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I Don't Think the Skull Merchant Should Have the Exposed Effect on Her Drones
From what I've experience, the exposed effect on the drones causes problems in two main areas: (1) at loops, and (2) at 3 gen scenarios.
Let's start with loops. When a drone is placed at a loop, a healthy survivor really has no choice but to hold w away to another loop or pallet; Otherwise, they will risk being downed in one hit. This problem affects the interaction between killer and survivor in two ways: there is less looping and therefore chases become more boring and less interactive, and the Skull Merchant cannot use the other abilities of her drone that would help in a chase, her tracking and undetectable effect. So what happens when there is no exposed effect? Simply, the survivor feels more comfortable in the drone area at the loop, and the Skull Merchant can utilize her other abilities with the drone to her advantage in chase. Clearly, this is much more engaging for both sides.
Now let's talk about the 3 gen situation. If survivors put themselves in a 3 gen, or a killer successfully protects 3 generators close by, this is already a huge problem and hindrance to the survivors because the killer will have an easier time patrolling these generators. This is especially true for the Skull Merchant because she knows when the survivors are at a generator with her drone, and the survivors risk being exposed in the drone radius, which makes it far too easy to deter survivors and makes the survivor side have much less interaction with the gameplay. Pair this with the fact that drones have no cooldown (which is completely fine without the exposed effect btw) and that survivors will automatically activate a drone when they have the claw trap on (again, completely fine if there was no exposed effect), this makes working on the generators in the drone range at a 3 gen near impossible without extreme levels of coordinated effort.
So how can these problems be fixed? Obviously by removing the lock on exposed effect as it is the main problem in these situations. Additionally, though, I can also suggest a new ability that replaces the exposed effect: the taser. If a drone has line of sight on a survivor, it can tase the survivor periodically, and this will cause their actions to be interrupted temporarily. This provides useful utilities for Skull Merchant such as passive slowdown for when the Skull Merchant is away from a drone, and information for when the killer is chasing a survivor at a loop, but it also is not nearly as unfun and overbearing as the exposed effect has in those same situations.
Comments
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You are right, the exposed from her power is what makes her tri gen so strong, they could buff her in another way and removing the exposed
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she is a killer that can do nothing but holding areas just like knigh. maybe bhvr should stop acting like this is a freaking base defense game since survs dont like it that way.
three gens suck when the killer is good at area denail just like loops. it cant be engaging in any form since its designet to denial an area to the survivor so it either does that through dmg like the knight or exposed like the mechant or it does nothing at all.
sure you have tracking and the stealth but a good surv will never be fooled by the stealth cause they will counter any mindgames with hold w and the tracking is stupid cause most of the time you see your target anyways.
area denail killer just cant work. they are either strong wich isnt working with dbd cause of gens and loops ore the denail isnt realy a denial cause you can ignore it
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Survivors complaining about one of the weakest, easily avoidable and counterable killer power BHVR can come up with. "What a surprise!", said no one.
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Being weak and unfun are not mutually exclusive. Her power isn't exactly avoidable on objectives either. The drones are something survivors have to interact with, which is a good thing because otherwise her drones would not serve much use. The problem lies in the exposed effect because it doesn't make sense with the power and promotes the worst gameplay one could think of: holding w and creating a bulwark defense around 3 generators. There are plenty of other areas she could be buffed in with exposed removed. I named the passive slowdown as one, but also extended stealth would help her greatly as a hunter and tracker.
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The first argument sounds like you're just complaining you can't loop the Skull Merchant in the exact same way you loop every other killer. Yes, her power is area denial, scaring people out of tiles is exactly what it's supposed to do, not being able to run her in a circle for 10 minutes straight is not her problem.
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Since I play her more than I go against her, I'm mainly complaining that the more interesting parts of her drone abilities can't be used in chase if survivors are forced to go away from loops. That's why I don't like the exposed because it does not make the chases feel very engaging for either side if either side cannot use their own skills and abilities in the chase. Simply from a gameplay perspective, it is neither fun nor interactive. I know that there are other killers like that, but I believe the community does not like going against those killers for the same reason. If her power is mainly meant for tracking and stealth, then they should buff her in those aspects instead.
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You need to be 10 whole seconds in her drone radius to get the exposed effect and you have a so visually effective mark of it that sometimes what it would do is block the linesight of the killer. Disabling the drones are damn easy, and if they are inactive even more as you know exactly when the scanner is so you can do the minigame with the drone not even noticing. Removing the claw trap is just as easy as deactivating the drone. But above all that: Being unfun is not an argument. Killer powers shouldn't be fun for survivors, should allow killers to win and compensate going against a team of 4.
