If this is the route we're going, I'm starting to want a refund on my investments into characters.
Last year, my favorite killer Trickster got reworked. While I understand the devs desire to give him an upgrade, the initial version of this rework was overwhelming for a majority of the playerbase, and not really fun to play with as a long time trickster player. The devs response to the unpopularity of the initial rework (a sidegrade at best without obviously overpowered addons involved,) Trickster was then nerfed into the floor when Chucky launched.
I had to list these hidden changes on the wiki myself, as they were not documented anywhere else.
A couple minor quality of life changes and a buff to movement speed and main event, coming at the cost of incredibly nerfed lethality, extremely easy to remove lacerations, a wide list of previously useful addons scrapped and replaced with a singular addon thats worth using, and a killer that had no gameplay or aesthetic appeal anymore. I put myself through the long, expensive P100 grind for this killer and it genuinely felt like my time and points were wasted.
And now, same thing is happening to skull merchant. She's getting changes with the explicit purpose of making her easier to play against. Except this time: it's even worse. She's not getting any sort of compensation buff at all, she's simply becoming a weaker and worse designed killer. This won't make her any more fun to play against, it'll just make her so terrible nobody will want to play her until her later rework.
REMINDER: This killer's gameplay used to boil down to pressing M2 near a generator and getting value, yet she went untouched for months until we got the current version. Where was this energy back then?
If this trend of nerfing killers into irrelevance just because people don't like them, then start offering BP and auric cell refunds. I have little to no interest in the current version of trickster, and while i dont even really like skull merchant that much, i imagine her playerbase will feel the same. This is just genuinely alienating your players.
For reference, people are using the trickster updated as a replacement term for a character being nerfed into irrelevance or reworked so heavily they're unrecognizable ("Getting Trickstered.") People are already saying skull merchant is getting trickstered. And at this point if my killer's only appeal is as a punchline, then I'd honestly just prefer a refund of all the bloodpoints i spent on him, all the cells i spent on skins, or heck even the physical money i spent on these chapters. I just don't enjoy this type of game design.
When Skull Merchant's rework hits PTB, I will make an honest feedback post. But for now, this is just a rant. I hope you can all understand where I'm coming from with this, even if you don't like trickster or skull merchant.
Comments
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Agreed. As far in left field as this may sound im starting to feel as a game gains momentum in popularity over time and reaches a certain player count that there should be some sort of governing body that over sees and gives imput aswell as has some sort of direct say on the balancing aspect of the game. I say this because regardless of this being a "live-service game" real money is being taken, real money purchased on a character for whatever reason they decided to buy said character.
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Agreed, the precedent this sets is horrific. If whining and crying about something will result into it getting nerfed into the ground then BHVR needs to offer every in-game currency (including auric cells) spent back to people so they can redistribute it. This isnt how any devs should make changes. This is just blatant pandering to "feedback" from a certain type of player, and quite frankly i dont really want to continue to support a team that does that.
If they have no clear intent on what they want to change then DO NOT change anything so people who currently enjoy the character arent screwed out of their enjoyment. NONE of these changes actually address anything, they just straight up stripped her down to nothing. She's a low pick rate character and is barely seen enough to warrant being touched at all let alone massacred like this. I have seen her twice in 800 hours, she is not a problem that needs solving like this.
Post edited by Shinkiro on18 -
I agree! "Solving" the skull merchant "issue" is not by making her so horribly bad and untertuned that nobody is playing her. Its awful that it happened to Freddy and its awful here. It truly feels like: "lets just make this character so bad that nobody will play them. Then we dont have to focus on them for a longer time". How long has it been since Freddy got a rework announced?
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I only bought one character, Laurie Strode for DS, when DS was nerfed I decided I wasn't spending anymore money on DBD due to what I paid for being changed.
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You bought a character for 5 bucks, could play them for one and a half years, and now you want "refunds" because they get changed in a live service game. That's like wanting to get a refund on a coffee you've had a year ago because they changed the formula recently. Not quite obviously, but it's just silly to me people make a fuss over these things to the point of talking about refunds.
