The Pushback Mechanic
In many video games, there's a subtle mechanic that not a lot of people tend to notice unless or even acknowledge, but is a very good mechanic for player-on-player interaction. This mechanic is known by many names, but for this thread, I'll call it Pushback.
Pushback is a mechanic where a character will move another character in another direction or around them. This mechanic can be seen in various forms, such as in Overwatch, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, New Super Mario Bros. U or Street Fighter. This mechanic is good to have in these games simply because it allows for things to happen far more naturally.
In Dead by Daylight, however, this has not been implemented, and it needs to be.
This game is full of players that will often times attempt to body block the Killer, whether it's on gaps near the endgame, or even trying to block the Killer from hooking other Survivors. But, I think that there needs to be a mechanic that makes this more of a balanced power struggle between Survivors and Killers, hence the idea of "pushback" being a thing.
Pushback, in simplest terms, is a special type of force that the Survivor and Killer generate when mobile. This force can push back against the Killer or Survivor when they are stationary, but when both move at the same time, the Killer has significantly more force than a singular Survivor, and therefor will move the Survivor away from them if they are not the intended target.
Now, the Survivor can still go in front of the Killer, but instead of grinding the Killer to a halt, the Survivor can only now slow down the Killer until they're eventually moved aside by the Killer. However, multiple Survivors can easily stack on their own weights against the Killer to slow them down even more, which can be a valid tactic to ensure body blocking, but at a risk.
The Killer's force generated will almost always be 5 times stronger than that of a Survivor. The force of the Survivor being 1, that means the Killer's force is 5. Whenever a Survivor pushes against a Killer now, the Killer now only gets a 20% reduction in movement speed (multiplicative, not subtractive), but cannot be slowed down exceeding 105% movement speed. This multiplicative reduction stacks when more Survivors pile onto the Killer.
Some Killers will have less force than other Killers, however, as Spirit and Nurse, due to being incorporeal, will have a force of 0, and thus will always be pushed back by any Survivor. Some Killers will just have more force than others, such as Nemesis or Oni, who have an astounding force of 50, due to their extreme strength.
This new mechanic would simply improve Dead by Daylight and even possibly balance out how the game is played, and introduce new tactics that players will need to adjust to. No longer can you just halt a Killer's progress by simply being in front of them, despite being the weaker role (presumably). Now, you can't easily block the Killer forever, and so you better think of a new way to save your allies.
What do you guys think? Would pushback be a saving grace for the game, or will you guys just see it as a scourge?
Comments