Fight/Flight/Freeze
These are the responses the back of your brain, your primal brain, reacts with. To make the most compelling horror experience, you'd ideally want to touch on all of these to truly deliver an experience that doesn't feel too "gamey", but will instead legitimately scare people. Like when you're holding your breath even though you're just watching a good scary movie, or your heart is racing and you're on the edge of your seat playing an intense action game. Let's explore what DBD currently offers:
Freeze: Hiding in lockers, crouching, not rescuing teammate from hook, indecision when you're in terror radius
Flight: Pallet looping, vaulting, exhaustion perks, sprinting, running from terror radius, running from any aura perk
Fight: ...Decisive Strike. Throwing pallets down, flashlight.
Personally, I think we're lacking in the "fight" department. Mainly because all the fight options are either unsatisfying (when you feel a surge of anger, do you want to hit something or shine a flashlight?) require you to be weakened/already defeated (decisive strike) which makes you still feel powerless, or are part of the Flight response such as throwing obstacles in your path (pallets)
"Fighting" doesn't feel satisfying. I would like the DBD community, especially those who like to play Killer, to come up with ideas to better simulate a Fight response in a way that doesn't not inspire too much confidence in Survivor, doesn't dominate the Killer, and can only be used sparingly AKA a "clutch" moment such Unbreakable being used.
Off the top of my head I can think of an Exhaustion perk that works similar to Dead Hard:
Tackle: Dive towards the Killer in an attempt to tackle them. If performed mid-swing, the swing is interrupted and the Killer is stunned for a normal amount of time and loses track of Scratch marks as they are dazed. Possibly can only be used when Healthy. Causes Exhaustion for 60 seconds.
Comments
while that sounds neat on paper, it opens up an absurd amount of SWF trolling potential. Thats the unfortunate issue with improving the Fight category as you define it: When survivors know they have a safety net, they turn their attention toward overpowering the killer. The sad truth is that neat ideas like that would be abused to hell and back, ultimately raising the minimum skill requirement for most killers than it already is. For now, I think the general consensus is that if you want more ability to fight back, you should try similar games like Last Year or F13. It just simply doesn't fit into the core dynamic of DBD's gameplay.
You seem to have missed the part where even the physically smallest of the killers are able to hold a fully grown struggling adult with one hand while also carrying a likely heavy weapon in the other.
The survivors are meant to be defenceless. They are meant to run and hide, not fight back. That's the whole point.
I don't think I am the one who missed the point. I am aware of what you said. I am suggesting that it would be a better gameplay experience as well as a more immersive one if there were more "fight" responses added to the game. The point of this discussion is exploring those options and thinking of ways to implement them that would be satisfying for Survivors without aggravating Killers.
This discussion is not about what is, it's about what could be.
Like do we need it actually? I don't feel like i do.
ALSO it's entity powered killers! Even David King who uses punches himself can't take on Amanda!
Again, you're not meant to be able to fight back.
Look at Amnesia, Outlast and Alien Isolation. What helps makes those games so great is that you have little to no means of defence except fleeing and hiding. They wouldn't be nearly as interesting if you could just fight back against your aggressor.
Same applies to Dead by Daylight. You're meant to stay as far away from the killer as possible, not intentionally running up and tackling them.
Removed + reposted
Don't think Survivors are supposed to be able to fight back any more than they already do.
Their strength is in their numbers, not their capabilities.
I still disagree. Fear doesn't always mean running and hiding. There's more to it than that, and it doesn't feel right being unable to "fight back". That's why you get teabaggers and why Decisive Strike is so overbearing. People want it, and that's the only way they can do it: In an immersiveness shattering silly way.There could be healthier, more enjoyable ways to implement a "fight back" response but you need to think beyond what we've got right now. It opens up the door for so much more gameplay, why are you resistant to the idea?
Also, it's worth noting that in those other games (especially Alien) you're physically outmatched. Like, no chance at all. Even tiny teenage Laurie is capable of fighting back againt Michael Myers, imagine what David or Jeff could to do that hag. And before you say "The Entity made a rule..." no. That's arbitrary. The Entity, and everything it is is so vague and obviously fictional that it can do whatever the Devs say it wants.
Also think of Horror movies, where someone makes a heroic sacrifice. Such as the Truck Driver who throws a wrench at Leatherface, causing him to fall and saw his own leg. That's an extreme example, but it's pretty clear that not all "Survivors" need to be defenseless. Expand the possibilities, be forward thinking, don't limit yourself.
Problems with teabaggers is that it's a multiplayer game. Would you do that against an AI? I really doubt that.
And DS is just a really good perk.
Another example of a really good perk is Adrenaline which goes into "Flight" category of yours.
The true problem with DBD is that: It isn't scary enough to make those 2 outshine the last one. AKA Amnesia