Condemn Lock is Still a None Mechanic on Sadako.
Another post explaining how 3.0 Sadako is weak. Condemn lock on the PTB was THE DEFINING CHANGE OF 3.0. However, in it's current state I can legitimately say I don't play Sadako even taking into account it exists since it's so meaningless even with the 3.1 buff. In fact, every single Sadako post I have read hasn't even mentioned this as a mechanic because I legitimately think most of us don't even remember it's a mechanic since it's so pointless.
Old PTB condemn lock would lock in ALL stacks of condemn you currently had if you were hooked. Right now you are locked to a maximum of 3 stacks per hook. This means in order for you to lock in any meaningful amount of condemn, you must hook them twice. This is a problem because the main reason Sadako is viable despite being a M1 killer with no anti-loop is she was able to bypass the hook states of survivors. If you attempted to hook survivors when playing in lobbies against decent players, you wasted too much time because your chases last too long because you're an M1 killer.
A condemn kill after you've already wasted the time to hook them twice is literally meaningless. Infact, right now even when I have 7 stacks of condemn on someone who is 2nd stage, when I down them I won't even bother mori'ing them, I'll hook them instead because then I get value out of my perks that require a hook (mainly pop but you have pain res and BBQ which also see alot of usage).
Back in the PTB, this mechanic was good because if you tracked that you pushed a fair amount of condemn on somebody, you then had a risk reward scenario. "Do I try to find this person who I've pushed alot of condemn on, try to lock in that amount potentially wasting alot of time in that chase and not pressuring generators to mori them later. Or do I keep pushing condemn across the whole team and try to condemn kill that player without having to hook them".
It rewarded you for doing something traditionally, you wouldn't do as Sadako (hook somebody). 3 stacks of condemn isn't worth doing this for. If I have locked in 3 stacks of condemn, it still isn't worth doing this again because as I explained I'd rather my perks for hooking.
Not only this but it punished you as a survivor for being too greedy. When I play VS Sadako, I don't take condemn locking into account at all because it simply doesn't punish me for being greedy. I can maintain 4 stacks of condemn if I ever get caught out and have 3 stacks locked in (which has LITERALLY never happened to me) and if by some miracle I had 6 stacks locked in, I'd be dead anyway when I am downed so it's pointless.
The only scenario where condemn lock in it's current state is actually meaningful is when you have downed them at 2 hooks and there are people hovering for pallet saves/flashlight saves which is so astronomically rare I have never seen it in my 100 hours or so of Sadako 3.0 as or against her. Which considering this was the defining feature of 3.0 Sadako is a massive problem.
Comments
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This is another very valid point, I honestly forget this is even a mechanic. I don’t see the point in this mechanic if it has a limit.
With that being said, ring drawing needs to be base kit if they want to keep this mechanic and make it function.this whole 3.0 version is just a mess….
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the whole point of condemn is to kill people with no hooks. this was going to be nothing mechanic from the start.
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If there wasn’t a limit on it, it wouldn’t be so bad, but it’s meaningless and pointless with the limitation. However, of course you and I have had many discussions and I am on the same page.
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Agree, on death hook it doesn‘t really matter
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I would say condemned lock is the only way condemned has any threat currently, but even then it‘s not really good. The only cool thing in the ptb was locking in all stacks and hooking someone, so that you could let them run around moriable all the time.
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Without a limit it rewarded you by punishing greedy players. It also rewarded you catching people out with a tape and also gave you another option in your, at this point very limited arsenal. Sacrificing time for a hook for guaranteed condemn used to be good for building large amounts of pressure and would force them to really interact with your power if you condemn locked them and therefor granted very good slowdown which in turn would reduce the time they spent cranking gens.
When cleansing condemn is so easily done, being able to lock in 4+ stacks of condemn was a game changer. It also made it so when you do get a hook, they couldn't just use second chance perks to freely cleanse their non-locked in condemn like they can now.
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what about current limit doesn't allow you to punish current greedy survivors? hooking a survivor a single time changes the threshold from 7/7 to 4/7.
For example, if you hook someone with 4 stack of condemn, 3/4 means only 1 stack can be cleansed. In my opinion, condemn lock doesn't make a difference right now because of this exact interaction shown by MechWarrior3.
Survivor don't have to worry about their condemn because as long they have a tape, they can just do tapes right in your face. The only way to actually get condemn kills is to lock in 6 stacks of condemn because anything else results in this interaction.
Furthermore, if survivor are shutting down TV's collectively in spread out open maps, there is virtually 0 condemn build-up. So the fact I can lock condemn is meaningless if i build 0 condemn anyway. you can watch Cammy's video on Sadako on Father Chapel to illustrate that.
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well said my friend, I like this post. I agree 💯.
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Totally agree.
Changes to fix her:
- Ring Drawing base kit - This rewards and incentivizes hooking. Just make it work when you hook a survivor period.
- Unlimited lock in - If they're greedy they should be punished for it
- Destroy tapes on hit - This has dual purpose. One it prevents the scenario in the video above where they deposit the tape in your face and it also creates dynamic and skilled game play as now after you break someones tape you'll have to make immediate decisions. Should I continue chase because I built his condemn high and I want to lock him in or should I go for that other guy to break his tape because I don't want him to drop stacks. This raises the skill ceiling.
This isn't even going into her addons that are a total mess but she at least needs this other stuff for her base kit to function.
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You said it perfectly.
I would agree with all this. This would at least make the condemn mechanic viable slow down again there’s no way to counter survivors that put videotapes inside the TV, at least this would give me something to work with.
