What will happen to Skull Merchant? Your thoughts?
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Definitely workable. Fits her theme, allows it to be consistent for both killer and survivor, adds something interesting and unique to the game.
Could have the same interaction as hacking a drone, on the survivor side? I like that little minigame, I'd like to see it used here too.
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Devs wrote:
"Kill rates do not include matches where a disconnect takes place."
So once there is a DC in the game, the match is not counted. I dont know if people want to downplay how miserable Skull Merchant is, but the 70% are only matches were people dont DC. Her Killrate would probably be higher if they would include those matches as well, because a 3v1 is a 3v1, a Bot does not really change that.
And while she is a strong Killer, it is also clear that her high Killrate is also due to the fact that she is horrible to go against. But this is not the only point, it is not like Legion back then who was a bad Killer, but made people give up, she is also strong and even if people would not give up against her, she would probably rock one of the higher Kill Rates.
But the fact that Survivors still just go to the next game against her is just alarming. And there is no sugarcoating around it, because it does not happen against any other Killer that people give up that often.
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I tried her once and 1 person dc’ed immediately. The next 2 killed themselves on hook. She does not have anything extremely powerful to warrant this. The problem with her is player mentality. She is also one of the least played killers to add to this. So overall it’s probably SM mains playing her and doing well plus self sacrifice on hooks that are drive her numbers.
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Skull merchant matches are pure sci-fi, all drones and bots 😂
I'm not sure if ppl refuse to play against her or if her toolkit is really problematic, specially for newer players since she has a lot of stuff that may be hard to understand at first.
Either way, she is too strong and/or hated so much that ppl refuse to play against her. So she needs to be looked at. What worries me is that all that time is gonna be invested in her again after already getting a rework while characters like Myers and Freddy also deserve to be updated and they have been waiting for a longer time.
I'm sure she's gonna be changed again but again, I don't know if developers will prioritize other killers first.
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Bit off topic but basically it wouldn't do anything except be an inconvenience. The most often complaints we hear is shes "braindead" and that she forces "hold W to counter".
As you said it'd still force survivors to leave the loop as said artist would only have to aim in a different direction, which wouldn't address the complaint. Further is that a counter swfs or autistic teammates can do is run in, grab idle birds, and run off. Doing this effectively forces the artist to make a choice of try and shoot the helper or continue the loop as a temporary m1. Currently since idle crows swarm, this tactic atleast comes with some risk, without swarm, it's just a pain, not op or anything, just a another thing to go "really?...". We can also do various tricks, while impractical when serious, are fun and hilarious to pull off that required swarming from idles (ex: leaving one at the long drop at the meat plant and one aimed at said drop). We don't wish them gone.
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Oh thank you. Makes sense to not include the entire match.
Agree with everything you said. Regardless of why her kill rate is so high, she needs some changes.
Doesn’t matter if she is strong or weak, if she miserable for the majority of the player base to the point that throwing the game is more enjoyable, then something’s gone wrong and needs to be looked into.
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It also wouldn't be hard to implement. MANY killers have items that spawn in those same spots. Freddy's alarm clocks, Plague's fountains, onryo' TVs, Pig's boxes, Nemi and Wesker's chests, Singularity's EMP printers...
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Pulling back on topic, your first line:
Bit off topic but basically it wouldn't do anything except be an inconvenience. The most often complaints we hear is shes "braindead" and that she forces "hold W to counter".
This is basically the primary complaint of Skull Merchant. The issue I have with this mentality is what is the alternative? Another rush killer?
The problem with any non-rush killer is holding W is quite effective against them... high skilled Survivors constantly complain about killers they can only hold W against... while ignoring the fact that a lot of killers lose quite a bit of time to survivors just holding W.
Then almost oxymoronically the complaints then are "I only see Nurse, Blight and Wesker every game". Of course you do... if you're good, you hold a non rush killer at a loop, and the moment the resources at that loop are spent, you then hold W to another loop, especially if you can get there without taking a hit. Of course that's what you should be doing... if you can do it, you'd be stupid not to... However the rush killers can catch you as you do this... non rush killers cannot. The only way a non rush killer competes is to either be ranged... or they need a power that blocks off the resources at the loop to make you leave on their terms, not yours.... but then people get upset at no skill, boring killer, etc. Like this is basically the gameplan of Trapper... but without being crap (love you Trapper <3).
