Can we look back and have a serious discussion about the past, current and future killer reworks?

I don‘t consider Knight a rework, he only got some nerfs and buffs.

Twins thankfully didn‘t get reworked and I think they should focus on the current version.

Skull merchant needed to get changed, because of how miserable she made the game.

I really dislike the Sadako reworks and they should have kept the first version, which was a lot more fun for everyone. They only needed to give that version some buffs. Alone the buffs from the reworks would have made her first version great. Sadly I will never be able to play my favorite killer again.

Hillbilly will be fine and the last rework was good. He is only a bit overtuned right now. Depending on how much of an impact the nerfs will have, I will call this rework a success.

Trickster wasn‘t in need of a rework and they ruined the character for those who enjoyed him like they did for me with Sadako. He went from quite common in my matches to never be seen again like Sadako.

I would add legion to the list who was probably a good rework, but I have no idea what they exactly changed. I only know the majority of people found his first version extremely bad.

I haven‘t played when Freddy released, but I think his rework wasn‘t good. I would love to play as and against his first version, because in concept it sounded a lot more interesting than what we have now.

I really hope they focus on buffs and nerfs instead of reworks in the future. They just ruin said character for those who liked them after they reworked them. I hope Myers gets some buffs instead of a rework and the Freddy one will hopefully be good or a revert. Same with Sadako hopefully she will get her Orginal mechanics back.

He isn't the worst killer already. Ghostface is.

they're even nerfing twins further by increasing cooldown for getting kicked. old twins had like 8 second kick punishment or something. like one of the reason why twins is unpopular is because she is extremely anti-newbie friendly. new killer player have no chance to pick up twins as killer because she is way hard. No killer get punished so hard for failing their ability. Like yeah they receive a cooldown but they don't teleport -30 meters away from target for dying with victor.

Than you also have victor get PUNISHED for being successful. Twin is currently punished for successfully using the power and punished for failing the power. poor combination that needs to be re-visited. there is no chance that holding victor hostage for 30 second for hitting healthy survivor is good. literally only survivor bias player will ever defend that mechanic and same is true for having large cooldown for kicking victor.

these two mechanic are only there to repress slugging. a fundamental play-style for Twins. they're hard trying to make slugging as unviable as possible dbd so they're nerfing twins as hard as possible to suppress twins gameplay and slugging as hard as possible. as a result, it makes killer feel like trash to play because win condition as unfriendly as possible as well as the killer itself.

most of these rework weren't reworks. they were nerf's appease survivors for survivor excuse of unfun play-style. I

Twins → Slugging

Skull merchant rework is successful for killer but the survivor disconnects/entitlement survivor problem got her nerfed. Now she's taking a break for 6 months.

Knight initially got buffed to be more focused on Assassin and less on Zoning/Pincer. now they nerfed assassin and kept all his other nerfs making him weaker. This is not talking about distraction deleting his ability.

Sadako also got nerfed. hard-nerfed. the irony for sadako is that Sadako is like freddy where…. even when killer is baby spoon fed for survivor, the killer has high kill-rate and high win-rate…

in summary, Survivor said. "These killer are unfun to play against, Please nerf all these killer to the ground." Bvhr: ok.

I am not sure if this is what happened to Freddy, to be honest

Back in 2021 I was against the idea of nerfing him because it wouldn't fix his actual problem, which was and still is the fact he's uninspired and simply not an interesting killer. But his reworked power really wasn't healthy for the game. Spamming Dream Snares and getting your Dream World slowdown for free with Jump Rope and Swing Chains wasn't fun for anyone involved.

With Old Freddy it was different, because he doesn't get value simply by existing in the trial. You needed to pull survivors into the Dream World, and that is how it should be.

Don't forget he got reviewed bomb due to the fact people had issues .

And he was! Way more fun, unique and fitting for the character of Freddy Krueger!

You would've loved him if you were playing back then, and I'm confident you'll have a chance to test him. I'm confident I'll get my killer back.

well in my opinion, SM didn't need any changes. that is a lot of other killer mains opinion as well. even those that play survivor agree that skull merchant is not an issue but survivor complain enough to get her nerfed just like all these other killers. the good news is that unlike these other killers that have no scheduling for any changes, bvhr said that there might be some rework at some point, so perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately for these other killers like Sadako, there is no light at the end of the tunnel for her as no changes have been schedule for her. At least none that we know of.

I meant skully’s first version which was a problems for the game as we hadn’t the anti 3 gen feature. A killer you can’t win against isn’t good. For the current version: I think removing the haste is good and making her a bit weaker, but they went way too far.

For a while, yes. Late 2022 - Early 2023 I was barely playing DBD and Freddy hadn't even been mentioned by the devs in so long that it was hard to have motivation. But not anymore, those defeatist days are over.

Well, I've shared my concept on Discord servers that I have with friends, in the actual game talking to other players (someone even recognized me as the "Forums Freddy person") and I even have it on my Steam profile!