Also, this is typical forum user hyperbole. No, Trickster was not "nerfed into the floor". Do you want me to show you Trickster players with long winstreaks, that win 99% of their matches handedly? And that are of the opinion Trickster is better now? He's 4.6 and his main event can last an eternity even with low rarity add-ons.
And Skull Merchant won't be dead either. And she first has to go through PTB anyway. Granted, I think they are overnerfing her, removing one scan line would have been enough, with both that and the removal of stealth mode as well as no Hindered or Haste (at least not on scans), drones just don't do enough. Personally I would have preferred if they had just made it so hacked drones cannot be recalled, maybe slowed down their rotation speed a little, and removed stealth mode. Her chase strength is probably the issue for most average players because she is very easy to play as and not easy to play against in chase, but it's not like she's the most oppressive chaser either. Her major design flaw in my mind has always been her propensity to hold a generator cluster, spamming drones around them, with which being unable to recall hacked drones would help tremendously.
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When you first started this game, you (presumably) read and (definitely) agreed to the EULA. As is standard for live service games, said EULA explicitly stated that BHVR can change content in their game however they like and do not need to hand out refunds if someone doesn't like the changes.
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Nobody has done a notable winstreak with trickster since his rework, and the point you bring up about main event is irrelevant to me because I don't play trickster to play Main Event sim. His power became unpleasant to use unless you spam main event which every trickster player will tell you is boring.
Regardless, I'm merely making a point that people invest time and bloodpoints into characters with no guarantee they will even be fun to play after a random, unannounced update. Dev communication needs to be more clear in the future, or they should offer bloodpoint refunds for characters so i can invest them into other characters I would rather play. I don't see how this is unreasonable to ask. Acting like I shouldn't be allowed to be upset when I invest time and BP into something only for it to basically no longer exist is just weird, and your metaphor doesn't even make sense. You sound like someone who has not experienced this problem yet wants to speak for people who do.
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Completely understandable
My only thoughts are that i personally liked the trickster update and i perform a lot better with him personally. I dont want them to take away 4.6m/s and no recoil.
The other suggestions ive seen from the community are fairly reasonable and i can definitely agree that he needs an update asap
Never thought about how they didnt butcher OG skull merchant, maybe her kill rate was not high enough? Cuz despite having 3 gen lockdown potential, i could see a lot of people not knowing or not wanting to do that. I hated playing OG skull merchant personally.1 -
Hate to say this but they don't owe you a refund. If you knowingly and willingly buy a dlc you are basically signing an agreement that you can play character In exchange for money. But They are all subject to changes at the whim of the game developer. Pretty sure it's stated in the Eula/ToS of the game..
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Again, its not even about money. I just want my bloodpoints back so I can spend them on something I'd actually wanna use.
And hey, if they end up fixing the problem, i'll just put 'em right back into Trickster. No big deal.
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Regardless, I'm merely making a point that people invest time and bloodpoints into characters with no guarantee they will even be fun to play after a random, unannounced update.Invest is a weird phrase. The game is not work. You don't invest time in characters, you play them for fun. If at some point it becomes no longer fun, it's understandable to be upset about the change, but you haven't lost anything.
Dev communication needs to be more clear in the futureCommunications about what? It's a live service game. Do you think when you picked up Trickster the changes were their long term plan?
I don't see how this is unreasonable to ask.It's unreasonable because every time they've made a change to a killer that was anything other than a straight buff I'm sure there is a main of that killer who has been upset.
Acting like I shouldn't be allowed to be upset when I invest time and BP into something only for it to basically no longer exist is just weirdYou're allowed to be upset. Everyone has the right to their opinion and feelings about the game.
It's the idea that you should be upset about the 'investment' that I'm struggling with.
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I'm always amazed at how effective this pseudo-gameplay called meta-progression is and how easily some gamers are appeased. You ask for things you know won't happen so you can spend time not playing the game. Do you mind sharing what prestige your Trickster is at? So I can gauge how far you are gone.
You just learned what can happen in live service games. I suggest to spend your energy on more reasonable endeavours.
