Skull Merchant Design Preview feedback (from an SM main)

curiousTerminal

Hoping to stay constructive here, but I'm not gonna lie I am fairly upset. Again.

First off, I've enjoyed most iterations of Skull Merchant, barring patch 8.3.0 and onward. I'll refer to them as follows throughout this post: 1.0 is the infamous release 3gen defender, 1.5 being the minor rework she received to prevent this playstyle, 2.0 being her first full rework, and 2.5 being the current massively nerfed state she's in now.

1.0 had to go. That much is clear. I don't know of anyone who played her because they liked the power (and not to 3gen until survivors gave up) who was sad to see it changed. 1.5 saw people using her addons to grant haste and hinder in the drone AoE to play "chase merchant" which was clearly the inspiration for 2.0's movement speed tweaking as a major facet of the ability. I liked 1.5 quite a bit, but it wasn't there yet.I enjoyed all of these versions to a degree, but none so much as 2.0. And 2.0 had its issues. From my perspective, the biggest issue with 2.0 was the inability for survivors to keep track of Merchant's current power state (and thus, her move speed) and the punishment that they could receive from the killer for the mistake of a teammate across the map.

It is expected for a survivor to be in danger if their teammates make a mistake, however that usually comes in the form of that survivor being in proximity to the killer and their current target. With Merchant 2.0, a survivor getting scanned on one side of the map creates an immediate boost in the killer's power that is largely invisible to the survivor she is targeting on the other. There are a number of ways you can mitigate this issue, only one of which has been tried. (making haste not tied to tracking on the radar but instead based on active use of the drones)

In lieu of trying further to emphasize her 2.0 identity as a trap killer with stealth elements, while toning down the parts of her kit that create unique friction with survivors, the proposed rework has changed her into Dead By Daylight's 20th or so killer with some kind of dash. If I wanted to play a dash killer, I would play a dash killer, there's certainly no shortage. If I wanted to play a killer who remotely controls their power and lunges toward survivors to injure, I would play Twins. If I wanted to play a killer with surveillance cameras I look through directly, I would play Singularity. I want to play Skull Merchant. And these changes are not Skull Merchant. She is an utterly unique killer with a skillset all to her own. One of three trap killers, and the only one with stealth. She rewards macro play with map knowledge and proper placement of her ability, and she has viability in the micro of chase. Please don't remove a killer with such a unique identity to the game simply because trap killers are unpopular.

Assuming now that the cries of her fans do fall on deaf ears, and this design goes through I have further critiques on it as its own thing. I don't like it much in general but that can easily be solved here at the drawing board, and I think it has the bones of a neat design for a future killer (NOT a rework for Skully)

Placing a drone to take control of it later, pilot it around a little, and then use it to injure a survivor is a cool concept, however the way it's been described leaves it feeling like a combination of Singularity and Twins, while less than both of them.Having a limit on the amount of time you spend controlling a drone feels to me as though it will feel fairly stifling and encourage use of them less as information and more as an in-chase damage tool. Singularity is not confined to a time limit, and use of his power for info over prolonged periods of time without survivor engagement is actively bad. Drone Power feels as though it will be a Hillbilly Overheat situation: Either it's oppressive and punishing and disincentives use of your power, or it may as well not even be there.

Only being able to use the propulsion one time before the drone is destroyed also sounds incredibly punishing. Victor gets multiple pounces if the survivors don't react to him in time; Huntress gets multiple hatchets to try, try again; Xenomorph gets infinite use of her tail. Missing a propulsion hit, losing the drone, and requiring you to set it back up and wait for it to be active again is a HUGE list of punishments for having already whiffed your attack.

The hacking...I genuinely don't know why that needed to be changed. A good Skull Merchant already knows where and when a drone was hacked if she's paying attention (and she should be if you want to raise her skill floor) so the Killer Instinct alerting you to a failed hack is unnecessary. Rewarding the survivor with aura reading on the killer is an insane power disparity. The survivor is more rewarded for using the power than the killer is!Red Light Green Light is an awful idea. Being given free to-the-square-inch info on survivor whereabouts unless they fully halt for an unspecified amount of time sounds so frustrating to play against I cannot believe it was suggested in the same design document that starts off with "we want the killer to not be frustrating as a survivor"

And now I get to the parts that irk me on a personal level instead of from a game design level.

This rework is not for Skull merchant players. It is for survivors who do not and will never like her.

From the opening lines of the post, it is clear that the feelings of existing fans of this killer have been put aside. "this may be difficult for long time skull merchant fans to hear" is a hell of a bad foot to start off on, and every new paragraph only reinforced it. I am, frankly, insulted. My favorite killer in the game has been gutted into a shell of her former self, pending a rework into an entirely unrecognizable character. It's not the first time this has happened, either! I have a knack for picking killers that are generally unpopular, and I really enjoyed Trickster. Unfortunately his rework, which was intended to address survivor pains and make him more broadly appealing, did not do either of those things. He went from an M2 damaging range killer to an M1 killer with a zoning tool and frankly incredible tunneling capabilities. And to hear that the developers have decided not to walk back the changes that made his former players upset?

Well. It's indicative of a pattern of BeHaviour, let's say.

The survey is a further slap in the face. It is overly concerned with how survivors feel about playing against a hypothetical killer who does not exist, as opposed to asking the people who play the killer what they think.I'm gonna be real here. I don't expect this post to be taken seriously by the development team. I start off with "i like skull merchant" and it's crystal clear that my opinions on the Skull Merchant don't matter. I'm mostly posting so that I can say that I at least tried to keep her in the game.