I still don't understand skull merchant hate
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Its honestly so sad this happens. I used to love sm chase music even during her old powers. And thats because i never had a issue with her personally because everyone still played the game out. It was until at the end with 1 gen left ppl gave up.
But now i cant stand her music because she's unbearable. Now ppl dc/leave b4 any gens are done and it ruins my experience as a whole because of it
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I have to respectfully disagree with portions of this.
Yeah look, she might not be as bad as she used to be. But, out of all the games I’ve played against her (at least in my oceanic region where people completely sweat to win haha) there is NO WAY you will be able to simply crouch drones, especially in mid-chase near viable gens that you need to work on or you’ll just die. She will not leave the area, and like someone else has said, majority of survivors do not want to be in games where they’re working on a generator for 2 seconds at a time and then dipping out of the 3 gen.
If you’re versing a “good” skull merchant, all it takes is for them to immediately camp the 3/4 gen from the start of the match. And then if they have pain res, grim embrace or a full gen regression loadout it is almost impossible to escape against a SM who knows what they’re doing. The new anti-three gen update has helped slightly, but with a full gen regression load out (which is what I see 100% of SMs use) by the time that even comes into place she would’ve had applied too much pressure.
No killer should have that instant grip of power, along with being able to:
- be undetectable
- have haste
- inflict broken and make survivors injured
- inflict the Hindered status
Solo queue: If you’re in solo queue chances are you’re most likely dead or will have team mates who will just kill themselves on hook and I honestly don’t blame them against this “killer”..
ill never like her until she gets an entire base-kit rework as she is still busted as hell imo. But we are all entitled to our opinions <3
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When SM drops a drone with addon she has 10 seconds of undetectable status. The cooldown for dropping another drone is 10 seconds. When I play her I drop drone after drone to remain perma undetectable when moving across the map.
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Yeah, basically.
I think the manga stuff is just a little campy flair to an otherwise fairly grounded story, at least as far as any story about murderous psychopaths in service to an eldritch being can be grounded. The rest of her story is pretty straightforward, like I said earlier she's basically a CEO version of the antagonist in The Most Dangerous Game.
It's just hard to see the campy appeal when you're approaching with the knowledge of how obnoxious her gameplay was at launch. The well was poisoned, so to speak.
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I think he's a General, iirc.
You called?
:)
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1: Apart from scans not literally only happening when people are being pushed away from gens (there are hooks to contest, chases to hold, and so on, too), this is something I suppose you'd just have to see in action. There are numerous instances where survivors accumulate multiple lock-on stacks in a matter of seconds, such as when Merchant pushes them off, pretends to leave, but comes right back. And sure it also depends on just how favourable her gen setup is, and to an extent on how much survivors mess up, but nobody plays perfectly, especially in drawn-out, repetitive, tiring matches where they have to also constantly be on the look-out for a potentially Undetectable killer.
Hacking drones comes at the risk of being interrupted while doing so, and often the time you invest to hack one (and let alone multiple) isn't worth it when compared to the time it takes her to reset them while she is patrolling anyway. Upon which they will be in stealth mode, at that.
2: Approaching cautiously with regards to the possiblity of Merchant still being around means not going all the way up to the gen as fast as you can because that could result in you then being hit, or worse (scanned and downed). Again, something to see and experience in action. You usually have to stand still/crouch multiple times traversing a singular drone zone, and there's usually multiple drones to worry about, even with potentially overlapping zones. Even if it only takes 3 seconds more than running up to the gen would, that's 30 seconds over 10 patrols on any gen, which is already as much as Deadlock does on 1 gen, and it only does so 4 times a match.
3: With regards to comparing her to other killers the point was that her power needing to gradually build up doesn't matter much as her power will inevitably build, and then is much more threatening than most around a 3-gen. Her ability also stalls the game to begin with, particularly around a 3-gen, much more so than most other killers. The other point was just another angle to highlight the fact that Merchant inherently benefits from/gravitates toward this sort of gameplay.
4: Apart from the fact that her Hindered isn't strictly worse than Clown's (it can last longer and she doesn't need to throw a bottle to effect it, and besides, Clown's slow is very potent, hers being weaker than it isn't too decisive of an argument), I just will not agree that her power is not as potent around a 3-gen as Clown or Myers or whoever. Undetectable is already huge, as is having people injured, the tracking, the mending, the slowdown, the speed. Imagine Plague with the wallhack add-on and frequently being Undetectable and you get more of an idea of how problematic it can be, and that's without a whole bunch of other stuff Merchant has going for her here.
