OK I'll say it. The Flashlight nerf was way too harsh.

[Satsui]

So yeah, I know everyone thinking about it, but most people are afraid to say this because of the backlash they will get from some players.

But I fear not! And I will say it!

Let me say this first. I am not a survivor main. Most of my 1350 hours were played as a killer, but I am also playing a lot survivor. I consider myself Killer main simply due to the fact I have played about 80% of my games as a killer. I certainly know the pain of being instaflashlighted continuously and how annoying it could be.

However, the way BHVR dealt with the nerf to flashlight - i.e., completely removing the ability to make blinding shorter - was an overkill of a nerf.

Why is that?

Let me start by saying I do think that Flashlights needed an adjustment. The Purple Fleshlight + Odd bulb + Helogen / Purple Lense were just too much combined.
Also it's important to note that ideally the base blind time is 1.5 seconds without any addons (yellow flashlight).

With addons (Odd Bulb + Helogen) and purple flashlight, it could get as low as about ~0.6-0.7 secs to blind a killer (or something close to that). That's too fast and too annoying. It does not mean you need to MURDER flashlights.

Now, I would be fine if they lowered the time to blind by about 0.2-0.3 seconds to compensate for the fact that they completely remove the ability to lower the time it takes to blind a killer. (or just make the quicker to blind addons not stack and only account for the highest)

Also, this wouldn't be THAT much of an issue, if in practice, it twouldn't have taken a lot more than 1.5 seconds to blind a killer. 1.5 seconds is an ideal time. It usually takes around 2-3 seconds to actually blind a killer, even with some good practice.

OK then. So they entirely removed a feature to hasten the time it takes to blind a killer. No biggie, right?

Wrong.

This change was clearly rushed and did not deal with the consequences of that. What do I mean? Simple.

Previously, Being able to blind faster practically also allowed you to blind the killer more times per entire usage. For instance, with Utility + Odd + Lens/Helogen you could get like what, around 10 attempts before it ran out?

Right now, the consumption taken for a single blind is about 150-200% more. That's a lot. That means that you're not going to be able to try to blind the killer for more than 3-4 times, even with Utility. This is especially true due to the fact it's a lot easier to dodge a long blinding time.
This is even much worse with yellow / green flashlights which are easily drained and have little to no impact without addons (yeah thanks a lot for that 1.5 seconds-long blind, surely going to help alot after I wasted 2 seconds trying to blind the killer).

It has become very high risk low reward feature.

There are ways to deal with flashlights, like facing a wall while picking up, looking up while being flashlighted, Lightborn (which is now a completely useless perk), Franklin's Demise.

Right now, flashlights are a complete joke. You took something from OP to a very small niche which offers little reward for very high risk. It's not balanced.


Anyway. Feels like the nerf to flashlights was unthoughtful, rushed and unprofessional.

It feels they were nerfed this hard only to pamper the ego of that developers who got rekt and humiliated by those Koreans and didn't know how to properly deal with that.

TL;DR -


The Flashlight nerf was an overkill.

The nerf not only removed the ability to blind faster (which is kinda OK on it's own, although it could have been tweaked much better - i.e. addons to faster blind don't stack - only takes the highest), but the nerf also made flashlights with addons have considerably less active time.

There were already ways to deal with flashlights, and coupled with reasonable nerfs it would have been ok, but the overkill nerfs were just uncalled for.

There are ways to deal with flashlight, which would have made reasonable nerfs that didn't make the item niche and very high risk - low reward - totally manageable and playable.

Just my 2 cents.

Edit: Fixed embarrassing typo. (thanks Gay Myers!)

[Ein Nineteenth]

So.. Why not just aim the flashlight and use Streetwise? Being able to blind a killer who's barely looking in your direction was too much.

I rarely use flashlights and end up giving my items to other players but when I do use it, I make sure that the timing is right.

[Satsui]

It's like no one reads my post... I did write I agree that they needed badly to be adjusted / nerfed, the point is that they were nerfed too many in too many aspects. Sigh... oh well.

[Darkheart]

survivors welcome to what killers have been dealing with since release. its not fun is it

[Versusia]

I do not think it was overkill.

Grasp rescues now rely on proper timing and skill, not "Wait 4 seconds and charge your lightsaber"

And instead of being instablinds, you can now actually use the time Killer is blinded for to juke and hide, which I think was the original purpose of flashlights.

