[PTB Feedback] Scratched Mirror Myers, and why he should (at least) be 110%.
I love this addon. It lets me stealth and scare people, which is a really nice gameplay style for those who play more casually, or want to do something different, even if a bit weak. I had hoped it would have been buffed with the addon changes on myers, but sadly all we got was 0.5% of extra speed (equivalent to 4.22m/s, a .02m/s difference.)
While this addon should by no means be insanely strong, I feel like in its current state, it fails to play into the gimmick it wishes to provide. This addon is about stealthing to get survivor hits, and mindgaming survivors during chase, but this speed decrease hinders it in such a way that I believe it'd be better to play another killer with a much better ability to both stealth, and injure (such as an Iridescent Clapper/Ghost Rune Wraith).
[The Details]
While the whole goal of this addon is to play into Jumpscares, I find even when the gimmick works out, the overall gameplay and fun suffers immediately when survivors have a shred of awareness. With the lack of both bloodlust and lunge range, 105% myers is almost unplayable. Let's do the math:
Let's say that a Scratched Mirror Myers catches a survivor offguard. The myers doesn't get a free hit, but the chase starts at a relatively close 17m distance. Normally, a 115% killer could close this distance in a measly 28.3(333~) seconds, while a 110% killer could close this distance in 42.5 seconds. Now, let's do the math for a 105% killer.
A T1 Myers closes the gap by 0.2m every second, meaning that it takes 5 seconds to gain one meter of distance. In this case where a survivor starts the chase 17m away, it would take a T1 Scratched Mirror Myers 85 (5x17) seconds to catch up to a survivor. This is almost an entire gen, for a single hit, which you might not even get, as most maps have a pallet or window anywhere within a 5-20s range. Not only that, but the main burst mobility tool that an M1 killer has, the lunge, is inaccessible due to the nerfs T1 applies. Even in a scenario where you start much closer (let's say 9m), it would still take 45 seconds (Half of a generator) to catch up for a hit, which gives plenty of time for the survivor to find a pallet, window, or the like to defend against him. This isn't even taking into account the time wasted over a match while travelling to find a survivor in the first place.
Most of the hits you'll be getting will be from around corners, and only if that corner isn't more than 7-10m range. A 10m distance grants survivors 2.38~ seconds to both see, and react to a scratched mirror myers approaching, which could result in a hit if the survivor is inattentive, but anywhere from a 5-50s chase to get that hit if they see you beforehand. I believe this to be a frankly ridiculous margin for error that lets survivors simply react and escape a scratched mirror myers.
The only alternative you have as a Scratched Mirror Myers in this situation, besides trying to brute force the hit (which is a sisyphysean task in the first place), is simply to drop chase and try for another stealth hit (either mindgaming the survivor you tried to hit, or going to another survivor's location). Though, this gameplay loop in the end feels unsatisfying, even if you aren't going for kills, as why would anyone be afraid of a killer that takes an entire gen's worth of time to cover a 17m distance? With him being 105%, Survivors have so much time when not caught of guard to find a pallet or window, that the initial fear of being caught out is quickly replaced with the understanding that "I can freely escape him if I simply play safe."
Even then, the other benefit a Scratched Mirror Myers has does little to cover this very large weakness. His 32m aura read suffers a large amount from this low speed. Often used for either cutting off survivors, or mindgaming in chase, this base speed overall hinders his ability to do both. While attempting to cut off a survivor, if you are at all approaching a survivor that's moving away from you, it may take tens of seconds to enact your plan. While attempting to mindgame a tile or pallet, your speed isn't enough to threaten a hit if they are anywhere but a corner, and even in those situations, a filler pallet may be enough to prevent the hit in the first place. Not to mention that this aura read slows you down in the first place (even more so if a survivor is within view, as a byproduct of the stalk system)
All of these reasons above are why I believe this addon should NOT have Scratched Mirror Myers be 105%, but what changes could make scratched mirror more fun to play (NOT explicitly for the purpose of getting more kills, but increasing his lethality to make the paranoia he gives more tangible, and scares more often)
[The Changes]
[The Big One]
He needs to be 110. If there is only one change to be had, this change is it. It halves the current time to hit a survivor in chase, and overall grants him a much smoother gameplan that may actually have survivors fearing for their lives, instead of looping the same small pallet for 20~ seconds before stunning him. He'll still be bad, as he has no instant downs, no map or chase mobility, nor does he have larger lunge ranges or faster vaults.
