How would you change boring/unfair killers while keeping them strong?
I think every single killer in this game should be strong, but unfortunately that's not really the case. I've noticed that the stronger killers, at least in the chase, are complained about for being boring. PH, Slinger, Spirit. Some, I agree with and some I don't, I personally hate going against Freddy way more than PH or Slinger, but that's not really what this post is about. How would you change these killers without completely gutting them? Pyramid is getting his changes, and I think he'll still be fine so that's a good example. How would you change Slinger, Spirit? I'm not really including Nurse, since I've seen more people say she's fun to go against since her rework.
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Honestly, the only change I want is for Freddy to have to work to put people to sleep. I hate the dreamworld and how you have to run across the map to wake up. Either make falling asleep something he has to work for, or let it be based on how long a Survivor is within his terror radius. Heck, I’ll settle for an extra alarm clock to be available on the map.
Spirit is annoying, but I can’t think of any changes that wouldn’t completely butcher her. My problem with her and all other high mobility Killers is their tendency to always tunnel or proxy camp hooks. To fix that, the devs would have to change the mechanics of the game. I’d go so far as to make Borrowed Time as a base-kit ability to discourage tunneling from the start of the match, but understand how it can break the game during endgame.
I also hate Killers who have abilities to see auras through walls, like Wraith and Michael, but that’s because I’m a stealth player and it completely counters me.
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My personal biggest problem with Freddy is really just his traps, and the fact that most I run into tend to camp and tunnel quite a bit. Not always, but quite a few. His traps just annoy the hell out of me. I don't think their too OP or anything, but just annoying - especially when I run into one who just uses his traps to loop a safe pallet. I think they made waking up a bit harder because of how Old Freddy used to be, since it was incredibly easy to wake up against him.
Spirit is a tough one. I feel like they're should be some kind of visual clue to her phasing, whether it be something on her model or just having her kick up dust or move grass in her phasing, but that might be too extreme. In all honesty, I've faced more low mobility killers come back to the hook.
I used to play stealthy, but I've moved into a more bold and chase focused playstyle for survivor. Michael's wallhacks make him really, really slow and having Spine Chill can destroy him pretty hard. Bing Bong boi is a little tougher to go against due to his mobility and invisibility, but if you stay fully healed you should be able to get to a loop.
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There isn’t a way to do it. The devs can buff and nerf and tweak as much as they want, but if a killer’s power is fundamentally frustrating then the only way they can make people stop hating it is to rework it from the ground up, and they’re clearly not gonna do that.
They nerfed Legion and people still complain about them, because the issue wasn’t whether Legion was strong or not. The issue was that killer powers that boil down to “get an easy hit” are always going to annoy/frustrate survivors, since not getting hit is sort of the point.
The devs nerfed toolboxes and killers still complain about them because the entire premise of how they function is annoying. “An item that lets your opponent win more easily.” Yeah who could dislike that? The only way to stop complaints is to delete them or just rework them so they do something else. Same with some killer powers. Survivors will never be happy with the power of a killer like Spirit because it’s designed to make her very strong and unreadable in a chase, and no nerfs or small changes will fix that core design choice.
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It’s subjective. I don’t mind Spirit (apart from her overuse) or PH.
So for me...
Ghostface - Fix the reveal. There’s a risk to trying to reveal him, if he walks past a tree it cancels the whole reveal and gives him your location. So I’d add more of a reward and have it reset your personal stalk progress. Also have him make more noise when he’s closer. Not as blatant as it was when he first went live but a little bit more of a heads up than he has now.
Legion - Full rework. Either make his power more interactive or go down the Plague route, make his power injure over time rather than instantly and give survivors a faster way to heal in return for Legion getting a new power.
Deathslinger needs a real terror radius.
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Spirit: have her husk shift to her position every half-second.
Pyramid Head: Increase his cancel time, decrease his attack cooldown, increase his wave travel speed.
Deathslinger: increase cancel time, increase ads sensitivity, increase ads movement, decrease ads zoom, increase ads activation time, increase tr to 28m, increase chain break time.
Nurse: Delete from game. There's no way to make her fair in a chase. Her power is literally the ability to blink to you and hit, ignoring everything you can do.
Hag: remove flashlight disabling and create manual disabling, at a time of maybe 7-10 seconds.
Freddy: Add snare placement slowdown, remove the drastic increase to waking someone up, and give more ways TOO wake up that aren't detrimental to the survivors.
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Unfortunately, yeah. I've come to the realization that no matter what the Dev's do, people will complain about the balance of the game. I've thought about it a lot, and there just aren't a lot of ways to change the killers that people find boring, or fix the things that Killers hate, at least not in a way that people'll like. Rework Spirit to be more fair, Survivor bias. Rework DS, or maybe even notify killers when they're playing against a SWF- Killer Bias. The 1v4 nature of this game makes it a lot more tricky to balance than typical online games.
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You act as though Nurse simply charging a blink while in a chase is game over. There is PLENTY of things survivors can do without pallets and windows. God forbid a single killer made the gameplay slightly different than ring around the rosie.
