jesterkind
jesterkind
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@BlackJimmy88 said:
Ethan for Leon, and the outfit that makes Rebecca look like Faith from Buffy are what I want.
Also a Santa outfit for Nemesis, that gives Misty and the other Zombie Christmas Elf costumes.
I feel like Ethan might be kinda hard to do without showing his face, here.
Then again, BHVR figuring out a way to make his face permanently shadowed could be interesting…
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I'd kill for more rep from the Revelations games, especially, and they're sure as hell not getting full character releases.
Moira Burton skin for Rebecca and Alex Wesker skin for the Mastermind, BHVR, you know you wanna do it…
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@fussy said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3824409#Comment_3824409
And like Ohyakno said, your Haem suggestion really just don't do anything. If Haem someday will recieve any change, it must be hard counter to 99% healing still. Point of Resi is having reward to stay in risky state, so "high risk – high reward", but 99% healing is what make it "no risk – high reward". And no, Resi don't lose any "chase value" from this, I honestly don't even want to explain why, it's hilarious take. Even if it was the case, it does nothing with Haem discussion.
As for the last part, isn't that how it should work? Shouldn't you have to be actually leveraging your status effect to get value out of it?
For the most part – yes. It was, it will. But your suggestion will also completely remove value from some rare situations like when survivors need to get rid of T3 against Doctor, remove birds against Artist etc. Not a big deal, if Haem will be useless anyway, but I won't be glad to see another status effect will lose gameplay variety.
Not sure why there's so much pushback to pointing out that Resi has chase value and that said chase value is a big part of why you'd 99 a heal with Resi, but alright.
What I'd rather point out here is that the main thing Haemorrhage does here would still completely work with my suggested change. It's still going to be very potent at interrupting heals, because anyone healing with a medkit now can't finish a heal with it afterwards and anyone you interrupt healing someone else wasted their time because the heal progress drains as they scatter away from the looming threat in front of them.
That's what Haemorrhage is for as far as I can see, it being a counter to 99'd heals is a nice bonus. It's for interrupting heals, and preventing healing in chase. That's what it does, and that's what my change preserves.
It has other edge cases, but most of those are negative and deserve to be removed.
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@Ohyakno said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3824418#Comment_3824418
I mean, your version of hemorrhage doesn't do anything. You get that, right? There's nothing stopping 99 heals on a gen. If I interrupt a survivor getting healed under hook and chase their healer they can simply finish it off with their medkit. It gets rid of like all of the utility of the status effect.
Which again, might be fine if mangled comes back. Just not sure about it.
I feel like I pretty conclusively pointed out what this version of the status effect does, so I'm not sure there's much of a conversation here.
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@Ohyakno said:
So getting rid of hemorrhage in exchange for getting mangled back?
Hmmm. It's close to being a fair trade, I guess. Maybe.
You lose random and unreliable value from Haemorrhage, but get to keep it working fully as intended if you're actively using it yourself. It'd still work for preventing 99'd heals and for ambushing healing survivors, but not for just disabling the Solidarity you didn't even know the survivors had.
You get both status effects, but they're healthier.
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@fussy said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3824383#Comment_3824383
"It would help killers with 99 Resi, but actually it wouldn't, but my suggestion is fair, because Resi lose its chase value (wat???)" I read it 5 times, but I can't help but can't find a tiny sense in it.
but you have more control over how much
Yes, that's why it shouldn't be implemented, it will be too harsh nerf. Effect will do something only if killer actually chase survivor and you don't really need Haem for chases only.
Maybe it's a situation of different priorities. To me, the value of 99'ing a heal with Resi is that you get repair speed and vault speed- you prerun as the killer approaches, hit a few fast vaults, and tap the heal as the killer gains on you to extend the chase further. With Haemorrhage draining as you run, you only get to use the repair speed and have to tap the heal immediately if the killer starts approaching.
That's still good, which I think is fine, but it reigns in the really obnoxious stuff you can do with Resi and a 99'd heal. I don't mind strategies like that existing, I just want to lower their maximum value ceiling a little.
As for the last part, isn't that how it should work? Shouldn't you have to be actually leveraging your status effect to get value out of it? To me, the way Haemorrhage is designed is as a tool to use when interrupting heals, and reign in 99'd heals on survivors you're actively chasing. I don't really see how it's engaging or fun for either side to just disable specific weak perks with no further interaction.
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@fussy said:
I think make Haem lose 1% of progress every second is more fair for both sides. Lose it only in running won't help killers with 99% for Resi, it also won't change anything with survivors perk like Reactive Healing. You will lose this progress regardless, doesn't matter what disturbed you to save this progress, because current numbers simply deny it too fast.
I'm not sure I understand your position- it would help killers with 99'd Resi because survivors would start to lose the progress as soon as the chase starts, so no more healing at the last second after benefiting from the vault speed.
Sure, survivors could 99 with Resi just for the repair speed bonus and heal before the chase starts, but that's cutting out the actual chase value of Resi so I think that's generally pretty fair.
As for Reactive Healing, you'd lose progress if you're disturbed, sure, but you have more control over how much- not to mention that sometimes not getting to use RH because you have to run is better than never getting to use RH because the status effect hard counters it immediately.
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@Skillfulstone said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3823620#Comment_3823620
It's very tricky to make SM's power balanced yet useful and engaging since the very core of her power (puts a stationary drone anywhere that creates a large danger zone) is made to zone and create lose-lose situations/force to hold W, which is boring and has effectively no real counterplay outside of a full SWF and "just hold w".
While it hasn't been "officially" said, during a stream one of the devs wrote in chat (and a Reddit post) that SM's changes were just until her rework in 2025 and that they were working on it. It implies that the severity of the nerfs was intentional, a band-aid of sorts, until her rework. And honestly it's understandable even if it's not good.
While her exceptionally high killrate is part of the reason why she got nuked (she was so much worse in PTB, borderline M1 Killer) everyone knows it's more of why she has a high killrate and how unhealthy she was, the game was almost unplayable since almost every games someone would instantly give up (even more than normal) and would further inflate her killrate which messed up any sort of accurate stats.
The thing that worries me with this is that this sets a precedent: if you want something gone from the game, give up/dc enough times and eventually it's gonna get destroyed, no need to look for a healthy solution, just refuse to play and it'll go away eventually.
For the record, while I don't disagree with everything in your post, your reasoning in the first paragraph is objectively wrong. Her power as it stood prior to this set of changes absolutely had counterplay that allowed you to play tiles with a drone in play, because her drones were intentionally designed to no longer simply be danger areas that forced holding W due to the scan lines working the way they do.
