Killer Concept: The Doppelgänger
Hello everyone! I've been working on a passion project for this fan killer for far longer than I have any right to but I feel like it's in a place where I can finally show it off to the world.
When making this killer I tried to design the story to match the powers, and the powers to be not only balanced but fun. I know this killer will more than likely never exist, but I still spent a lot of time lost in daydreams about how cool it would be if it did. And because of this I really put critical thought towards its overall game-play design.
My idea of how the killer would be played would be fundamentally two-fold. A precious balancing act of stealth mechanics in tandem with sudden bursts of speed.
With every use of the power you are deciding between two different gametypes that's dependent on which survivor you are chasing. The first game type would be stealth, using another survivors form to decieve those who's form you didn't steal. The second game type would be pursuing the survivors appearance that has been stolen. The elements of how the power works changes the chase dynamics drastically depending whether or not the chased survivor's own Dopplegänger was after them.
Additionally, the story written is my original work and the artwork for this was created by a good friend of mine that I work with regularly. This friend has given explicit permission to use the artwork while presenting it to the Dead by Daylight community.
I'll put a link to the full documentation of the killer as a google URL and as a downloadable PDF. I'm hoping that is acceptable (I figure that's why we can add attachments as PDF's on the forums. If that's not okay I can post the full documentation in this thread, it will just lack formatting and some general organization.)
To start I'll go ahead and post the overview and the power here. The synopsis, story, addons, and perks will be continued in the attachment and link provided.
I'm excited to hear what everyone thinks about it! Thank you so much to whomever has the time to look it over. I promise I did my best to not waste anyone's time.
The Full Breakdown.
Overview
The Doppelgänger is a Skinwalker that uses eldritch magicks to steal the appearance of unfortunate souls. Using the power of Isolation, the Doppelgänger forces survivors into a shifted plane of existence where their fellow survivors cannot see, hear, or help them while the killer wears their faces like a mask.
Her personal perks, Hex: Supervision, Don’t Leave Yet, and Still Out There, allow her to monitor survivors’ shared auras, block the Exit Gate, and use the survivor’s paranoia against them.
Difficulty Rating: Moderate
Power: Isolation
When the Doppelgänger’s power is fully charged, the killer can activate the ability ‘Steal Form.’ This will change the Doppelgänger’s appearance to be that of the survivors for 60 seconds.
Stealing a form will ‘Isolate’ a survivor into a shifted plane where they cannot see or interact with other survivors. Stealing a form will trade the survivor and killer’s positions. Isolated survivors are affected by the Oblivious status effect and hear a Lullaby.
Isolated survivors will become temporarily visible and can use the ‘Unhook’ action within 6 meters of a hooked survivor. Isolation ends automatically after 60 seconds.
Isolated survivors see eyes rip through the fabric of reality whenever they disturb a crow that will watch their every move. The Doppelgänger will see Aura’s of the eyes.
Power: Steal Form
When a form is stolen, it will put the killer into a ‘disguised’ state to non-isolated survivors. While disguised, the killer is granted Undetectable. Press the Activate Ability button to unsheathe your weapon and drop disguise. The Doppelgänger’s movement speed will be 4.2 when disguised.
Use the Activate Ability button to disguise again anytime there is an isolated survivor.
When using a stolen form, the Doppelgänger can interact with generators and perform healing actions. Any interactions with survivors will fill up ‘fake progress’ that will vanish once the Doppelgänger lets go. Any cooperative action will incur a 50% penalty with ‘fake progress’ filling in the penalty until five seconds after the Doppelgänger lets go.
When using a stolen form, the Doppelgänger can fast vault. Whenever the Doppelgänger does a vault for the first time within a single Isolation, she will gain a token.
Her first token will raise her movement speed to 4.8.
Her second token will raise her movement speed to 5.2.
Her third token will raise her movement speed to 5.6.
Tokens will decrease at a rate of 7 seconds for the maximum token achieved. Each subsequent token will fall off at a rate of -2 seconds compared to the previous token.
Comments
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Wow, I'm impressed with the work you have put into this. Well done!
I unfortunately don't have time to read it all now, but looked over some of it and this is very interesting.
The Hex perk seems very strong though and completely counters my build, I always run Bond since I'm solo q haha.
