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Why do people want desperately a nerf to Spirit?
Comments
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Exactly
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Both of those situations are guesses.
The Spirit standing still the information. Just because it doesn't tell you of she's phasing doesn't mean it's not information.
In otherwords it's unreliable information. Aka: prerequisite 2.
And if a Spirit stands still and you run then she won't be able to hit you even if there isn't any windows or pallets at least not without addons. A Spirit's phase walk only gains 9.2 meters on the survivor, which means that if the survivor is further than that distance when she hits M2 then she will fail to hit you.
If you are starting at 0 meters then she can just hit you. In any case if she's attempting a standing still mindgame it's going to be because you have enough distance to do a juke otherwise. That means you have enough distance to just run in the other direction.
Regardless let's look at a red glow mindgame.
You see the Killer's red stain but not the Killer. He can either go for you directly or walk backwards and cut you off. You can either keep going or turn around.
Your move depends on what you predict he will do. And his move depends on what he predicts you do. Thus in order to determine his action you need to predict what he's going to predict you will do. But he's doing the same thing, so he's predicting what your prediction will be. This is recursive and thus it is impossible to logically conclude that a specific option is the correct one.
This can apply to ANY interaction where:
Player 1 has options A and B
Player 2 has options C and D
A beats C
B beats D
C beats A
D beats B
Player 1 has no option that beats both C and D at once
Player 2 has no option that beats both A and B at once
Fun fact: You can mindgame someone in rock, paper, scissors so long as you either play at least 2 rounds or if you are aloud to speak.
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Guessing routes, following scratchmarks, hearing footsteps, seeing grass moving is a different kind of skill. Unless you have allhearing headphones, there is a lot of guess involved too with pretty small margins for error without addons.
It depends on the survivor too though, some are good with stealth and mindgames, others are not. If you know what Spirit wants to do, you can fool her. I think she is fine, she is balancedly broken.
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I hate to say it, but I kinda agree with survivor mains on this one. Once you reach a certain level with Spirit, there's not much you can do to evade her. All you can do is delay the inevitable.
Unless someone shows me a comprehensive guide for evading the Spirit, I will continue to maintain my position.
And for the record, I play survivor at rank 1. Given the choice, I would much rather play against a Nurse than a Spirit (assuming the Nurse player isn't using ridiculous add ons).
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Her add-ons need rework. Especially prayer beads
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She's not fun to play against. It's really as simple as that.
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The only things I see wrong with spirit is the lack of base lunge she has and the immense post phase lunge she has with add-ons. With both post phase speed add-ons you can lunge about 10m or more . When all you have to do is hit someone then listen in spirit form. The lunge makes it impossible for survivors to do anything in that split second
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Nothing in this game takes skill except Huntress and Nurse (although it is more muscle memory).
Nothing on the survivor side takes skill.
Nothing on the killer side takes skill.
Doesn’t take skill to rev a chainsaw, or vomit, or stalk, or moonwalk, etc...
Point is that barely anything takes skill. This game requires little if any.
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@deadbyhitbox for good survivors and squads. Lower ranks yeah she is OP af.
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@MrsPiggyIsSoSneaky I explained my problem with passive phasing and outside of looking cool it's really just dumb.
- No skill on either side needed
- For survivors it's just a guessing game, just like everything else included in the spirit's power
Just because it's "supposed to be passive" doesn't justify those things. It does it's job at confusing a survivor, but to me this just seems like really, really bad design.
"if your at a loop and you know that she is using her power or think she is, don't stay at the loop, go to another nearby one" You cannot know she is phasing. It's impossible to tell. You just have to guess.
And please stop putting words in my mouth, I explicitly said "Now I don't want her overly nerfed, but I want the devs to introduce some sort of a way to tell what the spirit is doing, that way surviving is not just rolling the die and hoping that you get lucky, but an actual representation of skill."
PS. Perks are not counterPLAY. They can be counters, but not counterplay.
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First, people complain just because they can. There will always be something that somebody will complain about. Today, that is spirit - just because it's a top pick so the spotlight is on her.
