Just got out of a 40 minute Skull Merchant game
I don't really have anything constructive to say about the killer. Delete their entire kit. Actually, use one of those flash things from Men In Black that deletes my memory of ever having encountered the Skull Merchant. Start over. This is the worst killer that has ever been released. Yes, it's worse than release Legion, because those games actually ended. I don't want to play DbD for the duration of this tome. End rant.
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I don't want to play DbD for the duration of this tome
Yepp, that is about where I'm at right now.
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I just want to know who reviewed this killer and said "yep this is great. let's release this". Like how did a million red flags not immediately pop up? Did they realize how terrible it was and just not have the time to make any meaningful changes?
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Yep. Same here. She needs an overhaul
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that question is much worse when you add how much negative feedback they got about the knight 3 genning lmao
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god i hate the dull merchant so much
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The upside is having plenty of time to farm BP.
I really wish she was a better killer. I like the idea of throwing surveillance drones everywhere and knowing where survivors are and being able to sneakily track them down and catch them by surprise. But right now, Skull Merchant doesn't really do that, at least not in a fun way.
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I honestly think they handed off the design of Skull's power to a group of new interns or new hires who don't know much about the game...
I bet the janitor and a potted plant could have done a better job.
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Yeah, all her recent changes did was give her a bit more chase potential while doing absolutely nothing about her 3 gen potential, it's ridiculous
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You know I had this exact same thought process today
I now genuinely believe Skull Merchant is the worst killer in the game. Not in terms of strength, but in power design
People complain about Legion and mending simulator but a Legion is 100000x more engaging to go against than a SM
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A Legion also brings better tunes to stab you to.
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80% of the times I've lost to a SM is because either my team got bored or I got bored and stopped trying because it sinks into my brain that I could've played like two matches in the time it's taken to try and win this one and I'm not invested in winning because honestly what's the point you don't get anything for winning in this game
honestly though SM must read some boring mangas if the heroes in her comics did nothing but patrol generators and murder people who actually want to be killed LOL
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I do think her walk looks a bit off. Like she kinda glides on the ground as she walks too? Anyone else think skull merchants walk is weird looking?
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So, what you’re saying is, I should purchase Skull Merchant and play her as often as I can?
😜
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Her walk definitely doesn't match her speed. Like, none of the killers really do, but her slow deliberate sexy strides are very obviously not matched with her actual movement speed.
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Idk most smerchants i have seen try to chase people and get absolutely gen rushed as a result. Still an extremely boring killer to go against no matter how they play though.
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The assumption was probably "playing this way is boring for the Killer player too, so no one will do it". Unfortunately that's not the case and some players find it fun enough to actually play that way.
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Good ol' uncle Bwsted told y'all within 5 min of the Dev's post that the changes to the Boredom Merchant would do exactly ######### all to reduce hostage taking potential and pointed out exactly how to play her 2.0 kit to 3-gen as before.
Should've listened to good ol' uncle Bwsted.
In the meantime:
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Yup, someone on FB was complaining about people quitting their SM games and when people pointed out how long they're dragging for, that person said something like 'but some of us like long games? We should be able to play long games if we want.' Like yeah, sure, but others aren't chain-tied to your game and are free to leave if they don't want to play for 45 minutes lol
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What I really don't understand is WHY her radars can't go through the walls but can pass through the floors?
I played against SM and she sent us to Midwich. She put her radars always downstairs, underneath the gens. After 3 gens done, 2 survivors didn't want to play anymore and I really understand. The game was like.... she put the radar underneath the gen, I needed to run downstairs to deactive the radar and the killer went upstairs, kicked the gen. After deactivating the radar, I run back upstairs to do the gen, all progress gone and in the meaning time, SM was downstairs putting another radar... rinse and repeat. Yun Jin was doing the same thing at the other side of the map. The killer didn't want to chase us, so I decided to do the gen without deactivating the radar. I got exposed and then she came and got her instadown. I didn't run because i just wanted to be sacrificed and go next but she wanted her 4K and left me on the floor to find Yun Jin.... She didn't find Yun Jin and I was stuck bleeding out in this boring and unfun match. 😔
I don't DC or suicide myself on hook BUT if I get another SM sending me to Midwich... I am sorry team... I will take the first chase, try my best to loop the killer but I don't want to be the last 2 surivors left... never more!
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It's been so miserable playing against this killer because of this tome. I'm tired of the dragged on games for no reason. I don't blame the survivors wanting out every time we load into a match against this killer. It's the same every single time.
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I play SM since she came out because I was curious and I liked her seggsy outfit with her red dress.
The gameplay is repetitive, it's always the same : one drone on the 3 closest gens, maybe a fourth on a totem, kicking said gens if survs disabled the drone, putting a new one on it, rinse and repeat
She doesn't feel strong, she just feels boring, like Legion.
