http://dbd.game/killswitch
The First - Killer Power Feedback
Comments
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after some thinking, I wanna say I like how First is a 110 killer, heavy m2. I am a heavy m1 killer traditionally but I play on console. I used to enjoy Trickster before his rework when he was 110, I enjoyed heavily relying on the power.
I'm glad First isn't 115, not because that sounds OP but I don't want to be encouraged to zone with his power.
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After playing for a few days, I really really feel that First might be one of the most balanced Killers made on PTB.
If I had to change anything, I would actually consider making him 4.3 m/s instead of 4.4 m/s just to nerf his zoning potential, but he's incredibly fun and satisfying to play as.
Playing against him is INCREDIBLY cinematic, as the world blows up around you. I think the "spammability" of the power is fine, because he loses plenty distance while charging the Attack and it gives Survivors something to react to constantly, which is exhilarating and thrilling.
Plus, playing as First, it is INCREDIBLY satisfying to make things blow up all the time! It feels so good and fun, it feels like you are truly "breaking the world apart."
There's honestly nothing more exciting than when I'm going against a First and I'm on death hook and one hit more will result in my instant unavoidable death.
As many have mentioned, he certainly breaks conventional power expectations, which I LOVE, but due to this his first impressions for many are going to be that he's too strong because most players aren't used to countering Killers in this playstyle.
I don't he is too strong and I don't think this is a bad thing, I think it's going to take time for people getting used to.
It is difficult to avoid him in Worldbreaker mode, but not impossible. In a way very similar to Nurse. You just have to keep out-predicting each other, and that is fun. This difficult-to-dodge mode is gatekept by having a difficult-to-hit Vine Attack when Worldbreaker is not active.
I've really just gotta commend the team on making a new type of power that feels so good and has me very excited to master! I feel like we haven't truly had a new type of power since Singularity's camera-based gameplay, and this is very refreshing and exciting.
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The First, or The First’s power, is interesting, to say the least. Having played as him and against him, I think a few things are worth tweaking or at least bringing to attention. Here are my current thoughts on the Vine Attack, Undergate, World Breaker and lastly, add-ons.
Vine Attack
First and foremost, Vine Attack is visually appealing and adds a unique element to the attack. The aim graphic is handy, as it clearly indicates where the attack should hit, which could help both new and experienced players learning or use the killer for the first time. However, there is a significant issue with this attack, and I am very concerned that lessons haven’t been learned from the Krasue release. Cooldown. Cooldown is very important for a strong killer. We had an issue with the Krasue: there was no cooldown, so she was miserable to play against. I fear this may be a repeat issue here.
In terms of Cooldown, there is a tiny Cooldown right now, and that simply isn’t enough. As The First, I can fire, and fire and fire my attack as many times as I want. If I miss it, it doesn’t matter because the survivor isn’t going anywhere, especially if we are at a weaker loop. They can’t do anything about it. I can hold them there until I get that hit. Simply put, I am not getting punished for missing. Looking at other killers in a similar vein, IE, Projectiles, the Dark Lord has approximately 10 seconds of cooldown per hellfire, hit or miss. The Nightmare has a 6-second cooldown for a dream snare (a non-damaging action), and the Animatronic has an 8.5-second cooldown. Even Krause has a 3-second cooldown now for regurgitate (a non-damaging action) – which many still may argue isn’t enough. So, The First having a 3-second cooldown on a damaging action is a little unbalanced. Perhaps upping this to 6 seconds, equal to the Nightmare’s cooldown for a dream snare, would feel far more balanced, while keeping him a stronger killer in terms of cooldown compared to the Dark Lord or the Animatronic.
Furthermore, while the audio notification is great, it doesn’t cover all bases. For example, many players rely on the visual side of the game (and the visual heartbeat was one of the best inclusivity additions, no doubt about that). It would be nice if there were an additional visual cue before the attack strikes. If I recall, it is 0.6 seconds before the attack lands. Now, because this killer and attacker can attack through walls, like the Executioner, he should have some form of visual warning. Perhaps upping the attack time to 0.8 seconds with 0.3 seconds of visual cue. This gives everyone the opportunity to move to the outer ring of the attack and potentially avoid injury without penalising the killer too heavily.
