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Will there be Shoulder The Burden changes in hotfix 2?
Comments
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In the case of Shoulder The Burden, the problem isn't the fact that it's anti-tunnel. The problem is that many killers can't properly leverage the downside of the perk, and the perk gives too much value when multiple survivors are running the perk and are stacking or daisy chaining the perk.
But are they getting value out of it? Because, for one thing, daisy-chaining the perk does not provide -any- value. It just moves hookstates around.
Also, I never said the perk should be removed from the game. My suggestion for having the perk inflict broken instead of exposed, just makes the counterplay more fair for the low mobility M2 killers. The perk is supposed to have a downside that can be leveraged by killers, and exposed isn't a fair counterplay for all the killers in the game.
M2s are M2 for a reason. Most of them have the ability to pressure survivors at much greater range or can much more easily return to hook. If they also got one-hit downs off of their powers, they'd be benefitting considerably more than M1 killers.
And M2s tend to not need the extra help.
And in the case of the "does it bring value" question, that is a completely invalid question, because there are many things on the killer side that brings value and has counterplay, yet many people still think it's unfair for survivors. The current Thrill of the hunt brings value to killers, and has counterplay for the survivor.
If you want to assert that a perk is overtuned, unfair, or needs nerfs, you better make sure that the perk does actually bring value. Value that is relatively consistent, value that cannot be blamed on the killer for enabling. Hence the questions: "Did they get value, and did the killer counterplay it?"
A perk simply being used is not grounds for a nerf. We need more to go off of.
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Others have responded, but a couple of things I noticed.
The problem is that many killersAs a balance issue though, when a survivor chooses a perk they don't know the killer they are going to face. Like healing perks face the risk of hitting a Plague. Even if StB is more useful against certain killers, the survivors don't know who they are going to face when selecting the perk.
the perk gives too much value when multiple survivors are running the perk and are stacking or daisy chaining the perk.I keep hearing this, but don't see how it is true. The survivors have to run four perk slots to do this (or have survivors hiding out or intentionally trying to draw chase, both of which have their downsides). Even if they are getting some value, that's a lot of perk slots to get the value.
And in the case of the "does it bring value" question, that is a completely invalid question, because there are many things on the killer side that brings value and has counterplay, yet many people still think it's unfair for survivors.With thrill its fairly straightforward to explain the value level the perk brings (how long it extends the time), the danger (an interrupt resets the progress entirely), the combinations it brings, and why this creates a problem.
There's also the game enjoyment issue, which is more subjective, but still relevant.
I'm trying to see the same problem here for StB, but it just doesn't seem to be true.
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Assuming everyone runs the perk and coordinates the spreading of, and this is the thing: the first hookstages.
If someone that already has a hookstage takes the one of a survivor that has two, guess what. They will have two hookstages. Just get this person then. They are exposed AND show that they have one more hookstage.
The scenario your describing isn't as realistic as you make it seem to be, sorry.
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Assuming everyone runs the perk, it has a good chance of guaranteeing that the first survivor will be sacrificed on the 6th hook at the earliest.
Let's pick the most extreme scenario, where the first 4 hooks are on separate survivors, and no one uses Shoulder The Burden. That still means the first survivor will be sacrificed on the 6th hook at the earliest. This means the killer is still at a very bad game disadvantage, because 4 survivors are still alive at the 5th hook. This isn't good for the killer. This isn't the killer "outplaying the perk ".
In fact, we could go through every possible combination of hook states, and the perk still has a decent chance of forcing a 1-1-1-1 spread of hook states, because as long as one survivor has zero hook states, they can use the perk on someone else… and the only way to stop all the survivors from having zero hook states, is to hook each of them once.
Remember that the ultimate goal of the survivors using this perk is to spread hook states, and it doesn't matter how many of the survivors actually get to use the perk, as long as that goal is achieved.
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There are 7 generators in the match and you only need to repair 5 of them. Let's say Dead Man's Switch now blocks a gen for 80 seconds (Off the Record's time) everyone would be complaining about that, even though I could just say "do another gen".
