History of: Adrenaline Vial

2 history posts involving killers, why not do one of an add-on?

Adrenaline Vial is an add-on for the Blight and went from being a meme add-on to one of the strongest add-ons in the game. Let's go over what happened.

Background

To explain Adrenaline Vial, we need to look at Blight himself.

When the devs finally settled on making him a pinball, they largely kept the idea of just that; a pinball that goes in straight lines. There were some advantages to this, honestly. You could look around left or right knowing what you rushed at you'd still hit, get some crazy flicks, etc. However, ultimately, they decided to increase his turn rate considerably.

Some devs, however, liked the old pinball playstyle. So a compromise was made: Adrenaline Vial, an add-on built specifically to return that play style.

Release

So Adrenaline Vial was released with Blight. It gave you 7 rush tokens as opposed to 5, improved token recovery by -0.66 secs per token, but nuked your turn rate by 80%.

People thought this add-on was terrible. Not wholly unfounded as the run-straight play style is largely weaker than what he normally has, but due to the impression this add-on had. The impression was that it gave you more tokens and improved recovery but with a massive downside that made him difficult to play. It wasn't even close to worth it.

First Buff

4.4.0 rolls around and Adrenaline Vial is given a simple buff: Token recovery went from -066 secs to -0.75 seconds.

Before with -0.66 seconds, using all 7 tokens (which you'd likely have to do because of the decreased maneuverability) left your cover almost the same at 9.34 seconds instead of 10 seconds. With this, it went down to 8.75 seconds.

It was better. Personally, I had fun with the add-on. But again, people didn't use it. Sometime later, one of the devs behind Blight, McLean, shared an idea on stream. Since Adrenaline Vial was made so that the player commits to straight rushes which is undeniably more difficult than his default play style, why not have it increase his movement speed too?

Second Buff

5.3.0 comes and Adrenaline Vial was given two buffs.

• Adrenaline Vial now increased movement speed during a rush by 10%. This is unique as his other speed add-ons add 4% and 6% every time he bumped into an object. Adrenaline Vial was a constant 10%.
• Further increased token recovery to -1 second per token, allowing him to recover 1 token every second.

These were considerable buffs. The add-on wasn't popular still, after all, Blight had his fair share of broken add-ons and add-on combos such as Alch Ring, Double Speed, C33, etc. But those that enjoyed pure Pinball could enjoy this add-on.

Third Buff

5.5.0 is here. Here's where things go downhill. Or uphill, depending on your point of view.

McLean left BHVR, and while I won't say he was the person behind Blight as I feel that would invalidate the work of the other devs that worked on him, he was undeniably a key developer behind him. I mention this because I believe this largely explains what happened next

• Buff: Reduced Turn rate debuff from 80% to 55%

This was a problem.

Firstly, the increased turn rate meant you couldn't do what the add-on was intended for. If you rushed at something, you couldn't look around knowing for a fact that you'd still hit it. While, again, the turn rate is decreased and takes some time to get used to, the original purpose of the add-on restoring the ability to rely on straight rushes was lost.

Second, this add-on buffs Blight considerably. His recharge is extremely fast, he's extremely fast, he has a lot of rushes, and he can use a second add-on in combination with all of this.

Like a flip of a switch, Adrenaline Vial went from being a gimmicky meme add-on that (personally speaking) could be a lot of fun, to one of the strongest add-ons in the game to who was recognized to be the second strongest killer in the game. The transformative add-on was now an add-on with many upsides for a downside that could be played around and possibly used as a benefit (as the increased look angle caused by the decreased turning enabled previously impossible flicks).

Current State

Adrenaline Vial hasn't been touched since its last buff. As of right now, it's one of Blight's many busted add-ons. Let's not kid ourselves, Blight's add-ons are going to be getting looked at. They nerfed Spirit and recently Nurse. While it might take time, there's no doubt Blight is going to be getting looked at too.

Personally, I want this add-on to revert to its 5.5.0 state. Not the best add-on but it fulfilled its purpose and I found it to be very fun to use. Most likely, it's just going to get reworked or just have its upsides nerfed while keeping the downside it has.

I'll end this with one question: If the description states that the vial provides a jolt of energy but fatigues its user, why does it buff recovery? Hmm...