Castlevania PTB General Feedback (2024)

Castlevania

Trevor: Trevor looks good! Lets break down his perks

Exaltation: Absolutely an interesting perk and a new take on item perks, as well as rewarding for chase

Eyes of Belmont: This one will probably get into my builds one way or the other. Its the survivor equivalent to Lethal Pursuer and I adore that perk. I can easily see this being ran with anything else that shows killer aura as a support perk for that

Moment of Glory. The time on it is WAY too high compared to other perks that essentially do the same thing (Second Wind, Blood Rush) and offer nothing to help the perks effect otherwise

The Dark Lord: Design is great! Lets break down the perks first!

Dominance: Best case unfortunately i can really only see this as an early warning hex defense paired with Undying, but not replacing it outright

Hex: Wretched Fate: This kinda a weird damned if you do damned if you don’t perk. I can see it being combo’d with Pentimento but thats about it. I think there's other perks in this game that do this ones job, but better, and more consistent

Human Greed: This one interests me alot, but i also like tracking perks. However at the end of the day i’m not sure how impactful this will be on average. Either it’ll be really impactful and useful and see lots of use since survivors tend to not interact with chests or totems often, or non-impactful for the opposite reasons. I also see it having negative synergy with still pretty popular hex perks, but could also act as a pseudo early warning system to the observant killers.

Now lets look at Dracula’s power, i’m going to split this part into 3, one for each form.
Vampire (Human) Form. This form plays a lot like Nemesis and his whip with the flame pillars. The only issue i had with the flame pillars is this hitbox is A LOT larger than it looks

Wolf form; I’m aware of a bug that the smell orbs isn’t working well (haste isn’t working exactly) but this form has a similar issue with the flame pillars, but reverse, the pounce hitbox being really small and precise. 4.4 is also a bit jarring of a change in speeds otherwise. It was really hard to gauge what the speed boost is intended to be when it isn’t exactly working.

Bat form: I would increase the teleport range up from where it is. The teleport is pretty limited. The other concern here is accessibility as Bat Form has the same issues with Spirit that makes him rely solely on the players hearing, and if the player can’t hear, or at least hear over the bat squeaking, Dracula isn’t going to be popular

Otherwise in all the only thing i’d look at for The Dark Lord is bringing some of his CDs and slowdowns a smidge, there is times where i felt Dracula felt very similar to PTB Lich. So some CDs on form changing especially should be looked at

Dredge
All the number buffs are good, however Dredge still suffers from the fact he’s still very map dependent. Numbers help, but hire the DBD Osha Foundation to commission more lockers in the trials or something

Nemesis
Same thing as Dredge pretty much, numbers help but it doesn’t solve him. Nemesis is still going to need to see a pretty extensive addon rehaul as most of his addons are still just not appealing, and the ones that are now basekit are still the better choices over almost everything else

Doctor
Nothing really to say about him this time around, shooter CDs on Static Blast and faster move speed while blasting is a net positive.

Midwich
Midiwich for me has TONS of pluses and negatives. Lets start with the pros;

The LoS blockers on the gates is pretty good to give survivors more of a chance tp get the gates when hatch is closed, however the map is still VERY small so its still a loosing 50/50. The bathroom doors being open is also just a good thing to streamline the map

Now the bads. The hallways are now TOO cluttered. I understand and agree with why to slow down the rampant hold w’ing in the halls, HOWEVER now its essentially TOO cluttered. If they made the halls wider like they did with RPD to help that would help the map here, otherwise now it feels very cluttered and congested. Basem*nt also got changed to be thinner on the stairway, this should be relooked

The changed perks:
All of them kinda follow the same design here with just shorter cooldowns and activation requirements. The only one i would look at would be chemical trap and maybe upping it from 20% of a generator but the rest are fine, nothing meta shaking or defining, just nice QoL

General feedback covering everything else.

Hidden Prestige. THANK GOD! Prestige, ever since i started playing (october 2017) has always been a weird point of toxicity/contention where players who were wearing Legacy, Prestige Bloody Clothes, and certain exclusives (Diatech shirt namely) have a tendency to be treated worse than the rest of the community for some weird reason, with most of the reason being “oh, they’re in p3/legacy, obviously they’re gods at the game, time to flex” when it never really was that. This issue went away with the store being added, but returned with the new prestige system, where I know personally several people with p100s no longer touch their p100, especially as survivor to avoid frequent lobby dodging, or being camped/tunneled out for sheerly using their favorite character. Killer as well gets it in the end game chat (or in weirder cases on Twitter, y’all are strange) for not doing well as a p100. After this going forward for prestige, if any rewards become a thing, i’d personally like to see different rewards that aren't strictly cosmetic, like bonus currency with each prestige, or every 10 levels. Something along that line.

Hook stage timer. This isn’t too bad, but if needed Reassurance and Camaraderie can get toned down to compensate. This more often than not isn’t going to come into effect unless you get a team who’s really trying to min/max their time efficiently.

Live Data Reboot System. I don’t see this talked about alot but THANK GOD! Hopefully no more people abusing killswitched features well after the switch went out until they either log out, or Tuesday Steam Maintenance

20k Item cap. I don’t get the frustration here outside of completionism, which i guess this change is very much a “in the eyes of the beholder” For me personally i don’t see the need for 20k items, and if i ever end up with 20k of something there's probably a good reason why i have that many, and its probably because they never get used.

All in all the PTB was good, Dracula is fun but needs a couple tweaks. Perks on both ends aren’t going to be meta defining (which is fine) but do have some niche slots. Dredge feels significantly better but suffers from locker placement. Nemesis still needs a drastic addon overhaul with the addons that were now essentially being made baseline still being the top picks. Doctor feels smoother, otherwise it didn't change all that much. All the changed perks follow a similar theme with either larger activation times, or lower activation requirements. All changes here are good. Baseline game changes range from really good, to possibly requiring perk changes. PTB as a whole was good, Castlevania feels solid and a welcome addition to Dead by Daylight, and i am excited for full release!