Balance solution: Make Jason's grabs do damage?

[ZooMalfunction 921]

It's widely recognised that Jason's biggest weakness is getting mobbed by counselors, and since the removal of friendly fire, one of his biggest defences to this (using counselors as human shields so they at least take attrition damage when being rescued) has gone.

I propose that Jason does damage to counselors when he grabs them to rectify this. If you have a pocket knife, you take no damage, but otherwise you take a percentage of damage whether you power out or get rescued.

It makes thematic sense. Getting choked out by a 7ft tall monster would hurt. As would getting the back end of a baseball bat to free you. It replicates the one element of friendly fire that had gameplay purposes, without giving capacity to troll, and rightfully punishes people who feel safe to be infinitely grabbed by Jason.

You could make it so grabs can't damage people past a certain level, or even have a grab be an auto-kill on critically wounded counselors (throat crush/rip?). It could even make less regarded skills and perks more useful. High composure or strength could lessen the damage, and grip strength could increase or decrease it, though these are not necessary to the core proposal.

I honestly think this would not only improve the balance of the game, but make it more thematic too at little cost to balance elsewhere. If he grabs you on your own and kills you - no difference. Same with pocket knives. This only balances against mobs who abuse the grab system for free hits and chain stuns (incidentally as also do drivers with armed passengers).

If such a system doesn't get put in, when Jason's hitbox gets fixed so you can finally hit him in the back, he'll become a total joke. Just two armed counselors running together will be able make a mockery of him.

Killing him should be a monumental task, but mobs are starting to make it simple. This proposal would balance out their main advantage - zero cost/risk rescues - while still making the a valid tactic (as a hurt counselor is still preferable to a dead one, especially seeing as virtually everyone is running with 2x health spray perks).

 

[mojitodominic 91]

I think is balance is fine, of course It could be tweaked a bit but I don't think is game breaking right now, they just need to fix the windows system and bring it back Pre Patch. I know it's annoying getting stunned time after time but know the counselors and go after the most dangerous ones first. Usually if I see a group I would go after Chad first or after the counselor with the bat since it's 100% stun chance. Also have a quick grab kill like the choke set up so you can Grab Kill them quickly and worst case scenario pick Part 3 Jason and start swinging that Axe and they will drop like flies...

Two Things I would go perhaps to give more "Balance" all across all Jasons would be that All Jasons should have 5 traps and I would take the destruction Stat as a strength or Weakness and make all Jason break doors at 4 hits. Part 8 3 hit door breaking is a bit OP but Part 2 and Part 6 have to hit that door like 10 times. By the time the break it the counselor is half away across the map.

strength 

 

[malloymk 674]

Great idea. Love it.

[tyrant666 1,005]

I also believe this could work for a future update.

He has the counselor in his grasp, off the ground nearly 2 feet. That would do some damage to the throat area at the very least.

 

[Trident77 353]

My two cents to add is the composure stat could help reduce the amount of damage you take from Jason if it's normally static, but I'm not sure about strength. When you're escpaing a throat grab, not panicking is the first thing you do when trying to escape, and normally you don't have to be very strong to break out of a throat grab, you just need to loosen the grab by using your thumbs to make a gap between your neck and the assailants hands (kinda hard to explain with just words, you guys can google this). It would be an overall buff to the composure stat as well as a meaningful weakness for counselors with low composure (aka Jenny buff as well as Chad nerf).

Also, if the counselor has reached maxed levels of fear with the screen graying out, they will take damage from the grab regardless of using a pocket knife, and you take full damage from the grab regardless of your composure level.

[Trollskau 14]

Jason can grab counselors from 1 kilometer of distance and now you want it to cause damage? wtf this is not balance

[Trident77 353]

3 minutes ago, Trollskau said:

Jason can grab counselors from 1 kilometer of distance and now you want it to cause damage? wtf this is not balance

As the OP stated, eventually Jason's grab reach will get patched since it's clearly a bug. And when that happens, it will make Jason much weaker.

When you consider the fact that mobbing Jason is very effective, and the fact he has pretty much no way to counter this currently, it could be a very effective buff he might very well need in the future.

Jason needs buffs. He needs to be scary, intimidating, and not someone who can be easily corraled by simply ganging up on him. The OP's suggestion is a good start.

[Trollskau 14]

4 minutes ago, Trident77 said:

As the OP stated, eventually Jason's grab reach will get patched since it's clearly a bug. And when that happens, it will make Jason much weaker.

When you consider the fact that mobbing Jason is very effective, and the fact he has pretty much no way to counter this currently, it could be a very effective buff he might very well need in the future.

Jason needs buffs. He needs to be scary, intimidating, and not someone who can be easily corraled by simply ganging up on him. The OP's suggestion is a good start.

when jason grabs you and you dont have a pocket knife it is an insta kill, that is not enough? grab = kill he only needs to press one botton and it doesnt matter how fast the counselor press E for free himself, its impossible even if you are tommy jarvis

[PrestonDelRey 154]

Totally agree.

