Please Devs, Fix Billy (#BRINGBACKBILLY)

Weeezy
Weeezy Member Posts: 25
edited October 2020 in Feedback and Suggestions

Devs, I've got some questions about everyone's favorite chainsaw brother, The Hillbilly. How do you guys take a character that is considered very fun and well respected among the community and manage to make him completely dead. Billy used to be very popular because he was just a ton of fun to play as and against. But ever since the nerf, everyone has just abandoned him.

First, you guys ruin his animations to "get rid of skybilly/spacebilly". Why can't you guys keep spacebilly in the game. I have never once heard someone complain about a Billy flying up in the sky. It's just funny and amusing to watch. No Billy mains actually exploited it to win games, they just wanted to show off. Also, getting on to a loop is still possible because you can saw off of a hill on to a pallet loop. You can even get on to jungle gyms/main structures if you bounce off a hill at a certain angle. How about that BHVR?

His new animations are completely terrible and make Billy much more unsatisfying to play as. While ending your saw, it faces your camera towards the floor, which takes away your sight on the survivor you were currently chasing. It just feels awful. And it looks like the saw is coming out of your body when you hit a survivor (if that makes sense). With the old one, you could see clearly ahead of you and it honestly just looked really nice and smooth. Also, the limping from the Billy's perspective that he got made him feel so slow for some reason and it felt terrible. Another animation that they changed was his chainsaw sprinting animation. Although I don't care much about this one, the new one looks kinda weird from a survivor's perspective because he's like bouncing up and down a little.

This one really isn't an animation, but his curving. They adjusted the curving sensitivity with the animation changes in April 2020 and it just feels off because you can hit that many hard flicks like you were able to before, which makes double engravings (the way I play Billy) much more unfun. I honestly don't get the point of this, but it's BHVR, they always ######### things up that didn't need touching.

Speaking of not needing touching, in early July of 2020, the mid-chapter patch released and Billy officially became a dead killer. Most Billy players quit playing him when the devs messed with his animations back in April, but there were still some sticking around with the killer afterwards. Then patch 4.1.0 hit and every Billy player disappeared into thin air just because he is so unfun and unsatisfying to play as.

His addon nerf was for the most part fine, but the thing is only like 2-3 of his old addons needed to be changed. These were primer bulb, especially tuning guide, and debatably spark plug. These all increased his charge time with zero downside to them. And combined with other charge time addons or speed addons (instasaw, crack billy, etc.), it made Billy 10x easier to play as and a pain in the ass to go against. I think myself and the entire rest of the community (even fellow Billy mains) agree that these addons had to be nerfed. BHVR did listen about that, but they pushed it way too far, reworking most of his addons.

I never really minded the new addons bc I only use double engravings, but there are just so many useless ones for him now. Both of his red addons are trash (even when they're put together) because any survivor with eyes will be able to see him sprinting towards you and reposition themselves. Then you've got other stealth-related addons like the buckle, leafy mash, and motor oil. Just like the previous ones, any survivor with eyes will render these addons completely useless. To be fair, he did get some pretty fun ones like lopro chains which lets to saw through pallets and get a hit, but the point is most of them aren't really useful. His speed, bumping, steering, and overheating ones are fine as they are, but everything else is either A: not fun to use or B: not beneficial enough. It was better when his addons just changed the numbers of his power and not add stupid effects.

Next, we have the overheat mechanic. This change was not the worst because it punished Billys that missed a lot of saws at loops, but that was the reason so many people had so much fun looping Billys. Because of how much counter-play he has as survivor. Creative Billys will go for all different kinds of curves and tricks to get skillful hits on survivors and they're genuinely getting outplayed. It's pure skill. Curving on Billy takes an insane amount of skill and takes months to get good at. Against good survivors, Billy was one of, if not the most balanced killer in the game because he can be looped pretty hard (by survivors that actually know what they're doing and not run without looking behind them) and in exchange he gets high mobility to pressure gens.

