Ghost Face is Broken on a Fundamental Level
I need to air my frustration. I realize nothing will come of this, but it will at least let me feel a little better to vent this out.
The following does NOT take into account any add-ons; this is strictly speaking about Killers' base abilities.
All stealth Killers have some semblance of a "draw back" while they're in stealth.
- The Wraith must ring his bell to de-cloak before he can attack. During the de-cloaking, his speed slows and a bell rings to give the Survivors a moment to react.
- The Shape cannot lunge or reach any level of bloodlust while in Tier I of The Evil Within, to balance the lack of a red stain and virtually no terror radius.
- The Pig has reduced speed while in stealth and squeals before her lunge attack, or an audio cue of her weapon unsheathing will happen if she goes out of stealth, giving Survivors a moment to react.
Then we get to Ghost Face:
- While in stealth, Ghost Face has no red stain or heartbeat, maintains regular movement speed, and can instantly attack you while in stealth; there is no "cool down" or momentary "pause" before he attacks in stealth mode to give the Survivors' a moment to react.
I personally feel this fundamentally breaks core mechanics of the game. The terror radius and red stain are the two primary indicators to let a Survivor know when/where a Killer is, to react accordingly.
Stealth Killers negate these fundamental mechanics of the game by design--which is totally fine--as there is a "draw back" to coming out of their stealth abilities (see above). But Ghost Face breaks all these design philosophies to a fault.
There's a lot of balancing issues with this game, I know, and some are arguably more important to address before others, but man... Ghost Face, to me, is just beyond frustrating to play against in the grand scheme of things.
Now that I got that off my chest: I love DBD and the dev staff. I admire how far you've come with this game and grown as a team/studio. <3
Comments
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The main difference with ghostface is that he can be taken out of stealth, and it has a decently long cooldown. Ghostface also has to be in stealth to have access to his main power (stalking). Pig and Myers have abilities other than their stealth, with pig having RBTs and Myers having EW3.
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Unfortunately, at least at higher ranks, Ghost Face players practically never use the stalking mechanic for Ghost Face. They use a play style popularized by streamers, in that you use his stealth to get right up on unsuspecting Survivors.
And with any other Stealth killer, there's a least some sort of audio and/or visual cue when they come out of stealth to give you at least a chance to react. The same can't be said for Ghost Face.
I'd wager that, when Ghost Face was originally being designed, perhaps the developers weren't expecting such a play style to become the meta.
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I agree that GF is fundamentally broken because his power is literally broken. You can look at him and nothing happens. You can also cancel his power through walls.
As far as being overpowered...not at all.
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You... You lost me after the title (the title is correct btw).
Ghostface is a really cool concept, on paper the mechanics sound just like a scene out of a slasher flick; The killer and the victim, for some unknown reason, have a stare down before both take off in a sprint.
But Ghostface does have a very real drawback despite your claims; Once he is revealed he is a basic M1 killer with no killer power. No other killer has an issue of outright eliminating a killer's power besides Trapper (who is in GRAVE need of dev love).
And that brings us to Ghostface's biggest problem, the "Reveal" mechanic is way too inconsistant. For both survivor and killer.
On the survivor side I could be staring directly at him not even 6 inches away and not reveal him. Or he could repeatedly lean/unlean to reset his reveal timer which, which again might sound ok on paper but is extremely frustrating when you know exactly where the killer is and have the center of your screen pointed directly at him but are powerless to being exposed.
On the killer side, there are an absurd amount of moment where you get revealed from behind a wall or are completely unable to stalk at all despite the survivor clearly being in range and in line-of-sight.
In general, the killer is just too buggy and was released entirely too early before the devs had the time or skill to tune him properly. And because most of the sales have been made off of him I feel like much of his glaring problems will not be addressed until the much older (and admittedly more in-need) killers receive work.
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You can look at him and nothing happens. You can also cancel his power through walls.
Yes. I wasn't going to bring this up but there have been times where Ghost Face and I would stand out in the open and the game wouldn't even begin to initiate me breaking him out of stealth. Other times my character model will be completely crouched/hidden behind a crate and I can still "see" him and break him out.
I'm never sure what to make of it, which is a different type of frustration I have with him.
