mikewelk
mikewelk
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@UndeddJester said:
Would you believe I had a spate of really rough games today, and the 1 fun game I had in 20 matches was against a Skull Merchant?
Yep. Not all of them are irritating, just most. Had some ups and downs as well and the funniest game I had was against a Billy.
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@[Deleted User] said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3652472#Comment_3652472
It was certainly a slog at times but honestly i'd take her over billy, wesker or hunteress.
While its mostly a latency issue getting nailed with so many BS hits drives me crazy!.
Having said that I'm all for some variety tomorrow 😂
Variety?! In DBD!?
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@[Deleted User] said:
I played 10 survivor games today (not sure how I got through so many!) First time playing since the 2nd day of lights out.
Had 5 skull merchants, 3 docs (one was same insanely hard tunnelling doc twice) 1 billy (thankfully sick of him already personally) & 1 death slinger that went & stared at a wall in the corner after missing a whole 2 shots! (I know tomes are a pain but practice will make you better!)
Can't say any of the merchants were particularly hard tunnelling but maybe thats because of how the doctor was playing in comparison.
Merchants end with 3- 4k, 1 - 3k (hatch out) & 1 - 2k.
Biggest shock for me today in 10 games 1 hook suicide (tunnelling doc) & 1 dc (vs billy)
That many Skull Merchants would've made me not play until the PTB releases lmao. That must've been so much fun...
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@Nazzzak said:
Yeah I have. Unfortunate but hopefully people get sick of her soon.
Doubt it. I really do.
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@KayTwoAyy said:
I've encountered 1 Skull Merchant in the last 3 days.
Doesn't sound like my experience has changed because of the data (I was expecting to see more Freddy, tbh).
I will say, although anecdotal, that I used to frequently encounter players running whatever Killer/Build a top content creator most recently released a video about. I definitely believe the community is heavily influenced by trends, especially when it's low-effort.
I've had three in one day 🤯
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@GeneralV said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3652406#Comment_3652406
If you take my endless waves of Weskers with Ultimate Weapon, it is a deal.
Maybe not with Ultimate Weapon... Can we negotiate this?
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Forget No Mither gaming, this is next level...
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@GeneralV said:
Actually I haven't seen Skull Mommy since the first day of Lights Out.
I hope that a prosperous amount of SM gamers will be transferred from my games to yours ASAP! I've had my fair share recently...
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@leviivel said:
i rarely even see skull merchant, even when i do i usually get pretty chill ones.
I mostly play Merchant and when i do i either run meme builds or i play her like a glorified trapper, if people DC or give up, i let the few who still try to play normally go and escape, it’s cute and sad seeing 2 survs just barely trying meanwhile these 2 other players who are looping me well and actually doing gens, working their asses off so i feel bad and let them go, one time even this Nea let me kill her after she did all the gens with a Jake because she respected my kindness.
Idk maybe it’s an NA thing cause i’m EU so idk
Most likely NA actvities tbf
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@Pulsar said:
Unfortunately, yes.
Welcome to the club. 😞
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@jesterkind said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3651598#Comment_3651598
1: Is it more than any other killer, though? If a teammate makes a dumb decision and gets scanned by a drone, you have to face a Merchant with extra 3% Haste for 12 seconds. That's not nothing and I don't want to downplay it, but I don't feel like it's worse than, for instance:
- Teammates granting Myers a ton of stalk for free early on, leading to you getting instadowned or Tombstone mori'd
- Teammates giving Oni his power early, leading to you getting instadowned
- Teammates cleansing incessantly against Plague, leading to you getting chased with Corrupt Purge active
- Teammates grouping up against Legion, leading to you getting downed by the fourth Feral Slash
I feel like it's being overblown how much you're dependant on your teammates not to mess up for your chase not to be messed with too. They're obviously messing up their own next chase by a fair amount by giving her free Lock On stacks, but that's separate, almost any killer can be gifted free value by teammate mistakes in that regard.
2: Semantic difference, surely? Looping SM and looping Clown in these examples pretty heavily that they're using their powers. Every time you're scanned while claw trapped, you get inflicted with a 10% Hindered for 6 seconds. Every time you get hit by the Afterpiece Tonic, you get inflicted with a 15% Hindered for however long it takes you to leave the cloud + 2 seconds afterwards. Comparable to one another, with the main difference being that Clown has stronger Hindered for probably on average less time... in exchange for his Haste, which he does have, also being stronger. Merchant gets 3%, he gets 10%.
Even under those conditions, you can loop Clown. You just have to play around dropped pallets more, which since Skull Merchant doesn't have basekit pallet-break any more, is how you'd play around hers too.
3: Gonna address the fourth point here and just eliminate the dead entry, lol. So, this point loops back around to that question I posed before - if a Skull Merchant is patiently building Bloodlust by just dropping drones at loops to zone you away, scanning you once per loop (if she's lucky) until she actually gets something from it... is that faster than brute forcing the loop with good mindgames to get the injure much sooner?
I'd say it isn't. While I wouldn't mind something to stop her building Bloodlust while benefiting from scans, I also don't think her current position really rewards her for doing it too much. It's a war of attrition she won't win because generator progress is completely unhindered while she takes longer to down a survivor. You could make the argument it's kinda boring, but see again the point about Knight and Artist: They do this exact same thing but better (in that their threat is immediate, whereas you have time to reposition when SM does it), and while they get complaints, it's nowhere near as extreme and vitriolic as what Skull Merchant gets.
4: This heavily depends on what she's doing, to be fair. The worst case scenario for repetitiveness for Merchant is her just dropping drones at loops and never doing anything else, which as I said - puts her with Knight and Artist when they do the same thing. I am fully on board for finding this boring, but I do object to people asserting that it's all Merchant does and I question very heavily why she's being singled out for such a hostile response when she's the least objectionable of the killers that do this.
