Lightborn Rework Pitch 2.0
Lightborn, in my opinion, is not a healthily designed perk. That's not to say it's the game's biggest balance problem right now, it isn't, but it is a perk that passively shuts down an entire suite of options on the opponent's side for zero effort, tradeoff, or limitation. Equip Lightborn, blinds don't exist anymore.
An easy comparison can be made to pre-rework Distortion, which effectively shut off auras for the player who equipped it, but Distortion was at least supposed to be limited by its tokens. Lightborn is just fully passive and fully perfect.
A previous post of mine illuminated that a lot of people want Lightborn to be a counter specifically to flashlight saves, so this time around I'm pitching a slightly more complex but ultimately still pretty straightforward and reasonable version of the perk to still allow it to function in that capacity with a healthier, more active design. It looks like this…
- When a survivor successfully blinds you, the visual blind effect no longer triggers and their aura is revealed for 10 seconds
- While carrying a survivor, attempted blinds spend a token and prevent you from dropping that survivor. Lightborn starts with four tokens.
In essence: if a survivor blinds you at a pallet or window, the blind goes through mechanically (the beam shrinks and expands, and any other perks on both sides relevant to blinds activate) but you aren't actually affected by it in any way + get an aura on top.
If a survivor gets a flashlight save on you, though, Lightborn will actually block it, but only four times; you still should be trying to avoid blinds where possible against aggressive players, but you've got a safety net of a few mistakes before it'll actually cost you.
This, I think, is a solution that hopefully should be acceptable to everyone. Lightborn has fun applications to punish flashlights in general without denying survivors use of their items and perks in general, and it also has more limited application protecting against saves without being completely brainless.
Comments
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While i do agree that lightborn just completely turning off an entire playstyle isn't great game design, these changes only actually aid mald squads and still makes lightborn basically immunity to the solo player who decides to bring a light to go for opportunist saves. I don't think there is a way to make lightborn not just a total immunity perk without making it completely useless.
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The solo player who wants to go for opportunistic saves can already be fooled 99% of the time just by being lightly cautious about your angles while picking up, Lightborn isn't even needed there. It's the coordinated squads that can go down in specific areas and cover multiple angles at once where you might actually need a perk to cover for them, and even then they're often able to be fooled by careful angles and slugging.
Lightborn only needs to be a safety net, not a replacement for countering flashlights yourself.Even outside of saves, though, adding actual gameplay and synergies to Lightborn with the first change is still far more interesting and worth pursuing.
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^ This. If we're nerfing Lightborn, I want it to retain total usefulness against bully squads, and the only situation when Survivors are attempting over 4 flashlight saves in a row is in bully squads. I get the intent of "In a real situation, you probably won't make the mistake of being vulnerable to a blind 4 times even against a bully squad" but "real situations" look very different for extremely new players.
IMO the best way to fix the second change would be to invert it. Eg. Lightborn starts with 3/2/1 tokens, and loses 1 each time you are blinded. Once Lightborn has 0 tokens, you become completely immune to blinds for the rest of the Trial. Something like that?
Anyway, I do reluctantly agree that yes, Lightborn making blinds genuinely useless is not great game design. It's one thing for Perks to 1:1 negate each other but invalidating a whole class of items with associated Perks with one Perk does suck. I will say though, that I'll be way less reluctant about a Lightborn change if we can get some basekit bully squad protection in the game for the players that need it.
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no. straight up unequivocally no .
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…Any particular reason you say that?
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do you realize the incredible power that would give flashlight squads . the second that happens i PROMISE you the killer player count would drop by at least half . and before you say " just look away or look at a wall " what happens when there is none ?.
personally i use it a lot cause the way the blind is shown on the killer side gives me a migraine so i dont have a choice but to use it . if you wanna do the token thing.. alright .. flashlights are a one use item . you use it once its gone .1 -
Well, if all you care about is avoiding the blind visual, my suggestion makes Lightborn better at that.
For the question, well, in the rare scenario you genuinely can't avoid a save, and you also don't want to slug… that's why Lightborn has tokens to bail you out. That's what the perk is for.
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maybe im misunderstanding, what would happen if you had no tokens . the perk would be dead yes ? would there be a way to recover tokens ? cause if not then this rework sounds like a nerf to me
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If you had no tokens, you would be vulnerable to flashlight saves but the other protection - removing the visual effect - would still happen.
