Breakable walls should provide killers with meaningful choices, like Midwich.
The Macmillan rework has brought with it new breakable walls, and unfortunately the implementation of these has been poorly received by a fair amount of people, for good reason.
Most of these walls seem to have been placed just for the purpose of having a wall, while others have reintroduced infinites to strong loops, Some walls even have absolutely no reason to break them at all, as it does not provide any boon to the killer and they just provide a new escape route for the survivors. It feels really terrible to feel like you are forced to break a wall just to get rid of an infinite, and if you try to do so before engaging a chase that is time you aren't able to pressure gens, especially if some of them are far out of the way like the new Ironworks wall (why is this one even a thing!?).
A good example of a wall I like is the pair of walls in the corner on Midwich. It provides a good shortcut to the upper floors that saves you a lot of time. But it is still meaningful to leave up as well, so that survivors can't use the shortcut either. I've even purposefully opened up one of the walls while leaving the other one up, to bait survivors I'm chasing to end up stuck in a dead end. While the other walls on this map aren't perfect, I still have a meaningful choice with these walls, that isn't simply "break this wall or get infinite looped you nerd".
Badham has an example of the opposite problem, the school building has breakable walls that are purely detrimental to break. Currently the walls make the school extremely dangerous, as the survivors pretty much can't evade you while downstairs, as you can just backtrack and wait in the middle if they throw the pallets. If you break either wall you give them a way out, and one of them gives survivors a strongish window loop. If the basement is in this building it can feel very unfair to survivors trapped here.
Walls should have pros and cons to consider on breaking them, the killer should always get some kind of benefit to breaking one (no removing a stupid infinite is not a pro when there would be no infinite to begin with without the wall) but also reasons to keep one up. It should never be fully stacked in one direction or the other. Right now they feel pointless to add, most of them just add annoyance to killers and others might as well be solid walls. They have potential to be creative but the way they are on Macmillan isn't it chief.
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When Badham rework first came out and I saw that both ends had a breakable I questioned why the Killer would ever break them. I asked my Fiance and he said "they wouldn't". So we agreed. And most other players seem to agree as well.
When what you implement could just be replaced with a solid wall then there may be a design issue there.
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Exactly, it just feels wasted. The only time I've broken it is when I had no hooks left nearby except the basement, but that meant I already won pretty much. If it is effectively a solid wall, what even is the point?
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Another example of a useless wall is the corner room on Dead Dawg Saloon. there's no reason to kick and of the walls because by default, the only entry is a window.
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Bruh breakable walls are fine, just break the wall and that infinite window turns into just a god window instead. :D
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Not usually the one that likes it when people do it, but scott jund has a pretty good video against breakable walls. Everyone scream for the angels, he brought up a streamer opinion he agreed with! Basically, he said that survivors should build the walls. They have a lot of time and is a secondary objective like totems. Survivors should start working for good stuff, that aren't perks (seriously!?!??!!!?!!! They aren't nerfing OoO because people with it are toxic ######### that get tunneled to death.) It would be weird to implement, but it's a better option than what we have right now. I don't want infinites to exist because they justify them existing with breakable walls. Also, wth were they thinking when they designed that room in dead dawg. One window to go in, three walls to break for no reason other than bloodpoints at the end of the match.
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I don’t think they need to entirely redesign how the walls function but there are specific walls that probably could use a review. Like a poster above said, I think the walls in the corners of Midwich that open up new paths between floors is an example of a good use of these walls. And likewise in Midwich I don’t mind walls which are part of a safe loop that the killer can break in advance to make it unsafe. Another wall I like is the breakable wall in the killer shack type building in Dead Dawg Saloon that’s next to one of its entrances. Leave it up and the shack remains a pretty strong tile, not unbeatable but a good spot to run to for survivor. Break that wall and it makes that loop short enough that the killer gets a nice advantage in comparison.
It’s really mainly two types of walls that don’t make sense that should probably be reconsidered
- Walls that breaking them actually makes the tile worse for the killer. To be fair, in most cases breaking a wall and having an additional path actually helps the killer since the more open an area is he easier it is to catch a survivor. But some walls can make a tile better for the survivor like the walls in the school in Badham. Why even have the breakable wall if the killer would better off leaving it alone?
