General Discussions
General Discussions
How do we feel about the new Skull Merchant changes?
Comments
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Shes only undetectable IF she is controlling a drone. Its a twins situation. So yes, Aura reading constantly would be awful especially if a SWF is in charge. No thanks.
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I havent yet seen the changes in the notes stating you dont get undetectable still from placing a drone.
Let me know when you find those changes stating its going to be removed from her kit. Its not in the post thats for sure.-4 -
Her whole design is being scrapped. The only thing that is being kept from her current design which they said in that post is her Intel.
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No its not. You still place drones, you still check your radar. You still have tracking.
The only difference is that you dont have these things:
Nowhere in the notes does it say you are losing undetectable after placing a drone.
And nowhere in these notes is "her whole design being scrapped" even being suggested.
You legit place drones like you did normally. Only this time get this….
You take them over and launch them at people.
That is the only difference.
Passive traps to more active traps. Not "her whole kit is being redsigned OMGWAH"-1 -
Drones Scan for intel, Global intel power and you launch drones at survivors, while controlling the drone she is undetectable. It also doesn't SAY she's keep stealth when throwing up a drone either, so you can't assume that either.
Post edited by Rizzo on2 -
In my opinion, most of the changes are good, there are just one I don't like at all: survivors getting aura reading when disabling a drone, that's too cheap, devs mentioned "risk and reward" but what risk? the drone disabling minigame is ridiculously easy, it has almost 0 risk to be honest, so it is mostly free aura reading all the time.
It have two solutions: becoming the minigame something more difficult for being a true risk (a succession of skill checks like merciless storm for example) or just disabling the aura reading.
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Most of her kit is the exact same thing as before.
1)You place drones
2)They scan.3)You track survivors
Literally the exact same thing. With a single difference now.
4) You can launch them at survivors.
Theres no massive rework to her entire kit.
You launch drones now. That is it.-4 -
Really wish they would just ditch the drones and rework her power completely, oh and upgrade her aesthetics at the same time.
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I think we need to let scanline and damaging trap merchant go. It's been tried, and the honest truth is that it isn't intuitive nor fun for most survivors to go against, even ones without the existing negative bias against her. To them I'd imagine it's just frustrating and confusing.
And on the flipside, it isn't fun for the killer when the enemy know how to counter the power since good survivors can almost entirely remove your agency. You could say that's a skill issue that new players can't deal with her and you'd be right. But maybe it's also a design issue. Maybe it's both. Either way, I think it's time to let it go, as interesting as some of the scanline techs people figured out were.
I actually have high hopes for this new version. I can already imagine the red light green light mode being fleshed out some more to also give SM stealth, letting her track and hunt survivors undetected. I'd imagine they could change it so that the only way to avoid being seen is to crouch. Then it could spot people on gens, people walking around, etc, and you'd really make survivors feel like they were being hunted, and that they have to hide or SM might sneak up on them. Being able to control and attack with drones sounds pretty fun. But getting aura read on the killer I feel is totally counteractive to the "stealthy, hunting and tracking you down while surveilling you" type character that Skull Merchant is, so I feel that needs to go.
I'm just gonna wait and see. I think this could be quite fun. The changes are like half a year away anyway probably, so I'll enjoy what's left of SM right now, maybe try some stealth builds with the 24m terror radius and monitor and abuse, and see what they do when her rework PTB finally comes.
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Main Trickster/Skull (HERE)
The idea of changing EVERYTHING is something I don't want since I like the way the Killers are currently made...They deserve small buffs, not a rework… create others killers to do that.
Trickster: It should stay at 4.6 and continue as is, period (a small buff would be nice)... making it 4.4 will only make the Killer more camper and bored than it already is...
Skull Merchant: Making all drones rotate at the same time when swapping rotation + 2-light return
Okay... the "GO NEXT" they'll do in the future will be to fix that. Survis should learn how to play agains Killers.
What do they want? PIG/GHOST to appear in all their games????
