Do you prefer Simple or Elaborate Killer Powers?

This is why I main legion. Easy injure but you must work for your kill.

The Shape is my favorite. So I definitely prefer something simple.

Simple from a design perspective is almost always better.

For one, in games, its not fun to have to learn how to play any specific power in a specific way, and complicated powers normally force this. For example, Demo's power has depth to it but its forcing in playstyle. You set a portal to teleport, simple. However using M2 its not as simple, and is normally used for gate keeping for various reasons. It is therefore makes you forced to play in a playstyle that zones, or you won't get the most out of his abilities.

Huntress however, is simple and you can use her long range attack in a variety of ways. Mind games, direct damage, ect and because it doesn't have a more complicated requirement such as first a portal being needed to set first, it is more flexible.

Since its hard for a killer to be simple, strong and fun to play vs, yet alone complicated as well. This is why most if not all the killers are pretty simple in concept with the more advanced strats revolving around situations or when to use they're power or how its used.

This is literally the nature of power creep, it's an unfortunate fact of every multiplayer game that's ever existed and new characters will almost always operate on an upward trend that sees the average kit of your average new character to be more and more bulked up. In Dead By Daylight- on average we are and will continue to see killers that have more complicated and elaborate powers because of power creep.

It's not unusual anymore to see killers with secondary or tertiary powers, as well as other abilities just smushed into their kits. It's not enough for The Trickster to have throwing knives, he needs an ultimate ability which is Main Event, it's not enough for Nemesis to have his evolving tentacle whip- he needs AI Zombies as well for information, map pressure, and some unique chase plays. (I'm not saying these examples are overpowered, or that secondary abilities in general are a negative thing per se, just as a fact of life of the trends of continued development.)

I'm not even entirely sure there's anything you can do to stop power creep- it's just the unfortunate way of multiplayer games. I think the only way to fight it is to start getting really creative with the new characters you introduce and basically shift the status quo every single time you introduce a new character by creating new and interesting mechanics or reinvesting in old mechanics that haven't seen much use in the game.

Just a quick look around community killer concept ideas, there really is no shortage of cool and unique ideas for killers. A few of some ideas just tossed around and some of my own:

• I remember one about a killer that was a Fireman with a fireaxe that could leave trails of flammable gas in his wake and then ignite it to create trails of fire that would cause survivors to get "burned" which was a brand new status effect.
• I had this idea initially as a ghostface power (this was before he was released, and long before demogorgon came out) of a killer that could hide in lockers where his terror radius would be reduced to 0 and teleport between them and would be the only killer to have access to a third person camera while he hid in a locker. Fast exiting from the locker would give you bonus speed almost like Pig ambush and slow exiting the locker would provide the undetectable status effect for some 10 or 20 seconds.
• A concept I created for Jason was loosely inspired by the Lake Mist power he has in Mortal Kombat- Jason could essentially cover parts of the map in a thick fog that would reduce visibility for survivors to a couple of meters in front of them, survivors in the fog also suffer from the oblivious + blindness status effects. Jason would also have a more powerful version of this ability that operates on cooldown which covers the entire map in a thick fog and all survivors become oblivious and blind. During this time Jason can pull up a HUD which projects a detailed image of whatever map he's on and he can select and teleport at will to any part of the map- exactly like he does in F13 the game.
• There's always been the lingering suggestion to have a killer with a shapeshifting ability that can transform to appear as one of the survivors in the match. Most likely for / from a chapter on John Carpenter's The Thing- I know there are some concerns about whether or not this would actually work and so I would just say this could be a secondary power to help the killer, but the tool that gives them the most power would be whatever could be stuck on them as a primary ability. Whether that's a chase tool or map mobility or whatever.
• Another idea I had was for a killer called "The Tinkerer" or something and would be invested in creating all kinds of Traps all over the map. Traps that could be strapped to the sides of Generators, on pallets or windows, the sides of walls, on trees, etc. He would have access to different kinds of traps that do different things- like revealing a survivors aura for a few seconds, hindering them, mangling them, traps that deal a state of damage or break a survivor or whatever. The traps themselves would introduce brand new unique puzzles and challenges that a survivor needs to solve / complete in order to get by the trap. A full departure from the classic "skillcheck interactions" that Dead By Daylight routinely just throws at survivors.
• Before the Hag / Demogorgon came out I remember seeing a super cool killer concept years ago all the way back in the first year of Dead By Daylight- of a killer Scarecrow that could create copies of itself and set up a few Scarecrows around the map. With add-ons you could change how the power worked but essentially the Scarecrow would crumble and fall apart and then possess whichever Scarecrow it had previously set up. Depending on Add-ons the Scarecrows would give off their own Terror Radiuses or be completely silent, and you wouldn't be able to tell if the Scarecrow was hiding in a possessed clone or not.
• Under a thread talking about the possibility of A Quiet Place in DBD (not very likely but hey interesting discussion) there was some conversation about introducing a killer that actually couldn't see- or at least couldn't see by conventional means. Instead they'd have to use some kind of echolocation or something and they would be able to see the outlines of their immediate surroundings. To compensate for this, they could be the fastest, most agile + mobile killer out of the entire roster. Definitely one of the weirder ideas, but given the context that's a good thing and it's definitely interesting to think about.

I'm literally just rapid firing random killer power ideas, not to say that they're good or bad / complete or incomplete or anything like that, just to prove that there are plenty of unique ideas out there that haven't found their way into DBD yet elaborate or not. However, the devs seem pretty insistent with the last few chapters in just giving us a killer that has a powerful chase tool and lacks in utility or map pressure or mobility or anything else. Not exactly what I'd call innovative or fresh by any stretch of the imagination.

In the end I think you can have killers with elaborate powers that are still fun, and killers with simple powers that aren't fun (IE Spirit) so its not even about elaborate vs. simple it's about being creative and testing out brand new ideas that really shake up the game. To answer the poll's question directly: I guess you could say I don't really have a preference between elaborate and simple killer powers since both have the potential to be thoughtful or thoughtless.

I don't even know what this comment is- I feel like I talked about 3 different ideas that all kind of loosely relate but I really just ended up rambling. If you got anything out of my ramblings or could make sense of what I was getting at then I'll call that a win and call it a day. Hell, I'm calling it a day either way.

A simple thing done well is always better than a complicated thing cobbled together out of disjointed pieces.

I prefer easy to play and hard to master. Although if MMR continues to give balanced matches for killers I am weak with I will happily play more console Nurse and Blight.

Simple powers like Blight's are infinitely filled with potential, but elaborate powers made correctly like Demo's are also equally great seeing as they have multiple simple and versatile elements. I would say in general I prefer simple powers, though both can be good if BHVR worked at it.