Again, you are complaining about the most survivor favored power BHVR can have ever conceived since Freddy at launch, and the most worrying thing is this time is obvious they designed it this way on purpose. With Freddy you could argue that they didn't expect people to fail skillchecks on purpose to counter it.
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10 seconds is enough for survivors to want to hold w out of the zone. Again, that isn't very engaging. Killers like Wesker, Nurse, and Blight are popular because they have abilities that counter that exact thing. I think fun is an argument to be had because everyone who plays video games do it because they enjoy it. I know it can be difficult to balance around that, but this problem that she has has been making the community in general miserable from it. I agree, though, that the hacking sequence is far too short. BHVR should increase the sequence of the hacking so that it at leasts wastes the survivor's time more. However, they cannot do that because of the exposed effect. You see the problem here? Other parts of her kit that could be improved can not be because exposed in of itself is too overbearing.
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What the SM needs is an entire rework. Right now her power incentivizes her to be stationary. And that's the main issue in the first place. Not the exposed.
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So, what you want is for the zone denial killer with the weakest and most avoidable power there is, to not be able to even do zone denial... great.
And no, again, fun is not an argument to be had if you are using it pretending to nerf the other side or forcing people to play the way you want, which is what you are doing here. Even less when you are talking about nerfing the only thing the new killer is good at and still is the weakest power there is.
Sorry, but no.
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I can understand where you're coming from. I know we all have different experiences with the killer at the moment, so there isn't an exact consensus on what changes would be best for her. Thank you for your input!
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neither side cares about the other sides fun, this community needs to stop giving such a ######### about "is the enemy having fun?" nobody thinks that in overwatch, fortnite, cod, or even other asyms like vhs or evil dead, if they arent having fun they get over it.
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Amen, brother.
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So she should have no power whatsoever?
I'm not gonna disagree that she sucks, but you want to straight up remove her power?
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If the survivors can't use gen rush and dead hard to t-bag in the exits... it's not fun
Ridiculous
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A killer power should impose some kind of threat to the survivor if they chose to ignore it. If survivors ignore the drone's area, they get exposed. It's fair as it is. It reminds me of when people were asking to removing pinhead's chains from preventing survivors from working on gens as if that wasn't the whole point of the power.
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Well yeah, I can agree with that. That's why I said instead of exposed, she should have that passive slowdown shock effect. Not only would that help her when she isnt near the drone so her drones stall survivors for her, but it isn't just a straight nerf because she is given a new tool instead that survivors have to deal with. I also think other things could be buffed such as no movement penalty when using the tracker, increased undetectable duration, increased sequences in the hacking mini game, among other things she could use a buff for. I obviously want her to be good because I like her power concept and always wanted a pure tracking power killer, so she is my new favorite killer for that very reason. I just simply don't think exposed is the way to do it, but that's just me.
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No, I don't wanna remove her power. I wanna change her power to something that stalls the survivors if they do not deal with the drone and, therefore, provides passive slowdown even if the Skull Merchant is not in the area. Giving it a new beneficial functionality.
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I suggested that staying in the drone's area too long allowed the drone to discover that survivor's perks, 1 at a time.
The Skull Merchant can bring up the scanner to see the perk icons that have been discovered on her screen while in a chase with that survivor (if they're the closest survivor being chased).
(This means that even injured survivors will fear her drones, if they have perks like Unbreakable hidden up their sleeve that they want to keep secret, otherwise they would literally be exposed)
Failing the hack or trap removal makes the drone release a shock that exhausts the survivor and notifies the killer.
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You changed my mind, THIS would be the weakest power BHVR could come up with.
For it to be a "zone denial" power, it needs to have strong consequences so you don't stay in that zone. If the effect is so minimal that you won't have the need to get out of the zone or counter it, it won't be a "zone denial", would be a "zone nuisance". And her power is designed so there is no way any survivor can't counter.
Again, what you people are asking for is for her power to be more useless and weak it is right now. The only good things she has is looping prevention and gen "watching", and you are basically asking for them to be removed or nerfed.
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Funny. The idea was shot down by people saying it would be way too strong and no killer should ever know the survivors perk loadout.
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And who said that? DS users? Because waiting 10 seconds to maybe know that someone have DH or DS before using it seems to me kinda useless. Not going to say totally useless, but I won't see this as an advantage in many cases as there is just a couple of perks that would be useful to know someone has before him use it in the first place.
That, and you would have to get the planets aligned so a survivor that have a perk equipped that you knowing it would hurt him decide to stay 10 seconds in the clearly signaled drone zone, and then that the revealed perk is precisely that perk that would come handy to know.
Seriously, what are the reason that made someone said it would be so strong? Just curious now.
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Wow, I learned that all four survivors have Dead Hard.
Never would have guessed that one.
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