Yet another GF update idea.
Part 1: why i think the current stalking system sucks.
The purpose of this idea is to update stalking with GF. As it stands stalking with GF simply grants the exposed status effect for 45 seconds, meaning you can down a survivor with a single M1 attack.
THis isn't always possible to do, you won't always be able to stalk and expose and you won't always be able to hit them if you expose them. This happens for manny reasons, some of which are the wonky Reveal Mechanic and how Maps are designed to give Survivors multiple escape options which weakens the 1 single best path GF can take. 45 seconds is not alot in the vast majority of cases. Simply Shift W'ing you will waste most of this time and if there's any decent looping areas then GF can say goodbye to all the effort put into finding and stalking someone and engaging in a chase tha ends up in no gain and gigantic losses.
I know you'll all tell me "bruh just 99% your stalk" but the problem with that is, you're leaving someone partially stalked, you're wasting time that you invested in finding and stalking that guy just so you leave without bothering them 1 bit, it's just wasted time for the CHANCE, yes the CHANCE that you can get it later, it's not guaranteed you'll have the opportunity to go after them later, you might not have the opportunity to expose them later, will be too late when you can expose them? will you have your power ready when they are right there in front of you? Will you ignore hitting them if you can't expose them?
These are the scenarios that happen when you partially stalk someone, there's no guarantee that youll ever see them again, they can play super stealthy and get away with it cause Survivors do have better stealth, be able to stalk them when you see them again cause you might not have your power or proper cover to finish the stalk before getting exposed if they weren't properly 99% before, and you might not even be able to hit them now because of the area where you're playing at.
Point is stalking and 1 shotting isn't always achievable, even by partial stalking methods.
Comments
Part 2: My idea to change it.
Now that i've explained why i think this is a weak option for GF i will present my idea.
My suggestion is to make Stalking work based off of Tiers, just like Madness tiers for Doctor. The general idea is to have stalking be worth more than just exposed status effect on repeat and have the ability to stalk linked to wether or not you're in stealth. IT's for it to be an impactful tool throughout the entire match, so that stalking is always useful and not just a 1 shot mechanic. Different tiers can offer different effects wich then can culminate in the exposed status effect.
In terms of being able to Stalk, this is a permanent thing that GF can do whenever he wants, without needing the full protection of Nightshroud, effectively he would have Stalking as his main power and stealth as his secondary ability. This way you can keep working towards exposing people even when you're not being particularly stealthy and you can use stealth to prepare ambushes. The twist with stealth is that just because GF is using the stealth portion of his powers it doesn't mean there's someone in max tier of Stalking. This is what i just call spreading fear and paranoia, as it's very frequent in horror movies, people just become afraid and paranoid and make mistakes, that's the purpose of the tiers. Each tier activates a set of actions for survivors that are meant to increase their fear, stress and paranoia.
Imagine if in Tier 1 you start hearing breathing noises, footsteps, as if someone is close to you, possibly about to attack you. Imagine that by Tier 2 you start getting calls from GF asking you about scary movies, asking you about in game lore, things about Wraith, Artist, other survivors etc. Imagine how much fun BHVR can have recording voice lines for GF, they can make him say scary things, they can give GF an attitude, for example, why he is better than Freddy or Myers or things he likes about other killers, they can make references to Jason Voorhees, more Scream movie references, etc they can record so much and make GF such a scary but fun and rewarding killer to go against just for the authentic horror movie feel of hearing GF talking to you.
By tier 3 you can be finally exposed and have a brand new theme playing that would be very close to the real chase theme. Wether GF is or not chasing you...
Taking this 1 step further, whoever is the Obsession could have special effects added to all of this, maybe GF can see their aura.
Part 3: Gameplay impact.
Now that i've exposed (haha) my idea, let's discuss pratical gameplay for these changes.
Now because Stalking and Stealth are seperate you can choose wether or not to use stealth right at the start of a match. I still believe he should have a natural smaller TR (possibly having no TR at all could be an option) and the Reveal mechanic should be reworked aswell but i've presented suggestions for that in the past so i won't discuss them here again. Since stalking isn't such a short term thing for GF, you can use whatever moment for building stalk on survivors and increase their Paranoia tiers.
Meanwhile you are totally free to attack them whenever without losing progress on their stalk, stalk is now a bigger picture mechanic. So wether you want to present yourself and terrorise them or try stealth and ambushes it's up to you.
