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This is Why Lightborn is Flawed Perk Design.
If I were to suggest a perk that, by merely equipping it, completely prevented med-kits from being used or prevented the use of toolboxes/maps then I'd imagine that perk would be poorly received. This is what Lightborn currently does for flashlights. Lightborn is not a bad perk in terms of utility. The peace of mind to pick up a survivor when there is a flashlight user skulking about can be valuable. This doesn't however mean that the perk should exist as it does.
Removal of killer power interactions with flashlights is what really made me think about my distaste for the perk. If a killer had Lightborn, but their power could be hindered with a flashlight then I still thought that my item had value. This post isn't supposed to be about the removal of those interactions (which really should have been considered on a case by case basis), It's just that unless you're playing specifically against the Nemesis then Lightborn outright denies the player their item. Flashlights don't spawn in bloodwebs as frequently as med-kits/toolboxes and the risk that they aren't going to be usable is a bit of a pain point.
It's not like there aren't alternative perks to counter flashlights either. Franklin's Demise gives the killer the ability to take a flashlight out of a survivor's hand and deplete it's charges. Overwhelming Presence drastically increases the consumption of item charges if the item is used in your terror radius. Flashlights have to be used fairly close to the killer so this isn't hard to use. Both of these options allow the survivor to use their items while providing the killer with an option to deal with them.
Another issue with Lightborn is that it serves as an accessibility option for those who are photosensitive. The bright yellow-orange screen no longer covers your screen with this perk equipped. If there was an option in the accessibility tab that changed the blind screen to be dark instead of bright yellow-orange then that would remedy the issue. BHVR has made some good changes recently in regard to converting accessibility perks into features, so this would be something I hope they'd address.
Comments
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Lightborn is fine as it is.
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Mostly agree. I dont know some matches it just annoys me. Because it can just completly disable a whole item thats already niche. (Also the perks robbed me of so many blind challenges i swear) like franklins at least has a back and forth. Broken perks don't completly disable healing as a option you will always have a way out. Lightborn its just. "No flashlight/blind gameplay" and its weird. Understand its probably just me and a few others. But it does definitely have a annoyance factor to it imo. I remember seeing a joke post on what perks to nerf "if the killer has Lightborn. The survivor can throw their flashlight at their head. Instantly breaking the flashlight but stunning the killer in the process" i thought was halarious.
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In fairness it is one of those weird ones.
From a game design perspective, Lightborn is what is known as a 'hard counter', and it's never good to have a hard counters, because it removes options and dumbs down a game. In a ideal world, what would be better is if Lightborn made flashlights a greater risk to use and offering some skilled counterplay...
However in the same breathe... you are absolutely right, Lightborn specifically on the context of DBD is fine, and not a problem... and this is by virtue of the fact flashlights are not strong. It'd be better to rework Lightborn, but because flashlights aren't good, there isn't really anything you could change it to that would make it worth running....
This means right now, we have a bit of a throw perk. All veterans will tell you you don't need it, you shouldn't rely on it, and it actually hurts you in the long run by forcing survivors with flashlights to not bother, meaning they spend more time on gens... but for the one thing it does, its really good against that one thing.
So yes, the OP is right... it's a poorly designed perk... but its also fine... in a weird way. 😅
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No, Lightborn is a perk that helps me want to play Killer to make it more fun for me.
You think I would pick Lightborn if I want to tryhard or win my matches? Hell no.
I play it because I find very frustraiting and annoying to deal with last second switchers, Back Ground overbuffed players, with flashlight saves taking less skill than ever thanks to not needing to be precise in your timing, thanks to SWFG waiting for rescue or new another annoying perk that puts big hindred on you just for you breaking a pallet or something.
I play it to have fun, not to win. Lightborn on its own is a bad perk unless you have team full of flashlights in very open areas or something. I don't understand why so many survivors have a problem with perk that counters one item and is totaly worthless otherwise and might do total nothing most of match.
Jesus...
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I agree it's flawed design but i don't want it to be changed. It's really not fun to go against flashlights. Background player makes avoiding it normally extremely difficult now and going against 4 flashlights is just really annoying, you get blinded at every pallet stun. Franklin's Demise and Overwhelming Prescence are not good enough counters.
At least that when the killer brings lightborn because of flashlights, that's 1/4 perk slots took up. So it's not like bringing flashlights was completely pointless.
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As if blinding a killer isn't a hard counter. Do you even hear yourself or do you just love blinding that much?
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But flashlights / getting blinded has an annoyance factor to it. I myself cannot stand it.