If she's not doing that, she's not any more repetitive than any other killer. There's variety in gameplay between avoiding preset drones, hacking drones outside of chase, and keeping an eye out for her stealth.
5: When I talk about her skill, I am talking about her played properly rather than just dropping drones at a loop. Since that's a low effort but also relatively low reward playstyle, I think it's fair to talk about her playing more as intended- leveraging the drones as traps, utilising her stealth, even playing around Claw Traps where applicable.
This kind of play for Merchant requires a lot of knowledge about where the traps should go, how to zone (the basekit term, not the power term) survivors into them, and how to capitalise on it without spending so much time you'd be faster just going for a regular M1.
6: Don't think there's much more to discuss on this point, sounds like we mostly agree her stealth is good but not problematic(?)
- No, it's not and that's my bad. I was meant to say that the dependency on your teammates is up there with killers you mentioned. The point you made about survivors messing up their own chases and mine is also correct and it does give free value like any other killer could get passively (if they even can) but you can't understate how easily the value is acquired. You turn a corner aand there's a drone. One tag. Say bye bye to normal gameplay because you are going to get spammed with drones once you're in chase.
- Skull Merchant has six drones and Clown has four bottles (depending on add-ons). Clown's bottles do not cover an entire loop and render it unusable (crouching or standing still doesn't work as viable counterplay most of the time) and the effect goes away after some time. This means you can return to that loop without a drone waiting there and do whatever is optimal. Clown also has a similar potion making animation time compared to what it takes to recall drones and then place a new one - rendering disabling drones a time waste on the survivor's behalf. I also find it really hard to believe the instances where people apparently disable them mid-chase.
- We just won't see each other eye to eye here and that's fine. I respect that you're trying to explain you're perspective but there's just too many alleyways we can go into with this looping we are talking about and all the different tiles affected and it's getting hard to visualize.
- Most Skull Merchant players do drop drones at loops and then just bloodlust/use haste when they have you in a bad area. Yes, this is similar to Knight with his minions at every loop. Most are pretty notrious for slugging and tunneling without provocation and I've seen plenty enough examples in my games and on Twitter. As someone here mentioned, they tend to just say silly things in EGC and it's just the cycle of revenge because then survivors get annoyed and punish a different SM and another one is created. The killer just attracts the worst of the playerbase in my eyes/experience and I completely understand not every SM player is like that so I do try in my games, no matter how tedious it feels because we should all just be trying to have fun.
- I'd argue it's high reward. Why would the playstyle be so commonplace if it wasn't that effective? It's like with tunneling, it's optimal most of the time so it's a common playstyle.
- Yep. Just a problem when it's with every status effect combined.
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@Caiman said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3652333#Comment_3652333
That's a valid concern but Dead Hard does have its usual counterplay. If Dead Hard doesn't work, MFT can't work.
Personally I'm more concerned about FTP+BU+MFT.
I swear I saw something about BU + FtP getting addressed soon? It's crazy it's still in the game...
Yeah you're right, but there's still some people that think Dead Hard requires a nerf so there's that.
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The main problem with MfT was that it didn't really have any condition to be met to be activated apart from being injured and it granted haste. So I agree, it's pretty difficult to even get deep wounded unless you're tunneling and it's basekit BT, Off the Record, Borrowed Time, etc. I think it's a problem with Dead Hard because you don't need to be tunneling for it to activate and the duo would quickly rise to meta again so that's probably where the issues arise with the suggestion.
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That's the issue with tunneling, some killers can do it better than others. The root cause of you hating Wraith is their tunneling potential and that's justified completely, it definitely creates tedious games. Luckily they aren't too overpowered, so if you can just get to a decent area you can buy some time for your team and do your best. It's bad, I know, but it's all you can do without any reliable anti-tunnel in this economy.
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@Xernoton said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3651579#Comment_3651579
My main problem with her mori is that it lacks originality. It's Freddy's mori in worse. She sets up a drone for the mori that does absolutely nothing. Literally nothing at all. It has no purpose other than making it slightly different from Freddy's. On top of that, the survivor screams when they go down, they scream again when they stand up, then they scream again when she touches them as if they didn't know she was there and then they scream when she finally kills them. That's 4 screams! That's a little overkill, isn't it? I like Freddy's mori for it's simplicity but Skull Merchant's lacks this too.
The problem with her lore is that there are so many things in there that don't go anywhere. It's mentioned and that's about it. It's like they couldn't decide which direction to take her and then went with everything at once. Her default outfit doesn't make sense for her. It's neither stealthy (which is what her power partially focusses on) nor does it suit her power in any way. She looks like a mercenary but she also has a glittering mask. Probably to show us that she's rich?! In which case Doctor must be the richest man alive, if we consider the electricity prices.
There are a lot of good ideas in her design, that could all work out, if they were fully fleshed out. But it's so many that they can't do that in a single killer. Take one thing and focus on that, then build her lore accordingly. That'd make her more compelling. A business lady gone mad could work perfectly fine. But then they'd need to focus on exactly that and not a billion different things.
Not the electricity prices lmao... I agree 100% though!
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@jesterkind said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3651525#Comment_3651525
1: I don't disagree with this point, but I also think it's fair to point out that none of this is really a Skull Merchant problem? It's a matchmaking problem, and while more in-depth tutorials and tips from a variety of accessible sources is a good thing on its face, I don't think they'd even really help with this particular issue- nor would the issue be different against other killers.
2: Well, there's a difference between "not greeding" and "predrop to run away", you can still play the loop. Even in the worst case scenario where you're claw trapped and being hindered, it's equivalent to looping a Clown, it depends on the loop and how safe the pallet is. In most scenarios where she only has Haste and is trying to get you on the side of the loop that actually has you scanned, you've got room to actually position before dropping and running away. Even if you find it annoying, it's not particularly stronger or different to similar killers.
3: Just putting 3 for clarity, we agree on this point.
