How to fix Knight and make him Fun to Verse - From a P100 Knight Main
Hello. This is going to be the longest post I have ever created. And possibly one of the longest posts ever made in this forum. Knight has always been a very controversial killer and, although I greatly enjoy playing him, I will admit that he has always been blatantly unfinished.
I think a lot of people agree that a killer who can summon and control minions is a cool concept. But Knight was never a great implementation of this idea.
In this post I will be going over the flaws with Knight's power, his current design limitations, and how to fix and improve him so that he not only fulfils his potential as a minion-based killer, but is also far more enjoyable to play against.
There's a lot to cover. So let's begin.
What don't people enjoy about versing Knight?
1. Guard counter-play is extremely noninteractive
This is by far the most complained about thing when I asked people about why they didn't enjoy versing Knight. And after playing him for so long, I now understand why.
The devs have attempted to make chases with Knight interesting through the banner. Making the survivor choose between trying to out-run both the Knight and his guard, or doubling back to capture the banner. The problem is that this power goes against the core design of DbD's chases; looping.
I believe, as I think many others do as well, that DbD is at it's most fun during chases in well balanced tiles that allow both survivors and killers to make meaningful decisions that impact the game. A great example of a killer that allows for meaning choices is Wesker:
- His bound takes a second to charge up, and has a very clear visual and audio cue.
- Bounding has to be committed to and will make Wesker lose distance if he misses.
- Landing a bound can push the survivor out of position for an easy follow-up.
Wesker's power still lets survivors loop him. But they have to make decisions during the chase to avoid being hit by his bounds. Compare that to how Knight's power works in a chase:
- Although summoning a guard is very obvious, dropping a guard mid-chase is instant.
- Summoning a guard stops Knight from re-summoning for a while, but Knight loses very little distance when placing a guard.
- If the survivor doesn't have anywhere safe to run to after Knight places a guard they're guaranteed to be hit. If they do have somewhere safe to run, there's no reason for them not to keep running to completely negate Knight's power.
Interacting with Knight during a chase is binary. Either the survivor is in a position to avoid Knight's power. Or they aren't. The nuance that makes Wesker's power interesting, the ability to make multiple decisions that can impact a chase, is completely absent.
The only time that a survivor has the opportunity to make meaningful decisions in a game against Knight is when he's not using his power against the person he's chasing. When Knight splits pressure by chasing a survivor personally, and having a guard chase someone else, suddenly both survivors have meaningful choices they can make.
The survivor being chased by Knight is in a normal chase that they can extend by looping as normal. And the survivor being chased by a guard has to avoid being hit by them and also avoid running near the survivor that the Knight is chasing.
Unfortunately, this scenario is entirely dependent on the map being played on, the positions of the survivors, and the Knight being experienced enough to know when, and how, to split pressure properly. And so the most common way for Knight to get value out of his power during a chase is to just dump his guards at loops to shut them down.
Which also completely shuts down any complex decision making for both sides. And chases that don't have either side making interesting choices are often very boring.
And speaking of boring...
2. Guarding 3-gens is too effective
3-gen'ing isn't inherently bad. Survivors have complete control over which gens they repair. And creating a situation where the last unfinished gens are all in the same area is usually a big mistake on their part. In a situation like that, it's expected that the killer would take advantage of something that the survivors failed to prevent.
The problem arises when the killer deliberately sets out to create a 3-gen the moment the game starts.
They do this by surveying all gen spawns, locating the nearest cluster of gens, and spending the entire game preventing those gens from being completed. Usually forsaking getting hits or downs completely if it means stalling repairs. This naturally causes games to drag on for incredibly long amounts of time.
Now I've been maining Knight since he was released. And I can tell you that contrary to popular belief, Knight isn't at his strongest when camping gens. But that doesn't change the fact that if a Knight really wants to, he can slow down the pace of a game to a crawl.
This is sadly a pretty common thing for inexperienced Knights to do. Not because protecting gens is an inherently bad thing. But because it's much easier than trying to split pressure using guards. Especially on really big maps.
Killer powers should not be designed so players have to go out of their way to use them in an interactive way. Because when you design a power that rewards the killer for using it in the easiest, most efficient, yet simultaneously most non-interactive way possible, you get killers like Skull Merchant. Who can stall the game for upwards of 50 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FjZdNBJA_I
3. Solo-que players have a more difficult time against Knight than SWFs
This issue affects every killer. But it's an especially poignant issue with Knight because of how his power works.
