http://dbd.game/killswitch
Guess people gotta see the math around Clown.
Just to compare how big the nerf to the purple bottles is to other changes(ignoring addons, just basekit).
Reloading in 9.0:
1.61 m/s for 3 seconds = 4.83 meters of distance per reload
Yellow bottle empowered
1.77 m/s for 3 seconds = 5.31 meters of distance per reload
Reloading in 9.1:
2.3 m/s for 2.5 seconds = 5.75 meters of distance per reload (8 meters of distance if you include 0.5 seconds of moving at normal movement speed, which is a total of 3.17 meters gained per normal reload).
Yellow bottle empowered
2.58 m/s for 2.5 seconds = 6.44 meters of distance per reload (9 meters of distance if you include the 0.5 seconds of moving at normal movement speed, for a total of 3.69 meters gained per yellow bottle reload).
So in short, from 4.83-5.31 meters of distance in 3 seconds, to 8-9 meters of distance in 3 seconds. PER RELOAD.
(Which, sidenote, not counting the additional extra distance from the 3-8 additional seconds of haste)
Yellow bottle lunge increase goes from 3.45 meters in 0.5 seconds to ~3.79 meters in 0.5 seconds in 9.0
Yellow bottle lunge increase goes from 3.45 meters in 0.5 seconds to 3.86 meters in 0.5 seconds in 9.1
Its only a 0.7 meter distance increase just counting the lunge part (I am not counting the open and close phase, which would also increase distance by a total of 0.12 meters total).
Yellow bottle haste changes to normal movementspeed in 9.0
4.6 meters for ~9 seconds ( ~3 seconds in cloud, 6 seconds out of cloud) goes from 41.4 basekit distance to 45.54 meters distance with haste (54.74 meters if we want to compare properly).
Yellow bottle haste changes to normal movementspeed in 9.1
4.6 meters for ~11 seconds ( ~5 seconds in cloud, 6 seconds out of cloud) goes from 41.4 basekit distance to 56.67 meters distance with haste. Which is an increase of 1.93 meters.
Purple bottle distance decrease in 9.0
Assuming 0.01 seconds spend in the cloud (just the lingering duration), goes from 8 meters of basekit distance, to 6.8 meters hindered
Assuming you hit the survivor with a bottle(aka, half cloud+lingering), goes from roughly 12.7 meters of distance total, to 10.88 meters hindered.
Assuming the survivor runs straight through the entire cloud(+lingering), goes from 17.4 meters distance to 14.8 meters hindered.
Purple bottle distance decrease in 9.1
Assuming 0.01 seconds spend in the cloud (just the lingering duration), goes from 8 meters of basekit distance, to 7.52 meters hindered. Which is a loss of 0.72 meters total.(assuming same time duration, so 1 second of hinderance and 1 second of non-hinderance)
Assuming you hit the survivor with a bottle(aka, half cloud+lingering, goes from roughly 12.7 meters of distance total, to 11.68 meters hindered. Which is a loss of 0.8 meters.
Assuming the survivor runs straight through the entire cloud(+lingering), goes from 17.4 meters distance to 15.8 meters hindered. Which is a loss of 1 meter.
So yeah, purple bottles are slightly worse, meaning instead of survivors losing 2.6 meters over the course of 4.35 seconds, they lose 1.6 meters. But yellow bottles and reload speeds are buffed so significantly, that over the course of the game, you gain so much time.
Just in matters of reloading, you save an entire second of distance PER RELOAD. While in terms of distance of gapclosing lost, you're looking at about 1 second lost over the course of 5 purple bottles thrown. So, assuming a constant hinderance for 20 seconds on the 9.0 bottles gets you 68 meters of distance instead of 80 meters, and the new bottles would give 15 seconds total of hinderance and 5 seconds of normal speed, for a total distance of 72.8 meters. Yes, over the course of the maximum possible effect in distance, survivors distance differs by 4.8 meters. Generally speaking, if a survivor gained 4 seconds of distance on you due to a pallet stun+breaking it, instead of being able to hit them after 10 seconds of constant purple bottles, you now hit them after 10.5 seconds.