Also, out of the 4 survivors, the killer needs to kill 3 of them to win, preferably all 4. So yeah, anti tunnel halting the killer's objective is just as problematic as of Pop Goes the Weasel now does 100% gen regression to a gen.
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I'm sorry, but I almost always kill someone around the 6-8 hook, while playing killers that are considered low tier.
I'm playing against people that call themselves comp, so take that as my statement regarding mmr. I'm where they are at.
If I can do it, others can definitely do it as well.
First hooking everyone is not a problem in public lobbies. I don't know why you make it one. Some of the arguably strongest slowdown perks in the game encourage doing it (Grim Embrace / pain resonance). Obviously this depends on the group of survivors, the map and the killer / their skill, but that goes for all things dbd.
And still. It requires that multiple people use this perk, which, as far as I know and see, is not the reality as of now.
So I have another question for you: why is it so bad to have everyone hooked once?
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These are not comparable, still. Anti-tunnel doesn't stop the killer from progressing, while the examples you mention would lead to that due to interlinked effects. Being able to seal off one gen for example, would turn a 3-gen into a 2-gen, making it way easier for the killer to patrol and making it impossible for the survivors to progress.
Just as a reminder of what happened when gen regression -was- strong enough to not be 'genrushed' through: That's how we got chess merchant.
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Having all 4 survivors is a large amount of pressure against the killer. That's a load of gen progress getting done. If you're single hooking each survivor first, that's that large amount of pressure existing consistently during the vital part of the match (early and mid). No one on deathhooks means gens getting slammed out since theres no risk or threat for the survivors. If it gets to the mid match, and no one has been eliminated yet, then survivors essentially have all of the power over the killer going into the endgame (assuming survivors are playing optimally and not throwing/being silly). If all 4 survivors are active in the endgame, even if you hook someone, they have everything they need to safely unhook hook anyone and escape. It's pretty vital to have at minimum survivors down to 3 by the middle of the match. If you're spreading hooks evenly, with how fast gens fly in the current game state, you simply won't have enough time to get an elimination by the time endgame begins (unless you're playing nurse/blight as they are just broken and need nerfs). Taking turns just isnt viable for killers, and STB forces killers to do just that. If it's the endgame and all 4 survivors are still up, the game is as good as over for you unless you dedicated your build to end perks like NOED which imho is kind of cheep.
Exception: some killers are overturned and can snowball in the endgame, but the majority of killers don't have this viably such as the m1 killers with no map traversal.
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Turning a 3 gen into a 2 gen would make the survivor's job less efficient, but not impossible to progress. Good SWF teams generally just break 3 gens by just focusing on two gens, since killer regression is much slower than survivor progression, and also, unless the killer has instadowns, survivors can just brute force a single gen, get hit, run to the other side of the map and heal, repeating the process.
Tunneling is kinda the same, since it makes your game much optimal. If you tunnel a survivor, you permanently cripple the survivors efficiency making it a requirement to win good teams, much unlike focusing on a single gen.
Also, funny how you mention OG Skull Merchant when she was clearly not OP. Sure you can argue that she was boring and unhealthy, but ultimately she was not unwinnable.
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Also, funny how you mention OG Skull Merchant when she was clearly not OP. Sure you can argue that she was boring and unhealthy, but ultimately she was not unwinnable.
An absolute brainlet went on auto-pilot against one of the most competent survivor teams in the world and locked them in that match for over 40 minutes and you think that that's 'clearly not OP'?
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Not just "over 40 minutes." 57 minutes, legit 3 minutes from the severs closing. Against a team that, as far as I'm aware, has never lost a tournament match they played out
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Thx, I know how a match of dbd works. If you do as well, you should also know, that killer becomes progressively stronger the longer the match goes on due to a lack of recourses. Having 4 survivors alive is not a problem in mid. It's a problem in end game, hence most people agree, that tunneling in late game - end game is absolutely fine to turn the game around.
A lot of killers have different powers that help them to maintain pressure.
