How to make a "Mimic" killer work
I see a lot of stuff about how killers couldn't mimic survivors because of SWF, or that it would be OP at low skill but UP at high skill. I have a mechanic suggestion that could work for this. It isn't a complete killer as it would probably need a second power, just this one power that would feel like a true mimic.
Plant/Fungus Monster
It can place traps which look like small mold/slime patches. When a survivor trips the trap, there is no visual or auditory trigger on survivor side to inform them of infection. The survivor becomes "infected", and all traps on the map become dormant(only 1 survivor infected at a time).
While infected, the killer sees the aura of the infected survivor, and any other survivors within 8 meters.
At any time, the killer can burst from the skin of the infected survivor, revealing the infection and that the player was a "mimic". At this point the infected player is teleported to where the trap originally infected them, and it is revealed they were pulled underground and a plant copy was released. They quickly dig themselves out and resume playing as normal.
In essence, the player's status and position are stored on infection, and whenever the infection is revealed, they revert to their original location and status. Because the "real" survivor was dormant for that time, and the player was controlling a clone/mimic.
Additionally, whenever the killer damages an infected, it releases the player from the trap as though infection was revealed via power, destroying the clone. This serves 2 purposes: If the player realizes or suspects they are infected, they can't body block or waste the Killer's time too much. But more importantly it means that the killer cannot use the permanent aura reveal to tunnel a survivor out. The "real" survivor isn't damaged, just the clone/mimic. An infected survivor cannot be directly damaged until the infection is removed by the killer.
Some other Interactions and information:
Infected can still repair, rescue off hook, and perform every other survivor action as normal. Items are transferred to the clone, and upon clone destruction the item will be dropped. This is so that a player isn't removed from the game while infected, but also doesn't have a way to easily discover they're infected.
The reveal from the power should bypass Distortion, Object of Obsession, or any perks really. Because otherwise it is hard countered by any aura interaction perk. It should be a different type of aura. Maybe the first Yellow survivor aura or something. Tricky to implement but not unbalanced.
Perk charges and cooldowns should be stored separately on the dormant survivor so that once they re-emerge they haven't wasted resources(other than item charges) on the clone. This does mean they may get more charges than normal or have a clone trigger exhaustion and the survivor trigger right after, but this is not a super common occurrence and won't break anything.
This power should disable 5 seconds into Endgame Collapse. This gives the killer a few seconds to trigger a last teleport, but then after that no more trapped survivors, to prevent griefing.
This power is complicated, but should probably be accompanied by a weak but "normal" chase power. Otherwise the killer becomes completely m1 killer in Endgame Collapse, or risks being a worse Trapper due to spending a lot of time setting traps that don't even damage, but instead are primarily an information/ambush power.
I realize this is a massive wall of text and probably overdesigned, but I tried to account for all the possible interactions and edge cases. Also, I wanted to design a mimic power that is hard to detect and doesn't take away power from the survivors. In practice the core gameplay loop is set traps, survivor triggers trap, get information from that survivor. Optionally teleport to that survivor if they're next to another survivor, healing, or about to finish a gen you want to break.
Comments
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Isn't this just rusty shackles hag with like ten extra steps?
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Not even close. The only commonality is traps and a lack of indicator. Hag traps are used to attack the person who trips them. This is used to attack anyone else, and provide a lot of information.
By that logic isn't Skull Merchant just Trapper with extra steps?
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yeah, i had similar idea, but for the thing with assimilation mechanic.
let killer toggle on/off infection upon attack and make it so killer can look from infected survivor's eyes and attack anyone from their body.
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Interesting idea on the clone. I think I like it better than mine. Mine I was going to say that one player can get "infected" after X amount of requirements, whatever they may be. This infected player then secretly swaps sides and now wins with the killer. Even in an SWF, an infected player would want to keep their new identify secret from their buddies. However, they'd want to not get "outed" by the survivors, so you couldn't do blatant stuff like bodyblocking. Your system sounds WAY less complicated (regarding the clone idea).
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SWF would spot a mold, intentionally step in it to run to the opposite corner of the map from their team, effectively wasting your time waiting at a god loop while you have to be an M1 killer against 3 people doing gens.
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You're right…except a smart solo survivor could do that too. I intentionally made it trap based to allow some counterplay, and that's why I suggested the killer get a second power for chase. Regardless, even in the worst case scenario this provides information to the killer. It tells him 2 things:
- That gen is being actively worked in.
- The rest of the team is away from that generator.
In that case the killer also has options. He can hunt the opposite side of the map which speeds up his time to find a target. He can get a down then immediately trigger the clone for a quick Pop activation, which resets his traps and also applies gen pressure. This power is primarily an information power first and an ambush power second. This is also why I specifically stated it should not be his only power, but be accompanied by a chase power to prevent m1 scenarios.
Essentially this creates a sort of layered mindgame of "I know the killer knows I know". But even at the absolute worst case situation, killer can use it to teleport immediately to a generator being repaired, and know a generator is being repaired. If accompanied by a chase power it creates a wonderful information metagame that would be a lot of fun.
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Gonna give this one more bump
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