What Kind of Power Would Feel Rewarding?
I've been working on a fan killer for a little bit now. I've got the artwork done, the story done, the rough idea of the power and everything. But I'm trying to get some last minute ideas so when I post it on these forums it'll be the most polished concept I can provide.
One thing I've noticed with Killer's is that their powers often feel like they punish you. If you whiff, or miss there's always a penalty that just feels kind of bad. (Even though I understand it rewards survivors for playing good)
I'm trying to figure out a Killer power that would be fair, and fun to use. Like with Billy or Blight, just going nyoooooom is stupid amounts of fun. With Ghostie, his stalk is kind of meh but it's greatly satisfying to be able to teabag and lean around corners. With Demo, even though there's a cooldown with a missed shred it feels so fulfilling to just shred over and over again. (Ever just spam Shred to make the noise/do the animation?)
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Well whiffing should feel bad from a design perspective. If you miss an attack it shouldn't feel good because you don't get the reward you were going for. If there's no penalty for missing then the power is unbalanced, because there are no drawbacks to just spamming the power.
Just keep developing your concept and you'll be able to see what needs changes as you continue to develop it.
I love [REDACTED]'s shred, the screams are hilarious to me lol.
EDIT: If forgot to answer the question lmao. As far as what kind of power would be "rewarding" it can be pretty complex. It depends on the killer you're making, like what would or would not make sense for them (wouldn't make much sense for a character with Nurse's design to have Oni's power rite?). How is that reward communicated to the player? Sure you need some kind of reward in gameplay, but how do you communicate the FEELING of getting that hit? For characters like Nemo and huntress that comes with audio and visual sounds that feel good to hear and let you know you got that hit, for Oni its with that really beefy triple bonk that makes it feel like you're driving the survivor into the ground. at the end of the day it depends entirely on what you're communicating, and HOW you choose to communicate it will also affect how rewarding the power will feel
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It's hard to give suggestions for your killer's ability without knowing what their theme is. Ideally you want a killer's mechanical ability to mesh with their thematic background and presentation.
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Something...unique.
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Powers have fatigues and miss cooldowns, because if it gives you an advantage in a chase, you shouldn't be able to use it over and over until it lands. Like Demogorgon's Shred, it covers a huge distance, but if you whiff it you should lose approximately the same amount that you gained by leaping. It also serves to prevent powers being used for mobility when they aren't intended to be.
Personally I find the most satisfying powers are the ones that don't rely on survivor interaction to work. Pinhead's Chain Hunt sucks in most matches because it only works if the survivors don't keep it disabled all match. On release, Plague was awful because survivors could choose to prevent her getting corrupt ever in a match.
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I'd like another sneaky killer, or one that spawns minions to attack.
A giant spoopy spider would fill both of these.
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Something with a high skill ceiling that when played well actually feels rewarding.
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I designed a killer myself a little while ago, so I've had cause to think about this- my idea of a rewarding power is one with a pretty decent skill ceiling, getting good at either aim or timing, but that has a backup aspect that always does something. I like killers with built-in stuff, like Doctor's tracking, Pinhead's secondary objective, and Pig's built-in slowdown, so more stuff like that is a lot of fun.
I also like trap killers. We need more trap killers, we only have two...
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Rewarding should mean that successfully using a power doesn't have a high probability of just being... eh. Like landing a Pinhead shot, and then it just gets broken on scenery.
The difficulty of successfully putting a power to use needs to be offset by being good when it is. High skill but not even rewarding a normal hit is often... bad.
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I like the powers that you have to build up in some way
Myers, Ghostface, Oni, Plague and Nemesis to a certain extent
I think adding in that 'build up' tension is really rewarding when you finally hit Tier 3 or get Blood Fury rolling etc. Survivors always have to have things in the back of their mind against these killers (Am I 99'd? How long does his T3 have left? Has Oni got his power again? Is the plague close to her red fountains?) stuff like this I love to see.
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A killer who sees in 3rd person instead of 1st person as his power.
