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Bring skill expression back to DBD
I've been playing DBD since 2020, I'm by no means a veteran or wonderful at the game, but one thing I always loved about DBD and what made the matches soooo frikkin much fun, were the mechanics in the game that allowed for skill expression!!
If we're being honest the very actual concept of the game (stripped down to its core) is very boring from a survivor pov. You stare at a progression bar on a gen until it's done, then you do the same with the exit gate, and every once in a while an action requires you to hit a skill check, and it's funny that beginners often miss those because they're mentally zoned-out; again they've been staring at a progression bar or their surroundings.
In comes looping: one of the things in the game that does require skill, instead of holding W from pallet to pallet, more seasoned survivors used to think of the layout of the maps/their pathing and how to connect loops well, it required forethought and skill, to mindgame and win 50-50s. Now what we have is more and more pallets, to the point that sometimes there are just double pallets in one section of the map.
But my biggest gripe is with the many changes to a lot of killers that allowed for skill expression, for 1 and this is to me a big one, was Sky Billy.
- Sky Billy was the goofiest, most fun thing to try to do and to go against. It made the games FUN and often hilarious. The same with Demopuppy, and so many other killers that were able to fly off of hills or houses, or whatever. Now you just bump into invisible things non-stop and what good is it for? You're being pushed to do the mindless game mechanics over and over again, and sweat, instead of try FUN things and learn NEW mechanics and feel like you're actually getting better at the game.
- My second one, and I know this opinion is not going to be shared but it is to bring back hug-teching Blight. It wasn't something everyone could or did, but it was fun to try and to try to dodge. Heck, it was exhilarating. Yes, for beginners it was more oppressive but let's be honest the majority of the playerbase has hundreds if not thousands of hours in this game. So it kept things interesting and not so stagnant and a repetition of the same playstyle against every Blight to ever Blight. Same with Oni and doing his 180s.
- Burn mechanic: again to reiterate not everyone knew that you could burn Nurse, Artists' crows, or hags' traps, but it was a fun thing to be able to learn and achieve. (Not including Philip, because most did know that).
- Timing of flashlight saves: bring the timing back for flashlight saves. I get not allowing locker saves because those could be brutal, but even with FLS the whole skill/learning about the right timing of it has been stripped away. I think the only one that requires a bit of skill now are Flashbang saves.
I feel like the learning curve of the more fun, challenging, and exciting aspects of the game has been ripped away. Especially mechanics that were hard-earned and thus wonderful when you were able to pull it off. (Like something as goofy as moonwalking, does it add anything to the actual game? No, but it is still fun to do). What has been left is a basic level of the game with its only learning curve being learning what the newest perks/add-ons do, aside from that everything else is pretty much the same. It's making the games sweatier and plain, because literally everything that made DBD more chaotic, thus more creepy/exhilarating, is being taken away one by one.
In conclusion: PLEASE bring back skill expression. Plus my guy Sky Billy and for the love of god do not take Wesker's hug-tech away.
Comments
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The phrase "skill expression" makes me irrationally annoyed.
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- For sure. Sky Billy is peak and many agree that it should be brought back. If anything, it was more for style points and gave zero advantage other than advantage in fun. It's a disadvantage to even go for Space Billy plays to begin with, and people who did it were only looking for clips to put in their montage rather than winning. Finding a Sky Billy in the queue was like finding a shiny Pokemon.
- This one I don't really agree with, I feel like hugtech had too low of a skill floor to get a lot of value of. What I do think though (and I had a different take on this in the past) is that the J-flick should be brought back. It was incredible form of skill expression for both sides and looked/felt so cool.
- Agreed, I loved item-based interactions and I would love to have all of them back (except saboing Trapper's traps, that was braindead), even Wraith's. In fact I want Wraith's back the most, lightburn was fun to utilize, go against, and outplay and it was overall a funny mechanic. Burning Hag's traps was the only counter to basement Hag, wiping traps is far too slow to deal with her basement.
- The crunch of getting a flashlight save felt much better before, I preferred the old timing for it as well. You actually had to master the timing for it. Nowadays it just feels… free.
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Aside from Nurse, Lightburn did not take any skill. It wasn't "skill expression" to walk up to a Hag trap and flick a flashlight on it. You just happened to have a flashlight and so could now perform a super easy task. People didn't know about it because there is almost no way to figure it out by playing. The only way you could know about it was if someone told you or you saw it in a Youtube video. That's not skill. Same with Artist.
