Idea for Spirit counterplay
I haven't seen anybody suggest this, but what if Spirit got more counterplay in the form of chase music? Maybe certain instruments can play when she starts phasing or something like that. I think it'd be a pretty cool addition and it wouldn't be a boring nerf like making her move slower or muffling sounds when she phases.
What do you guys think of this idea? (This is just an idea, not saying that she needs to get nerfed hard.)
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I think it'd ruin all mind game potential for her, but I don't play her and don't like playing against her too much so if she gets any nerf I'm happy because she'll be used less.
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I agree she needs more reliable counterplay, so long as it doesn't nerf her into the ground. Any kind of sound cue that she is close while phased so the Survivor can quickly react while not giving up her attack angle, her husk glowing or having an animation when she uses her power, whatever. Just one thing to let someone know it's time to dump their drawers.
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With the last update they had added footprint dust to kick up when someone walks. I don't know if they took it out, I haven't noticed it lately, but it seems like that would be something fair to add to Spirit's phasing. It's something you would really have to look carefully for, not something that is completely obvious when she is phasing.
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Why do people act like it’s a fact she needs massive and obvious counterplay? So she can become the next Demogorgan?
Half the things ok the survivor side, maps as well have very little counterplay and killers have to learn to live with it. Just use pallets and windows and learn to read Spirits. Its like survivors arent happy if the counterplay is anything more demanding than “press space bar to drop pallet for complete safety”.
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The most hilarious thing is that people are perfectly fine when M1 killers are forced to mindgame and guess survivor's movements (while survivors use their 3rd person cam and red light advantage), but go completely nuts when killer gets that kind of advantage and they lose it.
Survivor's hypocrisy at its finest.
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That’s what I keep saying lol but its obvious none of them play killer. This is what trapper, wraith, learherface, myers players etc had to put up with for 4 years and think how bad and pallet heavy the maps used to be.
The best/worst entitlement is when they say “its just a 50/50” with Spirit”, so their complaint is that both players have an equal chance, they’re literally demanding that they have the advantage in a chase.
I cant blame the survivors though years of whack balance from 2016-2018 ish has given them a skewed view of balance in the game
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I guess that could work. It would certainly nerf standing still to the ground. As a Spirit main, I hate getting hits like that but I love using my power to down people.
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She may be used less if she got nerfed but I will never leave her no matter what happens. She’s been my main ever since I started playing her and BHVR will never be able to make another killer that I fall in love more than I did with Spirit.
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Agree, surv should also be invisible and don't leave scratch marks, so killers have to hit them without seeing them. They say there is counterplay to this
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It's because it's no fun playing go fish with spirit. People come to play dead by daylight. You can't read a spirit; you cannot see them. The counterplay people want is much simpler than pressing space bar. It's as simple as being able to react to her phasewalk which you cannot currently do. You have to make a guess. ( I will admit some guesses are better than other sometimes) If the spirit is competent, you're ######### lol.
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That is something set in stone since the game release. Killers move faster to compensate. What's changed?
I don't recall spirit being in the initial release.
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That would hurt her mindgame potential, wouldn't it? Maybe, just maybe, she needs some sort of change, but I think it should be something less "obvious" than chase music.
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I think she just needs to have a very subtle queue while phasing, like moving grass. A change in chase music would completely neuter her role in the game as a Killer based entirely on mind games.
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You can read a spirit, play her and you'll learn to do so reliably.
Regardless though do you think it's fun for most of the other killers? where a survivor just runs in a circle over and over again and then drops a pallet on your head? and then runs to another to do the same thing over and over again? there's a reason why players especially at the high ranks are moving towards the "unfun" killers and away from the killers survivors enjoy, because having your friends hit gens while you just drop pallet after pallet wins more games than it should and a lot of killers are powerless against it
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If she gives audio and visual signs in chase I'll be happy to go against her. But right now she doesn't do either unlike every other killer in the game, but apparently some people think that's balanced lol.
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Personally, I don't think she needs anything, but if anything, add passive phasing into her normal phasing.
