It's Time for Flashlights to get the Toolbox Treatment
prelude
In the 3.6.0 update, just about 2 entire years ago now, toolboxes were changed from giving moderate gen speed boosts over a long period of time (the commodious toolbox, for example, gave you a +15% speed boost and lasted 180 charges) to giving large gen speed boosts in a small quick burst (the commodious toolbox becoming +50% speed boost for 32 charges).
I find that this made toolboxes, design-wise, a lot better. They became much more straight forward, with a very clear, notice-able effect. Old toolboxes were in a sense very insidious, and that made for frustrating and confusing results, especially from a Killer player's perspective.
Of all the existent items for survivor, toolboxes and keys are the only ones to have been so far pretty properly changed to have much better designs; maps, med-kits, and flashlights having been left in the dust.
Out of these item types left behind, flashlights have ended up being the most abusable in certain cases (with med-kits following in close second). The biggest issue being how absurdly long you can make flashlights last, especially for how much value even one flashlight blind can have, depending on the situation.
That being said, I've come up with somewhat of a rework to flashlights and their add-ons, in line with how toolboxes were changed. I wouldn't make any changes to the base functionality of flashlights, as I find that part of flashlights to be pretty much fine. For a quick refresher of the base-kit: A flashlight blind takes 1 second to complete, the blindness lasts for 2 seconds on the killer, and the flashlight beam range is 10 meters long.
Flashlight item changes
Common Items
"Flashlight" (Decreased from Uncommon to Common) - 4 charges
Event Items
"Will O' Wisp" / "Anniversary Flashlight" - 4 Charges
Rare Items
"Sport Flashlight" - 4 charges, blindness duration increased by 0.5 seconds
Very Rare Items
"Utility Flashlight" - 6 charges, blindness duration increased by 0.75 seconds
Flashlight Add-On Changes
Common Add-Ons
"Wide Lens" - blindness duration increases by 0.25 seconds, beam range increases by 2 meters.
"Power Bulb" - after performing a flashlight save, you and the rescued survivor's auras are revealed to each other for 20 seconds.
"Leather Grip" - after successful flashlight blinds, your vaulting noises & notifications are suppressed for 6 seconds.
"Battery" - increases charges by 1.
Uncommon Add-Ons
"TIR Optic" - after performing a flashlight save, you and the killer's auras are revealed to each other for 12 seconds.
"Rubber Grip" - after successful flashlight blinds, your footstep noises and grunts of pain are suppressed for 6 seconds.
"Heavy Duty Battery" - Increases charges by 2, blindness duration reduced by 0.5 seconds.
"Focus Lens" - blindness duration increases by 0.35 seconds, beam range increases by 4 meters.
Rare Add-Ons
"Low Amp Filament" (Increased from Uncommon to Rare) - after performing a flashlight save, your flashlight recovers 0.5 charges.
"Long Life Battery" - increases charges by 2.
"Intense Halogen" - after performing a flashlight save, the rescued survivor gains a 7% haste effect and suppresses their grunts of pain for 20 seconds.
"High-End Sapphire Lens" (Decreased from Very Rare to Rare) - blindness duration increases by 0.5 seconds, beam range increases by 6 meters.
Ultra Rare Add-Ons
"Odd Bulb" - blindness duration increases by 1.25 seconds, reduces charges by 2.
post examination
I believe these changes to flashlights would make them a lot more interesting to use for the average player, and a lot less abusive to use for very experienced players. Albeit this is just "on paper", so I'm certain the numbers could probably be moved around somewhat, but likely not too much. And again, to reiterate, I would make no changes to how flashlights function at base-kit.
Comments
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Video games are a visual medium. Not being able to see sucks and is not fun. So no, I'm good.
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What?
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.........Okay.
When playing a video game you are experiencing a variety of stimuli that your brain pieces together into a cohesive experience. The largest and most important part of that stimuli is the visual aspect, the video in video game. The fact that the visual aspect is so integral to the experience is what makes blindfolded speedruns, for example, so impressive.
Are you following? I think you're doing a great job so far. Very proud.
When you cut off the biggest part of the experience of video games by blinding the player, you create a hostile and unpleasant experience. Within a certain margin this is acceptable; in a PvP game your foes are meant to stymie you. This is tacitly understood on both sides to simply be part of the game and within that context is understandable. Now when you toy with making an unpleasant experience (blindness) more oppressive with a longer duration, you make the entire experience more hostile to the player being blinded precisely because the visual aspect is so important. Small changes add up and it's important that everyone has fun with the game.