Protecting against flashlight saves is the only thing the tokens do.
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if thats the case i stand by my original statement . that is a Nerf disguised as a rework. and i would do everything i possibly could to ensure that didnt happen. bully squads and toxic survivors do NOT need any more power then they already have. i have been playing since docs release , if this were to happen i would quit immediately
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It's a rework either way, but yes, it would make the perk a little weaker.
Healthier, more interesting, and with far more opportunities to use it, but slightly weaker.
It'd still be perfectly serviceable protection against bully squads because you can still avoid the blinds more often than not. That isn't a real concern here.
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should second chance perks get the same treatment . you can only use lithe , balanced or dead hard once so use it wisely . if you wanna do that to make killers weaker then survivors should be similarly weakened .
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Why would they get that treatment?
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because it would be fair. let me run you by a scenario that CAN happen in the game now and i want you to tell me if this is fair
a survivor gets get hit 1 time . gets injured . uses dead heard gets hit again endurance saves him. thats hit number 2 . uses the syringe and dead hards again . thats hit number 3 . uses the perk blood rush to get endurance again . thats hit number 4 . finally goes down .. thats hit number 5.
5 hits to get 1 down . now i want you to find a way to justify that .-2 -
I don't really see what this has to do with Lightborn, is the hangup here. If what you describe is a problem, it's clearly a different problem to the one Lightborn has, which is that it passively shuts off an entire suite of survivor options.
What you're describing here is a combination of tools leading to a very long chase, hypothetically speaking. What's the connection between the two?
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Flashlights and stuns themselves as much uninteractice for killer players as Lightborn for survivor players. As much as many different stuff in the game, if being honest.
The literal concept of catching timings where other player can’t do anything mechanically to avoid hook denial in theory sounds as poor as person taking whole slot to avoid this. Even if it takes some efforts from survivors to do this - doesn’t cancel the fact of item itself being uninteractive for other side. And you can claim the same about everything in this game.
It’s pretty rhetorical justifying changes only based around interaction. Because using this logic, you need to remove much more than Lightborn only from this game. Aka Deadlock, Background Player, Power Struggle, Coup and many other perks that requires nothing.
And if being honest - how actually important “flashlight mechanic” in global scope? Does it prevents a whole ability to stun killers? No. Does it prevent saboing? Not really. So “killing the whole gameplay” is only about the use of one item. Which is not even detrimental for match results.Some mechanics in the game simply have to be reactive and not proactive. And considering this perk preferable among casual killer players idk why discourage the usage of already narrow pool of killer perks is “healthy decision”.
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Avoiding flashlights is interactive, though? Both players are actively playing a positioning game where the survivor's trying to get the angle to save and the killer's trying to deny it.
It's not the most crazy interesting interaction in the game, but it is interaction.I'm also not trying to discourage the use of it. I want it to be more useful than it currently is, hence the first change.
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I don't understand the big deal here. If a killer has Lightborn, repair generators? I never run Lightborn myself because I want survivors to become altruistic.
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I think your point here is kinda hurt by the fact that's just not how DH works. It deactivates after you use it, and the only way to reactivate it is to get hooked again. Not to mention you can't use a medkit while deep wounded, so even if you could you would have to be able to mend mid chase first to even attempt it. So it is actually balanced the way you would want.
I think following your argument, that would mean lightborn having tokens would actually be fine right?2 -
No, it’s not. Point of flashlight use is catching timing where killers literally stuck in animation. There are difference between playing around something you can’t actually dodge or direct counter-interaction. If response on micro play is macro decisions, it’s people trying to use brain, not micro supposing interactivity. Flashlight design on its own is pretty poor and basically means “just deal with it”. For survivors defending I always preferred actual abilities and classes that propose mechanical play, but we don’t have it in DBD (for me tbh this thing already would solve any balance complaints). That’s why I barely used flashlight myself - and never used lightborn after hitting first 100 hours. Inconsistency, farming related… nuh
If talking about “just look at the wall, no issue” as “interaction”, same you can say to lightborn complaints. Ignore the perk and play the main gameplay . If want to play for saves - pallets is still a thing, or u can simply.. well… gen rush guy who wasted whole slot on niche counterplay. Every perk beside actual time saving on killer side is pretty ineffective for match result and you can easily play around it without harsh consequences.