Let's take an m1 killer with low map mobility / negative map mobility in stealth : Pig
Good Mandy is a comeback killer. Her RBTs can turn a 2 hooks - 4 gens done into a 4k - 4 gens done real fast if played right. Sure, when it gets to end game and she has not traps / kills, she loses. However, I consider this a mistake on the Pigs side. On most maps and against most teams a situation like this is absolutely avoidable. Without having someone out at 2 gens - 3 hookstages mind you. It's these games where I try to reflect and see where I did a mistake (something I know, a lot of players don't do because it's easier to blame the game).
I think the best amount of hookstages for someone to go is around 6-8. It's what I've been doing for over 2 years now with great success.
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Tbf. These people did limit themselves and tried out different strategies mid match. If they played the same strategy from the beginning without any restrictions, I do think they would have beaten that player in less than 20min.
However, as a team like this (very good comp people without any restrictions) is literally the strongest thing you can encounter in dbd, this isn't saying much.
Chess merchant was op for public matches.
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Well, recently I've been researching and learning as much as I can about Skull Merchant, and honestly one of the things I've concluded is that the infamous match everyone knows about isn't really proof of anything.
Meaningless, I would say. As comp DBD always is.
Which is why I've requested help to find videos of Skull Merchant's original iteration being played as and against players of average skill. And the results were interesting, to say the least.
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In average matches, the biggest complaint was that survivors would get "randomly injured from across the map" and that was "free hits the killer didn't deserve to get". Survivors really don't like traps that automatically trigger or automatically alert the killer, which is why Hag's traps got triple nerfed, and it's why Demo's lifeguard whistle got completely reworked.
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And the worst thing is… survivors can avoid the injure. Rather easily in fact, if the killer is across the map.
It really shows you people never bothered to learn how to play against her.
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It wasn't even comp DBD though. The killer wasn't comp. As far as I'm aware he had pretty minimal hours as SM, against a team that had collectively well over 10k hours. It was literally your average Joe player holding down one of the best survivor swfs lol
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Agree.
Could you provide some insight into your findings?
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The huge problem though here is that the killer is incentivized to almost never be "far across the map" from the drones.
She's an area denial killer, with a pretty large area. When she first released, people pretty much instantly realized that camping a 3 gen was the go-to way to play her. That's a big part of why it took several perk nerfs, her first rework, and a new base kit mechanic to finally kill off the 3 gen meta.
She also wants to call back her drone (instantly, "deactivated" or not, mind you) and place it again in the same spot.
And while you can go through the effort to avoid her drone beams by crouch walking or by timing, she's usually nearby and can just interrupt your little DDR session.
And, this is the kicker, none of the "counter play" is possible in chase. Crouch walk gives up a hit, you lose a health state. Max out your bar staying in an active drone, you lose a health state. The only answer to "she drops a drone in chase" is to hold w and leave... And she can just pick up the drone by looking at it from anywhere, nearly instantly, and do it again.
And that doesn't even touch on the laundry list of buffs and debuffs that happened during this process.
She has needed a rework for a long time.
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I've never understood the argument that her counterplay isn't possible in chase. Surely, if you're close enough to the killer that tapping crouch for half a second gets you hit, you were gonna get hit either way?
Not even mentioning that there's more to leverage than just crouching, too.
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To be clear in context here, I'm mainly talking about her dropping her drone at a loop (which is the other obvious place to put them besides gens).
This depends a bit on the area. At a jungle gym, or high walled tile, you're literally running into a blind spot and will need to take the corner slower to double check before looping. The smarter, and better option is to leave the loop.
If you're at a low walled tile, or pallet, you might be able to crouch for just a second and let it pass over you... If you're traveling counter to the drone sweep direction. Best case, this is a second or two of a massive move speed reduction because you only crouch walk at about 1.13. So you're taking about a 70% move speed reduction doing it this way and hindering yourself.
It gets worse, and longer, if you're traveling in the same direction as the drone sweep. And, unfortunately for the survivor, the killer determines the loop direction.
In basically every case, if SM drops a drone, the best play is always leave the loop. All of those other options lose you a ton of distance, which will make you get hit sooner, which was my point.
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Right, I see.