[Two small QoL changes]
As a quality of life (both for Scratched and Vanity mirror), I feel removing the stalk movement speed penalty when actively stalking a survivor (since stalking them gives aura, but aura is useless if you can see a survivor) would be minor, but very nice. I always get a bit frustrated when a survivor comes around a corner while im stalking them through a wall, and I get hit by the massive speed decrease when actively stalking a survivor (losing precious seconds due to his slow speed)
Giving scratched/vanity mirror a bloodpoint bonus that doesn't get capped could be really nice, since you're still playing an inherently weaker killer than the regular myers.
[Various other changes for more scare factor, mindgame potential, and the mitigation of W'ing him]
To help his chase, changing the Lunge open time from 0.2s (0.3s less than default) to either 0.3/0.4 seconds (still 0.2/0.1s shorter than default) could be nice. Being 105% means that it takes longer to accelerate to the 150% speed cap lunges grant you, which means a 0.2s lunge duration loses more distance than you'd think.
To help W-keying I would consider giving him the T3 vault speed boost. This would help prevent survivors from milking one window potentially infinitely with shift-teching, without the use of 1-2 of your perk slots. (If T3 was given other buffs in the future, such as Break Speed buffs, or picking up/setting down speed buffs, I would also consider adding those too since saving time, and mitigating distance gained from pre-dropped pallets would feel great, while still keeping him weak due to the inherent lack of chase/map mobility/instant down.)
A general stalk movement speed increase would also be really nice for keeping up with survivors who attempt to W-Key, or just get to a proper position while mindgaming.
[Big, fundamental changes]
These changes are more meant for brainstorming how to make the jumpscare playstyle more effective, and feel less hopeless when survivors try to be as efficient as possible. I do not intend for the numbers, or the ideas to be balanced, and more just wish to share possible ideas to make a Scratched Mirror Myers not die inside when they encounter a jacked-up squad of players with very good perks, items, and addons.
[Broken on Scratched Mirror Hits]
The big problem with hit-and-running with a Scratched Mirror Myers, as described above, is the ability for survivors to simply heal up when he's not around, and relatively fast when combined with modern perks.
A possible solution to this could be applying the Broken status effect to survivors hit by a Scratched Mirror Myers, meaning that survivors now must be hyper-vigilant for a set amount of time, and allow the shape to come back later when they're distracted. This is quite big, but I feel it could still be fun. Maybe a duration of 60-90s?
[Higher speed while survivors aren't near (32m+ away?)]
Even if it was 115% for map traversal, this would still let him save time while not affecting his chase, and as a bonus, act as an alert to when there are nearby survivors to find, though this is a little strange.
If you made it all the way through this rant, thanks! I spent a lot of time writing this, cause I think Scratched Mirror should be as fun as it can be in most situations, even if your gimmick doesn't work out.
Comments
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Bravo. Well said.
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Not a good idea, he would be too opressive on indoor maps with 4.4 Scratched Mirror.
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Argued well... I have no objective argument against it....
I just hate Scratched Mirror on Lery's, Hawkins and Midwich, plz don't make me face 4.4m 🥺
If he becomes 4.4 and gets the map traversal when 32m or more from a survivor, remove his Undetectable so at least auras work and he has a red light.
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DO NOT do this. Myers does not need a speed bump increase for scratched mirror. Please for FS leave him alone, they've already broken tombstone to be completely useless.
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Why on earth would we leave him alone? This is a PTB, the whole point is not to leave him alone.
Tombstone Piece is even better than it was before, and the 2 add-ons that were fine (Fragrant Tuft of Hair and JMT) are both uselessly slow.
These need fixing badly.
And regarding Scratched Mirror, I hate paying against it... but my opinion isn't the only one that matters... some people like it... so making it where it can work on maps other than Lery's and Hawkins, while.making it not quite so obnoxious on those maps seems a better direction doesn't it?
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If not 110%, at least bump it up to 107% ~ 108%.
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Because there is absolutely no reason to change him. People who know how to play Myers don't need buffs/nerfs or reworks. TS has been gutted; I cannot understand your thought process. People asking for these changes obviously do not know how this character works.
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Also, are you speaking from a survivor perspective?
"These need fixing badly."
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Seems like you do have an understanding of Myers... are you saying Myers needed no changes at all? Or no changes from his current list of changes?
Rather than telling me you can't understand my thought process and shutting down the discussion, why dont you question me to try and understand instead? It'd serve everyone better if you would explain your stance, try and convince me and everyone of why I'm wrong, and your perspective is right?
That's what the PTB is for, feedback and ideas. Simply going "No, I don't understand how you think, you don't know what you're talking about" is not helping to improve anything about Myers, or prevent changes that shouldn't happen.