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He does have an audio with him when in stealth, which is his robes making noise. It use too be 16 meters I believe, but it was reduced because it made him way too easy too detect for being around, now it's 8 meters.
Honestly, the best solution is just run Spine Chill. It crushes all stealth killers and completely counters Prayer beads Spirit. It's such an underrated perk but it has saved me so many times I've lost count.
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Have you ever considered to use your eyes or run this perk, instead of crying here?
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He does have an audio with him when in stealth, which is his robes making noise.
Very true. But more often than not ,the sounds of a generator or fire barrel drown out the noise.
Have you ever considered to use your eyes
Do you have x-ray vision or something to see him around the corner of a wall with just your eyes while you're working on a gen next to said corner? No? Got it.
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Why don't you run spine chill then? It's his biggest counter
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But I thought I could just use my eyes on a killer whose behind the wall that has no heart beat, red stain, with full movement speed and can instantly attack while in stealth mode as you asked? My point being: Don't be condescending.
My post/grievance isn't about perks/add-ons in any capacity; but as base mechanics for a particular killer.
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I hate that you're not even kidding with this, but it never fails.
Not even on your screen? Behind a bunch of clutter and you don't even actually know he's there? Revealed!
Right in front of you? Literally in the middle of your screen? Nothing.
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Agreed. If they fix the bugs of the stalk break mechanic I bet it would be a dramatic improvement for both sides.
I can explicitly remember a recent game where I was flat out hiding behind a short wall while injured, glanced in his direction for a second and broke his stalk, revealing my position. It was a serious ######### moment as not only was I not trying to do it, but I was behind a flipping wall.
And other times I will be standing there staring right into his sad little face and nothing happens. I don't get it.
And as GF I've had my stalk broken from like 40m away by a survivor behind a full Macmil jungle gym wall.
Like really the whole mechanic is so janky, just fix it please BHVR.
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Not even on your screen? Behind a bunch of clutter and you don't even actually know he's there? Revealed! Right in front of you? Literally in the middle of your screen? Nothing.
I can explicitly remember a recent game where I was flat out hiding behind a short wall while injured, glanced in his direction for a second and broke his stalk, revealing my position. It was a serious ######### moment as not only was I not trying to do it, but I was behind a flipping wall. And other times I will be standing there staring right into his sad little face and nothing happens. I don't get it.
I didn't bring this up on my original post, as I feared it'd be a whole other can of worms that'd make things too messy, but I can at least take comfort that I'm not alone on this issue.
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He's so buggy with the reveal that it isn't even funny.
In every match it's one of two things. I either can't reveal him no matter how much of my screen he takes up, or I can glance at him from 60 meters away and even if he's behind a wall half a second later, OR I LOOK AWAY COMPLETELY, the music plays out and he gets revealed. His reveal never just works NORMALLY.
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Yeah his whole stalk reveal mechanism is terrible. Don't get me started. It's frustrating to try to use it AND it's frustrating when it's used on you.
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You kinda lost me at survivors rely on a terror radius and red stain.
I won't argue times have changed for DBD, but the terror radius and red stain are absolutely fundamental things that Survivors use to know when/where the Killer is. And stealth killers "breaking" these things is fine, as they have momentary pauses and/or visual/audio cues before they attack while in stealth to balance this.
And if you spot GF, just run. Trying to break him out of stealth is a red herring. Survivors are just giving him free hits when they try this, whether avoiding “exposed” or not.
100%. This is why I no longer bother trying to break him out, because of how flawed it is. I've been shafted too many times trying to do so. So that leaves him with no heart beat, red stain, full movement speed, and the ability to attack instantly, because folks like you and me don't even try to break him out anymore.
No other stealth Killer can attack instantly while in stealth. And with the reliability of revealing him always in question, his ability to instantly attack while in stealth doesn't seem quite right. If there could be a momentary visual/audio cue before he attacks while in stealth (like Pig, Wraith) that'd be helpful, as I'm not sure if you can "fix" (read: make perfect) the revealing mechanic for him.