Because stalk and stealth are seperate things, the way stealth works will also be different. When you activate stealth you still lose TR and Red Stain but you also lose sound on footsteps and there's lower breathing, imagine if GF had his own unique Iron Will, a new change is you will always be crouching, crouch speed should not be slower than survivors but it shouldn't go beyond 110% either no matter what, you can use PWYF and/or add-ons for crouch speed to get to 110% but getting more stacks or changing add-on rarity won't change crouch speed beyond 110%, it's a hard cap.
It might sound like i'm limiting stealth and to a degree i am and that's because of the passive gains from Stalking, you won't need as much stealth but it still exists and because i don't want to have stealth be the only way GF can be dangerous. This way stealth is just another tool for GF to spread fear and be impredictable.
These changes to stealth should obviously be supported by changes to the reveal mechanic, to make the system more consistant and fairer for everyone.
The biggest weakness i can recognise is that' you're still just an M1 killer, but that's how i think the game should be, Balanced for M1 killers, wich is another topic i've covered in another post.
Part 4: Add-ons
-Add-ons would be redesigned, some would just have their values adjusted but my god does this killer need new add-ons. With Paranoia tiers you can stack status effects, so stacking status effects could be a build idea for GF.
-Slow passive stalking could be an add-on. This way you can focus on "combat" while passive stalking still exists but it will happen at a lower rate meaning making matches last as long as possible would be more benefitial, which in general is better for every killer, gives you more time and opportunity to play.
-Starting off with tier 1 Paranoia on every survivor can allow for high pressure matches. (Maybe a new ultra rare?)
-Rework the stalk distance and reveal distance add-ons, rework the exposed time and stalk rate add-ons into new stuff.
-Rework the Outdoor security cam so that whenever 1 survivor gets hit after being fully stalked everyone else jumps 1 tier in Paranoia. So let's say it's Tier 3, tier 1, tier 1 and tier 2. Hitting the the tier 3 person would bump everyone else 1 tier up and thus making it Tier 2, Tier 2 Tier3, meaning you can now go after the other Tier 3 person to bump the other 2 tier2 guys into tier 3 aswell, thus putting everyone into tier 3. Now if you pair this with the other possible ultra rare that starts with paranoia at tier 1 already then this could become extremely strong but isn't that the purpose of ultra rares?
-You can even combine starting at tier 1 with passive slow stalking aswell, letting you focus on chases with the safety net of if you can get them right now you can just try to make the match last as long as possible and reap rewards later.
well written post.
"The biggest weakness i can recognize is that' you're still just an M1 killer, but that's how i think the game should be, Balanced for M1 killers, wich is another topic i've covered in another post."
The premise of stalking and stealth is that the killer can entirely scapegoat looping if he could down the survivor before they get to a pallet/loop. This is why 99% stalk is powerful. It allows ghostface to instantly complete a stalk if he successfully can come close enough to the survivor without being noticed. The problem is that survivor can reveal ghostface faster than he can stalk when ghostface is out in the open. Stalking for ghostface its current iteration is too much of risk because how difficult it is to achieve.
The reason why Shift+W is strong against ghosface's stalking in term of outlasting his expose mark is because ghostface does not have gap-closing tool to capitalize on survivors that have been marked. Stalking takes too long and survivor get a huge head-start if they objectively ignore reveal mechanic in situations where ghostface is leaning in certain angles where it would not be possible to reveal him. The conjunction of safe pallets and a large head start makes it easy to outlast his mark.
I do not see how reworking ghostface mark towards doctor's madness helps address the above two weaknesses that you describe in your opening post. If anything this system that you are describing is closer to Michael Myer EV1-3 system in debuff form which survivors will become permanent exposed by the end of the match. it sounds counter-productive to your opening post as one of your main issues is the time efficiency of stalking. it just sounds to me that it would be more time-consuming than current system because of the extra tiers to get same reward(exposed).