I hope others have more and better feedback than I have :)
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Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. That perk honestly did feel a bit overwhelming with perks like bond on the table. But I thought that hex perks are supposed to be game changing strong to make it worth the risk of it getting cleansed.
In a real game situation it might make more sense for it to be limited to 5-6 second aura reads per activation for things like Bond, Blood Pact, and Kindred.
Post edited by RiskyKara on1 -
Im a bit iffy on the Hex. On the one hand it could be a hex that goes game after game with 0 use because survivors just didnt bring any aura perks on the other hand if someone brings Bond Openhanded it becomes extremely strong. Especially for a hex perk that can already be cleansed it being entirely reliant on survivors bringing certain perks seems very very hit or miss. Personally dont go anywhere should still activate in chase because how often will you be in chase for 20 seconds in the exit gates.
Her power is probably the best thought out killer pretends to be a survivor powers because she seems to very much benefit in chase being almost a more lethal legion with less crowd control which means her power doesnt get absolutely nuked by being in a SWF. Im not sure if she would be too powerful against solos is the only thing because a strong stealth and strong chase might be oppressive.
Addon wise, the notebook sounds absolutely hilarious to meme around with and just saying ######### this Im a survivor now, the Hatsune Miku refrence sounds really strong considering how effective she sounds in chase I could easily see it getting the full bonus 30 seconds every isolation in the hands of a good player, A Fathers Love also sounds absolutely nutty since you could easily use your power in a deadzone of somewhere awkward then immedietly head back as soon as youve swapped to down them, Masters degree sounds extremely fun and intresting and if she wasnt as strong maybe could be basekit.
I do have a few questions though. Can isolated survivors work on gens and also how do you pick who to isolate like is it a random survivor when you use your power or something like old freddy where you get in range of them for a bit. And does "Any cooperative action will incur a 50% penalty with ‘fake progress’ filling in the penalty until five seconds after the Doppelgänger lets go." mean it looks like 2 survivors is working it when it is actually gaining the progress of 1 or does it look like 1 survivor while only gaining the progess of half a survivor.
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To answer your questions. Isolated survivors would be able to work on gens. I feared the idea of just isolating and forcing a survivor to do nothing for the full duration with no counter was going to be both oppressive and boring. The big takeaway from Isolation is that they will have difficulty in cooperative actions in addition to the general chase differences.
The power would be activated on command. You'd pick a survivor, they'd get a little glow around their edge to indicate that which one is selected then off you go to enjoy your best new you.
The generator progress would look look like the progress of 2 people working on it, but once the Doppelgänger lets go the real progress would be based on 50% single survivor progression.
My thoughts on Don't Go Anywhere not activating in chase was that sometimes the Killers and Survivors will meme around at the exit gate for funsies. If it activated during chase there may be a chance that it unintentionally activates. But I suppose it's cancelled out by 'If you're running this perk just don't enter chase with survivors at the exit gate.' If I can be completely honest, I entirely forgot that Bond existed when I made Hex: Supervision. We'll probably have to nerf it a bit. (But then it might not need to be a Hex at that point.)
I'm delighted that you caught the Miku reference!
Thank you for taking the time to offer thoughtful feedback.
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I definitely agree that isolated survivors need to be able to work on gens otherwise the passive slowdown would be insane and people would constantly DC vs them
Actually depending on the description of 2 survivors having to BOTH see eachothers auras Bond wouldnt be an issue however supervision would work on 3 perks blood pact kindred and aftercare but I might be forgetting more otherwise it would need a combo of multiple bonds or better together etc. Maybe a better idea could just be a reverse Object of Obsession but even object has the added 3 second reveal in case the killer isnt running any aura so something like that could be useful. Maybe every 20 or 30 seconds outside of chase? I ge tthe memeing at the exit gates thing but like most of the time that is in chase since the survivors will be sprinting. If it is while in chase I could see it being useful if theres like a train of people bodyblocking at the gates.
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Someone did it. Someone figured out a way to properly explain how there could technically be two of the same person in the same area.
I'm in love with this. And interactions on these help the Devs see them. I'm gonna look and nitpick but don't take anything harshly.
