Why lightborn is problematic

The reason why I believe lightborn is bad for the game overall is because it’s a very counterproductive perk and it also has encourages people who play killer to not learn the game and here’s why

Lets say killer brings lightborn to counter flashlights right? Well when survivors realize the killer runs lightborn then there’s no point in trying and that’s why gen rushing is a thing a lot of the time and if there’s no flashlights then it’s a dead weight perk.

I just feel here that the community is confusing fun with toxicity and it’s getting real annoying it’s like the devs are trading fun for balance and this maybe an unpopular opinion but I don’t care and I play both roles but taking break as killer for a min for the event.

Unpopular Opinion: If you really need lightborn to counter flashlights then you’re a garbage killer main and no I don’t care what perk/builds people use but really there’s so many better ways to counter flashlights like

  1. facing a wall when possible along with
  2. (if facing a wall is not possible)paying attention to your surroundings perks like infectious fright come in handy but still shouldn’t be needed if you PAY ATTENTION to your surrounding also,
  3. Starstruck (and I feel this perk needs a little tweak)
  4. Franklins demise effects all items along with 2

So why do we need an overkill on of the most useless items in the game if you guys don’t want gen rushing and/or heal speed metas then having more fun alternatives may help along with making maps and keys more fun to use

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Comments

  • Evan_
    Evan_ Member Posts: 547

    I don't see the issue. If a casual killer player doesn't want to learn playing against this tactic, he can sacrifice a perk-slot. It's not a small price to pay, and I feel it's good flashlight value for survivors when it happens.

    It's also my impression that everyone drops Lightborn sooner or later.

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    Well 2nd chance perks have been nerfed to the ground where the killer has to be tunneling for them to work while lightborn always stays active no matter what also I don’t ever have problems with flashlights without lightborn it’s called know how to play killer the only exception is dead hard and it’s barley useable now and what would you rather gen rush meta just saying I don’t really ever see pro killers use lightborn

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    Well it is since it’s effecting the entire meta of the game and I don’t believe the devs should make perks to appeal to bad killer players nor should they have a say on how the game is played

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    Again confusing toxicity with fun what if killers wanna run Mori Myers is that fun or toxic?

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    If I were to play Michael myers with all the op iridescent add ons or any powerful killer build is that fun or toxic?

  • Evan_
    Evan_ Member Posts: 547

    Umm... I don't see how any perk is not meant to appeal to bad players. If they were that good, they'd play without them.

    I can't even come up with a sufficiently snarky response to the idea that devs should not influence how the game they develop is being played. It's like saying that a director should not affect the movies he directs.

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249
    edited July 2023

    I never said that I don’t believe the game should revolve around people who dont know how to play are you saying the devs are bad players

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    Exactly so why should one side have an absolute counter just cause they can’t play?

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    Well comparing perks with different functions is pretty impractical also don’t killers have a windows perks too and just because you can see vaults and pallets doesnt mean you still don’t need to plan escapes it may help you find a loop easier but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to know how to loop and play the game while lightborn you don’t need to learn to play

    windows maybe at most training wheels to help find loop but it’s not an absolute protective blank like lightborn

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    True but windows doesn’t guarantee safety and can be countered with blind status and knowing how to mind game and counter loops while lightborn has no counter play except do gens then it’s all about gen rushing

  • Seraphor
    Seraphor Member Posts: 9,372
    edited July 2023

    An absolute counter to an item, that aren't required and you can chose not to use.

    What do you think about Franklins, or Overwhelming Presence?

    Countering item usage is an element of killer build customisation.

    How about you stop avoiding learning how to play survivor without Flashlights?

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    Franklins and overwhelming both have counters

    Franklins: don’t get hit/ drop your item somewhere and built to last and

    overwhelming presence: doesn’t prevent you from using medkits it drains them faster so leave terror radius

    and I know flashlights aren’t required but what else are survivors suppose to do other than gen rush then it gets complained about

  • Seraphor
    Seraphor Member Posts: 9,372

    There are definitely more things to do than "flashlight or gen".

    I never use flashlights, and somehow I manage to play the game just fine.

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    well it’s a variety problem there’s not enough builds in the game that are both fun and viable it’s like survivors have to play like bots in order to play the game

  • Crowman
    Crowman Member Posts: 9,511

    Imagine complaining about lightborn.

