The Only Two Killers who Need Complete Reworks
It's often said that Skull Merchant needs to be deleted or remade from the ground-up, no similarities to her current power. This is wrong, of course, the power genuinely just needs a little more fine tuning, if even that. People are blinded, really, by not liking her visual design, or her lore, or just her state on release. Sure, her power on release wasn't good, I won't argue that, but most people's problems with her current power seem to stem entirely from personal taste or genuine skill issues. I won't deny she needs some more changes but she doesn't need to be scrapped as many stubborn, unconvincing people would argue. But she's not who I wanna talk about.
I think Spirit and Trickster do need almost complete reworks.
Spirit and Trickster's powers are, genuinely, not workable as they are. Neither provides meaningful skill expression for either side, neither is compelling or even really unique. I don't think I'd get a lot of pushback saying that about Trickster, but I imagine people will be more defensive of Spirit, so I'd like to break down why I think Trickster's current power doesn't work and why Spirit's is worse.
Trickster's issues begin at a conceptual level, and that concept is really "What if Huntress threw A LOT of projectiles?" Trickster's power isn't trying to do anything interesting, it removes any skill expression on either side--You can dodge or misdirect a hatchet, but forty four knives, you can't. And the Trickster is largely just pressing and holding a button, only ever stopping because a survivor ran behind something. There's not any real interaction, here. Slinger and Huntress both care about aiming well and having good positioning, prediction, knowing niche angles to play around. Trickster wants to catch you in the open so you don't get to play the video game and if you're anywhere else he doesn't get to play the video game.
Spirit has a lot of similar issues--Her power's concept is really just "Go invisible and move fast to immediately position yourself for a hit." At loops, you don't have any really good options if the Spirit can hear you, she's too fast for you to do much of anything without leaving the loop or using a resource, and that former option still gets you hit because she's just so fast. Sure, you can't see survivors, but that actually introduces an even more glaring issue with the killer--Spirit is a massive accessibility issue. Because her power starts and ends at the question of "Can you hear the other player?", hard of hearing, deaf players, even people who just don't have good headphones don't get to interact with the already not very interactive killer. A lot of Spirit defenders point to somehow misdirecting the Spirit, but how? I've never been suggested any practical example, or even really a vague suggestion. There's no meaningful misdirection you can execute for someone who moves about 75% faster than you and is, certainly, already right behind you. Spirit only gets away with what Trickster doesn't because she's stronger, or I guess because people like her visual design more, or because people just hate K-Pop and can't appreciate the genuinely good writing on display in his tome?
I don't think either of these killers' powers are really conceptually workable. They need massive overhauls, and I doubt they'd be hurting in any real way if they got them--Neither power is especially evocative of the characters' lore anyway. I haven't any ideas for reworks myself(even though I usually like suggesting actual changes rather than just whining). If you have any suggestions for potential overhauls, or would like to make an argument for these two being better designed than I believe, I would love to hear them.
Comments
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It occurs to me I haven't really done the best job of explaining the issue with Spirit's power, but it's like 2 in the morning so I think that's fair.
Other than being an accessibility issue, any counterplay when you look past that seems entirely theoretical, and you also run into the issue of Spirit not caring about line of sight, or positioning, or anything that other killers have to care about. Making less noise in an attempt to be confusing really just tells her where you are, because that changes the sound you're making, trying to move in a different direction before turning a different way isn't really a meaningful misdirection because if she's close enough for it to matter she's just going to stop phasing and lunge for you. She doesn't need to be incredibly precise with when she exits her power, she just needs to be right enough, and it's a margin of error that doesn't leave any room for interaction.
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Skull Merchant just need to have the drones removed. Nobody likes to be outplayed by AI. Nobody likes to be downed by Nemesis' zombies when turning a corner. Nobody likes the Knight's guardian, making the Knight one of the most hated killers in the game. Skull Merchant is the same thing. It's just brainless gameplay, you get value by pressing a button.