All that text, just to basically point out that every single reload easily saves you more time than the distance purple bottles lose you, and the haste effect boost alone does compensate for it.
If there are any tweaks I would suggest for the devs, its to keep the 2 second antidote cloud activation for survivors, and keep it 1 second activation for killer, and to up haste to 13%. The hinderance is fine as is.
Learn to use yellow bottles in chase, it really gives you a massive edge.
Comments
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Does purple not have a much stronger usage case argument to skew that ratio? Not only does the survivor potentially benefit from yellow in the event of poor placement, but preventing a survivor from reaching a resource and forcing them to not be able to utilize it to its potential is more impactful than simply catching up to them? Preventing fast vaulting alone represents a pretty significant advantage to the bottles' applications. Time's value in DBD is a bit relative, and it can often be easily distorted when applying other factors.
I can always be missing something. I barely ever play him, but even when going against him I only ever see exceptionally good clowns even use the yellow bottle properly, instead of just to take off across the map. They just don't have a great risk/reward to be used in chase compared to purple (the part of his power he was actually built around) unless you are very good at exactly when and where to use them. If usage rates were part of the consideration, they should have worked on improving that ratio instead of taking a bite out of what his power used to only be. Or even doing both and kinda normalizing somewhere in the middle.
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Thanks for the numbers. Still a painfully bland and unsatisfying playstyle, comparatively. I'd rather keep the current slightly-weaker Clown than this one, personally.
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It does time-wise have a stronger argument, but gameplay wise, you're removing 15% mobility against a 115% killer, which creates boring gameplay from a survivor perspective. Sure, its effective, but killers also gotta be fun to face. Its why I consider the usage of Flask of Bleach effectively as if you were using tombstone piece on myers.
I think 13% hinderance is fine, I think less lingering in the cloud should reward survivors too, while lingering in the cloud being the biggest part of Clown's power. Right now, almost HALF his power is the lingering effect. So that needed a nerf. I think any hinderance with 15% needs a HEAVY downside to it, especially if it is as spammable as Clown. Back in the day, that downside was being reduced to 95% movement speed while preparing a bottle throw, which was problematic since it effectively fully negated most slows.
The yellow bottle introduction made Clown significantly stronger and they could have heavily nerfed the purple bottles back then. But instead of learning the new bottles, most Clown players pretty much exclusively use pink bottles.
And yeah, poor placement of yellow bottles will punish Clown. Just as any poor placement of power can really benefit survivors/punish killers.
Again, the only change I would be altering, is adding 1 more % to haste, and giving the yellow cloud a 1 second activation delay for Clown, but 2 for survivors. That would pretty much solve all issues I encounter0 -
Purple bottles are unsatisfying right now tho, they literally give free hits, especially with flask of bleach.
At least every hit thanks to yellow bottles is an instant dopamine satisfaction.-7 -
I don't see how spamming yellow bottles at the floor will be more satisfying or skillful than what you can do right now with a combination of both. Flask of bleach aside, normal purples were fine as is.
Clown's not a haste centric killer, he's a slowdown killer- that's his identity. Making him a haste centric killer just feels wrong imo.
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Problem is purple dont buff survivors as yellow does so even when your counting can be right its still worse than before, yellow smoke is now bigger and triggers faster which means if clown missplays a little then survivor gets the haste too and dont forget survivors hitbox is smaller so even you are both 12% faster they are still faster running around loops because of their hitbox. This change will force most people who used just the purple ones now just use yellow ones.
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The problem with that is Clown currently has a very different playstyle. If people wanted to play a mobility killer there are significantly better options no matter how much you spam the yellow bottles. The fun of the purple bottles is cutting off and corralling the survivor where you want them to go. Ultimately they'll be killing what makes Clown different.
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The yellow bottles was already over-buffed last time and is in a better than good position, pretty crazy with some lunge and haste perk combinations. If the average player doesn't use them, it's their problem for not using the Clown at his 100% potential. They shouldn't try to force yellow bottles with more buffs (although premature activation is actually a nerf) and nerfs to the purple bottle. And to top it off, they nerf him even further with addons.
Dracula's wolf was buffed because it was garbage. Now that it's good, even if there are those who prefer not to use it, there's no need to nerf his other two forms to boost the wolf usage. Let everyone play as they please.