The overheat mechanic is just an annoying limit to Billy's creativity with his saw and makes him so much more frustrating to play as. Now before you go writing "WeLl I nEvEr OvErHeAt As BiLlY" it's double engravings (aka skillbilly) that gets hit the hardest by the overheat mechanic. While playing Billy without an extra charge time, you never overheat unless you miss literally every one of your saws (in which case you are just bad). But with a 24% increased charge time, you overheat in literally 2 1/2 saws. Double engravings also requires a lot of 99ing your saw to get the curve just right, resulting in even more heat. Just delete overheat. Replace his overheat addons by bringing back his cooldown addons or something.

Billy's base kit definitely did not need a nerf. It wasn't overpowered, the survivors you are giving us are just underpowered. Everyone said the Billy nerf was not justified at the patch, but guess what, they still went through with his changes. The devs need to stop listening to survivors that never admit their own mistakes and always blame the game for when they die and listen to the killer community. Devs are survivor mains change my mind.


UPVOTE TO GET DEV'S ATTENTION AND FOR THEM TO FINALLY LISTEN TO THEIR COMMUNITY BEFORE THEY ADD A BRUTALLY MURDER AND ADD A COOLDOWN TO EVERY OTHER KILLER, even your main.

#BRINGBACKBILLY

Post edited by Mandy on
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Comments

  • Weeezy
    Weeezy Member Posts: 25
    edited October 2020

    Before the Billy "rework", he was one of those popular killers that everyone loves going against and you know that when you get a Billy, you were going to have a good game. I used to go against good Billy's all the time and I always enjoyed it (except when they were using instasaw). Ever since the rework, I have not played against a single Billy that actually knew what they were doing. Like how bad of a dev team do you have to be to not give a ######### about the most annoying killers in the game (spirit, freddy, legion, etc.) but decide to nerf one of the most loved and fun to go against killers in this game. The thing is, Billy isn't even a bad killer now by any means, he just feels very off when you play him. From his janky animations that are complete garbage to him not having any fun addons anymore (besides a few like drift Billy and double engravings) to the overheat system that was not necessary because his base kit was fine.

    First of all, the animations. The new ones are trash and faces you downwards while in the middle of it, so when you do hit a nice curve or flick, you cant even see it. Just bring back the old ones, they were so much better.

    Secondly, his add-ons. Billy had some of the most fun add-ons in the game prior to the rework. Yes I know, there were some busted add-on combos like instasaw (double charge) and crack Billy (doom engravings + tuning guide), but apart from the charge time addons, the rest were pretty much fine. Now there are a ton of completely useless addons, such as both red addons. Any survivor with a brain will figure out that you have this and use their eyes to see you coming, rendering them both useless. The overheat addons, while nice, don't really help too often because you never overheat unless you're running engravings or something.

    Lastly, the overheating mechanic. And to be totally honest, this was not the worst idea in the world. It punishes people that like to spam their chainsaw and miss every one of them. Although, as a double engravings player, with a very long charge time, you overheat in like 2 saws and its pretty annoying to use. So maybe increase the rate of dissipation while using engravings or something. Otherwise the overheat mechanic is fine as it is.

    Please devs. Fix Billy. I'm in a discord with other Billy mains and like 80% of them quit playing him just because of this update. #BRINGBACKBILLY #JUSTICEFORBILLY

  • azame
    azame Member Posts: 2,870

    You cant use double engravings effectively anymore due to the overheat. That's terrible. The overheat was never adjusted tot he engraving add ons.

  • Saitamfed
    Saitamfed Member Posts: 1,620

    Well, it's not recquired to play with double engravings, you don't really go that fast after all. I get the point that they might need to rework Billy add-ons

  • Bard
    Bard Member Posts: 657

    It shouldn't be punished.

    Getting saws that travel long enough to be overall faster than just walking after accounting for revving/recovery takes a degree of skill, and knowing when you can/can't get away with using your saw is even worse.

    This would be like if the devs added a stamina bar for survivors that reduced their movement speed if they ran for a certain period of time.

    Even though it wasn't the end of the world, the Billy update was horrible from a game design perspective. I could see it being a decent risk/reward mechanic if Overheat had some nuance to it, but no, it doesn't.