Knight is at his strongest when he's pressuring multiple survivors at once. The counter to this is for every survivor to play well. But if just one person slips up and makes a mistake, the game can quickly snowball into being unwinnable for the survivors. There's so much coordination involved with countering a good Knight.
- Don't group up.
- Don't bodyblock guards.
- Don't get hit or downed by guards while Knight is chasing someone else.
- Don't pallet or flashlight save if there's a guard patrolling nearby.
- Don't lead guards near other survivors that Knight is chasing. Etc.
I've won far too many games to count because a survivor did at least one of these things. Unintendedly dooming their team because they didn't know what everyone was doing because they didn't have the communication that is granted by being in a SWF.
Mind you, it's still entirely possible to lose against Knight while being in a SWF. But they still have a better chance of winning compared to most players in solo que. There shouldn't be such a massive difference in your odds of escaping a killer just because you decided to play with a friend.
I'll now go over the problems that Knight has with his power. (Btw, props to anyone who made it this far)
Problems with Knight's power
1. Summoning guards is very clunky
Creating a patrol path often feels like piloting a bumper car in a hedge maze. The restrictions you have to suffer include:
- Being unable to move sideways or backwards.
- A heavily lowered turning speed.
- Having to move forward for a few seconds to reach top speed.
- Losing all momentum when colliding with an object.
- Being completely halted from falling off ledges.
These rules do not serve to make summoning a guard engaging. Just annoying. The challenge of playing Knight should be testing your map knowledge and out-positioning the survivors. Not operating the world's most finicky spectral go-kart. It completely detracts from what makes Knight interesting and is extremely punishing to learn.
But as if summoning a guard at long range wasn't awkward enough, it's just as annoying at close range. If you want to order a guard to break a pallet you cannot do so if you're standing to close to it. Or too close to a hook. Or facing any angle that isn't completely clear of objects.
Yet again, Knight's power is hindered by completely arbitrary restrictions that serve no purpose other than to frustrate those playing him. Seriously, why does being near a hook stop you from being able to start summoning guards? Knight already has an anti-camp mechanic build into his power. He doesn't need yet more rules preventing him from using it!
2. Guard AI is very buggy and inconsistent
This problem needs no introduction. If you've seen footage of Knight, you've seen footage of his guards bugging out and running in the complete opposite direction of the survivor they're supposed to be chasing. It's so commonplace that I'd consider myself lucky if it doesn't happen at least once in each of my Knight games.
Imagine if you played Huntress and every time you threw a hatchet there was a 10% chance it would randomly fly backwards instead of forwards?
That's how it feels to play Knight.
I shouldn't have to restate this, but a killer's power should always work as intended 100% of the time. And sadly Knight was not given enough development time to make his power function before release.
3. Certain add-ons feel mandatory to run
Simply put, Knight's base stats are really punishing to work with. His guard low detection range and chase time makes guards easy to evade and outrun most of the time. And the 30 meter limit of patrol paths doesn't leave much room for error if you want to successful place a guard ahead of a survivor.
Any way to increase any of these stats is such a massive boon to Knight, that playing without using one of the add-ons that increases them feels like playing an objectively weaker killer. Map of the Realm, Dried Horsemeat, & Call to Arms are easily Knight's strongest add-ons for this reason. They have such an impact on his performance that they overshadow every single other add-on. Although that is partially because most of Knight's add-ons aren't very good to begin with.
Add-ons are supposed to augment a killer's power to encourage new strategies and playstyles. They should not bottleneck players into using certain ones if they want to get the most out of their character.
Now that I've laid out all of the problems that Knight suffers from, I will now begin explaining how to solve them.
How to fix Knight's power
My goals for reworking Knight's power are:
- Making his power more interactive to face.
- Making guard summoning simpler and easier.
- Incentivize players to play aggressively instead of passively.
- Maintain his identity as a minion-based killer.
The facilitate all of these goals I will be changing how Knight summons his guards, giving Knight and his guards new abilities, quality of life improvements, and redesigning the banner to add a new layer of depth to playing as and against Knight.
To start:
- The Knight's base movement changed from 4.6m/s to 4.4m/s.
This is a very drastic change. But it is necessary because lowering Knight's speed allows his power to be buffed without the killer becoming overbearing. But that extra power will only be accessible if you play Knight aggressively, as you'll see in the later changes.
- The Knight may cycle through his guards by pressing the Secondary Power Button.
- The same guard may not be summoned twice in a row.
This is a QoL feature that allows Knight to chose which guard his wants to summon. While still keeping the guards having to be cycled through so you cannot rely on just one for the whole game.