5: I'm afraid the "massive misconceptions about her power" and people "randomly getting themselves scanned" are part of the killer's strength in a real-life setting. A kit not being easy to understand for the average player or difficult to play around for one reason or another, good or bad, have to be factored in when designing a game that includes the average player experience. But that's beside the actual point which is that you can absolutely still have matches in which people actually try and get a sense for the ratio between how easy it is to 3-gen as her and how strong it is, for which I just cannot tell you anything but that your sensibilities right now seem far off from reality to me. Or again, get friends or people from the official Discord server or whatever to play against you. Preferably including matches without voice comms, which aren't all too common in pubs.
I've been trying to find some of the (few) tournament games I've seen of her where her 3-genning was problematic even against highly coordinated teams of survivors. I guess I will try to get back to you with that or other videos that showcase how potent this strategy is on her.
6: A damning reflection upon the community I would understand as something that reflects on the general state of it, particularly insofar it relates to future game development. I don't see that that's given here because this isn't a general phenomenon, it is very specific to this one design, largely unprecedented and hasn't happened since either. Obviously we have differences in opinion on whether this response of the community is at all warranted, calling it baseless outrage to me is as absurd as the community's sentiments seem to be to you, but regardless, while I do feel for you if you genuinely mourn the loss of original (and current) Merchant, the game at large is not losing so much (not least because she has a very low pickrate to begin with and many of her matches aren't actual matches), nor can it be expected to lose other things in this sort of fashion in the future. It can also be noted that Merchant will soon have been in the game for a year, with some 7 months before she got her extensive rework and 5 months and counting in her current state since. Months of gameplay in which some Merchant mains I'm sure have racked up hundreds if not thousands of hours of game time is more than players regularly get out of other games altogether. Not too damning a prospect.
I do appreciate your general... "plight", let's say, that you look to uphold a narrative of a certain reasonableness against the admittedly often rather overstated complaints regarding this killer, or a certain dismissiveness or casualness with which people can dunk on her entire design. I will even admit that I personally could do better in terms of being more willing to look to any positives she has, and not to assume as badly of Merchant players as I do either, thinking they mostly just enjoy how easy it is for them to kill people as her. That said, I do genuinely like this game and many or most killers in it (with few if notable exceptions), and I genuinely just do not like Merchant much. I honestly don't even know why I engage in lengthy discussions on her, much less because I know these won't sway the devs any which way even if they were to follow them.
I tire of talking about her, but just to lead this somewhere potentially more fruitful: What do you think of the proposals made in this thread: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/405988/skull-merchant-improvement-proposals?
Post edited by zarr on2 -
They’ve changed the Chase music and it still gives you a headache?
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That’s actually an excellent question how did that go live? Lol
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There's no explanation that gives me more faith in BHVR
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I think she's fine, could have hindered or haste removed/changed in some way because I feel having both is kind of overkill but she does excel in being kind of a 'jack of all trades' kind of killer. I love running her as a stealth killer for sure.
I will say though, her lore is kinda bad in my opinion. The main problem I have is she's clearly smart and knowledgeable with her being able to create her tools and such but it boils down to her more being a cosplay killer and not really her own person. Feels more like a Batman villain to me than a horror killer.
I do think her lore could be redeemed a bit better if her name was more tied to her dealings in business instead of a Manga adaptation, like ties to the black market or something.
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You crack me up 😂 when I read your post.
small interview for you
1) Do you main Steve?
2) if so do you have a Nancy duo? 🥹😍
3) Almost 20k post! How long have you been with DBD? :)
4) Do you play killer? Who do you main?
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1)
Yes, this was from quite some time ago.
2) I do not, I don't really play Survivor much as most of my friends don't play anymore.
3) About this time in 2018. Around 6 years of active playing.
4) I do play Killer. I play most of them. I've played Wesker, Wraith and Nemesis competitively.
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Thanks so much for answering!! 🥹
and gasp!! Comgrats!! Another anniversary for you!! ❤️ That’s amazing!
Also - My nancy is P48! I’d love to duo with your Jonathan! That would be different than the usual Steve’s. 😍
(if you’d like. I’m pretty good at survivor and low maintenance 🤣)
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I’m pretty good at survivor
I can confirm that. Ya saved me a lot on our trials, my friend :)
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Thank you!
You're probably a lot better than me, lol. I would be down to play whenever I get some time off of work.
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I try 🥹
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The most OP killer in the game. I die everytime
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I honestly doubt there's any way to get a genuinely constructive consensus on SM. People are very poisoned-well about her. People will say "scrap the entire power" as if that's constructive or realistic. I think some changes are warranted, but "the killer fundamentally doesn't work so get rid of her" is honestly kind of stupid as a mindset. It's neither viable or even really correct.
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They nerfed 3 genning. The perks that enabled it are completely dead, and even now they have the 3gen system in place. And on top that, they adjusted her power specifically so that it sucks in a 3 gen.
So what exactly are you on about?
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Agree to disagree i guess.
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I just saw this vid.
SM fails to mind game even at unsafe pallet. Meg still got injured after her shape reaction. What's the counterplay to not getting injured here?
