What is Public Opinion on Skull Merchant?
Just played against her for the first time since her release week. Jeff instantly sent himself to second stage.
I take it she is still hated by Survivors?
Her power seems extremely mindless--borderline rivaling the likes of Cookie Clicker.
Comments
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slightly better than pre rework SM, only because she cant hold games hostage anymore
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People hate her because they don't understand her counterplay + they hate her because of her past.
You can avoid her drones in many ways and even in chase too, just stand for a second or crouch for like second when the beam is going for you and watch her drones rotation, because in some cases, you can have enough window to avoid the beam before getting hit from SM. Yes, you can't loop her well but that is how the power is designed and how many many killer powers work. Try looping Nemesis, Artist, Xeno, Slinger on some loops, Pyramid Head, etc...
Survivors play againts her mindlessly as well. When I play her, nobody tries to do anything and even when attemping to disable drones it is usualy not needed for them to disable it or they get scaned / injured in process or get injured for free with info on them just running around.
I think she is overhated. She is not the most fun to verse killer lets say or most skillfull, but she rly isn't that much different or horrible than your avarage M2 anti-loop killer. People just overreact and hate her from past and lack of effort from survivor side too.
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Public opinion? Yeah, overall she is still disliked.
Though my last two trials against her had no DCs, so I guess the situation is getting better.
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Not a fan. I'll play against her no worries, but I generally won't enjoy it and legitimately don't care if I die. It's kind of a win-win situation I guess, whether you win or lose lol either way you get out of the game
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Hate her.
She has too many effects for free (haste, undetectable, damage from drones on surviviors) I feel that if she had damage from drones that's fine but like she doesn't need haste and undetectable just because.
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Her original power had nothing going for it, was literally a status effect circle. I have no idea how they ever approved a painfully bland idea like that for a killer power in 2023. I think the rework is one of the best things they could've ever attempted, but that doesn't make it good, cuz they had almost nothing to work with and it shows.
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She's far healthier for the game now compared to before her rework, and she's no longer any better at holding a 3-gen than other killers like Knight and Doctor.
However, perceptions take a long time to change and she was HATED beforehand, so many people still hate her and wont even try to learn how her new kit works. This is why you'll find many more survivors DCing or giving up on hook against her than any other killer in the game.
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Lack effort??? There’s no effort to show against her. The “counterplay” you suggested is losing distance while SM is still mindlessly walking.
And those other killers you mentioned, at least they all have to aim and have decent timing. SM doesn’t need anything like that.
Removing her from the game is the only solution.
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Removing content that people payed for is never the solution.
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Hate her. Don't like her design or chase music...actually i don't like anything about her and her karen hair.
Her power. She gets everything for free.. Look i walk put a drone im undetectable. Look i walk put a drone you take damage and slow down if you try looping. Only way you can play against her is kill that W button of yours.
She's easy to play and gets everything for free. She's better stealther than the stealth killers that we have just because oh lookie i put up a drone.
Honest i think she has too many drones and the undetectable should at least go away. She shouldnt have so much going for her with so little effort.
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This guy just took my thoughts out of my head and wrote them.
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The main problem I see when I play Skull Merchant is that Survivors get detected by my drones even when I'm in chase with someone else far away from them. I think they don't understand that I gain extra Haste per survivor detected, making my chases way easier than they should be.
She can be annoying but, in chase, she is weaker than Clown. I don't know what BHVR can do to fix her, they need to make it clear visually that Survivors can dodge her drones by crouching or standing still. They could also add back the little "Eye" icon on top of the survivors when they are being detected (The one from her PTB)
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Hate her. They all play as if it's the same person behind the screen. Nothing interesting about her in any sense apart from the goofy name.
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Her kit is still just a random smorgasbord of effects so no I don’t like her
alright im broken
Wait im hindered now?
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Strongest killer in the game
I died everytime :(
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Wish I could rememeber the clip/video where good SM plays againts good Survivor and she sets up drone in shack and mid chase the survivor avoids her beams and manages to escape her too. Was rly great.
If people would try to react to her drones she would be avarage B tier killer at best.
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press M2 to summon killer boon
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Despise her. She has way too much in her kit - oblivious, hindered, haste etc.
Dislike her design, chase music, lore.... there's nothing good about her in my opinion.
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Old Skull Merchant got boosted speed because she had no chase power. New Skull Merchant is chase focused and kept boosted speed on top Hindered.
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I feel like SM is one of those few killers that despite people saying how boring the gameplay loop has begun are so trained on it they don't know how to use their brain to try and play differently when the situation calls for it. A few other killers like Hag and Twins also do this and are similarly hated which is pretty interesting.