Each time I play her, I always end up with a 3-gens and 2 survs, but since I don't like long games, I farm BPs with survs while they do the gens
Drones are a good idea, but it was badly executed, maybe she needs to be extensively reworked like Freddy and Doc
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I'm always torn between awe and hilarity by the lack of self awareness of those people that make the kind of of complaint you're referring to, people who then completely fail to see the flawed double standard in their own reasoning even when directly pointed out to them.
- "I can play as I want! I paid for this game and I'm not responsible for your fun!"
- The other players in the trial naturally proceed to do exactly the same thing.
- Surprised Picachu face ensues into "Hey! You can't to do that! You're supposed to stay in the match and CATER to my fun!"
It's not hyperbole when I say DbD has the most glaring case of cognitive dissonance mass disease of any game I've ever played.
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Even as someone who likes skull merchant i agree
The exact same thing happened when All-Kill released. BHVR shoved trickster down our throats assuming we’d eventually just enjoy him (We still don’t)
Merchant has been a failure in basically every area and even I can admit that. They should put her on the sideline like twins until they figure out how to fix her
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As a killer main, I... yeah, no, I hate her too. Her ability is so passive and basic that it makes Freddy feel like he has Billy levels of depth. She's so boring to play as, tedious to play against, her lore is dreadful---is there literally ANYTHING good about her other than, "ooh! Look how hot she is!"
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You know it's bad when we're 20+ posts into a topic and we don't have any dissenting opinions yet
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I’m hoping when I inevitably do these tome challenges, the survivors let me just knock them out real quick and then I’ll let them farm and leave. Don’t want to play this killer any longer than needed.
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i personally have not tried her but i will soon
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The real problem is that (almost) everyone agrees her power is obnoxious and unfun, but nobody really agrees on any ideas how to fix her without making her literally the weakest killer in the game.
What if...
- Her drones now have a vertical height in which they can expose survivors, from the top of the drone to the floor.
- She now starts with 6 drones, but loses 1 drone for every generator completed
This way, breaking 3 gens will still take some teamwork but won't be as much of a nightmare...
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I'll keep the streak alive, why not.
I did not enjoy going against her as a survivor one bit. To be fair, that was before the hotfix rework but I hardly believe that matches are that much more fun today. The killer's oppressive, but not in a way that's fun for the survivor to go against. It's just inconvenient to park your butt on a generator to hold a button.
As a killer, things are really not more fun at all. I tried it out of curiosity, spending the 9000 shards to get her. And yeah, I'd say the big con of her power is it's way too passive. All you do is put drones down near gens, hope that survivors will somehow not bother hacking them and become exposed so that you have a chase that might actually yield a reward. Even then, the survivor will have an advantage because they're the one who has willingly chosen to get involved in a chase and they will expect you. The claw trap only feels like it'd be a threat if everyone was tracked so that you'd get the maximum speed boost, but even then, winning chases with her feel like a hollow victory. You don't feel as if you used your power in a skillful way when things go your way.
I got Skull Merchant adept and did all challenges regarding her and her perks in the tome (the perks also are bad) and until there are more, I'll never play this killer again.
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I think her drones should disappear and go back to her if they been idle for a while. The fact that they will forever float on top of gens until survivor takes the trap is silly. She gets info all the time from survivors being on gens and that is what i find annoying. She just keeps returning to the gen where the drone was disabled .
I will not play her and i will not play against her. Sorry skullies.
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I have to agree. Skull merchant is really bad and needs a complete rework. She's not very fun to play and horrible to play against.
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I fully agree. Skull Merchant is the worst I have ever felt when going against a Killer. Maybe Release-Legion with Moonwalking and/or Mixtape was the same, but nothing came close to Skull Merchant.
She is also not fun to play for me, because there is not really an interaction with Survivors when using her power. The Skull Merchant interacts with the Drones and the Survivors do the same, but there is no direct interaction (aside from the standard chase). This is very boring.
Have said it for weeks and first time I have said this about a Killer - but they should just killswitch her, rework her completely and then re-release her with an option to get a refund for those who dont want to play with the new Kit anymore.
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The problem is that her current power is probably not fixable unless you want her to be way too weak or way too strong.
Regarding your ideas - the vertical height I dont know about. This is something which really should be tested.
However, the number of Drones decreasing during the trial might sound good on paper. However, it has two Flaws: First of all, she can still 3gen. Not every 3gen is Survivors messing up, if the Killer decides to 3gen from the start (and Skull Merchant is very good at it), there is not much the Survivors can do. They can complete Gens to reduce her drone-count, but they would create a 3gen. Or, they can 99 those Gens, but her drones would stay the same.
Furthermore, you woul make her weaker while she is basically already losing the game. Does not sound right.