Undergate
On the other hand, Undergate seems to have the opposite problem. I can see the Break Addon reducing cooldown becoming a fundamental part of some players’ builds. 35 seconds of cooldown is far too much and is often painful to wait out, especially if you miss the attack. Again, comparing The First to a killer in the same vein, the Dark Lord's maximum cooldown (in Wolf Form) is 20 seconds. While I do agree that 20 seconds is far too short for such a powerful ability, like Undergate, which can damage multiple survivors over a large radius, dropping it to 30 seconds would feel far more reasonable. It could even be argued that 27 or 28 seconds is reasonable. Especially given the final part of World Breaker is a minute. Therefore, this would allow you to use your ability twice in the final stage of World Breaker.
I think the traversal speed isn’t too much of an issue as of yet, and the attacks are able to be dodged by the survivor, which feels far fairer compared to Vine Attack. I also like that, as a survivor, an underground The First cannot just cruise over pallets like a certain other killer (Cough, Ghoul, Cough), and he does get penalised to some extent for it. Although it would be nice if this were a little heftier, I understand that doing so would risk removing a significant element of the Undergate’s power. I think the ability to go underneath breakable doors is also interesting, as it is unique. I wonder if it would be possible to send a notification that he has done so for both a pallet and a door. Again, perhaps this is a tangent or a bit of wishful thinking, but it could add some creepiness if you heard a creak or a crunch somewhere (almost like the Wraith’s Bone Clapper).
My biggest concern with Undergate is that it is fantastic at tunnelling, no pun intended. With all the recent efforts to reduce camping and tunnelling, the last thing needed is a killer that could undo much of that effort. What do I mean by this? Well, an Undergate attack can force a survivor into mend off hook, and with the current state of Vine Attack, that unhooked survivor and the unhooked are both at risk of easily going down. I recently saw something similar with the Nightmare and Dream Pallets next to a hook. It was disconcerting to say the least.
While I do understand Tunnelling and to a lesser extent Camping are necessary, and I have done a bit of the old tunnel-tech myself on occasion, it should still have to be worked for. You shouldn’t be able to go, “Right, I want Bill,” (for example), “out of the game.” Hook him. Undergate him and the Unhooking Survivor into Vine Attack. Boom. Instantly re-hooked. There should be some effort in the matter. There should always be that question of whether it is worth the effort of tunnelling that survivor out. As things stand, no effort is required. This issue is most prevalent in corners of a map and on basement stairs. On some maps, it is unbelievably rough to get out of the basement as is (such as Temple of Purgation and The Game); therefore, similar to how certain other killers are unable to use their powers on stairs, this should also potentially apply to The First, as he is a strong killer.
World Breaker
Regarding World Breaker, the visuals are stunning and well-made for the most part. I also like the fact that to counter the power, there is an interaction with clocks. It feels relatively lore accurate and is always fun to do. However, like I have seen others say, and I agree with, there needs to be some form of way to reduce the world breaker build-up on the survivor. While it doesn’t seem like a significant thing in itself, World Breaker constantly triggering without any counter to it can be rather frustrating in itself. And I agree with a few of the comments I have seen that the reduction of World Breaker on a survivor should be achieved through interaction with a clock. Thus, removing World Breaker itself is a passive slowdown effect. Furthermore, World Breaker removal should be able to remove all World Breaker notches on a survivor. However, the more notches you have, the longer it takes. For example, interacting with a clock without any notches incurs a 0% penalty; one notch incurs a 2.5% penalty, two a 5% penalty, three a 7.5% penalty, and four a 10% penalty. This would create a tactical gameplay for survivors, IE, do we/don’t we, with less painful outcomes compared to the Plague, while adding an increase in interactivity with the clocks.
Lastly, it feels like the final stage of World Breaker lasts slightly too long, but that may be because World Breaker is constantly active at the moment, as noted above. This is more of a point of awareness rather than a direct critique or anything
Add-ons
The Stained-Glass Mural I mentioned above is an add-on that may end up being used a lot, given the cooldown is quite long. As it is, it is fine, I guess; there isn’t much else to really say about it.
The Shattered Wrist Rocket has a cool concept. I am just concerned that this could put perks on the blasts. For example, inflicting a gen with overcharge as a result of it being caught in the blast. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to ask someone in a custom match if this is indeed the case. If not, it is a minor annoyance for the survivor, but it isn’t the most frustrating of addons, unless you end up with one of those natural spawning three gens on the swamp. In which case, it becomes a moderate annoyance.
