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Is using your flashlight "toxic?"
Lemme explain myself real quick.
I noticed in the recent hotfix that flashlights had their angle changed yet again, so in order to test it out I put on a green flashlight with two battery addons. When I loaded into the match the killer (Trapper) noticed me and started chasing me on Ormond, and whenever I threw down a pallet I would blind him so I could get used to the new angle for the flashlight. After he chased me for some time he downed me and when I got put on hook he repeatedly hit me despite the fact that I didn't BM him or do anything disrespectful. Long story short I manage to escape the round and I asked him why he BM'd me so much and he told me that if you blind the killer at the pallet instead of running away its apparently BM and always has been, but I have 1220 hours in the game and I've never heard anyone call it BM. Was this guy unreasonably salty or was I actually BMing him?
Comments
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No it's not
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If you're blinding killers at every pallet break, and vault, or using rapid fire clicks, probably. Going out of your way to be annoying, yeah, likely.
Blinding a killer locked in an animation is not exactly nice.
Flashlight saves, light burns, destroying hag traps, probably not.
Occasionally to blind to escape, probably not.
Their existence, and use is not inherently toxic, but you can use them in a toxic manner.
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clicking to just annoy sure. If your trying to make the killer chase you by clicking id say thats not toxic, wanting to be chased could be a really good advantage if your skillful. Macros or inf scroll wheels are toxic. Just any normal blind id say is never toxic. Annoying maybe for some, but that doesnt equal toxic
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I didn't rapid click or get a single flashlight save, whenever he would break a pallet and only a pallet I would usually blind him, I don't really understand how its not "nice" as a killer I've never personally seen it as toxic unless they were clicking their flashlight. Btw I didn't spam click or anything at him.
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Because it really is annoying to get blinded over and over and over again?
What killer wants to be your target practice/guinea pig?
It's not the easiest thing for the player of the killer to look at either sometimes. Have you ever experienced it?
You're practically taunting them at that point. They can't defend outside of one perk which is almost never necessary and almost never used as it's super situational. Even then, iirc, the perk isn't a complete counter.
The time taken for most killers (not all run brutal strength or the spirit's pallet breaking perk) is usually also enough time for a survivor to actually get a lot of distance in a chase.
Was there a rank difference between you and the killer? You certain you weren't tormenting some newbie?
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Nope! Using your flashlight for its intended purpose (blinding the killer) is not toxic, at least not in my book. It's a fun item that ironically is also more likely to benefit the killer (well, maybe not Wraith/Hag) in the long run due to the risk associated with using it.
...with one exception. I despise survivors who map the flashlight to their scroll wheel (or use any other method to click the darn thing faster than humanly possible). If I was ever going to describe what toxicity in DbD sounds like, it would probably sound like that.
I ain't trying to get blinded by the mythical Ultra-Rare Flashlight.
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I was ony using the green flashlight with two battery's, I didn't take any addons that increased the visual brightness so the blindness thing that killers look at wasn't that bright. Ive never had a problem personally with being blinded multiple times, flashlights arent that great to begin with so most of the time even if I got blinded I was able to catch them. Even if the survivor was using both blind addons it never really looked that bright. I just don't understand how it can be viewed as taunting, its literally just the survivor using their item. Its like saying that the killer using their power is BM or downing survivors is BM, it just doesn't make sense. I was also injured for most of the time and I didn't bring iron will so whenever I blinded him he would follow me pretty much exactly, so in the end it was only worth it for the BP and practice. There wasn't a rank difference, I have images to prove it. I was either rank 2 or 1 and the killer was a rank 2 or 1 as well.
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You don't see "haha I'll blind you every pallet break" as taunting?
You may not be thinking that, but I don't see why a killer would think otherwise.
Saying you're not bothered is normalizing your experience, and well, killer players vary. Your experience isn't always the way others experience things. They vary. Some might not be playing all that optimally, some are bothered by being blinded continuously.
I'm going to be blunt, there's too many ways to show an image that doesn't reflect the truth for me to be interested in it as proof.
It's definitely different than a killer downing people. Flashlights aren't necessary. At all. They aren't base kit, and a survivor could never use a flashlight ever, and be successful.
Saying the same about a killer and their power is hardly a comparable argument.
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It's not toxic but, as with everything, it depends on the context of the situation and how the Killer perceives it.
Clicking the flashlight is a known taunting gesture.
Teabagging, obviously a taunt.
Just a regular, normal flashlight blind? Nah. But again, it's about perception - if this Killer had been chasing you a while, their rage meter is probably close to popping, so a blind in that situation (once, or multiple times, even if just regular usage) might be seen as toxic.
Ultimately though, it doesn't matter how people perceive things in this game. I've only been playing a month and gotten plenty of hate mail already from people thinking they knew what I was or wasn't doing, but really had no clue. Play how you want to play - all play styles and strategies and item usage is valid. If people get upset, that's on them.
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No
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It's upsetting being repeatedly blinded or stunned in a match, especially bc some ppl go out of their way to do so. I believe that the final decision of it was or not offensive lies on the receiving end of the action.
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I love those guys. The second they start clicking they go down;)
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Depends on how you use it. If you are going for flashlight saves, or blinding the killer in an animation then it is not toxic. It is considered toxic if you are using it to annoy killers with the click sound.
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I mean,. it's a part of normal gameplay, so it's not toxic, but it's annoying as crap and the killer's not going to thank you for it, ya know. I don't think there's any game in which being stunned or blinded is fun for the person it's happening to.
