Killer Concept: The Curse
So I got bored again and decided to make a killer concept again.. This one's a little more unpolished than the last one I made I think, and I didnt write lore this time because I suck at it, besides, the ability is already confusing enough. There's so many details, I tried to cover everything but I'm sure I missed one or two things. Anyways have fun reading..I personally feel like this thing is HELLA strong, but that's intentional. I think when you create something in a game, it's always better to make it too strong and then nerf it than the other way around.
Edit: Slight perk changes and corrections, check comments.
Killer: The Curse
A ruthless ghost cast by the Entity. It's ability, soul caster, allows it to trap survivors in the spirit realm, using their physical bodies for its own benefit. Its personal perks, Void Walker, Scourge Hook: Shared suffering, and Abyssal presence allow it to punish the act of helping other's by tracking down altruistic survivors and sneaking up to them undetectedly.
110% default movement
Without a strong connection to the physical realm trough a body, the Curse's power is weakened. Hitting an injured survivor will put them into the deep wound state. Hitting a deep wounded injured survivor will put them into the dying state. (exposed effect still applies normally). While in its normal state, the Curse has the undetectable status effect and you can only see its claw and face and a dark fog resembling a human body. The curse will also have a reduced stun while in its original form. (1.5 seconds instead of 2)
Power: Soul prison
Soul prison can be used on injured or downed survivors (must be right on them). When using soul prison on a survivor, their soul will be ripped from their body, trapping them in the spirit world. While there, survivors won't be able to interact with anything from the physical realm, however, flashes of them can be seen by the killer and other survivors (similar to what Onryo looks like while hidden). They will have to find a randomly generated portal on the map to reenter the physical realm (should have a minimum distance; using the portal takes 10 seconds). Soul prison has a cooldown of 80 seconds. (when a survivor leaves the spirit world they get a new body, so the old one will be left at the curse's disposal)
Secondary Power: mind cast
When a survivor is ripped out of their body, the Curse can take control of it and use it to chase down the other survivors. While in a survivor's body, the curse's movement speed increases to 115%, however it now has a terror radius of 32 meters. It also gains an extended lunge (like Myers T3). The curse can leave and enter the survivor's body at will (works exactly like the twins only when you return to your body you can't switch back to your old location. However it leaves a lot of opportunity for map pressure) using the body to block off loops and vaults etc., however this gives survivor's the ability to break the body's bones, continuously giving the curse more debuffs while travelling using the body. (one break takes 2 seconds, so it's gonna be fairly hard to do since you can pretty much only get access to the body during chases unless the killer already has a new body and doesnt care about this one. A pallet stun counts as 2 breaks.). after 2 breaks, the curse's lunge will be reduced (from T3 myers lunge to regular), after 4 breaks, breaking actions for the killer will be 10% slower and after 6 breaks, the curse's movement speed will be reduced back to 110%, even with the body. 10 breaks will render the body unusable for the curse and the entity will claim it after a short while (to prevent having too many bodies at a time)however if there are multiple, the curse can switch between them. This motivates survivors to actually break them.). The maximum body amount on the map is 2 (so we don't melt BHVR's toasters for servers)
Perks:
Void Walker: You feel at home in the place the eye does not see. When a survivor is unhooked, you gain the undetectable status effect and a 5% speed boost for 20/25/30 seconds. Void Walker has a cooldown of 30 seconds.
Scourge Hook: Shared suffering: You punish the ones who try to take your prey. When someone unhooks another survivor, they will have their aura revealed for as long as they stay within 6/8/12 meters of the hook for a maximum of 20 seconds. In addition, both survivors will suffer from a 10% penalty for healing, repairing, cleansing, opening and interacting with other objects for 12/14/16 seconds
Abyssal presence: Survivors in your proximity are unnerved by your otherworldly presence, distracting them severely and increasing the chance of a fatal mistake. While in your terror radius, survivors will get more difficult skillchecks the closer they are to you. (it's like 1 additional huntress's lullaby token for every 1/5 of the terror radius up to 5, meaning no skillcheck sounds when youre within let's say 5-8 meters of the killer, depending on how large the terror radius is). While in your terror radius survivors will also suffer from slightly impaired vision when repairing, healing, cleansing, opening and interacting with other objects. This effect increases with the level of the perk (and I mean SLIGHTLY. I'd say lvl 3 should be about half as bad as deep wound maximum)
Mori:
As a ghost: The Curse forces a mind cast on the survivor with their soul still in it, so the survivor starts fighting and screaming until they fall to the ground and their eyes roll back in their head. Then the curse's face manifests on the survivors and it stands up, laughing with an unnatural, creepy voice. This Mori allows the Killer to take over the body while killing a survivor.
