Killer Concept: The Darwin - An Evolving Killer
So as we’ve all been told, the relationship between predator and prey is an evolutionary arms race. The prey grows to become a mighty mammoth, the tiger develops giant sabre-teeth to compensate. The prey shrinks so that the teeth are a burden, and the giant fangs are lost to time. It’s circular, not linear.
Introducing The Darwin! He evolves and adapts, but so do his prey....
Power
Evolve: When activating his power, The Darwin AND all survivors undergo changes that affect their base stats. During the transformation, the character’s body becomes a brittle husk and the new version breaks out from inside. The left-behind husk crumbles away over the next few second. (This should be a seamless transition so that a running survivor maintains speed and momentum as they break through the husk.) Characters who aren’t moving simply have their old skin crumble off around them.
There are 4 stages of evolution and each one has a unique icon where the killer see his power/add-on info. The killer can press the active ability button to cycle through these icons and choose which stage will result from the next transformation.
- Standard (the match starts at this phase): Basic 115% M1 Killer. All survivors are normal.
- Fast: Move at 125%. All survivors have thick hide. They take an Endurance hit first, then the 2nd hit injures them , and the 3 hit downs them. Injured survivors gain Endurance as well, and if they heal up, Endurance will remain as the first hit.
- Strong: Move at 115%. All survivors are exposed. All survivors have haste and move at 110%.
- Intelligent: Move at 115%. Killer can “see” all sounds (like on DBD Mobile). Generators are 1.5x as loud (both volume and range), and survivors complete generators 10% faster.
Evolve occurs when the killer activates his ability, but it has a 90 second cooldown at base. Timed right (such as during a chase), it can end chases quickly (such as switching from “Fast” to “Strong” mid-chase - thereby removing a survivor’s endurance and exposing them instead). Survivors can also also strategically evolve, as all players shift to the killer’s next selected phase whenever a generator is completed.
Perks:
- Ice Age: As frost works it’s way up their feet, survivors must move to keep warm. Every 25/20/15 cumulative seconds that a survivor remains stationary (including healing and working gens), they they gain a token, up to 5. Tokens increasingly hinder a survivor’s movement: slightly/moderately/considerably/tremendously/immobile. Survivors may remove a token by walking for 10 seconds or running for 5 (or a combo of the two) - progress for removal remains when stopping, unless stopped long enough to gain a new token. Immobile survivors must chip out of the ice crystals for 10 seconds with skill checks before moving again. Teammates can help (5 seconds). Each additional token visually shows more frost clinging to the survivor. Survivors may come within 3 meters of a heat source (like a fire barrel) for 3 seconds to remove all tokens and prevent buildup while there.
- Natural Selection: The strong survive and the weak perish. Getting a hook through the shoulder is bound to weaken anybody. Survivors who are rescued during the 1st phase of sacrifice will continue to cry and whimper at 30%/40%/50% of the injured volume after they’ve been healed. Survivors who are rescued during the 2nd phase of sacrifice will continue to whimper at 80%/90%/100% of the injured volume after they’ve been healed.
- Hex: Divergent Speciation: At the start of the match, each survivor is randomly assigned to another survivor (they must discover who their partner is). The 2 survivors in each pair may heal each other and perform cooperative actions together as normal. If they attempt these actions with a survivor from the other pair, progress is 20%/10%/0% of normal.
Comments
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Give me your weed)
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Ice Age is too much for a perk.
Just make it:
"Every 20/15/10 cumulative seconds that a survivor remains stationary (including healing and working gens), they they gain a token, up to 5. Each token decreases the Survivors movement speed by 3% up to a maximum of 15%. Survivors may remove a token by walking for 10 seconds or running for 5 (or a combo of the two) - progress for removal remains when stopping, unless stopped long enough to gain a new token."
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Oh of course! Way to much for the in-game perk description, but I wanted the extra info in this post for discussion’s sake. People would discover things like the interaction with the fire barrel on their own, but I want it known here that such an interaction should be included.
