Skull Merchant Rework and the slow death of the "set up" killer...
So while I was away we got a preview of Skull Merchant's rework... and not just the new direction, but the community reaction/feedback left me rather unsettled and deeply saddened.
The joy of a Set Up Killer
For those who don't know, I am a Pig main... I love setting up my RBTs, watching the RBT timers carefully to identify the possible patterns, and then (good chases willing), orchestrating scenarios where I put players into positions with difficult decisions to make around that RBT timer. I want to stress, it's not a case of trying to force a head pop (at least not often), it's more about using the threat of the head pop to predict survivor movement and squeeze the survivor team at the right time. Obviously this is harder to do against good survivors, and sometimes this backfires hard in your face... but this is where my enjoyment of the killer comes from.
Other killers I enjoy playing are Trapper, Myers, Hag, Sadako, and at one point Artist. The thing I tend to like about all of these killers is the set up, followed by the pay off. Maintaining a Web of traps in clever odd little places and then catching someone off guard is very enjoyable to me, and I really like Trapper and Hag for it. With Hag specifically I ban myself from trapping hooks, because maintaining my web is the part of her game I really enjoy.
For both Myers and Sadako, both are very much slowly building your power and paying attention to the map state to find the right moment to press your strength. Their strength manifests differently, but the point is slowly accumulating your threat and then finding the right moment to strike and hopefully put the survivor team in a very difficult to manage situation.
Artist is a bit of an outlier for me, but she also has elements of this setup/payoff to a degree, mostly where you can try to line up a double hit on someone at distance with a staggered crow combo, and then try to get the hit, maneuvering to cut them off from where they'll likely run. I also like the shotgun combo, where you hit a single crow then try to predict where the survivor will go before they can clear it to shotgun a hit. The two stage nature of Artists hits appeals to me.
The thing with all of these killers is I don't really care if I'm not the strongest killer in the game... I just enjoy trying to make a plan work and catching people out/off guard.
The Skull Merchant 2.0
Fun fact, I started playing DBD upon the launch of Skull Merchant... I don't remember the old days of DBD, but I do have a keen interest in DBD history and have read/watched hundreds of hours of content, guides and wiki information discussing the evolution of the game, old killer powers, changes and mechanics, etc.
I really liked Skull 2.0, yes I know she could be played in the lame poop drone at tile and make survivor leave style, but that wasn't what I liked about her. I liked the mechanic of dodging scanlines, combined with the idea of setting up drones to lock off paths and makes tiles unsafe once I pushed the survivor into my web.
I defended this killer a lot, because with this style 2.0 Skull Merchant could be played like a bonfied trap killer, an archetype not used since Hag.... Hag for christ sake! The drop trap at tile and push survivor away playstyle did suck to play as well as play against, I might do it at a REALLY strong tile, but I much preferred setting up drones and pushing survivors into them. Quite honestly if you just said "make it takes 2 seconds to set up a drone where SM can't move", I'd have still been happy.
I've got quite a firm idea what I want Skull Merchant to be, I've discussed her at length, and wpuld quite happily suggest it... however...
Skull Merchant Proposed Rework and the Community Reaction
@ThatRyanB said:
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[Reposting the Design Preview here to help centralize feedback and discussion]
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Today, we want to dig into a topic that we know many of you have been yearning to know more about: our vision for the future of The Skull Merchant!
REEVALUATING THE SKULL MERCHANT
We know that Skull Merchant is a divisive Killer who, regardless of her performance in a Trial, carries a lot of history and strong feelings among players.
Many players feel she’s not fun to play against and her kit is exceedingly complex. This scares away potential Killers from trying her and makes it difficult for Survivors to consider counterplay without dedicated research.
As we look to reworking Skull Merchant, our aim is to:
- Strike a balance between being fun to play as and against
- Preserve the intel focus of her kit, while making it intuitive to understand for both sides
- Move away from a passive power with limited player interactions and embrace a more active playstyle, while ensuring her power is compensated in interesting ways
Those last two points may be particularly difficult to hear for long-time Skull Merchant mains, but we feel it’s important to be clear about our intentions here. While the future we envision for Skull Merchant is quite different from her previous iterations, we feel this rework brings some exciting new tools of torment to the table!