You know how she blips in and out of existence when she's walking around? Do that, but make her blip in existence at a lower frequency when she phases. Make it, idk, once every 3 seconds you get a flash of her.
Doesn't ruin all mindgame potential but it does give Survivors an indication of where she is.
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There would still be mindgame potential you just have to be in your power.
I honestly think the standing still mindgame is stupid and it can be accomplished in the same way if you use your power and stand still.
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Technically, her husk does glow when phasing, it's just literally invisible. Like, seriously, the glass shards have a "faint glow" when she phases, and somehow survivors are expected to both see and react to that in regular lighting during a chase, somehow?
It doesn't work, by-the-by. You never really see it.
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No, I don't want spirit to become some F-Tier killer, all I'm asking for is some kind of hint that she's phasing. I don't want it to be overly obvious like what happened when she was bugged, but at the bare minimum just a small audio cue telling the survivor that the spirit is phasing.
And don't bring whataboutism into this, I absolutely hate dead hard, OoO, haddonfield, and all the other stupid stuff there are on the other side and I'd really like it if they were nerfed, but just because those things are broken doesn't mean that Spirit is a balanced killer. The whole problem with Spirit is that you have to guess if she's going to phase or not, and despite what you and others may think, there isn't any real counterplay to it (unless your using iron will and the spirit isn't using stridor). It's a guessing game where the odds are stacked heavily against you pretty much ensuring that if its a good spirit you get screwed over quickly.
And stop with the petty over generalization. I could say stuff like "Killers are never happy unless every map in the game has no pallets or vaults and they can instantly win the match whenever they feel like it." But I won't because it isn't true. Most people, me included, just want a fairer chance against her. Look at Blight, Oni, and old hillbilly. Those killers are very strong but also offer up a fair amount of counter play ensuring that both sides have a fair chance against each other. No one complains about them, despite the fact that they're strong because they have fair counterplay.
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I hate M1 killers because whenever I play them it feels as if I'm forced to use bamboozle on them just so I don't get looped for 5 minutes on dumb structures. If it were up to me, I'd give every current M1 killer at least some form of anti loop to prevent situations where they get looped for very long amounts of time.
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It's not hard to guess. If she stands still just don't run towards her and you don't get hit. If shes far away from you then she's likely phasing to catch up. I can't remember ever falling for the stand still mindgame. Just position yourself for all possibilities. And seriously play her, that's how I learn to predict her. A lot of spirits are very predictable.
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I honestly think when she phases she should cast a brief shadow across the ground and/or walls that is somewhat feint but lasts for the first 2.5 seconds or 3 seconds of her phase.
Hard to see and react to in a chase, but doable if you are alert enough, and cool and thematic without being too much.
Honestly I would also give her a yellow, brown or maybe green addon (idk) like what nurse has that applies a stridor like effect; so that she doesn't need to rely on one perk for what is essentially, the most fun aspect of her character. (Seriously, hate on spirit all you want, but playing by hear is fun as hell, and it's why so many people like her.)
Edit: also, to the people who think that addon with stridor would be OP let me tell you it really wouldn't be, when you double up stridor audio like that it actually becomes a bit of a handicap you hear them too easily and can't tell where they are actually at anymore it's so loud.
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This doesn't really address the problem too much, but arguably it's just a slight nerf. IMO she does not need a nerf, she needs counterplay added while not actually nerfing her. Best way to do that IMO is:
Her passive already exists where she phases in and out. Add that to her power. During her power, every 1.5 seconds, she phases back in for .5 seconds, during this time she keeps the movement speed, but becomes visible to the survivor, she is also now able to see the survivor.
This means that it nerfs the "stand and do nothing" ability of her power, but also allows for counterplay in that survivors can see where she is going. However, now spirit can also see the survivor, and now they can have some counterplay. Maybe she decides to keep running at you from that direction around the loop, or maybe she doubles back, maybe she thinks you know shes going to double back, so she doesn't. It basically adds mindgame to her power.
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Learning to read the spirit is vague. Give some specifics and I'll carefully explain to you how that is a guess. Sorry mate but running killers is the best part of the game for me and a lot of other players. It's not going anywhere.
