Why Making the Blight 4.4m/s is a Bad Idea

Shroompy
Shroompy Member Posts: 7,879

Good afternoon ladies n gents its a pleasure to have you here but it's even better to have me. The Blight has been a hot topic recently so Ive taken it upon myself to express my controversial opinion that may or may not be valid. That opinion really stemming from one thing: indoor maps.

Blight already struggles on these maps due to plenty of tight corners and LoS breakers which prevent him from using his power in chase effectively. It would simply be a hold W simulator which can already be experienced by killers who are 110% and have a power requiring open spaces/LoS.

Then we have outdoor maps, it would barely make a difference. The loops he can play around with his power will still be playable, and the distance lost from now being 4.4 will barely mean anything since he can just catch up again using his power all the same with barely any difference time wise. In the end all this will really do is increase his skill floor which is just unnecessary.

The real issue with Blight is the fact that in some cases (mainly filler pallets) where a survivor couldnt play any better, the Blight still comes out on top and thats due to cooldowns.

So, what would I do to address Blight? Well Im glad you asked because Im also gonna do just that! While also giving my thought process as to why I would make these changes

Rush count reduced from 5 to 4

This aims to keep his skill expression intact by chaining rushes together using bump logic, but also reducing the amount of correct reads a survivor needs to make to avoid a hit

Token recharge time increased from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds

This is to counter act the reduce in tokens, this way if he exhausts all of his tokens, the cooldown remains the same, while also buying a little extra time for other upcoming changes

Breaking a pallet consumes 2 tokens

This goes back to survivors making the correct play at times, but still dont get much value out of it. With this change, it gives survivors a chance at reaching something else nearby.

Stunning the Blight whie rushing will only begin recharging tokens at the end of the stun

At the moment, stunning the Blight gives little to no reward in some cases and part of that is because by the time the stun is over so is his cooldown. With this change it makes pallet stuns at more unsafe filler pallets a bit more rewarding and prevents the Blight from immediately being on top of them.

While rushing, increase movement by 3% for each consecutive Rush

Making Blighted Crow basekit gives The Blight more opportunities at certain loops to showcase skill expression, its also one of his most used add ons and for some that means they only really have 1 add on slot

Add on pass

The Blight suffers from something a lot of older killers do and thats repeating add ons. A small refresh of these add ons to modernize them would feel appropriate if they ever were to change him again

Well thats all folks, go nuts

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Comments

  • Shroompy
    Shroompy Member Posts: 7,879

    Spirit can turn sharp corners and indoor maps/highly dense areas dont really impact her power as much

    Henry can still hit over obstacles and through walls, but still struggles a little with LoS

    yeah idk either about Hag lol

    Ranged killers also struggle on indoor due to needing direct LoS

    We dont need more map dependant killers, we need less

  • Shinkiro
    Shinkiro Member Posts: 447
    edited February 9

    Someone with actual logical thinking that agrees 4.4m/s is a garbage idea thank you!!! The people crying for his nerfs really have no clue… Anyway here's my feedback.

    Rush count and token recharge are alright i dont mind it overall.

    Add on pass and basekit blighted crows are great, being shoehorned into effectively only one addon choice sucks. Id definitely trade the rush token for the improved basekit.

    Im okay with the pallet stun change, seems fair and i'd rather encourage looping and stunning than boring pre-drop slop.

    I disagree with the pallet break change though, it feels garbage on ghoul and it'll feel garbage on blight too. It gives an incentive to pre-drop for even more free value than it gets now too which i dont like. If this had to exist, and i dont think it should, it should be tied to a stun instead atleast. That way it feels like they actually earned the distance given and encourages proper and more exciting gameplay more.

  • Shroompy
    Shroompy Member Posts: 7,879

    Map dependency is something we should strive to move away from rather than make it a bigger issue.

    You also have the issue that 4.4 would make little to no difference on anything other than indoor maps. As mentioned before, most tiles he can still use his power to play around, and the little distance he now does lose due to 4.4 might is negligible because he can still easily catch up.