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I think that your Topic was suppose to be : The only two killers who needs to be deleted. Ms. Checkmate and machine gun boy.
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You know that they don't have any "AI" right? They are just traps, they don't chase or do anything on their own.
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The trickster does not need a rework, he just needs improvements, his power requires skill especially when to use, how to shoot and where he can enter his knives, you have to know where and when to use the event and when to cancel it or force it
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Potentially the greatest piece of evidence supporting my belief that Skull Merchant haters don't know a goddamn thing about what she even does.
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How do you have over a thousand posts and don't know Skull Merchant's power?
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No to both of these Killers.
SM and Legion are the only two that need full re-designs.
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What would you say in defense of Spirit and Trickster's designs? What makes them--killers who bypass normal gameplay in a way that lacks any points of interaction--better than two killers who still need to engage in proper chasing while having powers that have some counterplay?
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I think this is a little reductive when it comes to Trickster - there is skill expression in his kit from the killer side, aim and positioning are important to playing him well - but I would have a hard time arguing against the broad strokes of the topic for either killer.
In general I'm wary to invoke full on, ground-up reworks. I think that was a bad thing when it happened to Freddy and was only barely acceptable when it happened to Skull Merchant, I don't like the concept at all- but even with that in mind, Spirit especially really is kind of a nightmare.
I'm not sure how to fix the problem, but the problem definitely exists.
Also, my sincerest condolences on you having said the words "Skull Merchant" and thus guaranteeing half the responses are going to be blind incoherent rage.
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I regret saying they deserve ground-up reworks, to be quite honest, it's just that I think their kits are so shallow altogether that fixing their issues might well wind up being that no matter how hard you try to avoid it. The general concepts of their kits should be preserved, I just think that what I'd change about Main Event, for an example, might as well be a whole new thing entirely.
I think it would be interesting if instead of just being a way to throw a lot of knives really fast, Main Event sort of forced survivors to stay in your lullaby radius, basically making a weird sort of spotlight-magic-wall. The ability would still be meant to make the Trickster more threatening for a very short time, but it would instead be focused on forcing survivors to stay and watch the Trickster, forcing them to give him attention, because I think that just fits his character.
Obviously that would need a lot of exceptions to prevent it from being used as the tunneling/camping ability, and it might not even necessarily be a great idea if you keep it from being used in those ways, but it's a better representation of his character and is more interesting, I think. It just has so little in common with what it is now, that it's not even really the same thing. Maybe I'm just not thinking about it right, admittedly.
I expected more SM hate than I've gotten so far, honestly. Could be worse.
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Hey its the one thing we share in common. A hate for Legion.
On the topic at hand, I actually agree with the point on Spirit. However they change her I just pray they keep her whole ghosty aesthetic I love how scary she can be if she chooses to play that way
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I saw a fun idea once for Main Event that it'd be sort of a stance-change for different kinds of knives. Fanning them out horizontally or vertically was the example given, but I think you could drill down on that to hit Trickster's "flashy stage presence" vibe in a power that's a little more interesting than More Dakka.
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hey hey hey keep your grubby hands of my lovely group of misfits
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Actually, I didn't put it in the original post 'cause I didn't have it fully fleshed out in my head, but I was gonna suggest making Trickster a stance character like how Doctor used to be, with a Dancing mode where he'd maybe have some sort of a stepdash or something, and then the knife stance, or maybe the dancing stance would have him do some sort of dash when he threw a knife and the other would give him ricochet knives. Trickster could totally work as a stance character, and if they went for that ME could make the stepdash knives ricochet, or something. I think that would be a good general direction for him, the more I think about it.
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I do, I just don't care
I never play against her anyway
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So you do know her power, yet you say she does things she doesn't. Am I just confused here?
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I would like to add, as a sidenote, that I would be completely fine if they scrapped the whole of Nemesis' power and gave him one that is actually fitting to his character in any way and makes him better than actual garbage. General dislike for ground-up reworks aside he could get one he's kind of terrible
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I would agree my friend.
