My frustrations with Sadako - Venting and offering ideas. 💡

I forgot to address the add-ons in my previous comment so I'll do that now.

Disagree to some degree on the following add-ons:

• Iridescent Videotape - This add-on while niche, does have its uses and is a perfectly fine add-on. I get a ton of use out of it myself. The add-on just requires you to adapt your playstyle and design you build completely around it, which not everyone is willing to do.
• Mothers Comb - This add-on performs fine for its purpose. It is not an add-on I generally use for my preferences but I can see how to get value from it. It was certainly stronger on 2.0 but I believe it still has a purpose and doesn't really need a change.
• Telephone - Before her last set of QoL buffs I would have agreed 100% with you. But I think given the recent buffs like her increased speed when manifesting, make this add-on in a decent spot now. Maybe could be buffed a tiny bit but honestly wouldn't need to be much. While still not a crazy strong add-on, its not nearly as weak as before.

Agree with you on the following add-ons needing changes, though sometimes for similar or slightly different reasons:

• Sea Soaked Cloth & Rickety Pinwheel- These add-ons worked fine with her release version, but since survivors are now encouraged to turn off TVs the moment they turn on if they are next to one as part of her counterplay, these add-ons are now very weak and have lost their purpose. What good is an add-on with a small range that is only activated around an active TV, when survivors will always turn off that TV.
  • These add-ons would be much better again if their effects were instead changed to be activated within 8 meters of a TV turned off by a survivor. This would allow these add-ons to be actually useful again while also providing Onryo some counterplay to survivors who turn off her TVs at every opportunity.
• Clump of Hair - This add-on is just completely underwhelming. Would be great if it made her lullaby map-wide to counter people abusing the VTR against her.
• VCR - This add-on was weak before, but with the change in her last rework allowing survivors to see the auras of all active TVs, this add-on has become useless. Easily one of her worst if not the worst add-on. Not even good as a meme add-on since survivors can just watch the aura and know if you teleported to them. Needs a rework or buff to justify its use.
• Distorted Photo - 100% agree. Either remove the witnessing aspect OR increase the range to something like 24m so it can be used as a sort of info tool to find survivors watching you from a distance; a cooldown could be reasonable for this if necessary.
• Well Stone - 100% agree. Duration feels meaningless compared to how long TVs are off for. Would need to be at least 15s for me to even consider it.

Ring Drawing I'm kind of in the middle on. I can see good arguments for it being basekit but I also don't really know if it needs to be at the same time. So just going to say I'm on the fence about it for now.

I agree with all this, especially TV placements.

I'll even note that, against Sadako on Midwich and some other multi-layered maps, TV spawns often don't pair with the gen on the same floor. The most egregious of them being the Midwich music room sometimes spawning the TV in the reception desk room? So you'd need to break 2-3 walls going up the secret stairwell through bathroom to reach that gen, or as survivor drop down into bathroom to reach that TV and then find a stairwell to go back up to the gen. The new D&D map is also questionable with TV spawns.

Also, RIP VCR addon, how I wish you hid TV auras for survivors without tapes like that Pig addon does for her stations when a trap isn't active.

Hey,

I like Sadako too and can understand the frustations.

TV RNG - For maps like Ormond, Prenn Asylum, Backwater swamp and Macmillan maps the 📺 spawns are awful. Not sure if this is progressively getting worse but me oh my. Most of my TVs are no where near gens. Maybe 3 of 7 are near a gen. Makes condemn very challenging and applying any type of pressure. If you have a main building you want to protect good luck because your tv will be 20 meters away.

Year the spawns are sometimes really bad because the game priorities chests over killeritems (TVs, Controllstations), which results sometimes in really bad spawns. I really don't understand why this is the case and I have to be honest, who ever did this, did a poorly and sloppy job and I cannot understand why this is still in the game. Sadako and Xenomorph are big licensed characters and the developers do such a poor job with their killeritems. The game should priorities killeritems over chests so these killeritems always spawn next to the Generators because what is the point of a mobilitypower when this power straight up sucks. Here are two wonderful examples: The Eyrie one is from a YTer (it's Xeno but the spawn logic goes for Sadako too) and the TV one from me:

2) Sadakos Demanifest ability is still terrible. Directional lullaby
gives her away, survivors can hear which direction she is coming from.
She flickers in and out too frequently giving away her position. (Due to
a bug) Her phasing in and out is inconsistent to what survivors see so
no mind gaming..(Due to a bug)

They fixed the bug in the Tomb Raider PTB and it will be fixed with the next patch!