I would give him following changes:
-Leaning stalk is reduced by 1 second(Base-kit Ghosface caught on tape)
-M1 attacks no longer reset the stalk meter to zero(This reduces punishment for failing a complete stalk and allow him to muti-task 99% stalks better)
An idea I had for ghostface was that if a survivor is stalked, Ghostface can perform a shadow dash that functionally similar to Nurse-blink. You need Crouch->Lean on an object and when you release m2 button, you would dash forward based off how long you crouch->leaned, Shadow dashing kicks Ghostface out of Nightshroud and you can m1 after dashing. This would give him a really strong gap-closing tool to capitalize off survivors that he has stalked. By default, ghostface's old cooldown was 30 seconds so I figured it would only be usable once per chase from 45 second expose window. Cooldown add-ons would allow him to use it twice per chase and there could be add-ons to improve the shadow dash such as faster travel time and shorter charge time. It might also make those duration-exposed add-on have greater purpose.
The iri add-on idea I had behind this was that if multiple survivors are exposed, He could chain shadow dashes if he successfully m1 a survivor(Reset cooldown if Ghostface m1 the survivor within 5 seconds) kinda like Genji in Overwatch.
The problem with GF's current stalking is that you have to do it multiple times to each person for the opportunity to 1 shot vs my suggestion which is a progressive system with progressive benefits, benefitting GF in multiple ways from multiple sources. This way no matter how little or how much you stalk someone you always get something from them and compliment that with something from someone else. You won't necessarily need to get high stalk tiers on a survivor if you feel comfortable outplaying them but the little initial stalk you may have done on them is still benefitial due to possible passive bonuses and higher stalk tiers make those bonuses better. Plus you can stalk without actually losing Nightshroud that is already a gigantic leap, you don't have to lose stealth to be able to stalk and shift+w doesn't have such an impact anymore, if they're max tiered then you'll always have your 1 shot, they can't just outrun you forever, their only option is to escape via hatch or to not be found at all which i can see is what most people would opt for, and if they're tier 1 or tier 2 then you're still getting bonuses.
Overall would it take more time to max tier stalk vs current stalk? Yes obviously it must take a little longer due to how strong the new effects can be. Imagine if you manage to max stalk someone really early, that survivor will get 1 shot everytime, it's perma NOED without move speed buff but you can use PWYF to get move speed, a random encounter with the Obsession will mean you can gain a stack and innitiate pursuit on the vulnerable target, that's the goal to have vulnerable targets and pick and choose your battles. You already are doing this but in a way that isn't very reliable or accessible.
IF anything at the very least the minimal thing GF should get is the seperation of stalking and stealth. Stalking without using Nightshroud's stealth should be a thing, it would make him better already.
The reason i want stalk tiers is because killers need a passive thing to help them in the 4v1 and that passive should be something the killers control not the survivors. Chain Hunts happens no matter what and it helps but the box exists and survivors can time when they interact with it to minimize affects, in turn that's why puzzle solving add-ons exist, it's why teleport exists, to keep the passive active for as long as possible.
That's what i want i intend for GF something that puts survivors at risk so that even while still being an M1 killer he can still get his chance.
Circle of healing isn't countering 1 shots, rescuing other survivors if you're max tier stalk is risky cause you're gonna get 1 shot if caught and then there's just a hook trade which ends up benefitting the killer role plus it could be the final hook so theres another risk involved, however survivors still have defense options, BT, DH, DS, Mettle of Man,etc, so you can avoid the first 1 shot attempt and you might even have a teammate who is not max tier stalked to come to help you and take a hit for you aswell. Again i know how strong endgame could look for GF but i'll say again i just want a functional killer i don't wanna nerf survivors whatsoever.
IF you could shadow dash then you'd be Blight but way worse cause your very limited in range and number of uses plus you'd be add-ing a third aspect to the killer, which would become harder to Balance due to being another aspect to balance. YOu'd need the survivors to be clustered up in order to make good use of shadow dash wich i don't see happening very often, they'd just spread out and make it useless, same as Feral Frenzy, you're giving them a reason to just shift +w as early as possible wich is what they do now when they know you're stalking them, they get distance to avoid the stalk and gain distance in case you stalked them already and they can reveal you wif you go after them.
Ghostface does not need smaller base TR. Undetectable status effect reduces it to 0. Paranoid tiers is like a tax to getting the reward you want which is instant down. Picture devour hope. Devour hope gives at 2 tokens give the ability for the killer to get 5% haste bonus after 10 seconds of hooking a survivor for 10 seconds. Nobody runs devour hope to get this 2 token effect. Killer run Devour hope to get the 3 token effect of permanent instant down and potentially mori at 5 tokens. Devour hope from 0-3 stacks might as well be blank perk slot. Its how your ghostface power would turn out to be. Here is an example.