Nah that's too general of a statement for high ranks. I see spirit a lot yeah but I'd say 2/3 games are fair game killers.
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Well written. This guy has heavy heavy bias towards killer if you've read his other posts and discussions. I once said to him the game would look like the d day landings if he was on the balance team. Thank everything good he's not.
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I'm a sucker for dynamic soundtracks (and Spirit counterplay), so I'm down for this.
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I don't really care too much about the standing still mindgame as it can be ignored in most situations, but if your looping a structure and the spirit starts standing still then your options become incredibly limited and it turns into a guessing game where the odds are stacked against you.
And really? Playing as spirit isn't even close to proper counterplay. Just spend money to learn how to counter the killer 10head! Yeah sure you may be able to predict what the spirit will do slightly better if they're okish but once again, against good spirits it all turns into a guessing game. Even good survivors struggle against spirit because how unpredictable she can be in a chase.
Judging by your previous posts it obvious that you have a bias for killer, and it's becoming clearer to me that I can't have a proper debate if your not willing to acknowledge my points. If your countering a spirit consistently in a chase, that's not you being good, that's the spirit being bad.
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I do kind of agree with this, but at the sane time survivors should still have SOME indication of what the spirit is doing, so it isn't 100% in her control of what happens.
Even if it just told the survivor through a change in music or whatever that she started phasing, it would give survivors something. Just a little bit of a notification would be nice.
Look at Nurse, she's superior to a Spirit but still tells the survivor when she's going to blink, so they can at least try something. Should be the same with Spirit.
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Oh, about that 2016-2020 balance.
Almost all of these changes to survivors were basically removing training wheels. Excessive amount of pallet, vacuum thing, holes in high loops and many other things that made survivor gameplay extremely easy and forgiving were gone in these years.
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Her indication is that she suddenly stands still.
It leaves you two options to consider: she's using power OR she's trying to pull off stand still mindgame.
In any case you just don't run in her direction and you're mostly fine.
She doesn't need dead giveaway for her ability, because in that case you could just move in a corner&crouch every time you'd know she cannot see you and would be winning chase every time.
That risk she isn't using her ability and can see what you're doing making going against her scary and intimidating. Making Spirit predictable would not only kill most of her potential and make her really boring.
Nurse's power can allow survivors to know what to do because she can spam her blinks every 5-6 seconds and literally teleport through solids, while Spirit has huge cooldown on her power and all her power does is that it makes her blind, invisible and fast.
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How do you counterplay spirit then?
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Just like playing against good survivors as m1 killer is having odds against you:
if you don't mindgame, you're forced to power through loops and lose the game.
if you mindgame, you're at disadvantage by definition, since survivor has 3rd person view and can see the direction you're looking at, while you don't have such privilege.
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I had a cool idea where you buff her base kit but make it so where her phase is direction when she enters 12 meters of a survivor.
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I don't recall many things being in the initial release, so what?
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Spirit needs some form of visual counterplay, as there are a fair few deaf players in this community that cannot currently tell if she is phasing or not
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Why not, but let spirit know when this happens.
Maybe even add as an addon or basekit feature that she can also see survivors during that blip.
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She doesn't need to know if it occurs on a set interval.
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The best suggestion I've seen so far is that Spirit will have inverted passive phasing while... phasing.
Basically, she briefly becomes visible for maybe 0.5s every 4s while phasing.
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Point was throughout the age of this game, the idea of cat chasing mouse and earning your hits was a huge part of the replayability of this game.
When I play killer I have no ill will towards survivors using their 3rd person perspective to last longer in chase. I have no issue with having to force pallets by moving one direction in short loops.
As survivor I have no ill will towards the killer using the red stain in correct spots to force me to run the wrong direction and take a hit. I feel like if you remove red stain you're removing one of the most interactive parts of killer/survivor interactions.
Bloodlust is a little different because you can force yourself to take a longer chase to guarantee a hit even though you haven't necessarily outplayed the survivor. I fully get why it was originally introduced but in the bloodlust experiment it really showed how many tiles don't require bloodlust anymore. T1 is definitely needed for some stuff still but I digress.