While posessing a body: The curse hides its face, pretending to be a survivor, helping the downed survivor up. As soon as the survivor is on their feet, the posessed survivor's face turns back into the curse and it stabs the other through the stomach with its claws. The moried survivor gasps in shock and falls to the ground, whimpering as they bleed out.
Hope this is a somewhat interesting concept.
Comments
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(Couple of issues I want to get out of the way: 1- The Soul Prison section mentions a "Mind Flayer" thing, which is not mentioned anywhere else. I assume this was supposed to be what is labeled as "Mind Cast". Also the Mind Cast section is duplicated midway through the description of the breaking debuffs. Now into the actual overview)
Let's talk about the power:
With no connection to a body: the idea of a killer's basic attack giving Deep Wounds is sketchy, especially when attacking again pretty much works like normal. Removing a player from their body and using it like a puppet for a time sounds cool (survivors leaving the other world get another body so they're not removed from the game was a good idea). Questions kinda begin to rise tho... like Does the other world function like Freddy's Dreamscape? Do portals relocate and if so how much time is there between relocations? How many bodies can be left in the world for The Curse to use? Are they left standing up or crouched when The Curse leaves one? Are these bodies set to a timer so they don't lay around and take resources? Are the debuffs that result from breaking actions applied to only that one body or to The Curse?
There is an idea here, but the questions I listed prevent me from understanding how everything works.
As for the perks:
The Void Walker perk is fine. I see 0 issues with it. Good job. 👍️
The aura effect of Shard Suffering in concept is fine, but the max time and distance feel off. The only time someone will be within that range for more than maybe 6 seconds will be if they're healing under hook, which might happen once or twice per game (if that). Maybe you could extend the range to 8/10/12 meters of the hook. The debuff effect is fine, maybe a bit wordy but I can't fault you for what I believe to be "too wordy".
Abyssal presence is a bit of a "hmm" for me. From what I can gather about the killer's stats: this perk would only trigger on them while they're in possession of a body since they're normally undetectable and have no TR. This feels a bit strange from a design perspective, a perk that doesn't properly synergize with the killer that it came with due to their power. I'll leave that as something to think on and move on towards the debuff effect. While survivors are in the TR: they suffer from blindness and effectively Huntress' Lullaby. Completely muting skill check sounds from them just being near you is a little strong for what is effectively no conditions (yeah, it's dependent on the tier of the perk, but no one is gonna just sit on a tier 1 perk because the effect is "more fair"). Perhaps there needs to be an activator to trigger the effect, like maybe if there is more than 2 survivors within your TR at once? This might encourage people to split up or avoid other survivors. Something to think about.
In conclusion: this is a unique idea that could be really cool, but I can't commit to praising it until I fully understand the premise (I also like the sketch you provided. Looks very well made. 😊)
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Oh Mind flayer was the name I originally had in mind, I changed it later to soul prison because I didn't wanna copy the name of a stranger things monster xD. messed that up. Gonna change it right away. And no, not mind cast, I intentionally put the timer on soul prison, because if I didnt, you could just walk around putting people into the spirit realm back to back leaving tons of bodies on the map, wich would ruin the entire concept.
I thought about adding another state called "heavily injured", instead of deep wound, but that'd just create more chaos.. Like "what happens when youre heavy injured and youve got endurance" etc. So it just seemed to me like deep wound was the best idea. I also tried to kind of nullify the effects of the new (in my oninion ABSOLUTELY dumbfoundingly stupid) survivor base kit borrowed time, so it can't put you at an even bigger disadvantage than you already are when you're a ghost.
About the dreamworld. That was actually the part I thought about the least, I just imagined survivors being trapped there and a portal spawning at fixed minimum distance so it cant spawn right next to them, they can see its aura after like.. 10 seconds let's say.. So it takes one survivor out of the game for lets say 30-40 seconds wich is half a gen, and with dbd killers, "too much" map pressure is good map pressure if you get what I mean.
