The issue with the Hag

Ammemar

Dear BHVR Devs and Game Balance Team—I come before you today as a die-hard Hag player. When I say I'm concerned, I don't just mean the gameplay mechanics of our beloved Lisa Sherwood but rather what she represents in this wide roster of killers. It has become apparent to me that the current trap-wiping mechanic is not much of counterplay to Hag power but more of an invalidation of her unique ability.

More than a killer, the Hag is an important physical embodiment of power, survival, and the ability to resist trauma. She is also the only Black female killer in the game, making her role that much more significant. To have this power so easily nullified feels like a broader disrespect towards what she represents. She should be up there with the Nurse when it comes to S-tier killers—completely untouched at her core.

The Problem with the Hag's current kit:

The Hag sets movement-based traps, but one of the ways players can wipe them is simply by crouching or walking over them without setting the traps off. This totally detracts from the entire concept of how her power is supposed to function. A movement-based trap should always be triggered by movement. This makes zero sense in-game logic and feels like a direct assault on her core ability. For those of us who have invested hours learning her idiosyncratic playstyle, it feels like less fair counterplay and more erasure of her very essence of being effective on the rift. To see the Hag—embodying symbolic principles of power and resilience so easily countered—it is very disheartening and annoying.

While I understand that the Hag's ability is incredibly powerful, as map mobility is a valuable ability to posses, the Hag does have counterplay built into her kit. Survivors can avoid stepping on the traps, as they are visible.

Proposed Solution:
To restore the balance while keeping the Hag's power on track, I propose a new mechanic inspired by The Plague's fountains. This would include the scattering of water fountains across the map, along with some special chests that carry a maximum of two water pistols. These pistols, filled from the fountains, could be used to spray on mud traps, disfiguring them without outright invalidating the Hag's power.

Alternatively, add a ritual mechanic to protect survivors from the Hag's traps. Survivors would be able to go to ritual sites around a map, and perform a ritual. This ritual would grant survivors x seconds of immunity to the Hag's traps (e.g. 30 seconds of immunity.) These would feel mechanically similar to picking up an invitation in the recent Twisted Masquerade event.

Either of these suggestions provides survivors a strong form of counterplay against the Hag, while presenting survivors with an interesting choice that they have to make. They go for the counterplay against the Hag, but that would mean diverting their attention from other objectives (e.g. repairing generators, opening escape gates, unhooking allies, or looking for the Hatch)

Presenting choices of that sort also allows survivors to gain the upper hand against the Hag through gameplay knowledge, rather than raw mechanics. Of course, this also means that if the survivors make the wrong choice, the Hag can take advantage of that.

Overall, I feel this will increase the Hag's skill ceiling, and promote healthy gameplay patterns.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Devil_hit11

they gave hag a trap disabling mechanic because she was out of line compare to other trapping killers who had disable bear traps and disable drone mechanic in their kit since the start.

I think other aspect is to weaken hag's ability to proxy camp hooks by putting 10 traps near the hook. in practice, very few survivors use "Urban Evasion" and default crouch speed is unnaturally slow. Hag was designed there was only 6 survivors and Nea's Urban Evasion was very popular perk post its buffs. In today's day and age, nobody uses it so it made hag camping stronger over the years.

Items countering power was also outdated mechanic…. for same reason that they removed trapper's traps being sabotaged by toolbox, it was only natural course of action to remove light-burn for same reason making it easier to balance the killer.

today, hag exemplify that only proxy camping is ineffective strategy for killer because survivor can do generator before friends and hag cannot capitalize against aggressive gen-rushing. Her answer to aggressive gen-rushing is 3 gens but 3 gen mechanic has been nerfed/balanced out to not be so oppressive across the board. The result is that in order for proxy camping killer to be effective, they need to be aggressive powerful to take advantage for how survivor is playing. Unfortunately for hag, Hag cannot adapt to aggressive gameplay. She is one dimensional proxy camper relies on early altruism to succeed. this makes her predictable for any survivor to play against. As such, the way to defeat her is also one dimensional. This leaves hag to be a killer that is left-behind.