DRONES 2.0
Skull Merchant can deploy a Stealth Drone (she carries a total of 5), which scans its immediate vicinity and provides intel back to her. After a short activation period, the Drone gives off subtle audio and visual indications of the area being scanned, revealing any Survivors on the Radar who are caught by its two rotating detection zones.
Importantly, we’ve slowed their rotation speed slightly and toned down the visual intensity of these zones, removing the large scan lines to replace them with something more subtle. Namely, you'll see the direction of each detection zone as they rotate, but the detection zone itself is invisible. This gives Survivors an impression of the space that’s being actively scanned but requires them to proceed cautiously.
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While we know they had their supporters, the original scan lines were visually loud and often clashed with the rest of the game’s look and feel. The intent here is to strike a balance between giving Survivors just enough info to assess the threat (a subtle, rotating field of detection) without that threat overwhelming the space and feeling incongruous to Dead by Daylight’s visual identity.
DRONE CONTROL
Once a Stealth Drone has been active for a short period, Skull Merchant can choose to take control of Drones from a distance. During this time, she becomes Undetectable, as her controlled Drone becomes the primary threat. These Stealth Drones move slightly faster than her base movement speed and consume a new resource – Power, unique to each Drone – while being controlled.
Power is consumed slowly as the controlled Drone idles and slightly more is consumed while moving. Skull Merchant is also able to use a burst of this Power to activate Drone Propulsion. This charged power sends the Drone flying forward at high speed, relative to how long it was charged.
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Put simply: Stealth Drone go brr
Hitting a Survivor with Drone Propulsion causes them to lose a health state. If you hit a Survivor or collide with an object during this action, the Drone will be destroyed and return control to Skull Merchant.
With these new Stealth Drones, we want to give players something that feels familiar (using drones to gather intel) but also opens the door for unique skill expression opportunities (re-positioning Drones and Propulsion skill shots). Using technology to hunt her prey is core to Skull Merchant’s identity and so it’s important that we stay true to that!
We have opted to remove many of the background effects – Hindered, Haste, Lock On, Claw Trap – that were previously tied to these Drones, though. Rather than doing a little bit of everything with her Drones under layers of complexity, we want their use cases to be clear to Killers and Survivors alike, on the fly. Basically, if they’re static, they’re likely scanning for Survivors. If they’re moving, they’re a collision hazard.
DRONE HACKING
Like Drones themselves, Drone Hacking returns with a greater degree of risk and reward. Like before, Drones can be disabled by Survivors by inputting a series of button presses while close. If a Drone is disabled, Skull Merchant’s aura is revealed to that Survivor, providing useful intel. If the Hack is failed, they are revealed by Killer Instinct and are prevented from attempting another hack for a short period.
The intention here is to introduce a greater degree of tension to hacking, while offering a clear way for Survivors to interact with Skull Merchant’s kit in a meaningful way. The intel reward is greater than before, but the risk of being revealed is more impactful. With intel at the center of this tension on both sides, we hope it makes this interaction easily digestible by players.
RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT
In addition to her Drones, Skull Merchant has another power that ties into her Radar. While the name is currently TBD, let’s refer to it as a Global Detection Power. Once this power is charged and activated, a global warning plays for all Survivors. For a short period afterwards, any Survivor who actively sprints is revealed on her Radar. Of course, crouching, standing still, and hiding in lockers all prevent detection. Added to the intel provided by Stealth Drones around the map, this should help ensure Killers are easily able to keep tabs on Survivors’ movements.
In line with our rationale above, we want Survivors to have a clear understanding of what’s happening when they face Skull Merchant. Where the overlapping timers and status effects of Skull Merchant’s previous kit often obscured what the expected result of an encounter might be, structuring this power around a well-known game – red light, green light – provides a clear and readable threat, a clear benefit for the Killer, and a clear path for Survivors to try and overcome it.
