Reminiscing about Old Freddy - And ways he could have been fixed
I, like most people, really didn't give old Freddy much credit. His power was to essentially give the survivor you found a 7 second head start in the chase, and to make the tedious slough that is repairing gens even more boring, forcing survivors to rely on the game's fickle RNG until they got a skillcheck or their repair speed would be cut in half. To be generous, he had a lot of problems.
But he wasn't all bad in hindsight.
He had something almost none of the other killers, especially the licensed ones, had. A unique identity. Even if his power was weak and merely prolonged the game it was the only one of it's kind and completely changed how everyone played the game. He wasn't a version of another killer that already existed with some minor tweaks to their power and a gimmick slapped on. Freddy was was his own killer. Going up against him was still the closest thing we have ever gotten to a new game mode in over 4 years now.
But since then he's gotten a complete rework. So what exactly was wrong with it?
It dissolved his identity completely. Compared to before where, although it was tedious to go up against, survivors were still massively encouraged to wake up after falling asleep, almost perfectly recreating a particular scene in the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie in which Nancy was trapped by Freddy in the boiler room and wakes up just in time by burning her arm, now survivors fall asleep all the time and rarely bother to wake up by finding their clock unless they happen to run near it. Let alone deliberately fail a skill check and waste valuable progress just to wake up. It completely removed the menacing presence that Old Freddy had and made him just another dude to avoid if he started coming near you. A far cry from hearing the lullaby around you, starting to fall asleep, and attempting to keep track of Freddy as your last moments of consciousness waned.
And that's not even mentioning what they've done to the rest of his kit.
Dream snares are a weirdly out of character utility for Freddy to use. Again mentioning the first film in which he appeared in, Nancy attempts to climb a flight of stairs and find that the steps are turning into a sticky goo that almost completely stops her in her tracks until she breaks free, no doubt heavily based off a common nightmare in which you're running from a monster but you never seem to gain any distance no matter how hard you run, the snares we have now depict bloody hands reaching out for the survivor and only mildly slowing them down and preventing fast vaults. Imagine if that had appeared in the movie instead of the goo on the steps. How weird would it be for these nightmarish appendages to just slow Nancy down a bit rather than grab hold of her and stop her moving entirely. I'm not asking for dream snares to be buffed to do this. But their current iteration is just a bland hybrid of Hag's and Clown's power.
And then there's dream pallets.
These, I feel, are more in-character than the snares. A survivor rushing to something they think will bring them a moment of safety but instead turn into blood in their hands seems like a totally "Freddy" thing to do. But they suffer from a usability problem. If the survivor has spent any time awake in an area of the map, and has a functioning short term memory, then the pallets are useless. They may get you some free hits here and there. But good survivors will just rely on the map's windows and basically ignore half of your power entirely.
Lastly there's the teleport.
Easily the ability that survivors now loath Freddy the most for. From anywhere in the map, at any time, he can teleport to a gen with a 1 minute cooldown reduced by 15% for every survivor asleep at the time of the teleport. It's extremely convenient, requires only a small amount of game sense to use effectively, and is the most boring movement ability in the game. The only interaction it actually has with survivors besides them committing to the gen or not, is faking a teleport in a chase or using the mediocre Class Photo add-on that removes your ability to cancel teleports in favour of spooking all survivors currently repairing gens.
In summary, everything that New Freddy has makes him a stronger killer at the cost of his identity. So what could have been done to Old Freddy to fix his problems while still keeping him unique?
First off, replacing his "dream laser" thing with survivors around him passively falling asleep while inside his terror radius. The speed at which they fall asleep is relative to how close they are to Freddy and if he can see them or not. This would be adjusted so if Freddy is right in front of a survivor they will fall asleep at the same right that they would have if he had used his power on them. Freddy would be able to track how close survivors were to falling asleep by looking at the clock around their icon, (Which would also function as a passive detection tool for awake survivors around Freddy), while survivors could progressively hear the lullaby louder and louder and periodically seeing Freddy as they fall asleep as they used to. They would still be able to see which survivors are fully asleep by looking at their icons. Freddy's base terror radius could also be increased from 32 meters to 36 to compliment this.