I personally have only played the game while all this variety of killer is in the game, so I guess I'm kinda a blank slate on what I think the game SHOULD be... so these strong anti-loop killers are not really something I hate... because I guess I don't share this notion that DBD should be all about mechanical skill expression at loops.
Post edited by UndeddJester on2 -
Hook suicides ARE counted though. The amount of ppl who will point to a hook ASAP when they see a SM is staggering, so her killrate numbers should be taken with a pound of salt.
I play a pretty chill chase build and still... it's about 1/3 of my games give or take that immediately becomes a 1 v 3 no bot teammate. Survivors will immediately run up to you, no chase required, to quickly die. It only takes 1 survivor to ruin a match like that. Those games still count towards her killrate.
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Personally I don't think there anything the devs can do to change her reputation at this point. I don't even think a full rework will help and ppl will just continue to hate her. Even before we found out about her power and gameplay people hated her because she wasn't the cyborg killer they thought they was getting. People hated her visual design, going as far as calling her a fortnight character or sex bait (want to point out pretty much every thing is basically a fortnight character now of days lol) and people hated her lore as well. Things only got worse when we found out about her game play and the unhealthy strategy of 3 genning games for a hour.
They tried to rework her but this hasn't help SMs rep in the community. All people see now is a killer they always hated and rather go next instead of trying to learn her power and counter her. I honestly believe if the devs some how rework her to be the funniest killer to play against people would continue to hate her just because she is SM and that is it.
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Let's be honest here with ourselves SM wouldn't nearly be as hated if every streamer and youtuber didn't all collectively decide to hate her its a bandwagon at the end of the day there'll always be a boogeyman killer or perk it was Freddy a while ago where everyone was supposedly facing forever freddys then it was blight then it was nurse then it was wesker (there were way more killers between these i just didnt want this post to be 5 paragraphs) survivors gave up on getting him changed so now its SM maybe the new killer will become the next boogeyman?
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I think they'll do nothing for the foreseeable future. It hasn't even been a year since she was reworked, so I would guess they decide to wait for a full year of data before even making plans regarding a rework. Like many others have said, there are numerous killers who need love (Twins, Freddy, Myers) and many others who need minor tweaks. Committing to yet another large rework of SM would be a massive resource drain. If they really wanted to be done with this, they'll probably just Freddy her. However, my speculation is that they won't do this because it would set a bad precedent. Nerfing a killer because people suicide against them would encourage survivors to suicide against killers they don't like in the hopes of getting them nerfed too.
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Like the developers said - take the stats as a grain of salt. It's literally in their opening paragraph before they disclose the statistics. There's more variables to consider rather than flat out numbers. Read.
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Never said something different. And your build is irrelevant, you are still playing Skull Merchant. Your Build does not make the Killer less miserable to go against.
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Your right... my build is completely irrelevant when it plays 0 part in a survivor pointing to a hook the moment they see my character. My point was that the killrate does not accurately indicate this killer's strength like it was intended to.
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With the way the DBD community is everyone will still hate on something even if it's been either fixed/made better or been hard nerfed into the ground(such as like killers still complaining about Dead Hard and DS). No matter what BHVR does to Skull Merchant people are still gonna complain even if she becomes one of the weakest killers in the game.
In other words I'd just say that there isn't much point in changing her much.
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Behavior addressed already in a recent Live Stream that they are not satisfied with people dcing against her. They see that this is an issue and they plan to handle it. (They didn’t specify when)
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She's still ass to play against and I do genuinely think she needs to be completely redesigned
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Which is also nothing I said. I said that Skull Merchant is a strong Killer. Which cannot be denied. But that her Killrate is mainly paired with Survivors giving up against her.
But even without that she would be in the Top 10, I am very sure about that.
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I hope they just leave her be. She's gotten her rework, Sadako has gotten several reworks at this point. I'd rather they just commit time and resources to working on improving other killers like Freddy, Oni, Pyramid Head and the Twins. There's nothing they can do with Skull Merchant that'll make people happy aside from nerfing her into complete and utter uselessness which would just open the floodgates to having half of the killer roster getting treated the same too.
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Unfortunately we can't showcase that in statistics because while hook suicides contaminate data for EVERY killer to a degree, it has made SM's stats completely pointless. These stats don't indicate if the killer needs nerfs or buffs like other stats do.
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The only possible way her kill rate is that high, is because people give up against her. Which means their data clearly shows that its counting hook suicides as non-dcs even though they filter out dcs.