The only skill expression involved in Wraith's lightburn was from the Wraith player. The survivor aspect took next to no skill, and even if you didn't get the burn the Wraith still had to move out of position so it was a win-win for you almost every time. Wraith isn't strong enough to justify such a large counterplay.
Nurse I agree should have stayed. That took skill with very precise timing and was very risky to perform.
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Exactly, you get it! It didn't give him any advantage but it made the games so much fun.
As for blight it might not have been a high-level skill, but it was still something other than the average or his basic moves. To me it added more value to him as a killer, because you could do slightly more with him.
Out of all I mentioned you just picked out Lightburn?
Which still required you to have more knowledge of the game and those killers to be even interacting with their powers like that, so in a sense, yes that is a skill. I didn't say it was high level, but it was something niche and only could happen if you had a flashlight, and odds were people didn't.
What we have now is the most mind-numbing interaction that doesn't require any forethought or skill and it counters hag even more than people could before. Additionally, it made survivors in general interact more with the killer because they could. They wouldn't just turn into gen-jockeys and for people who have played this game for longer that is actually where the fun is: the chase and interacting with the survivors. Not going around/kicking gens or whatever the next meta becomes.
As I mentioned I neglected Wraith because that one didn't require skill from the survivors. All in all, the things you could learn and required a bit of practice are being taken away, and it is a shame and is turning the game stagnant. It's playing DBD with training wheels for everyone.
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Yeah because I have nothing else to say about the rest. I'm all for skill expression and adding more of it, it's why I love Singularity so much, I just think that Lightburn didn't take as much skill as people make it out to.
It didn't really make you interact with the killer anymore though because you are already in a chase with them or it's to remove a Hag trap. Nurse is the only one I think was skilful because it was really hard to pull off.
And either way, it's better that skill expressive counter play isn't tied to an item.
If you want me to go through the rest of your post:
- Sky Billy was great, I would love it to return. I'd also like them to remove the invisible walls on the main buildings so Demo can leap off them again.
- Blight needed a nerf and I think Hug tech was an alright way to do it. There probably were better ways, and ones that wouldn't reduce his skill ceiling, but overall I don't mind this being removed. Still would've preferred he got nerf elsewhere though.
- Flashlight timing I agree. I actually think Flashbangs are less skilful than Flashlight saves now because at least with flashlights you need to position yourself and aim it correctly, which can be difficult on certain killers. Flashbangs only require you to have the timing down and then you can get the blind almost every time. Even walls can't stop it. But again I'm not too attached to it either way so I don't really mind if they bring it back or not. Locker saves should never return.
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With the exception of maybe the last one, these are just terrible suggestions in my book and i genuinely hope they never get brought back or implemented as official features.
Also fun is not a valid argument because fun is subjective.
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You started with maps having more and more pallets, which is simply untrue. They are giving maps a lot less pallets with each update. The map you were referring to, Greenville square got only trash pallets, which are a free hits for the killer like 90% of the time. It doesn‘t really matter therefore, that it has double pallets.
- I agree even tho I couldn‘t ever play as or against it. I really hate invisible walls and they should remove most of them, so that you can also walk/jump on stuff like on glenvale
- I think all blight nerfs were a bit unnecessary, but it is what it is.
- Light burn should definitely return, because it was a cool mechanic that added depth, but also it could have been used as a balancing tool for certain killers like nurse, artist, wraith, hag (I think she would be better of with it), possibly knight for his guards, unknown for his illusions and maybe others.
- I would have to test it, because I didn‘t play back then, but if it‘s a lot worse no thx.
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Its not fun to have a bad Killer match because the Killer insists of trying to fly around the map.
Play the game normally please.0 -
Never seen a killer go out of their way to do that. It has always been at end game and a fun way to end a match. You have your boring matches.
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Not sure if burning was really a skill expression. You need around a 1 brain cell to do it…
I can agree it could have stay on Nurse. That was actually difficult to do and something you could call a skill.
Remove from Hag was in favor of survivors in the end.
Wraith definetly didn't need it.
Not sure about Artist… She is decent, but not really popular already and burning definetly wouldn't help.1 -
a good middle ground if dev want these mechanics is making chest items for each of these killers similar Vecna chest system or maybe wesker's chests. you can search chest and get normal item but you can also get a killer item that counters killer ability.