Suppose that nightshroud is separate with undetactable with following paranoid tiers:
T1 Paranoid: Survivor footsteps are 50% louder as you say(Clumsy walking)
T2 Paranoid: Survivors become oblivious and their breathing sounds are 50% louder.(Fear, heavy breathing, stress)
T3 Paranoid exposed(Terrified)
Realize that the first two effects are not effects that particularly game-changing for killer. They would feel more like a tax to get to. At the same time, I do not think ghostface is exactly envisioned with this gameplay in mind. Doctor with madness is more envisioned with this type of fantasy. From balance stand-point, It does not look very appealing and from creative stand-point, it does not look appealing.
I also do not understand why he is forced to crouch with movement speed cap of 110% m/s which is objectively a nerf from his default 115% movement speed.
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I would say the larger issue behind ghostface is that he is suppose down people before the survivor gets to the loop without getting spotted but stalking takes time which enables him to get spotted easier. Its like stalking is reversed engineer to fail. That is why people figured out that its better to ignore stalking as a whole on ghostface because m1 someone is like getting 100% stalk instantly and the survivor has to heal where as stalking and getting no hit after marking is just a waste of time. He has no guaranteed that he gets anything for successfully marking a survivor.
The whole gameplay revolving marking & revealing just does not play very well. The survivor is just running behind objects so ghostface cannot stalk, but if ghostfaces moves away from his leaning position, than he is out in the open and the survivor's ability to reveal is quicker than his ability to complete stalk. Just a very silly peek a boo interaction. A major waste killer time. In the past, breaking out ghostface was 30 second cooldown, so failing a stalk ends up ghostface m1 because he did not want to wait 30 seconds to stalk again. If the survivor was close to being marked, you would have this awkward interaction where the ghostface cannot m1 the survivor because of his meter disappearing but his power was on cooldown. Now its 24 seconds and you might get this awkward interaction more often. This is why my changes reflex to improve this interaction in regards killer side. Ghostface exposing survivor is like full-time job right now. Getting exposed as survivor is not end of the world against an m1 killer. Loop well and the expose will wear off eventually.
I think his character is suppose to reflex upon classic cloak & dagger gameplay. He is suppose feel like he has a dagger and he is looking to backstab you like an assassin. Assassins in other games come out of the shadows and large theme behind them is speed. This is why I think a dash would be fitting for him because it would expand on his gameplay a little more and create a concise gameplay loop of enter nightshroud->stalk->acquire target->dash to go in for the kill.
I am just not sure how it would work in DBD precisely. A dash could be that you move very fast invisible for very short of period of time than reappear, Think of Moira's fade ability in overwatch. A dash could be that you instantly teleport to location, some video games do this where backstab is like instant TP. DBD tends to animate dashes like billy's sprint. I do not think it is necessary for his kit to be expanded but it would add another angle to his gameplay.
He would probably do fine with just 2 above changes, but he would be a bit plain with just marginally better base-kit.
Whatever GF changes they have coming up in the pipeline are most certainly long past its ideas phase, we just have to hope whatever they're doing is good.
The thing with the tiers is that they can choose whatever status effects or passives they give, they can even create add-ons to change those effects. The difference from Devour Hope is that it's a killer base kit not a perk that you can lose forever in 20 seconds so even if someone is only stalked for tier 1 there's still a permanent bonus that you get when interacting with them or not, it depends on what the bonus is. Also with tiers it has the added benefit of not needing to commit to fully stalking them, whatever bit of stalking you do is already helping you. You're simultaneously playing the moment to moment game and for the long game. I don't intend for stalk tiers to disapear or regress. the final stalk tier should a little longer sure because the benefit is 1 shot downs till the survivor is out of the match and that should take a while to get unless you get very lucky and manage to stalk someone to max tier in 1 go. Also GF should work with an Obsession.
I don't want GF to be a 1 shot Monster, that's why the 1 shot still only applies when fully stalked, i want to give GF something before he can 1 shot, cause all he has now is 2 M1's with alot of effort or a lucky 1 shot, i want to give him consistant progress. I want GF to be a better M1 killer, granted i know it won't fully work cause the game has never been M1 friendly, but this is a way to change GF to a truer stalker killer without giving some weird power that doesn't make much sense for a Normal Human Killer, how Wraith went from human to being able to turn invisible and using sound to do so is not something that will fit GF or Pig, hence why they're the most human like killer, alongside some others like Legion.