- When near a dropped pallet, breakable wall, or generator, the Knight may order a guard to break it by pressing the Power Button.
This is another QoL update that removes the jank involved with ordering a guard to break something you're near. Very similar to how pallets were broken during the Masquerade event.
Also, whenever Knight now orders his guards to do something he will gesture by pointing his sword forwards. This won't effect gameplay. It would just be a cool detail.
- Survivor's within the Jailor's detection range suffer from the Oblivious status effect for as long as they remain within, and for 20 seconds after they leave.
Jailor was always the weakest out of the three guards. This buff gives him a much needed edge so he can be worth considering over the other two.
- Patrol paths completely removed.
- The Knight can instead now order his Guards to perform a "Scout" action by looking in a specific location and pressing the power button.
- Ordering a Guard to Scout will summon them from where the Knight is standing and will make them walk to the designated scouting location.
- Upon reaching it, Scouting Guards will randomly wander the designated area until their timer expires or they detect a survivor.
- Scouting Guards can be ordered to Scout a new location until their timer expires.
- The path that guards will take can be seen in bright green.
This is another big change to how Knight functions. Setting up patrol paths is extremely clunky, slow and is an overall awkward way to command guards. Scouting will replace Patrolling as a much more intuitive way to summon them. That also allows you to change where you want them to go on the fly. Letting guards be used to actively search for survivors around the map instead of relegated to a specific area. Albeit at the cost of some control of exactly where the guards move.
- When in a chase, the Scout action is replaced by the "Ambush" action.
- The Knight can press the Power Button to channel his power for a few seconds to summon a guard 16 meters away from the chased survivor to start hunting them.
- The Knight may change where he is facing to alter which direction the guard will be summoned from. Including above or below.
- Survivors cannot be seen while channelling.
- Channelling renders the Knight immobile and cannot be cancelled.
This change completely alters how Knight works in a chase and aims to make chase interactions more interesting. Although guards can now aggro directly onto survivors, the added channel time combined with Knight's lowered base movement speed makes summoning them a heavy commitment. And now that guards have to be summoned 16 meters away from the chased survivor, the Knight can no longer simply drop his guards at his feet to deny a loop. He must accurately guess which direction the survivor is going so his guard can cut them off.
On the survivor side, simply holding W isn't an option anymore. They must focus on positioning themselves so Knight cannot easily tell where they are running to. Although Knight still cannot be looped in the traditional sense. Having your map knowledge and quick thinking tested should still provide fun chases. With both sides trying to get into each other's heads on where they each want to go.
- When standing near a downed survivor, the Knight can order a guard to pick them up and carry them to a sacrificial hook, before placing them on the hook.
- The Knight can mark a specific hook for the guard to use.
- Guards carrying survivors will walk through any survivors they touch.
- Survivors can escape from a guard by wiggling as normal.
- The Carnifex takes the longest amount of time to escape from.
- Survivors who wiggle free from a guard gain 50% Haste and the Endurance status effect for 3 seconds.
This change gives guards an entirely new utility and helps Knight save valuable time during a match in a really cool and in-character way. The Haste and Endurance survivors get upon escaping a guard's grasp is so they cannot be held hostage in a game by being picked up and downed repeatedly.
The animation of summoning a guard to carry a survivor will involve the guard appearing out of the ground to place the survivor on their shoulder. Similar to how the survivor is grabbed by the Assassin during the Knight's mori animation.
- New status effect unique to Knight: "Inspire".
- The Knight can Inspire his guards for a limited time by breaking objects, hitting, downing and hooking survivors.
- Guards can Inspire the knight for a limited time by performing the same actions. As well as detecting survivors while Scouting.
- Inspire grants the Knight 10% Haste, 50% reduced pallet stun duration, and increased lunge range.
- Inspire grants Guards 20% Haste while Scouting, 33% increased hunt duration, and refreshes their hunt duration when becoming Inspired.
This mechanic highly encourages and rewards Knight players for being aggressive. As well as strengthen the personality of the character by having the Knight and his guards work off each other's successes. They are a team after all.
When Knight or his guards become inspired, it will be signified by a green aura around them.
And now for the most important part of this entire rework...
- The Banner has been completely changed and is now linked to a new mechanic: "Morale".
- The Knight must place the banner down in order to summon guards.
- Morale has four levels, starting at level one. The Knight and his Guards can level up Morale by breaking objects, hitting, downing and hooking survivors.
- Every time a new Morale level is gained, a loud war horn is heard across the map. Increasing with intensity with each level.