That's part of what frustrates me so much, personally. She was 95% of the way to the finish line, her previous rework did wonders to give her an interactive and fundamentally healthily designed power, but we're stuck here instead due to a combination of incessant and irrational hate, and BHVR's annoying decision to just kill her until the next rework.
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I also disagree, but I do think there's an open design space with Exhaustion that hasn't been explored that much.
What I'd personally like to see is more perks that are disabled by Exhaustion without actually inflicting it themselves, like current Iron Will and old Made For This. That's a great balancing decision to make for some perks, because it prompts more considering your options at the loadout screen, and it makes anti-exhaustion just a tiny bit more reliable because there are more perks that it'll affect.
Rather than having Exhaustion affect survivors by default, it'd be healthier to expand what perks Exhaustion effects. It'd still be a healthy gamble to bring - as a survivor who isn't affected by Exhaustion doesn't have certain strong perks - but with slightly more of a chance of success.
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As others have said, Strength in Shadows is considerably better for this build, since travel time is always a factor and SiS works out significantly faster once you actually start the heal.
That being said, I do consider Self Care to be viable with Botany, but only barely. 30 seconds is slightly longer than a medkit, but it's infinite- that's not a terrible combo, especially since you heal others faster and it's pretty flexible on where you get to use it. It's pretty fragile as a combo, though, it's extremely susceptible to any form of anti-heal the killer might have, since any slowdown on top of the already tenuous 30 second heal can make the overall time investment just flat out too long.
If you're looking for self-heal combos, I'm going to echo something one other person said here: Overzealous and Inner Strength with a Map. Repair speed and heals, on top of being primed to stop any hexes you see in their tracks. This build is great, I run it all the time myself.
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@Ryan489x said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3816554#Comment_3816554
you mean all 2 of them. The only other one that does it. Is soul survivor. Verses the 18 or more that killers have to find you.
Man, I forgot Sole Survivor hid your aura. Okay, that brings the total aura-blocking perks that I can think of up to four.
Distortion still exists, so that's one. Off The Record is less consistent but passive and useful to deter opportunistic tunnelling, so that's two. Shadow Step requires setup but is very reliable once you've done that, for three. Finally Sole Survivor, for four.
They all have strengths and weaknesses, and any given survivor may want to only run one of them because it's the one that works best with their average build/playstyle, but they're all viable (…except maybe SS) and having to evaluate which one is best for your build and playstyle is better than Distortion just being the uncontested king you never have any reason to unequip.
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If a killer dedicates three perks to information, shouldn't they be guaranteed to get some information from their build? Isn't it bad if Distortion just completely shuts down all three for the whole match?
Furthermore, isn't it good for the survivor team that the killer only has one perk that can affect generators or chases?
Finally, doesn't Distortion being a little weaker open up the possibility of using other aura-block/stealth perks?
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Regression perks really aren't necessary if you keep up good macro pressure.
The start of the game is when the survivors are at their strongest, so you should expect to have around one gen done on average by the end of your first chase. That's not a bad thing, it's not setting you up for a loss, and it doesn't need to be changed- it's just an unavoidable element of games like this and it'd be unbalanced in the killer's favour if it worked any other way. What you should be focusing on is slowing down every other generator's completion with your basekit slowdown.
You mention that tunnelling is popular because getting one generator-doing survivor out of the match ASAP is strong, and it's a similar principle behind getting your slowdown from gameplay instead of perks. You could tunnel someone out, but since that's unbalanced and likely to be changed eventually, it's better to learn how to slow things down without doing it to safeguard yourself against the game changing later.
For some tips, your ultimate goal should be forcing multiple survivors to react to something at once. When a survivor's in chase with you, they can't do generators. When they're on a hook, they can't do generators. When they have to go save someone on the hook, they can't do generators. All three of those things can be happening at once, leaving only one survivor free to do gens, slowing down the game considerably. To achieve this, I'd highly recommend information perks to keep you informed of where survivors are, to cut down on lost time spent searching for people- if you can basically always be in chase you're exuding a lot of pressure, especially when someone's already hooked.
It's harder than relying on cheese strategies like tunnelling, obviously, but the returns are worth it once you get into the swing of things. As a happy bonus, playing this way makes any regression perks you do bring more potent.
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I'm not so sure I agree with the reasoning here, I don't think newer perks are really suffering in terms of strength or design for the most part- and when they do, there's usually another reason to point to rather than there just being too many new perks.
The last truly bad perk we had on release was Sable's Weaving Spiders, and I'd argue the reason that was in such a mediocre state - especially on its PTB - was because BHVR are wary of introducing a new mechanic and having one of its perks be immediately overpowered, like what happened with Boons and Circle of Healing. Also, even that perk is pretty okay now after a few rounds of changes.
Sure, some perks like Still Sight and Illumination are under-tuned to the point where it's hard to justify running them, but I'd argue there's a huge difference between "this perk has a good design but too low numbers" and "this perk was designed in a way that fundamentally makes it bad".
BHVR are, I think, aware of how volatile the meta in this game is and how easily things can snowball out of hand, so I can understand why perks are released with safer numbers- but even with that in mind most of them are just "decent", hardly "bad".
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@Ohyakno said:
Does Capcom even acknowledge dark stalkers exists? I don't think it's had a game for like twenty years
Street Fighter 6 currently has a Darkstalkers themed battle pass, which includes one of the actual games you can play within SF6.
Capcom acknowledge Darkstalkers constantly, they love plastering Morrigan everywhere. They just won't make a new game, lol.
To the thread topic- hell yes. I'd love to see some Darkstalkers themed cosmetics and such in this game. Give me a Lilith skin for Sable and my life is yours, BHVR…
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@Royval said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3810397#Comment_3810397
permanent vault speed that Lara perk is trash.
Resilience is permanent while you're injured, though.
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I have to say, I still don't understand how those extra ten seconds could possibly be seen as a punishment for the killer unless they're just hanging around the hook waiting for second stage. If you're out chasing someone else already, doesn't that just give you more time to get your next down, because you know only two survivors are on generators?
It's an innocuous change. It does help against camping, by strengthening its counterplay, but it doesn't really have much of an impact otherwise. Unless you're the solo queue teammate left to dangle for an extra ten seconds, which is kinda dull, but eh. Being on hook is part of the game, not too bad.
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To be fair, we do have two vault speed perks, Resilience and Finesse. If not those, I'm also going to ask what you're looking for.
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@Devil_hit11 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3809387#Comment_3809387
underrated? it doesn't do its job well. you could legit buff this perk to stop over-time regression globally across entire map as active ability with 40/30/20 seconds when you work on a gen. this would be an extremely over-tuned version of rookie spirit and people still wouldn't use it.
