Hey so much for caring what a Killer's dedicated playerbase thinks of a Killer right?
"Something else that we need to consider are the players who already enjoy these Killers the way they are. Legion is a perfect example of this. There's no shortage of suggestions to rework The Legion's power to make them stronger. Yet in spite of this, The Legion is consistently one of the most played Killers. While they might not be the strongest in high end matches, there is still a large crowd who enjoy them as is. That raises the question, is it worth reworking a Killer that many people already love to play just to make the people who don't play them happy?"
Quote taken from: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/383109/why-is-bhvr-so-afraid-to-buff-weak-killers/p2
A lot of members of the Sadako community gave a lot of feedback during the PTB and in my opinion, these changes don't address the core problem. We didn't ask for a rework, there was ways of addressing the problems with the Killer without completely changing them to be a different killer. They've gotten the Freddy treatment not in terms of strength but in terms of being a shadow of their former self. Uniqueness and skill expression removed in favour of it being easier to counter and easier to play.
New Sadako may very well be a stronger, easier version but it's not the same.
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I've seen a lot of people say that new Sadako has less skill expression, and I don't understand that even slightly. If anything, if there's a problem with Sadako after these changes, it's that she requires too much skill expression.
You have to showcase a ton of map awareness to utilise Sadako properly. You need to know exactly where the survivors are, when they've picked up a tape, which direction they're running to insert that tape, and you need to position yourself to actually take advantage of those things. The changes that make tape interruptions matter boost her skill expression massively.
Genuinely, what skill expression did Sadako players even lose? I don't consider slug-for-Condemned to be particularly skill expressive, and nor is teleporting aimlessly within ten seconds of emerging, so... what's lost here?
The changes aren't perfect but they're definitely an improvement, and to compare them to Old Freddy is especially off the mark. That killer fundamentally changed, Sadako hasn't.
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It's so disappointing. The feedback across the board was that the ptb rework was unnecessary, as the old Sadako kit only needed a few tweaks to get rid of the one problematic playstyle. They managed to lobotomize the character's skill expression, make her power completely inaccurate and too far away from the movie version of the character, and didn't even address the slugging problem as this update actually encourages it. Trust that the killrate will only get higher and the amount of slugging Sadakos will increase.
This is incredibly disappointing to see and the Legion quote only adds salt to the wound.
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Merchant and Twins players should be very scared seeing these results.
It seems like it's a total toss up on if a rework will be good or not sometimes you get ones that are what those mains asked for like Legion and Doctor that are huge Ws and sometimes they get utterly destroyed like Freddy and Deathslinger. I get sometimes the community doesn't give the best suggestions in terms of balance but I don't get these decisions BHVR makes to consciously make a killer feel worse to play.
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Please just stop.
Me and a lot of others had made a ton of lists about the topic already. Im done talking.
I have done so much work during the PTB.
None of it was heard. My work got ignored. THEY DONT CARE.
If you want to find out what i and a lot fo others meant, read the posts.
Sorry for the rude tone. Im super sad right now.
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Using TVS for information on survivors
Playing Condemn playstyle without slugging
Manifestation/Demanifestation mindgames (They are still there but they got nerfed)
Just a few things worth mentioning
And I disagree I think this is a fundemental difference, their powers work completely differently now.
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thx
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I'm not sure what you mean by using TVs for information on survivors, could you elaborate?
Playing for Condemned pretty obviously got buffed, considering now you can both prevent a survivor from removing their Condemned stacks and apply more of them on hit.
The Manifestation/Demanifestation addons being nerfed is pretty much the only genuine downside I would agree with here, but I don't think it's fair to say that lowers her overall skill expression at all, let alone considerably.
And the power obviously isn't fundamentally different, all the pieces are still there. It's much closer to the Doctor and Leatherface reworks; same general power with the same general mechanics, but the way you engage with it changed a little.
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Current Sadako when you teleport, the survivors who get hit with condemn are highlighted on the HUD, meaning you can see "oh, these survivors are the ones here".
They made condemned "easier" by making it the main part of the power which don't get me wrong, I like the idea but in execution it just feels wrong.
Also I wasn't just talking about the addons, the fact demanifesting ends chase means survivors can infinitely vault windows unless you stay manifested which is needlessly punishing imo
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When you condemn a survivor with projection. Their hud glows. So you know what survivor you hit.
She has a cooldown on her power now. SHES NOT STRONG IN CHASE.
