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Skull Merchant: What do you want to see/keep?

UndeddJester UndeddJester
in Feedback and Suggestions

Hi all!

There are no shortages of threads ragging on Skull Merchant... let's just say... she is not the most popular killer. I feel she was a good attempt at a high tech/sensor based killer... but she fell into the obvious pitfall that a sensor/radar killer was always going to.

The issues with her have been acknowledged by BHVR, and changes/reworks are coming... lets be real, there are some objective issues that need looking at... so rather than just continuing to complain about her and screaming "REWORK HER" over and over...

What elements of Skull Merchant are good? What would you wanna keep? In before the obvious "Nothing, delete her from the game". 😏

Seriously the only real issue that actually makes her objectively bad is her 3 gen power. A lot of other complaints about her are usually subjective arguments about her appearance, or issues with mechanics that could be argued 1 way or another. Unless you are totally brainwashed, I'm sure you can name at least 1 element of her that is actually good / you like.


What are your thoughts of what you'd like to see kept or added for Skull Merchant when she is reworked/updated?

Comments

  • UndeddJester UndeddJester

    To Keep:

    • I really like the scout drones. The sweeping sensors that I have to Metal Gear Solid my way past has the potential to be really fun. I'd really like to see a stronger version of this for active drones.
    • Her radar is really cool when you get to genuinely use it, it's an imperfect tracker, a bit like the GTA direction indicator that gives you a direction, but not an exact location, and helps you get in chase.
    • The improved haste on sensed survivors is a good effect, an attempt to encourage her to try and detect multiple survivors and be in chase. If this can be retained while reducing her 3 gen power, that's great.

    To Add:

    • Her active drones perfect detection in a radius is part of her 3-gen issue. I'd prefer doubling down on the survivor stealth elements and have drones pursue survivors, chasing with faster sweeps to continue to pursue and build up lock-on on the survivor. This provides small windows where a survivor may be able to time the sweep and avoid lock-on build/lose the drone.
    • Her radar is too situational and trumped by her killer instinct effect, so SMs push more for that instead and largely ignore the radar. I'd like to see the radar be more prominent. Maybe it can have a marker for scratch marks too as it sweeps in its sensor radius? This would mean survivors have to walk to avoid detection completely, or run to avoid the drone, at the risk of being seen by the SM radar.
    • Instead of breaking pallets (which feels random to me), I'd prefer claw traps do something more interesting, like create a breakable chain to the window/pallet that consumes a block of charge from the claw trap battery.
  • spit_085 spit_085

    I never though about what I would want her to have additionally. This thread is a nice change from thinking about her being removed from the game.

    The radar is one of the things I love about her, and that haste boost has been such a godsend.

    I really like the idea of the radar scanning for scratch marks as well. I think it could be interesting if one of the drones could roam and pursue, or literally just roam and pick up on movement - I think it could also be interesting if the sweeping drone would become inactive when you get within a certain radius of that drone, ideally close enough to pick up on scratch marks or breath yourself; and that would free up the roaming drone to be repositioned later.

    Another thing I'd like to see on the radar, or I would like the radar to do if there are changes to the amount of drones she has, is I would like it to act as it's own drone, letting me know if there is someone in my terror radius and where they are relative to me when I'm not in chase, or when I am standing still. fGoing on what you were saying about the claw traps, I feel like they could be more interesting, maybe have prolonged timers if there's a missed skill check while they're active, or all survivors within the claw drone radius being claw trapped so that there is more chase, or the claw trap switching to another survivor within a given radius.


    Sorry if none of this makes any sense. Sleep deprived.

  • DaddyMyers_Mori DaddyMyers_Mori

    Just don't make drones follow anything. We have guards and zombies. We really don't need this boring copy/paste approach.

    I have seen it many times and still hate it.


    I want to focus on claw traps, that's kinda unique to her.


    What's possible to improve:

    Stealth - short delay and longer lingering would be nice

    Claw trap - I have seen nice idea about increasing lunge, but increased movement speed or hindred for survivors would work too.