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he is still a M1 killer, the survivors can dictate his stealth, and his stealth is on a super long CD even with all CDR addons. also you can hear him when he is close even when he is stealthed. I mean the MOST OPTIMAL WAY TO PLAY HIM is ignoring 50% of his power and JUST using his stealth part, meaning you get NO deviousness points with him 99% of the time. yeah you can use his 1 shot but that is SO HARD and clunky to get off and you are not even garunteed the down. you still got to M1 them, so in some scenerios you will spend the time to stalk them and then get looped for 45+ seconds for that M1 and not even get it. WHAT A GREAT POWER. when you could of gotten 1 M1 on them at the start at least
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I don't want him nerfed to oblivion. I don't want that for any Killer. I just want some brief, momentary audio or visual cue before he attacks in stealth, akin to Wraith or Pig, as many Ghost Face killers ignore his special ability as you said.
Ideally, fixing the stalk/reveal design that the developers were originally going for is the best-case scenario, but I can imagine programming/play testing this to be as bug-free as possible would be incredibly hard, given the diverse amounts of maps/tiles in the game.
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he does have that, if you have ears you can hear his little string flaps moving when he moves. that is how I can tell if he is near me when he is stealthed
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There’s a cooldown on his stealth ability and you can break him out unlike the other stealth killers. You can always look and inevitably you will find some downsides to killers and try to compare them but Ghostface has got them too. Wraiths addons are insane as a stealth killer compared to Ghostfaces and the Pig has extreme slowdown potential and pressure while Ghostface has none.
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Ghost Face can be break out from stealth and without add-ons, he has a 30 seconds cooldown on his ability. 30 seconds where he is a M1 killer without a power. And 30 seconds are huge in this game.
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Stalking as ghostface has too many drawbacks to be viable. There's no point in stalking an injured survivor when an injured one can loop you as well as a health one, without the risk of you losing your "one-shot down" on them. There's no point in playing stalkface against survivors with eyes when you'll just be playing a discount meyers who can be put on cooldown, plus if you hit a survivor you have stalk on, you've wasted your time. No-stalk ghostface is popular because a streamer (Truetalent?) figured out a perk build that synergizes with it, and a majority of Ghostface players found it more effective than spending time stalking.
Stalking is a mechanic that, in GF's place, takes too much investment for meager payoff that survivors can mitigate. The first part of his stalk grants him instant benefit and survivors cannot control it - thus, it works as a power, especially when used with good perks. I'll say it again, God forbid a killer use his power without gimping himself for survivors.
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It's not really meta, it's just a strong, and boring playstyle. When people start lean-stalking in a manner of play that's actually stealthy and not reckless to give your position away prior like most do, they'll see that stalk IS strong when in the right hands.
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The point of Ghost's stalk playstyle is to conceal yourself behind cover more often so than stalking regularly, which should never be done unless add-ons are applied or you are marking someone in a quick moment. Stalking in plain sight as Ghost Face is a bad play in general for many things, as you are given more incentive to use the lean mechanic for its more powerful effect. Sometimes, I think the community forgets that leaning doubles the rate of stalk progression, which is faster than Michael's stalk rate, and that's in Ghost Face's base kit. People who call it useless for sure do not stalk properly or are inefficient at stealth plays, which is disappointing in the hands of a stealth killer.
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Again,I do have to say that time spent stalking a survivor needs to be less than the amount of time you spend getting the exposed hit on them for it to be worth using. Most survivors with eyes will see you when stalking from most conventional spots and start moving to get distance to mitigate the time loss of them being exposed, such that it isn't worth or they outlast the mark if they're good at looping. The time spent carefully evading their gaze, I factor into the time you spend "stalking" to mitigate the first health state, and oftentimes I find it not worth it for the time you spend setting up a stalk for unreliable payoff, especially when people can reveal you thru walls right now.
I don't see the benefit of exposing a survivor vs injuring them. If you sucker-punch them with the shroud, you get them injured, you can chase if you want just like if you stalk, or you can leave them. Stalk takes 60 sec to expire, in a chase or not - injure lasts until they can find someone to heal them, plus you cna exploit nurses's off of it and repeat stealth attacks. I see not contest tbh. Stalkface isn't worth the time unless ur really good better than the survivors ur facing in that case what's the point.