Now for his actual power, and where things get interesting. Old Freddy's biggest weakness is that once a survivor was asleep he had little tools for actually downing them. Instead relying on putting multiple survivors asleep and them wasting time failing skill checks so he could gain gen pressure, leading to games dragging on for a while with little interaction between survivors and Freddy. I think to fix this, rather than survivors being able to do less when asleep, Freddy should be able to do more. And he should be able to do enough that survivors are actually encouraged to wake themselves up rather than sit on gens. Here is what I suggest:
- Survivors no longer suffer any action speed penalty when asleep, and all of Freddy's add-ons that add further action speed penalties are changed to compliment his new power in some way. (I may do a full list of this later) And in addition the rate at which skillchecks appear for survivors will scale with how long they've been asleep for. So survivors who are falling asleep with not get skillchecks at all, and once asleep the rate at which skillchecks appear will be greatly reduced and return to normal over the course of 30 seconds, Barring exceptions from perks that generate skillchecks when used. They can still be woken up by other survivors who aren't asleep by the "snap snap clap clap" combo.
- Freddy now has a power meter that is expended when he uses it and refills very slowly over time and by a large amount when survivors fall asleep. The more survivors are asleep at one time, the more Freddy will passively disappear from survivor's vision and the more abilities he will have access to. Here's a list of them:
- Fake pallets. These function like they do now but now an unlimited amount of them can be placed, at the cost of a small amount of Freddy's power gauge for each one created. They can also be placed regardless of how many survivors are asleep.
- Fake generators. These are placed in the same manner as fake pallets, where you look at a spot in which a generator could have spawned and place a fake one, and will serve act as a map traversal tool and time waster. Fake generators will start with a set amount of progress ranging from 50%-70%, reduced with add-ons. After placing a fake generator Freddy can teleport to it at will like he can now, with no cost to his power. Survivors repairing the generator will have their auras revealed and will not receive skillchecks, and upon completing the generator it will explode into blood and make them oblivious for 60 seconds, the duration of this can also increased with add-ons. Like fake pallets, fake generators can only be interacted with by asleep survivors and can be placed even if no survivors are asleep.
- Blood Rivers. A blood river is a long, scarlet-tinted sludge, filled with the bloody hands currently seen in dream snares, that are 2 meters wide and 25 meters long and go through walls. Their size can be increased with add-ons. They allow Freddy to create his own dead zones, as any asleep survivor that touches a blood river will have to perform an action for a couple of seconds to pull themselves free. At least 1 survivor must be asleep for Freddy to use this ability and it requires a "considerable" amount of his power gauge to be placed and only a 2 can be active at a time. (Since there's no way to test any of these changes I will not be giving any estimate as to the power cost. It would have to be fairly expensive to use)
- Blood Post. A blood post is an ornate torture device is shaped vaguely like a bed appears inhabited by the dozens of souls claimed by Freddy and functions as a place-able hook, allowing Freddy to hook someone in the exact position he wants, with exceptions to placing one right next to generators, hooks and exit gate switches. Saving a survivor from a blood post takes longer than saving from a hook and will make the saviour fall asleep after the rescue. Blood posts can only be placed if at least 2 survivors are asleep.
- The Boiler. The boiler is a unique tile that Freddy can choose to send both himself and a survivor he injures to, while at least 3 people are asleep and Freddy's power gage is full. It is fairly small and contains both windows, real and fake pallets, although all of them are highly unsafe to loop around as Freddy can see the aura of survivors in the boiler at all times. Once in the boiler survivors will only be able to escape by either surviving for 30 seconds and touching one of the steam pipes, (also waking them up in the process), or by getting downed by Freddy, where then they will instantly appear on his shoulder back in the realm. If a survivor escapes the boiler without being downed then Freddy will be teleported back to the realm from where he last was. Survivors working on fake generators can be instantly taken to the boiler.
If all of these abilities are balanced correctly, then I believe that they will allow Freddy to greatly re-attain his killer identity while making him incredibly engaging to both both as, and against. As well as properly depicting him from his appearance in the films as a cunning and malicious nightmare that makes falling asleep a terrifying prospect.
Please tell me what you think of this post and if you would change anything about the changes I have suggested!
Comments
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I have no illusions that the Freddy I am putting forth will be better than the one we have now in terms of viability. What I wanted to do was to make him interesting again. So that even if you don't kill everyone you can still have fun playing the game.
I completely respect that you don't think he's going to be very viable. And I'm glad we both agree that current Freddy is boring.
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I'm glad you think so. Although I don't think it's every going to be implemented, it's fun to think about.
I dread what will happen if they give Freddy the Legion treatment...
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I actually despise the whole "Freddy isn't fun to play against" discourse, because it generally seems to boil down to being the inverse of the 'gen speed too high' argument, but I actually 100% agree that he is bland, and a waste of potential, since Freddy's entire movie persona just isn't brought out. As stated, he's a mish-mash of several vaguely mind-game concepts instead of the reality bending everpresent threat that takes joy out of dragging out the chase (as opposed to just the game itself).