This basically makes their data around kill rates is completely useless. I would imagine given that SMs play rate is super low, it'll just go the route of twins for a while, where she will sit for a few years. People also still rage quit against twins often because of the slugging playstyle and look how long its taken us to get a rework there.
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Nerfing her isn't the solution though, she isn't a good killer. When played against properly, she loses most of the time. Probably a low C killer at best. People just don't want to play against her. There is a difference there.
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To me this looks like a similar hate campaign as what Freddy had back in the day, which resulted in his butchering much to the lament of players like @GeneralV. Survivors hated the character and review bombed the game to get the character they didn't want to learn against removed... even though mechanically Freddy was OK... even on the weaker side for people in the know.
Not only that, but his nerf a week after release led to complaints about him being "too weak" afterwards. And those complaints eventually led to his awful rework in 2019. It is like a big domino effect that took my favorite killer away, the one thing that matters most to me in Dead by Daylight.
As for the topic, I think the situation with Skull Merchant is slightly different. Killers like Freddy and Myers were considered "overpowered" on their releases, but they did not cause problems like SM did. She is more similar to Legion.
Old Legion was far worse than Skull Merchant, but the hatred for him has already dissipated. SM is still stuck on a scenario where people immediately give up against her, even if her current power is no longer a problem. It isn't exactly fun to go against, granted, but it is nowhere near the same as it used to be.
I don't think Skull Merchant will get a nerf, because stats aren't everything and the devs know why her kill rates are so high. I doubt she will get the Freddy treatment, because of the Freddy experience: his rework was poorly received by OG Freddy mains, it was poorly received by survivors, it led to massive complaints and then a nerf that rendered his power useless. I don't think the developers want to risk a repeat of that situation.
She will either get tweaked slightly, or left the way she is until the hatred disappears. At least that is what I guess will happen.
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Its mostly this, but her power is unfun to go against really. The most effective way to play her is to actually play her as a stealth killer now because her power is so useless. But unlike stealth killers like ghostface and wraith, there is no "tell" when she is near you. Ghost face has the cape whoosing sound, wraith snarls super loud. Skull merchant is ironically the best stealth killer in the game right now because she makes literally 0 noise.
That's not to say she is good, myers is still not good when you play him as the insta down stealth killer either, but its just not fun when you immediately take a hit that you had no chance of stopping, and especially worse when they often run sloppy butcher and play hit and run.
The reality is though, her power is far less of a problem than it was before. I'd argue that there are killers who are worse to go against than her, such as tomestone myers etc. It'll jut take a ton of time before people realize that and stop immediately giving up.
An additional problem is that there is no penalty for giving up in DBD. The "rank" system doesn't matter, so if a match isn't going your way, you just give up, this is what is inflating kill rates on many killers and i think is the true reason people don't see that survivors are massively OP at high MMR. Because everyone just gives up immediately if they don't like the map, the killer, the time of day, the cereal they got for breakfast, etc.
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I'm pretty sure I DIDNT say "Nerf her". The ideas listed were side grades that would relieve survivor grievances that DO have a point while also helping SM herself in ways.
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Honestly, I don't know.
Personally I just want the haste or hindered removed from her kit, I find her tolerable to go against with her current power. That said, so many survivors don't know how to deal with her.
But that leads to a slippery slope too. Survivors didn't know how to manage Sadako, still kind of don't in a lot of cases in my own matches. Future killer designs would have to worry about that too. For that reason I suggested a compendium of sorts in-game: https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/405391/in-game-compendium-information-for-players-inside-the-game#latest
But as far as Skull Merchant goes, unless they revamp her completely and give a notice to as many players as possible, she'll still get the same stigma from her release. I know people who play the game occasionally and still think she plays just like release to this day. I once thought she could have a mobile drone to control like Singularity biopods, but then I thought that's way too similar to victor for The Twins. I'm honestly stumped.
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Removing the haste/Hindered would kinda remove her chase power. She would end up feeling like a worse Legion where you can use your power in chase to injure...and that's it.
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Not exactly, both are strong enough on their own. Lots of other M1 killers don't rely on haste/hindered outside god pallet loops, SM having one of the two should be enough to retain her chase and could even be adjusted to compensate for the loss of one if needed.
Not to mention you can build her to be even better at chase with some of her addons. Personally I build her as a stealth killer, since she's pretty much the best at it by making no noise in undetectable.