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Even at rank 1, you'd be surprised how unobservative people can be vs a Ghost Face. Usually when it comes to either marking a survivor and ambushing them for the instadown, or going for the silent m1, it's all about situation with this killer. Using only one half can lead to mixed results, but using BOTH strategies helps him the most, and I believe that's what most of the community is missing about him. To clarify your judgement on exposing being pointless:
- For one, just don't mark them from ridiculously far away. Be close enough and not come from a predictable location to catch them off guard.
- Marking and downing survivors can add much more pressure than wasting potential minutes in a regular chase only.
-Some cases, you can intimidate others by marking them, but not approaching them as you might be closer to another player than they are to you. This can cause distortion and panic in the marked survivor. (This is not as favorable, but a fun thing to do)
- like I said, leaning when stalking is crazy fast, and wastes far less time then what regular stalking (without add-ons) can last for.
With the inconsistencies of his reveal phase being true, "the reveal through walls" issue is nowhere as common as people say it is judging from my experience playing the killer. That is a poor assumption to call his power's other half that people seem to dislike "bad".
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There is one fundamental thing with Ghostface which is "broken":
His Stalking is not worth it. This is his biggest flaw. There is no real reason to stalk people, it is better to just run around in Night Shroud, hit people and surprise them. This is something that needs changing, Ghostface does not need any Nerfs or Buffs, but his Stalking needs to be useful. He is not played in the way it is intended, so they need to adjust it by not nerfing his Stealth-Potental, but making stalking meaningful.
Beside that his Reveal-Mechanic needs to be fixed. Looking at Ghostface without being able to reveal him is as common as looking to a random Spot and revealing him, giving away your own location without even knowing he was there.
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First of all, I'd say that relying on your enemy to make a mistake is an unreliable strategy. It's not a bad strategy, but it's one most killers in this game are forced into. I don't think you should base your power on a survivor not being observant, especially when there are marauding survivors out there that know what your killer does and can read mindgames.
Secondly, I think you miss the point of what a no-stalk ghostface is made for. Stalk Ghostface does what you do above, and quite well, but I need to stress that No-Stalkface is different because the strengths are different. Stalkface makes you jump thru all of the hoops you mention above, and take extra time in your rotating to gens making sure you can ensure a good stalk vs reasonable alert survivors. No-Stalkface barges in with a free first-hit, and that first hit...
A. makes that survivor functionally "stalked" (1-hit down) until they get healed with both Sloppy Butcher and Thanatophobia penalties + the time it takes for a teammate to get to them
B. Applies Thanatophobia to all survivors, rewarding you slightly for damaging a survivor. Furthermore, makes them likely to proc your Nurses' calling, which works super-well when you can remove your TR and surprise attack or re-injure healing survivors.
C. Lets you continue the chase just like if you have marked them, except they cannot alleviate your mark by looping you for 1 minute to expire the mark.
This is far less conditionally helpful, less map dependent, and less dependent on your enemies than a stalk build. It's more reliable, it exploits survivors' meta instincts, and doesn't rely on a dubiously reliable reveal mechanic. It relies less on the survivors making mistakes or misreading your plays, and more on concentrating your reliable stealth on a productive end. That's why people are ranking up with it - because it produces reliable results with less effort than the convoluted Stalkface, especially vs coordinated teams.
In short, I'd say an injured survivor is an exposed survivor, and a survivor spends more time injured than exposed. Why not exploit that, especially if you're stealthy in both occasions?
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Need to be more aware of your surroundings, unlike other stealth users, he can be taken out of it just by being look at
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"Relying on your enemy to make a mistake is an unreliable strategy" we are talking about Ghost Face, a killer who's weakness is a survivor's map awareness, which if they lack that awareness against him, they are prone to mistakes if too late to correct them with last second preparation. Those mistakes even apply with with the anti-heal build, given they bother healing, eventually learning that you are using Nurse's Calling, if the build wasn't a dead giveaway already. There are a few perks, one in particular no one really looks at, that counter this build easily. I stopped using the build and went back to traditional methods of gameplay once they figured ways around the build's penalties towards them, resulting in relying on NC to be rather time wasting. Now, you can always go for those silent basic attacks, and those indeed can mean catching an injured survivor with their guard down. It can possibly take too much time against a healthy survivor, give or take their experience with the game. Quicker hooks through surprise exposed downs can add-on to what already makes the build strong when needed at the right time. I once saw a GF use the build, but noticed quickly how we were beginning to take the upper hand against him. He began throwing in some stalking, and that managed to turn the tide back in his favor, because he didn't want to waste any time looking for someone healing, while others that were healthy, were on gens. Either playstyle really works with him, and one is not higher than the other as they are both powerful, especially when used together . It just really depends on the choices of the player using him that can determine the game.
