We need to talk about Skull Merchant
Today, Team Eternal - the top comp team in the game - played against a P100 Skull Merchant streamer, who I won't name, who camped a 3-gen from the start of the match on Torment Creek. The entire match lasted 50 minutes, and only through perfect coordination were Eternal able to break the 3-gen. If it takes almost enough time for the game to end for the best team in the world to break a 3-gen, what's the average pub solo Q team expected to do?
There is absolutely no excuse for this killer to continue to exist in her current configuration. She needs to be killswitched until something better can be made of her.
EDIT: This game also showcased a critical design flaw with Overcharge, that was never removed when the perk was nerfed: the perk still guarantees a skill check, which regresses 15% of the generator if it is failed. Team Eternal - the best team in the world - failed the skill check numerous times. An infinitely recharging difficult skill check that regresses 15% of a generator shouldn't exist, and is just as problematic as old Call of Brine and old Overcharge were for the game. The skill check either needs to have a hefty cooldown attached to it, or be significantly easier to hit (I'm talking 2x the current size). As it stands, Overcharge is much stronger than Call of Brine, and Call of Brine is just a much worse version of Surveillance.
Comments
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I love SM as a killer so Im not gonna blame her but wow that guy must really be boring to sit in a 3 gen simulatoe for 50 mins
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Hey, wow, that's what I've been saying for months.
She's beatable only through intense coordination and even then, it takes so long that few teams are going to bother.
The penalty for DC'ing is less than the SM game 💀
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Its not a design flaw its how it works and makes it unique.
Instead of instant regression and a surv just tapping once to negate a the whole point of it OC makes it so that surv get punished for tapping a gen or missing a skillcheck in general.
A cooldown for the skillcheck when a surv does miss the skillcheck would be fine tho.
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Shortest sm trial tbh
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The issue is it provides free powerful regression, which is exactly what the problem was with old COB/Overcharge. For simply missing one skill check, you lose 13.5s of progress from your gen. Either make the skill check regress only 5%, or add a huge cooldown to it. It shouldn't incentivize killers to continuously kick gens and hope they get the one teammate that always fails them, especially so on SM or Doctor.
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is there a link the a vod?
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I don't want to link it, I don't want to seem like I'm shaming the streamer. Look up KnightLight's twitter for a screenshot of the endgame. The SM's stream has a VOD of the game.
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but failing skill-check is skill issue. how is that the killer's problem? overcharge punishes survivor for gen-tapping if they fail skill-checks and you need to gen-tap in 3 gens to break 3 gens. it is not skull merchant problem, it is a perk problem that can be solved by playing survivor better.
but skull merchant is at no fault for survivors missing the skill-check.
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SM's design enables that to be viable.
Plus, Overcharge's skill check is bad design. It's entirely RNG, as shown by Eternal missing skill checks.
Also, that's like saying, "The Survivors aren't at fault that MFT gives a 3% speed boost." That's just a really bad argument.
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right but if your missing many overcharge skill-checks consecutively then many killers will have extended 3 gens because of non-stop regression. 15% regression is like free old pain res. that is also why that whole call of brine+overcharge at 300% regression was problematic because even if you did not miss any skill-checks, you still got punished with hyper fast regression. Now you only get punished for playing survivor poorly.
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So because players have invested the time to play a killer in a way that they can face actual top competitive survivors and win, it means they should have it taken away? Im all for the idea that everyone should be allowed their fun but it goes both ways, the SkullM mains did nothing wrong but put their strength in late-game which should be allowed even if its "not fun". Personally I never understood the hate for long matches, sure 20min is the sweet spot but it isnt a mandatory rule.
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I think Overcharge is fine and what you are talking about is still an issue with Skull Merchant not Overcharge.
Overcharge does give a big penalty for missing the skill check, but that penalty also only applies IF you miss it. You can have tons of value from it or nothing. The extra penalty is also 4%, not 5%. The only time this is really an issue is in major 3 gens against a killer like Skull Merchant or impossible skill check Doctor.
Skull Merchant and 3 gens are the problem, not Overcharge.
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Agree with this, since Day 1 people have roasted this perk because it only catches "new players" off guard, so the its the survivors fault if they fail the second Overcharge skill check.
