A discussion about Hag and flashlights--would love a dev or skilled hag thoughts
There is a recent popular thread discussing the light burn mechanic and how it mostly punishes wraith and hag. While lightburning a nurse is possible, you basically need the stars to align and be a flashlight sniper god to make it happen.
Trapper recently was updated so that survivors cannot destroy his traps with a toolbox or the sabo perk.
As a new player who started picking up hag, it has been incredibly frustrating to play aganist coordinated survivors with flashlights. To be fair, I am a new-ish killer player, but with the broken matchmaking, I am constantly getting skilled red rank and purple survivors in. every. single. match. It takes hag 2-3 seconds to set a trap, but someone can flash a trap with a flashlight and it disappears in 0.1 seconds.
Is it fair for an item to totally remove a killer's power like this? I feel like hag already has a lot of counter play with being able to crouch over traps, baiting them, and triggering them while the hag is carrying another survivor.
Totally removing flashlights being able to destroy the traps might be too much, but I think it would be fair to increase the time it takes to burn a trap. Increasing the time to 1-2 seconds would cause the survivor to need to manage their resources more effectively, still leave fair counter play, and make flashlights feel less crippling to play against.
What are your thoughts on the strength of the flashlight aganist the hag? What would you change?
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I think increasing the time it takes to disarm them to 3 seconds is fair. I dont think it should be removed entirely.
If its a real problem for you run franklins and prioritize the person with flashlight.
It would be interesting to hear @SpaceCoconut thoughts on this though
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Flashlights are really rough if the survivors using them are competent, but an average flashlight user is pretty easy to deal with - beyond using Franklin's Demise (which I recommend vs 2+ flashlights) you should try to place traps in more unexpected areas and pathways, not always under pallets windows hooks etc. This is crucial when facing very good survivors even without flashlights, as you have to surprise them and keep them on their toes because they will actively set out to disable your web.
I think like you said it should just take more resources - a basic flashlight with no add ons can still destroy a vast amount of traps. Either the action itself should take more time or it should take away a little chunk of the battery for every trap burned.
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I find the most annoying, and surprisingly common, annoying use of a flashlight is going up aganist a coordinated team running OOO. They can see everything you do and destroy your traps while you are chasing or prepping other areas of the board. Buffing the removal time would make futile scenarios like this less prolonged.
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"Trapper recently was updated so that survivors cannot destroy his traps with a toolbox or the sabo perk."
To be fair, Trapper did not have any access to this Trap for some time when it got sabotaged, while Hag can simply place a new Trap. Let alone that Hag is on a Strength Level Trapper can only dream of.
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Guess i'll give this a go: @SpaceCoconut
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I've been summoned from vacation!
Ok, so I really have been thinking about flashlights as Hag for quite awhile. Let me share some of the simpler thoughts I've had...
1) Flashlights are technically a weapon survivors have to fight against killers. The majority of killers can only be blinded, but a few are actively hindered by flashlights. Wraith is burned and stunned for what like 5 seconds? Nurse can be burned mid blink and Hag's traps can be removed. No other killer is hindered the way these killers are. The devs often balance things so they're even across the board so we can hope that we see a balance pass that removes these mechanics from these particular killers since they're not present in other killers.
2a) The Trapper suffers from the same problem but without the need for a flashlight. Disarming traps takes nothing but time from a single survivor but will cost the Killer the time it takes to travel to and reset the trap if they do so immediately. This is a mechanic that allows survivors to fight against the killer rather than hide or run from them. The solution to this problem were both given in the form of UR addons and in my opinion is a poor choice.
2b) Wraith used to have an UR addon that prevented burn but was removed and the flashlight burn mechanic remains. Hag has some very bad addons that need some adjustment and could be used to address this particular problem. Changing Granma's Heart or Disfigured Ear to protect traps against flashlights would be a decent change since those addons don't do much for the Hag anyway. However, the survivor's ability to last second swap to items is an unrelated problem that would prevent the killer from being able to apply the addon before the match starts.
3) On her release, crouching used to trigger traps. Flashlights were the tool used to get around that to make it more balanced. Survivors were later given the ability to crouch past traps which is fair, but they also kept the ability to destroy traps with a flashlight giving them a way to directly hinder the Hag's power.
4) Compared to any other killer, Flashlights are MOST impactful for a Hag player. No other killer can be shut down by a single item the way a Hag can be. A single survivor that knows how to use their flashlight against a Hag can essentially win for the team since the Hag player won't be able to lead survivors into traps since the traps have been removed. Spending time to tunnel the flashlight user will cost you more gens, and as a Hag player, you don't start to snowball until the several gens are complete anyway.
Taking these thoughts into consideration, flashlight mechanics outside of blinding killers should probably be removed outright since the survivors have no real way to fight back against other killers by design. Pallets stun and stall killers, but nothing can STOP a killer from playing the match. Survivors are trying to escape the killer not stop them.
Currently, a smart survivor with a flashlight can stop a Hag cold the same way a smart survivor without one can stop a Trapper, and I don't think that's an intended design of the character or the game as a whole. For Wraith, a flashlight will cause a wraith to run and try to take cover to avoid being burned... is it the intention of the devs that killers run and hide from survivors? Certainly not.
Few players play as Hag which leads to less players who understand how to play against her so the issue is less pronounced. If she becomes more popular that will change.. especially if the rumor of Hag's presence in the upcoming Tome is true.
The power of flashlights are more impactful against Wraith and Hag. This certainly isn't fair, but they're the remnants of past design choices that haven't been updated along with everything else and is something that should be talked about and hopefully addressed in the near future.
I'm glad you're bringing this up and flattered that you're interested in my opinion on the matter. I'm sure they were kind of all over the place, but I hope I made sense.
Also... Waterlogged Shoe should let traps trigger on crouching survivors instead of what it currently does. 🥥
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