Were breakable walls a failure?

Huh? Failure how? Like they don't work? Not an interesting gameplay element? Or are you talking about the proposed killer long ago who destroyed permanent walls?

Definitely not an interesting mechanic. They literally function as a "predropped" pallet. But the reality is the way they are setup is pretty simple.

You have your walls that you want to break, and your walls you don't want to break. Why are there breakable walls you don't want to break? Breaking a wall shouldn't be good for survivors, so that is already bad. But, why are there some sections of a map that just exist as an infinite if you don't break the wall? They just exist to waste extra time for a killer with no real strategic gain. Survivors would likely prefer if they were just a standard loop rather than a breakable wall.

The only breakable wall that i think is well designed is the shack in the deathslinger map. That one is good, because the wall being there makes it stronger than a standard shack, but the wall not being there weakens it to being less than a standard shack, but it isn't useless. That is more how i think the walls should work, where when you break them, it weakens the loop, but doesn't make it useless, and breaking it isn't completely required (depending on killer).

Yeah, probably.

The only one that is somewhat interesting imo is either of the ones on Badham. Optimal route into the building to get to the gen at the cost of opening up a strong survivor loop. I wish a lot of them were like that.

I like them. When you have a strong idea that a survivor is pathing past a breakable wall and you smash it right in front of them, I can just picture the survivor crapping their pants. That's always a good feeling. Plus there are some killer abilities, add ons, and perks that interact with breaking pallets/walls. So having them on the map is certainly relevant from that perspective too.

Walls are a very one sided benefit for survivors.

As far as an interesting addition for killers, it's a complete failure.

Massive failure

We'll echo the sentiments above of "coulda worked but executed poorly".

Unfortunately this is true of a lot of things in this game.

Failure isn't the right word. But they were definitely poorly implemented with a lot of them being useless. I'd like to see them reworked in the future. Especially the ones on Gideon.

Some are good. Some are bad. And some are just a failure.

Good Breakable Walls - IMO the breakable Walls in Main Structures are good. Because after the rework they did not really have anything going for them. E.g. I like the Breakable Wall on the upstairs portion of the Ironworks-Mainbuilding. Without it, the Main Building would not really have anything to work with and this would be a huge structure on the Map which will not be used for gameplay (aside from the Gen inside).

I also think that breakable Walls which block of paths and should not be broken are good. The Killer can ignore them anyway, but if needed, they can break them. Like Badham-School-Breakables. They make the structure a bit weaker, but are still an option to break if needed. (a solid wall would be worse)

Bad Breakable Walls are basically almost everything on Dead Dawg. Because it has standard structures but sometimes made a big stronger with a breakable Wall which makes the structure way weaker. Really bad concept. And I am glad that they did not adapt it for other maps.

Failure - basically The Game. Because of breakable Walls and Walls which only open when the Gen next to it is repaired, there are quite a few of deadends on this Map. And some Pallets are not useable due to this, which means that they had to add more Pallets (since The Game only has Pallets). They could reduce the number of Pallets a bit if they would remove breakable Walls. Because I think the Deadends on this Map are really the worst.

They’ve stopped using them on the most recent maps, so I would say that they are a failure.

The only map that really did breakable walls well is Midwich (and maybe Saloon).

Garden of Joy’s main building could really use breakable walls though.

I'm absolutely disappointed in how they're being implemented thats for sure. I thought they would be more like the optional stairway in Midwich, offering chances for the killer to open up new routes altering the flow of movement in the map.

Not entirely, but there are some bad ones. I think people focus too much on the bad, though, because there are some great breakable walls in the game!

Some examples:

• The alternate ways up to the second floor on Midwich are a good example of how to make breakable walls into a "spend time now for efficiency later" situation.
• The breakable walls next to generators on the Game provide the killer with bottlenecks where approaching from one angle heavily impacts where survivors can run but at the same time repairing that generator removes this benefit, adding more tactical gameplay. Not much, but some.
• The main structure in Torment Creek has a breakable wall that some killers want to leave up, but others would want to break, which makes the structure play differently depending on who your killer is. Huntress, Pyramid Head, Deathslinger, and a few others would want to force the survivor to take the window, but others would want to shorten the way around and break the wall.
• While the Badham main structure absolutely sucks, I actually quite like its breakable walls. It makes it so survivors are stuck with fewer ways out, but it also means you have fewer ways out when trying to get to a hook, making your timing on breaking the wall important.

In general, I would say any time a wall promotes literally any kind of tactical decisionmaking, it's a good one. Walls you just absolutely have to break whenever survivors start using that structure, or walls that you never want to break at all, are the ones I would say are poorly implemented.

Breakable Walls that spawn 100% of the time eschew the unpredictable nature of the Trial.

Breakable Walls that serve only to strengthen a loop are just there to be broken at the earliest opportunity, favoring mobility Killers (Or Killers with ranged attacks that can Break those Walls) over less mobile Killers.

Breakable Walls that add an element of Surprise near an Objective (such as some of the ones on The Game), aren't surprising against a Killer that is not Undetectable.

Deadzone to Deadzone Breakable Walls (EG: Midwich Bathroom and some interconnecting room Breakable Walls on the top floor of The Game) may give the Killer some more mobility, but takes away time dealing with them in the first place, and if an Objective is there you can no longer corral the Survivor.

Breakable Walls that don't connect to any loop whatsoever serve no purpose, such as the bedroom Breakable Wall on Dead Dawg.

The only Breakable Walls I like are the Breakable Walls that control movement flow between loops or between loops and Deadzones (if there is no nearby Objective). Badham Preschool Walls, Most of the Breakable Walls on Midwich (apart from the 1st floor reception desk Breakable Wall).

The loop(s) are boxed into their own system, and Breakable Walls serve to puncture more holes into that "box" as entryways and exits, but don't add much to any of the loops or detract from them due to surrounding blockers (The walls of Midwich) or deadzones (The Hallways of Midwich).

An example that I would propose for the upcoming Rancid Abattoir rework would be a Breakable Wall involved with the Freezer, likely entering the Freezer from outside the building, though how the tiles surrounding this wall can be chained with and without it being there should be taken into consideration.

And I should mention that Survivors don't have much interaction with them at all. Which seems odd.

Would have liked to have seen killers and survivors being able to interact with devices that open/close areas of the map for tactical reasons. Walls are just bp fillers and Carnifex spamming (Knight)