"Nerf into oblivion now, fix 'some time' next year" needs to STOP!
The Twins "rework" and the outright murder of The Skull Merchant set a disgusting precedent that Behavior seems to be running with at full speed. If they personally don't like something in the game, the new balancing philosophy seems to be "intentionally break it to the point of uselessness and fix it some time in the next 12-18 months".
Now with Chucky being outright gutted, and the Houndmaster's Knotted Rope addon losing 96% of its effectiveness in the span of two weeks, Behavior is more or less telling the community that this will be the norm going forward. Make it useless now, fix it in the very distant future maybe.
@Mandy , can we, the community, get some kind of official confirmation that the balance team is DONE doing this and it will NEVER happen again? I don't know if you guys have noticed this, but the community is kinda angry, and rightfully so
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I'm not sure why people count the Twins rework in this conversation, that was very obviously a different situation- not least because the Twins were in fact buffed from where they were before, not nerfed.
That being said, I also don't much like this precedent, though we must also acknowledge why it's happening. It's happened to two things so far - Skull Merchant and the Knotted Rope addon - and both have a specific reason that they happened. Not good reasons, but it is more specific than just "they didn't like the thing".
To be constructive about the Knotted Rope - as I've spoken about Skull Merchant ad nauseum already lol - I recognise the concern BHVR had with it being a problem over the period that they wouldn't be around to fix it, and I'd like to offer this olive branch: You should've killswitched it instead.
That isn't what the killswitch is for, of course, and it'd set a bad precedent too with people thinking anything they think is simply unbalanced and nothing more could also be killswitched, but I think that would've been a less distasteful situation than just flat out making the thing worthless.
Personally, I just would've left it as is and took the risk that people made it obnoxious, but if action needed to be taken I think bending the rules on the killswitch would've been healthier than the road they did take.
Clearly the Devs had a very good reason. They wanted to support other game studios. Now I'm no longer thinking of putting time into Houndmaster and instead... I'm gonna be spending Christmas break maining Jeff.
The Twins reworks matters in this conversation because it's an example that their promised solution to the problem can both take WAY longer that was planned and be absolutely awful and not even get implemented and fix the issue
Sure, but they also didn't intentionally nerf the Twins into uselessness before that fix, so it's not really super comparable. A lot of changes took a long time to make, and some of them ended up pretty good when we did finally get them.
Well, I'd say that the point of these nerfs is to massively lower pick rate of those killers and since no one was playing Twins to begin with they didn't have to do that
I would have done that with Skull Merchant.
In my opinion, most of the complaints were ridiculous, she was perfectly fine the way she was. The way I see it, it is nothing more than people refusing to adapt and learn how to play against the character.
Very similar to Freddy's release in 2017. With the same results, sadly.
I absolutely loved Scarlet Witch. She is awesome to play!
When I saw them asking for "Labor of love" votes, I was thinking we should all vote for Civ 5.
Because rather than seeing how it played out on live, the Twins rework was almost completely reverted in favor of some mild QOL changes. Addons were left untouched as some of the worst in the entire game.
Then most of the big QOL changes were at least partially reverted.
It's not the Skull Merchant nerfs but close enough that it calls the cops when the Skull Merchant nerfs play loud music.
Yeah, but that's a completely different situation than the one being discussed.
The pattern being discussed is things being intentionally overnerfed so they're effectively removed from play until a later date. That's happened twice, and didn't happen to the Twins, who were buffed overall.
It falls into the same domain of 'really bad precedent' honestly. Twins might even have it worse, as now that their rework was cancelled it'll probably never, ever happen while at least SM mains can hope for a rework in 2027 or something.
I'm sure all Freddy mains are worried as hell right now.
If they personally don't like something in the gameKind of crazy that they design the game but then later personally decide they don't like something.
Argue about balance changes all you want, but where is the personally coming from?
I still feel like just folding in any other change you also don't like into this discussion is a little inappropriate, it muddies the waters. Besides, why stop there? There've been more bad changes than just that.
Best to keep our focus on the things that follow a pattern, otherwise we'll lose focus completely.
The problem with Skull merchant is her design as is still just chess merchant as before. She's just busywork as a kit that honestly should of been left on the shelf and revised later down the line. She herself isn't particularly strong but elements of her are just well boring to put out as a killer, and boring to interact with on a survivor level. I myself got her adept and popped her back in the back of the closet. I don't find Predator casual cosplay chapter compelling, and plenty of other killer players were the same. I understand the need to make licensed chapters unique and appealing to the holders of them. But it's come often at the expense of the original chapters. We need 2 teams one for whatever license they're on and one for original content.
It's a pattern. Maybe a bigger pattern but a pattern nonetheless.
Survivors don't like a killer. Survivors complain. Killer is nuked from orbit or denied really positive changes often followed by a lot of gloating on the forums.
Now sure killers do the same, but it's one thing to nerf MFT and another thing to nerf an entire kit to that level.
Jeff!!! The good boi <3 Yes I agree, I too will be spending more time in rival's playing good boi and hoenst a funner pvp game right now. DBD and Overwatch balancing choices have left me with a sour taste in my month.
Honestly, I'd add Freddy McFingerknives to the list. He has been in a poor state for a very long time, and was put there due to certain things like his addons being particularly strong, but he was just trashed in the process. He's been left in a very poor state for a very long time, while he awaits another rework. It also applies to perks on both sides as well, when an effect on a perk/item/addon/power/etc is deemed too strong they'll either nerf it into oblivion or add on conditions that make it worthless.
It's funny, I saw people in YouTube comment sections saying after seeing Jeff, they became Jeff mains although they don't play the game.