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Wacek is casually on an 80-game streak, and generally winning 90+% of his matches while chilling. The notion that Trickster is "nerfed into the floor" is just silly, especially given that known Trickster mains such as Wacek are of the opinion he is better now. Trickster is a really potent killer, and regardless, when provably being able to decisively win the vast majority of one's matches it's more than a bit silly to talk about state of balance anyway. Trickster is more than perfectly viable for all intents and purposes. I can't talk to whether Trickster is more or less fun and engaging to play as now than he used to be because I don't play him, but whenever I did play him Main Event was the most fun thing about him. Having Main Event constantly now and being able to keep it up for something ludicrous like 20 seconds is crazy, and crazy fun. I also think he is more enjoyable to play now merely due to being 4.6m/s, enabling more of an ability to have standard chase dynamics. Which also made him faster during Main Event.
I have been playing the game since 2017, believe me I have experienced a lot of perks and characters and maps being changed in ways I did not approve of or was even "upset" about to some extent, but never have I felt like I deserved compensation for it, let alone after more than a year of having had gotten to use something I purchased. The Mettle Of Man thing was really poorly done, I would have wanted to refund back then, but mostly in protest, not because I was actually scandalized over the devs ham-handedly butchering a perk that everybody knew they had to change something about (although it is rather upsetting that to this day they haven't really revisited the perk, but that goes for countless other perks too). Similarly, the Merchant changes should came to no surprise to anyone that's been following the game (and she as opposed to Mettle got a lot more than a mere couple of weeks before being changed). Her kill rates and the general community opinion of and reaction to the killer made it obvious that something was going to have to change. The devs said months ago that they too still aren't happy with where she is at and looking to address her at some point. Again, I do agree that they are nerfing her too hard, to both make drones much easier to play around and remove the major threat that drones pose if they do scan you is redundant and turns her into a strictly worse Plague, or a Legion with extra steps, they should do either or.
That said, I also don't agree with making this out to be some "route" or trend. Skull Merchant is wholly unprecedented in this game's 8-year-spanning development history, no other killer has come close to garnering this negative response as consistently for as long. And they didn't even kneejerk-nerf her for all this time. And she likely won't come out of PTB in this sad a state either.
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If this is the route we're going, I should start demanding a refund for investing in a character for certain perks that I bought.
But I'm not going to do that cause I'm not entitled. You bought something knowing it full well could be buffed or nerfed. You got the latter. Now suddenly its 'I want a refund or compensation'. No sorry, it doesn't work like that.
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Yup. I own every single survivor and yet only play a small handful of them. I bought them for their perks, most of which have been changed (nerfed) since. Bring back old Dead Hard, CoH, DS, IW, etc etc or else I demand a refund
/s just in case
It's insane to me that people buy into live service games without understanding exactly what that means lol
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The sense of entitlement is quite amusing tbh. People never actually read The ToS/EULA before agreeing to it lol.
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My suggestion here is don't buy skins with aurelic cells.
I bought Skull Merchant's 10$ skin back on launch and now she is being dropped to F tier.
Knight and Chucky are in the same pit. Good thing I didn't buy anything for these guys and dodged the bullet.
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Imagine if I were to ask compensation for the five years (and counting) of my favorite character being gone.
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BHVR is just screwing itself with poorly made decisions for a long time. Every game they made was a big flop, look at their last game for example Frank Stone it has poorly reviews and a horrible optimization on top of it i dont even wanna talk about the bugs that this game has.
So said DBD is their only ressource of earning money and they somehow manage hurt their income by hurting the playerbase. i stopped supporting them long time ago because of that that's why i didn't bought the castelvania and the D&D chapter.
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Wacek is a friend of mine and here is his comment on my video where I expressed my opinion of trickster being nerfed.
He was absolutely nerfed into the ground in the 7.4.0 update, but was made passable in 7.4.2 with some minor buffs and targeted reversions. Trickster currently does not function without Memento Blades. Even still, the experience of playing him is still much different than before, in a negative way.