[Henro]

They are taking away everything that made the game fun, I'm talking about the old 360s, sabo jukes and insta chain blinds. It seems killers don'r even have a mouse to turn around on a flashlight blind attempt monkaS

[Undying Zombie]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Toriel:

I do not think it was overkill.

Grasp rescues now rely on proper timing and skill, not "Wait 4 seconds and charge your lightsaber"

And instead of being instablinds, you can now actually use the time Killer is blinded for to juke and hide, which I think was the original purpose of flashlights.

This 100%. I would say survivors finally getting a taste of their own medicine but that would be more like them nerfing SC to where they can only use it once per game and it is 80% slower instead of its current speed... and DS becoming a totem like perk that killer can remove ( same with BT ) Things that will never happen of course but I am giving examples of the difference in levels nerf wise.

[SamEstine]

Oh. God forbid the survivor stands an extra second to make the least amount of effort in blinding the killer.

[Versusia]

I for one think this is the first step in the direction that will make the game less toxic, the step in the direction of actually fixing this game.

I am glad devs did eliminate instalights.

Now handle the rest of the cheesy strategies and suddenly the game is a whole lot more enjoyable experience for both sides.

[Lemming]

I wouldn't mind an instant blind addon for the flashlight, that worked like a styptic agent. The ability to quickly and reliable save someone shouldn't be something you can use 10+ in a match.

[Zombine]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Toriel:

I for one think this is the first step in the direction that will make the game less toxic, the step in the direction of actually fixing this game.

I am glad devs did eliminate instalights.

Now handle the rest of the cheesy strategies and suddenly the game is a whole lot more enjoyable experience for both sides.

Thing is, the flashlights were aren't broken themselves but these addons were.
Just like the instadown hatchets they were ridiculously strong when combined together, but hatchets on their own are balanced.

In no world clicking M2 to blind a killer for 7 seconds was okay.

[Versusia]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Zombine:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Toriel:

I for one think this is the first step in the direction that will make the game less toxic, the step in the direction of actually fixing this game.

I am glad devs did eliminate instalights.

Now handle the rest of the cheesy strategies and suddenly the game is a whole lot more enjoyable experience for both sides.

Thing is, the flashlights were aren't broken themselves but these addons were.
Just like the instadown hatchets they were ridiculously strong when combined together, but hatchets on their own are balanced.

In no world clicking M2 to blind a killer for 7 seconds was okay.

Well, I sort of think that Irridiscent Head nerf was... odd

They gave it Machine Gun treatment instead of just trumping the +1/+2 hatchets addons in order for them not to work with Irridiscent Heads

[Zombine]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Toriel:

Well, I sort of think that Irridiscent Head nerf was... odd

They gave it Machine Gun treatment instead of just trumping the +1/+2 hatchets addons in order for them not to work with Irridiscent Heads

Lets be real, it got nerfed because survivors cried non stop about it and how unfun it was when it comes to losing.
Same with machinegun, all they had to do like you mentioned is to make them unstackable instead of gutting both perks into unusable state. BHVR had dealt with machinegun when they nerfed unrelenting but they just wanted to get rid of the other good perk that was STBFL. I'll never forget this.

But when killers face unfun things such as BNPs/instaflashlights/DS BT they dont get touched at all or barely nerfed.

This patch they actually made an actual nerf not to the survivors themselves but these addons which were pure cancer to play against.

[Versusia]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Zombine:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Toriel:

Well, I sort of think that Irridiscent Head nerf was... odd

They gave it Machine Gun treatment instead of just trumping the +1/+2 hatchets addons in order for them not to work with Irridiscent Heads

Lets be real, it got nerfed because survivors cried non stop about it and how unfun it was when it comes to losing.
Same with machinegun, all they had to do like you mentioned is to make them unstackable instead of gutting both perks into unusable state. BHVR had dealt with machinegun when they nerfed unrelenting but they just wanted to get rid of the other good perk that was STBFL. I'll never forget this.

But when killers face unfun things such as BNPs/instaflashlights/DS BT they dont get touched at all or barely nerfed.

This patch they actually made an actual nerf not to the survivors themselves but these addons which were pure cancer to play against.

In short, those addons had to go. At least, I believe so.

[Burger]

flashlights are perfect now

[Eviction Notice]

I call this an early christmas present.