I personally am of the stance that Myers, while being weak as a killer, is one of the best killers thematically in the game, and while simple is highly synergistic with perks. This makes him very fun to play and interesting to build for, even if hes weaker at higher levels of play, and these should very much be traits we preserve.
However his power takes too long to start up for too little payoff... and the only reason he is remotely dangerous is he is artificially propped up by Tombstone Piece. This single add-on is the BEST add-on in the game, bar none; the power to immediately erase a survivor out of the game is insane... but its only tempered by the fact it is on Myers. This add-on stops any other buffs being made to his kit, and without it, Myers is one of the most basic killers in the game that gets dunked on by any semi organised team. This problem is exacerbated 10-fold with Scratched Mirror, which literally only works against solos on 3 maps, and is otherwise laughably weak.
Thats my thought process, now please explain where I'm wrong.
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We can buff it to 110% it would not be a problem
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As a survivor player… I love going against Scratched Mirror; especially on in-door maps; makes the game truly feel like actual horror and it's amazing. Please do reconsider making the change.
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Literally if you use his 3 perks he comes with you shouldnt be needing speed buffs, he'd become too much. you can even use all of the other new haste perks now if need be.
If he got a base buff he'd be way too much0 -
110% Scratched Mirror + Map Offering = have fun playing with bots
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Let's be honest, survivors DC for less than that. So that's not even an issue.
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Agreed. And I'd like to say you went about responding in a respectful way. Sometimes I respond very passionately, and in this instance, you can see I am. This character is "THE" character for me in this game, and it feels like BHVR is mindlessly attacking him.
After giving this more thought and more testing. I feel comfortable reverting some of my rant. I don't have reservation with saying I'm wrong when I am. So here it goes.
Iri Tombstone/Fragrant Hair - still grotesquely horrible. The doubling of the stalk requirement is too harsh and punishing, especially with seasoned players and SWF's.
Purple TS - I thought this was just as bad but turns out it's not terrible. With the new distance stalk and increase of stalk on each player, with adjusting "how" you stalk this can be actually quite good.
4.5% penalty for scratch mirror is understandable due to the 4.4 speed increase given to T1, it's an offset. So essentially if you play SM your basically back where Myers was before the buffs/nerfs. This is a wash and really is a non-issue. I understand if they didn't nerf SM some the 4.4 would be far too OP.
Infinite T3 - doable. Didn't seem to have much issue even though they doubled the stalk requirement for Fragrant, again it's just adjusting.
Stalking - From a distance is a nice change, actually good, and the near stalk nerf is tolerable. It comes down to retraining your brain/playstyle. Stalk more from far away when you can, use this for 99% - then pop using the near stalk. When saying that I understand that it does not work as well on all maps - indoor mostly Lery's/Midwich/Hawkins…blah blah. Best thing to do would be use your stealth and stalk from as far as possible unseen.
The decrease to get from T1 to T2..chef's kiss.
There are still some other loose-ends, and there is more testing I need to do. But I wanted to respond because you had some very valid and respectable points.
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All good, and appreciate it mate, thanks for taking the time to respond! 🤘😁🤘
I agree the iri stalk time was quite unbelievably harsh, but then again that was only an initial impression. I could only watch a friend of mine play because I dont have access to the PTB, so maybe after more attempts it doesn't seem as bad... but we figured the stalk cap increase doesn't really help it much, and the sheer time increase it takes to stalk is very difficult to account for unless survivors literally don't see you for huge swathes of time. If they do see you, its pretty miserable trying to charge this up.
The other big issue is you need to stalk from afar, but you need to still also build PWYF stacks, and the inversion makes that also harder to do.... so would be interested in your findings, cause this combo of add-ons felt very weak...
We found Tombstone Piece seemed pretty disgusting tbh... it's still monstrously good given that unlike the iri add-ons, it charges faster and doesn't have that huge speed penalty associated with it on JMT... one good long range stalk and Myers can still do current Myers Tombstone Piece things, but it's just better all around. Easier to charge, can power up off 1 survivor, it's basically buffed...
Other changes wholly agree. I ain't a fan of Scratched Mirror, if it ever became 4.4, it'd need nerfs elsewhere to compensate for sure.
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Give T1 Myers a lunge too
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I like the idea of bringing Scratched Mirror out of the shadow realm of indoor maps. Making it 110 would certainly allow for more uses of the add on outside of Map Offerings for indoor maps. Well said.
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No he would not. Only against bad players.
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