  • Shinkiro
    Shinkiro Member Posts: 447

    Im aware of how it works, but as i said it just gives more free braindead value for doing the most braindead thing, pre-drop, and thats something we need to not encourage anymore than it already is, which is why i suggested adding it to the pallet stun as an additional reward to incentivise survivors to play that way even more. I'd happily give a huge value reward for better plays like that than simply punishing a killer for simply kicking a pallet.

    He is already "standardised" compared to other killers regarding pallets, its his power that is unique in this situation, and i think thats fine, his counterplay is simply different. Are we going to suggest power cooldowns for Lich, Spirit, dracula, singularity, wesker etc etc when they break pallets next who can do the exact same thing? Blight isnt anything special in this regard.

  • Mr_K
    Mr_K Member Posts: 10,420
    edited February 9

    4.4 will do nothing. Everyone that complains about Blight today will complain tomorrow. Think about it, how often does a good Blight not hit you with his M2?

    I remember when people wanted Billy to be 4.4, still do probably. Same energy.

  • Shroompy
    Shroompy Member Posts: 7,879

    Which I understand that, but he cant really use his power in indoor maps and that is basically the ONLY time where this change makes a proper impact. If we nerf Blight we should nerf him at his strongest, not his weakest.

  • jesterkind
    jesterkind Member Posts: 9,711

    It'd make the appropriate impact elsewhere too, it'd weaken his ability to fall back on conventional looping.

    It's not a one stop shop quick fix to address Blight completely, but it'd be a sensible part of a suite of changes.

  • Shroompy
    Shroompy Member Posts: 7,879

    And conventional looping is only something lower skilled Blights do. You are unnecessarily increasing his skill floor while barely having an impact at his peak. Its basically giving a desk fan to somebody in the middle of the summer which wont do anything other than a incy tincy tiny breeze when its 30C+. But hey, on the cooler days it'll feel nice.

  • jesterkind
    jesterkind Member Posts: 9,711

    Well, yeah.

    In a proper suite of changes that address Blight, some would be targeted at higher end problems and some would be targeted at lower end problems. Some would address the ways his skill floor can be low, and some would address the issues that arise at higher level play.

    There's no one change that'll affect everything, he'd need multiple changes at once.

  • Shroompy
    Shroompy Member Posts: 7,879

    Which is why the suggested changes above have a larger impact at higher levels of play. Doesn't matter what other changes you give him, 4.4m/s on its own simply kicks him down at places where he's already low.

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 603

    Honestly I'm kinda split on the idea of a 4.4 m/s Blight, as I think it'd be interesting to see, but every time I see the suggestion it's almost always followed by something like "also, make Blight's power go on cooldown when he breaks a pallet". Like alright, we're just trying to nuke the killer from orbit at that point.

  • Green_Sliche
    Green_Sliche Member Posts: 843

    It's typical mindset of survivor players who want it easy for themselves. Killer can actually do something without being punished 24 / 7 for every wrong step? That's bad. Apparently killers should always suffer for any minor misplay or else they are overpowered. When someone suggests to actually try to play such killer and learn how it works - no, this won't do. Nobody wants to dedicate any effort to understanding how things work on the other side.

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 603

    No I just think the idea of making a killer more dependent on their power for downs and then subsequently making it so that killer has their power up less often (and in an arbitrary way…losing your power because you broke a pallet feels bad even on Ghoul even if it's technically more balanced) in the same breadth is an idea born out of pure bias and/or spite rather than rationality.

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 603
    edited February 9

    Nuked from orbit in terms of how it feels to play the killer yes. Balance? Probably not. Balance should be secondary to game feel. I think that's the point people just don't understand.

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 603

    And to further the point I simply don't trust the philosophy of someone on the forum who suggests going 4.4 m/s with a power cooldown on pallet break as the primary avenue of nerfing the killer. It's just the lamest and least interesting way of going about it.

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 603
    edited February 9

    Honestly yeah they kinda do these days. A lot of the really old killer designs feel downright clunky compared to the new. Although few of them feel like they have as arbitrary of a mechanic as Ghoul's token loss on pallet break.

  • Abbzy
    Abbzy Member Posts: 2,814

    Indoor maps,really? There is ton of killers that are worse or countered by indoor maps like huntress and what about chainsaw duo billy and bubba they are done on indoor maps way more than blight.

