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that commitment to transparency: you are doing it wrong with patchnotes/devupdates.
So everyone is talking about SkullMerchant right now, and the reason is that you seem to be removing all possible painpoints from a Killer while leaving their players behind and destitute. if you read the part on Skull Merchant you can clearly see it reads like a usual balance adjustment, which implies bHVR thinks SkullMerchant does not require more changes than that.
Now I had to dig through different places on reddit to find the TRUE clarifications here:
Now my point is that if you bHVR is saying you want to make an effort towards transparency, this is really where you should have written this further clarification IN the Dev Update post before that.
By any metric it just seems like you are trying to agitate your community for no good reason right now, however it could be you have REALLY messy internal communication and that its too hard for your Community Managers to get a full picture? Is it because you there is a culture of respect where you dont want to say anything harsh towards another developers work? I mean you gotta be able to say something if its not living up to expectations or standards, right?
Something is definitely up and the community should get a much much clearly image of what you want to do in the future for each Killer, every time they appear in a dev update or big patch note. This has be done or your Community Managers have to run around putting out fires everywhere and hoping the word spreads as far as the DevUpdate, that is honestly wasting their valuable company time and is not nice to the Community either.
Engagement should never come at the expense of development transparency or community understanding.
Anyway, Good luck to you bHVR and much love
Comments
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Copied from (my post in) another nearly similar thread (with fixed spelling):
SM is better at 4 (legitimate) categories than the original/comparable Killers are.
Stealth - She has no audio cues with ~90% stealth uptime. Myers/Ghosty/Freddy/Onryo/Dredge all have sound cues, so why doesn't she? Add sound cues and she is fine in this department.
Hindered - Clown and Freddy slow 15% for ~3s, or 45% total hindered. She slows 10% for 6s, or 60% total hindered. Her hindered should be worse than theirs. Either halve the % or halve the duration and she is fine here, oh wait, that's a proposed nerf! Fix in progress.
Haste - MfT apparently was too powerful at 3%, and she gets it as well as up to more than double it. Revert MfT, or remove the Haste, oh wait, that's a proposed nerf! Fix in progress.
Traps (with the potential for damage) Auto-reset - Hag doesn't get this, and Trapper needs an Iridescent add-on to do this. Make the drones require an add-on, or physical reset, and she is fine in this department.
Bugs (the 5th illegitimate category)- Bugtech got fixed, but she still gets triple scans on a single scan. Fix this bug so that the 3s scan delay actually applies, and she is fine in this department.
The proposed nerfs only end up fixing half of her design flaws. Ideally she gets a stealth sound cue, and traps stop auto-resetting in the next update to actually make her fair.
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This post is more talking about the transparency and how bHVR is conducting themselves. Not discussing the actual changes.
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I agree that it should have been added to the dev update.
On the other end, though, why even release this change now? If she's getting reworked, why are we messing with a power that will soon be irrelevant?
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On the other end, though, why even release this change now? If she's getting reworked, why are we messing with a power that will soon be irrelevant?
Two points on this.
I dont speak for bHVR but I can think of a few reasons, the critique, pain-points and disruptions this Killer causes to the general game is so far out of control and disruptive to normal gameplay that something has to be done now.And the fact that the changes coming are relatively simplistic.
We can argue if it is right or wrong to gut a Killer like this but it seems clear to me that Skull Merchant MUST have severe problems.
I take that on faith because I trust bHVR to not be an irrational actor and that is why I try to read between lines.What kind of rationale would you look for to justify changes like this? She's got like 15% more killrate than others right?
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The killer doesn't cause these disruptions, a petulant playerbase does. Skill merchant is not that egregious to play vs; there's a dozen killers less fun to play against. It's not inherently her fault or the fault of her design.
The real issue is the "skull merchant bad" meme. It's never going away. People have a very very hard time changing their minds and ideas have inertia.
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I do believe the community managers not necessarily being at fault provided its not their job to check on all employees and collect information. BHVR in my view really needs to sort this out internally, the problem can be traced likely back to one of two things:
A: The Devs are so unorganized they miss to tell the community managers very important information that they need to include in the messages to the community.
B: Some part of BHVR doesn't tell it to the community managers either in a misguided attempt to protect them from backlash, or not willing to tell the community managers that they have to include information some people might not like, repeatedly causing problems along the way.
Both would be ground enough for very serious repurcussions and sanctions in most places i worked for, its the type of thing you often only can pull once before being sanctioned.
