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"The Spirit Add-ons are problematic" - Counter arguments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dqzt_FRFPc
Youtuber (not)Otzdarva made a video talking about the add-ons of the Spirit. I heavily disagree with his points, and about his opinion of Spirit in general, and I want to explain why. I feel it is worth noting that I will only be attacking his points, not the man himself. Discussions about Spirit often quickly dissolve into pointless bickering and I want to avoid that. So if you want to contribute to this thread:
Please shelve your bias, stay as objective as possible, and read the whole post.
With that out of the way I will be paraphrasing Otz's arguments and adding timestamps to the parts of the video they are from before rebutting any points I disagree with.
1:00 - 3:00
Otz and his friends, all of which have a good understanding of the game, participate in an experiment in which the survivors must predict when the Spirit will attack them and pre-emptively dodge using Dead Hard. The Spirit was using different add-ons that affected the time it took for her to arrive between tests. The result was that the survivors had a difficult time dodging her attack. The overall point of the experiment was to show how Spirit's add-ons lack proper counter-play from survivors. A point Otz repeats later in the video.
Otz admits this in the video itself, but the experiment was super controlled. No survivor is going to sit still and try to dodge a Spirit by perfectly timing DH. They would be looping around the pallet so the Spirit has a harder time hitting them, and also giving them a chance dodge the hit by gaining enough distance, even if DH's I-frames expire.
I understand the point he was trying to make. But I still think the experiment was tilted in the Spirit's favour. And that it would have been more informative to have the survivors loop the pallet during the test as it's truer to what would happen in an actual game.
3:00 - 4:55
Spirit's unpredictability is not a problem in competitive games because tournaments have rules that prevent certain add-ons from being run. With the pool of add-ons the Spirit can use being restricted it is easier to tell how her power will work since survivors already know beforehand which add-ons the Spirit is able to run. In normal games however, this is a problem. Since the Spirit has her full arsenal of add-ons at her disposal this means that survivors have a greatly reduced chance of knowing how her power functions during that game. Which can lead to situations where survivors don't know what the Spirit can do and cannot counter-play against her. Especially since the Spirit no longer makes footstep noises when phasing.
I have a major problem with this argument. It relies on the assumption that survivors do not take time during a game to analyse how the Spirit they're up against is playing.
For comp players this would be paramount during a game since knowing which add-ons a Spirit is running can effect the choices a survivor makes during a chase. I imagine that a good survivor team would be communicating often about how long the Spirit has been phasing for, or how much distance she gained after a phase, so everyone knows what add-ons she's running.
This is a luxury not afforded by solo players in a normal game. But this does not make it impossible for them to see which add-ons the Spirit has if they already have knowledge of her base stats. Just harder. Something as simple as seeing how far the Spirit goes after hooking someone can be a dead give-away if she has something that boosts her phasing speed. Or being hit by her after she quickly phased at a short loop will guarantee that she has something that boosts her activation time.
The only situation that you cannot guess what add-ons she might have is when the Spirit stands still and doesn't give any indication when she starts phasing. But I think this is ultimately a problem with solo que's lack of communication than with Spirit. If all solo players were given the same information that comp teams were then it would be completely in the survivor's power to know what add-ons the Spirit is running.
I do agree that Spirit making no footstep noises is weird and shouldn't have been patched out. I didn't even notice them missing until I double-checked for myself.
4:55 - 7:17
The add-ons that make Spirit problematic are the ones that change the values of her base power. Particularly the more powerful ones like the Mother Daughter Ring. As not only are they more powerful than most of the add-ons of other killers, survivors cannot tell which add-ons the Spirit is running and cannot adjust for them since they don't know if they're being used.
My previous point applies here. And it's made even stronger with Otz contradicting himself. He mentions the MDR and how you can cross the entire map in seconds. Then talks about how survivors don't know what add-ons the Spirit is running. Well if the Spirit crosses the entire map in seconds then wouldn't that be a very obvious tell that she's running that add-on?
I'm also not sure what he was thinking when he said that Spirit has stronger add-ons than most killers. What is this comparison exactly? Very few killers have add-ons that can be directly compared to Spirit in terms of values alone. It's a lot more nuanced than that. Blight's animal add-ons only increase his speed by 4 and 6% for each consecutive rush. But if he already moves so fast that their initially small bonuses make him the fastest moving killer in the game. Same logic applies to killers with similarly "small" bonuses from their add-ons.