    If he would be 110 speed yeah larry and hawkins plus top of rpd would be hard to play on but good blights can still be solid on indoor maps just look at momoseventh where he in his blight streak lost against swf win streak on hawkins some of his fast chained rushes are outplaying survivors where I wouldnt even dare as blight.

  • Abbzy
    Abbzy Member Posts: 2,814

    I think making him 110 will stop any further hard nerfs on his power (because 110 killers need stronger and better power than 115 ones due to their weaker chase) and as you said most of blights downs and value comes from his rushes not m1 so he would work good and would be still top tier.

  • Kupega
    Kupega Member Posts: 111

    what would you suggest as changes instead? you've only denied pallet break giving a cooldown and claimed to be on the fence about 4.4 movement speed without providing anything is more interesting or not "lame" and I'm curious to know your approach

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 603

    I don't know and neither does BHVR considering they haven't tried anything other than changing his add-ons. I don't know what's feasible on their end.

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 603
    edited February 10

    Actually if you want an answer that's simple to do and not something that requires extensive number tweaking and/or reworking, and thus playtesting? Remove the pallet break on rush attacks. It's not even something that was there during the PTB (and maybe even launch patch, don't remember at this point, I was more concerned about how horrible the rush turn rate was on controller at the time), it was something added later.

    Removing that would make playing downed pallets with the power more risky, as if the Blight narrowly miss someone that vaults, now their power is on cooldown and they have the choice to either manually break the pallet or attempt to keep playing it instead of being rewarded with a resource and forcing a survivor to run to another tile for free. That would have a decent impact on Blights' micro and macro potential, especially less skilled Blights.

  • ControllerFeedback
    ControllerFeedback Member Posts: 603

    Also maybe a hot take but I'd remove the pallet break from Dracula's wolf pounce as well. He just doesn't need it given the rest of his kit.

  • ArkInk
    ArkInk Member Posts: 1,100

    Honestly, I do like this proposed set of changes more than just making Blight 110%, though I've long been an advocate of that idea.

    These changes feel more pointed to make his play style work in trial rather than just keeping it busted and getting rid of his ability to fall back on M1 at certain loops. I particularly like breaking a pallet taking two tokens, as it's a change I thought of while playing him and idk how to describe it, but it just feels like it should happen when playing against him.

    Also, where is the Foxy skin BHVR? Its been like 8 months since the FNAF chapter with radio silence from the devs on it, starting to feel like how they treated the tome characters back in the day.

  • Mr_K
    Mr_K Member Posts: 10,420

    That's the end goal. Some are taking the incremental approach that makes little changes seem "reasonable" then they turn around demanding the next "reasonable" change. Repeat until the end result then find the next target.

  • Terror_Misu
    Terror_Misu Member Posts: 207

    I'd personally bring back his hug tech and remove breaking the pallet on power/put it on cooldown.

    Buff and a nerf, so can't 'get nuked from orbit' or whatever that crap is.

    4.4 won't do much, but it will do some. If it matters so little, why not do it then? Seems it would make more people happy than not, for such a small, tiny incy change.

    Thats how the forums have worked for years, both sides.

  • Mr_K
    Mr_K Member Posts: 10,420

    and I wish more would recognize it for what it is and stop being gaslighted to if we just do this everything will be good.

  • Mr_K
    Mr_K Member Posts: 10,420

    So, what you are saying, after removing "tech" that would allow a hit, in some loops where using Blights power is detrimental he should be forced to loop like a Huntress or give up on the chase? I find it funny how the movement speed for projectile killers is being used to punish other killers. Once you agree Blight should be 4.4, there's a whole slew of dash type killers that become targets for it.

    I do not see how making Blight 4.4m/s helps a single survivor against a Blight that knows how to play Blight. This is only for new Blight players that play like Trapper. Realize you are complaining about the equivalent of Trapper. This is a change without a purpose and being done out of pure spite of the killer.

  • ArkInk
    ArkInk Member Posts: 1,100

    There is no point in conversing with you if you've convinced yourself I can only hold an opinion out of mean spiritedness or stupidity, but for the record, I was agreeing with main post about how it convinced me Blight didn't need to be made 4.4, so idk what it was about my post that made you respond in such a way.

