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Skull Merchant's "Loop Zoning", An Idea
"Loop Zoning" is my term for the concept of a killer placing their power at a loop, and forcing survivors to run away or at least put themselves at serious risk of being hit. This is technically possible on a few killers, but the ones for whom it is generally regarded as a big problem are Knight, Artist, and Skull Merchant.
The current PTB aims to fix that about Knight, but even if that goes live with no alterations, that still leaves Artist and Skull Merchant. Today, I have two variations on the same idea for addressing this on Skull Merchant specifically.
To start, we should acknowledge a fairly important fact. This problem is least potent on Merchant of the three listed killers, because her power already has a fair amount of counterplay in chase, meaning there are a reasonable number of loops in the game where you don't actually have to leave straight away- or at all, necessarily. To that end, my goal is not to stop Merchant from placing drones mid-chase, as that's a legitimate part of her power outside of loop zoning, but rather to emphasise and accentuate the counterplay that already exists to make it more viable at more loops. This should, hopefully, mean the Skull Merchant is a little more encouraged to actually set up her traps ahead of time or to lean in on "lasertagging", as Pixel Bush calls it.
So, what's the idea? It's twofold:
- Drones deployed while in chase with a survivor start in Scouting Mode. This change is both to make it clear that drones have the Stealth Mode so that they can be hidden, and to make it clear to survivors what's happening when the drones activate because they can immediately see the big glowing beams. This leads in to the second change:
- Drones deployed while in chase (or possibly just by default) have a two second delay before starting to rotate. This still allows the Skull Merchant to snipe someone with a beam as soon as it initialises, one of the elements of skill expression in her kit, but would let sloppier drone placements be countered easier because the survivor has plenty of time to assess the situation and decide whether they need to leave or not. At short low loops - the types where ranged damage is typically too big of a threat to stick around in general - they'd still leave to avoid being run into the static beam. At longer loops, loops with more LoS breaking, or bigger structures like main buildings + Shack, they'd have time to get around before the beam starts to rotate.
The specific number up there can definitely be tweaked to make sure it's not too long, as that'd make countering it awkward for the survivors (while still doable by crouching), but the general idea is to make the drones weaker at starting to sweep loops as well as giving survivors much more information to work with.
There are a few other small problems to address with Skull Merchant, but those aren't the focus of this post. Who knows, maybe I'll make more posts like this for those problems.
Comments
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Drones deployed while in chase with a survivor start in Scouting Mode
I am fine with this. That should make it easier for survivors to avoid lasers in chase.
Drones deployed while in chase (or possibly just by default) have a two second delay before starting to rotate.
Doesn't this make it kinda easier to go for laser tag? I don't need to care about speed of laser in any was just place it where I will get survivor in next second.
Seems like it doesn't affect effectiveness, but makes it easier instead.
If I force survivor to run through it, they can't really avoid it with fast crouch. So either waste lot of time or take it.
This change is not good in my opinion...
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Not necessarily. You still have to account for survivors juking it, you still have to have the aim and positioning, the only thing that really changes is that you're less likely to be off by a millimetre because the beam moved.
Slightly easier, but not to the point where it becomes a problem. I mean, hell, you can currently get this effect for lasertagging specifically by running the Low Power Mode addon, so we can hypothetically test that out right now.
…Assuming either of us can get that many games as Merchant, anyways.
As to the last point about forcing survivors to run through it, that depends on the loop, like I said. With space and/or LoS blocking, you'd have time to get around before it starts moving again. At least, I believe that would be true, it'd have to be tested on a PTB and a different number could be reached if necessary. Or maybe it just wouldn't work, we can't really say for sure.
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Basically any window loop is going to make this easier. I put drone aiming through window and run to side where is survivor so they have to either crouch through laser which is going to slow them down, or take a tag.
Right now it's very difficult to get this unless you do it against window vault.
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You'd have a tight window of time to do that in, though, especially if the delay ends up being shorter than two seconds.
It wouldn't work on like, a TL wall, because those are too long. It'd have to be a loop with a window that's short enough for you to get around and hit the survivor within three-ish seconds (to account for them crouching) and I feel like most loops where that's the case, the survivor wouldn't play it with a drone up anyways.
Remember, they can still choose to run away, they're not forced to stay in the loop just because they have more time to ascertain the situation. Also remember that "the beams don't move" is already an effect you can get, and the people who care about Merchant enough to have any opinion on her addons tend to consider it pretty trash in my experience.
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My issue is that your first change would make looping in drone range easier, but this would make it kinda more difficult again. So I don't see how it is positive effect for survivors.
I believe it would either do nothing or make it worse for survivor.
If laser would start stationary, then looping around the car etc is more difficult than if it is moving. Simply because it's going to be very easy for me to put it in survivor's way.
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It would only make it more difficult again at short loops with low cover, which are the loops that Merchant and other killers with ranged threats tend to excel at anyway. They're the loops you'd want to avoid even if the drone's already there because of how favourable they are for her.
Two seconds might be too long, for the reason you lay out, but the beams starting stationary for a brief duration wouldn't be detrimental at a lot of loops because you still have to run around about half the loop before you'd get to it. You'd watch Merchant, see the beams flash up, and have time to decide whether leaving is a good idea without the beams being an immediate threat to you. Even just one second would be enough time for this to work.
Generally, I feel like any loop where you could actually force the survivor to run into it, you'd get the same effect from moving beams. They'd need to be close enough for crouching to lose them too much distance, and at that point, you get the scan or an M1 either way.
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i don't really consider skull merchant as a zoner killer. leaving loop is as advantage vs her as it is with any other killer. i would consider zoning more like a hidden lose/lose mechanic where the survivor is restricted to some play that if they do x play, they get hit, at 100% consistency.
For example, if Michael Myer's has tier 3 and bamboozle, a survivor that is near a window will not be able to make it around the shack loop if they are too close. Myer's tier 3 is zoning the window because the survivor being near it results in them getting hit.
Brutal strength is another zoning perk that if a pallet is in the corner of the map, the killer can push the survivor in certain way such that he breaks pallet but the survivor doesn't make it to next loop.
Most zoning killer are poor design. I think only well-designed zoning killer was old deathslinger because… he had artificial zoning mechanic but his artificial zoning mechanic was psychological. the survivor could outplay it.
skull doesn't have any lose/loses. her power artificially shrinks the size of loops by lowering survivor m/s in relation to the killer. your meant to utilize pallet vaulting at the correct time to outplay her. on lesser safe pallets, she mostly dominates with only counter-play being to stun the killer with the pallet. It is same gameplay loop that clown has.
there is a little trick to zoning with her that is very advanced. it is trick that revolves around placing a drone, setup the beams such that when you break the pallet, the survivor get scanned with hindered penalty. it is sort of like artificial version of brutal strength. your unlikely to see this play unless the player is really good at her which most skull merchants are not that good. I don't think this needs changing because clown can also throw pink bottles/speed up before his pallet break to do same thing.
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I like point 1 a lot. Another healthy change to add to the list.
Note: As an aside this opens up an idea for her undetectable as well... perhaps Skully can have different effects based on if she deploys in chase or normally? Not gonna derail this thread with it, but its interesting!
I like the idea behind point 2, but I imagine there are sneaky things one can do with this like VomitMommy points out.
A smart survivor can't crouch or stand still through it, because the beam doesn't move... so the survivor has to crouch move out if in the way of the beam. Its the same reason why changing her turning speed on drones is neither a buff or a nerf. If you make it too fast, the survivor has to crouch more often... if you make it too slow, the survivor has to crouch for longer to pass safely... the beam staying place is striking on this problem... so its hard to say i its better or not 🤔
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