4: I think if a killer is being forced into relying on Bloodlust to get a hit, that's already kind of a win for you. It means her power is almost certainly doing very little, even if she's getting single scans on you. Still, this harkens back to point number two, which is that playing cautious doesn't always mean just running away, it just means being more willing to use the resource you're dancing around. There are loops where you can't do that, but that's where we pull back and ask: Is that actually worse for you against Skull Merchant versus it happening against other killers?
5: Even setting aside that SM's gameplay isn't even that much more repetitive than other killers (even if she's just dropping her drones at a loop to force you to run away, that brings her to the same level of repetitive as other killers doing the same thing), it's still not that relevant. It's not unique, and it's not about her power.
6: I just don't agree with the idea that getting survivors scanned takes no skill. Skull Merchant is, first and foremost, a trap killer; they do require skill to play, it's just a different kind of skill. Assuming the survivors aren't playing worse than bots and getting themselves scanned constantly outside of chase, you have to utilise a lot of positioning and mindgame skill to force them into the drone's beams. Rotating without cooldown does make this easier, but we've already agreed on that being a problem, so I think it's fair to separate that from the overall point. The argument could be made that a Skull Merchant could win a war of attrition by just forcing single scans now and then, but that isn't fast enough for her to not lose, she'd be better off crutching on Bloodlust- and even that wouldn't be enough for her to not probably lose the match. You have to think about it as "how much quicker could she get this injure by not using her power and going for an M1", and if the answer is "not quicker at all", that's because the player knows what they're doing and isn't trying to play passively + let the drones do all the work.
I'd also like to highlight, still on this point, that the counterplay isn't always to hold the W key, that's not how you play against a Skull Merchant that isn't just dropping drones at every loop. There are loops where you can counter the beams with crouch walking, there are loops where the beam can't even get you if you time it right, and then, yeah, there are loops where you just run away. This is the case because the status effects in her kit aren't random, they happen extremely predictably (outside of idiot teammates giving her slight Haste, but still) as a result of a highly visible light show you're both trying to play around.
7: Sure, that is why her stealth can be good, but I don't think it translates to her stealth being a problem that justifies hating her. Even if most Skull Merchants don't use their stealth much, you as a player still know they could and should be keeping an eye out all the same, right?
- It is because you have to rely on your teammates more than any other killer to not do stupid stuff otherwise it harms the person being chased and you want to do everythhing to avoid that. It would help considering most people want a convenient tutorial of how to face killers with ALL the strategies you can counter them with instead of a video where there's a lot of words but little examples as to how it actually works.
- Being hindered is not equivalent to looping a Clown. It's equivalent to looping a clown who has used his power on you (minus the hindered difference). It's also important to note that Clown's ability cannot deep wound you and he cannot get haste. You cannot play the loop because your worst case scenario is actually the common case scenario.
- Yep.
- Relying on bloodlust as a 4.6 m/s killer doesn't really equate to a win for the survivor. 15 seconds of just chasing someone W keying away gets you bloodlust and makes you a 4.8 m/s killer. This allows you to zone survivors more easily and place more effective drones in strategic location (since you get there faster and survivors don't have time to respond), forcing a hit to remove bloodlust or focing a hit so they don't get injured by a drone. If someone is W keying away so effectively from a killer that fast, I think bad mindgames are the root of the cause. You can use the resources as you wish, but a SM would generally want you to drop since it helps with zoning and gaining tags.
- No other killer feels as repetetive as SM. The only close contenders would be clown or Knight but they are also pretty much hated because of the same issue.
- Positioning a drone and revolving your playstyle around the drone's beam does take a bit of skill indeed but every killer has to mindgame. If you're good with mindgames on any other killer, you'll probably be good at Skull Merchant. Killers don't have to learn anything new, just utilize what they know under new circumstances. Mindgaming is a skill in itself, but I'd argue that placing a drone doesn't really take as much skill as I assume you think. Even bad positioning can get you a tag or two. You also can't just crouch walk unless you made decent distance otherwise it's a free hit or it ruins the momentum. It poses the question whether it's better to risk the hit and gain distance or risk getting scanned whilst avoiding the hit which could mess you up more.
- Using undetectable during chase is when it's most effective in my opinion. That's because I mainly rely on the red stain to help with looping and most SM know this is the same for many others and activate it at specific loops. That's why I personally don't associate undetectable with her stealth plays and, therefore, get surprised and whatever. I understand that her stealth has huge potential but I'm probably too busy looking at my flashbang progress to take that into account half the time lmao.
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@jesterkind said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3651466#Comment_3651466
I'll take a crack at these, if you don't mind.
1: Massive amount of faith being put in an algorithm, here. No matter how well the MMR gives you evenly matched games, you're still going to get idiots who don't know what they're doing in specific matchups. That's unavoidable. However, I agree that the loading screen tips should be a lot better and I'd also suggest that better in-game tutorials and explanations would be good outside of the loading screen too.
2: I feel like the obvious answer is that you just don't greed loops that hard against Skull Merchant? It's not substantially different to other killers that can either slow you down, speed themselves up, or otherwise hit you over pallets.
3: Won't contest this one, there should really be a cooldown between rotations. Annoying part of her kit, worth mentioning- though obviously not justification for how hated she is, of course.
4: If you see you've just been tagged (which doesn't even require looking at the HUD) you play more cautiously. Don't greed loops against a killer you know can punish it, this doesn't just apply to Skull Merchant.
5: That's still irrelevant information. Any killer can bring 3-4 slowdowns, and it's obnoxious on almost all of them. It is worth contesting that as something that makes Skull Merchant specifically this hated.
6: While her kit does have a lot of individual status effects in it, they're very condensed into intuitive and understandable sets. She's stealthy, and getting scanned is bad for you specifically because it makes looping her harder. The argument that it's bloated and hard to understand doesn't really hold water, because it all makes a lot of sense. Sure, if you want to understand every nuance there's a lot to keep in mind, but for the average player all they really need to know is that getting scanned makes you vulnerable, and that not hearing a terror radius doesn't mean you're safe.