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While it's true other Killers don't have haste/Hindered specifically, they usually have some sort of ability that aids in chase. Very few killers expect you to JUST hold W and try to M1. I agree she could use tweeks (being able to gain BL while her drones are scanning ppl is dumb), but she still needs an ability to aid in chase.
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Yeah, I agree that Skull Merchant isn't the worst killer to play against in the game. Honestly, the only problem I have with her is the fact that my teammates leave me alone in the match.
Her stealth doesn't really bother me that much, I like stealthy killers (except Ghostface), but I think that was probably not the direction the devs wanted to go with SM. She seems to have been created as a "make your own killer", instead of a stealth / anti-loop hybrid. But again, it is just a guess.
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I know how to play against her..... doesn't make her any less miserable to play against.
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Nerf her bloated kit that does basically everything for the player while not really requiring any input from the player
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I agree with this.
Hindered, haste, oblivious, tracking etc. Her kit is so loaded and she doesn't have to do anything other than put up a drone to get all that. Its similar to the Knight in that the killer practically plays itself with minimal effort for maximum reward.
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what is there to learn? leave the area with a drone and take a free m1 hit or stay in the area and get:
- a health state (or deep wound)
- hindered
- broken
- detection
- various potential effects from add ons
oh and she gets haste. woow i learned and a lot changed.
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Based on this? nothing.
we all know this number is only here because people suicide on hook on sight vs her. so, why should anything be done? she does not get a nerf just because some people can't even bother to try.
She is fine to play against, other killers are more annoying and/or opressive than her.
if you don't like her, good for you... idc. I don't like clown but I'm not here making thread after thread about taking him behind the shed with a shotgun at every opportunity.
after something is done about hook suiciding, and we get a number that actually means something. we can talk.
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They had the right idea the first item they reworked her. Then the three people who play skull merchant whined that she wouldn't be strong enough. This is why sometimes you should stick to your guns and not listen to the community. If she was still too weak then you could have incrementally buffed her. It would be far better than this monstrosity we have now. The reason her kill rate is so high is because no one has any idea how to play against her. She has easily the most confusing kit in the entire game.
She gets haste but only sometimes
She gets stealth but only sometimes
She has tracking but only sometimes
She will damage you randomly but only sometimes
She hinders you but only sometimes
There's just way too much going on for a typical survivor to keep up with. You load into an average match and it's likely that at least one person will have no idea what's going on or how any of this works. That is just bad game design. Compare her power to something like Demogorgon. He lunges and can teleport with his portals. Very clear and easy to understand regardless of your experience level. I do not buy the theory that her kill rate is so high solely because of people giving up against her.
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To be fair, literally only one of those is hard for survivors to track, and it's the stealth so it's supposed to be. The rest are pretty intuitive once you've played against her more than once.
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How much have you actually played AS her?
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The real thing it looks like they need to do is not make it an ok thing to dc. If this is a big problem then it looks like they should find a way to at least make it a less used action. This data for most likely all killers is tainted from rage quitters. Instead of giving the correct data they get this. If ruining the game for 4 other people is your response to seeing a specific character that’s a problem with the player not the game.
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Gross generalizations do not make a valid argument.
Theres more to this than mass community entitlement.
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I feel like if you want the name, aesthetics, music, power, lore, and animations tossed out and remade then you're kinda just asking for SM to be deleted and a new character take her place. Which to be fair I get it, but that doesn't really seem like the best result.
Regardless of how dirt it is to play against her, there are people who play as her, and I'd venture to say most of them paid for her. I get making changes/reworks when they change the killer into something healthier for the game, but this proposal sounds like it's pulling a bait and switch on my wallet.
No hate towards you btw, just want to make that clear
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because knight has to spend time not moving to activate his power and if it misses it becomes unusuable for at least 12 seconds (24 for jailer) unless he kills the guard, which gives him a hit CD and makes him lose even more distance. Unlike the skull merchant, the knight does not spend half the game undetectable, unlike the skull merchant, the knights guards can only be in one place at a time, and unlike the skull merchant the knights guards do not give you a literal radar showing exactly where you are preventing any kind of mind game from working. edit: and unlike the skull merchant, the existance of the banner forces the knight to zone you away from location you were originally spotted by the guard, thus forcing him to take non optimal pathing when chasing you away from the loop. unlike the skull merchant, the knight only recieves haste when sending a guard from very far away
The artist can only place 3 birds at a time and they only work in a single direction and they must be timed and aimed correctly, unlike the skull merchant. If you use the artists birds poorly you will get nothing. The only way to use the skull merchants drone poorly is to be too far away from the loop.