Hooking survivors for stacks was a good mechanic.
Nerfing an addon, that should be basekit is super bad. Its billy all over again.
You dont play her do you?
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Isn't that requiring more skill expression, though? You can't just aimlessly teleport and see "oh, survivors are here", you have to know where they are already and teleport with intent. That's requiring more skill, not less.
No comment on the second part, if it's just personal taste. That's fair.
As for demanifesting ending chase... yeah, I'm not sure. It does feel annoying, but it is also kind of how it should work, considering other killers. One could easily argue that requires more skill expression too, of course, but I don't know that I'd go that far.
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It feels weird you criticize teleporting mindlessly (something that would only make you waste time playing pre-PTB Sadako, as you obviously needed to go to the TVs that had survivors nearby and you had to take into account the ridiculous 100 sec cooldowns) while applauding the global Condemn change, which actually REWARDS you for spamming teleports mindlessly. This new update killed her chase power by nerfing Reiko's for no reason and removing Bloodlust from Demanifested, which demotivates her players to try and mindgame with it, and the specific changes announced today make the slugged playstyle even stronger. What's the point in hooking anymore? For old Sadako hooking next to a TV meant adding condemned stacks to two different survivors, PTB Sadako at least had the "hooking gives condemned to others" which promoted tunnelling, but changing that without going back to her old mechanics just switches it from promoting tunneling to promoting slugging.
You now have a killer with no chase power and her teleport/Condemn power can still be completely turned off too easily. You will struggle much more than every other character with getting downs, and the mechanics (aside from making her feel mindless and completely unlike the movie version) reward you for letting people on the ground.
I'm sorry you had to play against a slugging Ring Drawing Sadako, it's a really annoying playstyle, but not everybody played her like this and this update butchers the killer entirely for everyone, and consider that to fix that one problem the Ring Drawing nerf was all that was needed. This change will only make her kill rates skyrocket, make Slugdako even more prevalent, and the (few) Sadakos you'll see from now on will either be much more annoying to play against or downright unable to do anything at all, depending on your team.
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The point is that the teleporting info was useful for macrogame and losing it is unnecessary.
And yeah about the demanifestation thing - the only killers who have powers that end chase are Wraith (Who is super fast while cloaked so makes sense), Twins (Makes sense, you're controlling an entirely different character) and... Who else? Myers/Ghostface lose chase while stalking but not immediately.
So, no - it's not in line with other killers. 80% of the roster don't lose chase while trying to use their power midchase
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How is slugging stronger? You don't get anything for doing it, at least in regards to her power. Ring Drawing doesn't apply Condemned, the tape is removed on hit so you aren't getting any more Condemned from them when they're picked back up... you just get normal slugging value here. Am I missing something?
Sadako's basically never had a real chase power, and that isn't a requirement either. I'm on board with criticising the addon changes there, I think those were unnecessary, but it's not as though mindgaming in chase with the passive flickering was ever her main draw or intent, it's more of a nice bonus. She's just not a chase focused killer and never has been, that's fine.
I've never played against Ring Drawing Sadako, that is a completely baseless assumption lol. I play as Sadako far more frequently than I play against her regardless of build.
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Picking somebody up and carrying them to a hook (and eventually having to deal with sabo, Break Out or protection hit survivors in certain cases) will always take more time than simply leaving them on the ground. When you can remove people out of the game without ever hooking them, the time difference in those two is important and substantial, especially when your mobility power can be removed much more easily (bringing tapes to whichever TV you want) and your ability to down people (ending chases) is much worse. You struggle more with everything, you now need all the help you can. That extra time is going to feel like a necessity against good teams, that's what I meant.
I agree that Sadako doesn't need a real chase power, but sometimes you do need to chase people, and being able to mindgame with demanifest was pretty much the one thing she had in that regard. There's really no point in nerfing that, there's no point to nerfing her basekit chase by removing Bloodlust either (can't be compared to Wraith, who gets a speed boost after uncloaking, whereas Sadako just slows down); she had weak chase capabilities, and that's fine, but nerfing these things were absolutely unnecessary. The pallet stun change won't really change anything, it's an uneventful change on its own and considering that Sadako players are now discouraged from chasing in demanifested, it's even more useless.
Sorry, I didn't mean it as a sarcastic assumption - I main Sadako, I have played against Slugdakos and I genuinely think they're very annoying when they fully commit to slugging intensely. It was a problem that needed to be fixed and I did mean it seriously when I said it was really frustrating to play against.