TENTATIVE RELEASE
We are currently evaluating a timeline for Skull Merchant’s rework but do envision it being quite far out as our primary focus is on driving quality-of-life updates. Once we have a timeline to share, we will be sure to keep you informed via future Design Preview updates.
Phew – that was a lot! How do you feel about this rework? We want to hear from you! Jump into our survey and share your thoughts right here:
See you in The Fog!
The Dead by Daylight Team
I'm not dumb, nor think I'm right and everyone else is wrong... I understand why BHVR took this route and I understand why people like this shift of design focus...
Broadly speaking I'd split killers up in the following categories: -
- Dash/Speed Steroid Killers
- Projectile Killers
- Teleport/Map Presense Killers
- Anti Loop/Zoning Killers
- Instadown Killers
- Stealth Killers
- Slowdown Killers
- Trap Killers
Some killers cross multiple categories, but generally speaking this can be uses to reflect vast majority of killer powers.
To my mind, dash/projectile killers achieve effectively the same thing in regards to their gameplay... they subvert loops by using speedy thing to land hits that would normally not be possible at base for the killer, mitigated by how well they aim and time their abilities. We have an abundance of these types of killers, particularly in more recent releases.
With Skull Merchants rework, it looks a lot like a dash/projectile killer. Fundamentally these remote controlled drones are likely to operate like Victor, or Engineers Fang Pinhead, or Snug, or remote Wesker/Hillbilly.
Meanwhile killers with slowdown and traps are not at all common. The need to "set up", or take time away from chases, combined with their low mechanical ability to force hits, tends to make these killers inherently weaker than their mechanically demanding dash and projectile counterparts...
I think the real shame and big concern for Skull Merchant is instead of her being modelled for a player type that doesn't have so many options to pick from... we instead throw her into the pool of killers where there are plenty of those style killers already...
It disappoints me immensely that no one ever wanted to talk about how SM 2.0 could be fixed, no one entertained the idea of trying to make this trap like killer work (despite numerous attempts to get the discussion going)... but once she's being made into yet another dash/projectile killer, every claps like seals knowing full well there is no reason to pick her over anyone else on the roster.
Similar Treatment to other Set Up Killers
All this is to say, the community reaction to Skull Merchant has made me realise that we'll likely never see another trap/set up style killer... The community doesn't want them on either side.
They refused to talk about Skull Merchant until she got made a dash/projectile killer, no one would talk about how to make her a fair and interesting set up killer.
They tried to gut Pig RBTs and push her ambush to be discount Chucky, because heaven forbid a killer doesn't have strong anti-loop or map mobility as their main strength.
Good luck getting a discussion going aboit Hag... The only posts about Hag is only about how shes a problem, only wanting to nerf her hook camping or make it stronger cause that's all that's "viable". There's never a discussion on making her web/setup better as a prominent part of her gameplay.
Trapper people just want Trappers Sack basekit so they can create an impenetrable 3 gen or a hard basement cheese from minute one. No need to plan, or think, brute force him into viability to create the most mundane gameplay loop possible.
I'm not insulting anyone... but there are times it feels like Killers are just being homogenised into some variation of Blight of Huntress, and everything else is just a problem to be fixed, or more often, swept under the rug and ignored.
Comments
I can see where you are coming from.
As a Hag player, and a player who'd play Trapper more if it weren't for how unrewarding and slow he is, I enjoy the "web" playstyle a lot, I'd riot if Hag/Trapper got homogenized into a generic killer.
The Skull Merchant rework has some pros. The global radar seems nice, so do the drone stealth and removal of all status effects.
The cons, being removal of Lock On and Claw Traps, and the Drone Propulsion being a Twins wannabe, should be remade entirely.
The idea I liked most would be that Lock On would stay, but instead of just auto-placing a trap, the Drone would follow the person and reveal them constantly.
I guess the one overwhelming thing missing from your post is:
How does it feel to play against?
