Fan Rework: The Nightmare (Essay)

Deverer · July 2018

It is widely agreed upon that Freddy is the worst killer in the game, with only the Wraith and maybe the Hag competing for that spot in some discussions.

While many ideas have been tossed around, it is my opinion that Freddy’s design is counteractive as well as toxic to what the game is about. While it may satisfy the lore behind him, the current execution is unfun for both sides of the coin in regards to the killer and survivor.

The core problem with Freddy is that his weaknesses are so prevalent that the players are often forced to abuse his strengths in order to have an efficient game. His current design is counter-productive and conflicts with itself so much that it makes it unfun for the killer in that he’s easily avoided once survivors know how to deal with him. It’s also unfun for the survivors as it becomes a stubborn horse that has left the racetrack and refuses to leave you alone.

For clarity’s sake: Every killer can create an unfun situation. Tunneling, camping, and other methods can be done by any killer. With Freddy however his design actively encourages these behaviors due to how limited he is by his power and flaws in how the counterplay is implemented.

So let us examine his power:

Survivors who are awake do not see or hear The Nightmare.
Once targeted by The Nightmare's power, Survivors enter the Dream Transition after some time.
During the Dream Transition they can see The Nightmare intermittently.
When the Dream Transition lapses, the Survivor is pulled into the Dream World.
Survivors' Auras are revealed to The Nightmare when they are outside of his terror radius.
Survivors suffer an action speed penalty of 50%.
To exit the Dream World, Survivors can find other non-sleeping Survivors to perform a wake up action
Some failed actions can wake up the Survivor.
Getting hooked wakes up the Survivor

Unlisted values to mention here:

Dream Transition time by default is 7 seconds.
Freddy is slowed when channeling his power and for 3 seconds after he tags a survivor (exact value unknown). During this time he cannot do other actions.
Freddy has no collision with awake survivors to the point they cannot block him from doing actions that involve just movement. However he will still attempt to attack them if they are close enough and be stunned by pallets or blinded by flashlights from awake survivors.
Freddy’s terror radius and lullaby is 24 meters.
Failing a sabotage skill check will not wake you up

So now we need to break down issues within his power. However we first need to ask what is the idea behind Freddy’s power? What makes him unique and why should he be the killer you want to play?

Think about other killers. Trapper if you want to set up Survivors to walk into their doom for an easy catch. Wraith if you want to walk through the shadows and be a good tracker. Hillbilly to be a speedy maniac. Myers to be a stealth killer who waits and stalks until the right moment.

But there is also game sense behind them. Trapper tries to control the map, the Wraith is good at tracking, Hillbilly is a speed demon, Leatherface punishes poor positioning, Hag you set up a home base, Huntress you kill from a distance. At least all on paper of course.

Freddy from his power, the idea is that the Dream World is a nightmare in it of itself in that it’s so dangerous that to balance it gameplay wise Freddy literally cannot harm you unless you’re in it. The Dream Transition is there to give survivors a chance to get distance away from Freddy as you’re about to be dropped in this dangerous place. The Lullaby is an ominous warning that Freddy’s coming for you, and you should maybe run or hide so he doesn’t get the chance to put you on the floor.

This is indicative with the Dream World for Freddy: the constant fog aside from atmospheric purposes can be used to throw Freddy off by having awake survivors try to use it to hide from him. Something that I don’t think is brought up is that while Freddy is a master tracker in the Dream World, for awake survivors it is actually tricky to find survivors sometimes from a distance. His terror radius/lullaby being the lowest radius of all killers (with the exception of the Hag or Huntress if you don't count her lullaby) means it’s less of a warning for awake survivors, meaning their time to hide is short. The fact you can’t see him makes hiding from him in a quick time frame difficult as you don’t know where he’s coming from unless you see details like grass moving or hear where his footsteps are exactly. Once he’s close hiding becomes exponentially harder as you probably didn’t have time to get into a good position, or perhaps even find a position that can properly hide you.

In short: the waking world is safety, but the Dream World and being close to getting there is meant to put you on your toes.