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I like playing Legion, but I am also objective enough to admit that their power is...not great.
It's pretty unfun for Survivors, weak for the Killer and can't really receive meaningful buffs without it being OP.
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But what makes the power bad? I'm not gonna say it's necessarily fun to go against. I'd like it if there were ways to bypass the KI if even only for a short period of time so that Legion could find your general location and then had to, like, search lockers or look for you crouching in a bush, and your KI was more intermittent while crouching and hiding, but Legion does still have to actually try downing you, there's effort put into chasing. There are ways to interact with Legion, you can even do things in chase during Frenzy--even if they're not amazing options--which you can't say about Trickster or Spirit.
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but there is also no way to change legion without keeping there spirit namely fast running, hit and run and spreading dmg states.
what most survs find unfun is the need to mend but there needs to e something like the mend to make the survs stop working gens or the hit and run does not work. maybe bhvr could think of any other thing a survivor needs to do after being hit but in the end its mend in another skin.
legion is loved by so many people and since i can only talk for myself i would be devasted if they completly rework them into something else and i would probably drop them if they end up with a stupid range or movemnt hit power like all the other killer bhvr does lately.
and lets not forget bhvr is not that great when it comes to reworking there killer ask the @GeneralV how good it worked with freddy
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"Skill expression" is not a warrant for a redesign. Legion has tons of fans and he has one of the lowest skill ceilings in the game. Balance problems are what actually warrants redesigns.
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I'm not going to argue it's the sole point that warrants a redesign, but it is a significant factor--Being unable to do anything to interact with the killer is bad, and how survivors interact with killer powers has been a constant issue for balance. Many would argue there aren't any real ways to interact with Blight and Nurse's powers, because they are so overwhelming. Legion's power itself has a low skill ceiling, but Legion has to be competent with the fundamentals of the game instead, you can interact with him.
I should also specify my concern is more that a power is interactive than it is skill expressive. I'm not exactly as concerned with techs and flicks and whatever as I am concerned with the killer's ability to interact with the survivor and the survivor's ability to do the same with the killer. Survivors can meaningfully try to throw off Huntress and Deathslinger, they can reasonably try to juke the Demogorgon's shred, but you can't interact with Spirit or Trickster in any real way, and they don't ever engage in the fundamentals of chase in DbD.
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You can say that again.
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SO you're basing your evidence on one player's knowledge? Right. Don't think that's reasonable
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Well, that post was just funny, that's not actually the whole of it. Telling, though, it was very typical.
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Fair enough haha.
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and lets not forget bhvr is not that great when it comes to reworking there killer ask the @GeneralV how good it worked with freddy
Don't remind me of this pain :(
It has been almost 5 years without my favorite killer. Perhaps it serves as a warning, when asking for things to be reworked.
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Everytime I post things about Skull merchant I get my posts deleted
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Now, why is that?
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The problem with Trickster's power is that sometimes there's just no counterplay. Unless you have a loop or cover that he can't hit over you're losing a health state. If you can't make it to a good loop with the burst you get from losing a health state, you're likely to go straight down as his main event is probably available at that point.
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The opposite is also true. Therefore, in order to make the trickster a mad king, you must provide him with an advantage. This can be prevented to some extent through the involvement of map knowledge and chase route construction. The lack of obstacles means it's an open area, and it's easy to detect his approach. If you don't underestimate him and position yourself properly, you should be able to buy enough time before he knocks you down.
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Yes, that's the part I agreed with.
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yeah its a shame both visual awesome killers but they are both ranged. i dont want to say they are weak cause i dont know that cause i suck with ranged killers but i also suck with movement powers like blight or nurse so i only get a playable killer when all stars alligne ^^
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Yes yes and yes! Going against trickster is so frustrating because it's all about whether you get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. There's zero counterplay, unless you're going to matrix it, or try to. Trickster gets boring to play as and against pretty quickly, as opposed to a fun ranged killer as slinger. I'm still all about that skull merchants rework though.
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