7: Not sure I understand this one. Why wouldn't you always be keeping an eye out and expecting her when you know she's pretty decent at stealth? Genuine question, I'd appreciate elaboration so I better understand the argument.
Perfectly fine with a constructive argument.
- I suppose so, but recently I've had a survivor join my lobby with 55 hours on DBD. They had a new Steam account so cross-progression probably wasn't the reason that they got my lobby but I still gave them a chance and, well, they got steamrolled by a Skull Merchant who knew they were the weakest link and tunneled them out of the game after also seeing her Steam profile. Left chase immediately with someone else to go for the new player. I don't know why it's not letting me attach a screenshot. Obviously any killer could have done that but how would a player like that know counterplay that is half the time ineffective and ruins momentum? I think if DBD made a YouTube account or promoted someone that makes videos about counterplay it would drastically help.
- If you don't greed pallets you'll just end up at a unsafe one and the drone will do most of the work. Best a survivor can do is drop the pallet and then just get bloodlusted because they'll be zoned or face the multitude of status effects the drone provides. creating dead zones on big open maps quickly is the easiest way to lose.
- Glad we can see the issue here.
- You can't really play more cautiously if the SM places a drone whilst you're at the unfavorable side of a loop where it's difficult to reach another loop and you're open to getting scanned, although this is more map-dependent (some maps have obstacles that don't even block the beam). You could pre-drop, sure, but bloodlust on a 4.6 m/s killer will allow you to catch up and because the drones take little to no time to place on a loop, you can't really rotate back because it's not inconvenient for a SM to place a drone even at a pre-drop to save themselves the time from breaking.
- Yes they can but that's not the point the OP was trying to make. The repetetive nature of SM games gets enhanced by the repetetive perk usage amongst them. You can't really blame them due to how well the perks synergize with her but the same playstyle with the same perks gets old real fast.
- Getting scanned is bad for you true. Very bad. The worst part is about how easy it is to get scanned three times with little effort from the killer side apart from forcing you to go on the undesirable side of the loop as I mentioned. Haste and hindered is just overkill and it's not something that should be swept aside with the argument to W key away.Because it's random. You basically get eight seconds of Undetectable at will and combining that with at least one aura reading perk allows you to do so effectively. With people not really understanding counterplay or how she even works, this is very effective. It's like having Trail of Torment, minus the highlighted gen to show it's working and with, obviously, a shorter duration. Most survivors don't run Kindred so not being able to see which way SM is going helps her with the plays. It's also more surprising because most only go for one stealth play the entire game which makes it seem less significant to care about.
- Because most Skull Merchants go for one stealth play the entire game, making her stealth aspect seem too insignificant to care about. Players that actually utilize it more see a lot of use out of it. It's like Trail of Torment, you have that one requirement for it to give undetectable, minus the gen aura showing for SM and with a shorter duration of eight seconds. Paired with a singular aura reading perk, it makes it really effective, especially with the random absence of Kindred. It's a little hard to predict sometimes, especially with the lack of callouts on solo queue.
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@Chocolate_Cosmos said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3651367#Comment_3651367
1. Survivor does mistake and walks into drone randomly in non-chase scenario is to blame on Killer power. Tell that to trapper when you step into his traps as accident.
2. Haste is barely noticiable or impactfull unless you have like 3+ people with claw traps at the same time which again, would be on Survivors running like chickens without thought or using their eyes. Drones are easy to see. Getting normaly scaned last few seconds and the haste gain is pretty small.
3. Looking back and forward is something you do in every chase againts every killer. You need to know where you are going and where killer is and what they doing. Like how is that even a SM thing?!
5. Muscle memory trowing you off.. again, basic knowledge of the power will not trow you off. HUD tells you and you know if you just gave her tiny haste or not + you can count with that she moves bit faster. There is no suprise factor if people would use a bit more brain power.
6. Every Killer can and most do run at least 2+ slowdowns and even 4 on much better killers than her. Nothing unique to her, again.
7. She has some Status effect that sometimes trigger, so what? Many killers have them too + if you add some addons.
8. One of best stealth in the game better than others? Whaaaat... That's just lie. She has better stealth than Pig or Sadako I quess because she is not slowed as her or no lullaby LMAO. Any other stealth Killer has better stealth that last much longer and has more impact.
All these reasons sound pretty bad, sorry. Its either lack of knowledge, skill or just ignoring how other killers work and acting like its her fault.
- Survivors shouldn't do that if MMR actually worked and new survivors were given game tips on the loading screen to help with counterplay instead of 'use a medkit to heal'.
- Haste is noticeable on a 4.6 m/s killer. Let's just be for real. If 3% was noticeable by MfT on survivors, then it'll be even more impactful on a fast killer. Picture you running a loop, certain you can greed another one but suddenly that "small" haste gain messed up the momentum entirely. Really bad justification lmao.
- You don't typically have to base your looping pattern on a drone beam that can be manipulated to be spun clockwise and counterclockwise and therefore have to look around more frequently to not get scanned or M1'd.
- You can't just look at the HUD whilst in chase against a anti-loop killer and calculate the amount of haste she has. Multi-tasking only makes you a more vulnerable target. Even if you see you have two tags, realistically what are you going to do?
- They are explaining how the perks make games more tedious when playing against her should be more than enough. You're strawmanning.
- She has basically every status effect that CAN trigger basekit. Killers needing add-ons for ONE/TWO is not comparable to basekit effects. Skull Merchants can utilize their add-on slots to greater effect because of this. Bad argument, again.
- Her unpredictable stealth is why she has decent stealth. Go up against any other stealth killer and you're always expecting them unlike Skull Merchant, therefore providing better stealth plays. She definitely doesn't have the best stealth though.
