[PTB Feedback] The Houndmaster and Taurie Cain.

I'm enjoying and having fun playing The Houndmaster. She's a decent killer—not too overpowered, which is good. Her add-ons enhance her gameplay, making her more effective and enjoyable. However, The Houndmaster’s main issues lie with her core stats. When compared to other killers, her abilities don’t feel as beneficial or impactful.

• The dog's detection radius is too narrow (the aura circle around the dog in Search Mode). When I send the dog to generators, survivors can easily avoid it by simply hiding behind walls or windows. This makes it very difficult to detect survivors reliably. Most of the time, the dog detects survivors only when I recall it, making detection feel mostly accidental.
• The dog has too few actions. I think the dog should be able to damage generators or break pallets and walls (like The Knight's guards).
• The hitbox of the dog in Chase Mode is very small; it has to hit the survivor directly for the bite to land.
• From my gameplay experience, The Houndmaster can somewhat counter loops and pallets, but she has a major weakness against windows.
• The dog's speed in Chase Mode: In actual play, the dog's running speed isn’t fast enough to land a hit on the first release, making it easy for survivors to dodge (and the common add-on, Young Coconut, which increases the dog's base speed by 5%, barely helps. The only noticeable improvement is from the very rare add-on, Leather Harness, which increases the dog's base speed by 20% for 30 seconds after a generator repair).
• (Following from the hitbox and the dog’s speed in Chase Mode), the developers compensated by making the cooldown for Chase Mode very short (with an additional add-on to reduce the cooldown by 10%). However, even with a short cooldown, it hinders her chase continuity a lot when compared to killers like The Huntress or The Deathslinger, who can inflict injuries immediately on their first hit.
• (Right-click to change the dog’s direction) The time for issuing a second attack command is extremely short (almost nonexistent). If I don’t right-click quickly enough, the dog returns immediately and goes on cooldown.
• In my opinion, the dog should be able to detect survivors on its own, similar to The Knight's guards (though I’m not sure if this would make her too strong).
• Example 1: What I would suggest is that while the dog is running in Chase Mode, the Search Mode aura should be active the whole time (and expanded further). If a survivor touches the aura circle on the ground around the dog, it would count as a hitbox for a bite, and the dog would bite the survivor. The dog should also be AI-controlled for change the dog's direction to track survivors instead of relying on the player to manually rotate the camera.
• Example 2: The player could still control the dog’s direction manually. But the radius circle around the dog in Search Mode, which detects survivors, should remain active while the dog is chasing survivors—similar to The Knight's guards (in short, the dog's hitbox should be wider in both Chase and Search Mode).

And as for the new survivor: Taurie Cain

• I have only one issue with her, which is that I think her perk, Shoulder The Burden, is too strong. I don’t understand—this game is supposed to be skill-based. However, I’ve noticed that in the community, main survivors often complain about camping and tunneling, even though 90% of those who complain about it have never played as a killer. My question is, “How should killers play to satisfy them? Are we just supposed to let them escape through the gates? If I get one hook and two gens are done, what else can I do but go after the same survivor who was just hooked?” In this game, survivors need to be hooked three times each to die. With this perk, it’s becoming even harder for killers.
• As someone who plays both Survivor and Killer, I feel that Shoulder The Burden is too strong. If it’s the same in launch as in PTB, I think it will ruin the game balance. In my opinion, Shoulder The Burden should only activate if the user hasn’t been hooked yet. If the user has already been hooked, the perk would not activate, similar to Deliverance by Adam Francis, where if you’re the first one hooked, you can’t use the perk.