Solution - fix bugs with her power. Remove directional lullaby. Make
reikos watch base kit. (I’m aware of what they did previously)

agree. Sadako has no real antiloop- or chasepower so giving her a better stealth and mindgame ability would be more than welcome. I also feel like they could make the Well Water Addon basekit.

3) Tapes - survivors snatch tapes free of charge. Tv is off for 70 seconds. My gens are popping It’s a long time to wait.

(Hear
me out. In the past when survivors would work on the generator
together, they waited for her to teleport to the TV because there was
100 second cool down for it, one survivor would run away that she would
try and chase off the generator the other survivor would hide and go
back on the generator, not fearing about the TV coming back online
anytime soon. In current sadako….as soon as the TV turns on the survivor
just takes the tape and there is a 70second cool down where both
survivors work on the generator in peace which I understand is the point
but the time I get my butt all the way over there they already know I’m
coming because of the stealth issues mentioned the above and boom gen
is already done. This is an issue and will be worse if Lara’s perk goes
into live. Not sure if they have adjusted it or not)

Solution - Tapes have passive condemn. Every 30 seconds you gain a stack of condemn OR reduce tv cooldown to 60 seconds.

I disagree with your solution because this could lean in unhealthy situations where the killer can force condemn and it would be overwhelming for new players. However, I agree that survivors should get some punishment for holding tapes besides getting condemn for turning TVs off when holding a Tape. The TV cooldown should be decreased!

Agree with the Addons. I am not against meme Addons but an iridescent Addon like the Videotape should not be a meme Addon. The drawback is also way too big. They should make it a brown one and remove the +20% longer when survivors turn them off.

I really hope the developers will listen to us und give some love to Sadako - at least they should fix the spawn issue because this would also help Xenomorph and Plague and should be easy to do.

This does echo a lot of the frustrations I have with Sadako. The thing that bugs me the most is that tapes don't feel like they do anything in this iteration of her kit. They're just there as a free TV shutoff. 1.0 had Passive Condemned, 2.0 had Condemned on hit but 3.0 doesn't really have anything at all.

I'm not sure if Passive Condemnded would be appropriate with it being easier to apply it than her 1.0 kit, but I think Ring Drawing becoming basekit would be a good idea.

Another idea I had was that Survivors carrying the Tape do not hear the Lullaby. This makes them more susceptible to attacks without increasing Condemned at all.

I also agree with Reiko's Watch being made basekit (again). I don't like how they only add partial amounts in terms making addons basekit. Imagine if they'd Wraith like 5.4m/s when reworking him the first time around. Basically the same kind of thing.

My suggestion would be similar to yours, add ticking condemn back to survivors grabbing tapes, but also make it so Sadako can only spread condemn from the TV she Projects to, like she was at release. This should be accompanied but a basekit condemn range increase to at least 18m. 
This would solve the balancing issue for condemn and make condemn gameplay more skillful. It wouldn't punish soloq teams but also wouldn't punish Sadako against skilled teams. I'm sure many are skeptical of release version condemn mechanics but given all the QoL buffs we have received to TV cooldown times and the like, I think it would be fine.

That‘s all I wish for🥹 Behavior could probably go up to 24/28/32m when only one TV spreads condemned. Hopefully if they do that, they don‘t forget to remove TV auras.

One thing I don‘t understand about Sadako is, why does she get kicked out of her ability when carrying a survivor. It wouldn‘t give any real advantage (except of being a cool gimmick.

(I post this here, because I don‘t want to make a discussion for this)

I agree with this idea. I like either condemn on hit when there’s a tape on them, Ring Drawing base kit, or no lullaby when holding a tape. These give some risk to holding a tape. I like these better than passive condemn as they’re not free, the Onryo has to earn them.

