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Finally spirit has counter play.

THE SPIRIT 

The Spirit has been a strong Killer since her release, and with that in mind, we’ve made some changes that aim to increase her skill ceiling whilst also giving Survivors some counterplay. 

When close to The Spirit’s husk, Survivors will not receive any indication that The Spirit is phase walking. Originally this was intended to be a fun mind game (“Is she using her power, or is she faking it?”), though in practice, it often doesn’t feel that way. This lack of feedback forces you to make a guess and hope it pays off, which can be great when it works out in your favour, but can also feel awful when it doesn’t. 

To add more skill into The Spirit’s counterplay, we’re making two changes: 

  1. Any Survivor within 24m of The Spirit will now hear a directional phase sound. This lets you know whether or not she is phasing and also gives you a rough idea of which direction she’s coming from. 
  2. The Spirit’s footsteps will now kick up dust while she is phasing. Keen Survivors may be able to pinpoint where she is, but tall grass and other obstacles may make it difficult. 

These two changes aim to add more skill into playing as and against The Spirit and reduce the reliance on ‘coin flips’ (where you make a guess and hope it pays off). 

Additionally, we’ve done a pass on some of The Spirit’s add-ons to bring them more in line and make the lesser used add-ons more appealing. Like The Trapper, some of these changes are small tweaks while others are completely new effects.

What are your thoughts on this??

Comments

  • ShinobuSK
    ShinobuSK Member Posts: 5,279

    I like her standstill mindgame is gone, and she also needed add on pass.

    But not really sure what to think about her power nerf, will need to see it on PTB.

    Even tho she needed a nerf, this may be a overkill. But as I said I need to see it in play first.

    Overall good update

  • DwarvenTavern
    DwarvenTavern Member Posts: 2,495

    So this is a god send. People talk about focusing on her shard's glow and the moving grass as just enough counter play against her.

    There's two issues with that.

    One.) I physically cannot see the glow change. It's not present for me once so ever. I'm not sure if it's because of my form of color blindness or what, but for me as an individual it is not there for me once so ever.

    Two.) On some maps, sure maybe. But it's an incredibly small movement for the grass to notice, you'd need to hyper fixate on it to see it properly while also being in a mid chase with the Killer. Then we get to the fun part, on other maps that's not even a proper counter since there's a good chunk of WOOD CONCRETE, MARBLE, AND STONE as a floor on some maps.

    Those two are not good enough arguments and it can get incredibly tiring just to read those over and over again, those aren't reliable enough compared to other killers

  • HaunterofShadows
    HaunterofShadows Member Posts: 4,092

    I am good at tracking so I don't really give a #########

  • Firellius
    Firellius Member Posts: 4,384

    I'm worried about the add-on changes. Sure, it's nice that the coin-flipping is gone from the base version, but reintroducing it as an add-on is... Weird. It's good that she's being addressed, but I don't think this will overall make her less oppressive. Counterplays should be made more rewarding against her, IMO.

  • Lochnload_exe
    Lochnload_exe Member Posts: 1,360

    And that is exactly what happened, her power still works the exact same, survivors just get a little more info

  • burt0r
    burt0r Member Posts: 4,160

    Is the directional phasing sound only for going into invisibility or also when she moves around?

    I kind of don't get it just from the text.

  • botrax
    botrax Member Posts: 633

    Survivor get the same info as her even more while she phase. At this point just give her a speed boost XD

  • R2k
    R2k Member Posts: 1,069

    On most of the maps u won't see dust, so i think it overrated nerf.

  • Zozzy
    Zozzy Member Posts: 4,759

    And what about spirits gameplay changed to give her counterplay to survivors?

  • Zozzy
    Zozzy Member Posts: 4,759

    The sound will be directional so you will know exactly what side of that pallet you no doubt will be camping she is on.

  • Mat_Sella
    Mat_Sella Member Posts: 3,556

    Oh no, whatever shall a killer with a 176% move-speed special attack do now that they actually have counterplay?

  • Zozzy
    Zozzy Member Posts: 4,759

    Not much since the survivor knows their exact location while they are phasing.

  • Rey_512
    Rey_512 Member Posts: 1,620

    The devs are overcompensating when only a few changes were needed.

    Instead of just adding one indication of when she’s phasing, they did THREE TOTAL:

    1) Audio - stand still is gone, which was a needed change anyway

    2) Directional Audio (yes, this counts as its own buff)

    3) Visual - dust kicking up

  • Swattw
    Swattw Member Posts: 12

    I don't think this is a good fix.