- Walls that MUST be broken or the area is an infinite loop. It’s one thing if a loop takes longer for a killer to catch a survivor if a wall stays up, at least then breaking the wall is a choice. Leave it up to save time now but maybe spend time later. It’s another thing though if the loop is literally an infinite loop or a loop that is guaranteed three full circles before a vault is blocked like the infinite loop in MacMillain. That sort of thing is basically just telling the killer they MUST spend time breaking this wall or they’ll pay dearly for it. Walls should be optional, not mandatory to win.
So in a nutshell, breakable walls should feel like they are something which you don’t have to break them to win, but if you do spend time breaking them you are getting some benefit from the time spent (beyond just the 100 bloodpoints each). I do think a lot of walls fit this category, but there are some that maybe should be tweaked.
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A breakable wall next to a god window is just like a safe pallet, but you can get rid of it early. Are people really complaining about having to kick ~1 wall~ on the Macmillan maps?
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Yes, because killer time is too valuable to waste time heading to a loop solely to get rid of an infinite. These problematic windows were removed for a reason, they were too strong and an easy way to waste a killers time. Bringing them back with the excuse that you can get rid of it is not a good thing. Instead of giving the killer strategic choice about breaking it, there is no choice at all: You aren't giving yourself an advantage by removing the wall, but simply removing a disadvantage that was forced on you.
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I feel that the killer shack wall swings it a bit too much in the killers favour, but yeah I do like walls like that one. About saving time, I would prefer if most walls were designed so that breaking them was ALWAYS a time saver. I don't think its healthy to have walls that you will never break simply because the time to do so isn't worth it; I feel that you as a killer should always be able to say "I'll break this now to save time" rather than "I'll leave this alone for now to save time".
However if it specifically for looping tiles, than I think it is fine that they are a slight time waster if you decide to break them. I would rather though that the loops are not designed to make you feel forced to break the wall i.e. the long short wall loops at the saloon; this goes back to feeling as if you have little decision making in the process as the tile is simply too good without breaking the wall.
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I think I would love if all walls start off as killer advantaged (i.e makes more sense to leave them up) but they are used as ambush zones. The walls are see through (for the killer) and a killer can smash through a wall and hurt a survivor. However, after smashing through the wall, the area now becomes survivor advantaged. Given X amount of time the wall heals and comes back.
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My issue is how the walls themselves are just pre dropped pallets. Some, you don't need to worry about. Others, they create infinites, and you have to take time to break them. Killer is already a time crunch, this just makes it worse. Deaddog is a good example. For the majority of killers, you NEED to break three of the five walls in the saloon, otherwise that only place becomes an infinite. That's bad design.
Personally, I would rework walls into the survivors hands. Since killers need to play on the survivors time clock, then give them more things to spend time on. Let them construct the walls, instead of them already being there. They can shape loops, so the killer has to break anything they built. This gives interaction, instead of the same ole, same ole.
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Its a god window that shouldn't exist and unless you spawn next to it it has both a time and opportunity cost.
It costs a lot of TRAVEL TIME to break them early unless you spawn right next to it.
To break it early if you don't spawn next to it costs you a lot of your early game gen pressure opportunities.
Post edited by Warcrafter4 on1 -
It's 1 wall. Who cares, honestly. Even in the middle of a chase that's pretty trivial. It's literally the same as someone throwing a pallet and then you kicking it. The only problem is that the groaning storehouse one is still a straight god window that can be run 3x times with no mindgames and then chained into other loops nearby. Breaking the wall itself is hardly an issue.
Even on dead dawg I smack out the two walls next to the god windows, that are still god windows, and know to avoid chases in that building if I can.
On midwich while I patrol gens waiting for discordance to proc I just kick out any walls I see. It's nothing to me, and gives me something to do before I find my first chase.
On springwood I leave the school walls up, which makes the school a deathtrap once the pallets inside are gone, and kick out the walls to the strong buildings instead. I think springwood is the deepest basement in DBD if you leave the walls up. That's a meaningful choice. I only kick out school walls if I can't make it to a hook.
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Funny, my opinion is the complete opposite. I dont think that Midwich-Breakables are bad, since you can basically break them "on the way", but I dont think that they are "meaningful choices", because you want to break every Wall, since they otherwise block quite strong Loops (like the two Walls with the Window between two rooms or the Wall next to one Exit Gate which allows a strong Window Loop).