"Go Next" Will it be a salvation to ignore all of that from the Rework? pls…Trickster/Skull are very different cases from Freddy.
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Comes down to survivor experience, really. New players are unlikely to all be together, and even if they are, they are unfamiliar with how to play. With more experienced survivors, they are more likely to know what to do and are more likely to be playing in an swf. As a survivor, I almost entirely play solo queue since none of my friends play dbd, but I'm usually pair with 2 or 3 people playing together. As a killer, tend to get p60-p100 sweat squads all working together with synergizing perk loadouts (usually a streamer, sometimes all streaming), but keep in mind I'm a p100 killer, myself.
Just comes down to the quality of survivors the game puts you against regularly. I get 4 full man squads usually 6 out of 10 matches, usually 3 out of 10 have 2 or 3 people together, and 1 out of 10 is 4 solo queue players.
One nice thing about almost always vs swfs is sometimes they like the match enough to reach out and invite you to join them. I was ghostie vs an swf team the other day and after they invited me to hang out with their crew. Sometimes it's a positive experience.
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Disregarding the obvious "let's see how they actually play first" angle- I am breaking this into three parts, with each part being how each concern fits in the overall picture, which should hopefully come together to give the devs (Thank you for this game btw, despite the ups and downs the quality has been improving over time even if the community refuses to admit it) an idea of what someone who didn't hate skull merchant would like to see in the future.
[Warning: way too long for sane people]
The fact a majority of her power is just information makes me hesitant to give these changes the go ahead on principle. I think being able to control and attack survivors with drones is amazing to make up for that. However with the power resource and how it's described, I worry that simply keeping the power up or re maneuvering it will be more cost than benefit. If the power resource drains too quickly on your drones through movement and/or just passive loss, then using it as a "trap" is no longer an option outside of the "trapper/dredge classic" where you use your power at a pallet or window to pressure the survivor into leaving and not much else. There are already too few trap killers compared to mobility rush down maniacs, removing another one of the few trap killers remaining will just gut me inside (Freddy's new kit is great, but you aren't setting things up on your own terms anymore, making it harder to justify keeping him in the "trap" category for my personal definition. Still far better than the old version, mind you, I just no longer see him as being focused on area control).
I understand wanting the drones to not be able to totally shut down an area, but depending on how inconsistent they are after these changes you may have a dredge or Myers situation where you are stuck waiting for the "power hour" and then going back to being mediocre (I'm talking about pre-QOL changes to Myers, I haven't had a chance to play the new version enough to articulate my feelings beyond "better than before"). The area and speed of the scans will determine how useful they are on their own, and if they aren't good enough then they become useful only for throwing at a survivor when you lead them to an area (which makes my previous concerns about the longevity of the drones with the new power resource more important).
The green light red light power I worry is too easily countered, meaning you NEED to rely on your drone's ability to scan people who aren't just running (which already could give their position away without using your power, mind you). Considering I already raised concerns as to how consistent the drones on their own would be, you could imagine there would be moments where you are left without a power and nothing to do about it but wait. The sad part is I would love to recommended one of two alternatives*, but both rely on lockers protecting you from detection in general during this period- however with how map generation works, lockers would be too inconsistent for that to not hurt survivors (as a dredge player, trust me when I say it's coming from first hand experience).
(the alternatives previously mentioned are that you can be detected any time when not in a locker during the "detection" moments of the power. To balance this out crouching would either make the detection far less consistent/precise- or even just grant you some time before the detection is reported to the killer so you can find a locker to hide in)
Overall, while this direction of skull merchant isn't a deal breaker- I do feel there is A LOT on your plate to balance to keep the killer from being impotent. Info is always useful as killer, but there are plenty of perks that already give that with few caveats. Any power that tries to do the same thing as those perks need to make up for how many of them are either 1: easy to trigger- 2: Precise enough to be valuable- or 3: consistent enough at detection to be generally useful. Unfortunately Skull merchant seems to have a 3 power combo where 2 of them are just for information, each one hopefully ticking two of the boxes (which is good since all three in one power would be too strong, but only doing one of them would make it less valuable than a perk doing something similar on another killer).