I don’t think they needed to get rid of old Ring drawing. The condemn on heal was fine as an addon, especially once they made it not apply on slug pick ups.

I wouldn‘t call the passive condemned free condemned. It wasn‘t meant for condemning people, it was more like „Don‘t touch my tapes!“. I miss those times where survivors left my TVs alone. I hate that they deactivate all TVs just by doing the condemned counter.

I didn‘t really like the condemned on hit thing it felt as survivor often very unfair and as killer shure you can‘t really complain. I don‘t think hitting someone is something you earn the condemned for, it is something you are supposed to do as killer. I’m not saying the other ways are more earned.

Agree with the rest. Maybe by grabbing a tape you have a permanent lullaby, instead of removing it.

I‘m 50/50 with you. Probably there is not much more skillful on the killers side, but I still don‘t like the condemned on hit. It did relatively fast snowball you out of the game as survivor and there wasn‘t much you can do. For example you grab a tape get hit, grab the next one get hit….. This was really unfair most of the time. Even as m1 killer you will eventually hit the survivor and it‘s not that difficult, especially since maps are becoming weak.

the mechanic was intended to snowball you. it is the killer getting rewarded for using their power correctly and you getting punished for playing chases poorly.

I think biggest pitfall of 2.0 Sadako was actually that passive condemn was too high. This made the killer too easy to play vs average lobbies. I think there needed to be more emphasis on breaking tapes and less emphasis on teleportation. The other issue with 2.0 Sadako was tunneling condemn. ideally i wish killer was more focused on spreading condemn (4vs1 aspect) and less about tunneling 1 person to condemn them. that was the 2nd pitfall. No clue how would approach to fix tunneling.

3.0 Sadako did exact opposite. it put ZERO emphasis on tapes and put ALL emphasis on teleporting. 3.0 Sadako has no skill-cieling to condemn.

the main problem with ring drawing was survivors were able to 99% heal themselves then use their med-kit to self-care. the slugging nerf just removed gameplay depth from Sadako. It is just another change that campaigns against killer slugging.

killers should have as much gameplay depth as possible with their power. Not as shallow as possible.

I think there needed to be more emphasis on breaking tapes and less emphasis on teleportation

I‘m on the opposite side: I think you should be able to play her in both ways like in her first version, where you could basically play her without condemned or go full in with condemned. Her first version just needed some buffs. I think the current version with 28m for one TV condemned, passive condemned and no TV auras would be very strong and most of her addons would automatically become better (because of passive condemned).

Her third version is a weird middle ground. It is basically her first rework in weird. Still some form of global condemned and still survivors are forced to shut down all TVs. The one thing they brought back was no tp cooldown. But I like the idea of condemned lock in even tho it isn‘t really that great. I don‘t think this version got a good teleport, because TVs are constantly turned off, but against noobs you are probably right. There you have free mobility.

Agree with 3.0 having no skill ceiling. It is all about wether or not the survivors do the counterplay and double floor maps.

the main problem with ring drawing was survivors were able to 99% heal themselves then use their med-kit to self-care. the slugging nerf just removed gameplay depth from Sadako. It is just another change that campaigns against killer slugging. 

killers should have as much gameplay depth as possible with their power. Not as shallow as possible.

Agree, slugging was fine as her and she is one of the weakest killers you could slug with. If they really wana do something against it, then give survivors a faster bleed out ability by pressing a button, where they also crawl faster.

this version of sadako is best version of sadako when not playing condemn. you get better tv teleports, lower cooldown tv's and better invisibility(once they fix the bug). those were all worse in 1.0.

I don‘t know the exact degree from which you hear the direction, but I think if it‘s something like 140 degree, then it is probably fine. It would be a problem if you can pinpoint the direction perfectly through walls, but I don‘t know wether you can, because I don‘t really pay attention from where the lullaby comes.

Unless it is only making it non-directional while still keeping the lullaby intact, then i am whatever with the change. (Even though the lullaby doesn't sound directional to me in the first place.)

However, if it means removing the lullaby entirely, then that is where i take issue with it, because never do i want Sadako's lullaby to disappear as it is a thematic part of her character that's too important to be removed.