The Case Against Breakable Walls [LONG THREAD]
Today marks the first anniversary of breakable walls' implementation, the day Chains of Hate went live. I think BHVR implementing them was an interesting way to change up maps a little, it's a natural fit for the game, and I even applaud their bravery with Dead Dawg Saloon, going so far as to even experiment with the Killer Shack. This kind of experimentation is genuinely a good thing.
With that said, I think especially with these reworks to old maps such as The Game, it's been demonstrated that breakable walls, in their current state, are hurting the game. Breakable walls were met with somewhat neutral/mixed reactions at first, but as time as gone on, the community's sentiment appears to have soured, and many people actively dread breakable walls being added to maps via reworks.
The problems
- Breakable walls are supposed to create interesting decisionmaking. They don't. Survivors have precisely 0 decisionmaking with breakable walls except keeping track of their destruction. Killers largely ignore breakable walls if they don't create powerful loops/infinites, and are forced to destroy them if they do.
- They're supposed to create secondary objectives for the Killer. They don't. A Killer might pre-destroy an extremely powerful breakable wall if they feel like they have time, such as if every Survivor seems to be immersed and not on gens or right at the start of a match, but if a Killer is ever giving up on Survivor chasing in to go destroy a wall, they simply aren't making a good decision. It's not like a Survivor's interaction with secondary objectives, where they have to weigh up continuing to repair this Generator or going to cleanse Ruin, or deciding if they should be the one to go rescue that hooked Survivor.
- They're supposed to make maps more interesting, varied, and healthier. They don't. At best, these changes have been fairly neutral (eg. the macmillan estate maps), at worst, they have made maps like Dead Dawg Saloon much more polarising for loop locations which usually hurts Survivors unfairly.
My Solution
Killers no longer use the Break Action to break walls. Instead, Killers break walls by moving directly into them, which destroys the wall in the process. This doesn't apply a slowdown or anything of the sort, they fluidly move through the wall Baker-style and it collapses with the destruction FX already present.
The only restriction on this is that Killers cannot do it while engaged in other animations, they must be doing their normal walk. So, you can't break walls while recovering from Basic Attacks, nor can you Lunge through them. If you chainsaw into it, it'll do the break animation, stopping the charge and destroying the wall. If you try to Phase Walk into it, you can't break through and it'll be treated like a regular wall. If you Blink through it, the wall will be unharmed. Pig can't Ambush through walls, or walk through them while crouching. Pyramid Head can't move through the wall while his knife's in the ground. Wraith would be able to walk through while cloaked (it should probably do a temporary uncloak like when breaking pallets), but not while ringing the bell. So on and so forth.
That, of course, is just the default. Exceptions can easily be implemented via perks, addons, ecetera, such as Lopro Chains.
Why this?
First, this creates an environmental prop that directly benefits the Killer, an element that doesn't currently exist in looping and I think could make it more interesting. It automatically creates more potential for mindgaming and skill on both sides, with Survivors being able to try and bait out Killers to consume their walls without getting value, and Killers having an expendable resource of their own in loops they'll have to consider using.
Second, this makes Breakable Walls MUCH easier to balance for, implement in, and account for in maps, as they are no longer a Killer timesink factor- BHVR can go back to the simpler measurements of map size and safe/unsafe pallet numbers to keep track of that. Breakable walls will be usable for mindgame shenanigans, but they will almost never be capable of making or breaking a map's balance. It'll be much harder for BHVR's map designers to mess up a breakable wall, and many if not ALL the walls already in the game will gel with this setup. Walls that are currently pointless now, because they don't benefit Survivors by staying up and will benefit Survivors if they're destroyed, will at least have some level of utility with this change, if Killers spot an opportunity to potentially gain ground in a chase.
Third, this helps better accomplish what breakable walls are supposed to do in horror. Antagonists smashing through walls and doors isn't new, but what Dead By Daylight goes for seems better suited to something like Clock Tower or The Shining, where the Survivor has locked themselves in a room and now must find an escape or hiding spot. That's not what's happening in DbD's chases, where breakable walls are a reprieve for Survivors, not something that heightens the tension and makes things scarier. I won't pretend like maintaining genuine terror in a PvP game is a realistic objective, BUT I think it can't be denied that current breakable walls aren't working with DbD's horror fantasy, because they are designed to make Killers stop chasing Survivors to break the wall they just ran past. These breakable walls should enforce the idea that the Survivor is in danger, but right now, they're exactly backwards.
Fourth, this would provide more potential for Perk/Addon design. Current breakable walls just give break action Perks an extra interaction. THIS version of them would have far more possibilities due to their differences, such as a perk that causes breakable walls to be reconstructed by The Entity after enough time has passed. Or, addons that allow specific Killers to move through Breakable Walls under more circumstances, like Myers being able to lunge through them for example. Of course, none of these would really be practical until breakable walls are added to every map- But I already brought up how I think this rework would also make that process faster and easier.