The Orderly ID is an add-on, I think needs some sort of trade-off. 2 metres doesn’t seem like much, but given the current state of Vine Attack, 2 metres is incredibly effective. Especially on maps like Midwich or Hawkins, where corridors are prevalent.
The Bead Maze seems like an alright addon. While my concerns about World Breaker’s time active are already stated, I don’t think this addon is awful. It seems fair and a reasonable brown addon for the killer.
The Smashed Cassett Deck is an interesting addon for sure. I think that it is a pretty cool trade-off. As the First, I can force survivors into World Breaker earlier, but at the same time, my second World Breaker could be harder to obtain. This addon feels like it would benefit more experienced players with this killer for sure, as they’d be able to make up for the lost token rather quickly. Furthermore, I think the loss of a Grandfather Clock is reasonable, as long as they remain spread out and not in the same corner of the map.
The Mid-Century Radio is a pretty fun addon. It is, by all accounts, information. And information is valuable to a killer. It is pretty easy to interrupt a survivor on the clock with this, and that’s fantastic. The range seems fair, given the average map sizes these days.
The Gutted Supercom is another Aura Addon, and I do like this one as well. It rewards injuring a survivor with information that helps shorten the chase. Although my concerns regarding Vine Attack have been stated above, I do think this is a fair add-on.
The Clock Hands are one of my favourite add-ons so far. You see, I love stealth plays, facing and playing as. The fact that Oblivious can be put on a survivor on an indoor map adds to the jump scare factor. Imagine waiting for someone who has just done a clock, and delivering that basic attack. Absolutely fantastic.
The Bloodied Roller Skate seems a fair add-on. It removes the slowdown from the emergence from the Undergate attack, and that just puts the First on par with most killers after delivering an attack to someone. Or at least that’s how it feels.
Victor’s Razor Blade is a curious addon. While I’d personally never use this addon, as injured survivors who can’t heal do generators, it seems fine. I don’t really have much else to say about it. It reminds me of Singularity’s old Nano-Gel add-on, which was alright. Not the best, not the worst, just existing.
The Rabbit Remains seems to be an alright addon. Perhaps the exhausted timer is a little too high, but then again, a lot of players I’ve gone against are running Vigil, so perhaps it isn’t too far from where it needs to be. Perhaps dropping it to 15 seconds would be slightly better. This addon definitely seems to be a direct counter to a perk like Overcome, which just won’t activate at all if struck with Undergate with this addon. Whereas other exhaustion perks may be recovered.
The Neck Tendril just comes across as a very standard addon for Killer. Nothing special about it. I swear every killer has an addon near enough that gives them haemorrhage and mangled, so fair enough. Maybe it should be a tier-two add-on, not a tier-three. Maybe switch with the Roller Skates' rarity.
The Forged Death Certificate can be a fun add-on. Again, a stealth addon, but at the same time, the Clock hands could be seen as better. Very playstyle dependent. When I went against a The First using this and a variety of other stealth perks it was pretty fun.
The Electrode Cap gave me the same frustrations that Rat Poison used to for Chucky, however, I am pleasantly surprised by it. It is limited to the last portion of World Breaker, which is somewhat of a relief. However, as World Breaker lasts for a while, it will be interesting to see the long-term effects of this addon. Furthermore, I am glad it seems to target survivors who are attempting to hide rather than interact with gameplay. These survivors are incredibly frustrating to play against and alongside. However, I wonder whether this will be rendered largely useless on certain Maps.
The Pizza Goggles are an add-on I really like, and I feel like they have both meme and serious value. The fact that there is such a great trade-off between precision and power makes clear how skill should be distributed.
The Electroshock collar is interesting in concept, but I do have my reservations. This is just Claustrophobia. And, if I am being honest, the addon itself isn’t actually that great. It isn’t great because, given the state Vine Attack is in, going over a vault as a survivor is a hit. So why would you block a window which is a hit? It feels a little wobbly because of that, and may need a reconsideration.
The Broken Skateboard is a great addon. This also leans into the meme builds as well as fun builds. Vault speed Shape is somewhat hilariously terrifying, and Vault Speed First is equally as terrifying and funny to go against. Therefore, this seems interesting and could lead to some fun gameplay interactions.
The Black Widow Spider addon is just an upgrade of the Electrode Cap. And thus, I have nothing more to say about it, really.