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No but like. That interaction shouldn't even be there. You're putting too many mechanics into the perk.
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This is such a weird, bizarre concept and I like it just for the uniqueness.
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Thank you! That’s actually exactly what I was going for. We have killer powers to help with chases, quick downs, and map manipulation, but it occurred to me that character manipulation is a completely unexplored avenue! After that, evolving character abilities just screamed out as a perfect fit!
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So...
You end up with 2 ways of playing him.
Switch at the end from fast to strong, down a survivor and camp him. (Cooldown makes you stuck in strong and well... there is no point of chasing survivors with 5% speed difference.
Or just stick with fast, throw save the best for last and just stick with 125% speed for the whole game.
Everything else would be just not viable.
For me it looks like he will be a new camping bubba or a new old legion, where you just stab with your power over and over again.
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Hmmmm, good point. What if there were automatic transformations as well? That way he can’t rely on the same state for the entire match. Between him shifting, shifting when gens pop, and timer-based shifts (or random), there will be a lot of change occurring to keep things intersting!
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It would be really frustrating for the killer because then he wouldn't really have much control over his power.
Better solution for this killer would be giving him 3 powerstates (delete his standard one, it's pointless).
He would then start in fast one... let's face it, you want this for the start.
Cooldown for his transformation should be max 10 seconds cooldown.
I think the better solution to encourage swapping is to make survivors adapt, to the killers power.
Strong predator: Increased terror radius, normal speed, increased lunge, lets you destroy pallets with main attack, which stuns you for 1 second, exposed status effect.
Transforming to this form stuns you for 2 seconds (no addons to decrase this value)
Fast predator: Normal terror radius, increased speed, normal lunge, vaults windows faster.
Transforming to this form stuns you for 1 second but then grants you additional burst of speed.
Hidden predator: No terror radius, normal speed, undetectable status effect.
Transforming to this form hides your red stain for 10 seconds.
If you overuse strong or fast form, survivors adapt to this overtime. Against each of them they gain separately 1 point per second, up to 75 points.
Upon reaching treshold of 40 points, they gain endurance status effect from strong form, that makes them unable to go down and puts them into deep wound unless affected by it already.
From fast form they gain haste status effect, that does not completely offsets speed boost for the killer.
If you are in strong (fast) form, survivors loose 2 points per second for fast (strong) adaptation.
If you are in hidden form they loose 1 point per second for both.
For better values i would have to compare it with other killers, but i think that 30/60 points would be more reasonable.
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I like this. Of course I think Ice Age needs a rework (because it sounds like more of a power than a perk tbh), but other than that it really sounds interesting. 😊👍🏼
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Seems sick
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I feel like the evolutions should be more varied than move speed and abilities
heres how I would put it
Normal (32 meter terror radius) 115% in chase, 130% when out of chase for 5 seconds, takes 3 seconds to decrease fully when starting chase (transformation in and out of this form and cooldown are halved 30 seconds instead of 60 second cooldown and 2 instead of 4 second transformation)
Ranged 110% (24 meter terror radius) speed gains a hook, takes 1.5 seconds to ready and launches at 30m/s (12 meter range) if it hits a survivor it latches onto them and the killer is pulled at them then launches a basic attack (attack can't miss as long as the projectile landed)
Trapping (28 meter terror radius) 115% can place snares using a snare gun (has no effect on survivors if shot at them), takes 2.5 seconds to set once shot and shots take 0.5 seconds between them (can be placed while moving) between 2 walls up to 8 meters apart survivors walking through the snares are slowed to 50% for 2.5 seconds and the snare is removed (only 4 shots available they recharge every 10 seconds)
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The Evolve mechanic seems really neat, I think that there would have to be some factor that contributes to how you evolve. Like maybe if you get survivors down you can leech them for blood or something. Otherwise it seems a lil bit too OP from the survivors POV because like, you could just evolve without them knowing.
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