All Things Wicked is bringing something exciting to the Fog, and no, it’s not a Dead Space crossover. The chapter will add Invocations to Dead by Daylight, a new perk type that allows survivors to perform risky basement rituals for unique rewards. It’s a mechanic with as much potential as the addition of Hex Totems way back in Chapter 3: Of Flesh and Mud. The game won’t change much, however, if this ability requires a perk to use. Behaviour should instead make Weaving Spiders basekit. Survivors have suffered from boring gen repair mechanics for too long, but a solution is within reach if Behaviour is brave enough to seize it.
How Invocations Can Make Dead by Daylight More Fun
I hate repairing generators. Unless you’re on comms with your friends or keeping a watchful eye out for a sneaky Myers, it’s an M1 simulator with almost zero interaction. That’s a huge problem considering how much of the Trial survivors need to spend on gens. Sure, I could cleanse totems or open chests instead, but neither advances the main objective, which means my temporary entertainment often means death. Invocations offer survivors a future in which there’s another way to complete the main objective, adding another layer of strategy. With a few tweaks, Invocations could reinvigorate survivor gameplay like a Dwight with Adrenaline.
Sable Ward’s new Invocation, Weaving Spiders, should be basekit. The perk adds 15 charges of regressable repair progress to every generator when you complete a basement ritual. It also injures you and inflicts you with the Broken status, preventing you from healing for the rest of the Trial. Use Weaving Spiders at the start to progress all seven generators simultaneously or at the end to break a 3-gen. The perk is weak enough in its current form that making it basekit wouldn’t give survivors a noticeable advantage. It would simply give them something else to do other than glare at a progress meter while it slowly fills.
What Helldivers Can Teach DbD
If you want to make Invocations interesting, look no further than Stratagems in Helldivers. These code inputs make calling down equipment and airstrikes fun, but they’re basic enough that new players and those with disabilities can still pull them off. That’s exactly the kind of mechanic Invocations need in Dead by Daylight. The good news is, that’s how the Skull Merchant’s drone minigame works, so Behaviour wouldn’t even need to write much new code. Make Invocations basekit, slap a reoccurring input minigame onto them, and see how it goes.
As a killer main, I don’t want to give survivors a free buff, but as a solo queue sufferer, I’m begging for a change. Survivors represent a huge chunk of the game’s player base, and staring at a slow-filling meter all game will drain your soul faster than a face-camping Cannibal. Are there balance concerns? Absolutely. Would Sable’s Invocation perk need a rework? Yes. I don’t want to downplay the work involved in making Invocations basekit in Dead by Daylight without ruining 12 other things, but it needs to happen. Sincerely, your local Hag.
Dead by Daylight is available for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