    The update took things away from Billy, a killer who was already balanced at base, with nothing in return.

  • azame
    azame Member Posts: 2,870

    I never said that I. All I said was that the devs never adjusted overheating to engraving. You overheat easier due to longer chainsaw charge.

  • Leachy_Jr
    Leachy_Jr Member Posts: 2,207

    One thing I don't understand is that when they nerfed spirit, they barely touched her. But with billy - a killer almost nobody complained about - got a pretty hefty nerf and was made pretty unfun. I don't want spirit nerfed but I just found that funny.

    Also the sole reason I never play billy is because of his god awful animations, the limping makes me feel like a 110% speed killer his chainsaw animations are just straight up broken.

    I agree he could be revisited.

  • Weeezy
    Weeezy Member Posts: 25

    like ive said multiple times, double engravings. read

  • PigMainClaudette
    PigMainClaudette Member Posts: 3,842

    Billy was played for the same reason Spirit is now. They're strong and extremely easy to learn.

    The difference was that Billy had an isntant-down base kit that required no real work, compared to killers like Myers and Ghostface.

    You have everything except stealth in your power, and it replaces his weapon for too many people.


    People "quit" Billy because they couldn't cheese him out with insta-saw or Crack Billy any more. He's fine where he is now.

  • MusicNerd_TC
    MusicNerd_TC Member Posts: 3,099

    He isn't "extremely easy to learn", you had to learn a bunch of tactics, like backrevs, curving etc, all hard to pull off.

    The only thing he needed was a add-on change, and the only reason overheat should ever exist is to stop camping.

  • NekoGamerX
    NekoGamerX Member Posts: 5,288

    I just hate the sound he makes now.

  • Steel_Eyed
    Steel_Eyed Member Posts: 4,033

    I play him. I main him. He’s fine and fun.

  • PigMainClaudette
    PigMainClaudette Member Posts: 3,842

    Funny, because majority of Hillbilly players I versed were "Rev saw in M1 distance or use it to sprint" the entire game.

  • ALostPuppy
    ALostPuppy Member Posts: 3,398

    I never ran add-ons. I quit playing Billy because his camera and animations are horrendous and kill the entire experience. Don't even get me started on the roar, completely unnecessary and a weird extra shadow nerf to him. I say it is a nerf because survivors can react to a Billy curving round a corner etc much easier than without the sound since you react to sound faster than something visual. Not to mention it sounds stupid.

    Idk why they wanted to nerf Billy's basekit either because he wasn't even that good without add-ons, no better than Huntress or Freddy, maybe too many people complained, but they did and now we're here. I love BHVR :). At least Blight and Demo still exist. For now.

  • humanbeing1704
    humanbeing1704 Member Posts: 8,998

    haha polar opposite for me I find it extremely hard to play hillbilly with those add ons

  • PigMainClaudette
    PigMainClaudette Member Posts: 3,842
    edited October 2020

    There would still have been a lot of people who played him because he was easy.

    I don't get the roar, but I also don't really care about it.

  • Weeezy
    Weeezy Member Posts: 25

    you are kinda right about that. a base kit billy is pretty much just loop until deadzoned and get a free instadown. but skillbilly (aka double engravings) is a much much much harder and more satisfying way to play billy. it takes years to master curve billy.

  • PigMainClaudette
    PigMainClaudette Member Posts: 3,842

    Nurse, Deathslinger in a sense, Pyramid Head, I would say Blight but nobody has played him against me and I haven't played him yet, Huntress

  • madamretto
    madamretto Member Posts: 364

    I don't pretty much care about overheating but I wish he had different add-ons, now they are just bad. And his roar is still cringy for me 😅

  • SquirrelKnight
    SquirrelKnight Member Posts: 951

    I never really liked billy but he was fun, i could move fast, people would be stupid and blindly bump into me when chainsaw was going and id get maybe a kill.

    I understand the reasoning why they nerfed him but disagree with it. New billy is now hampered for using his power like most other new killers, its tiring trying to fight mechanics and not the survivors.