That being said, part of what people seem to hate about Freddy is A) being passively effective through addons, and B) Having a lot of tools at once, both of which would still be issues with some of your ideas - at least without changing the way he works entirely, which is what I propose.
The way I would do it is fundamentally change his power so that it has an actual resource besides tokens. Since Freddy's power in the movies is entirely memetic, Give him just a straight, say, 5-charge power bar (similar to Marvel Vs. Capcom or other fighting games) that does NOT charge up automatically - instead, it passively charges for each survivor in the dream world, and charges more when chasing a sleeping survivor. After all, Freddy's whole schtick is he gets more power the more people believe in him.
Then, depending on how long the power is charged:
Tier 1 - Dream snare, functionally similar, uses 1 charge
Tier 2 - Dream pallet, again, functionally similar
Tier 3 - Traps a generator to jumpscare the next survivor to use it with a Freddy Monster (That caterpillar thing from Freddy Vs. Jason, or something?), inflicting them with Hindered and making them scream. Maximum of 2 generators at a time, cannot be used with less than 3 generators.
Tier 4 - Teleport to generator as current.
Tier 5 - The Boiler, as described above. At level 5, so considerable power investment is required for what is essentially a risk/reward scenario. Likely the only way this would be balanced.
Then, replace the slowdown addons with meaningful modifications to the powers above (cost decrease, power recharge rate increase, Dream pallets can be placed on top of real ones, etc), so that Freddy is less passively effective and rewards proper power management more. Staying awake also becomes more important as Freddy's ideal goal would be to keep as many survivors asleep as possible, thereby also discouraging needless tunneling.
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Yeah. I still find it fun to theory craft though.
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Old Freddy I only liked for Pill Bottle, which made him the OG hit and run killer since he was the only one who could hit you directly out of total invisibility.
But we have Ghostface and Silent Bell wraith now; who do basically the same thing gameplay wise so I don’t miss him too too much anymore.
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Rosy Retrospection.
Old Freddy was only good against bad survivors. A M1 killer who had to wait for his hits. A free escape off the hook to the exit gate. A guaranteed hit after 7s. Laughs in Wraith. Seriously, Wraith was considered a better killer.
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I don't know how I feel about the abilities from a gameplay perspective, but I really like the idea of returning his old power in some way. His new power has no identity. The old one felt powerful.
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He wasn't as terrible as people like to remember. But he definitely needed some buffs and was very add-on reliant. Did you feel like my suggestions fixed his problems while still keeping his identity?
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I can't stress enough the dream transition needs to die. It is too prone to frustrating circumstances such as being in front of a survivors who are a mere 3 seconds away from finishing a gen. Let me stress this no dream transition it was a horrible mechanic that no matter how you dress it up will involve staring at a survivor who is finishing a pivotal gen or giving a big heads up im here which imo is less in line with freddys actual character. This boiler room tile is by far the most interesting idea for freddy but also sounds nightmarish (forgive the pun) to programme.
Then we have to acknowledge that the most important part of a killers gameplay is the opening few minites of the game if freddy cant find a way to garner pressure early this entire concept will be wasted. Simple tactics like spreading out could end up making this new freddy a weak killer.
Its fine and dandy to say freddy should be unique and have his own playstyle but you cant ignore the essentials for making a killer viable for the more competitive players. A killer shouldn't be inaccessible in higher levels of play due to rudimentary weaknesses like setup.
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Did It matter If He was good If he was fun?
I mean he is "Good" now...But,he is boring. He basically, is the doctor and hag had some kind of obxnoius baby with some mircomanagement like the Pig to be thrown in for good use..He is not good because of "skill" he is good now cause he basically makes fighting him busy work or just cling to dream pallets to solve all his problems.
He basically is old Freddy in terms of movement and attack
All they did was overload his kit
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I would sacrifice my left nut if it meant having old Freddy back. I would only play Freddy and I loved him despite how garbage he was. New Freddy is just boring to me and I haven't played him since my first few games with new Freddy.
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This. Old Freddy was weak but unique. New Freddy is strong, sure. But he's so boring to play that I dropped him as a 2 year freddy main 2 weeks after the rework. He's also extremely boring to play against due to his absurd synergy with slowdown addons/perks.
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I highly disagree. Having a big disadvantage as having to wait before attacking survivors allows many other unique advantages to be used without Freddy becoming overpowered. waiting 7 seconds before being able to attack doesn't matter nearly as much if you have so many other abilities that will win the game in the long term if used properly.
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This is precisely why I made this post. Not to suggest buffs to old Freddy to make him viable, but to make him fun and interesting. It doesn't matter if you kill anyone in a game as long as the game itself was engaging. Player engagement is far more important than win ratios.