Although, you said you main her, but then said she had no skill expression because slugging takes no skill - if you play her with many different playstyles, why reducing the character to only that one playstyle?
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There were many players that played her without the Ring Drawing and didn't need to slug for her condemned play style to work. That was a skill expression because they had to chase survivors into TVs, predict when to teleport, keep track of all condemned stacks and figure out TV the survivor would have to run to. That is ALL GONE. What is left is: "Just teleport, bro. It won't do anything but hey..."
They literally Freddied her! Like, why would you play her now? There is 0 reason for anyone to pick her over any other killer. She doesn't have anything special about her anymore. Teleporting is nothing unique, playing for condemned moris will no longer be a thing regardless of how you try to achieve that, her good addons were butchered, her chase power was and is still a steaming pile of garbage and they reduced her lethality even further with the tapes no longer applying condemned stacks to the whole team when you hook someone. That is 100% a bad decision. Not only that. It is downright stupid! Yes BHVR, I am calling this decision stupid.
This is effectively a nerf for anyone, who invested time into mastering a weak killer to make them stronger. If this is what BHVR's reworks are going to be like, then please for the love of the entity, don't EVER rework a killer again. They already have a problem named Wesker and now they make it worse. The less killers there are that anyone would even think about playing, the more the other killers will be played! And that is the best case scenario. Worst case, people are going to stop playing, which means less money for future content.
Really, BHVR messed up horrendously on this front and they deserve the negative feedback they will get these next days. Next time, save yourselves some time and just make number changes. If you are going to destroy a killer regardless, then that is the easier way.
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Worst case scenario for what you're describing, the same level of effort and skill goes into predicting where survivors with tapes are. That's how you play for Condemned now and it is unambiguously buffed.
Sadako doesn't have a chase power, so it can't be a steaming pile of garbage. They nerfed her ability to mindgame and I agree with criticising that, it's my one real issue with the changes.
They literally didn't Freddy her because she has the same power. You may engage with it differently, but Freddy's power was changed on such a fundamental level that the only connective tissue between what he had and what he has is the distinction between awake and asleep survivors- and even that distinction means something different between versions. Like I said, it's more equivalent to Leatherface and Doctor; the same pieces of the same power, but rearranged a little.
I do not agree with your conclusion (obviously, lol). I think pretty much everything about Sadako except for her demanifest mindgames was buffed, her skill expression shot up massively (with the potential downside of raising her skill floor considerably), and she'll be overall a stronger, smarter killer than she was on live or on the PTB. Time will tell what additional changes may be required, but people are being far too quick to discount the smart and impactful changes in this dev update.
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Load into a match as the new Sadako. Survivors take the tapes from the gens they work on. Now don't have power for the rest of the game. That is the problem here.
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Load into a match as new Sadako. Survivors take the tapes from the gens they work on. As soon as I hit one of those survivors, their Condemned goes up and they have to get a new tape. If they hold onto that one, I hit them again and their Condemned goes up and they have to get a new tape.
Survivors cannot hold Condemned gains hostage anymore, because holding a tape is now actually risky. It's insurance against passive Condemned gain at the price of putting yourself at risk of much higher Condemned gain for being caught. In addition, a healthy but fully Condemned survivor can't cleanse their Condemned in Sadako's face while she's right on top of them anymore.
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The difference is Legion is a very popular killer. Sadako wasn’t and her only good playstyle was one of the most unhealthy things in the game.
I doubt they took the decision lightly to fully rework her this extensively. But her old power was very flawed and was only viable through a specific playstyle that was miserable to go against. I wouldn’t be surprised if BHVR tried to adjust her existing power first and determined it was beyond fixing without substantial changes such as these. Fwiw, I can’t remember the last time I lost to a Sadako who wasn’t using the slug playstyle.
That said, she’s not perfect in her current state either. I think she will still need some more adjustments. But it’s a much better starting point than how she was before.
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Sorry to say this, but you are completely incorrect. Slug condemn was NOT the only good playstyle and I'm sick of pretending it was. I have never in my life played that playstyle and my winrate with sadako is one of the highest among my killers. I lose more with stronger killers
Please stop spreading this misinformation that a playstyle popularised by 1 streamer is the ONLY good one. it's just wrong. There's no tangible proof to it, it's just a huge misconception. Is it more effective then playing other ways? In the same way that tunnelling and camping at 5 gens is - probably.
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