[Trident77 353]

1 minute ago, Trollskau said:

when jason grabs you and you dont have a pocket knife it is an insta kill, that is not enough? grab = kill he only needs to press one botton and it doesnt matter how fast the counselor press E for free himself, its impossible even if you are tommy jarvis

Not all Jasons use the Choke as well as the Head Punch executions. And when Jason is mobbed, it's very easy for a nearby counselor to smack him when they know his stun invincibility frame rates are down (or in other words he can start moving while carrying his victim). So if someone is nearby carrying a baseball bat, they can just knock their friend free, henceforth why mobs are popular as well as effective.

When you consider the fact a perk exists that guarentees a counselor will start off with a baseball bat, it simply reinforces the strength of this mob tactic.

[mojitodominic 91]

Implement Perks for Jason!

[Trident77 353]

5 minutes ago, mojitodominic said:

Implement Perks for Jason!

He already has them. They're called "strengths," and each Jason has different versions of them. Likewise, just like how counselor perks have negative side effects, Jason has "weaknesses" that give counselors some forms of counterplay.

Furthermore, if you're using this as a way to counter the OP's argument for Jason's grabs doing damage, it's not very effective. In fact, if you're talking about a system where Jason has selectable perks on top of his strengths/weaknesses, then Jason's grabs doing damage would be a good perk to implement in order to combat mobs more effectively.

[TiffanyCakes 52]

10 hours ago, Trident77 said:

As the OP stated, eventually Jason's grab reach will get patched since it's clearly a bug. And when that happens, it will make Jason much weaker.

When you consider the fact that mobbing Jason is very effective, and the fact he has pretty much no way to counter this currently, it could be a very effective buff he might very well need in the future.

Jason needs buffs. He needs to be scary, intimidating, and not someone who can be easily corraled by simply ganging up on him. The OP's suggestion is a good start.

This is already fixed.It is said in pre patch notes that Jason will be able to damage multiple ppl with his swings .No more Jason rape .

[Trident77 353]

29 minutes ago, TiffanyCakes said:

This is already fixed.It is said in pre patch notes that Jason will be able to damage multiple ppl with his swings .No more Jason rape .

I'm aware of this upcoming change, but there some things that need to be pointed out as well. First, we don't exactly know how this mechanic will work. Will all his regular swings do this, meaning it's just a free buff? Or perhaps it's a heavy attack, kinda like what counselors can do, but it has some sort of drawbacks like slower attack speed? We don't have the full details on this yet, so I'd reserve judgment until then.

Furthermore, this would only really help if you're dealing with a mob that is merely trying to stun Jason rather than kill him. Let's say Jason does in fact get multi-hit on all his regular swings (which are much faster than counselor attacks). The thing is, in a normal kill Jason mob, not everyone is striking Jason: it's only the strength counselors who are doing this using preferrably axes or machetes. If everyone was attacking Jason all at once, that could mean Jenny frantically swinging away with her baseball bat which stuns Jason, therefore making it so no one can damage him under normal circumstances until he's out of the stun (which also means he'll continue to drench everyone else in the room with fear since they're standing right next to him, and being under full fear means crappier stamina regeneration).

We could say theoretically that the multi-hit bonus would beneficial if the mob is merely trying to stun Jason to get away, which would be overall a buff for Jason since now he can smack multiple people ganging up on him, and since most uncoordinated groups are just people frantically pressing the attack button while their counselors stares at Jason, he could easily make strong usage of the buff. But if it's a Kill Jason comp, it might mean Brandon is the only one in Jason's face, whereas Tiffany as well as Chad are standing a safe distance away, armed with baseball bats to stun Jason the moment he decides to just execute Brandon with a grab. In this case, the multi-hit buff is negated under these circumstances.

It's a tricky balance situation; nobody wants to see God Mode Jason where you're guarenteed to lose, but at the same time he's far too weak against mobs. The multi-hit is certainly a welcome addition to Jason's arsenal, but as explained earlier there are way to get around this easily. I would see this easily being a strong buff in public matches where counselors are uncoordinated most of the time even when they group up, but it's a very ignorable buff if you have a coordinated group who knows what they're doing (and it's this particular grouping of people who have turned the game into a "beat up Jason" simulator).

Edited September 21, 2017 by Trident77
Messed up one of the sentences on the second paragraph. Fixed now.

[VoorheesAJollyGoodFellow 2,030]

I think the damage should be at most equal to that of broken window cuts.

[ZooMalfunction 921]

5 hours ago, TiffanyCakes said:

This is already fixed.It is said in pre patch notes that Jason will be able to damage multiple ppl with his swings .No more Jason rape .

The multi-damage swings will do very little. As mentioned, if mobbed, people attack from all angles, and a slashing Jason is an easily hit from behind Jason.

My proposal would replace this, as I feel it achieves the same objective, but better.