The skull merchant takes everything bad about 2 unfun to face killers, makes it worse, and wraps it in a package so bloated and difficult to understand that intermediate and beginner players have no idea what to do.
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I mean League of Legends has done it to tons of characters. They just have to retain the core of the character. And give everyone that owned her previously a 'classic' skin that has the look of the current one.
Not saying they will or should do this. But it's possible.
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I mean who cares about how she looks or what is her lore. Most people, me included don't even read the lore.
People hates her gameplay. If that changes, her reputation will be fixed. Ths worked for Legion.
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I don't see anything changing. survivors suicide on hook is not responsibility of BVHR. this was said q&a that they cannot do anything in regards to hook self-suicide.
top 10
Low C. some very conclusive opinions.
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DC's not being included won't make much of a difference. As someone DC'ing basically kills the other 3 survivors. Which are included in the stats
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Killing yourself on hook is different than killing yourself against spesific killer.
Sure, all killers are getting this and BHVR maybe not seeing this as problem. But if spesific killer is keep getting that, this means majority hates this killer and it need to be fixed.
And if i am not mistaken, BHVR said they are aware problems about SM.
Nope they did not. When someone dc'es, those matches are not included in kill stats.
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I did and I don't find her too hard to go against but still boring to play.
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I see where you're coming from but that is not quite what I would like to see. There are a lot of things in her design that can be used for a reworked killer. Drones are not a bad idea for a killer power. The problem is that they are stationary on a killer with no map mobility. This will always make her an area denial killer, which is already a massive hindrance for a killer that is both interesting to play as and against. I mean look at Hag for example. She's the same in that regard and her pick rate and reputation among survivors is also pretty bad. It would be worse, if there were more people playing her.
If the drones were mobile on the other hand, there would be a lot more they could with them. Combined with a form of mobility it would also allow her to make use of the information she gets from her drones and they could be connected to a potential chase power.
In her lore there is a lot of stuff that could be reused too. She is a self made millionaire, who shows a lot of tenacity and she has a will to reach her goals no matter what. This is good. Take that and go from there. But scratch that part about manga. It doesn't fit in there at all. It just serves as a random justification for her name. Take that away though and she'd still be the same character. It has no effect on what she does, or how she is represented in the game. If you didn't read her lore, you wouldn't know anything about that.
Her visual design is pretty trash but it could be salvaged. She is clearly written as evil, so why not make her a sadist as well? Change her visual design to make her part machine to be able to inflict the most pain and suffering on her victims. This could make her really menacing and it would perfectly fit to lore that focuses on how she slowly stopped focusing on her business but instead followed her passion, killing people, and grow more deranged in the process. Flesh it out a bit more and the killer would be a lot more compelling. Or make the mask part of her head. Like she impemented it to become even more intelligent and deadly.
Her sound design is simply annoying to me. Her chase music is literally a 4 seconds loop and it gets old quickly. Because it also doesn't really reflect her in any way, it could simply be scratched and remade. Or they take what they have and enhance the loop by a bit. The same goes for her animations. Her mori is copied from Freddy's (why is the drone even there, if it doesn't do anything anyway?and she first sets it up just for the mori!) and her walking animation is terrible (women do not walk like that). Especially her walking animation completely ruins her to me. How am I supposed to take her serious, if she is coming after me and swaying her hips like she's missing a vertebrae and desperately trying to balance her upper back by shifting her weight.
I understand where you're coming and I do not want them to delete the killer (even in the sense that you explained). I want them to sort out this mess that is Skull Merchant, focus on one thing for her gimmick. Not evil, rich lady with an interest in killing people, that has the name of a manga character created by her father, which otherwise has nothing to do with her and uses shiny drones to stalk people (seriously, how does nobody notice these things? shouldn't they be, you know, stealthy?) but is also stealthy, contrary to the glittering mask she wears, that is a representation of her being rich and her mercany attire that has absolutely nothing to do with any other part of her lore or power. There are simply too many (mostly unrelated) ideas that they all put into one killer and that don't add up.
This is enough to design 3 killers. One that is based off a manga in some way (could have worked for Artist as well), one that is simply evil and always tries to improve in her craft of killing people and one that is rich and kills people with high tech equipment as a means to endure her or own boredom. I actually thought of a 4th while writing this: How about her developing gear for the military but also testing out her prototypes herself (this would fit to a part of her lore and her outfit)?
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