Flashlight Clicking & The Accessibility Problem it Causes
At least 1% of the population has epileptic seizures caused by, or at the very least worsened, by flashing lights. Those are estimates and I theorize that a much higher percentage has them, but that's besides the point. Flashlight macros are extremely common among the community and unfortunately seem to be looked at positively by many survivor players.
However this becomes a problem if someone with epilepsy, or just someone with light sensitivity, tries to play the game. The sudden flashes caused by macros right into your camera are enough to trigger a seizure or headache. I myself don't have epilepsy, but I know some who do that cannot play DBD for that exact reason. Flashlight macros shouldn't be allowed in the first place but that's also besides the point.
The game needs accessibility options, that's been talked about to death and is very apparent. However the main topic people bring up is colorblindness, which can usually be resolved with third party software to change colors. Flashing lights however cannot be fixed without direct developer intervention or modding, the latter could be considered cheating.
I propose a solution; add an option to remove the flashlight beam when it is aimed directly at your face, with some downside such as longer flashlight blinds or quicker time to blind. It is unacceptable that part of the population cannot play the game when so many other games have found solutions.
Comments
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Flashlights should have an actual animation. It's just dumb that the survivor is carrying a flashlight and 0.00001 seconds after he clicks the button it is already shining in your face. Give them something like the Slinger treatment.
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I didn't even think of that, it could probably work but it'll probably mess up muscle memory just like it did with Slinger. Definitely a better option than my suggestion though lol
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Probably, but it's not like flashlight timing is some rocket science, it would be easy to adapt to.
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I'm sensitive to flashing lights, it can trigger migraines, which I have frequently. I shut my eyes at theatres or cinema and the flashing is reduced to a reddish pulsing.
I'm still new to this game and haven't played killer much. From looking at videos of it, a photosensitivity accessibility overlay seems like it would help a lot, just give the option to reduce the relative brightness, make the white a red. The killer can still be effectively blinded but the griefing effect on the player is diminished.
I looked up the macros and they flash at 10 ms or so which is crazy fast. But the game just needs to put a tiny on/off operation cooldown of 200ms-1s so it cannot be flashed so fast.
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It took 5 years for us to get colorblind settings and only because there was a huge controversy and a ton of negative press.
So I wouldn't get your hopes up
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Turning a flashlight On and turning it Off should have a 1 or 1.5 second delay. Same goes with crouching.
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Flashlight clicking should have never even been a thing, no reason why it should be able to be spammed. Same with Tbagging, neither of these add any tactical value or strategy to the game besides purely taunting and making the Killer player unhappy. It's toxicity for the sake of toxicity.
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i doubt those people that do it actually have the intention to harm people who get triggered by it because of epilepsy or something. They are just toxic people wanting attention and don’t even realize it can cause actual harm.
and if your health is at risk currently it’s best to not play the game (and give the criticism like you did here so the devs are aware of not already).
sadly, the community seems to not be interested into accessibility options anymore after the toxic part harrassed a dev with the colorblind mode as a ‚reason‘… I asked a question in the latest Q&A which didn’t get much votes..
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I’ve always thought the moment a flashlight clicks should cost one second of time whether it lasts the long or not. You just spam clicked that thing 14 times? 14 seconds gone.
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Devs definitely should listen to this! It really can harm people.
Also this solution is quite elegant one
Also make it last 1 sec use minimum, so you won't get blasted with flashes for half a second
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Devs had stated that teabagging is a grey area. That tells me they are not against teabagging at all.
By tolerating this kind of behavior, the devs otherwise support selected types of toxicity. This game clearly has boundaries with messages and various expressions, with an insane number censored phrases and words. How is it that teabagging (which can easily be described as a derogatory expression) wouldn't be also fall under that category?
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Also this:
As told to be by an actual survivor just moments ago, and I quote:
"because I hope at some point I can run into an epileptic killer player and cause them to have a seizure"
So I guess everyone was wrong. It's not just a simple "you s**k, #########". There's actually a goal behind it!
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Teabagging the killer would seem even more like a idiot person
Post edited by velosinhooo on0 -
silly dude, survivors are allowed to ahve fun and bully, killers aren't, you should know.... may i suggest you to read the "survivor Rules" book?
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I'm not epileptic, but it can definitely bring on a migraine when survivors do it all game.
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Yeah I understand. I'm not epileptic, but the flashlight spamming can be annoying and could probably be something to look into. Also while we're on this subject, this sort of thing can be applied to Doctor and Clown. Doctor's madness power with the static noises, voices, screaming and what not, I feel his power can be very problematic players who suffer from epilepsy as well, and I am someone who plays Doctor myself. And clowns bottles being very disorienting. I remember watching a Puppers video where he explains that if he goes against a clown two times in a row, he has to DC because it'll give him a migraine.
But on the bright of all this, dbd doesn't have a lot of things in the game that can cause epilepsy, and if those examples you and I listed are a huge problem, it's okay to DC for your own sake and health.
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I wouldn't expect them to make any changes in this area. This is the same team that said that they wanted teabagging to remain satisfying for the survivor player when they were making the new animations.
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The way they responded to people asking for a colorblind mode would suggest this is a non-issue to the devs.
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hags traps should be looked at first the camera jerk flash and trap as a whole is one gaint seizer waiting to happen , the clicky clicky is nothing compared to that or the actual blind
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To be fair t-bagging does not affect your health directly, while flashlight spam might do.
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its not really an issue, people with such sensitive epilepsy would not be playing games unless it was specifically designed for their needs, but to be honest, i have to doubt whether the flashlight is even strong enough to induce a fit, unless their epilepsy was severe which in that case why are they playing games?
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person without a physical issue: it's not really an issue
people with low-grade epilepsy and now a migraine after BZZZZT: ... 'kay
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It's like 90% of modern games have epilepsy warning, as well as it is written on PS consoles startup screen, so just sit there and stare at the wall and BTW accessibility options are just a myth.
/s
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where did you pull 90% from, nevermind i already know, games with strong flashing lights are required by law to include a warning, has nothing to do with accessibility
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If game had such options like reduce flashes or something similar it would also reduce health risk for many people, instead of just excluding them from player base and the community.
Also I’ve pulled it out of my head, hence I wrote “it’s like”, smart guy
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