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I quite like playing as her, I set up a string of Drones, run down the line stealthed and shoot off to surprise any Survivors I see. I have always played M1 Killers so I don't mind the M1 chase mechanics of mind gaming and predicting Survivor movement. I also like the bonus of Survivors giving up early no matter how I'm playing.
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They should probably see how she plays if they remove the Active Mode entirely, and making the Scouting Mode apply Exposed.
It presents immediate counter-play to the Drones if SM decides to leave the Drone alone, and the Scouting Beam can be leveraged in chase if you're familiar with how they start. (By both sides)
Might need to tweak the Hacking time up, and perhaps apply a general cooldown for a Hacked drone instead of having it tied to the Claw Trap.
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Yup bad design choices that kind of break the game.
But still it is funnier to play against SM than against Legion or Trickster :)
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One thing I'll say with Skull Merchant, if she's running hex perks, especially devour hope. You want to try and cleanse that thing ASAP. She's very good at defending her hexes as well.
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The issue is with the concept of the power itself in how it actually gets implemented by players. It just doesn't produce fun gameplay.
The drones produce a ridiculous amount of delay around a gen every time they're set. The survivor has to wait out the active mode, then hack it, at which point the killer likely returns from their patrol and sets another drone. The other claw trap batteries are dying while survivors are waiting out the active mode, so limiting drone count really does nothing to prevent the 3 gen. No progress is being made in the meantime.
Survivors can split gen pressure on paper, but that's not always the case in practice depending on gen layout, map RNG, and killer perks. In the game that inspired my initial post, the 3 gen was a triangle and one gen was fairly deep in a dead zone at edge map. The killer had PWYF and STBFL. The only way we could even safely touch the deep gen was with two survivors doubling it because we needed body blocks to get out of there. We eventually had to give up on it and could realistically only touch the 2 gens not in the dead zone. The 4 man I was in had successfully 4 outed a Hag in a tournament in a 30 minute game. We know how to break a 3 gen. But Skull Merchant's kit is fundamentally broken.
The only feedback I can give is to delete the kit and rework the power entirely. It just doesn't work in the context of this game.
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I don't remember the last time I tried to play against her
I always kill myself on hook against her
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How do you still get 3 gen when CoB and Overcharge are nerfed?
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The one killer I didn't acquire and never plan to.
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Because on many maps, 3 or 4 gens spawn in a very small area in relation to the size of the rest of the map. Very often she won't leave the area and with the drones, she knows where everyone is and can get between the gens silently and quickly. Add in uncoordinated survivors in solo queue and it rarely ends in anything but a hatch escape for one survivor at best, often 30 plus minutes in.
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So more and longer DBD is a bad thing?
Same way chases are the most fun part of the game but getting chased all game, aka tunneled, is a bad thing?
The same way sitting on gens all game is boring but not hyperfocusing on the objective and doing anything but sitting on gens all game is letting the team down?
The same way trying to achieve you own objective by any means is good but when your opponent does it its sweaty and bad?
The same way bringing the best perks yourself is good play but not the same as your sweaty take it too serious opponent who brought the best perks because they're bad?
The same way laying on ground for four mins is too long and bad but waiting out the endgame timer till the very last second for three mins is ok time use?
The same way that getting eliminated early is bad but having to stay in game for too long is also bad and pretty much any scenario in between?
This community is interesting sometimes, they really hate this game, they hate playing it, they hate investing time into it, they hate everyone else who plays it, they hate anything that might happen in game... yet they keep playing it. Its fascinating.
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the problem 3-gen situation getting worse because dev change ;
this : survivor can hack multiple drone
into this : survivor can only hack one drone at a time
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I’d say infinite mend legion and 7 blink nurse were worse but they were both fixed. I doubt merchant will get any major changes past this point
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Long interactive games are what we want. Most Skull merchant just sits at 3 gens and hits you if you get close
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There are 2 directions I feel they should take her kit, to make her more enjoyable to play as and against.
1) Make her a Twins variant
Her kit works exactly the way it does now, except she does not cause exposed--instead, a Survivor with max scan becomes Marked. Additionally, she can take control of a drone and fly around with it to Mark Survivors.
A Survivor is Marked for 30 seconds, during which time their aura is revealed and they become Hindered.
2) Make her a Nemesis variant
Her drones circle around an area selected by the Skull Merchant, using her Scanner--think COD Killstreaks, where you open a map and select where to drop an airstrike.
When a drone detects a Survivor it will follow them around and attempt to Mark them. As with above, Marked Survivors have their aura revealed and become Hindered.
Rather than running into a drone to deactivate it, the Skull Merchant spawns Stone Piles across the map. A Survivor needs to rummage through a Stone Pile to pick up a rock, which can be thrown at a drone to destroy it, triggering a loud noise notification.
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She really does need a lot of changes. There are some fun things to do with her, but those things aren’t effective. She is a killer meant to 3-gen.
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