7:17 - 10:27
As was the case with Spirit's phasing speed and activation time add-ons, her duration and recovery speed add-ons also make it hard for survivors to recognise they're being used and counter. It's unlikely that a normal survivor player in a game will be able to keep track of when the Spirit starts phasing. So her add-ons that change her recovery time are especially difficult to notice the effects of. This is very problematic with her duration add-ons because they also decrease her recovery time, even more so than her recovery time add-ons, in addition to increasing her phasing time.
Although it is not possible to guess when a Spirit has started phasing, you can still know how much time she has spent phasing. When a spirit stands still at a loop she will need to travel to you to land a hit. When she appears you know she will have travelled at least that distance.
What I will freely admit is that you cannot tell when she's able to phase again unless you run away to gain distance after being hit. But again, this is more a problem with solo ques not being able to rely information to each other. Were a single survivor able to run away from a Spirit after getting hit, they would be able to measure how far the Spirit travels to them and how fast, then tell everyone else so they know what add-ons that Spirit has.
10:27 - 11:21
Only survivors are that extremely perceptive can tell what add-ons the Spirit is running. A Spirit phasing quickly could be running either speed or activation time add-ons. And a Spirit running duration add-ons is not running them obviously because survivors can't tell when she starts phasing. And even if they have an idea as to what add-ons she's running, they wont know for sure. The inability for survivors to tell what add-ons the Spirit is running contributes to how frustrating she can be to play against. These add-ons should be changed to not affect the Spirit's power values and her base power should be changed to compensate.
As I have already stated, it does not take much to realise what types of add-ons the Spirit has. Otz contradicts himself again by presenting a scenario in which a Spirit phases quickly because she has either phasing speed or activation time add-ons, and doesn't acknowledge that he just described a scenario in which it's obvious what add-ons the Spirit has and survivors can easily notice and adjust for once they do. If you notice a Spirit phasing quickly she can only be running either phasing speed, or activation speed, or both. Either way there is no guess work.
He then describes another scenario where the Spirit is running duration add-ons and it's more logical than the first but once again relies on survivors not keeping track of how the Spirit behaves. You can measure how much distance a Spirit must have travelled to hit you. And you can measure how much time passes until she attempts to phase again. I still think the problem here isn't with Spirit. It's with the limited information that survivors have in solo que.
I don't think that Spirit is frustrating to go against because she's "Unmindgameable". Play Conditioning exists and effects Spirit as much as any killer. I think the real reason that so many people despise Spirit is the lack of feedback you get from her power. I've already talked about this extensively is some other posts but to sum it up: I'm sure that 90% of all Spirit complaints would vanish if she had more tells. Nurse tells you when she's charging up a blink, how far she'll go with the blink, and how long it'll take for her to reappear. Spirit only tells you when she reappears. I'd like if her power was made more interesting as a whole but a band-aid fix, (let's be honest here it's what the devs like implementing more than anything), would be to give her some tells when using her power. I don't think she needs her power changed at its base level.
To conclude: Otz argues that Spirit and her add-ons don't give survivors enough information to counterplay. But there are perfectly viable ways to do just that and the real cause of frustration when going against her is the power disparity between solo que players and teams.
Comments
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I would also like to offer an experiment for people to try. Have a Spirit hit a survivor and the survivor run forwards to gain distance, then have the Spirit phase forward to chase after them. After the Spirit reappears, the survivor must guess which add-ons the Spirit was using. Tell me your results if you choose to perform this.
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Even if you know her add-on and know exactly the timing of her charging, the speed. You cant do anything. Because she can just stay in phasing mode a little longer. Example:
1.5sec charging + 2sec traveling = 3.5sec to post phase attack
1.5sec charging + 2sec traveling + 1sec standing still in phase = 4.5sec to post phase attack
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Objectively speaking, her add-ons have no tells because her power doesn't ,making her power the true problem and not her add-ons. No-one complains that most of Plague's add-ons are nearly impossible to detect.