Now i don't speak for Canadians, and they are might have a different view of things, but i'm from a culture where indirect speech and left out information can quickly be interpreted as respectless, spineless and insulting especially in work environments it can quickly get you in trouble, they might have a different philosophy however that should not come at the expense of the community.
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To be fair, this information does little to dissuade concerns about the killer's changes.
We've been told the same about Freddy, Myers, Twins, and other killer reworks. The idea that nerfing a killer this hard in preparation for a rework is still not a good idea, even if this killer is hated among the community, and sets a horrible precedent for any killer that could potentially be on the radar. And we aren't even sure if SM will get that rework as soon as they promise it.
Heck, Freddy himself is apparently in the top 10 for killrates when last seen. Imagine if they nerfed him further in preparation for a rework next year.2 -
I dont think you can prove or demonstrate this. Only bHVR can.
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..... What? BHVR can't prove popular consensus any more than I can. Skull merchant bad is a meme. It makes people inclined to not like her. That's factual. The reality is that she's no worse to play vs than most killers. Turn off drones. It's not hard.
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Survivor when M1 killer with minor anti-loop power: I FORGOT HOW TO USE MY KEYBOARD
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Ngl at this point even if they do renege on these changes I am not sure I will have any faith left in BHVR. And the statements outside of it show an outright disregard for the people who actually play the characters they are nerfing. If they don't care about the people who bought these characters and play them then I don't think I want to spend any more of my money on this game. Like why buy something when it can just be a completely different thing next year?
Post edited by EQWashu on1 -
Because Skull Merchant is the most boring thing to come out in this game, you are vastly outnumbered with this opinion and I don't understand why you are all coming out of the woodwork to guard the easiest and least interactive killer to play right now.
It's less that she is the most OP thing (she isn't) she is just very very unfun to play against or even as, she is a workhorse, someone who does alot with zero effort.
I do agree they could have communicated the intent better, but we know what it is and it's for the larger health of the game, other devs do this all the time with problematic characters, look as far as blizzard.Post edited by EQWashu on0 -
Ok I guess to be clearer, maybe my post (describing her current flaws) should have been the dev message. It clearly details all the problems with SM, and how the current actions are parts 1 and 2, of 4 total nerfs that must be done to make her not frustrating to go against.
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No it was absolute nonsense. SM has counterplay already. Her hinder effect doesn't even come into play until you get scanned 4 ######### times so removing haste but leaving hinder makes no ######### sense and doesn't even do anything to counteract the fact she loses bloodlust.
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While we are on the subject of unfun things to go against, when are you going to advocate geting rid of lithe and sprint burst and balanced landing and brand new parts and boil over and map offerings and….
You don't know what unfun is1 -
When you run through a loop, you get scanned every rotation (sometimes twice), and if you leave the loop, you give her a free M1. So how again does she have counterplay?
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You can disable the drones. Vaults exist. Pallets exist. She's a mid B tier killer.
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You can't disable drones mid-chase, someone else has to assume that the chase will be sent North instead of West or South or East and pre-disarm for you. Vaults and Pallets existing doesn't prevent a Drone from scanning mid loop, so entity blocking a window with 3 good vaults Injures and Deep Wounds you regardless while she gets Bloodlust 1 for free.
She is only as weak as she is because Dash Killers and Mobility Killers are so strong. Even then, she is better than Ghosty/Myers/Freddy at Stealth (no sound cues with ~90% uptime). Better at Clown/Freddy at Hindered (60% total [10*6] vs ~45% total [15*3]). Better than old MfT at Haste (going 3-7% while not being mutually exclusive with other features). Better than Trapper and Hag with auto-reset traps when Hag gets nothing, and Trapper costs him an Iri add-on. Why is she allowed to be better in 4 different categories to comparable sources, and people be surprised when people don't like her?
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Drop pallets, take windows, like any m1 killer? If you do get scanned you have a 3 second invulnerability period. You can waste plenty of her time at one loop even with a drone in it. If she goes to break the pallet you get distance. If you get claw trapped you get the same post hit speed boost to you would normally get from getting hit to make it to another loop. You can stand still for a brief second to avoid being scanned(do that if she isn't just holding W around the loop.)
Acting like there is nothing you can do against a Skull Merchant is just crazy.0 -
If someone normally plays a loop optimally with 3 window vaults, the Killer doesn't get anything other than Bloodlust. The Drone gives you an injury AND Bloodlust. If you stop or crouch through for merely half a second, you lose ~1.2-2m of distance. So everything I already said still stands.
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Hard agree
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