http://dbd.game/killswitch
Bloodlust is a better mechanic than you think
Comments
-
OP is absolutely right. Even with my Sadako I'm not gaining bloodlust because I'm using manifest/demanifest to increase my mindgame chances and at times, activate my photograph addon to get aura reading around a loop. That would be one example of an M1 killer that doesn't require bloodlust to get downs.
Bloodlust is there for the killers who need it, and I can't remember the last time I had a chase go into T2/T3 bloodlust even when I play the other killers because chasing that long is too much time for the others to do gens.
1 -
The problem I and many others have with Bloodlust is actually something you mentioned. It costs the killer to gain higher levels of Bloodlust to get a down yes, how ever theres no skill in doing it and it just feels awful for the receiving end.
Its sort of like hardcore tunneling. In most cases it is a detriment to the killer, but the Survivor on the receiving end knows their chances are extremely low since theres only so much they can do.
EDIT: Another great example is actually The Knight. There are 2 ways that people play him, firstly you have drop a guard at a loop Knight which most people do, and then you have the people who actually play into the strengths of the guards to not only zone but to slowdown the game and pressure multiple Survivors at once. The former feels much worst to go against mainly because theres no skill in pressing M2 twice in quick succession compared to carefully using your guards to get into a cycle and a good flow.
Post edited by Shroompy on2 -
Bloodlust is a crutch for bad map design
2 -
Those aren’t infinites.
3 -
yes they are
1 -
I've always been surprised by the argument that people dislike bloodlust. Seems such a necessary component of the game. It might be a band aid, but its a really good band aid. Many killers would need to be overhauled without it and I think maps would be so sanitized for balance sake that they'd lose their uniqueness.
Imagine that thing in a strategy game, where you are loosing so hard that suddenly your units get a buff or something, that would be ridiculous, so why exactly are we discussing something like this?This does exist in strategy games. In Civ or Total War getting out to a huge early lead is offset by some other mechanic (i.e. happiness) meant to prevent a steamroll.
But also, DbD isn't a strategy games, its an asymmetrical online PVP. Everything about the game is arbitrary - the killer is outnumbered, but moves faster than the survivor, but survivors can vault faster, have pallets to play, and 3rd person view. Bloodlust is just as fair an element as the higher movement speed or that pallets don't replenish.
2 -
no they arent
theyre strong loops dont get me wrong, but infinites have been gone a loooooong time
3 -
What in your mind is an infinite loop?
2 -
I don't think it is a good band aid, besides the before mentioned points it somewhat prevents skill development, because the killer can basically be stubborn about something that is not supposed to work and it somewhat works out...
I was more thinking about in fights, my example would have been sc2, sure games like civ or total war have long campaigns, but the battles themselves don't have such a mechanic do they? It can make sense to have a such a thing when the game lasts several hours like a campaign, but not when it is only one fight like in rts... And even in total war, only played medieval 2, the fights themselves don't have such a thing, if you get steamrolled your moral goes to hell and you do even worse or your commander dies and so on...
0 -
I was more thinking about in fights, my example would have been sc2There are 3 differences between RTS games like Starcraft and DbD in this context.
1: Most RTS are generally decided by one big event (a battle, base attack, etc.). Skirmishes/intel gathering during the game are meant to sway the odds when the big battle comes. DbD doesn't have one big event, instead it has lots of chases over the course of the game. The killer winning the chase doesn't win them the game, they have to win quite a few.
2: DbD is asymmetrical as a 4 v 1. The killer has to be stronger than survivor in chase to differentiate between the team sizes. How much stronger is a balance issue. Instead of bloodlust maybe they could increase the base killer speed to compensate, but I think that would be way too powerful.
3: As the game progresses things tilt in the killers favor. Pallets are lost, fewer gens to defend, items disappear, etc. Bloostlust and windows blocking are a similar concept that reflect killers getting more powerful as things progress. It both works as a gameplay mechanism, creating situations were the killer has to decide between breaking a pallet or running around it, a balance issue, as well as being thematically appropriate, the longer a chase goes in a horror movie the stronger the killer tends to become.
0 -
Sure some games get decided by a big battle, but what exactly does that change? The work that is put in before to weaken the enemy or get a better position counts as well... And in no scenario do we have this sort of looser bonus, why even.
Nothing new on the asymmetrical part, the point stays that it is a mechanic that rewards you for playing bad/stubborn, to make you feel better about your lousy chase or the poor balance of the game, does that make it a good mechanic? I don't think so... Imagine having something similar on the survivor side... When you get hit too often in a short amount of time you get increased movementspeed... Sounds just as ridiculous...
The window blocking is not really part of that... It was introduced so you cannot vault a super strong window infinite amount of times... It has nothing to do with the "the killer gets stronger the longer the game goes" theme... That is more about ressources being limited the effective map size being reduced with gens getting done and so on. Bloodlust also does not fit in this theme, because to aquire bloodlust you have to do so poorly in chase that you're not getting any progress out of it... You're not destroying pallets, you're not getting hits on people and so on... So how exactly does it fit in the theme?
This is not about something thematically fitting or not... You can have the most fitting thing ever, and in the game it might still be terrible... Think about the first Alien chase music, it was probably really thematic, but it was terrible to listen to... The gameplay is the most important thing about a game, if the gameplay sucks, why on earth would you continue playing it? If you're interested in the story just watch a let's play or something like that...
Imagine any other game, and your opponent just gets a bonus because he is bad... Do you think that is a good concept? Like in general?
0 -
You're not wrong, but I'd rather all killers be strong enough in chase so that they don't need to rely on Bloodlust. This will likely never happen but bloodlusting isn't particularly fun for either side. Yet it is sometimes necessary. Because how else do you expect many killers to get hits around main structures?
Many M1 killers will automatically build up Bloodlust tier 1 just by trying to catch up to survivors. Then they have to break a pallet and everything starts from the beginning. Great. Meanwhile we have killers like Blight and Nurse, who have the potential to realistically end a 2-hit chase in about 15 seconds.
But thinking about it, they have released a lot of killers lately, who don't rely on Bloodlust. Nemesis, Pinhead, Artist, Dredge, Wesker, Skull Merchant, Knight, Singularity and the Xenomorph don't really rely on Bloodlust. Sadako does because she has nothing to help her in chase (immunity to stuns while demanifested doesn't count). Now I'm kind of curious about the Freddy rework because it seems that BHVR have found a way around this conundrum.
1