Spirit fury and enduring is damn annoying for example, but after dealing with it once constant predrop and greed of unsafe tiles is literally making whole build useless. For me the whole game is about this. Uninteractive micro being outplayed by macro decisions. That’s why macro play is the best one no matter side you are playing, leading to the point of being “cheesy” and “unbalanced” strategy2 -
Is that not itself a good reason to rework Lightborn? If it's so dull and uninteractive that it's not only easily countered, it's easily countered by lowering interaction with the killer even further?
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Lightborn exists as a means for players that are not confident playing killer (as it is more stressfull and many avoid that role) to freely play against bully squads / swf teams and generaly people that wont let you pick someone up, and avoid the stress of constantly being blinded. Its like a beginner perk such as noone escapes death, but usefull in all levels of play since bully squads and swfs are more common once you reach a higher mmr.
Consider what happens if you were to nerf this perk, bully squads will now have no counterplay besides a high amount of game knowledge and skill. If all it does is prevent blinding, it doesnt prevent survivors from finnishing their objectives and escaping with normal looping. Its always seemed entirely fair to me compared to nooed
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second chance perks exist as a means for players that are not confident playing survivor . i can do that too . why do you need 15 second chance perks , why do you need 9 basekit perks, why do you need to have your hand held so unbelievably hard
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there are perks that exist that revolve around flashlights .. champion of light comes to mind if you want a token system for lightborn then i think its only fair that survivors have a token system for all exhaustion perks . they can only be used once . and maybe dead hard wasnt the best example but let me tell you this.. 3 sprint bursts in a row in one chase is FAR more powerful then not being able to blind the killer . or do you just wanna make it easier to be toxic
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I truly don't care either way, I just find this train of logic a little silly and unproductive. It'd be like saying Conviction can't be changed to be made healthier, unless you nerf every slowdown perk to 'make it fair'.
Ultimately it's a matter of game health, and I can at least understand why people take issue with a perk that just automatically makes an item useless, regardless of strength. It's just very boring perk design, but with how contentious it is within the community I doubt they'll ever actually touch it.
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100% no. Lightborn is fine the way it is. Literally the only reason to nerf or 'rework' it is to benefit bully squads, and I and most other killers will not be fooled by claims that changing it is good for the game.
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As a survivor main, I do not mind Lightborn.
I even have seen killers bring Lightborn with 0 flashlights to begin with.
Lightborn, to me, is not a problematic perk. Once you recognize the killer has Lightborn, simply do gens. Flashbang has already been nerfed - this is simply a hot take, but I personally find that I would prefer teammates on gens versus a person trailing another person to get a flashlight save when 9/10 times they will fail unless on top of the survivor for the save (a skilled killer typically checks the area before picking up, so they will more than likely get hit beforehand), a Background Player, or a 99% Sprint Burst user to get the save. Guess what happens after this? The downed player will more than likely go down once more if successful, sure it can waste the killer's time for seconds or minutes, but I'd rather have that person on a gen. Games are not in a vacuum, there could be two others on a gen - one person on a gen and the other messing around, or both survivors messing around.
But then again, I like to play quite efficiently and if a killer brings Lightborn to counter flashlights - be my guest, I just find flashlight plays suboptimal especially given that the person doing the play is either clip farming and not willing to take chase for the downed player (or even taking a hit!), causing the downed survivor to go down again (this isn't even including a potential Surge that will occur).
Sure, it messed with someone's playstyle but Lightborn is fine - a killer is choosing to bring it, one less gen regression or aura perk that they could have used, but opted to bring Lightborn.
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No it's not. Background Player? Your positioning is irrelevant. Survivor hiding nearby while you chase the other off? Position is irrelevant. If a survivor goes down out in the open all you can do is 180 pickup. No skill there. Just hope that no one can get it.
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Background Player is an issue, yes.
Everything else is gameplay and decisionmaking, though. Keeping track of the survivor's positions, your own position, likely angles of attack, any line of sight blockers in the area, all that stuff.
I'll grant it isn't mechanical interaction, but the various players are all interacting with one another in a nice back and forth.
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