In short, the yellow bottle was already better than the purple one.
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The fun of purple bottles is very one sided tho, and especially at 19% hinderance, there is 0 challenge to it.
And once again, he does have a difficult playstyle, which is why 1 second activation for clown and 2 second activation for survivors, with that 1% additional haste will push his yellow bottles in the realm of significant lower difficulty while also being insanely rewarding with perks like STBFL or Rapid Brutality.
They wont be killing what makes Clown different, because the haste is already what pushes Clown to quite a high skill ceiling with a ton of reward. If we just delete Flask of Bleach from the game right now, I rather would face a pink bottle only clown than a clown who uses yellow bottles too.
Once again, any hinderance that's 15% or higher basekit, needs downsides to compensate for the fact that it kills loops AND kills going from tile to tile. Especially considering that next to the 15% slowdown, he also has access to a 10% haste effect.
Ultimately, Clown is boring to face with his current hinderance effect. And that can matter a lot more than him being balanced in a 1v4(again, this change is a buff overall).
It's the same with Kaneki's stun, 2 seconds of immobility should be extremely difficult to pull off, because otherwise it gets boring. Kaneki is boring due to his removal of agency. Clown is boring because his massive reduction of agency.
12% hinderance is plenty for basekit bottles. If you wanna use pink bottles more often, use Flask after the changes for a 14% hinderance, more than plenty of hinderance to get hits if you're good.-4 -
15% USED to be fine, when there were slightly more pallets and windows. When maps were slightly bigger. Clown NEEDED 15% because otherwise he didnt have enough time to reload and move elsewhere on the map.
The reload movement speed being 50% faster, while also being 30% quicker, with less pallets and smaller maps in general, easily compensates for that 3% nerf. 12% hinderance is plenty.
And you're not spamming yellow bottles. Nor will he be haste centric. Just see him as a killer who sometimes sniffs some powdered substances mid chase sometimes that he spills everywhere, that survivors sometimes accidentally experience too, which totally fits his identity.
Next to that, Clown hasnt been mechanically slowdown centric since 2021. People just have refused to learn his full kit since then.-4 -
I wouldnt call it better prior, but definitely the more interesting bit.
As for Dracula, the problem was that his overall kit is fine. Where with Clown, just buffing yellows and not touching purples is significantly different.
Dracula cannot use a fire pillar, then turn to bat, then turn to wolf in quick succession to get a quick hit. There are cooldowns, there are movement vectors that are reset between transformations.
Where with Clown, if you just buff his yellows, he goes from a killer who can get quite easy hits on a lot of tiles, to a killer who only needs to carry Fire Up as a perk and wins every loop fast enough to stop game progression due to how quickly he can hook, especially against soloQ.The risk on haste on survivors with a 19% hinderance bottle on demand is more than fully negated.
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Which still leaves the problem of these changes will kill his playstyle. The basekit nerfs plus nerfs to his only truly good addons will kill him dead. Hell, they even killed Cigarbox. Unless they revert at least some of these changes Clown will drop to Hag levels of rarity.
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"The fun of purple bottles is very one sided tho"
The fun of flashlights is very one sided. They should be nerfed significantly. The fun of hook sabo's is very one sided. They should be nerfed significantly. The fun of pretty much every item is very one sided. They should be nerfed. The fun of Shift+W is very one sided. It should be nerfed. The fun of exhaustion perks is very one sided. They should basically be useless now.
See, the problem when you try to say, "This isn't fun for survivors!" is that the same argument can and should be applied evenly. Either we care about how fun something is for the other side, or we don't.
EDIT: And you can pretend like it's not that big of a nerf to Purple Bottles, but they lost 60% of their effectiveness.
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Many people in this community think that how fun something is to play against is more important than how fun (or even functional) it is to play as. Im sure nyoomin around more often will be more fun to some people, but missing hits that would have been gained through proper zoning or obstacle denial is going to feel pretty unrewarding to play for many. And considering those are the types of things his original power was built on, if his yellow bottles weren't already in the game it would feel like a rework at this point. So there's probably going to be pretty mixed reception.