The Iridescent Soteria Chip is my favourite addon for this killer. I think stealth and scaring others are incredibly fun aspects of the game that people can lean into, and while slightly less conventional, they do have an effect and can leave people laughing afterwards. That’s what a game should be: fun. I think the aura reveal range is fine. It is a reasonable distance; one could perhaps argue it should be 15 metres rather than 12, but I suppose, given its undetectable status, 12 metres is valid. The counter of it ending once an attack is made, etc, is a tried method, as, if I recall, that is how Trail of Torment used to work.
Lastly, the Chess Piece is an interesting addon. I do see why this could be a more fun add-on than some of the others to some extent, as it allows skill expression. However, there needs to be a way to stop the Killer from placing them next to each other. Otherwise, what’s the point of this add-on? It creates a far more unavoidable area for an attack that can be very difficult to deal with, as it is for the reasons above.
These are my thoughts on the killer, based on playing against him and playing as him. He does have the potential to be a fun killer to play as and against. But let’s be brutally honest for a moment, we want to avoid another situation where a killer ends up extremely overtuned going into live like Ghoul, like Krasue. It is very important to the health of the game that this be avoided, especially when, as with the Animtronic release, the addition of Stranger Things Part 2 brings new players to the game. We want this to be fun on both sides.
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Aside from my previously stated concerns about controller, which is unavoidable at this point, I'm actually pretty happy with how this power design turned out. It's not as directly derivative as some of the other designs in the past few years, it seems like a lot of thought was put into the fine tuning of its individual elements, and it all comes together in a way that makes it feel complete with no particular redundancies. Maybe a few tweaks can be made here or there regarding coodowns (I think the upside down/undergate cooldown is a bit long for what it is, and some people (not me, I think the cadence is great) seem to want the vine attack cooldown to be extended), but that's neither here nor there. The actual readability/reactability with regards to his powers is in a great spot (sans dealing with ping on the undergate attack) on both sides.
I think this design's only real failing is not a failing necessarily of its own merit, but of the game itself, and that failing is directly tied to the fact that the survivor role's main means of defense has not meaningfully changed in years.
We're still relegated to dealing primarily with pallets, windows, and moving erratically on a (mostly) 2D plane, and in that regard this design heavily leans into favoring the "moving erratically and making distance" category when it comes to countering it. There is some tricky mindgame stuff to be done around pallets/windows, but it's moreso up to the killer to be impatient and fail than it is the survivor to succeed, thus it's usually in the survivors' best interest to essentially avoid interacting with the killer & other aforementioned game mechanics altogether. Which isn't great, but again, it's not really the killer design's fault that the game is the way it is.
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Seems to me that the active power is pretty excellently designed. It's very telegraphed and reactable, but it has a short cooldown so the killer can throw it at you many times while in range, which makes it super hectic, but you always need to make a read on whether the player is going to hold the attack or if he's going to fire it instantly, or if he's going to anticipate you running back or strafing. As the killer, because you are not punished with a long cooldown, you can go for cool shots, instead of just going for guaranteed hits, but since the power is so telegraphed and precise, you can't do it mindlessly or you'll just hinder yourself. Pretty good. Ship it as is, except for one thing. Maybe make it so you can only hold the power for a few seconds, kinda like Kaneki's second/third leap, you have a limited time window to either cancel or commit to the shot. That way you can't just hold it forever to zone survivors, but survivor's don't know exactly when you will choose to fire or cancel.
The map traversal power AOE is great. It's precise, and if survivors are good at misdirection they can consistently avoid damage. However the cooldown is a bit long. Maybe make it shorter so you have access to it more often, I'd say you could give it a similar cooldown to Fly from The Lich and it still wouldn't be OP. That way it can be used as an effective traversal tool, that only on occasion can actually damage someone, if you make the absolute correct read and they don't have a sprint burst ready.
Overall great design, hard to master, if survivors are good, they can make you waste a lot of time. Holding W is a bit strong against him, which maybe is necessary given his strong chase. I'm never a fan of killers being too weak to prerunning and holding W, but I'd say make no changes to the Upside Down power other than a lower cooldown until we see how he performs when survivors know how to counter him more.
Sound design of the killer is fantastic. Oh one more thing about sound design, maybe make the killer let out a grunt or some other sound cue when he cancels his Vine Attack. Just to give a bit more info as it is very hard to tell from the survivor POV when he cancels.Post edited by NekoTorvic on2 -
Personal opinion:
M2 needs a longer cooldown to make it less spammy. Up it to 3.5 seconds or so (up from 2 seconds).