I really hope it's leading to a new trap play style where you place your traps, find survivors, and corral them to your traps so they have to be forced to dodge you AND the drones (though If that IS the case, add-ons that alter the behavior of the drones during and post drone control would be REQUIRED for newer players until they get a handle on her). I'm at least glad you can control the drones directly, meaning you don't have a nemesis situation of hoping one of your zombies miraculously gets their turn with the brain cell when you need it the most. Luring survivors to their doom is the exact thing I want from a trap killer.
(The rest of this is mostly off topic, so please forgive the rambling and ignore if necessary: on the subject of nemesis zombies If you ever made a power similar to his, but you could direct the zombies to slowly wander in a direction/ a specific area, I would buy that killer with real money day one if I heard about it. The only reason I have knight and dog lady/my new main, is simply because they are the closest to what I want from nemesis' power. I don't need the zombies to be fast or strong, I just want my horde to at least be willing to listen to their master. Heck, if the copyright holder won't let you change him, feel free to make a bug based killer that does basically the same thing with "pheromones" or something. I'll probably go in depth on this idea somewhere else, but I wanted to say my piece here while I thought of it)
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This doesn't feel like Skull Merchant at all. Its just another dash killer with a Skull Merchant skin on top of it. This really feels like a bait and switch for a killer I've put a great deal of time into learning.
Taking the last real macro-play killer and changing her into just another dash killer feels like the ultimate slap in the face from Behavior
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It doesn't really help when there are some people are advocating for this change
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Beyond the fact that this is kind of scrapping (or at least minimizing) the fantasy of the drones as surveillance tools for her, this feels like she'll be extremely problematic no matter how strong she is. The factors determining whether she's weak or strong will probably be determined by three parameters: battery life, flight speed, and whether she can recall hacked drones.
The one extreme is if the drones are powerful and the she can recall hacked drones. If the drones are good in chase due to good battery life and flight speed, then she turns into a hybrid of Twins and Singularity, using Biopods that can shoot out Victor at will. She can just place the drones to surveil an area periodically until she sees someone, then hit them with it. Then, the drone can push the target into other drones to chain hits easily. If she can recall drones that are hacked, then her gameplay will boil down to the killer relying on drones for everything but hooking, and any playtime on Skully herself will be entirely to recall and replace drones.
Even in the best case scenario, where her drones are very powerful, she'll be a version of Singularity or Twins without their weaknesses. With Singularity, your network only gets you chases, which you still have to win. Granted, your power still makes you an unstoppable monstrosity who face-tanks pallets, but you still rely on your M1 to get downs. With Twins, Victor is only the final domino in a chain started with Charlotte injuring everyone. Victor rapidly downs everyone, but only if the killer was able to injure everyone first.
On the other hand, weak drones that can't chase effectively will mean the killer has no real incentive to use her power, so she'll largely just be another weak M1 killer who can occasionally get some hits with drones. If she can't recall drones for the hack duration, then they'll be even more useless.
Red Light, Green Light feels like it won't do much in a real game. Survivors will just walk or crouch walk for its entire duration. If anything, it'll make Urban Evasion more popular.
Overall, I think she'll either be a pubstomer who's a mishmash of abilities from other killers, or she'll be a really weak M1 killer with drones that can't catch anyone. I feel like she could launch really powerful, then be nerfed because of complaints. Hopefully this idea can be used as a starting point to reach a design where everyone can get some of what they want.
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My opinion is that I like healthy communication when I see it. The community's opinion towards BHVR has started to shift—and I've noticed this especially in the way that most content creators speak about the company. Bugs are still a pain point for the brand, but I've noticed a lot less BHVR-targeted anger recently. Whatever changed seems to be working and that makes me happy.
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I apologize for using Google Translate as I cannot speak English.