An annoying perk to counter an annoying item is balanced in my book.
what would be better is if Lightborn made flashlights a greater risk to use and offering some skilled counterplay...
Well, the way the perk used to work is that it increased your resistance to flashlights, rather than granting you full immunity. This is what it did when I started playing DBD:
I'm not sure if this would fit your idea of greater risk / skilled counterplay, but that is how it used to be.
If memory serves me right, the perk was effective only because many players didn't know the proper timing to get a blind once Lightborn was being used.
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Lightborn is fine as is. No need to change it.
If I don't want to deal with flashlights, then I'll use Lightborn. The drawback is that I only have 3 perks left and you'll know that I don't have something better because you will notice when Lightborn is in play.
It's a quality of life improvement.
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I almost never run it, but it's fine. And while it has never been necessary, it's probably more justified now than ever, with Background Player and upcoming perks.
And comparing flashlights to medkits is apples to oranges because flashlights are still weak. Depriving people of the ability to blind the killer really isn't a big deal, and if your approach when playing surv is flashlight dependent, you're setting yourself up for failure. Once you play enough, countering flashlights in most scenarios is pretty easy, and becomes seconds nature.
So why would I argue for keeping lightborn as it is? Flashlight bully squads. It's a small use case, but with new perks the ability of such groups to torture people is only going to be greater.
And F those people, they deserve to be hard countered. There's little more justified schadenfreude in this game than the moment beamer bully squad realizes their plan is shot.
In conclusion, Lightborn is kind of a wasted perk slot in most cases, but in the cases where it isn't, it's totally justified. It's perfectly healthy, imo.
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I would say a killer giving up one out of four perk slots to counter an annoying and optional item that four survivors can bring in is pretty fair. I don’t think it’s bad design at all.
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They made flashlight saves ridiculously easy to do and now you can get flashbanged while looking at a wall and sometimes you get flashlight stunned when the survivor isn't even in your field of view nah Lightborn is fine when this is still in the game.
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There are 2 perks that I absolutely despise. Lightborn and Mindbreaker
Mindbreaker since the Blindness is so unnecessary and only screws over Solo Q, as well as hard countering certain perks (ESPECIALLY Fogwise). Lightborn since it turns the only skill expressive and interactive item into a glorified glow stick.
Sure they arent the strongest perks out there, but there is no way around them and theyre simply a chore to deal with as it completely takes away one of your tools for the rest of the game.
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It does take away a perk slot though while youre flash light is just an item. Killers having the possibilty to avoid being bullied is fair because flash lights are getting more and more powerfull every 3 months.
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... a hard counter in the same way as a head shot is a hard counter in counter strike?
Such a bizarre attack my man xD
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Flashlight saves don't take any skill anymore. There are perks that eliminite good timing as well as whole extra frames to remove precise timing on when to blind. It's pretty easy now.
Also medkits and tool boxes are far more better.
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The difference from other items is blinding items directly affects the killer where other items don't and has blinding an annoying visual affect that can be stressful to the eyes.
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Man, I wish I could slap on a perk that could ignore pain res, pop, save the best for last, sloppy butcher, corrupt intervention, surge, dead man's switch, rapid brutality, ultimate weapon, friends 'til the end, plaything, no way out, etc. simply because I didn't want to deal with them.
If killers are allowed to run the most unbearable 4 regression perk builds, tunnel, proxy camp, etc. to their heart's content, I should be able to run my flashlight and be able to use it. This idea of "oh well survivor bully squads" really falls apart when 95% of the time it's the killer who is out here trying to have the most mind numbing game imaginable with slowdown and other builds, then slugging for the 4k.
As soon as you give me a perk that says "the current generator you're working on does not suffer from regression events while you are working on it," I will gladly concede lightborn in its current state. Until then, I see no difference because they are both ignoring a core mechanic of this game.
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I can see why you'd have issues but I think it's mostly fine as is. It's not considered a very strong perk and if you wanted to increase your chance to win and bring the strongest build possible you'd NEVER bring Lightborn.
If a killer wants to use up one of his limited perk slots with a subpar perk so he can have more fun not having to worry about flashlights, let him.
If you think about it as handicapping yourself by NOT just bringing Pain Res, Pop, Deadman's, Deadlock, or Ultimate Weapon instead, then I'm sure the vast majority of survivors wouldn't mind it.
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Sloppy, Franklins and Plague say hi. All hard counters to medkits.
Tbf though, Lightborn would probably be fine if it did something like "increases time required to blind by 50%". That would throw off survivors timings and would most likely result in 90% of blind attempts failing simply due to not having enough time to finish the blind before the killer moved away, while still scoring the aura reveal.
