Does anyone else have zero faith in SM's rework if it ever releases?
There are 3 main reasons why I have none, that being BHVR's recent history of reworks, SM's reputation, and the amount of effort that will need to be put in to actually fix her.
Lets start with the first point by looking at the recent selection of reworks, Trickster was absurd on his rework's PTB due to various addons and basekit changes that made actually playing around his power almost impossible, and then got absolutely dumpster'd on live due to most of the buffs being walked back, leading to a killer that is currently basically just a 115% Man with Bat that occasionally chucks knives at you, and The Twins rework, promised for 2 years, was broken on the PTB because apparently nobody could have foreseen a invincible Victor that inflicted Broken for 60 seconds on every hit was overpowered, and then walked back to just a bunch of QOL buffs that admittedly made them actually playable. Based on the recent track record I don't think the SM Rework will be very good, at best it'll be broken on the PTB and then partially walked back so that she is actually playable, and at worst she becomes, well, what she's going to be 8.3.0, that being a ######### version of Clown that has to input three times the effort for half the reward.
Second of all, SM's reputation, Tools of Torment was a flop and needed 6 months more dev time at the very least and I think more people need to say this, we would not be in this position of investing so much time into this one killer if BHVR had just not messed up as badly as they did, her PTB version was awful, her release version was awful, her pre 8.3.0 version, while infinitely better, still had problems relating to her ease-of-use and the fact that bad teammates made playing against her much harder then it needed to be. People have a instinctual response to either DC or hookicide against her for a reason, and nothing about that is ever going to change because BHVR fumbled her release so hard.
And that brings me to point 3, BHVR can make the absolute best rework they ever had, one that makes SM fun to play and play against, one that is interesting and promotes actively getting good at playing her, and none of that will matter because it's SM, people will still look at her, and either DC or go AFK then go to Twitter and complain about her being unfun to play against. Nothing about that is going to change unless BHVR straight up reworks everything about her down to the name, she would need a new model, new name, and new lore for her to ever be accepted by the community at large, and even then I'm still not convinced people wouldn't still DC against her because whatever they would make would be the replacement for Skull Merchant, the killer that BHVR fumbled the release of the hardest.
By all means BHVR, prove me wrong, show me a Doctor level rework that makes SM good and interesting, because as it stands right now, I'm looking at a killer you are are just leaving to rot for a year or longer because you cannot figure out how to make her well received and how to wash out the stench of her release's reputation.
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knigth is ok now so im sure skull merch will be ok too. 🤷♀️
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She’s the only character that I’d have zero problems with being straight up removed, and the people who owned her get refunded.
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Hello, friend, it is good to see ya! It has been a while, hasn't it?
Well, I must say I never have faith in reworks here. Me of all people would know just how terrible and damaging they can be. A single patch and my favorite character was gone, just like that. It wasn't fun, it wasn't fair, and it was bad for the game.
As for Skull Merchant, it is hard to imagine what exactly they'll do to her. Honestly, the only problem I was having with her before the recent nerfs was my teammates leaving the game for absolutely no reason. When they decided to stick around and actually play the game we would often win.
@jesterkind had a really good concept for her, btw, but there is no way to know if that feedback was ever read or acknowledged.
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Given how the Trickster, Sadako, Twins, and Knight reworks have gone, and the fact that the Freddy rework just seems to be forgotten about, I have very little faith that SM will have a decent rework that makes her fun, or even get one at all. The fact that they removed the trap laying playstyle from her in the meantime makes me worried they won't give that back to her once the rework comes around, which would suck, seeing as we have hardly any trap laying killers atm.
I hope I'm wrong though, but given how other works have gone, I feel like there isn't much reason to be hopeful.8 -
They haven't forgotten the Freddy rework. They confirmed on their live stream it's being worked on.
Post edited by Dwight_Fairfield on1 -
Nope. Seeing how long they took to rework Twins only to trash what they came up with and settling for minor buffs to only nerf them again, there’s no reason to hope for anything different with Skerchant.
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The thing they need to fix is pooping a drone at a tile to effortlessly cut survivors off… that and not have her power just be a bland haste steroid.
I still really want them to go all in and make her a bonified trap killer. Trap killers are immensly satisfying when pulled off, even if they aremt the strongest, and we haven't had one since Hag, which is absurd when you think about it.