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Yeah, it works and that's why so many SMs play that way. You reach a point as survivor during the back and forth where you hit max gen repair points and are essentially playing for nothing after that. It'd be great if they hooked you but most leave you on the ground because they want to watch their 3 gens and won't take the time to hook you, so you can't even let go and move on. All around a boring game experience. Glad I don't see SM often.
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Haven’t seen the vod yet but using one game to complain on SM again seems a bit excessive.
I don’t see why Overcharge has to be nerfed. The bonus regression penalty is based on Survivors making a mistake. While team Eternal is very strong, I’m sure they didn’t become the best team via hitting Skillchecks.
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Uh huh. SM can stall out games long enough that it's impossible to hit EVERY Overcharge skill check AND she has add-ons to make it harder.
Are you really going to sit there and accuse the best Survivor team in the world of playing Survivor poorly??
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It's a 50 minute hostage scenario in which a Skull Merchant literally holds the best team in the world in a lobby
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So the best survivor team in the world not being able to consistently hit Overcharge isn't proof enough that the skill check is hard to hit?
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uh yeah? in what world do you think that missing skill-checks is playing survivor good? you seem to be suggesting that we should now balance around survivors that miss-skill checks.
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You think that Overcharge is an easy skill check?
hahahahahahaha
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you see it's uhh like chess haha see doing nothing but pushing survivors off gens for nearly an hour while fishing for mistakes is extremely skill intensive and interactive bro especially for the survivors. Maybe once you understand the subtle complexity of her mechanics and how they interact with the upper levels of the macro game of Dead by daylight, specifically at high mmr and spent the time refining that skill as i have you'll actually learn and enjoy playing against skill merchant for 45+ minutes. Until then enjoy comp dropping and holding W or however you play at your clearly low mmr.
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i don't know. I played dbd in a time where I had to play against old hex:ruin every... single game. that was truly a polarizing experience. some games, i had to do all 5 gens under that hex:ruin effect. I don't even know if survivor would ever put up with that perk if it was like that today. If skill-check is too hard, perhaps they can make it easier I guess. doctor has snap out mechanic. maybe make skill-check as big as snap out though some people might still miss.
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Players that invest time into learning to play a killer are already rewarded: look at Blight/Nurse/Wesker mains. They dominate in chase and use the killer's power to its fullest. The killer's power is designed in a way to be mechanically challenging, and rewards mechanical skill and prediction.
Now look at Artist, Trapper, and Hag. All of whom reward the killer for knowing common loops and give them a way to shut them down against strong survivors. Both of which require a moderate amount of game knowledge to apply, and in the case of Artist, some timing and gamesense as well.
Basically, almost every killer in the game has some form of interactivity to them, in some way or another. Now, let's look at Skull Merchant (and to a lesser extent, Knight). Here is the most optimal way to play the killer:
Equip genkick perks and Sloppy.
Identify the best 3-gen on the map.
Immediately beeline to the 3-gen and set up your drones.
Patrol your 3-gen and slowly chip away at the resources around it.
Continuously kick your gens and ensure they're at 0%.
Get downs if and when survivors permit, and hook them inside the 3-gen whenever possible.
Continue until you win.
There is absolutely nothing skillful, engaging, or interactive about this playstyle. It exacerbates one of DBD's most egregious tactics on the killer side (3-genning) on a killer whose entire kit has only one functionality: to 3-gen. If the devs are fully aware that 3-gens are a mistake - as they've already stated and emplaced Deja Vu as a temporary band-aid fix until they address them - then there shouldn't be a killer whose sole strength relies in abusing this mechanic and turning games into a slogfest where you win due to boredom and attrition.
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Yeah because it sounds like they played that poorly.
Sure skull merchant needs some tweaks as she does the 3 gen lockdown a lil too well.
But even the best survivors in the world are still human and humans are great at screwing up.
Moreso if under pressure by not performing at peak. If they are missing multiple skill checks, even with the stacked perks and addons then that doesn’t sound like peak performance to me.
Well done to them for breaking the 3 gen but I’ll do the one thing no one here is done yet and say…
Well done to the killer for holding off the supposed “best team in the world” for 50 mins.
