Reworking Vents

[placid coral]

The Rework: Here's a rework for the vents. Vents, instead of being some lame "trap door", it will be an actual vent system that has a tunnel. Upon entering a vent, Explorers will be forced to crawl through it. Crawling quickly through the vents creates a lot of noise, but allows the player to get through faster. Crawling slowly creates little noise, but can still be heard if a player is listening closely. Vents will traverse the player to another spot in the house the is relatively close to entrance of the vent, but it's main purpose to act like saving grace where an Explorer can quickly hop inside of the vent and escape from the Neighbor.

Downsides:
-Explorers who enter a vent too late when being chased by the Neighbor can be dragged out of the vent, allowing the Neighbor to capture them. The time window for this to occur is relatively small, only being about a 2-second window, but it can be fatal. The Butcher's hook can also grab players out of the vents, regardless of the time window if the hook is thrown close enough to them.
-The Vent systems can break if there are too many Explorers in it at once. Up to 2 Explorers are allowed to be in a vent before it breaks.
-When a Vent system breaks, it becomes useless and is not interactable.
-Explorers who stay in a Vent too long will forced out, in which case the currently area of the Vent they are moving on/standing on
will suddenly break and drop them.

Upsides:
-Once a Explorer is inside a Vent, they are completely safe until they exit it or are kicked out.
-Using a vent is much faster than traverse around a certain area of the map, as the systems have a more straightforward path.
-Vents can allow Explorers to recollect themselves before venturing out again, use this carefully plan your next move.
-Vents can be fixed with hammers.

What do yall think? This just a fun idea I had, it's a bit scuffed, but I wanted to rework the vents in someway since they seem sorta lackluster.
All feedback is welcome!

[mortal trench]

I like the idea a lot

I just am thinking how this will work with the maps' layouts

[topaz fulcrum]

hope the map reworks will make stuff like this possible

and have more gates

[mortal trench]

Without the vents crossing places that would allow kids to skip keycard doors etc

Oh I have an idea

Some vents can cross keycard door areas, but can't be accessed until those key card doors are actually opened

[atomic sinew]

there needs to be something preventing them from just simply going back in and out over and over, i know the hook can grab them but still

[mortal trench]

Because if they do it will break

Unless I read the post wrong

[topaz fulcrum]

imagine if the map reworks will have more issues than the old ones

like a worse map 5

[atomic sinew]

It seems like if you stay in the vent for too long it will break, but players will probably try to go in and go out repeatedly to effectively stay in there longer.

[topaz fulcrum]

maybe there would some kind of meter that fills every time 2 explorers are in a vent at the same time?

if its full the vent breaks

[atomic sinew]

But then there's another variable to add to the equasion, them being fixed by hammer. Cause the kid could just carry a hammer and that's it, they just fix it easily when it's broken and keep doing it.

Once again, i like the idea but i'm trying to think of it from a gameplay standard knowing QG players

[topaz fulcrum]

i doubt its gonna be like how hammers fix pots

not instantly

it takes time

until then the neighbor has a chance to kill the player

another thing that could be added is that some vents much like crowbars, needed to be unscrewed using a wrench

[atomic sinew]

True. That way Neighbor could possibly relock up the vents if the person keeps going back in and out.

[mortal trench]

I think a better way is just to have the vents have a cooldown

When they break

And after the cooldown is over you can fix them

So it isn't instant

[placid coral]

I wrote a bit more, but due to the word limit, I couldn't get all of my ideas out. Entering and exiting the vent takes time, and there is a cooldown for entering and exiting the Vents. If an Explorer is interrupted when entering or exiting, such as being stunned or damaged, they must redo the interaction, and the interaction takes about 3 seconds to fully complete. Hammers can fix the vents from being broken and allows them to be interactable again, but it takes time, around 10 seconds to fully repair it. I was also thinking of making it so that every time it breaks, the time is increased by 2 or 3 more seconds, but I'm not completely sure if this could work in gameplay. The goal of this vent rework is to make as sort of a last ditch effort for escaping the Neighbor, but if used incorrectly, it can be punishing.

Sidenote: thanks for all the feedback everyone, sorta surprised people actually liked this since I thought it was a little odd.

[normal cobalt]

I like the idea, but I don't think the vents should serve as shortcuts between areas that you have to go to in a certain way. only shortcuts between rooms that have the same level so that no rooms locked with a higher number can be skipped. Anyway, your idea makes sense with the vents, I don't see why the neighbor wouldn't be able to catch the child who is crouched under the trapdoor, but in the shaft, that's seriously different.

[vivid frost]

I love it, but maybe to avoid players from staying inside the vents, it would be cool if there was some kind of oxygen bar which forces the explorers to exit them. Or maybe make the Neighbor able to damage the vents and people inside somehow

[scarlet zephyr]

I made a suggestion about vent rework like this a while ago :
However i do like yours aswell. Wish my old suggestion wasnt deleted