Spirit release kind of turned this balance on its head with how much advantage extra you have on her compared to other killers. How do you keep the base game balanced with this killers kit as is in the game? The players frustration with her current state is firstly in the masses and secondly makes total sense. I cannot understand where you're coming from if you feel this killer is balanced currently. I will say I've played her a lot and I get she is great fun. I can't help but feel pity for some of the survivors I've versed with her cos I can tell they're good survivors that made an incorrect guess. It's that simple.
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Spirit is balanced if you actually turn on your brain and do more than just sticking to windows and pallets.
No amount of mental gymnastics can prove otherwise.
If there was nothing, but boring cat and mouse where mouse wins if it is equally as good as cat, the game would be dead long ago.
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That's your subjective opinion but what my argument alludes to is statistics. Why does spirit perform well and better than others?
What region are you in? Do you want to have a scrim; I'll play spirit? I don't understand how spirit is balanced in your opinion. That pretty much means every killer needs to be buffed.
Last note, can you give me some examples where turning on your brain and do more than sticking to good tiles will reliably beat spirit? This means not making a guess. Don't give me an example of a guess. I can't count the amount of times I've gotten a free hit on spirit for an incorrect guess by a survivor.
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reliably
what do you mean by reliably? You want something you can do that will work 100% of the time like you can against M1 killers? There's no such thing and that's very good thing about Spirit.
About your other points, that's what I was meaning by mental gymnastics. Statistics are flawed, if you think otherwise, then you should reconsider your point. If you do more than sticking to good tiles, you'll maybe remember you can make her lose you and spend time if you use stealth tactics to avoid spirits, just like you remember many other forgotten "drop chase" technicues that were widely used in 2016.
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Sorry reliably is not the correct word my bad. I mean counterplay that's not a guess. ie an actual read. For example, I saw Billy charge chainsaw at x time so I know I need to take a corner at time Y. Bubba started chainsawing at the hook at x time so I know by time Y I can go for the unhook because he will tantrum. Stuff like that. Something you can use visual/audio to know something is the most correct thing to do.
How are stats flawed? It's data. How BHVR uses stats is flawed I agree but it's data nonetheless. Don't discount it because it apparently shows good news to killer. It tells you how it is.
If spirit is using phase correctly you really don't have enough time to go for stealth. You're giving distance in the hope the spirit messes up. Someone has to take chase dude you can't spend the entire game hiding as your solution. I don't see the replayability in stealth and if it works on spirit why not do it on all the other killers besides the obvious (doctor, scratched mirror myers etc). See my point? Being able to phase at 172% movespeed is already a very powerful ability.
Noticed you were quick to ignore my proposition to scrim. See if I fall for you stealthing during chase. I highly doubt it.
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Mind telling me the difference between "guess" and "read"?
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In our debates context:
Guess - Making a decision without any audio/visual/technical codes to base your decision off.
Read - Making a decision based off the audio/visual/technical codes presented to you.
Educated guess - Making a guess that is decided from previous occurrences.
Added educated guess because it's relevent to spirit. I get some guesses are better than others when you watch survivor gameplay against spirit. However, it's still uninteractive and at the end of the day - a guess.
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Also,
"How are stats flawed? It's data. How BHVR uses stats is flawed I agree but it's data nonetheless. Don't discount it because it apparently shows good news to killer. It tells you how it is."
Stats that show killrate in one of the most volatile games in every single stage of it are flawed by definition.
Survivors can rush 5 gens without a single hit, open gates and then get bloodwardened on last quater of EGC.
Killer can get a perfect triangle on last gen, camp 1 survivor there and lose other 3 because they opened a hatch and escaped the situation that would've led to 4k otherwise.
Like I said, if you think otherwise, reconsider your opinion.
"If spirit is using phase correctly you really don't have enough time to go for stealth. You're giving distance in the hope the spirit messes up."
If survivor is playing correctly, he is fine 50% of the time against spirit playing correctly.