Secondly, people complain because Spirit forces into a completely different playstyle especially during chases.
Similarly to Nurse (that's with all chances the second killer complained about) the Spirit obliterates usual looping dynamics. To outplay Spirit you must learn again from zero how to play against her. This requires stepping outside the comfort zone, hence not many people will be excited about it - because they are inherently lazy (and that's natural).
From this point of view, complaining about Spirit seems a bit counterproductive - survivors complain the gameplay being boring, but the only way to change it is to force new playstyles by introducing a killer like Spirit.
Finally, Prayer Beads is nothing more than an ultra rare addon which is, correctly, very strong. There are many more ultra rare killer addons which heavily impact the game - not mentioning insta Heal and key on survivor side.
Stop complaining and learn how to play against spirit - especially because also the killer must go through a painful learning process as well to use it successfully. It's not broken, it's simply a high yield killer if played correctly.
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Only thing I hate about her is Prayer Beads. Other than that there's nothing to hate. But that's as bad as other killers extra rare perks such as Iri's. So if people hate that addon, they should take out all the op addons. I mean, people could always just not play if they hate addons like that sooo much.
If you're not injured and want to avoid her, just walk. Oh it'll be so hard to not run, boohoo.
But I see it like this, think about why Freddy got reworked. Killers didn't like that they couldn't hit right away (Spirit can but you can't see the player and have to make an educated guess that they might be right in front of you and many Spirit's guess right so I don't see why anyone who plays her should complain) and Survivors didn't like that they couldn't see Freddy, which is the same with Spirit. I hate Freddy's rework and if people really want to see Spirit just like they wanted to see him or whatever they're complaining about something dumb. Leave it alone, girl doesn't need a nerf. She's been sliced up enough don't you think?
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The only realistic nerf I could think of is to remove her collision while phasing.
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I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not. The desire to improve and get better is one of the reasons why people keep coming back to play the game more. It is one of the reasons why the game is still alive after 3 years. You can't improve at doing something if does not need skill.
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No there is not.
The spirit has to guess and you as survivor have the same tools to mindgame, as the spirit.
There is a huge mindgame going on, all the time, but you can't win it by putting down a pallet.
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Hearing someone grunting and being able to use your ears isn't skill. It's literally just a guessing game where skill becomes irrelevant for both sides. If you play a Spirit without Iron Will, there is literally nothing you can do except hope the Spirit has dollar Store headphones and old man hearing.
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Yeah you can get better but all killers have a skill cap and it doesn’t particularly take an insane amount of skill to do well.
How skillful can you really be with Leatherface and Wraith? It’s just basic map awareness and knowing the map you’re on. You get better at the game but a majority of the killers don’t take a lot of skill to be good with.
Only ones who take a lot of skill are Huntress and Nurse.
Spirit is just tracking.
Plague vomits...wow, that takes so much skill.
Billy revs the back of the survivors and insta-downs.
Wraith dings a bell.
Their powers are not very skillful. Moonwalking only really works on lower rank survivors.
Again, the game is meant to be fun...not skillful.
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You can actually hear her footsteps, but if you do, you're basically guaranteed to get hit.
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No, this is not true.
If you are guessing as a spirit, you are doing it wrong. From the survivor perspective, it is like flipping a coin but the odds are not in your favor. From the spirit perspective, you don't need to guess at all. Just stand still for a few seconds and react to what the survivor is doing.
Spirit has many tools to track you down: grass moving, collision, breathing, grunting and scratch marks. The survivor on the other hand has zero information about the spirit.
I have been playing spirit a lot lately. The only time I need to guess is if the survivor vaulted a strong window and doubled back or not.
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NO
That's not how that works
If something is a guessing game in this sense for one side then it MUST necessarily be a guessing game for the other side as well.
If the Survivor has to guess then the Spirit ALWAYS must guess, no matter how much information they have.
This is because during a mindgame the correct option for one side is based off of the other side's prediction of you.