I also think that the Walls which open a path between the two Floors are the worst on Midwich, since the mobility between floors is one of the bad things on Midwich, and you basically want to have the Walls broken every time.
The School Walls are actually quite good, because they are not "break that to have an ez game" or "break that to actually have a decent game" (like Saloon-Walls), because they are actually a choice - want to break them to have better access to a Hook to open a strong Loop? Or risk that you might not be able to hook someone who goes down in the Basement, for keeping the Loop closed?
On MacMillan, I only think that the Storehouse Wall is pretty dumb, since they also removed the Pallets inside so the Building is Survivor-sided while the Wall is up, but becomes Killer-sided immediatly after the Wall is down. So for the mandatory to break Wall they removed two playable Pallets.
The other Main Building Walls are not big Deal, tbh. Can even imagine, they added them because the Main Buildings were too weak, which is fine IMO.
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My idea is
Breakable walls replaced with Doors
Survivors now gain interaction with Doors, they can quietly open/close the Doors (takes 2sec) or quickly slam the doors open while running (cause noise and pause Survivor movement speed for 1sec). They can also quickly slam the doors close like a pallet
Killer keep walking forward will do quick slam the door open (pause movement for 1sec). The Doors can be destroyed by manual kicking (3sec) the Doors, or slam 3 times.
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I'd much prefer it if the breakable doors/walls were totally random. So any doorway has a chance of having one cause yeah some areas are too unbalanced for one side or the other.
Though killers can't really complain since they're the only ones who can do something about an unbalanced door survivors just have to put up with it and like OP said the killer can choose not to open a door if it will help survivors.
Then again I can't talk since I mostly play an angry ghost lady who can float through walls.
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Ironworks has a terrible breakable wall that means you would have to all the way to the second storey to get rid of it before starting a patrol, sure it takes 2 seconds to break, but the walk up and down doesn't. We should be trying to steer away from adding mindless windows to the game, the whole reason nobody liked them was because there is barely any input from either side with these windows.
I do not like the Badham walls, because it actually isn't a meaningful choice. There is no choice to be made when the best thing to do is never touch them. At that point why even have the breakable wall in the first place?. I also feel it is super unfair for survivors when they get hooked down there or try to do a gen, as there is nearly no easy way to escape when you go downstairs, killer can always cut you off by backtracking upstairs.
The walls on Midwich are actually nice because they have pros and cons to breaking them to consider, and the killer is never immediately hampered for breaking most of them, They always have a positive effect, while having some negatives by giving survivors shortcuts as well. This is how I think the other walls should be, actual reasons to leave them up or break them down.
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They should make it so you can lunge attack the wall so it definitely wastes a little time but not the whole long ass animation. Can't tell you how many survivors I lost due to the walls on MacMillan. And if they are going to add walls they need to add walls to every killer shack just like Dead Dawg Saloon. Killer shacks waste so much time when a godly survivor main is looping you there.
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Breakable walls seem so useless. Like idk, make breakable vaults a thing. If most useless breakable walls turned into a breakable vault, it would give the killer a reason to break them.
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The problem with breakable walls is that they're once gain a feature implemented to waste the killer's most valuable resource, his time.
They used then to reintroduce God loops , instead of using them to make already strong loops less safe. Now the killer HAS to spend time breaking them, or get Infinite looped.
Not a meaningful choice. The implementation of these walls is just more proof the devs have no idea how to balance their own game.
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Ah yes breakable walls, often coming in 1 of 2 flavors
"Break this or you're stupid"
and
"If you break this you're stupid"
Honestly only some breakable walls should start spawned in on the map but the walls should be buildable by survivors.
Ie. spend 12 or so seconds to create a wall that will help extend a chase later, the cost of doing so being the 12 seconds + travel time of not doing gens.
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If either of these two things are true, you know its a bad design:
a. Breaking this wall is stupid.
a. Breaking this wall is required.
Scott's idea in which survivors build the wall for the killer to break later is the best way to go about them.
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They wouldn't... unless getting through that wall is more important than making that tile stronger for future chases. For example, you might want to break one of those walls while chasing the last survivor, or if that basement gen is the last one, Tinkerer has already proc'd, and you need to get down there ASAP.
These walls aren't my favorite, but they're not entirely useless either.
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The only thing I would add would be the Iron Works wall on the second floor - I'd remove that too. Otherwise I 100% agree.
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