- The Banner can be taken by survivors to drain Morale as long as they are holding the banner.
- If the Banner is taken, all summoned Guards will cease their orders and begin hunting the survivor holding the Banner until it is dropped or captured.
- If the survivor holding the Banner is hit the Banner will be dropped.
- If the survivor holding the Banner successfully drains all Morale, they will capture the banner, gain 50% Haste and Endurance for 3 seconds, and cause all Guards to de-spawn.
The banner facilitates the push-and-pull dynamic I want people to experience when versing Knight. As the newly reworked Knight grows in power over the game the survivors have to keep him in check by going after the banner. And once they do, the Knight then has to work together with his guards to minimize Morale damage. Even if the survivor carrying the banner isn't able to fully capture it, they can still force the Knight's guards to focus on them and reposition the banner so a team mate might fully capture it later.
This mechanic would heavily incentivise team work and quick decision making on both sides. And would give Knight the game presence he so richly deserves!
Morale level 1:
- One guard can be summoned as normal.
Morale level 2:
- The Knight can hold down the Power Button while looking at a summoned guard from anywhere on the map to "Hotswap". Swapping the positions of Knight and the Guard after a short channel.
- Hotswapping while the Knight is chasing a survivor will cause Hotswapped guard to immediately begin hunting that survivor after teleporting.
- Hotswapping to a guard hunting a survivor is instant and will cause that guard to Scout the area they were teleported to.
Hotswapping is a highly flexible mechanic that lets Knight traverse the map and rewards him for optimizing his guards. If a guard is chasing a survivor, Knight can decide if it's better to let the guard keep wasting the survivor's time or Hotswap into the chase to try and down the survivor while the guard scouts elsewhere. Or if Knight is currently losing a chase, he can cut his loses and have a guard take his place while he looks for other survivors that are easier to catch.
This mechanic opens up a lot of interesting decisions for Knight to make during a game that all incentivise him to keep pressuring survivors as often as possible.
Morale level 3:
- A second guard may be summoned but can only be ordered to break an object or carry a survivor to a hook.
- Duplicates of guards cannot be summoned.
- The Banner's aura is visible to survivors within 24 meters.
Morale level 4:
- A third guard may be summoned to perform any action as normal.
- The Banner's aura is visible to all survivors.
The Morale mechanic exists in tantum with the banner so both Knight and the survivors are able to swing the match in their favour if they play well. Whilst still letting the opposing side have a chance for a come-back. A Knight that recently lost his banner doesn't have as much gen progress to worry about since someone had to spend time away from gens to deal with his banner. And a group of survivors starting to get overwhelmed by guards can make a play to force their attention towards whoever has the banner, as their team heals and repairs.
There's plenty of choices for both sides to make in order to win. And the nature of these choices are interesting and dynamic because they require players to think about how best to out-play the opposing side in the most efficient way.
Reworking Knight's Add-Ons
Since Knight has been given a whole bunch of new abilities and mechanics, his add-ons must be reworked accordingly.
To start: Map of the Realm & Dried Horsemeat have had their current effects made basekit. Both add-ons now have different effects.
- Tattered Tabard - Increases Scout duration of guards by 6 seconds. Scouting guards move 10% faster.
Since scouting offers significantly more utility than Patrolling, increasing the time that guards scout is now a worthwhile choice for an add-on. In addition to the extra speed guards get while scouting.
- Pillaged Mead - Inspire now increases the action speed of the Knight by 25%.
Previously this add-on increased the speed at which guards break objects. But this benefit was very minor since 2/3 guards still broke pallets and walls fairly slowly. And there was no advantage to breaking a generator faster than normal anyway. This add-on now provides a tangible benefit in allowing the Knight to perform most actions faster while inspired.
- Map of the Realm - While a guard is on a hunt, if they detect another survivor enter their detection radius, they will hunt them instead and become Inspired for 1 second.
Since the current effect of MotR has been made basekit the add-on needed a new effect. It now allows guards to switch their hunt target and refresh their hunt duration. Making guards a significantly greater threat to any survivors who dare to group up.
- Gritty Lump - The Knight gains 5% Haste when touching a guard's travel path. The effect lingers for 5 seconds.
This add-on used to increase the speed that guards patrol. Which was a weak and mostly pointless effect since MotR surpassed it in every way. Now it allows Knight to move a bit faster when traveling the same route as his guards for some added mobility.
As a reminder, reworked Knight can see the route his guards are taking as the green trail. Similar to how current Knight can see his guard's patrol path as a green trail.