Create a web of drones that cut off routes that prevent hold w for fear of getting scanned and hindered. They can also serve as the weak anti loop tool that they do now with the single scan and some additional tweaks to make it not the focus of her power, but the important things should be her global detection, perfect knowledge of mind games and maintaining a drone Web.
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can’t say that when you have no idea what they’re doing with her. I mean even though I play a lot of skull they gutted her for a reason.
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To be honest, they should just revert her to her release state. Gen kicking was already reworked to prevent 3 genning, and CoB, Overcharged, and Eruption have all been pretty much deleted from the game. She wouldn't be able to do half of what she used to do back then.
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skull merchant will be C-tier killer that is underpowered for next months for how long it takes for her to get rework. the current iteration of skull merchant is already good so once the killer stop getting d/c 24/7, I assume she'll just be revert to what she is now. All i hope is that she gets her haste back with claw traps. that is all I hope for. What would be hilarious is if skull merchant gets no d/c and bad kill-rate than they buff her and than everyone starts d/cing again. that would make me laugh. prime survivor entitlement. no free escape = d/c. what crazy logic.
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When I heard that Twins were receiving a rework that had been going on for years, I really expected major changes. But the PTB just had some tweaks. I feel like a rework should be more than tweaks. It should be removing some mechanics and creating new ones.
I don't want a Freddy rework that is just snares and pallets as basekit. Those are tweaks. I want snares gone and something brand new in it's place. The dreamworld should be an actual threat, instead of just being annoying at worst.
For Skull Merchant, her drones need to do something completely different. No tweaking them, a complete rework. I don't envy the devs, as I can't think of what to do with them. But it can't be just tweaks.
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To me, SM already had no redeeming qualities to begin with, so it can only get better for her at this point regardless.
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Despite the gigantic fumbling that was the twins rework I think BHVR have the ability to learn from their mistakes. I do have faith that they'll manage a pretty decent rework for Skull Merchant that'll overall make her more enjoyable to play as and against. That being said I don't really have much faith in the playerbase in general, we'll probably still see a fair few people just giving up against her for the fact that she's Skull Merchant no matter what. You can't fix those brain worms.
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As far as I'm concerned, it cannot be worse than it is now.
Skull Merchant is the only killer I refuse to acquire (I have more than 200K shards).
I never liked her, her look, her power, her background.
Having never played her, I naturally don't know how to handle her.
At least with a rework there is a slight chance I find her less repulsive.
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yeah, how long have that been now?
I started playing in 2020 and Freddy was already bad by then, and they said that he will be reworked in 2025, that is at least 5 years.
I have a hard time understanding that priority, knowing that every 3 month they release a new chapter. I wish that BHVR would acknowledge their loyal and long lasting fans, by putting one of those teams that work on new chapters, into maintaining and improving old stuff and then release a new chapter every 4 month instead.
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Her power, fair enough...
But in regards to her look/background, could I perhaps assuage your disdain with a different perspective?
To me Skull Merchant strikes me as an attractive, narcissistic psychopath, that kind of rich successful killer with a massive superiority complex, who succeeds because of the way society perceives them rather than seeing the monster they really are. People usually see someone dressed smart, attractive and appearing wealthy to be trustworthy, whereas they view people who are scruffy/unattractive/poorer as untrustworthy. Fictional examples includes characters such as Patrick Batemen or the Polite Leader from the Purge, and there are real world examples such as Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy.
In this regard Adriana's "normal" appearance plays into her strengths, which then becomes a persona she adopts for the Skull Merchant. Her base outfit is a mash up somethimg anime inspired, but is also very practical. While I'm not a big fan of her base cosmetic (she looks a little plain and uninspired for what she meant to be), her other cosmetics (including the free ones from the rift pass) are all very good and fit the idea well. She doesn't really have a "bad" skin other than her base cosmetic.
Regarding her background, there are flaws that I have pointed out in detail before... it strikes me as rushed and reads like a first draft that had a lot of ideas, but didn't manage to tie them together well.
If you're interested, I did a rewrite a little while back that mostly keeps the same story beats but greatly expands upon the identity of the Skull Merchant and ties everything together much better.
Not that I'm trying to convert you or anything, but my personal feeling around Skull Merchant is she had a lot of potential...
Sadly she was not given anywhere near enough time to bake, and BHVR have been trying to rectify that mistake by haphazardly throwing crap at the wall and seeing what sticks ever since...