We've all been slowly trying to get him to feel like how he used to for almost a year now but nobody is willing to even hear us out because Trickster is unpopular. I do not want the same to happen to skull merchant, despite me not liking her that much. You're correct that I'm being hyperbolic but you also have to understand that people do legitimately spend a lot of time on this game grinding specific characters and playstyles, so seeing them just be removed without our input being taken into account is just terrible for player trust and business. The amount of people in this thread trying to tell me my feelings are invalid because I agreed to an EULA is just silly to me, and I don't understand how people can expect to have a productive conversation if they simply lack empathy.
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I agree, but that is sadly not how things work. I just feel really sorry for the Freddy main's out there.
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The best way to get skins is to have 1k Aurelic Cells on your account, and keep them on the account. When a new Rift is released you complete it and buy the premium Rift. - You get your 1k Aurelic Cells back and some skins.
Repeat this with every Rift
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I've been doing this and buying skins with iri shards since Trickster's rework. I bought chucky with spare auric cells i already had on my account, and I was gifted some DLCs afterwards. I do not spend nearly as much on this game as I used to.
Regardless again, I am mostly talking about Bloodpoints, which can only be earned through time and gameplay. Not having any way to get them back after you spend them is insane to me
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Lol, you aren't getting any refunds on old characters you've bought. It's comical to even think you would. If you don't like DBD anymore then you are free to walk away at any time. But don't think for a second you are getting your money/auric cells/bloodpoints/iridescent shards back.
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You won't be getting BP back either so.....
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That's what I've been doing so far now. I buy chapters for cheap on steam and keep that 1k cell pack cycling over and over.
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Then stop feeding Behavior your money then.
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But that's the type of silliness I mean, here's a guy winning 80 matches in a row and rarely having anyone escape even if he isn't winstreaking and just chilling reading chat talking on stream, and yet he shares your opinion that Trickster was "nerfed into the floor"? As far as I've heard from Trickster mains including Wacek himself (or so I thought, maybe I misinterpreted what he said), Trickster is now in a stronger state than he was before all the changes. Maybe that does depend on add-ons, and it's totally possible he relies on some add-on(s) now to be stronger, or yet that while being stronger he perhaps isn't as fun to play anymore for original Trickster mains. But he's highly viable, perfectly good enough for all intents and purposes, meaning you can win most of any match this game gives you with him, and pretty decisively at that. He still melts through health states which is particularly dangerous around hooks, he can deny unhooks and interrupt trades altogether, and the now ever-present threat of Main Event exacerbates the issue of contesting hooks against Trickster big time. With frequently having ME available now he also has much more snowball potential in general than he used to have.
If you really just don't enjoy Trickster anymore say that, I can empathize with that (although personally I've never seen much of the appeal in playing him when Huntress exist), but saying he was "nerfed into the floor" just suggests he is very weak now, but the reality is that if you are good at Trickster, the world's your oyster, you can win basically every time. Hell, Wacek even ended Hens' winstreak he did with comp players. I will not empathize with saying something is "nerfed into the floor" while this is the reality, I see too many people throwing around buzzwords and phrases like that. Trickster isn't the strongest killer in the game of course, decently far from, but he is provably strong enough to be able to win 90+% of the time with him and have long winstreaks, he clearly isn't in a problematically weak state whatsoever.
I also won't empathize with people that like to play Merchant a lot, ha. Only half-joking, but yes, in my opinion she absolutely needed changes. Merchant as she is on the PTB would definitely be too weak though, I hope for you she won't be in quite as sorry a state once the update goes live. And I doubt she will, there isn't a trend of them nerfing killers "into the floor", and even if they were to completely change how Merchant plays, it wouldn't be indicative of some worrying trend, since again, she's a very unique piece of game design the negative response to which has been largely unprecedented in the games' many years of existing, not even original Legion (an even worse design) came close. I do empathize generally of course with losing aspects of a game you like, I liked original Freddy much more than his reworked self for instance, but feeling like "refunds" would be appropriate is still a reaction I can't relate to. And if you're mostly concerned with bloodpoints, well, I would advise to simply not P100 a character (or certainly not one as contentious as Merchant has always been), it doesn't do anything for you. Just spend points on them if you need add-ons.
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If 4.59$ per chapter from me can keep such company alive, then I'd say it's a charity and a good deed to do.
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