New killer power suggestion: fire
It doesn't matter much if it's from a flamethrower, pyrokinesis (although this is the best one), or an oily metal bat and a matchstick, but we need a killer whose power is to burn things.
What do I mean by "things"? Well:
- All vegetation (including corn, hay bales, those short bushes on Haddonfield, and so on, but not trees or walls made of vegetation). This means the vegetation stops existing, period.
- Pallets (resulting in delayed pallet breaks with some debuff to survivors if they vault a burning pallet).
- Breakable walls (see above).
Furthermore, the killer should be able to set windows on fire, to apply the same debuff as when a survivor vaults a burning pallet.
The debuff should be something simple, but threatening (it is, after all, fire). I'm thinking something like:
- Survivors are slowed while affected by the flames. Alternatively, they move left/right by some amount at random intervals (because of the pain).
- There's a gauge that fills up over time.
- The more they run, the faster the gauge fills.
- To get rid of the flames, survivors have to perform an interaction similar to healing, but they're putting out their burning clothes. In other words, they have to stop, crouch down, and then try to put out their clothes. The interaction lowers the gauge over time, as opposed to having a set time. In other words, unless it's completely finished, they will stay on fire. This is to incentivize dealing with the power early and completely, as well as punishing them for staying on fire for prolonged periods of time.
- If the gauge fills all the way, survivors become Broken and everything they touch catches fire (similarly to the Plague's infection). The Broken status lasts for some time after they've put out the flames.
- At this point, a second gauge starts. If the survivor does not put out the flames by the time it fills up, they are put into the dying state and the flames are immediately put out. The Broken status is also immediately removed.
Now, to prevent something like Legion from happening (a killer whose power is essentially to make survivors hold M1 for a long time), I propose that every time the gauge fills up completely, the next time that survivor catches fire (so the second gauge after the survivor is Broken is not affected by this), the gauge is slowed by some percentage (which stacks).
This means that they will have to hold M1 for shorter and shorter periods of time the more they are burned (you could say it's because the wounds are cauterized or something), while this killer is incentivized to "spread the damage", since it can result in pallets breaking on their own.
Special ability could be like the Doctor's, but with fire and depending on line of sight. This means that any survivor that hides behind an object that completely covers them (this will probably need some leeway and tweaking due to the unreliable LoS we've seen with Ghostface) is safe. Everything and everyone that has LoS on the killer and is within a certain radius, however, is set on fire. That means vegetation and so on.
Alternatively, the killer's special ability could be to light their melee weapon on fire, so anything they strike or touch (so if they vault a window, for instance, it catches fire; same thing if a survivor touches the killer's hitbox or if they stun the killer with a pallet*) is immediately set on fire, while any vegetation they walk through burns up. I think this one would be best.
*The pallet would catch fire immediately, which would then make the survivor catch fire.
Let me know what you think!
Comments
I tried to make a Killer concept based on fire some time ago as well which pretty much resulted in a Plague like killer: https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/134769/killer-concept-the-firebreather
I think some ideas are similar here, like applying the Broken status effect and having an animation to put out the flames.
I like your idea of having random forced movement while on flames, I tried to simulate this panic in giving the survs a forced haste effect, maybe I will incorporate your idea on top of that if I ever redo my concept ;)
with the ability to burn down vegetation I am not sure if this won’t get too powerful against stealth play and even mind gaming if it was completely without restriction? This would definitely need testing and refinement on what exactly would get burned and what not.
Just worried that a survivor who's on fire would be put on boring timer because they can't put out the fire while being chased. Meaning whatever time they have for both the first and second meter will be their maximum chase time regardless of how skilled they are. Add-ons that shorten the meters will make this worse.
I'll let you decide on how to fix this or clarify if I misunderstood / missed something. Other than that, great idea and would be nice to have an elemental killer to the game.
The Mori haha
I like your idea of having random forced movement while on flames, I tried to simulate this panic in giving the survs a forced haste effect, maybe I will incorporate your idea on top of that if I ever redo my concept ;)
I was actually thinking of dropping that. The rest of the effect feels powerful enough on its own.
with the ability to burn down vegetation I am not sure if this won’t get too powerful against stealth play and even mind gaming if it was completely without restriction? This would definitely need testing and refinement on what exactly would get burned and what not.
As someone who exclusively plays stealthily, I can assure you that this wouldn't be too powerful. Walls are far more important than shrubs.
Well, for starters, I didn't mention any add-ons. I was actually thinking of add-ons that decreased the "re-burning" penalty, add-ons to increase range, increase the time it takes to put out burning clothes, and so on. However, first, I'd have to know if the killer is pyrokinetic or wielding a flamethrower.
The idea was to make a killer who was rewarded for spreading the damage, but not like Plague, whose sickness is barely noticeable and she really just tries to get Corrupt Purge, nor Legion, whose power is basically "make survivors hold M1 longer than usual".
While this killer can just keep chasing a single survivor until that survivor goes down by themselves, it's far better for them to let that survivor go after a while (if the killer can't catch the survivor), because the survivors take longer to put themselves out than it takes to reach that stage (at least until they've been burned a few times).