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My opinion on her is this:
Take her out of the game completely, refund players who bought her, and rework her from the ground up (new power that can be quite different from the original, new and more consistent lore, better base cosmetics, I mean, her base skin has an alluminum Pingu mask, I'm sorry, but it's ridiculous) and re-release her in a (hopefully) better state.
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Freddy was reworked in July of 2019, and back then it was already a problem because his reworked power was never healthy for the game. The only difference was that he was strong back then, unfairly so at times.
So he got a nerf in early 2021. And that's it, he has received no further changes to his power since that nerf in 4.7.0, except the changes to the Block add-ons, which are just a worse version of Nowhere to Hide and barely worth mentioning.
Freddy has been in a bad spot for a really long time. This needs to change.
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I think the concept of Skull Merchant is flawed, so I think the killer will always be a problem.
Part of her original design seemed to be the idea of getting info from the drones with the handheld radar. But aura perks accomplish that more effectively and many survivors don't even engage in stealth, so you have one whole segment of her power that isn't really necessary.
Then there are the issues that her drones are really unfun to go against. I'll quote @UndeadJester 's post:
I still really want them to go all in and make her a bonified trap killer. Trap killers are immensly satisfying when pulled off, even if they aremt the strongest, and we haven't had one since Hag, which is absurd when you think about it.The question here is: satisfying for who? Trapper starts fun with newer survivors because they are never certain if a trap is in a bush or over a window. Singularity is fun because the counterplay element is quick while still requiring investment and you still have meaningful chases and dodges. Hag brings a jump scare element and the nature of her power means she can't shut down sections of the map like skull merchant can.
I get the idea of why a trap killer might be fun to play, but to go against? Even if its balanced, its not exactly fun to stare at a line of drones set up and do hit and runs on the trap wall to try and shut it down.
Back to OP
I think BHVR has said they'll never totally remake a killer again (i.e. give them a totally different power). While I think that makes sense, even if I'm not thrilled by it, because of it I think SM will always have some core problems. You're right on the amount of time they've had to spend on her, but I don't think this is a killer that could be fixed with just more time, but if in the early planning stages someone had just said 'no, this isn't going to work' the game would be in a healthier spot today.
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They should do that
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people are really doubting the reworks yes trickster, Freddy and twins were bad but we are ignoring the Great reworks they have done specifically
Billy, Doc, singularity, Ghostface, Legion, leatherface
Those guys got reworks and buffs and they were excellent and made them even better. I’m not saying the next rework will be great but they have done great reworks. Hell this year we got the Billy rework and it was the greatest rework they have done
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Unfortunately, BHVR seem to have a habit of creating killers where the scales can split from 'too oppressive' to 'not oppressive enough' quite easily - look how many times they had to rework Sadako and people still feel like she's still not where she needs to be. I personally think Billy and Trickster are over tweaked now too. It's not a job I envy, personally - but then I often think they don't think about how oppressive killers can become when they create them which is also part of the problem.
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They need to give her completely new powers. Drones are unsalvageable
Give her a flame thrower to 1 hit down survivors similar to Cannibal's chainsaw
Give her gadgets to use in the loop, like robots that block windows or pallets
Give her mini robots that walk around the map harassing survivors, and they could have a basekit item to stop them
I don't know, just give her a better power!
(And change her walking animation too, she should be using roller blades. It fits her design and it's a completely new animation in the game)
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Agree on Billy, Doctor, and Leatherface, but Singularity and Legion are still in horrendous states, and Ghost Face is still not in a good place either.
Singularity isn't fun to play as or against, and gen rushing is far more effective as a "counterplay" than wasting time on EMPs. If one is basically done printing and you're next to the crate, fine, pick it up. Otherwise, rush gens. You basically don't even need to aim to tag someone, and it will ignore projectile travel time and obstacles to tag someone around corners provided you clicked on them at the right time, which means even that part of the power isn't fun to interact with. People often try to argue that placing useful biopods is "skill expression" when it's actually trivial on most maps and once you learn the best places to put them, it's incredibly mechanical and boring. I don't hate the concept and I wouldn't outright scrap the power, but the implementation is poor and many balance changes are needed.
Legion is just irritating. Hold M1 to mend, hold M1 to do gens through Thanatophobia, and chase with deep wounds VFX blocking your screen. What a joy. And when playing as them, yes, it's fun to smack people, but you'll often find yourself chasing survivors who know what they're doing and are comfortable playing injured and your power starts to feel useless.