Power:
Bit of an awkward start but each power is actually usually only called one thing (Hag's Power being named "Blackened Catalyst" but colloquially everyone calls it based one the Phantasm Traps, and Doctor's Power actually being "Carter's Spark" but players refer to it as Shock Therapy or Static Blast) and then the names you've given are sub categories which are usually referred to as "Special Abilities". though I have no clue what to name this so that's up to you.
Steal Form
60 seconds is a both very short and very long it's such an awkward number for something like this I know that in practice most Killers can get something done in 60 seconds but 60 seconds of 4.2 is brutal I know she gains speed when vaulting but I think adding a pause to that timer on vault actions (Like Legion) may improve some overall things. I didn't even notice until the last line but... what's her base Speed, Terror Radius and Lullaby Size? I know her Height would be Average since that's Survivor height.
Next questions: Will She always Fast Vault when disguised? and I'm still a little lost on the Token Mechanic. I understand their effects but obtaining and losing them is confusing to me when I just read it. (The math works out well) though speaking of the effects of the Tokens the gain rate of speed is off... not in a bad way these speeds are fine for killers to have for short times but +.6 (using the disguised speed since her base is unknown to me but based on this growth pattern 4.4 would be a nice round one.), +.4, +.4 will certainly mess with some people.
Isolation
Everything in this section reads well to me and works well. but since I'm nitpicking why not provide a nice counter balance somewhere for the Isolated one. Like being able to see noise notifications for the Killer when she vaults.
I think that's enough on the Power and remember these are me completely nitpicking things to look at again. I know you're very proud of the idea so I don't want to mess your vision too much.
Perks: this is where I'm gonna be Scathing since these matter to other Killers too.
Hex: Supervision:
This is a situation in which I think that it being a Hex is only because people would abuse it otherwise as Nurse, which is sad. where it is currently it's not on par with other hexes, and to further Build on Friendly_Blendette's gripe this hex should do something a little more to improve consistency on killer side if the Survivors don't bring their own Aura reading. This change may sound controversial but "survivors working together on generators outside your terror radius can see each other for 5 seconds after the action ends" may improve this perk to a point. I just noticed the Tier up effects being a -8 meters, -4 meters... that probably won't happen and the numbers for a perk like this would probably be 32/24/16...
the next part is me going through each aura reading perk possible.
Bond: This perk would be a complicated mess in the code... since the perk specifies "each other" in it maybe it's not as bad for it...
Kindred: This perk doesn't work with this as Kindred requires being hooked.
Blood Pact: This will work as this perk intends to but there is a number of things we can limit. since this perk specifies a distance that the sharing survivors must be at, even one of the sharing survivors being in range would make this bearable.
Aftercare: This would be hell for the survivors especially with the right set up but again that range may subtly fix the issues this could leave.
Buckle Up: No. nobody runs this. and requires a survivor in the dying state. wasn't really worth mentioning but hey I'm covering Bases.
Empathy & Empathic Connection: this is really only a problem if both are in the game.... but just one and this perk falls apart with it.
Distortion: so how would this function? Survivor Aura reading pierces this perk. I'll leave the thinking on this to you.
Don't Go Anywhere:
Oh the amount of Karmas this perk could bring. This perk is fine no issue from me though anyone caught by it will be angry as ######### and all will be right.
Still Out There:
I think the time on this is a little too short. don't get me wrong the Perk is a great idea, but even 12 seconds is really short.
Thinking on it most survivors gain the Exhausted effect in chase, (with only start of the game accidental Sprint Bursts being the exception but I wanna keep this it's funny puts more Terror in the game) so moving the time to be upwards of 60 seconds is not out of the question. though that is most certainly on you to decide.
That should be all for perks. To other concept makers keep in mind the language used in your perks, Hex:Supervision is sort of saved from complete abusability by both the cavate and "see each other's auras"
I don't want to comment on addons as the base power is meant to be changed so what changes should be made can really only really be called in practice. and while I'm actually very sure your addons are great there's just something that I don't feel right about when critiquing addons.
Thank you for this wonderful concept and I honestly hope to see more out of you.
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I like your concept. But I'm still holding out for a THE THING chapter which I would prefer over an original which involves copying a survivors appearance.
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