It is niche counter-pick perk to Oppression.
It does, though?
Its job is to keep you updated on which generators are being regressed, and it does that pretty well. It's an info perk first and foremost.
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To be fair, Chaos Shuffle is the literal worst case scenario for No Mither as a perk, because you don't really get to capitalise on its upsides due to your build being randomised. I think it being so detrimental specifically in Chaos Shuffle would be better addressed by just making it so you can't be rolled No Mither in that mode, if it's that big of a problem there.
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I don't know about your idea, but I do question the idea that Rookie Spirit is bad because it doesn't show you where the killer is. It isn't supposed to do that, at least by my estimation, it's to help you know which generators are being targeted by regression perks.
It also has the nice side effect of helping newer players know where the generators are, which was very important at the time of its release because Resident Evil was going to draw in a lot of new players.
I think Rookie Spirit is fine. If anything, it's underrated.
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@Valimure said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3806189#Comment_3806189
As you noted, the ideal situation is only having one person free to do gens.
Chasing two people still leaves two on the gens... That's not good for me.
You can't reliably slug either. If you look at the screenshots I posted of survivor loadouts, Decisive is being paired with Unbreakable quite often which means you're gaining nothing more than the ten or so seconds it takes for them to recover.
It's good compared to the alternative, which is three people on gens.
As for the last part, survivors burning through their Unbreakable when you didn't even want to slug them and they brought it on themselves is still pretty darn good, in my opinion.
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@Valimure said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3806173#Comment_3806173
I wish I could ignore them, that's the point.
Unfortunately they're forcing us to go through them because they have safety from Decisive Strike, and that's the problem. I don't think you realize how much time can actually be wasted by people taking hits. If they have Dead Hard or Off the Record and can take two hits, that's even more time wasted.
Even one body block is enough for the other survivor to make it to the next loop or pallet - that two second recovery time from hitting someone can extend a chase by thirty seconds or more. Is it an issue once? Not much. But is it an issue when everyone is running the same build? Absolutely.
There's also the issue I've run into of chasing someone off a gen but someone I just unhooked is also hanging around but hopping into a locker when I get close. That's a lose-lose situation for me as a killer: I can't pick them up or I'll eat the Decisive Strike and I can't leave them or they'll finish the gen, so I generally end up sitting there counting to 60.
The thing about that is that you're sort of missing the other half of the trade, though, and that's the half that's in the killer's favour.
So, let's assume two survivors are coordinating to pull this off, you've got one that you're actually trying to chase and the one who was recently unhooked trying to bodyblock. You point out, correctly, that it makes the chase take longer, but what you're neglecting is that the killer gets more pressure than normal from that chase.
Chasing one survivor lowers the team's efficiency by 25% for the duration of that chase, and you should generally always want to have one survivor occupied like that. The reason it's so strong for the killer to already be in a chase before the unhook happens is because that situation lowers the team's efficiency by 75% — you have one in chase, one on the hook, one going for the save, leaving only one to do generators.
If we assume that you're chasing two survivors at once, you're lowering the team's efficiency by 50% instead of the usual 25%. Sure, there's an amount of time the chase could last where that still ends up being not a good trade for you, but by the same token, you have the freedom for that chase to last noticeably longer than usual because it's dragging more survivors off generators than usual. This is increased exponentially if the unhooked survivor is foolish enough to actually get downed, because then you get to finish your chase and go find someone else with a slug on the ground and a survivor on the hook to further increase your pressure.
It might give survivors some short-term gains, but it also gives the killer an opening to get a much stronger long-term gain if they make the right choices.
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I don't think either of those are really problems, honestly.
Everyone's already pointed out the big problem with disabling DS on protection hit, but I'll go one further and point out that someone trying to bait you into eating their DS via taking protection hits can be 100% countered by simply ignoring them. Hit them if they're blocking a doorway, walk through them, ignore them. Not an issue whatsoever.
I have seen some arguments about the locker thing that are a little more reasonable, like someone going down under a pallet and their recently unhooked teammate hopping in a locker close by, but honestly I think that's a niche enough interaction that it's probably fine. Maybe if it becomes an epidemic, but until then, not really worth caring about.
When it comes to DS, the only issue I can think of is that getting a save isn't considered a Conspicuous Action. Change that, and there's little to be worried about.
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Not to defend the changes in this latest dev update because they're very bad, but there are problems with Skull Merchant specifically.
Think about how many people tell you her power lacks counterplay, or how many talk about her power in a way that makes it clear they don't understand how it works. I'm not interested in blaming them for that - it's the game's fault for making her power too opaque and lacking clear tells for it.
BHVR's listed changes have exactly one worthwhile thing in them, which is removing the stealth mode for drones. That'll help survivors be more aware of her drones to better counter them, but it comes alongside absolutely no other adjustments to this area and with crippling nerfs that dismantle her core gameplan.
I think we shouldn't downplay the issues Merchant's kit actually has, they do exist and they do warrant fixing. We just need to be firmly aware of what those issues are.
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Not the worst idea. What would be the idea behind Claw Traps here, though?
Just tracking + Hindered when you're scanned with one on?
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@Ryan489x said:
43% is still a pretty high number confirmation bias aside I find another odd aspect of the community is that this game seems to get a free pass on other things that players attack the heck out of other dev teams for
To be fair, that number is for a TOTAL of 15 seconds across the match, not just for a single down. That's frankly really not that much, that's like, the killer stops to kick a pallet/gen or reload their power before they pick you up after each down or something.
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It didn't seem all that surprising to me, there isn't really noticeable slugging in most of my matches.
It's always important to be wary of confirmation bias. You're gonna remember the matches you were slugged more, because they stick out as particularly annoying ones.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3799799#Comment_3799799
Right, that's the gamble, but it's also just the first
layerof the gamble, if you follow.It's not. It's several layers down already.
The first layer is actually having the opportunity to use it, which requires LoS blockers so that you can actually lose the killer. The second is the mindgame, because you need to make sure the killer doesn't anticipate your movements.
But on top of these perks being innately both hard to use and unreliable, the companion perk that you could use to cancel out their hard-counters got nerfed, and more hard-counters were added, so they became even less reliable.
These perks basically entered the field with a broken left leg, then BHVR handed them a crutch in the last patch, and then this patch they broke the right leg. This isn't gonna work.
It's that specific tools have specific use cases
But the specific use cases for info perks keep getting wider, and the specific use cases for deception perks keep getting more and more narrow. This isn't reasonable balancing or game design.