Because I enjoy playing trap killers, I like a lot of things you talk about, but as a survivor? In the worst case scenarios its a combination of both being broken and boring.
Let's look at some of the other killer's you mentioned:
Other killers I enjoy playing are Trapper, Myers, Hag, Sadako, and at one point Artist. The thing I tend to like about all of these killers is the set up, followed by the pay off.Sadako and Artist (and Pig) - the strategy game here is a 1v1. This is markedly different than SM where the ability to take down her drones was much easier for a coordinated team than soloq. With Sadako/Pig I primarily have to worry about my own timer/condemn, I don't have to time my actions off the other survivors. Is it easier if working in a team? I bet, but all things SWF are.
Trapper/Hag - Jump scares are fun. Yeah the feeling fades after a lot of play, but that feeling as new/mid player when running through grass or jumping over an unknown vault is very exciting and worrying you're about to hit a trap.
The least enjoyable version of Trapper to go against is basement. As a survivor you basically know where the traps will be, you know the Trapper will be guarding the area so there's no surprise, and its much easier for a SWF to make a decision between 'just do gens' or 'go for group rescue'.
SM has none of the jump scare fun. The Drone's are just there. There's no tension or excitement on the survivor side, it's just a game of attack/defend, nothing that really approaches a thriller/horror genre.
Myers - I remember my first game against an infinite tombstone Myers and thinking afterward 'so when we spot him, we just try to run around corners, if we get gens done in time we win, if not he wins, while we play peak-a-boo', again games like that are not very engaging.
I think the real shame and big concern for Skull Merchant is instead of her being modelled for a player type that doesn't have so many options to pick from... we instead throw her into the pool of killers where there are plenty of those style killers already...Well the other options just work better. You don't have the overwhelming SWF/soloq disparity in playstyle and strength (Stealth would be the closest), you have a much more predictable game pacing and experience, you don't have situations where the game deadlocks because the killer has completed the setup and the survivors realize its suicide to attack, and you have more engagement from the survivors. Trap killers can work, but they face a lot of potential problems.
I think the real shame and big concern for Skull Merchant is instead of her being modelled for a player type that doesn't have so many options to pick from... we instead throw her into the pool of killers where there are plenty of those style killers already...It is an actual shame that they're not even bothering in adjusting her 2.0 variant and go for another gameplay style that other killers have (weaker, pinhead, kaneki, twins etc)
She's just isn't the same killer that I'd enjoy anymore
I think my most biggest concern coming into the SM rework is that you can physically control the drones and use them to monitor survivors, right? Because while that sounds cool doesn't it kind of make her PDA/Radar completely useless? In terms of information and tracking at least which kind of blows because it's a unique tracking mehanic that essentially gives you real-time positions of survivors and no other killer has that. I'd rather not see an important mechanic get watered down into near-redundancy.
In 2026, every killer would be reworked to have some kind of teleport, anti-loop, stalling mechanics, and there will be no "set up" killers anymore
You physically control the drones then ram them into the survivors as an attack. Do this enough and SM eventually gains map-wide radar tracking and knows where everyone is for a while without needing drones to track them.
I didn't like the planned rework of SM myself. Placing drones around and controlling them to crash into the survivors feels far too much like Pinhead and Singularity to me. It kills her identity as a surveillance/trap killer and this rework would have potential to make her a monster at holding 3 gens again.
Her 2.0 version was my favorite and used to play her and Singularity quite a bit and in a way they both felt like polar opposites and felt similar when played. Place your object down to surveillance the area.
Of all the killer's Larry has to have the highest APM (actions per minute) required to be good with. Place pod, control pod, quickly look, either cancel or target another pod. Only could handle a few games at a time before i would get a headache and there's SM.
Trap killers are my favorite in the game with SM being 1 of 3 trap based killers, Artist and Singularity kinda. SM could get more consistent value from her traps and she could place them down quickly. Once all the traps in place and active you don't need to think about your power anymore you just hold W towards them. Problem though with Trapper and Hag IS they take too long to set up, can be too easy to shut their power down and Hag can't chase. So they feel horrible to play as compared to SM. But since she's been gutted there's no good trap killer to play as.