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Nah, blinding is not toxic, I believe just clicky clicky spamming is, not sure tbh.
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Some killers don't like to be blinded at every pallet I guess OR he was upset at the amount of pallets Ormond has
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Getting blinded at pallets is actually beneficial because you can still track them with sounds and essentially get a free hit if you hear them well enough
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If you found it in a chest or from another survivor that you are not ina premade with, then no matter how you use it, no. If you are in a swf and you use it any way other than to save somebody, or save somebody with it more than once per flashlight you will catch covid. If you waste it's battery baiting a killer that isn't gonna be baited you are doing God's work.
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According to some people flashlighting a killer breaking a pallet is an ultimate sin
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I don't see it that way, no pun intended.
It's not fun to look at for me, and others, I'm sure.
And not everyone plays with the best sound set up, and swings godly while blind.
It's too situation for me to call it beneficial.
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You don't need a fancy 300€+ headset to track their sounds while being blinded.My headset is like 20€ and i can still hear them most of the time.
You also don't have to swing at them.Just track their sounds and hit them as soon as you can confirm their position.
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Really? I can never seem to hear footsteps, even when I use headphones. Injured sounds go in and out and seem omnidirectional; if I can't see blood I can't track injured survivors.
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That's not toxic at all. If a survivor blinds me at a pallet, they may gain the benefit of me not being able to see for a moment, but I benefit from them not gaining much ground in the chase. Seems like a decent trade off to me
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If the survivors is injured,on an indoor map,swamp or red forest then it's easy to track them.
Reworked maps however are harder to track the sounds because the stupid grass on them make 0 sounds >:(
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I can't hear well enough, and the bright pink screen actually hurts my eyes sometimes.
Whatever argument you have for being blinded being a good thing, you haven't made it so far.
Oh and it doesn't help if the survivors aren't injured, i suppose.
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The killer was justified in being annoyed, though it absolutely isn't BM, especially if the killer in question has good ears. Really, when I play killer, I want people to use their flashlights at pallets because it means they aren't using them for rescues.
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Sounds like the killer is just angry.
Blinding is annoying, but can be countered by listening for direction.
Even clicking repeatedly sounds toxic, but can be a smart tactic for distraction. Same goes for tbagging.
It's the killer's fault for letting anything get under their skin.
If I see clicking or tbag, they obviously want me to chase them instead of hooking the downed survivor or chasing the weak link on their team.
I don't killer getting blinded, but there are perks to avoid it from actually doing any harm.
Lightborn or Strider? Hard to choose? Bring both.
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Flashlights aren’t toxic, but they are incredibly obnoxious.
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I usually play survivor matches with my friend. Anytime I bring a flashlight, I will find him and start furiously clicking it at him, and then ask him how it feels to be cyberbullied. 😀
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I mean that is a pretty obnoxious way to play... I dunno if I would call it toxic or not but it's not really necessary and it's basically just taunting. So I mean, if you want to do that go ahead, but at the same time if it gets you killed because the killer is salty I don't blame them that much either.
I mean it's a human behind that screen not a bot, they have emotions too, you don't have to respect them by any means it's not your fault if they are tempermental; but at the same time something like that, or tea bagging, or whatever else is going to urk some people.
Play how you want; but at least be understanding of other people's feelings and aware of what you are doing; and be civil in post game chat even if the other party is rude and awful. That's all you can do really.
I really maintain that, because I have had games where survivors teabagged, and chain stunned and did everything one might call toxic- but in post game even if they all escaped they were like "well played my dude I damn near pissed myself when _____" and generally friendly and that IMMEDIATELY changed my feelings about that match and left me in a good mood. That's all it took, to completely negate all the frustrations of the game for me.
I hope that helps some.
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Also, to answer your question: People have stupid "rules" that they invent in their heads. No, it is not toxic, or bad manners, or whatever the hell people want to say, for using an item in the way that it is intended to be used. I don't really understand why people get super bent out of shape about the flashlight, because it has a relatively narrow use case and there are a lot of ways to avoid it.
If I'm playing killer and I get blinded, it's usually my fault. If it's at a pallet, I assume it's going to happen, because that is an effective escape tactic. That isn't "toxic," it's the survivor using the item they have brought for its clear intended use.
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I agree with this as well in addition to what I said earlier.
Also if a game mechanic is inherently frustrating; I consider that a game development issue I don't really blame players for it personally. Unless it's something like exploiting a bug or something not intended.
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The adversarial nature of the game means that there are necessarily just going to be some frustrating mechanics, by design. It's inherent to the type of game this is. Sure, it's frustrating to be blinded, and I would prefer that to not happen, but it usually happens because I made a mistake. In a competition, when you get dusted by an opponent who is outplaying you in some way, it's going to be frustrating. The way to react to that is not to go "THING BAD, YOU BEING TOXIC," it's to look at what's happening and consider what you can do to mitigate it next time. The problem is that people don't want to feel like they're the one at fault, and this limits their skill ceiling and path to improvement.
And I mean, there are some mechanics in the game that are just oppressively bad because there is not a lot of strong counterplay, and I would advocate for these to be changed or rebalanced. But the flashlight is definitely not one of them.
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More or less how I feel as well.
Regardless of if I agree with it or not, I consider it something for the devs to figure out; and us to decide if it's really enough to stop us from having fun- and if you are not, it may be better to play a game you do find enjoyable instead, even if you are sad that this one won't become your ideal game.
It's still just a game at the end of the day.
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In DbD terms something being toxic can basically be boiled down to "I don't like this, it is toxic"
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