The Survivor is trying to predict your next move and is acting based on it. (or your previous move in the case of fake phasing)
You as the Spirit are trying to predict what the Survivor's prediction of you will be in order to decide your next move.
Since the Survivor knows that is the case that means he needs to predict your prediction of his prediction and so on.
This is true for any and all mindgames. Since you are trying to predict their NEXT move that means you could straight up remove the invisibility aspect and STILL have mindgames sometimes (but not nearly as often).
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Precision is not the only kind of Skill.
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Your argument is flawed.
I don't wanna sound like a broken record by repeating my self but spirit does not need to guess. Why would you guess if you have a lot of information about what the survivor is doing?
I am amazed by how many people here are convinced that spirit-survivor interaction is a mind game. IT IS NOT.
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Maybe let Spirit work harder for the first hit. Since the second hit is free without Iron Will, get used to not get hit in the first palce, then she has no sound to follow and is a worse killer in the chase at 110%.
Its like reverse Wraith who gets a free first hit
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What in this game takes skill though? It’s not meant to be skillful nor will it ever.
I guess since I can hide my red light and moonwalk I’m all of a sudden full of skill.
I can 360 a killer or blend in a bush with Claudette so I guess I have more skill than all my other teammates.
Damn...it’s just a video game, people think everything has to take skill. What a bunch of gamers XD
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Then where is this Survivor guess coming from. A guessing game implies a correct guess. And which guess is correct is dependent on what the Spirit thinks you will guess. This leads to the recursive function that defines a mindgame.
You cannot have a guessing game like this on only 1 side.
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Yes, that is where Spirit actually has some counter play. When you aren't injured. I'm saying that there should also be counterplay for when you do get injured. Because, like I said before, once you're hit there is nothing you can do but hope they're deaf.
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I've said this before, but I don't think this will solve any problems people complain about and will likely in fact just create new problems. Sometimes the fact she has collision can be a limiting factor. For example, if I could chase someone and just pass right through them I could just outrun you to the pallet, appear in front of you and completely block the pallet. With collision I either have to come out of phase walk to attack from behind or go around to the other side of the pallet which is slower.
By removing collision you don't nerf her as much as you just allow new tactics. The net result will be the same as it is now.
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Iron Will counters that second hit, but perk dependancy ain't perfect. I kinda just accept that she gets the second hit, if she managed to get the first. At some point, for every killer, you lost to a killers power. When Nurse sees you, when Billy is right behind you in a deadzone, when Spirit got you injured, when Huntress made you loop a low tile... Its more about preventing that. She has to work pretty hard for the first hit though, unless people can hear footsteps (which i cant with my headset).
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if this killer was about skill and prediction not about easy tracking she would be fine
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As someone that actively despises Spirit, she does not need a nerf.
Get good survivors. She’s not nearly as strong as people say
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Easy tracking.
She literally cannot see Survivors when she's ghosting. She gets the same scratchmarks/moving plants/blood as EVERY OTHER KILLER.
But somehow, NOT seeing Survivors makes her track people EASIER.
...WHAT!?
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She doesn't need a nerf, just a prayer beads change or make the foot steps more audible
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She doesn't even get blood without an ultra rare add-on.
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And people say this makes her a BETTER tracker!? 😂🤣😂
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Yeah but then you look at the actual bullshit killers (that still don’t need a nerf due to how strong survivors are): Nurse, Hag and Hillbilly. None of these killers feel that much more fair in chase.
Good Nurses pretty much never lose, good Hags are everywhere at once and everyone dies in less than two minutes and don’t get me started on Billy
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This is how she was on PTB and she was complete trash because of it.
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The only reason people complain about “no counterplay” is they can’t loop her. How do you counterplay a Leatherface? Loop him. Ghostface? Loop him. Myers? Loop him. Doctor? Loop him. Billy? Loop him. Plague? Don’t cleanse and loop her.
Nurse, Spirit, and to an extent Hag aren’t able to be looped which is why you get so many complaints. Spirit and Nurse have the power role in a chase like no other killers do.