In the Dream World, trying to escape Freddy completely is difficult. Even if you escape his low terror radius, he can literally see you running off. As you go to try and wake up through failing a skill check, he can see you try that if you're far enough. And you’ll be essentially making no progress toward escaping thanks to the action speed penalty. This is a nightmare you want to escape but he’s going to make it difficult. With that low terror radius and the fog in the Dream World covering his short stature he can still surprise you easily.

So why then is it just an unfun mechanic instead of a thrilling new way to play?

The current design of how one acts in the Dream World and how one gets out are punishing to Freddy if he doesn’t try to minimize survivors getting out. In the end, his power most of the time comes down to a 7 second (or less or more) delay before he can harm them. It’s essentially like the Wraith’s invisibility without the speed bonus and you take 7 seconds to ring the bell again.

On paper it sounds like he can put pressure on survivors and delay the game. In practice however you can find that the action speed penalty will not stack up that much at more optimal play.

What happens when a survivor is slept and left alone by Freddy is one of two situations: they run off alone to wake up through a generator or self healing, or they find another survivor who is awake that wakes them up right away.

What reason does Freddy have to sleep multiple survivors and not chase a specific one that’s already slept? Depending on one’s luck, a survivor can be out of a chase for a few seconds before being woken up. Or they can wait to perhaps 30 seconds before they finally have skill check to fail even without addons affecting the outcome. There can even be some instances where a survivor is healing themselves mid chase and they generate a skill check to fail and thus wake up right there.

How does Freddy prevent this? He continues to chase the survivor, and it’s easy to do so because of the aura reading on them once they leave his terror radius. Thus instead of the Dream World allowing Freddy to delay the game and chase at his own pace, he instead is encouraged to tunnel specific survivors until they go down. This certainly is not helped with perks like Sprint Burst and Self Care being meta. Of course these are issues with DBD as a whole, but it affects Freddy a good deal due to how his power works and how it can nullify the advantages he has.

Right now there is too much power put in the wrong place of his power to try and counterbalance his drawbacks.

Freddy feels threatening at most when he can prevent skillchecks from happening and also when he can drag multiple survivors into the Dream World at once. His best addons (in my opinion) are the Blue Dress and Z Block. Class Photo deserves a mention if paired with Blue Dress as it makes that strategy of sleeping multiple survivors possible, and in general gives you great knowledge of where they are.

When Freddy has most or all survivors in the Dream World, he thrives because even if he is subject to loops and pallets: the game is actively being delayed by virtue of the speed penalty. And if they get out of the Dream World, he can keep track of where they are/were while he chases someone else. Freddy’s most powerful point in the game is when the exit gates are powered but not opened. With no generators to work on, if you are asleep it’s almost impossible to wake up without a lucky heal check or a teammate. Even if you are not being chased, opening the exit gate is a long and risky task while asleep.

However, that opportunity can easily be overlooked. With 7 seconds to wait by default, and 2 health states to work through Freddy takes a while to even deal with 1 survivor if they already weren’t injured and/or slept. This also goes without mention that with a 50% action speed penalty, it slows progress to a crawl and waiting for RNG to give you a skillcheck is just not fun. While survivors should be punished for all getting to sleep, it is just a bit too much even if it doesn't last too long. It's one extreme trying to balance out another.

In practice Freddy is gimped by his power because trying to sleep multiple survivors at once is not only not practical but can be not an option sometimes due to player behavior and RNG on skillchecks. It’s unfun for Freddy because his power can be countered easy, and it’s unfun for survivor because Freddy tunnels to try and not have this come to pass. This is of course on top of him being subject to the same loops as other killers.

While there are other things to mention like how he can’t prevent hook dives, I think that’s more along the lines of byproducts alongside the core issues.

So then what can be done to shift around Freddy’s power so that he can still be this Dream Master but not make it eternally frustrating?

What I propose is a new mechanic: Fatigue.

The purpose of which will put survivors in increasing danger outside of normally being chased, while also allowing Freddy’s more powerful aspects to come in later instead of right away. Allowing for less frustration on both ends as we give more power to Freddy in some places in exchange for weakening other more toxic aspects.

This will be similar to the Doctor’s Madness in that it’s a stacking debuff and has 3 tiers. The difference will be that it accumulates constantly while in the Dream World when not in a chase and slowed significantly when performing actions.

So what will happen when you are stacking Fatigue? And how can we change up Freddy baseline?

