Skull Merchant 7.3.0 feedback and personal solutions

While there were a lot of things about classic Skull Merchant that was received with its fair share of pessimism by the dbd community, it's no surprise that the worst aspect to come out of her chapter was a poorly designed killer power and how well it could be used to hold 3 gens. We've already established this months leading up to her big rework. It's also established that, while the 7.3.0 patch would stop the 3 genning altogether, this would only lead to the majority disliking her even more than if the developers had just fixed gen defending and made slight changes to her base power as it was.

There are a number of reasons why the new drones were received poorly by the community, the most prevalent being that her power is mechanically boring and provides little counterplay for survivors in a lot of situations.

Here is my personal take on how Skull Merchant's rework should've went (note that these are just opinions and shouldn't be taken seriously–however, I'm pretty confident that these simple changes would've put her in a healthy spot in terms of balance and gameplay):

3 Genning Solution

• For starters, I think a simple change that would've solved 3 genning was if the Lock On progress meter paused and regressed as long as a survivor was repairing a generator inside the drone's Detection Zone, during which they will appear invisible to the killer's radar. This goes for Scan Lines as well, so drones in Scouting Mode can't be triggered with a survivor on a generator. There would also be a short grace period depending when a survivor interacts or leaves a generator in an active drone zone, e.g., a 5 second grace period in which a survivor repairs a generator before a chunk of Lock On is forfeited and the progress meter stops.

Lock On Effects

• The current Lock On system is without a doubt the most punishing aspect of Skull Merchant and provides little skill expression in order to injure survivors. This change applies the 3 stacks of Lock On rule, but makes it so it's a little harder to apply each stack. Combined with with the old Lock On progress meter, survivors inside a drone's Detection Zone slowly build up their progress until the meter is full and they gain 1 stack of Lock On. Upon receiving 3 stacks, the survivor will be injured by a Claw Trap and remain broken until the battery runs out. Lock On progress does not regress when the survivor leaves the drone's radius.

Hacking Drones Interaction

• While the question of balance feels unclear, I think the idea of high risk gameplay and incentivizing teamwork would be pretty interesting in the case of drone interactions. For this change, survivors who successfully hack a drone are injured by a Claw Trap but will not be burdened by the broken status effect (hacking drones resets Lock On progress, essentially cleansing survivors of any stacks). Claw trapped survivors who hack a drone refresh its battery and suffer from deep wound. Furthermore, hacked drones cannot be returned to the killer's inventory or be recalled by the killer, and will remain disabled until the killer performs a manual repair interaction on the drone, after which the drone will boot up and enter Active Mode. Not only would this have been a perfect display of Skull Merchant's skill with machines, but it also incentivizes micromanagement of drones. This would've hopefully discouraged some Skull Merchant players from placing drones indiscriminately, instead focusing on doing it more strategically.

Thank you if you've read this far. The point of this discussion was not to complain, but for me to express my ideas since the rework. It's wishful thinking but I'm hoping this killer won't be left ignored and can receive another rework.