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Skull Merchant will be nerfed

Her 3 gen capability will get nerfed because the "3 gen unfun for survivors" posts have already begun. And we all know how fast Behavior responds to survivors not having fun and rage quitting. Then the only useful thing this killer has will be gone. Before anyone says "it is unfun and boring though", i would like to say there are a lot of unfun things in the game for killers as well, like DEAD HARD, god pallets, bad map design (Gideon, Coldwind, Badham), 30-40 pallets, basekit BT guarantee escape near exits, but killers are having to suck it up ain't they?

Comments

  • Tsulan
    Tsulan Member Posts: 15,095

    They will probably not nerf her. Since the 3 genning must have been a design choice.

    Now what to do against her? Well, if she becomes popular, Deja Vu might also become popular.

  • Laluzi
    Laluzi Member Posts: 6,226

    Deja Vu is useless. Knowing where the 3-gen is doesn't help because she can and will just pick it and hard defend it from the start of the game. Had that happen in my last game, where I tried to bust the center gen by slipping behind a badly placed drone. Once she figured out I was there, she went ham on patrolling and eventually trapped me in the temple basement for an easy tunnel out. Potential Energy would be more helpful, but without a coordinated team, you're still going to get your ass handed to you by the combination of drones, CoB, and Overcharge.

  • Tsulan
    Tsulan Member Posts: 15,095

    Well then we´ll probably see something in the next 1 or 2 chapters. Based on how popular she is.

    Honestly, i don´t know what to think about this chapter. As everything seems aimed towards making everyone play in SWF:

    • perks for SWF
    • 2 new survivors that talk with each other in the lobby
    • killer that seems unbeatable for solos
  • DemonDaddy
    DemonDaddy Member Posts: 4,167

    Not so if devs follow balance trends; instead we will get a nerf to all the perks that make this one killer strong at their specialty and simultaneously lower their usage on every other killer.

  • Tsulan
    Tsulan Member Posts: 15,095

    @Laluzi now that i thought a little longer about it. Maybe they really want to incentivise survivors to use Potential Energy and Deja Vu.

  • Laluzi
    Laluzi Member Posts: 6,226


    I think that's giving them too much credit. This is the same team that didn't see anything wrong with a perk that caused the unhooker to run off at light speed for six seconds, or OG Circle of Healing, and the one that thought making Calm Spirit slow down actions and Pharmacy only work when injured were somehow buffs to the perks. I think they're just severely out of touch with average gameplay and don't have a good sense for how things interact with each other, so they frequently make changes or new introductions that everyone knows will be awful, but rarely heed the playerbase's warnings until they're backed up by three months of data.

    And I think that when they release killers like this, they get so caught up in 'think of all the cool, creative ways people could use this power!' that they get blindsided by the dominant strategy when it comes - mass camping and slugging with Twins, aggressive 3-genning with Knight and Bone Zone. Simple and effective will always triumph over risky and flashy.

  • UnknownKiller
    UnknownKiller Member Posts: 3,024
    edited March 2023

    So you dont want her to put drones near gens she neither can put it close to hooked survivors, so where she can put drones? On the corner of the map?

  • DemonDaddy
    DemonDaddy Member Posts: 4,167

    That's survivors fault for fearing an m1 killer and not pushing gens. Very few killers can actually be omnipresent enough to counter gen progression even with regression perks. Long matches or stalemates are on the survivors, the killer is trying to managed progression and waiting for mistakes to capitalize on.

  • SilentShepherd
    SilentShepherd Member Posts: 527

    man, BHVR needs some fresh blood and ideas in their HQ.

    I will say though, that I really like the new minigame when you disable the drones. They could have easily just made it skillchecks again.

    This game needs more interactive features like that, to make Generators less of a prio.

  • Emeal
    Emeal Member Posts: 5,289

    You mean like Knight 3 Gen was nerfed? ah yes.

