Animatronic upgrades and Foxy's hook upgrade.
Subject: Feedback and Suggestions for Improving The Animatronic
Hello Behaviour Support,
I’m an Animatronic player, and I would like to share some constructive feedback regarding the character. I’m not suggesting a major rework—rather, I would like to propose a few relatively small changes that I believe could improve the overall gameplay experience and make some of the Animatronic’s mechanics more meaningful.
1. A penalty for removing the Hatchet
The Animatronic’s Hatchet mechanic reminds me of The Slasher’s spear mechanic. In both cases, the Killer can see the aura of their projectile after it has been used.
However, there is an important difference: Survivors can currently remove the Hatchet immediately without any significant drawback. As a result, the Hatchet aura mechanic often has very little opportunity for counterplay—the Survivor can simply interact with the Hatchet and remove it.
I believe adding a small movement-speed penalty when a Survivor removes the Hatchet could create more interesting gameplay.
This would provide two benefits:
- Survivors would have a reason to think about when and where they remove the Hatchet instead of doing it immediately.
- The Killer would have an opportunity to use the Hatchet aura to make plays and potentially close the distance.
There is also an interaction that makes this particularly noticeable. After being hit by a Hatchet, the Survivor receives a speed boost and can create distance from the Animatronic. At the same time, they can remove the Hatchet and return it to the Killer without suffering an additional penalty.
The Animatronic remains at 4.4 m/s, making it difficult to close that distance.
A small penalty similar in concept to The Slasher’s mechanic could help compensate for this. It would not necessarily need to be a large slowdown—even a modest penalty could make the decision to remove the Hatchet more meaningful.
2. Foxy’s Hook add-on
I would also like to suggest a change to Foxy’s Hook.
Currently, the add-on provides a Survivor with additional movement speed when the Animatronic misses a Hatchet. From my perspective, this creates an unusual situation because missing the Hatchet already has a downside: the Killer has to recover the projectile and loses time.
The Survivor can then use the additional speed from the add-on to create even more distance.
Because of this, the add-on can feel like it primarily punishes the Animatronic for missing without providing a meaningful benefit when the Hatchet actually hits.
I’m not necessarily asking for the entire add-on to be redesigned or for its numbers to be changed. Instead, I would suggest considering removing the Survivor’s movement-speed bonus.
Alternatively, the effect could provide some form of benefit to the Animatronic instead. For example, if the movement-speed effect were applied to the Killer rather than the Survivor, it could help the Animatronic recover from a missed Hatchet and close the distance.
This could also create more opportunities for skilled players to make plays around certain structures where the current version of the add-on can make a missed Hatchet especially punishing.
Conclusion
Overall, I believe these changes could make the Animatronic’s Hatchet mechanic more interactive for both sides.
The goal would not be to make the character significantly stronger, but rather to create more meaningful decisions for Survivors and more opportunities for the Animatronic to capitalize on successful plays.
In particular, I believe that:
- Adding a small penalty for removing the Hatchet could make the aura mechanic more meaningful.
- Removing or changing the Survivor speed bonus from Foxy’s Hook could reduce the excessive punishment for missing a Hatchet.
- Giving the Animatronic a small opportunity to recover distance could make the character feel more consistent without requiring a major balance change.
Thank you for taking the time to read my feedback. I really enjoy playing the Animatronic, and I hope these suggestions can contribute to improving the character’s gameplay experience.
Comments
Hey, Springtrap / Animatronic player here. So first of all, with regards to Jason's movement speed penalty when removing a spike, I am of the opinion that that is completely stupid. It effectively just gives Jason permanent aura reading on top of an already massively bloated kit, as there are only certain situations where a survivor can afford to eat a massive 10% speed penalty for several seconds straight. I don't want that for Springtrap.
Instead (if the aura reading on the axe were to be changed at all) I would want the aura reading to not go away while the survivor is actively trying to get rid of the axe, that way the aura reading only goes away when it is successfully removed. As it is, a good Springtrap player won't have much time where they leave the axe in the survivor's back (as that means the killer literally doesn't have a power), so I think those few seconds of aura reading being guaranteed would be fine.
As for points 1 and 2 surrounding the haste from Foxy's Hook, I think you might be misunderstanding something with this addon? Foxy's Hook applies 7% haste to any player that enters the range, including the killer. Yes, sometimes a miss will mean the survivor can grab the haste which is unfortunate, but so can you. So it's not the loss of distance you have to worry about, it's the possibility of them making it to another resource they may not have made otherwise. A good Springtrap using this addon can throw it just outside certain loops where the axe isn't useful (such as God fillers with tall rocks) in order to actually be able to outplay these normally outplayable pallets.
Foxy's Hook is already one of Springtrap's best addons, I think removing the possibility of the survivor being able to get the haste may make it too strong. I'm not sure if you were trying to say for point 3 that Foxy's Hook should be base kit, but I don't think that would be a good change either.
I think most people in the community want Springtrap's doors and cameras to be more purposeful if anything. I know I do. I would like to see some small buffs in this direction that also incentivize survivors to use the cams, but at least for me these suggested changes are not what I would be looking for.