Probably not, I used it to get other players' feedback and see what they think about it. A suggestion for Freddy cannot be done simply with what I want for him in mind, I wanted to come up with a concept everybody would enjoy.

And thank you for your kind words, my friend, I sincerely appreciate it <3

If you'd like to see a post with my ideas, here it is:

Just disregard the suggestion for Black Box, I still need to come up with a different effect for that add-on (also thanks @UndeddJester for pointing out the oversight with the suggestion, I appreciate it!)

Freddy isn't the same after his nerfed. I knew his rework was gonna get him butchered especially with the whole 5 pallet/snares things.....

the worst rework of all was Freddy, the other killers didn't lose their identity, the only one who lost was Freddy, no matter what anyone says, nerf or buff didn't kill a character with unique power in the game like Freddy Krueger , let's be honest.

""Once in the Dream World: Survivors suffer an action speed penalty of 50%"

"While Survivors are in the Dream World: Applies a moderate (-6%) Action Speed penalty to Repair, Healing, and Sabotage actions"

"Survivors suffer from an increased Action Speed penalty of 60% after 30 seconds in the Dream World"

This sounds absolutely miserable.

Miss one skill check and the penalty is gone. It isn't bad, it never was bad.

He was nerfed mostly because of complaints from people who had never played DBD before. Mathieu Cote himself regretted that nerf, as people didn't even have time to learn how to play against him.

There was never a need to change his power extensively.

What I did was keep the teleport and add the Incapacitated status effect during the Dream Transition, which in my opinion as an Old Freddy main fixes the few issues he had.

What are survivors supposed to do, if this Freddy decides he wants to hard tunnel one person out of the game, and only pulls that one person into the dream, which means that Freddy is invisible to everyone else? Do you think the average survivor can help bodyblock, when the killer is invisible? Do you think the average survivor would know how to flashlight save, when the killer is invisible?

And how is the tunneled survivor supposed to avoid being tunneled, if Freddy is invisible while they are awake, but Freddy can see their aura if they are asleep? How will an awake survivor know where to run, to avoid being pulled into the dream?

Survivors would avoid invisible Freddy by paying attention to a non-directional lullaby? After what BHVR did to Spirit and Dracula, they would surely give Freddy a very loud directional audio when he is invisible.

Survivors would need counterplay to being pulled into the dream, and a non-directional lullaby isn't good enough. Invisible Freddy would need directional audio.

Also, it would be likely that if BHVR ever did bring back original Freddy, the aura reading on sleeping survivors would need to be severely nerfed (or removed). Infinite duration aura reading outside of the terror radius is way too overpowered for modern DBD. BHVR would probably do something like nerf it to 3 seconds of aura revealing every 30 seconds.

And then BHVR would probably sprinkle the map with alarm clocks that any survivor could use, so that survivors can wake themselves up without failing a skill check. And Freddy wouldn't be able to see the alarm clock auras, but survivors would be able to see every alarm clock aura.

Survivors would need counterplay to being pulled into the dream

No, you are not supposed to spend the entire match awake, and that goes for every iteration of Freddy.

Eventually you will be pulled into the Dream World, and that is whole point. The lullaby is enough, as I know from personal experience.

Infinite duration aura reading outside of the terror radius is way too overpowered for modern DBD

It isn't. Not when it is designed to work with his power.

And then BHVR would probably sprinkle the map with alarm clocks that any survivor could use, so that survivors can wake themselves up without failing a skill check. And Freddy wouldn't be able to see the alarm clock auras, but survivors would be able to see every alarm clock aura.

They wouldn't. Freddy isn't Pig.

Having an active RBT will kill you after the time expires, the Dream World has more to it than that.

The reason why survivors automatically get pulled into the Dream World, is because that feels a lot more fair, than getting chased by an invisible killer with a non-directional lullaby.

That wasn't the case, though. I do not know if you were playing DBD when his rework happened, but survivors passively failing asleep was not added because it feels more fair for survivors. It was added as a "QOL" change to make him feel better to play as, and make survivors more vulnerable to his Dream powers.

Same reason why he can hit an awake survivor, which in my honest opinion should have never been a thing.

Speaking from personal experience, the dream pulling mechanic was perfectly fine as it was, and no changes would be needed. I'm confident it can, and will, safely return exactly as it was.

I'm sorry, friend, I got caught up in the discussion here and forgot to reply to your comment.

Please don't say these things about yourself, my friend, you were not annoying or anything like that. You saw an idea that was open to feedback, you voiced your thoughts and that feedback helped me! We had a good discussion about it, there is nothing wrong with that.

Don't be so harsh with yourself :)

The original concept but with directional audio?

Yes, yes I can accept that.

Don't think it is necessary, but it isn't the end of the world either. Huntress originally had a directional lullaby and she survived. Freddy can do the same.