Regarding the upcoming Freddy Changes
As we all know, Freddy is on the list for changes, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask the devs if they could please let us play the pre-rework version again. He's the only killer who's recieved a change this big, he's practically an entirely different killer. It'd be like if the Doctor rework removed his Shock Therapy.
As far as I'm aware, the animations and particles used for Old Freddy are still in the game. The Pull in Dream animation was reused for Dream Projection, and the smoky effect that happened when you tried to hit an awake survivor still happens when you hit an awake survivor with the Endurance effect.
As for how you'd select the option to play Old Freddy, we already have addons that change his power, so why not make another one of those? The Kid's Drawing addon is currently just a straight up debuff to your power that practically nobody uses, so you could replace that.
A lot of us still want to play him, so it'd be great to have the option to do it.
Comments
I don't think the developers would want to just revert their fairly ambitious Freddy overhaul.
If something akin to Old Freddy was an UR addon, that would be okay. It'd also be great if some of his ideas were implemented into a new Killer, too. And, while I did not main Old Freddy, I did play him and I will say I am very sympathetic to the idea of revisiting the concept. An Killer who is fed more information about Survivor positioning than normal, but has a disadvantage in chases, is genuinely an awesome idea that I think a lot of Killers didn't give a fair chance, even if old freddy was underpowered.
However Old Freddy WAS frankly not healthy for the game IMHO. All that aura reading that was essentially for free IMO conflicts with too many mechanics and playstyles to be a good idea. One would have to think of a way to feed the Killer information about Survivors in a healthy way, without just saying "oh yeah if they're outside your TR and sleeping, you just see them. whazzat? you brought iron will, lithe, dance with me and quick & quiet? well, gg ez, your playstyle isn't allowed to exist in freddy's presence, see ya"
Yeah, I'm not asking for the devs to revert the rework, just to let us have the option to choose to play him.
As for the concern about the Aura Reading, it wasn't really for free, as the Freddy had to micromanage and keep everyone asleep to maintain it. Survivors could wake up to counter the Aura Reading quite easily, especially if they had Self Care or a medkit. I personally don't think he was unhealthy for the game.
If you revisit my scenario with a Survivor running a juking heavy build, and jukes Freddy to escape him- Which, frankly is a niche playstyle I want Survivors to try more... What do they do, exactly?
If they stay within Freddy's Terror Radius, Freddy can't see their aura, but they haven't exactly escaped Freddy and they're not gonna be able to get anything done. Might as well be on the hook at that point for all the good it's doing you.
If they leave Freddy's Terror Radius, Freddy sees them and can choose to begin chase immediately again. They've made distance, but instead of earning an escape, they have merely earned more distance than a regular exhaustion perk would've gotten them.
If they wake themselves up with a failed skillcheck (which already requires pretty specific circumstances. either being injured and carrying a medkit/Self Care, or being near a generator), Freddy can see the noise notification and will very, very easily be able get to your location and put you back to sleep immediately.
Essentially your only option to truly escape Freddy in this scenario is to use a Locker and HOPE he does not check it. And even then, you are once again at his mercy of potentially being spotted via aura the moment you leave, and if a Freddy really wanted to be as oppressive as possible they could run Iron Maiden to counter even this strategy. This is what I mean when I say old Freddy, despite having interesting ideas, was in execution not healthily designed, even if he were to be well-balanced.
The reality of the game is there's always going to be things that counter other things, regardless of what side you're on. The fact that a killer can counter a niche playstyle isn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.
That's completely true, but the issue with Old Freddy is that he was too oppressive towards these styles. Doctor counters stealth too, but he doesn't have the same problems. The same scenario vs Doctor bears serious risk for the survivor, like an illusory doctor revealing their rough location later, but it's not shut down in the same way.
I don't think this problem is impossible to solve without keeping many, many aspects of how Old Freddy plays, BTW. I'm just pointing out why Old Freddy needed some changes.
I guess it's more of a trade-off, Doctor has good tracking and a good chase ability, while Freddy had amazing tracking and no chase ability. I personally don't see his aura reading as that big of an issue, so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.