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Yall forgot that Lightborn was made when instant blinds were still a thing. When killers were, absolutely powerless against a good team.
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Some of those do have hard perk counters. That's already in the game. Even sloppy butcher has a "counter." It's not as hard of a counter, but the perk does exist
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Knowing how to position yourself is a skill to learn for flashlight saves which cant be said for any other item other than firecrackers and flashbangs (which those 100% take skill to use to squeeze the absolute most value out of them) and knowing when to blind at pallets is also crucial as it can mean the difference between making it to a safe loop and getting hit/down.
Medkits and toolboxes are far better yes, so why have a perk that has completely destroys the weaker options? Should we have kept Small Game and Saboteur's abilities to counter Bear Traps and just say "Oh well there are better options anyway"?
Flashlights are by far the most fun item in the game, and to have a perk completely ruin that stay in the game for as long as it has is mind boggling.
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Old Lightborn, then. With the addition of the aura reveal.
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you can still use your med-kit with sloppy butcher and Franklin's demise. Even plague doesn't deny the use of med-kits. They are much more limited in there functionality but not useless. You can pick up survivors off the ground with them which is relevant as slugging on plague with corrupt purge is viable. If you are uninfected and damaged you can use the med-kit normally. If not fully infected you can still use blighted serums and styptics. Lightborn doesn't allow for a flashlight to work period.
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I don't want to win. I want to have fun with an item I brought into the trial. It's not good when compared to the utility of med-kits and toolboxes, but I want to interact directly with the killer.
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The fact that people are complaining about Lightborn is mind boggling.
Are Killer players running the perk consecutively against you when you equip flashlights? If yes, the answer is probably because your team was rocking 2-3 flashlights in the lobby.
An argument for Lightborn being nerfed could still be made if Flashlight blinds were based on the previous iteration where Killers could still avoid the blind if they turned their camera fast enough.
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Just because you dont run into it every game doesnt make it a healthy perk.
Also what do you mean by that whole 2nd paragraph? The only time you couldnt turn away from a flashlight in time was back in 2017 when insta blinds were a thing. Only time youre ever guaranteed to be blinded is if youre locked in an animation, which is when you're going to be blinded 99% of the time unless you got the reaction time of a rock in water
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Factually just wrong. The only one I'd be willing to give you is no mither + plot twist to counter corrupt intervention, but I wouldn't consider that a hard counter in the same regard as lightborn because you're forcing yourself to play injured the entire match, which is an active detriment to the survivor.
There is no perk that ignores sloppy butcher by getting rid of hemorrhage and mangled without healing. "Just heal through it a little bit faster" is not the same as "ignore both status effects as if they weren't applied to you."
The only other perk I could see applying here is repressed alliance to counter pop; however, it doesn't even do that. Pop has a 40 second use timer, and repressed alliance (apart from having a requirement to activate!), is only 30 seconds, making it completely useless in practice.
But this is all besides the main point that every perk I listed does not get ignored or removed by any perk in the game the same way lightborn ignores flashlights. An equip and forget perk, not a "I have to change my whole playstyle to get one single use of value to counter a meta perk" perk.
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No u. Ultimate weapon and friends till the end both have hard perk counters in calm spirit and distortion respectively.
Calm spirit counters some other perks, as well as an entire killer power.
Distortion has way more perks that it counters as well
Both have hard counters that are useful outside of just their counter
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Blinding killer is a counter to what? Blinding is a part of survivors' defending mechanic. Removing an entire mechanic isnt good design.
I would make Lightborne that if success blinding, the survivor will be Exposed for 60sec instead. The ability to blind is still there, but come with a risk.
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this should be an advocation post to have overwhelming presence buffed to 500% to delete flashlights into the void
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Flashlights aren't necessary to win and are most often used to just be as annoying as possible. Lightborn hard-countering them is fine. Suggesting Overwhelming Presence as a valid alternative is laughable.
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Hard counter to hooking. Find them in an animation and all the work they put in for the down is deleted
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If I were to suggest a perk that, by merely equipping it, completely prevented med-kits from being used-
Plague has entered the chat.
But for real, lightborn isn't an issue. Just don't go for flashlight blinds and do gens instead.
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It doesnt completely remove killer's ability to hook.
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Well, I like to have fun not getting blinded 3 times in a row at every pallet. The blinding mechanic needs a cool down period, in my opinion. Maybe after BHVR add that we can think about nerfing Lightborn.
I personally find Flashlights to be by far the most obnoxious item in the game. Doubt I would play much Killer outside of tome challenges if I had to deal with them in every game and I bet lots of casual Killers feel the same way. So you either accept that, or you enjoy longer queue times and more games versus sweaty A-tier Killers running only the strongest meta builds.