Hope this helps. I can work up a crayon drawing for you next time if you need.
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The changes I presented in my post significantly reduce the ceiling potential of flashlights (which as of right now is way too high, being the reason why I made this post). I'm not sure what you're getting at.
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Flashlights overall are probably the most balanced item in the game right now. Everything else still needs a lot more changes.
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Lightborn intensifies
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I agree, how flashlights function is perfectly fine. The main thing I'm focusing on is the sheer amount of charges you can put on flashlights at the moment. It's way too overboard.
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IMO I think lightborn should do something else. Having a perk that specifically denies a specific different mechanic is poor design.
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Flashlights need some counterplay
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I still think lightborne should be basekit
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Looking up, looking down, facing away from the flashlight-wielding survivor before picking up, running infectious fright, running franklins, using your ears to listen, or general situational awareness are all good counters to flashlights
5 -
The blind angles are still problematic, if I'm facing a wall, then i shouldn't get blinded, but it still happens
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I agree with flashlights needing a change. They should be used as means to escape chase or potential save survivor but at the moment they last WAAYY too long especially with double battery addons.
To add, I don't disagree completely with their use against certain killer powers as counterplay BUT the current amount of charges they have and the number of times they can be used can (in the right hands) be game changing.
From a Hag perspective, Flashlights are detrimental to our power to the point where many newer or less experienced Hags feel the need to bring Franklin's to prevent the possibility of that counterplay. That being said, the blind charges should be different to power disabling charges (ie Hag, Wraith, Artist, and nurse [all of which can be affected in a way by flashlights...even though no one is out there light burning a nurse still]). Power disabling charges should cost MORE than blind charges.
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Is it though? I never felt like the amount of charges on flashlights was a problem.
I get what you’re going for, but 4 seconds would not last very long at all and the extra blindness duration is not really worth it/this is by far a net nerf.
I like your Power Bulb rework though.
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Flashlights aren't even remotely powerful. 9/10 times they lead to a slug fest and easy wins because altruism is the 5th killer perk, so to nerf an already weak item would be hilarious. Especially considering medkits are far more problematic than a flashlight will ever be
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Every single charge is a potential blind. It only takes 1 second for a blind, and generally the only times to use flashlights are during uninterruptible animations, so there aren't many cases were charges get wasted. 4 blinds has a LOT of potential, and that's just a normal common flashlight.
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So you're trying to take away the skill of... flashlights???
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In general I think the light-burn mechanic is pretty stupid, the same way old Sabotage was stupid against Trapper. It's a mechanic to specifically counter a small handful of killers, and feels fairly targeted and unfair. If I were to make a patch with these flashlight changes, I would remove light-burn in the same patch.
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well a yellow has a base line of 8 sec/charges, plus 10 with double battery which i feel most people use for those actually good with flashlights.
so maybe reaching a medium, 6 seconds for yellow instead of 8 and similar decrease to green (8 charges) and purple (12 charges) as well as a decrease to the amount of secs/charges that batteries give Yellow (4) and green (6).
Honestly, typing it out maybe base line charges SHOULD be 4 sec/charges instead.
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The only thing I'm trying to "take away" is having a flashlight with 22 god forsaken charges (not to mention Built To Last).
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yes and no, IT IS A NUISANCE i agree but under small niche circumstances it helps the survivor in chase. Lightburning the nurse is incredibly hard to pull off but tbh any weakness for her doesn't change her strength too much. Removing the Artist's crows with a flashlight CAN help but most of the time doesn't. Lightburning the wraith and flashlight against Hag traps are WAY more detrimental but add the counter play they need, even if I hate it.
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Nurse and Artists' weaknesses shouldn't be tied to an item (I think both of these killers are very very poorly designed), lightburn on Wraith is just a slap in the face to a middle-of-the-road killer, also Wraith's lightburn is more or less an artifact of a different time period of DBD. The same applies to Hag, I think, just not to as much of an extent. In general, lightburn as a mechanic should be replaced with something else that will ALWAYS be present in a given match against one of these killers. My problem with lightburn is that a survivor is required to just "be lucky" and have a flashlight in their possession against one of the 4 killers affected by it, and then when one of these killers DOES get hit by a lightburn effect, it feels completely unfair because it is a COMPLETE shutdown of their power.
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Honestly I rather have a weakness tied to a singular item than it be base-kit weakness, if they HAVE to have that weakness.
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It was just how you worded ceiling. Made me assume you meant skill ceiling.