You're justifications sound pretty bad, sorry. It's either lack of knowledge, skill, or just ignoring how biased you are.
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And how is DBD meant to block microphone usage? Discord always exists and they can't do anything about that.
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@Pulsar said:
She's easily the worst designed Killer in the game. She epitomizes everything unfun about DBD. I hate to generalize but a lot of the worst elements of the community flock to her due to her absolutely horrific gameplay.
She also has some weirdly staunch defenders. She's a bad Killer, there's not really any debate. The game would be in a better spot without her in it.
She adds nothing of any value.
There was a poll on Twitter where a huge amount of people ranked killers based on tiers based on something I forgot about. Skull Merchant was obviously the worst but, funnily enough, she had a bunch of votes for S+ tier and barely any votes in the middle. I brought that up a while back and someone just said that it's Twitter so it doesn't matter, basically invalidating a bunch of people's opinions due to bias.
You bring up the kill-rates and apparently that doesn't matter because hook suicides inflate them. They will keep inflating. Why wouldn't they? It's very hard to enjoy playing against a killer like that with such a playerbase. Imagine if DC's counted...
You bring up there's no counterplay whilst in chase so they tell you to stand still when the beam is about to scan you as if that isn't a free M1.
List goes on but I don't want to waste my time.
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@CrowVortex said:
For me personally she's just another character to appeal to anime weebs, somewhat over-sexualised with that walk animation, some outfits too. Not to mention boring lore and a killer kit design that's unimaginative to play as and against and not worth interacting with as a survivor for little to no benefit for doing so. Of course the Prior chess merchant tactic doesn't help her reputation, that's beyond repair regardless of what they do to her in the future.
@bjorksnas said:
Tags being permanent until you get 3 or get hooked, so accidents leave the skull merchant with free haste which can mess up other peoples chases
Having to look at the ground so you are prepared if you run around a corner into a drone aka annoying camera manipulation because you need to focus on multiple things at once in a chase so looking back / forward / around is annoying while being chased
Her stealth being outright stronger / better than any other killers stealth in the game since she has no lullaby / footsteps / breathing / gnawing / transition out of stealth like any other stealth killer or killer who has even partial stealth in their power
Haste throwing off muscle memory for looping, hindered just isn't fun and as a secondary part of a power even less fun especially while they killer gets haste at the same time
She also just throws every status under the sun at you, deep wound, broken, hindered, while getting haste and undetectable not even counting perks and addons she has 5 status effects built in all of which are annoying
Recalling hacked drones so disabling them doesn't even make a loop safe
Then on top of that most every skull merchant throws on 3~4 slowdown perks and just makes the game a slog because either they miss chess merchant or want to mimic how someone used to play chess merchant, and the reason I say 3~4 is sometimes they take off 1 slowdown for sloppy butcher instead because whats more fun than 5 status effects... 7 status effects (I don't call sloppy slowdown because its indirect) or just 1 addon slot for 7 status effects
This is most of it but its just not fun and most skull merchants don't ever play in a fun way since theres really no way to be able to and win so its always just a bad experience built in then they get to do even more if they feel like it
@NomiNomad said:
She's incredibly boring, her design (both visual and gameplay) is just bad (imo of course. I think her visual design is easily the worst in the game, but i'm sure some disagree), and here lore is boring and uninspired.
She's the worst of everything this game has to offer, as far as I'm concerned. Boring, uninspired power - terrible visual design and terrible lore.
i still try in my matches against her, most of the time, but most of the time those games are my last for a bit.
Exactly this. I can't believe that the same people who designed her created that killer from the teaser. The only thing scary about Skull Merchant is her coming out of nowhere with undetectable but even that's gotten tedious and predictable.
The playerbase maining her usually provide the most dull and repetitive games ever and I'm surprised it's not the same player I'm versing. I don't feel satisfied winning/escaping against her because I seek fun in looping and I can't do that if she just presses M2 after getting me to a specific side of a loop and I can't W key away to another one without getting hit (4.6 m/s killer after all). The permanent tags also don't help because once you gain two, normal gameplay gets thrown out of the window as you get spammed with drones until you get deep wounded and there's nothing you can do about it. Drones also don't make you lose STBFL tokens and it's not a bug so I've seen obsessions get spammed with them. What's the point of even disabling drones at this point? They get recalled faster than it takes to place them lmao.
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@pseudechis said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3649064#Comment_3649064
Again it really doesn’t, I’m sorry the snide attempt to counter my point by making the same point in an unrelated topic didn’t work.
Basically what you said agrees with me not counters me so I’m not sure what your goal was other than indulging in foolish “us vs them” survivor/killer tribalism.
I don’t think you knew what your goal was either or you wouldn’t have made such a foolish comparison.
Foolish comparison? Dude I built my argument based on your points on a related topic that "causes tunneling" to show how they are easily counterable. They are therefore related, no matter how hard you pretend they aren't.
I wasn't agreeing with you, just pointing out how flawed your argument is and how it could be used to justify a different topic related (yet apparently not) to the issue. Point still stands. It's not an us vs. them because I play both roles so don't strawman the argument to tribalism lmao.
I don't think you knew what my "snide" goal was so don't pretend as if there wasn't any.
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@Snowbawlzzz said:
I'd personally rather there be no MMR
Two good games and then you get whatever you call this.
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@pseudechis said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3646646#Comment_3646646
No there is no correlation here. You've misused the term correlation.
Making the exact same point about a completely different unrelated topic in no way contributes, counters or provides further discussion of the topic at hand.
The topic being discussed in this case "have you been tunneled?"
The concept of survivorship bias is a universal one with respect to data in general. So while the same point can be applied to many complained about aspects of the game. It can't be used in the manner you have used it to make the point you are trying to make, simply because it's not relevant.