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But it doesn't feel good on killer end to put in the work, and have it taken away for free. Zero skill, zero risk on survivor side and killer gets punished for doing their job
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Ultimate weapon still applies blindness even if you have calm spirit. Iron maiden still exposes you as well. Infectious is the only one that i can think of where the whole effect is just screaming. Distortion tokens can run out if you have enough aura reading, or a small TR. These perks are not quite comparable.
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Distortion almost never runs out of tokens unless the killer has multiple aura perks. And even then it’s not guaranteed because of how easy it is to get tokens. I guess a stealth killer with multiple aura perks? But then they have less slowdown so it should be an easy game. And it hard counters Lethal Pursuer. You can’t run out of tokens at the start of the game. It’s pretty comparable to Lightborn honestly.
Lightborn is fine. There’s way more important stuff that should be addressed before Lightborn.
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So would Plague be a flawed design as well since she completely negates the use of med-kits?
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All hail to our Lord and Savior Lightborn 😎
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Like what many of the other reply-ers said, all of those perks do not eliminate anything. Distortion has 3 charges, and it's more like 2, because usually the build you're "countering" is lethal plus one other aura read at least, and your tokens will be gone in no time. The blindness and exposed status effects still get applied in both scenarios as well, so it's not the same as lightborn is to flashlights.
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Lightborn is fine, flashlight squads are annoying. Not because flashlights are OP, but because believe it or not, having your entire occipital lobe turned completely off every single time you kick a pallet is not that fun.
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Lightborn is fine as a perk.
A flashlight is an extra strength above the baseline of play. You don't NEED one to play, having one in 90% of games doesn't even slightly influence how the game plays out. To negate them, the killer is burning 1/4 of their potential slowdown, chase benefits, etc JUST to remove a slight annoyance, and if anything, encourage you to be MORE efficient in your gen work.
The closest comparison to a flashlight is the killer's add ons, and personally, if survivors had a perk that disables 1/3 of the killer's add ons (in line with Lightborn not affecting med kits, or toolboxes, and keys being worthless) but they all had to run 3 perks instead of 4 to have that effect, I'd probably take that as killer.
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She does not. You can still pick up survivors off the ground with them. Slugging with corrupt purge is a strong tactic. If you get injured from corrupt purge you can still heal if not infected.
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Lightborn is fine. Play normally. It's ok to not be able to use stuff you bring to the game, happens to killer as well.
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Why other counters to flashlights, like Franklin's (only works with M1 btw) or Overwhelming Presence. I just want to counter flashlights, they are annoying. It's true, you win more often against flashlight squads, because no one is sitting on gens.
Does it feel like a win against a team that isn't even trying, not for me. Imagine you are playing against a Huntress who is only going for cross map shots the whole game, shes doesn't care about gens or hooking at all. You would counter this if you knew it in the lobby, (in this case with an indoor map offering)
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This is true but more than any other killer in the game, she completely walls a whole category of perks. Perks like We’ll Make It, Botany, Inner Strength, etc are negated. She was the one killer who laughed in the face of old COH and when she sees four med kits it’s just like “meh, I don’t care”.
Even if she does injure with corrupt purge, most Plague players are just gonna wind up puking on you after you get hooked meaning you probably get no med kit or perk value
To tie this into the actual purpose of the post, Lightborn is fine. Especially because it is only to counter blinds which are unnecessary to defend yourself when you have multiple other resources in the map like pallets and windows. Flashlights are just an extra layer of safety which can be taken away just like Plague can take away the safety and efficiency of healing perks.
Most things in this game have a counter and if the killer sees four flashlights and decides to bring Lightborn then they countered you. It is what it is.
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me personally. i love lightborn for many reasons.i hope it never gets changed. it helps the game be more accesible for me as i have autism and light sensitivity issues, the bright light of being blinded really annoys my eyes and overstimulates me. so i run lightborn. but thats just one reason
the other is the mindgames. having a survivor try blind you and acting like its working only to just walk up to them and m1 them, very satisfying.
also yes it is a hard counter. but counters are okay no? take sloppy for example. makes medkits close to useless. same with any slowdown perk, they make toolboxes useless for gens since yk, the progress will be back to 0 with one kick with pop.
but again, lightborn helps the game, its not problematic either.
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Hubris already does that. Besides, Lightborn is part of the killers "defending himself" mechanic. Some people simply don't like to be blinded. It's as simple as that. When I'm playing in a dark room late at night that's the last damn thing I want.
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