Undergate is fine as it is, as it requires precision to catch the survivor in it. Could shave off like 5 seconds of the total cooldown for the traversal power though.But overall a very WELL designed killer, aesthetically, sound-wise and his power all together. Nice TR theme, and chase music too. Tiny nitpick is that his TR is a bit quiet compared to the chase theme.
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Well, this killer can be too punishing for new players and god tier in right hands.
If you miss your undergate attacks and the vine attacks then you're screwed, but if you manage to perfectly hit those attacks on survivors then you're unstoppable monster. This is really interesting killer that can be both too weak or too op depending on player's skills
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Survivors especially newer players do deserve a bit of breathing room. The vine attack is dodgeable, but the 3 second cooldown can feel overwhelming when you’re still learning spacing and timing. middle ground cd for the vine attack like from 3 to 4-5 seconds keeps the power fun for killers as it still frequent used, more time for survivors to reposition and less overwhelming for new survivors. Or just keep it as it is since its not really a big deal. What would be a big problem if the vine attack goes through with a high cd like 6-8 seconds. I feel like the pick rate would lower a lot if they push the cd to high. It would also prevent skillful interaction since killers will stop taking risk and only use the power for zoning and guaranteed hits. Which removes the fun interaction on both sides. Kind of makes me feel why BHVR made the cd short, to encourage skill shots, not zoning. If they nerf it too hard, Vecna becomes another boring zoning killer. Vecna’s secondary ability also feels good for zoning. The only minor tweak I’d suggest is making the hit register slightly faster, since sometimes you can place it directly under a survivor and it barely hits. His passive ability is also fine. If anything, the clock could tick a little faster for less slugging, but it’s nowhere near problematic compared to Nurse or other killers who can slug effortlessly.
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Cave17Plays, 5-6 seconds would be great! BHVR just gotta make sure its not to high or he's just another boring zoning killer.
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5-6 seconds would be already too much for power that doesn't even injure all the time. I think it would be fine during the worldbreaker event at 5 seconds.
It definetly needs to be lower when it just gives tokens.1 -
This is where I'd have to disagree, as this is the standard cooldown for The Nightmare for Dream Snares, which don't do any damage at all. And similarly to The Nightmare, the ability here pushes closer to his power being achieved. Therefore, the logic is that 6 seconds would be fair enough for an attack that may have no direct Line of Sight (removing the visual cue) and can still do damage. With this in consideration, we also have to mention the Nurse, who can also deliver damage (to some extent as blinking onto a survivor) without Line of Sight. The Nurse has a 3-second cooldown per charge, so around 6 seconds total, plus fatigue time (which is more information time).
Therefore, I believe 6 seconds, with reduction to 4-5 seconds in World Breaker would be reasonable for the First.
Edit: As a fair few people seem to be downvoting this, would anyone mind explaining with numbers why they disagree? It is important to discuss these things after all.
Post edited by Cave17Plays on-2 -
Very much agreed it's a new kind of Nurse instead of a Teleporting Nurse that ignores the survivor gameplay mechanics, Looping and using Pallets and Vaults The First is a Ranged attack Nurse that ignores Survivor gameplay mechanics and like facing a decent nurse it's gonna get miserable to play against fast
imagine a Huntress if her hatchets phased through objects that's this Killer rn
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This killer is going to be a snooze fest to face against, as you can't do anything against him. No looping, vaulting, pallet stuns, not even body blocking for protection hits. The only thing you can do is hold w, and pray that they can't hit with an AoE and not have a full aura reading build. otherwise, you can't win. If that's the case, then the best thing to do is die in comp corner…Just like Nurse, which we all know is so fun to go against.
Their m2 needs some sort of delay, longer cool down, and or bigger punishment for missing. At the moment, he's just Nurse with the Plaid Flannel addon (lets you see where you're blinking), with no fatigue. You don't want another Nurse in the game. The one is a big enough problem already.-3 -
Dream Snares has that cd because they’re zoning tools. Vecna’s vine attack is different, it’s a skill shot that requires timing, prediction, and accuracy. So I actually agree that 6 seconds is fine as an upper limit. My only concern is that people might go far and push BHVR into nerfing it to something extreme like 10 seconds, which would be too much. Missing a vine shot is already punishing because survivors gain a ton of distance. If the cd gets pushed too high, Vecna becomes terrible in chase. Killers would stop taking risks and only use the power for guaranteed hits, and then he turns into just another boring zoning killer.