As for SM themselves they're fine I actually think they're more boring on the killer side than survivor side cuz you don't have much to do other than deploy drones and be fast. Like you do need to use her kit effectively but I feel like you should always be able to do something cuz if they're playing normally they'll run into traps like lemmings and hinder themselves. If they're playing stealthy they'll still trip up eventually set off a drone and you'll know where to go like she has everything you could ever want in a killer power.
The only time you're ever really in trouble is against smart survivors which are rare. They'll disable your drones, stick to high wall loops, crouch against your drones in and out of chase and that can be a real nightmare to play against but again rarely ever happens.
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I don't like her really.
Character is fine, default appearance could have been more interesting but she has some good cosmetics at least.
Chase music is alright now
Gameplay on both sides is boring, drones do so much near automatically for the killer. Probably the most annoying aspect is the 8 second undetectable on a 10 second drone cooldown. Then she gets haste if a survivor gets claw trapped and at loops you will eventually get hindered and marked with killer instinct. You are also on the radar for like 7 seconds if you hit a beam. It does way too much just from placing a drone.
It's just uninteresting, her power is just stat boosts and debuffs.
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Haven't met a single SM who intended to play remotely normally.
And if even Dead Dawg / The Game doesn't go their way? Ofc survs must've been cheating.
So yeah, if I get the chance to not have to deal with that, I take it.
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She's a failed experiment and will always be a shitstain on the game's killer design history. Bloated kit, stacking ability, free status effects... I find it amusing how people will act and throw around the word balance or unhealthy in every other scenario in this game, yet completely and conveniently ignore everything about its meaning when it comes to SM and her bullshit. Remove her or just give her the Freddy Special.
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Still an awful killer.
Instead of having little to no counterplay in 3 gens, she now has little to no counterplay in chase. Her setting up a drone is enough to force you to leave the loop. You either give her the pallet or you get hit. Great design. If you don't then, she'll immediately start building up bloodlust while passively working on an injured state, extra haste and you getting hindered.
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skill floor is literally non existent and skill ceiling is pathetically low and against most survivors she gets results because her power is extremely overloaded: stealth, haste and hindered, deep wound, broken, passive tracking, area monitoring and anti loop all in one and none of it requires any real input from the killer because she gets all of that passively from the drones
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It's so ironic. The people I get as teammates still dc or give up the moment they hear her terror radius. I remember the devs said on a discord stream recently that they really try to rework some killers that make ppl dc quickly when talking about sadako's rework. Then ppl in the comments instantly said skull merchant which was funny.
I honestly truly believe they can revert her power back to what it was. The only issue with her original powers was that she was able to hold 3 gens indefinitely with strong gen perks. But now that holding 3 gens forever will be impossible now soon, they can revert her back honestly.
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@radiantHero23 is absolutely correct, my friend, removing content people paid for is not going to happen.
At least not the entire content. Doctor, for example, had his Treatment Mode removed. It is not something that can be accessed anymore. But the character is still in the game.
The same goes for Skull Merchant. Removal of the character is not going to happen, the most extreme thing that can happen is another Freddy treatment.
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Her old power was even more boring to play against in chase, it was a huge denial zone that couldn't be outplayed in any way and she would get permanent killer instict for as long as you were in it. And if you ever disabled her drone, you would get a Claw Trap that had the effect of the Dissolution perk...
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True. Things can change but not disappear. Im curious though. What would happen if a characters cosmetic if used for harassment just like Bubbas masks where used for awful behaviour. Will the base cosmetic be changed? Will the character be removed? Its really interesting to be honest.
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The cosmetic will be removed, just like Bubba's masks when they were used for racism.
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So I refused to play old Skullie but tried her out for a couple of days now. She is not less fun to play than most other killers I have no problem playing her. But I got 4k in all my games and I think it's around 20 games. In some games I just had survivors running to me so they could hook suicide. Other games they tried but did not seem to understand the counter to her power and having faced her as survivor a few times since the change..neither do I lol. Well I know more now.
I would not be surprised if this perhaps B-tier (?) killer has the highest kill rate in the game by far. The hate and giving up from survivors is an overreaction she is not fun to play against just like Clown, Knight etc but she is much more hated problably only because of her past. I do think she has a good set of addons now give that love to Pyramid Head and Freddy also thanks! Overall well do you want to win as killer? Play Skullie!
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unironically the power
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She shouldn't have made it past the design phase.
