Should Flashlights Be Usable While Crouched?
This has been something i've pondered on for a while now. They altered maps to be able to used while crouching; Medkits have their own animation (healing) and Toolboxes too (repair/sabotage) so they obviously are neither here nor there. But Flashlights, I know that the survivors body angling shifts when using it, but would it be possible to make it so they can be used while crouching? It would add a tonne more plays to the item, and would also make it so Lightborn isn't an outright hard counter to it. Atm that perk pretty much means you ain't ever blinding them unless you double or triple beam the killer lol
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Lightborn is sort of the intended counter to flashlights. If you make it no longer work as a hard counter to them, then the perk will have lost most of its value. It's already not a particularly popular perk. I fail to see how crouching would suddenly prevent this perk from working effectively either.
This is one of those things where I'm not really against a change like this, but I also don't feel like there's any point to it. Most survivors are going to be standing or walking while trying to blind a killer; crouching would generally leave them with a worse angle to blind from and/or lower their movement speed.
This feels more like a nerf to Hag, since you don't have to worry about accidentally triggering her traps if you can crouch while flashlight-burning them. Aside from screwing with Hag, Wraith, and Nurse (the killers whose powers are "burn-able"), I can't come up with many situations where I'd want to be crouched while using flashlights.
@APoipleTurtle The idea was mainly for situations where you go for saves or pallet blinds vs Lightborn/smaller killers. It would still require add-ons of higher rarity, as well as borderline perfect positioning to pull off, but if you could get a blind from it, it would be nice. Plus, Flashlights are the most fun thing in dbd for both sides. It's so fun to help your team out, and so fun to vs a team that interact with you so much.
Yeah, it would be problematic vs Hag, but i've always felt that Flashlights should either do nothing to her traps or take longer to destroy them than currently.
I'm just eager to see new functions in dbd that encourage and allow even more interaction and plays between the two roles
Why not just aim lower? Also, Lightborn is a perk specifically designed to counter flashlights, and it's one of the worst perks in the game. Why would you make it not do the one thing it's actually good at doing?
@Yung_Slug there's countering and then there's completely shutting out certain mechanics. There is literally no chance to get a blind unless multiple beams are performed. It's like what I said in my response above ^ I just want more interaction and more availability to plays. I like that there are perks etc that counter the other role, but not when it outright restricts the interactions they can have together. There's a negative and positive way that gamers and devs approach the mechanics of the game. I want the devs to encourage positive gameplay from both sides, and that means making the frustrating aspects as minimal as possible. I mean, it's just an idea/suggestion at the end of the day. But ultimately, it's feeback on certain mechanics that lead to more ideas and creative solutions to bigger and better things. Hopefully good and healthy QOL changes come soon to dbd.
Empathy completely shuts out Knockout, I don't see why that's any different.
@Yung_Slug Lightborn has 2 affects to it: resists blinds and boosts blindness recovery. Now, for a perk that outright blocks blinds in casual gameplay, what is the point of it boosting recovery? Clearly that function may as well not be there if Lightborn is supposed to be designed to hard counter Flashlights in the first place.
And going on to what you said, the Empathy v Knockout comparison, I don't see how a random match-up can compare to a direct application in lobby. Killer sees the Flashlight(s) so switches Lightborn in. You don't go into match with Empathy soley to hard counter Knockout, the fact they counter each other is good, perks always (or at least soon will) have a counterpart on the opposite role. So, that point is really a non-factor in relevance.
It doesn't completely stop blinds though. You can still blind in certain situations without help, such as during pallet breaks.
No the pallet break animation is too short what are you on about.
Not unless they have brutal strength or something.
@Yung_Slug no, no you can't
Idk if you are a little slow but no you can not blind at pallets with lightborn. Try it out in a custom.
I swear I've gotten it before, but maybe I did it really early and the killer just broke the pallet anyway.
Out of curiosity, a friend and I went and did some experiments with Flashlights, Blinds, and Pallets (since I can't find any official stats in-game or on the wiki). Did several tests using David, Hillbilly, and the Yellow Flashlight (with only battery add-ons) on The Game and took the rough averages.
Did not have enough time to properly test Blinds against Lightborn itself, but hoping to return to it later when we both have the free time. For now, I'm factoring times using its blind-resistance of 80% as listed on the perk.
Based on our results:
It takes approximately 1 second to stun a killer with the base flashlight (not factoring in time needed to aim). About 0.85 seconds with a Purple Flashlight (Moderately/15% more effective, so this makes sense).
Unmodified Flashlight Blinds last for about 2.3 seconds (Yellow) or 2.6 seconds (Purple).
Breaking a pallet takes roughly 2.4-2.5 seconds. The pallet breaks at 2 seconds, but the killer needs a little extra time to revert to their standing position and exit the animation. This animation appears to play out significantly faster from the survivor's perspective than from the killer's (at least in Kill Your Friends).
With Lighborn's extra 80% resistance to being blinded:
-Basic blinds should take ~1.8 seconds (Yellow) or ~1.5 seconds (Purple)
-Killer should recover from blindness after 1.15 seconds (Yellow) or 1.3 seconds (Purple).
*Didn't test anything with the Green Flashlight because it's just a more efficient version of the yellow one with a bit better accuracy.
So in theory, you actually SHOULD be able to blind a killer at a pallet with a flashlight, regardless of if they have Lightborn or not. It's just that the extra time needed to actually aim and begin the blind (especially with the less-accurate purple flashlight) means that you will need to be spot-on with blinding them throughout their ENTIRE pallet-break animation. You could still blind them, but you will lose a lot of distance in the process (especially because they'll almost immediately recover from it).
Like I said, we haven't had time to test the perk itself yet. Could be the "human factor" of aiming flashlights making blinds take too long. Could be that Lightborn is stronger than its values suggest. Or could just be a latency/server issue. Regardless, trying to blind a Lightborn killer at pallets is probably not something you'd want to do in practice.
Hm, no, they're in a good spot, they need no buffs. It would be interesting and all, but it could make them too strong against Hag.