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With respect, the question isn't just "How do you avoid getting injured here", it's also "How do you avoid any killer that injures at range here".
So, let's answer those in order. One thing Meg didn't do here is keep an eye on the drone beams rotating, or maybe they did and just misjudged, happens to the best of us. Hypothetically, one of the things you'd do here is stop at the edge while the killer is still walking around, to avoid the beam. We can see they absolutely have the distance to do that here.
Moving on from that, let's now apply this question to other killers. If you try to play this loop versus other killers that can damage you at range, how does it go? Huntress hits you. Slinger hits you. Trickster can absolutely finish off the last few knife hits here, even assuming he's stunned like Merchant in this clip. Plague can clip you, which can be enough to finish infection.
Those last two are the most illustrative here, I think, because remember that one of the reasons Meg gets injured here is because they already had two scans- this could just as easily have been getting dinged with one scan and moving on, there's an element of just being unlucky here. Merchant is a killer that builds to an injury, like Trickster and Plague, so it's not like this terrible loop is still an easy injure if you're playing against Skull Merchant- Meg almost didn't get scanned at all, and it was only one scan.
With respect again, you posted a clip of someone getting unlucky, not of Skull Merchant lacking counterplay.
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If he had looked at the drone and crouched for half a second when it went over him he wouldn't of been injured.
That is a skill issue if ive ever seen one.
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There's literally none in some circumstances
There's literally none in many circumstances. You're forced to be injured. It's hideous
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Love this video. Seen it before
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Meg success to stun SM at that loops has the skill already far superior than the SM.
But what is the skillful play input from the SM here?
Success mind game the easiest loops in game? No
Success at one step ahead setting-up trap? No
Still earn the hit.
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She might not be utterly broken anymore, but as long as the most optimal drone placement is 'right next to a gen', she's gonna continue to be irritating to go against.
She doesn't need to be able to kick gens indefinitely, simply running straight back to the gen the moment her drone is interacted with is enough.
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She earned the hit because the survivor messed up. When survivors make mistakes they are punished regardless of killer input against literally every killer in the game.
If you run into a tree when running away from the killer, the killer had no skillful input, and you got hit, because you messed up. This scenario is the exact same, had she of crouched for just half a second, she could of easily dodged the scan lines and made it to helicopter stairs window and its pallets.
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Took the words out of my thoughts. This is so true!!! The pure fact that she can just injure in a 3 gen makes the new “3 gen kick nerf” invalid.
At the end of the day, all I’ve seen are countless posts about majority of players not liking her or versing her and to this day, that definitely has not changed. The “re-work” was insufficient.
- it is far from “impossible” to 3 gen anymore when she literally has her own 3 gen basekit.
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People are just blindly hating and I stopped even pretending to care about their baby rage.
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Not really. She is awful to verse and imo needs a further rework.
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SM sucks and shouldn't get a rework stop wasting dev resources on trying to fix a killer survivors are always gonna complain about just killswitch her indefinitely and say you're "fixing her" no one would really care
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It's not amazing but it's nothing stand out bad by DBD standards. The tome has definitely improved her but a lot of people just hated her for her visuals (Which for her default fair enough) and her power which again is totally fair
But when killers like Hag exist i'm a bit nicer to merchant lore wise
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Plague and legion exist lmao being 'Forced to be injured' is a very common part of certain killer powers. Merchant actually has more counterplay than these 2 with plague only needing a few vomit projectiles and legion only needed essentially a free hit if he's any good
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Repeating myself here but... in my region the immature trolling griefer style players intentionally play her in the most unpleasant and toxic ways possible, as they know she is already hated so they get maximum troll value ensuring every match against her is miserable.
I have no way of knowing if the SM player has good intentions and the reality is they almost all are toxic and intentionally unfun to play against
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100% disagree. At least with plague there’s remedies from being injured such as pools. You’re also not hindered and she’s only undetectable with certain perks etc. SM has an unwarranted boost of speed and can be perma-undetectable. You’re entitled to your opinion though :)
id like to see an extra mechanic that can remove scans. It’s definitely needed in some regard
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Literally came here to say this hahahah
My region (NA East), I'm not joking when I say in the numerous matches that I've played against SM, there has been one (one!) SM player that I've went against that didn't feel like they had a gun to the back of their families heads and a hardcore sweaty 4k is the only way to free them. It's just a generally miserable experience everytime you hear her terror radius when loading into a game.
SM attracts a certain type of player in this game that the vast majority of people strongly dislike playing against. This is now her main problem, the people that play her. And that's more than likely just not going to change unless they completely rework her.
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I can’t say all SM’s have entailed this behaviour however in OCE, majority do. I somewhat agree
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Plague at least has something else going there. She does get an extremely oppressive chase power, but it's extremely limited.
I dunno if I'd be citing Legion as a pinnacle of design to emulate.
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100%
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