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A two fold power is usually what i find the most rewarding where its not about charges persay but the power can be adapted to the situation. Too many killers are in a m1 boring state one of the rarest killers in the game is the twins and thats because of how complicated they are to play well and most dont want to put in the effect to learn them proper. However when they do learn how to play them decent and with great effect you get players that truely fear going against you...and its that fear not of the killer or the player behind the killer but that power when its played well and proper. I really wish dbd had more complicated usage killers but they are definately harder to design and program right and when they come out everybody stops and sits down and says........sh!t how are we susposed to escape that
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That would absolutely make the most amount of sense. The Killer I've been working on is a stealth Killer. I've been playing with two separate ideas in my mind, and I don't know if it would be better to present one over the other or if there would be a good duality between the two of them. The core concept that I've been working is one that instills a sense of paranoia, something that wouldn't be completely nullified against SWF's though.
The Killer is a Doppleganger, she gets charges from observing the Survivors and once she gets enough charges on the Survivor she's take over a Survivors form. Two things happen when she steals their form. She'll swap positions with them, so that the Survivor is where she was at when she activated the skill, and vice versa. Additionally the Survivor who's appearance was stolen can't be seen by any other survivor for the duration of her ability, nor can the survivor being 'Isolated' see any other survivor. This allows the Doppleganger to make a choice, engage in a chase with the Isolated survivor (Who can see her red stain/terror radius), or use stealth to try and get some good blows on the non Isolated survivor. (Who cannot see her red stain/terror radius until she hits the first person. This would 'reveal' her in the sense that everyone can see she's the killer, but 'Isolation' would still run its entire duration and she'd still look like whomevers appearance she stole.) If she downed the target who's appearance she stole she'd immediately go back to her default form and 'Isolation' would end. 'Isolation' would also end after a certain amount of time.
As long as one survivor is 'Isolated' with the Doppleganger having their stolen appearance she'll be able to vault pallets and windows (Slower vault than a survivor, faster than the base Killer vault speed.) When chasing the 'Isolated' survivor she'll be able to down them while she's assuming their form, if she attacks anyone else she'll only be able to get them to a deep wounds state.
I was playing with the idea of having her have a 'cleave' type attack, where she can swing while in her power and hit anyone within a frontal cone.
The general gameplay loop I figured would play out is the game starts. She stalks survivors similar to Ghostie where each survivor has their own individual charge. At this point she's fundamentally an M1 Killer. After observing a survivor for a period she goes into 'Isolation' swapping
places with a survivor. Say two people were working on a generator and she stole one's appearance, to the Survivor who didn't get the power used on them they wouldn't notice anything differently, the Killer would still be 'working' on the Generator until they moved away from it. They could drop 'Isolation' at will and incur a brief penalty (Like Pig crouching/uncrouching) to go for a hit/grab. Or they could stay in Isolation, strike the survivor on the Gen and put them into deep wounds then move onto the Isolated survivor and see if they can't down them before 'Isolation' runs out. Rinse repeat.
I have a whole backstory for the Killer written which I wanted to post in a proper thread once the powers are fully polished but I'm pretty excited to share this so I'm gonna post the picture I commissioned for this idea. The story I feel is pretty solid, I just need to polish the power to something I feel happy enough with, and something that would sound fun in a 'what if this could be real' scenario.
(Actually on second thought, I've decided to just upload the meat of the story for funsies if anyone wants to take a look. This is up to but not including the climax chapter. https://www.wattpad.com/story/299699679-the-doppleganger )
Post edited by RiskyKara on0 -
Its been said before but
Survivors shouldnt dictate your power or get rid of it too easily compare to YOUR benefits from that power. I'd use pig's rbt as example here, theyre rather often perceived as weak s tgey cant kill anymore in their unarmed state ( and you only got 4 of them).
As for brainstorming a killer power,find some concepts that fit thematically to yoir killer and work from there. Reverse is possible too, though.
Start general concept and try adding details. 'Prison guard ->take away freedom/cages/restrict movement -> "can spawn walls for a duration".
