Owlcatquiet
Owlcatquiet
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Ultimately I don't favor this Design Preview direction with the goal of transforming Drones into a dash power as a means of damaging survivors. This is removing the trap aspect of Skull Merchant that I and other SM players enjoy. I much prefer keeping current Skull Merchant's Lock On and scan system, so here's what I would want out of this new rework!
PROS:
- Reintroduction of Stealth Drones and (seemingly, from the drawings) Double Scan lines from SM 2.0 is great! I am hoping the scan lines will stay relatively hard to spot at minimum but making the direction they're facing more obvious is OK to facilitate more straightforward counterplay from survivors. Stealth Drones are useful as a trap tool and are meant to be sought out by survivors ahead of time if they wish to avoid this trap down the line, so they should stay somewhat hard to spot from a distance.
- EMP Dart as a more obvious reward for Skull Merchant, a suitable enough replacement for Hinder and Haste status effects as they are clearly confusing for a lot of players. As long as SM's current Lock On stacking and scan system is maintained, along with the Drone trap philosophy, I think this would be OK! However testing will be needed to finally approve of the EMP Dart and removal of Haste and Hinder.
- Piloting Drones manually to a spot (BUT REMOVE DRONE PROPULSION). This can be a positive change as it prevents easily placing a drone mid-chase at a tile, since SM would be standing in place and piloting the drone to a spot, then letting it deploy. However, this is assuming we keep SM's current system as the main drive for her gameplan, NOT piloting drones to damage survivors with drone propulsion.
CONS:
- Drone Propulsion turns Skull Merchant into a "dash" killer. Drone Propulsion is basically a dash to injure survivors. This isn't Skull Merchant. This is like many of the other killers currently in the roster which have access to a simple dash power to injure and down survivors. This is NOT what Skull Merchant players want. Roll back on this please! Instead, maintain piloting drones as a means of quickly moving them to specific areas and letting them deploy at that spot. That's all!
- Global Detection Power seems more like a "free" power that also doesn't really do anything a Skull Merchant would want, which is finding survivors healing or working on generators. It only can detect survivors moving. So the only real way this can be useful is… in chase, for the one survivor you're chasing. I'm okay with just removing this entirely and focusing on polishing the other aspects of this power.
In summary, while I appreciate the additional effort and ideas into this Design Preview, I do not favor the direction of it; removing the trap setup aspects of her power and turning Drones into a dash power. However, to not let the dev teams efforts go to waste, keep some aspects of the Design Preview such as piloting Drones manually and driving them to a set spot to deploy. In addition, the introduction of the EMP Dart projectile is seemingly meant as a lethal replacement for the current Haste and Hinder status effects, as a means of giving Skull Merchant a more interesting and obvious ability to easily down tracked survivors. This would also solve the confusion surrounding her various status effects that continues to elude the knowledge of many players. This is basically all I want from this rework. As long as Skull Merchant's killer archetype and gameplan around drones as traps is intact, I am onboard for reintroducing Stealth Drones, double scan lines, and the addition of the EMP Dart! NO Drone Propulsion. As for Global Detection Power, I'm content with removing it and ignoring it, put more resources into polishing everything else.
With that being said… It seems you're very adamant on keeping the Drone Propulsion idea. I wouldn't be too shocked if it goes through to the PTB. I'll still try her but keep in mind, if the goal of this rework is to appeal to non-Skull Merchant players, I'm afraid you won't achieve that, as she is a truly unique killer like no other. Anyone that hasn't ever liked her will continue to not like her no matter how much effort. Not to mention further alienating many Skull Merchant enjoyers that love her for her trap focus and threat around stationary drones detecting careless and unaware survivors. If players want a killer that focused on damaging survivors through a dash, there's already plenty of other killers fitting that exact bill. The future BHVR envisions for Skull Merchant is straying from exactly what Skull Merchant enjoyers love about her power, concept, and theme… She lives for the thrill of tracking down prey and going in for the kill when the time is right. Drone Propulsion is the opposite of that in regards to theming and gameplay. A strategic and calculating hunter using her expensive and meticulously crafted drones to ram into survivors is crude. Using them as a means of tracking and later hunting them down herself for sport, her own sadistic enjoyment, is Skull Merchant. That is Adriana Imai. By the way, have any of you read the short story "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell? I recommend it, it's quite a fun read! 😉
I'm not an expert at writing up documents or anything, I wanted to make a statement relatively quickly since there is also no survey available this time around unfortunately. Thank you for the Design Preview update and some cute drawings, and take care!