Is the Entity window blocker working right?
I’m wondering if anyone else has had questionable experiences with this since the latest patch. I thought I noticed something funny myself, then saw a newly released clip on YouTube just now that shows a survivor repeatedly fast and medium vaulting the same wall (well more than three times in a brief period) until the killer DC’d. Weaker was the killer in play there as well.
Also, does slow vaulting not factor into it? Because I thought it did, but the wiki says only fast and medium vaulting do.
Comments
As long as you're in chase state, any vault should count toward the Entity blocker, it's just that slow-vaulting usually breaks chase state.
I haven't recently had any instances of the blocker not spawning when it should have, neither as or against a survivor, and I would have to see the video you're referencing, but in general it has to be kept in mind that the window blocker has counterplay - survivors can do different things to break chase state while in a chase, which can allow them to get vaults that are not counted toward the blocker.
Here's something I refrained from talking about in the past, but whatever I guess: I have no clue why BHVR decided to tie the Entity blocker to chase state. There is no reason for a survivor to be vaulting a window 3 times outside of chase interactions anyway, and even if there were, blocking that window on the third vault still wouldn't matter. So, why this chase state condition, rather than making it so that the Entity blocker simply spawns any time a survivor vaults any window 3 times within a certain time frame?
Of course, the chase state condition enables skilled survivor players to do things lesser players cannot, it increases the skill ceiling of the game, so that's why I personally want it to stay. But I am pretty confident that BHVR did not intend for people to be able to play around the Entity blocker. The only thing I can come up with as to why they tied the blocker to chase state is that they wanted to save resources, in both computing and networking, by not having to keep track of vaults and spawn blockers outside of chase.
Would it be healthier for the game if they got rid of the chase state condition? Yeah, being able to abuse a window for more than 3 vaults is pretty ridiculous. Does it really matter? Not really, it's maybe 0.1% of players in this game that actively play around Entity blockers in this way and are good enough to consistently do so. And killers also have counterplay to this, starting with the obvious one that is Bamboozle (and Crowd Control), but also knowing about the ways in which survivors can break chase state, and adjusting their pathing to not allow them to do so as easily. Plus a whole bunch of killers have ways to deal with windows innate to their kit.
The clip in question begins at the about 1:49 mark. The survivor did break chase early on in the clip, but the Entity blocker is still supposed to be active for five seconds after losing chase. They vaulted it something like five times before Wesker finally got screwed by a miserable hit box and then ultimately DC’d.
Yeah its been a thing for a while where for some reason the first second or two that you gain LOS on a survivor can just not start chase for some reason. And every time you break los it resets the timer so you could be chasing a survivor around a square object and every time you turn the corner they could just be turning it and you see about 75% of their body but chase doesn't trigger.
Yeah, I know what's going on there. You can hear the player say "Shift tech", which is referring to the fact that he's only pressing Shift (the sprint key) very briefly to initiate the medium vault and then lets go of it again immediately. That way chase state is not established and he can get more than 3 vaults here. There's no chase music. This type of Shift micromanagement is one of the ways to break chase state mid-chase.