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I'm not saying Clown is particularly fun to play against. However I don't feel like the yellow bottle buffs will make him anymore enjoyable to face. Ideally a killer will be equally enjoyable for both sides. Unfortunately that's a rare thing to achieve so variety is the next best thing we can hope for.
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Except, as a killer, you have basekit counterplay to it and none of them remove agency. If anything, if you want to compare it to survivor mechanics, you should apply that to Chemical Trap, as it forces something you cannot possibly counter and thus removes player agency. Which, I agree with, fyi. But even then, Chemical Trap cant be spammed on every pallet you encounter. Champion of Light only really has an effect if survivors blind you at the last second of a pallet break, and even then they technically lose more distance than if they just ran away.
As for fun, it's subjective, sure, but when 80% of players facing it actively despise a mechanic because it removes agency.
Its not that its not fun for survivors, its that its NEVER fun for survivors. There are a lot of mechanics that people consider unfun that others consider fun. Near 20% hinderance is never fun. You literally move at a speed that you would walk at with Fixated. You're effectively facing a killer who moves at 144%(comparable to a cloaked wraith) if they have Flask equipped, or 135%(comparable to legion in frenzy) if they dont, but you cant fast vault windows, only med or slow vault them.
And no, they didnt lose 60% of their effectiveness. Most good purple bottles have survivors run through multiple times or have the killer hit them within 1.5 seconds after they exit the cloud. Again, its roughly a 1 meter distance loss per bottle. That's at most 10% more distance assuming the survivor gets hit by a single atom of the cloud.
Purple bottles were too weak 5 years ago, then haste was added to compensate because more hinderance or just more bottles wasnt a healthy option. Then more bottles were added anyway to give both bottles more compatability. But as you can see, just adding more purple bottles wasnt a healthy option. Players then have used the additional bottles just to play purple bottles, which isnt a healthy playstyle. The only reason it took this long for them to adjust the purple bottles after increasing the bottle count, is because it took 4 years for people to discover Flask of Bleach. They were too distracted by Pinky Finger for the first 3 years and when that got nerfed people who dont main Clown stopped playing Clown.
Seriously, this isnt a bad change, in fact, I can easily see his bottle cap being increased too before it hits live servers. Clown gets a lot more fun to face again, despite his purple bottles only having a relatively minor nerf, while his haste bottles see a significant buff(on top of better reloads, which was the biggest time consumption for Clown over the course of a match).0 -
You can still zone, you can still deny obstacles. That doesnt change. What does change is purple bottle spam becomes less viable. And bottle spam isnt "proper zoning", thats "I dont know how to zone, so I am just throwing enough stuff so I can still get a hit".
And talking about his original power, BECAUSE it gave hinderance, he was also slowed down while holding a bottle before throwing it. To give a downside to hinderance. Right now, its THE strongest hinderance effect, with no downsides. Considering his power was designed to have a downside with the hinderance effect in mind, this fits.
Fun to play against matters roughly as equally to how fun something is to play as. OG alchemist ring was fun to play as on Blight, not fun to face against.
Again, there are other things that are definitely overlooked. Bottle count can (and should) be increased. Haste needs to be upped to 13% (and there needs to be different activation times between Clown and Survivors). The only alteration I would arguably give for purple bottles, is to have it linger for longer and spread further over time as a basekit thing. Because once a purple bottle is thrown, survivors shouldnt want to stick around. And right now, I will concede that survivors do not feel the need to leave a tile mainly due to the effect not lingering, which is an issue on its own, but is fully solvable by simply increasing cloud spread over time and increasing cloud duration.
In fact, if we're talking about that: purple clouds should disable fast vaults on pallets. I didnt go too much into other changes, since this was purely looking on how Clown has seen quite a significant buff overall speaking. This change would need some QoL changes, for sure, but 15% haste is STEEP without a downside attached to it in modern day DBD. Thats comparable to Bill being able to use basekit Chemical Trap everytime they pallet stun a killer. Sure, a lot of killers can manage against that still and still get 3k's consistently, but it would get boring really quick if you see Bill every 10 games, then every 7 games, then every 4 games as more and more people realize how they can use it.