  • Emeal
    Emeal Member Posts: 5,115

    You forgot about another part of getting Survivors to a hook, bodyblocking. Survivors still have that.

  • Seraphor
    Seraphor Member Posts: 9,372

    If by playing like bots you mean "doing the thing that benefits you at that moment in time" sure. But that's just about every game.

  • ReikoMori
    ReikoMori Member Posts: 3,333

    I played this game for years without using lightborn, so I've learned the counters to flashlights. They are overall not super impactful when you have to deal with multiple beamers on top of playing around forced animation lock blinds. Getting blinded at locker grabs and pallets on top of getting blast mined while kicking a damn generator which is part of my gameplay loop along with party starters, firecrackers, and flashbangs being very regular items in my games made it so doing the camera counters were effectively useless. Also keep in mind that there are a lot of players who use Shadowborn for FoV accessibility even though it opens them up to being even more susceptible to blinds, not an issue I have usually but it's still something to consider about folks using lightborn.

    The way blinds are handled in this game are also terrible. They induce headaches and ramp up eye strain really bad which would normally be solved by being able to adjust my graphics in-game so I'm not getting as much searing bright light in an otherwise dark game all of a sudden. It's not fun playing against flashlights, but it is fun playing with flashlights so for the side that has to be on the receiving end of them constantly game after game it is a toxic on top of physically aggravating. So I now make the choice to just run lightborn every game I play as killer.

    Lightborn lets the side that actually has fun playing with flashlights still have their fun, but I can actually play through a game without having to deal with the majority of ill effects I get IRL from people constantly shining a dang light in my already bad eyes. Calling killers garbage when a lot of us are running basically a perk down just so we can continue playing the game comfortably while the devs have made it point in the past to keep giving y'all more and more things to aggressively blind killers in the past kinda sucks.

    You can do all the things mentioned and still get blinded because while you can really on address one to two sources of a blind at once and you can blind a killer from much further than a killer can attack you. I play against folks who are obsessed with constantly blinding killers and they don't care about starstruck. Franklin's only matters if you can get a hit, but people who are good at flashlight blinds aren't going to make themselves that available to be hit to start with. You can have the most hyper vigilant situational and spatial awareness and still get blinded because animation locks on pick ups are pretty generous. Facing a wall works most of the time, but also sometimes facing a wall doesn't work. If you use something like Shadowborn or Monitor and Abuse then things get even less consistent.

  • Seraphor
    Seraphor Member Posts: 9,372

    What exactly do you want to do that bots don't? You can loop, you can mind game the killer, are these not viable options?

    But you don't want to do gens or heal, because that's what bots do?

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    So why should flashlight be useless cause how blinding works fix the blinding animation

  • ReikoMori
    ReikoMori Member Posts: 3,333

    You're not always going to get value out of a flashlight and that's okay because Lightborn is extremely limited in what it does. The killer is immune to blinds and gets a bit of aura reading, but it is literally all it does. It's not a good a perk by any metric, but like a lot of killer perks it has a specific function that can be helpful in exchange for not having a slot to run more universally accepted good perks.

    Now that isn't what you want to hear, but it is the case. It's not the specific blinding animation that is the problem it is all the animations a killer has in the game where they lose control of the camera for short period of time. Also the fact that there are now more sources of blinding available outside of flashlights that sort of necessitate the use of a perk that otherwise actually got used very rarely. The worst thing for flashlight users was the moment they started adding other items and perks that gave the ability to blind. People didn't use to waste a slot on lightborn unless basically the whole lobby pulled out beamers, but once you started getting other stuff to produce blinds and players started going hog wild with it a bad perk became crucial for a lot of players who either didn't want to deal with blinds from a gameplay perspective or an accessibility perspective.

    One would think that maybe the problem isn't Lightborn and killers, but design decisions that should be rethought around blinds and the massive lockdown on graphic options.

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    Ya and that’s part of the reason why this game is going down the drain rather than fixing the game they throw a perk at the problem and say good job and it’s not the fact of getting value it’s more of lightborn being too easy of a solution for an entire build

  • ReikoMori
    ReikoMori Member Posts: 3,333

    Lightborn doesn't negate an entire build in any sort of fashion. It just prevents blinds and if you're trying to make entire builds around constantly blinding the killer then you've got a different problem.