- Treated Blade - The Assassin can be summoned twice in a row. Upon hitting a healthy survivor, the Assassin continues hunting them and becomes Inspired for 1 second.
The add-ons that allows you to summon a specific guard twice were always underpowered. As simply being able to use a certain guard more often wasn't particularly good. This add-on now specialises the assassin as a harasser that is able to keep hunting after injuring survivors. Which plays to his strength as the fastest guard during chases.
- Dried Horsemeat - Slowly gain Morale while a guard is in a hunt.
Since the effect of this add-on was made basekit it needed to be given a new effect. It now slowly increases morale while a guard is hunting. Which rewards Knight the more his guards are used to pressure survivors.
- Cold Steel Manacles - The Jailor can be summoned twice in a row. Any survivors within the Jailor's detection radius have their auras revealed. And for 5 seconds after they exit the detection radius.
Since jailor has been buffed to inflict obvious to survivors in his detection radius at base, this add-on synergises with that by revealing their aura as well. Making the jailor excel at info gathering and setting up opportunities for the Knight to ambush survivors.
- Call To Arms - The Knight and his guards become Inspired for 10 seconds after completing a Hotswap.
Since Knight's power has been radically changed this add-on needed a new effect. It now makes Knight and his guards inspired when they Hotswap. Allowing Hotswapping to be used more aggressively.
- Battle Axe Head - The Carnifex can be summoned twice in a row. Upon summoning the Carnifex to break a pallet during a chase, the Carnifex will begin hunting the survivor after breaking the pallet. If the survivor the Carnifex is hunting gets downed for any reason, the Carnifex will automatically begin carrying them towards a hook. The Carnifex carries survivors 18% faster.
This add-on specialises the Carnifex in chasing and hooking survivors. Allowing him to capitalise on him having the longest hunt time out of all the guards by getting into hunts more often, and carrying survivors faster than other guards as well.
- Town Watch's Torch - If a survivor successfully escapes a hunt without being hit, the Knight is granted the Undetectable status effect for 25 seconds.
This add-on currently has an extremely unfair condition that requires survivors to escape 3 hunts without being hit before it can activate. Removing this silly condition allows the add-on to be viable by letting the Knight ambush survivors after his guards fail to catch them.
- Ironworker's Tongs - Survivors within the detection radius of the Assassin and Carnifex are Oblivious for 20 seconds. Survivors within the detection radius of the Jailor are Oblivious for 40 seconds.
This add-on is currently just a better version of the Town Watch's Torch. By removing the requirement of survivors escaping a hunt, increasing it's potency with the Jailor, it now works differently to the torch. Allowing it to set up ambushes more often than the torch, at the cost of survivors being made aware that they cannot hear the Knight's terror radius.
- Grim Iron Mask - Survivors within a guard's detection radius are Exhausted for 5 seconds.
This is a very straightforward add-on change that replaces a near-useless status effect, (Blindness), with a much more useful alternative.
- Chain Mail Fragment - Guards inflict Broken for 40 seconds when hitting a survivor.
This add-on currently inflicts Haemorrhage. Which is an extremely underwhelming status effect that is outclassed by Mangled. Allowing guards to inflict broken lets Knight assert more pressure around the map after his guards land hits, which is far more useful than Haemorrhage.
- Broken Hilt - Guard's inflict Mangled and Haemorrhage when hitting a survivor.
This is a simple QoL change that groups up Mangled and Haemorrhage together as keeping them separate will lead to Mangled being chosen over Haemorrhage most of the time. Since increased healing time is more useful than lost healing progression upon interrupting a heal.
- Lightweight Greaves - The Knight becomes Inspired while the Jailor is Scouting.
This add-on currently increases Knight's movement speed after summoning the jailor. Since the inspired status effect now does the same thing, this add-on has been changed accordingly. With the added buff of keeping the effect as long as the Jailor is scouting.
- Healing Poultice - The Knight becomes Inspired while the Assassin is hunting.
This add-on currently has the weird effect of making survivors scream after summoning the assassin. Which is both gimmicky and unfitting for the assassin since his specialty is hunting. This add-on is now more synergistic with what the assassin is good at by inspiring the Knight as long as the assassin is hunting.
- Flint and Steel - The Knight becomes Inspired while the Carnifex is carrying a survivor.
This add-on currently has the extremely weak effect of revealing survivor auras near dropped pallets after summoning the carnifex. Not only is this a bizarre effect to have tied to the Carnifex, it is highly situational and often not useful. The add-on now works with the carnifex's strengths of helping Knight control the match and is much more useful.