Its whataboutism for whataboutism's sake, in a weak attempt to undermine the discussion being had.
That's a lil debate and discussion 101 for you.
It does counter it because one is used to justify the other and vice versa. It can be used in the manner I've used it because it is relevant, and it's not up to you to decide in order to make your point seem more valid. It's not a weak attempt to undermine a one-sided argument by providing the same exact argument regarding a supposed causation. If it is, you're technically saying your argument is equally as weak. Get out of here with your childish discussion 101.
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@Pulsar said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3648568#Comment_3648568
Uh, yeah, because it's a subjective opinion. That's the whole point of an opinion.
I've seen two discussions today where people realized opinions differ. I don't know what's going on.
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@Crowman said:
While DBD may not have as many players as it did at its peak, it's not really dying. The last 30 days on steamcharts show an increase (likely due to people checking out the event).
DBD has its up and downs over the year, people come check out new content and play other games afterwards.
"and I'm not saying dbd is dying." - OP
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If he leans on basically anything then it's game over.
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@Depressedlegion said:
I don't know how you missed, but people have been asking for a DS buff for quite a while.
Pretty much immediately since it got nerfed...
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@Aven_Fallen said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3647573#Comment_3647573
Why should anyone agree with your post when you are wrong?
OTR has three effects, but they dont do anything against tunneling.
Endurance? Hit them off hook and all Endurance-effects are gone. Basekit Endurance, OTR, potential DH, potential BT.
No grunts of Pain? Does not matter if you want to tunnel. (Aside from playing against Spirit)
No Aura Read? Does not matter if you want to tunnel.
I used OTR when they buffed it and I admit that I got some use of the other effects (e.g. the Killer kicking a Gen with Nowhere to Hide not finding me). But overall the Perk is really, really lackluster. If the Killer tunnels, you will not get use of it. And if the Killer does not tunnel, you also wont get much use of it.
Oh, and btw.:
"With the upcoming DS rework which I’m assuming to be an unasked-for buff"
People asked for a DS-Buff because DS was the one thing that held tunneling in place at least a bit. I doubt that they buff it in a way that it discourages tunneling, because even if they revert it to 5 seconds, Killers will just push through it, because they learned that tunneling is the best they can do to win.
You explained that really well. Off the Record is only really useful when you're in the basement and the killer is awkwardly trying to body-block you going up the stairs until base kit BT goes away. Alternatively, they could just hit you off hook and save themselves the trouble (since they can hear that the grunts of pain are quieter) and disable any chance of Dead Hard whilst they're at it.
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After the HUD changes they thought it would make solo queue never complained about lmao
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@Phantom_ said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3644519#Comment_3644519
I'd say spare yourself the headache and don't play, it's really not worth the stress. Killers are still hard-tunneling and camping as if it's just another Tuesday. My SoloQ games were so bad I hopped on as Ghostface and just meme-ed around and it was insane how many survivors were being very kind and thankful for not being hard-tunneled for once during the event like that oughts to say something.
Trust me I'm not even considering it.
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Was the survivor running in a straight line? If so, might've just been server lag.
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@Zboard said:
This gamemode is a joke, will be funny to see stats after it ends
I doubt they'll be shown, especially with the comments on their TikTok and Twitter being mainly about tunneling and miserable experiences.They'd just be supplying evidence to them that they are correct.
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If that was implemented, we'd just have to hope solo queue teammates actually look at the HUD lmao. Really good idea though!
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@ChuckingWong said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/404662/im-glad-this-game-mode-exists
We cant take bad actors as evidence to then say tunneling is encouraged.
In lights out you do not need to be doing this to survivors. This is entirely up to skill/pressure by the killer side.
Here's some raw video and a quick summary I have made on 10 matches I played using, what many consider the weakest killer in lights out Nurse (not sure how much I believe it), not engaging in tunneling, camping, or rushing back to saved survivors. I won every match and only close to "losing" in two games.
First match: Good people, amazing match had fun. Survivors had fun, points to be had. Let em all go
Second match: Some mistakes were made/idk whats going on, claudette hatred maybe? Just wanted the match over to not drag anything out for the rest of the survs. Appologized and went next.
Third match: Good little trio of friends im guessing, killed claud cause she seemed a bit lost rather not waste her time waiting for a slug pick up. Survivors had fun, points to be had, had a slug race. Fengs are too cute!
Fourth match: Maria quick DCed made a decent blink play, understandable if you dont like nurse I get it. Noone went to save the bot, was gonna kill everyone in this match but then the server stopped responding.
Fifth match: Made a gen grab that did a large hickup not sure if the survivor DCed or crashed. Normal match just trying to go next, having a bot on your team sucks I know. They made it to a decent 3 gen though.
Sixth match: Very efficient team, probably because its ormond and easier to find gens, three genned themselves though. Kept running into laurie randomly. Good people, tried to refrain from just locking the gens down. Let them complete it and let the mikaela go.
Seventh match: Very efficient team again, oddly enough with all the down farming at the start. Ended on a good note with some pallets, let em all go. Good stuff, fun fun.
Eighth match: Poor wee Feng, she was not happy at the start, its typical nurse crap I get it. Gave the survivors some blinds, did the match normally got some kills. Hope they had some fun out of it.
Ninth match: Efficient team on lerys very surprising, hard to do as survivors in this mode. I felt bad for Steve and Nancy, they wanted that gen really badly but didnt leave the basement, and I heard them downstairs. Zarina/Mikaela were on point as well. Good survivors!
Tenth match: Played normally, didnt really do anything special. Felt bad for the Alan running into a door, didnt really want a kill like that. Let Feng and him go got some pallets, fun stuff. Good survivors.
Raw game footage 10 games lights out nurse play:
There is an argument to be made if you are facing ONLY coordinated SWF's but that does not happen, streamers with over 9k hours and play this game as a career do not have a majority of coordinated SWF opponents. So this argument quickly falls apart as it is over representing your matches for opponents you will barely face.
