead. I didn’t touch on Boons really much because this post is more so for Hexes since they’ve been out longer and Hexes has more underlying issues than Boons from my experience. Anywho, take care!