  • OniWantsYourMacaroni
    OniWantsYourMacaroni Member Posts: 5,944

    I miss Billy :'(

    I see more people play nurse or hag then billy.

    Seems like nobody wants to play him anymore :/

  • Kind_Lemon
    Kind_Lemon Member Posts: 2,559

    Sure it does. I don't play efficiently and I love trying crazy things to catch survivors at loops. It's what I find fun. 95% of the time, it doesn't work, and the survivors get away uninjured. The change was basically, "No more fun for you. Be efficient." I stopped playing Billy.

    And regardless, that's not the main reason I stopped playing him. The sounds and animations are what made me abandon him.

    You only seem to address the last point in the post (which I think is the weakest in its support), and I'm not sure if that's because you agreed with the other points or ignored them.

  • Kumnut768
    Kumnut768 Member Posts: 789

    the addons are the worst part of the nerf he needed like 3 addons to be reworked slightly instead we got a mechanic that does nothing but annoy you and addons that are laughably bad

  • Weeezy
    Weeezy Member Posts: 25

    we should start a movement to bring back our old and better billy. who cares if the devs wont listen. the rest of the community will and join us in the fight to #BRINGBACKBILLY

  • Saitamfed
    Saitamfed Member Posts: 1,620

    About the sound, I can really understand it, I kind of hate it as well, not like hate hate, but I ask myself Why? It is unnecesary and doesn't really scare you or something, and before you needed to look back to check if he already was sprinting to go to the side, right now is keep running until you hear the "GRAWR"

    And I can understand you, but many people were let's say very good at him and, don't missunderstand me, he takes skill, but he wasn't punished enough if you made enough mistakes, also, devs wanted to "nerf" his ability to camp with the saw (that's why it overheats when you press M2)

  • Saitamfed
    Saitamfed Member Posts: 1,620

    I am not really sure because even thought he is one of the best, I didn't really used him or went against him so the only thing that I could say it was "problematic" was his turning rate, although my brother did well with him addonless so I can think he was very strong with some add-ons

  • ClaudettegetsnoBPS
    ClaudettegetsnoBPS Member Posts: 16

    Dude, the devs probably just want the make sonic: spinball at this point.

  • Ryuhi
    Ryuhi Member Posts: 3,797

    fixing billy's camera and animations is in the same bracket as colorblind options, preventing null sound bugs on survivors, making ormond not a miserable map, fixing dedicated hits, making dead hard work for more than just distance again, Blight moving his gopro up from his belt buckle to his actual face, and OoO not being a perk straight up designed to be exploited.

    I looked for the ETA, but all I saw was the LOL button that got removed.

  • ClickyClicky
    ClickyClicky Member Posts: 3,536

    I hated playing against Billy and I think he could be more oppressive than any of the other killers you mentioned. Often it only took one survivor mistake or one bad looper to doom the game against a Billy. Having unlimited sprint and instadowns does that.

  • Kumnut768
    Kumnut768 Member Posts: 789

    The turning addons were close to useless in chase the only addons that needed addressing were Instasaw and crack addons

  • xenofon13
    xenofon13 Member Posts: 1,241

    It's not only they nerfed him.

    After the chains of hate chapter he is very buggy and clunky. Missing more buggy 100% connected chainsaws, and his animations are horrible.

  • Weeezy
    Weeezy Member Posts: 25

    what rank are you? because i can tell from your name that you would be somebody that also complains about literally everything killers have.

    also just dont greed lol

  • ClickyClicky
    ClickyClicky Member Posts: 3,536

    And yet I’m the only person here not complaining about Spirit or PyramidHead.

  • ClickyClicky
    ClickyClicky Member Posts: 3,536
  • Weeezy
    Weeezy Member Posts: 25

    anyways who gives a ######### if you dont like going against him. literally 99% of the community does. the 1% are probably grey ranks that run to a corner of the map when they hear a heartbeat and get instadowned (aka you)

  • ClickyClicky
    ClickyClicky Member Posts: 3,536

    Why are you getting to worked up and insulting?