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    It’s not about blind the killer constantly and it make flashlight builds useless

  • Evan_
    Evan_ Member Posts: 547

    I can't decypher what are you saying anymore.

    By your logic, every player is bad. Devs included. If you use any perk other than No Mither, I gladly point out how bad you are for using crutches instead of getting better.

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    I never said you can’t ever use perks it’s just lightborn has no counter while every other perk to some certain extent does what part of that do you not understand

  • Evan_
    Evan_ Member Posts: 547

    You can achieve the same thing by body-blocking or hook sabotage.

  • ReikoMori
    ReikoMori Member Posts: 3,333

    What is a flashlight build do aside from going for blinds constantly? Also what even is a "flashlight build" in your words

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    Well I would say a flashlight build is a build that I can get the most from my flashlight without needing to stack batteries and be able to use perks like Residual Manifest and use bulbs and lens for better angles and there should be more perks like RM that can give flashlights move utility unless you all want more PTS or BK

  • Coffeecrashing
    Coffeecrashing Member Posts: 3,776

    Every survivor perk that hides auras, scratchmarks, grunts of pain, or pools of blood, has no counter. And that is a lot of perks. For example, Stridor doesn't counter -100% survivor noise perks, and Bloodhound doesn't counter -100% survivor blood perks.

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    Well even if that’s the case that doesn’t mean finding survivors is impossible

  • Steakdabait
    Steakdabait Member Posts: 1,275

    it's pretty bad gameplay wise imo one side shouldn't have a perk that effectively removes a mechanic from the game instead of making it harder but i honestly don't really care that much

  • WinchesterxNL
    WinchesterxNL Member Posts: 11

    Personally. I only use Lightborn if I see 3 or 4 people with a flashlight in my lobby.

    You're giving Franklin's as an alternative to it, but it essentially does the same thing. It removes the ability to be blinded. I personally simply get tired when I get blinded during the breaking of a pallet and they feel like doing it a couple more times afterwards. It's incredibly disorienting, which I suppose is the purpose. But also induced headaches, like one person here has already mentioned. It's a decent counter for when you as a killer get the feeling that this next group of survivors, is a bully squad. That's my only reason for using it.

    If the blinding animation would either be able to be adjusted, or simply changes. And the moveset for picking up a survivor or anything else that locks the camera in a certain position might get some changes, then I'll drop it entirely.

    But other than that. Saying its a perk that simply allows people to be lazy and not learn how to play the game "correctly" is a bit of a problematic thing to say. I could then also counter you with saying how the perk from Bill that allows you to see the hatch at the end is just as problematic because killers don't have anything like that.

  • ReikoMori
    ReikoMori Member Posts: 3,333

    No one really cares about Botany Knowledge or Prove Thyself. They are manageable and besides there are a ton more perks that can fulfill their roles.

    Flashlights are in a good as they are now. They work against anyone not running lightborn which is still the majority of killer players and the further up you go in MMR the less you see it used because the competition doesn't really let you waste a perk slot on something so limited.

  • JonOzzie16
    JonOzzie16 Member Posts: 203

    In my opinion; a single perk should not entirely counter a certain playstyle. Blind builds are rendered completely useless by one perk. I don't think that's fair.

    And any killer running light born has no right to complain about gen rushing, because they have eliminated an entire playstyle and forced survivors to do gens as fast as possible in order to escape. Otherwise, they'd be wasting time trying to get saves and not stuck on gens.

    I don't even get mad when I see Franklin's, because that is more spread out across the board to combat multiple playstyles at once and not entirely countering one.

  • THE_Crazy_Hyena
    THE_Crazy_Hyena Member Posts: 351

    Well, it depends on how many bully squads you have run into that are abusing flashlights to their fullest.

    It's really not fun being blinded 24/7 by those. So therefore Lightborn is quite essential in those situations. My rule of thumb is that if I see two or more flashlights in the lobby, then Lighborn comes out.