- Blacksmith's Hammer - Every time Morale goes up a level, all survivors will scream and reveal their location for 5 seconds.
Although this add-on currently isn't bad, it relies on the Knight to be close to a survivor after his guards fail to catch them in order to be useful. It now helps the Knight decide where to use his guards by showing him the position of every survivor each time morale levels up. Which can make leveling up morale easier after doing it at least once.
- Knight's Contract - Every 4th guard the Knight summons will be permanently Inspired and move 5% faster until they despawn.
Currently, this add-ons the most problematic add-on in Knight's arsenal. Massively encouraging him to facecamp by exposing all survivors near his 4th summoned guard. It now lets Knight power up a specific guard that he can use to great effect if used in the right time and place.
- Iridescent Banner Company - Once the exit gates are powered, the Banner is automatically placed at the Knight's location if not already down. And Morale instantly reaches level 4. Survivors hunted by guards cannot escape through the exit gates.
The effect of this add-on currently is situational, but quite strong. Being able to stop people from escaping through the gates can guarantee kills if the Knight is close enough. With the addition of the morale mechanic, it makes sense to buff this add-on to be even stronger during the end game. Filling a niche as a trump card for survivors to watch out for as the final gen nears completion.
Unresolved Issues
That is all of the changes I would make to fix Knight. Although I think they would make Knight significantly more fun to play as and against, they still would not fix all of his issues. So I'd like to close this massive post mentioning the problems with Knight that have yet to be solved.
- Guard AI remains buggy- This is first and foremost, a coding issue. I do not envy anyone who tries to sift through DbD's greasy spaghetti code. Especially when it comes to AI pathing. But this is something that has to happen if Knight's guards are to stop running into walls or past the survivors they're supposed to be hunting.
- Solo Que Experience remains bad- This is a problem that stems from DbD's horrible SBMM system that fails to match together players of equal skill. Against a team of competent survivors I'm sure the reworked Knight would be lots of fun to go against. But with a team of clueless survivors who have no concept of team work? It would be miserable. This system needs to be fixed if matches against Knight, and any killer for that matter, are to be fair..
- Map design still massively favouring either side - Since Knight remains a killer with a focus on map pressure, having to go against him on indoor maps with an emphasis on pallets like The Game or RPD would be absolutely miserable. And it would be just as awful playing reworked Knight on Garden of Joy thanks to its numerous safe, interconnected loops. DbD's maps need to be changed so they allow players to make meaningful choices while playing on them. Not have their gameplay limited because they got a certain map.
That's all. I've been chipping away at this post for the past several weeks. Even if no one bothers to read it, I'm happy it's finally finished. Thank you to anyone who stuck with it until the end!
Comments
The rare quality post. And about knight no else where it's not just demanding that map becomes basekit. The whole post is filled with well thought out ideas that care about both sides. I basically agree with the entire post and wholehearted believe that these knight changes would be pure good to the knight and do wonders in making him interesting to play as and against.
1+
I don't know if I like it, considering I quite like how Knight plays right now, but I have to absolutely commend the amount of effort and detail that went into this.
You clearly care quite a bit about this and it shows through your excellent and well thought-out suggestions!
Just let us stun/destroy the guards with pallets. That would help out a lot in many of those 2 on 1 chase situations.
Thank you very much!
"Creating a patrol path often feels like piloting a bumper car in a hedge maze."
omg that exactly how it feel
Bro you just dropped the best post of the year: detailed, precise and well written.
I'm not a crazy knight player myself, but I do highly agree with your points, thank you so much for bringing this to the community, I hope more people see it.
I think your post has conflicting opinions that oppose each other.
The challenge of playing Knight should be testing your map knowledge and out-positioning the survivors.
Interacting with Knight during a chase is binary. Either the survivor is in a position to avoid Knight's power. Or they aren't. The nuance that makes Wesker's power interesting, the ability to make multiple decisions that can impact a chase, is completely absent.
The only time that a survivor has the opportunity to make meaningful decisions in a game against Knight is when he's not using his power against the person he's chasing. When Knight splits pressure by chasing a survivor personally, and having a guard chase someone else, suddenly both survivors have meaningful choices they can make.
your first statement is saying knight should be rewarded for map knowledge and out-positioning survivors but your initial post complains about knight out-positioning survivors.
The Knight can instead now order his Guards to perform a "Scout" action by looking in a specific location and pressing the power button.
this is pretty hard to implement in a game like dbd because dbd killer is first person. there is also no minimap or real time RTS elements to plot on the map. It is not like call of duty where you can open laptop and go in 3rd person aerial view to call in an air-strike. the only way you can implement ranged deployment is using Nurse's blink system or Pinhead's gateway system.