    So I will give her up for the killers.

  • Clevite
    Clevite Member Posts: 4,335

    Thank you. As a person that mained Spirit for a long time, I agree. I rarely used the stand still mindgame, so it's whatever.

    Luckily, I retired her long ago. I just have too many hours on her to play her again. But, I don't see the big deal, run glasses and they'll be fine.

  • Rogue11
    Rogue11 Member Posts: 1,461

    This also kills her most fun playstyle imo, which was switching targets within terror radius and going for grabs.

  • Rey_512
    Rey_512 Member Posts: 1,620

    I was actually impressed that they fixed the sound bug, but now they go overkill on something like this…

    Trust has been shattered (I know that sounds dramatic, believe me when I say it only in the context of the game itself - I’m not going into a depression because of this).

    It’s painfully obvious that the devs listen to the survivor audience more than the killer side. And why not? That’s 4x as many players paying for furry booty short cosmetics that need to stay happy.

    Or maybe they didn’t make the changes with the intention of pleasing survivors, but rather due to a lack of understanding of their own game - which is just as bad.

  • fitch
    fitch Member Posts: 143

    No one will play spirit,welcom to nurse,blight meta.

    Spirit mains dont worry VHS will coming soon.

  • Artemisha
    Artemisha Member Posts: 401
    edited September 2021

    I´m so glad they finally have gone into Spirit real nerf. Hallelujah!! We have still to see if the changes are good. But this change looks much better than the previous "nerf" based on Iron Will buff.

    Let´s hope also this killer don´t become weak. I don´t think so as she has insane map movility and still a strong 1 vs 1.

  • Haddix
    Haddix Member Posts: 1,048
    edited September 2021

    I don't understand it, that's my issue with it.

    I don't mind it, as I don't play her nor do I really even mind facing her as she is currently, but something about this is odd.

    Was she overperforming? They NEVER said she was, and I'm almost certain I've heard the lead balance designer say directly to his Twitch viewers - who were making claims that Spirit was OP - that she was indeed not overperforming statistically, but that the "stand still" mindgame hasn't created the gameplay they expected. However, when this was from, I couldn't say, so take that with a grain of salt and please don't repeat it as I have nothing to back it up.

    Either way...if she wasn't overperforming, why hasn't she received any sort of buff in her kit to compensate for balance readjustments that have negatively impacted her strength? She's a 1v1 focused killer (I assume MD ring is being blasted out of existence), and if you nerf her 1v1 because it FEELS unfair to face, then why not strengthen her in other ways to keep her at the same power level, just with healthier gameplay?

  • Lochnload_exe
    Lochnload_exe Member Posts: 1,360

    Have you literally ever played spirit, like these comments are honestly baffling, the only one I have seen that is legitimate concern is the use of iron will now against her, but even then you still have footsteps. She still LITERALLY DOES EVERY SINGLE THING THE SAME. EVERY THING. She still has a speed boost out of phase, she still has insane movement speed, she still can approach like a stealth killer from unknown angles, she can still beat most loops, she does everything at the same level of power EXCEPT now survivors don't play a guessing game, and also get info against the spirit. They took the thing everyone knew was awful about her (the standing still mindgames and other mindgames that required 0 skill for the spirit to do at a higher reward than nurse), and made survivors have a very little thing that helps them out. The only people that don't like the change are people that liked using spirit because she was laughably easy.

  • Myla
    Myla Member Posts: 1,551

    I would imagine Stridor would a really good choice now since Survivors can react to phasing now and to counter iron will.

  • IronKnight55
    IronKnight55 Member Posts: 2,952

    THANK YOU DEVS!!! Finally! I've been waiting on this for so long. Spirit was BS and I'm glad they gave her a great change.

  • Squirrel_Thicc
    Squirrel_Thicc Member Posts: 2,677

    I love how people are saying she's a dead killer now like she won't still be one of the best killers after this lmao

  • botrax
    botrax Member Posts: 633

    I dont like spirit this wont change much for me. The change are awful regardless survivor have more info then her and she still going to be play the same way. Worst case we did not see everything yet her addon change are still hidden. Imagine playing a killer that when you use his power you cant see the survivor exept the scratch mark and the footstep meanwhile the survivor can see a cloud of dust beind them this is easy to beat.