There are a lot of things I would give to Clown. I would give him an equal % in pallet breaking, vaulting and hit recover speeds while invigorated. I would inflict survivors with deepwound or a timed broken status effect if they are hit while intoxicated, give them exhaustion for the entire duration they are intoxicated too.
There are a lot of things you can give to Clown that are really strong, but dont impede on fun. But 15% basekit hinderance isnt one of those things.0 -
Oh 100% agreed. I feel like this should be seen as a new standard for Clown, and I am 1000% expecting QoL tweaks and buffs here and there. 9.0 purple bottle clown isnt fun to face due to removing player agency. 9.1 clown is more fun to face in good loops (he still gets hits quickly enough), but he is lacking some oompf that makes him boring to face in the long run.
I would personally just increase action speeds for clown while invigorated, and apply more status effects when survivors are intoxicated. That feels fitting for Clown.0 -
Oh, so now it's NOT about fun, but about "agency." Funny how the goalposts move. You have the "agency" to dodge the bottles. Just like the killer has the "agency" to face a wall when picking up.
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Agency is directly linked to fun. It is unfun because there is a lack of agency. And no, you dont have the "agency" to dodge bottles, there is an instant AoE around the bottle that you would need to move 6 meters per second for to dodge.
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Sure you can. I've dodged Clown bottles in the past. You dodge it the same way you dodge Unknown AoE attacks.
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You keep attacking the bottom of the skill floor without realizing these changes affect a lot more than just that. Similarly, you're reducing an aspect of survivor agency required in countering the purple bottles simply by virtue of making them have a tighter skill floor needed to utilize them properly. In other words these changes specifically target both bad killers and bad survivors, punishing one while making life easier for the other.
Personally I enjoyed the purple bottle aspect of going against killer, as it always encouraged me to keep an eye on both distance to him and when/where he is going to zone with the bottle, so I could reroute on the fly to bait him to throw a bottle at one area of a tile while going toward another during that time. That back and forth is still going to be there, but its going to be a lot easier to capitalize on that type of mistake now. Instead the chase will shift to "is this routing going to give him a disproportionate amount of distance that I can't really do anything about unless he messes up" with the bulk of the interactions relying mostly on how well he does(n't) use the yellow bottle at actual tiles. Clowns who are exceptionally skilled will already have the placements and timings down to not lose too much efficiency with the purple bottle changes, but even people using them normally and not "spamming" them will be affected by these changes.
And thats not even talking about how it changes his identity. Deprioritizing what is his main focus both in terms of his original gameplay design and even his lore just feels bizarre to me. They added the yellow bottles later to help with one of his biggest weaknesses, and while I consider them a very welcome addition to his power, they have absolutely nothing to do with its core design. They're just an ancillary improvement that was later added, and function wildly different than what any other part of his kit was originally designed around. Its a pretty extreme example, but that would be like BHVR focusing on buffs for that meme nurse addon that removes her ability to blink through objects, while also nerfing the skill floor for said ability to blink through objects. Or Huntresses' addon that helps her when she has no hatchets left while nerfing her hatchets. Yes I know they're different because they're addons rather than basekit ancillary effects, but the point was in the comparison of primary vs secondary aspects of their design.
Fun to play against matters roughly as equally to how fun something is to play as.This is also not how you design powers. Fun is entirely subjective, and should always be secondary to functionality, viability, and incentive to be applied (aka, the user's "fun" but not necessarily the recipient's.) The opponent's fun is certainly an important consideration, but if it needs to suffer a bit for the other factors, that's a necessary sacrifice. Just think about all the types of objective denial on either side, they quite literally attack the fun of your opponent while simultaneously undoing their progress. I'm not the biggest fan of that, but its a pretty clear prioritization in design.
Again, there are other things that are definitely overlooked.There are certainly universally positive changes, but my focus is strictly on how this changes the Clown as a character, and why.
In fact, if we're talking about that: purple clouds should disable fast vaults on pallets.I don't know about this one, mostly because of how vaulting pallets work in terms of momentum. I think it might be worth testing that type of impact, but it could easily become way too oppressive due to how tiles can be laid out.