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Why would the Spirit stay in place when the whole point of the experiment is to see if the survivor can guess her add-ons after she phases?
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So the speed from the Mother Daughter Ring, that Otz mentions allowing the the Spirit to traverse the map in seconds, isn't objectively able to be detected?
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None of your points have swayed me from thinking it is much harder to deduce a Spirit’s add ons than other killers
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Most of the time, no, it most certainly isn't. You'd have to have a very specific set of circumstances and and incredibly in-depth knowledge of the specifics of MDR to isolate it from her other addons.
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You don't at all! The sheer speed Spirit is able to go is very noticeable once she starts phasing. That 40% boost can be felt from just how much space a Spirit can go in-between hooks. Let alone actually getting into a chase with her and trying to gain distance.
I'd argue that you would need more knowledge to determine if she's using duration add-ons than anything else. The ring basically reveals itself.
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But I was arguing that it wasn't hard. I kept listing how you could do it to counter Otz's points that it was supposedly impossible.
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It doesn't, actually, because there's other add-ons in the game that speed her up. MDR only becomes noticeable over very large distances, which almost never come into play. Otherwise, you very well could mistake it for another add-on combination, or simply never even notice it to begin with because it's essentially impossible to tell when a Spirit starts to phase.
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I don't know about you 1000 I.Q. people but, I don't play Spirit. I have no clue which add-ons she is running and I sure as hell don't follow her around trying to figure it out...
What the hell are you guys smoking? Nobody has time to study the Killer to know if her add-ons are mildly affecting her speeds.
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So it's impossible to tell if the Spirit uses an add-on that speeds up phasing, if she uses other add-ons that speed up phasing? Where's the logic in that? Either way you know she's phasing faster than normal and can account for that.
And what do you mean by "MDR only becomes noticeable over very large distances, which almost never come into play."? Killers have to travel to gens to win the game. That means going across large distances all the time. Playing against a Spirit using the MDR and a Spirit with it is super noticeable if you're repairing gens.
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"-but, I don't play Spirit"
Well there's your problem. If you don't know what Spirit can do without add-ons then you're not going to know what she can do with them.
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If you're in a SWF party with precise communication going against a bad Spirit, perhaps. Otherwise most, if not all, of your interactions are going to be in a chase, not against a potato that wastes their power on traversal, which means that not only do you have to deal with other movement speed add-ons, but charge time add-ons that have similar effects, and on top of that there's Yakuoke Amulet which MDR is most commonly paired with.
And there's no playing around any of these add-ons because theres no playing around Spirit, which is the core issue. Predrop pallets and guess wildly, how interactive and fun.
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Are you implying that good Spirits win the game without traversing the map? Please clarify.
There is certainly playing around Spirit because Spirit can only be played by a human. Humans make mistakes. Humans can be conditioned. Ergo, you can condition a Spirit to make mistakes to eventually lose the game by not getting enough downs in time. If you could always escape her 100% of the time then there'd be no point in even playing her.
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This isn't a fighting game, there isn't enough time to condition anything, and to cap it all even competitive players say that they're just guessing, so...
And no, a good Spirit doesn't really use her power for map traversal all that much, because she doesn't need to. Theres maybe one or two situations in an average trial where it's necessary. And if she does, she's stuck as a killer with no power for quite some time, which isn't exactly an ideal scenario agaisnt a decent team that can use the W key.
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Playing the game is conditioning. The moment you enter a game with another player you are conditioning them with every move. What route you take around a loop, when you drop pallets, when you decide to double back. With your every action your opponent will try to recognise a pattern that they can exploit. While you try to predict what they will do, and so forth. That is how multiplayer games are played. DBD is no different. It is, (and I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this), just a big guessing game.
So, a good Spirit will just walk at 110% movement speed from gen to gen? No phasing to make her harder to keep track of or to ambush survivors who are repairing? Or have any gen pressure whatsoever?
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I think the main point is that the Spirit's power could be countered by calculating/guessing what is happening if it had fixed values. For example you'd notice she phased for x time, so you'd guess she won't be able to use her power for x time, or knowing it takes her 1.5s to start phasing you know you have 1.5s to do something before she is able to move. The added complexity given by her addons though makes this process much harder (or impossible in some cases), unless you spend the match observing the killer and taking notes.
