The Thing
This may have been brought up before, but has anyone considered John Carpenter’s “The Thing” (1982) as a potential killer? It could work in two forms, with a monstrous form and a human form, possibly shaking up the gameplay a little.
As an example, the monstrous form would move at the 4.6 movement speed, and be classified as tall. The human form could either be randomized from survivor skins used by the players, or selected at random from the pool of survivors.
The human form would not be able to m1 attack, but would be able to “work” on generators like a survivor would be able to with a slight regression to progress while doing so, or simply going through the motions as an attempt to sell the facade. Flashlights could be a counter to this, as they’d still blind The Thing(in the film the characters used fire to expose the doppelgängers), so players would have some semblance of defense.
A build-up bar, similar to stalking for Ghost Face or Myers, would allow The Thing to inflict the exposed status on a single survivor and burst into its monstrous form with a 3-5 second delay as it shifts form. Close proximity (within 5 m) would be the trigger for this, not line-of-sight. the length of time for build-up/transformation could be affected by creature specific perks or add-ons.
In order to make this more balanced, and still interesting, The Thing would have an abnormally large terror radius (38-44 meters) in its monstrous form, while the human skin would have a 5-10 meter radius with the same audio cue that occurs with being further away from the killers. This would play with paranoia for the survivors, as they’d be less agreeable to cooperative actions if they thought their friend could potentially be The Thing. It would also keep them from being unfairly bushwhacked, and instantly downed as long as they’re mindful of their allies.
What do you all think? Could this be implemented without being overly frustrating to survivors, and not useless to killers?
Comments
The community has wanted a shapeshifter for a while, but I believe that the devs have indeed put a blanket "No" on the matter.
As for the rest of the kit, you could easily get by on the shape-shifting factor alone. No need for Exposed. Make them turn into a random survivor would actually be massive, but there are a couple of issues that go along with the "Survivor Form", such as the Red Stain, being on the same generator as a survivor to sell the illusion, the perk Bond being a thing or even seeing if people are injured or not and having SWF constantly communicating relaying positions. Not all SWF are hit-squads, giving constant tactical call-outs like a SWAT team, but they do talk enough.
More custom TR values would be nice, as Pig used to have a 28m TR, rather than the usual 32/24, but I doubt that they'll ever go back to that sort of thing. That and having M&A on this killer would be either essential or almost busted, similar to Tier-II Myers.
Ah I see, that’s a shame.
They wouldn’t necessarily have to be on a gen, but it would look odd if someone just casually walked up and just stared, ya know? Gen work in survival form could slightly hamper overall repair speed, instead of regress. Ideally the survivor would be scanning for The Thing, as opposed to staring at the progress bar constantly. I’d assume the red stain could be toggled off when in the survivor form, but I’m not sure how that actually works, I’m relatively new to the game.
The survivor perks and injuries themselves would work as an eventual hard-counter to the shifter, as eventually The Thing would no longer need to shift such as in the movie, where it only did so when it had the advantage or was forced to. After all, when everyone is battered and bruised, it’d be odd if a random Meg or Dwight waddled up uninjured. And good communication would be a hard-counter to its ability, as poor communication is what lead to the extreme paranoia in the film.
You’re right about exposed, it does seem sort of overkill given the other bonuses one would have. I do see your points though, as for how this would work in addition to perks and add-ons, I’m unsure if it would be possible to balance without neutering it.
Deceit could have the Thing, their gameplay is perfect for it. If DBd didnt have SWF, there could be a chance BHVR could do the film justice but I can't see it working in DBD as it is.