Ghost Face is map dependent, but he's generally fun to play as and he at least makes for a tense, scary game for survivors. Interacting with his power as survivor feels awful though, as I've outlined in other recent comments, and as killer you feel super limited if a map has wide sightlines.
To come back to the topic at hand, though, BHVR has shown they are capable of quality reworks, garbage reworks, quality new designs, and garbage new designs. So, I wouldn't give up all hope for Skull Merchant; let's see what they give us, and if it still isn't right, they have shown they will keep making changes until the killer is in a good state. However, the killer design over the past few years has been pretty awful, and that starts them from behind when coming up with rework ideas. Making the killer feel fun without completely scrapping their power and releasing something new a much tougher needle to thread. I think they may have pretty fundamental changes to her power to make her fun and balanced, but I think people will largely be receptive to that provided the end product is good.
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I wonder if it would be less costly for BHVR to remove her from the game and refund everyone vs. spending so many people hours on reworking her multiple times.
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Yeah I do accept you point, and even in the post you're quoting I've already accepted you can't really make her strong because people don't like going against her if she is strong, and this is true of all trap killers.
Fundamentally the speed of DBD doesn't accommodate a trap killer very well. You need to invest time to set up your web, and its time you don't really have to spare... so you have this fundamental problem with trap killers where their setup needs to be worth the payoff... and the only way to do that is make the trap itself kinda broken. Failing that you get Trapper who kinda gets dunked on, or Hag who can do work, but is map and add-on relaint to do so. In either case they have to play really nasty to be competitive, and even then they can struggle.
Skull Merchant does have a problematic design flaw, in that she has this drone that needs to do something. Info as you say isn't enough (though info is not bad perce, it free's up perk slots), but it needs to something. Unfortunately the drone by its very concept has a lot of radius it controls, which is where the problem of her anti loop comes in, it's a trap that covers a huuuuuuuge area that can't be reasonably played around by survivors. It basically makes the whole tile a giant death zone.
Basically this power can have anti-loop, but it has to be a weak anti-loop, one that survivors can juke her power for it to be satisfying, but still dangerous enough to pose a credible threat.
The idea I have in mind for her to be a trap killer is rather intricate, but the key points are: -
- Single scan line makes her a lot fairer to juke at loops. There is a sweet spot somewhere you can balance frequency of having to crouch vs. the length you have to stay crouched that wasn't possible to find with 2 scan lines. I'm thinking like 105 - 125 degrees a second.
- More drones for a trap killer. Maybe 8 overall.
- No haste. Haste is a cheap way of becoming meta, and feels bad to go against, avoid whenever possible.
- Stealth drones are stationary with no ring. Can be used to cut off paths. Easier to spot than a Trapper/Hag trap if placed poorly.
- Skully can set up drones while on the move. Maybe consider giving her a slight slowdown when deploying a drone, say 4.2 m/s. Remove the radar slow.
- Stealth drone placement for an effective trap != effective placement for anti loop. Her anti loop won't be nothing, but it'll certainly be more playable. The fact you have to trigger the drone for it to rotate means the drone is a setup tool, not a reliable loop shutdown tool.
- Deployment lazer tagging is optional. If desired the stationary drone makes this a jukable skillshot. If not add a 1s delay before the beam deploys. Latter makes more sense if we want to reduce drone setup cooldown (which we probably do), so Skully cant keep dragging back drones rapidly and trying for another lazer tag.
- Some cooldown on the switch direction of drones to prevent wiggling the scan line over the survivor. Say 0.75s (or 90 degrees or so, this varies with ten rotation time, find the sweet spot).
- Probably want some ability to reset a drone 24s or so after the survivor is first scanned.
There are other details I would mention, but those are the major points. If her setup is that of locking off routes with drone placement, running blindly into the map is a bad idea since you're activating her web. If the beams are fair without haste propping SM up, I think they become engaging to dodge. Her anti loop is not too strong, but its something to be respected.
Between creating a successful Web and successfully timing her rotations for tags to either catch a survivor with the haste or get the double tag, she has enough to keep her enjoyable to play. Survivors meanwhile aren't getting stuffed over by random haste and the damned if you do damned if you dont crouch of the double scan line, and have 3 scans to play with before it becomes an issue, and can meaningfully play around the area they know instead of the area they don't.
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