" Someone has to take chase dude you can't spend the entire game hiding as your solution"
Think outside of the box. Wasting time looking for stealthing survivor is also a distraction. If you combine stealth with chases, you'll give spirit a lot of headache and make her waste enough time. Especially if other 3 survivors are also not idiots thinking that chases is the only way to distract killer.
"I don't see the replayability in stealth and if it works on spirit why not do it on all the other killers"
And I don't see the replayability in running in circles, so what? Stealth works on all killers, it just so happens that killers like Spirit, who lack tracking and are forced to quickly traverse between gens as well as being basically blind, have much less time to look for survivors, which makes stealth effective.
" Being able to phase at 172% movespeed is already a very powerful ability."
You forgot to mention downsides, that are lack of vision of survivors. I guess you have no other arguments than mental gymnastics..
"Noticed you were quick to ignore my proposition to scrim. See if I fall for you stealthing during chase. I highly doubt it."
Why should I not ignore provocations?
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So the fact that Spirit stands still isn't an information to work with?
I could understand if there was nothing to tell you she's phasing, like she could channel her ability while walking and her husk would've continued moving after she started phasing so that there was not a single way to tell when she's likely phasing, but that's not the case. You already have a very obvious sign Spirit is very likely phasing which is the fact she stops moving. Even if it's just a stand-still mindgame, you can still play around it, unless you're one of those idiots who think running right in killer's direction is a smart idea in the first place, just by not taking "run in killer's direction" as an option.
Or you think that seeing killer's red stain and moving in opposite direction is a mindgame? That's not true.
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the only nerf that she needs is being able to hear her phase during a chase. her phase already gets really muffled up when you are in her terror radius and it would make it so you dont have to flip a coin that decides your fate
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"Stats that show killrate in one of the most volatile games in every single stage of it are flawed by definition.
Survivors can rush 5 gens without a single hit, open gates and then get bloodwardened on last quater of EGC."
That's fine the outcome is still a win for killer with that scenario. Lots of pvp games can turn at any given moment. I think if there was a clear win condition then it would be better to analyse the data. Currently most killers are between 2-3 kills average red rank. That's more of a killer team win rather than a survivor team win in my book. Watch your use of the phrase 'by definition'. By definition of what? lol awkward phrasing.
I want keys nerfed too but that still currently a win for survivor team but yes that's not balanced.
"If survivor is playing correctly, he is fine 50% of the time against spirit playing correctly."
Where did you pull that stat from? aha
"Think outside of the box. Wasting time looking for stealthing survivor is also a distraction. If you combine stealth with chases, you'll give spirit a lot of headache and make her waste enough time. Especially if other 3 survivors are also not idiots thinking that chases is the only way to distract killer."
I'm aware that it's a distraction from the killer. That doesn't mean they're going to commit to searching. It begs the question: Why are you so against chase? You have this demeanour that you're a terrible player if you're good at chase. I don't get it.
"And I don't see the replayability in running in circles, so what? Stealth works on all killers, it just so happens that killers like Spirit, who lack tracking and are forced to quickly traverse between gens as well as being basically blind, have much less time to look for survivors, which makes stealth effective."
Stealth is a pretty clear cut very little micromanagement skill for survivor. That's why it's not replayable like chase. Many of the top killer content creators share an enjoyment out of chasing survivors. It's a huge part of the gameplay for killer and survivor. Stealth means not doing generators.
"You forgot to mention downsides, that are lack of vision of survivors. I guess you have no other arguments than mental gymnastics.."
Audio. You're tracking with audio. You see tall grass movement too. You're going to say walk then. You can still hear breathing. A good spirit player gets very accurate with this.
Please stop using your one liner 'mental gymnastics' and please stop bolding words. Keep it civil
How is that provocative? What? Just say no lol
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Can you at least address it to what I've asked you? Give me something that's not a guess based off the fair definitions I gave you earlier.
There is nothing to tell you she's phasing. There is zero difference to her standing still and actually phasing. What? Even knowing if she's phasing still doesn't account for the guesses you make while she is in phase.
Please stop bolding text. It's making it really hard to take you seriously.
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