    Its a wait and see but honestly i dont think she will be good anymore its just better to play wraith at this point.

  • Nathan13
    Nathan13 Member Posts: 6,707

    She had counterplay.

  • Lochnload_exe
    Lochnload_exe Member Posts: 1,360

    How big do you think this smoke is going to be? It says it will just be a little big of smoke where her footsteps are, that is all. She is going from a killer that gives the survivors 0 information, to a killer that gives them a little more information, while she still has loads of info to track survivors.

  • MrPenguin
    MrPenguin Member Posts: 2,426

    Spirit still moves at 176% base line, has no fatigue, and has the post phase speed boost. You also aren't always going to have LOS on her footsteps. She'll probably be fine imo, but we'll have to see.

  • SirGando
    SirGando Member Posts: 374

    On paper the nerf looks very harsh. We can only judge it when we see her in action though so im not decided yet.

  • botrax
    botrax Member Posts: 633

    The smoke will look like the offering that slightly increase the fog that how i imagine it. The little info the survivor get is huge compare to the info she give. The survivor will know exactly where spirit is meanwhile the only thing she can track you with is scratch mark and they spawn everywhere around the survivor and footstep and the injure sound funny enough most survivor run iron will so you have footstep and scratch mark and its not like you can ear the footstep in every map but you can see the smoke on every map. Its a huge nerf she drop from a S tier killer to a B tier killer and B tier killer get stomp when they face survivor with the same skill has them

  • UnknownKiller
    UnknownKiller Member Posts: 3,024

    We did had a ptb where you could hear spirit phasing it wasnt a bug it was a test.

  • VitoSa
    VitoSa Member Posts: 15

    Except now survivors get more info than the spirit when she uses her power. What's the point of even using her power if survivors get to see and hear her and the spirit can neither see nor hear survivors?

  • VitoSa
    VitoSa Member Posts: 15
    edited September 2021

    ######### thank you, killer powers are supposed to give advantages.


    "bUt yUo StTlL GEEt speEeD" what good is speed when pallets get pre dropped on your face. Might as well play nurse at this point if you're going to play spirit.

  • GeneralV
    GeneralV Member Posts: 11,192

    Honestly, this doesn't sound good at all.

  • Rogue11
    Rogue11 Member Posts: 1,461

    Just a 110% speed killer with a useless power. Oh are we talking about spirit or trickster?

  • DaDuck
    DaDuck Member Posts: 35

    It's kinda obvious that the devs only play survivor. I really doubt that Spirit were overperforming. She had plenty of counter play with ironwill and pure skill

  • Lochnload_exe
    Lochnload_exe Member Posts: 1,360

    Obviously, you must not actually be very good at spirit if you have this mindset which is sad compared to the fact spirit is incredibly easy to play. You CAN hear footsteps on every map, and still having good tracking through scratch marks, breathing, etc is still very strong. You are acting like her power no longer works when it still works the exact same but you can't get easy hits on survivors who have nothing to go on. You must have been playing her because you liked being bad and getting high rewards

  • HollowsGrief
    HollowsGrief Member Posts: 1,497
    edited September 2021

    So let me get this straight. It was bs that spirit had all the info and the survivors none but now that that is literally being flipped it's balanced? If this wasn't meant to be a nerf and just add counterplay then how come she gets no compensation? Her biggest strength (unpredictability) is now gone yet her power remains the same and let's be real her add ons will be gutted.

  • Guest1567432
    Guest1567432 Member Posts: 728

    I mean they did the same with "pallet validation". It was never fixed just shifted from one side to the other.

  • HollowsGrief
    HollowsGrief Member Posts: 1,497

    The balance lead balances around which killer kicked his ass with which build recently. I have seen him play before and it was so bad I was dumbfounded. He is bad, like really really bad. This will never change as long as he calls the balance shots. I mean look at all the recent killers if you don't believe me, every single one was C tier or worse.

  • starkiller1286
    starkiller1286 Member Posts: 889

    Wow so she's as invisible as Wraith now since corn and the swamp have foliage to giveaway her position.

  • botrax
    botrax Member Posts: 633

    I always suck with spirit shes not the type of killer im good with. But when i play survivor against a spirit most of the time i do really well so when i talk about her i talk when i play survivor. Right now i cant see her power give her an advantage so im sure she will suck because the survivor will have more info then her.