The reasons i think the stealth portion of Nighshroud should force him to crouch and not move any faster than 110% are that stalking someone should definetly give you better tracking, when you stalk someone you're supposed to know how they act right? So better tracking should definetly be a reward for stalking them, then the whole aspect of stealth is to be concealed, you won't look particularly stealthy if you are standing and walking normally. You're only ever using crouching to avoid detection because you are either trying to stalk or trying a mindgame. Since i propose both abilities are seperate you no longer need to use crouching to avoid detection and be able to keep stalking, thus you main use for crouching is to attack. Stealth and stalk tiers are also meant to work together, someone who is fully stalked might not even be aware of your TR as one of my suggestions was to have a TR type effect, which again the tier effects can be whatever, there's plenty to choose but the two main aspects should be: give GF better information and create confusion for each survivor player.
Giving GF a Dash would be the same as playing old Spirit, Survivors wouldn't be able to react and what tracking would GF have while dashing? You would either be OP cause you don't give survivors a chance or you'd lose the survivors and the dash would be more of a scare tactic like Pyramid Head's Punishment of the Damned where you're better off faking it and follow with the M1. Plus the punishment for missused Dash would be great aswell and you're still basing his power on not being seen, so if you're seen you immediatly stop stalking and you also can't go for the Dash.
You're leaving GF in the exact same spot he is at right now, he either gets the full stalk or he doesn't, the only change you're making is that getting the hit after marking someone might be easier. Where i propose to seperate stalking and stealth so that even when stealth fails, and it will fail alot, you're still getting something to help you instead of not having anything. Will survivors adapt? Ofc they will that's exactly why i want the Paranoia tiers to actually affect the players aswell and not just the characters. That's why i suggested they record voice lines for GF to use against stalked survivors, so the players have random audio cues, hear the TR, etc to give the GF player a chance of catching people off-guard when stealth is on cooldown.
"The reasons i think the stealth portion of Nighshroud should force him to crouch and not move any faster than 110%"
There is very good reason to why ghostface does not suffer movement speed penalties while in nightshroud. Its because survivor would never want to break ghostface out of nightshroud at 110%. It would actively be detrimental to break out ghostface as survivor out of nightshroud at 110%. It does not matter if the survivor is permanently exposed when your 110% m/s m1.
The ghostface moving at 110% will not be able hit anyone on like 80% of the maps even if he exposed everyone permanently.
"I want GF to be a better M1 killer"
Crouching & red glow manipulation is somewhat niche but important skill for ghostface. Removing freedom to crouch when required will not improve ghostface's M1 game. It will make it worse.
"I don't want GF to be a 1 shot Monster"
By giving ghostface permanent stalking 1 shot exposed, He would be no different than Tuft of hair Myers who is 1 shot monster. A tier system for stalking such as Evil within 1/2/3 forces the player to commit to stalking. You get nothing for being 50% ev1 or ev2. You only get rewarded by tier systems once the tier is complete.
"You're leaving GF in the exact same spot he is at right now, he either gets the full stalk or he doesn't, the only change you're making is that getting the hit after marking someone might be easier.
Ghostface is my favorite stealth killer. Stalking with ghostface is suppose to opportunistic. Its not suppose to be mandatory like myer's ev1/ev2/ev3. He doesn't drastic changes to be effective. He already has 3 passives, Exposed, Undetectable and Killer instinct. He does not need paranoid tiers to add more passives and status effects to his ability.
He just needs reliability. The issue with current ghostface is that there are not many good opportunities where stalking is better than just hitting the survivor. Its too unreliable. Faster stalking would give him reliability to inflict exposed. A dash would help him confirm hits when he does expose. If shadow dash is like nurse blink, It would be 1 blink nurse at half distance with a 24 second cooldown . If its like spirit phase walk, It would be very short phase walk, like 1 second long to cross like 12 meters. Its only there to gap-close distance between stalking and hitting someone who is nearby on a generator. There wouldn't be much benefit to canceling it as ghostface when leaning does not move at all when leaning. He is stationary. Maybe there could be add-ons that add 0.5 second to dash or add little bit of distance but he would still largely m1 all of the chase except opening part of the chase.
As I said in opening post, Ghostface is suppose to end the chase before the chase even begins. He is just not very effective at that function currently from his stalk being too situational.