It's that it was THE answer to aura reading by being 100% accurate, 100% passively
So why did Predator get the buff that it did, then? Because that now falls afoul of the same issue.
Okay, tackling those points in order:
1: Everything you're saying here is way further down the line than the loadout screen, though. The first layer is deciding you want to bring those perks to begin with, pretty obviously.
But, to actually respond to that, I think you're kind of letting generalities get away from you here. You mention, for instance, that Distortion was nerfed… but it was retooled to still be used in this scenario. This scenario is where Distortion will function after the changes, if they hit live without adjustments. It recharges when the chase begins, so even if you blocked an aura before, you'll have it available when you hit the fast vault.
Second to that point, more hard counters were added? To which perks? I don't mean to sound too aggressive there, but my whole point is that the different deception perks each have their own, separate counter picks. Which perks do the new aura perks on killer counter? Zanshin Tactics doesn't counter most of them, for instance, since it's heavily restricted to a dropped pallet and not a window or a locker. That's part of the second layer, identifying what counter picks could harm your gameplan and if you want to/can bring something to mitigate those picks.
2: I think this is another example of generalities getting away from you, because the perks themselves aren't getting broader use cases, there are just new perks that each have their own specific use cases. Them existing will affect your decisionmaking, of course, but you also have to remember that most of these really aren't going to be that popular, so the risk is a lot lower for them.
Similarly, the use case for the deception perks isn't getting more narrow, at all really. I'm assuming what you mean by that is that deception perks as a class are getting harder to use because of more info perks, but I think I've covered how that's not really the case so I'll move on.
3: Kinda whataboutism, don't you think? If you don't think the new Predator change is healthy then that's a completely separate discussion, and you don't have any indication what I think about it based on this discussion. It could be too much! I'm gonna keep an eye on it on the PTB for that very reason.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3799772#Comment_3799772
First and biggest, you seem to be acting like "info perk" as a category just immediately, wholly cancels out "deception perk" as a category
Well, this is where the uncertainty of the game comes in. Because survivors don't get notified of any aura reading, they can't tell whether their gambit has any chance of success. These perks are hard enough to get value out of to begin with, but now there's every chance you run afoul of a perk that fully blocks it, because they all have multiple counter-perks. And if they do block it, there's a good chance that the attempt to get value out of these hard-to-use perks ends up costing you instead.
Why would you bring these perks when there are so many hard-counters scattered throughout the game?
It's like bringing Exultation, Streetwise, Built to Last and Appraisal, except instead of it being just Franklin's, BHVR decides to tack item destruction onto half a dozen other perks.
These kinds of builds and concepts just fall off the wagon when their counters become more powerful, and more readily available. So what was the point in buffing them if they get nerfed immediately after?
Second, sort of following on from that, I'm not sure why Shadow Step and Off The Record aren't considered reliable. OTR may require you to get hooked first, which certainly could make it less desirable compared to Shadow Step and Distortion, but those other two are
designedto help you in chase, especially with Distortion's changes. Those two perks very much stop the kind of info perk you're worried about.Shadow Step needs set-up time and has a restricted range, and announces itself to the killer. If the killer notices aura reading not going off, they know you haven't left the area. The information perk gets muddled, but not blocked. And that is IF you get the opportunity to actually pull off a vanishing act within that specific radius, because you're also dependent on totem spawns. If a totem spawns in the wrong spot, you can't use the aura blocking in that area in conjunction with the vanishing perks.
Off the Record can only be used twice per match and only lasts 80 seconds. If the killer isn't tunnelling, there's a good chance this perk is only active when you don't need it.
What "didn't fly" for Distortion…?
The idea that things should have answers on opposing sides. Distortion was an answer to the rapid powercreep of aura reading perks, but that didn't save it from getting nerfed.
Right, that's the gamble, but it's also just the first layer of the gamble, if you follow.
Layer one is, say, a survivor wanting to use Quick & Quiet and Dance With Me as a pair, since they finally have the same cooldown. With those two perks, the risk is that the killer has I'm All Ears, or after this patch if nothing changes, Predator. Those are the two specific perks they're gambling on the killer having because those are the direct counters.
Already on layer one we can see the odds aren't that bad. I'm All Ears is hardly a no-show in anyone's matches, but it's not top ten either, so there's a good chance the killer won't have it. That survivor could, if they wanted, make their other two perks pretty much whatever they want and just take that dice roll.
If the survivor wants to be a bit more safe, though, we hit layer two. A survivor who wants to tip the dice roll more in their favour would have tools available to stop the killer's aura reading mid chase, specifically after they activate their perks.
The best options for that, after this patch, would be Distortion or Shadow Step. A survivor who wants to be safe from aura reading just in case the killer has something that'll counter their two perks might pick one of those two, and leave their fourth as a flex pick if they're comfortable dedicating that much of a build to their particular gimmick. A survivor who wants more flex pick perks would take the risk and adapt as they go if the killer does have the few perks that make their build harder to use.
This same concept applies to other perks, too. If a survivor really wants to use Lucky Star for whatever reason, they'd pair that with Quick & Quiet too to muffle the sound, and wouldn't need to be as concerned with aura reading at all.
It's not that info perks just, automatically, by default, "cancel out" deception perks. It's that specific tools have specific use cases and specific weaknesses, either of which can be bolstered with extra perks or taken as-is. That's a good thing, it promotes thinking about your builds and considering more options instead of using the same-old overtuned best in class every time.
As for Distortion, it's not that it was "an answer" to aura reading, because the other two haven't been nerfed- clearly, answers existing is fine. It's that it was THE answer to aura reading by being 100% accurate, 100% passively. Retooling it to be a viable mid-chase hiding perk is a perfectly reasonable thing to do so there are actually reasons to weigh your options instead of going for the obvious best choice in all scenarios.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3799745#Comment_3799745
"Cancels out" is really loaded phrasing, info perks don't cancel out misdirection perks. They just add a little extra risk to them.
No, the value in these perks only comes out if the killer fully loses track of your position, which they can't if they can just see your aura. You're already dependent on LoS blockers to get value out of these perks, and now, in even more cases, that won't be enough. That's not 'a little extra risk', it just invalidates the perks.
Hiding your scratch-marks means squat when the killer can just see you.
Crucially, that risk is not something the survivor player just has to hold, though. If it were, if there were no way of mitigating that risk, you might have a point- but there are at least three perks that hide your aura reliably in the game.
No, there aren't. Shadow Step and Off the Record are anything but reliable. Shadow Step has a set-up time and a limited radius, and Off the Record only works for a limited time after being unhooked. Neither of these can reasonably be considered 'reliable'.
