What did you think when you first saw the Skull Merchant?

I first saw the Skull Merchant when she was already available on the PTB because someone told me about her, and I was happy for the brazilian representation, even if she doesn't look nearly as scary as other killers do (this can always be fixed with cosmetics).

But overall I liked her, because I had no idea what her power even was, I was having a break from DBD at the time. I only played against her original version once, and I don't know whether or not she tried to go for a 3 gen because she tunneled me out when there were 2 gens remaining to go.

"weird mask" "predator claws? cool!" "######### is that walk cycle?" - basically this.

I'll challenge the "any original killer we see for the first time, we will recognize his identity immediately" notion. you do that because you know them.

you see a knight? that is a knight. that is simple.

also works for clown. because clowns are easily recognizable.

what is this?

"killer in mask"? what can you actually tell about legion from a first seeing of this alone?

and this?

what is hag? based on this image, the first viewing, what can you tell about hag? claws, teeth... so she uses magic? it doesn't follow unless you know.

and,

I would not give darkness powers. more of a blob style power. it absorbs things and incorporates it into itself. which she does, but the darkness isn't obvious on a first look. (and I picked a very favorable image for it. seriously, some makes dredge look like she is just a bunch of random pieces of meat and nothing else)

now, all of these designs make perfect sense, and when you know, you can spot the details that inform the character that were put in it.

but, they aren't necessarily there on a first look. you gotta pay attention or know the lore.

including,

the knight.

you can tell they are a knight from first glance. like you would a jester. but what else? can you tell their power? personality? gender? the actual time they come from? people make and wear armor today.

I don't think you can. those require a deep look.

You can for instance tell that the knight towers over the survivor. yes he is not standing, but even the sword is taller than him. so knight big. big sword, so knight strong.

the sword has spikes, don't know what they do practically irl but, I can interpret that as they implying the knight wants to cause extra damage when he hits someone. so they are kind of a sadist.

that is backed up by the spikes on their right shoulder, left knee and hand. just to hurt people.

the sword is damaged and maybe rusted in places. also has blood in it. so they use it a lot, but doesn't particularly care about keeping it pristine. same with the clothing/armor.

there is not a single piece on skin showing on the knight, usually that kind of thing implies an abandoning of humanity or that they hide it.

the only thing I see in his design implying the dead, which is what his power is about, is the chains. commonly associated with ghosts and stuff. but getting that from the design alone would be quite a reach imo.

now let's look at our 3rd favorite brazillian from dbd

very decorated mask and finger...thingies. also bracelet, collars, earings... so she cares about looks to some degree.

the mask is also a gas mask. so it ain't all just for show they have some function aswell.

the mask does not cover her entire face, I would get from this that she wants to be able to see with her own eye whatever it is. or wants other to see her.

has a mechanical device on her arm and shoulder. held in place by 2 belts. probably used to help with weight or to increase strike power. maybe both. so she uses tools.

the device has visible wiring in places with duct tape holding it in her arm. this implies she made those herself. so she is intelligent. also fixing things like that is very brazillian of her, "didn't quite fit... duck tape works. Yep, don't need to bother getting the correct sized piece, this is good".

she carries 2 belts. one on her leg and one in the regular spot, both with bags. can't really see what is inside it, but can assume they have supplies she might need. maybe for repairs. maybe some medical supplies and/or food aswell. so she likes to be prepared.

she has knee pads (I think that's the name). honestly good on her. hurting your knee while carrying the mechanical arm would probably be very bad.

a simple jumpsuit kinda tells me she is very practical. but also contrasts the mask. so she knows where she can flaunt.

and I rest my case.

first looks matter, but don't judge a book by it's cover is a saying for a reason. a bad one cause you should, the authors put a lot of work on the covers.

but message still applies. surface looks are often not correct.

I low key love the siren/alarm portion of her terror radius lol but other than that, I agree with your statement.

At first, thought it was a half-cyborg killer and once the trailer dropped my brain must have swapped to coping mode and thought 'Oh so a black market arms dealer murderer kinda situation?'

I wasn't prepared for dark manga...

I liked her.

As someone else in the thread has pointed out, not every killer actually does have that obvious tell for who they are in their design, so I don't consider that a failure of the Skull Merchant's. I thought she looked cool, I was interested in seeing what vibe they were going for, and when I read her lore I liked that too - the whole 'rich person hunts others for fun and sport' is a vibe I think the game had honestly been lacking up to this point, the closest we'd come was Trickster and he was a pretty different vibe. There'd been nothing like The Most Dangerous Game in DBD, and that's basically what Skull Merchant is, just mixed with a "corporate cutthroat" situation that I think blended pretty well.

(Side note, I'm convinced people who say her lore is abysmal are just nitpicking because they already don't like her, it isn't substantially worse than most other stories in this game)

I really liked the gas mask, especially, I always love those. I'm running Trapper's neon gas mask currently, I adore gas masks as an aesthetic. Kinda wish SM's wasn't bejewelled, but it's not too bad.

"Not scary", was my first thought. "Looks like a high end fashion designer went off the edge with their attempt to be 'new and interesting'", was a close runner up. On my first match with her, the chase music was jarring and not in a good or scary way. Then came the 3-genning soon after...

Same as others - I expected a Cyborg-Killer and was disappointed. Then even more disappointed to see how her gameplay was.

In general, there were two things I wanted as Killer for years:

• A Knight
• A Cyborg

Got both back to back and both were disappointing and boring to play for me.

I was disappointed. Like many others, I thought we were going full sci-fi with a murder-bot. Seeing her in the PTB, I thought it looked like a confusing integration of a "The Most Dangerous Game" type power. The drones' zones were too obvious to make it seem like she was always watching and they created a serious problem with visual clutter. Her base outfit was also underwhelming. The alternate one she got at release was bad too.

It just made me more excited when End Transmission was announced and I got my murder-bot. In my opinion, the Fire Moon CEO outfit is also a fix for her default costume, but it's low on the list of outfits I want to get.

I too was hyped when she was first teased, thought we were getting a cyborg, once the trailer released i was disappointed but wanted to give her a second chance still. The lore disappointed me, its not as bad as people say it is, its definitely not in the same garbage tier as Artist, Dredge and Trickster but still bad, atleast it sparked a few good memes.

First thought: This will be a disaster.

Turns out I was wrong. Because calling Slog Merchant a disaster doesn't quite cut it. This is worse.

Decided to reserve judgement for a few weeks but inevitably had to agree with everyone else that she was a dud.

I couldn't get over the bad walking animation.

All I could think after reading the lore and seeing the Encroaching Darkness skin was, “Why isn’t THAT her default!?”

Adriana has two major gimmicks behind her: The Most Dangerous Game but with thirst trap Elon Musk, and cringey edgelord otaku cosplayer. Of the two, they decided to lean into the former. It was 110% the wrong move. Even if her playstyle at launch had been completely unchanged and thus just as hated, if they’d played up her trying to be a cool and edgy anime villain, I think she’d be a lot more popular character-wise.

At first look I figured either a Predator rip-off, or they got the IP for Predator but then lost it before the DLC dropped so they had to do a rushed overhaul of the character. The latter seemed most likely, based on what seemed to be the unfinished nature of....really everything about her. From the mis-matched cheesy look and the janky walk, to the under-tested power.

What wound up in the game was so much worse than I expected.

I laughed out of disappointment given the trailers that we had.