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In Hag and Wraith's cases, you could probably do away with their light-burn mechanics without putting in other weaknesses and it would be fine. If they did away with Nurse and Artists' light-burn mechanics however, I would want some more base-kit counterplay introduced to those two.
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I said "potential" rather than "skill" on purpose, as the issue with flashlights (and a lot of other things in dbd) is the actual potential of what certain things can do is extremely unfair/over the top/stupid. Just because the average use cases of flashlights isn't that bad doesn't mean that flashlights can't be highly abused in certain scenarios.
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I'm confused... why you want flashlights changed? They require skill to use and honestly need addons to be really viable. There are also multiple techniques and perks to deal with them. What I really dislike about this is what the devs did to toolboxes was dreadful. As it currently stands looting a chest for a toolbox is a complete waste of time, unless it a green or higher. I believe brown and yellow actually will result in more time lost then will be gained using one, meaning that you have to bring the item every time to get value. As it stands there is no value in keys, only a little value in toolboxes, the only thing left are flashlights, and they already can be countered.
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People have said this to me many times and I'll say it to you. Those scenarios are just that, very rare circumstances. Not as if it'll happen every game.
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Those scenarios should not be able to happen though. You could say the same about old Iri Head, you hardly ever saw them, but when you did it sucked, and it wasn't fun, and there was very little counterplay.
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If you think flashlights are this easily countered, why do you are if Lightborn exists? I mean they are clearly a moron for running it, right? I mean, just look at a wall, 4head.
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Once survivors legs and arms have been removed, only then will Killer-mains be satisfied.
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Saying flashlights aren't powerful is blatantly wrong, and you saying "9/10 times they lead to a slug fest" just sounds like you strawmanning flashlight users as bad survivors. Balance should not be made around the average, and what you're talking about is the average. On top of this, the only thing I think is a huge problem with flashlights is how absurdly long you can make them last, along with how useless all the other add-ons are for them besides duration. My aim with these changes I presented is to make flashlights more interesting and powerful in the moments that they are used, but also making them not able to be used for absurdly long amounts of time.
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He's right, flashlights are massively underpowered. I can't believe you have even have suggested that they need a nerf.
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How so are they underpowered? In what way?
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Because flashlight saves are a massive-massive waste of time in almost every instance.
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And how is that?
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stick with me on this bud, because your mid mmr might not understand. The killer simply needs to either pressure survivors with a flashlight away from the slug, or face a wall if possible? You act as if they have 0 counterplay when in reality, you're just bad.
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Tell me, what do you do when two survivors, both with 22 charge flashlights and built to last, go into the double lockers at a single pallet jungle gym? Elaborate to me what the counter to that is?
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So yall just don't want survivors to have useful items at all is what I'm seeing. Toolboxes give you quick progress and die in like 3 seconds (and they suck at sabotaging). Keys are utterly useless. And people constantly complain about medkits. Now flashlights are too strong?
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So you want flashlights to last 4 seconds? That's a terrible idea.
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I love the creativity!
Honestly, just making batteries extend the use of flashlights by 1/2/3 seconds and lowering the base charges to 6 would be more than enough.
Flashlights, as is, have 8 seconds - so adding a green and a yellow battery on a Green Flashy can grant over 20 seconds of use.
God forbid the user takes Streetwise. 24 seconds of flashy saves and blinds across 4 survivors means that the killer can be blinded for over a minute if a team is coordinated, so this kind of change is a long time coming.
But I'd still love to play with your suggestions as-written to try them out!
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Flashlights are fine. They don't need any change.
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Well first off, you don't have to sit in front of a locker where 2 survivors are obviously doing that. You do realize that you can ignore survivors that aren't doing gens. It's not like they're doing anything useful, in fact, what they are doing is letting you win the game. Of all the things to complain about, you're complaining about survivors actively losing the game for themselves.
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So let's say there's a generator in the single pallet jungle gym as well. And the two survivors will immediately hop on it if you leave.
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My suggestion is to play survivor with a friend and both of you take flashlights and use that technique since Killers are completely helpless against it.
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Simple. You win because half a team is constantly traveling together and jumping in lockers to make cheeky plays which means they're not spread out on gens and probably aren't doing gens at all once you chase one of them
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This just in, local killer main has never learned how to play around flashlights despite there being multiple ways to counter them as well as complaining when those survivors actively give them a free win.
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the amount of times you get a flashlight out the web makes it already nerfed.
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I have 4000 hours and play both sides equally. You have a very poor mindset.
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Yes, being able to play around a very mediocre mechanic in the game is a "poor mindset". Cope harder Mr. "4k hours"
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