Credit where it’s due, Sadako is a damn cool killer.
She may not be the strongest killer in the game but she’s far from the weakest and is better than what most people are saying. But more importantly, when I play Sadako I actually feel like (and look) a horror character in a horror game, which can’t be said for the majority of the roster, and I think the devs deserve a pat on the back for being able to bring that feeling to fruition whilst keeping the killer relatively balanced for different skill levels.
I do think she needs some tweaks to help with higher MMR, namely lowering the cooldown on TVs (100 seconds is too punishing) and baking her stealth addons into base kit, but as far as design goes, I think they more or less hit the nail in the head with this one.
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The animations are amazing! Even the Survivors seem to be more expressive when being grabbed by her.
But the best thing is her sound design, I love how it sounds!
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Good music too. 👍
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Agreed! She is my main now. I think they did an amazing job. This is the most fun I've had playing killer in a LONG time.
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I'd agree that she's awesomely designed from a visual/audio standpoint - but she's depressing to play against people that know what they are doing.
- She may as well not have stealth.
- Why does she need a lullaby?
- Her non-collision hurts her as much as it helps her.
- Ditto her size (corn...argh).
- A lack of an anti-loop, gap closer or proper stealth (she isn't even really undetectable thanks to the lullaby) basically makes her play as a bog standard M1 killer.
- TV spawn logic can put TVs in completely useless spaces.
- Survivors barely need to interact with TVs at all.
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She is great between the pallets being shoved on her head and the 4 man outs.
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Maybe you need to play a bit more with her if you're doing that bad? I probably don't have the highest MMR, but I've been getting some decent teams and I've done pretty good so far.
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Yeah she probably has my favourite animations and the sound design is top notch. The look on a survivors’ face when you grab em is a great. Almost feels like it’s higher res.
She’s my new main too. Haven’t had this much fun on a killer since I started learning Hillbilly.
She could do with a few tweaks for sure. I don’t get the need for a lullaby. It can work aesthetically for that horror vibe but the same can be said for pure stealth which let’s be honest, would make more sense balance wise. It’s not like she can one-hit-down like Ghosty or guarantee a hit like Wraith.
Her stealth by default seems sort of lacklustre. It works well with addons though which is why I think they should be baked into her kit.
TV spawns could be more consistent especially given the long cooldowns. I don’t mind having one or two in random locations as they can be used to catch survivors off guard, which I quite like, but I can’t really justify that at the expense of them spawning next to gens, and having a TV spawn next to a gen but on the wrong floor is not good.
The condemned mechanic should be more of a threat to encourage interaction. I think the issue is that BHVR can’t rely on the typical solo queue survivor to play around a new mechanic properly so they err on the side of caution. Look at Pinhead for example. A very simple mechanic that makes people run around like headless chickens lol.
I like her smaller size though and it has was won me quite a few mind games. Makes a nice change as I usually play taller killers like Hillbilly and Pyramid Head.
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I love Sadako but she is not creepy for me. She is cute. But maybe that's just me, idk.
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I still think it's ridiculous the carry animation is the same as all the other killers.
Hers should be unique and the Survivors can be holding their neck like they're getting choked while being carried to the hook.
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I enjoy her size sometimes, but for every situation where it helps her compared to a taller killer, there's another where it hurts her. Some loops have walls that Nemesis can easily see over, but she can't. Finding people in grass (DDS) and corn is amazingly frustrating.
I don't mind her Condemn not being crazy, but as it stands it feels almost pointless for most of the game. Every now and then someone will get maxed, but that's a once-a-game-and-not-every-game scenario. In general, people just seem to ignore the TVs completely.
Her stealth...might as well not be there within a certain radius. It's by a mile the worst stealth mechanic in the game (and I'm including Pig on that list), which combined with the mostly pointless Condemn mechanic basically makes her an M1 killer with a RNG traversal ability. Bleh.
I was really hoping for more from such an iconic killer. Cenobite isn't ridiculously strong, but at least he feels powerful and threatening.
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I just gloss over the games where survivors don't react to the tv teleport and don't notice me walking directly at them and then run into me when i teleport out of a tv again... I guess they are listening to music or something because her teleport is loud and directional.
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I'm going to politely disagree. I think she's one of the worst designed killers in a LONG time (visually).
Her animation looks very stiff. Pinhead is similar in this aspect, but at least with him you can see what he's doing. Sadako is literally bobbing her head every time she does anything and it looks really goofy.
