Bring Back Lightburn for Phantasm Traps
Simply remove the ability to wipe traps and re-add the ability to burn traps with a flashlight. Current hag counterplay is bad for both sides
-Survivors now spend a long time wiping (especially against a camping hag)
-The killer can have an entire side of the map wiped away because trap removal is too accessible
Comments
Honestly the Lightburn change should have been done in the opposite way. Make Flashlights interact with every Killer power instead of none. Shine a light on the Drone to disarm, shine a light on Ghosty to reveal, shine a light on Infections to cure (maybe 4s instead of 1-2s for this), shine a light on anything to know it will be a universal power counter at the cost of the limited battery life.
Lol, no... That's one of worst ideas I have seen in while.
Most killers are simply not that strong to justify such a nerf. It would make fleshlight groups unplayable for them.
With this change lock items in lobby, so I can just lobby shop with those killers and never play against it. I will gladly take them on with Blight, or Oni. But I would refuse to play Skully, or Ghostface against this.
That is a really bad idea. You would basically have to bring a Flashlight to every game and Franklins would just destroy any Survivor Team.
And having only a limited amount of counters will make Killers even stronger the longer the match goes. This is already the case that the Killer gets stronger the longer the match is going on, if the Survivors start being unable to do counterplay, it will be even worse. Which would probably lead to some really unhealthy and boring gameplay, where Killers just try to stall as long as possible so that the Batteries of the Flashlights are gone and then they win with their uncounterable abilities.
but that how hag was in the past. good old skull merchant gameplay.
Except that now, with how long it takes to remove traps and the absence of anti-camp mechanic in her power (unlike Skully and Dredge which have countermeasures to making unhooking ridiculously hard, although basement is unreasonably difficult to manage against Merchant since the verticality enables her to put a drone in the middle of the stairs and on top of the stairs) she can remotely camp with essentially zero effort, basement saves take so much time that unless the Survivors know for certain she is too far there's no way to go for a safe save even if the Hag is not hovering.
I honestly don't think I've ever seen a Hag that didn't put all her traps around a hooked Survivor (granted Hag isn't exactly known for her pickrate), making it take so much time to get to them that there was no way to do it alone without trading, especially not in SoloQ. Hag is mostly fine, however there should be a zone that denied traps like Merchant in order to make saves reasonable (and Skully should have her zone, for basement stairs, it's fine otherwise, fixed so that drones can't be 10ft from each others if placed in the right spots.
Even if you removed the hand wiping from Hag's traps, it wouldn't actual make it any harder to remove her traps.
With changes to her trigger range, it's easy enough for survivors to trigger traps and run away being completely safe from Hag's lunge out of teleport. This is way more efficient than hand wiping or flashlight burning.
It would make no meaningful difference against Ghostfaces who actually play correctly, only chasefaces. Dull Merchant would actually be interactable to a meaningful degree in soloq. Plus many Killers can have things as simple as Myers not being able to stalk through a Flashlight (which basically is what currently is the case). Trapper doesn't need to be disarmed, just 5s disabled after 2s of light. That still would prevent delaying a trap on the opposite side of a vault point.
Plague also has the problem of being an ultimate 3-gen Killer still through the regression limit. Letting a Flashlight only cure objects would be a perfectly fine form of Lightburn. (Edit: I can see why someone might disagree when I only gave a few sentences to explain. When I said shine to cure, I meant only on objects against Plague, not counting flashlights as a bonus Vaccine for Wesker/Nemmy, or even curing a broken Surv from Plague Infection. Although maybe pausing infection progress for working a lit up gen [except against the Brown Meme add-on].)
Also lobby shopping is directly responsible for ruining matchmaking, so as long as people are emboldened enough to admit to being part of the problem, I have to recommend partial DC penalties for lobby drops.
Plus we apparently are forgetting that with 8s base on a clicky, and 2s being the norm for interactions, you realistically could only get 3 max disables in normal cases.
(Also I can't tell if you had a Freudian slip when using a different name for the clicky machine or what...)
I think Hag with Flashlights still being able to burn away traps would be the perfect example of a balanced system. Enough basekit counterplay, with a 5s crouch up and a 2s animation wipe, vs a simple 2s shine at the cost of 'ammo'. Plus most uses of flashlights would slow you down far too much to be reasonable in chase, barring everyone bringing Alan Wake's Perk to move faster while clicking.
I'm not saying that every Killer needed a Lightburn to delete a Pig headtrap, but maybe something like glow a box to pause the timer while solving at that box (for the next ~15s). Simple things like that would be great across every Killer.
Not all maps allow you to stalk from big distance in some small angle. If you would come up to survivor, because of flashlight you are not even able to stalk, because you can't look at them and they are easily going to get you out of power even if you try to hide your body. That sounds terrible to me.
Funny to try hide it behind soloQ :D because I forgot flashlight is such a common item for soloQ players.
Which is also true for ghostface, yet you would want to add additional effect on top of it for some reason for him.
Oh right, because bear traps are light sensitive… This doesn't make any sense at all.
"Hey look a trap you took time putting down, let me use my flashlight to run over it while it gets active soon after, so you can't." What a fun gameplay experience for one of already weakest killers in the game. What an idea…
Plague an ultimate 3-gen killer? What? :D
Also this has nothing to do with 3-gen. Puke on gens is one of ways how to spread her power, if flashlight denies it completely, then she is screwed. It's not like it is going to work only during 3-gen, is it?
And since when Plague are 3-genning, I have never seen a single Plague holding 3-gen. It's not really doing anything, if I stay injured. Not really difficult to play against killer without a power and she needs to travel around the map for fountains if any survivor cleansed.
Maybe don't make it worse?
