Giving the Ghost Face a Little Love

WiseTraveler

The Ghostface is a beloved stealth killer in Dead by Daylight, known for being able to stalk and terrify his victims. Unfortunately, several aspects of his design make him feel unnecessarily punishing to play, and not the Stalker that he is meant to be.

Here are some aspects of the Ghostface that make him frustrating and punishing to play:

1. Lack of chase power - While Ghostface is a master of stealth in the game, he lacks any form of mobility or tools to help him close the gap on survivors. Despite successfully sneaking up on his targets, he is often forced into long, drawn-out chases, which do not reward his stealthy approach. This results in a gameplay loop that fails to emphasize his intended identity as a stalker and instead reduces him to a standard M1 killer.

2. The reveal mechanic is frustrating for both sides. At times, it can feel almost impossible for survivors to break Ghostface out of Night Shroud, while as the Ghostface, it feels like it is unavoidable from being revealed. Additionally, when survivors group up, Ghostface’s power feels effectively useless since he will be instantly revealed from any angle. Combined with his lack of Chase power, Ghostface is unable to do anything about team plays from survivors. It is to be noted that this issue typically happens around downed and hooked survivors.

3. Aspects of the Stalk meter - One of the most punishing aspects of Ghostface’s design is how hitting a survivor with an M1 attack completely erases their stalk progress. This severely limits his potential pressure later in the match, especially in situations where body-blocking survivors force him into standard attacks. As a result, Ghostface loses any advantage he may have built up, making his stalking feel less impactful in extended engagements.

Given these issues, I would like to propose solutions that could make Ghostface feel more rewarding and less punishing to play (Solution numbers correlate with the issue numbers listed above):

1. Ghostface needs some sort of boost in speed to close the gap, whether this is by giving the Ghostface's Drop-Leg Knife Sheath add-on as a full or partial addition to his base kit, it would be a great addition in letting the Ghostface close the gap between the survivor.
My other solution is giving Ghostface a permanent haste for being in shroud; thus rewarding the Ghostface for fully marking survivors to maintain shroud, since marked survivors are incapable of revealing the Ghostface. A Permanent haste would also help his lack of mobility to get around the map.
This haste percentage could range anywhere between 5-10% haste.

2. Being revealed out of the shroud is a fair mechanic, in a situation where you are surrounded. The only thing I thought that could help in this scenario is giving the ghost face the following:
When the ghostface initially activates the shroud, he has a immunity to being revealed for a short duration that could last anywhere between 3-5 seconds.

3. As mentioned before, being forced to take m1's is quite punishing since it completely removes all stalk progress, my solution is as follows:
Instead of losing 100% of the stalk meter, → lose anywhere between 33%-50% of the stalk meter when m1ing a survivor

All of these changes combined would make the Ghostface feel a lot better when it comes to interactions and scenarios where his power feels useless. Feel free to share your thoughts on how to make the Ghostface not feel so helpless in chase and in certain scenarios. Thanks for your time, and I hope you all have a great day!