'I want to use my perks, better go and get hooked by the killer to make them usable for 80 seconds'.
some of the buffed perks in the last patch and this one involve lockers, which also hide your aura. Is there something that stops those from being usable in these builds/playstyles?
Lockers also give info to the killer if you try to use them in chase. And one of the perks specifically doesn't work with locker hiding!
And that's also assuming the aura reading doesn't catch you -before- you get into the locker, in which case you just give the killer a free down instead.
Generally speaking it's good for things to have answers on the opposing side, to promote a little back-and-forth.
Except that didn't fly for Distortion so why would it fly here?
Okay, couple things to go over here.
First and biggest, you seem to be acting like "info perk" as a category just immediately, wholly cancels out "deception perk" as a category, but they don't all work the same way. A killer who brought I'm All Ears will be able to counter Quick & Quiet and/or Dance With Me, but won't have anything to counter Deception, Diversion, or Lucky Star, just as an example. They don't all work the same way, and only a handful really activate with the same conditions as the average survivor deception perk to begin with.
Second, sort of following on from that, I'm not sure why Shadow Step and Off The Record aren't considered reliable. OTR may require you to get hooked first, which certainly could make it less desirable compared to Shadow Step and Distortion, but those other two are designed to help you in chase, especially with Distortion's changes. Those two perks very much stop the kind of info perk you're worried about.
Third, I honestly have no idea what you mean by that last part. What "didn't fly" for Distortion…?
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I don't think the usage rate is quite high enough to warrant changing it on its own. If we were looking at like, old Dead Hard's 70% pickrate, there'd be an honest argument to make about how much one perk harms variety, but 33% is significantly lower than that.
It certainly doesn't warrant a change based on its strength. It's a very squarely middle-of-the-pack perk, strength wise.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3799667#Comment_3799667
Because that's also the reason Distortion got axed.
But just generally, my stance is as I've explained. The perks in question were high risk perks, very difficult to use, then they got a buff to make them slightly more comfortable to use, and then the very next patch, they get heavy context nerfs. It's similar to the rush of chest perks leading up to the release of Weave Attunement and Human Greed, where the survivor perks are now encouraging survivors to engage with the game in a way that benefits the killer's perks.
Let me flip your question on its head: What's wrong with the killer -not- having a perk that cancels out these high risk, high skill perks?
"Cancels out" is really loaded phrasing, info perks don't cancel out misdirection perks. They just add a little extra risk to them.
Crucially, that risk is not something the survivor player just has to hold, though. If it were, if there were no way of mitigating that risk, you might have a point- but there are at least three perks that hide your aura reliably in the game.
What's wrong with someone who wants to play in a stealth/misdirection heavy way incorporating Distortion, Shadow Step, or Off The Record into their gameplay? That's just the three that focus specifically on hiding your aura- some of the buffed perks in the last patch and this one involve lockers, which also hide your aura. Is there something that stops those from being usable in these builds/playstyles?
To answer that last question: Generally speaking it's good for things to have answers on the opposing side, to promote a little back-and-forth.
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3798001#Comment_3798001
It's about the generally terrible optics of first buffing underused perks to open the game up a bit more to a playstyle of misdirection and using stealth, and then the very next patch, massively buffing aura reading to counter it.
It feels like the perk design's primary intent here is to guide survivors into getting punished.
I have to admit, I'm not sure I'm seeing the issue here.
The only connection I can draw would involve assuming your position is that those perks should work 100% of the time with no risk and no counter on the killer side, but I don't want to assume someone's position is that extreme. Is there something I'm missing here? What's wrong with the killer having some answers to playstyles/builds on the survivor side?
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@Boons123 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3799587#Comment_3799587
I saw from Mandy on Twitter that the developers are planning a major overhaul of it.
Don't lose hope either, they may fix or buff her after PTB.
I haven't lost hope, to be clear, I'm well aware these changes will be reviewed from PTB to live.
What I'm saying is, the thing you think will be fixed by these changes won't be. If they go live, the thing you don't like seeing will continue to happen any time you run into a Skull Merchant because very little about it is being addressed. I agree with you wholeheartedly that Merchant's biggest problem is a lack of clear information given to survivors, especially ones who are new to her power- but BHVR don't, evidently, that's my point.
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I mean, they only "fixed" that by making it so you don't have to care about what her power does because the answer is "extremely little", so I wouldn't be too glad.
If they'd actually addressed that issue and made it more obvious what was going on, it would've been a good set of changes. As it stands, the only reason you'd stop seeing your team lose so easily against her is because you're not gonna see her at all. If by some miracle you do run into one, your team still isn't going to know what her power does and they're still probably going to lose because of it.
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@mizark3 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3799525#Comment_3799525
I guess one of the largest problems is we probably don't have the same loops in mind. When I am saying 'you get scanned no matter what', I'm thinking Killer Shack or an LT wall or the 2 main pallet+window basic jungle gyms. In each of those loops, the scan is unavoidable if the SM put the drone in the right spot (which can be done on arrival, and isn't even a far off location that needs a setup in advance). The Killer is always going to be close enough that a scan dodge will force an M1 in its place, barring a 10m headstart and a pre-placed Drone.
Lets take the LT wall. The Drone is freshly set up in the center, and the Killer is following from behind to the outside of the T half. The Survivor has to take a scan hit to vault the T window in time. Alternatively you run wide to avoid the scan, and go to the outside of the L. Well now the SM is close enough to get an M1 before the Surv can even get around to the other side of the L to force the 50-50. Knowing the scans are forced, the SM now can play to get the fastest scans, since the suboptimal play on Survivor gives them a hit regardless.
Most drone locations cover the midpoint of the 2 resources (pallet and window most commonly), making it simply not possible to avoid both a scan AND hit in chase.
Also to break down what I mean by pejoratively using 'flowchart', I mean any circumstance where there is a clear objective best solution, and 50-50s don't exist. Many Killer powers introduce their own 50-50s (or adjust the basic 50-50 for more lethality or faster rate of 50-50s), for example Huntress. Huntress can throw a Hatchet, or disrespect the pallet. The Survivor can greed the pallet, or throw the pallet. Huntress wins throwing the Hatchet when the Survivor throws the pallet, and also wins when she disrespects the pallet and the Survivor greeds the pallet. When the opposite Survivor choice is taken for those scenarios, the Survivor wins instead. 50-50s, without a flowchart. Pyramid Head/Nemesis M2 holding up to a window block is the boring flowchart gameplay. Once animation locked, use power, otherwise block window. Flowchart for free hit. SM falls into this flowchart, not the interesting Huntress 50-50 gameplay. Bubba can also be put in the place of Huntress for interesting 50-50 choices, but he benefits from the lethality of his 50-50s.
