Anyone else noticing Scratchmarks Randomly Disappearing since the Update?
Hey everyone.
Not sure if it's just me, and if I'm going crazy or not, but I am a Killer main for 4 years so I have a fairly good understanding of how scratchmarks work..
But I couldn't help but notice, now for sure multiple different matches in a row, playing as different Killers, that somehow randomly Scratchmarks are disappearing in chase.
At first I thought that it was because Survivors were using Lucky Break - but after it happened multiple times in different matches and I checked to see if ANY of the Survivors had Lucky Break and none of them did... I started guessing there might be something wrong?
Has anyone else experienced something similar to this since the update? I could just be imagining it - but something really felt off about it, like I'm literally mid chase on someone and they go around a rock or sometimes even in plain sight and all the sudden I lose the Survivor and all scratch marks and blood even, without the Survivor anywhere to be found in the area..
I'm sure there were times where it was just me being blind, but I don't know why this is just now all the sudden happening and never before.
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I noticed loosing Survivors more often after the patch, Scratch Marks suddenly ended sometimes, maybe it's a bug, or they just started walking for a sec.
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I have tested it now and paid more attention to it... I REALLY hope it is a bug and not intended change to help with performance..
What I have noticed is that Scratchmarks are taking LONGER to show up, they are delayed by a good 1-2 seconds.
So like before, when a Survivor was running in front of you, you could see their scratch marks immediately under their feet..
Try it out right now, you will notice that they do not have any scratch marks under their feet or around it when they run, the scratch marks begin to form quite a bit later and have this awkward looking "delayed" effect - which I believe is causing the sort of "bugged" feeling or effect where it seems like you are losing Survivors and scratch marks are just disappearing randomly...
Because for example, it is SO significantly delayed, that if a Survivor ends up 360 you or juke you around a corner, you actually can't tell which way that they went, so if they start actually walking or crouching soon after they can completely 100% lose you from a chase where you were almost directly on top of them already. It's kind of crazy, it's a subtle difference at first until you actually pay attention to it and then you can see how impactful it really is.
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I've had problems with scratch marks for so long now, I just thought it was a feature at this point. They don't appear at a consistent rate, sometimes seeming very delayed, and there are often gaps where the scratch marks completely disappear. I lose a lot of distance in chases when a survivor breaks LoS because the scratch marks are hell to track.
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Hmm... this is definitely something new I never noticed before, first time today.
It's actually very noticeable so I am a bit surprised that others aren't jumping on this thread, unless it isn't happening for everybody.
For me there is a CLEAR delay that actually makes it incredibly difficult to track a survivor in chase all the sudden. I've lost so many survivors in matches today in spots I normally never would. I wouldn't necessarily bother mentioning it but I think it sort of game-breaking.
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I'm on PS4, and I've seen other people on console say they have problems with scratch marks, too. It was a long time back it was last talked about, though. I don't remember if it started with dedicated servers or if the problems with scratch marks happened before them.
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LOL I didn't know they buffed Lucky Break to work on Scratch Marks. But damn that gigantic nerf to operation time.
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I thought I was having a lot more trouble lately and I haven't played since todays update. I'll be chasing someone by a wall and there will be some tall obstacle where i'll look towards the back to keep the red stain behind them while going around the outside incase they try to loop it I can catch them quicker and the marks are gone for a stretch so I look around where I last saw them and they are a long ways away and I don't see the marks.
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Scratchmarks are too graphics-intensive, they had to tone them down so the game would run on consoles.
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The only issue is, that if this is true and this change was actually implemented in order to help with Console Performance issues... it is a HUGE Nerf to Killers in general. One that hasn't even been talked about or possibly realized yet.
I've shared what I noticed in my games earlier, but to be honest I'm still having a difficulty pin-pointing what the difference is, I can just assure you that something is definitely off about it, feels off, and has been making it significantly more difficult to track and stay on top of Survivors.
I guess others are saying they have noticed something, prior to Today's patch, but for me (and I've been playing a lot recently) Today is the very first time noticing whatever change it is that I have noticed (and am sure that something has changed) in 4 years of playing.
- Any Devs/Mods have some input on what this may be and why I am noticing it?
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I play on PC by the way, in case that makes a difference. You never know
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They've been Shadow tweaking Scratch Marks ever since Oni came out, only now you people notice? So the random huge gaps were unnoticeable? The lack of direction wasn't noticeable? The faster decay of Sratches wasn't noticeable?
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Honestly I never noticed a difference until Today, whatever they just did in the most recent patch was the biggest change they've made to them yet I think, at least for me personally.
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Did they say that in the patch notes or are you assuming? I'll be honest I didn't read the whole bugs section since its always so long and the bugs they fix are usually so minor that I've never ran into 90% of them.