When a survivor starts the Dream Transition, their objective and altruistic actions are interrupted and they cannot perform them during the Dream Transition.
Dream Transition time reduced to 5 seconds.
Approximate time to transition from one level of Fatigue to another is 20 seconds. Accumulation is slowed by 50% while performing an action (healing, repair, sabotage).
When you are dying you do not generate Fatigue.

Fatigue 1:

Action speed is decreased by 20%.
Skill checks have slightly less chance of appearing

Fatigue 2:

Survivor is Hindered.
Action speed is decreased by 30%.
Skill checks have moderately less chance of appearing
Survivors have their aura revealed to Freddy after being outside the terror radius for 15 seconds.

Fatigue 3:

Survivor is Hindered.
Survivor is Exhausted.
Action speed is decreased by 40%.
Skill checks have considerably less chance of appearing
Survivors have their aura revealed to Freddy after being outside the terror radius for 7 seconds.

How Fatigue reacts with skill checks:

When a survivor Dream Transitions, they will be in Fatigue 1.
Skill check chance goes down with each tier
When a survivor fails a skill check, they will now fall back down 1 tier of Fatigue.
If at Fatigue 1 they will wake up.
Completing a generator now wakes up.
Sabotage skillchecks now count for waking up or dropping Fatigue.
After dropping Fatigue, you cannot generate any more for 10 seconds.
Hooked survivors still wake up.

How Fatigue affects and is affected by waking up actions.

Fatigue 1: 4 seconds (same as live). Normal cloud icon.
Fatigue 2: 5 seconds. Cloud is translucent around the survivor icon
Fatigue 3: 6 seconds. Translucent cloud with ZZZs over it
When a survivor is healed from dying, they drop one tier of Fatigue. Teammates may still continue to heal them, but stopping it will replace the action with the wake up action if they can initiate it.
For the purposes of Adrenaline it will only remove one tier of Fatigue instead of a full wake up.

So the idea here is that Fatigue 3 is extremely dangerous. Even Fatigue 2 can be dangerous as you are Hindered, which may not be much but it makes all the more difference when trying to traverse the map to stop from getting into Fatigue 3 and also running from Freddy. While other killers can hinder with addons having that always on can add up over distances and reduces how much Freddy can be looped.

If Freddy manages to have all survivors in Fatigue 3, he should be rewarded for doing so. Carefully managing to keep all survivors Fatigued and/or survivors carelessly letting themselves be put to sleep and not waking up should reflect that. Even with RNG not getting skillchecks, they still have a chance to wake up with completing a generator. By reducing the action speed penalty, it should be more realistic to complete one if he is occupied elsewhere and not feel as oppressive. The idea of the skill check chance lowering baseline is to counteract lucky skillchecks for survivors, but also to encourage them to seek out teammates to wake up. The possibility is still there, but baseline it will happen a little less.

Now while Freddy may want to let them stack Fatigue, he can still chase them normally. Though this misses out on the potential of the power now. Even then you must remember until Fatigue 2 he doesn’t have any chasing power yet. With decreasing skill check chances it’s less likely they can wake up right away unless they find a teammates.

It makes it more imperative that a survivor finds a teammate if they want to wake up right away. However Freddy is not pressured as much into tunneling them due to both skill checks being less frequent and also it won’t take that long for them to hit Fatigue 2. Though doing so may make Freddy follow you to find those teammates and get them all put to sleep.

You become a chessmaster, and decide how the game is going to flow. Will you be aggressive and go for early hooks or will you try and stall the game with the threat of early Fatigue stacks? By nature of Freddy once you hook you will most likely go for other survivors and while you chase one and another is going for the save, you can get some easy transitions to start the Fatigue build up. Or you make sure to transition them all to start the slow down immediately, though run the risk of letting them wake up early if you don’t keep tabs on them. Do you use it to stall, or do you mess with them to make finding and catching them easier later on?

This will keep the idea that the Dream World is dangerous not only because that’s where he can hurt you but also where the game will slow down tremendously and if he comes for you later it will be harder to escape him, and later he knows where you are most of the time instead of the frustration of always being tunneled due to how his aura reading works now.