When in a chase, the Scout action is replaced by the "Ambush" action.
Survivors cannot be seen while channelling.
these two aspects do not really mix. the killer need to have direct line of sight for the game to count the killer in the chase. you will not be able to initiate ambush action because you lost line of sight with survivor. It is little bit like spirit phase-walk where you drop chase.
Hotswapping while the Knight is chasing a survivor will cause Hotswapped guard to immediately begin hunting that survivor after teleporting.
I do not know any killer that has as an ability. not even Twin's has that with the whole Charlotte and Victor gameplay.
Inspire grants the Knight 10% Haste, 50% reduced pallet stun duration, and increased lunge range.
If your killer is 110% m/s and entirely relies on their ability to be effective then why does killer need m1 type statistics.
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the rework is interesting but I think feasibility to implement it in dbd is borderline impossible or very hard.
I don't think you understood parts of my post.
your first statement is saying knight should be rewarded for map knowledge and out-positioning survivors but your initial post complains about knight out-positioning survivors.
I never complained about Knight out-positioning survivors. I pointed out how using a guard in a chase is usually a binary decision with extremely little depth. And how the Knight has to go out of their way to create a scenario where they use their power in an interesting way.
this is pretty hard to implement in a game like dbd because dbd killer is first person.
No it wouldn't be. If this mechanic were to be implemented all it would require would be for the Knight to look at something, press the power button, and have the game create a path for the guard to follow starting from the Knight to the closest possible point to the marked area. Then set them to wander once they arrived in marked area.
The ability create a path for the AI already exists with Knight's patrol paths. And AI wandering an area already exists with Nemesis' zombies. It would just be a matter of combining the two.
these two aspects do not really mix. the killer need to have direct line of sight for the game to count the killer in the chase. you will not be able to initiate ambush action because you lost line of sight with survivor.
You've completely missed the point of this mechanic. If the Knight could see the survivors then they'd always create a guard as close as possible to them 100% of the time. It would effectively be dropping guards at loops now. Just with an extra step. Which doesn't lead to interesting gameplay.
Because Knight can't see the survivors when channelling an ambush they have to guess where the survivor will go. And in turn, the survivor has to guess where the Knight will spawn the guard. This creates an opportunity for both sides to make meaningful decisions that impact a chase. Since Knight sorely lacks this in his current kit.
I do not know any killer that has as an ability. not even Twin's has that with the whole Charlotte and Victor gameplay.
Knight already does this whenever he spawns a guard. If you slow down footage of Knight mid-summon, you can see that Knight briefly appears where the guard is going to spawn. And then re-appears where he started summoning them.
If your killer is 110% m/s and entirely relies on their ability to be effective then why does killer need m1 type statistics.
He doesn't? In order to become inspired, and get the extra movement speed, Knight's guards have to do something first. Break a pallet, hit, down or hook a survivor. Inspire exists to reward the Knight for using their guards effectively and to encourage them to play aggressively. The only reason the get it is when they use their power.
the rework is interesting but I think feasibility to implement it in dbd is borderline impossible or very hard.
Honestly, everything for this rework already exists in the game.
If I had access to the game's code and given enough time, I could probably create a really buggy version of the rework by combining together the different mechanics that already exist in the game.
So it's totally possible for the devs to do this if they really wanted to.
how the Knight has to go out of their way to create a scenario where they use their power in an interesting way.
this reminds me of survivor gameplay... where survivor has to go to weaker loops for killer to get interesting gameplay but why bother going to weak loops when you can use strong loops...
If this mechanic were to be implemented all it would require would be for the Knight to look at something, press the power button, and have the game create a path for the guard to follow starting from the Knight to the closest possible point to the marked area.
yes that is how nurses blink and pinhead gateway opening works. your changing the path creation mechanic into a blind nurse mechanic. I do not see how you could implement that in global rally in any other way. I cannot imagine this being global either because you won't be able to see where your placing your guards after 50+ m
Because Knight can't see the survivors when channelling an ambush they have to guess where the survivor will go. And in turn, the survivor has to guess where the Knight will spawn the guard. This creates an opportunity for both sides to make meaningful decisions that impact a chase. Since Knight sorely lacks this in his current kit.
does he lack this in his current kit? if you use long patrol paths, the knight does have to guess where survivor is. it is just that even when you spawn a guard correctly and successfully begin guard chase. the survivor can outrun it on all 3 guards at base-kit.
