Flashlight idea that helps both sides
Preface: before all the spewing of "git gud" hear me out. Flashlights are hated because the only time they work is in animation lock. Well what I'm proposing is changing that a bit.
What if whatever direction the killer was looking as they started to break the pallet was the direction the camera locked in? This would be beneficial to both sides for a couple reasons.
1. The killer has another counter to an annoying mechanic without having to take up a perk slot. I'm not saying flashlights are OP, rather that they can be irritating to deal with in certain situations.
2. The survivor can mind game with flashlights! You can see what direction the killers' head is moving and if they look up that's an easy way to break LOS.
I believe this change is a good one because it both nerfs and buffs flashlights and adds a degree of skill. And it's not forcing the killer to look up but making it a possibility. It's a risk vs reward mechanic. You risk losing the survivor but dont get blinded.
What if whatever direction the killer was looking as they started to break the pallet was the direction the camera locked in? This would be beneficial to both sides for a couple reasons.
1. The killer has another counter to an annoying mechanic without having to take up a perk slot. I'm not saying flashlights are OP, rather that they can be irritating to deal with in certain situations.
2. The survivor can mind game with flashlights! You can see what direction the killers' head is moving and if they look up that's an easy way to break LOS.
I believe this change is a good one because it both nerfs and buffs flashlights and adds a degree of skill. And it's not forcing the killer to look up but making it a possibility. It's a risk vs reward mechanic. You risk losing the survivor but dont get blinded.
Comments
@KingB
You are 100% correct. It's "unaccounted for gameplay", similar to how the basic hit system with sprint burst wasn't supposed to create safe-zones.
The reason why flashlights work is because of an inconvenient implementation of animations where your camera gets locked in 1 position, which holds true for Windows, Pallets, Survivor-Pick-Up, Nurse-Stun etc.
It's really ridiculous to me that so many players want to base a whole item on such an awkward mechanic.
Conceptually, what does a survivor trying to blind a killer with a flashlight have to do with "Frozen necks?!".
This is indeed also a wrong approach, just like hangman's trick.
Your aims are perfect, but I'd argue that;
This would always have the killer look upwards when a survivor is running with a flashlight, making it mostly useless.
Since your aim is similar to mine and some of your arguments are the same as mine, what would you think of:
https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/37071/flashlight-one-step-away-from-being-great/p1
Chapter 2
Making the flashlight no longer useful during animation except the pickup animation, where you have to be flashing for about 90% of the animation, giving the killer the ability to rotate and have the survivor not being able to reposition themselves, while also buffing flashlights and making them blind you exactly SO fast, that if you randomly turn around in a chase and the killer didn't see it coming, you'd be able to book an escape? (With this having an "eye-adjusting to light" mechanic built in to prevent spam?)
So you wanna remove a guaranteed no-skill blind with a skill-based mindgame.
I doubt that the survivors will be happy about that