Her design (albeit it not being BHVR's fault) is already REALLY bland, long black hair + long white one piece is though iconic, super rudimentary.
The only redeemable factor is the survivors' animations, but that's a bonus for the survivors not Sadako.
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Do you have some videos/VODs we could look at?
I'm likely at an intermediate-high MMR (not amazing, but mostly facing meta perks, quite a few SWFs and a lot of mid-level TTVs).
When I win, it's because I outplayed them as a standard M1 killer. The game would not have felt significantly different had I played Trapper or Pig. If I'd been playing Demogorgon or Wraith (probably the most analogous killers) I'd have won much easier.
What difference exists, is mostly superficial.
I really dig her design. The stiff movements are, to my mind, intentional - this is very much how she moved in most of the films. I find it quite unnerving. Fluid, flowing design wouldn't have looked right on her imho.
The only thing I strongly dislike about her visually is that her camera is so low that maps with a lot of grass (or worse, corn) prevent me from seeing anything. It's a bit like Blight on release.
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Yes, but she walks too fast for looking too stiff.
It's like your grandma walking with a cane pacing at a speed of a marathon athlete. It just looks really off somehow. Pinhead is also guilty of this (looking really slow but actually walking really fast), but he's tall and lanky while Sadako is like you said, tiny.
She should run like Victor at least, but this won't make any sense lorewise and would probably never happen.
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She'd look really silly :).
Her speed is more of a balance thing than a visual choice.
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Why would I have videos? I'm not a streamer or YouTuber, lol. I play for fun.
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Of course and fully understandable.
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Please don't interpret this as me being nasty - but you do have a tendency to jump into various killer feedback threads going 'no, everything is fine, I main this killer trust me'.
I'm just trying to gauge exactly how you are playing them, and at what level. At lower MMRs, killers operate very differently to intermediate or high MMRs. At lower MMRs, people tend to play most killers as essentially M1 killers - which would explain why you find Onryo 'fine'. But without some sort of video, it's difficult to tell.
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Agreed, I think people that are complaining are just the ones really use to all the m2 to win chase killers. I'm having a blast and doing good with her because I get to show my actual mechanical skill at the game through the micro and macro more than most other killers. I'm not saying she is top tier because she is still certainly lower tier but people act like a low tier killer only loses and never has a chance while people have been using killers like legion and doing good for a long time
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Fair enough. Aye it’s a bit of a trade off when it comes to her size. I’m used to playing taller killers so it’s a nice change for me and I find I have an intuitive sense of where survivors are over taller loops. Not had a chance to play her on a corn map yet but I’m willing to put up with it for the benefits in other areas.
Condemned is a tricky mechanic to balance for varying skill levels imho. Lowering the cooldown on TVs and improving the spawns a bit would go a long way to making it more of a threat in higher MMR thus encouraging more interaction, and without affecting lower brackets too much as it would be reliant on correct teleport usage / game sense.
You should try using Mother’s Mirror and Old Newspaper for her stealth. They really should be basekit. With some intelligent movement I’m able to get the drop on survivors more often than not, plus they help with mindgames mid chase.
All I know is I’m having a blast at the moment. It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed a killer this much.
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Oh, I don't think your being nasty (I have super thick skin). I absolutely think she needs buffs which I already mentioned in your thread. I'm just saying if you are getting 4 man escapes a lot while playing her, then maybe practicing with her more might help. She isn't so bad that it's impossible to do good with her. That's all I'm saying.
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I also enjoy smaller killers (Hag is my muse) - but Onryo actually feels even lower than Hag does. I'll have to check later today. It creates serious visibility issues on certain maps (just had Eyrie with a 'dense fog' offering - that was...miserable).
Condemned was just a badly thought out idea. An instamori at 0 hooks...you can't easily balance that. It should have been Exposed, with a mori at 2 hooks (similar to PH's torment).
For stealth, I'm actually running Hair+Watch on her, but I agree that she has too many 'you need this addon to feel right' addons. Reminds me of pre-rework Pig (although she still has this problem), pre-rework Demo and Wraith.
I'll admit that I'm having fun on her, but I'll also admit that 80% of this is pure novelty. After a few weeks I'll probably be back to Wraith or Ghostface if I want stealth, or Demogorgon if I want traversal.
Good.
Sure - you can win on her. Hell, some streamers did 50 win streaks on pre rework Clown and Trapper, and won games on Deathslinger without using his power. It's possible to win on basically anything if you are better than your opponents. But that's neither here nor there.
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