    Active drone - you can basically use purple addon to make survivor hindred


    How I would change her to nerf 3-gen.

    -Basically lock on will disarm the drone. You will get claw trap + exposed status effect.

    This allows survivors to basically instantly remove drone on gen, so your teammates can work there. You also don't care about it while injured and teammates can take a hit.

    - Skull merchant can't use drone in same area 10 seconds after it was disarmed.

    So you don't just cycle drones effectively.


    -you still can't disarm drone with claw trap active, but make it so other survivors can. Drone gets active, but possible to disarm.

    - if you are in active drone radius with claw trap, Skully gets extra movement speed, you basically count as 2 at that moment

    That's basically so there is reason to use drones in chase against survivors with claw trap.

  • UndeddJester UndeddJester

    @DaddyMyers_Mori said:

    Just don't make drones follow anything. We have guards and zombies. We really don't need this boring copy/paste approach.

    I have seen it many times and still hate it.

    I want to focus on claw traps, that's kinda unique to her.

    What's possible to improve:

    Stealth - short delay and longer lingering would be nice

    Claw trap - I have seen nice idea about increasing lunge, but increased movement speed or hindred for survivors would work too.

    Active drone - you can basically use purple addon to make survivor hindred

    How I would change her to nerf 3-gen.

    -Basically lock on will disarm the drone. You will get claw trap + exposed status effect.

    This allows survivors to basically instantly remove drone on gen, so your teammates can work there. You also don't care about it while injured and teammates can take a hit.

    - Skull merchant can't use drone in same area 10 seconds after it was disarmed.

    So you don't just cycle drones effectively.

    -you still can't disarm drone with claw trap active, but make it so other survivors can. Drone gets active, but possible to disarm.

    - if you are in active drone radius with claw trap, Skully gets extra movement speed, you basically count as 2 at that moment

    That's basically so there is reason to use drones in chase against survivors with claw trap.

    I like the idea of locking on disarming the drone, like it's successfully attached itself to you for the benefits of the claw trap.

    My own thought process was removing the active drones AoE detection effect in preference for an enhanced version of the scanning effect. The drones pursuing idea was a thought process of being able to lure the drone away from a gen. This chase idea was doubling down on the scratch marks and sweeping detection method, but this idea of having the drone attach itself to you as a claw trap for lock on achieves the same goal.

    One of my main consistent thoughts as to why 3 gen is busted for her is the fact drones have perfect AOE detection AND they start as active... this means she starts building lock on immediately over the generator. So that's something I was trying to tackle, but good things here. Cheers!

  • UndeddJester UndeddJester

    @spit_085 said:

    I never though about what I would want her to have additionally. This thread is a nice change from thinking about her being removed from the game.

    The radar is one of the things I love about her, and that haste boost has been such a godsend.

    I really like the idea of the radar scanning for scratch marks as well. I think it could be interesting if one of the drones could roam and pursue, or literally just roam and pick up on movement - I think it could also be interesting if the sweeping drone would become inactive when you get within a certain radius of that drone, ideally close enough to pick up on scratch marks or breath yourself; and that would free up the roaming drone to be repositioned later.

    Another thing I'd like to see on the radar, or I would like the radar to do if there are changes to the amount of drones she has, is I would like it to act as it's own drone, letting me know if there is someone in my terror radius and where they are relative to me when I'm not in chase, or when I am standing still. fGoing on what you were saying about the claw traps, I feel like they could be more interesting, maybe have prolonged timers if there's a missed skill check while they're active, or all survivors within the claw drone radius being claw trapped so that there is more chase, or the claw trap switching to another survivor within a given radius.

    Sorry if none of this makes any sense. Sleep deprived.

    Focusing on the claw traps seems to be a good direction for her power. Combining some effect with DaddyMyers idea for having drones that lock-on claw trap you gives a lot of potential I feel.

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