Also I don't think this is a SWF-vs-solo problem, unless you have an SWF in which each components tells the other "the killer stood still for 4.2 seconds and lunged for 0.6s, I now have 12.6 seconds before the next phase" or whatever. In this case the information SWF have over solos is barely worth of notice imo.
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That's pretty much my main point. If everyone was in comms all the time then all it would take was for 1 person to solve an incredibly simple math problem and then everyone would know if the Spirit phased faster or for longer.
It's not Jimmy Neutron level questions. "Has the Spirit phased longer than she normally can? Has she arrived faster than she normally can?"
Post edited by SirCracken on0 -
I still disagree with all this and still agree with Otz points about this mess. Which add-ons a killer is using you need to watch and see them use their power, then you can maybe guess which add-ons the killer is using. Some add-ons in game easy to tell while others are near impossible to know. Every killer power is either telegraphed, has a wind-up, a punishment, or has a fatigue EXCEPT SPIRIT which she has nothing to tell the survivors! Except for that little audio que if she's a certain distance.
Need to guess IF and WHEN she starts using her power. She using the add-ons that's shaving off X seconds of her phase time or is she just standing there doing literally nothing to mind game you then phasing? Distance traveled? You still have no idea where she is or where she's going, you're just guessing she's going to be on top of you very soon. Best counter to her is either D/C (which i do sometimes vs spirit HATE HER) or just rush gens hope she's bad and get the hell out.
She needs a full blown rework being the most hated and most unhealthy killer in the game. Again repeating myself here she's the ONLY killer in the game that gives no information to survivors, not telegraphed, no wind-up, no punishment, no fatigue.
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The power isn’t interactive and addons will naturally increase that.
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This^ is the real counter argument. Even though, I understand where Otz was coming from with this. But add-ons only compound the problem. They're not the root of it.
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In the moments from gen to gen, you wouldn't think "oh crap! MDR, you'd probably think she was traveling for awhile.
But what they meant is this, Spirit just hooked someone on the other side of the map, you're working on a gen and boom. She's right in your face. That's wayyyy too fast and it's really easy to notice
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@CoalTower brought up a good suggestion. There was a sound bug for her that made her breaths play when she was phasing, make that bug a base kit. The louder it got, those closer she is. This allows Survivors to at least counter play her effectively without nerfing anything else
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This is the problem with all of these "Spirit has no counter" arguments and videos. They all look at it in a super unrealistic environment, or as a 1v1. This game is not a 1v1. It is a 1v4, so saying "Spirit has no counter because she is good at 1v1" does nothing, because it doesn't matter. This game is a 1v4.
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The issue with addon arguments is people really don't know what they are talking about. They instead repeat whatever popular streamers are saying.
For example, when Omega blink was the hot term, I constantly hear survivors (ttv players) saying I was running it. I don't run addons.
2 -
Yeah in Solo Q with the average teammates you're not gonna be spending valuable time to find out what she has which is already hard with Spirit.
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It is significantly harder to detect than most other big impact add ons AND changes the necessary counterplay.
Tombstone Piece or Tombstone? Myers just murdered a dude outright. That dude probably didn't have much warning but now ALL of you know what's up. Tuft of Hair? The music cue for Tier 3 ending simply never happens. Scratched Mirror? If you never hear him go Tier 2... its probably Scratched Mirror. All of those add ons are blatantly obvious compared to Spirit moving faster or being able to move earlier while you can't see what she's doing. Myers does have his Stalk Speed add ons that are difficult to discern, but guess what? The counterplay to Myers stays the same regardless of how quick he gets stalk.
How about Legion's? Duration doesn't change how you counter Frenzy. Iri Pin is good but both effects ridiculously obvious. Legion Pin is nice but you or your teammates getting broken is a dead give away. Most of their other add ons are kinda meh.
Trapper? Bags are fantastic but don't change the counter play. Darker traps are obvious once you see one. Honing Stone warns you when you get trapped. Bloody Coil is obvious after the first time it hits you. Iri Stone can be difficult to tell, but if a trap next to you suddenly rearms itself... kinda becomes obvious at that point.