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Don't have a problem with scratch marks when I play killer. But I've noticed a scratch mark bug when playing survivor, especially on indoor maps: sometimes I can see my own scratch marks, not as intense when running fixated though. Every scratch mark is visible for 1 sec. on walls, can't see them on the ground.
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I understand that i'm just saying these changes have been occuring for a really long time now. When they made changes to Auras and then were forced to revert the changes that also affected Scratched Marks.
They've been insisting on stronger 1v1 killers while nerfing the ability to track and chase Survivors. This would seem fair for those stronger 1v1 killers right, since it's more likely they'll get you when they chase you right? The problem is majority of killers are not 1v1 strong killers and the problem is DbD isn't a 1v1 game it's a 4v1 game. Prime example of this is Ghostface, his 1v1 potential is quite amazing, he can sneak, stalk and 1 shot before Survivors can do something but he can't handle being found early and neither can he play 4v1 because of that. Hit and Run only works if Survivors Heal, if they don't heal and you're hit and running then you are telling Survivors that they are free after you hit them once so you give them a sprint burst by hitting them and then you leave them alone, giving them free Gen pressure against you. They can remain injured do the gen while you're trying to hit and run the other 3 and congrats you're losing gens and you can't do ######### about it and why? Because at that point you have no stealth yo scare them , you lost stealth by hitting someone, no mobility cause you never had any, you're wasting time going around the Map trying to hit and run.
Now couple that innefective strategy with harder to find targets because of the shadow tweaks and you're making it an even worse strategy for killers like GF that lack mobility, that lose their power wether they play well or bad. The mental Gymnastics required to play GF has only increased over time without him getting any better. Same is valid for alot of other killers. Playing killer in general is substancially harder than it was while BHVR keeps making cheaper 1v1 strong killers. It's why survivors are pissed, cause they wanna win the 1v1 while also winning the 4v1 and it's why killers have been coming out fine tunned for the things survivors don't like.
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I am on PS4 and I can say that scratch-marks have been inefficient as a tracking tool and delayed for a very long for me. There are lots of times where they will be fine and then all of a sudden they will start getting very delayed by several seconds (you can tell because as you said they do not spawn in when survivors are running right in front of you). This also seems to effect decay time meaning that even very bright scratch marks can be several seconds old.
I have lost chases where I go around a loop see scratch-marks stop at a nearby obstacle, like a rock, so I go to circle the rock. After circling the rock or tree or whatever I will notice new scratch-marks that were delayed coming in or had a gap in them appear leading away from the rock towards a new loop/area. Sometimes I can even see the survivor running and see the scratch-marks several meters behind where they actually are.
To compensate, I try waiting a second to see if they appear going away from the obstacle before completely looking at it/going around it. If they dont appear the survivor is likely hiding and then I get a free hit anyway. If they do then you will notice sooner and will lose less distance then you would have if you wasted time circling it.
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Yes I am well aware, I'm talking about a huge difference while in chase.. not referring to perks, or moments where perks would be being used.
I have studied it in even more games now, and the BIGGEST difference I am able to tell, is that there are literally blobs of Scratch Marks just completely missing in a chase... like every other tile won't have a scratch mark on it at all anymore, before Today, when you chased a Survivor, all Tiles directly touching that Survivor (and right around them) would have scratch marks on it - but right now as is, you can legit see how there are chunks, blobs, patches where every other tile or so in random directions is missing scratch marks entirely..
It was never like this before from my experience, and it's a very noticeable change, and it impacts my own personal performance greatly as Killer.
Today has been some of the most frustrating matches I've ever had in my DBD Career, 90% due to this scratch mark bug or nerf.
It's just big enough of a difference that you can literally be right on top of someone just about in range to lunge them or chainsaw them (been playing Bubba a bit) and they all of the sudden disappear right out of your FOV and then the scratch marks also are gone so you don't even know which direction.
It made playing Nurse literally 100% Unplayable for me , though I'm not a very good Nurse to begin with.
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That is very misleading and has been for me as well similarly, I'm not sure what happened, if PS4 was like this for a long time, it makes me wonder... did they just make it so PC Killers have to suffer like PS4 Killers do now? Is that their way of fixing "performance" issues? haha, no that doesn't really make any sense to be honest - I am not sure why this is happening to me now on PC for the very first time ever, but my experience is very similar to yours so maybe its a similar issue, and as I mentioned before it is clearly different than what it was like the last 4 years in DBD for me..
I'm really still hoping that it's some kind of bug that they can try to fix, it makes playing Nurse and some other killers with bad FOV literally almost impossible, I would strongly argue that it is a "game-breaking" bug or or change.
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I honestly though I was going crazy but im glad its being noticed! Hopefully it gets fixed...