Honestly, if they actually wanted to make him more fun to go against, attack his skill floor while not hurting everything above it, and give him something to offset the purple bottle changes specifically… They should have given him a reason to get direct hits. Doesn't have to be something absurd like basekit pinky finger, but even something as simple as restoring a single bottle use with a 30 second cooldown on the ability to proc another direct hit would be a proper way of softening that kind of blow. Or maybe a bottle that has a direct hit has the pre-nerf numbers. There is room even now to make these types of changes not disproportionately focus on the worst players on both sides.
Edit: This whole mass downvoting topics removing them from being able to bump really needs to change. Bad ideas can lead to fruitful discussions, and the calculations in the OP alone are very helpful.
Post edited by Ryuhi on0 -
Im gonna try and keep it asa short as possible:
"Fun is entirely subjective, and should always be secondary to functionality"
Yes and no. It's kinda a fact in gaming that reducing/removing player agency is inherently anti-fun. Its why anti-slug HAS to be introduced because its the most boring basekit mechanic that should have recieved a QoL or rework 5 years ago. The specifics of fun is secondary to functionality, but player agency has priority over proper functionality. In fact, why do you think Trapper hasnt seen any significant buff. Because every single trap activation outside chase removes player agency. Traps inside chase and chasing survivors towards traps is absolutely something players dont mind. But now imagine tripling the amount of traps but reducing the time to get out by half, and it would still be too boring since the chances of you randomly hitting a trap happens often enough to get boring.
Objective player fun is directly tied to agency. It's also why Trapper is one of the least played killers, despite being the poster boy of DBD. You lack player agency as Trapper by being forced to walk certain directions, being forced to stand still to place traps, only for it to be disabled 3 seconds later because there was an Ace in a bush looking at you placing that trap. Trapper is fully functional, but his agency drops with each update since there are more things people can do while Trapper is still tied. Hag also has some reduced agency, but she doesnt have to gather traps and can still use her traps to manipulate other players into a viable agency. Its why Hag is more fun to play than Trapper, despite gameplay wise being very similar killers.
This change shouldnt also be seen as the end of Clown changes. But as a new baseline that can actually be improved. It's often sounding weird to say, but a nerf in the most used mechanic, often leads to the killer as a whole being able to recieve buffs. Legion got a tiny nerf in mending times, which allowed him to be buffed without it being too boring to face. Slinger got an ADS nerf, which has allowed for buffs over time, making his current version stronger than his ADS-instashot version. Pyramidhead has gotten 2 quite significant nerfs in the next patch, but those nerfs do allow for the rest of the buffs to be possible without it being gamebreaking.
Sometimes, you need a nerf in purple bottles, to get a very significant buff later on. And Clown isnt done. We riot if this is his final stage for now. He needs more status effects other than hinderance(like broken if they are injured while intoxicated, haemorrhage basekit makes sense too, its a toxic concoction, I am expecting debuffs) and haste basekit(my suggestion being action speeds in general, vaulting, breaking pallets, picking up survivors, breaking walls and gens, heck, even pallet endurance would fit there, its HARD to time a bottle like that). He can finally have 8 bottles basekit. There are oppertunities for buffing that didnt exist prior, and those oppertunities should be grabbed.0 -
I get what you're saying, but most of that doesn't really address my points in the way you might think it does. Almost everything about your agency relation to fun arguments would lead to things like flashlight saves and even kicking or blocking gens to be incompatible on a design level. There's a lot of cake vs eating it when you get into layered game design, as entire philosophies have to remain consistent across facets. its why
Fun is entirely subjective, and should always be secondary to functionality, viability, and incentive to be applied (aka, the user's "fun" but not necessarily the recipient's.) The opponent's fun is certainly an important consideration, but if it needs to suffer a bit for the other factors, that's a necessary sacrifice.is a core design philosophy for this game. The entire statement's context is important, and its inherent to the entire concept of direct competition. You could argue about the competitive nature (or lack thereof) in the game, but by having elements that specifically induce positives alongside negatives for your opponent, its always going to be something that needs to be consistent for all players. As for the casual vs hardcore discussion, its not one I wish to partake in. The amalgamation of both is something somewhat unique to the game.
RIP the thread, but it was a nice discussion at least.
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