If you think your ability is lacking in barebone, add secondary effects:
"Survivors will just loop your spawned walls" -> survivors now get slightly slower and build up laceration when touching the walls (or really close). That effect spreads to nearby walls and objects.
If your ability is still lacking in your opinion, add a second ability:
" can bring up a map screen to plant proximity trap that spawn a cluster of walls if triggered"
The try to cram your idea into the game mechanics and controls. (Hold M2, charge meter as ammo count, regenerate x charge meter when etc). Might want to crunch some variables like charge speed etc if people get interested. No use to finetune the numbers if no one cares.
Make an ability first, then the addons. I'd rather make good ability with effect addons than making your ability good with variable-boosters (charge speed etc).
Realistically, try working with existing stuff, my concept used a "wounding debuff" instead of laceration before trickster was a thing. I'd use the exit gate and vault blockers for tve spawned walls, and would still use those as they only appear at the exit gate, maybe slightly decorated with barbed wireor fire ike the trail of torment.
Oh right.
OC DO NOT STEAL PLS ( very important )
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Sounds interesting. In fact you probably could let the killer down survivors normally while swapped and it wouldn’t be overpowered, no need to limit them to just Deep Wounds.
A couple of quick thoughts
- Note that being swapped implies being Undetectable for the duration which is a pretty great ability. Sure, survivors on comms will immediately know you swapped, but that doesn’t get rid of the Undetectability which is still really useful even against swfs.
- Effectively this killer then is an Undetectable killer who can vault more quickly and teleport to locations survivors are at. The fact that they look like a survivor is a cool side effect but it probably wouldn’t fool other survivors that much, especially if they’re on comms.
- Being able to teleport to where another survivor is located could be an effective tool in combination with that Undetectability.
- When you say the isolated survivor is invisible to everyone else and everyone else is invisible to them, that might cause an issue where the isolated survivor is unable to do rescues or heals which could be a bit unfair. Maybe just make the isolated survivor themselves invisible to other survivors but they can see and interact normally with everyone else. That way they can still rescue someone if they want, for instance, it would just look to the rescued survivor like they got pulled off by an invisible force.
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My favorite kind of Powers are the ones that focus on the 1v4. Some of my favorite concepts that I've made have always had a secondary objective the Survivors would have to do in order to counter the Killer's 1v4 Power, or a secondary, non mandatory objective Survivors can go an search for to gain an advantage on the Killer
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You think that wouldn't be overpowered to let survivors be downed normally even with undetectable present? That's actually pretty neat, because I thought with the killers mobility it would absolutely be a bit strong, but maybe I overestimate how oppressive that would be.
An 'Undetectable Killer' I like that. The idea was that it was a stealth killer, but calling its primary power undetectability sounds way cooler, and gives me a lot of ideas to springboard off of that as far as add-ons are concerned.
I'm glad you can see that appeal in swapping with a survivor, it sounds great to be at a loop, see a second survivor close by, quickly change positions with the survivor turn around and deck that 2nd guy in the face.
You're probably right that it would be better for the survivor who's isolated to be able to rescue and revive dying people. That would be pretty nifty from a story perspective. The closer a survivor is to death the more able they are to see a friend that they lost.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my ideas and give feedback on it. It actually gets me more excited to brainstorm ideas (Even though I know it won't ever amount to anything IG.) It's good to know that this power doesn't sound underwhelming/overpowered to someone else.
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Well Ghost Face is already a mostly Undetectable killer out of chase and he can hypothetically get Exposed hits by stalking. Your character would be about as stealthy as Ghost Face but their only advantages in chase would be they have slightly faster vaults and they can teleport in at the start of a chase to get surprise. So I don't think it would be all that much better or worse than Ghost Face.
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Is there any way you'd be able to think of that would make it stronger?
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I don't know that it would need to be stronger than that. Depending on how often and quickly the killer can teleport and how quick the killer is at vaults that combined with often being Undetectable sounds like a good combo.
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