Skull Merchant - Embracing the change, but changes needed

UndeddJester · May 1

I am sad to see Skull Merchant 2.0 given up on, but after taking some time to accept it, I am a little more optimistic.

The new drones made me think of a relatively unknown gem of a game called Receiver, a game that gave you a gun and a bunch of tapes to find. There were drones that flew at you kamikaze style and tried to kill you, and they were quite intimidating (the gun was hyper realistic and you had to control everything about it, reloading required you to pull the magazine out, drop it, grab a new one, insert it, and pull back the slide to chamber the first round). Fumbling to reload your gun while this thing runs at you was quite the rush, and hopefully Skully's drones can manage the same thing.

With that in mind, let's look at this new Skull Merchant preview 2 version and genuinely try to address the issues that ahe seems to have.

The TLDR version

Make drone scan zones invisible when not within a zone. Only reveal when crouching or standing inside the zone.
Make Global Detection apply to Conspicuous Actions and give a very short reaction time, and have the effect linger.
Make claw traps permanent until downed or removed. Make self removal of a claw trap take significant time (20-24s to self remove, 10-12s to altruistically remove). EDIT2: Perhaps make claw traps permanent until healed or downed?
Survivors need a reason to heal. (Still working on this one)... EDIT: As a cheap fix... no post drone hit movement speed boost if injured.

Drone Scan Zones

Problem: Visible scan lines makes it far too easy to see her drones and disable them.

These MUST be invisible. I understood it that the scan lines were gone and replaced by zones, I'm guessing a cone or pyramid coming from the drone. These zones WERE invisible, but now are visible, providing a visual cue that the bottom half is not scanned to highlight crouching as a counter....

While the principle of this is fine, the problem is they become super obvious, so survivors just walk up and disable her drones. No survivor is ever gonna run into them, not even round corners. It'd be like having a neon light show attached to Trapper's traps.

Suggestion: So instead make the scan zones invisible... then only reveal them to a player is actually within the the zone (crouched/standing/running, whatever). It would look pretty cool if you can see the zone manifest and demanifest as it passes over your head.

Global Scan

Problem: Far too easy to avoid, and not great returns even if Survivors fall for it.

This reminds me a lot of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre global reveal ability on Grandpa. The issue with this is this is highly telegraphed and something survivors can simply stop what they're doing to avoid. This works in TCM because time to kill is much shorter and the counter to the family primarily is remaining undetected as much as possible.

DBD isnt quite of the same cloth, survivors have much more ability to run and loop than TCM so this limitation makes less sense. It can only really work at catching someone running towards a hook or if you want it in chase to have your radar on someone who isn't claw trapped.

Suggestion: The only way this ability could made to do actual work to my mind is if it also applied to performing conspicuous actions and the warning is very short. Short enough that trying to complete a heal, or getting a badly timed skillcheck would ruin your day. If ever detected, have the effect kinger for an extend amount of time.

This would expand its usage beyond just trying to spot someone running towards an unhook or as a weak chase support tool.

Claw Trap Removal

Problem: Skull Merchant cannot use her drone dart without a claw trap, and applying a claw trap requires landing a drone hit. Why not just stay injured?

This seems a strange addition, since for Skull Merchant to be able to use her attack drone she needs a claw trap first. Since her drones can't down, not healing against her makes a significant portion of her power moot.

It also dimishes her ability to tag someone with a drone from afar and then book across the map to capitalise on a hit. If the claw trap is permanent and the time to remove a claw trap is reasonably long, (like 24s) this might be OK... but if it's like 12s or whatever, then it's kinda pointless. This might be good for altruism.

Suggestion: Claw traps are permanent until removed. 20-24s to self remove, 10-12s for a teammate to remove.

Conclusion and other thoughts

I'm wondering how easy it'll be to deploy and use a drone in chase. Since the EMP dart does nothing until Survivor is Claw Trapped, being able to do this reasonably easy is important.

If it isn't, the EMP dart is going to need some kind of secondary, non-claw trapped effect to discourage just not healing vs. Skull Merchant. Still trying to think what, but it's something to lend brain matter to....

I'm also trying to think of a different name for the EMP dart, since an EMP is meant to disable electronics... it seems bizarre/illogical it can injure. The dart and Claw Trap are effectively 2 pieces of some kind of injury mechanic, like a kill code dart... it implies that Skull Merchant does this deliberately to play with her food instead of being outright efficient...

As I say, I'm sad to see SM 2.0 go, but this new version might be fine IF some of these issues are ironed out.

UndeddJester · May 2

As an Addendum thought to the Claw Trap Removal...

Claw Trap Removal 2.0

Instead of having to remove the claw trap and being broken while its attached... How would we feel about the Claw Trap is just permanently attached until healed or downed? Since she has to set up a drone, then successfully hit you with it to access the rest of her kit, this seems like a decent effect to warrant it's use. (Insert mandatory Mangled/Haemorrhage add-ons).

That gives a strong reason to heal vs. Skull Merchant, feeds into her "always watching" lore, and gives her unique tactile strategies on deciding on if she wants to cash in a claw trap, or save it for later.

It gives her elements a bit like Pig, where she can create scenarios where she knows that specific injured survivors can't come for unhooks and alike, as they can't surprise her, meaning other survivors have to make the move instead.

Things like this gives her more macro control, which she feels like she should be good at as a surveillance killer. That might work as a direction for her power/unique traits...