First off, the design of this killer is very intriguing, but it doesn't really fit the character design of the Skull Merchant. It's a great idea for a future ranged killer.
In terms of the story, the character Skull Merchant uses a drone to guide the survivors and eventually attacks them with his own weapon. This is the story described in Tome 15 and the skin text. Adriana Imai is not the type of character to kill survivors from a long distance. If the plan to turn the drone into a missile goes through, it will not fit with the story and the role-playing experience will be completely lost.
And the current Skull Merchant's performance is firmly in line with the story, and there are no unnecessary additives. The excessive defensive power of the early SM has already been reworked and gone, and the stealth drone that was hated in SM2 has already been nerfed. The current Skull Merchant has received an update that reduces the time of scan resistance and allows you to see the aura of laser lines, and is focused on laser line slaps.From the survivor's perspective, you can choose to change your chase position to avoid the laser slap, or trust your pallet stun skill and not change your location. From the Skull Merchant's perspective, you can predict the survivor's movements and where they will change their chase position, and then place your drone. You need to look down on the map and move ahead of the survivors. The undetectable status granted when you place a drone also plays a part in this psychological warfare.I think this playstyle is the best version of the Skull Merchant character to roleplay. For now, it's time to continue fine-tuning the character, not reworking him drastically. Look at the Doctor and the Demogorgon. These are characters that have been fine-tuned, not reworked. And I think they're pretty strong now.
Also, regarding the question, is it fun to play against the SkullMerchant as a survivor? This has become a completely meaningless question now. There are many people who reject the Skull Merchant just because it's a Skull Merchant. The replies on Twitter are particularly helpful. Even after the extreme nerf, there were even some ridiculous opinions like, "The Skull Merchant's undetectability is boring!". We shouldn't listen to them anymore.In the first place, since DBD is a PVP game, it is inevitable that you will feel stressed when fighting. And as mentioned above, the current Skull Merchant does not have excessive defense or stealth drones. There is no need to deal with the emotions of survivors any more.Some people say that using the Skull Merchant is boring. However, this opinion should not be taken into consideration too much. There are currently 38 killers. It may sound bad, but if you find it boring, you don't have to use it. There are 37 other attractive killers. I think that having more unique killers will lead to more variety in play styles, rather than a killer that everyone agrees with.To be honest, I'm already sick of aim-and-press-button killers. I don't feel the need to add more at the expense of removing trap-type killers.
Sorry for the long and clumsy post. I hope you will reconsider rework the SkullMerchant.
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Bro thinks the original freddy rework was bad? The power they ended up with wasn't good sure but OG Freddy was literally the worst power ever designed
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Does anyone think BHVR designs around both SWF and Solo'q?Yes. I've never heard them say anything differently, though its possible I missed a change in design philosophy.
While BHVR has a few simple metrics (kill rate), its far from the only one. I've also seen them discuss that they look at the killer through all MMR brackets, as well as the game distribution breakdowns (0es, 1es, etc.), and whether any element can cause a significant problem at any level of the game.
Basically measure magnitude vs frequency of problems to sort them into how much of a rush they are to address.
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Appreciate the insight. I would pay a hefty sum of Auric cells to peek at the list of problems they have ordered all nice and neat.
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Freddy's original power could have been gotten to a good state if they actually tried. But they didn't, and replaced him with a killer that's way less interesting in nearly every way. Did you know he was actually heavily nerfed shortly after release? Yeah, they didn't rework him because his power was 'unsalvageable' or 'the worst power ever designed'. They reworked him because they freaked out and had no idea what they were doing.
Kinda like they're doing now.
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Ok then tell me, how should they have tweaked a power with zero chase power and free aura reading to make it interesting?
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I'm not saying he didn't need SOMETHING of a rework, but a complete overhaul was a bad idea.
Anyway first you'd have to undo making the dream transition nerf that made it take six seconds for survivors to fall asleep. After that, you could give him mechanics like more lunge range or a shorter dream transition for each sleeping survivor. We don't know what would have been good because they didn't even try.