About the bodies.. I didnt put a cap to the amount of bodies, but what I couldve done is that survivors see the auras of bodies that've been idle for too long so they can go ahead and break them. I'd have left them stood up normally , but I'd say they get "pushed to the ground" when a survivor breaks them or stuns them, so when the player gets back into the body, they have to recover from a stun first. That'd make loop chases more interesting since the curse actually has a good reason to stop survivors from breaking the body or stunning it with a pallet, aside from the debuffs. And they can't take resources (by wich I'm assuming you mean blocking off things like gens, totems, chests etc.) because survivors can break them. it takes 20 seconds in total, but it works, and since I put an 80 second time recovery on the ability to trap a survivor soul, it's not worth using a body to block a gen for 20 seconds. The debuffs are only applied to the single body, for example, the animation's supposed to be like, first you break the arms as a survivor, then the legs, thats why I gave it a lunge debuff and then a movement one. Plus the movement debuff to 110% wouldnt work since its base movement as a ghost is 110%. I was trying to make him very weak but sneaky in his ghost form but really strong and alerting in human form to make the game more intense, because as long as you dont know wether the killer has a body rn or not you're always looking out for it so you dont give him the opportunity to capitalize massively off of you.
Transitioning THAT to the last perk, I intended for the main playstyle of the curse to be WITH a body, wich is why I gave him untedetectable in his ghost form, because that allows him to more easily get a body, giving him a massive terror radius and speed, since he just has to injure them and get within range to claim them. From that point on you have 80 seconds where you need to pressure and hook, but at the same time try to keep your body as "unbroken" as possible. The killer's supposed to be about "sneaking up to survivors and then blowing them into confusion and disarray with your power buff, terror radius, and the perks. And in that way I think Abyssal Presence would work well on him.
I do agree that The perk could be a bit too strong on some killer and occasions, so I agree with you on adding a condition to it. I could change it so the closer you are to the killer the more difficult the noise notifications become to react to, and the level of the perk increases the max distance, maybe 24/28/32 meters.
About Shared Suffering. I dont play DBD nearly as much as I used to (got 2k hours and maybe 150 in the past 6 months), but I see a LOT of people healing under hooks when I do and I do it myself fairly often when I think the killer isn't close. And the perk is supposed to synergize with Void Valker AND the curse. Void walker removes the terror radius in case you're in your body, since the massive terror radius would ruin Shared suffering's use, and it makes you faster, while Shared suffering reveals the survivors to you and debuffs them slightly so you get a little more time to approach them. On the other hand, I do agree that you could increase the hook distance. I even started off with 8/10/12 meters, and then lowered it later.
Hope I could sort out some questions for ya. If you've got any more, do tell, I love talking to creative and likeminded people.
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You answered my questions, but kinda missed the resource one. That was probably because I was rather vague with it and didn't specify, my mistake. I was hoping that you'd also trim out the repeated section in Mind Cast, so that it wouldn't look like an intimidating word monolith.
What I meant by "resources" was the hardware and server resources that get the game to run. There are actors (entities that do stuff and aren't just piles of static meshes and textures) and having too many can cause a game to work harder. In terms of actors: DBD is rather small. We have the 1 killer, the 4 survivors, all the gens (and their animations), the totems (and their visual effects), fog billowing about, and all the lighting effects. The first 3 mentioned are easily the most complicated ones as the do a lot and the latter half of the list has the lesser ones, but all together it's a relatively small workload. Some killers bring in some environmental items but they fit more into the latter half, Nemesis being the only one to have free "thinking" entities with his 2 zombies. Adding more actors requires the game to work harder to have them in the world, and the more you add then the more the game has to deal with.
Adding a body cap and/or an idle timer would be useful to prevent this from happening. The Curse could only have a max of 12 bodies at once, and if a body is not possessed after maybe 10 minutes, it is claimed by The Entity. Your idea of survivors seeing idle bodies could also work, but just showing them where the body is might not be enough.
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After having read everything you clarified (albeit this was done with an exhausted mind):
This would indeed be a very complicated concept, but it's still very unique and very cool. Such a chapter would require some serious thought to try and counter it and would add more depth to both sides (or just make survivors DC because they just can't be bothered to try).
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Yeah I guess you could add a limit to it to prevent any server meltdowns (since we all know how good BHVR's servers are), but I think 10 minutes is a little.. Excessive... Considering games, especially high rank vs low rank ones (of wich we have a lot because BHVR apparently doesn't have the ability to create a somewhat viable ranking system in 6 years of development) sometimes last around 5.. I wasnt thinking about people intentionally spawning in as many bodies as possible to test the limits. Also thanks for telling me about the copied part, I didn't notice that at all.. Removed it though. I also applied the suggested changes to the perks and added smth new to Abyssal presence bc I needed something to apply the perk levels to 😅 Oh yeah, by the way, thanks for the compliment on the drawing.. I actually started the concept with that. I just drew a character, slapped my online avatar on it (yeah the face is actually my avatar xD) and then I was like "hey this kinda looks like Nea.. This could be a killer who can posess survivors"...
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