I think the trap type killer can work it’s just been done wrong a lot. The problem they face is that they end up being a “3 gen” type killer. They get a little web, hook the person in the web and then never leave. This is how most of them play out.
How do we fix this? Limit the close proximity stacking of all their “traps” so they can’t just cluster pile onto a 3 gen, hook or basement. However in return for limiting this you significantly improve their ability to have traps spread across the map.
Not being literal here, but it’s the kind of thought process of if something like hag couldnt stack as many traps close together or near a hook but in return she was given much more traps, longer teleport range and faster teleport lunges. The goal is making spreading “traps” all over the map more viable but weakening stacking them up. We can apply this idea to all trap killers.
Currently they don’t make these killers that strong because it buffs the boring pile traps on top of the hooked guy or 3 gen playstyle. It limits their ability to improve them.
I hear what you're saying and I don't disagree. I think Skull Merchant's potential as a horror killer has always lied in that brief moment where you run into a scan you didn't know was there, and getting that "Oh crap... she now knows where I am", kind of suspense, and you don't know if she's coming, or where from.
I won't post my whole suggestion for Skull Merchant, but the abridged version was to have her take ~1.5-2 seconds to place a drone, and give her stealth drone 2 scan lines, but make them stationary to properly cut off paths. Also remove ground indicator in stealth mode. Id then have it change to a single scan line when scouting and buff the speed by say... ~30-50%.
You get the picture, this makes the drones reliable off paths, and the drones intimidation factor lies in that suprise moment where you run into one unexpectedly to my mind... I suppose you may still get that kind of thing with the new version I suppose... but it's a little too reminiscent of Pinhead as @BlackRabies indicates.
Indeed, this the kind of thing I'd want to address for Hag, with some appropriate compensation buffs elsewhere. Skull Merchant does already have quite a sizable placement deadzone between her drones though already...
Trapper and Hag can 100% lock down basement for example, but Skully, not so much. I felt like she was and had potential to have quite a unique take on the trap killer...
The reason the devs hate setup killers is because they cater to casuals. And casuals don't strategize; they'll just lose all the time. Trapper with all his traps starting in-hand isn't OP, and wouldn't exclusively be used for 3-gen and basement camping (even though he's forced to play that way when the survivors are good). So I don't think you have his best interests at heart. He legit needs both pink add-ons to be good. Hag's had that no- camera turn/pre-run exploit in the game for years, which the survivors don't even need to beat her, but they do. Skull Merchant was pretty balanced before her nerf because of the gen kick limit; people just weren't patient or strategic. And Singularity is a joke because his power is disabled all match through infinite EMPs, and his own hooking takes away his power too. All this bad design, or 1-sided design (because it's not so bad for survivors), is because people would rather ask that a killer be nerfed than ever considering to learn their counterplay. Look no further than the response to Skull Merchant and Ghoul.
We all know it's you Pixel Bush you don't gotta hide it
I mean, when all 3 trap killers are literally a hassle to face and could kill you of boredom before they 3 hook you, you have an issue.
Mind you I think trap killers should stay, but no new ones should be made. Because frankly, people deserve to keep their killer, specially now that the give up feature mitigates matches against trap killers and let the killer player keep the match going against AI and still get points.
But in reality dbd has become kind of a fast paced game, where the interaction in chase is frankly the high the majority of the playerbase chases (no pun intended).
Like a good chase with a wesker/dracula/huntress/unknown where you bait their powers, make them miss, keep the chase going or get downed when they outplay you is fun. Running into a tile to get instantly injured by a prop that was already there its not really interactive. More so, when a trapper/SM/hag downs you, there is no feeling of "that was a good chase, next time ima juke them" its more like "should check later for traps, that way I can have a chase" or just plain stress because your teamates didnt remove the trap and now you got downed because of it.