I really hope they don’t go beyond 6 seconds. If Nurse can have a 6 second cd on her blinks, I don’t see why Vecna can’t have something similar for a skill shot ability that requires way more precision.
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The First is probably the 2nd most miserable Killer to go against when the person playing them is actually competent.
I can easily steamroll as him, and almost every match going against him my team gets steamrolled. and I'm going to go over some things I've noticed playing as, and against the First.
Just Quick referenceAbility/power = Vine attackHis power is just too spammy.
Currently, it technically has 0 cooldown. The only thing stopping the player from recasting is the "cooldown" animation after using/canceling the power.
There is no time to react to the audible warning.
I see people complaining about not being able to visually react to his vines, however I personally disagree. The counterplay should definitely be about predicting where he places it, and not reacting to it.
However… Survivor's should definitely be able to react to the audible warning from his power so they know they need to start predicting his vine attacks. Currently, his power makes a low pitched rumble followed by a high pitched screeched, and its the high pitched screeched survivors should be reacting to. its impossible to hear the low rumble during a chase due to distance and being drowned out by chase music. But as it stands, The First can instantly place his power when the high pitched screech is audible, which I strongly disagree with.
What I'd change
Vine Attack Rework
- Vine Attack has 2-3 Charges which allows The First to cast 2-3 vine attacks back to back (Similar to his Iri)
- Replenish 1 Charge every 8 seconds
- Slightly decrease his Vine Attack AoE by 8%-15%
- The First can cancel his Vine Attacks and keep his remaining Charges by releasing M2
- Vine Attack cannot be used again until all Charges have been replenished (Just like Blight's Power)
- Slight delay when The First can use his Vine attacks by 0.2s - 0.4s so Survivors can react to the high pitched audio queue and prepare to predict his attacks
- Increase movement when preparing Vine Attacks
- Decrease movement/increase duration when ending Vine Attacks
Misc Feedback (Unreleated to his power)
- The First is too much of a yapper
- His Very Rare skin still uses default voicelines from Survivor POV
- The First sounds too much like Springtrap.
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It's not like Nightmare has only snares to use against survivors, he basically has two powers. Also he doesn't always need to even use his snares to put survivors into dream world, it's passive thing.
Also with snares hitbox they are easier to hit. His snares are slowdown with duration, if he had lower cooldown it would mean survivor is just going to be slowed until you M1 them. That's not really the case with The First.
Also Freddy is 115% killer…The Nurse has a 3-second cooldown per charge
How would that be fair that Nurse with two tokens, where she can do correction blink for damage and it gets her closer to a survivor would be the same cooldown?
If The First miss his power, he loses distance. That's not always the case for Nurse unless she overblinks a lot. Even without information perks and LoS, it's also less risky for her, because she blinks to last location of survivor and then do correction blink.If you increase The First cooldown too much, his vine attack becomes way more risky to use, where only result is going to be, you will get walked down like a dog by The First holding his power. That's just never fun for anybody.
Sure, I can see slight increase during worldbreaker, where it is threatening. But I think it will be better if you let The First spam his power for worldbreaker tokens. It's not that easy to hit and there is clear sound notification for survivor.
Hold W works great against The First, so he simply should be threatening when you are in his range.2 -
Does everyone remember that people demanded so many nerfs for Krasue, that she was nerfed so badly that her pick rate went way below average even though she was the newest killer? After the last time she was nerfed, I think I've seen her a grand total of 2 times in public matches, because she is now so clunky that most killers don't want to play her anymore.
Because it looks like we are in danger of that happening to this killer too. This killer has garbage chase mobility and the first 2 M2 hits don't do any damage. But some of the suggestion on these forums really would make this killer beyond clunky. Can we really have two chapters in a row, where the newest killer has way below average pick rate?
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The people demanding nerfs do not care.
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Question: Why are there no changes to the demogorgon? since almost nobody plays him, he is powercrept by newer killers and he feels kinda forgotten. (yes i know that here i am suppose to talk about Vecna but say in one word: PERFECT doesn"t need any changes people just need to learn how play as and against him. He is super fun, best designed killer in years)
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Krasue isn't weak, she's just boring to play and recall that she was unnecessarily buffed PTB to live. The only reason she was played so much on launch was due to how incredibly overpowered she was. Once that went away people realized how little there really was to her power and gameplay. People love to claim that she was perceived as weak because of the other changes on those PTBs but I don't buy that even a little, she was quite obviously strong (I'm only including this line because I know someone is going to bring up those changes and make this claim).
