BHVR Misdirection in Developing Chapters
Let's take a look at arguably the best killers in the game: Nurse, Billy and Spirit.
What do they all have in common? A power that grants them superior mobility at a cost (Nurse's fatigue, Billy's lack of steering/bumping cooldown, Spirit's blindness to survivors). High skill rewards better chances to succeed, the power of these killers makes up for their weakness when used properly. This is not the case for most killers in the game.
[While Legion also has a power that grants superior mobility, we can completely discard him because his power prevents him from ending a chase unless you moonwalk exploit. He is just terribly designed in general.]
These killers are not uncounterable. Strong, yes, but not to the point that it's a no brainer 4K. They take skill to play and usually can be countered by survivor knowledge of the killer's power and efficiency in looping, mindgames or stealth. These killers allow all players to feel the tension and danger of the trial and usually grant a sense of satisfaction at winning the chase's against them.
In the last few chapters, it seems BHVR sees a strong killer as "unfair" or "oppressive" if it has good chase potential and/or high mobility (AKA map pressure potential).
Now I mostly play survivors, usually SWF, and I can tell you that the most fun I have in matches is when facing a particularly skilled Nurse, or a smart Spirit.; because I know going from loop to loop will not be enough to win me the game. I'm going to have to win the mindgames, clutch the jukes and choose my stealthy moments correctly.
Let's take the Plague as an example:
-Does her power give her mobility? No.
-Does her power help in the chase? Somewhat. If caught out of a loop she's very strong, but on a loop she suffers because her vile purge can never down a survivor, only injure them. (Her best quality until it was ruined by the live patch, reducing her speed while charging purge)
-Does she have map pressure with her power? She would, but fountains completely negate it.
-Does her power buy her time? It would, but the sickness does nothing to prevent or slow down generator progress and is easily cleansed in 6 seconds.
-Does she have versatility in playstyle? No, you have to commit to the chase after infecting a survivor or you will lose a lot of time. A lack of versatility means a survivor will always know how to counter you.
Do you see the trend here? The devs idea of balance is to give her something that can be really good, but then giving it some massive weakness/counterplay that when used, makes that power useless.
The new killers are ok at everything, but not great at anything.
Instead of excelling at one particular thing and having a massive weakness on something else, which would promote creativity in playstyle and a battle of wits between killer and survivors to see if the killer can use his/her strength better than the survivors can exploit the weakness, and vice versa.
I feel the devs are afraid to create another Nurse (perhaps too powerful) or another Freddy (too weak). So they stay in this mediocre area that isn't exciting for anyone.
This isn't a rant, just trying to share some of my thoughts on the game state right now and why I'm rarely ever excited past the first few days of a new chapter. And I reiterate I am not in support of either killer or survivor (I play both, probably survivor more), but I think it is sensible to say that killers are what brings the excitement and replayability to this game, and it's not really happening anymore.
Comments
I think the trick to playing Plague effectively is in trying to usher the survivor we're chasing near to a corrupted fountain. Not always possible, and by no means easy, but that's about the only edge she may have. I actually like the idea that you need less anti looping skills but more planning, but since fountain placement is random, it's very much dependant on luck.