I'll grant you TL walls, because she is quite good at making those unsafe- it's still something the survivor can try to play, but if the drone's placed right and you get unlucky with rotation timings, sure. You're probably getting scanned. Sometimes that'll happen, most killers have particular loops that they're good at making unsafe, and separately sometimes you're best off letting the killer get something so they can't get their best case scenario rolling. Most killers aren't ALWAYS avoidable, just USUALLY avoidable.
Shack is a good example of how much variability and decisionmaking is present in her power, though. On the survivor side, leveraging line of sight blocking is significantly easier at a structure like shack, and it's a big enough structure that you do still have time to crouch/stop unless the killer's right on you (at which point it doesn't matter, they're getting a hit anyway). This is tripled if shack has a generator in it, but I think it's fair to assume it doesn't for this hypothetical.
On the killer side, though, shack represents an interesting gamble, because Merchant's beams follow similar rules to Deathslinger's harpoon in what they can shine through. The survivor has a lot of line of sight blocking available, but you have small gaps you can snipe through if you're on point with your placement and timing, or you can try to play it more safe and use manual rotation or reasonable timing to force survivors to run into the beam as they round a corner. Shack is a tile that Merchant can use her power at, but it's also a tile that survivors get a lot of options to counter that power at too.
The same general logic applies to most jungle gyms, though those tend to have fewer gaps for Merchant to snipe through depending on the map. Line of sight blocking gets stronger, and they're generally big enough that you have time to crouch/stop if you have to, but you're at slightly more risk of running into a reversed beam since you can't see them as easily. Tradeoffs, with ups and downs for both sides.
The tiles that you just flat out can't play against Skull Merchant are generally tiny loops with an unsafe pallet and very low walls, like some of the Ormond snow pile type loops. I don't consider this a flaw because there are a lot of killers that excel at those loops, even more than Merchant does- they're just not very good loops in general.
I just don't see Merchant's power as a negative flowchart because there are too many options at most tiles in the game. I could see people subjectively finding it unfun, or even finding it repetitive, but a simple flowchart it isn't. Between leveraging LoS, crouching/stopping to avoid a scan, tactically taking one scan to make better distance, and taking an M1 to avoid a claw trap, survivors have a lot of micro decisions to make about what the best option is at any given tile, AND the power requires different options at different tiles. That's a fair amount of variability.
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@mizark3 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3799176#Comment_3799176
Like I said, it is avoidable if you grant a free M1 in the open. Same flowchart gameplay as Pyramid Head holding power running up to the window then blocking into M1. Plenty of powers allow for both sides to make an attempt, but the very nature of the drones removes that entirely. The other facet is dodging the Killer's power is typically tied to the Killer's location. You can dodge a hatchet and still be safe from her, dodge a Demo Shred or Wesker Dash and reach a window/pallet during the CD. SM doesn't share that good design. She chases as a powerless M1 Killer, and the drone forcibly impacts the viable loop pathing for either a free M1 or scan into injury/hindered+hit. This is not the same for most Killers, as they either get an alternative looping method entirely, or still offers normal pathing. She is very similar to Artist's flowchart gameplay of 'block path to force open M1 or loop M2 hit', but at least Artist (without a certain add-on) can be mindgamed into forcing the power to miss.
As a Clown enjoyer, I would argue top end Clown gameplay is flowchart like as well. Preplace Purple at one end and Yellow at the other, get hit (as a great oversimplification). The flowchart is determined from experience or checking out that Clown manifesto. Since most people aren't at that stage, the counterplay of risking another loop/dropping pallet still remains for most matches. SM hits M2 and shuts down an entire loop, particularly effective at jungle gyms/Shack blocking a window and Pallet at the same time. The issue is she doesn't even need to read a manifesto to reach that flow(chart) state, she just uses power normally.
There's really not much more to say here other than to point out that her counterplay just works, and it isn't "take a free scan or grant a free M1".
I know the answer for everyone is "not much", but I have to ask how much experience you have playing against her. If I can reliably dodge drones without giving Merchant free hits, it's just something the average survivor has available as counterplay, because above average I am not.
The fact of the matter is, if you're at a loop and you're dodging drone beams, there is something between you and Merchant and you are playing around a resource. Confident survivors will walk off Exhaustion in chase with other M1 killers, because they just aren't threatening until they're in lunge range, and if you're denying Merchant scans then she is just an M1 killer.
You can boil almost every killer down to a flowchart, that doesn't make any of their designs inherently flawed because of it.
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@mizark3 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3799137#Comment_3799137
The current dodging beams isn't an interaction, its a forced slowdown. I mean heck, if you crouch for half a second to not get scanned, that's effectively 35% hindered, and they lose ~1.5m of distance. It's a flowchart of crouch or not. Is this 3rd scan? Crouch. No interaction, simple flowchart. Now theoretically you can say tanking the 2 scans could be where there is interaction, do I leave loop or take the scan. The problem there is it still is basically a free injury at all normal loops.
The other facet is the horrendous slowdown her power incurs. Crouching or playing red-light green-light slows navigation by a ton, and disarming the trap takes longer (as well as telling the Killer someone is there).
Clown's gas is 2s+ gas duration, SM's is 6s. The only time gas duration is over 1s, is if both Killer and Survivor are back-forth-back-forthing at a loop. SM's is essentially double duration, so in the best case scenario, her hindered should be half Clown's. Also SM's scans aren't outplays, they are 'did you hold W and get M1'd in the open, or play the loop and get scanned minimum 1 time per rotation'.
Again with the 'scans are so hard' claim. Scans are much too easy, which is likely why they are nerfing the lines from 2 to 1. This is actually the only nerf I'm not fully on board with, although I think as a temporary nerf until sound cues and auto-reset are fixed it is fine.
There is no skill interaction for Survivor with SM. It is stay at loop and get freely scanned, or hold W and get M1'd in the open. I could maybe grant macro skill interaction like Ghosty/Trapper if the drones didn't auto-reset. That way 1 dedicated 'Killer Bully' can prevent the Killer's power from making the Survivors lose the match. That is the true counter to both Ghosty and Trapper, a Macro bully that always reveals/disarms traps. If SM was adjusted to work like them, without auto-resetting traps, then I could grant skill interaction here (on a macro level, she still lacks it on a micro level).
I mean, if dodging beams is forced slowdown, so is dodging literally anything else in the game, especially since most of them generally require you to go further out of your way than Merchant's beams do.