Well, there are definitely a lot more loops that you can just flat out play like normal when SM drops a drone at a loop than you're implying, but if we're specifically talking about the "drop drone at loop to try and zone survivors away" playstyle being annoying and repetitive, I'm not gonna contest that. I've never liked that element of her and I'd be down for seeing it changed.
Not that any of this matters now that her drones barely do anything, but y'know.
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The team still won, haven't they? If anything this proves that survivors are the overturned role, since they can still break a 3 gen and not have a single one die in a 40 minute game.
As I said, you can say that 40 minute games are boring, but you can't say it makes the killer OP if no one died.
By the way, survivors just play auto-pilot all the time since the role requires no skill to play. It isn't like OG Skull Merchant is any more or less complex.
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The mental gymnastics on some of these replies. 😟
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But the survivors were.
Even if they didn't follow the rules of comp I very much doubted that match was an accurate portrayal of how a game with average players would go.
Sure!
From what I've seen so far, it seems to me the whole "Chess Merchant" had more to do with the Gen Kick meta than her actual power. Except for the add-on which affected Skill Checks.
Getting rid of her drones is not difficult, in fact it can be done rather easily. But how do you progress the gens afterwards if a single generator kick is extremely damaging? Not to mention the whole mess that was Eruption.
And it is something I noticed in the videos that I was watching, the ones where the killer didn't use the infamous Overcharge + Call of Brine + Eruption meta the games didn't have a 3 generator defense. Some of which didn't even reach that point of the game, which can happen in a DBD match against any killer.
Players directed their feelings towards the character because she had a good synergy with the build and playstyle, but I believe the root of the problem was something else.
The huge problem though here is that the killer is incentivized to almost never be "far across the map" from the drones.
That isn't a problem, if the killer is close they are supposed to get value from using their power. That is how a killer works.
And besides, other characters are way more oppressive in chase than her. The injury takes three scans, the drone cannot down you, and the haste she gets, while very useful, doesn't guarantee a hit, depending on the tile and how it is played.
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If she'd stalled for 3 minutes longer, it would've been a 4K by default and keep in mind that this was some rando off twitter versus a highly trained competitive team. The fact that it was this even showcases how broken regression was at that time.
No, no one died. But that's because it was one of the most competent and highly coordinated teams on one end, versus what was effectively a bot on the other end. Any survivor team of similar skill would've bit the dust. It is ridiculous to hold that '[Killer thing] isn't OP because you can technically still win against it' with no further inspection.
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Hard disagree that getting rid of her drones wasn't too difficult.
- 4 drones to cover 3 gens
- Can manually activate the drones to make sure they're always building exposed
- Once a survivor deactivates a drone, they can't re-enter the radius of an active drone for 45 seconds (drone becomes unhackable)
In order to avoid getting exposed by the drones, you would need to coordinate 3 of the 4 survivors to each deactivate one of the drones covering gens at the same time, wait for the Skull Merchant to commit her last drone, and then split focus between the other two gens. The strategy Team Eternal came up with was to just tank the exposed and keep perfect communications about the SM's exact positioning, and that barely worked for finishing the game in an hour. The gen kick meta was a huge part of it, to be sure, but the fact that the killer forced you into permanent exposed, had undetectable so you had to pay attention to your surroundings, and had silent skill checks so you also needed to pay attention for those made it basically impossible
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The survivors were also using voice comms to completely bypass the killer's stealth, and was refusing to commit to repairing generators, and was frequently (because of voice comms) leaving generators so early that they would be super far away by the time the killer got to the generator.
The problem was also caused by all 5 players playing as excessively safely as possible.
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Survivor is probably one the least skillful thing in gaming. If we get 4 AIs to play survivor on comms, they would probably win the most competent killer for the simple fact that the game holds their hand so much.
The fact that a Skull Merchant managed to keep the game for 40 seconds against a really coordinated survivor team, just shows how much better in skill the killer player is compared to the survivor team, since it's no small feat.
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Its not that strong at all. Its only strong in a 4 man SWF against a tunneling killer. Otherwise it does next to nothing against fair killers.
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