    I just gave a counter point just to say that yes some of us think the changes were justified. Any hugs relating to him obviously need fixing though.

    A lot of the community hates Spirit should we just make it where survivors know when and where she is phasing as people want?

  • Kind_Lemon
    Kind_Lemon Member Posts: 2,559

    it's probably one of those things that some people hear and hate, some people hear and love, and some people find neither (eg. nails on chalkboard). I have the same issue with the (completely obnoxious) gen sound of sparking when undergoing repairs. It's a bad idea to include sounds like those in a game that has a lot to do with atmosphere.

    I've actually not had that much interaction with bad Hillbillies (not sure in what kind of sense tho) that end up doing well just because of the instadown, but I have had at least one time where I felt like the player did not deserve the power he/she had by playing Hillbilly. I would argue, however, that that's not a problem with Hillbilly but a problem with how survivor positioning influences so greatly how well a survivor fares (around hooks, gens in dead zones, etc.). Very rarely would any Hillbilly rev a chainsaw while camping, and when he/she did, it was usually a given that there was a possibility of making the Hillbilly miss and then unhooking afterward. The change to not rev while camping actually made the problem worse because now killers won't give survivors that opportunity to attempt to force the killer to miss and will instead ensure that the unhooker will always go down. i.e. it doesn't make anything about the situation better and might make killers more effective at camping in many scenarios.

    In short, the changes didn't make anything better for anyone. All that they did was make Hillbilly less popular and reduce the frequency with which survivors would face the problems still there with Hillbilly (chainsaw hitbox size, how stuns interact with the chainsaw sprint on dedicated servers i.e. the killer gets pushed back and breaks the pallet after the survivor gets the stun point score, how Hillbilly is still able to slug extremely well, which was an issue that many survivors found with him even though I didn't mind it so much).

    The same exact thing happened with Nurse, but that's for another time, and it's something I've already written repeatedly.

  • EntitySpawn
    EntitySpawn Member Posts: 4,233

    i mean billy hasnt changed much at all, the only change is you dont get add-ons to reduce your chainsaw charge speed and thats all people ever used. i play billy a fair bit and he really isnt bad at all, same place as always except his add-ons are more interesting. now during the ptb it was rough but the increase how long he can chainsaw/rev and how fast it regens so its perfectly fine even at rank 1. he always was a middle of the road killer and that hasnt changed, you just cant reply on insta saw to get downs all the time now.

  • Weeezy
    Weeezy Member Posts: 25

    did you actually read the whole thing? i legit said instasaw should be removed. next time, actually read.

  • MusicNerd_TC
    MusicNerd_TC Member Posts: 3,099

    How many threads will you make on the same topic?

  • EntitySpawn
    EntitySpawn Member Posts: 4,233

    yeah, but they did remove insta saw. no one used anything else and his add-ons are actually so much better now. and like i said his cooldown etc. isnt that bad at all unless you are chainsawing 99% of the match which is stupid. all you need to do is learn when to start reving etc. to get hits at tiles etc. or just use the damn add-ons to help you chainsaw all game. He has better addons, can curve the same, better terror radius but just stops you using the chainsaw all game... just let the chainsaw breathe, simple as that nothing is wrong with him

  • Starr43
    Starr43 Member Posts: 873

    I miss sprinting around maps to try and beat my old record for longest consecutive sprint without a care in the world..

    Now Billy just roars like a man child getting tilted over a bad game of fortnite.

    In all seriousness though.. When I first faced Billy’s back in the day it seemed like BS.. then I started practicing with him.. then facing him as survivor after learning what he’s all about over time he actually felt like one of the most legitimately fair killers in the game.

  • EntitySpawn
    EntitySpawn Member Posts: 4,233

    lol okay, just deal with how billy is. hes perfectly fine to play as and has many more improvements. i guess you should just get better? because i can curve fine with base billy and your post is a wall of text with very little meaning tbh, i tried explaining and being polite of how billy isnt that different, if you cant discuss or try to understand then you will have to hold your piece or learn him more and get better. thats all there is to it mate