You as a survivor have to decide if you want to stay together or stay apart. Do you stay together more often to perhaps try to make the game go quicker to avoid Fatigue buildup, but may get a lot of survivors slept easily? Or spread out so the pain is spread thin, but more risk of stacking Fatigue on unlucky teammates or yourself?

Can Freddy still tunnel survivors? Yes. But any killer can tunnel and make the game unfun. The purpose of this is try to not essentially force Freddy to tunnel to make up for his weaknesses.

Summary of power:

Death won't accept him and thus he remains, a calamity, indisputable master of his victims' nightmares. Dream Demon allows The Nightmare to pull Survivors into the Dream World.

Awake survivors cannot see or be hurt by The Nightmare
Once targeted by The Nightmare power, a survivor enters a Dream Transition during which the survivor cannot cleanse, heal, repair, or sabotage.
During the Dream Transition they can see The Nightmare intermittently
When the Dream Transition lapses, the Survivor is pulled into the Dream World.

Once a survivor enters the Dream World:

Survivors generate Fatigue as they remain in the Dream World. Fatigue is measured in 3 tiers and survivors start in Fatigue 1. Do not generate Fatigue when in a chase or dying. Slow down Fatigue gained when repairing, healing, or sabotaging.
Fatigue 1: Action speed is slowed and skill check chances are reduced slightly.
Fatigue 2: Action speed is slowed more, skill check chances are reduced moderately. Survivor is Hindered, and reveals their aura to The Nightmare after being out of the terror radius for 15 seconds
Fatigue 3: Action speed is slowed even more, skill check chances are reduced considerably. Survivor is Hindered, Exhausted, and reveals their aura to The Nightmare after being out of the terror radius for 7 seconds
To exit the Dream World, Survivors can find other non-sleeping Survivors to perform a wake up action but becomes harder with more Fatigue
Failing any skill check or being healed from dying drops Fatigue by one tier and wakes up if at Fatigue 1
Getting hooked or completing a generator wakes up the survivor

Some final changes to miscellaneous things such as addons and interactions. My ideas to help balance addons around.

Cat Block now decreases Dream Transition time by 1 second and no longer increases skill check chance.
Wool Shirt, Green Dress, and Blue Dress now also increase the Dream Transition time by 0.5/1/1.5 seconds.
Swing Chains now decreases transition time between tiers of Fatigue by 5 seconds the second time onward they’ve been pulled into the Dream World.
Garden Rake, Prototype Claws, and Paint Thinner speed increase is a haste buff gained after you complete a Dream Transition, this is removed when you start a chase.
Kid’s Drawing, Nancy’s Sketch, and Nancy’s Masterpiece now also decrease the ****inaction period**** after tagging a survivor by 0.5/1/1.5 seconds.
Red Paint Brush now also causes the Dream Transition to be applied in an 8 meter radius around the victim and reveal their auras, but Freddy is slowed significantly during his inaction period (I'm thinking like in the Freddy spotlight even though that was for show).
The Black Box now also shows a visual notification for where a survivor leaves the Dream World through other survivors.
Lullaby is now 8 meters more than terror radius.

Please let me know what you think! Spent a lot of time imagining this up!

FayeZahara · July 2018

I had a nightmare on elm street marathon. His power to me really doesn't satisfy lore. I think his power in general needs a rework. He is dream master but he also is known for nightmares and ######### with people. He should be able to manipulate dream realm more. Doctor right now with his hallucinations feels more like a freddy power then his currently. At least to me it does. Wouldn't mind if he had some sort of nightmare traps he could set up. (Like he does in all the movies) That or he could drive someone insane forcing his glove upon a survivor. Who needs to kill with glove and hook before the glove moris. (The 2nd movie had a power close to that) I also wouldn't mind if in dream realm it changed you to a random killer with the same speed as freddy. (He is known to imposter people to kill others)

I think they missed the possibilities they could explore with his power..... probally because it came quickly after leatherface killer.

Sinner · July 2018

There's a guy playing Freddy at rank 1. Met him 3-4 times. He mopped the floor with survivors. 4kills every time. I will ask him to write a guide or something if I see him again.

MegaWaffle · July 2018

This essay has a serious lack of intense stalking I'm sorry but its a down vote for me.