I feel like BHVR is starting to run out of ideas.
With this most recent new chapter I’ve become concerned about how a lot of the content in it seems to just be recycled and low-quality.
First, some of the perks:
Friendly Competition - Literally just worse Prove Thyself.
Power of Two - Blood Pact but with smaller range and a lower bonus.
Collective Stealth - The same as Power of Two except its activation condition is just inverted and it provides a different effect.
Even Cut Loose is a bit similar to Quick and Quiet but I’ll give that one a pass because it’s still pretty different and the effect is interesting.
Then we have Background Player and Blood Rush which are unique perks but promote tunneling. Blood Rush literally only punishes killers who play nice and that’s bad.
And to top it off, Skull Merchant’s mori is literally just Freddy’s with an extra drone in the background that has no actual place in the mori whatsoever.
I really want to like this chapter, but I just can’t right now. I do like the idea behind a killer with a lot of information, but she just seems incomplete and underwhelming. And her only real strength is 3-genning which is not the type of character we need in this game. Basically it feels like she gets a lot of info but a lot of the time she can’t actually do anything with it and her chase power is negligible against injured survivors, if you can even call it that. I don’t even mind her appearance that much, I know a lot of people have said she looks like a Fortnite skin or something similar to that and tbh yeah she does, I guess that’s just not something I’m as concerned about as long as she offers interesting gameplay for both sides but she just doesn’t.
Comments
"Collective Stealth - The same as Power of Two except its activation condition is just inverted and it provides a different effect."
I can understand the other two previous comparisons, but "Collective stealth is the same as this other perk except it activates differently and provides a different effect" is the definition of "It's a different perk altogether". The only similarity is that it requires proximity to work.
It makes just about as much sense as saying: "Self care is the same as Circle of Healing, except the speed is lower, it doesn't require you booning a totem, the killer can't disable it, you can use it at any time, anywhere, and it doesn't apply to allies". So... you can heal with both? Then both perks are the same as a medkit?
I do agree they probably should make more magic-like perks like Potential Energy, and other deception perks like pebble and... well, deception. Most perks are some flavour of "Do gens faster" or "Heal faster" and it gets kinda boring.
Ever since Dredge released I've been wishing for a perk that allows me to teleport between lockers (With some balancing, of course. Proper cooldowns and maybe an activation time like Head On), or the ability to crouch next to a wall, hold your breath and become temporarily invisible.
It is a different perk but I guess it just feels repetitive still. Idk. SC and CoH are different enough even though they have things in common, Power of Two and Collective Stealth don't feel that way and they're also pretty weak on top of that so that doesn't really help its case.
I don't even care as much about what type of killer it is, I just want interesting killers that are fun to play and fun to verse. Skull Merchant has neither of these qualities. It doesn't even matter to me whether a chapter is licensed or original, it makes zero difference to me as long as its design is good and it offers interesting gameplay.
Though I will admit, I do like her little minigame with pressing 5 directional keys, it's something different from skill checks.