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So a killer that just had passive slowdown and an aura read was good design? Im sorry but as an og player the only good thing about the old power was it was thematic but that aside a power thats just bbq and sadakos phasing is not something to brag about.
Thematically he was awesome, seeing people get chased by an invisible force and lifted in the air and get hooked was creepy af, that aspect should be brought back imo. But the power was just bad.
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Aura reading on Drone hacks could potentially be problematic. Stealth Drones should not have their rotation speed reduced at all, either, since they only provide info and nothing else.
I'd like it if they managed to keep Claw Traps in the kit somehow, since they are kind of iconic to her kit. I'd understand if there isn't space in the design, though.
Only being Undetectable when controlling a Drone I don't like either. She should keep it when placing a Drone, as the ambush gameplay is a very fun part of her kit without being particularly unhealthy.
I like the idea of being able to control the Drones, and also the global scan. The global scan should reveal Survivors who are moving at all (not just sprinting), and working on objectives, though.
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Who would've thought punishing a killer for using their ability by giving the survivors free aura would be a bad idea?
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They're terrible. It's like they spitballed ideas, and just went with the first one. This is not going to be a functional killer if it comes to live. She will not get kills.
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Is there any reason you think aura reading is 'bad design'? Granted, I agree that the more or less completely passive, oppressive slowdown part wasn't good. That's one of the things I'd change— Again, I'm not saying he didn't need a rework.
But he ABSOLUTELY did not need the rework he GOT.
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I wish that we could all just move on from skully. She's so polarizing for no good reason imo. Chess merchant was a problem that got solved and we all could've just shut up since. But here we are…
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Anything that throws out current Skull Merchant is an improvement and I applaud BHVR for having the guts to do so.
The rework design should drop the aura read on drone disable, though. I'd also like to return her "Undetectable while within drone's radius" function. Alternatively, give her Undetectable during the Global Detection mode. Her original concept was a stealth and tracking killer and I'd like to see that reincorporated into her power design alongside the new drone attacks.
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Would it be possible to add the ability for survivors to shoot down drones (with a rock, for example)??? Or maybe come up with items like the singularity, for example. There are actually a lot of ideas. It would also be possible to add a system of double hitting a drone, the first hit slows down or immobilizes it for a while, and the second completely breaks it (if we're talking about pursuit). Because these skill checks are already boring.
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I dont like them. Because not only it pretty much removes her identity and removes our third trap killer since Hag, it also potentially brings back Chess Merchant because of the fact the drones can be placed to guard a gen and she can switching to use the drone and if she finds a survivor she will take a health state and replace the drone and this makes her drones work like Victor except you have 5 of them, and could also make her great at slugging since she can also place a drone to guard a survivor getting slugged. Sure there is a anti slug mechanic coming up but we dont know what it does and how it accomplishes that, It also makes the usual complaints of "placing drone at loop and zone" worse, cuz if the activation time where the drone can be activated is short enough that she can get a down she basically becomes worse Artist. And also there is the fact a drone in chase might be obnoxious. Sure we know its slightly faster than merchant and it has a limited time, but if its fast enough that it can catch up to a survivor it can make the battery downside meaningless and if it flies over pallets or windows it will make it Dracula's bat form that can down you. Of course we dont know if the things I listed are possible cuz we don't have the exact numbers but these are the potential problems this rework brings aside from removing any identity she has, It could even be like the Twins rework where it was such a mistake that the only way to balance it out would be to make them weak (Like Skull Merchant currently is on live) but would eventually require a FOURTH rework and thus commence the cycle again. Yes Skull Merchant did need a rework but it didnt have to be on this drastic of a change.
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Thankfully the Twins never hit live because oh my god if people already hate Twins they would HAVE hated the Rework Twins on PTB, and it would have required them to make victor kickable after he takes a health state which would have made them awful to play as.
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