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Update Pallet Stuns on Killers Picking Up Survivors
Currently it's a bit of an odd 'skill' to have to practice, being able to stun a killer the moment he's 'stun-able' when picking up a survivor under a pallet.
I understand this would be a buff to survivors, arguably moreso for random lobbies than SWFs, so maybe it has to come with some kind of compensation nerf. This suggestion isn't really about balancing the game, though, it's more of an odd technical interaction that I don't think should exist today.
I try to think of it from the perspective of a new player. If I were teaching them things, most of them would make sense. I'd say things like:
"Practice hugging the wall tighter without clipping things, which takes advantage of your third-person perspective to gain a bit of distance."
"Practice fooling the killer into thinking you'll vault and gain some distance when they swing and miss."
"Practice timing the pallet for when the killer is out of their pick-up animation, since it will just push them out of the way if you do it too soon, or they'll hit you and move if you do it too late."
One of those things isn't like the other two. I know it's not the only non-sensical interaction in the game, but it's one I notice a lot and I think it'd be good to address it.
Comments
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bHVR did try to change this a long time ago, I seem to remember it being when Mettle of Man joined us.
There was a huge uproar, I remember it was pretty infuriating how easy pallet saves became.However its absolutely unintuitive to Survivors that there is a difference on those special states and I absolutely agree that it should not be the case, I agree it DOES hurt new players and it makes NO SENSE at all. IT HAS TO GO at some point I'm 100% convinced of that.
I think one change idd like to see to the Killer's pickup animation tho would be the ability to turn around and perform an m1 attack while doing it, at the same time I think Survivors face unreasonable game mechanics. I also think the Killer does the same.
Honestly its something bHVR could do with some reworking on, Idd love to see those change.
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Animation locks are a pain in the ass. Picking survivors up, breaking pallets, vaulting windows, you're stuck in an animation lock, and as killer you can't do anything until after it's finished and it often feels like you should be able to react before the game actually gives you the option, so you can't turn your camera or swing your weapon even though it feels like you should be able to. You're really screwed if you're on controller, I have to run Lightborn because I can't move the camera fast enough.
The more that's able to happen to the killer while they're animation locked, the worse it feels for the player. But when things can't happen during the animation lock, the survivor is confused because it is unintuitive. What's the answer? Well, without heavily altering how the game works, the answer is to give the benefit to the killer. They're stuck in animation lock, and the more vulnerable they are in animation lock, the less likely they are to put themselves in that situation… that means slugging everyone before risking picking anyone up.
Survivors have their own problems with animation locks. I get off the hook, and there's this gap of time where my friend and I are standing there with our thumbs up our asses waiting for the option to heal to pop up. The failed skill check animation sucks, too. Love when I try to let go of healing someone but it decides to have a skill check pop up at the same time, and then not only is there a penalty but I'm also stuck in the animation. Thanks, game!
Can BHVR alter their code so players aren't locked out of doing anything while in an animation? If this were any other developer, I'd say that were at least a possibility. However, BHVR said they can't immediately add perk loadouts to the lobby screens because of the way the lobby screens are coded and it'd be years before they could. So… yeah.
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Pallet saves are already uncounterable in many situations, they don't need to be made easier to do.
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I mentioned that there could be compensation buff (for killer) or nerf (for survivor). It's not about the balance of the game, it's about how intuitive the design is. There are things that make sense but take time to master or even realize (I.E. hugging walls because 3rd person), but this isn't one that makes sense.
I mentioned as well that there are other buggy or broken things in the game. I'm glad you brought others up. I do understand some animation locks, so I don't agree with all of your examples. But the concept of not being able to stun the killer—and hence simply pushing him to one side instead because he has to exist outside the space of the pallet—simply doesn't make sense from any angle. Again I'd say that my suggestion isn't about balance of the game, it's only about the animation/skill not making sense. I'd point back to what a new player would think. "Stun the killer to make them drop my friend, just as I've been taught." Is there a point in the tutorial that teaches you to wait until the perfect moment to stun them? Not that I recall, and I wouldn't expect them to add one, I'd rather remove the interaction and compensate in other ways, if needed.
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I would be fine with buffing pallet saves, when maps have a hard limit of 12 to 15 pallets.
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Honestly it is fine that there are certain things that require some form of timing and training for that... Flashlight saves already got quite a big window and you don't need much timing anymore... I would rather say that window should be smaller instead of making the on for pallet saves bigger.
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Why would it be gone? You wanna leave surviviors with no fun at all? If so you will be playing bot lobbies consistantly, because there will be no survivors. I wanna have fun in the game, so I am running flashlight/flashbang/pallet save builds + chase only. If game will be only about generators, we are done.
I've done them enough anyway.
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Why would what be gone?
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I agree with your statement about timing and training, I've given some examples as well.
My point comes back around to how intuitive the interaction is, which is to say it's not intuitive at all. Some more examples:
New friend: "I stunned him with a pallet, but it broke? What happened?"
Experienced player: "Ah, that's Singularity's ability/a perk called Spirit Fury."
New friend: "I tried to flashlight save, but he never got blinded, why is that?"
Experienced player: "That's the perk Lightborne."
New friend: "I dropped the pallet to save someone, but it just moved the killer?"
Experienced player: "Yeah, that's just how the game works, you can't stun him while he's picking them up, you have to wait."Some people might think that all three of those things are and should just be part of learning the game. My suggestion is that it should not be a part of the game.
As an extra note for the people who are focused on the balance of this, despite mentioning the idea of compensation changes, what if it worked like this:
Changed: Killers can now be stunned during the pick animation, and blinds will cause the animation to stop and drop the survivor.
Changed: Killers are now stunned for 1 second when carrying a survivor (Was 2 seconds)I'm not an expert at the game, I can't tell you if that maths out to be too overpowered for killers. But there's your compensation buff—solely for the sake of making this quality of life/intuitive mechanics change.
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It would be really broken if those things were not at least somewhat required to have timing… it is infuriating enough when someone runs up that you could not have possibly seen before, but back in the days he at least needed to have timing... It is perfectly fine that some things require timing, making them even more free but less painful is not a good idea, removing more of the things you need to learn just makes the game lose depth.
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I agree with everything here.
Back in the day getting animaton locked this way was called Stunlocking, because usually it happened when the player was in a hit animation. In bad AI design for older games, you could get repeatedly stuck in a loop of being stunned until dead, unable to react because an enemy hit faster than you could come out of it. You'd be against a wall, hit, stun, hit, stun, hit, stun rinse repeat until death. It removed player agency. It didn't feel good.
It still does not feel good in 2024 when a Killer can be blinded while breaking a pallet only to come out of the animation and be blinded AGAIN, can have a pallet stun into a blind, or can simply have a chase invalidated because of one not even hard to time or aim flashlight save (and no "look at a wall" doesn't make sense because THERE IS NOT ALWAYS A WALL TO LOOK AT). It doesn't feel good that going down under a pallet and someone nearby to pallet save isn't counterable. It doesn't feel good for the stun mechanic to put people into lose-lose scenarios. It doesn't feel good to not be able to real time react to someone coming to stop your pickup. It doesn't feel good to be stuck in a failed skillcheck animation because the game decided a skillcheck right as you let go is an ok thing to have.
Stunlocking. And animation locks. In gaming. Friggin'. SUCK.
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