In lights out, you have the advantage of survivors not spotting generators as fast and the possibility of grabs/easy hits due to sight and terror radius reductions. This also applies to chases, as they will not be anywhere near as long, not just due to the absence of WoO but because they can't see or identify loops as well.
While this is only 10 matches that have been recorded and some wacky DC stuff has happened, I generally do not see any evidence to say that tunneling was required in any of the situations I was put in for these videos or for any games I havent recorded. Same could be said about camping, and neither is encouraged at all from what I can tell.
Will continue to record gameplay during this event as much as I can, from what I see though, its just horrible people that play killer side that want to tunnel/camp and then justify it for their lack of skill/pressure. As they are using tracking killers such as doctor/legion. Or even worse killers that circumvent vision like meyers/ghost face.
Good luck in your matches.
Remember killers: there are actual living people behind those opponents of yours. You dont need to ruin their day by playing like jerks. And you certainly dont need to play like that to "win".
Different game mode with a ton of potential, same excuses for their top 5% MMR strategies (they are going against a solo queue team).
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@jotaro said:
Facts. 9/10 of my survivor games in this game mode i had a tunneling killer. Most games were also legion, completely taking away the immersion and ruining the fun of the game mode
Some people definitely bought Legion just for easy wins on the game mode lmao
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@pseudechis said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3644793#Comment_3644793
Ah here in lies the problem, with a broad enough definition anything can be called tunneling.
I've had people say I tunneled them even when I've hook 2 people in between chases simply because I downed them again in swift order.
The players who say they see tunneling everywhere are clearly seeing tunneling in any scenario so yes they see it everywhere.
Its an effect that definitely suffers from survivorship bias in that a player hyper-focuses on "tunneling" and as a result only remember or count the games when it happens and gloss over the times it doesn't.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen just that it doesn't happen the extent to which people want to claim it does and if it is then how wide of net are they casting with their highly subjective definition of tunneling.
Players aren't immune to elimination just because they've been unhooked nor should they be.
Anything could be considered gen-rushing as well. I mean I've had Trappers complain about two gens being done before they got a hook in when they were busy setting traps and didn't run Corrupt Intervention.
The players who see gen-rushing everywhere are clearly seeing gen-rushing in any scenario so yes they see it everywhere.
It's an effect that suffers killer bias in that a player hyper-focuses on "gen-rushing" and as a result only remember or count the games when it happens and gloss over the times it doesn't.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen just that it doesn't happen the extent to which people want to claim it does and if it is then how wide of net are they casting with their highly subjective definition of gen-rushing.
Players aren't immune to losing just because they've brought a regular toolbox.
(You see the correlation, right?)
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Linked cosmetics always have one really cool piece that you can't even get by itself for whatever reason.
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@Garboface said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3645145#Comment_3645145
Meh, I am just not interested in playing against it. Myself and 3 other randoms just threw ourselves at a tunneling Ghostface and 3 of us died on our first hook. if that is the direction you want to see the game go in. Keep doing what you do.
This was in "lights out", love the mode but the baddies are wrecking the enjoyment.
Ghostface must've queued up for another game instantly knowing it's an easy win ha ha
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Can't wait to experience that
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@KoreWaPantsu said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3645811#Comment_3645811
That's why I talked about unique ability/abilites for survivors, just like the killers.
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3645819#Comment_3645819
Then we can work out a solution, as I said: it's easier without perks. And as I said, again: no perks BUT unique abilities.
BHVR seem to be very adamant on their stance regarding tunneling which is unfortunate. Your idea would be really cool for sure.
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No perks = tunneling. Lights Out made this VERY clear.
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@Ayodam said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3645710#Comment_3645710
What if I told you SWF was the anathema to tunneling you’re looking for?
Looking away from the problem because I would have a SWF wouldn't be right in my eyes. It would only cause killers to get irritated that their go to playstyle isn't working like they intended it to against us and they'd take that newfound anger out on a solo queue.
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@ReikoMori said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3645555#Comment_3645555
For me "Old DBD" predates anti-tunnel perks as that's how long I've personally played the game. So, I'm aware of the times when they did come into being and their peaks as well as their low points. From my experience and perspective there are only a couple handfuls of situations where survivors truly just have no recourse to deal with tunneling. Not that the options you have are at their strongest peak, but they are by no means ineffective either. They just don't absolutely remove the team reliance element from the equation if you are in a particularly bad spot anymore.
You're only punished for spreading hooks if it is overall just taking too long, but the benefits of spreading hooks are usually a much more stable endgame. Tunneling applies a ton of pressure to the early and mid game if you're successful with it and don't lose a ton of that pressure to losing gens. Spreading hooks gives up a heavy pressure application early in exchange for an overall better chance of winning as long as you can keep the game at a decent pace. Also it isn't as if you have to choose one or the other because you can spread hooks through early and mid game and then single out someone to start snowballing towards your endgame. There isn't a one size fits all strat that works for every killer, but this is the overall theory I've played my games around for a long time.
Teamplay being non-existent in solo q isn't something that the devs can fix as it isn't a mechanical problem and changing matchmaking still won't give you teammates who want to play in a team oriented way. The playerbase needs to recognize the issue lies within them and then strive to correct it. Preventing tunneling is a nebulous goal with no real sensible way to do it based on how the game is designed to work.
Whether the killer is chasing the same person repeatedly or trying to chase everyone equally at some point you're gonna end up in a situation that technically qualifies as someone's definition of tunneling. Preventing tunneling means fundamentally changing something about chases or hooks, but it would also be a major change that would effect many other facets of the game for both sides. It isn't as simple as making players invisible or using cage of atonement mechanics ( the two most suggested things). Ultimately, the games are still progressing normally even if we don't appreciate the way it is being progressed.
