http://dbd.game/killswitch
Why must skill-based killer powers all have room for survivor reactions?
See, the Deathslinger thread earlier made me wonder. Aside from Nurse showing up in someone's face, it doesn't seem like any killer that has an aim or timing requirement to their power is allowed to have it work at a speed that doesn't allow for reactions--the closest is if a survivor is standing right where Pinhead's chains are going to fire.
But why? Especially someone like Deathslinger, who has one chance in a chase or it's blown; is there any good reason that a successful power use needs two survivor mistakes (the first obviously being in a position to be targeted) on top of the killer's skill to succeed?
It seems to be an undercurrent to suggestions for how Spirit/Blight should be nerfed: control of the outcome must rest on the survivor mistake side after they're aware its coming.
Comments
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I... don't see what map design has to do with giving every power a very obvious signal it's being used before it takes effect?
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This is true, Bubba is the way. Until the developers decide to nerf him.
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I’ll take Nurse any day over Bubba unless you’re really intent on face camping. Sawing down pallets is good and all, but ignoring them and all the other mindless loops in this game altogether is even better.
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Most survivors are a dangerous combination of bad and cocky. You do not even need to worry about sawing the pallets as most of them greed. If you need an example, True Tunneler is pretty high mmr with Bubba. Just pay attention to how many downs he has no business getting if the survivor was intelligent enough to predrop. It is astounding. You ignore the pallets in the same way as Nurse thanks to their remarkable decision making. Only the skill requirement to get the downs is much more reasonable.
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I’ve not had many survivors be that greedy with pallets when I’m Bubba, especially on maps like The Game where there’s a pallet every 8 meters.
Survivors complain a lot how Nurse ignores the game mechanics, but when those mechanics are stupidly massive in their favor I’m glad that she does.
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Player feedback is important if a survivor can't react to a power in any way or any meaningful way then its an unfun power to play against which really drags the experience down
Your nurse and pinhead example isn't exactly perfect since a survivor can hear when a nurse starts charging a blink and react accordingly and you can see when a pinhead starts to open a gateway and also react accordingly, both of those powers actually have reaction and meaningful counterplay from survivors
Old spirit for example didn't have meaningful counterplay because while you both didn't know when she started phasing you also couldn't tell where she was while phasing, it served as a perfect example of why skill based powers have room for survivor interaction because without them its extremely unfun to play against and potentially even unfair since it removes playing the game from one side in an uncontrolable and uncounterable way
Killers have skill based abilities since that is their entire role, but survivors also need to have something skill based (generally reacting to the killers power and playing around it mindfully) to make it an actually game and not just I guess the killer is too skilled so there is no gameplay, the only version of this left in the game is being a perfect nurse, which is effectively as close as you can get to this.
Skill based powers need room for counterplay because without it there isn't really skill based powers its can you press a button, survivors need to have a form to play around a power (not hard counter) because that allows them room to develop their own skills but also room for the killer to be skilled in the first place
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Sounds like they're living in pre rework bubba. You can't greed Saws anymore since most good Bubba have their strongest add ons that actually work now lol
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Ah, but then you can dodge the Pinhead chains if they're anything other than right on top of you.
What I mean, is that it seems like so many of the skills are dependent upon leaving room for the survivor to react after it's been committed to. i.e. the actual outcome is heavily pushed into the survivor's control.
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It's not 'heavily pushed into the survivor's control'. Least of all with Nurse and Pinhead. A good killer will still land relatively consistently.
It's just that survivors have a way of interacting with the power so they have something to do, as opposed to being better off just AFKing.
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I mean, I already said Nurse was an exception, and Pinhead's chains have a similar thing if the portals are positioned right. Though they can be dodged after that.
... you know, the two characters who are basically standing as an exception to see power being used -> then react. Probably because I've been watching a lot of PH stuff too; very reliant on the survivor making a mistake to hit.
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Because the design philosophy is that the survivor should always have a chance to escape even if they are a vastly worse player. Skill doesn't factor in a ton anymore due to how behavior continues to design this game. As a skilled killer, you can and will lose to people far worse than you simply due to the games various issues, quirks, RNG etc. As a survivor, all your looping skills are kind of redundant because the guy who just holds W and drops pallets is probably wasting the killers time more than you, and literally anyone with functioning limbs could do it. There's no point trying to become skilled at this game. If you try to become skilled at a killer who is skill intensive, they'll just get gutted eventually. And if you try to become a smart survivor, it doesn't matter against 80% of the killer cast because the correct and most effective strategy for survivors in 2021 involves holding W as you lead the killer from one side of the map to the next and then back again.
You can become skilled in this game but there's no point because skill isn't rewarded, and tons of "Oh you made a booboo? We'll fix that!" mechanics and perks exist to boost people who are far worse than others.
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But it extends to all other killers, too.
Ask any MOBA player: Getting hit with skillshots isn't 'heavily in the target's control'. Yeah, dodging is a thing, but so is predictive aim. Grandmaster League players will still get hits in on other grandmaster League players, in disregard of their target making no mistakes.
Because the design philosophy is that the survivor should always have a chance to escape even if they are a vastly worse player.
If they dodge your shot, they're not 'vastly worse', are they?
'Why are survivors allowed to dodge my attacks?' has to be the most forum killer main thing I've ever seen.
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Because if a killer doesnt have counterplay then survivors dont even have a game to play. They either do QTE simulator on generators or just hold w and pray that the killer is bad at the game.