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I'm not going to pretend that wins is all that matters but if your telling me your killer design is purely fun factor then let me remind you modern killer design has lend itself to more competitive designs this is due to the dbds competitive player base who insist on spamming your ez's and bad killer garbage. Powers that are flexible powerful and not prone to rudimentary counters is what matters first design and theme secondary. Examine the blights, oni, deathslinger design for reference on a killer that is not only fun but actually powerful. Thematically unique killer designs has resulted in killers like legion and the twins whom are problematic because there design doesn't acknowledge the basic requirements a killer needs to have in order to have depth and pressure nor play by any established dbd conventions. This often makes them a nightmare to balance. Mobility, gen control and lethality. If a killer fails on any of these categories they are trapped in b tier or lower and will appeal to very few killer players. Old Freddy had his appeal tracking and being where a survivor least expected it sneaking up on unsuspecting survivors and manipulating his phasing in and out of reality a true dream demon but his gameplay presented the dream demon as the butt of every survivors joke.
His original power never translated well in terms of being a consistent threat and many regarded him as inferior weak and frustrating to play. Address the issue of staring dead face at a survivor doing a key gen without an ability to interact and we can talk but until then your killer has far to much counterplay is lacking in power and while thematically works well come across as powerless weak and pathetic. Remember you creating a POWER role killer. If you feel weak or powerless then you have failed.
I'd argue modern Freddy was a success he merely needs tweaks and his power reduced slightly with add on changes to his gen progression reducers. His use of blood puddles calling on the souls of the damned is in line with the movies. Examples of the microsleep and characters being unsuspectedly brought to his realm is again in line with the movies. Finally Freddy travelling long distances to cut of the unwitting victim off is a staple ability he expresses in many of his movies. Everything about modern Freddy fits. The dream transition however was never once demonstrated in any of the movies. Yet it commonly shows up in these posts why?
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I think you greatly mis-understand how important a killer's identity and themes are in a game like this. Dbd would not be a success if their initial killers were not interesting. Much like how a slasher flick lives and dies by how it portrays its antagonist, so does dbd need interesting killers to play as, and against. Designing a killer for the sole purpose of being powerful and neglecting their theme and identity is missing the point of the game in the first place. You aren't playing killer just to have power over other people. You're playing a part of a power fantasy that allows the lessor control of the survivors and the greater control of the killer to create an interesting game as the 2 sides attempt to take power away from the other in various ways until the match is over. At least, that's how the game should be designed.
You mentioned the Twins and Legion being killers designed with theme over viability in mind. But both of them are severally lacking in any identity to speak of. I've already made a lengthy post explaining how Legion's design is poor which I'll link here: https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/216162/theory-crafting-a-new-legion#latest
And to keep this reply not as verbose I'm going to summarise why the Twin's have a similar identity issue as Legion. They're supposed to be in a symbiotic relationship. Charlotte is bigger and stronger then Victor but is very clumsy. Victor is small, fast and lethal but is very fragile. The ideal execution of their relationship into gameplay mechanics would be for Charlotte and Victor both having strengths and weaknesses that play off each other and allow the player to use them both in interesting ways. But as they are now, Charlotte is merely a chauffeur to Victor so he can do all the work.
The idea of the Twins heavily contrasts with their portrayal in game and thus makes their identity suffer. Current Freddy has this exact problem and that's what I wanted to fix.
You mention several killers, I'll focus on Deathslinger for my argument, and say how killers need to have certain strengths to be viable. When this is simply not the case and encapsulants what you fail to understand about killer design. You say the killers have to have mobility, gen control, and lethality to be good or they will be "B" tier, (I swear I'm going to lay into these stupid tier lists one of these days...) and that they won't appeal to killer players. But this is easily disproven by the killer pick rate chart released not that long ago, linked here: https://www.thegamer.com/behavior-interactive-reveals-top-pick-kill-rates-dead-by-daylight/#:~:text=The%20Doctor%2C%20Shape%2C%20Cannibal%2C,been%20available%20since%
Although Freddy has the highest kill rate, the next 3 killers behind him are all "Low Tier" killers that have underwhelming powers. And yet people still play them regardless. That is because people can still be engaged with a killer even if they aren't very powerful compared to others because of how the gameplay of that particular killer appeals to them.
This reply is already long enough so I'll say my concluding arguments now.
I never said that current Freddy wasn't a viable killer. My problem was how his overall strength was improved at the cost of his unique gameplay, and more importantly, his identity as a killer. There is no other killer like Old Freddy. Playing against him was, and still is, the closest thing we have ever gotten to a new game mode in over 4 years. He had his problems and I fully admit that. But the solution that the devs gave us took more than it was worth in the end.
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