I see just as many people in this thread calling the new killer weak (you included) as I see asking for nerfs and calling him fine as is.
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agree
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The newest killer is always supposed to have a really good pick rate, because it's the newest killer. Players are supposed to get hyped up about new killers, and want to buy them so they can play as them.
From a financial standpoint, it's bad when the newest killer has a really bad pick rate, because it sends the message that players shouldn't spend money on the newest killer, because it might get nerfed so badly that players will literally never want to play as them.
It doesn't matter if Krasue is strong or weak. What matters is the percentage of players that decided they literally don't want to play as her, even though she is the newest killer. Krasue's chapter is a big failure, because the devs failed to make a killer that people wanted to play as, and they couldn't figure out how to nerf her and keep her popular at the same time.
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The single greatest thing this or any game can do from a financial standpoint is to create a healthy game. Releasing a character in an overpowered state and then nerfing them is a recipe for bad feelings and worse financial outcomes if it becomes an expected pattern. Long term profitability is better served by creating something fun and balanced than releasing overpowered characters and then bringing them down to a reasonable level.
My point on Krasue is that her nerfs were necessary and she remains strong despite them, yet she continues to have a low pick rate despite her continued strength. If the only reason people were playing her was because she was overpowered that is failure in and of itself. Ghostface and pre-rework Myers were still amongst the most popular killers in the game despite their low power level because people enjoyed playing as them.
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Some people were playing Krasue because she wasn't a clunky mess before the nerfs. Everything doesn't revolve around how powerful a killer is. We still have lots of people playing Springtrap even though his performance is a bit garbage.
And the big problem is a lot of people don't realize that BHVR nerfed Krasue's kill rates AND made her more clunky, and a lot of people stopped playing her specifically because she's way more clunky now.
If The First needs to be nerfed, BHVR really should try to avoid making him more clunky to play.
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he feels nice to play and go against
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You use the term clunky but that term is meaningless. I see the same thing when people don't like a boardgame but can't put their finger on why, they call it "fiddly." I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that what you find objectionable is the time it takes to transform back and forth and the need to do so somewhat frequently. The only other possibility I see being you find the sliding reduction to be a problem.
The problem with those is that if you remove either you end up with an incredibly overpowered killer. If she can transform back and forth easily body blocking is no longer viable and reverting her slide makes her unloopable. There is no way to fix this without reworking her power entirely or having her go right back to being overpowered, both facets are integral to her balance.
I have also heard people refer to Springtrap as "clunky" and we have never been given stats on his kill rate, just his pick rate. I would bet he is doing just fine, this community just loves to exaggerate about how strong or weak things are.
You can see what I think about The First in this thread, I think he might need some minor tweaks but nothing major. Just saying don't make him "clunky" doesn't help because no one knows what you mean.
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- The expectation of playing Krasue was the killer started in full-body mode, hit a survivor with a projectile, then went into head mode so she could use M2 attacks.
- Krasue originally did not have collision with survivors, and originally had a pallet vault that was actually useful, which meant she often followed this "full-body mode" into "head mode" into "M2 hits".
- Then Krause was given collision with survivors, which meant that if a survivor bodyblocked for their infected teammate, then Krasue would be forced to (very slowly) turn back into full-body mode so she can infect or hit the bodyblocker.
- Then Krasue's pallet vault was nerfed so badly that it became mostly useless. Which means that at most pallets, she's forced to (very slowly) turn back into full-body mode so she can kick the pallet. And by the way, ever since the pallet density update, there has been a lot of pallets that Krasue is forced to kick.
- This results in super clunky gameplay, where Krasue is just repeatedly switching back and forth between modes, which feels extra bad because switching from head mode to full-body mode is super slow.
Yes, that is the super clunky part. Being forced to repeatedly switch back and forth between modes so much. What should have happened, is when the pallet vault got nerfed into the ground, Krasue should have lost the pallet vault, and instead gained the ability to kick pallets in head mode. Then the killer would be rebalanced around the expectation that she would be able to kick pallets in head mode.
Because it would be much better if Krasue was weaker, but didn't have to constantly switch modes so much.
