Singularity Rework Idea(s)

Hildewintera

There's no killer out there that takes as much effort to use as the Singularity, and i'm here to make that even truer.

Outside my jester character, the real problem here isn't the killer being complicated, but rather it's the fact that effort doesn't get paid - i don't mean the minimum wage kind of pay - i mean the IT DOESN'T PAY AT ALL kind; You're going to sweat your ass out and still get a maximum of 2 sacrifices if the survivors don't mess up.

The problem with the Singularity is that it's a complicated killer that doesn't reward the player for using it effectively. You may be doing everything just fine, but you're going to end up anyway losing on average more time to down a survivor than you would on other killers.

It's not even a skill issue, with other killers getting results is effortless compared to Singu, and here is why i bring you some change ideas to both add more responsable counterability from the survivor side and make so that applying penalties to the Killer will sacrifice more time for the survivors.

I've ruled out some of the reasons why the Singularity is unbalanced:

Chases take too long:

You have to slipstream the survivor to get the power benefits, this takes time as it's dependent on where you're chasing them. You need to PLACE a Biopod, ACCESS it and hope you won't mistakenly access the biopod you have placed on the other side of the map, ORIENT with the surroundings since the biopod won't be pointing at the survivor right away, HOLD the reticle on the survivor and hope that they won't hide behind an obstacle or turn around a corner and hold W till they're on the other side of the map. Oh you missed them? Catch up to them and attempt again the slipstream. Now you're finally in the chase furnished with your power.

EMPs and EMP Cascade: Now from the beginning of the trial only 4 Printers will spawn around the map. One of these printers will print an EMP after 135 seconds since the start of the trial(completely random which one). After Printing the first EMP, again after 180 seconds one of these printers will again print another EMP, which will be the last one, printing a total of 2 EMPs. After that the printers deactivate. Printers don't have an aura, but when the EMP will be done printing, the one that printed an EMP will emanate a beacon-like light upwards. The survivor to use the EMP has to "hack" the printer, which consists of resolving a 15-30 seconds minigame, and steal the device inside. Once used, the EMP generates a HUGE blast all around the map, deactivating every single biopod on the map and applying a hindered status effect to the killer for 45 seconds, dropping it's speed from 4.6 m/s down to 4.3 m/s (which is about 7% of hindered). This will make the Singularity slower, but not considerably slower, survivors have a speed of 4.0 m/s.

Balance changes: During the EMP Cascade the Singularity won't be able to place new Biopods, but it still will be able to teleport to slipstreamed survivors. During the EMP Cascade the Singularity will be overcloacked the whole time and it won't suffer any hindered effects from slipstreaming onto a pallet. Also during the EMP Cascade the slipstream on the survivor's back will glow(making them more visible).

Biopods: Now Biopods point a laser perpendicular to the wall they are on. Survivors passing through the laser will automatically get slipstreamed. The laser is pretty short, about 2-3 meters in length. For more distant slipstreaming the Singularity still has to access the biopod itself(like it has to in the current state it is). The laser activates after 5 seconds the biopod is placed, this is to prevent Biopod spamming of any kind.

With these biopods you can block a tight path of a loop, and either force the survivor to get slipstreamed(without you needing to access the biopod etc...) and that means giving you the power, or leave the loop and risk to get hit.

Slipstream: Now to remove a slipstream the survivors have to tear the slipstreams from eachother's back(this means you will need someone else to remove it for you). This takes 5 seconds. Once removed, the survivors gain a 5% haste status for 10 seconds. Also the Slipstream won't spread between survivors, since now slipstreaming is a lot easier.

In theory this change saves more time for the survivors, since you don't anymore have to pick an EMP and go to the survivor, etc... But the real change here is that survivors can't negate your power in the middle of the chase.

And also here is the responsable choice survivors have to make, they either go out of their way and lose time by trying to find another survivor and getting them to un-slipstream them, or remain on the generators vulnerable, knowing that anytime now the killer could teleport and down them.

Generator Ability: Now the Singularity can have 2 slipstreamed generators at a time. The Slipstreamed generators will allow the Singularity to teleport to them. Once teleported the Singularity suffers the same penalty as it does after exiting a Biopod near a hooked survivor. Once teleported the slipstream tears itself from the generator. The Singularity can't kick a generator while it's Slipstreamed. The Slipstreamed generator won't have any skillchecks, but the survivors repairing it will suffer a 5% repairing speed penalty.(Not having any skillchecks isn't a burden to most survivors at all, the actual downside is that the killer won't be able to use skillcheck-related perks). During the EMP Cascade the Singularity can't teleport to the slipstreamed Generators.

If you're not willing to read allat, i'm going to sum up everything here:

Changes:

Ability Rework: Only 2 EMPs spawn around the map casually after a certain amount of time each, and upon using one you cause an explosion which slows down the Singularity and deactivates all his Biopods for 45 seconds, but in this period his teleport is buffed.

Ability Rework/Buff: Biopods now point a laser from their front side. The laser when touched by a survivor automatically slipstreams them.

Ability Rework/Buff: EMPs now don't remove the slipstream, to remove one you will need to interact with another survivor.

Nerf: Now the Slipstream doesn't spread between survivors(this function can be implemented in an Add-On).

New Ability/Buff: Now the Singularity can teleport to 2 slipstreamed generators of choice.

I'm pretty positive some of these will need some kind of fine-tuning and balancing, but i can't know for sure since i can't test the said changes.

Let me know if any of these changes can be abused or game breaking under some circumstances, i'll come up with some kind of fix. Let me also know if this is too out of the boundary or it does fit well DBD.