It's also still very much interaction and therefore still completely avoidable, to refer to the next point. It's not that it's "so hard", it's that it's part of a back and forth that just flat out doesn't exist for powers like Clown's Afterpiece Tonic. It's still mistake/outplay even if it isn't the hardest thing in the game, especially in comparison to killers like Clown. That's why it's okay for her numbers to be close, because Clown is point-and-click and Merchant requires more interaction/has more points of potential avoidance for survivor. Merchant has to build to her Hindered in a way survivors can avoid, Clown doesn't, there's no getting around that.
The rest of your post mostly rests on those points, so I think it'd be repetitive to go any further.
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@mizark3 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3798571#Comment_3798571
I view her as a hybrid multi-power Killer (in effect).
Its fine for her to be a hybrid multi-power Killer like Vecna and Dracula, but each of their powers should be weaker than the full Killer counterpart.
Stealth is a form of chase power, by reducing the chase timer from (lets say) 20s to 0s when used correctly. Hindered at 5% for 6s would still yield the 30% total slowdown, and that is still reapplied if they stick at the loop.
I don't consider flowchart gameplay interactive, and her drones would mostly be described as such. Pyramid Head is really fun to go against when they go for risky M2s (because you know they are the actual skilled Pyramid Head players), but when they simply hold power to bodyblock a window into a free M1, it isn't fun.
Also drones can still injure people, so chasing someone into a trap ala Hag/Trapper is still an effective way to shorten chases.
But you're making her chase more flowchart with these changes. The interaction currently is in dodging drone beams, something that was very carefully designed to be very doable and viable because people didn't like her not having any chase interaction (beyond basic M1 interaction, anyway). If being scanned isn't harmful to you until you hit three, and even then it's just an injury, why bother interacting with her power? More to the point, why would the killer player bother using their power if it takes four times as much effort to get something Legion gets just for pressing M2, or that Ghostface gets with a possible instadown on top just for pressing M2? You'd boil Merchant down to basically just doing M1 gameplay with mediocre stealth and maybe hoping that they can get an injure- which itself also becomes significantly harder with BHVR's changes and yours combined.
What you're missing in your rundown up above is that the comparisons you're drawing are stronger, at least in the context they're being compared, because Skull Merchant's power can be completely avoided through interaction and theirs can't.
Take Clown, for example. You say Merchant's Hindered should be weaker than Clown's, and I agree- it should be, and it is. It's a lower number, for only very slightly longer duration, that takes four total mistakes/outplays to achieve. Clown gets the higher number, for a comparable amount of time, with no mistake or outplay required, he just points and clicks. The same is true of his Haste, for that matter- while it's easier to achieve for Merchant than her Hindered, it's also considerably weaker in effect and iirc even in duration.
Another good example would be Trapper and Hag. While, obviously, both Hag and Merchant are significantly better than the worst killer in the game, the reason that Merchant gets auto-reset traps is because they're not guaranteed. If you run into a Bear Trap's effective radius, you are injured and immobilised. If you run into a Phantasm Trap's effective radius, it triggers. If you run into a Drone's active radius… you then have to also be scanned by the beams in order to get a single scan, which doesn't affect you until you reach three. The reason that single scan affects her is so that there's a reason to engage with the actual interactive part of her power.
The thing that works about Skull Merchant's power is the fact that it both has clear points of interaction and skill expression for both sides, and that those points of interaction are emphasised because the results of her power working are something the survivor actually wants to avoid. If the result is actively weaker than good M1 play… why would either side care about the interaction, or put any skill into the expression?
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@mizark3 said:
Copied from (my post in) another nearly similar thread (with fixed spelling):
SM is better at 4 (legitimate) categories than the original/comparable Killers are.
Stealth - She has no audio cues with ~90% stealth uptime. Myers/Ghosty/Freddy/Onryo/Dredge all have sound cues, so why doesn't she? Add sound cues and she is fine in this department.
Hindered - Clown and Freddy slow 15% for ~3s, or 45% total hindered. She slows 10% for 6s, or 60% total hindered. Her hindered should be worse than theirs. Either halve the % or halve the duration and she is fine here, oh wait, that's a proposed nerf! Fix in progress.
Haste - MfT apparently was too powerful at 3%, and she gets it as well as up to more than double it. Revert MfT, or remove the Haste, oh wait, that's a proposed nerf! Fix in progress.
Traps (with the potential for damage) Auto-reset - Hag doesn't get this, and Trapper needs an Iridescent add-on to do this. Make the drones require an add-on, or physical reset, and she is fine in this department.
Bugs (the 5th illegitimate category)- Bugtech got fixed, but she still gets triple scans on a single scan. Fix this bug so that the 3s scan delay actually applies, and she is fine in this department.
The proposed nerfs only end up fixing half of her design flaws. Ideally she gets a stealth sound cue, and traps stop auto-resetting in the next update to actually make her fair.
Legitimate question - what exactly do you think her power is supposed to do?
If she shouldn't have meaningful Hindered and she shouldn't have Haste at all, what's her chase power? As a secondary question, because it's inherently tied to the first and must be answered at the same time, why would survivors ever bother to dodge drone beams - the interactive gameplay part of her design - if they don't actually do anything meaningful in general or anything period if they're already injured?
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How would Leverage be used for tunnelling? If you're tunnelling someone they don't have time to heal no matter how long it takes, because you're right there, chasing them.
Hard agree on Zanshin and Troubleshooter though. That'd be really funny lol
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@Firellius said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3797641#Comment_3797641
They did not add another one.
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3797644#Comment_3797644
That's the point of this thread. Instead of making survivors pile on yet more band-aid perks, just make aura reading ubiquitous so you don't have to deal with any of that and can just safely assume the killer knows where you are hiding at all times. It sends a clearer message than this update, mixed with the last one.
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3797645#Comment_3797645
Predator has a cool-down, so Im sure it wont be that bad. I really dont see this perk being used a lot outside of a few niche cases or for people with disabilities/impairments.
40 seconds is not a meaningful cooldown in the scope of the game. You're not going to lose chases to that extreme frequency. Unless, of course, as you mention, there's accessibility issues, in which case the cooldown suggests that this perk is not meant for that.
But furthermore, it is just bad design, IMO, to go through the dumpster of forgotten survivor perks, pick out three perks whose only purpose is to give survivors the ability to break a chase, and in the first next patch, you render all of them useless because you buff aura reading and even make a specific perk to nullify all of them.
What was the point of buffing Dance With Me, if you're just going to dunk it back down a tier in the next patch?
Is this the new trend? Survivor perk design being guided by killer perks that hard-counter them? It's what happened with the chest perks popping up around Weave Attunement and Human Greed.