Wraith? Coxcombed Clapper is obvious once he pops up without any bell noise. Bone Clapper is obvious once he touches his bell. Windstorm isn't obvious but doesn't change how you counter him. Serpent is obvious. Ghost is obvious. Shadowdance is so fast and applies to something you can both see and hear that it is obvious. The one add on that is maybe problematic is his Swift Hunt addons and honestly their numbers are pretty freaking low.
Deathslinger? His reload addons are his best. You can see and hear the reload animation... so you've got a decent chance of knowing what's up, but even if you don't notice it doesn't change too much about how you go against him. The one Add On he's got that maybe changes how you want to play as him is the Iri Coin... which is again... very obvious once it happens.
That's kind of how it goes. For the majority of Killers, their most powerful Add Ons are either super obvious or don't really touch how you counter them. Spirit is the exception. Why? Because you cannot see or hear ######### Spirit is doing while she's in her power. Which is the whole point of her power... but that makes discerning what her addons are doing ridiculously difficult. You cannot SEE or HEAR what her addons are doing. All you can see is the end result. What caused it? Nobody knows other than the Spirit player.
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Good. That's the point. That's why we're here and why she has no real counterplay
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Aw man, no Stridor Spirit then. 😥
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Disagree. The real problem is that there's a tremendous lack of information that heavily imbalances things.
Sure, removing her tracking ability makes things easier for the survivor, but you still don't absolutely have any clue on this planet.
Give her a tell and it becomes much more balanced. She's still a ridiculous chaser and chase ender if she happened to have a tell. She will still have oingo boingo speeds, and she can still catch survivors off guard if they're not paying attention. Something that's actually been a CORE SYSTEM by other stealth killers. She shouldn't get over compensated for absolutely nothing. Gutting her is what no one wants, but she does need to have a tell.
Think of a hillbilly that has free control over his camera, can stop and go while still using his chainsaw, completely invisible with no tells of what's going on. That's not fair for anyone. You give him a tell and suddenly it becomes more even, same with Spirit.
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Most of the rebuttals of Otz points, would require expert level knowledge of addons, perks, and maps, since any distance travelled indicator can't be based on straightline distance...except for maybe on coldwind farm. Additionally, the survivors would have to trade a few hook states before this knowledge could even be acquired, since often by the time you know what the spirit is doing, you are already downed.
The only strategy that I have seen and used that works even a little is to throw pallets early and often, and hope your team mates are crushing generators. Win or lose these matches aren't very fun, and I am grateful that they end very quickly one way or another.
The game is at its worst levels of enjoyment, when it feels hopeless. Killers and survivors both don't enjoy the match when they get stomped on. Personally, I can't wait for a good MMR so I can be matched against players and killers of my skill level. Stronger killers will face stronger survivors regardless of killer selected. If you choose overpowered killers, and you are a very good player, I would expect you to face the very toughest survivors every match.
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Here's a question for you:
When was the last time you could tell what add-ons a ghost face were using in game? Outside of meta knowledge that only cooldown add-ons are good he has no tells to ANY of his add-ons
Same goes for most of Wraith's add-ons.
Or most of trapper's.
Or most of Billy's.
Or most of Nurse's.
Or most of Michael's.
Or you get the point.
Most add-ons in the game are effectively undetectable and several are balanced around them not being detectable until they go off like the Iri Blight Tag or Mint Rag(The moment a good survivor realizes this they will set off and break all of your traps on their side of the map the moment you hit someone as you can't punish them for it).
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I'm sorry if I'm reading this incorrectly but do you not think that she has a tell when she's following you or a tell that lets you know when she's phasing? Because she has one for both of those things...Again, sorry if I am completely reading this wrong.
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What tell is there? By Visuals and audio alone there isn't any tell at all
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I suppose that could work, but I disagree with your analogy about Wraith. But, a lot of the complaints is just her not having any indicator at all that brutalizes survivors.
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Well there is a distinct snap to her phase animation. I know it's the same as her idle animation but you look closely when she phases, the animation snaps back to the first frame of the idle animation. As for when she's tracking, look at any grass and see if it moves. I know that's pretty much the only thing you can do to track her so I agree with however said that her footsteps should come back.
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Apologies for incredibly long response. Is that true? I have not seen snap once
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