And that is what I mean about balancing killers in a way that's not super clunky.
Post edited by Coffeecrashing on0 -
We are not fundamentally disagreeing. A krasue that can break pallets in head form and/or one that can't be body blocked would need every aspect of her power looked at. It would amount to a rework even if portions of the power remained the same. It's not something that should be pushed straight to live and certainly not a change that could be made quickly.
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I've played 15 matches against The First as survivor, and 3 as the killer. I can definitely say that my opinion has changed over time.
My first match as the killer, it was a very easy 4 kills for me. I didn't understand the timings of everything quite yet, but I didn't need to. I just clicked on the survivors and eventually they all died without having completed a single generator. When I switched to survivor to play 2 rounds, my team got destroyed both times. We didn't understand the counterplay, and could barely complete any generators before all falling. So on the first day of the PTB, I was sure that The First was extremely overtuned and would need a major nerf. This demonstrates to me that learning how to use The First comes a lot easier than learning how to counter The First.
A day later, I played one more game as the killer. It went better for the survivors, 4 kills with 3 gens left, but it was still pretty easy for me. That said, the survivors seemed to at least be attempting to avoid my attacks this time. I went back to play some survivor, and was still not having too much success. It wasn't until around my 8th game as survivor that I can say I successfully "dodged" a single vine/undergate attack.
After that 8th game, and a bunch of searching online for gameplay/asking questions here, the survivor side started to click with me a bit. The counterplay is distance + prediction + being unpredictable. From that point on, my games got a little better. I was seeing more consistent wins, and my 14th and 15th survivor games were 4 outs.
My third killer game also showed me that the survivors had adapted. I still killed all survivors, but this time with only 1 gen left, and the survivors were far better at "dodging" my attacks. Chases actually lasted more than 4 vine attacks (much more sometimes!), and it was definitely no longer "easy" for me to play killer; I had to lock in and play my best to win. Of course, this game taking place 4 days after the PTB launch means the survivors have probably learned more. So, in conclusion:
- This killer would probably not break the game if he released "as is" to live. I'm not saying I think he's perfectly balanced; I think he's incredibly strong, perhaps one of the strongest killers in the game in the right hands. But I don't think he's so broken that he NEEDS nerfs before testing with the wider audience. I would definitely recommend NO CHANGE before live, so more people can test him and more data can be collected before tuning.
- I'm going to disagree with some of the other comments here; I think the cooldown for the vine attack SHOULD NOT be increased right away. Again, maybe that can come with time. But I think the last thing this killer needs is more cooldowns. The vine and undergate attack, I believe, are reasonably balanced as far as the timings right now, but unfortunately that balance causes the undergate attack to feel pretty clunky to use with all the slowdown and animation locks it incurs. I don't want his main m2 attack to feel that way, it would make the killer significantly less fun to play, and less fun to play against. As a survivor, if his m2 attack was slower, the whole chase would just be running in a straight line away with a very occasional shimmy to the left or right. The constant landmine-dodging gameplay is quite fun once you know that's what you're supposed to be doing!
- I WILL say, however, that the survivor-side fun does depend quite a bit on the map. On wide open maps with great line-of-sight (I'm thinking of maps like Mount Ormond Resort), it's significantly less fun to go up against The First as a survivor. This is just the result of how extremely different many DBD maps are, and is probably not solvable without a serious look at overall map disparity.
- All of this said, it took me 8 games against The First before I could even believe he wasn't completely broken. In the future, after he's been out for a while, that would mean a new player would go against him 8 times thinking he's completely overpowered. Assuming he's an average pickrate killer, that's roughly 42*8=336 trials! I can definitely see a world where survivors give a large amount of negative feedback for a long time before they finally get into the rhythm of things, if they don't face him on the PTB where you can practice against him over and over.
All in all, I'm left feeling impressed, and cautiously hopeful. Considering the design of this killer, the timing and sizes of everything are actually incredibly tight. If his vine attack was a liiitle bit larger or smaller, or a liiitle bit slower or faster, I think it would DRASTICALLY change his balance, and in both cases, I think for the worse. I really hope he releases as it to live, just so more people can experience it and get used to it. And I hope if you do make changes, they are veeery small, and carefully considered. I'm definitely worried that one small numbers change to any of his kit can destroy how fun he is for both sides, and I'm honestly impressed about how tight the timings seem to be on the first try!
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