Also Boon: Shadow Step still exists, and isnt even that bad
It's going to be if it sees any kind of usage, because all the complaints about Distortion will apply to Shadow Step too, meaning it'll go right on the chopping block.
My mistake, I was thinking of Lucky Star, but I don't think that does have aura blocking as an effect on recollection.
Regardless! The overall point stands.
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I find it kind of weird that people frame this discourse as though Distortion is the only counter to aura reading, when there's two I can think of just off the top of my head. As I'm writing this, I'm remembering they added another in this dev update, if I'm remembering what the effect is properly.
Maybe the idea is less "killers should have no obstacle to aura reading" and more "Distortion shouldn't be the absolute uncontested king of all stealth perks forever".
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@Devil_hit11 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3797341#Comment_3797341
legion used to be able to down survivors in feral frenzy after 4 hits. now he can't down survivors in feral frenzy directly and he has some rubbish movement speed with barely any duration to chain any hits. you don't see any drastic changes here? I'd say that is on par with haste and hindered changes. it is like removing major part of the kit. Spoiler alert, Legion was also one of killer to be constantly disconnected against in initial release just like Skull merchant. you should see similarity in said changes.
i do think skull merchant will get buffed over time like in 1 year and then maybe next year after that, but it will be gradual buff similar Legion. Keep in mind that Legion despite being buffed several times (around 3 times) is still worse then its original iteration. So take that for what you will.
Again, though, while you may believe Legion is worse off now, that change was at least addressing a real problem. There was, undeniably, a problem in the design of just being able to chase down the one survivor and cheese downs without any effort or counterplay.
Even if you don't like the solution, it was at least a solution aimed at the problem. These changes aren't trying to address any problems at all, they're just dismantling everything about her that isn't problematic while only doing very little to address the problems that do exist.
Legion's original rework was a lot like Skull Merchant's original rework: a response to real problems that had some growing pains. That is more common from BHVR. We saw that in Legion, we saw it in Freddy, we saw it in original Skull Merchant, we saw it in Sadako (though they reverted her, annoyingly), we even arguably saw it in Billy's Overheat to a small degree.
What we don't see often is what we're seeing here: A killer just being dismantled from the ground up while not actually having their issues addressed.
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I'm also curious about this, it's ambiguous wording. First thing I'm testing when this PTB hits.
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@DigitalisObscura said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3797345#Comment_3797345
In chase you're just making the choice of taking the hit from her or from the drone. Most loops DON'T offer line of sight blocks for the scan, and her invisible, variable speed means you're not going to have the opportunity to stop for the beams and still loop.
That's not engaging or meaningful. It's a lose-lose.
That's just flat out not true.
I'm not the greatest survivor in the world, and in the rare instance I see Skull Merchant, I can dodge beams pretty reliably. You are not making the choice of who hits you, you're just avoiding the hit entirely. Sometimes you're caught out, obviously, but that's true against all killers, especially those with ranged damage.
The only thing I partially agree with is that it's pretty meaningfully hard (but still very doable, to be clear) to dodge beams in scouting mode, which is why the only change BHVR have pitched here that I agree with is removing scouting mode entirely. Beams being visible all the time makes the counterplay more approachable without actually making it easier.
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@DigitalisObscura said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3797285#Comment_3797285
But when are you really dodging it? If you are on a generator you don't have to. If you're in chase with her you won't be able to. Currently it's only when you're approaching an objective or leaving one, you just have to play an annoying game of red light green light. I don't think her current power has the built-in levers that would make it engaging, it's just not well designed enough. During her PTB the only part of playing against her I thought was interesting was the little mini game you get for disabling the drones, but doing that is so pointless I can't imagine how they could rework the power to make that more prominent in a way that matters.
Dodging other killer's powers is generally a direct interaction with the killer. The drone is just a prop. Even other trap setting killers like Trapper, Hag and Nightmare require killer input to truly benefit from their traps. The drone can just take a health state in a way that doesn't offer too much counterplay outside of the red light green light since you can't remove the scan progress. There really isn't a lot of choice when trying to play against her power, which makes the gameplay very dull.
I mean, you are doing it in chase?
Leveraging line of sight and stopping to let a beam pass over you are absolutely things you're able to do in chase, and absolutely things you should be doing in chase. Otherwise you're just letting her injure you for no effort, you really should not be assuming you're powerless to prevent scans in chase.
That's the part of her that's engaging. The in-chase counterplay, which is both meaningful and extremely viable to do.
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@Devil_hit11 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3797322#Comment_3797322
BHVR are actually fairly good at this overall, which is what makes these set of changes so baffling and annoying to see. Hell, even with Skull Merchant specifically, the most recent rework was an incredible success giving both killer and survivor skill expression and interactivity with the power.
I agree. unfortunately a lot of player d/c vs her and BVHR cares about d/c and survivor fun.
I mean, this is a very silly thing to say. Outside of maybe the nerfs Freddy got post-rework, can you point to a single other killer that got changed like this?
Yes. Legion.
To some degree, billy, Deathslinger and Freddy. it is nothing new.
Legion? What? Legion's most recent changes were buffs, and very good ones at that. What changes are you referring to there? Surely not their initial post-launch rework?
Billy is a good old example of overkill, but it wasn't really gutting to the point we're seeing here. Still, I'll acknowledge I forgot about Overheat, mostly because I forgot to specify that I'm referring to the last few years of balancing rather than the game's whole lifespan.
Deathslinger is a great example of them not doing this. Deathslinger's changes were aimed at actual problems and maintained plenty of his skill expression and identity. While I have a slight problem with the TR change specifically, the rest is exactly the kind of changes they SHOULD be giving Merchant here- reasonable changes aimed at the things that are actually problematic about the kit, rather than just taking a sledgehammer to the basic gameplay and neutering the power completely. They also actually buffed Slinger to compensate, which they haven't really done here.
Already acknowledged Freddy so nothing to add there.
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@Devil_hit11 said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3797254#Comment_3797254
that is how BVHR does changes. they make sure that killer doesn't take any skill counter and that you as KILLER cannot change outcome of said changes (I.e Out-skill changes). So everything about these change seems right on track. it is why you shouldn't get too attached to killers, especially ones that survivor dislike playing vs or ones that are deemed too powerful by community. you'll get some unpleasant surprises and reality checks.
I mean, this is a very silly thing to say. Outside of maybe the nerfs Freddy got post-rework, can you point to a single other killer that got changed like this?
BHVR are actually fairly good at this overall, which is what makes these set of changes so baffling and annoying to see. Hell, even with Skull Merchant specifically, the most recent rework was an incredible success giving both killer and survivor skill expression and interactivity with the power.