No item should be a direct counter to any killers power. So killer is not punished for survivors using it and survivors are not punished for not bringing it against the killer.
Why the hell would I willingly play the killer against this?
You can find them in chest, you have perks/addons for longer duration, you have perk to recharge, you can have multiple of them in team (up to 4) etc.
Yeah, happens when I write on mobile. That's actually very funny name tho. Fleshlight :D Sounds like something from Undead in Warcraft.
I main Ghostface, you can make many many many long-distance odd angles work, and even short ones can just be cornerstalked. Only hurts chaseface as I said.
Soloq Flashies - Yeah, maybe it should be an item as powerful as all others. Maybe we shouldn't have Medkits and Toolboxes miles ahead of everything else. Maybe Keys and Maps shouldn't be useless also.
For Ghosty it can be as simple as doubling the reveal speed while being lit up. That only hurts chasefaces, and does nothing to real Ghostfaces.
Trapper Realism argument… in the game about an Eldritch Horror alternate dimension spider which grants all Killers their powers, having their powers be affected by what hurts that Eldritch Horror… right. Plus, they have to audibly and visibly and slowly delay the trap, and that doesn't even guarantee the Trapper will get hit by it. Remember, 5s*4.6m/s=23m, so a Trapper needs to be >23m away from the trap when they delay it in order for it to hit Trapper. That isn't something that can be done mid-chase, and if someone else is doing it, then you now have gen slowdown+2 chase opportunities.
Plague - I've played as and against enough Plague to know how annoying she can be when intending to play this way. I'm moreso saying she is underrated as a 3-gen Killer, and most people don't suspect how effective she is at being able to lock areas down (when she puts her mind to it). That is why in the edit I said to allow the Brown add-on to bypass this, so that way campy Plague can camp, and normal Plague has to risk flashlights or full pukes instead of holding soloq lobbies hostage for 40s before the team is willing to touch ANYTHING.
Lobby Shopping - Maybe we should make the game better and prevent lobby shopping, because it is a detriment to the game. This doesn't FORCE people to lobby shop, it reveals people with low/poor/selfish morals who will lobby shop for any advantage.
No item should be a direct counter to a power - I think you posted this before I added the clarifying edit. It shouldn't hard shut down powers, just provide something to counteract. I'm not saying a Flashlights should count as extra Vaccines against Nemmy/Wesker, I'm saying they should slow/pause infection. I'm not saying a Flashlights should serve as an EMP replacement, but as a soft 12-15s stun on a biopod compared to the EMP 45s (and not work against Slipstreams). I'm not saying Flashlights should delete Hatchets from Huntress' inventory, but maybe disable a locker reload on that specific locker for 15s. I'm not saying Flashlights should unload Slingers gun, but maybe increase the decay rate by 20% while lit up. The basekit counter should exist, then flashlights should offer a slightly better (non Killer unique item) version of that.
Why play against this - Because we already are. If someone dodges the Killer's attack, they countered them. If someone wipes the Hag trap, they countered them. If someone mindgames someone, they got countered. If someone gets a pallet/flashlight/flashbang save, they countered them. If someone pumps a gen before the Killer gets to land PGTW on it, they countered them. If someone cleansed at a Fountain (at the right time to prevent a snowball), they countered Plague. In any exchange between 2 people, the winner countered the loser. That is every VS multiplayer game.
Find/perk better items - And they can find/perk kit out a juicier Medkit or Toolbox. All items should be on equal footing (at the same rarity tiers), so a Purple Flashlight shouldn't be garbage or god tier compared to the Purple Medkit or Purple Toolbox or Purple Key. Keys are currently arguably more useless than Maps, and Flashlights are more or less power crept by Flashbangs. Also the current potential for 4 Medkits/Toolboxes is already a far greater doom, especially if you see 4 event Toolboxes (so you know its the juicy 32 charge box). Basically Flashlights only work with Killer interaction, but Medkits and Toolboxes are strongest without Killer interaction. With a Killer interaction tool, I know I can just outskill the Survivor, but I can't bother/bully the other 2-3 at the same time, so Medkits and Toolboxes will always be a greater threat (at least to me/my playstyle).
Those are basekit things, that's something you can easily balance, because it's in every game.
You can't really balance the killer properly when there is such a big variable as flashlight counter, which is not going to be in every game.
Imagine if EMP wasn't a thing and you would need a flashlight to counter Singularity. That would be terrible to play against. That's why you have this as killer specific items, which you can then easily balance, because it is in every game.
Most killers simply doesn't need an item counter. They are nowhere near strong to warrant this change.
I really don't consider flashlights and flashbang to be a weak items. Issue is you usually need at least some cooperation with your teammates, which soloQ doesn't have.
Why exactly chaseface needs to be nerfed tho? You think it is stronger than standard ghostface gameplay? I would say it's already weaker, so what is logic behind nerfing it?
P1- Hag traps used to be ranged cleanseable by flashlight, and that was the only quiet counter to them. I think they could figure something out along the lines of that for Killers. Nemesis still has his power countered by Flashlights (blinding zombies), so we didn't even fully remove Lightburn mechanics. We could make Zombies immune to clickies, and only be killable with pallets, but I think it adds more fun/variety/depth to keep Zombie blinds in.
P2- I don't consider Flashbangs weak, but I do consider Flashlights near useless (both as Killer and Survivor). Flashbangs/Firecrackers can get past the 'look at the wall' counter inherent in Flashlight saves, so they actually can be useful imo.
P3- I think it is good to discourage chaseface, because it is a noob trap that causes people to underrate Ghosty, and underperform. If it is so bad, maybe people will finally start to use their brain and use Ghostface instead. As long as it remains 'good enough', people will continuously play him wrong.