Shame the killer couldn’t pull of a win but that demonstrates against high performing teams the SK 3 gen is a delaying tactic not a winning tactic. It’s just in regular games casual players give up quicker making it a winning tactic.
Post edited by pseudechis on5 -
...and now, skillcheck Ruin doesn't exist anymore, because the design was unfair. You're making my point for me: if a perk is designed egregiously, then it should rightfully get changed. Overcharge gives you the same regression that old Pain Res did for nothing more than a missed skill check, which you can immediately apply again by kicking the gen, and again and again and again, with absolutely no strings attached. This is problematic, and to an even greater extent that old Pain Res was (at least, there, you had to earn the hook, instead of it being free). Either the skill check must be made dramatically easier to hit, or it must function on a cooldown/token basis. There is no excuse for perk to continue to exist as it does currently, especially since BHVR has made it abundantly clear that free gen regression is unhealthy.
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The killer applied Overcharge 42 times in that match. There is not a single person in DbD who is going to hit 42 consecutive Overcharge skill checks in a tight 3 gen situation.
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Tho I do agree she needs work but I don't agree to kill switching her. If they killswitch her to just rework her that would mean it would be a year+ of a killer being unplayable. I'm sorry that not going to happen no matter how many times you and others ask for it. This dev team takes forever to rework killers, look at twins, and even sakuko who was in the same state and also had a really unfun play style like sm for a year before they even decide to touch her. I get it ppl hate her bc the easiest way to win with her is 3 genning(no all of us do that btw, I never pick 3 close gens on any killer and guard them at the beginning of a match. If a 3 gen happens its bc the survivor allow it to happen.)
My point is, asking for a killer to be killswitched when nothing 'game-breaking' is wrong with them is dumb. Yes SM has problems and can be unfun to go against but there is nothing game breaking wrong with her. Also, consider how long this dev team takes to rework killers before asking this type of stuff. It takes them a LONG time to do anything about killers. Its fine to ask for changes to a killer bc they have a playstyle that is really unfun but don't ask for a killer, who ppl paid for, to be disabled till they get reworked bc you basically asking for them to be unplayable for a year or more. I know I would be pissed off and expect a refund if they did that.
Also, I'll add the devs have already said several times they looking into 3-genning. They are working on a system to help with that since they don't see 3 genning as an SM problem but a game problem in general. We see what happens from here but asking for a killer(who isnt broken) to be killswitched is silly esp when they could easily be killswitched for a year or more.
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I watched the vod and....wow.
First off it probably says something that the SM in question is on kick but I'll keep that to myself. The fact that the SM player from the beginning planned to win by server timeout is pretty cringe and I'll save everyone who hasn't seen it some time and tell you the vod is literally just kicking a 3 gen with eruption and overcharge with a lot of slugging for 50 minutes before they eventually lose because they don't know how to chase. I'm not kidding not one attempt was made to chase the entire gd game the only time survivors went down was only in dead zones when team eternal ran into corners intending to go down.
Meanwhile the SM player is talking about how they're gen rushing and what he was doing was chess it got to the point where I don't know if it was parody or he actually believed the things they were saying when 90% of the game was gen kicking. I used to think SM could be salvaged they just had to move where her power was a bit but after that I'm really not sure. If it was hindered instead of expose would that fix it? I'm really not sure.
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Just break the 3 gen 4head. Obviously the winningest team in competitive Dbd history featuring Knightlight who has won over $10k in prize money just doesn't know how to break 3 gens early. That must be it.
Also, I ask yet again: how in the world did this killer ever get greenlit and pass internal playtesting at BHVR? Is there really nobody who understands this 7 year old game well enough to have foreseen the blatantly obvious griefing potential with this power?
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They are arguably the most synchronized team in the entire game. Even compared to other comp teams, they absolutely dominate. If THEY had a hard time breaking the 3-gen, and it almost shut the game down, then what does it matter that it's a "stalling tactic" instead of a "winning tactic". Also, the only reason they were able to break the 3-gen is the streamer started to lose patience and left the 3-gen more and more often and they were able to build progress.
It's not even that the killer applied OC 42 times, it's that the survivors FAILED OC 42 times. Imagine how many times the perk was applied for them to fail it that many times, considering they were hitting it very consistently.