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I don't really mind PH that much either. If he get's me to a point where he can bait me, then I'd likely be hit with a basic attack anyways. Besides, the fact that it's Pyramid Head wards off any irritation towards the character for me, but that's just bias.
I play a lot of Ghost Face, and the reveal mechanic is a buggy and broken mess. There'll be times I'll get revealed by someone inside a building, or the exact thing that you're mentioning where they'll stare at me and nothing happens.
I don't personally have a problem with Legion, but I get all the gripes with him.
Everytime I play against Slinger I feel like I'm playing an actual horror game, so yeah. A bigger TR might be in order.
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I can agree with most of these, aside from maybe Spirit and Nurse. Spirit, I feel like that would completely just break her- if the survivor can see you move, and you can't see them then the survivor instantly has a huge advantage - even if it isn't completely accurate. Her rework needs to be something less drastic, at least in my opinion.
Nurse is either the easiest killer to go up if she's bad, and incredibly tough if she's good, but I think it's fun. I feel skilled when I manage to outplay a Nurse, and when she got reworked I think they made her a much higher skill cap character. If she still had her multiple blink add ons, yeah I would probably agree, but as she is right now I think she's fine.
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I personally disagree with your opinion on Legion; some of my most fun games are vs Legions.
I agree, fixing the reveal mechanic would make it less frustrating for both sides. And a counter to stalk progress would always be nice while making sense.
Hard agree on the TR for Deathslinger; it's such a cheesy mechanic that he basically has no TR, even without monitor.
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Title said "while keeping them strong".
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Yeah GF reveal is a double edged sword. There are a lot of times when I reveal GF when I physically shouldn't be able to (mainly cuz of the 3rd person perspective) or my character is seeing something I'm not, while there are just as many times when I'm staring directly at him and nothing happens.
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Strong is relative.
What I think you mean is that any killer should, in any random game with equally skilled survivors, be able to kill at least 2 survivors with minor mistakes made on each side.
The "Strong" killers are really just the oppressive ones, whose kits let them secure kills while their perks keep the map at bay: I.E. Spirit shows up out of no where and you can't search for ruin. If you want to balance out the powers in some of these killers you'd so something along these lines:
Weak Killers:
Trapper: Increase base carry capacity to 2. Decrease trap setting time. Increase Trap disarm time.
Clown: Increase vault speed, Survivors gain oblivious while intoxicated.
Wraith: Faster exit out of cloak, higher transparency at a distance.
"Strong" Killers:
Spirit: "Flicker" while phased.
Slinger: Longer recovery from missed shots.
Pyramid Head: Just rework him.
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I probably shoulda specified more when I say "strong". What I'm talking about is the killers I see complained about the most. Every killer in this game is strong in at least some way, it's just that the weaker ones lack anything else going for them. In an area with traps, Trapper is pretty oppressive, but anywhere else he is "scary man with machete." Wraith can get some good early hits, and with the right addons can get across the map pretty quick, but after that it's the same thing.
For the weak killers you mentioned, yeah those seem like good ideas. Part of me wishes Trapper just started with all his traps, but I can see how that could be pretty game breaking at specific loops. I just hate that he has to walk across the map to get his power.
For Clown, those seem good too. They really need to take the noise he makes when vaulting away, as far as I understand no other killer has a noise when vaulting. I've always wondered why Mikey is the only one who get's to vault faster.
For Wraith, I think he should have a higher movement speed while cloaked and maybe even get a low percentage version of Shadow Dance at base. Something like 5%, nothing too great but something that doesn't make cloak as terrible. I've always felt he should be completely invisible at long range, similar to Freddy. A decreased time to get out of cloak would be nice.
The "strong" killers, I think that's more in the direction to go for Spirit. Something that can be noticed if your paying attention, but isn't super obvious.
Slinger, I don't know. A lot of people just hate his "free" zoning, but I feel giving him a cooldown to ADS might be a little too punishing. Idk though.
As I said before on this thread, I'm personally fine with Pyramid Head. I think his gimmicks aren't incredibly punishing, but I understand why people have gripes with him.
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I've got ideas for a few killers.
For Legion, he's too basic and needs a secondary ability, having to do with the "Legion" concept of him. It would make him more fun to play and go against as opposed to mass-injure spam.
For Huntress, I think replacing some of her bad add-ons (like the locker aura one) and replacing them with hatchet recovery add-ons would be cool. Right now, Huntress can down way too quick at times, because a hit from her hatchet is like 8 stacks of STBFL. I think if she had more of a recovery at base after a successful hatchet hit, she'd be more fair. The recovery could be offset by the recovery add-ons I just mentioned.
For Doctor, his static blast is just too strong. Scale down the range, make it inflict less madness, or make the cooldown longer. Right now, static blast gives him too much slow down for free. Sometimes it seems like half the match you're breaking out of level 3 madness, especially with the pink add-on that shocks you just from touching another survivor. His regular shock could use some touching up because too many survivors are able to vault and drop pallets even after being shocked. Bring rollback vaulting back.