Quickly swapping positions between the Knight and is guards is technically part of his power.
it is part of his power but it does not teleport him.
Think of it like nemesis zombies, when a zombie in a loop, your saying that the knight can switch position with zombie and get an m1 hit. It is like hag teleport phantasm power. you can use it like dredge's remnant power where you teleport back with remnant by using zombie guards as rally points. this is what I mean by conflicting opinion. you said you dislike binary decision making that knight can do but your mechanic allows knight to create that create situations for the survivor where binary decision gameplay occurs.
He doesn't? In order to become inspired, and get the extra movement speed, Knight's guards have to do something first. Break a pallet, hit, down or hook a survivor. Inspire exists to reward the Knight for using their guards effectively and to encourage them to play aggressively. The only reason the get it is when they use their power.
this does not answer the question. the killer does not need a mechanic to get them to use the ability. they will do that automatically when they see a benefit in using the ability. I am just asking why he gets faster movement speed and better m1 killer statistics when he is 110% m/s. it sounds counter-productive.
I think this killer would have too much power now. You get that there's absolutely nothing to be done when being hunted by 2 knights + killer that are all inspired by each other?
Like sure - the devil is in details. If you provide high enough numbers, this can work. But then we are getting to same-ish territory as Meyers with his 2 ultra rare addons (he's weak until endgame, but if he gets his power soon enough, it's GG without any real counterplay - so feast or famine = people will complain he's OP and trash-tier at the same time).
I generally love the idea. It could be very cool. But I would maybe take away a mechanic or two and make things working more reliably. But overall - yes sounds very nice compared to existing knight
As a fellow Knight main. I agree with all.
Only this seems a little weird.
You can cycle but not all, i get it but feels weird.
And if all those changes come i could accept knight been 4.4 m/s (wich is a big deal).
And yeah Jailor need a little something.
Its not going to happen at all but well, good post.
I'm going to be honest. I don't see any logic in your arguments.
It's like you're arguing just for the sake of arguing.
That's a very fair criticism.
If this rework were added it would easily be the most complicated killer power in the game. I really had to wrack my brains trying to think of a way of keeping Knight's identity as a minion-based killer, while making sure that it allowed for all players to make meaningful decisions. That's why it's so complicated. DbD chases were only designed with simple powers and mind so something as unique as Knight's has to be very well balanced to fit into the game.
Every system I invented is designed to work with every other system to create a flow for the game. You can't really remove any piece without the entire thing collapsing on itself. I don't think BHVR are ever going to give Knight a rework of this scale because it would simply be too much work. But I don't regret creating this post as it showcases what I believe Knight's full potential could be.
That change was a compromise.
I wanted to allow Knight to switch between his guards more freely. Because being forced to use a specific guard at any time limits the amount of decisions you can make.
On the other hand, if you could use any guard you wanted at any time then there'd be no reason to keep spamming the Assassin in chases, Carnifex when you wanted to break stuff, and the Jailer when you wanted to find someone.
Being unable to use the same guard twice forces players to switch up what guards they use and utilize them in different situations. Rather than use the same guards in the same situations over and over again. Which isn't as interesting.
The Knight's base movement changed from 4.6m/s to 4.4m/s
in exchange for further complicating the use of the Power and making the Killer M1 based. 🤢
No Thanks, I don't know why people become P100 to make an argument to destroy the Killer for the rest of us.
I like the Knight as he is, his simple to play, fun and powerful. Keep it Simple.
Why on earth would I ever want to destroy that? So Survivors can feel entertained when chased? What a one sided argument, there are loads of things in the game that Survivors do that are boring for Killers too. So why do Survivors deserve special treatment in getting my fav Killer gutted? They don't deserve that ofc.
I didn't read it all since it is way too long and complicated all together and this is also what this complete rework would be: overcomplicated.
Making Killer go from 4.6 to 4.4 is a huge nerf and he would feel less fun to play as allready with this change (I personaly don't much like slow movement killers).
And the rest just sounds like super overcomplicated spagetty. Not only this would take ages to programm but would be probably buggy as well and neither side would understand this power. Then people would complain about his power again because it reads like 4 pages of a book.
Rather keep Knight as is than this thing. I know you put a lot of effort into making this post but I don't see how this would make him any better or fun for neither side. In the end, Knight is simple killer that has minions to do or help him to do stuff with him and I would prefer to keep it that way. Not every Killers needs to have X counterplayers on every loop and 37373 things to do.