Now we're stuck with a horrifically designed Killer who often attracts the worst elements of the community due to their kits unique ability to be absolutely miserable.
The best thing we could do is remove her and start over, keep the name and some cosmetics, that's it. Total redesign
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Ptsd.
I suspect even if she gets a rework that is healthy from an objective perspective, people will find some way to paint her in the same light as she is currently because the damage has been done and old SM lives rent free.
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It sounds like people hate her because she extracts a ton of value out of virtually no skill expression, while Survivors are incapable of doing the same. In fact, it sounds like Survivors need quite an intricate understanding of Skull Merchant's power to counter her--doesn't exactly seem fair that one side needs to solve complex equations while their opponent is performing basic arithmetic.
It's hard to convince people there is a skill issue at play when their opponent has demonstrated no amount of skill.
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Recently, I've been playing Skull Merchant without placing any drones or kicking any gens.
Some survivors still disconnect at the sight of her / hear her terror radius.
Others refuse to progress the game at all and just hide for hatch, even after I 2-hooked everyone and dropped any death-hook survivors that I downed at the foot of a hook instead of sacrificing them.
Some even come up to me willingly so I can let them go next.
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Even if no one will ever admit it, she is a strong killer (for me it is the strongest "M1" killer) with one of the easiest powers to use in the entire game. she has everything; tracking, stealth, a hint of mobility, can patrol an area effectively (though not as well as before), can hit you without even seeing you (like Plague)... at the only cost of spamming in his drones.
I don't even like "the trickster", but at least he requires skill and aim to be used well
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Just going to add that I agree that her power is way too easy to use for the amount of value that it gives.
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I suscribe everything, I was thinking to write more or less the same haha.
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I just got out of a match against one. I had to fight the urge to go next for the entire match. To me playing against skull merchant feels like playing against a subtle hacker. haste, hindered, random stealth, etc. It's interesting to me that killers complained so much about MFT's 3% and see no issue with all of the random haste skull merchant gets at various points of the match. Not to mention the free damage that she ALWAYS gets on your teammates in solo queue. The worst part is there is no skill element to any of it. You just get a bunch of stuff for free that other killers have to work for. She is the most braindead killer in the game and practically plays herself. Her kill rate is so high because her kit is way too confusing for any average or below player to understand. There is just way too much going on.
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cool design, but still the most boring killer to face. stealth, haste + hindrance is so silly
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I can just magine a world without SkullMerchant
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I love the SM the problem its that seems i put the drones such good that survivors always get caught by it, seems trapper is skilless cuz he put traps as same as SM is skilless for putting drones
Drones already shown a action area so you should watch your step
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She is still very hated. From my experience many still just three gen patrol, the drones will turn back on if you turn them off ( I find this the most egregious part of her now, any other setup killer actually has to deal with their stuff removed, Trapper, Hag, Freddy, Demo Singularity , but she doesn’t) making it meaningless to actually even bother with drones. You have to leave the gen when she’s on her constant patrol you get claw trapped and tracked so still frustrating to deal with since they can just spam gen perks to make up for net being scanned and sneak up because of the undetectable. Her new chase is still skill-less, basically getting status affects for free and not really requiring anything special to get the survivor, basically they just made her every recent anti-loop killer. So, yeah a new rework is needed again. Because she is just the case of Solo Q stomper not much against higher levels.
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The drone concept is cool, and the drones themselves look cool. Her aesthetic, on the other hand, not a big fan...
Power? Literally Status Effect: The Killer. She's got it all: Undetectable, Broken, Deep Wound, Hindered, Haste... and with add-ons Mangled and Hemorrhage. Pretty lame. I feel like they could have done a lot more with drones, such as being able to spy on survivors while controlling a drone.
Playing her as a trap-based setup killer is kind of fun but no SM I've played against has played her like that, they only place drone at loop and force survivor to leave loop and it's really not interactive, or they just constantly place drones on gens and force survivors to hack them, it's pretty boring counterplay. I guess the drone hacking minigame is fun, though.
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In the words of the Rock
it the biggest peice of dog....
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delete her from the game entirely and refund everyone who bought her.
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PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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They would need to refund me every dollar I've spent and the base game as well cause I'd never touch this game again lol
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Tbf I play her with this ish but also as a trap killer. Survivors just run to places that make it better for me to trap. Chase and place drones at spots that are good for them to be at like if a survivor runs me to shack ofc Im using a drone because that eliminates shack from play, if they then run to main well then boom drone at main as well. Long loop that I can't mindgame? A drone will do great there!
So sometimes its just coincidence
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