Finally, I think this or a change like it would make breakable walls more exciting to play with. At present, the best thing I can say in terms of impact of Breakable Walls is that the unique Killer destruction animations are neat. However, much like eating a pallet, dealing with these is a chore. Sometimes chores, like breaking pallets or repairing gens, are necessary to make the game work, but breakable walls are not a necessary feature of the game, so I think it's fair to argue that they should be more fun.
The concerns
"What about Dead Dawg?" It would need to be rebalanced, and it already does. However, I actually think this change making the Saloon less powerful for Survivors will make balancing the map easier, by allowing for the map to be more consistent in looping potential, instead of relying on feast/famine tile balancing. If BHVR don't want to do a larger map rework yet, they could easily cut down on the breakable walls in the ruined buildings to act as a quick, short-term rebalancing.
"What about [insert other map concern here]?" To be honest, I'm actually not sure what maps besides Dead Dawg would be influenced in a bad way by this change. Perhaps Coal Tower? A PTB testing this would definitely be able to discover issues like this though, and hey, if worst comes to worst, some of the walls can just be removed or this change can be scrapped.
"What about BHVR's animation work?" They just canned the majority of their old animation sets for Survivors, this would pale in comparison and doesn't even need new animations, just old ones going unused. And, said old animations could potentially be repurposed later down the line. I will be sad to see these animations go unused too, as I very much appreciate them, but gameplay has to come first.
"Would this be difficult to implement?" No. I can totally imagine some bugs resulting from this, like walls breaking when they shouldn't, but nothing gamebreaking and nothing that can't be sorted out in a PTB. More importantly, this wouldn't require BHVR to develop a SINGLE new asset for the game if they don't want to.
"Would this make Killers too strong?" Hardly. Breakable walls aren't even present on every map yet, which really makes now the perfect time to try a change.
"I'm not so sure I trust BHVR to do this kind of thing..." I'm not sure how they'd mess it up, and if it's any consolation, the last time they reworked a map prop, it was The Hatch, which I think a lot of people underestimate in how much its rework improved the game's health.
"I don't like your rework concept, I have a better one." Great! Reply to this post with it. Though, I'll list one concept I've already heard, and why I don't agree with it:
"Why not have Survivors build breakable walls?" Aside from it being straight out of a Scooby-Doo cartoon? Well, it's hard for me to imagine this optional objective really being worth it effort-wise, unless it was very simple like simply requiring a Toolbox/the Saboteur Perk. Ideas like gathering boards do not seem worth the time investment. Even then however, I'm not entirely sold on the concept, seeing how it doesn't solve the issue of many breakable walls being more advantageous to Survivors while they're destroyed, or how breakable walls are tough to correctly implement in map design.
"But couldn't breakable walls be fixed by changing map design, instead of the walls themselves?" Yes. I believe breakable walls in their current form CAN be okay, if they are used correctly in maps. My issue is more so that BHVR's map designers haven't managed it, and even IF they get it right, they can't work fast enough to fix these problems. If the mechanic is changed in this way, I think it'll make their jobs a lot easier, make them fundamentally more fun, and make the community much happier with the results.
TL:DR: Breakable walls can easily, with this idea, be more fun to play with and against, easier to implement in maps, and stop the community' collective groans whenever breakable walls are added to a new map. This change would also be extremely realistic for BHVR to at least try a PTB for in the next mid-chapter patch, as long as there is enough community desire to have it happen.
Of course, though, I'm not the community. You are, and I'd quite like to hear what others think about this.
Comments
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These things can bite my ass.
But I like your change.
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Survivors need a door breaching charge item that blows up the wall and blinds everyone who looks at it.
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Survivors should be eable to repair this walls with perk or toolbooks if killer can just walk over this wall
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Finally, they added the Kool-Aid man to Dbd.
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Why not use it on the killer?
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Breakable walls are a mistake their too stubborn to remove
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Dead By Daylight: Rainbow Six, starring Thermite as a Survivor and Tachanka as the Killer.
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I've yet to hear of anyone liking breakable walls.
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The whole point of the mechanic on BHVR's end is that it feels cool and powerful the first time a killer does it as a rank 20. Everything else is secondary.
I think it's a failed concept. They're a chore at best and often introduce balance issues into the maps. A killer should never have to expend resources (time) to balance a map. But like I said, BHVR only cares about how a mechanic feels the first time, not the next 200. All about that $$$. Why else would struggle state button mashing still be in the game? Immersed new players.
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Killers should burst through the breakable wall instead of just kicking/hacking it down. That way it's still an obstacle but can allow the killer to ambush and position into a chase better.
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