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3/7 is extremely easy to maintain because you are able to prevent condemn being pushed in the first place so easily. Every single oreo I've played against since 3.0 has never managed to push more than 3 stacks of condemn on me the entire match.
Currently the trade off on the time you waste in chase to get that guranteed condemn lock is not worth it because Sadako is so easy to loop. It's just an effect that happens if you happen to get a hook. Locking in 4+ stacks is something that would definitely be worth detouring for since you can conceivably push 3 or less stacks in a chase. The extra 1 stack while being able to cleanse in Sadako's face is a massive breakpoint and if you are 4 or more stacks locked in turning off extra TV's when you cleanse wouldn't be worth risking. I honestly think 4 stacks locked in would be the threshold to make the mechanic useful
Let's do an example, I have 3 stacks locked in meaning I need 4 stack to die. I grab my tape, do my gen on my turned off TV. 3/4 of the way through this gen the TV will turn back on so I go turn it off getting a 4th stack. I do this gen and now I need to deposit my tape. Preventing 3 more stacks before I can deposit it, this is extremely easy to do for reasons like the video. Sadako would basically need to know you did the gen, immediately pressure you off the gen finish as you run by multiple turned on TV's. She would also need to injure you so you can't insert it in her face. This makes cleansing those last stacks ridiculously easy and even if you die inserting the tape, you haven't died on first hook so you've done your job.
Now lets say I have 4 stacks locked in in the same scenario. If I want to complete that gen, all Sadako would need to do is TP twice in a chase to kill me since you'd be at 5 stacks after turning off the TV to do the gen, this is very conceivable since you'd only need to do a single TP during the chase then the injure then the TP on the tape you need to insert it on. You're now mori-able at 1st hook.
If you're at 5 stacks of condemn lock in, you wouldn't even risk turning off the TV and finishing the gen. Infact in this situation, your best bet would be to grab a tape opposite of a gen you want to do, then deposit that tape next to the gen you want to do. Start doing that gen then grab the tape when it turns on 3/4 of the way through the gen. That initial trip to grab a tape and deposit it on a gen is slowdown you just gained because of those extra 2 locked in stacks of condemn.
It's also important to not in the latter 2 scenarios, you're more likely to kill them through mental. What I mean by this is they'll be so worried about not having condemn pushed on them they'll be much more likely to mess up in chase because 4+ stacks is when you need to start worrying about your condemn.
3 stacks is just under the threshold of when you really need to being worrying about condemn so it doesn't affect passable players gameplay so isn't worth doing.
I have watched countless amounts of gameplay of Sadako and my own, nobody right now is playing with condemn lock in mind. They just play and then if they lock in some condemn it's whatever on both sides. This was meant to be a major mechanic and it is barely affecting the gameplay in the current state. Bad players are too bad to notice it's even happened, good players don't care because they can prevent getting to a point where it holds a threat in the first place because it's so easy to prevent condemn and cleanse it.
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The first and third point wouldn‘t work together, but yes shure.
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"Just make it work when you hook a survivor period."
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😂
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If someone get hooked at 4 stacks, your poised to teleport back to the hook to increase this from 4→5. so now survivor is sitting at 5/7.
The speed at which you kill at condemn is same speed as hooking. Like if you hook survivor at 5/7 on 2nd hook, they'll die faster by hooking. If they get another stack of condemn, then you'll kill them by condemn after teleporting back to the hook a 2nd time. Either way, this is ultimately pointless because killing someone on death hook by condemn offers no reward on killer power. you'd achieve same thing by running ebony mori.
If i hook someone at 5/7, you lock in 3 stacks. you tp again back to the hook. they're 6/7 stacks. This incentives you to slug because once you down survivor, you slug them near a TV with 6/7 stacks and when survivor is picked up, they get 7/7 stacks which allow you to skip a hook-state. This is an old ring drawing strategy.
In both cases, the lock-in is not doing anything because your not allowing survivor to alleviate their condemn. In case 1, it is creating incentives tunnel off-hook and in case 2, it doesn't matter. your slugging and getting condemn kill because survivor is playing poorly.
In short, when survivor reaches a certain threshold of condemn, there is less reason to leave that survivor alone and more incentive to keep pushing condemn onto that survivor because they're closest to death. Functionally, most of the condemn kills within lock-in system are going to be death hook which is defeating purpose of the mori. that is one of the reasons why the sadako rework is total failure.
In my opinion, the only way this lock-in version of condemn is going to do anything is if hooking someone lock-in other survivor's condemn stacks. What this would do is allow sadako to simultaneously kill entire team at once.
For example, let's list survivor A/B/C/D
Say
survivor A has 1 stack
Survivor B has 2 stacks
Survivor C has 1 stack
Survivor D gets hooked with 1 stack.
Survivor A,B,C have their stacks lock-in up to 3.
This creates situation where it pushes survivors to cleanse any amount of stacks they have as soon as possible and any hook you get before allows you to lock-in their condemn progress. you will slowly keep locking-in 1-2 stacks if survivor do not cleanse stacks. By the end of 3-4 hooks. you would have lock-in many stacks of condemn on survivors that you have not hooked. This also makes Ring drawing a much potent add-on because suppose your carrying a tape when Sadako hooks someone. A survivor will increase their condemn stack by 1 and that 1 stack is lock-in. Survivor get properly punished for not depositing tapes and sadako gets rewarded for hooking.
that is what I would do if I was trying improve this iteration of Sadako.
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