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You should really get some footage of this and post it in a section of this forum called Bug Reporting. Scratchmarks felt unreliable since last patch, probably after the hotfix. I thought it was just me chasing people really bad and survivors suddenly walking mid chase when I lost LoS without losing any distance. In maps like Lerys, Hawkins and RPD this became actually egregious to deal with for the were wide scratchmarks as if the survivor ran into a room and stood inside in front of the doorway and started walking and they actually just kept running past that room, having scratchmarks a delay before spawning I took so many long and bad chases because of this.
I've been running fixated more and more to see how these work and it's so bad it might be a good time for survivors to run lightweight and throw RPD or closed map offerings.
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Could explain why i was so confused during chases yesterday but then again scratchmarks have always been weird as hell so who knows
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I've noticed the same with pools of blood.
Today, I had a Twins daily. The survivors were kinda leaving one pool blood and then nothing. No Lucky Break in the match. Victor has built-in Bloodhound and it's very easy to notice. First time I have issues tracking with him.
I couldn't play anymore, but I'll try to test it another day. Maybe it's an issue with pools or with Victor.
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Ohmygosh this reminds me of this one game I had last night where I was playing as Feng Min against a Demogorgon and we were playing the Salon map I think its called, and I accidentally dead hard at the perfect time behind some rocks in the outskirts of the map in a loop by where the salon basement spawns and he must have been trying to mindgame me because he was like where did she go. It was so funny I was like oops I deadharded behind some rocks, guess ill get beat up, but the poor Demogorgon was so confused. x-x
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I’ve noticed it as well. I’ve only played one Spirit game so far but what I have noticed so far is she’s unplayable as I was unable to see scratch marks at times and footsteps seem to be silent so Iron Will users are literally invincible.
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I recomend you guys run Tritanopia colorblind settings, helps with it quite a bit, since scratchmarks are so weirdly placed you tend to notice them with these settings way better.
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From my experience (4years as well) recently even before the patch they take so long to appear. Which is really annoying as every second you wait for them to appear is time wasted, no idea if it's a bug, connection issues etc. But its annoying as hell.
Iv tested this in the past as I was following someone, no scratch Mark's at all but wait a second or two and boom, they're loading in. Dont seem to be every match though
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Considering the many issues the game has on the PS4 I just shrugged it off as yet another BHVR "feature", same as "warping" players, stutters in gameplay or magical "blind spots" next to you where survivors simply seem to vanish.
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Yeah it is noticeable...finally got to play killer yesterday and scratch marks are delayed...lost about 5 chases because of this with wraith of all people🤬
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It's been that way for years. It's one of the biggest reasons the sound nerf was such an enormous, game-changing nerf. I don't know if it's more prevalent now, and to be blunt it doesn't ######### matter. The fact that it's already been this way made scratchmarks worthless as in-chase tracking.
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Dude I actually thought the same thing (about fixated, sprint burst, lightweight) XD haha just to try to abuse it for a bit...
But yeah you are right, I will literally be chasing someone, they turn into a room like on lery's or RPD and all the sudden scratch marks 100% disappear, as if they started walking, BUT THEY DIDN'T, so I spend time looking for them around the area where the marks disappear - only to find out that not only are they not there, but I see them a little later so far away that I know for sure that they just kept running.
It has happened on other maps as well, where I actually can see the Survivor running off in the distance, but without any Scratch marks behind them..
Even happened at Exit Gates for me last night, the Survivor was powering Exit Gates, I ran toward them, I saw bright colored scratch marks for like 3 tiles and then it disappeared, I thought they went and stood behind a tree or something, looked around everywhere couldn't find... Turns out that they actually never stopped running (only there were no Scratch Marks behind them) and they just ran all the way to the other exit gate and had powered it and gotten out lol
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Honestly I'm glad that others are experiencing it too, I thought I was crazy yesterday at first.
Thanks for speaking up! Hopefully it will get looked at!
Interesting, if it continues to happen please let us know! I don't play Twins, but I did also notice the pools of blood do it a little bit as well, though it's not as noticeable as scratch marks themselves. Oddly enough right now in its current state I don't find either pools or blood or scratch marks reliable for tracking - I HAVE to actually make sure I keep the Survivor in FOV or else I can lose them very easily.
Interesting.. I will give that a try, thank you for the suggestion! Honestly until they fix this, I'll try anything that could help!
Hahah oh boy, that's how I'm feeling as well though! Delayed and/or Spotty - and they even seem to completely disappear early sometimes, like if the Survivor breaks LOS or FOV sometimes even if they keep running they won't leave marks behind any more. Kind of crazy what you'll notice when you really start to pay attention to it lol
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It happens especially in lerys...its not like I broke line of sight for that long😛
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I've noticed that as well for like a month or two. It is definitely delayed for some reason.
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