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every generator kick is 2.5% regression. 42x2.5% = 105% regression. that is enough regression for an entire full gen. it is dangerous to allow killer to continuously regress generator effectively because of that 3 gen gameplay. At least they won after 50 minutes. I am sure pre-patch, it would been hostage game. i think the long games like that need a faster ending like the hatch but that is just my opinion.
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Did you miss what I said? I didn't say the killer kicked gens 42 times, I said the survivors failed the SKILL CHECK 42 times. The number of times the killer kicked gens is far too many to count in one lifetime. And 105% regression is absolutely nothing when the game lasted 50 minutes. 105% regression is just barely 94.5s of aggregate gen time. The total gen regression (along with the basekit 2.5%) counting Overcharge is 735%, with 630% coming from OC skill checks alone.
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she definitely needs a rework
but if eternal was missing OC skillchecks then thats on them lmao
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do you not see anything wrong with this? your post is blaming skull merchant for 630% generator regression+125 gen-kicks. you get 312% gen regression+all over-time regression. your almost nearing 1000%+ regression. this is why I don't understand pulsar or edgarpoop. Many killer player ask for this and faster regressing generator. your living the consequence of those requests.
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Its not free when you have to take time to kick the gen and hope a surv doesnt miss a skillcheck which rlly only affects newer players. Mediocre to pros should land the skillcheck 9/10.
Sure make it only take like 8% but at the rate with gen regression perks it will just make things worse.
Now for a sidenote if they are the best comp team how are they missing an overcharge skillcheck that many times? OC skillcheck is not the size of an atom. If SM had the add on that makes skillchecks smaller then forget this entire statement.
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For people saying missing the skill checks was eternals fault you're missing a few key details.
1. The SM player was using shotgun speakers which make the skill checks silent.
2. The 3 gen was extremely compact and the SM player never left it and hitting silent overcharge skill checks when the killer is always around and you have to play injured is nerve racking no matter who you are.
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If you've ever played 5D chess, you can just barely begin to understand the complexity of the greatest and most wonderful character Adriana.
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Overcharge is small and moves faster.
If it spawns at the 4'oclock position, good luck.
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Thank god someone else said it
Overcharge is an rng check.
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Also how many of the missed skill checks was overcharge is unclear because oppression was also in play and good luck hitting silent random hard skill checks.
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I'm not blaming SM, I'm saying her kit exacerbates the problem, but also exposes it: overcharge still needs nerfs.
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She didn't have the addon, no. Which is even funnier, because if she did, they would have failed it way more than they already did. But they also were expected to hit the skill check on the run, hundreds of times throughout the trial. The issue isn't with hitting the skill check, it's with a free difficult, unlimited skill check that applies additional gen regression if failed.
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Something something every pallet is a pawn something something
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For the record, the Killer was not good.
They did not chase well at all and relied SOLELY on holding a 3-gen. A bad player held the best players in a 50 minute lobby. They were a pub player (with a huge ego lmao) and had zero comp experience, iirc.
Apparently, Eternal had to deal with 42 Overcharges. Contrary to what people say, Overcharge IS a difficult skillcheck. If it spawns at 4'oclock, you're screwed. It's an RNG check without a cooldown.
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Oh....no, I'm afraid it's far more complex, we Adriana stans wouldn't expect you to understand.
(this game is the most ######### insane thing I have ever played)
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Is there anywhere I can watch this match? There is so much conflicting information in this thread that I have no idea what actually happened.
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I believe KnightLight links it on his Twitter.
I believe the SM streams on Kick, but I'm not sure.
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Check KnightLight's twitter. It's basically 50 minutes of genkick and slowly getting more and more cocky while pushing out leading to the 3-gen breaking.
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Unfortunately I don't have a Twitter account so I can't access it :(
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I don't think it's against the rules to link the stream and I think the context is vitally important in this scenario.
Obviously, the person playing her doesn't deserve any hate and nobody here should be #########-talking them as a person. They came to prove something and played SM to near her maximum ability. They are a newer player and have some...ideas about the game. I stress again, to anyone not particularly you, to NOT hate on the person.
Go to about 6 hours and 50 minutes in.
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