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One thing to add on myers: he breaths like a madman. I can always hear him breathing when he is close, I never got grabbed by myers if I pay attention to the sounds.
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I never played ghostface, but doesn't he have addons which reduce his power recovery and allows him to go back to stealth mode in just 16 seconds again?
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You don't hear that over fires or gens
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And that's why I think he isn't broken, more than he is an actually good design BHVR stumbled upon unintentionally. The versatility of his power, intended or not, allows killers to take a variety of builds into a game and be reasonably viable (note, not excessively viable....) versus well-coordinated rank 1's, and not be too hardly gimped for being played as intended.
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Yes, but using those means he can't use any of his other addons, which is a big deal if you are going for stalkface. If you don't care about stalking, he's near-viable with no addons.
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I rarely hear this sound anymore. I remember back then I was able to hear him, but they buffed him and reduced the sound to the point where I legit can't hear it anymore. And I'm someone who can hear myers breathing and walking in T1.
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man ghostfaces new outfit still broken cmon man
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Just wait for the chapter 14 patch
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Some people already mentioned, that Spine Chill destroys him. Some people already mentioned that he can get broken out of his ability by any survivor within LoS.
Have you noticed, that every stealth killer with a very clear notification to the survivors on his ability is kind of weak? Hmmmmm....maybe because wraith is not freaking stealth after all if he rings a loud bell before coming out of stealth.
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Uhhh….pig and wraith can get the exact same ambush hits that ghostface does. If I was never going to stalk as ghostface, there is no reason to play him over pig or wraith. I mained pig before switching to ghostface and can say that going down to an M1 pig is WAY more punishing than going down to an M1 ghostface…..
If you can't get ambush hits as wraith or pig you just need to learn to play them better.
So idk how people will complain about ghostface when the other stealth killers do the exact same thing lol. There's also monitor+abuse myers / hag / spirit who can get the free M1s too.
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I think he's incredibly strong in that he has both stealth and insta-down. Also, I took one out of Shroud the other day, and he chased me for two seconds then I became exposed. I think the mechanic to break him out is definitely wonky and needs some fine-tuning. You can stare at him all day and it won't even register.
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This is seriously not picking and expecting STEALTH killers to give you a minute advance to react defeats their whole objective..and I'll also remind you every stealth killer aside from myers is considered very weak for that very reason..eyes peeled..run spine chill if you must..but complaining about an m1 killer..people wont take it seriously
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Pig is slow in stealth, it's hurting her pressure too much. Wraith can get ambush hits with certain addons, but only with them. GF got normal speed and instant ambush, he's the best stealth killer imo.
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imagine wanting to nerf a m1 killer
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People are saying this stuff that you can reveal him but that doesnt matter because he will sneak up an hit you before you can even reveal him, an the 8 meter terror radius to hear his cloak he's basically hugging you at that point. People make no sense.
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Spine Chill hurts him massively. Also, look at him. Boom, now he can't use his power for 30 seconds.
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Just nerf Ghostface! #overperforming #notmykiller #broken
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Personally I like Ghost Face the way he is. He definitely is powerful because of his good stealth, but not op in my opinion. Maybe having him emit some noise that you can hear when you are within a 6 meters range of him or something like that would be fine. But I feel like he is perfectly fine right now balancing wise.
Also Stealth and his stalking while he is in stealth is really all he has, unlike Pig or Myers, who have powers outside of being in stealth.
His detection does need fixing though. Sometimes you can look right at him and nothing happens, and sometimes you can reveal him behind a wall.
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You are cringe :)
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The funny thing about ghostface when you try to reveal his position the game is like nope.
When you don't want to reveal his position or you literally don't even know he's there suddenly the game is like oh you want to reveal him
Post edited by Volfawott on1