  • Remedicist
    Remedicist Member Posts: 1,096

    If we want to find out what needs to be changed specifically, we have to look into what causes her to be so efficient at 3-gen situations. Knowing when survivors are around gens is strong information to have, but it isn't what causes survivors to not be able to complete the generators as, in most situations, the survivors could just split up on the three generators as she is only an m1 killer and can't be in three areas at once very fast. Therefore, I can only come up with two reasons her power causes frustration: the drone information in combination with gen kicking perks and her exposed effect on her drones. In a three gen situation, survivors will usually afford taking one hit around the generator before running to the other side of the map to reset and heal, while others do the same on other generators; However, this isn't possible against her because a survivor can't even repair a generator for 10 seconds before being exposed for 60 seconds. Some have said BHVR cannot completely get rid of the exposed because she'd be too weak without it. That is somewhat true, drones should deter survivors in some way but it technically doesn't have to be an exposed effect that does that. However, maybe changes could be done to how long the exposed effect is or how it exposes survivors, I'm not entirely sure. To be honest though, I think the problem has more to do with the gen kicking meta than it does with her power capabilities specifically, but I don't see gen perks being changed any time soon.

  • Krazzik
    Krazzik Member Posts: 2,475

    I mean Knight was really good at camping a 3-gen and he didn't get nerfs.

  • Tishus
    Tishus Member Posts: 34

    Survivors got dejabu perk to counter that, so dont know why they are crying.

  • sulaiman
    sulaiman Member Posts: 3,219

    No problem, if you come to know the game you might understand that better.

  • GannTM
    GannTM Member Posts: 10,893

    The problem with your argument is that the 3-gen strat isn’t just unfun for survivors, it’s unfun for the killer as well unless you find enjoyment making other player’s’ experiences worse, which it seems you do.

  • Nazzzak
    Nazzzak Member Posts: 5,846

    Lol we know where the 3 gen is. She's parked her drones within 30 seconds of the game starting.

  • Akumakaji
    Akumakaji Member Posts: 5,487

    No way, there haven't even been one quarter of the ammount of "DH is unfun" posts, so I highly doubt that BHVR would nerf the Skull Merchant because of a couple of disgruntled survivor players, right? Right?

  • Nazzzak
    Nazzzak Member Posts: 5,846

    SM extends games by 30 min. DH extends chases by 30 seconds. It's the same thing! /s

  • hiken
    hiken Member Posts: 1,188

    yep onboxious strat because it expose you, is just bad design i wonder if they play and check their creations before going live.

  • Pulsar
    Pulsar Member Posts: 20,906

    Hopefully they just completely rework her.

    Still, this isn't anywhere near as bad as OG Legion

  • DudelPuma
    DudelPuma Member Posts: 329

    you rank 20 players please be quiet xDD "yeah the survivor howls and the devs nerf a killer" no one really NONE! want 30min+ games per round killer as well as survivor, why do you think she is seen so rarely compared to other killers? although she is a new killer look at the other killers that came out almost every round they were played but this killer is a blunt m1 killer but when she has a 3 gen it is impossible as a survivor to break it...that was but in the ptb already clear, but bhvr never changes anything no matter how stupid and annoying something is, it is brought out like this and so left, i would even say it has to be killswitched until bhvr finds a solution

    That's why I think bhvr is the worst dev team I've ever seen, I don't even want to talk about the hit validation not working to this day and killers with a high ping have a giga advantage, servers that don't work to this day, matchmaking after years All this AFTER YEARS, but there is also this policy of bhvr ignore everything the way you have to go through until the community gets upset over and over again about something in the forum that it is so frustrating to play against, even here after a long time something is done, first of all it means suffering for the community, I mean I take the example of Euraption, bhvr recognizes "ok Euraption is really bad for solo people and just ayyoning" what makes a good dev team that loves your community? correct! killswitched it because it's just bad for the game experience (btw people will always get upset just ignore it) but how does our great dev team do ? suffer for a while and then salvation will come at some point

  • Tsulan
    Tsulan Member Posts: 15,095

    Then i don´t really understand why they keep giving us killers like that. Or what the general process of thought is.