For Leatherface, honestly just make him cancel his chainsaw after downing 1 person. It's not fun for 3 people to go down in 10 seconds because of one use of a killer ability. Give him an add-on or 2 to allow him to keep going after downing a survivor.
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Freddy's clocks should not spawn on the opposite side of the map from you by default. I know it becomes a bit like Pig's rng boxes, but if the clock you need just spawns on a random one instead of cross-map, it will be way easier to wake up on average.
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My opinion is that "Boring" and "Unfair" are catchwords used to not say "too strong". Most complains boil down to the killer being able to down survivors faster than other "more fair" killers.
Did you ever see those ideas to "fix" the Spirit? "Remove her invisibility and maker her see even less" - definitely just a small QoL tweak for survivors. /facepalm
You cant fix the "boring" or "unfair" out of killers without nerfing them.
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Imagine complaining about Nurse in 2020. 🥴
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Ring around the rosie is this game. That being said, I'm a nurse main and half the hits I get are me going around a loop normally. Nurse can still be ring around the rosie.
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i agree with all of this except the nurse part there are plenty of things you can do because you get info on whats happening these are then dependent on whether or not they are a god nurse or not but they are rare
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If we're assuming bad players like you seem to be, then no-one needs changed. If a good Nurse charges a blink, you're dead unless she screws up. Zero counterplay.
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For spirit I'd like what otz suggested for her (make her phase act a little bit like old Freddy's dream transition animation where he would phase in and out of view and move grass, allowing for actual mindgames. RIP old Freddy btw :( )
I had a giant paragraph for Deathslinger changes before but I think I've thought of a more interesting one instead: make his gun work a bit like the sniper from TF2 or widowmaker: he has to aim in for longer if he wants to shoot at a longer range. If he pop shots it would barely go a few meters so at autohaven loops etc it'd still be good if you're right up to the loop etc. Give some kind of indicator to the killer that it's ready to fire at max range too, like a "ding" and a glint of light suddenly reflecting off the gun. And then buff other things around it like maybe reload speed or something. Hell you could probably make him 115 with this change though I'm not sure.
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Ghostface - Remove the ability to bring him out of NS when on hook, being carried or slugged. Subsequently, increase the night shroud recovery time. Id also like to see NS remain intact after gen grabs and successful stalk + down. I don't like the fact that you can play stealthy and yet automatically penalised for attacking.
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Freddy: Slowdown when placing snares. Increase the time it takes survivors to fall asleep by 33%. Replace dream snares with the dream pallets addon.
Deathslinger: Increase the time in which Deathslinger withdraws his gun. This will prevent free zoning.
Spirit: Have her leave black pools of blood on the ground when she's phasing.
Legion + Deathsligner: Increase mending speed by 33% when you mend others.
I think Pyramidhead is fine prerework. Maybe increase the delay to 1.5-2 seconds before you can m1 out of your power.
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They could introduce an exciting new game through Freddy with a new objective, actually bring it closer to the villain from the films. Going against Freddy should be awesome and terrifying.
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Sure you can.
Oppressive killers are almost always no counter-play, so you just add in counter-play. Are you saying a periodic "flicker" while phased would be the absolute end for Spirit?
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I consider myself a pretty good Nurse, I don't miss much and I'm very deadly most games. That being said, there are still survivors who are very much capable of dodging at the last second even on 0.01 second charge blinks. Just because it's very hard doesn't mean it does not exist.
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No. That's you screwing up, the same "counterargument" to every single killer. I'm sorry, but it is entirely in your hands as to whether or not you hit. And, given that that is the case, there's no reason to assume you won't.
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Jack, how often do you see these "god nurses"?
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About the same as I see "god Slingers"," but no-one complains when I point out that he needs nerfed.
The difficulty of a killer has no impact. It's their potential that matters, not the number of people that reach it. I'm sick and tired of everyone excusing Nurse just because she's the classic "hard one." She's busted ane there's nothing that anyone can say about her difficulty to change that.
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tbh, reactivate old Freddy would fix him.
Kinda disagree. Otz had a good idea and that was already mentioned on the forums before his community patch stream which is an inverted passive phasing. Same like Freddy had pre rework and kinda same like the passive phasing but inverted, meaning she reappears every like 1,5 sec during phasing. That would give survivors a lot of info to work with.
Also disagree with "they're clearly not gonna do that" because, as just mentioned, Freddy rework. That is a complete rework and has nothing to do anymore with old Freddy, unlike Doc rework for example. But they do that, just pretty rarely because it is like creating a whole new killer. The model exists already, but everything else is pretty much coding from scratch.
I haven't heard a lot of toolbox complaints, if any. Only about a full team BNP. About Legion: there were no complaints about being hit, there werte complaints about the inevitable down because of his power. Which they got rid of. These two points are more like people are just used to complain. You can change whatever you want, even if it is perfect, people will complain, as fun is a pretty subjective thing. Some people will always complain about Legion, just because they got brandmarked as the most lame killer at some point, no matter how much they gets reworked
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