Quick Fix: Lockers
Hello. In this post I will be going over Lockers, why they are currently underutilized, and how to fix this issue while also expanding on their use.
The Current State
Lockers are supposed to be hiding places for survivors that muffle their noise and allow them to escape the killer's notice before being detected. As far as this use goes it works rather well, to an extent. If a survivor notices the killer in advance they may try to get to the nearest locker and hide, but as most players know if you decided to run to one you will be found out rather easily. This means that to use them at all you have to be walking. Simply put this isn't achievable in a lot of cases and survivors would rather opt for hiding behind terrain and structures than in a locker due to this and the other simple reason; incapacitation. If caught in a locker the player will be grabbed by the killer and taken to a hook with ease, and this is the drawback of using a locker poorly. In essence it can be boiled down to this;
1) Use Locker, large chance to be discovered from sprint marks (and very much so by blood pools), slight chance to be discovered by sound, penalty for being caught is being carried.
2) Don't use Locker, chance sprint marks (or blood pools) lead to you, chance to be discovered by sound, if caught (typically) the chase continues for a short duration if in the injured state, potentially a long while if still uninjured.
If one compares them the answer is pretty obvious as to which you should do.
How to Fix
Looking at the purpose of Lockers one can see that they are currently not doing a great job. Indeed, many would rather opt to never use them than to risk the massive penalty for doing so. But fret not for there are a multitude of fixes to these issues.
The first fix is rather simple, if a survivor isn't injured there should be a struggle animation where the killer injures them and tosses them out of the locker. The survivor would then be in the injured state but still up for running around. I would recommend giving survivors in this situation a 150% movement speed bonus and a one second head start while the killer watches them flee and then begins their pursuit. This would still give the killer damage and punish the survivor for recklessly using a locker, but not punish them so much so that they never even attempt to do so. If the player is in the injured state already they will still be picked up by the killer and probably hooked.
The second fix is also rather simple. Currently it's fairly easy to spot if a survivor jumped into a locker via red lines or blood pools. If lockers that were outdoors had bushes around them it would be somewhat harder to identify whether or not a survivor is within them. This however wouldn't fix indoor lockers, and for maps that are entirely indoor this would cause some issue. That is why for every locker on the map there should be a second one directly beside it. When the survivor enters a locker if any red marks or blood pools are present they should be aligned to be directly in the middle of the lockers. This would mean that the killer still knows the survivor is there but would need to take a 50:50 chance as to which one they're in, if they guess wrong that is the survivors chance to blast out of the adjacent locker and run for their lives.
Ultimately these fixes are somewhat more involved and would require some more animations and system details to be implemented, but in my assessment would be well worth it to make Lockers part of a viable play strategy and add more horror moments to the game.
Thank you for reading.
Comments
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It would be an interesting idea. I don't use lockers, they suck. I have seen only a few survivors use them and the ones who do abuse them as it is. I have watched from the hook as survivors sit in lockers waiting for the last player or two to die so they can run to the trap.I think if you make them any better you will get a reverse camping tactic where everyone will sit in a locker the whole time and you will have one survivor trying to work on gens.
Nothing I can think of would really work to encourage use but discourage abuse at the same time. Short of adding in a type of fear/claustrophobia meter that builds up over an extended time that would negatively effect your abilities.
Maybe give a perk where the survivor has a can of oil/wd40 to make entry into and out of lockers quieter would help? I might actually use them if they weren't so loud when i open one.
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Or just make it so the slow entering of the locker doesn’t sound like a train squealing to a halt if the killer has half way decent hearing
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@Jack11803 said:
Or just make it so the slow entering of the locker doesn’t sound like a train squealing to a halt if the killer has half way decent hearingThis perfectly describes lockers for dwights
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