This is major nerf to a lot of killers. Flashlight burning was a mechanic specific invented for 5 blink nurse. The idea is that nurse blinks on first blink then shine a flashlight preventing her from blinking. The problem having abilities that nerf killer power is
- Most killer don't need nerf or want nerf that create annoying weaknesses
- It adds rng to the game which a lot player in the past would talk about "Loop RNG" on maps. This creates Item rng where a killer is too weak due to items being rolled.
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Might just be my personal impression but I also noticed that many survivors strategy nowadays is just to hold W and hammer spacebar and get suprisingly far with it most of the time cause of the redesign of many maps. Back when I started both sides really had to learn how to loop correctly, which way to run etc. Newer players dont bother with that anymore as far as I can tell.
Also leads to a lot of frustation on both sides when those 2 groups meet. Survivors that never learnt how to loop correctly get mad and frustrated as soon as their only strategy doesnt work anymore and killers that never learnt how to loop but just how to brute forxe pallets get mad cause they can never catch the survivors.
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To quote yourself to you:
Not sure if burning was really a skill expression. You need around a 1 brain cell to do it…
I can agree it could have stay on Nurse. That was actually difficult to do and something you could call a skill.You're quite literally contradicting yourself. So I'm not even going to bother responding adequately to someone who acts "higher than thou" and then in the very next sentence contradicts themselves. If you have anything useful to add to the convo and the other points I made I'll happily read that.
Exactly, the map layouts and the way they're nowadays filled up consist of more pallets and since WoO became meta for a hot minute newer survivors only do hold W, instead of learning to preserve resources, mindgame, and actually loop. But the problematic thing with that is that the newer killer powers also push the players into that playstyle which inevitably leads to more frustration on killer-side, because they feel like they can never catch or not on time, or simply resort to using gen-slowdown perks. This forces survivors to use more gen-perks/toolboxes and the cycle repeats itself and games become sweatier, convoluted and boring.
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I don't think anyone would mind if the devs brought Lightburn back to Nurse.
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lightburn as mechanic was prototype version of item killers. it was really random because some killer didn't have weakness towards flashlights and others did. an artificial way to nerf killers.
They might as well put Alien turrets for every killer power that is perceived to be too strong.
Post edited by Devil_hit11 on0 -
Your suggestions would have less than a 5% impact on the overall skill required to play the game. Also, Lightburn was one of the worst mechanics ever and should never be reintroduced.
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Honestly same. Im kinda tired of seeing this phase esp when the devs themselves use it as an excuse to remove something that could have helped ppl who are forced to play with a controller. I feel the ppl who use this phase are no-lifers who only eat and breathe dbd and treat it as some hyper esports game. I also feel ppl who use this phase are also ppl who says "git good" all the time. I have seen a lot of ppl also use this phase as a way to try to gatekeep something again like singu. Either way I agree, seeing this phrase triggers annoyance in me.
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Of all those burn mechanics, Nurse burning was only where you needed some skill. All other were brainless. That's why I wouldn't mind that specific burning mechanic to stay.
You want to tell me I needed skill to burn Wraith? You needed maybe half brain cell to do it with flashbang.
Crow, or Hag trap? Oh no, so difficult to aim at stationary target…
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FIrst of all, can you calm down and converse normally or not? If not, I'll mute you and happily go about my day without wasting it on someone who is certainly not worth my time or energy. Like I mentioned all those burn mechanics because it was an umbrella mechanic that allowed all of them, did I state that they ALL required the same level of skill? No.
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That's a bit dramatic of a comparison, don't you think? Besides that's your idea of what they 'should' add for each killer power, whereas what I mentioned was already in the game at some point, was niche, and for some lore-related. Don't twist what I said with what you think you read or wanted to read.
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FIrst of all, can you calm down and converse normally or not?¨
That is the calm version…
I'm not even going to bother responding adequately
I just use your approach to any idea/opinion I found with no hope for middle ground. Why bother taking it seriously and give a constructive feedback, when there is no hope in doing it?
I'll mute you and happily go about my day without wasting it on someone who is certainly not worth my time or energy.
I can definetly live with that. Not like I would care if you didn't respond from start…
Like I mentioned all those burn mechanics because it was an umbrella mechanic that allowed all of them, did I state that they ALL required the same level of skill? No.
Did you state all but one of them required skill? No, you were trying to use single exception as a metric for whole mechanic.
You mentioned all of them in same style, where all of this was supposed to be in a sense of "bring skill expression back", no? Which is funny when it didn't need any skill for all of them except one.
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