    One player bringing a flashlight is usually not a big deal

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    Well then why is PTS getting nerfed if nobody cares about it and BK is still an A tier perk and tell me other perks that replace them all together

    and not only did you just prove my point on only the lower MMR killers only use lightborn and flashlights are the most useless item survivors maps and keys even have more use than flashlights and you call that a good place

    the only reason why people bring flashlights cause they’re the most fun item survivor have next to sabo toolboxes but that a bit harder to pull off

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    Well I would say with the whole being blind as killer I don’t personally experience that headache feeling but if that is happening it’s not fair flashlights get punished for it reworking the blinding effect on killers like make the screen turn black rather than white or something

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    Well like I stated there’s plenty of ways other than lightborn to deal with flashlights on top of the perk being absolute

  • DavidHypnos
    DavidHypnos Member Posts: 730

    I’m not agreeing with the original post but you’re off-base. WoO is 1) a good perk for new players to learn how to loop or learn maps and 2) a good way to avoid getting caught in a dead end. It’s not the same as not learning to plan your escape especially if a stealth killer surprises you.

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  • Anti051
    Anti051 Member Posts: 649
    edited July 2023


    Because,

    If you consider to amount of mental exertion required to get a down vs. the amount required to get a flash save, flash saves objectively are not fair (especially since it was made easier to get flash saves not long ago).

    Killer jumps a 5 ft hurdle to get a down.

    Survivor jumps a 2 ft hurdle to make the killer repeat the chase.

    And in the short amount of time it takes to complete gens, it's actually sort of bogus.

    I mean come on...

  • ReikoMori
    ReikoMori Member Posts: 3,333

    You don't give flashlights enough credit, in the right conditions they are menacing tools. At higher MMR you have to contend with more teams being able to play with a high level of efficiency so running lightborn is possible, but ill-advised because at that point you really want to use your perk slots to optimize either your chase, slowdown, or info generation. That's the exact concept behind things becoming meta in the power role.

    You don't really want to spend a slot perma-locking lightborn if you don't have to. The most fun item for survivors should probably be something other than flashlights, which as I said are in a fine place. They have a very specific function that when it works there very little that can stop it aside from using lightborn because the times when people use flashlights the most are the times the killer is not allowed to tilt their head to dodge the beam. I get you want to do stuff with flashlights more often, but playing against them every single game is not only aggravating, but pain inducing. That's how about 75-80% of my games are, people using flashlights, flashbangs, and blast mines. Now killer doesn't really have much in the way of accessibility features to help someone like me who has slight hearing sensitivity issues and really shouldn't be getting constantly IRL blinded by playing a video game.

    Sabo's annoying, but at least it doesn't cause me pain and both sides can actually play around it evenly depending on hook RNG. If someone is consistently dodging your beam there it's the same as having lightborn just without the aura reading. So it ain't like you're going to get anymore blinds then you already would depending on your skill level. Lightborn just allows us to not have to have every pallet break, locker grab, and pick up result in getting bombarded by the light of god.

    Maybe if the devs made it so you couldn't do back to back blinds in rapid succession, reworked the visual to not be a pain inducing color filter and just made killers put their hands up or cover their face with their weapon, and got rid of blast mine I'd be more inclined to consider this. Yet, even then lightborn's not unhealthy for the game nor is it problematic and nor is it magically robbing survivors of fun. Killer perks are by design seemingly meant to be a little unfair, but they are also pretty limited in the scope of their uses. You gain strength in a few specific areas at the cost of losing it in many others and considering there is only one of us and 4 y'all combined y'all have wider coverage of strengths and minimal trade offs.

    Also, OG Lightborn did used to just make it take longer before a killer got blinded, but in that form the perk just went unused entirely because it didn't actually make it that difficult. Killers went a very long time before having any way at a perk level to counter flashlights. The only other counter was Franklin's and that didn't exist until Bubba did.

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    did you even read my entire post I addressed most of what you mentioned other than the whole eye strain thing but even then it’s not ok for the game to slap a perk on it and call it fixed and you wonder why you get gen rushed

  • Emeal
    Emeal Member Posts: 5,115

    I know what WoO does, the point is I dont see how WoO does not equally cause a learning deficit on the same grounds that Lightborn does. Which would be baseless as far as I am concerned.

  • jeffkillsyou96
    jeffkillsyou96 Member Posts: 249

    Well do you realize when survivors figure out the killers using LB then they don’t bother trying I’m sure i mentioned this if a survivor is following the killer for a save they’re not really doing gens and again you wonder why gen rushing is a thing