    I mean, Twins would have been a perfect co-op killer. Killers could finally play with a friend. It would have been a success, just because we don´t have something like that.

    Knight players would definetly use the power more in chases IF the guards would be actually able to hit a survivor in a chase. But since they only serve to lockdown areas and survivors usually outrun even the fastest one... they are just used for that.

    To me it just seems like 2 different teams work on the same killer. Like, for example one team designed the knights power and another how said power is seen by the survivors. Deploying the power feels like Spirits phase walk. But the release (now changed) version of the power was a disco ball that survivors can easily see and avoid.

    Or Onryos teleporting, that has a cd of 100 seconds before the tv turns on again. While the addons take 6 seconds off that cd and the cd isn´t mentioned in the power description ingame? Then the next chapter Dredge was released who could teleport as often as he wants. The design decisions just feel weird.

  • C3Tooth
    C3Tooth Member Posts: 8,266

    There is a different between

    • survivors have no chance of winning and end game is 5min
    • survivors have no chance of winning and end game is 45min

    That 5min game is what make a killer S tier.


    Killers have no fun when 2 survivors dont do Gen. Its weird that when there are 4 survivors dont do Gen, its more fun.

  • Xendritch
    Xendritch Member Posts: 1,842

    I'm not sure I get this logic. If we make an analogy to card games for example if there's a control deck that always take a very long time to finish the opponent but has a high win percentage it would be considered tier 1 nobody would go "well it only ever wins after turn 8 so it's bad" because by that logic aggro decks would be the only tier 1 decks.

    I'm not suggesting SM is S tier because I heavily doubt she is but suggesting a killer can't be considered strong because they usually don't win before some arbitrarily decided time limit doesn't make much sense to me.

  • Justa335i
    Justa335i Member Posts: 223

    I doubt they will nerf her. Realistically, I wish she didn't have the ability to expose survivors.

    Just ask every non-instadown killer (Trapper, Wraith, Nurse, Doctor, Hag, Pig, etc.)

  • ShinobuSK
    ShinobuSK Member Posts: 5,279

    Lmao Us vs Them mastercraft in these forums is unreal

  • Entitled_survivor
    Entitled_survivor Member Posts: 828
    edited March 2023

    Idk if she's getting nerfed but the moment i see her i give up on hook,, i can't be bothered with gen protecting bots that refuse to play the game

  • H2H
    H2H Member Posts: 773

    3gen games are snoozefests, and she’s already F-tier so nerfing her ability to 3gen into the dirt wouldn’t bother me.

    I’d like it if the drones were reworked so they could actually do something to benefit chases but then people would just complain about her being anti-loop and I don’t really know what else is left.

  • GrimoireWeiss
    GrimoireWeiss Member Posts: 1,452

    If it means not having to deal with 30 minutes long games, I'd love to see her getting nerfed to uselessness.

  • pizzavessel15
    pizzavessel15 Member Posts: 534

    im willing to bet money shell be nerfed because survivors are complaining, and shell be the worst killer in the game

  • Xernoton
    Xernoton Member Posts: 5,884

    Skull Merchant is not even out for a week and she's already a dead killer. She has exactly one strength and that should and hopefully will be removed soon. I hope I'll never have to go against her as a survivor (been lucky so far). 40+ minutes long games should not be a thing but SM can't really do anything else.

    However, as op pointed out BHVR are most like going to nerf her. Which is the absolute wrong move, considering that her entire kit leaves her with nothing else. It's like we said from the start. This killer needs a full rework. Her entire power is poorly designed. She combines the most unfun aspects for both sides. No chase power (and therefore no incentive to chase), area denial, zoning, 3 genning, no skill expression.

    You can keep the idea of drones that allow her to track survivors but everything else will need to be changed.