By the way, Iron Will isn’t ONLY a counter to Spirit. It is effective against every killer, try it and you’ll never wanna get rid of it.
Also how come all of a sudden Spirit gets complaints? Last year she didn’t get NEARLY as many complaints. It’s almost like people have realized how good is so now I guess we need nerfs.
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Spirit is suddenly getting complaints because devs said they will look at Nurse, so now every Survivor looking to easy mode the game is moving to Spirit. After her; Billy. Then Bubba. Then probably Trapper. People will want his traps to glow neon so they don't step in them.
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Just because there is a guess doesn't mean there isn't skill. Everyone has biases in what they will do in any situation. So the skill is in figuring out the biases of the Spirit you are facing and then acting accordingly depending on the specific situation.
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So I guess let’s nerf Stridor now huh?
A lot of killers aren’t very fun to play against sadly :/
Admittedly so she isn’t very fun to go against but there isn’t very much to do that wouldn’t completely butcher her. As @thesuicidefox said, if you remove collision while phasing, Spirit players will just adapt and find mew methods.
She predicted where you were going and followed you scratches and injured moans, wouldn’t exactly call that lucky.
The game isn’t meant to be skillful nor are a majority of the killers “skillfull”. Tell me how Leatherface’s power or Myers’ power are in the SLIGHTEST bit skillful?
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I’m doubtful they are messing with base Nurse. Her add-ons are getting changed though.
I can only imagine somebody really complaining about Leatherface. “hE hAs An InStAdOwN pLz NeRf HiM!!!!”
If the trend did continue it would be Billy, Hag, then Huntress.
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I actually saw people already complaining about green add-ons on Plague. Apparently, these add-ons are "toxic".
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I rarely see people calling for spirit nerfs, it isn’t even comparable to when people were calling for a nurse nerf.
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That's because too many survivors are just clueless how to run from Spirit. When I'm Spirit, this is how most survivors act:
1) Run in straight obvious lines.
2) Run directly to a pallet or window when it's pretty obvious I am phase walking after them. Then vault the window or drop the pallet, which I predict and catch them on the other side.
3) Do absolutely nothing to hide their scratch marks, they just run around without a care in the world then I follow them and catch them.
4) Try to do really stupid stuff, like vault a pallet into my face when I do the stand still mind game, or run away such that I still have complete line of sight on them.
5) Try to loop pallets when I can just outplay them with phase walk. Instead you should just drop the pallet and play around it. It's way more effective than trying to loop the pallet.
Fact is most survivors are just morons when it comes to Spirit. I can immediately tell who will be an easy catch when I chase them.
The survivors that waste my time or escape a chase don't do any of this stuff. They actually make the smart and optimal decisions. They actually understand they need to predict what I'm doing and be unpredictable. And it works.
Spirit is not infallible. She has weakness, but like Nurse those weaknesses are not the same as other killers. You can outplay a Spirit, it's not easy but you can do it.
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For example:
Lets say you've just dropped a pallet in front of a Spirit and she now appears to be standing still.
She is either:
A - Phase walking to the other side
or
B - Standing still for real
Technically there are variations for option A but for our purposes they don't matter.
Now you can either
A - Run away from the pallet
or
B - Vault the Pallet and run the other way
Preforming option A will avoid a hit if she's standing still because from that point the amount of time it takes to react to you running in order to phase walk and hit you is too long to actually catch up around a loop. Especially if there is a window to run to. Again this option has variations but they don't matter for our purposes.
However, if she was already phasing then she will likely reach you in time anyways.
Thing is, option B exists. If she immediately phases and runs around, but you vault just before she actually gets there then she won't have quite enough time to catch up to you when you leave in the opposite direction.
An important thing to note here is that by the time you make the decision to either run or vault the Spirit has already committed to an option. You could be fully viable and these options wouldn't be any different. No iron will is required for any of this.
Anyways, this specific interaction will happen a lot against a spirit. It's a common situation when facing one so it's not unreasonable for it to happen more than once.