The game became chase oriented and trap killers are the antithesis of chasing, when the majority of the community enjoys chases and you have killers that bypass the most entertaining aspect of the game, its not rocket science why people dislike them, its playing dbd without the fun part.
I once joked with someone that to buff the Trapper they give him a hockey stick and make him slide traps at Survivors instead of having to set him. Seeing what they are doing to Skull Merchant, now I'm worried they might actually do something like that.
'Set up' killers imply a level of planning and prepping in their kit and as part of their SoP. In that regard, the Skull merchant isn't a 'set up' killer. She can launch endless amounts of drones whilst just walking round where ever she wants and with overlaps - and most even do it whilst maintaining chase.
I have to agree with other commenters that the gameplay against trap killers is really dull.
You can't really outplay them, they either have already trapped everything and you just die, or all of their traps are either sloppily placed and/or disarmed and you get an absolutely thrilling m1 chase. Either way, it's just boring.
Also, the counter to trap killers is team coordination. I don't think I need to go into too much detail why this sucks for soloq.
Then there is also the "defensive" playstyle that comes with trap killers. Putting all traps into one area and just camping it the entire game is tedious to go against and wastes a lot of time, no matter the outcome.
In summary, trap killers facilitate boring gameplay that is also a nightmare for soloq players who have no real ways to coordinate their moves. The archetype is just not made for a fast paced action game of freeze tag that dbd technically is.
Not that I disagree, but how many of dash/projectile killers realistically can we add before everything is played out?
For Trap Killers you have Trapper and Hag. You could loosely argue Freddy is a trap killer with his pallets, and really loosely Singularity is with his biopods. Skull Merchant was never realised as a true trap killer, she was like Singularity in a lot of ways, but she could have been a trap killer, and of the outliers SM2.0 could be played more like a trap killer than any other character since Hag. That would give us three to five depending on how far you lean.
Meanwhile for speedy Dash killers (As in killers that can turn themselves into a projectile to suddenly close distance through or round loops for hits) we have:
You can even loosely put in this category:
For projectile killers, who are effectively the same concept of speedy thing lands injure through or round tiles, we have: -
With loosely being able to add:
Now I know this isn't quite comparing apples to apples here, and some of these have very different feels for dash/projectile killers... I've even left off some killers with projectiles, speed steroids and cut off via TPs, cause that would be a little disingenuous to try and claim they fit this archetype...
However my point is, players who don't like trap killers and prefer more active chase killers have tonnes of options available to them, well over half the roster.
If we accept the premise that enjoyment is subjective (which I'm sure you agree), and not everyone finds playing as or against trap killers boring; doesn't it seem a bit rich to say "Yes trap killers aren't as popular, so lets convert Skull Merchant away from one of the very few trap style killers in the game, and instead make her a dash/projectile killer like over half the roster"?
I completely agree. Here is my SM rework that combines her 1.0 and 3.0 version:
Drones start in Stealth mode. Now you can also deploy them by holding the button and release it to make them fly away (the longer it's hold, the further goes) up to 16m or collides with an obstacle. Now you gain Undetectable by staying inside a drone area for 2s (not near hooked survivors) and lasts 4s once outside. Hacking drones gives claw traps (25s), hacking moves from 5 to 7.
Survivors getting scanned are tagged with claw traps (45s). Claw traps now only reveal survivors in the radar. Once the battery dies, do the (up, down, left, right) minigame to remove them (7 moves). Claw trapped survivors getting scanned are revealed by killer instinct, get Exposed for 20s and makes the drone fly up, staying out of reach for 10s.
Hacked drones (white aura)
Stealth mode (yellow): the area of the effect shown on the ground is invisible for survivors. Survivors inside are revealed in your radar. Two laser beams that rotate 60º/s, but the drone only shows two small lights. Scanning survivors puts them in Scouting mode.
Scouting mode (red): laser beams and area of effect visible and rotation speed of 75º/s. Survivors inside are revealed in your radar. After 15s without scanning survivors they go back into Stealth mode.
Haste removed. Changing scan rotations puts the power in a 5s cooldown.