Endgame isn't really stable anymore considering the popularity of Adrenaline. You could be chasing a injured survivor and suddenly you're back at step one. It's not really the perks fault because it's balanced and whatever but you should not really expect much apart from one kill from camping and maybe a couple of hooks from trades. Tunneling applies more gen pressure than spreading hooks ever would. If you tunnel out the weakest link (like many killers do) you have a 3v1 relatively fast. Once that happens it's ggs unless you're tunneling a survivor that knows what they're doing a bit. That survivor may be trash at looping, but they still contribute the same gen progress as every other survivor.
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@drsoontm said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3645582#Comment_3645582
That tells you how many haven't got a clue about the need for tunnelling. I'm back on killer right now and I'm finally going against teams doing gens in parallel. Low score for everybody and impossible to get a kill unless I tunnel. ^_^
Thankfully, I've started with the first 3 gens popping in a 10 seconds interval. Got 2 kills in the end, the second one rage-quitting when their blocking tactic failed. (They were four Steam friends) That was pretty close though. I got him inside the gates. (Demogoron, I've assumed it was the weakest killer in this mode given the noise he makes)
Goes back to the same thing. If you go against a strong team it's the only move.
And you never know in advance what kind of team you'll get.
Well the ''need'' for tunneling has been tarnished quite a lot by killers using it to excuse bad gameplay. Removes the validity just like when gen-rushing was exaggerated. But you're right, it's the only effective thing against SWF. That's why I wouldn't mind a compensation for removing the playstyle.
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@AzshFayd said:
This gamemode exposes that people tunnel just because they can, not because they have to
52 up votes 😮
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@GeneralV said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3645478#Comment_3645478
"Old" DBD had tunneling and arguably much worse tunneling as for a considerable amount of time there was nothing that could be done about it.
Depends on how far you go and what version is being taken into consideration.
Because you can reach a point where survivors had the DS + UB combination to stop tunneling, and more resources to use in case they were being tunneled. Meanwhile killers had BBQ as an incentive to not tunnel, plus the possibility of rendering half of a survivor's build useless.
Essentially, 2019 DBD after Plague's release. Considered by many as the most fun the game has ever been. This is taken directly from here, by the way, you can search for those threads if you would like to.
Was that enough to stop tunneling completely? No, and I think nothing will ever be. But tunneling wasn't the norm as it currently is, and I think that was something we should return to.
Thanks for explaining it better, I couldn't really put it into perspective like you did.
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@ReikoMori said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/404662/im-glad-this-game-mode-exists
"Old" DBD had tunneling and arguably much worse tunneling as for a considerable amount of time there was nothing that could be done about it.
There is no version of DBD that can exist that won't at some point have tunneling and still be the same game you want to play. More playstyles should be encouraged, but it isn't as if that isn't already happening. As long as the incentive structures and gameplay stay largely the same for both sides you will always have some form of the things you don't like. To even really make substantive changes to tunneling, we all have to agree on what constitutes tunnelings because funnily enough while everyone seemingly hates they don't universally agree on what is and isn't tunneling until you get to the furthest extremes on either end of the spectrum.
You're never forced to run anti-tunnel perks especially now when the best anti-tunnel perk, borrowed time, has been basekit for a couple of years now. You also aren't really punished for spreading hooks unless your overall gameplay has a lot of other inefficiencies or your preferred killer is severely limited in how they can approach the game. The ultimate counter to tunneling though has never been perks even when DS was turbo broken for years. It's always been teamplay that counters a hard tunneling killer unless you're in the top 5% of players who've actually mastered how to run every tile optimally and have the reflexes to dodge hits.
Old DBD had anti-tunnel perks that actually worked like Dead Hard (albeit they were busted) which helped prevent tunneling. Borrowed Time was ran very often as well. As I said before, basekit BT can hinder more than it helps as being wounded prevents anti-tunneling perks from doing their job. You aren't forced to, sure, but killers can very easily wait out ten seconds and body-block at places like basement or just hit you and give you a little speed boost to get to whatever loop possible.
If you think you aren't punished for spreading hooks, compare a tunneling game with a game playing like that. You don't get any benefits from playing like that and, if I'm wrong, I'd like you to explain how without mentioning skill issues in any way.
Teamplay in solo queue is non-existent (majority of the playerbase). It's basically a 1v1v1v1v1 as to who will "win". This is a huge issue due to MMR doing what it does best. Either fixing MMR or preventing tunneling would be the two best options for the future.
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@drsoontm said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3645356#Comment_3645356
At higher MMR levels, tunnelling is definitively needed for a chance to win. (Easy to prove: just play and keep winning then see how will it goes without tunnelling)
I don't think it's even remotely fun to do it in the average MMR. But that's because that level is a bit easy for me.
An average killer overwhelmed by a strong build & toolboxes has no choice if he wants to win.
On the survivor side I don't mind being tunnelled myself. It's the only fun part of playing survivor (that and hiding in plain sight). What else is there to be? Quick time events on generators? Meh. I'll take the fun of mind-games and of chases and if I'm being killed I'll just queue to the next match.
I prefer having an extra health state and being able to choose a safe loop over getting tunneled immediately off hook but you do you. It's fun when the pressure isn't on you to get a five gen chase because a killer (usually really good with their abilities) wants you out of the game and your team completely depends on your mind games to work.
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@drsoontm said:
https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3645275#Comment_3645275
I believe that's just a variation on the survivor bias theme. (As in the selection bias, not the survivors survivor)
People generally don't make post about NOT being tunneled. You see how using the amount of complains compared to the amounts of not-complains doesn't tell anything.
The amount of complaints has always been consistent, now it's been multiplied by a lot. People are obviously sick and tired of it affecting modifiers this badly since it's encouraged and the optimal playstyle. No one enjoys tunneling unless the killer is bad and makes mistakes or the survivor enjoys making content to post. I don't think I've seen a serious post here praising tunneling in any way.