The first time in a game when this happens it may very well be a true guessing game. Technically a Spirit is statistically more likely to chose one option over the other but I don't know which option off the top of my head and likely neither do you, so whatever fine it's a 50/50 and you can't improve those odds realistically.
But what about the 2nd time?
1 example isn't quite enough to build up a pattern with any reliability. But it IS data you can work with. A good spirit will try to be unpredictable, while a bad one won't think to. If anyone else has been chased you might be able to make an educated guess on if you are facing a good Spirit or not based off of chase time for those survivors. Also a higher rank obviously implies a better Killer. Either way you can use those ques to tell the difference.
Against a Bad spirit there is usually a simple formula that tends to work:
If their previous mindgame attempt worked they will do the same thing again. If it failed they will switch.
This doesn't hold in all cases but it should let you do better than random chase.
Now against a better Spirit this isn't quite enough. Some will mix it up immediately and others will wait and THEN mix it up. One thing to note though is that they will almost never do the same thing 3 times in a row unless you got hit on both of the previous attempts. Or in other words: If you are being predictable then they will continuously exploit it.
This leads to things like conditioning, where you deliberately act according to an obvious pattern in the early game (for example always running immediately) in order to break the pattern later for a free juke when you need it more. As a Spirit this can be caught by noting when an otherwise good Survivor is acting super predictable in 1 situation in particular and not others but even then it's hard to know when exactly they will break the pattern. A Spirit can do the same trick and will have the same signs when doing it.
In any case. Against a Good Spirit it will usually take about 3 instances to establish a pattern. You can get somewhere with just 2, but 3 is where you can actually make predictions with some real consistency as opposed to just slightly better than RNG. From there it is just a matter of applying the pattern and seeing if there are situations in which they will break the pattern. The more situations you see the more reliably you can dodge them.
That's actually why I think the Spirit leaving a trail when exiting phase would be a really important thing. Knowing exactly what the Spirit's play was makes it much easier to determine what the pattern is for any given Spirit. But even without that you still have situations like the Pallet one where you have all the data you need just by seeing where they exit.
Just pointing out btw. She will need to chase you a minimum of 4 times per game unless you get hook farmed or something. Which means even if she gets a hit all 3 times while you are still figuring out her pattern you still have enough time to do it and put it into action before you die.
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TLDR: Beating a Spirit comes down to pattern recognition.
Better Spirits will have more complex patterns which thus take longer to decipher.
Human psychology means that it will never be truly random unless they use a tool such as a coin to MAKE it random.
They won't use such a tool because they are doing the same thing as what you should be doing by attempting to decipher YOUR pattern.
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Yeah, but at least with someone like Billy you can either be outplayed by their saw skills, or you can prevent them from being able to use the saw. I feel like Billy is the perfect killer because he's strong, but has counterplay. With Spirit, you basically just die if you're injured. And without a perk, there is literally nothing you can do about it. I feel like the only change needed is either no collision in phase, and maybe make tracking slightly more difficult when in phase, or just upping the values of phase (increased speed, maybe make cooldown a bit less, etc) but making the sound directional. I feel like it would just be nice to give her some actual reliable counter play aside from a specific perk. But, this should all happen once gen times are increased a little.
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I dont, but i really hate prayer beads
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"The stand still mindgame" lmao
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I mean if I can stand still and you do some stupid stuff to try and counter it like vaulting right into my face, it is indeed a mind game. One you did to yourself. Almost every time a Spirit does this trick, there is an optimal choice, namely break LOS on the husk, walk a certain distance to hide your tracks, then break for the next loop. If she is standing still, you just forced her to chase normally as a 110 killer or phase walk, and since she has no LOS or scratch marks she might not find you right away. If she was phase walking, then you will make it to the next loop because she's going to mind game herself into thinking you stayed.
You act like it's so hard to beat when it's really not. You just have to not potato so hard you basically just give her the kill. I've kept many Spirits, good Spirits, occupied for a long time because they keep trying to pull this trick and I'm not going to potato right into them like every other survivor. A lot of times I even escape the chase entirely and she loses me.
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