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What's the point of having interactions with a killer if you literally can't react to their skills?
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So you want to walk, press M2 and the surv is killed?
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Tbh I wouldn't mind this design philosophy IF it was consistent for both sides.
For one, they want to make each killer's power reactable when predicting the power's use is already fair counterplay in some cases if not outright more effective then plain reaction dodging as long as you can get into your opponents head.
But on the second hand, devs design and on purpose leave in game really strong loops with 0 mindgame which are just huge time sink in a game that's about time management for killers.
If you want each power to be made "fair" for survivors to react to and outplay, then you should be really upset and vocal about current map and loops balance as well. Most loops are either long enough to be extremely safe or are open so that there is not mindgame and killer just has to take the loop and break the pallet hoping next loop is more fair.
I just love when someone says that killer power is unfair and has no counterplay while comepletely ignoring the fact that most loops in DBD are exactly the same for killers. Both should be getting attention, not just killer powers but also "fairness" of loops should be rebalanced.
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Because despite the killer having a disadvantage in the 1v4 game, the devs decided that killers must have an advantage in the 1v1.
I wouldn't be surprised if we see some sort of prompt when survivors run into bear traps to give them a chance to jump over the trap since running around the corner into a trap is "unreactable"
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When the mechanic had to be changed to allow that, that's kind of weird.
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Because this is a pvp game, not a point-and-click arcade. Players need to have room for interaction. If you completely remove agency from one side, then the game becomes a disguised single-player where you're just using humans as glorified NPCs.
That was the case for Deathgarden. And no, it didn't end well.
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Because it's a game. If a killer's power can't be meaningfully dodged or interacted with by good survivor play, then the survivor players would rightfully feel like there's little point to even playing.
Attacks being telegraphed is absolutely decent design and it was always a problem that Slinger could essentially fake the telegraph and hit without telegraphing. The Nurse example doesn't bear out either, that power is still telegraphed because you can see her raise her hand and hear her wheezing.
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That's the part I'm questioning: the need for things that seemingly need to be reaction-dodgeable as well as prediction dodgeable.
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Generally they aren't heavily pushed in the survivors control, they are in control of the better player which is why they are skills
but the main reason is that its just not fun if there is no room for skill on both sides
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"Counter-play" is a bit of a meme at this point. You have two different sides playing two different games. Killers are playing FPS games and survivors are playing QTE games. The problem is that both of them have to feel like there is some possibility for success. And almost every time that means that the Player Game gets to be more responsive than the Killer one.
Killer powers have long wind-ups, precise aiming requirements, hang-time delays, range restrictions, no actual crosshair, sometimes limited ammo, throttled movement/aiming, erratically moving targets, inconsistently blocking terrain, and severe penalties on missing. No one would ever willingly play an FPS game with those kinds of horrible controls.
Consider, for a moment, everything Pyramid Head has to deal with:
- His power makes a tremendous noise on activating it, giving survivors an audible warning
- His power takes a long time to start up, giving survivors ample opportunity to strafe left or right
- His power slows him way down and throttles his turning to almost nill, making him unable to correct his aim once he's put it down
- His power projects a red column of warning light, telling the survivor exactly where the shockwave is going and where they need to get out of.
- His power makes ANOTHER audible warning sound when he activates it.
- His power has a sequential hit sequence, giving survivors on the end of it even MORE time to strafe slightly to the right or left.
- HIs power is surprisingly narrow and short, making the ability to actually clip anybody very rare indeed.
- His power uses a slowly-refilling meter, preventing him from doing it multiple times in a row (even if you wanted to)
- Recovering from his power, even if he misses, takes longer than a missed normal attack, punishing the player for even attempting to use it.
- AND his power was nerfed so that putting it away locks you out of normal attacks as well.
All those restrictions on a move that, at its core, is supposed to be a skill shot - something that rewards the player for hitting a precise target. Is it any wonder that the only time his power can actually be used is at pallets and windows, where survivors are stuck in animations and CAN'T shift slightly to one side despite the loads of warnings?
The easier the QTE becomes, the worse the FPS plays.
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i think killer powers should not be reactable. they should also have very limited drawbacks. drawbacks for killer powers should help facilitate mindgames kinda like old spirit and old billy, like the inability to see survivor forces the killer to make predictions based off sound and limited steering for billy at high speed forces him to commit to curves without being able to adjust mid-curve.
Ideally, all pallets that are unsafe happen to be unsafe because slide animation+length of pallet is smaller than killer's reach(lunge distance). If all the pallets were just made unsafe, than killer wouldn't need any anti-loop tools in first place.
In recent Q&A, one of the questions was about why boons were added to the game and the response was that boons were intended to provide safe havens for survivors. this is very problematic answer because current loop design follows this answer to a dime. so until their safe haven design philosophy for loop design is altered, the game for killer will never be balanced.
I find it funny that the most balanced killer now in DBD is the one killer that removes all elements of loop design and has least reactable power in the game. I bet its because survivors have not been able to filter Nurse's power like they're able to filter out spirit and deathslinger. Maybe survivors one day will figure out to complain about nurse's blink movement speed(m/s During blink animation) and they'll add a blink marker for survivor so they can see where nurse will reappear before she blinks. After that, she'll be just as much of a toy as every other killer is for survivor.
good news is that most killer players can't play her properly, so maybe she is safe statistically compare to all other killers.
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I guess because it'd be boring to play against a killer with no counterplay?
(shrug)
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