  • Mr_K
    Mr_K Member Posts: 10,420

    look at it this way. A Blight who can play wouldn't be hurt as much by being 4.4m/s. So what is the point in doing so? Well, one comment was, so they cannot fall back to using M1. In other words, they expect the Blight to always use their power. This is the same as criticizing a Billy who doesn't down you with his chainsaw. Someone who plays Billy should know, not every loop can be curved and if you don't use M1 it's a big waste of time. Same for Blight on maps full of poor collisions or no collisions.

    Who 4.4m/s does hurt are new or casual players of Blight. Those that don't know the ends and outs. When it comes to these players you will find them playing like a Trapper by just chasing.

    So when I say this idea of making Blight 4.4 is out of spite, it's because people hate playing against him and want to make him less viable to be picked up by new players. Look at everything OP posted for alternatives. If bhvr did half of it would making Blight 4.4 seem a bit too much? I bet many here would say no, because it's not about balance.

  • NekoTorvic
    NekoTorvic Member Posts: 839

    I wouldn't mind if they reduced his token count to 3 instead of 5, with the same 12 second cooldown, made him 4.4 and made him lose a token when breaking a pallet… so long as they gave him back hug tech, gave him blighted crow basedkit and then reworked the speed increase addons.

  • SAWII
    SAWII Member Posts: 362

    Every killer's power is worse on indoor maps, except maybe stealth killers. I'm so sick of Blights complaining about indoor maps when they are even more painful for low tier killers.

  • Terror_Misu
    Terror_Misu Member Posts: 207

    look at it this way. A Blight who can play wouldn't be hurt as much by being 4.4m/s. So what is the point in doing so?

    So you believe it would have zero effect on things. Honestly, you're probably right. 4.4 isn't a HUGE metric difference, but its still 'something.'

    And this is my point: If this change would effectively have zero impact killer side… then just let it go ahead? It seems it would appease a lot of survivors, and not have any impact on killers. Win/win, yeah? Any issues with this line of thinking?

    Well, one comment was, so they cannot fall back to using M1. In other words, they expect the Blight to always use their power. This is the same as criticizing a Billy who doesn't down you with his chainsaw. Someone who plays Billy should know, not every loop can be curved and if you don't use M1 it's a big waste of time. Same for Blight on maps full of poor collisions or no collisions.

    That's one comment. It's not something everyone shares, and it is not the end all/be all. If a survivor 'expects' these things from blight, then life will show them what reality is. They'll get over it. That said, this is still not a good reason to dismiss this change that 'wouldn't affect the killer at all.'


    Who 4.4m/s does hurt are new or casual players of Blight. Those that don't know the ends and outs. When it comes to these players you will find them playing like a Trapper by just chasing.

    Sounds like new players are what you're referring to. Being Trapper is a beginning character, and Blight is pretty advanced, I feel this thought falls flat. I dont believe it matters that a fresh player can't pick up blight and start mowing. Learn the game, learn the chase, learn the M1 game, learn 'the game'. Arguing this using a fresh player seems like a horrible choice.

    So when I say this idea of making Blight 4.4 is out of spite, it's because people hate playing against him and want to make him less viable to be picked up by new players. Look at everything OP posted for alternatives. If bhvr did half of it would making Blight 4.4 seem a bit too much? I bet many here would say no, because it's not about balance.

    While I feel and understand this, it is just your feelings towards it. Subjective. Not crapping on it, just making sure this is known and that's that. Making him less viable to be picked up by a new players is, again, perfectly okay imo. Blight need not be the trapper replacement for new players. I am sure we can both agree DBD is too complicated a game and overloaded with 'needed' information like perks, killer powers, ENTIRE rosters that are ballooning to ridiculous numbers…. yeah, a new player need not pick up Blight out the gate imo. And if they do, they should struggle, not skip all that learning and meaningful experience to mimic what tunneling has done for killers and inflating mmr.

    Just my thoughts. I appreciate you responding as you have!

  • Shroompy
    Shroompy Member Posts: 7,879

    Its because when nerfing a killer (or anything in literally any game) keeping the feel of a character while bringing down their strength is the most ideal scenario. Sure 110% would definitely knock him down a little but mainly for inexperienced Blights which I think its pretty safe to say that nobody is complaining about